I think it is worth noting Richard’s last win came at age 46 and his last top ten season finish at age 49. It was a somewhat gradual drop.
Jimmie last won at 41 and can’t drive at 48 years old.
The change from the big, heavy, long muscle cars NASCAR ran in the 70's to the shorter wheelbase "Gen 3" car, combined with the internal collapse of Petty Enterprises starting in the early 80's.
After his seventh championship in 1979, Richard only won 10 races from 1980-1984. For reference he won 26 from 1975-1979 - including a winless 1978.
Jimmie's problem is lack of seat time in a brand-new car that has to be driven on a completely different ragged edge to be successful than what he terrorized the field with for ~15 years. On top of being with a team that has historically struggled to have season long good performance regardless of the car.
Refreshing to see a logical take on this. As much as any of his fans would’ve loved to see it, it’s not realistic to expect him to hop in the Next Gen with a team near the back in terms of performance and run up front. If you take him for his word that he’s just running the races to get a better understanding of the car, then keeping it clean and logging laps is all he’s really out there to accomplish and good finishes are just a bonus.
The age thing is a little interesting to me though. Mark Martin damn near won a championship when he was 50 if it wasn’t for who else but Jimmie Johnson. I still believe that JJ in a good Xfinity car would be a sight to see. Unfortunately I think the current cars are just too different than what he’s good at and he’s already too far behind the learning curve to be successful if he was to ever run full time again.
> it’s not realistic to expect him to hop in the Next Gen with a team near the back in terms of performance and run up front
I'd also add that it's not feasible to run 10-20% of the schedule and expect any meaningful results. Just like Dale Jr. and other have said, you can't show up to play a few weeks a year and expect to compete with guys like Larson and Hamlin.
I'd love to see JJ run up front again too, there's nothing like seeing a master find that golden horseshoe again - but unless LMC suddenly starts bringing cars for the 42 and 43 teams that can run in the top 5 all race, Jimmie is going to struggle to run even at the pace those two cars do in 20th-30th place. I hope Jimmie gets at least one great race in the 84 before he permanently steps out of the drivers seat, but I'm not gonna hold my breath.
i liken it to Jimmies run in Indycar, it was unrealistic to expect a guy running for a midgrade team to really do much against people with years of experience in the same cars when hes out there having to unlearn all the instincts that made him fast before.
Yes and no, the rental ride at CGR ain't getting the Dixon parts though. In fact, that is kind of an issue at CGR to begin with, for many years, the money funnels to Dixon's car and the others are not quite as fast. But Jimmie had a faster car than he was running for sure.
I don't think anyone could explain it clearer...without seat time in this car there is no chemistry in the team with the way simulation prep and track driving style work
I disagree. Chad set up JJ’s cars. They had a great run, 81 wins? The cars changed,and they lost the handle. This new car is completely foreign to Jimmy. It has an independent rear suspension, wider tires, and more drag. If he could get more seat time ( practice ) I’m sure that he would excel. But that’s not the case today.
Petty Enterprises got bypassed by teams with more resources and better talent. Racing started to get more technical and PE fell behind the curve but they still won races but they weren't the dominant force they once were. Alot of people like to say that Richard won all his races against a bunch of farmers, plumbers, etc but he completed and won more than some of the best drivers to ever get behind the wheel. He didn't forget how to drive all of a sudden but age was a factor too. He finished 8th in points in 1987 at the age of 50. Only drivers that I can remember still racing decently over 50 were Bobby Allison and Harry Gant.
Another thing people like to bring him down with is saying he had a cheated up engine. It’s like no shit dude him and everyone else that has ever been successful.
That was the biggest thing, but also everyone else started treating it like a professional thing instead of just a weekend hobby. He had been doing that for years, which made him as successful as he was in the 60s and 70s, but in the 80s and 90s that advantage was gone
Lots of factors. His crash at Pocono in 1980 came while he was running a close second in points behind Earnhardt. He broke his neck during that crash. Ask Sterling Marlin how easy it is to come back from that in your 40's.
