Multiple times throughout the history of NASCAR, a win in the Daytona 500 has wound up being the start of a season that ends in even further greatness and with an even greater place in stock car racing's record books.
Nine times, the driver who has won the Daytona 500 has gone on to win the NASCAR Cup Series championship at the end of the year: Lee Petty did so after winning the inaugural Daytona 500 in 1959, and his son Richard Petty would do the same four times in 1964, 1971, 1974 and 1979. Cale Yarborough would get it done in 1977, as would Jeff Gordon in 1997 and Jimmie Johnson in 2006 and 2013. And if the start of 2024 is any indication, there could be a 10th come November if things continue the way they are.
With his win at Martinsville marking his third win in the first eight races of the season, William Byron has affirmed his status as the dominant driver of the young season as well as arguably the first driver to truly distinguish himself as a championship contender. And though it's a long ways from now until the championship race in Phoenix, Byron has taken the top spot in this week's CBS Sports NASCAR Power Rankings as he enters Texas, where he took the checkered flag not terribly long ago in September of last year.
Here's a look at CBS Sports' updated NASCAR Power Rankings following Martinsville:
| Rank | Driver | Change | Comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | William Byron | In the context of Hendrick Motorsports, William Byron's 13th Cup win was significant in that it gives him the same amount that Tim Richmond earned in his Cup career. Richmond broke out as a Cup driver and seemed destined for superstardom when he joined Hendrick in the mid-80s, but he would eventually be forced out of the seat due to health issues before dying of AIDS in 1989. | ||
| 2 | Denny Hamlin | -- | Crew chief Chris Gabehart's call to bring Denny Hamlin to pit road on the final yellow didn't seem to make sense when very few of the other lead lap cars came to pit road with him, and it made even less sense once Hamlin ended up finishing outside a top 10. We now have an early leader in the clubhouse for biggest blown pit call of the 2024 season. | |
| 3 | Kyle Larson | Kyle Larson won the pole and led the opening 86 laps at Martinsville with Geoff Bodine, the original driver of the Hendrick No. 5, looking on. Bodine won seven times driving for Hendrick, most notably the 1986 Daytona 500. | ||
| 4 | Martin Truex Jr. | After he didn't get the caution he needed for his team's strategy to pay off, Martin Truex Jr. finished a lap down for the first time this season at Martinsville. Prior to Sunday, Truex had been the only driver in Cup to finish on the lead lap in each race so far this season. | ||
| 5 | Joey Logano | Hopefully Goodyear can bring a different, softer tire to Martinsville for the fall race based on the way Joey Logano was able to lead a good chunk of Sunday's race on the same left side tires he started the race on. Logano's left sides held up for nearly half the race, and no one was able to do anything with him until Denny Hamlin passed him late in Stage 2. | ||
| 6 | Chase Elliott | 10 years ago, Chase Elliott earned his first NASCAR Xfinity Series win when he took the checkered flag at Texas. If his trend of consecutive top-five finishes continues, Texas could yet again be the site of a breakthrough win for the 2020 champ and NASCAR's most popular driver. | ||
| 7 | Bubba Wallace | This Texas race coming up is one that Bubba Wallace has almost certainly had circled. Wallace won the pole at Texas last fall and led 111 laps only to get passed for the win by William Byron on the final restart. | ||
| 8 | Tyler Reddick | Another week where Tyler Reddick sneaks into the top 10 late in the going. Despite not having the same pace that teammate Bubba Wallace did, Reddick was able to use fresh tires to his advantage in overtime and drove all the way up to seventh at the checkered flag. | ||
| 9 | Christopher Bell | Christopher Bell's 2024 results have proven to have an extremely low floor to go with a very high ceiling. His three finishes outside the top 10 are 33rd, 34th and 35th. | ||
| 10 | Chris Buescher | Back in the day, NASCAR had "Texas Terry" Labonte from Corpus Christi, Texas. Now it has Chris Buescher from Prosper, Texas, which has a population of about 30,000. It doesn't roll off the tongue as well, does it? | ||
| 11 | Ryan Blaney | Through eight races to start the year, Ryan Blaney has earned four top-10 finishes. All of those top 10s have been top fives, including a fifth-place run at Martinsville. | ||
| 12 | Alex Bowman | While he wasn't able to make it a Hendrick 1-2-3-4, eighth place wasn't a bad spot for Alex Bowman to finish the day in Martinsville. Bowman now has two top fives and three top 10s in his last four races. | ||
| 13 | Chase Briscoe | Chase Briscoe has become Stewart-Haas Racing's rock, as he earned his third top 10 of the season so far at Martinsville. He's been solid to start the year, but he's still looking for his first finish better than ninth. | ||
