How many times have I stated that I hate comparing drivers and athletes of different generations?
Yeah, too many to count.
Now that Jimmie Johnson is on the brink of winning his third championship in a row, comparisons to Cale Yarborough, the only other man to accomplish that feat, are popping up.
I don’t really see a reason to compare the two.
Now, what Johnson has done over the past three seasons is remarkable. He is without a doubt the best driver in NASCAR right now and will be remembered as one of the greatest ever. He’s also my second favorite driver so I enjoy everything that’s going on right now.
But I will never look at his three championships in the same way I look at Yarborough’s. They are just too different. Johnson’s have all come during the Chase era when consistency over a full season doesn’t matter.
Get into the top-10/top-12 and then turn up the heat. That’s what it takes. That’s not an easy thing to do, of course, but I just can’t shake my hatred for the Chase.
Yarborough doesn’t seem to like it much either.
“Well, I got mixed emotions about it really,” he said Monday. “I think it’s created some interest in having kind of a playoff. But I’d rather it be the other way around.”
Let’s not take away from how hard it is to win a championship, Chase or no Chase, given the number of extremely talented drivers racing every weekend.
But Yarborough said he thinks championships were tougher to win back in his day.
“I think it may have been harder to win (championships) back then than it is today because you had to compete against everybody,” Yarborough said, referring to the limited number of drivers eligible to win the championship under the Chase format.
But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t respect what Johnson is about to accomplish.
“I can see a lot of me in Jimmie,” he said. “I can appreciate what he’s doing. He’s got his head on straight and he’s doing everything right and I can appreciate that.
“You know, even though the points system has changed, to be the champion you still got to do better than anybody else has done. That’s the bottom line.”
I would have to throw Gordon into that conversation just out of loyalty to my main man but… point taken. Perhaps the better wording would be the current most productive or most successful over the past few years.
“He is without a doubt the best driver in NASCAR right now..”
Sorry, the best driver in NASCAR is Tony Stewart.
Put Tony in Jimmie’s car, with the Hendrick crew and vice versa and see what happens.
When Tony consistently loses two or more positions on every pit stop and Zippy says, “Oh, no problem he’ll make it up”, something is wrong.
I agree though that comparisons between generations are silly.
— Wes 10/20/2008 06:32 PM #
I would have to throw Gordon into that conversation just out of loyalty to my main man but… point taken. Perhaps the better wording would be the current most productive or most successful over the past few years.
— Jaynelle 10/20/2008 09:20 PM #
Jimmie Johnson is the most successful driver in NASCAR right now, no one can deny that.
— Robert 10/21/2008 07:51 AM #