Good buddy, looks like we got us a NASCAR hauler convoy

So who's the best driver in NASCAR?

Tony Stewart, the reigning Sprint Cup Series champion? Jimmie Johnson, who has won the title five times? A proven veteran like Jeff Gordon, or a young whippersnapper such as Kyle Busch?

You could make an argument for any of those guys, and probably a few others.

I'm gonna make mine for Tom "Thumper" McCrimmon.

McCrimmon is one of two drivers of the No. 20 NASCAR hauler for Joe Gibbs Racing and its driver, Joey Logano. McCrimmon has been jamming the gears to and fro -- a lot more fro since all these tracks were built on the West Coast -- on the Sprint Cup circuit for 25 years.

He has driven more than 2 million miles.

He has never had an accident.

Two million miles. Zero accidents.

You know that Mayhem Guy on the All-State commercial, the one with the butterfly bandage over his eye and the torn sports jacket? Dude doesn't have much use for Thumper McCrimmon.

True, McCrimmon has never looked in his rearview mirror and seen one of the Busch brothers lurking, or an Earnhardt, an Allison or a Petty, although to be truthful, Kyle Petty wasn't all that tough to deal with during his day.

But you try jamming on the brakes of an 80-foot rig that weighs 80,000 pounds when a Country Squire makes an illegal lane change on the way to Six Flags. Keep it from jackknifing like Greg Louganis, or winding up in a ditch, and then tell me it doesn't take a tractor-trailer load of talent, good buddy.

Like Rain Man, Thumper McCrimmon is an excellent driver. He's also pretty good in snow and high winds and has a trophy to prove it.

Last year, McCrimmon, who is built like a Wisconsin offensive tackle, won the Run Smart Hauler Challenge at Charlotte Motor Speedway and pocketed $30,000 for running over the fewest road cones, or something like that.

McCrimmon said he is going to use the money to get his kids started in college and, if there's anything left, on coffee. Black. No cream. No sugar.

"Truck-stop coffee," says McCrimmon, who got his start as a hauler driver through his brother-in-law's pal Butch, which is how a lot of deals used to get made in NASCAR.

McCrimmon and I had a nice chat Thursday at the South Point before the annual NASCAR hauler procession down the Strip en route to Las Vegas Motor Speedway, site of this weekend's Sam's Town 300 Nationwide Series and Kobalt Tools 400 Sprint Cup Series races.

The hauler procession is sort of like C.W. McCall's "Convoy," except there aren't any Kenworths pullin' logs, only a bunch of Freightliners haulin' race cars, a main and a backup, and enough tools to put a man on Jupiter.

I managed to talk my way into the staging area, and most of the hauler drivers seemed like good ol' boys, though I didn't spot a single mesh trucker's cap and, much to my chagrin, nobody had Merle Haggard or Black Oak Arkansas playing in the CD deck.

A guy can make as much as $100,000 a year driving one of those haulers, I was told. Each race team has two hauler drivers; one drives while the other sleeps, like in endurance racing or on the way to spring break.

On race day, one hauls gas in the pits while the other sleeps. Then when the race is over, the guy who was sleeping hauls something that rhymes with gas, at least until the Texas state line.

McCrimmon says Texas has the most state troopers and the best food on the circuit, at the Warfield Truck Stop on Interstate 20 on the outskirts of Midland, where all food is served with a smile and a greasy spoon. A guy can also catch a shower there and rent "B.J. and the Bear" videos, though McCrimmon says in today's NASCAR there's usually no time for either.

It took the Thumper and co-driver Scott "Scooter" Crowell -- NASCAR hauler drivers take their nicknames from their CB radio handles, so there are a lot of "Hog Farmers," "Pork Chops," "Cowboys," "Roosters," "Gators" and "Hillbillies" among Sprint Cup hauler drivers, but only one "King Taco," Randy "King Taco" Rodriguez, who drives the big rig for Robby Gordon Motorsports -- 36 hours to drive the 1,851 miles from Daytona Beach to Phoenix with like a 10-minute layover in Charlotte, to pick up spare parts and cigarettes, after the rain-delayed Daytona 500.

So, as McCrimmon put it, it was a quick stop at Pilot for gas and a Subway sandwich "and away you go."

He'll have to catch you on the flip-flop.

Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ron Kantowski can be reached at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. Follow him on Twitter: @ronkantowski.