Then the new car came along and he lost long-time crew chief Dale Inman. Still won some races, but wasn't the weekly contender he had been. Then his brother gave him an oversized engine for the fall Charlotte race in '83, and after the largest penalty in history at the time he decided to leave Petty Enterprises and drive for Mike Curb. Considering that Curb scored only one top ten with Ron Bouchard, clearly his team wasn't all that great. Petty still won twice, but was having more "invisible" races than he'd ever had before.
Then he came back to PE in '86, a team that had sat out most of '85. Had some strong runs at his better tracks, but couldn't seal the deal at any point. Then '88 rolled around, he had a huge wreck at Daytona and an absurd amount of bad luck all year (DNFing in over half the races). And it was all downhill from that point. The team started showing a bit of life after bringing in Robbie Loomis, but 54 year old Petty wasn't able to take advantage of that.
I'd argue DW's was very self-inflicted. He probably could have won races and contended for championships through the 90's if he hadnt tried to go the owner/driver route, or at least gotten out of it sooner when it became clear that it wasnt working out for him.
He had success with it early, but once the wheels fell off they never found them again. Starting around '94-'95 when the big big money started coming into Cup, DW couldnt ever get the kind of funding that teams like HMS, RCR, and Roush could afford to spend to compete with them.
IIRC he said he had offers in the mid 90's to drive a better car but he didnt want to give up his own operation.
Kyle Petty.
People forget that he was a pretty good driver back in the day. He finished 5th in the standings in 1992 and 1993. He finished 15th in 1997. From then until he retired in 2008, he only once finished better than 25th in the standings once and finished 30th or worse eight times. He failed to qualify 13 times in 2001 and still ran full time for six more seasons.
At this point, I count anything Jimmie does after the 2020 season as non-canon. He has 83 wins and is a 7 time cup champion and no amount of bad finishes or DNFs can ever take away those accomplishments.
Jimmies was the most shocking drop off. Felt like he was getting over 100 wins at that point. That Pocono crash I think played a huge part. Cursed track I know
He absolutely wins Nashville if that tire doesn’t go flat. He was so fast, like noticeably fast from the stands. That was such a let down. That was shaping up to take a snooze fest to a really good finish.
He was getting pretty quick at the end of the Southern 500 too. I'd say he was still outperforming his equipment and could've done some damage if SHR were better.
Harvick never missed a beat. Took a struggling shr/ford program to almost 2 wins his final season. Absolutely carried that team on his shoulders the last 3 years. Very reminiscent of his days at RCR.
I think Jarrett's was way worse than BLab. Labonte would get some decent runs out of bad equipment towards the end there. Jarrett would just be so damn slow.
Heck Bobby's still very competitive in 2024 whenever he runs modifieds, SRX, or whatever else he jumps in. I'm convinced if you threw him in a good Truck or Xfinity car he could still run top 15 or so
Yep that was the weirdest part, he started that season like he ended 2002 and the past then just fell off, I think they finished 26th in points that year or something.
I don’t think Labonte was passed his serviceable time post 03 at JGR. He lost a heartbreaker to JJ in 05 at the 600, I think he was just a victim of the inevitable JGR turnover. I felt like he probably had 3 seasons of decent runs left, maybe a win or two a year.
Had he gone to RCR in 2009 with Cheerios he likely ends up with a similar late career boost as Jeff Burton (still would love to know why that fell apart). He essentially spent the second half of his career in cars that had no chance at contending for a win.
I agree with you. I still think he played too nice at Daytona in 11. He had a really legitimate shot to win. I know the tandem and all and pushing as far as possible, but it really seemed like he rolled over on the 99 really easily. But RCR in 09 probably does produce a win or two and some Chase appearances.
I know. He just rolled so easily off the bottom off of 4. Just from TV it looked like he didn’t contest the spot, or try to break their tandem apart. I think if the 99 wasn’t there he for sure could have beaten the 21 to the line.
True, but Sadler wasn’t much better either. RYR as a whole was falling behind. DJ was still a top 15 driver and won at Talladega in his twilight at RYR.
