2016 NASCAR thread

[CAA Flagship]

They didn't retire 3 or 43. Why would they retire the next tier?

Or 33.

[93henfan]

Harry Gant was awesome. Classiest dude ever, on a level with Richard Petty, Buddy Baker, and Benny Parsons.

[clenz]

Cassill is 2 years younger than me but looks 12

[89Hen]

They didn't retire 3 or 43. Why would they retire the next tier?

24 and 3 are a tier behind 43, let's not kid ourselves.

[93henfan]

They didn't retire 3 or 43. Why would they retire the next tier?

24 and 3 are a tier behind 43, let's not kid ourselves.

3 and 43 are in a tier by themselves. When you consider Petty's 200 wins, consider the competition he had in those years (little to none) and the number of races per year (sometimes over 50). Hell, Petty won 27 races in 1967 alone. He had 100 wins from 1967-1972. He had 15 wins in the 14 years he coexisted with Dale Earnhardt on the track. Earnhardt had 53 in the same years (79-92).

Earnhardt won seven championships after the era of multicar teams began. There was never a better driver and likely never will be. He was also starting to rebound after a bit of a lull in the late 90s and may have very well surpassed (instead of tied at 7) Petty in number of championships had he not died on the track. He finished second in the championship in 2000, just four months before he died.

Also never forget where the sport went during the Earnhardt era. His driving days, 1979-2001, are basically the definition of the golden era of NASCAR.

[89Hen]

He had 15 wins in the 14 years he coexisted with Dale Earnhardt on the track. Earnhardt had 53 in the same years (79-92).

1993-2000
Earnhardt wins = 23
Gordon wins = 54 and that was with Gordon not winning any races his rookie season and spotting Dale a year.

Gordon > Earnhardt

[93henfan]

He had 15 wins in the 14 years he coexisted with Dale Earnhardt on the track. Earnhardt had 53 in the same years (79-92).

1993-2000
Earnhardt wins = 23
Gordon wins = 54 and that was with Gordon not winning any races his rookie season and spotting Dale a year.

Gordon > Earnhardt

You make yourself look really stupid sometimes. Surely you didn't type that with a straight face.

[93henfan]

Since you don't know a lot about NASCAR, I'll give you some reading material, 89:

http://www.nascar.com/en_us/news-media/ ... bruce.html

http://www.sportingnews.com/list/463329 ... ide/295368

http://tampa.cbslocal.com/2014/08/28/to ... nston-cup/

http://nascar.about.com/od/legends/tp/b ... rsever.htm

[93henfan]

If I had to put drivers in four tiers right now, it'd be:

1st Tier: Earnhardt, Petty

2nd Tier: Johnson (could move to tier one before he retires), Gordon, Pearson, Waltrip, Allison, Yarborough

3rd Tier: Too many to list, but think guys like Tony Stewart, Dale Jr, Kyle Busch, Dale Jarrett, Harry Gant, etc

4th tier: the rest

[CAA Flagship]

If I had to put drivers in four tiers right now, it'd be:

1st Tier: Earnhardt, Petty

2nd Tier: Johnson (could move to tier one before he retires), Gordon, Pearson, Waltrip, Allison, Yarborough

3rd Tier: Too many to list, but think guys like Tony Stewart, Dale Jr, Kyle Busch, Dale Jarrett, Harry Gant, etc

4th tier: the rest

As much as I liked Gant, I'm not sure he would be as high as 3rd tier. He was second tier in terms of likability. But he only had 18 wins. Jeff Burton won 21 and he had no fans. Kasey Kahne and Ryan Newman have 17 wins.

[93henfan]

Gant was as good in the mid 80s as the rest in the third tier at various points in their career. Third tier is broad here. Fourth tier is your non-winners like Danica Patrick or a guy who got one in a blue moon when five guys blew engines like Jody Ridley. I was at that Ridley race, by the way. It was great to see a nobody win. It was the NASCAR equivalent of a Buster Douglas moment.

[89Hen]

1993-2000
Earnhardt wins = 23
Gordon wins = 54 and that was with Gordon not winning any races his rookie season and spotting Dale a year.

Gordon > Earnhardt

You make yourself look really stupid sometimes. Surely you didn't type that with a straight face.

Surely you didn't either. I know that you know that if the championship points weren't changed in 2004 that Gordon would have 7 championships... the same number as Dale and King. So same number of championships and sandwiched between them for wins.

