Leo Cella (16)
Summary: An obscure but eclectic ‘60s Italian racer who deftly crossed between rallying, sports cars, and touring cars, Cella won the 1966 Italian Rally Championship, earning three wins in that series, two wins in the European Rally Championship (which was, at the time, the deepest rallying championship), three European Touring Car Championship wins and five more in class, and nine World Sportscar Championship class wins including four Targa Florios and one 24 Hours of Le Mans before his death at 29 in a sports car testing crash.
Case for: 23 wins is a lot, especially for a driver who only had five winning seasons. His versatility was also pretty impressive. He did finish second overall in the 1967 Targa Florio.
Case against: Crossing over between rally cars, sports cars, and touring cars in the ‘60s was not exactly rare, as the distinctions between those types of cars or even disciplines of motorsports were not as rigidly defined as they are today (for instance, there were hill climbs on the World Sportscar Championship). His only championship was a minor league title, and I’m probably not even listing all the ERC champions of this era, and the ERC certainly outranked the Italian Rally Championship. Only 8 of his 23 wins were overall wins, and I have a preference for overall winners over class winners, especially in eras when classes were particularly shallow. The Targa Florio had a zillion class winners every year, and apart from the 1967 Targa Florio, he only finished better than fifth in a WSC event overall once and that was in a hill climb.
Verdict: Drop. If I’m even doubting Dario Cerrato (see below), Cella didn’t have a chance. He was not exactly unique in crossing over between rally, sports cars, and touring cars, and I think his sports car starts had by far the deepest competition, and he was in no way unique there. Cella was like John Andretti in that he was good in a lot of things but I’m hard-pressed to say he’s great in anything. And unlike Andretti, I don’t believe anybody would even care if I listed him or not (he doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page), and he’s not somebody I feel strong enough to make a defense for in spite of this since he didn’t have a high enough ceiling for how short his career was.
Dario Cerrato (18)
Summary: A much more dominant rally driver who won seven consecutive minor league rally titles from 1985-1991, the European Rally Championship in 1985 and 1987, and the Italian Rally Championship in 1986 and every year from 1988-1991.
Case for: In addition to his many overall titles, he has 38 major wins in either the ERC or IRC and all of them were overall wins. He also has a bunch of wins that didn’t count for championships. His 23-14 record against his teammates is pretty solid, and his 3-6 record against World Rally Champions (1-1 vs. Markku Alén, 0-1 vs. Didier Auriol, and 2-4 vs. Miki Biasion) isn’t horrible. He never won a WRC rally, but he finished 6th in points in 1990 despite only really dabbling in WRC events. He won the Targa Florio four times after it switched from being a round of the World Sportscar Championship to a round of the Italian Rally Championship.
Case against: All his wins came in minor league events. While the ERC still had some prestige in the ‘80s, it had already been eclipsed by the WRC for sure, and the Italian Rally Championship was less prestigious yet, despite containing the historic Targa Florio. If you compare his record to just WRC winners instead of champions, his record doesn’t improve much (5-9 when considering his 1-0 record vs. Andrea Aghini, 0-1 vs. Gianfranco Cunico, and 1-2 vs. Antonio Fassina).
Verdict: Keep. Unlike Cella, who only won one Italian rally title, Cerrato was definitely too dominant for too long for me to immediately drop him, but his record doesn’t scream that he should necessarily make the list either when comparing him to more successful rally drivers. He’ll likely remain very much a borderline list candidate. I probably won’t be able to resolve my thoughts on him until if/when/ever I finish my rally drivers’ model. I’m nowhere near that yet, since I still have well over 10,000 drivers to go through.
François Cevert (16)
Summary: French F1 driver who won one race in 1971 and finished 3rd, 6th, and 4th in the championship from 1971-1973 despite his death in qualifying for the 1973 U.S. Grand Prix at Watkins Glen.
Case for: In addition to his win for Tyrrell at Watkins Glen two years before he died there, he was also a strong sports car racer, winning a Can-Am race at Brainerd in 1972 and the 6 Hours of Vallelunga with Henri Pescarolo and Gérard Larrousse, and setting six fastest laps in World Sportscar Championship events that year. Cevert passed his teammate and World Champion Jackie Stewart for the win at Watkins Glen. His 3-1 lead change record in 1973 was actually better than Stewart’s 2-2. Cevert’s 13-27 record against Stewart in head-to-head finishes is pretty solid considering Stewart’s overall record.
Case against: Stewart waved Cevert by because his tires were lasting longer, but I do tend to count those kind of passes. More damningly, Stewart absolutely annihilated Cevert as teammates, winning two titles and beating him 15-1 in wins, 41-6 in qualifying, and 19-5 in shared finishes (much worse than his actual finishing record). Then again, Stewart is one of the greatest drivers in history so that’s not necessarily a disqualification, and Cevert was still rated well-above average in my open wheel model at .072, which is not unacceptable to make the list, but hardly a lock either. Ditto for his 92nd-place ranking on the F1metrics list, although the fact that that list is so biased towards modern drivers that it has Marcus Ericsson a hilarious 43rd makes me way more inclined to say yes.
