The IndyCar Lightning Round
Plus a few NASCAR stragglers I forgot.
Whew. I went through the remaining 111 IndyCar drivers with one or two wins who I hadn’t covered yet over the last week. There are still more IndyCar winners than this because prior to the year 1920, there was only a championship in the years 1905 and 1916 so any of the other winners from 1909-1915 and 1917-1919 do not count. I decided to also cover the first four Indy 500 winners here (Ray Harroun, Joe Dawson, Jules Goux, and René Thomas) even though none of those drivers are officially listed with IndyCar wins because there were no season championships in those years. Finally, there were three NASCAR drivers I overlooked last time. One of my subscribers told me I had forgotten to do Leon Sales and Regan Smith last time (I had gone through them, but I just forgot to include them in the write-up). I also discovered myself that I had skipped over Emanuel Zervakis, so I threw him in here too. With this, I have now gone through every official F1, IndyCar, and NASCAR winner, although there are obviously plenty of drivers who made starts in any of those three series who are still worth considering and I’ll deal with them later. As usual lately, I have ranked them according to most cumulative points, where 25 points is a lock, although I’ve got to say that giving lock status to Felix Rosenqvist and Howdy Wilcox doesn’t feel good, so I’ll probably still tweak some of these things for years.
My colonoscopy is on Wednesday and I do think I’m going to go through with it this time because I do think I need to know whether I have irritable bowel syndrome (which I have been diagnosed with) or something more severe like Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis, and maybe drinking the gross, nasty cleaning fluid will help my future digestion. The day before my colonoscopy is my mom’s meeting with the social worker to determine whether she will be allowed to come home. It’s definitely a real possibility now that her Medicaid long term care case has been complete, although PACE CNY, the in-home care service we will likely be using, is going to understandably wnt to do an in-home inspection because of my mom’s hoarding, although I did clean up the hoarding.
I am going to again shut down charges for the month of August, and I still have one more column planned before the colonoscopy where I simply do a roll call of all the drivers in their tier groups. I have a spreadsheet consisting of my 619 locks (drivers who I have calculated to have over 25 points or those who I expect will), my 488 bubble drivers (who I assume to have between 14-24 points), and my 575 “near miss” drivers (who I assume to have between 10-13 points). Obviously, some drivers will be moved up or down between groups, but I think I want to write my current lists as a post sometime next week.
After the colonoscopy, what should my next move here? Is there a series you want me to tackle next? Formula E, Supercars, WTCC/WTCR/TCR World Tour, DTM, BTCC, Super Formula, Porsche Supercup, USAC, NHRA, something else? I would prefer to wait on rally drivers (because I think I need to do a lot more research there and complete my rally model, which is nowhere near complete) and sports car drivers (because it’s hard to differentiate who did the work on multi-driver sports car teams). Honestly, what I think I’m going to do is go through all the other drivers on my bubble and give estimated grades for them to figure who else is a lock (I definitely have some sports car drivers like James Calado and Dane Cameron who are probably locks who I’ve just been reluctant to promote for some reason), especially because I want to know where my actual bubble is. I was thinking it was 14 points but now I’m wondering if it might be closer to 16. I’d like to see if I can go through all the remaining drivers in my top three lists before the end of the year, then I’ll likely return to the individual driver posts next year. Thank you and good night.
George Follmer
1965: E-
1966: C-
1967: C+
1968: C
1969: C
1970: C
1971: E-
1972: 2
1973: E-
1974: C
1976: E-
1977: C-
1978: C+
1981: C-
Cumulative points: 107
Mostly noteworthy for his 1972 season when he became the only driver to win the Can-Am and Trans-Am titles simultaneously (he even beat Denny Hulme by a larger points percentage than F1 champion Emerson Fittipaldi did there), but he also won the United States Road Racing Championship in ‘65, another Trans-Am title in ‘76, and various other races including one IndyCar race at Phoenix throughout his career.
Troy Ruttman
1949: E
1950: E
1951: 3
1952: 5
1954: C
1956: C+
1957: C+
1962: C
1963: C
Cumulative points: 102
He never completely recovered from a sprint car injury three months after his Indy 500 win in 1952, but before that, he not only became the youngest Indy 500 winner (and technically the youngest World Championship winner for half a century), but he also won a staggering 59 sprint and midget races and three sprint car titles from 1949-1952.
Bernd Rosemeyer
1935: E-
1936: 1
1937: 2
Cumulative points: 82
Although his career is certainly tainted by driving for the Nazi-backed Auto Union team, he was unquestionably one of the greatest Grand Prix drivers of his time and he crossed over to win the Vanderbilt Cup in 1937 (which did count as an official IndyCar race).
Jules Goux
1909: E
1910: 4
1911: E-
1912: E-
1913: 2
1914: C+
1919: C+
1921: 3
1922: E-
1926: 4
Cumulative points: 81
Although he is best known for winning the 1913 Indy 500 under the influence of four bottles of champagne, Goux was also one of the dominant Grand Prix drivers of his time, winning nine other Grands Prix from 1909-1926, most notably the 1921 Italian GP, 1926 French GP, and 1926 European GP.
