Greatest Driver Ever? Contenders Crowd the Field

Who was the best, Richard Petty or David Pearson? Dale Earnhardt? Jeff Gordon? Or if you’re an old-timer, how about Junior Johnson or Lee Petty?

With NASCAR celebrating its 50th anniversary, ranking the greatest drivers has become as popular a pastime here as collecting pins.

Sports editor Godwin Kelly of the Daytona Beach News-Journal conducted a poll of 14 journalists, promoters and former car owners, and the results were as close as any race among the best on the track.

Richard Petty edged David Pearson, 578-577, a reversal of the finish of the 1976 Daytona 500--everyone’s selection as the greatest Daytona race--in which the two tangled in the final turn of the final lap. Both cars spun into the infield, with Pearson winning at about 10 mph when Petty was unable to get his car moving the last 100 yards.

As with most lists of great performers from different eras, many of them have credentials worthy of No. 1.

Sports Illustrated’s Ed Hinton, for instance, chose Junior Johnson as his best of the best, relegating Pearson to second and Petty to third. Johnson, who never won a Winston Cup championship although he won 50 races, was ranked seventh in the News-Journal poll and by this writer, a participant in the top 20 poll.

Petty’s choice: “David was the best I ever raced against, probably the best I ever saw.”

Petty devotees point to his seven Winston Cup championships, his seven Daytona 500 victories and most important, his 200 wins, almost double the next best.

But Pearson backers counter by saying the Silver Fox won his 105 races, second on the all-time list, in only 574 starts. Petty started 1,177 times to collect his 200. That means that Pearson won every 5.5 races he started; Petty won every 5.9 starts.

Better yet, Tim Flock, who won 40 races and two championships in the formative 1950s, won every 4.7 times he started. Flock, who sometimes drove with a monkey called “Jocko Flocko” strapped into the race car, also won NASCAR’s only sports car race, driving a Mercedes-Benz Gullwing in 1955. Now 73, Flock lives in Charlotte, N.C., where he is battling cancer.

The second-best all-time record belongs to today’s Rainbow Warrior, Jeff Gordon. With 29 wins, he has taken the checkered flag in every 5.3 Winston Cup races he has driven.

That mirrors almost exactly Gordon’s record in the Daytona 500, where his win last year was in his fifth start.

And it seems he’s getting better. Only 26, Gordon may break all the records in the book. Last year, he won 10 races, including the Daytona 500, Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte, California 500 in the debut of California Speedway and the Winston Million by winning his third consecutive Southern 500 at Darlington. It added up to $6 million in prize money and a second driver-of-the-year honor.

“It’s just awesome to me how we kept that consistency last year,” Gordon said. “To have a year like that was unbelievable, just a storybook year. We won so often, you couldn’t just say it was luck, although I believe in luck. You have to have a little bit of luck, but I think you make your own luck most of the time.

“I think it was more a combination of hard work, determination and persistence. . . .

“We’re going to need all three this year, starting right here in Daytona. The competition keeps getting tougher and tougher. If you don’t believe me, look at the record year we had and still we only won the championship by 14 points over Dale Jarrett and 29 over Mark Martin.

“You just can’t afford to let down for a second. Or you’ll find yourself second, or worse.”

STOCK CARS ON STREET?

The Los Angeles Grand Prix, which featured vintage cars last year on a downtown street circuit around the Civic Center, may switch to NASCAR Featherlite Southwest Tour cars for this year’s show. The site may also change.

“Nothing has been settled, but we are talking with Bill Burke [founder-director of the event] about the possibility of running Southwest Tour cars on Labor Day,” said Dennis Huth, NASCAR vice president. “It’s an open date so it wouldn’t surprise me if some Winston Cup drivers showed up.”

Also under discussion is moving the Grand Prix to a course near Exposition Park and the Coliseum.

NASCAR has experience with street races, having produced Winston West events in Tacoma and Spokane, Wash.

“Southwest Tour cars are better adaptable to street conditions,” Huth said. “They are lighter than Winston West cars and their fiberglass bodies make them more maneuverable. I think they would put on an excellent race. We have plenty of cars, there were 61 for the first race of the season at Tucson.”

NIGHT RACING

The future of superspeedway racing may have been showcased last Saturday night when Dale Earnhardt took 20 laps under the lights at Daytona International Speedway, racing 193 mph as newly installed floodlights illuminated the 2.5-mile track.

“To go that fast under the lights is pretty exciting really,” Earnhardt said. “At 50% of what they’re going to be, it’s pretty good. The evening temperatures really go well with night racing. It works better for the engine and the chassis works better.”

Earnhardt’s fast lap of 193 was faster than Bobby Labonte had run earlier in the day to win the pole for Sunday’s Daytona 500. However, as car owner Richard Childress said, “Yes, we had a restrictor plate in the car, but it was of an undetermined size.”

Winston Cup races have been held at night before, at Bristol, Richmond and Charlotte, but never at a facility the size of Daytona. The first race here under the lights will be the Pepsi 400 on July 4.

