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Random facts and stats about the 2018 NASCAR Cup Series season

Nick Bromberg
·College football and motorsports writer

Welcome to the NASCAR offseason. Before you know it the 2019 season will be upon us. As you enjoy the second week with no NASCAR on the schedule here are some random facts about the most recent season to keep you informed and entertained.

• Kyle Busch’s average finish of 8.3 was the best average finish of any driver in the elimination playoff era. It’s also the best average finish since Jeff Gordon had an average finish of 7.3 in 2007.

• Kevin Harvick was just behind Busch with an average finish of 8.8. That’s Harvick’s best average finish since he had an average finish of 8.7 in 2015.

• Austin Dillon and Chase Elliott were the only two Chevrolet drivers to win a race in 2018. The last time Chevy went an entire season with just two drivers winning a race was 1982 when Dave Marcis played the role of Dillon with one race win and Bobby Allison was Elliott with three wins.

• Aric Almirola was running at the finish of 34 of the 36 races. The other driver who crossed the finish line after the checkered flag flew 34 times? David Ragan, who was 25th in the points standings.

• Almirola improved the most of any playoff driver from the start of races to the finish. He had an average starting position of 15.6 and his average finishing position was 12.8. The next-best driver was Jimmie Johnson, who gained 2.5 spots per race.

• Ty Dillon was the driver who gained the most spots per race. Dillon gained 3.1 spots per race from his average starting position of 27.2.

• Had Kasey Kahne driven a full season he could have gotten the honor. Kahne gained 3.2 spots per race in his 25 races. Regan Smith did even better in his absence, gaining 5.5 spots per race. But Smith’s average finish and average start were worse than Kahne’s.

• Six drivers had an average starting position inside the top 10. Ryan Blaney performed the worst of them once the race began. Blaney’s average start was 9.4. His average finish was 14.8.

• Harvick’s average start was also 8.8. It’s the second time where he’s had a top-10 starting and finishing position in the same season.

• Ryan Newman completed the most laps of any Cup Series driver with 10,077. He finished one lap ahead of Ricky Stenhouse Jr. They’ll be teammates in 2019 at Roush Fenway Racing.

• The other two drivers to complete more than 10,000 laps in 2018 were Aric Almirola and Kyle Busch.

• The full-time driver who completed the fewest laps was Michael McDowell. He completed just 8,964 laps, 250 fewer than AJ Allmendinger.

• Newman was also the driver who drove the most miles in 2018. He drove 13,521.83 miles. Stenhouse was second, though he was over 30 miles behind Newman. Almirola was third and Chris Buescher was fourth.

• Buescher had two top five finishes and no other top-10 finishes.

• Martin Truex Jr. finished in the top five on 20 occasions. His only other top 10 came at Texas in November when he finished ninth.

• Matt DiBenedetto scored the fewest points per race of any full-time driver. He had 493 points for an average of 13.7 points per race.

• Kyle Busch scored 1,421 points in the regular season over 39 races. That’s over 39 points per race. Busch had the most points over the entire season followed by Kevin Harvick (1,367), Martin Truex Jr. (1,251), Joey Logano (1,232), and Kurt Busch (1,216).

• Austin Dillon scored the fewest points (751) of any playoff driver over the entire season. Only Ryan Newman (769) scored more than Dillon among non-playoff drivers.

• Seven drivers won 30 combined poles in 2018. The other six were spread out among six drivers. Kurt Busch scored the most poles (5).

• Paul Menard was the only driver to win a pole who didn’t have multiple top-five finishes. Menard started first at Chicago and finished 13th. His top-five finish came at Michigan in June when he finished fifth.

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Nick Bromberg is a writer for Yahoo Sports.

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