Bobby Johns (14)
Summary: Crossover driver who won two NASCAR Cup Series races, 48 NASCAR Modified wins, and 2 Late Model Sportsman wins as part of a total 59 race victories. After he left NASCAR, he pivoted to an IndyCar career, finishing in the top ten in both of his starts, but failing to qualify five times.
Case for: Both of Johns’s Cup Series wins were really dominant against modern-sized fields, as he beat a 45-car field and led 225 of 334 laps at Atlanta in 1960, then he led 430 of 500 laps against a 36-car Bristol field in 1962. His Bristol win came for a team owned and operated by his father Shorty. Early ‘60s competition was actually stronger than that of any other period in the pre-modern era since the lack of factory teams helped to equalize the field. His stock car rating of .177 is quite solid, although that is based on only six teammate comparisons. He demonstrated his diversity by also winning many modified races and becoming one of the few NASCAR drivers of that era to attempt an IndyCar crossover. He finished third in the 1960 championship despite only starting 19 of 44 races because the superspeedway races awarded substantially more points.
Case against: His 1,400 laps led do rank in the top 100 all time, although most of the drivers surrounding him aren’t list-worthy (Jimmy Spencer, Michael Waltrip, Bubba Wallace (yet), Ty Gibbs (yet), Elliott Sadler, and Joe Nemechek). The early ‘60s may have had better competition than any other pre-modern era, but they still probably paled compared to everything after the mid-’80s. Winning for a family operation was not exactly rare at the time as Rex White won the 1960 title as an owner-driver. But I think the main issue is that he did not do enough in the Cup Series before he made his IndyCar pivot, which was essentially unsuccessful. I suspect Johns probably would have done enough if he had either remained in the Cup Series or if he’d simultaneously competed and won in USAC Stock Cars while also competing in IndyCars as a lot of drivers did, but he seemed to mostly give up stock car racing, which hurt his legacy. He is very similar to another driver, Emanuel Zervakis, who won 2 Cup races and 47 Modified races with 71 confirmed wins overall (and he also had a third-place points finish in 1961), and I’m not listing him. Sure, Johns was a little better since he won higher-prestige races against greater competition, but was he that much better?
Verdict: Drop. He had a respectable and long-lasting career that probably should receive more discussion today (he was even the driver that Indy 500 winner Bill Holland competed against in a charity match race that caused him to lose his competition license and effectively ruined his career), but there are too many other similar drivers.
Amos Johnson (19)
Summary: This not-so-famous Amos who doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page was an ‘80s IMSA star who primarily competed in the GTU class for Mazda but sometimes also the GTO and TU classes. He rarely competed for overall wins, but he did win the World Sportscar Championship’s 6 Hours of Daytona with his owner/co-driver Roger Mandeville in 1981 against a 61-car field. A venerable Daytona master, his main legacy came at the 24 Hours of Daytona, where he became the first driver to earn four consecutive class wins from 1985-1988.
Case for: Johnson won 21 IMSA class races: the first two were outliers in 1971 (in the very first IMSA race) and 1978, but all the rest came in 1982-1990, a period where Johnson won every season. Although he never won an IMSA title, he finished second or third in either GTU or GTO points every year from 1983-1989. He also earned class wins at Sebring in 1982 and 1988. He is one of a grand total of three drivers to earn class wins at Daytona four years in a row along with Robby Gordon and Peter Uria (both from 1990-1993). While Gordon had enough success in other disciplines to attain lock status even if I find both his CART and NASCAR careers overrated and Uria had only five class wins total suggesting he was along for the ride as he didn’t even seem to be a full IMSA regular, Johnson was a full-time regular and a lot more prolific winner, which makes him the interesting case. The fields Johnson beat weren’t that small by sports car standards either, as in 1985, he, Jack Dunham, and Yojiro Terada won by 41 laps against a 17-car field, he, Dunham, and Dennis Shaw won in 1986 by 34 laps against a 10-car field, and then he, Shaw, and Buddy Lazier’s father Bob won twice in succession in 1987 and 1988 against 12-car fields by 20 and 14 laps respectively. Although he kept losing the GTU titles, he wasn’t losing to bad drivers as Jack Baldwin won the 1985 title and Tommy Kendall won three in a row in 1986-1988 including two seasons in which Johnson finished an admittedly distant second place.
