Last night on The Broken Wheel Bearing Podcast, I said Kyle Larson would be one of the 10 greatest NASCAR drivers ever if he retired today.

I changed my mind.

Larson had just won his third Cup championship and gone back-to-back. I felt pretty good about putting him in the top 10 until I sat down to make the list and asked myself one question. Who am I taking out?

I went back through NASCAR’s history, from the days of Lee Petty to the drivers we watch every Sunday. I gave Cup wins and championships the most weight, but I also looked at who dominated their era, who won the biggest races and what they did across NASCAR’s other national series. By the time I got to No. 10, I had Larson just outside it.

Here’s who made my list and why.

10. Kevin Harvick

60 Cup wins, 1 Cup championship, 121 national series wins

This was the spot I kept coming back to. Harvick won 60 Cup races, another 47 in what’s now the O’Reilly Series and 14 in Trucks. He won a Cup championship and two O’Reilly titles. I give him the last spot because he had the Cup résumé to get this close and the success across all three series to put him over the line.

9. Bobby Allison

85 Cup wins, 1 Cup championship, 87 national series wins

Allison won three Daytona 500s, including the 1988 race when he finished ahead of his son Davey. The season that jumps out to me is 1972. He won 10 races, finished second 12 times and still came up short of Richard Petty in the championship. His one Cup title tells you how many times he won the points battle. Those 85 wins tell you how often everybody else had to beat him on Sunday.

8. Kyle Busch

63 Cup wins, 2 Cup championships, 234 national series wins

Losing Kyle in May made this a hard season for me to cover. When I look back on his career, what sticks with me is how often you could tune in on a Friday, Saturday or Sunday and see him fighting for the win. He holds the career wins record in both O’Reilly and Trucks, and he won two championships at the Cup level. Giving his full NASCAR career more weight is what moved him ahead of Allison on my list.

7. Darrell Waltrip

84 Cup wins, 3 Cup championships, 97 national series wins

If you grew up hearing Waltrip in the booth, go look at his numbers from the early ’80s. He won 12 races and the championship in 1981, then did it again in 1982. He added a third title in 1985 and finally won the Daytona 500 in 1989. He and Allison finished one Cup win apart, and Waltrip’s three championships settle that comparison for me.

6. Cale Yarborough

83 Cup wins, 3 Cup championships, 83 national series wins

Yarborough was the first driver to win three straight Cup titles, doing it from 1976 through 1978. He won 28 races during that stretch. He also won four Daytona 500s and five Southern 500s. Waltrip and Yarborough are about as close as it gets on this list. I give Cale the edge for what he did at Daytona and Darlington.

5. Jeff Gordon

93 Cup wins, 4 Cup championships, 98 national series wins

Gordon could win at Martinsville, on a road course or in the Daytona 500. He won 13 races in 1998, three Daytona 500s over his career and a record five Brickyard 400s. The variety is what stands out to me. You could look at just about any track on the schedule and make a case that Gordon was the guy to beat that weekend.

4. David Pearson

105 Cup wins, 3 Cup championships, 106 national series wins

Pearson won 105 Cup races in 574 starts. That’s better than one win every six races over an entire career. He won a championship with Cotton Owens in 1966 and back-to-back titles with Holman-Moody in 1968 and 1969. If your first question is how often a driver showed up and beat the field, Pearson has one of the best arguments for No. 1.

3. Jimmie Johnson

83 Cup wins, 7 Cup championships, 84 national series wins

Five straight championships still sounds ridiculous. From 2006 through 2010, every season ended with the same driver on top. Johnson also won two Daytona 500s, four Coca-Cola 600s and four Brickyard 400s. If we’re talking about the greatest championship run in NASCAR history, the No. 48 is my pick.

2. Dale Earnhardt

76 Cup wins, 7 Cup championships, 97 national series wins

Earnhardt won his first title in 1980 and his seventh in 1994. I give him the slight edge over Johnson for winning championships across a longer stretch. Then there’s the 1998 Daytona 500. After years of coming up short in that race, he finally won it, and crew members from up and down pit road lined up to congratulate him. It’s still the first scene I picture when somebody brings up the black No. 3.

1. Richard Petty

200 Cup wins, 7 Cup championships, 200 national series wins

The longer schedules of Petty’s era gave him more chances to win, and that matters when you compare him with drivers who came later. Then you look at what he did with those chances. He won 27 races in 1967, including 10 in a row. He won seven Daytona 500s and seven championships. The combination of career wins, peak dominance and success in NASCAR’s biggest race is why The King still gets my No. 1.

Just outside the top 10

Kyle Larson and Lee Petty were my toughest cuts. Larson has 35 Cup wins, 58 wins across the three national series and three Cup championships. That third title made his case stronger, and I can see why someone would put him in today. For me, Harvick’s 25 additional Cup wins and two O’Reilly championships give him the edge for that last spot.

Lee Petty won 54 Cup races, three titles and the first Daytona 500. Herb Thomas won 48 races in 228 starts, and Tim Flock won 39 in 187. Thomas and Flock each won two championships. Those three are a big reason I wanted to go back through the full history of the sport after the show. An all-time list has to give the drivers who set the first standards the same attention as the ones we just watched race.

If Larson retired today, I’d have him just outside my top 10. If you’ve already got him in yours, tell me who you’d take out. That’s the part of the debate that changed my mind.