The Rolex 24-hour race obviously was raced through the night, but the only lights were from the race car headlights.

“In some ways, it’s easier to see at night,” Earnhardt said. “You go into the corner and you can see the asphalt better. The lights seem to bring the asphalt to you. The track looks more magnified. Lighting makes it consistent versus a long Daytona 500 where you might start with sunshine or clouds and have it change late in the afternoon. . . . The track actually glistens and brightens up in the light.”

Why did he settle on 20 laps?

“The France family and NASCAR said I should run a lap for every year I’ve been racing at Daytona, so 20 it was.”

Even though Earnhardt was running alone, about 20,000 of Saturday’s crowd of 60,000 waited until after dark to watch the experiment.

SPRINT CARS

Sprint car fans who wanted to see the World of Outlaws and their winged cars run at Perris Auto Speedway will have to wait until Oct. 31. The track’s opening event, to have been held Saturday night, has been canceled because of conditions caused by recent rains.

Also canceled was the World of Outlaws season opener tonight at Kings Speedway in Hanford. Sammy Swindell, Mark Kinser and the Outlaws will open their 100-race season Feb. 20-21 at Manzanita Speedway in Phoenix, but won’t return to California until October.

The Sprint Car Racing Assn.’s wingless cars will open the Perris season Feb. 21 with champion Ron Shuman in his new role as SCRA president.

*

Bubby Jones, general manager of the Perris track, is one of seven who will be inducted into the National Sprint Car Hall of Fame on May 29. Others honored are Sam Hanks, Dean Thompson, Gary Patterson, Bobby Allen, Bill Schindler and Greg Weld.

Jones was one of the original Outlaws, barnstorming around the country with Jan Oppermann, Rick Ferkel, Kenny Weld, Eddie Leavett and others--before they were organized. In 1980 Jones moved to Anaheim to drive in the California Racing Assn., forerunner of the SCRA. He won the CRA championship in 1983 and 1984.

After retiring as a driver, he joined the Kazarian brothers, for whom he had raced cars, to built Perris Auto Speedway into a half-mile, dirt track in a likeness of Ascot Park.

LAST LAPS

NASCAR veteran Martin, the only driver to win the International Race of Champions three times, will start from the 10th position today at Daytona International Speedway in an attempt to win his fourth. Martin, who won in 1994, 1996 and 1997, will face 11 other drivers from different American racing series in a 40-lap race that will start the 22nd year of IROC. All will drive identically-prepared Pontiac Firebird Trans Ams.

A new stadium racing competition, the U.S. Off-Road Championships, will take place Sunday at San Diego’s Qualcomm Stadium. Patterned after the defunct Mickey Thompson stadium series, San Diego will be the fifth stop of the series. As in most stadium events, trucks are the feature attraction. Most are from the SODA closed course series in the Midwest. Among the drivers is Rob MacCachren, who won the final Mickey Thompson race at the Coliseum.

Other classes include super modified buggies, stadium lites, quads and four-stroke motorcycles. If Jeremy McGrath wins as expected in the AMA Supercross on Saturday night at the RCA Dome in Indianapolis, he will become the winningest rider in the stadium series history. The Canyon Lake rider’s impressive win last Saturday night in San Diego tied him with Bob Hannah and Rick Johnson on the all-time list with 63 career wins. . . . The much publicized debut of the Washington Erving Motorsports team, which was to be the first major entry by a minority-owned team in NASCAR, has had a disappointing start. Jimmy Foster, whom Julius Erving and former NFL running back Joe Washington chose to drive their Busch Grand National car, failed to qualify for Saturday’s 300-mile race. Foster, 20, is a resident of nearby Ormand Beach, and his grandfather, Jim Foster, is a former president of Daytona International Speedway.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Top NASCAR Drivers

The 20 best drvers in the 50 years of NASCAR’s Winston Cup Racing: *--*

No. L.A. Times Sports Illustrated Daytona Beach Journal 1. Richard Petty Junior Johnson Richard Petty 2. Dale Earnhardt David Pearson David Pearson 3. David Pearson Richard Petty Dale Earnhardt 4. Bobby Allison Bobby Allison Bobby Allison 5. Jeff Gordon Dale Earnhardt Cale Yarborough 6. Darrell Waltrip Darrell Waltrip Fireball Roberts 7. Junior Johnson Cale Yarborough Junior Johnson 8. Cale Yarborough Jeff Gordon Herb Thomas 9. Lee Petty Herb Thomas Darrell Waltrip 10. Fireball Roberts Fireball Roberts Jeff Gordon 11. Bill Elliott Tim Flock Lee Petty 12. Tim Flock Lee Petty Ned Jarrett 13. Terry Labonte Curtis Turner 14. Curtis Turner Buck Baker 15. Leroy Yarbrough Rusty Wallace 16. Rusty Wallace Bill Elliott 17. Ned Jarrett Tim Flock 18. Buck Baker Fred Lorenzen 19. Tim Richmond Joe Weatherly 20. Benny Parsons Tim Richmond

*--*

Note: Sports Illustrated ranked only the top 12 drivers.