Season Grades for IndyCar Drivers: Part I

All the drivers with 10+ wins I haven't done yet.

I didn’t quite finish the Rick Mears column I was planning yesterday as I was focused on my paid work yesterday and I also walked to the lab several miles away to collect my stool sample the day before. As a result, I’m going to include Mears here and I’m going to include Emerson Fittipaldi on Friday’s F1 list instead. Had another tough visit at the nursing home again as Mom again forgot I was her son (she keeps thinking I’m her brother who died in 2010). She was horrified when she realized this, but I was kind of nonplussed. It’s a part of life, and I’ll take it over the way more obnoxious stuff she was saying in 2023 and 2024…

Al Unser

1964: C-
1965: C-
1966: C+
1967: C+
1968: E
1969: 5
1970: 1
1971: E
1972: C+
1973: C+
1974: C+
1975: C+
1976: E
1977: E
1978: E
1979: E
1980: C+
1981: C
1982: C
1983: C+
1984: C
1985: E-
1986: C-
1987: C
1988: C
1992: C-

Cumulative points: 223

I gave him C-s for his first two seasons as I think I’m planning on doing for all Pikes Peak Hill Climb winners (I will likely give higher grades for this in the pre-World War II years when there was a lot less racing out there…) Although his IndyCar seasons from 1972-1975 were relatively mediocre by his standards, I pushed them up because he won a USAC Silver Crown title and five races in that series along with two USAC Stock Car wins and a Formula 5000 win. His versatility makes those seasons look more impressive than they do if you look at his IndyCar results alone. Even though he swept the triumvirate of 500-milers in 1978, he didn’t make an on-track pass for the win in any of them, but I still felt that accomplishment was worthy of a full E. His Penske stint doesn’t impress me a great deal as both his 1983 and 1985 were extremely mediocre, although I gave 1985 a slight boost for the 24 Hours of Daytona win. Finally, I decided to rate him for 1992 because he did give Team Menard its first lead-lap finish and best-ever finish in the Indy 500.

Paul Tracy

1990: C
1992: C
1993: 3
1994: E
1995: C+
1996: C+
1997: E
1999: E-
2000: E-
2002: C+
2003: E
2004: E-
2005: E
2007: C-

Cumulative points: 119

This is pretty straightforward. His 1993 was definitely amazing as he tied CART champion/defending F1 champion Nigel Mansell with five wins and he was actually way more dominant in the races, making passes for the lead in 12 out of 16 races. I couldn’t decide whether to place Mansell or Tracy higher especially since Tracy was the highest-rated CART driver in my model, but I chose Mansell because he did win the title and he had never competed on an oval before, while Tracy had had about one full season prior to that (I definitely think both of them were better than Alain Prost though). I could see docking his 1997 because he had such a horrible finish, but I think the fact that he won all three of Penske’s races from 1996-99 consecutively is impressive enough to counteract that; it’s probably his second-best season. His 2003 and 2005 were certainly great also, but the competition was too weak for me to take either of those over his best ‘90s seasons.

Rick Mears

1976: C-
1978: E-
1979: E
1980: C+
1981: 4
1982: 2
1983: C+
1984: E-
1985: C
1986: C+
1987: C+
1988: E-
1989: E
1990: C+
1991: E-
1992: C-

Cumulative points: 159

Mears is the only driver who comes close to rivaling Scott Dixon for most #1 rated seasons in IndyCar. He was the highest-rated CART driver in my model every year from 1979-1986 except for 1980 and 1983, but there were very few teams that ran multiple cars back then and there were also few teams that had enough shared finishes to allow for realistic comparisons because ‘80s reliability was so weak, so effectively this measured who the best Penske driver was. It is impressive he was arguably the best Penske driver for so long, but I did have to dock his 1980 and 1983 since I think the Unsers were better. Although Mears’s injury at Sanair really hurt the second half of his career (especially on road courses), he certainly did have a nice resurgence in his late period when the Chevrolet engines were overwhelmingly dominant. A lot of people think that Mears would have won the 1993 and 1994 Indy 500s had he not retired given Penske won both those races. I really don’t since I do think he was washing up, but it’s an interesting thought.

