The Perfect Race

Is there such a thing as a perfect race in NASCAR? Not perfect as in clean, calm, or straightforward, but perfect as in total domination from green to checkered. And while NASCAR hasn’t seen someone lead every lap since 2000, the modern era offers something else: the 150 driver rating, the closest thing the sport has to a perfect performance.

• Which drivers delivered the rarest statistical domination the sport even allows anymore, and why do names like Harvick, Kurt Busch, and Larson keep bubbling to the top?
• What moments should have been perfect, only to implode in heartbreaking fashion, including one of the most painful collapses of Denny Hamlin’s career?
• How certain races, from Clint Bowyer’s first win to Chase Briscoe’s Darlington takeover, earned their place among the 30 highest-rated runs in the last 20 years?
• And what makes Martin Truex Jr’s 392 laps led in the 2016 Coca-Cola 600 stand in a category entirely by itself, a statistical mountain nobody in the modern era has climbed again.

These weren’t always fun races to watch in real time, but in an age defined by chaos, restarts, and randomness, the truly dominant drives deserve a closer look. And the transcript makes it clear, while nobody has delivered a 100 percent lap led masterpiece in decades, a handful of drivers have gotten unbelievably close.

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