During the Foxwoods Resorts Casino 301 (won by Brad Keselowski), Rutledge Wood mentioned that country singer (and big NASCAR fan) Blake Shelton had tweeted a suggestion that 7-time Cup champion Jimmie Johnson call of his retirement (scheduled to come at season’s end).
With all due respect to Shelton who, as a fan, is entitled to his own opinion, I muttered a few expletives at my TV when he said that.
As you may recall, I recently wrote about how Jimmie Johnson deserved better in his last season than having a lengthy break in the season due to COVID-19, a series of mistakes and bad breaks, and then having to miss the Brickyard 400 due to contracting COVID-19 himself.
In that particular article, I mentioned I wanted to see Johnson head into retirement from full-time Cup competition with some momentum and success.
(And from everything I have seen, 2020 will only be Johnson’s retirement from Cup. I see him still having a fairly full open wheel or off-road racing schedule and would bank on him running next year’s Indy 500.)
However, one of the reasons I hope he retires at the end of the 2020 season is because, given his current “track record” (pardon the pun), I don’t see Jimmie Johnson winning an eighth championship. At this rate, he might not make the playoffs.
While I hope Jimmie does manage to turn his season around enough to make the playoffs, at the risk of sounding like a horrible human being, I will breath a sigh of relief when he is eliminated from contention, and the chance to win an eighth championship.
I can fully admit, part of that is because I don’t want Johnson, as much as I admire him as a driver and what he has meant to NASCAR, to have more championships that Dale Earnhardt.
But there’s more to it than that.
As of August 3, 2020, one of the great debates in NASCAR is “Who is the greatest NASCAR driver of all time?” In fact, NASCAR recently polled 19 current drivers to get their responses to a number of questions. (Don’t even get me started on some of the ridiculousness to the results of some of the voting.)
One of the questions asked of drivers was just that: Who is the greatest NASCAR driver of all time? Johnson received the most votes from his peers, moreso than Richard Petty or Dale Earnhardt, who rounded out the Top 3. For those of you just joining us, the thing all three have in common is that they have won seven Cup championships.
It is being part of that select group, being a seven-time Cup champion, that puts Earnhardt, Petty, and Johnson in the conversation of who is NASCAR’s greatest driver. Some would argue that only Earnhardt, Petty, and Johnson should be in that conversation. (I would argue Jeff Gordon – despite having only four championship – deserves to be included in that conversation, as does David Pearson who remains the runner-up in terms of all-time CUP wins.)
And it’s that argument that the all-time greatest driver should come from that select group that leads me to believe that, should Johnson win an eighth championship in 2020 (or 2021 if Blake Shelton has his way), there will be a very large contingent of the NASCAR community (fans, drivers, analysts and journalists) who will declare the debate decided. There might have been a chance some could still argue Petty remain in the conversation were it not for the claim that Kyle Busch now holds the record for most wins.
One of the great things about following any form of sport or entertainment (or sports entertainment) is debating topics to which there is no correct answer (except in the minds of those who believe theirs’s is the only right answer). To take such an interesting and spirited debate away from fans would rob NASCAR of something that could provide endless amounts of enjoyment to fans (well, depending on who you are debating with).
As I stated in the original article, I hope Jimmie ends his career with his head held high and able to go out on his own terms (and maybe one more win after his playoff bid is over). However, I want him to leave having accomplished something only two drivers in history have ever been able to do so that NASCAR and its fans can continue the debate on which of those three (with arguments for Gordon and Pearson) is the greatest of all time.
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