KIDWCKED
07-22-2010, 10:33 PM
c/p from espn by the a/p
It would be appropriate NASCAR drama if Jeff Gordon broke the longest losing streak of his career by becoming the winningest driver ever on the 101-year-old rectangle called Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
But he takes issue with how much that prospective title would mean. I agree that comparing his achievements with those of Indy car and Formula One drivers at the Speedway is like comparing apples to oranges to kumquats.
The kumquats clearly are Michael Schumacher's five "wins" in Formula One at Indy, on the road course, in overwhelmingly dominant Ferraris in a short-lived U.S. Grand Prix. And one of those "wins" barely qualifies as an achievement: cruising around and finishing at the head of the shameful six-car promenade of 2005 after 14 cars pulled out of the race in a tire debacle.
The oranges are Gordon's four NASCAR wins in the Brickyard 400, plus the fifth one he'll be going for Sunday.
The apples, to which nothing else compares in Gordon's eyes, are the four wins apiece in the Indianapolis 500 by A.J. Foyt, Al Unser Sr. and Rick Mears.
"That is one statistic that I will fight everybody on," Gordon said recently. "I mean, they've been having the Indy 500 since 1911 or 1912 or something [it was 1911]. You can't compare the history of the Indy 500 to the Brickyard 400, which has been there since 1994.
"So I'm proud to have four wins there, but you look at how few guys have won four in an Indy car there, [and] I'm guessing it must be harder in an Indy car than it is in a stock car."
Anyone with a broad view of motor racing would agree with him. But for NASCAR partisans, the case might need spelling out.
First the sheer arithmetic, then a look at the ordeals of Gordon's four peers -- no, the correct word is counterparts -- among four-time Indy winners.
A 400-mile race is a piece of cake in NASCAR, shorter than the norm. A 500-mile race is a rare test of Indy cars, which for the rest of their seasons rarely run more than 200 miles.
Until recent years of de facto kit cars in the Indy 500, the cars historically were just too complex and delicate -- there was too much that could and did go wrong -- to be anything but iffy for 500 miles.
Gordon clicked off his four Brickyard 400 wins in only 11 tries, 1994-2004. And those were all in consistently superior Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolets.
It would be appropriate NASCAR drama if Jeff Gordon broke the longest losing streak of his career by becoming the winningest driver ever on the 101-year-old rectangle called Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
But he takes issue with how much that prospective title would mean. I agree that comparing his achievements with those of Indy car and Formula One drivers at the Speedway is like comparing apples to oranges to kumquats.
The kumquats clearly are Michael Schumacher's five "wins" in Formula One at Indy, on the road course, in overwhelmingly dominant Ferraris in a short-lived U.S. Grand Prix. And one of those "wins" barely qualifies as an achievement: cruising around and finishing at the head of the shameful six-car promenade of 2005 after 14 cars pulled out of the race in a tire debacle.
The oranges are Gordon's four NASCAR wins in the Brickyard 400, plus the fifth one he'll be going for Sunday.
The apples, to which nothing else compares in Gordon's eyes, are the four wins apiece in the Indianapolis 500 by A.J. Foyt, Al Unser Sr. and Rick Mears.
"That is one statistic that I will fight everybody on," Gordon said recently. "I mean, they've been having the Indy 500 since 1911 or 1912 or something [it was 1911]. You can't compare the history of the Indy 500 to the Brickyard 400, which has been there since 1994.
"So I'm proud to have four wins there, but you look at how few guys have won four in an Indy car there, [and] I'm guessing it must be harder in an Indy car than it is in a stock car."
Anyone with a broad view of motor racing would agree with him. But for NASCAR partisans, the case might need spelling out.
First the sheer arithmetic, then a look at the ordeals of Gordon's four peers -- no, the correct word is counterparts -- among four-time Indy winners.
A 400-mile race is a piece of cake in NASCAR, shorter than the norm. A 500-mile race is a rare test of Indy cars, which for the rest of their seasons rarely run more than 200 miles.
Until recent years of de facto kit cars in the Indy 500, the cars historically were just too complex and delicate -- there was too much that could and did go wrong -- to be anything but iffy for 500 miles.
Gordon clicked off his four Brickyard 400 wins in only 11 tries, 1994-2004. And those were all in consistently superior Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolets.