In 2024, let’s not take for granted racing’s living legends
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Ryan McGee, ESPN Senior Writer
As the race shops and racetracks of the world begin to fill up with the racket and noise of crew members working and the roar of preseason testing, before we stand on the loud pedal of the 2024 motorsports calendar, let’s take a moment to pause and make ourselves a quiet promise to keep in the year ahead. Don’t take for granted the people who are still here with us.
Over the holidays, auto racing lost a pair of driving titans. The first was on Dec. 29, when Indy 500 and two-time IndyCar champion Gil de Ferran died at the age of 56, suffering a heart attack while behind the wheel during a private racing event in Florida. All one needs to know about the universally beloved Brazilian is what he did with his final moments of life. Sensing something was wrong, he was conscious enough of his worsening health condition that he pulled off to the side of the raceway, using his last bit of strength to find the brake pedal and ensure the safety of his co-driver, his son.
Only two days later, New Year’s Eve, NASCAR Hall of Famer Cale Yarborough died at the age of 84. Last fall, when we began revealing our NASCAR 75 Greatest lists, the first of those top-five compilations was Toughest Drivers. Determining the top spot of those rankings was the easiest decision we made all fall. Yarborough, winner of three Cup Series titles, 83 races and four Daytona 500s also survived — and all of this true — a poisonous snakebite, a lightning strike, falling 20 feet out of a tree and onto his head, bouncing off the ground after a parachute didn’t open properly, and holding off an angry bear with one hand while flying an airplane with the other. He also walked away from a crash at Darlington Raceway when his car jumped the guardrail and tumbled down an embankment into the parking lot, as well as his legendary flip while qualifying at 200 mph in 1983.
The last lengthy conversation I had with Yarborough was in 2020, not long after the passing of Junior Johnson, aka the Last American Hero and Cale’s car owner for all three of his Cup Series championships. We talked about this very topic, all the crazy stuff Yarborough had survived and the fact that while he definitely spent some time in the hospital, he never once had to spend a single night in a medical facility because of something that happened in a race car.
“I am a lucky man, just as I was a lucky kid, still to be here and still have my wits about me,” he said to me from his home in Timmonsville, South Carolina. “But I don’t care how fast you were as a race car driver, no one is fast enough to outrun Father Time.”
My last chat with de Ferran was last May, when I saw him in the paddock at the Miami GP, where he was working as a consultant with McLaren. We were in the infield of Hard Rock Stadium, and during a ten-minute chat we spotted Formula One champions Damon Hill and Emerson Fittipaldi, as well as four-time NASCAR champion Jeff Gordon and 1985 Indy 500 winner Danny Sullivan. Our talk turned to the deaths of Al and Bobby Unser, brothers and multi-time Indy 500 winners who had both passed away in 2021, as well our mutual friend, legendary IndyCar writer Robin Miller, lost that same year.
“How unbelievably fortunate are we to have come along when we did?” he said giddily, with a smile on his face as bright as the South Florida sun beating down. “I never got to race against A.J. Foyt or Rick Mears or Jackie Stewart. I missed Mario Andretti by a year. But I know all of them. I see them. It is amazing just to walk where they walk, isn’t it?”
It is. And that’s why it is so crucial to appreciate that “is” before it becomes a “was.”
I had no idea that talk with de Ferran in Miami would be our last. If I had, when I saw him at Indianapolis a few weeks later I wouldn’t have settled for a wave across Gasoline Alley. I would have run to him, shaken his hand and said thank you for three decades of chats, insight and that smile.
I also had no idea that my phone conversation with Yarborough was the last time I would ever hear his trademark raspy, confident, staccato voice. The one that sold so many t-shirts, Holly Farms chicken, Hardee’s hamburgers and warned the Duke Boys about Boss Hogg’s roadblock up ahead. If I had, I would have kept him on the phone for another hour, repeating again and again, “One more story, please!”
I suppose that everyone believes their era was the best one, but those of us who first arrived in the garages and pit lanes of American motorsports in the late-1990s, we know the truth. We’re the lucky ones.
