Where Have All The (Iron)Men Gone?
Rusty Jarrett/Getty Images for NASCAR
I finally finished the full manuscript for my first book, “Trading Paint: 101 Great NASCAR Debates” on Tuesday (I still have a little rewriting to do, but that’s minor compared to the gigantic undertaking I finally completed).
The book, to be published by Wiley & Sons, will hopefully be out by next April, if not sooner.
But I’m not here to try and hustle sales or stir up early interest. Rather, in an ironic twist, the last debate question I worked on was about Ironmen in NASCAR, particularly Ricky Rudd.
The now-retired Rudd logged an incredible 788 consecutive starts over 25 seasons, starting in 1981 and ending at the end of the 2005 season.
As I did research on who the current NASCAR Ironman is – and thanks to NASCAR PR staffer Mike Forde for giving me a hand on this – I wound up with a few surprises along the way.
Quick, can you tell me who are the top-five drivers with the most consecutive starts currently? You might be surprised:
1. Jeff Gordon, 568 consecutive starts.
2. Bobby Labonte, 567 consecutive starts.
3. Jeff Burton, 471 consecutive starts.
4. Tony Stewart, 379 consecutive starts.
5. Dale Earnhardt Jr., 346 consecutive starts.
And if those names and numbers aren’t surprising, three-time defending Sprint Cup champ Jimmie Johnson is further down the list – it only seems like he’s been around a lot longer than he has – and is tied with Ryan Newman for eighth in most consecutive starts, with each driver having 275 straight starts, respectively.
I make an argument in my book chapter on Rudd that his lofty achievement is pretty much safe for a long time to come. I don’t see any of the above-mentioned seven drivers even coming close to overtaking Rudd’s mark eventually.
Right now, only one driver has even a remote chance of toppling Rudd’s record, provided he stays out of wrecks and remains relatively healthy.
That driver is Kyle Busch, who has 167 consecutive Cup starts heading into this weekend’s race at Bristol Motor Speedway. At the age of 24, Busch will have to race for nearly 17 more full-time seasons, without missing a start, to draw even with Rudd.
Busch would be 41 years old at the time. I question if he’ll still be in the game by then. I predict he retires in his mid-to-late 30s, after winning several Cup championships and doing and achieving pretty much everything a driver can do in the series.
When I was doing my research for the book, I guess the magnitude of Rudd’s achievement really struck me. Before, I thought it was a great thing Rudd did, but I never really gave much thought to just how exhaustive and significant a milestone he achieved.
Even the guy whose previous Ironman record Rudd broke, Terry Labonte (655 consecutive starts), was a mark that even the current list of drivers is still a long ways off from overtaking.
To stay healthy, productive and most importantly, competitive for each and every race over 20-plus years of time is nothing to sneeze at. Rudd has left a tough act to follow. But after all, that’s what true Ironmen do, you know.
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