If you've been following along over the past few weeks, we have been counting down the top 10 drivers in NASCAR Cup Series history.
That list, which currently features names from No. 10 through No. 6, is set to continue with No. 5 later this week.
In the meantime, here are 10 names who just barely missed out.
Cale Yarborough
Cale Yarborough was the toughest exclusion, but ultimately was left off in favor of modern names who did their damage against significantly greater competition. Still, his eight-year stretch between 1973 and 1980 was as dominant a peak as NASCAR has ever seen, and he is one of two drivers to ever win three consecutive titles when he did so between 1976 and 1978. His 83 career wins rank in a sixth place tie on the all-time list.
Kevin Harvick
Despite winning in only his third career Cup Series start, Kevin Harvick was one of NASCAR's greatest late-bloomers. He recorded only 11 victories in his first nine seasons, but after moving from Richard Childress Racing to Stewart-Haas Racing, he exploded with back-to-back 2,000+ laps led campaigns and 35 wins in a seven-year span. He won 60 times in total, with one championship in 2014.
Herb Thomas
NASCAR's greatest driver of the Pioneer Era had his career cut short by a controversial accident in 1956, but prior to that, Herb Thomas was on pace to set records that might have never been broken. His 48 wins in only 229 career starts give him what remains the greatest winning percentage in Cup Series history out of all eligible drivers.
Denny Hamlin
He's up to 60 wins now and somehow just keeps getting better with age. Denny Hamlin's career has almost featured two separate primes, one between his 2006 rookie campaign and his 2013 accident at Auto Club Speedway, and a second ever since the start of 2019. All he's missing is a Cup Series championship, despite coming only two laps away this past fall.
Rusty Wallace
He went from being overshadowed by Dale Earnhardt to overshadowed by Jeff Gordon, but Rusty Wallace quietly won 55 races while being a consistent front-runner for the better part of two decades. His only championship came in 1989, but his best season came in 1993, when he found Victory Lane 10 times and might have won his second title if not for a horrifying crash at Talladega Superspeedway.
Matt Kenseth
Matt Kenseth got lost in the shuffle in an era that featured Jimmie Johnson, Jeff Gordon, Tony Stewart, and more, but he managed to scrape out a 39-win career and one title, albeit in a season during which he only won once. He always kept his car in one piece and had a knack for being around at the end despite his poor qualifying tendencies.
Mark Martin
Until Hamlin came along, Mark Martin was widely considered the greatest driver to never win a Cup Series championship. He won 40 races and finished second in points five times, most brutally in 1990 when he was penalized 46 points for an illegal carburetor at Richmond Raceway and lost the title to Earnhardt by 26. His longevity was as impressive as it gets, even if somebody else was always slightly better than he was.
Junior Johnson
Junior Johnson was an iconic figure in NASCAR's formative years who later became a legendary team owner, and he was also no slouch behind the wheel. He never ran a full season in the Cup Series, which is why he never won a title, but he found Victory Lane 50 times in only 313 career starts.
Davey Allison
Davey Allison was perhaps NASCAR's all-time greatest "what-if?", but let's focus on what was: he won 19 of his 191 career starts, good enough for a winning percentage better than Kyle Busch, Kyle Larson, Stewart, Harvick, Hamlin, Martin, Wallace, and more. He was one unlucky break away from being a champion in 1992, which, unbeknownst to anyone at the time, would be his last chance before he was killed in a helicopter crash midway through the following season.
Martin Truex Jr.
You'd be hard-pressed to find a bigger feel-good story in NASCAR history than what Martin Truex Jr. and Furniture Row Racing accomplished during the 2017 season. A driver whose career had been left for dead and a small-time team that made it big, he put together one of the most dominant title runs of the 21st century with eight wins and 2,253 laps led. All in all, the New Jersey native won 34 times, all but three of which came after his 35th birthday.