Everybody from fans to analysts, and even drivers, already have weighed in on who they think will succeed Dale Earnhardt Jr. as the most popular Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series racer. But apparently, Earnhardt might not actually be the sport’s most popular driver — at least, he’s not on the NASCAR subreddit.
Reddit user gamedemon24 recently compiled information on which current and retired Cup, Xfinity Series and Camping World Truck Series drivers are the most popular among fans on /r/NASCAR, and made a surprising discovery.
In a post Saturday, gamedemon24 revealed that, while Earnhardt is the most popular current Cup driver, Jeff Gordon, who retired from full-time racing in 2016, is the outright favorite among everybody on the forum. The research looked at what flairs users use to represent themselves on /r/NASCAR.
A total of 1,228 users reportedly use Earnhardt-related flairs, while Gordon was featured in 1,728 flairs. Although exactly 500 fewer fans feature Earnhardt in their icons, he still is represented by 752 more users than the second-most popular active Cup driver, Chase Elliott.
The dominance of Hendrick Motorsports wheelmen in the subreddit isn’t that surprising, as HMS reportedly was determined to be the most popular team among users, and Chevrolet was dubbed the favorite manufacturer.
One of the more interesting portions of the results was the Others section, which looked at any other common themes among the users’ flairs.
The top-two items on that list, the NASCAR logo and Beezwacks — the username of the late Amy Branch, who used to run /r/NASCAR — weren’t surprising. The third item, though, was Ricky Bobby.
It’s hard to believe that, even 11 years after its release, Will Ferrell’s NASCAR-themed comedy still strikes a chord with so many race fans.
Thumbnail photo via Andrew Weber/USA TODAY Sports Images
