Gordy Got His Boots

After 16 tries and 16 failures the Dupont Chevrolet finally found victory lane in Texas. And not only that, they did it after a 47 race winless streak that had been looming over their heads like a storm cloud promising a rain delay. While the 24 team is not quite at the level they ran in 1998 pulling off 13 wins that year, I can say that they are looking better than they've looked in a very long time. In 2007 Gordon racked up 30 top tens and 6 wins and still managed to finish 2nd behind the 48. After a "bad" 2008 where he finished 10th it looks like the whole team is back on track to be a championship contender.

With Jeff 6th on the all time win list and having 4 Cup Series Championships you can't deny that the man is a good driver. The burning question that comes up in discussions with friends is if Jeff Gordon is better than Dale Earnhardt Sr. If you look at wins Jeff is better. If you look at Championships then Earnhardt is better.....maybe. Yeah he has 7 rings to Gordon's 4, but they were all won under the old points system. If you run all of Jeff's seasons under the same points system he would now have 6 championships and is still arguably in his prime. And while I'm a fan of the "good old days" racing I do believe that the competition today is more stiff than in Earnhardt's prime.

I'm not taking anything away from Earnhardt Sr., he was a great driver and I would put him in the top three of all time. And for sure he's done more for the sport of racing than any other driver except maybe The King himself. I just think that when it comes to raw talent Jeff Gordon deserves a little more credit than what he gets.

Now if we could just get Ray Evernham to come out of retirement Jeff could go out and win 4 more titles then no one could question his talent.