Where Jimmie Johnson's 2006 Season Ranks Among All-Time Greats
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by user Phoenix Superfan
In 1967, Mario Andretti’s paycheck for winning the Daytona 500 was $48,900. In 2006, Carl Edwards earned $269,882 for finishing last. The winner of that race was Jimmie Johnson, who took home a cool $1,505,120. He also won the Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis, the Nextel Cup Series' second highest paying points race with a first place share of $452,861. In all, for 2006 Johnson amassed an astounding $8,909,140 in race winnings. That doesn't even count the $1 million that he got for winning the Nextel All-Star Challenge. To top things off, he out dueled Matt Kenseth and won his first Nextel Cup. With the same driver winning the points championship, the two biggest races, and the all-star race in the same year, one has to wonder if that would be the greatest single season in NASCAR history.
Any hardened NASCAR buff would scoff at the notion and quickly point to Richard Petty’s 1967 season. In that storied year The King amassed a whopping 27 wins including 10 in a row, while winning the points championship. As great a year as he had however, it was a different time and frankly, the people he was beating just weren’t very good. Almost no one, except Petty himself, ran a full schedule back them. Most of the fields were made up of local champions who got together enough money to take a run at the big boys. Petty’s biggest rival, David Pearson, entered less than half of the events.
As proof of how far NASCAR has come since those days, Petty's total winnings for that season were a measly $129,375. His biggest payday of the year was $26,900 for winning the Southern 500 at Darlington . He took home just $100 for a 19th place finish at Greenville and would commonly take home only $1000 for a win! That wouldn't even pay for a set of tires today.
We could sit around and make ridiculous monetary comparisons all day long, but the bottom line is that things weren't nearly as competitive back then. The fact that Andretti, an Indy Car Driver, won the Daytona 500 is proof enough. For Andretti, who was only making his seventh career start in a stock car to win the series' biggest event is absurd. Imagine an Australian Rugby team suddenly deciding to play in the Superbowl, after only playing a few exhibition games of American Football, then winning? Of course it wouldn't be fair for me not to point out that Andretti is possibly the greatest driver of all-time and won in every car he ever drove, including Formula One.
However, if you want further proof that NASCAR was in its Dark Ages take a look at the size of the fields. While today's drivers drive compete against 42 other drivers every week, Petty competed against as few as 16 drivers in several 1967 races. There were only 8 races that year that featured at least 43 drivers, and that is out of 49 races. That's right Petty ran 13 more races than the 36 that today's drivers run. Not only were the fields smaller but there were fewer competitive drivers. 50 cars started the 1967 Daytona 500, but Petty still managed to finish 8th even though he was 7 laps down with engine problems. Only two drivers finished on the lead lap. This year 31 cars finished on the lead lap and Jamie McMurray who finished 7 laps down was 37th. Back then it was more about finishing the race than it was about being fastest and since Petty had the best equipment he won most races on attrition. Counting Petty's 1967 stats is paramount to counting batting averages from before fielding mitts were invented.
Perhaps Petty's greatest feat actually provides the greatest evidence against his season being the greatest ever. When he went on the amazing run of ten consecutive victories he was virtually unopposed. In 8 of the ten races he was the only driver to finish on the lead lap. He won by as many as five laps. When his streak finally ended it wasn't because another driver beat him, but because of an engine failure at Charlotte. His car was so much better than everyone else's that all he really needed to do is finish and he would win the race. Today, things are so competitive that only one driver, Johnson in 2004, has won as many as three races in a row since the turn of the century. You have to go all the way back to Jeff Gordon in 1998 to find a four race winning streak.
I know that I'm not making any friends with Petty fans but my objective here is not to discredit him, but simply to put his statistics into perspective. NASCAR would probably not even exist in its present form if not for Richard Petty. It was not that Richard Petty doesn't stand up to the competition but that the competition didn't stand up to Richard Petty. His 1967 season will always rank as one of the greatest seasons ever, but the competition simply was not up to today's standards.
