As NASCAR prepares for this weekend’s Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, one of the significant storylines fans and media think about is that the Brickyard is one of NASCAR’s four “Crown Jewel” races.
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Those four gems of stock car racing are the Daytona 500, the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte, the Southern 500 at Darlington, and the shortest of the crown jewels, the 400-mile Brickyard.
There are seven former drivers who make up the who’s who of crown jewel winners, compiling the most combined wins. Meanwhile, there’s one active Cup driver who potentially still has a shot at cracking the top seven. And another active driver also has a shot, a long shot that is.
Let’s break down who are the best of the best when it comes to crown jewel wins – and spoiler alert, No. 1 (or not even No. 2. for that matter) is NOT Richard Petty or Dale Earnhardt:
No. 1 Jeff Gordon – 17 crown jewels: 3 Daytona 500 wins, 3 Coca-Cola 600 wins, 6 Southern 500 wins and 5 Brickyard 400 wins.
No. 2 Jimmie Johnson – 12 crown jewels: 2 Daytona 500 wins, 4 Coca-Cola 600 wins, 2 Southern 500 wins and 4 Brickyard 400 wins.
No. 3 (tie) Richard Petty – 10 crown jewels: 7 Daytona 500 wins, 2 Coca-Cola 600 wins and 1 Southern 500 win (Petty had retired before the first Brickyard 400 was held in 1994).
No. 3 (tie) Bobby Allison – 10 crown jewels: 3 Daytona 500 wins, 3 Coca-Cola 600 wins and 4 Southern 500 wins (like Petty, Allison had long retired before the Brickyard 400 came into existence).
No. 5 Cale Yarborough – 9 crown jewels: 4 Daytona 500 wins, 5 Southern 500 wins (never won the Coca-Cola 600 and raced long before the Brickyard 400 came into being).
No. 6 (tie) Dale Earnhardt – 8 crown jewels: 1 Daytona 500 win, 3 Coca-Cola 600 wins, 3 Southern 500 wins and 1 Brickyard 400 win.
No. 6 (tie) Kevin Harvick – 8 crown jewels: 1 Daytona 500 win, 2 Coca-Cola 600 wins, 2 Southern 500 wins and 3 Brickyard 400 wins.
Just two active drivers are within striking distance
Obviously, all of the preceding drivers are retired (Johnson technically remains so, even though he’s made two one-off starts in the Cup Series thus far this season).
There remain just two currently active full-time drivers who still have a mathematical chance to join the top seven crown jewel winner’s list anytime soon, and one of those two has the potential to crack that top seven as early as this Sunday. That driver is:
No. 8 Denny Hamlin – 7 crown jewels: 3 Daytona 500 wins, 3 Southern 500 wins and 1 Coca-Cola 600 win. If Hamlin, who leads all Cup drivers thus far this season with a series-high four wins, captures his elusive first win in the Brickyard, he would pull into a three-way tie for sixth with Earnhardt and Harvick.
For the record, there are two other retired Cup drivers who also have seven crown jewels on their respective racing resumes: David Pearson (1 Daytona 500 win, 3 Coca-Cola 600 wins and 3 Southern 500 wins), and Darrell Waltrip (1 Daytona 500 win, 5 Coca-Cola 600 wins and 1 Southern 500 win).
There’s one other active driver who is statistically still in contention, although he’s a long way behind the top seven, or Hamlin for that matter. And that driver is:
No. 11 Kyle Busch – 4 crown jewels: 1 Coca-Cola 600 win, 1 Southern 500 win and 2 Brickyard 400 wins. Busch has never won the Daytona 500. At age 40, and riding a 78-race winless streak, the longest of his Cup career, it’s unlikely the younger Busch brother ever will.
