NASCAR could see rare trend continue at Martinsville
By Asher Fair
An eighth different winner through eight races of the 2021 NASCAR Cup Series season would mark the first time for such a trend since 2003.
The NASCAR Cup Series is scheduled to be back in action this Saturday, April 10 after having off Easter weekend, one of only three off weekends throughout the entire 36-race 2021 season. The Blue-Emu Maximum Pain Relief 500 is scheduled to take place on Saturday night at Martinsville Speedway.
Entering this 500-lap race around the four-turn, 0.526-mile (0.847-kilometer) oval in Ridgeway, Virginia, the Cup Series has seen seven different winners through the first seven races of the season.
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Just how rare is such an occurrence in the NASCAR Cup Series?
It is not super uncommon, having just happened in 2014.
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This season, Front Row Motorsports’ Michael McDowell opened up the season with his first career victory in the Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway before Joe Gibbs Racing’s Christopher Bell won the race at the track’s road course to secure his first victory.
Hendrick Motorsports teammates William Byron and Kyle Larson then won at Homestead-Miami Speedway and Las Vegas Motor Speedway, respectively, before Joe Gibbs Racing’s Martin Truex Jr. won at Phoenix Raceway and Team Penske teammates Ryan Blaney and Joey Logano won at Atlanta Motor Speedway and on dirt at Bristol Motor Speedway, respectively.
Even still, the four drivers who combined to win 25 of the 36 races on last year’s schedule, Stewart-Haas Racing’s Kevin Harvick, Joe Gibbs Racing’s Denny Hamlin, Hendrick Motorsports’ Chase Elliott and Team Penske’s Brad Keselowski, are winless so far in 2021.
Only one time did more than two consecutive races go by without any one of these four drivers finding victory lane last year, yet they’re all 0 for 7 to start this year.
Five other drivers who found victory lane in 2020 have yet to win in 2021.
So will the Cup Series get an eighth different winner through eight races on Saturday night?
If an eighth different winner does emerge this weekend, it would mark the first time the series has had eight different winners in the first eight races of a season in 18 years.
It last happened in 2003, when there were actually nine different winners through the first nine races of the season.
The all-time record is 10 different winners through the first 10 races of a season, a record which was set three years before that in 2000.
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Tune in to Fox Sports 1 at 7:30 p.m. ET this Saturday, April 10 for the live broadcast of the Blue-Emu Maximum Pain Relief 500 from Martinsville Speedway.