Menu
Over the years, many teams and drivers alike have come and gone throughout the NASCAR ranks. In the early days of NASCAR, it wasn’t uncommon for a driver to own and operate their own team out of their own pockets. In fact, it was the norm. However, it became a little less common as NASCAR slipped into the modern era while corporate sponsors started to influence the sport more and more. The burden was heavy on drivers and teams alike as NASCAR and teams became more structured businesses. As NASCAR tried to keep up with the modern age, many drivers abandoned their own teams in favor of driving for a car owner who could keep up with the business side of things while the drivers could focus only on one thing: driving the car.
Still, through the years, some drivers chose to go against the grain. Some started up teams and drove for themselves, while others (and this was a little less common) drove for a car owner while still fielding a car for someone else. The fad of being an owner-driver was sparked once again with Alan Kulwicki in the mid-1980s, and other drivers followed his lead to varying degrees of success. Here’s what happens when a NASCAR driver becomes a team owner.
The driver often credited as the one responsible for repolarizing being an owner-driver in NASCAR is none other than Alan Kulwicki. Alan became an owner-driver in the NASCAR Cup Series after purchasing the Bill Terry-owned number 35 halfway through the 1986 season. In 1987, Kulwicki ran his first full season in the sport, changing the team’s number to his iconic number 7. By 1988, he had turned the team into a race-winning organization, capturing his first career win at Phoenix that fall.
The team went winless in the 1989 season but bounced back for a couple of wins in 1990 and 1991, respectively. But the greatest season in the team’s history came in 1992. By the 1992 season, through Kulwicki’s iron-fist managerial style, many of the kinks that plagued the team early on got ironed out. They were more consistent, competing for top 5s and race wins on the regular. Though they only won 2 races in 1992 (spring Bristol and Pocono), they managed to lead the most laps and finish 2nd in the season finale race at Atlanta, resulting in this little team that could become NASCAR Cup Series champions.
The 1992 NASCAR Championship fight is often cited as one of the greatest title fights in NASCAR history. In 1993, Kulwicki was looking to go back-to-back. After a pair of top-5s at Rockingham and Richmond, he was looking to do just that. Unfortunately, Kulwicki passed away in a plane crash ahead of the spring Bristol race. He was only 38 years old.
Following Kulwicki’s lead, long-time FOX Sports announcer and 3-time Cup Champion Darrell Waltrip also tried his hand at team ownership. Following the 1990 season, DW left Hendrick Motorsports with crew chief Jeff Hammond to start Darrell Waltrip Motorsports. He drove the number 17 Western Auto Chevy and even got his engines from HMS the first couple of years of the team’s existence. As an owner-driver, DW won a total of 5 races, all coming in the first two years of the team’s operation. His final win came at the 1992 Southern 500. The 1993 season was decent enough despite Waltrip going winless for the first time in his career.
1994, we started to see a nose-dive in terms of team performance. DWM started to make their own engines and suffered engine failures throughout the year. Despite this, he still finished the 1994 season in the 9th position in points. It was the last top-10-point finish of DW’s career. In his final full-time season as an owner-driver, Waltrip failed to qualify for the fall race at Charlotte Motor Speedway. In 1998, after finishing 30th or worse in the first 5 races of the season, DW sold his team to Tim Beverly, who rebranded it as Tyler Jett Motorsports.
Like DW, Ricky Rudd also left Hendrick Motorsports to start his own team, inspired by what Alan Kulwicki did with his team in 1992. And, similarly to DWM, Rudd Performance Motorsports got off to a pretty solid start. Rudd started the team in 1994 and got their first win at New Hampshire late in the season. He backed that up with a 6th place-points finish. 1995 was much of the same, with Rudd running even more consistently and getting his second win as an owner-driver at Phoenix that year. He continued his streak of one win a year in 1996 before upping his best and scoring 2 victories in 1997. Despite those two wins, Rudd finished 17th in points in ’97.
He continued his decline in the 1998 and 1999 seasons, the latter of which saw his worst points finish of 31st. Rudd Performance Motorsports’ final victory came at Martinsville in 1998. Following the 1999 season, Rudd closed his race team and signed with Robert Yates Racing to drive the famous number 28 Ford.
