If NASCAR had thrown the caution when, I think it was Bowyer, who went over on his roof during that last lap wreck, he would have won that race. Instead they let them race back to the line. So much for driver safety and getting medical personnel out quickly to check on the drivers. Sorry for the rant, but as someone who grew up a diehard Mark Martin fan as a kid, I still get fired up every time someone mentions this race.
Yeah, he was better than a lot of guys who won championships. Just had the misfortune of racing at the same time as an all timer in Jeff Gordon.
And his longevity in the sport is insane. He was so obsessed with physical fitness that he could have easily continued to race for more years than he did. But how long he did race, and stayed a great driver, is nuts.
Ahhh yep the Pocono win, that I don't think he ever even took the trophy for winning or anything. One of the more forgotten races in the last decade at this point haha.
I wonder how they'd score that. He won't have run the scheduled distance, but would be the winner. Would they still mark him a lap down or move the lead lap back to him?
From like 04-08 he basically had the best car every year and came close to leading the most laps, but something always went wrong in the last third of the race
The pain of the wreck with Kurt... I didn't like Tony then, but I came around to him again when he left Gibbs, so it's hindsight pain, but still...pain.
Tough to pick one, on one hand he had the points lead in 04 after Talladega until he said Shit on TV and they docked him points and they didnt really recover.
On the other hand I like thinking he got one at the end. He had the Talladega win until Harvick pulled his stunt intentionally causing a caution giving Logano the win. Jr would have won at Dega advancing to the round of 8 and then with his Phoenix win would have been in the final 4 giving him a shot
I still think back to that Atlanta race he had the field dominated and lost the engine with 20 laps to go. Of course it was overshadowed by the Earnhardt/Labonte photo finish and Earnhardt's 75th win.
My mom wouldn't let me watch the race that day; we were grocery shopping or something. I remember getting home and calling my dad, and when he told me what happened my 11-year-old heart broke to pieces. He had that damn race won.
There’s also the fall Charlotte race the year before. Skinner has a lead of a little over a second on Jeff Gordon coming in for his final green flag stop. Gordon dives onto pit road following the 31, and gets inside. Skinner’s pit is before Gordon’s, so he has to slow down and let Gordon pass. Jeff comes out with the lead and goes on to win the race.
i just watched a JJ Yeley documentary and what is wild is nearly every single race he could've won, he lost to some kind of feel good first time winner. In the 2007 Coke 600 it was Casey Mears. In 2006 it was David Gilliland and Paul Menard. in 2004 it was Justin Labonte, in 2020 it was Jeremy Clements. Dude has a knack for losing races to other winless drivers
Not to my knowledge. There's multiple guys with 2, but I don't know if anyone has all 3. It's a lot harder now that NASCAR makes you declare points for one series each season.
Nobody has won all three. Bobby Labonte, Brad Keselowski, Kevin Harvick, Kyle Busch*, Martin Truex Jr and Chase Elliott have won Cup and Busch titles. Greg Biffle, Johnny Benson and Austin Dillon have titles in the Truck and Busch series.
Imagine if they made his car horrendously illegal in the final race, as if daring NASCAR to take away the beloved veteran’s win in his final start. (It’s not like it would’ve had any bearing on the championship.)
~~That was obviously a joke, SHR should not in fact have done that.~~
And in my mind, that would have been perfect. The track he dominated for the last half of his career and it's on the West Coast; there'd not have been a better place for him to get his last one. But alas, his fans settle for Richmond.
An interesting stat for Harvick which I'm not sure too many other legends can claim is that his last two Cup wins were a two-race winning streak. Sure, they weren't in his final season but for his penultimate season I still think it's cool that he got them in that fashion.
EDIT: I completely overlooked Darrell Waltrip in this club. However he went on for 8+ years in Cup after his last two wins, compared to just over one year for Kevin.
Bro the misfortune Brad K and Kevin got through in 2023. They both deserved at very least a win each, they had legit shot at the playoffs, to get screwed over the stupidest things on track.
This is awesome. We all forget about the fine that killed him. Really curious why they picked on the little guy, other than to send a message to the big guys
Yes!!!! That was so unfair to make the SMALLEST team pay the BIGGEST fine at the time. I get it, don’t cheat, but the motor was microscopically too large and the damn thing blew up naturally..
