What’s the buzz from the world of sports? Here is an item that will have people talking:
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When Jeff Gordon won in Atlanta on Tuesday, the NASCAR folks put up a graphic on the TV screen noting he had moved up to third place on the all-time wins list. Well, yes, but one wonders if someone other than Gordon had reached 85 wins if that graphic might have been different.
Gordon is now alone as the winningest driver in NASCAR’s modern era. Perhaps if a driver from say, the South, had got to 85, then the graphic would have just listed the modern age winners. So many in the South cannot stand the Californian, so maybe NASCAR did not want to offend its Southern fans.
This is not a knock on the great Richard Petty, No. 1 on the all-time list with 200 wins. However, 119 of those wins came before 1971. With a lot of those wins coming in seasons when NASCAR, in its infancy, was racing a lot more often and shorter distances.