RIP David Pearson

I feel like I'm wading into the politics forum here because the whole "Kyle Busch/Richard Petty total wins" thing is like trying to debate Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron, Barry Bonds and Sadaharu Oh. It's almost impossible to compare 1960s NASCAR with whatever it is now, both in equipment, driver talent, depth of field and manufacturer commitment.

Petty won 200 races, many of those on shorter tracks against smaller fields when NASCAR's Grand National division was holding 50-plus races a season. However, most of those fields included some combination of Fireball Roberts, Ned Jarrett, Curtis Turner, Junior Johnson, Cale Yarborough, LeeRoy Yarbrough, Fred Lorenzen, Buck and Buddy Baker, Bobby and Donnie Allison, Bobby Isaac and Pearson. Even though Petty Enterprises could have been considered the Penske of its day, and there were a lot of under-financed "independents," you still had serious competition from Smokey Yunick, Cotton Owens, Holman-Moody and the Wood Brothers, just to name some off the top of my head.

He won an incredible 27 of 48 races (including 10 in a row) as a 29-year-old in 1967, 16 more in 1968, 10 when Petty Enterprises switched to Fords in 1969, 18 in 1970 and 21 in 1971. That's Babe Ruthian, Byron Nelsonian, Michael Jordanian or Tom Bradyian, depending on what sport is comparable.

And if you discount everything before the Modern Era, Petty still owns 60 victories after 1972. That's up there with the likes of Bobby Allison, Waltrip, Earnhardt, Rusty Wallace, Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson -- and nine ahead of Shrub. Petty had 27 top-10 finishes in 31 races in 1979 at the age of 41. He finished in the top 10 in half of his races at 49.

Petty won every sixth race he ran -- even counting the eight wasted seasons at the end of his career. He finished in the top five in half of his 1,100 starts and in the top 10 almost 70 percent of the time. He dominated at a lot of bullrings, but he also has seven Daytona 500s to his credit. With the exception of the 1965 season when Mopar got kicked out of the sport, Petty finished in the top 10 in points every season from 1960 to 1984.

There's no doubt that Petty Enterprises (and Chrysler) gave him great equipment but he also had an incredible knack for staying out of trouble. Pearson gets such a reputation for smart driving, but Richard was no dummy. He knew how to conserve his equipment but he also knew when he could push hard and build up a big lead, too.

And yet I still think Pearson was the better driver if you compare their head-to-head records. Is Kyle Busch better than either of them? Dang, if I'm honest about remembering Petty and Pearson during their peaks, Busch would probably be their equal. But Shrub is a million-dollar talent with a ten-cent brain.

 

Four cool things about David Pearson you probably already knew:

1. After going nearly broke running a car out of his own pocket in 1960, Pearson planned to work as a roofer around the Spartanburg area, since he had a family (two kids) to support. His big break came when Ray Fox needed a driver at Charlotte that spring. Pearson got the ride and won the race despite driving on a flat tire for the final two laps.
2. A misunderstanding about who was supposed to drive the tow truck and race car to the track in 1967 resulted in Pearson quitting Cotton Owens' team (with whom he won the 1966 national championship) in favor of Holman-Moody.
3. Yes, Pearson had a cigarette lighter installed in the Wood Brothers No. 21 Mercury so he could light up during cautions. Winston Cup, indeed.
4. Pearson had at least one top-five finish driving for eight different manufacturers/makes: Ford, Mercury, Dodge, Plymouth, Chevrolet, Pontiac, Buick and Oldsmobile.

 

I guess it only seems he has 151 because he enters about 100 events a year.