[clenz]

Honest question, since I'm not a NASCAR nut....

Is Gordon knocked down in peoples opinions because he wasn't the "typical" driver at the time he came in, and drove a rainbow car? He wasn't from the racing belt. He didn't have an accent. He drove brightly colored cars.

From my "I kind of follow NASCAR"/casual fan perspective Gordon pretty close to as good as it can get, and as 89 pointed out the point change screwed him from a couple more titles.

[89Hen]

Honest question, since I'm not a NASCAR nut....

Is Gordon knocked down in peoples opinions because he wasn't the "typical" driver at the time he came in, and drove a rainbow car? He wasn't from the racing belt. He didn't have an accent. He drove brightly colored cars.

From my "I kind of follow NASCAR"/casual fan perspective Gordon pretty close to as good as it can get, and as 89 pointed out the point change screwed him from a couple more titles.

Yes. There weren't many people who didn't like Earnhardt (except fellow drivers who for the most part respected him). He was an old school, redneck driver. Gordon brought in all kinds of new fans but many of the old school fans did not like him. Earnhardt did more for the established fans.

http://www.npr.org/2015/10/16/449238161 ... ascar-fans

DALE EARNHARDT JR.: Back when he started, I think 90 percent of the drivers in the field were from North Carolina, and now I'm the last one.

TOMSIC: Earnhardt is exaggerating a bit, but NASCAR has turned from a Southern profession into a national one. Today, there are drivers from Vancouver, Wash., to Middletown, Conn.

EARNHARDT: He definitely brought a new demographic of fans, a new group of fans to the sport and appealed to a different fan than we generally had back then.

[89Hen]

Championships under same format:
Earnhardt - 7
Gordon - 7

Total wins:
Earnhardt - 76 in 22 full seasons
Gordon - 93 in 23 full seasons

Most wins in a season:
Earnhardt - 11
Gordon - 13

Most wins in any two consecutive seasons:
Earnhardt - 16
Gordon - 23

Most wins in any three consecutive seasons:
Earnhardt - 19
Gordon - 33

Career Top 5's:
Earnhardt - 281
Gordon - 325

Career Top 10's:
Earnhardt - 428
Gordon - 475

Career Poles (no homo)
Earnhardt - 22
Gordon - 81

Years outside of a Top 10 finish in standings:
Earnhardt - 2
Gordon - 0

C'mon 93.

[93henfan]

Earnhardt had more impact on the sport than any other driver. He led the sport through a period of (my best guesstimate) about 1,000% growth. When I went to my first Dover race in 1975, the stands held 22,000. In Dale Earnhardt's last race there, the stands held 140,000 and another 35,000 were in the infield (175k at the facility). Ever since Earnhardt died, there has been a steady decline, and capacity has been reduced at the track to 80k. That is where Gordon and Johnson and Bill France Jr. took the sport once it's heart and soul had left.

There's a reason that every link I provided, and pretty much every one you can dig up yourself rates Petty and Earnhardt as 1 and 2 in varying order. Those two are the two clear best. As much as it pains me to say, Jimmie Johnson could reach that level. Gordon didn't quite make it.

I'll spare you picking out everything wrong with your response to Clenz. You were about 50% right in your response.

[89Hen]

Earnhardt had more impact on the sport than any other driver. He led the sport through a period of (my best guesstimate) about 1,000% growth. When I went to my first Dover race in 1975, the stands held 22,000. In Dale Earnhardt's last race there, the stands held 140,000 and another 35,000 were in the infield (175k at the facility). Ever since Earnhardt died, there has been a steady decline, and capacity has been reduced at the track to 80k. That is where Gordon and Johnson and Bill France Jr. took the sport once it's heart and soul had left.

I'll spare you picking out everything wrong with your response to Clenz. You were about 50% right in your response.

I'll stick with reality, you keep talking opinion. We'll never agree.

[93henfan]

Earnhardt had more impact on the sport than any other driver. He led the sport through a period of (my best guesstimate) about 1,000% growth. When I went to my first Dover race in 1975, the stands held 22,000. In Dale Earnhardt's last race there, the stands held 140,000 and another 35,000 were in the infield (175k at the facility). Ever since Earnhardt died, there has been a steady decline, and capacity has been reduced at the track to 80k. That is where Gordon and Johnson and Bill France Jr. took the sport once it's heart and soul had left.

