Following 1st repeat winner of 2021, will we see more 1st time winners again soon?

For a while, it was looking like we’d go 8-for-8 in terms of different winners in the  2021 NASCAR Cup Series season. Then, Martin Truex Jr. caught and passed Denny Hamlin for the win Sunday in Martinsville. Still, Hamlin is going to win a race soon. He has a top five in all but one race this year and heading to a track at Richmond to where he has seven top six finishes in his last eight tries.

Brad Keselowski could be the one to beat though next Sunday. He won last year at Richmond and has five straight top 10’s there. He also has a top five in all but one race run on 750 tracks in 2021 too.

Chase Elliott has three top fives in his last five starts at Richmond. He has two top fives on 750 tracks, both consecutively. Then you have Kevin Harvick who has eight top seven’s in his last nine Richmond starts and a top 10 in all three races on 750 tracks this season.

The four of these drivers combined to win 25 of 36 races a year ago. They’re 0-for-8 in 2021. Would you take one of them or the field next weekend?


After we get Talladega which could easily spark another new winner, followed by Kansas to where Hamlin won the first of two races there in 2020, Keselowski has a pair of top fives in as many tries including three in his last four tries there, Harvick with a pair of top fives as well there and Elliott with four top six results in his last five Kansas starts.

Then it’s to Darlington to where Hamlin and Harvick split wins at last year with Harvick winning two of the three races and Hamlin the other. They each won the two races at Dover last year as well and that’s the next stop after Darlington. Then, we go to COTA followed by the Coke 600 at Charlotte to close the month of May. Keselowski and Elliott won the two oval races there last year.

That’s why I can’t see these four going winless over the next seven weeks. In fact, I can see all four winning over this timeframe which would bump us up to 11 winners already in the season if so.

Leave a comment