NASCAR fans were in for a treat in Saturday’s (April 13) Andy’s Frozen Custard 300 at Texas Motor Speedway, as Ryan Sieg and Sam Mayer had a fierce last-lap battle that saw Mayer prevail by no more than a couple of inches.
The final margin of victory? Two one-thousandths of a second: tied for the second-closest finish in NASCAR Xfinity Series history. Given Texas’ unpopularity with both fans and drivers alike, a finish like Saturday’s was just what the doctor ordered.
While Mayer scored his fifth career win in Xfinity and turned around what had been a disastrous start to 2024, it was a heartbreaker for Sieg, who was less than a blink of an eye away from his first-ever win in his 342nd Xfinity start. Even more so, considering that he looked to have an insurmountable lead as the laps ticked down … that is, until Mayer made up serious ground in the final sets of circuits, pulled even on the backstretch in the final lap and nipped Sieg at the line.
But Saturday’s finish poses an interesting question: how often does the driver running second at the white flag successfully complete the pass in a photo finish, and how often does the lead car successfully fend off the challenge?
In other words, how many photo finishes also featured a last-lap pass?
To start, I will be looking at all the finishes in NASCAR Cup Series, Xfinity and Craftsman Truck Series history that were decided by an official margin of victory of 0.030 seconds or less. No given interval denotes what is and what isn’t a photo finish, so I had to draw an arbitrary line at 0.030 to not completely drown this article in what is already a huge table of stats and numbers.
For this study, I will be excluding photo finishes that occurred at Daytona International Speedway, Talladega Superspeedway and the current Atlanta Motor Speedway configuration. Photo finishes on drafting tracks are more frequent and an entirely different animal, so I wanted to keep this confined to unrestricted ovals. The next time we have a photo finish on a drafting track, however, I might do a similar study for said finishes.
Anyway, 29 races have been decided by 0.030 seconds or less on unrestricted ovals in the history of NASCAR’s top three series. One occurred on a road course, four occurred on short tracks and the remaining 24 happened at ovals between one and two miles in length.
Below are said finishes, complete with the margin of victory, the series, the track and the top two finishers. If the winner led the white flag lap, they were the Leading car. If the winner did not lead the white flag lap, they were the Trailing car.
| Date | Track | Series | Official MOV | Winner | Runner-Up |
| July 11, 1995 | Colorado | Trucks | .0001 | Butch Miller (Leading) | Mike Skinner |
| March 16, 2003 | Darlington | Cup | .002 | Ricky Craven (Trailing) | Kurt Busch |
| July 7, 1996 | Milwaukee | Xfinity | .002 | Buckshot Jones (Leading) | Mike McLaughlin |
| April 13, 2024 | Texas | Xfinity | .002 | Sam Mayer (Trailing) | Ryan Sieg |
| June 14, 2008 | Michigan | Trucks | .005 | Erik Darnell (Leading) | Johnny Benson Jr. |
| May 15, 2015 | Charlotte | Trucks | .005 | Kasey Kahne (Trailing) | Erik Jones |
| March 11, 2001 | Atlanta | Cup | .006 | Kevin Harvick (Leading) | Jeff Gordon |
| September 7, 1995 | Richmond | Trucks | .006 | Terry Labonte (Leading) | Geoff Bodine |
| March 18, 2005 | Atlanta | Trucks | .008 | Ron Hornaday Jr. (Leading) | Bobby Labonte |
| February 22, 2004 | Rockingham | Cup | .010 | Matt Kenseth (Leading) | Kasey Kahne |
| March 13, 2016 | Phoenix | Cup | .010 | Kevin Harvick (Leading) | Carl Edwards |
| November 15, 1998 | Homestead | Xfinity | .010 | Jeff Burton (Trailing) | Jimmy Spencer |
| Date | Track | Series | Official MOV | Winner | Runner-Up |
| August 29, 2010 | Montreal | Xfinity | .012 | Boris Said (Leading) | Max Papis |
| June 17, 2017 | Michigan | Xfinity | .012 | Denny Hamlin (Trailing) | William Byron |
| May 16, 1999 | Pikes Peak | Trucks | .013 | Mike Wallace (Trailing) | Jack Sprague |
