I guess the issue that I have with that is that all of those guys were racing in essentially "National" series as opposed to an "International" series like F1.

Europe and Asia have little if any top fuel drag racing, nor any "Stock Car" racing built around 3600 lb 'merican sedans with 6 liter push-rod V8's or 1950's era formula cars with 6 liter push-rod V8's on dirt tracks. So 90% of the world is eliminated from being able to get even the most remedial experience in those formulae, let alone compete successfully. But everyone has series for formula cars on road courses. Just look at the number of FF and FV series across the world.

Force, Kinser and Petty are all great drivers, but they're not the best because they chose to be "big fish in a small sea". Gurney, Foyt, Andretti, Donohue, Al Unser Sr, and even D. Ernhart Sr. all chose to step out of the US tide-pool and try to compete on equal terms with the rest of the world at some point in their careers, and in all honesty, they all did pretty well.

But looking at the "Big Sea" that is F1, Shumacher has been able to beat all comers pretty regularly and decisively pretty much from the get-go, at a level that few except Mr. A. Prost have been able to accomplish. Except for his first year, he's also been somewhat lucky not to have another driver of his caliber to compete against. If Senna had lived longer, he undoubtibly would have taken some of the wins off of Schumacher's total. But Schumacher was still far more of the "total package" then Senna, and I suspect would have beaten Senna more often then not. But it would certainly have been a battle of titans! Imagine for a second what Prost's career would have been like if he hadn't competed against Lauda and Senna?

For those of you who want to see that the drivers were like "in the old days", you might want to check out the British Pathe archives (the 1930's for example). You can download the "low qualilty" versions for free, or buy the better versions. They were definitely "real men", but it's not clear that any of them dominated their time the way Schumacher has.

+1

Tervuren

check out RACE OF A THOUSAND BENDS
and INDIANAPOLIS GRAND PRIX

and now tell me that those drivers in that Monaco race didn't know how to corner, or to pick an ideal line.. you can clearly see on the road where the rubber lays ( i think it's rubber, it looks darker where they picked their line )
this is a race that is 10 times more challenging for driver technique then the Brickyard

100 laps of MC, with drum brakes, heavy cars, no protection, dozens, if not more varying bends , some left, some right , some fast , some slow...

how in the world could those drivers be considered less skilled at taking corners, when those Indy racers had a dedicated track, only left hand turns, and all of it was high speed...

That's probably supposed to say $50 million. I know he gave $10 million to the sunami victims.