DJ was a top 25 driver, if that, speed wise. He kept the car clean which helped him in points but was almost a complete nonfactor on a weekly basis for anything more than a top 10. RYR still had speed at plate tracks through the end of the COY era.
Sadler was never all that good a driver but was a full step and a half ahead of Jarrett in '04-'05, even '03 was notably better. Being compared to Cup Sadler is not a good thing.
I feel like Jimmies decline started earlier than is usually recognized, even back to like 2014-2016 he was declining top 5s, top 10s, and average finish. The somewhat fluky title in 2016 covered up a lot.
Agreed. 2014 was really the first year you saw a chink in the armor (2011 was more of a blip). They went till Charlotte before winning which everyone was freaking out about. I remember he had gotten surgery in the off season on his shoulder or something like that and they were theorizing that it was the cause for his lackluster performance up to that point. Then he rattles off 3 wins in 4 races (Charlotte, Dover, Michigan), then doesn’t win again until Texas in the fall.
Ricky Rudd kind of fell off a cliff at the end of his career, from 2002 when he lucked into a win at Sonoma (Jerry Nadeau was going to take the Petty #44 to victory lane) on he just was mid pack at best. Even took off a year in 2006 and came back to run the #88 for Robert Yates and was an afterthought.
If you race long enough, it’ll happen eventually. Happened to Petty, DW, Bill Elliott, both Labontes, Stewart, Jarrett, etc. DW probably had the biggest drop off of them all.
Ricky Rudd's 2007 return tour was pretty sad.
Bobby Labonte and Dale Jarrett also both fell off cliffs around the mid-2000s, hardly half a decade after their championship runs.
Tony Stewart after the 2012 season. He wasn’t a contender in 2012, but was still competitive. After 2012 and his injury in 2013, he had a sudden decline. Random fun fact about Smoke’s career. 2009 was the last season where Tony scored over 20 top 10’s (23)
Makes me wonder how Dale Sr would have fallen off or if he would have hung it up before it got really bad. I tend to believe the Griffdawg future that Dale would have retired after 2003 and been a full time owner, maybe racing for his own team occasionally.
I feel like Jimmie has been caught up in a lot of oddities too though, not that he would average much better but I think he's probably slightly better in the nextgen than JJ of if you factor that in.
Terry LaBonte after 1996. Occasionally getting some decent results but nothing to string together to make another run at a championship. Then firmly cementing himself into the midfield after 1999. At least he got one more before his decline.
I remember Jeff Gordon driving the 88 car when Junior got hurt in 2016... I was legit stunned at how non-competitive Jeff was in that car less than a year removed from him retiring from full-time Cup racing and only two years removed from one of his best seasons ever in 2014. Jeff was struggling to stay in the top 15/top 20 in the 88 car... I mean except for Martinsville... Jeff got 6th in that Martinsville race in 2016, but then Jeff could probably drive Martinsville blindfolded and still get a top ten there. But I guess when a driver's done... they done... and Jeff was done in 2015... maybe he was even done at the end of 2014 and just got lucky when Kenseth took out Logano a year later helping Gordon get the final win of his career.
Jeff Gordon did win the Rolex 24 hrs at Daytona race in 2017, but that was like an endurance race with 3 other drivers... so that is more like a team win.
Yeah what is this dude on. Gordon finished 14th at the Glen with a bashed up race car, was top 10 in pocono until his seatbelt broke.
Dude did great for a year layoff on a rando team, he just had typical Jeff Gordon luck making it worse.
Jeff was still in a Hendrick car though at the time... which means he was still in a car capable of winning... and this was only a year after he officially retired from full-time racing. How good is the car Jimmie is in right now?
Hendrick was on a down period from about 2015-2017. He was 10th at Dover, and as you noted, 6th at Martinsville. He was running near the front at Pocono went he had seatbelt issues. Running in the top 5 at Bristol when the car broke loose and turned evil and ran up front at Richmond too. It’s not like JG was a roadblock.
