Top 10 NASCAR drivers who never won a Cup Series Championship

Top 10 NASCAR drivers who never won a Cup Series championship

By: Brian Cotnoir

          NASCAR has been around for over 70 Years now and over those seven decades we’ve had many fantastic drivers.   Petty, Earnhardt, Waltrip, Yarborough, Gordon, and Johnson are all great drivers and all have won multiple championships in their illustrious careers,  Just between Richard Petty, Dale Earnhardt Sr, Jimmie Johnson, and Jeff Gordon they have won more than 1/3 of all NASCAR Cup Series Championships, but there are dozens of NASCAR drivers who came close to scoring that illusive title, but just couldn’t pull it off.  These are the Top 10 NASCAR drivers who never won a Cup Series Championship.

10.)  Ernie Irvan

Ernie “Swirvin” Irvan was my first favorite driver in NASCAR.  He was one of the best drivers of the early 1990’s driving for top tier teams like Morgan-McClure and Robert Yates Racing.   Irvan even won the 1991 Daytona 500, but as the decade went on his career suffered a number of huge setbacks.  While leading the points in 1994, he suffered a devastating accident during practice at Michigan International Speedway, and almost lost his life.   Irvan would eventually return to NASCAR’s top series, but just couldn’t recapture the same success he had in his early career.  He finished his career with 15 career wins and his highest points finish was 5^th place in 1991.

9.)    Tim Richmond

The racing world was denied on track rivalry when we lost driver Tim Richmond to AIDS in 1989.   Can you imagine how awesome NASCAR would have been with Dale Earnhardt, Tim Richmond, Jeff Gordon, and Davey Allison running every race weekend?  Richmond won a season high 7 wins in his final full-time season, 1986, and finished 3^rd in the final point standings.  Richmond would return midway through the 1987, and win his first two starts, but eventually his health declined so much that NASCAR no longer permitted him to race (but NASCAR initially said they suspended him for a failed drug test and not because he had AIDS).

8.)    Neil Bonnet

Damn, was Neil Bonnet a great driver!  I’m very sad he passed away just as I was being introduced to NASCAR as a young child.  Neil Bonnet won 18 races in his NASCAR cup series career, and would finish a career best 4^th place in the 1985 final standings!  Like Ernie Irvan, Bonnet struggled to recapture his early success after a devastating head injury he suffered during a wreck while racing.

7.)    Jack Smith

I had never heard of driver Jack Smith before I started researching for this article, and I’m surprised he’s not talked about more.  Smith ran in the very first NASCAR race at Charlotte in 1949, where he finished 13^th place.     Over the next 15 seasons Smith competed in NASCAR, but only ever really ran one full-time season in 1962, where he competed in 51 of the seasons scheduled 53 races, and finished 4^th in the final standings, after collecting 5 wins.   Smith finished his career in 1964 with 21 career wins.

6.)    Greg Biffle

One of the most successful drivers in NASCAR History.  Greg Biffle won the 2000 Craftsman Truck Series Championship and the 2002 Busch Series Championship—both while driving for legendary car owner Jack Roush—so it pretty much seemed inevitable that he would become the first driver in NASCAR history to win the Championship in all of NASCAR’s Top 3 divisions.  Biffle unfortunately had to compete against a driver by the name of Jimmie Johnson for the duration of his career and the closest he came to a Cup Series Championship was a 2^nd place finish in 2005, but if NASCAR had used its current points system back when Biffle raced in NASCAR he would have been a 3- time champion because he won the final race at Homestead Speedway three years in a row.

5.)    Harry Gant

Harry Gant had a number of different nicknames throughout his racing career, “Handsome Harry”, “Mr. September”, and eventually I think people will have to start calling him “Hall of Fame Harry”.   Gant ran the majority of his career driving the #33 Skoal Bandit car.  Gant finished his career with 18 career wins, and finished runner-up in the Final Point Standings during the 1984 season.  He also finished in the Top 5 in points four other times throughout his long and prosperous NASCAR career.   

4.)    Davey Allison

Davey Allison absolutely should have been a NASCAR champion in his brief, but amazing career.  He went into the 1992 season finale at Atlanta as the point’s leader, but due to a being collected in multiple wrecks lost the championship to Alan Kulwicki.   Allison’s highest points finish was 3^rd place (twice), before his tragic and untimely death.   I think had Davey not died in that helicopter accident, that he would have been a serious contender for points championship throughout the whole decade, and probably would have one a championship or two.

3.)    Dale Earnhardt Jr.

The son of a 7-time Champion, Dale Earnhardt Jr. seemed poised to follow in his famous father’s footsteps and become a future NASCAR champion.  Junior won back-to-back Busch Series Championships, but failed to compete—and sometimes even qualify—for the NASCAR Cup Series Championship.  Due to multiple winless streaks that stretched across seasons, Junior was rarely a factor for most of his Cup Series Career.  He finished his career with 26 career wins, and his highest points finish was a 3^rd place in 2003.

2.)    Carl Edwards

Cousin Carl Edwards was one of the most electrifying NASCAR superstars of the new millennium.  He won races across all three series, and came close to winning the Cup Series Championship twice…only to be cruelly denied.   He actually tied for the title in 2011 with driver Tony Stewart, but unfortunately lost the tie-breaker because Stewart had won more races that season than him.  Edwards was always favored to win a championship in the Cup Series, but unfortunately he retired from NASCAR way too soon.

1.)    Mark Martin

Oh Poor Mark Martin….he is one of the Greatest drivers in NASCAR History.  He was the All-Time leader in Busch Series Wins, and was one of the few drivers to have success in the Cup Series in almost every season he ran, and he finished runner-up for the championship, not once, not twice, but FIVE TOTAL TIMES!  He came so close to grabbing that Brass Ring, but just couldn’t achieve it!  For those reasons Mark Martin is the obvious choice for the Best NASCAR driver to have never won a Cup series championship.