Over his 24 seasons in the NASCAR Cup Series, Jeff Gordon won four championships, 93 races, and has other incredible accolades. But perhaps one of the more astonishing records he boasts is the highest number of consecutive starts in the top flight of American motorsports.
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As per NBC Sports, the Hendrick Motorsports legend has a record 797 back-to-back starts between Nov. 15, 1992 and Nov. 22. 2015. Right after Gordon is the recently retired ex-Stewart-Haas Racing driver, Kevin Harvick, with 784 consecutive starts.
The 2014 Cup Series champion could have been the one to overtake Gordon in the achievement. However, he instead chose to hang up his helmet and walk off into the sunset after the conclusion of the 2023 season. The next driver in line is Martin Truex Jr. who has consecutively started 648 times to date.
However, for him to reach anywhere near Gordon’s number, he’d have to stay for another four to five seasons. Considering how every other season he plans about his retirement only to bail out later, it’s highly unlikely that the JGR driver would stay for that long.
Who could possibly beat Jeff Gordon’s consecutive starts record?
Looking further down the line is Team Penske driver and two-time Cup Series champion, Joey Logano. He holds a total of 540 successive starts since Feb. 15, 2009. For Logano to beat Gordon’s record the 33-year-old will have to race all the way up to the 2031 season, without missing a single race. It could be a slight possibility for him to race into his early 40s. But consecutively? That’s hard to speculate.
Further down the order is another Hendrick Motorsports driver, William Byron. At the moment he’s 25 years old and holds a grand total of 216 consecutive starts in the Cup Series. If there is any chance for him to beat the record Byron will have to race all the way up to the 2040 season. But again, without a single missed race in between.
So in a nutshell, Gordon’s massive start streak record is extremely hard to beat. Either the older drivers make beating Gordon’s record their sole purpose of racing in the series or we wait for several years to see one of the younger ones do it. But guaranteeing so many seasons without a single missed event is next to impossible.