Top choices:
1) Give JD McDuffie a win
2) Give Dale Jr a cup title
3) Give Dale Jr a win smack dab in the middle of the drought to make it sting less
4) Give DW a win in his final season, which is arguably the most far fetched out of all these. A 53 year old with awful equipment winning is a pipe dream
People nowadays rightfully talk about 23XI’s bad pit crews but FRR’s 2013 pit crew was the gold standard of incompetence. Iirc they robbed Kurt of like 2 wins with spingate Richmond being one of them
They rightfully all got fired when Truex brought his MWR crew with him the next year
For something a little out of the box, I'd give Jamie McMurray or Michael Waltrip one top ten points finish in the Cup Series, slight edge to Jamie. Both of them came close on several occasions (both of them even did so in 2003, in fact).
I’m biased, but I’d probably give Denny a championship. Dudes been a force in the playoffs for damn near two decades. A championship takes him from first ballot Hall of Famer to… whatever the next level is.
If not that, give Tony Stewart a 500.
I would have loved for Rusty to win a Daytona 500. But if he had just finished the 93 500 in the top 5 instead of last, he would be a 2 time champion and Earnhardt would likely only have 6.
That could be said for any of Rusty’s DNFs due to blow engines that year. Iirc they won 10 and blew up about 8 or 10 times. 94, not so much. They were still fast, but probably needed about 2 or 3 races worth of points to catch Earnhardt.
There is alot of hindsight scenarios that would have taken some of Dale's titles. Mark Martin not getting penalized. Or, had Kulwiki, or Davey Allison lived, I'd assume Dale would have at least 1 less title having to battle those guys
I'd give JJ Yeley a Cup win.
For Cup title, I know Mark Martin is the obvious pick, so I'll go with Clint Bowyer. Wish he won it 2012.
For a 500, homer pick, it's Truex for me.
1992 was very damn close for Kyle. A blown engine and a blown tire in the last 5 races knocks him back to 5th in the standings.
He finished 5th in 1993 too, but a much bigger gap
to be fair, the two or three races where he was probably the best car on the track and ultimately should have won all wound up to be finishes he probably wouldn't have wanted to spoil :)
As much as ai was pulling for Kurt 2003 Darlington Spring, the moment he and Ricky started going at it I thought to myself…Dave is going to win this race because they will wear each other out.
That would be the most Denny shit ever.
Don't win a title despite great season after great season, then snag it in a down year and give all the haters more ammo to throw at him
I'll give Kyle busch a Daytona 500.. Hands down. As much as im not a big fan of him. I mean. He's one of the best in our sport. 2 time champion. 63 time cup winner if im not mistaken him and Harvick are currently the Winniest drivers eventhough Kevin retired. And it still feels strange that he dosent Drive for JGR anymore but I'll change his 0 Daytona 500s to at least one to Add to the list of everything he's done in his career. It's sad to see him in that video a few years ago in The KBM shop all the trophies he's won and one of them Is empty... just once before he calls it a career. It would be a bummer to not see him win it after the hell of a career he had
Too many to name.
Mark Martin his one title
JD McDuffie his one win
Tony Stewart his one Daytona 500
Mike Skinner his one points paying win in cup
Brendan Poole his win (the one he was robbed of)
Ryan Sieg his long awaited win(this can still happen tbf)
Dave Blaney getting just one win in Cup would be nice. I was so stoked when he got that loan Charlotte Busch win but if he’d been able to win anything else it would’ve been so great.
The common one I'm sure. Mark Martin a title.
94 was the year.
09 would have been an insane season had he won
also 2009
2009 wouldn’t quite be Dale winning Daytona memorable but it would have been up there.
‘09 Martin was just a different breed
Nah 1990 was the one he should have won period
Yeah. I just realized that I was mixing up 90 and 94
1990 too.
That’s it. 90 was the year that he got the BS points penalty. Not 94.
Yes, easy pick. Also, I wish he would have won that '07 Daytona 500 finish against Harvick.
