Which NASCAR drivers have had the best careers up to this point? Here are the active drivers who have had the top 10 careers thus far.
Here at Beyond the Flag, we have done plenty of rankings-based articles in the past, specifically regarding NASCAR. We do team and driver power rankings after almost every race for all of NASCAR’s series as well as for many other major motorsports series, including IndyCar and Formula One. We also have a huge rankings page of the 100 greatest NASCAR drivers of all-time.
But what about all-time power rankings including only active drivers? That is what these rankings are about. These rankings, which include only active full-time Cup Series drivers, are rankings of the top 10 drivers currently driving in the sport, and they are based on their careers up until this point.
Factors that went into determining who ranks where in these rankings include but are not limited to victories and championships as well as age and how long it has taken for each of these drivers to do what they have done so far in their Cup Series careers. There is also a slight emphasis on performance in recent years.
What these rankings do not in any way take into account is former or current Xfinity or Truck Series driving by any of these drivers. Let’s get started with #10 in these rankings before we make our way all the way to the #1 active driver from an all-time perspective.
#10 – Martin Truex Jr., Furniture Row Racing, No. 78 Toyota
To those of you who have watched NASCAR for decades, putting Martin Truex Jr. in these rankings may seem like a bit of a stretch. After all, in 11 full-time seasons as Cup Series driver, he has finished in the top 10 in the championship standings just once.
Conversely, if you just started watching NASCAR this season, Martin Truex Jr. may seem extremely low in these rankings because of how dominant he has been this season. His dominance so far this season is what allows him to be in these rankings, while the fact that his career really didn’t get going until this season keeps him from being higher up in them.
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Truex Jr., 37, has 11 career Cup Series wins to his name, a total that actually trails two active drivers who are not in these rankings. However, eight of those wins have come since the start of last season. His career really did not take off until the 2015 season, his 10th season of full-time competition, when he won his third career race at Pocono to lock him into the Chase.
Later in the 2015 season, he went on to qualify for the championship race as one of the final four drivers at Homestead-Miami. He finished that race in 12th place and ended up in 4th place in the standings, which to this day is his lone top 10 finish. However, that will more than likely change this season.
Given the fact that he has eight victories in the past 15 months and is by far the favorite to win his first career Cup Series championship this season, Truex Jr. is the #10 driver in these rankings, and rightfully so, especially given the fact that he has been unstoppable as of late driving the #78 Furniture Row Racing Toyota.
#9 – Dale Earnhardt Jr., Hendrick Motorsports, No. 88 Chevrolet
Many may argue the idea that Dale Earnhardt Jr., 42, only has a ride in the #88 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet because of the fact that his father, seven-time champion Dale Earnhardt, was able to accomplish what he accomplished before being killed in a tragic accident at the end of the 2001 Daytona 500.
While Earnhardt Jr. has definitely not lived up to what his father was able to accomplish, it’s not like he’s been a terrible driver, and he deserves at least some recognition for what he has, in fact, been able to accomplish in his 18-year full-time Cup Series career.
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"“I put a lot into this sport, and I know that I might not have met everyone’s expectations. But I certainly exceeded my own, and I’m super proud of what I’ve been able to accomplish. I brought something to the table and left a good impact.”"
Earnhardt Jr.’s Cup Series victory total of 26 wins is lower than just six other active drivers. While he has never won a Cup Series championship in 17 career full-time seasons and likely will not do so in his 18th and final season since this season has been arguably the worst of his career, he is still a two-time Daytona 500 champion who has also finished in the top 5 in the championship standings on four separate occasions, finishing in a career-high 3rd place in the 2003 season.
#8 – Joey Logano, Team Penske, No. 22 Ford
When people think of the future of NASCAR, they think specifically of a driver by the name of Kyle Larson, who simply has not driven long enough to be considered for a spot in these rankings. Larson, 25, has four career Cup Series victories, including three this season in his fourth season of full-time competition.
For some reason, Joey Logano flies well under the radar in that “future of NASCAR” talk. Logano, 27, is just two years older than Larson, and he has already won 18 career Cup Series races. While he has struggled since winning at Richmond earlier this season, he was last season’s runner-up in the championship standings, finishing behind only seven-time champion Jimmie Johnson.
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Logano won the 2015 Daytona 500 and has won as many as five races in a season during his nine-year career as a full-time Cup Series driver. His first four seasons were spent with Joe Gibbs Racing, where he never finished higher than 16th place in the championship standings.
Since the 2013 season, he has been the driver of the #22 Team Penske Racing Ford and has never finished lower than 8th in the standings. While the 2017 season has not gone according do plan and has been arguably his worst with Team Penske, it does not change the fact that he has already had lots of success in the sport throughout his career despite the fact that he is only 27 years old.
