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Sports Records

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by John B. Foster, May 25, 2018.

  1. Batman

    Batman Well-Known Member

    It's a good question. Petty is such a sainted figure in NASCAR that most fans would probably never even consider it. Like the way basketball fans have anointed Jordan as the best ever no matter what LeBron does. But looking at it objectively, is it harder to win now than it was then, at any level? How many of Petty's wins, especially the early ones, were the equivalent of midweek dirt track races against local yokels?
    How much tougher were travel and transport during Petty's era, when a lot of guys might have schlepped their cars around the country and wrenched on them themselves?

    Petty won 140 of his 200 races before the schedule was shortened to around 30 races in 1972 and saw his annual win total drop dramatically. Busch has had his Xfinity and Trucks schedule cut back some by the new rules for those series, but has still won almost half his starts in the lower-tier series.
    On the other hand, Busch has run as many as 84 races in a season across all series, and even with the new rules still ran 53 last season (with 13 wins). Petty never ran more than 62 races in a season, and never more than 31 after the schedule was cut down in 1972.
    Short as it is, Busch still has always had a regular offseason. There were a few years in the 1960s when NASCAR ran year-round. One of Petty's wins was on Dec. 29, 1963, and that's actually considered the fourth race of the 1964 season.

    Busch's best season was in 2008, when he won 10 times in the Cup series and 21 times in 84 total races. He also won 24 times total in 81 races in 2010, but only three times in the Cup series.
    Petty's best season was in 1967, when he won 27 (!) out of 49 Cup races, including 10 in a row. Safe to say neither of those records will ever be challenged.

    I guess there's enough stuff that washes out on either side that Petty is unassailable as far as Cup goes. Busch will still have a place in NASCAR history before long, though. What he's done in a pretty short time is pretty damn impressive, and has really kind of flown under the radar. I knew he was obviously one of the best drivers of this generation, but didn't realize he'd won that much until looking it up last night.
    Busch will end up with one record for total NASCAR victories, and Petty will always have another for the Cup series.
     
  2. melock

    melock Well-Known Member

    Hell of a write-up there. Nobody who truly follows NASCAR is ever going to give Kyle Busch the benefit of the doubt over Richard Petty. No. F'ing. Way. Ever. And one way you can look at all the wins Busch has piled up on the two lower circuits with a skewed eye is that he has for more resources than most of those teams can ever dream about. And obviously he's much better than all of those drivers put together, too. When he doesn't win it's probably because of bad luck. Before I left the business I can remember a weekend when he was going to do a Truck race in Texas, a Busch (I think it was Busch) race somewhere in the Midwest (Milwaukee maybe) and than Pocono on Sunday. I think he won the truck race, finished up front but didn't win the Busch race and then had car issues at Pocono. Either the guy really loves to drive or maybe he's actually chasing the number and not many people have really noticed.
     
  3. Batman

    Batman Well-Known Member

    Running that kind of schedule isn't without its challenges, either, especially when he does a weekend tripleheader like that. Some guys, like Tony Stewart, would famously run for shits and giggles on small dirt tracks wherever the Cup series was in a given week, but not a lot of them keep up a steady schedule on all three major series like Busch has. Most scale back once they get established in Cup. I've never seen a story about why Busch still does that, or about him racking up the number of wins that he has.
    Near as I can tell, the only drivers with more than 100 wins across all levels are Petty (201; he won once in a short-lived convertible series), Busch (187), David Pearson (107), Bobby Allison (105) and Kevin Harvick (103). Several other guys, including Jeff Gordon, Dale Earnhardt and Mark Martin are somewhere between 95 and 100.
    That's a pretty short list, and a pretty wide gulf between the top two and the rest. It is sort of astonishing to think it hasn't gotten more play. Maybe once Busch gets a little closer it will.

    You are right, though, that Busch never wins the debate against Petty. Kyle Busch could get win No. 202, promptly climb out of the car and deliver the cure for cancer in victory lane while singing "Amazing Grace" to a hundred Make-A-Wish kids, and people would still hate him. It doesn't help his cause that Petty isn't just revered by NASCAR fans as an iconic performer, but also as a great person. Not too many stories of Richard Petty the asshole floating around out there.
     
  4. Huggy

    Huggy Well-Known Member

    Same here, never saw him in a mask before his days with the Blues
     
  5. albert777

    albert777 Active Member

    I don't keep up with NASCAR too much, but I guess the consensus is going to be that Busch gets an asterisk beside his record, and probably legitimately so.
     
  6. Michael_ Gee

    Michael_ Gee Well-Known Member

    Busch-Petty is a perfect example of how records are nothing without context. Shrub's a great racer. He's some leagues short of Richard Petty.
     
  7. Michael_ Gee

    Michael_ Gee Well-Known Member

    Went through the whole thread. Nolan Ryan's seven no-hitters. Will never, ever happen again. Modern baseball ideology will keep young guys from pitching complete n0-hitters in their prime. Odd thing is, Ryan was obviously an all-time great, but even in his salad days, I always saw him as a force of nature you could beat with discipline and a little luck.
     
  8. playthrough

    playthrough Moderator Staff Member

    I don't know about that. But of course we'll never know.

    For record book purposes I'd give Busch 1/2 win credit for every win in the lower series. Running against the kids and the average Joes is pretty silly for a top-level guy who's arguably the best of the best, and as mentioned his equipment is almost always far better. But that said, you still gotta go out and win and not have the weird stuff happen that happens in auto racing. So I give him half-credit.
     
  9. misterbc

    misterbc Well-Known Member

    No driver will ever touch Juan Manuel Fangio, his F1 record is astonishing.
    24/52 wins. 10 second place finishes.
    48/52 front row starts.
    World Champion with 4 different teams: Maserati, Alfa-Romeo, Mercedes, Lancia.
    Many legendary drives, his most famous being 1957 German Grand Prix at Nurburgring.
    In many ways he is the Jack Nicklaus of F1. Classy man adored world wide and generally considered the best ever at his craft despite challenges from others in the past 20-25 years.
     
  10. Gator

    Gator Well-Known Member

    UCLA’s 88-Game win streak won’t be touched. The last team to even going undefeated in a season since then is Indiana in 1976.

    Also most of what the UConn women are doing right now.
     
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