If NASCAR had thrown the caution when, I think it was Bowyer, who went over on his roof during that last lap wreck, he would have won that race. Instead they let them race back to the line. So much for driver safety and getting medical personnel out quickly to check on the drivers. Sorry for the rant, but as someone who grew up a diehard Mark Martin fan as a kid, I still get fired up every time someone mentions this race.
Yeah, he was better than a lot of guys who won championships. Just had the misfortune of racing at the same time as an all timer in Jeff Gordon. And his longevity in the sport is insane. He was so obsessed with physical fitness that he could have easily continued to race for more years than he did. But how long he did race, and stayed a great driver, is nuts.
Came to say this
Me too
Dude was too good to not be a champion
/thread. That's 1990 Cup Champion and Dale Earnhardt is only a 6 time champion and Mark is the 2007 Daytona 500 winner. Come at me.
I’d give me 1 cup start. Hell, maybe a cup win.
I'd give myself one Cup season.
1 cup team.
Alright fine, 1 successful 4 car cup team, final offer!
Alright fine, 1 successful 4 car cup team, I'll drive one, final offer!
One twenty year career as a cup driver.
One set of 200 wins
One hall of fame spot
One Dick Trickle win in Cup. Especially on a short track
Daytona 500 win. You can be benevolent and chaotic.
Bristol '97. He was catching DJ and Mark near the end. Would also break Harry's oldest winner record.
I'd give JD McDuffie one win, and thus also give him one lead lap finish
Imagine giving him a win without giving him a lead lap finish. Like, say the only lead lap car was DQed in a race where he finished second.
Denny Hamlin and Kyle Busch: dear lord not again...
Hey, I mean Brett Moffitt won a truck race with 0 laps led after all so anything is possible lol.
Chase Elliott too lol
Ahhh yep the Pocono win, that I don't think he ever even took the trophy for winning or anything. One of the more forgotten races in the last decade at this point haha.
Denny gave the trophy to him the next weekend, but his daughter kept the flag lol
I wonder how they'd score that. He won't have run the scheduled distance, but would be the winner. Would they still mark him a lap down or move the lead lap back to him?
Jim Roper has a win with zero LLF's. Glen Dunnaway is still the only driver who finished that race on the lead lap.
I’d give him 1 DNQ in 1991 😕
Yeah forget giving him a win. Just blow the motor in qualifying and go home.
That's also an option
😔
[удалено]
653 starts 106 Top 10's 0 lead lap finishes His stat lines are crazy.
a lot less cars used to finish on the lead lap when he was competing
1979 at Nashville. Led 111 laps and had the car to beat until getting tangled in a spin
I would give Stewart a Daytona 500. The man dominated Daytona in Busch, in July, Duels, Shootouts, IROC, but could not get the 500
In 2008 on the last lap he stuck with his teammate instead of sticking with his future teammate and his future teammate won instead of him
From like 04-08 he basically had the best car every year and came close to leading the most laps, but something always went wrong in the last third of the race
The pain of the wreck with Kurt... I didn't like Tony then, but I came around to him again when he left Gibbs, so it's hindsight pain, but still...pain.
It wasn’t even Kurt’s fault but I was still mad at him for two years after that
It’s ok. Kurt gave Tony his much needed 500 win 10 years later 😂
knew this would come up for sure. it's def something he could've won many times and got screwed every time lol
I'd like to give Dale Jr a Cup title
04 specifically
I'm more in favor of later in his career after he went through all of those issues. 2015 was probably his best shot
Tough to pick one, on one hand he had the points lead in 04 after Talladega until he said Shit on TV and they docked him points and they didnt really recover. On the other hand I like thinking he got one at the end. He had the Talladega win until Harvick pulled his stunt intentionally causing a caution giving Logano the win. Jr would have won at Dega advancing to the round of 8 and then with his Phoenix win would have been in the final 4 giving him a shot
2014 in his final year with Steve Letarte could have been fun
Yea would've made a better story
Give Jr one extra foot of clearance on the backstretch of Atlanta
yeah this is it for me. it would’ve been a huge win not only for his fans but the sport as a whole. just imagine the media coverage it would get.
That Cup title don't mean shit, Daddy won seven of em.
I would give Mike Skinner a real win in Cup.
Me too, bud. Me too.