Gordon Johncock

1965: C+
1966: E-
1967: E-
1968: C+
1969: E-
1970: C
1972: C
1973: E
1974: E
1975: E
1976: E
1977: E
1978: E-
1979: E
1980: C
1981: C
1982: E-
1983: C-

Cumulative points: 100

Johncock went on a run in the ‘70s. He was so successful that IndyCar insiders acted like Patrick Racing was a legitimate rival to Penske for most of the ‘70s and ‘80s when for the most part Patrick’s success outside of Johncock and Emerson Fittipaldi was really quite marginal actually. I raised his 1967 and 1969 seasons higher than I normally would because he was an owner-driver. From 1973-78, Johncock led at least 250 laps every season, and the longest of these seasons was 2,177 laps in 1978, so Johncock led at least 10% of the laps every year in his heyday. Although he is most famous for his 1982 Indy 500 win, that season doesn’t impress me as much as it seemed like he and Mario Andretti ran about the same, but Johncock was just luckier.

Tony Bettenhausen

1941: C+
1946: C+
1947: 5
1948: C-
1949: C
1950: E
1951: 2
1953: E-
1954: C-
1955: C+
1956: C
1958: E
1959: 5
1960: E-

Cumulative points: 153

Bettenhausen is less familiar to many fans now because the pre-A.J. Foyt period hardly gets any attention now and because he never won an Indy 500 and did not have a great record there in general. However, he was absolutely lethal on dirt and one of the best duelists in IndyCar history dating back to the ‘30s. His 33-17 lead change record is the second-best all-time among drivers with 10+ natural races led behind only his contemporary Jimmy Bryan, who had an astonishing 17-6 record. If Bryan was the best IndyCar driver of the ‘50s, Bettenhausen is neck-and-neck with Rodger Ward for second. I would probably choose Bettenhausen actually since much of Ward’s success was in the ‘60s. I have been exchanging emails with the racing historian Michael Ferner to obtain win counts for AAA-era sprint and midget races before the formation of USAC, and it’s possible I may shift some of the earlier seasons up or down depending on how many races in those divisions he won (this will also likely affect both Bill Holland and Johnnie Parsons on this list).

Bill Holland

1941: C+
1946: 3
1947: 4
1948: C+
1949: E
1950: C+

Cumulative points: 97

Despite his short career, Holland racked up 20 IndyCar wins because he won 17 races in 1946 (the year AAA randomly decided to add over 70 sprint car races, then called Big Car races) to the schedule. He had also won the 1941 AAA Eastern Big Car championship, but I don’t know how many races he won, so it’s possible I might rate that much higher (especially since there was so little racing in Europe that year for obvious reasons). He didn’t make his first Indy 500 start until 1947, but when he did, he had four straight Indy 500 top twos and he should have had two wins because he was screwed out of the 1947 win by a stupid team order. His career effectively ended when the AAA banned him for entering a NASCAR race. He never really recovered since he was already in his forties by then.

Tom Sneva

1973: C-
1975: C
1976: C-
1977: C+
1978: C+
1979: C+
1980: E-
1981: E
1982: C+
1983: E
1984: E
1985: C
1986: C

Cumulative points: 55

Even though he was Penske’s first IndyCar champion in 1977 and 1978, Penske fired him after 1978 to promote Mears to full-time status. Honestly, I don’t blame him as Sneva’s title seasons were astonishingly weak (especially when considering that Mears and Bobby Unser combined for 9 out of 14 wins in the first CART season in 1979). His 59 laps led in 1977 were the least in a title season since Sam Hanks’s 57 in 1953 (excluding George Snider’s 1981-82 and Scott Sharp tying for the three-race championship in 1996). In 1978, he led a little more but was the last winless champion (again excluding Sharp here). I do think he improved after Penske fired him. I honestly think what he did with Jerry O’Connell’s second-rate Sugaripe Prune team was more impressive than what he did for Penske, and he did eventually become a truly great driver for Bignotti-Cotter in the ‘80s.

