The Wide World of Dirt

There have been a lot of insecure Jeff Gordon fans on The Bird the past couple of weeks that have been deriding the legacy of his teammate, Jimmie Johnson.

These people don’t really have much of a basis for their claims other than “well its just my opinion”, and you know what, fair enough.

As you all know, I am not here to argue.

What I will say is my piece in favor of Jimmie Johnson being better because it’s the truth. Jeff deserves more appreciation, but bringing down another driver isn’t the way to go.

Since most people don’t offer objective facts in their opinions, I will be using them to tailor my side of this because the stats are overwhelmingly in Jimmie’s favor.

Let’s start off with championships, just because! Jimmie has seven (7) chips, tying him with Dale Earnhardt Sr. and Richard Petty for most all-time while Jeff holds four (4), good enough for fourth all-time.

They’re both in another stratosphere against the other 99.9% of drivers for sure, but Jimmie has more titles, plain and simple.

While Jimmie’s five straight championships may seem lesser on the surface for whatever arbitrary reason you want to drop in, Jimmie and the 48 team had to go out and win them.

And was anyone able to stop them? No.

Jeff won three titles in four seasons from 1995-98, and sure, that run doesn’t get enough eyes looking back on it. Still, it’s nowhere near the feat that winning five straight chips is.

After a two-year break from winning championships, Jimmie took the title again in 2013 under a different points format and once more in 2016 under yet another points format.

On the other hand, Jeff drove the last 14 years of his career without winning a title, only coming close a few times in 2007 and 2014 (Let’s be honest with ourselves: he wasn’t winning in 2015.)

Guess who beat him in 2007? Jimmie Johnson.

Let’s move on to wins, which Jeff has the edge by 10 at a resounding 93 victories to Jimmie’s sterling 83. Let’s apply some context to those wins though, shall we?

Before Jimmie burst onto the scene in 2002, Jeff won 58 times and was hot off the heels of his fourth title. This wasn’t some dried-up has-been.

In the ensuing 14 seasons, Jeff won 35 times, had a three-season stretch where he didn’t win a race, and didn’t win a championship again. I wonder why that is.

Oh yeah.

Jimmie Johnson became his teammate and wiped the floor with him on arrival.

In the time they were teammates, Jimmie won 75 races, six titles, and over the 515 races they were in together, Jimmie beat Jeff 288 times in similar equipment.

Let’s not forget: it’s not like they were racing with different teams, no. The 48 team was racing out of the same garage and just dogwalking the 24 team.

So yeah, Jeff won more races, but he had a 58-win head start on Jimmie. It’s also hard to hold Jimmie’s winless streak against him when Jeff had a lull in the middle of his career.

Jimmie finished in the top 5 in points every single year for the first nine years of his career, including his rookie year where he looked like a title favorite until a late-season collapse.

While Jeff had extremely impressive peaks (a four-year stretch from 1996-1999 where he won two championships and 40 races), Jimmie somehow managed to best him (five consecutive titles from 2006-10 and 36 wins.)

One thing that sticks out to me about Jeff is that he didn’t bounce back from his mid-career hiccup as well as Jimmie did. After Jimmie won five straight titles, he dropped out of the top 5 in points for the first time when he finished sixth in 2011.

Jimmie returned the next year and lost out to Brad Keselowski in the 2012 title fight before scoring his sixth title in 2013 with a six-win campaign and 9.8 average finish.

He remained competitive over the next two years before having a seeming falloff in the 2016 regular season. He won twice in the regular season, but he wasn’t considered a favorite going into the Playoffs.

Johnson passed through the first round before scoring wins at Charlotte and Martinsville to send him to the title race at Homestead. We all know how that played out.

Then, he fell off, and I’ll talk more about that in an article to be released later.

Jeff went through a massive tailspin. After losing out to his protege in 2007, Jeff wasn’t a serious competitor for the title for six straight seasons. Don’t let the 2009 points standings fool you; Jimmie had that one pretty much locked up going into the finale.

Jeff wasn’t very good in 2015 when he jumped at an opportunity to race for his fifth title at Homestead. It would’ve been a nice way to finish out his career, finally getting that fifth title, but the story of NASCAR isn’t one of fairy tales.

Jeff’s last real stab at the title was 2014, and had he held his line at Texas, we might be having a different conversation right now. Instead, he popped his tire off Brad Keselowski’s side and lost his chance at a title.

I feel like I’ve gone too long, but ultimately, I don’t think there’s much of a case here for Jeff. The field was much more competitive when Johnson came up than when Jeff did, making Johnson’s fight to the top of the series much tougher.

He also had to go against Jeff, which people don’t talk about enough.

Jeff Gordon had one of the most illustrious careers in the history of motorsports, and had he not picked out someone better, his legacy may be even brighter today.