Now that Jeff Gordon has proved he still has some victories left in him, fans will start to ask whether he can catch David Pearson for No. 2 on NASCAR's list for career victories.
Richard Petty's top spot of 200 victories is secure forever unless NASCAR goes back to racing 50 or more Cup events a season again, which it isn't.
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Jeff Gordon has won 82 times, but he has another 24 burnouts ahead of him if he's going to pass David Pearson for the second most Cup victories.
So the best Gordon can do is pass Pearson for second. Pearson has 105 victories. Gordon earned his 82nd victory in the Samsung 500 at Texas Motor Speedway last weekend, ending his 47-race streak without a trip to Victory Lane.
It's a virtual certainty that Gordon will blow by the three drivers between him and Pearson -- Cale Yarborough (83 wins), Bobby Allison and Darrell Waltrip (84 wins each).
But catching Pearson is a much tougher task for Gordon, who turns 38 on Aug. 4. Gordon would need to average almost five victories a season over the next five years.
We could say he needs to average only 2.4 wins a season over the next 10 years, but Gordon has said repeatedly that he has no intention of racing into his late 40s.
Let's assume he races full time until he's 44. That means he needs to average four victories a year for each of the next six seasons.
Gordon has won four or more races in a season nine times in his career. Seems easy, right?
Not exactly. His recent history tells a different tale.
The 2007 season, when he won six times, is the only year in the previous three in which Gordon won more than twice.
Gordon has nine victories in his last 142 Cup starts, dating back to the 10th race of the 2005 season. That's an average of one win every 15.78 starts.
At that pace, it would take Gordon 378 races to pass Pearson. He wouldn't reach 106 victories until 2019, when he would be 48 years old.
In other words, Gordon will need to win at a much higher percentage than he has recently, or he needs to race longer than he previously planned.
Gordon averaged three wins a year over the previous four seasons. If he keeps that pace, a reasonable expectation, he would tie Pearson in the 2016 season, when Gordon would be 45. Find one more victory somewhere along the way and he would own the No. 2 spot all alone.
One thing Gordon won't match is Pearson's winning percentage. Pearson made 574 starts for a winning percentage of 18.26 percent, ranking third for drivers with more than 100 starts.
Herb Thomas is first at 21.05 percent (48 wins in 228 starts), and Tim Flock is second at 20.86 percent (38/187).
Gordon has 552 starts and counting. His winning percentage is 14.86 percent, ninth on the all-time list. Unless he goes on the most incredible winning streak in history and then retires, Gordon will fall short of Pearson on that one.
Terry Blount
