Putting Tony Stewart in context
Any driver who has 10 Nextel Cup wins in his career is in pretty elite company. Only 50 drivers have done it: Petty, Pearson, Allison (three of them), Waltrip, Earnhardt (Sr. and Jr.), Gordon, Johnson (Junior and Jimmie), etc. etc. The list includes the legends, the current stars and a few guys who have "potential Nextel Cup champion" written on them.
And then there's Tony Stewart, who got his 24th career Nextel Cup win on Sunday at The Glen. His current hot streak -- he's won five of the past seven races -- isn't unprecedented. Richard Petty won 10 straight in 1967. But Stewart's is a stout streak.
His 24th win puts him 24th on the all-time victories list, one behind Jim Paschal and Joe Weatherly, and broke his tie with Ricky Rudd. On the modern (i.e 1972 and after), Stewart is 12th. Among full-time active drivers, he's fifth, behind Jeff Gordon (72), Rusty Wallace (55), Mark Martin (34) and Dale Jarrett (31). By the start of the 2007 season, when Martin and Wallace retire, he'll be third, maybe second.
Although it seems like Stewart will win just about every race from here on out, he'll probably never catch Gordon. He started his career faster than Jeff -- Tony had nine wins after two seasons, and Gordon needed three full seasons to get nine. But Gordon ripped off 33 races in his next three seasons, a Petty-esque streak that no one's come close to duplicating lately. And Stewart's 34 -- not old by any stretch, but Gordon's the same age. (Stewart's actually about three months older).
So do you think Stewart have any shot in heck of catching Gordon in the win column? And when we look back at his career in 10 or so years, will we remember him as a guy who had a few hot streaks, or one of the sport's all-time greatest drivers?
Comments (2)
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In 10 years or so, you'll look back at Stewart as one of the few multiple Cup champions.
I don't see how Stewart will ever catch Gordon unless there is a sudden opening for Montoya's seat over in F-1 (just kidding). Assuming that Stewart and Gordon both race 10 more years, Steward would have to compile wins at twice the rate of Gordon almost every year to catch him and I don't know how many times, if ever Stewart has done that.
The 10 win season is rare, though Stewart has a chance to smash that before October and we are approaching the part of the season where historically, Stewart gets hot.
I can't remember how long the extension was that Stewart signed a year or so ago, but if I remember correctly it's until '08 or '10???. I'm guessing by then he may want to pursue Sprint Cars, World of Outlaws, etc and leave Cup behind.
Posted on August 15, 2005 12:21 PM
I think we will look back at Tony Stewart as one the greatest race car drivers ever.
Posted on August 16, 2005 1:15 AM