| November 16, 2012 | Homestead | Trucks | .014 | Cale Gale (Trailing) | Kyle Busch |
| May 21, 2016 | Charlotte (All-Star Open) | Cup | .015 | Kyle Larson (Leading) | Chase Elliott |
| November 20, 2005 | Homestead | Cup | .017 | Greg Biffle (Leading) | Mark Martin |
| August 26, 2011 | Bristol | Xfinity | .019 | Kyle Busch (Leading) | Joey Logano |
| September 20, 2008 | Las Vegas | Trucks | .020 | Mike Skinner (Leading) | Erik Darnell |
| Date | Track | Series | Official MOV | Winner | Runner-Up |
| March 17, 1996 | Homestead | Trucks | .022 | Dave Rezendes (Leading) | Jack Sprague |
| November 8, 2002 | Phoenix | Trucks | .022 | Kevin Harvick (Leading) | Ted Musgrave |
| March 16, 2013 | Bristol | Xfinity | .023 | Kyle Busch (Leading) | Kyle Larson |
| August 11, 2018 | Michigan | Trucks | .025 | Brett Moffitt (Trailing) | Johnny Sauter |
| May 29, 2005 | Charlotte | Cup | .027 | Jimmie Johnson (Trailing) | Bobby Labonte |
| April 4, 2004 | Texas | Cup | .028 | Elliott Sadler (Leading) | Kasey Kahne |
| March 20, 2005 | Atlanta | Cup | .028 | Carl Edwards (Trailing) | Jimmie Johnson |
| October 8, 2005 | Kansas | Xfinity | .030 | Kasey Kahne (Trailing) | Greg Biffle |
| November 6, 2021 | Phoenix | Xfinity | .030 | Daniel Hemric (Trailing) | Austin Cindric |
Here are the official tallies. Of the 29 photo finishes up for review, 17 were won by the leader successfully holding off a challenge from second place. The other 12 were won by the second-place car that successfully completed a pass on the leader at the checkered flag.
| Series | Races | Lead Car Won | Trailing Car Won |
| Total | 29 | 17 | 12 |
| Cup | 9 | 6 | 3 |
| Xfinity | 9 | 4 | 5 |
| Trucks | 11 | 7 | 4 |
Does that come as a surprise? From my perspective, no. One would expect it to be a 50-50 split right down the middle, but the leader has the advantage of clean air. Even if the second-place car is clearly faster than the leader, they’ll still be running at a deficit as long as the leader has a clear track ahead of them. Thus, the leaders holding off second place in approximately 59% of the photo finishes look right to me on paper.
But of course, all of this is arbitrary due to the sample size and the cutoff point that I chose. What would the results be if I changed the concept of a photo finish to ones decided by 0.100 seconds or less? How would the results change if I included superspeedway races? How many of those photo finishes didn’t even involve the driver leading at the white flag?
Also interesting are the places that had the most photo finishes through the years. From this preliminary study, it appears that 1.5-mile tracks are the most likely places to have a photo finish outside of superspeedways.
| Track | Total Photo Finishes | Cup | Xfinity | Trucks |
| Homestead | 4 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| Atlanta (Old) | 3 | 2 | 1 | |
| Charlotte | 3 | 2 | 1 | |
| Michigan | 3 | 1 | 2 | |
| Phoenix | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Bristol | 2 | 2 | ||
| Texas | 2 | 1 | 1 | |
| Colorado | 1 | 1 | ||
| Darlington | 1 | 1 | ||
| Kansas | 1 | 1 | ||
| Las Vegas | 1 | 1 | ||
| Milwaukee | 1 | 1 | ||
| Montreal | 1 | 1 | ||
| Pikes Peak | 1 | 1 | ||
| Richmond | 1 | 1 | ||
| Rockingham | 1 | 1 |
But of course, how would that rundown change if I included finishes decided by a tenth or less? What would change if I gave a handicap to road courses or short tracks, places that aren’t necessarily known for razor-thin margins?
Perhaps that will all be in a follow-up article down the road.
About the author
Stephen Stumpf is the NASCAR Content Director for Frontstretch and is a three-year veteran of the site. His weekly columns include “Stat Sheet” and “4 Burning Questions.” He also writes commentary, contributes to podcasts, edits articles and is frequently at the track for on-site coverage.
Can find on Twitter @stephen_stumpf.
A daily email update (Monday through Friday) providing racing news, commentary, features, and information from Frontstretch.com
We hate spam. Your email address will not be sold or shared with anyone else.