5 of the Most Dominant Performances in Auto Racing History

 

5 of the Most Dominant Performances in Auto Racing History

By Brian Cotnoir

To some people Auto Racing isn’t much of an exciting sport.  To most it’s just driver (or rider) presses the accelerator and they go fast, but it’s much more than that.  A successful racing team not only needs a great driver, but a great crew, engineers, strategy, sponsors, and even a little bit of luck.  All these factors combined can lead to unprecedented dominance in the sport.  Just look at the recent success of the Mercedes team in Formula 1 or rider Marc Marquez’s dominance in MotoGP, or Steve Kinser in the World of Outlaws, and even NASCAR drivers like Kevin Harvick, Kyle Busch, Denny Hamlin, and Brad Keselowski have been dominating in NASCAR.  It takes a lot to dominate in any form of Auto Racing, but for a brief while these teams and drivers were absolutely dominantand—darn near—unbeatable!

1.) Frank Kimmel, 8 Straight ARCA Championships

The ARCA Racing Series was the premier stock car racing series in the Midwest for decades, and the best stock car racing series not related to NASCAR (until they merged together).  ARCA’s best driver was without a doubt driver Frank Kimmel.  Kimmel won his first ARCA championship in 1998, and 2 years later he went on an unprecedented tear of dominance.   Kimmel won 8 straight drivers’ championships and won 54-of-80 career races during that span.

Kimmel would win his 10th and final drivers’ championship during the 2013 season.   And although, he never had much success in any of NASCAR’s Top 3 Series, his #46 Advanced Auto Parts car was always the car to beat in the ARCA series.

 

2.)  Giacomo Agostini, 4 straight years without a loss Motorcycle Racing

I’ve only recently got into MotoGP racing, so I’m afraid I do not know much about Italian rider Giacomo Agostini.  From 1968-1972, Agostine dominated the 350cc and 500cc Motorcycle classes.  He won every race he entered from 1968-1970 and won every 350cc & 500cc championship during that time too.   The 500cc class was the predecessor to the modern MotoGP, where he won 68 Grand Prix and 8 championships.  Overall his Motorcycle Grand Prix racing career contains 122 wins and 15 World Championships (both All-Time Records).



3.)  Greg Moore’s 1995 Indy Lights Championship

Greg Moore was gone too soon, and if not for his tragic death in 1999 he most assuredly would have gone on to become a champion in IndyCar.  In the Indy Lights, Moore had a break out year with the Players/Forsythe Team in 1995.  Moore won 10-out-of-the-12 races and his worst finish with 5th.  He easily won the championship by over 100 points!


4.)  Richard Petty’s 1967 NASCAR Season

Richard Petty is “The King of NASCAR”.  He still holds the lion share of records in NASCAR including Most Career wins (200), Most career poles (123), and most career starts (1,185).  Petty’s best season came during the 1967 season.  Petty won a Career high 27-out-of-49 races that season including another record ten in a row!  Petty won on short tracks, superspeedways, dirt tracks, and paved tracks. Petty easily won the 1967 Drivers Championship as well.  Both of these records will never fall.


5.)  McLaren’s 1988 Formula 1 season

In 1988 McLaren Formula 1 team released the McLaren MP 4/4.   The combination of Steve Nichols design and the Honda V-6 powered engine led McLaren drivers Ayrton Senna & Alain Prost to a combined 15 wins.   In fact there was only one race McLaren didn’t win that season, the 1988 Italian Grand Prix.   That was the highest win percentage by an F1 team.  Ayrton Senna won his first drivers championships. 



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