7 NASCAR Cup Car Numbers Worth Retiring for All Time

4 hours ago

Having your number retired is the ultimate honor in sports. It's the ultimate nod to what that number, and subsequently the athlete, meant to the sport.
While individual teams in the major sports retire numbers almost to the point of diluting the honor, only the rarest of rare get their number retired by an entire league. Major League Baseball retired No. 42 in 1997 to honor pioneer Jackie Robinson. The National Hockey League in 2000 retired the No. 99 of Wayne Gretzky.
Some numbers are a tough call because multiple drivers had success in the same car number.
The No. 11, for example, found victory lane with Denny Hamlin (58 wins), Cale Yarborough (55 wins), Ned Jarrett (48 wins), Darrell Waltrip (43 wins). That No. 11 means different drivers to different fans... which in our mind disqualifies it from this particular list.
Bobby Allison has a massive number of wins (85), but he never scored more than 25 wins with the same car number (12). He also drove the 22, 28, 2, 15, 88, 16, 24, 6, 29, 14, 09, 11, 40, 37, 49, 07, and 1. It's ways good to bave Allison on any NASCAR honor list, but hard to say there was ever a definitive Bobby Allison car number.
Here's seven drivers whose success, association with a specific car number or pioneering impact on the sport are deserving of having their number retired:No. 43 - RIchard Petty
Richard Petty was, and always will be, NASCAR's GOAT. No one will come close to 200 career wins and no one with any sense of NASCAR history can look at the No. 43 car in the Cup Series and not at least have a flashback to Petty. Petty is NASCAR's Babe Ruth, Tom Brady and Bill Russell. He'll always be the 43.No. 3 - Dale Earnhardt
No one should be allowed in the No. 3 car. That's Dale Earnhardt's ride, forever. Many fans (me, included) will never be comfortable seeing Austin Dillon—or anyone else, for that matter-—in the No. 3 car. Earnhardt was a seven-time champion, and his untimely death at the 2001 Daytona 500 will forever be etched in the minds of his fans. More than two decades later, the Intimidator is still in the top 10 in terms of driver merchandise sales.No. 24 - Jeff Gordon
No offense to William Byron, the current caretaker of the 24, but Jeff Gordon will always synonymous with the No. 24. Gordon's four Cup championships are fourth most in series history, and his 93 wins in the No. 24 checks in third.
And maybe it would be appropriate to retire any future rainbow paint schemes in honor of NASCAR's Rainbow Warrior.No. 21 - David Pearson
Four-time Cup champion David Pearson, with 105 wins, is second on the all-time wins list and had 43 wins and his greatest moments in the Wood Brothers Racing No. 21 in the 1970s. Pearson showed up for the inaugural NASCAR Hall of Fame announcement for the 2010 Hall Class only to be snubbed.
Let's not snub the late Pearson and his most famous car number from this list.No. 34 - Wendell Scott
Wendell Scott broke the color barrier in NASCAR, driving the No. 87 Chevy at Hub City Speedway in Spartanburg, S.C in 1961. Nearly the rest of Scott's career was spent in the 34 car, and he drove the 34 into victory lane at Jacksonville in 1964.
The only other time Scott drove in Cup in a car outside the 34 was his in his final Cup race in 1973, where he drove the No. 5 in the National 500 at Charlotte.
It would only be fitting to forever remember the 34 in honor of a true trailblazer.No. 48 - Jimmie Johnson
Forever in the minds of man NASCAR fans, the 48 will be Jimmie Johnson and Lowe's. It was a car number and sponsorship that brought the majority of Johnson's 83 wins and record-tying seven championships.
Sorry, current Hendrick Motorsports driver Alex Bowman, that 48 belongs to Jimmie Johnson... and the fans.No. 71 - Sara Christian
Sara Christian, the first woman to start a NASCAR Cup Series race, finished 13th in the inaugural season championship in 1949. Her husband, Frank, finished in a tie for 26th.
Christian is still the highest-finishing woman in a NASCAR Cup Race. She finished fifth at Heidelberg Raceway, near Pittsburgh, in 1949.
Sara and Frank are the only couple honored by the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame.
How about NASCAR giving Sara a nod, too.

