Over the span of decades, NASCAR has taken its traveling circus to tracks from coast to coast and from dirt and asphalt bullrings to superspeedways to streets and airports.
This week, the NASCAR Cup Series hits the road for the first time in 2025 … the road course, that is.
Road courses have always been a staple in NASCAR, with at least a couple of visits each year, though in the last few years they’ve become more prevalent. This year’s Cup schedule boasts five events with right turns: three dedicated road courses plus a street race and one hybrid infield road course. The first one is this weekend at Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas.
In four Cup races at COTA, there have been four different winners, with just three drivers posting top-10 finishes in all four of them (Alex Bowman, Ross Chastain and Tyler Reddick). Bowman and Chastain both have average finishes inside the top five, an impressive statistic even for such a small sample size.
Speaking of impressive statistics, a peek at the numbers by type of racetrack digs up some interesting tidbits and trends.
The winningest road course driver of all time? That’s NASCAR Hall of Famer Jeff Gordon, with nine victories in 47 starts. Tony Stewart (8) and Chase Elliott (7) are the only others with more than a half-dozen trophies from the right-handers.
Perhaps the most impressive thing about Gordon is that six of his nine road course wins came in a row. And with only two road races a year at the time, that meant Gordon had a four-year reign of terror at Watkins Glen International, where he won three straight from 1997-99, and Sonoma Raceway, which he swept from 1998-2000.
Who snapped Gordon’s stranglehold on the winner’s circle? It wasn’t Stewart. It wasn’t Mark Martin, who also won three in a row at the Glen in the 1990s, or road aces Rusty Wallace or Ricky Rudd either.
Nope. It was Steve Park, who found victory lane for the first time at Watkins Glen in 2000. It was his only national series win on a road course and the first of two Cup Series victories before his career was derailed by a freak injury in 2001. Park beat Martin by 0.384 seconds.
And in case you were wondering, Gordon finished 23rd that day, his worst career finish at the Glen at the time and third-worst there of his entire career.
All told, Gordon had five wins at Sonoma and four at the Glen between 1997 and 2006.
Is Gordon’s mark untouchable? Absolutely not. Elliott’s only two wins behind him, and Kyle Larson just three. They also have many more chances to win with the higher number of road courses on the schedule.
Is Gordon the G.O.A.T.? In his time, absolutely. Nobody else could match him, though Stewart certainly challenged.
But all time? That’s not so easy.
Enter Dan Gurney. Gurney falls among the top road racers anywhere, not just in NASCAR. His victory total includes Formula 1, CART and the 24 Hours of LeMans as well as sports cars and regional series.
Gurney won the NASCAR season opener at Riverside International Raceway four times in a row from 1963-66 and again in 1968. 1967? A mechanical failure marred what might well have been a clean sweep.
And while his win total doesn’t match Gordon’s, Gurney never ran full time in Cup, nor close to it. His five career wins come in just 16 total starts, only nine of those on road courses. His average finish on a road course was 8.8.
Among full-time career Cup drivers, Gordon has some challengers. Rudd has more top fives with 26, though he also has more races. Gordon is tied for second in that category at 20 with Martin and Dale Earnhardt, all three in the same number of starts (47).
Martin has the most road-course top 10s of all time and was even more consistent than Gordon, with a 10.2 average that easily tops Gordon’s 13.0.
Leading laps doesn’t always equal a win, but Bobby Allison has led more of them on road courses than any other driver. Allison is the only driver to lead over 1,000 trips around (1,002). Richard Petty (885) and Gordon (719) complete the podium of that category. Next on that list is Gurney, with 696. But again, that’s in just nine starts, less than a quarter of the top three’s totals.
If it’s average finish you like (and it’s an excellent stat to look at driver’s overall performance and consistency, though not comprehensive in itself), the best among full-time Cup drivers with at least 10 road starts is Marcos Ambrose at 8.7, just ahead of Chase Elliott’s 9.0. Elliott has more than twice as many starts, hinting at better consistency overall, but he also did it in better equipment.
All of this is interesting, but it’s also another illustration of why it’s so hard, if not impossible, to make comparisons across eras and circumstances. Wins probably matter the most, but even if you separate NASCAR’s Modern Era from the early days, the schedule plays a role.
Elliott could very well pass Gordon’s win total, but he also has more chances to do it than Gordon did. 2025 is Elliott’s 10th full Cup season, but he’ll tie Gordon’s road course start number in 2027 if the schedule stays the same. Elliott will be 31 years old; Gordon was 45 when he made start No. 47. Time is on Elliott’s side.
And pound for pound, nobody has come close to Gurney in win percentage, but calling Gurney a NASCAR driver with just 16 total races is a stretch compared to the career drivers.
The greatest NASCAR road racer of all time? You can make a case for a few guys. Gordon’s sheer dominance in the mid-late 1990s and win total probably give him a small edge … but Rudd, Allison and Elliott all have solid arguments.
Amy is an 20-year veteran NASCAR writer and a six-time National Motorsports Press Association (NMPA) writing award winner, including first place awards for both columns and race coverage. As well as serving as Photo Editor, Amy writes The Big 6 (Mondays) after every NASCAR Cup Series race. She can also be found working on her bi-weekly columns Holding A Pretty Wheel (Tuesdays) and Only Yesterday (Wednesdays). A New Hampshire native whose heart is in North Carolina, Amy’s work credits have extended everywhere from driver Kenny Wallace’s website to Athlon Sports. She can also be heard weekly as a panelist on the Hard Left Turn podcast that can be found on AccessWDUN.com's Around the Track page.