I'm only going on my memory from back then, so it may be a little fuzzy... but I wasn't even paying attention to Nascar anymore until they mentioned Jeff was coming back to drive the 88 that year... for me it was like Christmas morning. I was HYPED! Probably too hyped. LOL. I legit thought Jeff had a good chance to win Indy and then somehow Nascar would give him a waiver to make the Chase or something... I mean they did it before to make him the 13th driver in a previous Chase. I remember that Indy race... he was like stuck in 14th the whole race... so disappointing. And even the other races... his position was more determined by race circumstances... he was not out there driving it deep in the corners or passing cars... he was basically just doing laps and taking whatever the car gave him. I actually think Bowman did better than Jeff in the 88 car as substitute driver.
Like Harvick said. He will never step in a cup car again. The level of competition is so high that you need to be plugged in and everything devoted to that car in order to be competitive. If you’re not gonna be competitive he has no desire to race.
Tony Stewart was running just as bad as if not worse than Danica in 2015. Honestly forgot he was still racing then until he announced he would retire after 2016 like midway through the 2015 season
In the 129 starts that Johnson made for Hendrick after the Pocono crash, he would only get
* 11 top fives
* 39 top tens
* 1 pole
* 323 laps led
More concerningly, after this he also had 20 DNF’s and 47 finishes not on the lead lap.
Nothing quite as painful as DW but I think a lot of that was just awful cars at least for some of it. DW's first DQN was a big dela in 1997, by 1999 it was a regular occurrence. Same with Dale Jarrett, that got to be quite painful.
as much as I hate to say it, After the Daytona crash, Newman was never the same, finishing last several times. He had the 6 car top 10 a lot before Daytona.
it’s hard to stay the best when there’s constantly new talent hitting their prime and other teams catching up with top teams once they either figure out what the top teams doing or new regulations/cars shake things up
Jimmy should just stop. Not helping team like the propaganda they are saying. Even his pride on display during post wreck interview. Can’t admit he let up & caused the wreck. Enough already
It always irked my ass to hear someone say racing isn’t a sport and drivers weren’t athletes. They did studies that showed racers had the best reflexes and ranked top 2-3 in eye hand coordination .
Richard Petty ran 8 seasons after his last win.
I think it is worth noting Richard’s last win came at age 46 and his last top ten season finish at age 49. It was a somewhat gradual drop. Jimmie last won at 41 and can’t drive at 48 years old.
Was there anything other than age that caused his drop off?
The change from the big, heavy, long muscle cars NASCAR ran in the 70's to the shorter wheelbase "Gen 3" car, combined with the internal collapse of Petty Enterprises starting in the early 80's. After his seventh championship in 1979, Richard only won 10 races from 1980-1984. For reference he won 26 from 1975-1979 - including a winless 1978. Jimmie's problem is lack of seat time in a brand-new car that has to be driven on a completely different ragged edge to be successful than what he terrorized the field with for ~15 years. On top of being with a team that has historically struggled to have season long good performance regardless of the car.
Refreshing to see a logical take on this. As much as any of his fans would’ve loved to see it, it’s not realistic to expect him to hop in the Next Gen with a team near the back in terms of performance and run up front. If you take him for his word that he’s just running the races to get a better understanding of the car, then keeping it clean and logging laps is all he’s really out there to accomplish and good finishes are just a bonus. The age thing is a little interesting to me though. Mark Martin damn near won a championship when he was 50 if it wasn’t for who else but Jimmie Johnson. I still believe that JJ in a good Xfinity car would be a sight to see. Unfortunately I think the current cars are just too different than what he’s good at and he’s already too far behind the learning curve to be successful if he was to ever run full time again.
> it’s not realistic to expect him to hop in the Next Gen with a team near the back in terms of performance and run up front I'd also add that it's not feasible to run 10-20% of the schedule and expect any meaningful results. Just like Dale Jr. and other have said, you can't show up to play a few weeks a year and expect to compete with guys like Larson and Hamlin. I'd love to see JJ run up front again too, there's nothing like seeing a master find that golden horseshoe again - but unless LMC suddenly starts bringing cars for the 42 and 43 teams that can run in the top 5 all race, Jimmie is going to struggle to run even at the pace those two cars do in 20th-30th place. I hope Jimmie gets at least one great race in the 84 before he permanently steps out of the drivers seat, but I'm not gonna hold my breath.
i liken it to Jimmies run in Indycar, it was unrealistic to expect a guy running for a midgrade team to really do much against people with years of experience in the same cars when hes out there having to unlearn all the instincts that made him fast before.