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Aaron Judge is back in the lineup at DH as the Yankees wait for clarity on his throwing arm

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28 minutes ago

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Aaron Judge is back in the lineup at DH as the Yankees wait for clarity on his throwing arm

ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) — Aaron Judge is back in the lineup as the designated hitter for the New York Yankees following a 10-day stint on the injured list with a flexor tendon strain in his right elbow. There's still no clarity on when the All-Star slugger will return to the outfield. Judge is batting third in the middle game of a three-game series against the Texas Rangers on Tuesday night. Manager Aaron Boone said Judge is supposed to start a throwing program Wednesday. Boone all but ruled out Judge returning to the outfield as early as the next couple of days. 'I don't want to get ahead of myself,' Boone said. 'See how that first day goes. From there, we'll probably have a better idea after a day or two of that.' Judge didn't speak to reporters in the clubhouse before the game, but Boone said the leading hitter in the majors came away from a trip to the team's spring training facility in Tampa, Florida, ready to swing the bat — and test the capabilities of his arm. 'I think he's been pretty upbeat about it,' Boone said. 'I think down in Tampa, did a lot of things. Didn't throw, but did a lot of things in kind of preparation for that throwing. So far, so good. So hopefully when he does start that throwing program, it goes well and he can progress fairly quickly.' Judge hasn't played since July 25 because of the elbow strain. An MRI showed no acute damage to his ulnar collateral ligament and he had a platelet-rich injection July 27, when he was placed on the IL in a move retroactive to the previous day. The first time Judge said he felt pain in the elbow was July 22 at Toronto, after he made a strong throw home when George Springer singled to right. Judge entered Tuesday night's game hitting .342 and was fourth in the majors with 37 homers and fifth with 85 RBIs. New York's loss in the series opener at Texas was the club's fourth in a row, and the Yankees have fallen to third place in the AL East behind Toronto and Boston. They were in first place to start July, but started Tuesday 5 1/2 games behind the Blue Jays, currently holding a wild-card spot 2 1/2 games behind the Red Sox. 'Hopefully it's the start of something really good,' Boone said of Judge's return. Judge's return was part of a bevy of roster moves, headlined by the Yankees sending reliever Jake Bird to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre just five days after acquiring the right-hander from Colorado before the trade deadline. Bird allowed seven runs — six earned — in two innings over his first three appearances with the Yankees, capped by Josh Jung's three-run homer in the 10th inning of the Rangers' 8-5 victory in the series opener. 'I think he got quite a bit of work there in the first half, a lot of success,' Boone said. 'And he's had some struggles lately. We still think really highly of him and think he's not only going to help us this year in the short term but certainly in the long term, too. So hopefully this is something that does give him that little bit of a reset.' The Yankees put newly acquired outfielder Austin Slater on the IL with a left hamstring strain. Slater, traded by the Chicago White Sox last week, exited in the second inning Monday night after running out a fielder's choice grounder. New York also activated right-hander Mark Leiter Jr., who has been out almost a month with a stress fracture in his leg. Right-hander Yerry de los Santos was recalled from Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre and right-hander JT Brubaker was designated for assignment. Giancarlo Stanton, who has been the Yankees' starting DH for all of his 32 games this season, was displaced by Judge in the lineup. His 10th homer was a two-run shot in the fourth Monday that gave the Yankees a 5-4 lead over the Rangers. He missed the first 70 games of the season with inflammation in the tendons of both elbows. 'That's the tough part,' Boone said. 'G's been in such a good place now for really most of the time he's been back. Just feel like he's putting together real consistent at-bats where he's a real threat all the time. That'll be tough to navigate these first few days.' ___ AP MLB: