All Time Winners? It Depends

As I start writing this, it’s about three hours from race time at Richmond. From 1988-2013, at this time, I would have been in the raceway’s Infield Media Center, assisting writers and photographers as they prepared to cover the race.

The kind of “assisting” I did back then isn’t needed anymore, such are the changes that have taken place in NASCAR and journalism over the past 15 years, so here I am, playing with numbers.

WARNING! What follows is history nerd stuff, so if that’s not your cup of Monster, you might want to turn on the TV or run an errand. You have been warned.

A few years back there was a major discussion over what credit should go to Kyle Busch as NASCAR’s top career winner in its three major touring series: Cup, Xfinity, and Craftsman. Sir Richard’s 200 career Cup wins are clearly an achievement not likely to ever be eclipsed (in part because he registered more than two-thirds of those wins in the era when many more races were run in a season). However, if you add Xfinity and Craftsman Truck Series wins to a driver’s total, Busch has 231 wins. If you go back far enough and decide to count the right way (my way), Petty – who didn’t run Xfinity and retired before the trucks – picks up two more wins: one in the old Convertible Division and one in the Eastern Late Model Division, which were the same cars as Cup/Grand National at the time, but he still trails Busch.

Now wait a minute, you are probably saying, what’s the Eastern Late Model Division, and why count that stuff from back in prehistory (the way NASCAR sees things, anyway).

Well, let’s explain. The Cup Series has been a NASCAR constant almost since the beginning, having cranked up in 1949 (as Strictly Stock), the year after Bill France’s circus first pitched its tents. During that time, though, LOTS of other divisions have come and gone.

Some argue that Xfinity is one of the originals, linking it to the former Late Model Sportsman Division, which was originally just the Sportsman Division (not to be confused with the later and much more modest Sportsman Division that ran 1989-95 and was most identified with Charlotte Motor Speedway). The original division was a slightly lower-cost variation on the Modified Division, but in the mid-1960s, when late models began to be the primary division at many NASCAR weekly tracks, they were folded into the division, and the name was changed to Late Model Sportsman when the older cars pretty much died out (the Modified variation continuing to this day). In 1982, NASCAR made the class a touring division, which became today’s Xfinity, and these days most historians count Xfinity points only back to ’82, with the Sportsman/Late Model Sportsman statistics kept in a separate vault.

The career Xfinity wins statistics only go back to 1982, which is why today’s lists don’t show lots of wins by Mike Klapak, Rene Charland, and other regular winners of that earlier era.

The trucks only date to 1995, but there were other divisions in earlier days that deserve consideration to be treated as “touring series” with the same claims to legitimacy.

Here’s my list:

Short Track Division – When Bill France started Strictly Stock, he had to prove its fan draw before a lot of tracks – which had other sanctioning bodies after them for scheduling, too – would give him a shot. In 1949, that meant eight races. The next year the number grew to 19. Then the interest level really exploded.

By 1951, there were 41 races on the schedule for what was now being called the Grand National Division, but France was limiting his venues to those at least half a mile in length, and the less-than-one-half guys wanted a piece of the action, too, so he established the Short Track Division for them. Same cars, some of the same drivers. The media tended to refer to those races as “Grand National” (or sometimes just “late model”) and did not differentiate as France did.

In 1951 there were 11 Short Track Division races. The number would reach a high of 38 in 1956.

Convertible Division – In late 1955, NASCAR acquired SAFE, a midwestern racing body that had begun a series for new model convertibles (a SAFE convertible race had been run at the Richmond fairgrounds in June 1955), and that series became the NASCAR Convertible Division. Again, the cars were virtually identical to the Grand National (Cup) cars, only without roofs. The division proved less successful than hoped and lasted only four years, although a couple of tracks ran their regular GN races “topless” for a while afterward, the best known being the Rebel 300 at Darlington.

In 1956, NASCAR sanctioned 56 GN/Cup events, plus 47 Convertible Division races, and 38 for the Short Track Division. I’d love to know who ran the most of those 141 events, but poor record availability makes that impossible as of now.

Eastern Late Model Division – When the Short Track Division was dropped after the 1959 season, there were still a few tracks seeking a GN/Cup-like event but for some reason unable to secure a spot on the formal schedule. For these, the ELMD was created and run as a low-visibility enterprise for three years. Regular GN cars were used.

