In late February 2016, I logged into Twitter and asked what I thought would be a one-off question:
Was Atlanta a good race?
Ten years later, I’ve asked that simple but revealing question — “was it a good race?” — about various NASCAR Cup Series races a total of 378 times, inadvertently creating somewhat of a weekly tradition in the process.
The original question was asked for one reason: NASCAR had just debuted a new “low downforce” aerodynamic rules package, and the idea was to improve the quality of racing for the sake of fan entertainment.
So I was essentially asking: Did the rules change work?
Readers seemed to enjoy weighing in, so I asked again after the next race. And then the next and the next.
10 full seasons, as of this week. More than 5.5 million fan votes cast.
I’ve only skipped asking the question once since then: after the 2020 Daytona 500, which left Ryan Newman hospitalized after a horrifying crash. Given the uncertainty of Newman’s condition at the time, it didn’t seem appropriate to poll fans on whether they thought it was a good race (Newman recovered quickly, but the moment had passed).
And then there was once a controversy for another Atlanta race: In July 2022, the percentage suddenly plummeted approximately 20 percent after thousands of votes had already been cast.
To me, it was a clear case of someone buying votes to influence the poll; since then, I’ve had to take frequent screenshots in the 24 hours when the poll runs to ensure it isn’t being rigged (fun little secret: the percentage rarely moves more than 3-4 percent after the first 30 minutes).
Even though it’s just an unscientific social media poll, it seems to get taken seriously at times.
NASCAR has used the poll results as data to gauge fan sentiment, but I’ve privately heard from some in the garage who think the poll is a negative: Fans shouldn’t be thinking about whether a race is good or not, they’ve said.
But from my view, fans will have that mindset regardless of whether they’re asked in a poll.
NASCAR is constantly evolving the rules to try and make the races more entertaining for viewers, so as long as that continues to be the case, I believe it’s fair to ask, week by week, if those changes are working.
Anyway, with 10 full seasons of data on my spreadsheet and more than 5.5 million poll votes cast by fans, here are the 10 best races in poll history (you can view the entire list on my personal website).
1. Kansas Speedway (95.8%)
Date: May 5, 2024
Winner: Kyle Larson
Why it ranked so high: One of the all-time greatest NASCAR finishes capped off what was already a spectacular race. The Next Gen car shined throughout the day, followed by the closest finish in NASCAR history when Larson nipped Chris Buescher at the line in overtime by .001 second.
2. Bristol Motor Speedway (95.7%)
Date: Sept. 18, 2021
Winner: Kyle Larson
Why it ranked so high: This was an excellent race that happened to feature some even better beef. Larson passed Kevin Harvick with three laps remaining after his teammate, Chase Elliott, slowed up Harvick in retaliation for contact between the two drivers while Elliott was leading the race with 35 laps remaining. Harvick and Elliott, NASCAR’s most popular driver, then had a confrontation on pit road afterward.
3. Bristol Motor Speedway (94.9%)
Date: May 31, 2020
Winner: Brad Keselowski
Why it ranked so high: This is one of three COVD-era races in the top 10, which was due in part to fans being extremely grateful to have something to watch while much of the world was quarantined. Yes, this was a great race — Keselowski won when Elliott and Joey Logano collided for the lead on the last lap— but it was also helped by the wave of enthusiasm for NASCAR at the time.
4 (tie). Atlanta Motor Speedway (94.8%)
Date: Feb. 25, 2024
Winner: Daniel Suarez
Why it ranked so high: The Atlanta reconfiguration into a superspeedway showed off in a major way, as a race with 48 lead changes culminated in a three-wide photo finish reminiscent of the movie “Cars” – a moment so memorable, Fox Sports made a documentary about it (“So Damn Close”).
4 (tie). Bristol Motor Speedway (95.8%)
Date: Aug. 18, 2018
Winner: Kurt Busch
Why it ranked so high: Until the 2024 Kansas race, Bristol once held the top three spots on this list — and this race was No. 1 for nearly two years. This was a classic chaotic Bristol Night Race in which Busch, then a 40-year-old future Hall of Famer, scored his last of six career Bristol victories.
6 (tie). Talladega Superspeedway (94.3%)
Date: June 22, 2020
Winner: Ryan Blaney
Why it ranked so high: This was one of the best superspeedway races of the generation, but it also took place in a highly charged environment during the intersection of the pandemic and Black Lives Matter. Less than two weeks after NASCAR banned the Confederate flag from its tracks, news of an apparent noose in Bubba Wallace’s garage emerged prior to the race. The entire field walked with Wallace to the front of the grid in a show of unity before the green flag, and Blaney then beat Ricky Stenhouse Jr. in a photo finish in overtime as cars crashed around them. (Days later, the FBI found there was no hate crime, but rather a garage pull rope had been fashioned into a noose prior to months earlier and was in Wallace’s garage by coincidence.)
6 (tie). Watkins Glen International (94.3%)
Date: Aug. 5, 2018
Winner: Chase Elliott
Why it ranked so high: This was one of the best road courses race in NASCAR history. From the very first lap, the racing was compelling and exciting – and the day was capped off by the first career win for the popular young driver Elliott. This is the only road course race among the top 13 races in the poll.
8. Bristol Motor Speedway (94.1%)
Date: Aug. 17, 2019
Winner: Denny Hamlin
Why it ranked so high: This was the compelling race in which underdog Matt DiBenedetto nearly pulled off one of the all-time NASCAR upsets. Days after learning he would soon be losing his job from Leavine Family Racing, DiBenedetto led a race-high 93 laps, but was held up by Ryan Newman late in the race while trying to hold off Hamlin. He suffered a heartbreaking defeat that even left Hamlin apologizing in victory lane.
9 (tie). Homestead-Miami Speedway (93.8%)
Date: Oct. 27, 2024
Winner: Tyler Reddick
Why it ranked so high: In one of the signature moments of NASCAR’s elimination playoffs era. Reddick improbably and inexplicably somehow used old tires on Homestead’s worn-out surface to pass Blaney on the final lap in one of the gutsiest displays of skill we’ve seen in a stock car. The moment was highlighted by announcer Leigh Diffey’s thrilling call to the finish and locked Reddick into the championship race.
9 (tie). Darlington Raceway (93.8%)
Date: May 20, 2020
Winner: Denny Hamlin
Why it ranked so high: Another pandemic race where it felt euphoric to see any actual sports on television, which certainly increased this number. This was only the second race after the season resumed with no fans in attendance and with the world shut down, and with NASCAR the only professional sport back in action. Hamlin won a rain-shortened race after Kyle Busch accidentally spun out second-place Elliott, who promptly showed Busch the middle finger after climbing from his car. Hamlin then wore a mask in victory lane that had a picture of his face on it.