#matt kenseth

Guys on TikTok liked this so I duplicate my post here (yeah I did these pics) (also u can find it on pinterest)

My TikTok: dolores.moriuchi

What do you do when a NASCAR race has a disappointing result? Well, you turn it into content I suppose.

Christopher Bell won his third race in a row in what has been a stinker of a start to the 2025 season. First Byron sees the entire field wreck in front of him to snatch the Daytona 500 when, then Bell essentially does the same thing in Atlanta, winning a three-wide photo finish when the caution came out, and then at COTA, Bell charges through the field in the closing laps to take the win.

It got so bad that, leading into Phoenix, the winning drivers had only led a total of nineteen laps. Ouch.

That stat will at least look better now since Bell was probably the best car at Phoenix and spent an annoying amount of the race up front.

This means he's won at a drafting track, a road course, and a mile.

I will begrudgingly admit that shows a diverse range of skills.

That being said, it's also something that's become very rare. Drivers will win a lot of races in a row in something like Formula One or MotoGP because those sports typically see the best racers getting the best machinery and blowing everyone else away.

NASCAR does typically see the best drivers get the best machinery, sure, but it's different.

First of all, there's a lot more cars in NASCAR, and it's a lot easier to be the best of twenty than it is to be the best of thirty-six.

Second of all, ever since the sport started declining in popularity in the late-2000s, NASCAR has done everything they can to encourage competition and a variety of winners.

NASCAR forces teams into smaller and smaller boxes, meaning everyone's running close to the same equipment. NASCAR has stage cautions built into the race to bunch the field up and create chaotic restarts. Even if you do go a lap down, NASCAR has the lucky dog gimmick that lets the first car a lap down when the caution comes out automatically come back to the lead lap.

All of this makes it damn hard to go back-to-back in NASCAR, let alone win three in a row.

One of the biggest contributing factors, I think, is the current playoffs format. Launched in 2014 as the Chase for the Sprint Cup, the current playoff format divided the season into four blocks: first, the twenty-six race regular season, during which, drivers who win get one of the 16 slots in the playoffs.

If less than 16 drivers win, the slots go to the points. If more than sixteen win in the regular season - which hasn't actually happened before, the closest was 2022 - then I believe the winners will be arranged in order of points.

Then there's the elimination blocks: the Round of 16 uses three races to reduce the field to 12 drivers, the Round of 12 uses three races to reduce it to 8, and then the three races in the Round of 8 determine the final four. The Round of 4 is then a one race showdown at the season finale, the winner of which becomes that season's NASCAR Cup Series champion.

So why do I blame this for winning streaks becoming rare?

Two reasons.

One: the win and you're in format means there's little reason to go for multiple wins. Sure, you can get a couple extra playoff points, but the pressure is off.

Two: the win and you're in format also encourages a driver with a bad season to do everything they can to steal a win, even if it means screwing over a better driver. Originally, NASCAR had a rule that you had to be in the top thirty in points to get the playoff slot, but then they removed that rule ahead of the 2023 season.

So, what happened at the 2024 Richmond race? Austin Dillon wrecked the shit out of Joey Logano and Denny Hamlin to take a win while being 34th in points, at the time last among full-time drivers.

It was so flagrantly dirty that even NASCAR had to fine him and strip him of his playoff slot.

So, it didn't work in that case, thank God, but Harrison Burton would win Daytona two races later to similarly go from damn near rock bottom in points into locking himself into the top sixteen.

Then, in the very next race, Chase Briscoe won at Darlington to lock himself in as well, despite Stewart-Haas Racing otherwise having a final season from hell.

So yeah, the format breeds chaos.

Case in point, nobody won three races in a row in 2014, the first season of this playoff format. Jimmie Johnson was closest, winning the Coke 600 at Charlotte and then winning the next race at Dover, then finishing sixth at Pocono before winning Michigan to win three outta four races.

Brad Keselowski would also go back-to-back with wins at Richmond and Chicagoland, while Kevin Harvick won the last two races of the season at Phoenix and Homestead.

Three drivers going back-to-back, but none with a threepeat.

Then 2015 changed things, with two threepeats.

First was Kyle Busch, who came back from a leg injury that kept him out of the first eleven races of the season to then win three in a row. Kyle would win in his fifth race back at Sonoma, then finish 17th at the summer Daytona race, but would bounce back to win Kentucky, New Hampshire, and Indianapolis all in a row. So not only three in a row, but four outta five races.

This, combined with the format and a fifth win of the season at Homestead, would get Kyle Busch the championship.

