The Wide World of Dirt

I know this might come as a controversial opinion to some, but there have been a LOT of great drivers throughout the history of the NASCAR Cup Series.

From the likes of the Flock Brothers to Kyle Busch, the sport has seen a number of drivers worthy of being in the debate for the greatest driver to sit in a stock car.

The four main contenders for that title usually are: Richard Petty, Dale Earnhardt, Jeff Gordon, and Jimmie Johnson.

Each driver has a legitimate claim, so let’s break them down.

“The King” Richard Petty

There aren’t many people on planet Earth that would say you’re a plum fool for saying that Richard Petty is the greatest stock car driver who has gotten behind the wheel.

The numbers speak for themselves.

1184 races, 200 wins, 555 top-5s, 712 top-10s, 123 poles, and seven (7) championships.

The racing world refers to Richard Petty as the King for a reason: he whooped the competition. When you saw his 43 car rolling into town, you knew who you had to beat for over 20 seasons.

The man is so iconic that the color blue that he used to paint his cars is named after him.

Of his 200 wins, seven of them are from the Daytona 500, three are from the Firecracker 400, two are from the World 600, and one is from the Southern 500. He owns more crown jewels in his pocket than almost anyone.

The one aspect of Richard’s career that holds him back in most people’s eyes is the lack of competition.

Richard spent most of his career being one of a few drivers that ran every single race in a given season in an era where there were a number of midweek races all across the country.

To put it into perspective, his closest competitor, David Pearson, put up more than half of the amount of wins than Petty in less than half the amount of starts.

In addition, Pearson only ran close to full-time four times in his career, and he won the title in three of those seasons. If Pearson had a full-time ride like Richard during those years, it’s conceivable that Richard doesn’t have anywhere as many wins or championships.

Dale Earnhardt, Sr.

Earnhardt’s career easily takes the spot of the most interesting of the four drivers listed as he is the only one to have driven for more than one car owner during his career.

Not only did he drive for another owner, but he won a championship with that car owner. After a solid rookie campaign where he won a race and finished seventh in points, Earnhardt brought home the championship in 1980 driving for Rod Osterland.

What Dale didn’t know is that Osterland would sell the team midway through the next season, putting the reigning champ with known idiot, J.D. Stacy. After a few races under Stacy’s leadership, Earnhardt switched to RCR for the remainder of the 1981 campaign.

Earnhardt left Childress for a few seasons before coming back for the 1984 season. This began a partnership that yielded 6 championships and 67 wins between the two before Earnhardt’s untimely demise at the 2001 Daytona 500.

Among those 67 wins are three Southern 500s, three World 600s, 10 Talladega wins, a Brickyard 400 victory, and one Daytona 500, giving Earnhardt one more crown jewel than Petty.

For his career, Earnhardt averaged an 11.1 finish, which is higher than Petty while having a higher top-10% than Petty in an even more competitive era. In fact, Earnhardt became the champion right after Petty, who won his seventh and final title in 1979.

Earnhardt fought weekly with skilled drivers, unlike Petty who dealt with about four other competitive cars at any given race, and the competition he faced only got thicker as his mileage grew higher.

We don’t have the ability to see what the end of Dale’s actual career would have looked like, but we do know that Dale was still a contender for the title in his final few years, even finishing second in points the year before his death.

Maybe 2001 would have been the year that he captured his eighth title. With Kevin Harvick filling in for Earnhardt after his death, he was able to achieve a 9th-place points finish despite missing a race. Earnhardt could’ve done better, but we will never know.

Jeff Gordon

There is a sharp divide in Jeff Gordon’s career that creates two different eras: Evernham era and Everyone else era.

With Ray Evernham, Gordon racked up 47 wins and 3championships in a little under seven seasons. Their wins included four (consecutive) Southern 500s, three World 600s, two Brickyard 400s, and two Daytona 500s.

Mind you, this is only the first six-and-a-half seasons of his career, and he didn’t win a race his rookie season. Truly phenomenal stuff.

