CONCORD, N.C. -- A few days of not shaving got Jeff Gordon a whole lot of attention.

	Jeff Gordon showed up at The Winston sporting a new look.

The four-time Winston Cup champion showed up at Lowe's Motor Speedway on Friday sporting a dark black goatee, a radical change to the clean-cut image he's presented over most of his career.

The facial hair drew a flurry of attention -- cameras were constantly following him around -- and he was quizzed about it every time he stopped during his preparation for The Winston, NASCAR's all-star race.

"All I wanted to do was have a little fun," said Gordon, convinced by his crew to give up shaving. "We were testing at Kansas last week and one of the guys on my team has a goatee, so they told me I should grow one, too.

"I finally told them 'What the heck, let's have a little bit of fun.' I'm enjoying it and I know the folks in the media are enjoying it, so it's pretty cool."

Gordon, who had mustache early in his career, isn't sure how long he'll keep the look.

He hasn't won in 19 races -- the longest drought of his career -- so if he breaks the streak in Saturday night's non-points event, he said it will stay. If he doesn't win, he plans to shave Monday morning.

The change in appearance is yet another sign of the new Gordon, who has been much looser this season even as he's going through a divorce. He's building new relationships with other drivers and is spending a lot of time with his team.

"It's all kind of funny sometimes how things work out," he said. "There are things you can do and have fun and right now that's what I want to do.

"I'm enjoying the way things are going now even though I'm not winning as much as I'm used to. I've had a great relationship with this race team in the past and they wanted to help me have a little bit of fun, so I went along with it."