Verdict: Keep. It’s always easy to overrate a driver who died right when they were peaking since we never saw their decline. However, since Stewart had already planned to retire after the 1973 season even before Cevert’s death, it stands as likely that Cevert would have been the Tyrrell team leader in 1974 and it’s likely based on his speed in 1973 that he’d have won several more races but probably not a World Championship. I think his blinding sports car speed and the fact that he actually had a better lead change record than Stewart in a year Stewart won the championship makes me want to stick my neck out for him. But he’ll never be a lock by any means.
Ross Cheever (14)
Summary: This is a funny one to probably dismiss quickly. Eddie’s little-known brother primarily competed in Japan’s F3000 series (the forerunner to today’s Super Formula), where he won 10 races from 1989-1994, finishing 2nd in points in both 1989 and 1991, and 3rd every year from 1992-1994 but he never won the title. He didn’t really compete anywhere else.
Case for: Surprisingly, Ross is actually one of the highest-rated drivers in my open wheel model at .234, way higher than Eddie’s -.003, which is why I wanted to give this a quick look. The reason he comes out so impossibly high is his 19-6 teammate record includes teammate wins against Johnny Herbert, Jan Lammers, Masanori Sekiya, and even Michael Schumacher.
Case against: I do not think Japanese F3000 had the same prestige as Super Formula does today. While it was certainly a destination series for the Japanese drivers who made their home there, like Kazuyoshi Hoshino, I would argue that the non-Japanese drivers there who competed there permanently were rather second-rate. Yes, he finished 2nd in F3000 points in a year Johnny Herbert was 10th in 1991 (and even beat Schumacher in a 1-2 finish straight up that year), but Cheever was the only driver in the entire field with the dominant Reynard chassis while Schumacher and Herbert had the inferior Ralt chassis. Cheever was heavily reliant on the Reynard chassis his entire career, and although he was often the highest Reynard finisher in points, I think this is a case where the car was better than the driver. If Ross had been truly great, he presumably would have been able to ride Eddie’s coattails further than he did, but his brief Indy Lights, CART, and European Formula 3000 careers were all subpar.
Verdict: Drop. The numbers are there, but my vibe is that he doesn’t deserve it since even though he was consistently beating the other Reynard drivers in the series, I think he had the fastest car with it and never won in an uncompetitive era. If I didn’t count drivers who had different chassis as teammates (and thereby removed the races where he beat Herbert and Schumacher since they had a slower chassis), his open wheel rating would presumably be a lot worse. It’s an interesting outlier, but not enough of one for me to justify listing him, I think.
Joie Chitwood (16)
Summary: Better known as a stunt driver and proto-Evil Knievel celebrity thrill seeker, Chitwood’s explosive sprint car career may be difficult to dismiss in its own right.
Case for: Despite a relatively short period of relevance from 1938-1947 that was interrupted by World War II, Chitwood won 47 AAA Big Car (proto-sprint car wins), including the 1939 and 1940 Eastern Big Car titles. Even after the U.S. entered World War II, he actually won another Big Car title in the CSRA tour, where he won 10 races in 1942. That’s an important part of his legacy, even though there was so little racing globally in 1942 that I can’t possibly award grades to that season. He is technically credited with 7 IndyCar wins in that bizarre 1946 season, where they added 71 Big Car races to the schedule because they were worried there wouldn’t be enough suitable venues otherwise. I ended up awarding fewer points to the 1940 and 1941 seasons because there was so little competition globally after Europe entered the war, but these were some of Chitwood’s best, as he won 16 races even in those two seasons.
Case against: While sprints and midgets to a lesser degree were two of the forms of racing that were really continuing to thrive even well after World War II started, it’s certainly questionable how strong the competition was at a time when global industry was beginning to shut down, and presumably many drivers were getting drafted. The bigger question is whether I would only be listing him for his celebrity status outside of pure racing rather than his actual accomplishments.
Verdict: Keep. I don’t find myself persuaded by my own counterarguments. He won seven races in 1946 and nine in 1947, proving that he continued to be relevant after the war as industry was ramping back up again. The fact that he peaked in 1939-1942 actually hurts him since I awarded fewer points to some of his best seasons even though those seasons were an important part of his legacy. And even if I am partially swayed by his celebrity status, who cares? It’s not like this is somebody like Paul Newman or Patrick Dempsey who doesn’t have the numbers as a driver. Chitwood has the numbers, and his carnival barker thrill shows make him a lot more interesting to write about than most of the other drivers I’m discussing here, which would likely result in a more entertaining book. I can’t deny that intangible is important, but I wouldn’t be doing it if his record didn’t have a case on its own merits.