1,000 Greatest Drivers: Dick Trickle

Definitely more than just a funny name.

I suspect I underrated a lot of his seasons because if he really did win 1,200 races like everybody says (I remain thoroughly unconvinced), then he was probably winning 50 races a year almost every year in his best seasons, which means maybe I should have given him more than just three elite seasons from 1983-1985. I do believe those individual seasons are elite, especially 1983 because he won 20 races across ARTGO, ASA, and the Slinger Nationals, and as I mentioned he did beat that year’s Cup champion Bobby Allison in the Slinger Nationals that year (as well as Rusty Wallace, Mark Martin, and Alan Kulwicki, and all of them went winless while Trickle won two of the three races). The next two years, he also won the ARTGO and ASA titles in back-to-back years, but I also don’t think the competition in ARTGO was nearly as good as the ASA, so maybe I’m not underrating all those other championship seasons he had. This is one where I probably will need to do a lot more research before I feel confident about my evaluations for almost any of these seasons, but I think the writing is good.