Rich Vogler
1977: C
1978: E
1979: C+
1980: E
1981: E-
1982: C+
1983: C+
1984: C+
1985: E-
1986: C+
1987: E-
1988: E
1989: E-
Cumulative points: 67
Technically an IndyCar winner since one of his Silver Crown wins double-counted as a USAC IndyCar race, his real legacy is as the best non-winged dirt driver of the ‘80s as he won five USAC Midget titles, two USAC Sprint titles, and the inaugural Chili Bowl in 1987.
Gaston Chevrolet
1919: 2
1920: 3
Cumulative points: 50
The brother of car company founder Louis, Gaston did not win as many races as Louis but he hit a higher peak, winning the 1920 Indy 500 and that year’s title posthumously (having died in the season’s final race).
Tommy Hinnershitz
1936: C+
1938: C+
1939: C+
1940: C+
1946: C-
1947: C+
1948: E-
1949: E
1950: E-
1951: C+
1952: E-
1953: C+
1954: C-
1955: C+
1956: C+
1959: C
Cumulative points: 48
Hinnershitz is the winningest AAA/USAC sprint car driver of all time with seven titles and an estimated 109 wins (my current count is 94), but I rated him lower than you might think because he didn’t start really dominating until after Ted Horn’s death and he was more of a one-trick pony than many drivers (his only IndyCar wins were double-counted sprint car wins in 1946 and he had no regular IndyCar wins or midget wins unlike many of his sprint car contemporaries).
Pancho Carter
1972: C+
1973: C+
1974: C+
1975: C+
1976: E
1977: E
1978: C+
1979: C-
1980: C+
1981: C+
1982: C-
1983: C
Cumulative points: 45
Carter was the first driver to complete the USAC Triple Crown by winning the Midget, Sprint, and Silver Crown titles and he also delivered one of the all-time great underdog wins at the inaugural Michigan 500 in 1981 for the shaky Alex Morales team.
René Thomas
1912: E
1914: 2
1919: E
1920: E-
1921: E
1924: E
Cumulative points: 44
Like Goux, Thomas earned a dominant Indy 500 win as a rookie as part of the pre-World War I French invasion at Indy, but the rest of Thomas’s career wasn’t as strong; he still had two additional Grand Prix wins, set the Indy 500 new track record in 1919, and set the world land speed record in 2024.
Christian Fittipaldi
1990: C-
1991: C
1992: C-
1993: C
1994: C
1996: C
1999: C+
2000: C
2004: C-
2005: C
2010: C-
2012: C-
2013: C
2014: E-
2015: C+
2016: C
2017: C
2018: C-
Cumulative points: 35
After three straight minor league titles from 1989-91 including an F3000 title where he beat among others Damon Hill and Alex Zanardi, big things were expected of Fittipaldi; he did beat all his teammates in points in F1 but finished behind all his CART teammates after two poorly timed injuries; I still made him a lock primarily for his sports car accomplishments (most notably his three 24 Hours of Daytona wins).
Pietro Bordino
1921: C+
1922: 2
1923: C+
1925: C+
1927: C+
Cumulative points: 34
One of the few successful transatlantic drivers of the ‘20s, Bordino won 2 Grands Prix including the Italian GP and 2 IndyCar races on board ovals in his blockbuster 1922 season, showing a level of diversity few of his contemporaries matched.
Bobby Grim
1954: C+
1955: E-
1956: E-
1957: E-
1958: E-
1959: C+
1960: C
1963: C
1965: C
Cumulative points: 32
A driver I did not have penciled in for my lock list until very recently, Grim won four consecutive IMCA Big Car titles from 1955-58 and 132 wins in that series from 1954-59; my focus on only the AAA/USAC sprint car wins caused me to overlook dominant sprint car drivers from other sanctioning bodies.
Bob Carey
1932: 2
Cumulative points: 30
Carey won the IndyCar title as a rookie and was so dominant that he either won or was TNL in five of the six IndyCar races that season (all except the Indy 500), but he died in a practice crash at the start of the next season.
Jimmy Snyder
1937: E-
1938: 3
1939: 5
Cumulative points: 27
Although Snyder only won one IndyCar race in a very shallow era, he was a very dominant force in his brief heyday as he was the TNL in both 1938 races, set the Indy 500 track record in ‘37 and ‘39, and he ranks 34th in Indy 500 laps led despite only five starts.
Ray Harroun
1909: E-
1910: E
1911: 3
Cumulative points: 25
None of Harroun’s wins technically counted for points, but besides winning the first Indy 500, his eight overall wins at IMS are second to Johnny Aitken and he even won a dirt track race by 20 laps once!
