According to Ricky Bobby, if you ain't first, you're last -- and according to our camera guy, if you're in 9th place -- like Jeff Gordon -- you're as good as retired.

Even though he was in town to attend a Pepsi 500 event, our guy had the stones to ask Jeff about life after NASCAR in front of his wife. Oops.

A few hours later, we got a shot at redemption at Madeo, where Jeff decided to heckle our guy for all that retirement talk earlier in the day -- unfortunately, it was a totally different photog!

Afterwards, Gordon high-tailed it over to the Avalalon, where our spies say he was all about the PDA -- making out with his wife throughout the party. Then, he finally retired ... for the evening.