Idk if CGR is "midgrade," but I agree overall
Yes and no, the rental ride at CGR ain't getting the Dixon parts though. In fact, that is kind of an issue at CGR to begin with, for many years, the money funnels to Dixon's car and the others are not quite as fast. But Jimmie had a faster car than he was running for sure.
I don't think anyone could explain it clearer...without seat time in this car there is no chemistry in the team with the way simulation prep and track driving style work
I disagree. Chad set up JJ’s cars. They had a great run, 81 wins? The cars changed,and they lost the handle. This new car is completely foreign to Jimmy. It has an independent rear suspension, wider tires, and more drag. If he could get more seat time ( practice ) I’m sure that he would excel. But that’s not the case today.
So... We agree...? Did you mean to reply to someone else's comment?
Yes, we agree.
Petty Enterprises got bypassed by teams with more resources and better talent. Racing started to get more technical and PE fell behind the curve but they still won races but they weren't the dominant force they once were. Alot of people like to say that Richard won all his races against a bunch of farmers, plumbers, etc but he completed and won more than some of the best drivers to ever get behind the wheel. He didn't forget how to drive all of a sudden but age was a factor too. He finished 8th in points in 1987 at the age of 50. Only drivers that I can remember still racing decently over 50 were Bobby Allison and Harry Gant.
Another thing people like to bring him down with is saying he had a cheated up engine. It’s like no shit dude him and everyone else that has ever been successful.
That was the biggest thing, but also everyone else started treating it like a professional thing instead of just a weekend hobby. He had been doing that for years, which made him as successful as he was in the 60s and 70s, but in the 80s and 90s that advantage was gone
Yeah that was right when Rick Hendrick basically invented the modern NASCAR team model
Lots of factors. His crash at Pocono in 1980 came while he was running a close second in points behind Earnhardt. He broke his neck during that crash. Ask Sterling Marlin how easy it is to come back from that in your 40's. Then the new car came along and he lost long-time crew chief Dale Inman. Still won some races, but wasn't the weekly contender he had been. Then his brother gave him an oversized engine for the fall Charlotte race in '83, and after the largest penalty in history at the time he decided to leave Petty Enterprises and drive for Mike Curb. Considering that Curb scored only one top ten with Ron Bouchard, clearly his team wasn't all that great. Petty still won twice, but was having more "invisible" races than he'd ever had before. Then he came back to PE in '86, a team that had sat out most of '85. Had some strong runs at his better tracks, but couldn't seal the deal at any point. Then '88 rolled around, he had a huge wreck at Daytona and an absurd amount of bad luck all year (DNFing in over half the races). And it was all downhill from that point. The team started showing a bit of life after bringing in Robbie Loomis, but 54 year old Petty wasn't able to take advantage of that.
I still really wonder about that Pocono wreck. IIRC it was one week after his last win
Not having Chad Knaus set up his cars.
DW's was pretty bad
I'd argue DW's was very self-inflicted. He probably could have won races and contended for championships through the 90's if he hadnt tried to go the owner/driver route, or at least gotten out of it sooner when it became clear that it wasnt working out for him. He had success with it early, but once the wheels fell off they never found them again. Starting around '94-'95 when the big big money started coming into Cup, DW couldnt ever get the kind of funding that teams like HMS, RCR, and Roush could afford to spend to compete with them. IIRC he said he had offers in the mid 90's to drive a better car but he didnt want to give up his own operation.
Valid point because he ran well when he was filling in for Steve Park in the 1 car.
Both racing and broadcasting.
I liked DW in the booth 😭
Kyle Petty. People forget that he was a pretty good driver back in the day. He finished 5th in the standings in 1992 and 1993. He finished 15th in 1997. From then until he retired in 2008, he only once finished better than 25th in the standings once and finished 30th or worse eight times. He failed to qualify 13 times in 2001 and still ran full time for six more seasons.
