In most sports, the Greatest of All-Time debate follows the model of having one "conventional" answer and then one other trendy, contrarian answer, while everybody else is competing for third place. In NASCAR, though, it's a bit more complicated.
At first glance, the GOAT is obviously Richard Petty. The King. He had 200 career wins, nearly twice as many as any other driver in history. He also won seven championships and seven Daytona 500s, the most prestigious race on the calendar. It shouldn't even be a contest.
It is, though. Petty may not have even been the best driver of his own era, in fact. David Pearson won 105 races and three titles against Petty -- and he did it in only four full-time seasons! Had he competed full-time throughout his whole career, his numbers would be just as good as Petty's if not better.
There's also a case that neither of them are the GOAT. They raced predominantly in, as stick-and-ball fans would call it, the "janitors and plumbers" era. They had massive advantages in the resources department over most of the rest of the field, which consisted of independent owner-drivers on shoestring budgets. The real GOAT is Dale Earnhardt, who also won seven titles and did it against much stronger competition than Petty...
...Just to suddenly stop dominating once some kid named Jeff Gordon showed up. Gordon was a child prodigy, a California kid who took all the good ol' boys to school as NASCAR began expanding beyond just a niche Southern sport in the 1990s. He was NASCAR's first mainstream celebrity, and his reign took its popularity to its all-time greatest heights. He 's the best to ever get behind the wheel of a stock car, not Earnhardt or Petty or Pearson.
He also spent more than half of his career playing second fiddle on his own team to Jimmie Johnson. Johnson, who, like Earnhardt and Petty, won seven championships (Gordon won four), and who, unlike Earnhardt and Petty, did it in several different points formats. NASCAR overhauled its entire playoff system to nerf Johnson's dominance after his 2013 title, his sixth in an eight year span. He still got No. 7 three years later.
All five of these drivers are commonly argued as the greatest NASCAR driver of all-time, and it's tough to split hairs when it comes to comparing legends from different eras. It's probably fairer, in that case, to declare them all historic equals and carve them together onto NASCAR's metaphorical Mount Rushmore... but there's only room for four heads.
Who is the impostor among us? Here's all five cases:
Petty:
Richard Petty, for as great as he was, also had the easiest job of any driver in NASCAR history. He spent the majority of his best years with significantly greater equipment and sponsorship backing than any other full-time driver. Anyone could have looked great in those cars -- and they did, as proven by Richard's father Lee as well as others such as Pete Hamilton and Jim Paschal.
That being said, 200 wins is still 200 wins. Even if Petty may not have been one of the four best drivers ever on pure skill, he's still one of the four greatest . There's just no justification for leaving him off.
Pearson:
What separates David Pearson from Petty, Earnhardt, Gordon, and Johnson? His GOAT case, for the most part, is built off of a hypothetical. If his team had run full-time. If he had the same amount of starts as Petty. If... if... if... and the matter of fact is that he didn't. Greatness is measured by what actually happened, not what might have happened in some alternate universe.
Even when only taking into account what actually did happen, though, Pearson's numbers speak for themselves. He's the only driver in NASCAR history not named Petty to eclipse 100 career wins, and the only four drivers with more than his three championships are the four others in this conversation. The fact that he could have accomplished so much more and yet he's still arguably a top-two driver ever based on what he did accomplish, makes him a lock.
Earnhardt:
If Pearson's legacy is all built on what-ifs, then it can be just as easily argued that Earnhardt's is all built on his iconic persona, rather than his performance on the track. For as great as The Intimidator was, it sticks out like a sore thumb to look at the all-time wins list and see him below all four other drivers here, as well as Darrell Waltrip, Bobby Allison, and Cale Yarborough. If you go by winning percentage , he's all the way down in 18th! This guy is supposed to be the greatest ever?
It's worth noting, though, that Earnhardt did not drive for a team on the level of Petty Enterprises, Hendrick Motorsports (Gordon and Johnson), or even the Wood Brothers (Pearson). Richard Childress Racing has never won a championship in its history with any non-Earnhardt driver, and even if the legend of Earnhardt was greater than the reality of Earnhardt, that legend is NASCAR's most definitive icon of all-time. He's on.
Gordon and Johnson:
With Petty, Pearson, and Earnhardt all established as locks, that means the final spot comes down to the two longtime Hendrick teammates. The Wonder Boy who revolutionized the sport's national image and the way teams go about scouting and developing talent, against his own Sorcerer's Apprentice who revolutionized the way the championship is won. Gordon fans will gladly point out that without NASCAR's playoffs, he would be the third member of the seven-time club and not Johnson...
...To which it can be easily countered that Johnson played by the same rules as everybody else, and Gordon was unable to adjust with the changing times. Furthermore, Gordon's unprecedented success at such an early age also means he was spending his peak years competing against drivers from the previous era, rather than his own. Once he had proper contemporaries, he was just another very good driver.
The more closely one analyzes Gordon's career, the emptier it seems when compared to Petty, Pearson, Earnhardt, and Johnson. Every mark in his favor is an even bigger mark in someone else's favor. Petty was more successful. Earnhardt was more iconic. Pearson did as much in less time, and as for Johnson, 14 seasons of head-to-head data in which he doubled up his teammate in the win column (in addition to the 6-0 title advantage in that span) should be all the proof one needs to know who was better.
NASCAR's Mount Rushmore is Richard Petty, David Pearson, Dale Earnhardt, and Jimmie Johnson. Mileage can vary regarding which one of them is the GOAT, but it's not Jeff Gordon.
EXCLUSIVE DISCOUNTS:
Order your favorite whiskey or spirit for the big game right to your doorstep and use code STADIUMRANT10 for a 10% discount at Caskers
Use code STADIUMRANT20 for a 20% discount at Bulletproof Coffee , SwingJuice and Performix .
If you love to shotgun beers, use code STADIUMRANT10 at Wild Man Drinking Company .
MORE FROM STADIUM RANT:
If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to our newsletter here . Check out Stadium Rant Original shows on our Youtube channel and subscribe! Give our socials Facebook , Twitter , Instagram , TikTok a follow for more great content!
Most Popular
Comments / 0