The most popular driver

By DAVID GREEN

Thanks to TR.com reader Johanna, who posted a comment Saturday in response to my 2009 season-ender. Johanna's remarks about the most popular driver award prompted this item.

The complete text of her remark is at the end of that post, but what triggering my thoughts was her reference to the Grantland Rice quote about "how you played the game," not winning, that was most important.

"I am not saying that those who accumulated the most points do not deserve all of our praise and recognition for their hard work, but I do think that a statement is made when one who has not amassed that sort of victory is still the most popular," she wrote.

For the seventh year in a row, Dale Earnhardt Jr. won the Chex Most Popular Driver award, presented by the National Motorsports Press Association (NMPA) and, as Johanna noted, determined by fan voting. (See the list of award recipients here.)

Junior is only the seventh driver to win the NMPA award since 1970.

Fifty years of racing, and seven drivers chosen most popular.

Bill Elliott is largely responsible for that low number. Elliott won the award five years in a row, 1984-1988, and then, after Darrell Waltrip was accorded the honors for two years, Elliott owned it from 1991 through 2000 -- a 10-year stretch.

The 2001 winner was a posthumous choice -- Junior's dad. It was the only time the elder Earnhardt ever won the award.

Elliott reclaimed the award in 2002 before Junior took his place as NASCAR's favorite driver.

Petty and the other 11 drivers who won the award between 1953 and 1970 were champions and/or prodigious winners, with a few exceptions.

Johanna's allusion to the Rice quote holds true, though, with regard to enduring popularity, at least in the last 25 or so years. Elliott continued to win the balloting, hands-down, long after his championship in 1988 and even after he had slipped from the upper echelons of competition.

It applies, likewise, with regard to two drivers who were recognized with back-to-back titles near the end of their careers -- Waltrip and David Pearson. Waltrip was overlooked earlier in his career because of his outspoken attitude and Pearson, a formidable rival to Petty on the track, did not have the charismatic qualities Petty had.

Certainly, it applies to the 2001 choice. Earnhardt, "The Intimidator," was without a doubt the best-known NASCAR driver of all time. But his image polarized fans; for every one that loved him, there was at least one other who hated him.

His father's iconic status is certainly a factor in Dale Jr.'s popularity. Another factor is his identification with a younger audience, many of whom may not necessarily have been die-hard fans of his dad.

In addition, he has done an excellent job of marketing himself and capitalizing on his popularity, regardless of its origins.