“Jimmie Johnson is the greatest driver ever” - hmm ... I don’t know about that

Shortly after Jimmie Johnson won his fifth consecutive Championship Darrell Waltrip was quoted as saying that Jimmie Johnson was the greatest driver of all-time, or something to that effect anyway, well I disagree.

Not because I don’t like Jimmie, I certainly think he is a very good driver but greatest of all-time? No.

I’d place Jimmie in the top ten greatest drivers list, and with a little more research and statistical analysis on my part he might even make the top five on my list, but not number one.

What I’d consider greatest of all time would be the team of Jimmie Johnson and Chad Knaus - they are awesome together - I mean you can’t argue that fact, just look at their trophy case.

And don’t give me The Chase B.S. either. I’m quite sure that if we were still racing under the old point system (pre-Chase) Jimmie and Chad would still be sitting up there with multiple Championships these last few years and now I can’t statistically prove that either because it would be fruit-less to do so as you would approach your racing season differently in a Chase season compared to a non-Chase season so to do a statistical analysis would be unfair.
I’d also consider Jimmie Johnson as the greatest Chase driver of all time, but that is a given based on his winning streak vs. the amount of years the Chase has been in existence.

So why don’t I consider Jimmie Johnson the greatest of all time?

O.k. I might be a little biased here, but I’m trying not to be but compare Jimmie to the late Dale Earnhardt. Earnhardt won Championships with two different teams with three different Crew Chiefs while Jimmie has only ever won with one team, one Crew Chief. To me that makes Earnhardt a better driver because he had to do it with a whole range of different people and not the same core of individuals like Jimmie has done.

Now let’s compare Jimmie to Richard Petty. Petty has won multiple championships and would probably have won more if he was point racing and not trying to win every race he entered in the 1960’s - you see winning the Championship in the 1960’s didn’t pay too well but winning did, so anyone trying to make a living driving race cars was trying to win races not Championships. That all changed in the 1970’s when Winston came on board and then everyone started point racing because winning the Championship meant a big paycheck. In the process of race winning Petty racked up two hundred wins where as Johnson still has under fifty wins. In 1967 alone (the pre-modern era) Petty had twenty-seven wins and in 1975 (the modern era) Petty won nearly half of the races run that year with thirteen wins. I don’t see Johnson doing that, although Jeff Gordon did win thirteen races in 1998, so Johnson might stand a chance of getting that mark but I don’t think Johnson will be able to catch Petty in the overall win column - actually I don’t think anyone will catch Petty in that category for a long time to come.

So is Jimmie Johnson the greatest driver of all-time? That is a matter of opinion and in comparison to Dale Earnhardt and Richard Petty I’d have to say no - not yet anyway, but give him some time and he just may be in the future.

But there is certainly no arguing with me that Jimmie Johnson and Chad Knaus are the greatest driver/crew chief pairing of all-time - yes even better than Jeff Gordon and Ray Evernham.