NASCAR: The 3 champions who haven’t won in over a year
By Asher Fair
Chase Elliott ended a 26-race win drought on Monday, but three NASCAR Cup Series champions are still seeking their first victories in more than a year.
In Monday’s rain-postponed NASCAR Cup Series race at Dover Motor Speedway, Hendrick Motorsports’ Chase Elliott earned his first win since he won at Road America last July, ending a 26-race win drought.
Elliott had never been on a win drought that long since he earned his first victory at Watkins Glen International in August 2018, and he is now on a five-year winning streak.
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However, three other former series champions are riding even longer win droughts and haven’t visited victory lane in over a year.
Winless NASCAR champions: No. 1 – Kevin Harvick
When Kevin Harvick earned his ninth win of the 2020 season at Bristol Motor Speedway, he still had seven races to become the first driver to win 10 races in a season since Jimmie Johnson in his 2007 championship-winning season. Those seven races instead began a massive drought that is still being extended on a weekly basis.
Harvick, who dominated much of the 2020 season, ended up failing to qualify for the Championship 4, and he went winless in 2021, making it his first winless season since 2009.
While Stewart-Haas Racing struggled as a whole in 2021, Aric Almirola still earned a win. The team have improved in 2022 and Chase Briscoe has earned the first win of his career, yet Harvick is still without a victory since September 2020. He has led just 229 laps since the start of last year after leading a series-high 1,531 in 2020 alone.
Harvick has four runner-up finishes during his current 54-race win drought. He earned them in October 2020 and May 2021 at Kansas Speedway, September 2021 at Bristol Motor Speedway, and April 2022 at Richmond Raceway.
His 54-race win drought is his longest with Stewart-Haas Racing, and it his longest since his 115-race win drought when he won the 2007 season-opening Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway for Richard Childress Racing and then didn’t win again until the April 2010 race at Talladega Superspeedway.