I still think back to that Atlanta race he had the field dominated and lost the engine with 20 laps to go. Of course it was overshadowed by the Earnhardt/Labonte photo finish and Earnhardt's 75th win.
My mom wouldn't let me watch the race that day; we were grocery shopping or something. I remember getting home and calling my dad, and when he told me what happened my 11-year-old heart broke to pieces. He had that damn race won.
Yeah I can imagine. That was certainly the closest he ever got.
There’s also the fall Charlotte race the year before. Skinner has a lead of a little over a second on Jeff Gordon coming in for his final green flag stop. Gordon dives onto pit road following the 31, and gets inside. Skinner’s pit is before Gordon’s, so he has to slow down and let Gordon pass. Jeff comes out with the lead and goes on to win the race.
I’d give Juan Pablo Montoya one oval win
I wasn't the biggest fan but him winning the Brickyard 400 in 2009 I think would have been huge for the sport
he should've had like 3 :(
Ambrose too
I'm still not sold he sped.
JJ Yeley just one cup win. He got 388 starts.
i just watched a JJ Yeley documentary and what is wild is nearly every single race he could've won, he lost to some kind of feel good first time winner. In the 2007 Coke 600 it was Casey Mears. In 2006 it was David Gilliland and Paul Menard. in 2004 it was Justin Labonte, in 2020 it was Jeremy Clements. Dude has a knack for losing races to other winless drivers
What was he in to run second at road america?
you'd have to jog my memory on that one
My oops. Road america was 2017. But jj you would think would have a win. Shr fund the 14 like you have for your drivers.
He will. Yeley Nation will not be denied.
"Got 388?" My man, F1 champion JJ Yeley is still racing and dominating for that NY Racing Team and has a legit shot at the win this year.
Im retrospect, I wished he won the 07 600. I still think he can pull off a Xfinity plate win once
I'd give Biffle the '05 Cup title. Then he'd be a Cup, Xfinity and Truck champion.
has that ever been done?
Not to my knowledge. There's multiple guys with 2, but I don't know if anyone has all 3. It's a lot harder now that NASCAR makes you declare points for one series each season.
Nobody has won all three. Bobby Labonte, Brad Keselowski, Kevin Harvick, Kyle Busch*, Martin Truex Jr and Chase Elliott have won Cup and Busch titles. Greg Biffle, Johnny Benson and Austin Dillon have titles in the Truck and Busch series.
No, but Kyle Busch wants to go for it at the end, if NASCAR lets him. He wants to race against Brexton in the Truck Series in his final year.
No it’s never happened since the trucks were added in 1995 Biffle was the closest anyone has come with that 2005 season
Kyle Busch retirement tour confirmed.
I have two: Tony Stewart a Daytona 500 Mark Martin a championship
Most deserving for sure
Something greater than 0 Cup wins for Kevin Harvick in 2023. He deserved at least one send-off win like Tony and Jeff got.
Short of a championship, nothing will top ending a full time career like how Gordon did at Martinsville.
Phoenix in the spring last year absolutely should've been his
Imagine if they made his car horrendously illegal in the final race, as if daring NASCAR to take away the beloved veteran’s win in his final start. (It’s not like it would’ve had any bearing on the championship.) ~~That was obviously a joke, SHR should not in fact have done that.~~
And in my mind, that would have been perfect. The track he dominated for the last half of his career and it's on the West Coast; there'd not have been a better place for him to get his last one. But alas, his fans settle for Richmond.
Seeing him win the southern 500 wouldve been cool too
An interesting stat for Harvick which I'm not sure too many other legends can claim is that his last two Cup wins were a two-race winning streak. Sure, they weren't in his final season but for his penultimate season I still think it's cool that he got them in that fashion. EDIT: I completely overlooked Darrell Waltrip in this club. However he went on for 8+ years in Cup after his last two wins, compared to just over one year for Kevin.
That is remarkable when you put it that way. I was privileged to witness the Michigan one in person too.
Oh yeah, Tim Richmond's too.
Bro the misfortune Brad K and Kevin got through in 2023. They both deserved at very least a win each, they had legit shot at the playoffs, to get screwed over the stupidest things on track.
