1,000 Greatest Drivers: Harry Gant

How many more Cup wins would he have had if he started earlier?

Even though I’ve been normally writing about drivers on their birthday and today is not Harry Gant’s, I figured it wouldn’t be right if I wrote about the driver nicknamed “Mr. September” in a month other than September so I chose to write about him today on the anniversary of his fourth straight win at Martinsville, which is widely regarded as the best of his career since he came back from being wrecked by Rusty Wallace to win. While I did decide to give his 1991 a full elite grade, I do also think that season is overrated somewhat since he had five wins and two TNL and also had vastly more CRL (3.62) than lead shares (1.86), indicating that his team was putting him in the lead much more than he was, which does make sense for a driver who is 51 years old. When you consider that his Talladega win was a pretty stupid fuel mileage win where his quasi-teammate Rick Mast illegally pushed him on the final lap to make sure he didn’t run out of fuel and then he went on that dominant four-in-a-row streak mainly because of an aggressive camber setup that probably flouted the spirit of the rules, which is what also led to Bill Elliott’s four-in-a-row streak the next year. However, the Leo Jackson team did not have much success without Gant while the Junior Johnson team had tons of success without Elliott, so I do regard Gant’s 1991 more highly than Elliott’s 1992. But while I think Martinsville was definitely Gant’s best race, I decided to go for 1985 when Gant led the second most laps of his career and that season because I think he was doing more of the work himself that year, and the IROC title also helped me make up my mind on that. (Elliott was certainly better that year and I am ranking him #2 for 1985.)