Jim

Another driver that probably should be mentioned is Paul Tracy, although I am not much of a fan. He does have 31 Indy Car wins ranking him 7th on the all time win list. Kind of funny that I would mention him since he couldn’t even qualify for this year’s race.

I wouldn’t really argue any of the names you put on that list except Scott Goodyear (and I can’t believe someone has voted for Goodyear but no one has voted for Horn yet). That one I TOTALLY disagree with. Let’s look at his three near-misses in more detail:

1992 – Goodyear misses the race and only gets into the field when his teammate Mike Groff is pulled for him via team orders. Then he finishes second (by the way, in a VERY attrition-heavy race.)

1995 – Goodyear has BY FAR the best car on the track (a Reynard-Honda-Firestone when all three of those were ALREADY superior to their rival manufacturers, which would become readily apparent in post-split CART) and makes the stupidest brain fade in Indy history. No, the best car doesn’t always win, but when say Michael Andretti had the best car he tended to have mechanical failures. His problems were not self-inflicted.

1997 – This was a very, very, VERY weak field with Luyendyk and Lazier the only past winners, and Treadway had the best equipment at Indianapolis once again as evidenced by their 1-2 finish. He should have finished where he did finish. Had he not, he would have choked.

Considering I like to evaluate entire careers when answering this question, it makes Goodyear look even worse. He won 2 CART races in the glory years, yes, but they both came at Michigan, the track where talent probably matters least and car most (basically the winner is whoever has the best car that doesn’t blow up, every time). He only had a couple top ten finishes in CART points. Etc… And although he showed better in the IRL, how many real drivers was he competing against? Tony Stewart, Kenny Brack, Buddy Lazier, Arie Luyendyk, and…? And I admit I find Scott Goodyear REALLY annoying as an announcer. When hiring a driver as a commentator, either you want to pick a legend whose arrogance is at least justified by results (i.e. Bobby Unser, Darrell Waltrip), a legend who is actually a nice guy (i.e. Arie Luyendyk, Benny Parsons), or a mediocrity who has a good sense of humor about himself (Jon Beekhuis, Wally Dallenbach). Goodyear is the worst of both worlds in that he is actually an arrogant mediocrity.

There are lots of people I’d list over Goodyear. Among them I would list, in addition to those on your list:

Bobby Allison
Alberto Ascari
Tony Bettenhausen
Sébastien Bourdais
Jack Brabham
Dan Gurney
Hurley Haywood
Al Holbert
Denny Hulme
Steve Kinser
Joe Leonard
Nigel Mansell
Roger McCluskey
Nelson Piquet
Tim Richmond
Jochen Rindt
Jackie Stewart
Tony Stewart
Paul Tracy
Jimmy Vasser
Cale Yarborough

Yes, I know MOST of those guys are primarily legends in some other form of racing, but I feel every single person on that list has made a bigger impact in racing in general than Goodyear has, and quite a few of these in my opinion have also made a bigger impact on the Speedway, and most of them have at least had a few good runs there, even if their careers there have been short. Goodyear, by contrast, has taken several of the best cars on the Speedway and underachieved with them (I’ll grant that 1992 he did not have the second best car, but he shouldn’t have been in the field anyway…)