Question of the day for March 20, 2011. Subjective.
General
I'm going to toss my $0.02 in this very dangerous bucket, but I'm going to be snarky as well and extend it to ALL decades from the 1940s to the present (and oh, how I hate the present NASCAR).
1940s: Raymond Parks- He had the money to make NASCAR what it was. When you read about the old times, you realize that none of Big Bill's ideas were original; rather, he stole them from other people like Raymond Parks, Red Vogt (whose concept of racing was what Bill built NASCAR on), and Joe Littlejohn. It's like Mikey Waltrip's gridwalks before a race: Mikey and FOX stole that from Robin Miller and NBCSN, who have been doing those for years. Raymond would have been a big figure of the NASCAR the drivers, mechanics, and owners wanted. Oh, yeah, Raymond also owned the 1948 Modified and 1949 Strictly Stock championship-winning cars. When drivers had problems, they went to Atlanta to find Raymond Parks and Red Vogt, not Daytona Beach. Not a driver, but no one driver really had that kind of pull back then.
1950s: Curtis Turner- No one driver today could be so entertaining. Nowadays, you watch drivers like Jimmie Johnson and Kevin Harvick pass cars toward the back like nothing. But it's dull. If either of those guys gets a twitch, they're going to wreck and wreck hard. I'm siding with Johnny Allen here.
Curtis was the opposite: if the car wasn't on edge, something was wrong. He could just fling a car like no other; he was the hard charger of hard chargers. And boy what fun it would be if you have taken Curtis and Fireball, give them indestructible cars, and set them loose on a four race tour consisting of a road course, a short track, a speedway, and a dirt track. Even without the crazy adventures of Curtis and Little Joe, the legends of both of them would live on because of the on-track exploits. Curtis established what the sport of racing was all about.
I give honorable mentions to four: Lee Petty, Buck Baker, Tim Flock, and Herb Thomas, who showed what commitment to the sporting body entailed. Without these figures, the championship would have been meaningless. Curtis was a racer, but these men were champions.
1960s: Richard Petty- "The King" established racing as a sport of heroes. He was the same man off the track that he was on the track, and he openly shared that with you the fans. He was honest, and he still is. He was a man built on principle; in Richard's case, those principles are Biblical principles. The fact that he and David Pearson are the two best drivers ever only sweetens the pot. The legendary rivalry those two built, a rivalry built on the showing of the tricks one could produce, enabled NASCAR to built itself as a sport of strategy, talent, and teamwork. They let their on-track exploits do the talking. King Richard was the man the sport built itself around during this time, and NASCAR needs a young driver with the same spirit if it is to ever recapture past glory. Looking at the recent Kyle Busch incident, seeking the next "Earnhardt" is only to result in the first fatality since Earnhardt.
1970s: Bobby Allison- Now many of you may be surprised by my choice of Bobby for the 1970s, but he re-established the passion for winning in the 1970s. Unlike Cale Yarborough, Bobby only raced USAC because Roger Penske wanted him to; it was in the deal if he wanted to race NASCAR's for Roger. Bobby was so determined to compete that he even tried being an owner driver... TWICE... without factory backing. While he didn't lead the sport, he presented the passion needed to continue. And he continued in spite of spending 17 years of always playing second fiddle to Pearson, Isaac, Petty, Yarborough, Parsons, Earnhardt, and Waltrip as champions of the sport. Good things come to those who wait.
1980s: Darrell Waltrip/Dale Earnhardt- It's tough to decide between these two. During the 1980s, both drivers divided the sport in an all-out race to see who could be the biggest piece of human crap (pardon my French). There were no good qualities in either, and to admire either opened oneself up to questions about your own character. You had Darrell with his loud mouth and bad attitude, and you had Dale Earnhardt and his loud mouth and bad attitude and off track exploits. It was a drag race that eventually Earnhardt won in 1989... because DW pulled out. DW took himself out of the race to be the biggest jerk thanks to his wife Stevie, and for the last 12 years of his career he was just another old-timer out there that people cheered for when he had a good run (like 1998 Pocono). Is "Boogity, boogity, boogity" really annoying? Yes, on all levels, but I can respect Ol' DW for other reasons.
1990s: Dale Earnhardt- While Raymond Williams will tell you that the cards were in Earnhardt's favor back in the 1980s, I am avoiding that pot. Dale Earnhardt was the last example of the country boy making it in racing on exploits alone. He was polarizing like DW, but Earnhardt won the race with his rudeness to reporters (shoving cameras and flipping off the media regularly), constant dumping of opponents on the track for no real reason other than that they were there, and his own bad attitude. DW started it, but Earnhardt perfected the "nothing's my fault" attitude. This whininess built the sport however, as NASCAR used the Earnhardt image to promote itself. They promoted him as the man to love or hate (with no gray area) and the man to aspire to be as a racer. It didn't work, however, as fast forward to 2015 where none of the drivers can even imitate Earnhardt because Earnhardt acted as he did to advance himself, whereas these modern drivers act as they do to imitate Earnhardt. Words that I can post on here and maintain the G-rating I have maintained on this diatribe do not describe Earnhardt. And that's a shame, because it was a life of hypocrisy. He was lauded as a hero by the fans only after he died. And so many people, as a result, jumped on his much less-talented son.
2000s and 2010s: Jeff Gordon- I give both to Jeff Gordon. Why? Starting in the 2000s, young drivers came into the sport saying they wanted to be like Jeff Gordon; I know I sure did! Fast forward to 2015, and who do the young guys come in saying they admired? Jeff Gordon. Jeff Gordon is the very last of the drivers I grew up watching: Martin, Earnhardt, Elliott, Rudd (my 2nd favorite), the Labontes (except for plate races), the Waltrips (again except for plate races), the Burtons, the Bodines, the Wallaces, Schrader, and everyone else are all done except for Jeff. He is the last of a passing breed. Those drivers were the last generation where someone had to produce results in the Busch Series to get to the Cup. The cars were different, and there was a learning curve. Now if someone doesn't produce pretty quick, you know it's curtains because they aren't likely to start winning ever. It's a rough spot to be in when now everybody either is somebody's son (Chase Elliott, Ryan Blaney, the Dillons) or has daddy's money (Paul Menard, Brian Scott) to get into the sport.
We are producing a generation of drivers like Earnhardt, whiny, unwilling to take blame, immature, unable to interact with the fans, and downright effeminate. The ability to interact with fans is the one thing separating these guys from Jeff. There is nothing admirable in a crowd of paid actors who give themselves no free will. The one driver who does seem to act against NASCAR, Ryan Newman, has a laundry list of secret fines back there somewhere.
Jeff is also the last vestige of what commitment to the sport meant. He is in his 23rd full-time season, and I have doubts that we will ever see a career that long again. Every one of those years has a Bud Pole won somewhere in it. No one else active can say the same about their careers.
Our only hope at this point is that Chase Elliott becomes the next Richard Petty, and even he is in thanks to his dad's name.