Not a week goes by during the NASCAR racing season when social media isn’t filled with criticism about one driver or another and how they “can’t win on a road course race”, or “they can’t win on short tracks”; but there are seven drivers in NASCAR Cup Series history who earned just one race in their careers…and did it on one of the NASCAR Crown Jewel tracks – the Brickyard 400, Southern 500, Daytona 500, and the Coca-Cola 600 (formerly the World 600)!
Since the first Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway in 1950 there has been 240 Crown Jewel races run and in all that time only seven of them were the spot where the winner earned their only Cup Series win…and three of them happened in the same year!
Starting last in a field of 75 cars, Johnny Mantz won the inaugural Southern 500 on Labor Day weekend in 1950. It took him six hours and 39 minutes to complete the race.
In 1962, Larry Frank won his only race in his eleven year NASCAR Cup Series career at the Southern 500 but he didn’t win the race on the track. Junior Johnson was named the winner of the race but when car owner Ratus Walters filed a protest, Frank was named the winner.
AJ Foyt and Mario Andretti are the only drivers to ever win two of the biggest races in all of motor sports – the Indianapolis 500 and the Daytona 500.
In 1967, Mario Andretti crossed over the open-wheel cars to run in the Cup Series. Not only did Andretti earn his only Cup Series win on the iconic track…he lapped the field in the process!
Andretti later sold the car to Darrell Waltrip who rebuilt the car and ran it in his first Cup Series race at Talladega Superspeedway in 1972.
In 2007, Casey Mears earned his only NASCAR Cup Series race at Charlotte Motor Speedway in the Coca-Cola 600 driving for Hendrick Motorsports in a fuel mileage race; beating out teammates and race favourites Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon. Mears has run 497 races in his career and just one win.
Today, many NASCAR fans know Trevor Bayne as one of many former drivers who have traded their steering wheels and helmets in for a microphone and head set; but in 2011 Bayne drove the iconic Wood Brothers number 21 car all the way to victory lane in the Daytona 500!
Having turned 20 years old the day before the 500, it was Bayne’s second ever start in a Cup Series race.
The second first and only Cup Series win of 2011 came at Indianapolis Motor Speedway when Paul Menard was driving for Richard Childresss Racing to win the Brickyard 400…and kiss the iconic yard of bricks. Menard held off Jeff Gordon for the win.
And during the annual Labor Day weekend festivities at Darlington Raceway, race car driver turned broadcaster Regan Smith earned his one and only win in the Southern 500 driving for the now defunct Furniture Row Racing. Smith stayed out on the track during a late race caution while the leaders made a pit stop for fresh tires.