Top 10 One Win Wonders in the NASCAR Cup Series

the one-hit wonder is an oddity one day out of the sheer blue sky a singer or band will capture lightning in a bottle and then never be able to replicate that success this happens a lot in sports too in NASCAR has its own brand of this and the one wind wonder is a topic near and dear to my heart they span the entire gambit of the NASCAR ecosystem from humble self-funded teams that clawed their way to a win two masters of loopholes and exploits my only rules for making this list are that you must be currently retired from the top division of NASCAR with no prospect of coming back and that you only have one win to your credit in the Cup Series that's all it takes to make this list so without further ado let's get into it number 10 Johnny Mans hailing from Long Beach California Johnny Mans competed in IndyCar before making the switch to stock car racing in 1950 and funnily enough he only managed one win back in the IndyCar Series two at the Milwaukee Mile he only made 12 starts in the NASCAR Cup Series but his stats are impressive one win for top fives and eight top tens with 379 laps led 350 one of those laps came at the very first race held at Darlington Raceway where he scored his one win how did he do it well there was a serious problem with tires of the track as those 1950s cars were heavy as hell and were going at a pretty steady clip of a hundred and thirty miles an hour or so no one back then knew what those speeds at a paved oval would do to tires well nobody except IndyCar drivers Johnny Mans was a dirt specialist but he had race at the Indy 500 a couple of times and anticipated the wear and tear on the tires so he fitted his car with heavy-duty truck tires and won by a margin of victory of nine laps and in doing so he more than just added his name to the list of nearly 200 unique winners but he cemented his name forever in the halls of NASCAR Cup Series history as the first ever southern 500 winner and to this day if you win the southern 500 you are awarded the Johnny man's trophy Johnny turned his attention to the u.s. x-dot car division instead of NASCAR as it was closer to him since it was based out of the Midwest and he won the title back in 1956 and never competed in NASCAR again number nine Paul Menard Paul Menard turned his last laps as a full time Cup Series driver just last week but since there are no plans for him starting any races in 2020 added him to this list his body of work is a lot more sizeable than mantas 471 star 20 top fives and 69 top tens nice often derided as a paid driver bringing along his family sponsorship money wherever he went Menard I think never got the respect he deserved his performance in the lower divisions was far better than what most could attest to and he did have a nice habit of avoiding D&F like the plague if you're a car owner you'd be absolutely delighted to have him in the car his family always paid the bills and he almost always brought the car back in one piece and when all the planets were aligned he'd go out there and win one his one-off win came in another big stage the 2011 Brickyard 400 while it was true he did this on fuel mileage he had been good that whole year raking in four top fives and eight top tens he got the drop on everybody with a savvy pit call and then kept his cool as Jeff Gordon of all people tried to run him down to no avail sure he wasn't flashy during his career I even made fun of them in my alignment chart video by making him the poster child of true neutral and challenging people to find a picture of him smiling which is still a difficult task by the way but all in all he was a trustworthy driver that brought in the cash to fund the team and didn't tear up equipment he was a hot prospect for a lot of team owners and it showed since going full-time in 2007 he drove for no less than five different teams Dei Robert Yates racing Petty Enterprises Richard Childress Racing and the Wood Brothers all requested his services and he dutifully answered the call every single time good on you Menard will miss you on Sundays no man number 8 Lake speed having possibly the coolest name on this list Lake speed made his name becoming the most prolific American go-kart racer at the time of the late 70s after capturing the 1978 world go-karting title besting the likes of some guy named Ayrton Senna he decided to make the big jump to stock cars almost immediately in 1980 he'd make stars for Cecil Gordon Nelson Malik and himself as an owner driver it would net five top tens in 19 starts he'd bounce back and forth between driving for himself and other teams throughout the 80s and would have mount 16 top 5s and 75 top tens throughout his career he claimed his only victory at the spring Darlington race in 1988 thanks to a tire war between Hoosier and Goodyear where he got Hoosier just their third win ever in the Cup Series and he did so driving for himself in his flashy win Kmart scheme he'd go on to spend most of the 90s driving for Melling racing being sponsored by two of my favorite sponsors of all time spam and Cartoon Network an injury at Sonoma in 1998 and an aggravation of the same injury one week later at New Hampshire would lead him to make the tough decision to retire he had tasted victory and now it was time to let others take the mantle and he hand it over driving duties for the number-9 Ford to another driver on this list that we'll get to shortly not too shabby for a self-made guy from Jackson Mississippi not too shabby at all number 7 Wendell Scott one of the last true rum runners to make a name for himself in NASCAR Wendell Scott raised himself and his family out of poverty not only through racing wherever he could but also through bootlegging in his hometown of Danville Virginia he was quite the notorious figure there