Cars

I have watched the movie "Cars" more than anyone else on the planet except my son.  I've always assumed that the real life equivalents of the Cars were as follows:

The King - Richard Petty (the movie writers didn't even ask us to think here)

Chick Hicks - Dale Earnhardt (hardest match because Earnhardt was popular while Chick was not)

Lightning McQueen - Jeff Gordon  (another easy match, especially since they both ran off their pit crews)

So, are these correct?  One possible alternative would be Doc = Petty, King=Earnhardt, Chick = Gordon, McQueen=Jimmy Johnson.  There are a number of problems with this alternative so I think it is unlikely (the biggest problem is that Gordon was successful early in his career while Chick was successful late).