Can't Compare Johnson's Three to Cale Yarborough's Three

So Jimmy Johnson won his third championship in a row yesterday. Good for him. But it can't be considered the same as when Yarborough did it in the '70s. Keep with me after the jump for more...

Now, some are gonna cheer me on with this blog, while others will want my head. So be it. But I can't keep quiet with everyone comparing Johnson to Cale with the three championships in a row. THERE IS NO COMPARISON!!!

Cale Yarborough won three WINSTON CUP (Yes, it was the Winston Cup then, and will be the Winston Cup now. No retroactive political correctness here!) in the 70s, when competition in NASCAR was at one of its fiercest levels ever, the fields were full of outstanding drivers, a multi-car team wasn't even heard of, and the cars were pretty evenly matched. And Cale did it under the old points system, not the current "Ok, ten races to go, we're starting over" points system. Yarborough didn't have to "just make it to the chase", he had to run balls out, as hard as possible the whole year, and do it in fewer races than Jimmie Johnson to boot. You never saw Cale going for a "top five finish" or settling with a top ten, he was going for the win every single race.

Don't get me wrong, what Jimmie Johnson has done the last three years is quite an accomplishment and worthy of praise, but I'm sick of everyone (NASCAR and the TV media in particular) trying to compare everything the current drivers do to what the legendary drivers of the past did. If you took Jimmie Johnson right now, time warped back to '77 and put him in a cup car to race against Cale and the other masters of the golden age of NASCAR, he'd get pasted into the wall!