and in one instance a rival bootlegger tipped off the cops that when Dale was making one of his runs the police completely blocked the road at the end of a winding down hill country road but when Dale lost them when he ran back up the hill in Reverse the entire way pulled a quick Jay turn and drove his ride back to his shop on Spring Street in Danville when the police arrived when Dale and his two sons had already pulled the motor out of the car and when questioned about where he had been he claimed he had been working on his car for hours and couldn't have possibly been involved in a crime he went to Night Court and the judge found it so hard to believe that Wendell had evaded police and disassembled a motor in such a short amount of time that he quite famously said next time you bring one Dillon to my court bring him the liquor and the motor or else there's no case on the track Wendell always outperformed his equipment which he had all built himself for bought from other teams across his career he gained 20 top fives and 147 top tens in 1964 he scored his first and only victory at Speedway park in Jacksonville Florida driving an old Chevy hit bought from Ned Jarrett but the race was not without controversy when Dale was an african-american man racing in the deep south during the civil rights struggle of the 1960s and many NASCAR fans had little love for window when the race concluded the flagman held the checkered flag when when Dale completed the last lap and didn't give it to him awarding it to the guy who was actually in second officials invented a scoring error to protect Lyndell from a crowd that might have gotten unruly at the sight of a black man beating all those good old boys they awarded the win to somebody else and later they'd give one Dale to check in the credit but at the time it was a massive disappointment to win Dale and his family and crew when Dale would continue racing until 1973 when a bad wreck at Talladega pretty much sidelined his career he's remembered fondly as a man who never gave up no matter the obstacles put in front of them or the Haiti garner from the people around him by virtue of his mere existence but with such grit and tenacity it was really only a matter of time until he nabbed at first checkered flag number six Lenny Pond a longtime competitor in the series Lenny pond raced for 20 years in NASCAR's top division having come from the modified scene of Virginia he made a name for himself by being ridiculously consistent nabbing top tens left and right for a career total of 88 in just 234 starts and finished top 10 in the point standings twice one of which was a fifth place finish in 1973 he edged out a young Darrell Waltrip to be the Rookie of the Year and although he was an ace at his hometown track of Richmond Raceway being one of the few men who raced on all three configurations of the track he scored his one win at Talladega Superspeedway driving for Harry Rainier a race that had a staggering 67 lead changes and in which Linney led just 22 laps he ended his career with just one more start in the 1989 season naturally at Richmond Raceway where he placed 11th at the age of 49 not bad old man number five dick Brooks hailing from Porterville California dick Brooks proved early on that he was the real deal in the NASCAR Cup Series in his first year in 1969 he amassed three top fives and twelve top tens and then followed it up in his sophomore effort with a mind-blowing 15 top fives and 18 top tens finishing the year 13th in the standings he followed that up by getting four straight top-ten finishes in the point standings from 1975 to 1978 and put everybody on notice although he knocked on the door of greatness early in score to win in 1973 at Talladega he never could break through to superstardom he usually drove for underfunded teams and DNFs were a constant nuisance to him but surprisingly he never failed to qualify for a single race during his entire career in 1985 he ran his final season and ran the number one car for both Petty Enterprises and Rick Hendrick that year in four starts and fittingly he ended his career with a top-ten finish at the age of 43 at the coca-cola 600 he tried his hand at car ownership in the early 90s but he couldn't lock down sponsorships consistently and sold the team he bought from felix ibadis right back to him at that illusion of the 1995 season greatness surrounded Brooks throughout his career but he just could never break through to the next step he netted 57 top-five finishes and 150 top tens in just 358 starts that's a pretty damn good ratio that even NASCAR champions with dream of number four jerry nadeau a guy who came and went before most ever got to really see his talents behind the wheel jerry nadeau began racing full-time in the Cup Series in 1998 and the number 13 Ford which was owned as a partnership between Bill Elliott and Dan Marino hence the Miami Dolphins color scheme in the number 13 he and his team remained quiet until the snow Maurice that year and what she captured the outside pole and then went charging straight up that damn Hill in the first series of turns the man raced the exact same way I did in NASCAR video games with total reckless abandon I loved it when Lake speed would have bruffey retire in 1998 Jerry would jump ship and drive for the number nineteen and find even more success there in 1999 he swapped rides again midseason and then got his big break he'd joined Hendrick Motorsports in 2000 and would pilot their number 25 car there he scored his first and only win at the followed Lana race and it wasn't a fluke either leading 155 of 328 laps he probably should have won three or four more races in his career but Lady Luck would say otherwise he was the car to beat at the 2000 coca-cola 600 until he blew his engine he ran out of gas on the last