Eddie Pullen
1912: C+
1914: 3
1915: C+
1919: C+
1920: C+
1921: C+
Cumulative points: 25
Pullen ranked 78th on my 100 Greatest IndyCar Drivers list from 2016 and although there’s a lot of that I now disagree with, I’m still high on him despite the fact that he never started an Indy 500 mainly because he was one of the few drivers to win both a U.S. Grand Prix (then called the “American Grand Prize”) in that era and oval races as well.
Felix Rosenqvist
2013: C
2015: C+
2016: C-
2017: E
2018: C+
2019: C
2020: C-
2022: C
2024: C-
Cumulative points: 25
Rosenqvist feels like a dubious lock to me since his IndyCar career has not been great, but I like his 13-win European F3 championship (considering the staggering number of good drivers he beat) and I really like his 2017 season when he finished third in points in both Formula E and Super Formula simultaneously.
Howdy Wilcox
1910: E
1915: C+
1919: 3
1923: C+
Cumulative points: 25
Also a sort of dubious lock to me since although he was one of only two drivers along with Dario Resta to win both the Indy 500 and American Grand Prize in this era, Wilcox led no laps in the latter as Johnny Aitken pinch-hit for him; I mainly decided his Indy 500 win was dominant enough but I might change my mind on that.
John Paul, Jr.
1980: C
1981: C+
1982: E
1983: C+
1996: C
1997: C
Cumulative points: 22
His potential all-time great trajectory was spoiled by his being imprisoned for refusing to testify against his father in the infamous IMSA marijuana-smuggling scandal.
Bill Vukovich II
1966: C-
1967: C+
1968: C+
1969: C
1971: C+
1972: C
1973: C+
1974: C
1975: C
1979: C-
Cumulative points: 22
Sort of like Wally Dallenbach(, Sr.) in weaker cars, Vukovich had a lot of good IndyCar points finishes in the ‘70s but only won one race; his 23 USAC Midget wins certainly strengthen his case.
Felipe Giaffone
2001: C
2002: C+
2007: C-
2009: C-
2011: C
2015: C
2016: C+
2017: C
2018: C
2023: C-
Cumulative points: 19
After his too short IRL career ended, Giaffone resurfaced as a legend of Brazilian truck racing with seven wins and 53 titles; I decided that was too niche for lock status but since he’s very high in both my open wheel and touring car models, I’d rather list him than not.
Pat O’Connor
1953: C+
1954: C+
1955: C
1956: E-
1957: E-
Cumulative points: 18
A rising star at the time of his death in the opening-lap crash at the 1958 Indy 500, O’Connor was not yet 30 and he already had three AAA/USAC Midwest Big/Sprint Car titles in addition to his two IndyCar wins.
Paul Russo
1938: C+
1947: C
1948: C
1949: C+
1950: C
1951: C+
1952: C
1953: C
Cumulative points: 18
I probably overrated him and don’t be surprised if I lower some of his seasons later; although he did have six top ten IndyCar points finishes including five consecutively, his best points finish was fifth, he only had two points wins, and despite the 1938 AAA Eastern Midget title, he wasn’t exactly a sprint or midget star.
Louis Unser
1934: C+
1936: C+
1937: C+
1938: C+
1939: C+
1941: 4
1946: C-
1947: C-
1953: C-
Cumulative points: 18
The patriarch of the Unser dynasty, he pretty much only competed at Pikes Peak, but he has some interesting distinctions; he’s tied with his nephew Bobby for the most Pikes Peak wins at 9 and his 1953 win mae him the oldest IndyCar winner ever; I gave all Pikes Peak winners 1 point but I decided to bump him up to 4th for 1941 because I honestly want to list him and there wasn’t much going on racing-wise that year.
Bill Schindler
1940: E-
1941: C+
1946: C+
1948: C+
1949: C-
1950: C
1951: C+
1952: C
Cumulative points: 17
Similarly to Grim, Schindler dominated a more obscure sprint car league (the American Racing Drivers Club with four titles) but I don’t have win counts for that series, so I need to do a lot more research here.
Mike Nazaruk
1949: C
1950: C
1951: C
1952: C+
1953: C+
1954: C+
Cumulative points: 15
Nazaruk won the ARDC title in 1949 the year after Schindler’s last title, then transitioned to IndyCar, where he won one IndyCar race, eighteen sprint car races, and sixteen midget car races before his death in a sprint car crash at Langhorne.
Emil Andres
1939: C+
1940: E-
1946: C+
1947: C+
1948: C+
1949: C
Cumulative points: 14
Like Russo, he’s probably inflated and I’m actually leaning no, but he did win one IndyCar race, had four consecutive top ten points finishes, and he won the 1940 Midwest Big Car title (but I don’t have win totals for that season yet).
Maurício Gugelmin
1985: C-
1989: C
1991: C_
1992: C-
1995: C+
1997: C+
1998: C-
2000: C
Cumulative points: 14
Big Mo actually made F1metrics’ top 100 but he wouldn’t make mine; his CART years were definitely better as he led CART drivers in my model in 1995 when he trounced Danny Sullivan and led the most laps in the Indy 500, won a race and set the all-time qualifying record in 1997, and beat his CART teammates in points every year from 1995-2000.
