NASCAR is celebrating its 75th anniversary all throughout the 2023 season.
In 1998, NASCAR had a panel select a list of its 50 greatest drivers for its golden anniversary.
Likewise, we at Frontstretch decided to put together our own list of the 75 greatest NASCAR drivers in honor of this year’s milestone. Seventeen of our writers weighed in to pick the final 75, and we’ll be releasing four to seven drivers from that list every weekday for the next three weeks.
Similar to the one in 1998, this list is not a ranking of the top 75 drivers. Instead, we’ve broken the list down into categories, with a new category released each day (see the full list below). Within those categories, the drivers are listed in alphabetical order.
Our final segment discusses drivers who weren’t just known for their racing ability.
AJ Foyt
The four-time Indianapolis 500 champion and 1967 winner of the 24 Hours of Le Mans is best known for his exploits outside of NASCAR, but the driver known as Super Tex made 128 NASCAR Cup Series starts over a staggering 30-year career.
AJ Foyt won seven times in the Cup Series, including the 1972 Daytona 500, despite never once competing full time for the championship.
Seven wins isn’t all that impressive on its own, but Foyt’s influence on stock car racing — and racing as a whole — ensures his spot on the list.
From the mid-1960s onward, Foyt, along with Mario Andretti, Dan Gurney and Mark Donohue, had an important role in legitimizing Cup racing as a series in which the world’s greatest drivers competed. It may be hard to imagine now, but at the time the NTT IndyCar Series was the behemoth of American motorsports, and NASCAR a regional curiosity. Having Foyt on the roster went a long way toward building the prestige of the division in its most critical era. When the Daytona 500 was first televised in 1979, Foyt was one of the big draws.
And he almost won it. As he tells it, Foyt was running third on the final lap when leaders Donnie Allison and Cale Yarborough came together, but as he was more familiar with USAC rules, he lifted when he saw the yellow flag. Richard Petty and Darrell Waltrip blew right past him as they raced full throttle to the waving yellow flag.
Foyt’s final NASCAR start came in the inaugural Brickyard 400 in 1994, more than 30 years after he made his debut. He finished 30th, four laps down. -Jack Swansey
Junior Johnson
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