Past Fan Vote winners of the All-Star Race
Out of curiosity, I decided to look back at the last several All-Star races and see who won the fan vote. I’ll list each driver from 2013 to 2008, where they finished, and how many cars were in the field. I don’t care if they were running or wrecked at the end. You finish how you finish.
2013 - Danica Patrick - 20th of 22
2012 - Bobby Labonte - 19th of 23
2011 - Dale Earnhardt Jr. - 14th of 21
2010 - Carl Edwards - 21st of 21
2009 - Joey Logano - 8th of 21
2008 - Kasey Kahne - 1st of 24
No reason for me listing this, really. I just wanted everyone to see it. So when you’re snickering at how the person who got voted into the race finished toward the end of the field, you can laugh at several other drivers while you’re at it.Minus Kasey, of course, who obviously decided to kick everybody’s ass in 2008 just because he could.
I don’t dispute your argument on percentages of the field, but whether someone is running or not has no bearing on final results. You either crossed the line and/or finished all the laps or you didn’t. It’s like making the argument of “Sure he didn’t win the race, but he led the most laps.”
Golf clap.
Running well is fantastic, and it’s what eventually leads to wins, but you either crossed the line first or you didn’t. You only have to lead one lap to win a race. Let’s ask Kyle if he’d rather lead the most laps or the one that counts. Any driver worth his salt will tell you he wants to lead every single lap, but only one of those laps gets you a trophy.
Wrecking out, blowing your transmission, having a crap car the entire race, or simply not being good at a particular track. All these things lead to bad finishes. But in the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t matter WHY you finished where you finished. They don’t give out participation trophies.
The point of my original post was to show that in the last few years the winner of the fan vote has finished toward the middle to back of the field more times than not.
I have no quarrel with people who are not fans of Danica. You can like or dislike her all you want. I personally don’t dislike any of the drivers. I’d rather put my efforts into cheering FOR drivers than against them.