Roberto Moreno
1981: C-
1982: C
1983: C
1984: C-
1988: C
1990: C-
1991: C-
2000: C+
2001: C-
Cumulative points: 14
I’m kind of underwhelmed by both his F1 career and his CART career, but what I really like are his three wins in the Australian Grand Prix in the early ‘80s before it became an F1 race, especially because four different F1 champions were entered in those races.
Tomas Scheckter
2002: C
2003: C+
2005: E-
2006: C-
2007: C
2009: C-
Cumulative points: 14
Vastly underrated due to his crashing, he was the only driver to lead the most laps in his first two Indy 500s, he’s actually ahead of his F1 champion father Jody in my open wheel model, he was the highest-rated IndyCar driver of 2009 in my model, and his 42-26 lead change record is one of the best of all time.
Bobby Marshman
1961: C
1962: C+
1963: C+
1964: E-
Cumulative points: 13
Marshman had explosive dominance in his short career with an 8-3 lead change record and even passing Jim Clark to be TNL for the 1964 Indy 500, but he only had one IndyCar win, one USAC Stock Car win, and four USAC Midget wins before his untimely death so I’m leaning towards saying it’s not enough.
Oriol Servià
2005: C
2006: C-
2007: C+
2008: C+
2011: C+
2012: C-
Cumulative points: 13
Servià was the exact opposite of Marshman as he was extremely consistent but hardly ever led; nonetheless, I am impressed by him outfinishing Paul Tracy, Will Power, and James Hinchcliffe in points in 2007, 2008, and 2011 respectively.
Marco Andretti
2006: C-
2008: C+
2010: C+
2011: C
2013: C+
Cumulative points: 12
Much better than you likely think he was, his 58-56 lead change record is pretty much interchangeable with his longtime teammate Ryan Hunter-Reay’s 58-60; nonetheless, RHR is a lock while Marco is a close miss because RHR was an extremely clutch performer in his prime while Marco was well… not.
Fred Frame
1928: E-
1929: E-
1930: C+
1931: E-
1932: E
1933: E-
Cumulative points: 12
He definitely backed into his Indy 500 after both Billy Arnold and Bob Carey crashed, but I’ve bumped him up since I know he has a lot of sprint car wins (22 supposedly) but I don’t have the exact win counts per season yet.
Roberto Guerrero
1984: C
1985: C-
1986: C+
1987: E-
1988: C-
Cumulative points: 12
He had a great start with four consecutive top five finishes in the Indy 500 and he was also breaking out elsewhere by 1987 until his near-fatal crash in Indy testing; like Troy Ruttman, he continued on for quite some time but it wasn’t the same.
Alex Tagliani
2000: C-
2001: C-
2004: C+
2005: C
2006: C
2010: C-
2011: C-
2012: C-
Cumulative points: 12
My advanced stats really like him as his open wheel rating of .097 is quite good, he led Champ Car drivers in my model in 2004 and 2006, and his leading statistics are good as well, but I think in this case he is worse than his advanced statistics; I actually gave him more points than this at first but I took a few away because I can’t have him over his first CART teammate Patrick Carpentier who blew him out (even if Tagliani dominated races more).
Manny Ayulo
1949: C-
1951: C
1953: C+
1954: E-
Cumulative points: 11
He made my 100 greatest IndyCar drivers list, but I don’t think he’ll make this one; I think I overrated him then and although he had some midget wins, I don’t think he had nearly enough to compensate for the fact that he only had two IndyCar wins.
Mel Hansen
1939: C+
1948: E-
1949: E-
Cumulative points: 11
Despite awful IndyCar points finishes, he had a series-high three natural races led in 1949 (despite being involved in no lead changes) and 21 midget wins combined in 1948 and 1949.
Larry Rice
1970: C-
1973: C
1974: C-
1977: C
1981: C
1985: C-
1987: C
Cumulative points: 11
Larry Rice had a solid dirt career with two USAC Silver Crown titles and one Midget titles, but I didn’t think his 23 wins (one of which double-counted as an IndyCar win) were quite enough since by that time USAC dirt racing was IMO a minor league and he was no Vogler; I did like him as an IRL announcer though.
Henry Banks
1939: E-
1941: E-
1948: C-
1950: C
1951: C
Cumulative points: 9
One of the worst IndyCar champions, I think his one unnatural win impresses me much less than Buzz Calkins’s especially because he hardly ever led despite driving for Lou Moore’s dominant team which had just won five Indy 500s; he was better than Calkins overall since he had an American Racing Drivers Club title and at least 11 midget wins, but he would become better-known as USAC’s Director of Competition.
Joe Boyer
1919: 5
1920: E-
1924: E-
Cumulative points: 9
Boyer pinch-hit for L.L. Corum to win the 1924 Indy 500 and he also won two races for 1919 that didn’t count for points.
