Comeback stories are always an interesting thread to follow through the course of any sports season. In NASCAR these are usually rare but when they work they are remembered forever. This is not one of those memorable fun stories but instead a nightmare that most involved want forgotten. Instead this is the worst NASCAR comeback season ever.
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33 comments
What is a crazy bad season that you remember a great driver?
Matt Kenseth in 2020
Like Carl Edwards almost winner of Nascar Cup Series 2011 season
Brad Keselowski 2010
Jimmie Johnson 2019-2020, and Ryan Newman 2020-2021
McDowell Supremacy!
But before he was Supreme in 2011.
Matt Kenseth 2020 should be added to this conversation
Jimmie Johnson 2023
Kenseth didn’t run the full season, it doesn’t count. We don’t talk about 2020.
At least he got a runner up at the brickyard
@@IanPerez2000_YTJimmie didn’t run the full season. And his speed can his finishes were very different. Daytona he was a contender for caught in the big one out of his control.
Charlotte had great speed spun himself out of the race. Cota out of his control got wrecked early.
Rudd’s career was super long and pretty solid all things considered, but I had completely forgot that he came back in 2007. Probably for the best.
The worst comeback season I can remember is Jason Leffler 2005.
I almost forgot he ran the 2007 season after retiring in 2006
WOW! You made a video of Ricky Rudd’s worst season before Black Flags Matter do as “Bad Seasons”
Rudd was a wreck magnet which wasn’t his fault. Just had the worst luck
Jeff Gordon would have one less championship in 01. That cup had Ricky Rudd wrote all over it he would have had like several wins that year if not for fluke accidents, tire failures etc. most were when leading to
From what im seeing he was always getting involved in the trouble rather than causing it himself which leads me to believe he couldve done better under better circumstances.
Matt Kenseth 2020 is the one for me. It was truly sad to watch him race that season
Outside of that near win at Indy, and I was a HUGE Kenseth fan. I think a lot of it were probably due to setups, since there was no practice or qualifying, I’m sure the setups on the cars were the same as Larson’s and they had completely different driving styles. Matt never had time to adapt or give feedback.
Dale Jr.’s 2017 season has to qualify as a bad comeback, considering his concussion ending his 2016 season prematurely
Ya gotta feel for Rudd, MOST of those accidents weren’t his fault. And to think how much those older cars must’ve hurt at age 50!
It sounds a lot like Bobby Labonte’s last season for JGR before he left to try and save Petty Enterprises. So sad.
Ricky doesn’t cause many, if any, of these wrecks. I think he still had it and RYR was a shell of itself, leaving him back there with the squirrels.
Jesus I remember this
He qualified front row at Daytona in a last hurrah for Yates and then it was an utter disaster
Ricky rudd is a one of the greatest of all time and should be a hall of famer he was the original road course specialist before it was cool, an iron man, won races with his eyes tapped shut, consistently overperformed in cars that weren’t always the best and if it wasn’t for racing against 2 of the best ever in Gordon and Earnhardt he would have been a champion in good equipment..2007 was bad but it made for some nice looking dicast for a fan at least
So many of those wrecks, poor Ricky was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. He was just a magnet for misfortune that year…kinda like how my favorite driver has been for the last three straight seasons. It’s really a shame, Ricky Rudd is such a cool guy. He raced forever, got to drive some of the most iconic cars in the sport, had his own team (and was, at least for a while, pretty darn successful at it) it’s too bad his last season had to go so poorly.
Tony Stewart in 2014 always stands out to me as the worst comeback season. Bro was not himself anymore and everything else that transpired made me wish he retired after that season tbh.
no doubt that sprint car deal with Ward affected him, also, I think he was so used to driving high horsepower cars (late models and sprints have 900) he never adapted after the HP reduction.
As an F1 fan in addition to NASCAR, Ricky Rudd’s comeback in 2007 reminds me a lot of Michael Schumacher’s comeback with Mercedes in terms of him being called in to mentor a young driver (in this case Nico Rosberg) 3 years later. Like Rudd, Schumacher’s comeback did not go well at all & what makes it worse is that it lasted for 3 seasons from 2010-2012. Schumacher finished his comeback with no wins & only one podium & was replaced by Lewis Hamilton for the 2013 season.
Deck was stacked heavily against Rudd in 2007…Yates was on their last leg and that year was probably the most competitive of the modern era in terms of the mid pack teams and sheer number of cars attempting to qualify every week.
That Snickers car is still one the most underrated paint schemes of all time.
He was my favorite driver growing up and 2007 was painful. Almost every wreck wasn’t his fault, and it seemed like trouble found him regardless of where he was running 🙁 An all-time great deserved a better send-off.