Connect with us

Published

on

We are closing in on the final handful of weeks of the 2023 NASCAR Cup Series season, the stock car series’ 75th anniversary campaign. To celebrate, each week through the end of the season, Ryan McGee is presenting his favorite top-five things about the sport.

The five best-looking cars? Check. The five toughest drivers? We’ve got it. Top five mustaches? There can be only one, so maybe not.

Without further ado, our 75 favorite things about NASCAR, celebrating 75 years of stock car racing.

Previous installments: Toughest drivers | Greatest races | Best title fights | Best-looking cars | Worst-looking cars | Biggest cheaters | Biggest what-ifs | Weirdest racetracks | Best racetracks | Biggest scandals | Weirdest announcements | Greatest fights | Greatest rivalries


Five greatest pre-Modern Era drivers

There are only two lists remaining in our NASCAR 75th anniversary best-of celebration, and after tackling every subject from racetracks and rivalries to awesome cars and not-awesome headlines, it is time to buckle down and break down the true driving force behind stock car racing: the drivers themselves.

For those who don’t know, NASCAR’s history is broken up into two chapters, pre- and post-1972. That’s when the Grand National Series — founded in 1949 as Strictly Stock — became the Cup Series and the schedule was slashed from 40, 50, even 60-plus events per season down to the speedway-heavy 30-ish calendar model that it still follows to this day. From ’72 forward is known as the Modern Era. We’ll get to those guys next week. But today we’re kicking it old school, ranking the greatest racers of NASCAR’s rough hewn formative years, from 1949 through 1971.

So, grab a pair of aviator goggles, strap your seatbelt fashioned from a leather pants belt (it’s true, they did that) and read ahead as we present our top 5 pre-Modern Era NASCAR drivers.

Honorable Mention: Lloyd Seay

Seay was a Georgia-born moonshine runner who blistered the red clay tracks that were plowed into countryside so they could race and see who had the fastest bootlegging machine.

Anyone and everyone who saw Seay on those bullrings in the years that led up to World War II swore he was the best stock car racer who ever lived. That included NASCAR chairman Bill France Jr., who invoked Seay’s name as wondered aloud about where Dale Earnhardt ranked among the best ever shortly after The Intimidator’s death in 2001.

Seay won an untold number of pre-NASCAR stock car races piloting machines owned by cousin Raymond Parks and tuned by pal Red Vogt, the same men who won NASCAR’s first championships with Red Byron behind the wheel.

Why was Seay no longer piloting those rides? Because he was shot and killed by another cousin amid an argument over whether Seay had charged a purchase of sugar for moonshine cooking to that cousin’s bank account. That was in September 1941, the day after he’d won three races in fifteen days. He is buried in Dawsonville, Georgia, not far from the road where he once hauled liquor.

5. Joe Weatherly and Curtis Turner

Yes, the first real entry in this countdown is a total punt, including two drivers where there would normally be one. But anyone who knows anything about the Clown Prince of Racing and Pops also know that the two Virginians were rarely not in the same place at the same time, whether it was banging their doors for wins in NASCAR’s Grand National and Convertible Series, banging the wings of their self-piloted airplanes midair en route to the next race or banging beer mugs in the bar of a roadhouse the nights before and after all of those races.

Weatherly won 25 races and added back-to-back championships in 1962 and ’63 and was no doubt on his way to a lot more of each before he was tragically killed while running on the Riverside Raceway road course in the fifth race of the ’64 season. Turner won 17 races but never came close to winning a championship because, as was commonplace back in the day, he never ran a full schedule to battle for a title but was widely considered the best raw talent on the racetrack.

Turner’s resume also comes with the asterisk of feeling incomplete because of a lifetime ban that was slapped on him in 1961 for helping form a drivers’ union, requested by the Teamsters after they helped fund construction of his dream facility, the Charlotte Motor Speedway. Turns out “lifetime” meant four-ish years, when Turner came back in dramatic fashion to win the inaugural Rockingham race in 1965.

My favorite Turner/Weatherly story came from the late, great NASCAR radio legend Barney Hall, who once described for me a late night scene at the Holiday Inn that used to be across the street from Martinsville Speedway: “It was the night before a big race and none of us could get any sleep because our room doors were all open out to the hotel swimming pool and these guys were out there raising hell all night. I went out there to tell them to quiet down and there was Joe, Curtis, with Fireball (Roberts, who nearly made this list) and a bunch of girls. They were all running around, naked as the day they were born. Not the girls. Curtis and Joe!”