We caught the tail end of what many still believe was the golden era of auto racing in the United States and also witnessed the beginning of the next wave of talent that rolled in. Even after the driving retirements of Richard Petty, Foyt, Andretti, Mears, Bobby Allison, and yes, Yarborough, they all stuck around for years as team owners. It created this amazing crossroads of timelines, as the greatest of the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s were there to watch the youth infusion of the next three decades that followed and continues to this day.
The living legends of Petty, Foyt, Andretti and Mears can still be found walking and working at today’s speedways. They aren’t alone. Seemingly every race weekend, no matter what series or event, is packed with legends, either passing through or still on the payroll. Parnelli Jones. Don “The Snake” Prudhomme. John Force. Don Garlits. Ned Jarrett. Shirley Muldowney. Jackie Stewart. Ivan Stewart. The list of living legends is endless. For now.
So, we need to promise ourselves that we will not take that for granted, because, as he was with most topics, Cale Yarborough was right. Father Time and his checkered flag comes for us all. And the average age of the dozen drivers named in that last paragraph is 83.
“People ask me all the time, Mario, how do you stay so young?” Andretti, himself 83, said to me at Indy last May. “The answer is, well, first of all, I’m not young. But I feel young because of this right here, all around us. The energy of the racetrack keeps me young at heart.”
Or as Petty, now 86, once said to me, paraphrasing baseball great Satchel Paige, who pitched in the big leagues into his late-50s: “I never stop moving, because if I do, it all might catch up to me.”
Throughout 2024, whether we are at a racing event in person or watching on TV from our easy chairs, when we spot an icon, a transcendent champion, a steering wheel superhero, we need to make sure we take a beat. To reflect. To remember all those times that they made the hairs stand up on our arms or even if they made us raise that arm in anger because they’d just whipped our favorite driver. We need to pause and give thanks that we have been gifted a window in time in which we were allowed to share the same air with those who found a way to slip through air a helluva lot faster than the rest us.
Because, as we learned too many times just before the page turned on 2023, that window will close without warning and without the opportunity to give them the thanks that they deserved when we had the chance.
Looking at the points race one month into the season gave us a glimpse into the future — even if for one fleeting moment.
Upon gazing at the very mountaintop of goals and assists prior to Saturday night’s games, one wouldn’t see the familiar names of Connor McDavid (21 points, tied for third), Jack Eichel (also 21, after leading for much of the season), Nathan MacKinnon (20 points, tied for eighth) or even Leon Draisaitl (17 points).
It was Macklin Celebrini‘s 23 points in first, and Connor Bedard in second with 22. According to ESPN Research, Celebrini and Bedard are the only players both 20 or younger to rank top two in points (tied or outright) through that stage of season or later (230 GP) in NHL history.
I found it poetic that in a week where hockey fans celebrated what could be one of the last meetings between two of the greatest rivals in NHL history — Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin — we see perhaps the next big hockey rivalry emerging atop the leaderboard in the 20-year-old Bedard and the 19-year-old Celebrini. Like Crosby and Ovechkin, who were selected first overall a year apart (2005 and 2004), Bedard (2023) and Celebrini (2024) are also sequential first overall picks.
Bedard had Crosby-like hype entering the league. Unlike Crosby, Bedard won the Calder Trophy his rookie season. But entering the 2025-26 season, there was already some chatter about whether Celebrini is better than Bedard right now.
That chatter is thawing in favor of the excitement that is surely growing in seeing future NHL superstars cement their status right before our eyes. Even if the “rivalry” might not be as intense as the heyday of Ovi vs. Sid — until the two meet in the playoffs once or twice — Bedard vs. Celebrini can at the very least be a battle of skill and flash that both clearly possess.
Will they remain atop the points race for the entire season? Maybe not. McDavid (still the best player in the NHL), MacKinnon and the rest of the usual suspects will certainly have a lot to say about that. But, even if it’s for this one fleeting weekend, it’s fun to have a taste of the NHL’s long-term future.
Jump ahead:
Games of the week
What I loved this weekend
Hart Trophy candidates
Social post of the week
Stick taps
Biggest games of the week
I’m going to keep an eye on the New York Rangers this week. So far, they have this wild “Amazon on the road, Temu at home” record to start the season: 7-1-1 away from Madison Square Garden … and 0-6-1 at the “World’s Most Famous Arena,” with five of those losses being shutouts. That home shutout mark ties their single-season record … in the first seven games!
The Rangers host the Nashville Predators on Monday and Detroit Red Wings on Sunday, with two road games — Tampa Bay Lightning and Columbus Blue Jackets — sandwiched in between.
This week could either be more of the same or a change of pace for the Broadway Blueshirts. And it’s fascinating to watch unfold.
Tuesday, 9:30 p.m. ET | TNT
The Ducks are 10-3-1 and lead the Pacific Division. They are 8-1-1 in their past 10 games and have the No. 2 goal differential in the Western Conference at +14.
Their first meeting of the season with a stacked Avalanche team — first in the Central, with the West’s best goal differential at +21 — will be a solid test.
Saturday, 7 p.m. ET | ESPN+
I’m curious about this game, which is also a 2006 Stanley Cup Final rematch — with Rod Brind’Amour, the captain of the champion Hurricanes, now behind the bench.
Brind’Amour’s style of hockey typically results in few goals for the opposition; the Canes are allowing the eighth-fewest goals per game this season. How will that fare in this tough test against McDavid, Draisaitl & Co.?
Other key matchups this week
Thursday, 7 p.m. | ESPN+
Thursday, 7 p.m. | ESPN+
Thursday, 10 p.m. | ESPN+
Saturday, 5 p.m. | ESPN+
What I loved this weekend
As an avid puck collector, I want to throw some flowers to the Philadelphia Flyers and their assortment in the team store. While attending their Star Wars Day on Saturday, I ventured into the shop and saw a cornucopia of landmarks, legends and game pucks.
The mark of a good collectors’ puck is uniqueness and quality. The 3D printing on pretty much all of the pucks was a value add, and the different materials (metal vs. rhinestone, for example) offered great variety.
Gritty even had his own puck, complete with googly eyes and an orange beard. Creative.
If you’re a Flyers fan and you walk past this, you’re probably picking up a puck or two.
Hart Trophy candidates if the season ended today
It might be the only week I can do this …
Congratulations Connor Bedard and Macklin Celebrini, you are Hart Trophy finalists if the award was handed out on Nov. 10, 2025!
If the Capitals were in a playoff position, I would easily give the third spot to Logan Thompson (.930 save percentage, only 16 goals allowed in 10 games despite a 6-4-0 record). William Nylander has 21 points — including a league-leading 18 at even strength — and is a plus-8. Alas, he also falls prey to the “your team is not in the postseason right now” fate.
You know which team is firmly in that playoff position as we head to the all-important American Thanksgiving cutoff? The Avs. And they just dismantled the Oilers over the weekend 9-1. Nathan MacKinnon had two goals and two assists in that game alone and took over the league lead in points — which is very rude after I made the whole point about Celebrini and Bedard above. He gets the nod as my third pick.
Honorable mention: Leo Carlsson. Uncle Leo is on an absolute tear so far this season. He had 45 points last season and already has more than half of that (23) through 14 games; he’s riding a nine-game point streak, I believe we call that a heater! He’s going to be a finalist on this list a few times coming up, I’d bet.
Social media post of the weekend
NJ Devil is one of the best mascots in sports, full stop. Speaking with Devils fans, they would point to his tireless work in the community, creating core memories for kids at Devils home games and keeping the vibes high during those games as the main reasons for the honor.
But I will add the fact that his social media game is tight; he’s routinely collaborating with influencers such as Kickball Dad and Frank the Tank. On Saturday, NJ got help from current AEW wrestler Claudio Castagnoli to put a Penguins fan through a table:
Castagnoli, a native of Switzerland, caught up with his fellow countrymen Timo Meier, Jonas Siegenthaler and Devils captain Nico Hischier, who presented him with a Jersey jersey:
Stick taps
You might know the story of Logan Coyle, a 9-year-old boy who is battling cancer and put out a call earlier this year for mascots to send him videos of encouragement.
Hundreds of mascots from across all sports, including hockey, flooded Logan with videos, gifts and visits.
The New York Islanders were among the first to do so, with Sparky visiting Logan in his hospital room.
Logan battled through another setback this week but fought hard and is now back home. Mascots continue to send him all the good vibes, and in recent weeks, Logan has been strong enough to attend games and meet some of them in person! I know that one of his favorites, NJ Devil, is waiting to roll out the red carpet at The Rock when he’s ready.
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