When Jeff Gordon joined FOX Sports’ NASCAR broadcast team in 2016, Darrell Waltrip said his reaction was, “Oh boy.”

Not because he didn’t want to work with Gordon, but Waltrip said he just wasn’t sure if they’d work well together with him being almost 25 years older than Gordon. He also wanted to tease Gordon a bit, but he wasn’t sure how the newly retired driver would take that either.

Waltrip admitted “it was a little awkward to start,” but with the duo in their fourth season broadcasting together, along with Mike Joy, they’ve become great friends. And rather than hindering them, he thinks their generational differences actually complement each other on air.

“At first, I was afraid to pick on him because I didn’t know how he was going to react because my impression was he might not necessarily think that was funny,” Waltrip recently told For The Win. “But as we worked together and have become really good friends, I can now pick on him and make fun of him.”

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It happens on air and off, and Waltrip said their jabs at each other are typically “subtle” and usually revolve around comparing resumes and accolades, giving Gordon a regular advantage over his fellow Hall of Famer. (Gordon was a first-ballot inductee earlier this year.)

But it’s all in a joking tone, Waltrip added, because they actually do enjoy each other’s company.

“It’s not like we’re enemies and competing against each other,” he said.

“We kid each other a lot. We’ll be at a track, and I’ll say, ‘Hey, I won five times here,’ and he’ll say, ‘Yeah, but I won six.’ Or, ‘I’ve got 84 wins.’ ‘Yeah, I know, but I’ve got 93.’

“‘I won three championships.’ ‘I know, buddy, but I won four.’ So we try to one-up each other all the time, and I enjoy that and I think it’s fun. I think the fans enjoy it too.”

Aside from their on-air banter — which sometimes seems to include inside jokes that makes viewers wonder what on earth they’re talking about — Waltrip said he was pleasantly surprised by the type of broadcaster now-47-year-old Gordon turned out to be.

"They raced each other hard, but they didn't wreck each other." Mike Joy, Darrell Waltrip and Jeff Gordon break down Las Vegas. pic.twitter.com/SdZ8TMYXHd — FOX: NASCAR (@NASCARONFOX) March 4, 2019

Not just “a great teammate,” Waltrip explained that their opposite approaches to NASCAR broadcasts work well together — even when they don’t always agree. While Waltrip focuses on narratives and his own experiences, he said Gordon preps with ample data based on information gained outside the car.

When Gordon tries to get the 72-year-old broadcaster to look at numbers from iRacing or simulations, Waltrip prefers to point at results to predict how active drivers will fare. Waltrip even said the once hot-headed (but always entertaining) driver “sometimes can be too technical” for viewers, but fans also aren’t looking for two of the same person.

“He listens, he learns and, now, he applies,” Waltrip said. “And he’s very respectful, which I appreciate, and he’s gotten good at what he does. He’s more into graphs and charts. I’m more into storytelling, so we married those things together, and it’s a pretty interesting telecast most every week.”

Jokes and styles aside, Waltrip acknowledges Gordon had more success than he did.

But what’s similarly as impressive as his titles and wins is that Gordon is “pretty humble” about being one of the greatest NASCAR drivers ever. Waltrip guessed that Gordon likes to talk about his racing days when other people bring it up, but “you don’t hear him bragging about what he’s done.”

Waltrip added that Gordon is smarter than outsiders may think too. He said all successful drivers obviously have an impressive racing acumen, but what Gordon has will set him up for more success in the future, should he take the reins at Hendrick Motorsports some day.

“He’s very intelligent,” Waltrip said. “He knows a lot more about racing than just driving a car.

“Rick Hendrick has said many times over the last year or so that he’d like Jeff to come and run Hendrick Motorsports when he retires. I think Jeff would be really good at that. Jeff applies himself, whatever it is he’s involved in. He applies himself and gets as much out of it as he can.”