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Quote:

Originally Posted by Bill77 (Post 1748597)

Not too surprised that no one has mentioned Richard Petty yet. Some of his achievements are impossible to beat by any current and possibly future driver, though some of that has more to do with current rules and schedules than anything else. I would say he would have a better case if he had not continued to race long after he was last competitive. Anyway here are some of his numbers:

Most wins 200, next closest is David Pearson with 105, and the closest active driver is Jimmie Johnson with 83.
From 1958-1970 Richard won 119 races vs. David Pearson's 58.

Most wins in a season 27, followed by season totals of 18 and 16. The next best total is Jeff Gordon's 13.

Most consecutive wins in a season 10.

From 1967-1971 he won 92 races.

Petty's stats are a bit like comparing Cy Young's stats to modern pitchers. Of course, Petty in the discussion for the greatest NASCAR driver of all-time. But during the first 15 years of his career, the schedule was always 45-55 races. In the modern era, the schedule was 29 races for many years, and it still is nowhere near as many races each season as Petty ran during his prime.

Petty also had factory support in an era when many of the other top drivers did not race the entire schedule. Are his 200 wins really more impressive than the totals of Dale Earnhardt, Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson racing in a more competitive era in which all the top teams followed the entire schedule?

All I know for certain is that if you where not a Petty fan in the 60's there wasn't much point in watching NASCAR. But even still the 92 wins in 5 years is just insane no matter how you look at it and everyone was complaining about Jimmie Johnson running away with it all a few years ago.

Bobby Jones

and

Tiger Woods

There was no doubt during each of their primes, who the G O A T was...

more emphasis on G O A T than 'the'.

...and I can hear Jack fans yelling already.

During Nicklaus' prime -- which lasted considerably longer than Woods' -- he had competition from several golfers generally regarded to be in the top 10 or so of all time -- Palmer, Player, Watson. The same is not true of Woods. In any event, Nicklaus IMO is easily the greatest golfer of all time, even if for a stretch Woods was more dominant. Nicklaus not only won the Masters at age 46, for me what was even more remarkable was that he was among the leaders 11 years later at age 57. Absurd.

Discussions like these are always interesting and many tremendous athletes have already been mentioned.

The first name that popped into my head when I saw the thread was Muhammad Ali--to me he was, and likely always will be, the "greatest" athlete ever.

But I must give a shout out to Serena Williams. Dominant in a career that has spanned many years.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bored5000 (Post 1748777)

Well, even if they'd run a full schedule with factory support, by the late 60's early 70's the cars he had were hard to beat. 8 of his 18 wins in 1970 were against Ford backed cars.

And who else has had a factory kit car sold at retail?
https://bangshift.com/bangshiftapex/...ng-is-amazing/

Many great posts here, but I am still with my original choice of Karelin and his decade of being not only unbeaten but unscored upon.

Besides, despite what one might be inclined to assume based on his size and looks, he was an intellectual: a chess player and student of the arts.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth (Post 1749293)

Sweet Karelin
Goat mimes never seemed so good
I'd be inclined
To believe they never would

So many possibilities.

I haven't done much looking up, but Vasily Alekseyev was pretty amazing. I've wondered for a while what he could have actually done if they hadn't given him bonuses for world records. One competition on tv he was lifting some crazy weight and one foot came off the floor. So even with what he was trying it seemed like he had so much more room .