Several years ago, I put together a list on this blog of the top 25 drivers in the history of NASCAR's now long gone Southwest Tour series. Here are the rankings for 21-16, 15-6 and 5-1. I based my opinion purely on statistical information, at least what was available at the time. Since then, more information for the series has become available to the point where with the exception of two races (I believe) full stats of every single NASCAR Southwest Tour race between 1986 and 2006 are now on the Internet.
Because of that, I thought it would be a good idea to go back and sort though the more complete stats and see if the conclusion I came to before is different or similar. I also decided to expand the list this time to include more drivers. It would be a long task to go through and rank every single driver who started a race in the Southwest Tour and frankly that wouldn't be any fun for me. I limited the drivers I would rank to anyone who ran or attempted to run the series full-time for at least one season (minimum 10 races) and/or drivers who raced in at least 20 races.
The criteria I set regarding the rankings will be similar to what I used in the original rankings. Drivers will be ranked based on series championships, wins and winning percentage, top 5 and top 5 percentage, top 10 and top 10 percentage and average race finish. As with last time, there won't be any bias on my part and I will determine the rankings based on what the numbers say.
I have compiled the list of drivers who will be ranked which you can view in the Excel file below. It will take me a while to sort through the rankings and determine where everyone places in each category so this is something that will take weeks and possibly months. But I'm looking forward to going through and remembering the drivers and the races in NASCAR Southwest Tour history. I hope you will enjoy it too.
Click here to view the Excel file.