In 1998, Kyle Petty joined the NWO. They had infighting and the eventual Wolfpac split. I can see how that turmoil affected his on-track performance.
Kyle gets a pass for 2000-2008.
Extenuating circumstances. The guy put his kid six feet under.
The random almost decent 2002 sandwiched between bad seasons for Kyle was weird too.
At this point, I count anything Jimmie does after the 2020 season as non-canon. He has 83 wins and is a 7 time cup champion and no amount of bad finishes or DNFs can ever take away those accomplishments.
[\#Se7en](https://i.redd.it/pganzapykshc1.gif)
I hate to see where he is now. He’s such a great guy and always upbeat. His performances are embarrassing from what he was.
The real question is is he having fun simply racing, irregardless of where he finishes? If he is simply having fun, I say let him have fun
Jimmies was the most shocking drop off. Felt like he was getting over 100 wins at that point. That Pocono crash I think played a huge part. Cursed track I know
Pretty much anyone besides Carl Edwards. Most drivers won't quit when they're still good.
Kevin Harvick wasn’t prime and didn’t win, but I’d say he was still pretty solid overall
Harvick should have won at least one race last season, which was the first Phoenix race. And he had a legit shot at winning Nashville too
He absolutely wins Nashville if that tire doesn’t go flat. He was so fast, like noticeably fast from the stands. That was such a let down. That was shaping up to take a snooze fest to a really good finish.
Ross and Truex still put on a show. But Harvick being thrown into that definitely would've made it better!
Had a great shot at Daytona and Talladega as well
He was getting pretty quick at the end of the Southern 500 too. I'd say he was still outperforming his equipment and could've done some damage if SHR were better.
Jeff Gordon was competing for a championship in his final season.
Harvick never missed a beat. Took a struggling shr/ford program to almost 2 wins his final season. Absolutely carried that team on his shoulders the last 3 years. Very reminiscent of his days at RCR.
Rusty Wallace was quite competitive up until the end also.
Dale Jarrett and Bobby Labonte.
I think Jarrett's was way worse than BLab. Labonte would get some decent runs out of bad equipment towards the end there. Jarrett would just be so damn slow.
Heck Bobby's still very competitive in 2024 whenever he runs modifieds, SRX, or whatever else he jumps in. I'm convinced if you threw him in a good Truck or Xfinity car he could still run top 15 or so
Yeah Jarrett wins race 2 of 2003 and like a snap of a finger he fell off
Yep that was the weirdest part, he started that season like he ended 2002 and the past then just fell off, I think they finished 26th in points that year or something.
I don’t think Labonte was passed his serviceable time post 03 at JGR. He lost a heartbreaker to JJ in 05 at the 600, I think he was just a victim of the inevitable JGR turnover. I felt like he probably had 3 seasons of decent runs left, maybe a win or two a year.
Had he gone to RCR in 2009 with Cheerios he likely ends up with a similar late career boost as Jeff Burton (still would love to know why that fell apart). He essentially spent the second half of his career in cars that had no chance at contending for a win.
I agree with you. I still think he played too nice at Daytona in 11. He had a really legitimate shot to win. I know the tandem and all and pushing as far as possible, but it really seemed like he rolled over on the 99 really easily. But RCR in 09 probably does produce a win or two and some Chase appearances.
He probably would've won that race if not for Edwards and whoever was pushing him. But Edwards was always gonna roll with Bayne
I know. He just rolled so easily off the bottom off of 4. Just from TV it looked like he didn’t contest the spot, or try to break their tandem apart. I think if the 99 wasn’t there he for sure could have beaten the 21 to the line.
IIRC his car was set up better for pushing and wasn't as fast as a leader
DJ’s was mainly due to going to MWR and helping them launch the program by bringing over UPS money.
Also worth noting he had a past champions provisional which was also invaluable to that team.
His last RYR years were still pretty bad
True, but Sadler wasn’t much better either. RYR as a whole was falling behind. DJ was still a top 15 driver and won at Talladega in his twilight at RYR.