I'll spare you picking out everything wrong with your response to Clenz. You were about 50% right in your response.

I'll stick with reality, you keep talking opinion. We'll never agree.

Everything I've posted is reality. I have lived the sport for forty years. Stick to what you know.

I won't pretend to know about golf.

[89Hen]

If you want more opinion though.

http://www.foxsports.com/nascar/story/j ... ook-112115

Gordon changed the face of NASCAR and helped move it out of the mill towns and rural hamlets of the Deep South and into the mainstream of America.

"He (Gordon) opened the door for (Tony) Stewart, and Stewart opened the door further for myself and Kasey Kahne, Ricky Stenhouse," said Jimmie Johnson, Gordon's teammate at Hendrick Motorsports and fellow Californian. "Now we have more drivers from the state of California than any other state, so it's wild to think in NASCAR that that's the case, and I think Jeff is responsible for that trend happening."

"Earnhardt was a huge part of the sport," says Harvick. "But if you look at the end of those late '90s, early 2000 up until 2001, I mean if you look at the leap that Earnhardt's career took -- his wealth and the sponsors and the things that he had -- a lot of that, in my opinion, had to do with Jeff Gordon."

"I never thought I'd see anyone win 93 races in the modern era," said Darrell Waltrip, a three-time champion and FOX analyst. "He has done things no one ever has before and might never again."

[89Hen]

I'll stick with reality, you keep talking opinion. We'll never agree.

Everything I've posted is reality. I have lived the sport for forty years. Stick to what you know.

I won't pretend to know about golf.

OK Cleets.

[93henfan]

If you want more opinion though.

http://www.foxsports.com/nascar/story/j ... ook-112115

Gordon changed the face of NASCAR and helped move it out of the mill towns and rural hamlets of the Deep South and into the mainstream of America.

"He (Gordon) opened the door for (Tony) Stewart, and Stewart opened the door further for myself and Kasey Kahne, Ricky Stenhouse," said Jimmie Johnson, Gordon's teammate at Hendrick Motorsports and fellow Californian. "Now we have more drivers from the state of California than any other state, so it's wild to think in NASCAR that that's the case, and I think Jeff is responsible for that trend happening."

"Earnhardt was a huge part of the sport," says Harvick. "But if you look at the end of those late '90s, early 2000 up until 2001, I mean if you look at the leap that Earnhardt's career took -- his wealth and the sponsors and the things that he had -- a lot of that, in my opinion, had to do with Jeff Gordon."

"I never thought I'd see anyone win 93 races in the modern era," said Darrell Waltrip, a three-time champion and FOX analyst. "He has done things no one ever has before and might never again."

That first quote is patently false, so do I even need to read the article? NASCAR had grown exponentially and the graph had started to taper off before Gordon ever even got to NASCAR. That appears to be a terribly uninformed writer.

[93henfan]

I looked up Tom Jensen. A Villanova grad, and as I suspected, didn't start covering NASCAR until the mid 90s, probably about when you started following it 89. Makes sense.

[93henfan]

One thing you might want to also take into consideration when comparing Earnhardt and Gordon and Petty purely in the stat category:

Petty and Gordon both drove for one team throughout their careers, and those teams were both considered the highest of caliber teams for the majority of their careers. Gordon was hand picked by Rick Hendrick to sit in the best equipment from day one.

Earnhardt won Rookie of the Year in 1979 and his first championship driving for an also-ran, Rod Osterlund Racing, with no prime sponsorship. It was an incredible feat. Earnhardt then went on to drive for four other teams, winning six more championships. Nobody ever did more with less.

[89Hen]

I looked up Tom Jensen. A Villanova grad, and as I suspected, didn't start covering NASCAR until the mid 90s, probably about when you started following it 89. Makes sense.

You win. You grew up within an hour of a NASCAR track and were friends with a MRN broadcaster so nobody else knows what they're talking about.

[93henfan]

I looked up Tom Jensen. A Villanova grad, and as I suspected, didn't start covering NASCAR until the mid 90s, probably about when you started following it 89. Makes sense.

You win. You grew up within an hour of a NASCAR track and were friends with a MRN broadcaster so nobody else knows what they're talking about.

I think you know a lot about what you're talking about in regard to Gordon, but much less in regard to Earnhardt, which appears to predate when you started following the sport.

And where I live doesn't really matter. The amount that I follow the sport does though.