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Gael

What's the deal with Addington? In the last 5 or 6 years or so he's been CC for Kyle, Kurt, Tony now probably someone else.

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Go Miami Dolphins!
Go New York Yankees!
Go New York Rangers!

He's just not all that good, it would seem.

He was Kyle's crew chief during his span of dominance in 2008, so his stock went up considerably. He's evidently not too shabby, but one might wonder what he's like to work with. Kyle, Kurt, Tony - three incredibly stubborn drivers, if hearing radio conversations is any indication whatsoever.

The next one on that list of potentially hard-to-get-through-to drivers would be Kevin Harvick, but Rodney Childers has those honors next year.

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Keep rearranging those Titanic deck chairs Jack.......

No wonder Jimmie has won the cup 6 out of the last 8 friggin years, there is no consistency in the garage outside of the 48 camp.

Speaking of all these crew chiefs... whatever became of Michael "Fatback" McSwain?

Looked up his Twitter page. It says "I left racing to be with my wife and kids. I now own and operate a tire and auto repair center in Dallas."

Crazy. I thought he was great. Bobby Labonte hasn't been relevant really since he left.

Hah, I'm just glad to hear he's alive and (apparently) well. The nickname is fun and all but he looked like someone who could face a major cardiac issue at any moment.

He was real racing, NASCAR-style.

The shot of him celebrating when Bobby won Homestead in 2003 was awesome.

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Go Miami Dolphins!
Go New York Yankees!
Go New York Rangers!

Another new entry into the truck series. This is from Jayski.com



Considering how his previous "full-time" truck series effort turned out a few years ago (team didn't make it to the summer), I don't know if I should expect much from this team.

I was bored at work the other day, so I did some stat and number crunching while looking at some of the greats in the sport. There's been a lot of talk about comparing Jimmie Johnson to Dale Earnhardt and Richard Petty in recent days... drivers are definitely a forever-changing breed, so comparing Johnson's competition to theirs is somewhat silly.

There were no drama queens like Kyle Busch back in the day. None that I can think of, anyway. haha

Here goes.

Richard Petty; 1958-1992
17% of his starts were wins
47% of his starts were Top 5's
60% of his starts were Top 10's
7 Championships

Didn't win from 1985 to 1992. Managed 1 Top 10 points finish in that span, but finished outside of the Top 20 in points the last five years of his career. Unfortunately, the Past Champion's Provisional was mostly created due to his struggles in making the field in the late 80's\early 90's.

David Pearson; 1960-1986
18% of his starts were wins
52% of his starts were Top 5's
64% of his starts were Top 10's
3 Championships

Of the seasons he made an honest attempt at starting most races (four in total), he won the title three times. The rest of the time, he mostly ran a little more than half the races, and won a pretty big chunk of those. Even when he ran as few as 2 races a year (like in his final year), there was never a season that he didn't earn a Top 10 (race) finish.

Dale Earnhardt; 1975-2001
11% of his starts were wins
42% of his starts were Top 5's
63% of his starts were Top 10's
7 Championships

Won the title the year after winning ROTY honors, but it took him a while to win another one. Considering he won back-to-back titles three times after this, 7 titles could have potentially been more. Injuries seemed to take the wind out of his sails for a couple years, but he'd eventually come back to winning form every time. Was really considered as a favourite to win the title in 2001 after a runner-up finish in 2000, but we all know what happened.

Darrell Waltrip; 1972-2000
10% of his starts were wins
34% of his starts were Top 5's
48% of his starts were Top 10's
3 Championships

Had it not been for a broken leg at Daytona in '90, he could've had an impressive run of Top 10 points finishes. He made some decisions regarding his own team's engines later on in his career, choosing his own program over Hendrick engines, which somewhat proved to be his downfall. He jumped from team to team, proving he still could still perform in '98 when he ran for DEI, but didn't exactly have the best team stability until his retirement in 2000.

Cale Yarborough; 1957-1988
15% of his starts were wins
46% of his starts were Top 5's
57% of his starts were Top 10's
3 Championships

Went part time for the latter part of his career, but stayed pretty competitive. He didn't "putter around at the back", that's for sure.

Bobby Allison; 1961-1988
12% of his starts were wins
47% of his starts were Top 5's
62% of his starts were Top 10's
1 Championship

Never seemed to have the best luck when it came to winning the title, but he was still pretty damn consistent. Was still capable of winning races when he had his career-ending injury in '88.

Jeff Gordon; 1992-today
12% of his starts were wins
42% of his starts were Top 5's
59% of his starts were Top 10's
4 Championships

Incredible dominance in the mid-to-late 90's turned into moderate success in the early-to-mid 2000's. A "bad year" was considered a "two win only" season, until more recent years have humbled him (and us fans) quite a bit. It's a different era with in terms of constantly changing cars (which they did back in the day, just not quite as often), but he's still considered a threat every week.

Tony Stewart; 1999-today
9% of his starts were wins
34% of his starts were Top 5's
56% of his starts were Top 10's
3 Championships

Those percentages seem a bit low compared to everyone else, but there's no doubting he's among the greats of this era.

Jimmie Johnson; 2001-today
15% of his starts were wins
42% of his starts were Top 5's
63% of his starts were Top 10's
6 Championships

Obviously, the Chase has changed what it takes to win a championship. Still, every driver shows up at Speedweeks knowing what needs to be done to win the title. These guys have been the best at that, without question. Even then, with a little luck, he had the potential to be the champ in his rookie season.

So, yeah. You can look at these stats up and down, but it doesn't really tell you everything. I just so happened to be curious, so I whipped out a calculator and went to Racing-Reference.info.

Also, I don't expect you to read all of that. I needed an outlet since this was on my mind, and since I don't have a blog for racing like I do with video games, TBK just so happened to be it.

Actually that was pretty interesting.

Yes, thank you. To me, David Pearson's successes is the most impressive in the sport.

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Gael

I was doing some research for a Stewart model earlier and ran across this interesting pic; Tony on the championship stage last week. Amazing how much they had to sew him up....I can't even imagine having your leg bones poking out saying hi.