The last of the Kulwicki imitators was none other than NASCAR’s Most Popular Driver, Bill Elliott, who ran his own team with his brothers from 1995 to 2000. Though Bill Elliott Racing didn’t quite stoop to the same lows as Rudd Performance Motorsports or Darrell Waltrip Motorsports, it was still a far cry from even those team’s heights. In its 5-year existence as a full-time team, BER scored zero points victories and had a best points finish of 8th in 1997.
In 1998, NFL superstar Dan Marino invested in the team as it became a two-car operation: the number 94 driven by owner-driver Elliott and the number 13 fielded for Jerry Nadeau and a plethora of other drivers. Following a disappointing season in ’98, BER scaled back down to a 1-car operation for 1999. In 2000, Elliott announced that he would sell his team to former Jeff Gordon crew chief Ray Evernham. Evernham Motorsports officially launched at the Daytona 500 in 2001 with Dodge as the manufacturer. The number 94 was renumbered to the number 9, with Bill Elliott as the driver. Thus, ended Awesome Bill from Dawsonville’s stint as an owner-driver in NASCAR.
When it came to being a NASCAR owner, Dale Earnhardt marched to the beat of a different drum. Maybe he had seen how badly his peers, such as Waltrip, Rudd, and Elliott, struggled to get their team out from under them. Or maybe he just had that strong of a bond with Richard Childress that he would never dare drive for another owner, not even himself. Whatever the case may be, Dale Earnhardt is one of the only drivers in NASCAR history to own a Cup Series team but drive for someone else.
Dale Earnhardt Incorporated existed in the lower ranks of NASCAR throughout the 1980s and early-to-mid 1990s. But it wasn’t until 1998 that the team officially launched full-time in the NASCAR Cup Series. The first full-time number for the team was 1, and Steve Park was initially tapped to drive. However, Park was injured in a qualifying crash at Las Vegas. He was subsequently replaced by Phil Parsons, Ron Hornaday Jr., and Dale’s long-time rival Darrell Waltrip until Park’s return at Indy that year.
Park ran his first full-time season in 1999 to a solid 14th-place points finish. In 2000, the team expanded to a 2-car operation with Dale Earnhardt Jr. driving the team’s Budweiser number 8 entry. In 2001, the team expanded yet again with Michael Waltrip driving the 15 NAPA car. In the 2001 Daytona 500, team owner Dale Earnhardt tragically lost his life in a crash on the last lap.
Many drivers drove for DEI, but before and after Earnhardt’s death, the team remained in NASCAR until the 2009 season. The most successful driver for the team was Earnhardt Jr. He won 18 races for the team and finished 3rd in the points in 2003. Waltrip and Park went on to win a handful of races for the team, but neither came near Little E’s success. The team is also credited for jumpstarting the careers of Martin Truex Jr. and Paul Menard. The team officially closed its doors in 2009, 1-year after the departure of their most successful driver.
After leaving DEI following the 2005 NASCAR season, Michael Waltrip raced the number 55 car for Bill Davis Racing before launching his own team with Toyota in 2007. To say that Michael Waltrip Racing’s early years were rough would be an understatement. They started right off the bat as a 3-car operation with Waltrip driving the 55 NAPA car, Dale Jerrett driving the number 44 UPS Camry, and rookie David Reutimann driving the Aaron’s Dream Machine 00. In 2007, Reutimann failed to qualify for 8 races. That same year, Jarrett missed 12 races, and owner-driver Waltrip failed to qualify for a staggering 19 races.
2008 was a little better. How could it have gotten any worse? In ’08, Waltrip, Jerrett, and Reutimann made every race they attempted. Jarrett retired at the All-Star race that year, and Reutimann took over the 44 ride for the remainder of the year. The team didn’t really start to get their legs under them until Waltrip retired as a full-time racer. After Waltrip stepped away, Martin Truex Jr. took over the renumbered 56 NAPA car. Subsequently, Reutimann once again drove the number 00 Toyota and scored his first and only Cup Series win at the 2009 Coca-Cola 600. Meanwhile, Truex scored his lone win for the team in 2013 at Sonoma.
