Poll (and the numbers) say Jeff Gordon is GOAT on road courses
Jeff Gordon will make his final start at Sonoma Raceway on Sunday, when he takes the green flag to start the Toyota/Save Mart 350 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race (FOX Sports 1, 3 p.m. ET). Regardless of whether he wins or finishes 43rd, though, Gordon has already made a strong case as the Greatest of All-Time on road courses.
Consider the stats the four-time Sprint Cup champion has posted on the 1.99-mile Northern California road course. At Sonoma, Gordon is the all-time leader in the following categories:
Starts: 22
Poles: 5
Victories: 5
Top fives: 14
Top 10s:18
Lead-lap finishes: 20
Laps completed: 2,223
Laps led: 457
Average finish: 7.955.
In other words, the Vallejo, California, native is damn good here.
Given those numbers, it's no surprise that Gordon was the runaway winner as best NASCAR road racer in the June edition of The Century Poll, which was released Friday.
The Century Poll voting panel consists of 100 people -- 50 from the NASCAR media corps and 50 from the NASCAR garage, including team owners, drivers, crew chiefs, crew members, sponsor/public relations/manufacturing representatives and track officials.
Gordon, who has eight poles and nine victories overall on road courses, received 49 of the 100 votes cast -- 27 from the garage and 22 from the media.
Finishing second in the poll was AJ Allmendinger with 12 garage and 10 media votes. Tony Stewart was third in the voting, mostly on the strength of his seven victories and average finish of 10.3 in 30 career road-course races.
Of the remaining drivers, Kurt Busch got equal consideration in the garage and media with three votes each.
All others were supported by one group or the other -- Kevin Harvick (two votes) and Jimmie Johnson (one) by the garage; and Kyle Busch (four votes), Carl Edwards (three) and Jamie McMurray (one) by media.
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