[simple simon]

many drivers have championships, but are they all equal ?

i dont think so

Petty and Earnhardt each have 7 but i would say with the compitetion Dale's were harder to come by, therefore id say his are more impressive

along those lines id say Gordon would probably equal them if he got 6 (which i dont think he will)

and anyone else at this point i would say 5 now would equal Petty's 7

i just happen to think it's much tougher to do now especially then it was 30 yrs ago

[Smoke842]

Bump. No just kidding. Since no one else has answered Simon, I feel compelled to do so. I have been a fan for 5 yrs so I don't know a lot about the early stuff but I agree, it seems like now the teams are so equal that it's much harder now to win a championship. Look at Cheatin Chad's team. May they never win one either.
(I actually have never heard of the bump thing til someone put it in another thread. And thanx for making me aware of how many posts I had, now I have 200.)

[Nevadastars]

Today on the XM Nascar station, I was listening to the Wrangler 400 at Richmond from 1983. I remember them saying with 80 laps to go, there were only 2 cars on the lead lap, and 8th place was 4 laps down.

That was amazing to hear compared to todays standards. Nascar has done a good job of equalizing the field, so Championships now are MUCH harder to come by. Like you say, Pettys Championships were a bit easier than Earnhardts, but anyone with multiple titles from now on are going to be the exception, not the norm.

[simple simon]

with the chase about to start, i wondered if anyone else had an opinion on this matter

[PettyBlue]

Yes,what a load of crap.In the past drivers did what they had to do so they could eat.You people talk crap about hard raceing and what it means.Today's little boy's would not last 10 laps in the past.Jump in newbies,as I want to hear from you.

[simple simon]

Originally Posted by PettyBlue

Yes,what a load of crap.In the past drivers did what they had to do so they could eat.You people talk crap about hard raceing and what it means.Today's little boy's would not last 10 laps in the past.Jump in newbies,as I want to hear from you.

i knew this old thread would get a rise out of you ........ please dont try and tell me you think all teams were created equal 30-40 years ago

i find saying they had it tougher irrelevent ...... the colonists had it tougher then us, what's the point?

[PettyBlue]

Winning is winning,lose is un-American.That is my point,what is your's?

[simple simon]

Originally Posted by PettyBlue

Winning is winning,lose is un-American.That is my point,what is your's?

gee, i won a pop warner football title when i was a kid .... i guess it's equal to Manning's Super Bowl title eh?

after all, winning is winning

[PettyBlue]

Are you proud of it? You should be!

[Lefturn]

There is no way to compare today with racing 20 years ago. It's a whole different deal in my opinion. Way more money being spent today. Three makes and models that are almost identical, multi-car teams etc.

Any time you win a Championship I consider that person or Team 'Champions'. They were the best and once you are the best that's pretty much it for me the scale stops there.

[simple simon]

Originally Posted by PettyBlue

Are you proud of it? You should be!

naw, i am only 36 and have a horrible memory already so i dont remember much of it

contrary to anyone's belief, i did not start tis thread to bash Petty or anyone from that era ........ i just think the overall competition is tougher now

[PettyBlue]

Everything I won as a kid ,teen,or adult I remember,sorry you do not.

[nascarfan24]

Well Petty won some championships while they were still racing three time a week and Gordon has to deal with the BS that is the chase. In my book Gordon is a 5 time champion. No offense to Petty but Earnhardt is the only one, in my opinion, that truely earned 7 championships.

[PettyBlue]

Originally Posted by nascarfan24

Well Petty won some championships while they were still racing three time a week and Gordon has to deal with the BS that is the chase. In my book Gordon is a 5 time champion. No offense to Petty but Earnhardt is the only one, in my opinion, that truely earned 7 championships.

Say what you will but the championships were harder back when they would put you in the fence for two reasons.Food and the money it took to make the next race.

[Racer Duck]

Knowing this is an apples and oranges argument that nobody will win, I therefore propose to answer your question(s) with equivalent observations (and maybe a question or two.)

I think the New England Patriot dynasty of the past 10 years was much harder to achieve than the Green Bay dynasty under Vince Lombardi or the Miami Dolphins dynasty under Don Shula because the players are much better, have better training, are bigger and faster and the competition is much closer. It's just the evolution of the sport, so New England's championships are worth more than Miami's which are worth more than Green Bay's, i.e., 3 New England championships are worth 5 Miami championships which are worth 9 Green Bay Championships.

Which is a harder basketball game to win, one on a schoolyard court with takeup teams or a pro game in a massive arena?

Mark Spitz is the only Olympic athlete to win 7 gold medals in one Olympic games. But back then he didn't face any competition. In fact the current swimmers are so much better than him it's like comparing Spitz to Weismuller who would have had to win 12 medals just to come close to Spitz.

I believe the 2006 World of Outlaws Champion Danny Shatz is a much better driver than the 2006 Nascar Nextel Cup Champion Jimmy Johnson because Shatz won 19 races including 17 "A" features, had 42 top 5 finishes and set 2 track records. Also, World of Outlaws requires each driver to "race" their way into a race thru a series of qualifying heats, so even the point leader doesn't get an automatic spot. Finally, World of Outlaws race at least twice as many races as NASCAR Nextel Cup, with twice as many cars showing up at each race. In fact, the 2007 schedule shows 15 races in the month of June alone - all at different tracks. No doubt about it, Jimmy Johnson and the HMS crew would have had a tough time handling that kind of schedule (Rick might have had to hire another 500 employees to keep up.)

When a person or team wins against equal competition using equal equipment, how can one win be significantly harder to achieve than another?