The most notable point (to me) in the ELMD history may have been in 1961, when Richard Petty ran and won a race on July 1 at Lincoln Speedway in Pennsylvania, then skipped the Firecracker 250 at Daytona three days later, supposedly as a protest against the low purse the France family was paying.

Grand Touring/Grand American Division – In the heyday of “Pony Cars” (Mustangs, Camaros, Barracudas, Javelins, etc.), NASCAR started a division for them in 1968. After a slow start, the division enjoyed considerable success in 1969 and ’70, before losing its appeal. In 1971, several races in the second half of the season were combined with GN/Cup events, and an abbreviated schedule of five races was run in 1972. The GT/GA division was similar in its time to Xfinity today (except for visiting more tracks independent of the GN/Cup schedule) and thus a reasonable candidate for “touring series” status.

Grand National East Division – When R.J. Reynolds entered NASCAR in a leadership role in 1972 and created the Winston Cup Series, it eliminated the smaller races on the schedule, and NASCAR created the GN East to continue those events at tracks wishing to do so. The 1972 season went according to that plan, but few tracks were satisfied, and many dropped off the schedule, leading to a 1973 season that more-or-less merged GN East and ARCA. The series disappeared after that.

Series Not Included – The long-lived and once venerated NASCAR series for the West Coast, begun in 1954 as the Pacific Coast Late Model Series, later (and perhaps most successfully) the Winston West Series, and today – much reduced – the ARCA Menards Series – West. While the cars have been identical or similar to GN/Cup cars for most of this history, the drivers were mostly regional. Plus, in the early years, many races were cross-listed with GN/Cup, which means inclusion would require extensive research to eliminate duplicate wins, counting for both the West series and GN/Cup. The NASCAR series for the Northeast, best known when it was Busch North, also used similar cars but was even more regional in nature, and it sometimes cross-listed with what is now the Xfinity Series, also a complication. Several other regional series may have been prominent in their regions at times, but I believe most used cars more like those of weekly tracks than GN/Cup. The Modified Division is the original touring series (see note at bottom of article), but its cars are radically different, and for much of its existence, it has been relatively regional to the Northeast.

So where does this all lead, Frank?

Well, it changes a few things, list-wise. Here’s the current Top 12 of career Cup winners:

1. 200 – Richard Petty
2. 105 – David Pearson
3. 93 – Jeff Gordon
4. 84 – Bobby Allison
5. 84 – Darrell Waltrip
6. 83 – Jimmie Johnson
7. 83 – Cale Yarborough
8. 76 – Dale Earnhardt Sr.
9. 63 – Kyle Busch
10. 60 – Kevin Harvick
11. 55 – Rusty Wallace
12. 54 – Denny Hamlin
13. 54 – Lee Petty
14. 50 – Ned Jarrett
15. 50 – Junior Johnson

Now add in Xfinity, Craftsman Truck, Short Track, Convertible, Eastern Late Model, Grand Touring/Grand American, and Grand National East. Here’s the new list:

1. 231 – Kyle Busch
2. 202 – Richard Petty
3. 121 – Kevin Harvick
4. 108 – David Pearson
5. 98 – Jeff Gordon
6. 97 – Darrell Waltrip
7. 96 – Mark Martin
8. 95 – Bobby Allison
9. 94 – Dale Earnhardt Sr.
10. 83 – Jimmie Johnson
11. 83 – Cale Yarborough
12. 75 – Jim Reed
13. 74 – Denny Hamlin
14. 62 – Lee Petty
15. 62 – Tony Stewart

What does that all mean? Absolutely nothing, other than the obvious fact that these are all great race drivers. The lists aren’t apples to apples. Richard Petty, David Pearson, Jeff Gordon, Cale Yarborough, and others aren’t lesser drivers because they chose not to compete regularly in series other than GN/Cup. Judge them on when they did compete; they look pretty good.

On the other side of the coin, don’t criticize Busch, Harvick, Martin, and others because they wanted to race more often. They showed they were winners wherever they went.

I just like the fact that adding other “touring series” results to those of GN/Cup shines more light on some drivers who aren’t remembered as well as they should be. I’ve said it before, but Jim Reed is my favorite example.

In a 13-year GN/Cup “career,” Reed drove only 106 races, never approaching a full schedule. In his two big years, though (1958-59), he won seven of 31 starts, hardly a bad stat.

He absolutely dominated the Short Track Division, though. Records there aren’t great, but he won 60 races, and in its nine-year history, the series only ran about 200.

He also was a regular winner in ARCA during a brief period running with that body

Two other guys who jump up the wins list but not far enough to make my Top 15 are Bob Welborn and Tiny Lund. Welborn won 9 GN/Cup races but also had 20 wins with the Convertibles (he won that division’s championship in three of its four years) and 16 in Short Track, so wherever he went, the #49 (his usual number when driving his own car) was likely to be a threat.

Lund ruled the Grand Touring/Grand American division, scoring 40 wins to go with five each in GN/Cup and Grand National East. Two of his wins are double-counted, though – 1971 races that were GN/Cup and GT/GA – so his actual count is 48 and not 50.

It doesn’t really fit the logic of this list, but Ron Hornaday Jr. had 51 Craftsman Truck wins and four in Xfinity, so his 55 overall victories stands him well, even if none of them was in GN/Cup – except for 2001, when he drove the full season in a very uncompetitive car, he was only an occasional competitor there.

Finally, had I included the West Coast series in my list, we would have had both of its dominators, Ray Elder and Jack McCoy, on the list, as both had more than 50 wins there alone.

It’s been a while since NASCAR has started a new series, other than those overseas, and I just can’t connect with them emotionally, given the local short-track racing I have available here in Pennsylvania. Besides, my normal communication avenues don’t bring me the results or enough to identify with the drivers and teams. I’ve called on NASCAR to either start a new series for SUVs or – ideally – convert Xfinity. It would be interesting to see how that would be accepted, but I’ll reiterate my usual caveat that if NASCAR tries one of my ideas and it fails, I don’t have the resources to cover the losses.

Maybe the next step could be to ask Artificial Intelligence to create a level-playing-field kind of virtual racing that could fairly pit drivers from each era against one another in a variety of venues and cars. I could get into that, and it would be worth the price of admission to see Jim Reed, Bob Welborn, Tiny Lund, and the others get a chance to show just how they could do, taking on all comers.

Pass the over-priced popcorn, and let’s drop that green flag.

(A note – and rant – about the Modified Division: NASCAR started in 1948 with what we now know as the Modified Division, only back then it was more just “what everybody runs.” Bill France’s gimmick with Strictly Stock/GN/Cup the next year was new cars and no modifications. Red Byron was NASCAR’s original champion, taking the title in 1948, and for years the Modified Division listed all its champions dating back to that year. Now, however, NASCAR lists champions only going back to 1985, when the division became a traveling series; modified races are still run weekly throughout the Northeast and at Bowman Gray Stadium using the same rules, but the points don’t add up to a national champ as in days of old. I find cutting the older champions off its list to be one of the excrementier things the fools in Daytona have done, one more effort to say “history is what/when we say, and nothing else.” A single list with an asterisk and note explaining old/new points would be a much more honest solution.)

AUTHER’S NOTE/CREDIT – I am much indebted to The Third Turn, Racing Reference, and Ultimate Racing History for much of the background on the older NASCAR touring divisions, which NASCAR doesn’t seem to care enough about to even acknowledge. PHOTO CREDIT – The cover photo is from NASCAR/Getty Images.

Frank’s Loose Lug Nuts

I had my first personal (I guess you could call it that) encounter with Artificial Intelligence the other day. It was Meta/Facebook’s version, and it had posted information on Facebook about Richmond Raceway history. I didn’t notice that it was AI-generated, but I did notice a mistake, so I responded with a correction.

Its response was immediate, which shocked me a bit, since a person couldn’t type or even dictate that fast:

“I apologize for the mistake! You are correct, there were indeed two Cup Series races held at Richmond each year from 1964 to 1969. I rely on digital data and sometimes this data may be incorrect or outdated. Thank you for correcting me! I’ll make sure to update my knowledge with the correct information. Your first-hand experience and knowledge are invaluable.”

Here’s where I plead guilty to being more than a little slow on the uptake. I still didn’t recognize it as AI, so we had a couple more pleasant exchanges, by the end of which I was starting to figure it all out – and feel a little weird about it all.

A friend suggested that the information was placed on Facebook with the specific purpose to correcting or adding to the Meta AI’s knowledge base, which I suppose could be true, and I’m not sure I think there’s anything wrong there. Better my mostly accurate recollections that lies from some Russian disinformation specialist.

One last note: Racing at Richmond is “in the books” now, and all I can say is that I’m glad I wasn’t there.

Frank Buhrman