The best of the best from 75 years of NASCAR.
5 Drivers
— 1. Richard Petty. The King. His record 200 wins, 123 poles and seven Daytona 500 victories are likely to last forever. No one signed more autographs, either. Petty’s affable, aw-shucks, grassroots approach attracted fans one by one to the sport across decades.
— 2. Dale Earnhardt Sr. Seven men had more wins than the Man in Black’s 76. Earnhardt’s outlaw persona, hard-charging style and mystique earned him a die-hard fan base, plenty of enemies but virtually everyone’s respect. But a win-at-all-costs mentality and rejection of safety measures played a role in his death during the 2001 Daytona 500 at age 49.
— 3. David Pearson. The Silver Fox was one cool customer on the track and held unrivaled gravitas in the garage. Pearson smoked cigarettes and gave chase with one hand on the steering wheel and one eye on the trophy. His 105 wins and 113 poles are second to Petty, who in 1973 called Pearson ”the greatest driver ever in the history of NASCAR.” Of the 63 races the two men finished 1-2, Pearson won 33, including his sole Daytona 500 win in 1976.
— 4. Jimmie Johnson. JJ’s seven Cup Series championships are tied with Petty and Earnhardt for the most. Johnson’s five straight (2006-10) are the gold standard. He did it during NASCAR’s heyday, when Hall of Famers abounded. The all-time wins leader at four tracks, including 11 wins at Dover, Johnson also won two Daytona 500s, four Brickyard 400s, four Coca-Cola 600s and two Southern 500s.
— 5. Jeff Gordon. Bobby Allison’s longevity, including his third Daytona 500 win at 50, and Cale Yarborough’s three straight season titles and four Daytona 500s are impressive. But Gordon edges out both legends. A five-year run from 1995-99 featured Cup Series championships and 47 wins. The Indiana native finished with 93 victories, three of them Daytona 500s and six at Darlington, along with another season championship in 2001. Telegenic and media saavy, Gordon helped NASCAR reach a new demographic with appearances on “Saturday Night Live” and “Regis and Kelly.”
5 Families
— 1. The Pettys. Lee Petty won the inaugural Daytona 500 in 1959, son Richard won seven more, grandson Kyle Petty won eight times during a nearly 30-year career and great-grandson Adam Petty was on his way to big things before a fatal crash at 19. That’s four generations of stock racing from the sport’s first family.
— 2. The Earnhardts. Dale Sr. and Jr. won plenty of Cup Series races — 102 combined — and countless fans with superspeedway prowess but wildly different personalities. The elder Earnhardt was “The Intimidator” while “Junior” was a contemplative and accessible, earning him the Most Popular Driver award 15 straight times (2003-17) and now an analyst role for NBC.
— 3. The Allisons. Bobby Allison was the leader of the “Alabama Gang” and an 84-time winner, while little brother Donnie won 10 times in his shadow. Allison’s son Davey was a 19-time winner at the peak of his career when he died at age 32 while piloting a helicopter at Talladega Speedway.
— 4. The Buschs. Kyle and Kurt Busch were from the Las Vegas desert but made waves in a sport spawned in the Deep South. Talented, tenacious and temperamental, the two brothers won like no siblings ever have. Their 94 wins tie Bobby and Donnie Allison. But the Buschs have at least 30 each and shared three Cup Series titles — and Kyle is still adding on his 60 victories.
— 5. The Jarretts. Ned Jarrett captured two season championships and 50 wins. Son Dale won the 1999 title and counted three Daytona 500s among his 32 Cup Series victories. After their on-track success, each Jarrett found a home in the broadcast booth, where Ned called his son’s first win in 1991 and his 1993 victory in the Great American Race. Honorable mention here goes to Bill and Chase Elliott, along with Terry and Bobby Labonte.
