Richard Petty has two hundred wins, seven championships, and thirty-four years behind the wheel. He has seen more of NASCAR, from closer range, for longer, than any living human being.

And at eighty-nine years old, he has stopped being careful.

He told a female driver she could only win if everybody else stayed home. He told NBC Sports that Ernie Irvan had no finesse — and that Earnhardt didn't either. He watched Austin Dillon use Joey Logano's car as a navigating tool and said that was asking too much. He compared Carson Hocevar to Earnhardt — and made it sound more like a warning than a compliment.

And then there's number one. Four words. June 2001. Four months after Dale Earnhardt's death at Daytona. Words that detonated across the entire sport — and that Richard Petty has never, in twenty-five years, taken back.

Five drivers. Five verdicts. From the one man who built the standard everyone else gets measured against.