A grand total of 2,519 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series races have been run since June 19, 1949, and only 189 individual drivers can say they’ve won a race. Not one of those drivers, however, can say he’s won at every active race track on the NASCAR schedule.
Every driver, even the winningest one’s, has a track or more missing from his résumé that would complete the “cycle.” Richard Petty, the winningest driver in the history of NASCAR, failed to win at 30 of the 80 tracks he raced at in his career. “The Silver Fox” David Pearson, second with 105 wins, didn’t record a victory at 26 of 63 race tracks he ran.
In the cases of Petty and Pearson, the goose eggs came at tracks they both ran few times in their respective careers. But in the case of Bobby Allison, who sits fourth on NASCAR’s all-time wins list at 84, he went his entire racing career, 44 starts, without ever winning a single race at Martinsville Speedway. Rusty Wallace went his entire career without winning at Darlington Raceway, Daytona International Speedway and Talladega Superspeedway.
The amount of drivers lacking wins at certain tracks in the early days of the sport isn’t surprising, given how fluid the Cup Series schedule was for years. When the new millennium arrived, the schedule became less fluid. And, thus, should increase the chances of a driver pulling off a career “cycle” of winning at every active track, right?
In theory, yes. In practice, no.
Even with three new track arrivals and one departure, and the addition of five-year sanctioning agreements that keep tracks on the schedule for at least a five-year period, only five drivers are within five or fewer tracks needed to complete a career “cycle.” Kevin Harvick is missing wins at Kentucky Speedway, Pocono Raceway and Texas Motor Speedway, Matt Kenseth needs wins at Atlanta Motor Speedway, Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Martinsville, Sonoma Raceway and Watkins Glen International, Kyle Busch just lacks a win at Charlotte Motor Speedway and Jimmie Johnson needs victories at Chicagoland Speedway, Kentucky and Watkins Glen. The other two are the retired drivers of Tony Stewart, who ended his career without wins at Kentucky and Darlington, and Jeff Gordon, failing only to win at Kentucky.
Busch could accomplish this feat by this season if he wins the October 8 Bank of America 500 at Charlotte. Even Johnson says it’s “safe to say that Kyle is going to be the first” to do so, given his performance at Charlotte.
“I’m so out of touch with stats that I felt like Jeff and Tony (Stewart) were the only guys kind of in that conversation and then last weekend I learned that Kyle is now down to one,” Johnson said. “And I’m like ‘Well, dang, there’s somebody else in the party here (laughter). And Kyle will get it.’ I can’t believe he hasn’t won at Charlotte already in a Cup car. It’s safe to say that Kyle is going to be the first one to close out all the tracks, I think, with the way he runs and how good he runs at that track. I still have here, Kentucky has been a disaster for me, Chicago I should have closed a long time ago. I think Kyle, if you’re a betting man, I’d put Kyle as closing out all the tracks first.”