#7 – Denny Hamlin, Joe Gibbs Racing, No. 11 Toyota
Denny Hamlin, 36, earns the #7 spot in these rankings thanks in large part to the fact that he has 30 career Cup Series victories in 12 full-time seasons in the sport. That total is good for the 5th highest total among active drivers, yet he did not make the top 5 in these rankings. Here’s why.
Hamlin, who won the 2016 Daytona 500, has been one of the most consistent threats to win the Cup Series championship throughout his career, as evidenced by the fact that he has finished lower than 9th place in the championship standings just twice in 11 full-time seasons. However, he has never been able to actually win a title.
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He came closest to doing so in the 2010 season, as he finished in a career-high 2nd place in the standings behind only seven-time champion Jimmie Johnson after leading all drivers in victories with a career-high of eight in the 36 races that season.
Hamlin comes it at #7 in these rankings as the highest ranked active driver who has never won a championship, which is not surprising seeing as how the only two active non-champions with more than 18 career victories are he (30 wins) and Dale Earnhardt Jr. (26 wins), and Hamlin has four more wins than Earnhardt Jr. does in six fewer seasons of full-time competition.
#6 – Kurt Busch, Stewart-Haas Racing, No. 41 Ford
Kurt Busch, 39, comes in at #6 in these rankings as the lowest ranked former champion of the sport. While his win total of 29 is not the lowest among active former champions, he has been a full-time Cup Series driver for much longer than the only active former champion with fewer wins than he has, and that other driver’s total is barely lower than Busch’s, which is why he is in the top 5 in these rankings and Busch is not.
Busch’s lone Cup Series championship came way back in the 2004 season, so the emphasis on recent success really doesn’t bode well for him. He was, however, younger at the time of his first championship than any other driver on this list was at age 26.
While there is another former champion in these rankings whose lone championship actually came before Busch’s, that driver has not fallen off as much as Busch has over the years, which is why he is ranked higher than Busch even with emphasis on recent success.
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Since winning that championship in 2004, Busch has only finished in the top 10 in the championship standings five times, with only one finish higher than 7th place and no finishes in the top 3. Sure, he did win this season’s Daytona 500 for the first time in his career, but he has simply not been a true championship contender in recent seasons.
The reason Busch is higher than all active full-time drivers who have not won championships despite the fact that he hasn’t been super great lately is simple. He has won 29 races in his career, while the highest total of victories by any active non-champion is 30 by Denny Hamlin. Busch, unlike Hamlin, has a championship to go along with that slightly inferior total, making him one of the best active drivers from an all-time standpoint despite the fact that he hasn’t really been one of the elite drivers in quite a while.
#5 – Brad Keselowski, Team Penske, No. 2 Ford
Among active former Cup Series champions, Brad Keselowski, 33, was the second youngest at age 28 at the time he won his first career championship back in the 2012 season. He is currently older than only one other former champion, a driver who is in the top 4 in these rankings.
The 2017 season is only Keselowski’s eighth season of full-time competition in the Cup Series, meaning he won that championship in just his third season as a full-time driver. No other former champion in these rankings won a championship that early in their Cup Series career.
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In under eight full seasons, Keselowski has already won 22 career Cup Series races, a total that trails only seven current full-time drivers. While his win total is the lowest among the six active former champions, the other five have driven for an average of 16.2 full-time seasons each, with four of those five having driven full-time for more than twice as long as Keselowski has.
While giving Keselowski the #5 spot in these rankings may seem too generous since he is the active champion with the lowest career win total, you could also make the case that he could be much higher in these rankings given the great amount of success he has had in a time frame much shorter than that of any of the other five active former champions.
#4 – Kevin Harvick, Stewart-Haas Racing, No. 4 Ford
It took Kevin Harvick until he was 38 years old and in his 14th career season as a full-time Cup Series driver to finally win his first career championship in the 2014 season, making him the active former champion who had to wait the longest to finally secure his first title.
While he was the oldest and longest-tenured driver at the time of winning his first career Cup Series championship among the six active former champions, it wasn’t like he only started getting good in 2014. In three of the four seasons from 2010 to 2013 right before he won his maiden title, he finished in 3rd place in the championship standings, and he had another three top 5 finishes in his career even before that.
In the past 11 seasons, he has finished lower than 10th place in the championship standings just once, with that being in the 2009 season, his most recent winless season. He has not finished lower than 8th place in the standings since that 2009 season.
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So far, Harvick’s Cup Series career has featured 36 victories, a total that is 4th among active drivers and just three wins away from a 2nd place tie. The fact that he has won only one championship is misleading in terms of how good he has been.
