Ricky Stenhouse Jr. became the latest surprise Daytona 500 winner in a series of upsets that have made the outcome of NASCAR’s biggest race one of the most unpredictable parts of the Cup Series season.
Stenhouse triumphed Sunday at Daytona International Speedway for his third career win and first since 2017 when he won the spring race at Talladega Superspeedway and the summer race at Daytona.
Ricky Stenhouse Jr., driver of the #47 Kroger/Cottonelle Chevrolet, celebrates on the winning lane after winning the 65th Annual Daytona 500 of the NASCAR Cup Series at Daytona International Speedway on February 19, 2023 | Chris Graythen/Getty Images)
And that actually makes him the most successful Daytona 500 winner since Denny Hamlin won his third Great American Race in 2020.
In the years since Hamlin’s win, Michael McDowell recorded his only Cup Series win at the 2021 Daytona 500, and 2022 rookie Austin Cindric earned his first and only Cup Series win the following year.
The last three Daytona 500 winners have combined five Cup Series wins from 835 combined starts at the sport’s highest level. The Daytona 500 has not had a three-year run with winners so close to Cup Series victories since 1993-95, when Dale Jarrett and Sterling Marlin established their careers in the Cup Series.
In the mid-1990s, the Daytona 500s also had undisputed winners in Dale Jarrett and Sterling Marlin
Jarrett eventually put together a resume that included 32 Cup Series wins, three Daytona 500 wins, and the 1999 series championship. All of this led to his induction into the NASCAR Hall of Fame in 2014, but his future was still fairly uncertain as he buckled into the #18 car for Joe Gibbs Racing to drive the 1993 Daytona 500.
Former football coach Joe Gibbs had founded JGR just a year earlier and Jarrett finished 19th in points standings in 1992 with just two top five finishes. Jarrett had raced full-time at the Cup Series level since 1987, but his only victory had come in 1991 when he drove the No. 21 car for Wood Brothers Racing at Michigan International Speedway.
Jarrett then passed Dale Earnhardt in a famous finish with Jarrett’s father and fellow Hall of Famer Ned in the broadcast booth announcing the race for CBS. The younger Jarrett then won at least one race in each of the next 10 seasons.
Jarrett won the Daytona 500 again in 1996, but only after Marlin had claimed two Daytona 500 wins for his first two career Cup Series wins.
February 11, 1995: Sterling Marlin qualified for the Daytona 500 with a radically different sounding car
The car used one designed by Dr. Gas developed “X-Pipe” exhaust system that pulled the exhaust out quicker and gave a horsepower boost. pic.twitter.com/3BY1yAAfeo
— Nascarman (@nascarman_rr) February 11, 2023
Marlin was in the Cup Series much longer than Jarrett before claiming his first Daytona 500 win. Marlin made his debut in the Cup Series in 1976 at the age of 19. He didn’t run his first full season until 1987, but went winless in his first seven full-time campaigns despite 33 top-five finishes, including eight runners-up.
Marlin then moved to Morgan-McClure Motorsports for the 1994 season and immediately took the No. 4 car to victory lane at the Daytona 500 with a narrow win over Ernie Irvan. He won a pole honor at Phoenix Raceway in the penultimate race of the 1994 season, but did not revisit Victory Lane until the Cup Series returned to Daytona to begin the 1995 season with the Daytona 500.
Marlin led 105 of the 200 laps by a race best, edging out Earnhardt to become the first driver to win back-to-back Daytona 500s since Cale Yarborough did in 1983-84.
Marlin won twice more in the 1995 season, finishing third in the final points classification. He didn’t have nearly the success that Jarrett did later in his career, but he did eventually win 10 career races. He also finished third overall in 2001 and led the points standings with seven races remaining in the 2002 season before a broken neck forced him to miss the remainder of the season.
Austin Cindric is the most likely youngest Daytona 500 winner to eventually be consistently up front
As for the current trio of underdog winners of the Daytona 500, Cindric is probably the only one of the three who still has the potential to build a career similar to Jarrett or Marlin. Cindric is only 24 years old, McDowell is 38 and Stenhouse is 35.
Cindric also drives for a strong team at Team Penske, which won the Cup Series championship a year ago, while McDowell’s Front Row Motorsports and Stenhouse’s JTG Daugherty Racing organizations have just six wins and three playoff appearances combined.
Another surprise winner in 2024 is certainly a strong possibility as well, as the Cup Series field is as even as ever when it comes to the next-gen car and pack races that Daytona is producing.
Parity was one of the top storylines of the 2023 season, and the Daytona 500 managed to fit well into that framework, with riders taking one of the few opportunities on the schedule for the full field to have a legitimate shot at the race to win.