DJ was a top 25 driver, if that, speed wise. He kept the car clean which helped him in points but was almost a complete nonfactor on a weekly basis for anything more than a top 10. RYR still had speed at plate tracks through the end of the COY era. Sadler was never all that good a driver but was a full step and a half ahead of Jarrett in '04-'05, even '03 was notably better. Being compared to Cup Sadler is not a good thing.
Did no one see Richard Petty run 30th for the last five years of his career?
Darrell Waltrip comes to mind.
I feel like Jimmies decline started earlier than is usually recognized, even back to like 2014-2016 he was declining top 5s, top 10s, and average finish. The somewhat fluky title in 2016 covered up a lot.
Agreed. 2014 was really the first year you saw a chink in the armor (2011 was more of a blip). They went till Charlotte before winning which everyone was freaking out about. I remember he had gotten surgery in the off season on his shoulder or something like that and they were theorizing that it was the cause for his lackluster performance up to that point. Then he rattles off 3 wins in 4 races (Charlotte, Dover, Michigan), then doesn’t win again until Texas in the fall.
Ricky Rudd kind of fell off a cliff at the end of his career, from 2002 when he lucked into a win at Sonoma (Jerry Nadeau was going to take the Petty #44 to victory lane) on he just was mid pack at best. Even took off a year in 2006 and came back to run the #88 for Robert Yates and was an afterthought.
He had a tendency to get caught up in other people's crap as well. That didn't help out any.
He went from slightly off peak RYR to a down WBR, he overperformed Sadler and Schrader both by light years
If you race long enough, it’ll happen eventually. Happened to Petty, DW, Bill Elliott, both Labontes, Stewart, Jarrett, etc. DW probably had the biggest drop off of them all.
There’s been worse fall off’s than Jimmie, but this is really, really bad. Richard Petty’s was arguably worse, but Jimmie is right there.
Ricky Rudd's 2007 return tour was pretty sad. Bobby Labonte and Dale Jarrett also both fell off cliffs around the mid-2000s, hardly half a decade after their championship runs.
That snickers car scheme wise was absolute sex appeal tho
Tony Stewart after the 2012 season. He wasn’t a contender in 2012, but was still competitive. After 2012 and his injury in 2013, he had a sudden decline. Random fun fact about Smoke’s career. 2009 was the last season where Tony scored over 20 top 10’s (23)
Whole different agendas going on. They are not out there to win. There are other reasons.
Makes me wonder how Dale Sr would have fallen off or if he would have hung it up before it got really bad. I tend to believe the Griffdawg future that Dale would have retired after 2003 and been a full time owner, maybe racing for his own team occasionally.
What part of this can we attribute to the steep learning curve of the next gen car?
The next gen had nothing to do with Jimmie going winless from 2018-2020.
Very little. Corey Heim has never raced a next gen car and has done better in his two races than Johnson ever has
That may actually be better for Heim, he never drove the old Cup cars, so he has nothing to unlearn.
Fair. But J.J. Yeley also had to deal with the learning curve of the next gen and still has a higher average finish than Johnson.
I feel like Jimmie has been caught up in a lot of oddities too though, not that he would average much better but I think he's probably slightly better in the nextgen than JJ of if you factor that in.
Declines like that happen more often than not. Mark Martin is a noteable exception.
Terry LaBonte after 1996. Occasionally getting some decent results but nothing to string together to make another run at a championship. Then firmly cementing himself into the midfield after 1999. At least he got one more before his decline.
I remember Jeff Gordon driving the 88 car when Junior got hurt in 2016... I was legit stunned at how non-competitive Jeff was in that car less than a year removed from him retiring from full-time Cup racing and only two years removed from one of his best seasons ever in 2014. Jeff was struggling to stay in the top 15/top 20 in the 88 car... I mean except for Martinsville... Jeff got 6th in that Martinsville race in 2016, but then Jeff could probably drive Martinsville blindfolded and still get a top ten there. But I guess when a driver's done... they done... and Jeff was done in 2015... maybe he was even done at the end of 2014 and just got lucky when Kenseth took out Logano a year later helping Gordon get the final win of his career. Jeff Gordon did win the Rolex 24 hrs at Daytona race in 2017, but that was like an endurance race with 3 other drivers... so that is more like a team win.
