ORANGE – Confusion. Shock. Grief. And questions.

But few answers.

The violent deaths of Robert “Baja Bob” and Sharon Gordon – the father and step-mother of well-known race car driver Robby Gordon – shook the racing community Thursday.

“This is devastating,” his son said, fighting back tears. “He taught so many, and I want everyone to know what a good man he was.”

Some details emerged Thursday evening: A day earlier, Bob Gordon died from injuries consistent with a self-inflicted gunshot wound, according to the results of an autopsy by the Orange County coroner’s office, while Sharon Gordon died from strangulation.

The police are investigating the deaths as a possible murder-suicide, said Lt. Fred Lopez of the Orange Police Department, adding that it doesn’t appear that police had answered calls to the house before.

“There’s no witnesses,” said Lopez, when asked about a motive. “So that’s something we have to put together piecemeal. We have some ideas. But it’s all speculation. …

“We’ll eventually come to (an official) conclusion,” Lopez said. “But we may never really know why.”

Bob Gordon, 69, didn’t show up at the doctor’s office as scheduled Wednesday, his son told the Register.

So Robby Gordon and others began a search.

Jay Hooker, Bob Gordon’s old racing buddy and neighbor, discovered his and 57-year-old Sharon’s bodies upstairs at their home on the 1400 block of North Kennymead St. in Orange Park Acres, where large houses sit on expansive hillside properties, many with horses.

He called 911 around 5 p.m.

Police found a rifle and a knife in the house, but Lopez did not confirm the gun was involved in the one death. No other guns or drugs were found.

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Thursday morning, Robby Gordon and others milled about the adjacent house where the son lives when he is in town and not on the road racing.

“This is very tough,” Robby Gordon, 47, said in a three-minute, emotionally raw statement Thursday morning to reporters in front of the home he stays at, prior to the autopsy results. “Not only for me, but for my sisters.”

The elder Gordon was the middle link in the chain of a racing family.

His father finished fifth in a 1914 American Championship Car Racing competition in Corona.

Bob Gordon, his son said, was instrumental in launching the careers of many young drivers including NASCAR champion Jimmie Johnson, who rode with Bob Gordon in off-road races.

“Heart breaking news this morning,” Johnson tweeted Thursday morning. “Thinking of Gordon family and friends.”

The younger Gordon races in an off-road series he created in 2013 called Speed Energy Formula Off-Road.

He also started 10 Indy 500s from 1993 to 2004, finishing in the top 10 five times. His best finish was fourth in 1999. He won two IndyCar races in 115 starts before joining the NASCAR Sprint Cup series. He went back and forth between stock cars and open-wheeled racing until 2005.

Gordon said his off-road races at the Costa Mesa fairgrounds will go on as scheduled this weekend because of business commitments: “To switch from what happened to a business mode really stinks.”

One of Robby Gordon’s three sisters, Beccy – a professional racer in her own right – is married to 2014 Indianapolis 500 winner Ryan Hunter-Reay. One, Beccy, had a child Wednesday.

The deaths of Bob and Sharon Gordon hit home in another Orange County racing community: Los Alamitos.

Bob Gordon grew up feeding horses. His company, Gordon Feed Co.–Thoroughbred Feed Co., has been the primary provider of feed and hay for the Los Alamitos Race Course for decades.

Staffers Marilyn Kalfus and Ian Wheeler contributed to this report.