Case against: Not only did Johnson never win a GTU title, he never came very close either, losing to his onetime co-driver Roger Mandeville 216-166 in 1983 (who I am probably not listing), then 221-148 to Baldwin in 1985 (and remember, I had Baldwin on the bubble too), 226-155 to Kendall in 1986 (and Mandeville only narrowly lost that title), 260-190 and 163-108 to Kendall in 1987 and 1988, and 166-140 to Bob (not even Butch) Leitzinger in 1989. The main reason for this is that back in those days, the IMSA GTU class had numerous standalone single-driver races where drivers competed by themselves, and Johnson didn’t do well in a lot of those. Only five of Johnson’s wins came in solo drives, while Mandeville had seven and he had two titles and Johnson had none. On the other hand, Mandeville never won the 24 Hours of Daytona, which might be more important. It might’ve helped Johnson if he’d entered and won in other series like Trans-Am, but he mostly didn’t, just focusing on IMSA.
Verdict: Keep. I’m kind of unsure on this one since I think Mandeville might’ve been faster by himself as evidenced by his greater number of solo wins, and there are other contemporaries like Bob Earl with 13 solo wins and Terry Visger with 6 who I do not have on the list. (I didn’t even evaluate Earl yet and I must have just overlooked him entirely, and that is clearly an oversight!) But the marquee race wins are generally regarded as more important than titles, he’s the first to win four in a row, and he was at least fairly competitive with a number of sports car legends in the class, even if several of them were better in individual and unshared drives.
Sherwood Johnston (16)
Summary: One of the first American sports car stars, Johnston won the 1952 SCCA National Championship against all the other competitors in all classes before the championship was split into numerous individual class categories. As a result, these initial titles impress me more than the original class championships. He added a title in the C Modified class in 1955. He had 7 overall SCCA wins and 11 in class along with class wins in the 1953 12 Hours of Sebring and 1954 24 Hours of Le Mans before retiring two weeks after flipping at Road America in 1956.
Case for: The SCCA National Championship on paper impresses me more than the individual class championships that followed it, as Johnston had to compete against all the SCCA drivers competing in every class, but I actually find his 1955 C Modified title more impressive because he won five of his seven overall SCCA wins that year, including beating Bill Spear three times, Briggs Cunningham twice, Walt Hansgen twice, and future World Champion Phil Hill once.
Case against: His 1952 national championship, although prestigious, seems like it was pretty undeserved. Phil Walters and John Fitch were overwhelmingly the fastest drivers that year with Walters winning twice overall and twice in class and Fitch winning thrice overall and once in class even though they only finished third and fifth in the championship, while Johnston only had two class wins and no overall wins. In fact, he didn’t win a race overall until the 1954 season. His 1955 season is really solid, but although he beat some good guys occasionally and those fields were larger than you’d think, he was still for the most part beating fields of nobodies. While some SCCA drivers look better when you consider their performance in divisional races, Johnston only won three divisional races, once each in 1951, 1955, and 1956 although that last one came in the semi-prestigious 6 Hours of Torrey Pines. Carroll Shelby and Jim Kimberly were the only other good drivers who were listed in the C Modified standings in the year Johnston won, and I’m probably not listing them. He did finish third overall in both his Sebring and Le Mans class wins, which is okay, but he was 19 laps down at Le Mans and 11 laps down to Walters and Fitch at Sebring, who were clearly better.
Verdict: Drop. Nah. This is the profile of a career compiler, not a dominant driver. He’s the kind of driver who might’ve if he had sustained that level of performance over a long period of time, but not after only competing for half a decade.
Brent Kaeding (17)
Summary: Probably the most famous driver of the Kaeding family racing dynasty, Brent is the son of Howard (who has 129 verified NASCAR Modified wins) and the father of three-time USAC Silver Crown champion Bud and King of the West Sprint Car Series champion Tim. Deciding which Kaedings to go with is not easy, but I think I might’ve messed up. I have Howard in near lock, Brent on the bubble, and Bud in near miss, even though Brent has 297 verified wins to Tim’s 214, Howard’s 130, and Bud’s 127. I knew Brent had the strongest reputation and he was inducted into the National Sprint Car Hall of Fame almost two decades ago, so I really need to recalibrate here. I think Howard’s win total is a vast undercount, and I think I’m taking Bud over Tim because the Silver Crown titles are the most prestigious things the family won, but it seems like I’m way off on all of them.