Traditionally speaking NASCAR's modern era is defined as beginning in 1972 when RJ Reynolds came on board as the series sponsor giving the regional circuit, national recognition. Darrell Waltrip, often considered NASCAR's first modern legend, made his debut that year. By 1975 the current points system was in place and Waltrip had his first top ten points finish. For our purposes we will consider this to be the beginning of the modern era and we will use 1975 as our starting point for evaluating the greatest season in NASCAR history.
In order for us to make an accurate evaluation we need to determine what accomplishments should be taken into consideration and assign a value to each. Keeping in mind that we are talking about the greatest season of all-time we should avoid evaluating common accomplishments such as top 5 or 10 finishes or avoiding DNF's. I feel like there are four categories worth evaluating; points championships, wins, poles, and marquee victories (Daytona 500, Coca Cola 600, Brickyard 400 after 1994/Southern 500 before 1994). We could assign a simple value to each. Due to the exponential increase in competitive equipment and drivers since 1975, seasons from 1985-1995 will get 5 bonus points, seasons from 1996-2000 will earn 10 bonus points, and seasons from 2001-present will earn 15 bonus points. Wins count for 3 points each. A pole is worth 1 point, and a marquee victory is worth 2 additional points.
To qualify for the greatest season of all-time, first and foremost, you have to win a points championship. Originally, I was thinking that seasons such as Jeff Gordon's 10 win 1996 season or Bill Elliott's 11 win 1985 season should be taken into consideration (both drivers finished second in the standings). In hindsight, I decided that if those drivers were not good enough to win the points championship for their given season that they must have been inconsistent despite their gaudy win total. A closer look at Elliot's '85 season will tell you that while he won 11 times, there were 12 other races when he failed to finish on the lead lap. It takes nothing more than a quick glace at Gordon's '96 season to realize that he simply never rebounded from a 42nd place in the season opening Daytona 500 and a 40th the following week at Rockingham. Combine that with a 37th at the Brickyard 400 and you realize that he slipped up at just enough critical times to allow teammate Terry Labonte to take home the Cup.
Now that we have identified that only championship seasons should be included in this discussion we have essentially narrowed our discussion down to 31 possible seasons. I think it’s reasonable to assume that anyone who won less than 5 races will not accumulate enough points to garner consideration. Thus, we eliminate Kurt Busch in 2004, Matt Kenseth in 2003, Tony Stewart 2002, Bobby Labonte 2000, Dale Jarrett 1999, Terry Labonte 1984 and 1996, Dale Earnhardt 1991 and 1994, Alan Kulwicki 1992, and Darrell Waltrip 1985. Notice that prior to 1984 no one was able to win the championship with fewer than five wins, another example of increased competition. Using this standard we have eliminated 11 more seasons leaving us with 20 possible seasons. These are the ones that we will do the math on. Also, we will wait to evaluate Jimmie Johnson’s 2006 season until the end.
The top ten.
10. Tony Stewart 2005 – 35 points.
9. Dale Earnhardt 1990 – 37 points.
8. Cale Yarborough 1978 – 40 points.
6. Dale Earnhardt 1987 – 41 points.
6. Jeff Gordon 2001 – 41 points.
And now for the top 5……….
5. Darrell Waltrip – 1982 – 43 points.
In 1982 Waltrip won the second of his three championships driving a Buick for Junior Johnson. He won 12 of the 30 events that year but none of the three marquee races. In addition to the 12 wins, he scored 5 more top fives, but the year wasn't without adversity. He actually failed to finish 8 races, but only one of them was due to an accident. Astoundingly, he managed to win the championship despite 6 engine failures! In the 22 races that his car was actually running at the end of, he finished no lower than 14th, a true testament to his driving skill. Waltrip was also the fastest driver on qualifying day 7 times that year.
4. Richard Petty – 1975 – 44 points.
As it turns out, even as NASCAR moved into the modern area and young challengers stepped forward "The King" still had enough left in the tank to make our top 5 in 1975. Petty's 13 wins that year tie him for this highest single season total in the modern era. That means he won an ironic 43% percent of the time when he took the track that year, as the schedule had been trimmed to 30 races. The seven-time Daytona 500 champion did not win the big race that year, but did take home the checkered flag in the 600 mile race at Charlotte. Petty failed to finish 6 races that year including 3 engine failures in the last 5 races of the season. Like Waltrip in 1982, Petty only crashed once in 1975, and he won the pole three times.