lap while leading at Atlanta in 2001 and in 2002 he had the race at Sonoma in the bag until he broke a rear-end bad luck seemed to follow Jerry wherever he went and unfortunately it would spell the end of his career as well in 2003 at Richmond during practice Jerry had an accident and turned one and hit the concrete wall on the driver's side so hard that he had to be airlifted out and barely survived he essentially had to relearn how to walk and talk and his racing days were over and 177 starts he had nine top 5s and 19 top tens his stats don't bear out the full story of how talented he was and you have to remember he bounced back and forth between seven different teams for five full seasons he never had time to get his bearings but still put together some stellar performances nonetheless if he had never had that accident in Richmond in 2003 there's a very good chance he would have gotten win number two if given the opportunity if you want to know more about why Jerry Nadeau was awesome check out brock beards video entitled why jerry nadeau was awesome it's a great watch number three Johnny Benson the man who never got the quality rides he deserved in the top division Johnny Benson floundered in the Cup Series driving for teams that either had never won before or as was the case with his Roush Racing stent where expansion teams branched out from already existing organizations even still he got 18 top fives and 58 top tens an era of NASCAR that was brimming with talent his lone win came in 2002 driving the number 10 Valvoline Pontiac at Rockingham a tough little track known for bringing out the best in drivers and producing unlikely winners the true indicators of his talent level were in the lower divisions however he won the 1995 Busch Series championship and when he dropped down to the Truck Series in the mid-2000s he won 14 races and chalked up 90 top tens in just 138 starts on route to the title in 2008 making him just one of a handful of driver to have ever won titles and two of the top three divisions of NASCAR although he never got the shot he probably deserved in the Cup Series he still managed to claw his way to a win and his body of work in the lower divisions his Testament enough that those who passed up on him in the 90s really missed out on something special number two Joey banks one of NASCAR's pioneering drivers he was good friends with legendary car owners bud Moore and cotton Owens all three men called Spartanburg South Carolina home and the trio had even volunteered for service during World War two together after the war they used their GI Bill benefits to begin their racing careers in the early 50s cotton Owens saw the most successes of driver winning nine races and but Moore would win a plethora of races as an owner leaving Joe Eubanks as the odd man out he was no pushover though nabbing 37 top 5s and 81 top 10s in 159 starts his lone win came at one of NASCAR's founding tracks o Kenichi Speedway in 1958 a high-speed nine tenths of a mile dirt track after junior Johnson crashed out late Joe nabbed the lead and led the final 12 laps and claimed the trophy in the winners purse of 800 bucks Joe ran a part-time schedule for most of his career and he knew it was all but impossible to make a living racing stock card full-time back in the 50s but when he did show up to a race track it was a pretty safe bet that everybody there was gonna have to work a little bit harder to get that checkered flag that day so here he sits second on this list and finally number one Mario Andretti Mario Andretti is easily one of the greatest race car drivers of all time and if he isn't at least on your top-five list I'm afraid I'm gonna have to ask you to step outside so I can talk some sense into you he's won everything from the Formula One World Championship to the Indy 500 and although the u.s. x-dot car division was more his speed he still made 14 starts in the NASCAR Cup Series where he got three top tens and led 160 laps and netted just one victory and in true Andretti fashion that one win came at none other than the Daytona 500 in 1967 driving for legendary Holman Moody racing he bested his teammate Fred Lorenzen at the great American race much to the chagrin of the 94,000 NASCAR faithful in attendance that day mario made all of his starts in the 1960s and for the most part he either raced at Daytona or Riverside International Raceway Riverside was the opener back then in January and the Daytona 500 was one month later in February so he used the first two NASCAR races of the year as a sort of warm up before the IndyCar season started in March his exploits an open wheel racing were well known and when it came time to will big heavy stock car around he had his pick of the litter of cars as team owners would offer up the best rides that could spare for him so it should come as no surprise that he was able to team up with home and moody racing and win the 500 actually the only surprise here is that he didn't win more races but this loan trip to NASCAR Victory Lane cements him as the greatest one win wonder and NASCAR history that just about does it for this top ten list agree disagree tell me what you think I'm slap shoes thanks for watching [Music]

Channel: S1apSh0es

Views: 370,184

Keywords: NASCAR, stock car, nascar top 10, Paul Menard, Joe Eubanks, NASCAR history, top 10 list, top 10, NASCAR Cup Series, Wendell Scott, Lennie Pond, Richard Brooks, Lake Speed, Jerry Nadeau, Johnny Benson, Johnny Mantz, Mario Andretti, One hit wonder, nascar one win wonders, motorsports top 10, motorsports, auto racing top 10, Bill Rexford, Trevor Bayne, Jody Ridley, racing, racing history, auto racing, car racing, nascar crashes, top ten, stock car racing

Id: yxxV8cGv6lE

Length: 15min 1sec (901 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 24 2019