Case for: Brent for the most part only competed in West Coast grassroots series, but he won an absurd amount of titles, winning the Northern Auto Racing club title 14 times, the King of the West title 13, and other titles like the Make-A-Wish Trophy Cup and the Ocean Sprint Cars title multiple times. He didn’t spend as much time in the more prestigious national series, but he still had his share of wins in more famous tours including eight World of Outlaws wins and a win in the Turkey Night Grand Prix, arguably the most prestigious midget race (well, other than the Chili Bowl anyway). I think his dominance overcomes his only competing against regional west coast drivers, because this is on another level of dominance compared to even Damion Gardner, who is also great but only has 128 verified wins.
Case against: There isn’t one. End of story.
Verdict: Keep. I done goofed. He should be a lock I think. I wasn’t even close on him. The question is whether I should bump Bud and/or Tim up here too, or downgrade Howard. I clearly need to do more research into this family.
Pierre Kaffer (16)
Summary: Sports car career compiler who did a lot of things but never really had an extremely high peak. He won one semi-major title in the International GT Open in 2010, but mostly he was a consistent presence and not an all-time great. He still had some big wins, including an overall Nürburgring 24 Hours win in 2019, an overall 12 Hours of Sebring in 2004 and two more class wins both there and at the Petit Le Mans. He has 2 Porsche Supercup wins, 1 Porsche Carrera Cup Germany win, 3 American Le Mans overall wins and 5 more in class, 5 WEC class wins, 4 International GT Open wins, 2 European Le Mans Series overall wins, 2 VLN class wins, along with a Le Mans class win and two more Nürburgring class wins. He’s since moved into the obscure 24H Series, which features a bunch of endurance races almost nobody cares about, but he’s won two more titles in 2024 and 2026.
Case for: 22 overall wins and 22 class wins may be too many to dismiss, but granted, 5 of his overall wins and 6 of his class wins have come in either amateur or pro-am classes in the 24H Series, so those hardly count. Kaffer led the Porsche Supercup championship battle for most of 2003 and was tied for the points lead entering the season finale until he was disqualified, which caused him to finish third behind Frank Stippler and Wolf Henzler. There were great drivers entered in the International GT Open, as he and his co-driver Álvaro Barba still needed to beat Richard Lietz and Patrick Pilet. He won his share of marquee races, which probably matter more than championships.
Case against: The 2003 Porsche Supercup season was weak as the only other particularly strong driver who ran full-time was fourth-place Duncan Huisman and I’m not listing him. Lietz and Pilet were really the only strong drivers entered in 2010. Kaffer never won a WEC, ALMS, or IMSA title. He did lead 103 laps in his Sebring win, more than his co-drivers Allan McNish and Frank Biela, but nobody in their right mind thinks he was as good as McNish or Biela, and this reminds me of that year when Casey Mears led the most laps in his 24 Hours of Daytona win (no, Kaffer is nowhere near as bad as Mears). Kaffer’s two DTM years in 2005 and 2006 were very lackluster as he finished 15th and 16th in points, then he returned to the technically minor league Porsche Carrera Cup Germany in 2007 and finished twelfth. His .082 touring car rating is okay but still potentially ignorable. He went winless in 25 ELMS starts after his two wins with Audi in 2004. He won a couple class wins in the WEC LMP1 Private Teams’ Championship, but that category had at most three cars in it. I think all three of his co-drivers in his 24 Hours of Nürburgring win (Stippler, Dries Vanthoor, and Frédéric Vervisch) were better.
Verdict: Drop. This is an example of a sports car driver who is famous whose reputation does not line up with the reality. He had very few significant overall wins except in a weak era of the Porsche system and then a single year for Audi (where they won with literally whoever they put in their cars, and all his teammates were better than him), and too many of his biggest successes came against weak fields or in pro-am races or both. He does not seem to have been as good as his teammates and he didn’t have a very high peak. I kind of expected to keep him, but the more I went into it, the less impressed I was.