We're in the dog days of the NASCAR offseason, as anticipation builds for an announcement, likely at some point in January, on the sport's new playoff format.
The days of the winner-take-all season finale, which has provided NASCAR with no shortage of heartbreaking title losses and empty champions, are likely over. With that in mind, it feels like a good time to revisit some of the most infamous missing rings in Cup Series history, both during and before the controversial format.
This list is not based on the best seasons to fail to win a title, though that could be a subject for another day. We are focused on the emotional factor of a championship that felt within reach, until suddenly it wasn't. Entries will be limited to one per driver, as well as one driver per season.
10. Dale Earnhardt Jr., 2004
In his fifth Cup Series season, NASCAR's favorite son appeared destined for immortality. He'd just won his fifth race of the year at Talladega Superspeedway and taken over the points lead with only seven weeks to go. Then, in two sentences, everything changed.
"It don't mean (expletive) right now. Daddy won here 10 times," he remarked of his victory on live TV. The four-letter word was grounds for a 25-point penalty that handed the advantage to Kurt Busch, and his season spiraled from there. Two crash DNFs at Martinsville and Atlanta dropped him to fifth in the final standings in what ended up being the best shot he'd ever have at a title in his 18-year career.
9. Mark Martin, 1990
Mark Martin was no stranger to close calls throughout his career, finishing runner-up in points five times with no titles. But it's the first of them that remains the biggest what-if.
In 1990, he was penalized 46 points early in the season over an illegal modification at Richmond Raceway. He ended up losing the championship to Dale Earnhardt by 26. Of course, "The Intimidator" had the much better season anyway, winning nine races to Martin's three, and leading 2,438 laps to his 448. But it doesn't make it sting any less.
8. Joey Logano, 2015
He has more than made up for it since, but there was a point in time in which it felt like Joey Logano was cursed from winning a Cup Series championship. The big one that got away was in 2015, when he had won three consecutive races and looked like he was about to make it a fourth at Martinsville, which would have locked him into the Championship 4. Matt Kenseth had other plans.
Kenseth, whom Logano had controversially spun out for the win at Kansas Speedway a few weeks prior, decided to enact vigilante justice. In doing so, he brought the Team Penske driver's momentum to a screeching halt. After a crash due to a blown tire the following week, he did not qualify for a shot at the title.
7. Sterling Marlin, 2002
Sterling Marlin could have been one of NASCAR's biggest surprise champions of all-time had he finished the deal in 2002. A driver with only 10 career wins, in the twilight of his career, and racing for Chip Ganassi's team led the points standings for much of the campaign, and he was only 10 races away from pulling it off.
Then, disaster struck. He crashed at Richmond, and followed it up with two mediocre runs that cost him the points lead. A hard wreck at Kansas Speedway the next week left him with a fractured vertebra, and he missed the rest of the season.
6. Bill Elliott, 1985
Despite what many fans would have you believe, the world before the playoffs gave us some underwhelming champions too. One of the most egregious examples was in 1985, when Bill Elliott won 11 times – in only a 28-race schedule, at that – and yet didn't win the title.
Darrell Waltrip did, because he had a better average finish and more top 10 finishes, despite having only three wins. He even had five DNFs to Elliott's three, which is usually what similar situations are determined by. The difference was his DNFs resulted in better finishes than his competition's DNFs, which requires zero driver skill whatsoever. Some points system you had there, NASCAR.
5. Jeff Gordon, 1996
Continuing with the theme from the previous entry, the biggest highway robbery of the full-season points era might have been the 1996 season. Jeff Gordon, at the peak of his powers, won 10 times. His Hendrick Motorsports teammate Terry Labonte won twice. Guess who the champion was?
You can't even claim Labonte was more consistent, as they both had the same number of top five finishes and top 10 finishes. But his five or so worst finishes were better than Gordon's, which is obviously what truly separates the men from the boys (eyeroll). It was racing not to lose, at its finest, and in this case, it cost one of NASCAR's all-time greats what could have been a run of four in a row.
4. Kevin Harvick, 2018
There are a number of Kevin Harvick seasons in play here, with 2015 and 2020 also being solid candidates. But 2015 was already taken by Logano, and in 2020, he had no one but himself to blame for a collapse of epic proportions.
So we'll go with 2018, which more accurately could be considered the entire "Big 3" of Harvick, Kyle Busch, and Martin Truex Jr. The three of them combined to win 20 races, with Harvick winning eight of those, but not the most important one. Logano snuck in and pulled off the upset in what remains one of the all-time biggest exposures of NASCAR's playoff format.
3. Denny Hamlin, 2025
The freshest entry on the list lands at No. 3. Denny Hamlin was two laps away from finally capturing his elusive first Cup Series title in his 20th season. Then, William Byron's blown tire brought out a caution flag, and Kyle Larson snookered him on a pit strategy move and an overtime restart sequence.
Hamlin had already suffered enough "might've been" seasons, most notably in 2010, 2014, and 2019. This was his closest call of all, and it might have been the last great chance he ever has. Making the loss sting even harder is the knowledge that the playoff format will be adjusted in 2026. If anything, it was a fitting way for it to go out.
2. Carl Edwards, 2016
Carl Edwards lost a championship in a year he won nine races, and another one on a literal tiebreaker. Yet neither one was the toughest loss to swallow.
In 2016, he was mere laps away from finally sealing the deal. A questionable caution came out for debris, leading to a re-racking of the field for a late restart. He made contact with Joey Logano and crashed into the inside wall, and unbeknownst to anybody at the time, that moment ended his Cup Series career.
It's no secret that frustration with NASCAR's playoff format led to Edwards walking away from the sport in his prime. Of course, he wouldn't have been in a position to win the 2016 title in the first place without it. But as it stands, there's only one lost championship in Cup Series history that ended up being a bigger gut punch.
1. Davey Allison, 1992
It has to be Davey Allison in 1992. He was a warrior all season, fighting through multiple injuries to put himself in position for ultimate glory. He had just won the penultimate race at Phoenix to take over the points lead, and in the season finale at Atlanta Motor Speedway, he was doing what he needed to do. Then, he got caught up in an accident caused by Ernie Irvan.
Allison finished third in points behind Alan Kulwicki and Elliott. But what solidifies his top spot on this list is the fact that it would be the last chance he'd ever have, as he was killed in a helicopter crash midway through the 1993 season. One of NASCAR's brightest young stars never got to fulfill his superstar potential, and the world was left to wonder what could have been.
Honorable mentions: Dale Jarrett 1997, Herb Thomas 1956, Bobby Allison 1981, Ernie Irvan 1994, Jimmie Johnson 2012