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Great opportunities can be very rare in NASCAR and many of us know and see the success stories. But those stories are accompanied by even more occurrences where drivers get these great chances and ultimately squander them. They can be great rides, large sponsorships, and even chances at a championship but in one way or another they never got the crown. These are 7 NASCAR drivers who blew great opportunities.
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33 comments
What NASCAR driver do you think blew the best opportunities?
Corey lajoy
@TuckyPlaysno
Daniel Suarez at Gibbs and Stewart-Haas
@Your Fellow Squirrel Ayden yes
Ryan Newman almost made history in 2014 by winning the championship.
First one that came to mind was Irwin at Yates
One that stands out is MWR as a team. They was on the rise in 2012 when the team hit its peak and Clint Bowyer spinning out at Richmond was the beginning of their downfall.
They got caught for cheating their very first race for doping their tires.
This one hurts but McDowell at Texas 2011. When KFB got suspended, Michael McDowell got the call to fill in and he only finished 33rd (I think). If he had gotten at least a top 15, I think he could’ve had an Alex Bowman type of rags to riches career. As is, he is helping build Front Row Motorsports into a respectable team, but he could have been so much more if he capitalized better on that Texas race.
Lol
0:28: Casey Mears
1:47: Steven Wallace
2:33: David Ragan
3:51: AJ Allmendinger
4:51: Jason Leffler
6:11: Denny Hamlin
7:33: Dale Earnhardt Jr
I would add 2019-2021 to the blown opportunities conversation alongside 2010 for Denny Hamlin
Remember California? Hamlin I sister on screwing around with Logano because of some imagined slight. Not only did Hamlin eventually spin out of the race but he hit the wall and broke his back.
Ego over talent almost ended his career.
Steven Wallace was one of the biggest anti-talents I’ve ever seen in NASCAR.
JJ Yeley came to my mind first, blew his chance at JGR.
Switching from 25 to 5 is what hurt Mears and the number of wrong places when running up front in 2008.
I don’t see how Casey could have been happy about that switch with the way Busch was let go and the whole thing was handled there were probably some bad feelings going around for awhile.
Honorable mentions-
Dave blaney in the 07 for childress
Jeff green- 1 car for dei
Kevin lepage- 16 for jack roush
Travis kvapil and David gilliland for Robert Yates 28, 38
David stremme- 12- Penske
77- for Penske. Travis kvapil and Brendan gaughan
Brian Scott -44 for Richard petty motorsports
Jerry nadeau 13- teammate to bill Elliott in 1998 ( I think it was 98 or 99)
Stanton Barrett – 60- jack roush. Busch series.
Jeff Green. that is a great honorable mention
Gotta disagree with a few of these, when Gilliland and Kvapil joined Yates it was clear the team was in a downwards spiral for years at that point, Brian Scott, while he did blow it, he didn’t join a top team in Richard Petty Motorsports, Gaughan and less so Kvapil at the 77, wasn’t a fully-fledged Penske car, and was still sort of in a transmission phase from the Jasper Racing team to Penske (as it was Jasper-Penske for a few years) Sam Hornish though once he joined it was by then a fully-fledged Penske car
Or here’s another idea with JGR: Imagine if LEFTurn hadn’t blown his chance in the 11, then he would have stayed in the 11 full-time and Denny Hamlin probably would have replaced Bobby Labonte in the 18 when Labonte moved to Petty… and THEN enter Kyle Busch two years later in a fourth car… Kyle would have then inherited Smoke’s owner points to be locked into the first five races while Smoke would have had the champion’s provisional at his disposal (a scenario he capitalized on one year later when he moved to what is now SHR), and then all FOUR cars would have been solidly in the top 35 after the first five races… all that even before you throw in JGR switching from Chevy to Toyota… let that sink in for a minute…
And Yeley possibly wins the 06 busch championship
@ThatRacingFan Are you forgetting how that championship went down?
Bill Elliott in 1985 and 1992. In 1985, he had ten wins in the first 20 races as well as 13 top fives, 15 top tens, and an average finish of 6.3! All of this gave him a 206 point lead over Darrell Waltrip. In the following four races, he failed to finish in the top ten, and Waltrip took maximum advantage of it with a win and two second place finishes snagging the points lead. Even going into the final race, Elliott only trailed Waltrip by 20 points, but a broken oil pump foiled his chances. Waltrip himself said “I’ve been on the other side of this system” alluding to 1979 and 1984 in which he won the most races but not the championship “There’s not enough incentive to win a race.”
1992 was even worse. Elliott had a 154 point lead over Davey Allison with just six races to go. He then had four sub-20th place finishes in the next five races that caused him to lose the points lead. Elliott did as well as he could in the finale at Atlanta, but despite beating Alan Kulwicki on track, he lost five bonus points that could’ve given him the championship. So he could’ve been a three-time champion, but I’ll do you one better. It’s very likely that Kulwicki’s championship caused Elliott to get jealous and think he could beat Kulwicki at his own game by running his own team. Turns out, it’s a lot harder to be an owner-driver than Kulwicki made it seem. By the time Elliott realized this, he was past his prime and couldn’t realistically compete for championships anymore. Imagine if instead of making his own team after Junior Johnson’s depature, he joined Robert Yates in the vacated #28 car or Joe Gibbs in the vacated #18 car. Perhaps he could’ve snagged one more championship.
You know your history! Yes, he should be a 3 time champ.
Sadly, you could probably make a 30 minute video on the many blown opportunities of Dale Jr.
Another driver who blew an opportunity was Mark Martin in 2002. He was consistent for most of the season as he was leading the points late in the year. However, mediocre finishes and sub par performances did him in as Tony Stewart ultimately won the championship at the end.
JJ Yeley at Gibbs was a blown opportunity. Had multiple seasons to turn it around as well
No, he just had the one year. But yeah, I don’t know how you could talk about Leffler and not bring up Yeley.
I go back to 2006 with Scott Riggs. First year the 10 car was part of Evernham racing and showed speed at times that season. Had a real chance to win the Coke 600 too that year.
Dale Jr. at Hendrick. Would’ve been out after 2010 if not for his name. He finished 25th in points in 2009 (while his teammates were 1-3) and 21st in points in 2010.
Kyle busch in the chase his first year with gibbs was a blown opportunity