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.
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.
I am digging through all my old North Wilkesboro files and just found this. The Moonshiners & Revenuers Reunion from 2010, held at Benny Parsons’ place in Wilkes County. Yes, that’s Junior Johnson doing donuts in a 1940 Ford. Shot it on my FlipCam! #NASCAR75pic.twitter.com/CPBaNHHjb3
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!'”
Jeff Legwold covers the Denver Broncos at ESPN. He has covered the Broncos for more than 20 years and also assists with NFL draft coverage, joining ESPN in 2013. He has been a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame Board of Selectors since 1999, too. Jeff previously covered the Pittsburgh Steelers, Buffalo Bills and Houston Oilers/Tennessee Titans at previous stops prior to ESPN.
BOULDER, Colo. — For the horde of NFL talent evaluators and some bleachers full of fans, Colorado coach Deion Sanders said Friday that they all got to see the top two players available in this year’s NFL draft.
Quarterback Shedeur Sanders and Heisman Trophy winner Travis Hunter were among the 16 Colorado players who took part in the school’s showcase event for scouts, coaches and personnel executives from every NFL team. And Deion Sanders said the two marquee players confirmed what he has known for a long time.
“It’s tremendous,” Sanders said. “… They should be going 1-2 [in the draft], that’s the way I feel about it. They are the two best players in this draft. … The surest bets in this draft are those two young men, and I didn’t stutter or stammer when I said that.”
Neither Shedeur Sanders nor Hunter took part in most of the position drills or physical testing, but Sanders had a throwing session for just under an hour and Hunter was one of the wide receivers who participated. Neither player worked out at the scouting combine earlier this year, so it was the first time Sanders had thrown in such a setting since the end of the season. He showed some full seven-step drops and play-action from the shotgun and under center.
“I think I did pretty good, to my expectations,” said Sanders, who set the career FBS accuracy mark in his two years at Colorado (71.8%) to go with his 4,134 passing yards and 37 touchdowns last season. “I know I did the best in college football right now, for sure.”
Asked after the throwing session whether he believed he was the best quarterback in the draft, Sanders said: “I feel like I’m the No. 1 quarterback, and that’s what I know. But at the end of the day, I’m not stuck on that because it’s about the situation, so whatever situation, whatever franchise believes in me, I’m excited to go. … I’m comfortable in any situation.”
Players Hunter, who did not speak to the media after the workout, and Sanders met with the Cleveland Browns contingent, including team co-owner Jimmy Haslam, on Thursday night in Boulder.
“They got me really full,” Sanders said. “I definitely needed to go to the sauna after that. … It was a good vibe.”
Said Deion Sanders said: “[I] spoke to the owner, truly delightful. He was engaging. … I think one of those guys is going to be there [at No. 2].”
Hunter, the No. 1 player on Mel Kiper Jr.’s Big Board, did not do any defensive drills Friday, but he ran a full assortment of routes.
Colorado safety Shilo Sanders, Shedeur’s brother, offered plenty of encouragement, shouting commentary and clapping after each throw, including “not a lot of quarterbacks can make that throw” after one deep completion.
The highly attended event — by NFL representatives as well as fans packing small bleachers — had a festive atmosphere. Deion Sanders named it the “We Ain’t Hard 2 Find Showcase,” complete with a large lighted “The Showcase” sign next to the drills.
Hunter, who has said he wants to play offense and defense in the NFL, won the Chuck Bednarik (top defensive player) and Fred Biletnikoff (top receiver) awards in addition to the Heisman. He said whether he will primarily be a wide receiver or a cornerback in the NFL depends “on the team that picks me.”
On Friday, Deion Sanders said “ain’t nobody like Travis.”
Hunter had 96 catches for 1,258 yards and 15 touchdowns as a receiver last season to go with 35 tackles, 11 pass breakups and 4 interceptions at cornerback. In the Buffaloes’ regular-season finale against Oklahoma State, he became the only FBS player in the past 25 years with three scrimmage touchdowns on offense and an interception in the same game, according to ESPN Research.
He played 1,380 total snaps in Colorado’s 12 regular-season games: 670 on offense, 686 on defense and 24 on special teams. He played 1,007 total snaps in 2023.
Shilo Sanders, who hoped to show teams more speed than expected, ran a 4.52 40-yard dash after he measured in at 5-foot-11⅞, 196 pounds. He did not participate in the jumps or bench press that opened the workout, citing a right shoulder injury.
With all NFL eyes on the Colorado campus to see Shedeur Sanders throw, one player who made the most of it was wide receiver Will Sheppard. Sheppard, who measured 6-2¼, 196 pounds, ran the 40 in 4.56 and 4.54 to go with a 40½-inch vertical jump and a 10-foot-11 broad jump.
Henderson has been sidelined with a right intercostal strain and missed the first seven games of the big league campaign.
The 23-year-old Henderson will lead off and play shortstop against the host Royals.
Henderson was injured during a spring training game Feb. 27. He was fourth in American League MVP voting last season when he batted .281 and racked up career bests of 37 homers and 92 RBIs.
Henderson completed a five-game rehab stint at Triple-A Norfolk on Wednesday. He batted .263 (5-for-19) with two homers and four RBIs and played four games at shortstop and one as the designated hitter. He did commit three errors.
“I think everybody’s looking forward to having Gunnar back on the team,” Baltimore manager Brandon Hyde said Thursday. “The rehab went really, really well. I talked to him a couple days ago, he feels great swinging the bat. The timing came, especially the last few days. He just had to get out there and get some reps defensively and get some games in, and it all went well.”