George Connor
1939: E-
1941: C+
1946: C
1947: C
1949: C
Cumulative points: 9
Connor had four IndyCar top ten points finishes and two wins in 1946 (one of which was a regular win and one of which was a double-counted sprint car race).
Lou Moore
1928: C+
1929: C+
1931: E
1932: C+
1933: E-
Cumulative points: 9
Moore won twice in 1931 as a driver and led either the most or second-most laps that year (the laps led for one of his wins are missing) before he became the Roger Penske of his era with five Indy 500 wins as a car owner in 1938, 1941, and 1947-49.
Billy Boat
1995: C
1996: C-
1997: C
1998: C-
2001: C
Cumulative points: 8
His midget career (which includes a Western Midget championship, a Chili Bowl, and three consecutive Turkey Night Grand Prix wins) is vastly more impressive than his lackluster IndyCar career.
Carlos Muñoz
2013: C
2014: C
2016: C+
2017: C-
Cumulative points: 8
A driver I vastly overrated when he was racing, I was a big fan and I was upset when Andretti shitcanned him after he was their highest points finisher and Indy 500 TNL in 2016 and even more upset when he almost completely disappeared after beating Conor Daly at Foyt the next year, but in retrospect, he was a one-track wonder, was not as good as the original Roberto Guerrero, and would’ve been unable to compete with the vast number of good drivers who came into the series from 2019-2022.
George Snider
1964: C+
1971: C+
1972: C-
1981: C-
Cumulative points: 8
He technically counted as the 1981-82 IndyCar champion despite missing the 1981 Indy 500 in a season when USAC added several Silver Crown races to the schedule; he also won the Silver Crown title in 1972 but he was mostly a one win a year guy in sprint cars and rarely competed outside Silver Crown, so I found most of his seasons not worth rating.
Babe Stapp
1927: C+
1933: E-
1935: E-
1936: C+
1939: E-
Cumulative points: 8
Stapp’s 12-year gap between his first win in 1927 and 1939 is I believe the second-longest behind only John Paul, Jr.; he also won the 1935 Midwest Big Car title so he has some sprint car wins; when I learn how many he had per season, I might change some of these grades around.
Cliff Woodbury
1926: C+
1927: E-
1928: E
1929: E-
Cumulative points: 8
Woodbury won two races and five poles as an owner-driver in addition to winning the 1927 AAA Dirt Track title, but he is primarily notorious for becoming the first Indy 500 polesitter to finish last in 1929 after a crash on Lap 3.
Emanuel Zervakis
1953: C-
1954: C-
1960: C+
1961: C+
Cumulative points: 8
One of the three NASCAR drivers I forgot last time, he won 2 Cup races, at least 37 Modified wins, and 4 NASCAR Late Model Sportsman wins; he’s now perhaps most notable as the car owner for Dale Jarrett’s first race in 1984.
Alex Barron
1997: C-
2002: C+
2003: C
2005: C
Cumulative points: 7
He actually would’ve won the 2002 Indy 500 on fuel mileage if Scheckter hadn’t crashed (which people forget), but much like Muñoz, it seemed like he never got the brakes he deserved based on his talent level.
Joe Dawson
1910: E
1911: C+
1912: E-
1913: C+
Cumulative points: 7
Dawson led only the final two laps of his 1912 Indy 500 win (the only win for a stock car in the race), but he was one of the best drivers at the track in that era as he won five short meets there in 1910.
Duke Dinsmore
1946: C
1947: C
1950: C+
Cumulative points: 7
His win in 1950 was natural and he also had two sprint car wins, but as I write this, I think this is inflating him.
Elmer George
1957: E-
1958: C-
1959: C-
Cumulative points: 7
The father of IRL founder Tony had a banner year in 1957, earning a flag-to-flag IndyCar win at Syracuse and the USAC Midwest Sprint title that year, which was better than the rest of his career combined.
Christian Lundgaard
2020: C-
2022: C
2023: C+
2024: C
Cumulative points: 7
I’m on the fence about whether to rate him C+ or E- this year; C+ would bring him to 10 and E- to 12; it’ll probably be C+ because the season finishes on two ovals and Lundgaard isn’t a very good oval driver yet.
Bobby Olivero
1973: C
1974: C-
1975: C-
1979: C
1982: C-
Cumulative points: 7
Another pseudo-IndyCar winner who had a Silver Crown win counted as an IndyCar race like Rice, Snider, and Vogler, Olivero won the 1979 Silver Crown title, 3 Silver Crown races, 16 Midget races, and 1 Sprint race.
Hank Rogers
1941: E-
1958: C
1961: C
1962: C
Cumulative points: 7
Rogers technically counted as an IndyCar winner based on one race he won in 1946 during the season when they randomly added over 70 sprint car races to the schedule, but I’m more impressed with some of his other seasons, particularly his second-place, four-win AAA Eastern Big Car season in 1941 and his 5, 9, and 7-win United Racing Club seasons in 1958, 1961, and 1962 respectively.
