Dale Earnhardt the Greatest Driver of 20th Century NASCAR?

The discussion about who is currently the top driver in racing would lead to argument without end. Let's cross the finish line with the year 1999 and decide who was the best driver of the 20th century.

Assume that we start with the post-World War II era. We say that a driver must have raced at least 100 times. Let's throw out the length of seasons, whether it was a short track, super speedway, or even dirt.

We concern ourselves only with the number of starts and wins regardless of where or when they were accomplished in 20th century NASCAR. The man with the highest winning percentage will be declared the greatest. Fair enough? Let's begin.

DRIVER AND POSITION      YEARS RACING     STARTS    WINS      WIN %

15) Bobby Allison                   1961-88                718           85          11.9

14) Bobby Issac                     1961-76                308           37          12.1

13) Fonty Flock                      1950-57                153           19          12.5

12) Lee Petty                         1949-64                427           54           12.7

11) Dick Hutcherson               1964-67                103           14           13.6

10) Ned Jarrett                       1953-66                353           50           14.2

9) Cale Yarborough                 1957-88                560           83           14.8

8) Junior Johnson                    1953-66                313           50           16.0

7) Fireball Roberts                  1947-64                206           33           16.1

6) Fred Lorenzen                    1956-72                159           26           16.5

5) Richard Petty                      1958-92              1,185         200          16.9

4) David Pearson                     1960-86                574          105          18.3

3) Tim Flock                            1949-61                187            39          20.9

2) Herb Thomas                      1949-62                228            48          21.1

1) Jeff Gordon                         1992-99                223            49          22.0

Shocking isn't it? When Gordon is cut off in '99 we find that the 20th century was his golden era and during this period he had the highest winning percentage of all time. To obtain this number we simply eliminate starts and victories after 1999.

And what of Earnhardt and Waltrip? If you perform the same action with their career numbers, we find Earnhardt won 74 of 641 20th century races for a winning percentage of 11.6. Waltrip is even lower at 11.4 percent with 84 wins in 740 20th century starts. Astonishingly, these two don't even make the list of Top 15 Drivers of the past century.

And to think folks wasted all of that energy back then telling each other, "This Gordon kid will never be great."

A tip of the hat to the late Dick Hutcherson who surprised with his 11th place finish. After four years of racing he retired to become David Pearson's crew chief and later became general manager of Holman-Moody.

You never know how these things will turn out.