NASCAR Stats That Put Kevin Harvick’s True Jeff Gordon-Like Greatness in Perspective Against Jimmie Johnson

How do you measure greatness? Or rather, how do you measure which is better amongst two equally great athletes? Well, beyond preferences, opinions, and arguments, the thing that stands is the statistics. So between Kevin Harvick and Jimmie Johnson, which is better?

Now, looking at it from a macro-level, sure, Johnson sounds like the right answer. After all, he’s won more races and more championships than Harvick.

But when you consider the statistic of their finishes after the age of 42, a different picture comes into being.

After 42, Jimmie Johnson finished inside the top five 10 times, inside the top ten, 33 times, and failed to win a single race.

On the other hand, Kevin Harvick, after he turned 42, has finished inside the top five, 73 times, inside the top ten, 117 times, and has gone to the victory lane a total of 22 times.

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Kevin Harvick on the disrespect Jimmie Johnson gets from NASCAR fans

In an interview from a couple of years ago, Kevin Harvick had candidly spoken about the disrespect that Jimmie Johnson gets from the NASCAR fans.

“Jimmie is one of the most disrespected great drivers that have ever come through this garage,” he said.“Sometimes I feel like we forget that he has won seven championships and all the races that he has won and all the great things he has done.”

Harvick described how it’s not like Johnson came from a rich family or a background of means, that he in fact, climbed all the way from the bottom to the top and worked hard, winning as many championships as Dale Earnhardt and Richard Petty.

“I never feel like he is on that pedestal next to those guys appropriately. Sometimes I feel like as a group, from a fan standpoint, I feel like you are just letting it go by and not even realizing that you are watching one of the greatest careers that will ever come through the garage,” Harvick emphasized.

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