Fred Agabashian
1949: C
1950: C
1952: C-
1953: C-
Cumulative points: 6
Agabashian led 99 out of 100 laps at the 1949 IndyCar race in Sacramento, but that seems like a fluke; he was a great Indy 500 qualifier and set a new track record in 1952, which is why I rated a few other seasons but his induction to the IMS Hall of Fame is really dubious.
Kevin Cogan
1981: C-
1982: C-
1985: C-
1986: C
1988: C-
Cumulative points: 6
Too overhated for causing the 1982 Indy 500 start crash and I think André Ribeiro kept him from being Penske’s worst ever full-timer; he even beat Emerson Fittipaldi in points in 1986 when they were teammates, but he certainly wasn’t great.
Art Pollard
1967: C
1968: C-
1969: C-
1970: C
Cumulative points: 6
Pollard did win twice in the extremely competitive 1969 season, but he only finished 12th in points in a year his teammate Mario Andretti had one of the most dominant years ever.
Floyd Roberts
1934: C+
1935: E-
1938: E
Cumulative points: 6
Roberts gave Moore his first Indy 500 win as a car wner in dominant fashion from the pole before dying in the next year’s race; I rated a couple of other seasons highly under the assumption he had sprint car wins but I don’t know that yet.
Phil Shafer
1924: E-
1925: C+
1926: C+
1933: E-
Cumulative points: 6
Shafer had one win that counted for points in 1924 and another that didn’t in 1933 although the Elgin road race he won was arguably more prestigious than the two dirt races that year.
Rinus VeeKay
2023: C-
Cumulative points: 6
The most underrated driver in IndyCar right now; he’s probably trending C+, which would take him to 9 points.
Bobby Ball
1950: C
1952: C+
Cumulative points: 5
Ball earned one dominant dirt track win at San Jose along with eight AAA Midget wins.
Mario Domínguez
2003: C+
2004: C
Cumulative points: 5
Although his first win at Surfer’s Paradise was maybe the stupidest in motorsports history, he had a couple credible seasons after that and the fact that he beat Ryan Hunter-Reay in points when they were teammates in 2004 is really surprising.
Harlan Fengler
1923: E-
1924: E
Cumulative points: 5
After his two winning seasons in the ‘20s, he became much more famous as the Chief Steward for the Indianapolis Motor Speedway from 1958-1974.
Bob McDonogh
1925: E-
1926: E-
1928: C+
Cumulative points: 5
McDonogh won back-to-back board track races for the first two-time Indy 500 winner Tommy Milton in 1925 before setting the closed course speed record twice in 1926.
Danica Patrick
2005: C-
2006: C-
2008: C-
2009: C
Cumulative points: 5
No comment.
Eliseo Salazar
1994: C+
2000: C
Cumulative points: 5
His F1 career was terrible and his IRL career was pretty bad also, but he did win three IMSA races in 1994 while co-driving with a 54-year-old Giampiero Moretti and his 2000 IRL season was admittedly solid as he had a series-best 3-1 lead change record and he was the second highest rated IRL driver in my model.
Stubby Stubblefield
1929: C+
1930: C+
1931: C+
1932: C+
1933: C+
Cumulative points: 5
Stubblefield had three consecutive Pacific Big Car top five points finishes in 1929-31 before winning one IndyCar race in 1932, but I’m going to drop some of his earlier sprint car seasons if I find out he went winless.
Walt Brown
1947: C
1948: C-
1949: C
Cumulative points: 4
I rated him for 1947 and 1949 because he had top ten points finishes and I rated him for 1948 because he won even though he had a much worse points finish.
Ronnie Bucknum
1967: C-
1968: C
1969: C-
Cumulative points: 4
Bucknum was vastly overrated just because he was one of the rare American F1 drivers of the era, but he was destroyed by Richie Ginther at the early Honda F1 team, and Ginther was also overrated.
Robbie Buhl
1996: C-
2000: C
2001: C-
Cumulative points: 4
Winning from 22nd at Walt Disney World Speedway on the debut for Dreyer & Reinbold Racing, a team that would continuously operte but never win again, is really impressive, but the rest of his career wasn’t.
Mark Dismore
1993: C-
1999: C
2000: C-
Cumulative points: 4
Dismore wasn’t even close to Scott Sharp at Kelley Racing most of the time, but he did beat him in points in 1999 and 2000 and also won the 1993 24 Hours of Daytona (though I can’t imagine at that stage of his career he contributed much).
Richie Hearn
1994: C-
1995: C-
1996: C
Cumulative points: 4
Based on his Toyota Atlantic success where he outperformed Greg Ray and Patrick Carpentier, his 3rd in the Indy 500 as a rookie, and his win at Las Vegas where he outdueled Robby Gordon, I think Hearn was more talented than this, but his loyalty to John Della Penna sunk his career when Della Penna could seemingly never figure out the CART cars.