Baltimore optioned outfielder Dylan Carlson to Triple-A Norfolk to open up a roster spot. The 26-year-old was 0-for-4 with a run and RBI in two games this season.
ESPN baseball reporter. Covered the Washington Wizards from 2014 to 2016 and the Washington Nationals from 2016 to 2018 for The Washington Post before covering the Los Angeles Dodgers and MLB for the Los Angeles Times from 2018 to 2024.
When New York Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns attempted to assemble the best possible roster for the 2025 season this winter, the top priority was signing outfielder Juan Soto. Next was the need to replenish the starting rotation and bolster the bullpen. Then, days before pitchers and catchers reported for spring training, the lineup received one final significant reinforcement when first baseman Pete Alonso re-signed.
Acquiring a player with a singing career on the side didn’t make the cut.
“No, that is not on the list,” Stearns said with a smile.
Stearns’ decision not to re-sign Jose Iglesias, the infielder behind the mic for the viral 2024 Mets anthem “OMG,” was attributed to creating more roster flexibility. But it also hammered home a reality: The scrappy 2024 Mets, authors of a magical summer in Queens, are a thing of the past. The 2025 Mets, who will report to Citi Field for their home opener Friday, have much of the same core but also some prominent new faces — and the new, outsized expectations that come with falling two wins short of the World Series, then signing Soto to the richest contract in professional sports history.
But there’s a question surrounding this year’s team that you can’t put a price tag on: Can these Mets rekindle the magic — the vibes, the memes, the feel-good underdog story — that seemed to come out of nowhere to help carry them to Game 6 of the National League Championship Series last season?
“Last year the culture was created,” Mets shortstop Francisco Lindor said. “It’s a matter of continuing it.”
For all the success Stearns has engineered — his small-market Milwaukee Brewers teams reached the postseason five times in eight seasons after he became the youngest general manager in history in 2015 — the 40-year-old Harvard grad, like the rest of his front office peers knows there’s no precise recipe for clubhouse chemistry. There is no culture projection system. No Vibes Above Replacement.
“Culture is very important,” Stearns said last weekend in the visiting dugout at Daikin Park before his club completed an opening-weekend series against the Houston Astros. “Culture is also very difficult to predict.”
Still, it seems the Mets’ 2024 season will be all but impossible to recreate.
There was Grimace, the purple McDonald’s blob who spontaneously became the franchise’s unofficial mascot after throwing out a first pitch in June. “OMG,” performed under Iglesias’ stage name, Candelita, debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Latin Digital Songs chart, before a remix featuring Pitbull was released in October. Citi Field became a karaoke bar whenever Lindor stepped into the batter’s box with The Temptations’ “My Girl” as his walk-up song. Alonso unveiled a lucky pumpkin in October. They were gimmicks that might have felt forced if they hadn’t felt so right.
“I don’t know if what we did last year could be replicated because it was such a chaos-filled group,” Mets reliever Ryne Stanek said. “I don’t know if that’s replicable because there’s just too many things going on. I don’t know if that’s a sustainable model. But I think the expectation of winning is really important. I think establishing what we did last year and coming into this year where people are like, ‘Oh, no, that’s what we’re expecting to do,’ makes it different. It’s always a different vibe whenever you feel like you’re the hunter versus being the hunted.”
For the first two months last season, the Mets were terrible hunters. Lindor was relentlessly booed at Citi Field during another slow start. The bullpen got crushed. The losses piled up. The Mets began the season 0-5 and sunk to rock bottom on May 29 when reliever Jorge Lopez threw his glove into the stands during a 10-3 loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers that dropped the team to 22-33.
That night, the Mets held a players-only meeting. From there, perhaps coincidentally, everything changed. The Mets won the next day, and 67 of their final 107 games.
This year, to avoid an early malaise and to better incorporate new faces like Soto and Opening Day starter Clay Holmes, players made it a point to hold meetings during spring training to lay a strong foundation.
“At the end of the day, we know who we are and that’s the beauty of our club,” Alonso said. “Not just who we are talent-wise, but who each individual is as a man and a personality. For us, our major, major strength is our collective identity as a unit.”
Organizationally, the Mets are attempting a dual-track makeover: Becoming perennial World Series contenders while not taking themselves too seriously.
The commemorative purple Grimace seat installed at Citi Field in September — Section 302, Row 6, Seat 12 in right field — remains there as part of a two-year contract. Last week, the franchise announced it will feature a New York-city themed “Five Borough” race at every home game — with a different mascot competing to represent each borough. For a third straight season, USA Today readers voted Citi Field — home of the rainbow cookie egg roll, among many other innovative treats — as having the best ballpark food in baseball.
In the clubhouse, their identity is evolving.
“I’m very much in the camp that you can’t force things,” Mets starter Sean Manaea said. “I mean, you can, but you don’t really end up with good results. And if you wait for things to happen organically, then sometimes it can take too long. So, there’s like a nudging of sorts. It’s like, ‘Let’s kind of come up with something, but not force it.’ So there’s a fine balance there and you just got to wait and see what happens.”
Stearns believes it starts with what the Mets can control: bringing positive energy every day and fostering a family atmosphere. It’s hard to quantify, but vibes undoubtedly helped fuel the Mets’ 2024 success. It’ll be a tough act to follow.
“It’s fluid,” manager Carlos Mendoza said. “I like where guys are at as far as the team chemistry goes and things like that and the connections and the relationships. But it’ll continue to take some time. And winning helps, clearly.”