NASCAR Champions Without the Chase & Declaring the Greatest of All TIme

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Chad-Daddy

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Who is the greatest driver ever? Easy. Richard Petty right? Maybe not.

Who is your pick? Below I've broke down my argument of who I believe is the best NASCAR driver ever.

Who is your "Greatest of All-Time"?




We are a decade into the "Chase Era" of NASCAR. Since 204 NASCAR has declared it's Cup Series champion in various types of playoffs that take place over the last ten races of the season. It has been an era of inconsistency, as the system for declaring a champion has changed at least seven times since this era began.

Wins​

When comparing drivers historically I feel as if we need to break NASCAR up into eras. When comparing wins one can break NASCAR's highest level into two eras:
  • The Grand National Era (1949 - 1970): In the Grand National Era there were upwards of sixty races in a season. Shorter mid-week races at dirt tracks may only be attended by one or two big name drivers with the rest holding out for longer weekend speedway races, this was made possible by the fact that shorter 100 and 200 mile races were worth far fewer points than the longer 400 and 500 miles races. The remainder of the field was filled with locals.
  • The Modern Era (1971 - Present): In this era NASCAR's season has ranges from 29 to 36 races. All races are worth an equal number of points. This ensures that each team runs their top drivers at each race. Dirt races were eliminated from the schedule.
I know it's unfair to some drivers, but Modern Era wins are worth more than wins in the Grand National Era. The racers have been longer and with every top driver competing every race, the composition has been stiffer. Because of this I can only conclude that when looking at the greatest driver ever modern era wins matter more.

Modern Era Win Totals: "70 Wins Club"
  1. Jeff Gordon: 93
  2. Darrell Waltrip: 86
  3. Richard Petty: 81
  4. Dale Earnhardt: 76
  5. Jimmie Johnson: 70
Like I said it isn't really fair to exclude 119 or Richard Petty's wins. He did have 81 wins in the Modern era which means that he was indeed competitive in Modern Era style racing. Let's re-calculate wins factoring in a competitive balance whereas each Grand National win is worth 1/3 of a win.

Competitive Balance Win Totals: "70 Wins Club"
  1. Richard Petty: 121
  2. Jeff Gordon: 92
  3. Darrel Waltrip: 84
  4. Cale Yarborough: 78 2/3
  5. Dale Earnhardt: 76
  6. Bobby Allison: 71 1/3
  7. Jimmie Johnson 70

Championships
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Wins can easily be divided into two eras. Championships, however, must be divided into three eras. The first correlates with the old points system. The last two spits the "modern era" into two .
  • The Grand National Era (1949 - 1970): In this era the length of a race determined the point value. Major teams skipped most of the mid-week short and dirt track races. The champion is declared by a season-long accumulation of points.
  • The Winston Cup Era (1971 - 2003): Each race in the 29-36 race schedule is worth the same amount of points. A champion is declared in a season-long accumulation of points
  • The Chase Era (2004 - Present): Each race in the 36 race schedule is worth the same amount of points. A champion has been declared through accumulating enough points in the first 26 races to be entered into various "playoff" systems which have changed an average of every 1.4 seasons.
I personally do not believe that chase championships are worth as much as season long championships. The good people at Jayski.com have broke down eras using various point systems. It is interesting to note that if the 2003 chase points system were in use 1971-2003 Dale Earnhardt would have only won four championships. Meanwhile Harry Gant would have two championships and Kyle Petty, not Alan Kulwicki would be your 1992 champion.

For this reason, when studying who is the greatest driver ever, I feel that we need to use season long points. Here are how the chase seasons would break down using the Winston Cup era points system. (Calculations via Jayski.com)

2004: Jeff Gordon (5)
2005: Greg Biffle (1)
2006: Jimmie Johnson (1)
2007: Jeff Gordon (6)
2008: Carl Edwards (1)
2009: Jimmie Johnson (2)
2010: Kevin Harvick (1)
2011: Carl Edwards (3)
2012: Brad Keselowski (1)
2013: Jimmie Johnson (3)
2014: Jeff Gordon (7)

As one can see the chase has indeed had a big impact on history. It would have been a good decade for parity with five drivers winning their first championship. Jeff Gordon would have reached the magic number of seven championships this past season.

Verdict ​

When I started this exercise I didn't know who would come out on top. However after factoring season-long championships with career totals factored for competitive balance it seems that Richard Petty still reigns as the "King of Stock Car Racing". It's not the 200-109 blowout that it appears on the surface, but Petty still runs away with a total of 7 championships and 119 wins factored for competitive balance.

The Winner: Richard Petty





Who is your greatest of all time?
 
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For me it's David Pearson. The master at Darlington, only driver besides Petty with over a hundred wins, despite rarely running full seasons. But I can't dispute your numbers, Petty is right there too. By the way, I know you meant "parity"- " parody" is what the current chase is- a joke.
 