Charlie Kimball
2013: C
2016: C
Cumulative points: 4
Well, that one win at Mid-Ohio he had was impressive and he actually came closer than you’d think to Scott Dixon and Tony Kanaan in points in 2016.
George Souders
1927: E
1928: C+
Cumulative points: 4
This is probably really unfair since Souders won the Indy 500 as a rookie before an injury the next year left him unconscious for six months and led to his retirement, but I left him out of the top five for 1927 since there were simply five other drivers who impressed me more so my under-weighting of this era probably gave him fewer points than he deserved.
Joe Thomas
1920: C+
1921: E
Cumulative points: 4
Thomas had two points wins in 1921 and a non-points win in 1922.
Bud Tingelstad
1964: C
1966: C-
1967: C-
Cumulative points: 4
Tingelstad had three IndyCar top ten points finishes, a win, and two USAC Sprint wins, but he only led 11 laps in his IndyCar career (only in his win, which he inherited after Arnie Knepper had a coil wire failure while leading).
Charles Van Acker
1947: C
1948: C
Cumulative points: 4
Van Acker had one win in the goofy 1946 season when IndyCar added 70 sprint car races to the schedule but he had a win in a full-length race the next year, much like Walt Ader (although I find Van Acker marginaly ebtter than Ader).
Norman Batten
1925: C+
1926: C+
1928: C+
Cumulative points: 3
Batten co-drove Pete DePaolo’s winning Indy 500 car in 1925 and won a race on his own in 1926.
Fred Comer
1924: C+
1925: C+
1926: C+
Cumulative points: 3
Comer had three consecutive top ten points finishes from 1924-1926, winning a non-points race in 1925 and his only points race in 1926.
Airton Daré
2000: C-
2002: C
Cumulative points: 3
Daré was underrated as he was the last winner for A.J. Foyt until Takuma Sato in 2013 and the last top ten points finisher until Santino Ferrucci last year when they became a Penske satellite.
Robert Doornbos
2007: C
2008: C-
Cumulative points: 3
After beating Simon Pagenaud and Graham Rahal for Champ Car Rookie of the Year, he surely deserved better than rapidly falling out of the sport and becoming a dildo manufacturer.
I.P. Fetterman
1919: C+
1921: E-
Cumulative points: 3
Fetterman had one non-points win in 1919 and a points win in 1921.
Jimmy Gleason
1928: C+
1929: C+
1931: C+
Cumulative points: 3
Gleason had 43 laps led as an Indy 500 rookie in 1928 but he was unable to win until 1931 at Altoona; less than a week after he finally won, he died in a qualifying crash at Syracuse.
Michel Jourdain, Jr.
2003: C+
Cumulative points: 3
Although he did basically nothing in the rest of his CART career, in 2003 he was third in points between Bruno Junqueira and Sébastien Bourdais, had two wins and the best lead change percentage while ranking fourth in lead shares and third in CRL; I might have given that E- instead of C+ but too many of the top CART drivers left after 2002.
Jim Packard
1960: C+
Cumulative points: 3
Packard had one IndyCar win, one USAC Midget win, and one USAC Sprint win before his death in a midget crash late in the 1960 season.
Nelson Philippe
2006: C+
Cumulative points: 3
A genuine breakout Champ Car star in 2006 with heartthrob good looks and a 3-0 lead change record, he really should have been a full-time driver longer than he was.
Johnny Shackleford
1946: C-
1947: C
Cumulative points: 3
Shackleford won the 1947 Midwest Sprint Car (then called Big Car) title and also won two Big Car races (which counted as IndyCar races) in 1946.
Jeff Ward
1997: C-
1998: C
Cumulative points: 3
Believe it or not, he actually had more lead shares than Kenny Bräck in Bräck’s 1998 IRL title season.
Keith Andrews
1954: C
Cumulative points: 2
While most of the Pikes Peak Hill Climb winners I gave only one point (C+ for pre-World War II and C- for post-World War II), I decided to give him a second point because he also won two AAA Midget races that year.
Dick Atkins
1966: C
Cumulative points: 2
Atkins won his last race at Sacramento after Mario Andretti had a rear end failure before dying less than a month later in a crash that also killed Don Branson.
Buzz Calkins
1996: C
Cumulative points: 2
Sure, the title was a joke, but his win at the first IRL race wasn’t because he did outduel Tony Stewart to win in his first start even though he was driving for a fledgling family operation while Stewart was driving for a billionaire hardware magnate.
Earl DeVore
1926: C+
1927: C+
Cumulative points: 2
DeVore had back-to-back top ten points finishes in 1926 and 1927.
Bob Finney
1955: C-
1957: C-
Cumulative points: 2
His only wins came at the Pikes Peak Hill Climb, one of which counted as an official IndyCar race while the other did not.