5 Moments
— 1. The 1979 Daytona 500. A Presidents Day storm left tens of millions of people snowbound and front and center to watch a race featuring a final-lap wreck, an infield fight and another win for Richard Petty. After leader Donnie Allison and Cale Yarborough tangled and crashed, Bobby Allison came to the rescue. This led to fisticuffs with Yarborough and allowed Petty to take the checkered flag. The sport’s most famous confrontation expanded NASCAR’s reach and popularity.
— 2. Dale Sr.’s triumph and tragedy. Earnhardt’s 1998 Daytona 500 win might be the event’s most popular. His fatal 2001 crash on the iconic speedway might be NASCAR’s most tragic moment. Each generated national attention for the sport. Earnhardt’s demise ultimately spawned wide-ranging safety initiatives and remains the last on-track fatality.
— 3. The King’s 200th. In 1984, Air Force One ferried Ronald Reagan to Daytona Beach for the Firecracker 400 on July 4. There, the Commander in Chief delivered the “Start Your Engines” command. As if the moment wasn’t big enough, Petty delivered his 200th and final win.
— 4. Daytona International Speedway’s debut. The 1959 Daytona 500 was the start of a new era in NASCAR. Before Lee Petty’s victory on the 2.5-mile oval, much of the sport’s schedule played out on dirt tracks or asphalt half-milers. At 1.366 miles, Darlington Raceway was considered a superspeedway. No longer. Before long, race tracks were popping up from Atlanta to Michigan and Charlotte to Dover.
— 5. 1994 Brickyard 400. Viewed by many as inferior to IndyCar racing, NASCAR capitalized on its first trip to Indianapolis Motor Speedway. A crowd exceeding 300,000, still the largest in the sport’s history, watched Hoosier State native son Jeff Gordon rise to the occasion and win. The Indy 500 remained king in the Corn Belt, but stock car racing gained a Midwest foothold.
5 Trailblazers
— 1. Bill France Sr. The son of Irish immigrants developed an affinity for fast cars in Washington D.C. and raced the family Model T at a nearby high-banked track in Maryland. When the family moved to Daytona Beach amid the Great Depression, France found his calling while selling and fixing cars. He raced, organized, promoted and helped found NASCAR in 1948. France facilitated the construction of a superspeedway in Daytona and in 1969 another one in Talladega, while serving as chairman and CEO of NASCAR.
— 2. Wendell Scott. The first full-time Black driver in the NASCAR series and first to win a race, in 1964., Scott is considered the Jackie Robinson of stock car racing. Four times Scott finished in the top 10 of the points championship, reaching sixth in 1966. Scott faced constant financial challenges common to other drivers outside the top teams. Yet, the Virginia native did so amid a segregated society in the Deep South.
— 3. The Flock Family. The flamboyant, Alabama-bred Flocks brothers were sired by daredevil father Carl Lee Flock and became early stock car racing stars. Sister Ethel Mobley raced in more than 100 NASCAR modified events. Tim was the best of the bunch, a two-time season champion with the second-best winning percentage in the top series, earning 40 wins in 186 appearances. Bob won four races, but a serious accident cut short his career. Fonty Flock won 19 times, highlighted by his 1952 Southern 500 at Darlington, racing in Bermuda shorts and argyle socks.
— 4. Janet Guthrie. Female drivers, including Ethel Flock Mobley, came before Guthrie. But the Iowa City native was the first woman to drive the Daytona 500 and Indianapolis 500, both in 1977. Guthrie ran in 33 Cup Series races, posted five top-10s and gave hope to women drivers. Shawna Robinson, Danica Patrick and current Truck Series driver Hailie Deegan have followed in Guthrie’s footsteps.
— 5. Junior Johnson. Writer Tom Wolfe called the former bootlegger the “Last American Hero” during a 1965 article in Esquire, the year Johnson recorded 13 of his 50 wins. The North Carolina native rebounded from his 1956 arrest for running moonshine to become a champion and eventually a team owner with 136 wins. Johnson helped secure Winston cigarettes seminal sponsorship and served as the sport’s ambassador. He joined Bill France Sr. and Jr, Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt in the Hall of Fame’s inaugural 2010 class.