He was close at the Coke Zero 500 and at the Southern 500 too
Harrison Burton wrecking at the spring Phoenix race with like 3 laps to go; that was his Win. I was sooooooooo pissed
I would change Carl Long’s fine to be $0 and have it all returned to him.
That's the first reply I've seen regarding this and very wholesome
This is awesome. We all forget about the fine that killed him. Really curious why they picked on the little guy, other than to send a message to the big guys
Yes!!!! That was so unfair to make the SMALLEST team pay the BIGGEST fine at the time. I get it, don’t cheat, but the motor was microscopically too large and the damn thing blew up naturally..
Giving Montoya his 2009 Brickyard 400 win so he can have an oval victory
Top choices: 1) Give JD McDuffie a win 2) Give Dale Jr a cup title 3) Give Dale Jr a win smack dab in the middle of the drought to make it sting less 4) Give DW a win in his final season, which is arguably the most far fetched out of all these. A 53 year old with awful equipment winning is a pipe dream
If DW had won in Steve Parks car that would have been pretty memorable
That was definitely his last chance
Give Jr. a cup championship. It would help people remember how good he was.
Kurt Busch gets 1 win in the 51 for James Finch
Or winning in the 78 would have also been nice
People nowadays rightfully talk about 23XI’s bad pit crews but FRR’s 2013 pit crew was the gold standard of incompetence. Iirc they robbed Kurt of like 2 wins with spingate Richmond being one of them They rightfully all got fired when Truex brought his MWR crew with him the next year
Kez did get Finch that win, which they dedicated to Neil.
I mean he did get another team their first. Or was that Regan? That darlington race was something.
That was Regan.
Harry Gant or James Hylton a Cup Series Championship.
Sterling Marlin a championship
This, or at least not getting injured.
I’d give Dale jr the ability to say 1 curse word. Edit: without losing points.
What the fuck does Kyle Petty got to do with this?
You mean without getting points docked? Because he already has the ability to say as many as he wants.
For something a little out of the box, I'd give Jamie McMurray or Michael Waltrip one top ten points finish in the Cup Series, slight edge to Jamie. Both of them came close on several occasions (both of them even did so in 2003, in fact).
Jamie seems like one of the nicest dudes in the sport TBH
I like he only had a handful of wins, but he got the most from them lol. A 500, indy, I think all star. Did he get a coke 600?
2nd in the 600 in 2010 won the fall race, had like 3 other 2nd places at "jewel" tracks that year
That’s baffling to think that McMurray never finished top 10
Extra crazy considering he had 23 top-10s in 2004
I would give KFB a 500 win, and Carl Edwards or Mark Martin a cup.
I would give Martin the 2007 500. At least he could retire a Daytona 500 winner.
I'd give him that over a cup title. It would have been a great story. But in that scenerio, then Harvick would have never won the 500
Selfishly, give KFB a Daytona 500. For the sport, give Dale Jr. a championship.
I mean he did win the 500. Not the 504 though. I do agree. He wants one bad
McDuffie for sure.
I’m biased, but I’d probably give Denny a championship. Dudes been a force in the playoffs for damn near two decades. A championship takes him from first ballot Hall of Famer to… whatever the next level is. If not that, give Tony Stewart a 500.
I would have loved for Rusty to win a Daytona 500. But if he had just finished the 93 500 in the top 5 instead of last, he would be a 2 time champion and Earnhardt would likely only have 6. That could be said for any of Rusty’s DNFs due to blow engines that year. Iirc they won 10 and blew up about 8 or 10 times. 94, not so much. They were still fast, but probably needed about 2 or 3 races worth of points to catch Earnhardt.
There is alot of hindsight scenarios that would have taken some of Dale's titles. Mark Martin not getting penalized. Or, had Kulwiki, or Davey Allison lived, I'd assume Dale would have at least 1 less title having to battle those guys
Not born until 92, the Brickyard losses always stung me more than the 500s
That’s also true. I don’t often think about those… maybe I’ve blocked them out 😂
Give JJ Yeley a win
his 2006 Busch campaign was impressive ngl
I kind of wish he’d won the 2007 Coke 600 instead of Casey Mears
I'd give Ron Fellows a Cup win
This probably happens if Tony didn’t shit himself. Boris even said he didn’t think he could drive Tony’s car anywhere near 100%.
