Active/Next Gen Cup Track Stats: Talladega

The first race of the Round of 12 made life a living hell for most playoff drivers with multiple of them having trouble, and in the end it was another non-playoff driver who won as Ross Chastain bested William Byron. Now we go to another track that will be hell all week for playoff drivers due to its unpredictability, Talladega. Down below you will find different statistics for active drivers and Next Gen races of the NASCAR Cup series here at Talladega Superspeedway ranging from Most Wins to Best Average Finishes by starting position in the Next Gen era. So read and enjoy these fun fact track stats!
In this post you will only find active and Next Gen stats, if you are looking for all-time stats check out my previous article All-Time Cup Track Stats: Talladega.

– Having a good finish here does not necessarily mean sustained success as there are 17 active drivers with a Top 5 finish here and an Avg. Finish worse than 19th.

– Ryan Blaney is the only active drivers to have an Avg. Driver Rating over 90 at Talladega, and also run over 70% of the race laps in the Top 15 (of races he’s ran).

– In the Spring race here it was Martin Truex Jr. who broke his tie with Jimmie Johnson for most starts among active drivers. Now it’s Kyle Busch’s turn to break his tie with him for 2nd most.

– Team Penske has been strong here at Talladega as drivers that have primarily drove for them hold the first 3 positions in the active Win List above.

– As you might expect with this being Talladega it isn’t the normal suspects at the top of the Top 10% table above.

– 12 of the 40 drivers racing this weekend have won a stage at Talladega, so don’t be surprised if we have a repeat stage winner this weekend.

– The tables above show how hard it is to be consistent here at Talladega as the best active Talladega Stage T10% is just 66.67%.

– Martin Truex Jr. will leave Talladega this weekend with the most starts here among active drivers, but he’s hoping to not leave still being the active leader in Most Starts here without a Win.

– There are 25 active drivers to make 10+ starts at Talladega, only two drivers, J.J. Yeley and Daniel Suarez, have not had a Top 5 here.

– There are 5 drivers who have ran every race at Talladega since 2017 and are still looking for their first Stage Win here.

– Going into the Spring race this year there was 7 different 2+ streaks that drivers were riding, but coming out only 2 of those streaks survived (William Byron Top 10’s and Chase Elliott Stage T10’s).

– Leading laps here does not have any correlation to finishing position in the Next Gen car as 6 of the 10 best Laps Led% finished out of the Top 10 and 4 of the 10 finished out of the Top 20.

– With his strong performance in the Spring Talladega race Noah Gragson moved himself to the top of the Best Next Gen Driver Rating in a race here table above.

– While there are quite a few starting spots that don’t seem to make a difference in terms of Avg. Finish in the Next Gen here, it appears 12th, 6th, 19th give you the best shot at a good finish.

– Typically Chevy has been good at winning the race at Talladega in the Next Gen car as they’ve won 3 of the 5 races, but a Chevy has yet to win the Pole here in the Next Gen.

– Ryan Blaney and Kyle Busch are the only drivers who have been able to somewhat figure out the Next Gen car at Talladega as they have multiple Top 3 finishes in 5 races.

– Out of 53 drivers to make a start in the Next Gen car at Talladega, only 23 have not scored a Top 10 and of the 26 drivers to start all 5 Next Gen races here only B.J. McLeod, Bubba Wallace, and Joey Logano have failed to get a Top 10.

– Look for Hendrick Motorsports and Team Penske to be up front in the first 2 stages of the race this weekend as they’ve won 7 of the 10 stages and their drivers are the only drivers with 5+ Stage T10’s here in the Next Gen.