Inside Jeff Gordon and Brooke Sealey’s divorce scandal that rocked NASCAR: A secret relationship, subpoenas at Daytona 500 and cheating scandals

As one of the greatest athletes to grace NASCAR, Jeff Gordon was a beloved figure in his field. But behind the smoke of rubber burning on the asphalt, Gordon was dealing with a messy divorce from his first wife, Brooke Sealey.

Despite the glamor of his racing career, Gordon’s reputation was tainted by fraud scandals and allegedly excessive court demands that accompanied the fallout from his first marriage.

While Gordon had a nearly flawless 25-year NASCAR career, his seven-year marriage to the former Miss Winston collapsed in the public eye.

Here, DailyMail.com looks back at the bitter divorce that rocked the NASCAR world.

Gordon and Sealey’s relationship wasn’t exactly rainbow and butterfly to begin with. When the couple first crossed paths in 1993, their respective titles kept them from dating in public, forcing them to keep their relationship under the radar.

Gordon created a name for himself as a babyface on the circuit. On the other hand, Sealey had just been named face of the RJ Reynolds Tobacco Company – a title that was almost synonymous with the most beautiful woman of the time.

RJ Reynolds hired NASCAR from 1997 to 2003 and named the Winston series after their popular cigarette line. The race became a way for the two to meet. However, Sealey’s connection to the sponsor proved to be a roadblock to their relationship – one that they managed privately astutely.

Driving his iconic No. 24 car, Gordon won two qualifying races for the Daytona 500, increasing his stake in the NASCAR world. As his popularity increased, many began to take notice, including Miss Winston herself.

With the handbook banning NASCAR drivers from dating Winston models and the media’s eye for scandals, the couple began dating privately to avoid scrutiny.

The couple was good at sneaking around to keep each other out of trouble. Realistically, however, Sealy would have been the only person to face the consequences due to the expendable nature of her position.

The secrets came out of the box when Sealey ended her time with Winston, with their big reveal making them the hottest couple in NASCAR. After making their relationship public, they married in 1994.

As newlyweds, the couple seemed to be on cloud nine and didn’t have to hide their romance after saying I did.

Sealey later said that Gordon, audibly nervous, approached her in Daytona and, in a trembling voice, asked her to lunch. Gordon later revealed that he went to the toilet five times during that lunch to make sure he could get the ring right when he asked the all-important question.

“And they all lived happily ever after” was not the sentence that followed. Their fairytale love story took a harsh plot twist when Sealey filed for divorce seemingly out of the blue in 2002. The reason given for the split was that the marriage was ‘irretrievably broken as a result of the husband’s misconduct’.

While many cited irreconcilable differences, Sealey wanted the public to know where Gordon went wrong. A cheating scandal would damage his babyface image, which was his ticket to lucrative brand endorsements.

At the time, the racer turned down a big payday to work with a beverage sponsor for a commercial. However, the deal was torpedoed by news of his adulterous actions. In an instant, Gordon went from the darling of NASCAR to another famous athlete who cheated on his model wife.

The shocking news came and more followed as a messy divorce unfolded in public. While Sealey took on the role of victim in this situation, the masses began to raise eyebrows at former Miss Winston when she laid out her demands in the settlement.

The model requested a plane, the use of the couple’s boats, two cars and an alimony payment.

Although Gordon was portrayed as a villain due to his disloyalty, the outrageous demands of Sealey’s camp caused people to switch sides and support the racer.

To add fuel to the fire, Sealey’s attorney, Terry Young, went to the Daytona 500 in February 2003 to deliver legal papers to Gordon’s closest colleagues at the track. He did this to find out how much the racer was really worth.

Sealey’s camp wanted to know how much her soon-to-be ex-husband was making without her knowledge. Sealey’s camp suspected that Gordon was hiding money from her and did everything they could to get her out of the split as much as possible.

At the time, Gordon’s lawyers filed paperwork stating he was worth $48 million, of which Sealey would be entitled to half under Florida law.

The dramatic divorce lasted another sixteen months before it was finalized on June 13, 2003 – almost ten years after their first meeting.

Although the division of their assets was not made public, Sealey received a whopping $15.3 million from the divorce when the dust settled.

The alleged third party and catalyst for the divorce was Deanna Merryman, an actress and fitness model who graced the cover of Iron Man magazine.

A year before the split, tabloids linked Merryman to Gordon. Whether the rumors were true or not, their alleged romance didn’t last long as the racer was spotted with another model shortly after. A month before Sealey’s attorney went fishing for his assets in Daytona, Gordon was with a model named Amanda Church in St. Barts.

The gorgeous couple who spent the first phase of their relationship away from the limelight showed their bitter conclusion and went their separate ways.

Gordon married model and actress Ingrid Vandebosch in 2006. Sealey, on the other hand, married twice: first to James Dixon and to lawyer Mullins McLeod.

After splitting with Dixon, Sealey received $10,000 a month in alimony payments, a $1.5 million house and a Mercedes Benz car.