In 2023, Corey LaJoie had a turnaround season when he became just the 15th driver to go through an entire season without a DNF. His continual streak of finishing races currently stands at 44 races, with his last DNF at the 2022 Yellawood 500. Before the 2024 Pennzoil 400, RFK Racing’s Chris Buescher trailed him with a streak of 33 races but failed to reach the checkered flag on Sunday and opened up the space for Bubba Wallace.
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The 23XI Racing star currently sits second, next to LaJoie, with a 24-race streak. Wallace’s last DNF was at the Worldwide Technology Raceway at Gateway. For Buescher, misfortunes ruled on Sunday when he hit the wall after an unsecured wheel on his car dismantled early in the race.
Replays of the accident show one of the lug nuts and the hub flying off at full speed, sending the #17 Ford Mustang into the wall.
This is Chris Buescher’s first DNF since Atlanta in the Spring of 2023 ~ 1 year ago.
Buescher had the 2nd longest active streak of races running at the finish in the Cup Series going into today’s race. pic.twitter.com/Yc2NIFMbTl
— Trey Ryan (@TreyRyan99) March 3, 2024
Since the Next Gen car came into use in the 2022 season, there have been 30+ incidents of loose wheels resulting in penalties. For the mishap on Sunday, NASCAR could order a two-race suspension for two crew members of the #17 RFK Racing team.
Buescher said of his early exit, “That’s kind of been the case with this car. I have probably had three of these now in the last couple of years and haven’t had a warning in any of them.”
Bubba Wallace, though now runner-up to LaJoie, did not have a memorable day in Vegas. He finished 35th after facing troubles of his own with the crew and wheels. The #23 pit crew failed to remove the lug nuts off one of his car’s wheels when he came in for a change.
Being forced to run with only three new tires as a result, he went multiple laps down and limped past the checkered flag.
Corey LaJoie’s long-running race finish streak and the strategy behind it
Throughout his first 6 seasons in the Cup Series, LaJoie never finished a season without at least four DNFs. However, 2023 was a completely different case. Not only did he finish all the points races in the season, but also completed the Clash, the Daytona Duel, and the All-Star race intact.
He Fox Sports about the transition from having 8 DNFs in 2022 to none in 2023, “There’s always something you can do unless it’s a mechanical failure. I think seven or six of the eight were mechanical failures [In 2022]. We had a tire fall off, blew up, we had about every problem you could have gone wrong.”
Going to Phoenix next weekend, LaJoie and Wallace will both hope to take another step towards the 89-race finish streak pinnacle that Greg Biffle sits on.