The team expanded in 2012, with Clint Boyer joining the ranks in the number 15 Toyota. Boyer was by far the most successful driver for the team, scoring three wins in his first year. Those three victories propelled him to a second-place points finish behind Brad Keselowski. Other notable drivers include Mark Martin and Brian Vickers, who split the number 55 Aarons car in the team’s later years.
The team is probably best known for “Spingate” from 2013. This was blatant race manipulation on MWR’s part and ultimately led to sponsors leaving. MTJ lost his ride as a result, and the team ceased operations 2-years later in 2015.
I remember when Tony Stewart announced in 2008 that he would be leaving his home of 10 years, Joe Gibbs Racing, to join Gene Haas in a co-owner role. Everyone thought he was crazy. Haas CNC Racing was a very unproven team, and it appeared as though Stewart was flushing his career down the toilet. But he knew what he was doing. As soon as the green flag dropped to start the 2009 season, there was a noticeable difference in the performance of that race team with Smoke’s influence. In the team’s first year, Stewart-Haas Racing visited victory lane 4 times, all from the owner-driver of the flagship number 14 Chevy, Tony Stewart.
In 2010, Stewart won 2 more races with SHR, and Ryan Newman visited victory lane for the first time with the team in their second number 39 entry. It was 2011, though, that cemented SHR as a tier-1 program. Though he got off to a slow start, Tony Stewart won 5 of the final 10 races to win his third and final Cup Series title due to a tie-breaker over Carl Edwards. Newman also scored a victory this season at the summer New Hampshire race. 2012 and 2013 saw more wins from both Stewart and Newman, but 2014 was a game-changer of a season.
Following the 2013 season, Newman departed, and Stewart-Haas Racing expanded into a 4-car team. Now you had Tony Stewart in the flagship number 14, who was in the twilight of his racing career, Kurt Busch in the Haas-sponsored number 41, Danica Patrick in the Go Daddy number 10, and Kevin Harvick in the Budweiser number 4. The torch had officially been passed. In 2014, Harvick won 5 races on his way to his lone Cup Series title. Kurt Busch also won a race at Martinsville. In 2015, Harvick won 3 races, and Busch won 2. In 2016, Harvick won 4 times, Kurt Busch won once, and team owner Tony Stewart, in his swan song season, scored a victory at Sonoma.
In 2017, Kurt Busch won the Daytona 500. Harvick visited Victory Lane twice. Danica Patrick retired from full-time racing and was replaced by Aric Almirola. Stewart’s replacement, Clint Boyer, went winless but performed decently enough. In 2018, all four of their drivers won races. Harvick won a series-high 8 races, Clint Boyer won 2, and Aric Almirola and Kurt Busch both won one a piece. This was the last year SHR was truly a “good team.” For the rest of their time in NASCAR, they were mostly held on the back of Kevin Harvick.
In 2019, the team won 4 times, all those wins coming from Harvick. In 2020, they won a total of 10 races, 9 of them coming from Harvick. Cole Custer pulled off a surprise victory at the final Kentucky Motor Speedway race while running mediocre the rest of the year. Into the 2020s, the team continued to decline. Boyer retired and was replaced by Chase Briscoe. In 2021, the team’s lone win came from Aric Almirola. In 2022, the team won 3 races, including Briscoe’s first NASCAR victory as well as Kevin Harvick’s final 2. In 2023, the team went winless for the first time since Stewart joined the ownership group. Harvick retired at the end of that season along with Almirola. They were both replaced by Noah Gragson and Josh Berry, respectively.
At the end of the 2024 season, Stewart-Haas Racing closed its doors. They were, however, able to get one final win on their way out. That win came from Chase Briscoe, who won the 2024 Southern 500. The win punched his ticket into the NASCAR Playoffs.
Similarly to Dale Earnhardt, Denny Hamlin is one of the only drivers in NASCAR history to own a race team while racing for another. The team Denny Hamlin co-owns along with NBA legend Michael Jordan is none other than 23XI Racing. The team launched with TRD power and an alliance with Joe Gibbs Racing (Hamlin’s team) in 2021. Bubba Wallace was tapped to drive the team’s flagship number 23 Toyota. That first year was tough for 23XI, especially to start. They did improve as the season went on, though. Bubba Wallace won one race in 2021, a rain-shortened victory at Talladega Superspeedway. Other than that, he scored 2 additional top-5s and finished 21st in points.
