HOMESTEAD, Fla. -- Somehow, we've ended the 2015 NASCAR season with a dictionary in our hands. Or maybe it's a thesaurus. Or both. Why? Because some way the hot button word of this thrilling, maddening, often confusing edition of the Chase for the Sprint Cup has been, of all words, quintessential.

It's been more than a month since NASCAR Chairman Brian France used that 23-point Scrabble word to describe Joey Logano's bumper car move to win at Kansas Speedway, calling it "quintessential NASCAR."

Matt Kenseth, the man whom Logano spun, has used the word to fire back after being suspended for a retaliatory move one week later. He even employed it as a sarcastic hashtag to his 270,000 followers. During his State of the Sport press conference Friday, France used the word six times.

The debate that has raged since, from writers to sanctioning body reps to race fans to the racers themselves: What exactly is "quintessential NASCAR?"

I'm going to help everyone out here. No, you can't see what I'm doing, because this is a column and not a TV show, but I'm standing up in the Homestead-Miami Speedway media center on the eve of the season finale and I'm pointing directly at the driver walking by the window. The one I can barely see because he's surrounded by a couple of cops, a couple of hundred fans and more than a couple of TV cameras.

It's Jeff Gordon. And he is, ladies and gentlemen, quintessential NASCAR.

Gordon has driven stock cars that looked like shoeboxes and driven stock cars that were shaped like bullets. He's raced with and without a HANS device and hit walls with and without SAFER barriers.

Gordon is the last racer left whose name appears in a box score alongside Richard Petty, Alan Kulwicki or Davey Allison.

He's the last active racer who was on the roster of NASCAR's 50 Greatest Drivers compiled for the sport's 50th anniversary in 1998. The last racer left to have had a genuine rivalry with Dale Earnhardt ... Senior.

He's the last multiple Winston Cup champion and the last winner of a big check from the Winston Million or No Bull 5. He's the last to have raced at North Wilkesboro or to have wheeled a Busch Grand National car. He even raced a Chevy Lumina.

Dale Earnhardt and Jeff Gordon had a rivalry in the 1990s that was among the best in NASCAR all-time. ISC Images & Archives via Getty Images

Gordon once had a mullet and a terrible mustache. He's also had his hair coiffed by Hollywood stylists. He dated a Miss Winston beauty queen in secret, married her, and then suffered through a tabloid-documented divorce.

He has partied with rock stars, dated models, and married the smartest, most beautiful one of the bunch. Kids around the world have played with Gordon toys and now Gordon gets down on the floor to play with toys with his kids.

His name sits among Petty and David Pearson's as the top three winners in NASCAR Cup Series history, both races and pole positions.

He's the sport's all-time money winner, all-time leader in consecutive starts, second all-time in top-10 finishes and third in top-5s. He's second all-time in Driver Rating, a stat that's only existed during the second half of his career.

That's a stat compiled using loop data and computers. When Gordon started, races were still scored by rows of humans with stopwatches and clipboards.

Gordon's name has been rapped by Nelly and spoken in movies by Ashton Kutcher, Queen Latifah and Bugs Bunny. His jacket has been worn by a Barbie doll. If you don't believe me, you can look all that up on the Internet.

Speaking of which, Gordon is the last active driver to have raced before the Internet. He was also the first to wear his own personal .com address on his uniform. Throughout the years, that uniform has featured the logos of dozens of companies, some that no longer exist.

He's shoved guys and been shoved. He's cussed guys and been cussed. He's made passes that shouldn't have worked and didn't pull some that maybe he should have. He once played chicken with a lapped car to dupe Rusty Wallace. He once deked Bill Elliott to win the Daytona 500.

He once squeezed Dale Earnhardt so hard off of Daytona's Turn 2 that he actually out-intimidated The Intimidator. When Gordon won his fourth consecutive Southern 500 at Darlington, Darrell Waltrip came to Victory Lane for no reason other than to tell him that it was one of the most incredible things that he had ever seen.

Gordon's had a beer with Earnhardt, sipped 'shine with Junior Johnson, and sells self-labeled wine. Those old photos you see of drivers getting out of their cars and their faces covered with a dusting of black rubber like they were just flying biplanes over the Somme? He's the last guy left who's in those pictures.

Gordon once drove racecars that were painted, not wrapped. He had pit crews with fat guys. He won trophies that looked like trophies, not commissioned sculptures. Brass cups with plastic handles and cheap eagle outlines screwed into blocks of wood. He won races televised by The Nashville Network. He can breakdance.

He has run cars that were high downforce and low downforce with huge spoilers, smaller spoilers, flared fenders, flat fenders, splitters, scoops, Gurney flaps, escape hatches and none of the above.

He's driven Generation 4, 5 and 6 cars and not just the Car of Tomorrow, but the Car of Yesterday and the Car of Today. He won in them all.

He used to stay in hotels. Now he spends weekends in a carbon fiber motorcoach. These days he shows up via private jets and tricked-out choppers. All the drivers do.

But he's the last one left who used to sit in traffic on the way to the track, alongside the fans on the way to watch him race. Those fans booed him. A lot. Everywhere he went. Today they cheer him. A lot. Everywhere he goes. See the mob following him here at Homestead.

Jeff Gordon's first Cup race was Richard Petty's last. Gordon is the last driving link to so much of NASCAR's storied past, at least for one more day. David Taylor/Getty Images

So, what changed?

Everything has changed. It's evolved. Some of it has been for the good, some of it for the bad. Gordon is the only racer in Sunday's field of 43 who has experienced it all. And that's why the kid who was once so loathed is now the man who is so loved.

Homestead will be his 797th and last Cup Series start, closing out a quarter century of racing. After 93 wins and four championships, maybe one more of each will be added Sunday night. Along the way, he's grown older and so have the people in the grandstands. They've all grown up together. We've all grown up together. The kid they once accused of ruining the good old days is now the last link to them.

The Artist Formerly Known As Wonder Boy is now NASCAR's Wonder Man. When his final checkered flag falls, win or lose, he'll ride into the South Florida sunset. The living legend covered in oil, champagne, Pepsi and DuPont auto finishes.

As he rides, the round of applause will ring from the dirt tracks of Indiana to Madison Avenue to wherever it is in heaven where St. Peter makes the racecar drivers hang out.

Watch it, relish it, appreciate it and commit it to memory. But above all, know that you can answer this fall's most over-asked question.

What exactly is quintessential NASCAR? Jeff Gordon is. But only for 267 more laps.