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I was doing some work today on the Jarrett family and it's really interesting to compare a father who raced in the early days of NASCAR Cup racing to a son who competed in the modern era...
Unlike Lee and Richard Petty, who actually competed against each other, Dale Jarrett did not begin his Cup career until 18 years after his father retired...
Ned had a Hall of Fame career for sure: Two Cup championships (1961/1965), 50 wins in 352 starts (a 14.2 winning percentage) and never failed to qualify for any race he entered from 1953 through 1966.
Dale began his career in 1984 and had a much longer tenure in the sport than his dad did, through 2008 (24 years)... Dale took one Cup title (1999) and won 32 times in 668 starts (a winning percentage of just 4.8%)... He also DNQ for 14 races...
Certainly this is not really a fair comparison because the majority of Ned's wins came on short dirt tracks... in fact he only won twice on super speedways, although at the time of his retirement the only ones to run at were Darlington, Daytona, Atlanta, Charlotte and Rockingham. Many of the top drivers in the 1960s did not care to run the short tracks leaving just a few "factory supported" drivers to run them but Ned won his share against the likes of Richard Petty and David Pearson so he was no slouch...
When Dale started in Cup, nearly every top driver ran every race and almost all with the exception of Bristol, Martinsville, Richmond and Nashville/North Wilkesboro (now defunct) were run on super speedways...
What is interesting is that Ned FOR HIS ENTIRE CAREER won at total of $348,961... Dale, for his career, won $59,866, 794... His win in the 2000 Daytona 500 paid him $1,277,975, $929,014 more than his dad's career earnings! HOW TIMES CHANGED!!!
I though I'd have some more fun, so I arbitrarily picked another driver who had a less than stellar Cup career and compared him to Ned Jarrett... The guy I picked was Eddie Bierschwale... His Cup career spanned 1983 through 1992... In 117 starts Bierschwale managed just one top-ten finish and did not qualify for 20 races... Yet he won $526,320 - $177,359 more than NASCAR Hall of Famer Ned Jarrett did in his whole career...
Not to belittle Eddie Bierschwale... He did the best he could do with an underfunded family team that was similar in scope to the early effort by the Elliotts of Dawsonville... One got lucky and attracted a big sponsor (Harry Melling) and the other sort of faded into history... but... Eddie Bierschwale did win one major race, the ARCA Slick 50 500K at Texas World Speedway in 1992... The top five that day were Bierschwale, Clifford Allison, Frank Kimmell (yes, the same guy who is on his way to yet another ARCA title in 2013), Clay Young and Bob Keselowski... Not a bad quartet to beat on that day...
As you can see, sometimes I have WAY TO MUCH time on my hands!!!
Unlike Lee and Richard Petty, who actually competed against each other, Dale Jarrett did not begin his Cup career until 18 years after his father retired...
Ned had a Hall of Fame career for sure: Two Cup championships (1961/1965), 50 wins in 352 starts (a 14.2 winning percentage) and never failed to qualify for any race he entered from 1953 through 1966.
Dale began his career in 1984 and had a much longer tenure in the sport than his dad did, through 2008 (24 years)... Dale took one Cup title (1999) and won 32 times in 668 starts (a winning percentage of just 4.8%)... He also DNQ for 14 races...
Certainly this is not really a fair comparison because the majority of Ned's wins came on short dirt tracks... in fact he only won twice on super speedways, although at the time of his retirement the only ones to run at were Darlington, Daytona, Atlanta, Charlotte and Rockingham. Many of the top drivers in the 1960s did not care to run the short tracks leaving just a few "factory supported" drivers to run them but Ned won his share against the likes of Richard Petty and David Pearson so he was no slouch...
When Dale started in Cup, nearly every top driver ran every race and almost all with the exception of Bristol, Martinsville, Richmond and Nashville/North Wilkesboro (now defunct) were run on super speedways...
What is interesting is that Ned FOR HIS ENTIRE CAREER won at total of $348,961... Dale, for his career, won $59,866, 794... His win in the 2000 Daytona 500 paid him $1,277,975, $929,014 more than his dad's career earnings! HOW TIMES CHANGED!!!
I though I'd have some more fun, so I arbitrarily picked another driver who had a less than stellar Cup career and compared him to Ned Jarrett... The guy I picked was Eddie Bierschwale... His Cup career spanned 1983 through 1992... In 117 starts Bierschwale managed just one top-ten finish and did not qualify for 20 races... Yet he won $526,320 - $177,359 more than NASCAR Hall of Famer Ned Jarrett did in his whole career...
Not to belittle Eddie Bierschwale... He did the best he could do with an underfunded family team that was similar in scope to the early effort by the Elliotts of Dawsonville... One got lucky and attracted a big sponsor (Harry Melling) and the other sort of faded into history... but... Eddie Bierschwale did win one major race, the ARCA Slick 50 500K at Texas World Speedway in 1992... The top five that day were Bierschwale, Clifford Allison, Frank Kimmell (yes, the same guy who is on his way to yet another ARCA title in 2013), Clay Young and Bob Keselowski... Not a bad quartet to beat on that day...
As you can see, sometimes I have WAY TO MUCH time on my hands!!!