Sports Illustrated's Top Ten NASCAR drivers of the century

Sports Illustrated asked a panel of 40 prominent NASCAR insiders who they thought were the greatest NASCAR drivers of the century, here are the results.

1) David Pearson
2) Dale Earnhardt
3) Richard Petty
4) Bobby Allison
5) Jeff Gordon
6) Cale Yarborough
7) Fireball Roberts
8) Junior Johnson
9) Darrell Waltrip
10) Herb Thomas

The panel consisted of current and past drivers, team owners, writers, track owners, TV commentators/analysts.

Well, what do you all think?

Here is what I think:
1) I think Richard Petty should at least be 2nd. Come on, he is "The King."
2) I wouldn't put Jeff Gordon ahead of Cale Yarborough and Fireball Roberts yet.

I have to agree with the top pick of David Pearson. He is my all time favorite driver.

I saw him embarass Richard Petty and Cale Yarborough on more than one occasion.

Lee Roy, you know that I am not going to argue with David Pearson being #1 too. I think we are more informed fans (I guess that means were are smarter therefore experts) because the fans voted for Richard Petty as their #1 and David Pearson ended up 5th.

David Pearson also fared poorly in the greatest American driver fan poll that Racer magazine had recently. David was near the bottom of the list in those getting votes. Mario Andretti won, Foyt was second and Petty was third. In this poll, fans had to pick five drivers from a list of 25 nominees.