Missing eleven races and then winning the championship is already a problem, but that wasn't even the biggest shitshow in 2015.

That honor goes to the Logano/Kenseth beef.

Matt Kenseth, after spending years dragging a struggling Roush Fenway Racing car to wins, moved to Joe Gibbs Racing for 2013, instantly competing for the championship. 2015 was a similarly good year, with him winning at Bristol, Pocono, Michigan, Richmond, and then at New Hampshire in the Round of 16 to automatically get into the Round of 12.

Joey Logano, meanwhile, drove that JGR #20 before Kenseth did, and when JGR cut him, Logano found a landing spot at Penske, taking over the Shell/Pennzoil #22. 2014 was already a breakout win for Logano, winning five races, but 2015 was shaping up to be even better, as Joey won the Daytona 500, Watkins Glen, and the Bristol Night Race in the regular season, and then kicked off the Round of 12 with a win at Charlotte.

This meant Joey already had a berth into the Round of 8, while Kenseth needed a win after crashing out at Charlotte to squander a pole position and finish 42nd. Kenseth was hoping to avenge that loss at Kansas, while Logano is looking to go back-to-back.

They're battling for the lead at the end of the race...and Logano spun Kenseth out and wrecked him. Logano wins at Kansas, that's two in a row for him.

Then Logano wins at Talladega to sweep the Round of 12, whilst Matt Kenseth is eliminated.

Only Matt Kenseth made sure that Logano had nothing to celebrate, because at the first race of the Round of 8 at Martinsville, Kenseth tangled with the Penskes of Keselowski and Logano, came back out onto the track with a damaged car, and proceeded to wreck Logano. Kenseth would be suspended for the next two races, but Logano would fail to win at Texas or Phoenix, meaning that after winning three in a row in the Round of 12, Logano was eliminated in the Round of 8.

Nobody won three in a row in either 2016 or 2017, but 2018 was a bizarre season where three drivers did.

Kevin Harvick was first, doing the same thing that Christopher Bell did this year and winning three in a row within the first four races in the season. In Harvick's case, it was Atlanta, Las Vegas, and Phoenix.

Kyle Busch then matched that feat a few races later, winning Texas, Bristol, and Richmond.

Then Brad Keselowski joined the club, winning at Darlington and Indianapolis to end the regular season before winning the first race of the Round of 16 at Las Vegas.

So which one of them won the championship? None of them.

It was Joey fucking Logano avenging his 2015 season by winning the title. It was one of the weakest paths to the championship too, with him winning Talladega in the regular season, coasting through the Round of 16 and Round of 12, and then winning at Martinsville in the Round of 8 to seal his place in the championship four. Then, it was just a matter of winning at Homestead to take the championship.

Three drivers won three in a row, but Logano won the championship off the back of three wins total.

That's what I mean when I say that none of this matters, because once Harvick, Busch, and Keselowski locked themselves in, those extra wins didn't do anything for them.

It certainly didn't win them the 2018 championship.

Nobody would win three in a row in 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023, or 2024, but 2021 has an example of the same driver winning three in a row...twice.

Kyle Larson.

Yes, after sitting out most of 2020 after saying a racial slur during an iRacing event on Twitch, Kyle Larson was back in NASCAR, driving the #5 for Hendrick Motorsports...and he put that car to work.

First win of the season came at Vegas, then he'd have to contend himself with a few second places and stage wins before going on his first threepeat run starting with the Coke 600 at Charlotte.

Larson would dominate Charlotte, sweeping all three stages and then taking the win. Sonoma was a similar story, with Larson winning both stages and then taking the win, while at Nashville, Larson decided to keep it modest by only winning stage two and the race, letting former teammate Kurt Busch win stage one while he was in second place.

Larson's fifth win of the season was somewhat controversial as he knocked teammate Chase Elliott out of the way on a restart to win Watkins Glen while Elliott had to be content with second place.

Kyle's sixth win of the season was another one-off, with him winning the Bristol Night Race.

Kyle's seventh win of the season was probably the most impressive, because at one point during that Charlotte Roval race, he was in the pits with his hood up, but Larson would rally to win the race...along with the next two at Texas and Kansas for his eighth and ninth wins of the season. This was his second threepeat.

Finally, Larson would win at Phoenix to make it ten wins and the most dominant season in the modern era.

So...will Bell's threepeat age like Harvick, Busch, and Keselowski's from 2018, or will it turn into an all-time season like Larson's threepeats from 2021?

GOAT SPOTTED