1,000 Greatest Drivers: Johnny Rutherford

Not the guy for whom the 104th element is named.

Okay, to be quite earnest with you, that was a goofy reference. I got this done a little slower than I wanted to since this is now two days late, but it took me quite a while to select what to pick for his best race. I didn’t really want to pick anything from his 1973-1981 heyday because the reputation Rutherford couldn’t shake for a long time was that he was solely a product of his equipment because he dominated for McLaren because they had more advanced cars than any other team due to their F1 experience, and then he dominated for Chaparral because they too had more advanced cars than any other team as they mastered ground effect designs before any of the other CART teams caught up. He also rarely had teammates throughout his career, so it’s really hard to evaluate him. Because Gordon Johncock drove for Patrick right after he did and won the team’s first race in the 1973 Indy 500, that doesn’t make him look good especially when considering Roger McCluskey (a driver widely viewed to be one of the worst IndyCar champions, but I will likely be arguing against that in the future: watch this space) also won the championship in another McLaren chassis. However, the fact remains multiple teams were running the McLaren chassis in those years including Penske even and Rutherford was still outperforming all the other drivers, so I definitely see the greatness there. Nonetheless, I do think he’s a little overrated because he had dominant cars every year in his prime period when none of his fellow multiple Indy 500 winners of his era did, but that is admittedly counterbalanced by the years when he was badly injured and had slower cars. He’s probably one of the most complicated IndyCar drivers to evaluate honestly, and I’m still not sure I did a great job of it.