3. Jeff Gordon – 1997 – 45 points.
In 1997, Gordon won the second of his 4 (so far) championships and did so in dominating fashion with 10 victories. He was also extremely consistent, failing to finish only two races and crashing only once. He also came up big in the big events, winning both the Daytona 500 and the Coca Cola 600. Only, a fourth place finish at Indianapolis ended his Triple Crown bid. In 22 of the 32 races that season Gordon came home in the top 5. Despite his dominance, Gordon still had his hands full in the point's championship, finishing the year only 14 points ahead of seven-time-winner Dale Jarrett, and 29 ahead of third place Mark Martin. Oddly enough he only sat on the pole once in 1997.
2. Darryl Waltrip – 1981 – 47 points.
In the runner-up position and making his second appearance in our top 5 is Darryl Waltrip. Not much that you can say about his 1981 season that you didn't say about 1982. As in '82 he had 12 victories in '81, with 4 additional poles accounting for the difference in points. He also didn't bring home any marquee victories which I find interesting. While, he famously struggled in the Daytona 500, (not finally winning his first until 1989) Charlotte and Darlington were two of his favorite tracks.
And the winner is and it wasn't even close…………………………….
1. Jeff Gordon - 1998 – 60 points.
In what was clearly the finest season in NASCAR's modern era Gordon tied Richard Petty's modern era record with 13 victories. In 33 races he scored an astonishing 26 top 5 finishes and had an average finish of 5.7 for the entire season! He won the 600 mile race at Charlotte and his victory at Indianapolis was the second of four straight. He only crashed one time and completed 9818 of 9933 possible laps. After wrecking at Richmond, he didn't finish outside of the top ten for the rest of the year, a span of 20 races. During those 20 races he won ten times, and only finished outside of the top 5 once, a seventh at Phoenix. For good measure, he had seven poles but would still be ranked first on this list if he hadn't had any.
After doing the math on Jimmie Johnson's 2006 season he ended up with 35 points which ties him with Tony Stewart for 10th best all-time. The breakdown had him getting the 15 bonus points for a championship after 2001, 15 points for 5 wins, 1 for 1 pole, and 4 for marquee wins at the Daytona 500 and Brickyard 400. Both drivers had 5 wins in their respective championship years but Johnson had one additional marquee victory while Stewart had two more poles. This suggests that a slight adjustment needs to be made to give a bigger value to marquee events. I will give Johnson the edge in the tie-breaker on the basis of his Daytona 500 victory. He also had 6 second place finishes as opposed to 5 for Stewart in 2005.
Johnson's other accomplishments include a win at the Nextel All-Star Challenge, a 2nd in the Coca Cola 600. Johnson's only crash of the season came in the fall race at Talladega when he was wrecked from behind by teammate Brian Vickers on the second to the last lap as he was trying to pass Dale Earnhardt Jr. for the lead. After that wreck he was 156 points out of the championship lead in 8th place with 6 races left. That is when he really stepped up, finishing 2nd or better in each of the next 5 races, a feat that hadn't been accomplished since Jeff Gordon in 1996. This allowed Johnson to take a comfortable lead into the final race of the year. Even though he only needed to finish 12th or better Johnson still had much to overcome. Early in the race he ran over a piece of debris and had to have repairs that dropped him to the rear of the field. After working his way back up to the front he lost a number of positions after a slow pit stop later in the race. Even after all this he still managed a top ten finish.
This race was really a microcosm of his whole season. The adversity began with his crew chief Chad Knaus being suspended for the first four races of the season and didn't end until the checkered flag dropped on race 36. With the amount of adversity that he had to overcome, the important races that he won, and the way that he stepped up his game down the stretch I think it is safe to say that the 48 team had a little better year then the math might suggest.
