Active/Next Gen Cup Track Stats: Talladega

After a couple of let down races the past few weeks, which ended with a dominating Kyle Larson win at Bristol, we had the only Cup off-week of the season. Now we head to a track where hopefully the action is more exciting, but with fuel saving there is no guarantee, 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.

– Last Fall’s Talladega race saw a lot of turnover as only 1 driver led more than 30 laps, 24 drivers led at least 1 lap, only 3 drivers that started Top 10 finished in the Top 20, and only one driver with a 90+ Driver Rating finished inside the Top 30.

– The only active driver to not finish Top 30 in a race here is Josh Bilicki, who’s only ran 2 races here. The only drivers to not finish out of the Top 25 here are Riley Herbst and Austin Hill, who have a total of 3 starts here.

– If you want to know who will most likely run well this weekend then look at the tables above as 9 drivers are on both lists.

– Last Fall here at Talladega was the first time that Austin Cindric finished a lap down at Talladega in his Cup career.

– Last year it was Martin Truex Jr. and Kyle Busch who broke their tie with Jimmie Johnson for most starts among active drivers here. Now, it’s Denny Hamlin’s turn to break his tie with him for 3rd 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.

– No active driver has finished over half of their Cup Talladega races in the Top 10, but there are 6 drivers that have finished exactly half their races in the Top 10 here.

– 11 of the 39 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 68.75%, and only 5 active drivers have a Stage T10% over 50%.

– Two of the top three drivers in the “Without Win” table above are not in the race this weekend, and thus will be near the top of this list for the Fall race too.

– There are 28 active drivers to make 10+ starts at Talladega and only four of those drivers have not had a Top 5 here.

– Of the 44 active drivers to make a start here at Talladega, since 2017, only 12 drivers have not gotten a Stage T10 here (the 11 above plus Austin Hill).

– 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.

– The three names at the top of this list are not necessarily ones you’d expect to be there as they all have a career Avg. Finish here lower than 19.5.

– Starting position doesn’t really affect the Next Gen at Talladega in terms of finish, but starting 12th has been good and starting 1st has actually been pretty bad.

– Typically Chevy has been good at winning Next Gen Talladega races as they’ve won 4 of the 6 races, but a Chevy has yet to win the Pole here in the Next Gen.

– Out of the 26 drivers to start all 6 Next Gen races here only B.J. McLeod and Joey Logano have failed to get a Top 10.

– In last year’s Fall Talladega race Chase Elliott failed to get a Stage 10 in a stage for the first time in the Next Gen car when he finished 19th in Stage 1.