In the midst of a 45-race winless streak and an absolutely miserable 2026, Joey Logano reminded everyone at North Wilkesboro Speedway why you can never count him out, as he led a whopping 323 of the race’s 450 laps and held off points leader Denny Hamlin in the closing moments to claim his 38th career NASCAR Cup Series win.
It’s been a topsy-turvy year, as Logano became just the sixth driver to win races in both 2025 and 2026, joining Hamlin, Ryan Blaney, Chase Elliott, Chase Briscoe and Shane van Gisbergen. A whopping nine winners from 2025 are winless this season, and 12 drivers in the field have winless droughts spanning more than a calendar year.
| Cole Custer | 154 races | 2020 Kentucky |
| Erik Jones | 136 races | 2022 Southern 500 |
| Michael McDowell | 105 races | 2023 Indy Road Course |
| Brad Keselowski | 80 races | May 2024 Darlington |
| AJ Allmendinger | 77 races | 2023 Charlotte ROVAL |
| Alex Bowman | 69 races | 2024 Chicago Street |
| Chris Buescher | 65 races | 2024 Watkins Glen |
| Ricky Stenhouse Jr. | 62 races | Oct. 2024 Talladega |
| Josh Berry | 52 races | March 2025 Las Vegas |
| Austin Cindric | 47 races | April 2025 Talladega |
| Kyle Larson | 45 races | May 2025 Kansas |
| Ross Chastain | 44 races | 2025 Coca-Cola 600 |
Three drivers, including Logano, have broken a winless drought spanning at least one calendar year this season. Daniel Suarez did it by ending an 82-race winless streak with a win in May’s rain-shortened Coca-Cola 600, while Tyler Reddick broke a 38-race drought by winning the season-opening Daytona 500 and poured it on by winning four of the next eight.
Three drivers, three long winless droughts broken. Of the 12 drivers in the above list, who else has a chance at ending their long oh-for streak in the final 15 races of this season?
Kyle Larson: Of all the drivers on this list, Larson is the most shocking name. It’s the first time he’s gone more than a year without winning since joining Hendrick Motorsports in 2021, but it’s not like he’s been absent at the front of the field, either. Larson has led 916 laps since his last win, with 637 laps led this season. He leads all drivers this season in stage points scored, but therein lies the problem, as the No. 5 team has had speed all year, but not at the end of races when it matters most.
The fact that Logano won before Larson is a shock, because until North Wilkesboro, Logano didn’t look capable of winning any race this season. But all it takes is one weekend, and with how much speed Larson has shown this season, things are guaranteed to fall his way at least once before the season ends. Where will that drought-breaking win come at? With Larson being great at almost every track aside from the superspeedways, it could happen any week.
Erik Jones: Despite having the second-longest drought on this list, Jones has the second-best chance of returning to victory lane among the drivers on this list. Legacy Motor Club has made great strides this season, especially on longer, high-speed tracks. Jones drove to a runner-up finish at Michigan International Speedway, albeit a distant 11.110 seconds behind Hamlin, and finished sixth at Pocono Raceway the following week, the same race where teammate John Hunter Nemechek finished fourth and led the most laps.
With Legacy’s speed, Jones will be one to watch at the Brickyard 400. He’ll also be one to watch at the Southern 500, a race he has won twice, and he finished third and within striking distance of the lead in last year’s event. Jones is also an above-average superspeedway racer, with a win at Daytona International Speedway in 2018 and three top fives on drafting tracks since mid-2025. In short, the No. 43 has some work to do, but Jones has ample opportunities ahead of him to end his four-year skid.
Chris Buescher: Buescher has the third-best chance of this list, but we’re already beginning to inch closer to the longshots. He had chances earlier in the season at winning with a top-five car at Darlington Raceway and a runner-up finish at Talladega Superspeedway, but the main problem plaguing the No. 17 car ever since Buescher’s most recent victory at Watkins Glen International in 2024 is a lack of race-winning speed.
Buescher has only led 134 laps in his last 65 starts, which is an average of about two laps led per race. He continues to rack up top-10 and top-15 finishes and has the speed to run there, which is helping his cause to make the Chase, but it’s clear that the team is still missing that extra step to lead laps and win races. Buescher will have a chance to win at the superspeedways, but his chances beyond that will depend on whether or not RFK Racing can bring cars with race-winning speed to the track.
Brad Keselowski: Similar to Buescher, Keselowski was one of the fastest cars at Darlington in the spring and finished second behind Reddick after leading the most laps. It’s been a struggle for Keselowski ever since, however, and in an RFK tenure where he has finished runner-up 10 times and led more than 1,200 laps with just a single win to show for it, coming up just short has been the story of his last five years. Like Buescher, any chance that Keselowski has at winning beyond superspeedways depends on the cars RFK brings to the track the next three months, and they still have work to do in that department.
Austin Cindric: Don’t overlook Cindric for this weekend’s Brickyard 400, as he led the most laps in this race one year ago. He is also a former winner at World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway in 2024, scoring the win after teammate Blaney ran out of gas coming to the white flag. Cindric will be good at those two tracks, and he will unquestionably be one of the favorites for the superspeedways of Daytona and Talladega, places where he’s a former winner. Overall, Cindric has a few opportunities in his bank to score a win before the calendar turns to 2027.
Josh Berry: Yes, Berry is mired in the midst of a dreadful season where he’s 33rd in points and seems to get collected in someone else’s mess every single week. Yes, he also has a chance to win, albeit a small one, beyond superspeedways. He pulled off an upset win at Las Vegas Motor Speedway last year and had plenty of races where he was in contention in what was ultimately a feast-or-famine year where he seemed to either run well or run outside the top 20. The 2026 season has been nothing but famine for him, but with Penske having a mini-resurgence these last few weeks, look for Berry to be one of the best cars at New Hampshire Motor Speedway next month, as he was a top-five car on speed and finished second behind Blaney in 2025. If the No. 21 team nails the setup again, Berry has a slim but realistic chance of picking up his second win.
Everyone Else: A win for the remaining five drivers in the chart isn’t happening unless it comes at Daytona or Talladega. No road courses remain on the schedule for AJ Allmendinger and Michael McDowell, and they haven’t been in contention on any non-drafting ovals. Ricky Stenhouse Jr. has only won at superspeedways in his Cup career, while Alex Bowman is the only full-time driver who hasn’t spent a single lap out front this season. Ross Chastain and the No. 1 team have shown some progress in the last month after their dreadful start, but they are so far off on speed from where they were even a year ago that any win outside of Daytona or Talladega doesn’t seem in the cards either.
Of course, anything can happen in any given race. After all, who saw Suarez, who had an average position of 21st in the Coke 600 and spent most of the race a lap down, holding off the juggernaut Toyotas just long enough on a strategy call for rain to come and end the race early?
That set of circumstances doesn’t happen every week, however, and typically it’s one of the fastest cars, drivers and teams winning each week. Only one driver can visit victory lane each week, and for the drivers who have been shut out of wins for more than a year, the road to getting back is anything but easy.
Stephen Stumpf is the NASCAR Content Director for Frontstretch and is a three-year veteran of the site. His weekly column is “Stat Sheet,” and he formerly wrote "4 Burning Questions" for three years. He also writes commentaries, contributes to podcasts, edits articles and is frequently at the track for on-site coverage.
Find Stephen on Twitter @stephen_stumpf