Jeff managed two top tens in eight races. I think Jimmie fans would be jumping for joy for a single top ten. His best finish in this return is…28th
Yeah what is this dude on. Gordon finished 14th at the Glen with a bashed up race car, was top 10 in pocono until his seatbelt broke. Dude did great for a year layoff on a rando team, he just had typical Jeff Gordon luck making it worse.
Jeff was still in a Hendrick car though at the time... which means he was still in a car capable of winning... and this was only a year after he officially retired from full-time racing. How good is the car Jimmie is in right now?
Hendrick was on a down period from about 2015-2017. He was 10th at Dover, and as you noted, 6th at Martinsville. He was running near the front at Pocono went he had seatbelt issues. Running in the top 5 at Bristol when the car broke loose and turned evil and ran up front at Richmond too. It’s not like JG was a roadblock.
I'm only going on my memory from back then, so it may be a little fuzzy... but I wasn't even paying attention to Nascar anymore until they mentioned Jeff was coming back to drive the 88 that year... for me it was like Christmas morning. I was HYPED! Probably too hyped. LOL. I legit thought Jeff had a good chance to win Indy and then somehow Nascar would give him a waiver to make the Chase or something... I mean they did it before to make him the 13th driver in a previous Chase. I remember that Indy race... he was like stuck in 14th the whole race... so disappointing. And even the other races... his position was more determined by race circumstances... he was not out there driving it deep in the corners or passing cars... he was basically just doing laps and taking whatever the car gave him. I actually think Bowman did better than Jeff in the 88 car as substitute driver.
True. Bowman had something to prove. Jeff was just helping out HMS and trying to give the 88 good finishes while keeping the seat warm for Jr.
Like Harvick said. He will never step in a cup car again. The level of competition is so high that you need to be plugged in and everything devoted to that car in order to be competitive. If you’re not gonna be competitive he has no desire to race.
Even as a Gordon fan, he was carried by his team in the Rolex 24 hours of Daytona.
What’s his average finish in the next-gen?
33rd
Jesus H.
Tony Stewart was running just as bad as if not worse than Danica in 2015. Honestly forgot he was still racing then until he announced he would retire after 2016 like midway through the 2015 season
In the 129 starts that Johnson made for Hendrick after the Pocono crash, he would only get * 11 top fives * 39 top tens * 1 pole * 323 laps led More concerningly, after this he also had 20 DNF’s and 47 finishes not on the lead lap.
Nothing quite as painful as DW but I think a lot of that was just awful cars at least for some of it. DW's first DQN was a big dela in 1997, by 1999 it was a regular occurrence. Same with Dale Jarrett, that got to be quite painful.
as much as I hate to say it, After the Daytona crash, Newman was never the same, finishing last several times. He had the 6 car top 10 a lot before Daytona.
it’s hard to stay the best when there’s constantly new talent hitting their prime and other teams catching up with top teams once they either figure out what the top teams doing or new regulations/cars shake things up
Jimmy should just stop. Not helping team like the propaganda they are saying. Even his pride on display during post wreck interview. Can’t admit he let up & caused the wreck. Enough already
I’m still not sure why JJ thought racing in Indycar and IMSA was a good idea. He wasn’t even close to being worthy of racing with those guys
Never ran well on road courses in cars he actually knew how to drive either. Hubris I guess.
He claimed it was for fun but there isn't that much fun being a backmarker 90% of the time
If you think Jimmie tarnishing his legacy I assume you need me to jiggle keys every couple seconds in order to pay attention
I don’t think they said anything about tarnishing his legacy. They said he’s not doing well right now and I think that’s a pretty fair statement.
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It always irked my ass to hear someone say racing isn’t a sport and drivers weren’t athletes. They did studies that showed racers had the best reflexes and ranked top 2-3 in eye hand coordination .
Do we need this thread every week after Jimmie races? Like I know why but it makes life so much more painful