List of NASCAR's top 75 Cup Series drivers hard to get right ... or wrong | KEN WILLIS
Richard Petty? Sure. An easy No. 1 on any list of NASCAR’s all-time best.
Right? The guy won 200 races, after all.
Hold the phone. Remember, David Pearson, regarded by folks of his era as the purest racer ever, had more than half of King Richard’s wins in fewer than half of King Richard’s starts. Three championships in the only four years he tried.
Who’d come after them on that list, Dale Earnhardt or Jimmie Johnson?
These questions came into play over the past couple of weeks as we tried to compile a list of NASCAR’s top 75 Cup Series racers of all time, to go along with the 2023 theme — this will be the 75th season of NASCAR’s top racing division.
The News-Journal's rather new motorsports chronicler, Ryan Pritt, joined me in building out top-75 list. We’re putting it out there in five chunks of 15, Monday through Friday this week, with the top 15 due on Friday, two days ahead of the Daytona 500 and the beginning of this Silver Anniversary campaign.
61 THRU 75Daytona experts count down NASCAR's all-time Top 75 drivers: 75 through 61.
46 THRU 60Daytona experts count down NASCAR's all-time top 75 drivers; list of 46 through 60
The all-time wins list, from Petty’s 200 down to a slew of folks with a lone victory, provides an easy framework upon which to start. But boy does it get tricky once you start factoring in all those damn details.
In keeping with a lifetime habit, trust me, I tried to keep it easy. For starters, since this is the 75th season for the Cup Series, we limited it to those drivers who built their NASCAR stardom in that upper division. So, no wondering or worrying about where to put a Sam Ard, a Richie Evans, etc.
We tried to limit any outside factors — “this guy should be ahead of that guy because this guy didn’t have the equipment that guy had!” None of that.
That’s not to say some drivers didn’t end up higher (or lower) based on long-held beliefs or feelings or public consensus about their place in the sport. But we limited that as much as the sub-conscious allowed.
In other words, I guarantee you we have Junior Johnson lower than any other top-75 list you’ll find. And I loved Junior.
Down on the south side of the top-75 rankings, which came out Monday, you find the original champion, Red Byron, along with some familiar names (Ryan Blaney, Kyle Petty) and perhaps some unfamiliar (Jim Reed, Bob Welborn).
But maybe more than the Petty-Pearson debate, that side of the list provided hard choices. Who to leave off? As much as we admired and respected the careers of a Kenny Schrader or Dave Marcis … sorry.
Today we released Nos. 31 through 45. Along with a pair of modern hot-rodders — Chase Elliott and Kyle Larson — you’ll get at least a couple of eyebrow-raisers.
Fonty Flock wasn’t the most famous or decorated of the racing Flocks, but he had a nice little career.
Dick Hutcherson would become known for his chassis-building operation — Hutcherson-Pagan Enterprises — but before that took off, he had a meteoric Cup career. Came and left in a flash, but he didn’t get cheated — 14 wins and 21 poles in just 103 starts.
All of this, of course, is impossible to get right. Some will tell you differently, but you can’t correctly determine how to measure modern success against success from NASCAR’s first two or three decades. In earlier times, fewer racers went to the track with a chance to win, compared to today. Nineteen different winners last year, remember?
Richard Petty’s 27 wins (in 48 starts) in 1967 is undoubtedly mind-boggling, no matter the conditions. But you can make an argument that Jeff Gordon’s 1998 season — 13 wins in 33 starts, with more consistent competition — was just as dominant. Maybe.
Not saying you’d win the argument, but you could make it.
Meanwhile, the top 30 remain, to be rolled out Thursday and Friday. As much as it would be appreciated, you won’t be able to say we got it right. But you can’t say we got it wrong, either.
Let’s do it again in 25 years with the top 100.
— Reach Ken Willis at ken.willis@news-jrnl.com
This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: NASCAR list: Petty or Pearson? Dale Earnhardt? Daytona 500 awaits
