NASCAR Cup Series: Justin Haley’s victory the biggest upset ever?

Was the first NASCAR Cup Series victory for Justin Haley and Spire Motorsports at Daytona International Speedway the biggest upset in Cup Series history?

Justin Haley delivered Spire Motorsports the unlikeliest of victories in Sunday’s rain-shortened NASCAR Cup Series race at Daytona International Speedway, the Coke Zero Sugar 400.

Considering the circumstances under which this victory was earned and what led up to it, from an individual race perspective and from a perspective of driver and team history, was this victory the greatest upset victory in Cup Series history?

We have seen some big upsets before in Cup Series history.

Trevor Bayne’s 2011 Daytona 500 victory stands out, as does Derrike Cope’s 1990 Daytona 500 victory. May other superspeedway victories, such as David Ragan’s first and still lone career victory at Talladega Superspeedway in 2013, also come to mind. I could go on and on and on with notable Cup Series upsets.

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You could make a case for each and every one of them as the greatest upset victory in Cup Series history.

But when has a team ever gone to victory lane after entering a race having never finished fewer than two laps off the lead lap, having never recorded a top 21 finish, having never physically finished a single race in the top 27 and having recorded an all-time average finish of 32.53?

When has a team ever won a race even despite all of this, and with a 20-year-old driver who was making just his third career Cup Series start, is not even a full-time Cup Series driver, had never finished a race in the top 31 and who entered this race with a career average finish of 33.00?

Sunday, July 7, 2019 at Daytona International Speedway.

That’s it.

Also, consider this.

When the “Big One” happened on lap 119 of the scheduled 160 laps of this race around the four-turn, 2.5-mile (4.023-kilometer) high-banked Daytona International Speedway oval in Daytona Beach, Florida, there was no more on-track action throughout the race.

When this wreck happened, Haley was running in 27th place, notably on the lead lap.

Even a 27th place finish would have been Spire Motorsports’ best ever finish, excluding Jamie McMurray’s 22nd place finish in the Daytona 500 at the track in February solely because he didn’t actually finish this race, and a lead-lap finish would have been their first in team history.

Haley was able to avoid getting caught up in this wreck. Then several drivers decided to take advantage of the ensuing caution flag period and come into the pits, sending him all the way up to third place behind two drivers, Chip Ganassi Racing’s Kurt Busch and StarCom Racing’s Landon Cassill, who were attempting to stay out on the track without pitting for as long as possible in case it began to rain and the race had to be called.

The one to go signal was given and these two drivers came into the pits, leaving Haley as the leader. The race did not end up going green, and after several hours of uncertainty pertaining to the inclement weather, it ended up being called.

Haley ended on-track competition in Sunday’s race in 27th place.

He also won this race.

Nothing measures up to this upset, and it’s hard to believe that anything ever well.

There’s a saying that you can make statistics say whatever you want them to, and in a way, that is true.

It would be especially true in the case of attempting to downplay this upset as anything other than the greatest in NASCAR Cup Series history. As stated, sure, you could make a case for each and every one of the other big upsets, including the few listed above, as the greatest upset victory in Cup Series history.

But you simply cannot make a case against Justin Haley’s victory, even if you made statistics pertaining to any other upset prove exactly what you want them to prove. In the case of his victory, the case is effectively already made, as everything about the team points to how noncompetitive they have been since entering the Cup Series, how they are, quite frankly, arguably slowest full-time team in the sport, and how everything went their way during a period of non-competition to get Haley to the front of the field.