Without playoffs, Harvick would be a three-time champion of the sport and he would currently be the two-time defending champion. Seven-time champion Jimmie Johnson would also be a three-time champion, which shows just how great Harvick’s Cup Series career has been thus far from an overall race-by-race production standpoint and why he is deserving of such a high spot in these rankings.
#3 – Matt Kenseth, Joe Gibbs Racing, No. 20 Toyota
It has certainly been a while since Matt Kenseth, 45, won his lone Cup Series championship back in the 2003 season, the final season with no playoff format, but he certainly has not slowed down since, which is why he is #3 in these rankings.
These rankings were created using a slight emphasis on recent success, which may make the fact that Kenseth, whose championship came the longest time ago compared to other active champions, is ranked higher than three other former champions seem a bit odd. Here’s why it makes perfect sense.
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Since the playoffs began one year after Kenseth won his lone championship back in the 2003 season, he has only failed to qualify for them once and has placed in the top 5 in the final championship standings on six different occasions, including two 2nd place finishes. In fact, he finished in 5th place just last season as the top driver who was not one of the final four drivers in contention for the championship in the season finale at Homestead-Miami.
Kenseth’s career win total over the course of his 18 full-time seasons in the Cup Series is 38, a total that has not increased in over a year when he won at New Hampshire. However, that win total still trails the win totals of only two other active drivers, with one of those two totals being just one race larger than Kenseth’s total. Those two other drivers are ranked higher in these rankings than he is.
#2 – Kyle Busch, Joe Gibbs Racing, No. 18 Toyota
It’s hard to believe that Kyle Busch is still only 32 years old given how great his Cup Series career has been thus far already. Currently in his 13th season of full-time competition, Busch recently took 2nd on the all-time wins list among active drivers with his 39th career victory at Pocono.
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While he has been arguably the sport’s top driver over the past few years, it took Busch a while to establish himself as a true championship contender. While he did win eight races, a career-high, in the 2008 season, he just was not strong late in the season, and that cost him. He only finished in the top 4 in the championship standings for the first time in the 2014 season, his 10th season as a full-time driver.
It was the 2015 season that defined Busch’s career thus far from a competition standpoint, at least so far. After a nasty wreck in the Daytona Xfinity Series race to start the season that broke his right leg and left foot, he ended up missing the first 11 races of the Cup Series season.
When he did finally return, he returned with a vengeance, winning his fifth race back at Sonoma before going on a three-race winning streak, giving him four victories in five races to lock himself into the playoffs despite the fact that he missed the first 11 races of the season.
Busch locked himself into the final four at Homestead-Miami despite the fact that he had not won any of the 15 races following his three-race win streak during his stint of four wins in five races. However, he ended up winning at Homestead to secure his first career Cup Series championship after a season during which he won five races despite the fact that he drove in just 25 of the 36 events on the schedule.
No active one-time Cup Series champion overcame the amount of adversity that Busch did to win that one championship, and he has better career statistics than all of them as well to support his case as the #2 driver in these rankings at just 32 years of age behind only an all-time great.
#1 – Jimmie Johnson, Hendrick Motorsports, No. 48 Chevrolet
Jimmie Johnson, 41, is #1 in these rankings as the top active driver from an all-time perspective, and there is no one else even relatively close to him. His total of seven championships is tied with the totals of all-time greats Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt for the most in NASCAR history, and he may not be done winning titles quite yet.
Currently in his 16th full-time season in the Cup Series, Johnson has won seven of the past 11 championships, including five in a row at one point, and is the defending champion of the sport at this very moment. Since Hendrick Motorsports recently signed him through the 2020 season, he could very well add to his championship total before he retires, which may not even be in 2020.
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His total of seven championships is also higher than the totals of all other active drivers combined. The five drivers from #2 through #6 in these rankings are the only other active former champions, and they have all won one championship each, giving them five titles combined, a total that is still not greater than Johnson’s seven that he has won on his own in just 15 full-time seasons.
Johnson’s total of 83 victories is tied for the 6th highest amount among all drivers in NASCAR history, and it is a total that is greater than twice the amount of total victories of any other active driver. The next highest win total of an active driver is 39, a total that belongs to 2015 champion Kyle Busch, who is #2 in these rankings.
This illustrates the fact that no active driver is even close to Johnson’s level from an all-time perspective, and until he retires, there will likely be no one that takes over or even comes close to taking over this #1 spot.
Next: NASCAR Driver Power Rankings after Michigan
Which active Cup Series drivers do you think have been the best throughout their careers? Let us know in the comments below, and be sure to follow Beyond the Flag on both Instagram and Twitter. Also, don’t forget to follow along with Beyond the Flag for the latest news, opinions and analysis stemming from a number of different motorsports series. You don’t want to miss any of it.