Van Johnson
1957: C-
1959: C-
Cumulative points: 2
Johnson had three sprint car wins in 1957 and an IndyCar win and a midget win in 1959.
Sam Schmidt
1999: C
Cumulative points: 2
Schmidt definitely had a pretty impressive breakout season before his crash at Walt Disney World Speedway in 2000 ended his career, but in retrospect, I kinda wish he hadn’t sold his team to Zak Brown.
Louis Schneider
1930: C+
1931: C+
Cumulative points: 2
One of the all-time worst Indy 500 winners, he inherited the lead in 1931 after Billy Arnold crashed with a five-lap lead to win his only race; in 1933, Schneider suffered the ignominy of becoming the only driver to finish 42nd in Indy 500 history.
Art Bisch
1958: C-
Cumulative points: 1
Bisch won his first race at the Milwaukee Mile after outdueling eventual champion Tony Bettenhausen, but died less than a month later after a crash at Lakewood Speedway in Atlanta.
L.L. Corum
1924: C+
Cumulative points: 1
Corum was one of two Indy 500 winners who was credited for a win despite never leading a lap in his career, although I still rated him because he was at least running third before Joe Boyer pinch-hit for him, as opposed to Floyd Davis, who was running significantly worse.
George Hammond
1952: C-
Cumulative points: 1
One of the Pikes Peak Hill Climb winners in the years when that counted as an IndyCar race.
Keith Kauffman
1982: C-
Cumulative points: 1
Maybe this is slightly too harsh since I do have 32 sprint car wins listed for him (one of which is a Silver Crown win that counted as a fake IndyCar win), but most of his wins came in the World of Outlaws and All Star Circuit of Champions, which had something like 70 races a year, so the fact that he never won more than six races in a season or finished better than 8th in WoO points or 3rd in ASCoC points is why I decided not to rate anything else.
Jaques Lazier
2001: C-
Cumulative points: 1
He did really dominate that race at Chicagoland and also had another natural race led for a much worse team, but there were so many American winners across NASCAR/CART/IRL that year that I might have to let him go.
Swede Savage
1970: C-
Cumulative points: 1
I was on the fence about rating this, but it would have felt rude not to.
Wes Vandervoort
1967: C-
Cumulative points: 1
Another Pikes Peak winner.
Elbert Booker
Cumulative points: 0
Booker’s only two points IndyCar wins came in the goofy 1946 season when they added 70 sprint car races to the schedule, but he was not one of the top sprint car drivers by any means.
Bumpy Bumpus
Cumulative points: 0
The goofiest name of an IndyCar winner in history, and no, I did not forget Will Power.
Charles Burman
Cumulative points: 0
Burman won his only start in 1905, but the other two finishers never won a points race and the only two good drivers that year (Barney Oldfield and Louis Chevrolet) weren’t entered.
Floyd Davis
Cumulative points: 0
Like L.L. Corum, he never led a lap in his IndyCar career but was credited with an Indy 500 win; unlike Corum, Davis’s best Indy finish outside of that race was much worse (15th), he was running much worse before Mauri Rose took over his car (12th), and Rose was a way better driver than Joe Boyer.
Jim Guthrie
Cumulative points: 0
It’s a great underdog story, but 1997 IRL competition was terrible; I nonetheless might have rated this if he had made a pass for the win, which he didn’t.
Carlos Huertas
Cumulative points: 0
It was the fluke of the decade, but I still think after winning a race for Dale Coyne as a rookie, he at least deserved a second full-time season.
Webb Jay
Cumulative points: 0
Jay won a one-lap race in 1905 by default as he was the only driver left running after Louis Chevrolet’s engine failure and six other entered drivers failed to start.
Lucky Lux
Cumulative points: 0
So Bumpy Bumpus, Lucky Lux, and Stubby Stubblefield walk into a bar…
Héctor Rebaque
Cumulative points: 0
Rebaque is the lowest-rated IndyCar winner in my open wheel model, he only led one lap in his win at the inaugural CART race at Road America after inheriting it on fuel mileage, and he finished 10th in F1 points while his teammate Nelson Piquet (a rather middling champion) won the title.
Oscar Ridlon
Cumulative points: 0
See: Elbert Booker
Hal Robson
Cumulative points: 0
See: Elbert Booker, although this time he only won once while Booker and Ridlon both won twice.
Leon Sales
Cumulative points: 0
Sales did win on his NASCAR debut at North Wilkesboro and he did seem to pass Jack Smith to do it, but I decided not to rate it because he was driving the car that Johnny Mantz had led 351 laps at the Southern 500 with and he only led 8 laps and basically did nothing else for the rest of his career.
Regan Smith
Cumulative points: 0
I forgot to include him on the NASCAR list, but despite it being a Southern 500 for a then-fledgling Furniture Row Racing team, I wasn’t impressed by him as it was just his team’s brilliant strategy and Brad Keselowski’s great bump-draft that gave him the win.
Joe Verebly
Cumulative points: 0
See: Hal Robson