In honor of the "Turn of the Decade", I have put together a list of the number of drivers who have races and championships in each decade. Again, since I am completely inept at getting these columns straight on here, Let me explain what they are: Decade, Race winners, Multi Race winners, Championships, Multiple Champions.

2000's: 43,33,6,2
1990's: 29,25,5,2
1980's: 29,19,6,2
1970's: 23,17,4,2
1960's: 55,35,5,4
1950's: 66,36,5,4
1949: 6,2,1,0

Now, just looking statisticly alone, one would instantly say the 50's was the most competitive decade, followed by the 60's. BUT, comparing the 2000's to the early history of nascar is like comparing apples to oranges. I have only been following Nascar since 1979, and wasn't really hardcore until the late 80's, so people like Lee Roy or Bobby would be much more knowlegable about the early history, but from my recollection from 1949 thru the late 1960's there would be 2 or 3 races PER WEEK on all different types pf venues (a lot of them dirt)and not every driver would show up to every race, so more opprotunities would open up for other people to win that may not have normally have had a chance with a Petty or Pearson not racing that race.
So, to compare apples to apples, you really can only go back to the "Winston-Nextel-Sprint" Cup era, and looking at it that way, the 2000's kicked butt, even with all the competitive dis-advantages that were out there.
Interesting side note for all those numerologists out there: I find it interesting that there were 43 different race winners this decade, exactly equaling the number of drivers in the field for (almost) every Cup race:43.