NASCAR: Will anybody ever come close to Ross Chastain’s insane new record?

Flying well under the radar early in the 2019 NASCAR season was the record that Ross Chastain not only broke but absolutely shattered. Will anybody ever come close to matching it?

As far as NASCAR records have been concerned so far this season, an overwhelming majority of the attention has been on Kyle Busch. Busch broke the all-time Truck Series wins record with his 52nd career victory back in February before breaking the all-time wins record across the Truck Series, Xfinity Series and Cup Series with his 201st career NASCAR victory back in March.

Busch is now up to 56 career Truck Series victories after going five for five in his five scheduled starts this season, and he is now up to 206 career NASCAR victories, as he has earned three Xfinity Series victories so far this season to bring him to a record 95 career Xfinity Series victories, and he has earned four Cup Series victories so far this season to bring him to 55 career Cup Series victories, a total that is tied for ninth place on the all-time Cup Series wins list.

He then tied Morgan Shepherd’s all-time Cup Series for most consecutive top 10 finishes to start a season with 11 before a disastrous end to the season’s 12th race at Kansas Speedway relegated him to a 30th place finish, which is still his only non-top 10 finish through the season’s first 15 races.

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But what went flying well under the radar was a record that the 34-year-old Las Vegas, Nevada native held entering the 2019 season. The two lower series that he has grown infamous for dominating even played a major role in this record, and another driver not only broke it but absolutely smashed it to smithereens.

Prior to this season, Busch held the record for most consecutive starts across the Truck Series, the Xfinity Series and the Cup Series to open up a NASCAR season. He started each of the first 22 races across these series back in the 2008 season before he missed the Truck Series race at Kansas Speedway on Saturday, April 26 as a result of the fact that he was competing in the Xfinity Series (then Nationwide Series) race at Talladega Superspeedway on the same day and the fact that he had to compete in the Cup Series race at the track the following day. In total, he competed in four Truck Series races, 10 Nationwide Series races and eight Cup Series races during this 22-race streak.

Ross Chastain tied that record with his 22nd consecutive start across these three series in the Cup Series race at Richmond Raceway on Saturday, April 13, and he broke that record in his next start in the Xfinity Series race at Talladega Superspeedway on Saturday, April 27. He proceeded to smash it with a new all-time high mark of 36 consecutive starts to start a NASCAR season.

The 26-year-old Alva, Florida native did not miss a race until he was unable to compete in the Cup Series race at Michigan International Speedway on Monday, June 10, nearly four months after the season began with the Truck Series race at Daytona International Speedway.

In total, Chastain competed in nine Truck Series races, 13 Xfinity Series races and 14 Cup Series races during this 36-race streak. He made his record 36th consecutive start across these three series in the Xfinity Series race at Michigan International Speedway on Saturday, June 8.

To date, he has only missed two of the 39 races that have been contested across these three series so far this season, as he also missed this past Sunday afternoon’s Xfinity Series race at Iowa Speedway after competing in the Truck Series race at the track just hours earlier.

Will any driver ever be able to match or break Ross Chastain’s new record of 36 consecutive starts across all three of NASCAR’s top three series to start a season?

Given the new rules and regulations that NASCAR has to prevent Cup Series drivers from competing in too many Truck Series races and Xfinity Series, the odds of anybody even coming close to this mark are possibly smaller than the odds of somebody passing Busch in career victories across the Truck Series, Xfinity Series and Cup Series.

It took until 2019 for a driver to start in more than 22 consecutive races across these three series to start a season, and Chastain singlehandedly increased the previous record by a whopping 63.63%. That kind of thing just doesn’t happen every day, week, month, year or even decade.

The odds that anybody will even pass Busch for second place on the all-time consecutive starts to start a season list are extremely small, and even if somebody manages to do that, that would still be required to make more than a dozen additional starts to match Chastain’s record.

The only driver who might come close to doing this is Chastain if he keeps doing what he’s doing beyond the 2019 season as far as his schedule is concerned.

Otherwise, forget about it.

Ross Chastain’s new record of 36 consecutive starts across all three of NASCAR‘s top three series to start a season is an impressive record that has gone far too underappreciated, and it is one of a few records in NASCAR that has very little chance of ever being tied or broken.