Adrián Fernández

1998: C+
1999: C+
2000: C
2001: C-
2002: C-
2003: C
2004: E-
2009: C+

Cumulative points: 20

Fernández had one of the most baffling careers in IndyCar history as he simultaneously seems wildly overrated based on his actual statistics but somehow underrated based on his reputation. It never seemed like CART fans took him very seriously, but he still racked up 11 wins and a second-place points finish, both of which I think would shock people even if they were watching at the time. However, his win total vastly overstates his performance as he only had 6 TNL, 4.05 lead shares, and 5.05 CRL, which suggests if he had balanced luck he should’ve had about five wins. He didn’t have balanced luck because in his days at Patrick Racing, he won six times despite having only one TNL because his chief strategist Jim McGee was maybe the greatest strategist in IndyCar history (with more wins than any other strategist save maybe Mike Hull and a legendary career that dated back to Mario Andretti in the ‘60s). He also benefited from having the dominant Honda engines and Firestone tires before most other drivers did (which is why I didn’t rate his 1996 even though he won). His teammate comparisons are not great and he actually is below-average in my model. In the year he finished 2nd in points (2000), his mediocre teammate Roberto Moreno was 3rd so I think he just benefited from Patrick having reliable cars in a season most teams didn’t. Having said that, it still feels like he never got his due because his career was entirely overshadowed by tragedy. He won the race where Jeff Krosnoff died as well as the race where Greg Moore died (both on fuel mileage), and the tire from his car tragically killed three fans at Michigan in 1998. As a result, nobody seems to think about him anymore unless they’re throwing random disses to Pato O’Ward. I’m not gonna argue Fernández deserved the level of success he had and O’Ward is certainly way better even though he still hasn’t won as many races, but he does deserve better than being completely ignored like he is now. He did some impressive stuff, but I would say mostly in the later stages of his career as an owner-driver, especially in 2004 when he started the IRL season late but still tied for the most wins and led all drivers with a 10-5 lead change percentage. He also had one impressive season in the ALMS after that.

Johnnie Parsons

1948: C+
1949: E-
1950: E-
1951: C+
1953: C-

Cumulative points: 17

Initially I had him as a lock, but in retrospect I changed my mind. His career was relatively short and also bizarre. In 1949, he won the title and five races, but he only had a single pass for the lead and it seems like Mel Hansen is the driver who was really dominating with three straight TNLs even though he only won one race. Parsons did win a deserved Indy 500 in 1950, but he also had an astonishing four DNQs in other races so I don’t think that year deserves a full E either, and his career burned out quickly. Parsons was a winner in Big Cars and midgets, but he wasn’t really one of the absolute biggest stars in those disciplines and I would say his IndyCar career is stronger. Parsons scores enough points to make the list probably, but I’m a lot less sure of it than I would have been several years ago.

Jimmy Vasser

1995: C
1996: C+
1997: C
1998: C+
2000: C-
2001: C-
2002: C
2005: C+

Cumulative points: 17

For a long time, I have pretty much viewed Jimmy Vasser and Adrián Fernández as exactly the same driver. They both had career success that wildly outstripped the level of their talent because they had access to the dominant Honda engines and Firestone tires before most of the superior drivers did, they were extremely lucky in races, and they had extremely fortunate situations at Chip Ganassi Racing and Patrick Racing that made them look better than they were. They’re also both below average in my model although Vasser is a little closer to 0 (-.029 to Fernández’s -.054). It’s funny that Vasser’s greatest moment of infamy came when he caused the pace lap crash at the U.S. 500 and cut off Fernández. On that day, he was very lucky indeed as he was allowed to restart the race in his backup car while Fernández didn’t have a backup car. Although Vasser still would have won the CART title even if he scored 0 points in that race (as he should have) I actually think he would have lost it because he would have cracked under the pressure had he not had a big points lead for most of the season. Coupling that with the fact that his rookie teammate Alex Zanardi beat him 8-2 (arguably worse than he beat him in even his title seasons) and I can’t give Vasser any elite seasons, sorry. Vasser continued to echo Fernández’s career after that, replacing him at Patrick where he finished one position in points ahead of Roberto Moreno in 2001 just as Fernández had done in 2000 (although 12th is not as impressive as 2nd). Then he too went into team ownership as part of the PKV team (which eventually became KV Racing, which Tony Kanaan won the Indy 500 with). Although Fernández won as an owner-driver and Vasser didn’t (which is probably why I lean toward Fernández) I do actually think 2005 was Vasser’s best year as he became Cristiano da Matta’s only full-season teammate to outperform him as opposed to getting steamrolled by Zanardi or Juan Pablo Montoya.