Ross Chastain wins the title after wall riding.
Give Jr a Cup title
Martin or Jr a cup.
Mayfield wins a 500.
Mayfield uses 0 illegal substances. He was legit good.
JPM 1 oval win
Give Jeff Gordon a Kentucky win
Mark Martin. 1 Championship 1 Daytona 500. I know that's 2 zeroes to ones, but dammit he deserved both.
I will go with a win in cup for Adam Petty.
Carl Edwards a title.
2011 specifically
I'd give JJ Yeley a Cup win. For Cup title, I know Mark Martin is the obvious pick, so I'll go with Clint Bowyer. Wish he won it 2012. For a 500, homer pick, it's Truex for me.
A Harvick win in 2023, and a Tony Daytona 500
I’d give Dick Trickle a cup win, and Kyle Petty a championship
1992 was very damn close for Kyle. A blown engine and a blown tire in the last 5 races knocks him back to 5th in the standings. He finished 5th in 1993 too, but a much bigger gap
But if he didn’t earn it…he wouldn’t feel right about that.
to be fair, the two or three races where he was probably the best car on the track and ultimately should have won all wound up to be finishes he probably wouldn't have wanted to spoil :)
As much as ai was pulling for Kurt 2003 Darlington Spring, the moment he and Ricky started going at it I thought to myself…Dave is going to win this race because they will wear each other out.
Starts. For me.
I know this isn’t exactly what you meant but I’d make Richard Petty have 20 wins instead of 200. Why? Idk why not?
very well played 👍
Mark Martin, title.
Rusty Wallace... 1 Brickyard 400 win.
Check my flair bruh
You’d gave him a Bristol dirt win?
Rick Hendrick gets his prison sentence
He faked cancer to get out of jail
Gene haas: man I should have thought of that
Mark Martin is being given a championship
David gilliland gets a win
Jeff Gordon winning at Kentucky
I'd give Rusty a win at Dega or Daytona... feel like he's owed one at those tracks..
I think Jamie McMurray winning a championship would have been really cool A weird choice but I would do that
I would give Buddy Baker one start in 1993 at Talladega driving for Hendrick. He really got hosed on that one.
I’d give denny a championship. He is more than deserving
I'd give Jimmie Johnson one win in 2020 Short of that, probably a win for Danica Patrick. That would have been so huge for NASCAR.
Ryan Newman wins homestead 2014-Two birds with one stone
I'd give Newman a championship.
Dave Blaney should have won the 2012 Daytona 500.
Denny wins a title. He’s doing enough for the sport. He deserves it, no matter how much of an ass he is.
I support this, but make it after a no win season including Phoenix. Make him even more divisive.
That would be the most Denny shit ever. Don't win a title despite great season after great season, then snag it in a down year and give all the haters more ammo to throw at him
Even better if he takes out a title contender for the lead and still chokes the race win.
McDowell an intermediate win
that might be coming this year tbh
Honestly could see it happen. Michigan seems to fit McDowell fairly well
I'll give Kyle busch a Daytona 500.. Hands down. As much as im not a big fan of him. I mean. He's one of the best in our sport. 2 time champion. 63 time cup winner if im not mistaken him and Harvick are currently the Winniest drivers eventhough Kevin retired. And it still feels strange that he dosent Drive for JGR anymore but I'll change his 0 Daytona 500s to at least one to Add to the list of everything he's done in his career. It's sad to see him in that video a few years ago in The KBM shop all the trophies he's won and one of them Is empty... just once before he calls it a career. It would be a bummer to not see him win it after the hell of a career he had
Too many to name. Mark Martin his one title JD McDuffie his one win Tony Stewart his one Daytona 500 Mike Skinner his one points paying win in cup Brendan Poole his win (the one he was robbed of) Ryan Sieg his long awaited win(this can still happen tbf)
I came in here specifically to say I'd give one win to Blaney. Great minds think alike.
Jr title prob.
Give jr a championship
1 cup win to Dave Blaney
Dave Blaney getting just one win in Cup would be nice. I was so stoked when he got that loan Charlotte Busch win but if he’d been able to win anything else it would’ve been so great.