David Pearson suffers in the stats department for a few reasons: He peaked at the same time as Petty, he didn't have impressive modern era numbers, and as you stated @salsdad he rarely ran full seasons.


The argument could also be made that that a pre-modern era win is as worth as little as 1/4 that of a modern era win. Additionally one could say that a Grand National championship is worth less than a Winston Cup era championship, possibly as little as 2/3.

p.s. Thanks for the spelling error. I was on my iPad with its infamous "autocorrect".
 
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Maybe you should factor in the bias ply versus radial tire eras too, bias ply pre Bristol 1992/radial tires since. Everything I've heard was the old bias ply tires really changed a lot more than the radials over the course of a run, changing the emphasis from a driver who could run high speeds for long periods with a loose car to a driver who needed a lot of chassis/suspension knowledge to adjust the car and make it faster.

Don't know how that would factor in, but it would neatly divide the Modern era in half and would be interesting to see what the wins look like pre and post bias ply tires. I'd be interested to see some comparisons of who was able to win on both tires consistently.
 
Thanks for posting this. There are some good facts in this thread. I knew Jeff Gordon lost several championships due to the chase format. I am not a Gordon fan but I have never been a fan of the chase and even less of one after this season. If a driver is having a great year and sews up the title a week or two before the last race, then he deserves it. I always felt that Nascar made this change so they could have more control over who won the championship. JMO.
 
@t.nie Factoring in tires would be interesting. Really there are a lot of factors that changed competition over the years. The 1981 change from the "big cars" to the "small cars" would also be another interesting division. Someone with more time than I have can break everything down further.
 
if jeff or Jr. won the cup it would be as big a shot in the arm for nascar as if danaca won a race JMO
 
Richard Petty was my favorite growing up. Remember watching on ABC Wide World of Sports and on CBS. Its probably been at least 5 years if not longer since I watched a Nascar race. Don't like the chase at all that's what ended it for me. Enjoy the local dirt track racing far more.
 
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With the chase NASCAR completely alienated the old guard Nascar fans. Motorsports around the world, big and small and through the ages, the champion was the driver/team who accumulated the most points through a season.

Plus to compare the chase with the stick and ball sports playoffs (as Nascar has touted for excitement) is ridiculousness because all the teams don’t play together in the Super Bowl (et al.) with the ones going for the championship. When NASCAR fabricated chase championship, they pretty much said, we don’t give a dam about our long time fan base, we want a younger and/or new fans how, and will do what ever it takes do get them with manufactured excitement.

Because of the obscene amount of money the top drivers get, and Nascar being the only game in town, no wonder the drivers parrot the company line… the chase is great, blah, blah. It’s easy to see on there faces they don’t. They never raced through the ranks based on chase championships. It was points, you raced your guts out for a championship based on points. You never hear on a Nascar show anyone saying there would be greater number of different champions based on the old points system.

NASCAR could have saved face and still had what they were looking for it. They should have a 28+- race season with the points champion, crowning the National Champion. Then the chase races for the Chase “Champion.”
 
Nascar didn't have to create the chase to generate excitement. All they had to do to really generate some excitement was add a stack of dirt track races to the schedule and dump the boring cookie cutter places. Split the field up so they all don't have to go to every dirt track race, but make them all run a dozen or so on dirt every year, a mix of miles and half miles.

Keep Bristol, Daytona, Talladega, Martinsville and a few others, but get rid of Chicagoland, Phoenix, Kansas, etc and put some races on dirt within driving distance of those boring 1.5 mile tracks instead.

Woulda made for killer viewing, been a big shot in the arm for small dirt tracks and put the sport firmly back in touch with its roots. And instead of trying to kill off the local short tracks with Saturday night events, it would put the big boys AT the dirt track and draw a huge crowd, advertising money, the whole package. Run some modified and late model races on practice and qualifying days, it would be a killer show. Everyone I know would make plans for those events a year or two in advance. The TV viewing would be off the charts.
 
@Tom Haeffner, Tim Richmond won 13 races in 185 starts. 7% win percentage.

For perspective a sampling of drivers: (Not a Top-10 List, a sampling)

Richard Petty: 200 wins in 1184 starts: 16.8%%
Dale Earnhardt: 76 wins in 676 starts: 11.2%
Jeff Gordon: 92 wins in 761 starts: 12.0%
Jimmie Johnson: 70 wins in 471 starts: 14.9%
Kyle Busch: 29 wins in 365 starts: 7.9%
Mark Martin: 40 wins in 882 starts: 4.5%
Terry Labonte: 22 wins in 890 starts: 2.5%
Cale Yarborough: 83 wins in 560 starts: 14.8%
Darrel Waltrip: 84 wins in 809 starts: 10.4%
Harry Gant: 18 wins in 474 starts: 3.8%
 
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