In the latest installment of "Burning Questions", NASCAR.COM shows it's writers have a noticable lack of knowledge of the sport once again.
Burning Questions: New Hampshire
1. Is Jeff Gordon the best ever?
He'll never win the 200 races Richard Petty did and he may not even equal Petty and Dale Earnhardt's seven Winston Cup titles.
I have just a wee little problem with that first question and his answer. First off, that question just reeks of a teenage star-struck race car driver fan. I can just see "the hand" waving as the question is asked... But the answer is even more rediculous. Never say
never when you talk about someone like Jeff Gordon. It just makes them push all the harder to prove you're wrong.
He was kind enough to provide Jeff Gordon and Dale Earnhardt's stats, but let's look at all three of them in a little more detail.
Richard Petty
35 Year Career with 7 Championships in 1964, 1967, 1971, 1972, 1974, 1975, 1979, an average of 1 Championship for every 5.00 years.
Won his first championship in his fifth season.
200 Wins in 1184 Starts, an average of 1 win for every 5.92 races.
555 Top 5 Finishes, an average of 1 Top 5 for every 2.13 races.
712 Top 10 Finishes, an average of 1 Top 10 for every 1.66 races.
136 Pole positions, an average of 1 Pole for every 9.40 races.
Dale Earnhardt
21 Year Career with 7 Championships in 1980, 1986, 1987, 1990, 1991, 1993, 1994, an average of 1 Championship for every 3.00 years.
Won his first championship in his second season.
76 wins in 676 career starts, an average of 1 win for every 8.89 races.
281 Top 5 Finishes, an average of 1 Top 5 for every 2.40 races.
428 Top 10 Finishes, an average of 1 Top 10 for every 1.57 races.
22 Pole Positions, an average of 1 Pole for every 30.72 races.
Jeff Gordon
9 Year Career with 4 Championships in 1995, 1997, 1998, 2001, an average of 1 Championship for every 2.25 years.
Won his first championship in his third season.
58 Wins in 292 Starts, an average of 1 win for every 5.03 races.
148 Top 5 Finishes, an average of 1 Top 5 for every 1.97 races.
190 Top 10 Finishes, an average of 1 Top 10 for every 1.53 races.
40 Pole Positions, an average of 1 Pole for every 7.30 races.
From where I sit, it looks like Jeff Gordon has a good lead in overall career stats, specially when consider how long he's been driving. And one other consideration is that he's
still driving. If he continues to do as well as he has so far, and manages to drive for 35 years as Petty did, I would say that he has a very good chance of surpassing both of their records.
If he maintains his average of 1 Championship for every 2.25 years of racing for the next 26 years, to match Petty's 35 years as a driver, that would give him somewhere around 16 Championships. Even if you consider that there are not as many races run in a season as there were when Petty was driving which contributes to the challenge of beating Petty's 200 Wins record, if Gordon were to win an average of 6 races a year for that 26 years, he could have a total of 214 Wins. And again I say "if", but it could be done. Never indeed. We'll see about that.
Of course, I still find it highly amusing that it took 2\3 of this season, and countless letters to NASCAR.COM (I wrote 3 myself), before Joe Macenka finally fixed his article about Dale Earnhardt in which he said Petty had 8 championships. Not to mention that his idea of a tribute to Dale Earnhardt is to compare him to Richard Petty, which is tacky at best. I wasn't even all that much of an Earnhardt fan, and it irritated me.