1,000 Greatest Drivers: Parnelli Jones

Including thoughts on the Coca-Cola 600 and the NASCAR Hall of Fame inductions.

Daniel Suárez’s Coca-Cola 600 was simultaneously both annoying in one way yet also heartwarming in another. Although Suárez has had a very lucky career at this point and that was amplified by Sunday’s race, where he had the worst average running position of any winner on a non-drafting oval in the Next Gen era (thanks, Daniel Céspedes!) He was very lucky to take two tires and not have to deal with the consequences of that for an entire run because there were only a couple short runs before rain ended the race. Although my instinct is initially to be annoyed by wins like that and I was, it was also clear that the race was never going to restart and although I now think Suárez has had pretty extreme good luck in his career (when compared especially to his ex-teammate Erik Jones for instance), in the immediate aftermath of Kyle Busch, it’s cool that a former Kyle Busch Motorsports got a win I guess, and it kind of makes up for 2022, when Suárez had possibly the best drive of his career with a 4-0 lead change record before crashing. However, a race like that shouldn’t really cause anyone to reevaluate Suárez’s career overall, as opposed to Indy, where Felix Rosenqvist’s win will almost certainly change the narratives about him significantly.

But I wanted to finally talk about the NASCAR Hall of Fame. I knew it wouldn’t be appropriate to do so for my first post after Busch’s death or the Indy 500, but now that some time has passed, I thought I’d do it now. Most people I saw talking about this last week were complaining about Jeff Burton’s induction, especially because Burton’s ex-teammate Greg Biffle was not inducted the year after his death. Ryan McCafferty for instance said that he’d easily take Biffle over Burton because he had "[o]nly two fewer Cup wins while starting at a much older age and facing better competition at his peak, plus the lower series championships." While I do agree with that, even though my model actually has Burton slightly ahead (.120-.112) and I have both drivers tied with 39 cumulative points, it seems like performance isn’t why Burton was inducted ahead of him.

Most of the insiders seemed to be rushing to induct Burton primarily due to his intangibles, specifically his role as a safety advocate in the garage. It makes sense that a lot of stats guys like most of the people who talk about Hall of Fame inductions don’t understand how to talk about things that aren’t quantifiable. So, the question is how much of his induction came down to raising awareness for safety among the drivers and how much of it was simply media glad-handing because media members vote on this and he’s been a NASCAR color commentator for a decade. The answer I think is a little of both. There is no doubt that being media-friendly will always help your case in any Hall of Fame induction, which explains why he is in while irascible but superior drivers like Tim Richmond, Ernie Irvan, and Geoff Bodine have yet to be even nominated. I also question how much Burton himself is single-handedly responsible for raising safety awareness amongst the other drivers. I realize he played a role, but I mean I was watching NASCAR at the time in the wake of Dale Earnhardt’s death, and from what I remember at the time, the leading safety advocate amongst the drivers was Brett Bodine because he was the first to wear the Head and Neck Support device that eventually became standard. Obviously, Brett doesn’t deserve induction, but it seems like giving Burton credit for making all the other drivers care about safety is revisionist history, and honestly, I feel if anyone gets credit for safety innovations, it should be the inventors of safety equipment, not drivers.

I’m not against Burton’s induction, mind you. While there seem to be a lot of NASCAR fans who think any Hall of Fame inductee who’s worse than Bill Elliott or something is “lowering the bar”, I’ve already stated what I think about “Hall of Very Good” arguments, which deeply irritate me. I honestly think Burton was a better driver than Bobby Labonte, who was quickly rushed in. I know Labonte won a Cup Series and Busch Series title and Burton didn’t, but Labonte seemed to be mostly a specialist on four tracks (Atlanta, Charlotte, Michigan, Pocono), while Burton seemed a lot more consistent from track-to-track. He also had more longevity with 11 competitive seasons to Labonte’s 8 and he managed to win for two teams while Burton only won with one. In my opinion, that should put Burton ahead of someone who’s already inducted. I do think Burton was the best driver of 2000, just like I think Labonte was the best driver of 1999. Labonte was the best Joe Gibbs Racing driver when it was a multi-car team arguably only twice (1999 and 2000, arguably because you can say Tony Stewart was better in 2000) while Burton was at Roush three times (1999-2001, although you can make a slight case Mark Martin was better in 1999). So am I for Burton’s induction? Yes. I still would have only ranked him eighth on the Modern Era Ballot though, and apart from the obvious first-ballot lock Kevin Harvick and Biffle, I would have taken Richmond, Irvan, and Bodine over any driver who made the ballot and I think the drivers who did make the ballot overall were a little weird. I would definitely take Burton over Randy LaJoie and Jack Sprague who I don’t think deserve it (Busch and truck titles do not equal 20+ Cup wins).

Harvick was obviously a lock so there’s nothing to talk about there. I’m glad Larry Phillips got in on the Pioneer ballot since he is someone NASCAR hadn’t properly acknowledged until recently, but I must admit one small gripe here. While I’ve always supported both of their inductions, I don’t understand why Ray Elder was placed on the Modern Era ballot and Phillips was placed on the Pioneer ballot. Elder had almost exactly half his success (3 Winston West titles, 24 Winston West wins, and 1 Cup Series win) before the modern era started in 1972, and half after (3 Winston West titles, 23 Winston West wins, and 1 Cup win) which means you can easily debate whether he should count as Pioneer or Modern. (And there’s no question Elder was better than Hershel McGriff, who he easily bested in West Coast championships in the ‘70s, and who was inducted a while ago.) Phillips, there’s no debate. He is undeniably modern era. I know he must have had grassroots wins in the ‘60s, but those didn’t come in NASCAR-sanctioned series and there is hardly any online record of wins for him prior to 1972. All of Phillips’s NASCAR Weekly Series titles came in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, so he is unquestionably modern. The people deciding these things just decided to stuff Phillips on the Pioneer ballot because they knew he’d be more likely to get the votes there while he could not get the votes on the Modern ballot. I’m not intrinsically against them doing this for drivers who for the most part didn’t compete in Cup, but if they’re doing that, they should be consistent about it and if they nominate Elder again (which they should since he does deserve it), they need to put him on the Pioneer ballot (which he has a much better case of deserving than Phillips does) because I think he can get the votes there and he absolutely can’t on the Modern ballot.

Again, none of that matters now in the wake of Busch’s death, but I promised several times that I wanted to discuss the Hall of Fame in the last week so I felt I needed to get that out there before I left to visit Mom again in a few minutes.