The Auto Racing Journal: Cale Yarborough

I see that Jeff Gordon will come out of retirement to drive the No. 88 Chevrolet for concussed former teammate Dale Earnhardt Jr. As far as I know, it'll be the first-ever time that Gordon won't be driving the 24 in the NASCAR Cup Series.

Until now, Gordon was probably the only driver among the all-time winners who had driven only one car number in the Cup Series. That's a broad statement, but only 192 of Richard Petty's 200 Cup wins came in the 43. He posted two wins in the 42 and six in the 41.

David Pearson is famous for driving the 17 and the 21, but he drove other numbers as well. Cale Yarborough produced only 55 of his 83 Cup wins in the No. 11 cars. Darrell Waltrip is known for 17, but he raced 88 and other numbers. Dale Earnhardt is famous for the 3, but he also drove the 2, the 8 and other numbers.

Rusty Wallace was a big winner in the 2 car, but he won the 1989 championship in the 27.

The 24 has a grand total of 93 victories, all by Gordon. No one else apparently has won driving the 24.

With Gordon going to the 88, this will leave Jimmie Johnson as the lone big-time winner to run one car number his entire career (48 in this case). Unless someone can think of another person as a one-car driver...

Contact me at tgilli52@gmail.com or nc3022@yahoo.com. Also, my Twitter handle is EDITORatWORK.

More entries from TARJ

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• My best day as a sports writer

• Jeff Gordon's milk toast to Dale Earnhardt

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EDITOR@WORK blog entries

• You really DO need an editor

• Reminders for would-be novelists

• What I charge (it's a deal) and what I edit

• What I do when I'm editing

• Slogging through the Internet

• J-school: More eyes on your stories

• J-school: Go out and learn•

Entries from The Dog Blog

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• ... said the spider to ...

• The Dog Diary (2014)

• YIP! YIP! The stereo-sound huskies

• What Lady and Michael Jackson had in common

More blog entries by Tom Gillispie

• Resume for a writer and editor

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• Advice for be and would-be novelists

• Links to TG's stories online

• Favorite quotes

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Anecdotes by Tom Gillispie

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• A desperate writer working in the dark

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Dale's quotes

"I woke up this morning, and I still don't believe I won the Daytona 500."

The Auto Racing Journal

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Links to NASCAR in 2024

Sunday, November 13, 2022

REMEMBERED RACES AT DARLINGTON RACEWAY

Friday, July 22, 2016

Jeff Gordon's numbers game

Dale's quotes

Racing sites

More quotes