Best drivers

[BigDaddyFin]

Ok the topic came to me because we're starting the Jimmy Johnson love fest in the paper.  I know he's the 4 time defending champ but give me a break with this shit already.  As someone who has followed racing both here and outside the US for nearly 20 years, I'm going to give a list of the best drivers in no particular order.  Feel free to discuss.

1.  Mario Andretti.  He's won in every kind of car you can imagine and is the only driver with an Indy 500, Daytona 500 and F1 title under his belt.
2.  AJ Foyt.  Probably the last guy alive who can build the car himself, build the motor himself and assuming he can still fit into it go out and win the race himself.  Awesome willpower.
3.  Richard Petty.  Nascar's best driver from the mid 1960's up through the early 80's. 
4.  Dale Earnhardt Sr.  Absolute refusal to lose.  If the car didn't suit him, he'd force it to do what he wanted. 
5.  Cale Yarborough.  Nascar's mentally and physcially toughest driver.  The only one to ever lead an entire Winston Cup season from the first to the last race of the year.  If only he'd stuck around more when he was younger, 3 out of the last 5 times he ran a full schedule, he won the cup.
6.  David Pearson.  Just kind of hung around until the last pit stop.  Once the cigarette came flying out the window, he was going for the lead.
7.  Ayrton Senna.  Probably the forgotten one in all time driver lists because he raced in F1 exclusively.  Once held up a clearly superior car for an entire grand prix to get the win, also known as one of the few drivers who could still drive on slick tires in the rain. 
8.  Michael Schumacher.  Would he have been less dominant without Ferrari's millions?  Maybe.  But he won his first title with Benneton when they were shit.
9.  Al Unser.  4 times Indy 500 champion and fierce competitor. 
10.  Bobby Allison.  This was kind of a tough pick because there's about a dozen other drivers you could argue for.  Stout on road courses, short tracks and superspeedways, and also longevity give him the nod over some others. 

[Kirbyjr]

 I couldnt agree with you more on the media kissing J.J.'s ass.  Another person I would consider for your top ten would be Tony Stewart. This guy is a 2 time Cup champion, the first to win a USAC Triple Crown championship, and an IRL champion.  Not many race car drivers can lay claim to Tony's accomplishments.

[BigDaddyFin]

By the time he retires, he'll probably be on that list.  The biggest knock against him right now, no Daytona 500.

[CF DolFan]

I always think of Mario Andretti when I think of great race car drivers but I hadn't realised he had won the Daytona 500.  That's pretty cool!!

[BigDaddyFin]

^^^^ Both Mario and AJ Foyt have victories in the Daytona 500, but you'll have to look back I think Mario's came in 1967 and AJ's was around the same time.

[wyvernmcd]

I was curious about something.

When NASCAR was shifting to the COT (Car of Tomorrow) I remembered the team that Johnson not having any issues with the changeover when almost all of the other NASCAR racers mentioned that they had issues with the COT cars. Now that the COT cars are the cars of today's NASCAR races, I think that their race team has sort of an insider trading or sometihing similar if they knew the change was coming around because if my memory serves me correctly (it does not sometimes; sucks getting older :-/ ) he has won every championship since they changed the car types. If that is the case, shouldn't they change the cars, engine or something else to mix it up in NASCAR?

If I am wrong, please let me know since I have not been watching the NASCAR races for a while.

[BigDaddyFin]

Wyvernmcd,

In some ways your suspicions are well founded, however, as with most things questionable in Nascar these days, there's also a reasonable explanation. 

Hendrick has the most money and the best engines.  Keep in mind that also about half the Chevrolet teams are driving Hendrick motors, which even 15 years ago didn't happen. 

The COT plans went out to all the teams about a year in advance (two years if you count when they started running them full time) and because Hendrick can spend a shitload more money on R and D than anyone else, naturally they'll be ahead of the curve. 

They have made a number of changes to the cars that Hendrick hasn't been as quick to pick up on this year, the most obvious being the switch from the blow-over prone wing back to the traditional spoiler and when they did, it was Joe Gibbs' boys that were ready for it before anybody. 

What made everyone upset and what I think your mind is catching onto more so than the COT is back in the mid-90's, Nascar made Gary Nelson, a longtime Hendrick crewchief, chief of inspectors.  Then when Nelson retired, the job went to one of the DeHart brothers, the other brother was also a Hendrick crewchief. 

The other thing is, Jimmy Johnson is really good and so is Chad Knaus.  The big question will be when one leaves, kind of like with Evernham and Gordon.  Hasn't done shit since Ray left.  Chad eats sleeps and breathes racing and engineering.  His shop is run almost like a military barracks with the schedules and the training those guys go through.  When you have that much cash to burn you can do all that stuff and create a dynasty of that sort.

[bsmooth]

Hmmm somehow there is something wrong when Johnson is dominating ( i.e. cheating) yet when Richard Petty and Earnhardt Sr were dominating, it was just some bad ass good ol boy driving?

[BigDaddyFin]

^^^

Not exactly, Bsmooth.  It's true Earnhardt and Petty and others enjoyed similar periods of dominance.  But also remember first how different the times were in terms of money and especially the rules.  Also remember that Earnhardt won with multiple crewchiefs and teams.

Petty and Earnhardt had 1-car teams (petty did have teammates in a handful of races but those guys were their own owners and crew).  Also at the time, whoever spent the most time and energy developing the best cars and parts didn't have to share them with the other teams.  As long as it was "stock based", you could run it.  The rule book was also a lot less.  The old Nascar rulebook could be printed in a pamphlet and most of the rules covered dimensions and rollbar requirements.  The current book is about 400 pages give or take the graphics they put in there. 

If Nascar didn't have a rule expressly forbidding something, you could do it.  It's not the same anymore.

Now the parts and even the cars all have to be approved by Nascar and the only difference between two cars other than maybe the manufacturer name are the grille and a slight difference in the spoilers, so whoever has the most technology and engineering skill within the given parts Nascar allows is going to win.

They've taken much of it out of the drivers' hands especially since going to the CoT.

I don't know if Jimmy Johnson is as good as Earnhardt, Petty and the old timers.  I'd like to see him run without Chad Knaus and see if he wins anything.  The reason I'm not as sold on Gordon is because of a similar fate.  Once he lost Ray Evernham, he didn't win races much anymore to say nothing of championships. 

I know firsthand that driving the 3700lb shitboxes those guys used to fly around in with no restrictor plates and no air systems and little handling is nowhere near the same as driving the fan cooled CoT.