25 Best Drivers of all time

[wahoo5]

ESPN has been running a series this week on their website on the opinion of their panel of drivers and writers as to the best 25 drivers ever. http://sports.espn.go.com/rpm/racing/columns/story?columnist=blount_terry&id=3407489

Overall, it seems pretty well done. I think the NASCAR overload on the panel probably got Earnhardt a little higher than he deserved. I would have put him behind Petty. Pretty hard to argue with AJ and Mario given their successes in multiple series. I suspect that helped Stewart as well.

[rays]

ESPN has been running a series this week on their website on the opinion of their panel of drivers and writers as to the best 25 drivers ever. http://sports.espn.go.com/rpm/racing/columns/story?columnist=blount_terry&id=3407489

Overall, it seems pretty well done. I think the NASCAR overload on the panel probably got Earnhardt a little higher than he deserved. I would have put him behind Petty. Pretty hard to argue with AJ and Mario given their successes in multiple series. I suspect that helped Stewart as well.

No Mark Donohue and no Dan Gurney!!!!!! Those guys at ESPN are idiots.

[wahoo5]

I was also surprised at Gurney not being on the list, although you have to remember that he is at least as well known for building race cars as he is for driving them. He also never won at Indy and most of his NASCAR victories were on the old Riverside road course. He won 4 F1 races, but never a Championship.

Can't just blame it on the ESPn guys, however. There were a number of drivers on the panel that made the choices including people that raced with Gurney, like Foyt and Petty.

I couldn't believe they put Earnhardt ahead of Schumacher.

David

[Curmudgeon]

Any such poll is sure to overlook really great drivers from the past who are no longer darlings of the media.

How about people like Bernd Rosemeyer and Tazio Nuvolari, who wrestled Herr Doktor Porsche's monstrous mid-engine Auto Union car around in the F! of the 1930's?  That thing was rumoured to be able to spin its skinny little tires in fourth gear while travelling at 150+ mph.  It handled so evilly that no one else would (or could) even drive it.

The drivers of today are coddled in fire suits and crash-resistant structures running on tracks with sand pits and energy-absorbing walls.  These guys raced on the old Nordschleife at the Nurburgring, a lovely 17.65-mile snakepit of stone walls and tree trunks inches off the edge of the pavement.  Their world was so very different from the one in which we live and compete that it is essentially impossible to fairly compare drivers from different eras.