| 14 | Ross Chastain | Ross Chastain's high floor (I wrote "ceiling" last week -- darn me and my late-night autopilot) played out again at Martinsville, as he ended his day in Martinsville with a 14th-place finish. That's helped his average finish of 11.1 be the fifth best among all drivers this season. | ||
| 15 | Ty Gibbs | It doesn't feel likely that this will be a long lull, but Ty Gibbs' hot start to 2024 has cooled off significantly the past two weeks. Gibbs' 19th-place run at Martinsville marked his worst finish of the entire season so far. | ||
| 16 | Kyle Busch | William Byron's Martinsville win made him the first driver to win three of the opening eight races to start a season since Kyle Busch in 2019. Busch won Phoenix, Fontana and Bristol to start that year before later going on to win his second Cup title. | ||
| 17 | Josh Berry | -- | Crew chief Rodney Childers was fuming about the performance of Josh Berry's pit crew in comments made to Toby Christie, and for good reason. A potential top-10 run for Berry at Martinsville was completely ruined by a pit road penalty, which left him two laps down in 25th at the finish. | |
| 18 | Erik Jones | Erik Jones' team seems to have something figured out on short tracks, as he earned his second-straight top 15 with a 12th-place run at Martinsville. For Jones, that 12th marked his best finish since the Daytona 500 in February. | ||
| 19 | Brad Keselowski | Another driver who's had a high ceiling but a low floor to open 2024 has been Brad Keselowski, as his feast or famine results continued at Martinsville. Keselowski's four finishes worse than 13th have been three 33rd-place finishes (two DNFs) and a 24th at Martinsville. | ||
| 20 | Todd Gilliland | While Michael McDowell got everyone's attention with the way he performed in qualifying to start the year, Todd Gilliland has become Front Row Motorsports' top performer through the first eight races of the year. Gilliland had a top-10 run going at Martinsville but had to settle for 13th after getting knocked around in overtime. | ||
| 21 | Ryan Preece | It has to be satisfying for Ryan Preece and his team to not only execute and get the sort of finish they deserve, but also to capitalize and take advantage of circumstances. Preece had a top-15 run going at Martinsville, but he ended up doing even better after coming to pit road before overtime and earning his first top 10 of the season in ninth. | ||
| 22 | Daniel Suarez | With his Atlanta win in hand, Daniel Suarez and his team could afford to run an alternate strategy the way they did at Martinsville. Suarez ended up leading 13 laps, but he finished 22nd after not getting the caution he needed to stay up inside the top 10. | ||
| 23 | Noah Gragson | I was pretty high on what Noah Gragson could accomplish at Martinsville given how his No. 10 team ran there last year, so I was a little disappointed that he only wound up running 20th. It turned out to be a much better weekend for the previous driver of SHR's 10 car, as Aric Almirola handily won Saturday night's Xfinity Series race. | ||
| 24 | Carson Hocevar | Carson Hocevar earned a 17th-place finish at Martinsville, but he did so after bowling over a couple of cars with a divebomb move coming to the white flag. Hocevar's going to have to be careful, as Cup drivers aren't going to tolerate the same things he could (kind of) get away with when he was one of the top drivers in the Truck Series. | ||
| 25 | Austin Cindric | Austin Cindric was left very frustrated after overtime at Martinsville, as he would get spun coming to the white flag and finished 23rd after a day that saw him run in the top 15 and even lead a few laps on strategy. After a fourth-place finish at Atlanta, Cindric has not had any finishes better than 18th. | ||
| 26 | Michael McDowell | After a hot start to the season, Michael McDowell and his team have been going in the wrong direction in terms of performance. A 21st at Martinsville marked McDowell's third-straight finish outside the top 20. | ||
| 27 | John Hunter Nemechek | I guess we should at least thank John Hunter Nemechek for making things interesting at the end? In all honesty, Sunday's race at Martinsville was fairly uneventful until Nemechek's brakes exploded with three laps to go, bringing out the final caution and sending the race to OT. | ||
| 28 | Kaz Grala | Let's recognize what Kaz Grala has been doing and put him in this week's Power Rankings. A 26th-place finish at Martinsville is nothing to sniff at given that Grala has been driving for a building team in Rick Ware Racing, and he's been running at the finish of each race since he got collected in a crash not of his own making early in the Daytona 500. | ||
| 29 | Corey LaJoie | The only saving grace for Corey LaJoie this week was that he was actually the fastest car in practice. None of that speed carried over to the rest of the week, as LaJoie would end up both qualifying and finishing 32nd. | ||
| 30 | Justin Haley | When you count his DQ at COTA, a 30th-place finish at Martinsville marked Justin Haley's third-straight finish of 30th or worse. The good news is that Haley had a third-place finish at Texas in 2022. |
