Only Yesterday: 5 Ways to Look at NASCAR with New Eyes

One of the best things about racing is that there are so many ways to look at its history. For all the wins and losses, there are people and stories. For every stat that can be analyzed, there are things that happen that nobody will ever see again. Sometimes that’s a good thing.

NASCAR is off this week, so no new memories will be made, but here’s a selection of five stats and stories that illustrate just how many ways there are to tell the story of the sport.

1. There are six internationally-born drivers with Cup Series wins

In the spirit of the Olympics, NASCAR’s drivers have come from all corners of the world. OK, no they haven’t. Which makes sense in that stock car racing isn’t as common internationally as open wheel. 

All six international winners come from different countries. Mario Andretti (Italy) paved the way, winning the 1967 Daytona 500, his only win in just 14 career Cup Series starts.

He’s joined by Canada’s Earl Ross (1 win), Colombian Juan Pablo Montoya (2 wins), Australian Marcos Ambrose (2 wins), New Zealand’s own Shane van Gisbergen (1 win to date) and Mexican Daniel Suarez (2 wins to date).

It’s a good illustration of why it would be so difficult to make racing an Olympic sport: while racing is popular around the world, there are so many types of vehicles that there’s no one kind that would give an even playing field, and the expense of each country having multiple types of cars compete would be prohibitive and a logistical challenge.

2. Jimmie Johnson’s recent struggles aren’t as uncommon as you might think.

Jimmie Johnson deserves a good amount of slack for the last couple of years. He hadn’t driven the Next Gen before the 2023 Daytona 500 (and learning it while driving part-time is a major obstacle). His team’s equipment is mid-tier, and he’s spent most of the last year dealing with a family tragedy.

His final three winless seasons as a full-time driver are more of a mystery, but Johnson is far from alone as a driver who didn’t take his winning ways all the way to the end of his career. Of the drivers in the top 10 of all-time winners, only five won in their last full-time season:

David Pearson (11 wins in 1969, his last full-time effort). Pearson also ran 18 part-time seasons afterwards and was winless in the last seven of them.

Jeff Gordon (one win in 2015). His win at Martinsville sent Gordon to the title race in his last season. He did make eight winless starts in 2016 as a fill-in for an injured Dale Earnhardt Jr.

Bobby Allison (one win in 1987). Allison planned a full-time campaign in 1988 before a career-ending injury derailed him, and he had one win that season as well, before his accident.

Cale Yarborough (six wins in 1980). Like Pearson, Yarborough ran several years part time, winning a total of 14 additional races, though he didn’t visit victory lane in the last three.

Dale Earnhardt (two wins in 2000). Earnhardt raced just once in 2001, in the Daytona 500, and suffered a fatal injury in a last-lap crash in that race.

If you’re wondering, Johnson’s company from among that top 10 includes Richard Petty (winless in his last eight seasons), Darrell Waltrip (also winless in eight seasons before retiring) and Kevin Harvick (no wins in 2023 after a pair in ’22). Kyle Busch is ninth on the all-time wins list but is still active full-time.

3. Also, consistency matters. 

It’s not just about winning titles, either. Winning a race is about being in position to capitalize on any situation, whether it be a mistake on track, a fuel mileage situation or an incident. For young drivers, learning to race inside the top 10 and top five are precursors to winning.

It should not be a surprise, then that of those 10 drivers on top of the all-time wins list, nine are also among the top 10 in all-time top fives and eight are on the all-time top 10 list. They won so much because they put themselves in the front of the field, where they could gamble in the right situations, or take advantage of someone else’s gamble in others.

In case you’re wondering (and you know you are), Johnson just misses the all-time top five list (he’s 12th), while Mark Martin (20th all-time in wins) slides in in seventh. Johnson’s back in the top 10 category, but Pearson (12th) and Yarborough (20th) fall off in favor of Martin (third) and Ricky Rudd (10th; 37th in wins).

4. Ford’s first Cup win comes with a hell of a story

Ford took home its first win at Dayton Speedway in Dayton, Ohio, on June 25, 1950. Driver Jimmy Florian beat Dick Linder, the only other driver on the lead lap, by an unknown margin of victory to give Ford its first win in NASCAR’s Grand National division, now the Cup Series.

Florian, who never ran a full-time schedule or won another race, drove his own car to victory lane that day, and in the process, earned a rather dubious nickname: “Shirtless.”

Why, you ask?

Well, because when Florian climbed from the car, he wasn’t wearing a shirt.

Why, you ask?

Because it was hot, and there was no rule that said he had to wear one. Oh, and also, there was no rule that drivers had to wear a seatbelt, so Florian, who started the race with a shirt but without a seatbelt, took the shirt off at some point.

Funny enough, NASCAR soon made an addition to the rulebook requiring that drivers wear shirts. Go figure.

5. And in truly random fashion…

NASCAR’s historical statistics are stored over at Racing-reference.info, and a thing you can do there is click a link that takes you to a random page.  You might get a specific race, a driver or owner’s stats, or a track’s races. If you like surprises and also racing (and who doesn’t?), the link is at the bottom of the page, on the right.

This time, it hit on the first of two Daytona 500 qualifiers in 1977. And because there’s a story in everything, here are some from that day:

Petty won the first qualifier with Pearson second. Yarborough won the second qualifying race and went on to win the Daytona 500 that year as well.

Both qualifying races boasted 33 starters, a total of 66 entrants at a time when the 500 had 42 cars in the race. Among those who failed to qualify was Hall of Famer Herschel McGriff.

Illustrating just how different the racing at Daytona was before restricted engines were a thing, of the seven drivers who failed to finish in the first 50-lap qualifier, not a single one was due to a crash. Three engine failures headline the list of mechanical woes that caused the DNFs.

The second qualifier featured 11 DNFs, with just two due to crashes, equal to the number designated simply “quit” (AJ Foyt and Buddy Arrington, because I know you want to know). 

Engine failures weren’t an uncommon sight in the qualifiers those days as teams used a different engine than they’d race in the 500, and it was designed to put out maximum horsepower, not durability.

The attrition numbers in the 1977 Daytona 500 rival Daytona races today—25 of 42 cars  didn’t make it to the checkers—but the reasons were much different from the laundry list of crash victims we see now. There were three crash DNFs, 15 engine failures, six miscellaneous mechanical failures and one fire (Bobby Wawak on lap three. Because racecar.).

Yarborough’s win in the 500 was just the frosting. The race week has so much to tell.

They all do, if we listen to their stories.