In 2022, the team expanded to 2 cars. Bubba returned to the number 23, while veteran Kurt Busch started the first 20 races in the new number 45 car. Busch won his final NASCAR race for the team at Kansas in the spring. Unfortunately, a practice crash at Pocono in the summer ended his racing career. Ty Gibbs drove the 45 car for the next 6 races, where he scored a best finish of 13th at the summer Daytona race. Starting at Darlington, Gibbs and Wallace swapped numbers because the 45 was in the owner’s championship playoffs while the 23 wasn’t. Two races later, Wallace went on to win the fall Kansas race in the 45. The 45 car ended the 2022 season 10th in the owner’s standings.
In 2023, Bubba Wallace continued to improve, making the Playoffs for the first time in his career. However, he did so on points without winning a race. Meanwhile, Tyler Reddick was brought over from RCR to replace Busch in the number 45 Monster Energy Toyota. He won 2 races on the year, scoring his first win for the team at COTA in the spring and later at the fall Kansas race. Wallace and Reddick finished 10th and 6th in the points, respectively.
In 2024, Bubba Wallace missed the Playoffs, but that was mostly due to him not winning a race and a couple of surprise winners late in the season. Meanwhile, Tyler Reddick won three races and went on to make the Championship 4. But at Phoenix, he was clearly the fourth-best driver of the finalists, finishing fourth in the standings.
The team is set to expand yet again in 2025 despite being stripped of their charters. Wallace and Reddick will both return to the 23 and 45 cars ,while Riley Herbst will join the team in the number 35 Monster Energy Toyota.
The latest driver to take on an ownership role in NASCAR is Brad Keselowski. Like Tony Stewart, Keselowski bought into an existing team with the intention of reshaping it in his image. We’ll only be looking at RFK Racing since Keselowski joined the team and not Roush Racing’s long history dating back to the 1980s.
RFK, as we know it today, began in 2022 with Brad Keselowski joining as a driver and co-owner. Unlike SHR, they weren’t hot out of the gate. In fact, Brad Keselowski struggled throughout the 2022 season, going winless. The team’s lone 2022 win came from the driver of the number 17 Ford, Chris Buescher at Bristol of that year. But neither team qualified for the Playoffs.
2023 was a massive improvement on 2022. While Brad failed to win a race, he did qualify for the Playoffs on points. Meanwhile, Buescher won 3 races at Richmond, Michigan, and the summer Daytona race. They finished 8th and 7th in the standings, respectively.
2024 was somewhat of a reverse of 2023. Both teams were consistently battling for top-10 finishes but this time it was Buescher who failed to win a race and ultimately missed the Playoffs. Co-owner Keselowski made the post-season by scoring a win at the spring Darlington race, his first win as an owner-driver.
For 2025, the team is set to expand, much like their 23XI cohorts. They will become a 3-car team in ’25 with Ryan Preece joining the team in the number 60 entry.
Like Brad and RFK Racing, 7-time NASCAR Cup Series Champion and NASCAR Hall-of-Famer bought into an existing team, thus becoming an owner-driver (part-time). The team Johnson bought into was none other than Petty GMS Racing, a successor to Richard Petty Motorsports. The team began racing under the Legacy Motor Club banner in 2023 with Chevy. The team fielded two full-time cars: the flagship number 43 for Erik Jones and the number 42 for Noah Gragson until he was suspended and subsequently fired following the fall Richmond race of that year. The team also fields a part-time entry for Jimmie Johnson, the number 84.
The team went winless in both 2023 and 2024. ’24 saw a switch in manufacturer from Chevy to Toyota with little (if any) noticeable improvement in performance between the two years. They’ve made a lot of personnel changes in 2024 so maybe their performance will start to turn around in 2025.
That does it for us, Daily Downforce readers. Tell us: what are some of your favorite driver-owned race teams out there? For this article, we just focused on the NASCAR Cup Series mostly in the modern era. Successful Cup Series driver-owned teams are few and far between. However, there are some cases in the lower series of successful driver-owned teams, like KBM, KHI, and JR. Motorsports. Let us know your favorite teams in the comments! And be sure to keep it here at DailyDownforce.com for all the latest news on NASCAR.