The next 16-and-a-half seasons produced great results on their own as well, but they don’t come nearly as close. 46 wins, 1 championship, three more Brickyard 400s, two more Southern 500s, and one more Daytona 500.

This brings his totals to 93 wins, 4 championships, SIX Southern 500s (a record), FIVE Brickyard 400s (a record), three World 600s, and three Daytona 500s.

Jeff has more crown jewels than anyone, and it isn’t even close.

What holds Jeff back is that he never won that fifth title, that sixth title, that seventh title, or the elusive eighth title (even though he technically did as a car owner.) If Jeff had seven titles and the same amount of wins, he would be the best that ever did it.

Unfortunately, he brought in a guy that did what he couldn’t.

Jimmie Johnson

Jimmie Johnson is currently in the longest winless streak of his career, and everybody dogpiles on him for this for some reason.

All three of the previous drivers listed experienced winless droughts, some of them lengthy.

Richard Petty spent the last eight-and-a-half seasons of his career winless. Dale Earnhardt won a single race over a three-year period toward the end of his life. Gordon had a similar streak to Earnhardt from 2008-2011.

The greats miss every now and then. It doesn’t decrease their level of greatness.

Johnson entered the series full-time his rookie year, and he became the first rookie to ever lead the point standings. This was also toward the end of the season, so it wasn’t like he took the points lead at the eighth race or something goofy.

Johnson and crew chief Chad Knaus were a force to be reckoned with from Day One.

Johnson won his first race in his 13th start at his home track in Fontana, and after being a contender for the championship for most of the season, his team faded during the homestretch, finishing fifth in the 2002 season.

Only after winning FIVE CONSECUTIVE Sprint Cup championships from 2006-2010 did Johnson finally leave the top-5 in points for the first time in his career in 2011. He finished sixth.

Johnson continued to be a factor every single week up until the midway point of the 2017 season when his winless streak began to open up a bit.

What seemed like a momentary slump turned into one season, one season turned into two, into three, and now, as Johnson’s retirement looms, he hasn’t won a race since May of 2017.

But to think, Jimmie Johnson spent 16 seasons as a weekly competitor. 16 straight years where you feared the 48 car would find a way to win no matter how good you were that weekend.

Petty, Gordon, and Earnhardt never had a streak that long where they were considered a threat. Petty waned after his final championship, and so did Earnhardt. Gordon started to taper off in the mid-to-late 2000s.

And why did Gordon seemingly wane? Because the student got the best of the instructor, and that was no more apparent in 2007.

Say what you want about the Chase/Playoffs, in a 10-race stretch, Gordon got two wins and only finished outside of the top 10 once. He finished 11th at Dover. Jeff averaged a 5.1 finish

Johnson was just better though. In the same stretch, Johnson snagged four wins and had a worse finish of 14th twice. Even still, his average finish was 5.0. He was just that much better than Jeff for that season and for his career.

Oh, before I forget, Johnson’s stats include 83 wins, 7 championships, 2 Daytona 500s, 4 World 600s, 2 Southern 500s, 4 Brickyard 400s. Astounding.

Final Thoughts

The best of the group is Jimmie Johnson. If I had to put these guys in order, it would be Johnson, Earnhardt, Gordon, and Petty while Pearson would round out the top 5.

While Johnson is last among the four in average finish, there’s a caveat to that. Johnson thrived at an unparalleled level in easily the most competitive and consistent field that the Cup Series has ever seen.

While he may not have the wins and crown jewels that Gordon has, Johnson has more championships, and at the end of the day, those count more because it takes being better than everyone for just one race (Johnson did win the 2016 championship under the playoff format, but he still had to make it to the Championship Round.)

Johnson still owns more crown jewels than Petty and Earnhardt who had much longer careers while having the same amount of championships.

In a time when Johnson raced against Gordon, the Busch brothers, Harvick, Kenseth, Keselowski, Logano, Hamlin, Truex, Martin, Edwards, and Earnhardt Jr, he was the best.

There could be another discussion about who the most legendary driver is, but I’ll save that for another time. In the meantime, I wish a very happy 45th birthday to the GOAT, Jimmie Johnson.