4. Ned Jarrett

Perhaps the greatest dichotomy in the history of sports nicknames is the one that was long ago bestowed upon Jarrett. “Gentleman Ned” is indeed one of the sweetest, kindest, most unselfish human beings I have had the pleasure of knowing and even working with during his years as an ESPN analyst. On the racetrack, though, he was genuine not-to-be-messed-with steely-eyed missile man, the winner of 50 races, the 1961 and ’65 Grand National championships, with another two Sportsman Division titles (grandfather of the Xfinity Series) to boot.

His signature win came in the 1965 Southern 500, when he won by 14 laps. The following year, frustrated by Ford’s withdrawal from the sport, he became the first and still only sitting Cup champ to retire.

All he did from there was become the greatest driver-turned-broadcaster in NASCAR history and begat another Cup champ, Dale Jarrett. All you need to know about the man that Ned Jarrett is you can learn in this story I wrote 12 years ago, about his relationship with another series champion, Bobby Isaac.

3. Buck Baker

Elzie Wylie Baker Sr. won 46 races, 45 poles and was NASCAR’s first back-to-back champion, winning Grand National titles in 1956 and ’57. He also won three Southern 500s and was a series runner-up twice.

As the 1960s arrived, so did his son Buddy, who won 19 races and a Daytona 500 to join his father in the NASCAR Hall of Fame. They ran 187 races together because Buck’s first start came in NASCAR’s first Strictly Stock race, on June 19, 1949 at the Charlotte Fairgrounds and his final start on Oct. 10, 1976 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, a span of 27 years, 3 months, 22 days.

He had his greatest success as teammates with Tim Flock and Herb Thomas, two of the drivers he edged out for this spot in these rankings, all driving for the OG super team owner, Carl Kiekhaefer. I have almost too many favorite Buck Baker stories to tell, thanks to my friendships with Buddy and legendary NASCAR writer Tom Higgins, but the go-to has to be a story he told me about racing in the earliest days at Darlington.

“I used to keep a rubber bladder with cold drink in it stuck behind my seat, with a big straw I could suck on, and I really liked to drink tomato juice. I had a crash and that bag got tore up. When the ambulance came to get me the first guy who got to me saw that red tomato juice all over the place. He hollered, ‘Oh no! The sumb—h done cut his head off!’ and he passed out.”

2. Junior Johnson

I mean, come on, he’s the Last American Hero, right? There’s a reason Sports Illustrated in 1998 named Johnson the greatest all-time NASCAR driver, a fact that Junior loved to remind everyone of, especially drivers like Cale Yarborough and Darrell Waltrip, who won championships driving for Johnson during his amazing career as a team owner.

He won 50 Grand National races as a driver, despite only 10 seasons of double-digit starts. He also never ran for a championship, but in 1965, the year before his sudden driving retirement, he won 13 times in 36 starts. He’s credited with discovering the aerodynamic draft during practice for the inaugural Daytona 500 in 1959 and also won more races than anyone will ever know, not on the racetrack but outrunning federal agents as he hammered through the foothills of North Carolina running moonshine. As solely a team owner, he won another 119 races and added six Cups, split evenly between Yarborough and Waltrip.

Speaking of the Cup, he’s also the man who initiated the conversations that resulted in that trophy and series becoming Winston Cup.

My favorite Johnson story: When the NASCAR Hall of Fame was being built in Charlotte, the curators had all of the parts and pieces to build a moonshine still for display but couldn’t figure out how to put it together. They called Johnson, who drove down from Ronda, North Carolina, climbed behind the display glass, and went to work, overalls and all. The Hall called me, so I went down and saw it for myself. Afterward, Junior gave me a jar of cherry ‘shine, “the real stuff, not what we sell in the liquor stores, so be careful” and I stowed it away. Nine years later, in December 2019, Johnson died. I broke out that jar and took a gulp to pay tribute. I genuinely do not remember the rest of that night and there is still a spot of dead grass in my backyard where my wife saved me by pouring out the white lightning that was left.

1. Lee Petty

In order to make a genuine case for consideration for this prestigious list, it isn’t enough just to win races, one must also win championships, set records and have a considerable impact on the direction of the sport as a whole. No one in NASCAR’s pre-Modern Era accomplished all of the above like Petty.

First, he ran in that initial Strictly Stock race in ’49, borrowing a neighbor’s car and wrecking it. Second, he won the series’ fifth-ever race later that summer. Third, he won 54 races, which stood as the all-time record for six years until it was finally topped by his son Richard (you might have heard of him). Fourth, he won the race that changed NASCAR forever, the inaugural Daytona 500 that took days to sort out via a literal photo finish over Johnny Beauchamp, a story that dominated the national sports headlines. Fifth, he was the first three-time Grand National champion, another mark that wasn’t matched or topped until his son did it. He also was the guiding force for the sport’s juggernaut team, Petty Enterprises, who continued to win for decades after his driving retirement, still managing the business from the front lawn where he hit golf balls and kept an eye on the race shop next door. And finally, he was the first person to take the plunge and make stock car racing his full-time job, stepping aside from his trucking business, which, as far he would ever tell, was not involved in any alcohol transportation (yeah, right).

My favorite Lee Petty story: In 1999, when Petty Enterprises held a press event to commemorate the team’s 50th anniversary, the patriarch fidgeted around on stage and said nothing, then tried to bolt out the side door for his house. I caught him and tried to ask a question about his longevity. He was 85, a year away from his passing, just days before grandson Adam made his Cup Series debut and five weeks before Adam died in a crash. Lee Petty interrupted me and said, “It’s like something that happened just the other day, you know what I mean? I was at the golf course this guy said to me, ‘Man, I’m damn glad to meet you!’ And I told him, ‘Hell, man, I’m damn glad I’m still here you so can meet me!'”

Continue Reading

Sports

‘Reason he’s here’: Crochet delivers for Red Sox

Published

on

By

'Reason he's here': Crochet delivers for Red Sox

BALTIMORE — Garrett Crochet gave the Boston Red Sox an immediate return on their investment.

In his first start since agreeing to a $170 million, six-year contract, the left-hander pitched a career-best eight innings as the Red Sox shut out the Baltimore Orioles 3-0 on Wednesday night. Crochet also threw 102 pitches, one shy of his career high.

“My first start in college I went eight, and I haven’t sniffed it since,” Crochet said.

Crochet (1-0) gave up four hits and a walk while striking out eight in his first victory since the offseason trade that sent him from the Chicago White Sox to Boston.

“That’s the reason he’s here,” manager Alex Cora said after the game. “That’s the reason we committed to him.”

Crochet went 6-12 with a 3.58 ERA last season, a bright spot on a Chicago team that lost 121 games. He threw 146 innings, which was double his previous career total since his debut in 2020.

Then Crochet was dealt to the Red Sox, and they made their long-term commitment to the 25-year-old earlier this week.

“Going back to when the trade went through, we knew Boston was a place where we would love to be long term,” Crochet said. “Credit to the front office for staying diligent, and my agency as well.”

Now the question is less about where he’ll pitch and more about how well. He’s off to a nice start in that regard.

“I can’t think of the last time I played baseball for pride. In college, you’re playing to get drafted, and once you’re in the big leagues, you’re playing to stay in the big leagues,” Crochet said. “So to have this security and feel like I’m playing to truly just win ballgames, it takes a lot of the riff-raff out of it.”

The news all around was good for Boston on Wednesday.

It reached a $60 million, eight-year deal with young infielder Kristian Campbell, and he went out and doubled twice against the Orioles.

And Rafael Devers ended a 21-at-bat hitless streak to start the season with an RBI double in the fifth inning. He finished with two hits and no strikeouts.

Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.

Continue Reading

Sports

Ohtani’s walk-off pushes Dodgers to historic 8-0

Published

on

By

Ohtani's walk-off pushes Dodgers to historic 8-0

LOS ANGELES — Aside from his ability to pitch and hit and stretch the boundaries of imagination, Shohei Ohtani has displayed another singular trait in his time in the major leagues: an ability to meet the moment. Or, perhaps, for the moment to meet him.

And so on Wednesday night, with his Los Angeles Dodgers looking to stay unbeaten, the score tied in the bottom of the ninth, and more than 50,000 fans standing and clenching the Ohtani bobbleheads they lined up hours in advance for, Ohtani approached the batter’s box — and his teammates expected greatness.

“He’s going to end this right here,” Dodgers third baseman Max Muncy said he thought to himself.

“We knew,” starting pitcher Blake Snell said. “It’s just what he does.”

Validation came instantly. Ohtani stayed back on a first-pitch changeup from Raisel Iglesias near the outside corner and shot it toward straightaway center field, 399 feet away, for a walk-off home run, sending the Dodgers to a 6-5, come-from-behind victory over the reeling Atlanta Braves.

“I don’t think anybody didn’t expect him to hit a walk-off home run there,” Dodgers utility man Tommy Edman said. “It’s just a question of where he’d hit it.”

The Dodgers are now 8-0, topping the 1933 New York Yankees of Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth for the longest winning streak to begin a season for a reigning champion. The Braves, meanwhile, are 0-7, the type of record no team has ever recovered from to make the playoffs. And Ohtani, with three home runs and a 1.126 OPS this season, just keeps meeting moments.

“He’s pretty good, huh?” Dodgers outfielder Teoscar Hernandez said. “It’s Shohei. He’s going to do that. He’s going to do things better than that.”

On Aug. 23 last year, Ohtani reached the 40/40 club with a walk-off grand slam. Five days later, the Dodgers staged a second giveaway of his bobblehead — one that saw his now-famous dog, Decoy, handle the ceremonial first pitch — and Ohtani led off with a home run. On Sept. 19, Ohtani clinched his first postseason berth and ascended into the unprecedented 50/50 club with one of the greatest single-game performances in baseball history — six hits, three homers, two steals and 10 RBIs. Barely two weeks later, he homered in his first playoff game.

When Ohtani came up on Wednesday, he had what he described as a simple approach.

“I was looking for a really good pitch to hit,” Ohtani said through an interpreter. “If I didn’t get a good pitch to hit, I was willing to walk.”

Of course, though, he got a good pitch.

And, of course, he sent it out.

“You just feel that he’s going to do something special,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “And I just like the way he’s not pressing. He’s in the strike zone, and when he does that, there’s just no one better.”

The Dodgers began their much-anticipated season with a couple of breezy wins over the Chicago Cubs from Japan, even though Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman did not play in them. They returned home, brought iconic rapper Ice Cube out to present the World Series trophy on one afternoon, received their rings on another and swept a three-game series against the Detroit Tigers. Then came the Braves, and the Dodgers swept them, too — even though Freeman, nursing an ankle injury caused from slipping in the shower, didn’t participate.

The Dodgers already have two walk-offs and six comeback wins this season.

Wednesday’s effort left Roberts “a little dumbfounded.”

A nightmarish start defensively, highlighted by two errant throws from Muncy, spoiled Snell’s start and put them behind 5-0 after the first inning and a half. But the Dodgers kept inching closer. They trailed by just two in the eighth and put runners on second and third with two out. Muncy came to bat with his batting average at just .083. He had used the ballyhooed “Torpedo” bat for his first three plate appearances, didn’t like how it altered his swing plane, grabbed his usual bat for a showdown against Iglesias and laced a game-tying double into the right-center-field gap.

An inning later, Ohtani ended it.

“Overall, not just tonight, there is a really good vibe within the team,” Ohtani said after recording his fourth career walk-off hit. “I just think that’s allowing us to come back in these games to win.”

The Dodgers’ 8-0 start has allowed them to stay just ahead of the 7-0 San Diego Padres and the 5-1 San Francisco Giants in the National League West. Tack on the Arizona Diamondbacks (4-2) and the Colorado Rockies (1-4), and this marks the first time in the divisional era that an entire division has combined for at least 25 wins and no more than seven losses, according to ESPN Research. The Dodgers’ and Padres’ starts mark just the fifth season in major league history with multiple teams starting 7-0 or better, and the first time since 2003.

The Dodgers famously overcame a 2-1 series deficit to vanquish the Padres in the NL Division Series last year, then rode that fight to their first full-season championship since 1988.

That fight hasn’t let up.

“It feels like this clubhouse is carrying a little bit of the attitude we had last year that we’re never out of a game and we’re resilient, and we’ve been carrying it into this season,” Muncy said. “It’s been fun to watch. The guys don’t give up. Bad things have happened, and no one’s really been down or out on themselves. Everyone’s just, ‘All right, here we go, next inning, let’s get after it.’ The whole team, top to bottom, has been doing that. It’s been making it really, really fun to play.”

Continue Reading

Sports

Death of Gardner’s son pinned to carbon monoxide

Published

on

By

Death of Gardner's son pinned to carbon monoxide

SAN JOSE, Costa Rica — Carbon monoxide poisoning was the cause of death of the teenage son of former New York Yankees outfielder Brett Gardner, authorities in Costa Rica said Wednesday night.

Randall Zúñiga, director of the Judicial Investigation Agency, said 14-year-old Miller Gardner was tested for carboxyhemoglobin, a compound generated when carbon monoxide binds to hemoglobin in the blood.

When carboxyhemoglobin saturation exceeds 50%, it is considered lethal. In Gardner’s case, the test showed a saturation of 64%.

“It’s important to note that adjacent to this room is a dedicated machine room, where it’s believed there may be some type of contamination toward these rooms,” Zúñiga said.

The head of the Costa Rican judicial police added that, during the autopsy, a “layer” was detected on the boy’s organs, which forms when there is a high presence of the poisonous gas.

Gardner died March 21 while staying with his family at a hotel on the Manuel Antonio beach in Costa Rica’s Central Pacific.

Asphyxiation was initially thought to have caused his death. After an autopsy was performed by the Forensic Pathology Section, that theory was ruled out.

Another line of investigation centered around whether the family had suffered food poisoning. Family members had reported feeling ill after dining at a nearby restaurant on the night of March 20 and received treatment from the hotel doctor.

Brett Gardner, 41, was drafted by the Yankees in 2005 and spent his entire major league career with the organization. The speedy outfielder batted .256 with 139 homers, 578 RBIs, 274 steals and 73 triples in 14 seasons from 2008 to 2021.

Continue Reading

Trending