NASCAR is back this weekend for a third race in the last seven days. Up next, is the Coca-Cola 600 at the Charlotte Motor Speedway. Charlotte is a 1.5-mile track and the race may be the longest of the year, but the performances by certain drivers there have been dominating. If you go back to 2014 and throw in the Fall race when we ran on the oval, the winners of the events on the North Carolina race track have more times than not, been a blow out.

Five of the last seven oval events for the Cup Series at Charlotte saw the race winner lead 100 or more laps. In fact, three of those five were 200 or more.

Martin Truex Jr. led 116 laps in his win last year. He led 392 in 2016’s win. His teammate Kyle Busch led 377 laps in his 2018 victory.

Then, look at the past Fall race. Truex Jr. led 91 laps in the last one in 2017. Kevin Harvick led 149 more in his third place result that year. In the ‘600 that year, Austin Dillon may have only led two laps in stealing the win, but Truex also led 233 himself in a third place run as well.

In 2016, Jimmie Johnson led 155 laps en route to a Fall race victory. In 2015, Joey Logano led 227 laps in his Fall win.

Over the last 10 Charlotte oval races, the eventual race winner led at least 91 laps in eight of them with six of those eight leading at least 115 laps.

That’s surprising in that starting position hasn’t been a key to this either. Four of the last five race winners have come from a starting spot outside of the top 10 including three of the last four coming from Row 7 or worst. So, while we will qualify just prior to this race on Sunday, don’t look for it to hold a whole lot of merit on who will contend for the win or not in the end.