CONCORD, N.C. – The season finale is just days away.
This Sunday, Hendrick Motorsports is looking to add one more trophy to the shelf before the checkered flag waves at Homestead-Miami Speedway on the 2019 season, which already consists of 12 championships, 256 race victories, 225 pole positions, 1,071 top-five finishes and 1,838 top-10 finishes and 69,000 laps led.
Take a look at some organizational key stats leading into this weekend’s race.
- Hendrick Motorsports has earned two wins, three pole positions, 15 top-five finishes and 31 top-10s while also leading 543 total laps at Homestead-Miami Speedway. The most recent win by the organization was in the 2016 season as Jimmie Johnson clinched his record-tying seventh NASCAR Cup Series title. At least one Hendrick Motorsports driver has finished inside the top 10 at Homestead for 17 consecutive races, the longest streak all-time at the track. The organization’s 59 wins on 1.5-mile tracks are the most all-time in the NASCAR Cup Series.
- With one race remaining in the 2019 NASCAR Cup Series season, Chase Elliott and the No. 9 team have collected three victories (Talladega, Watkins Glen, Charlotte road course), 11 top-five finishes, 15 top-10s and 601 laps led – a career high. Elliott also reached the Round of 8 in the NASCAR playoffs for the third consecutive season. This weekend at the 1.5-mile track, Elliott will make his 45th start. In his previous 44 starts on the track length, he has led 428 laps. The Dawsonville, Georgia, native scored his first 1.5-mile track win last October at Kansas Speedway. Along with that win, Elliott has collected 15 top-five finishes – three of which are runner-up results – and 24 top-10s on 1.5-mile tracks. For this season, Elliott holds the seventh-highest average finish of all drivers (11.3).
- Making strides throughout the 2019 season, William Byron is set to compete this weekend in the final race of 2019, with his second appearance at Homestead-Miami track in the Cup Series. During last year’s event, he suffered a flat tire in the closing stages of the race, leaving him with a 24th-place finish. Despite misfortune during his Cup Series start, the sophomore driver has two other starts under his belt at the track in NASCAR – one in the Xfinity Series and one in the Truck Series. In 2017, he started sixth and went on to finish third, locking up the Xfinity Series championship in the process. In 2016, he started on the pole for the Truck Series race and led 31 laps en route to the win at the 1.5-mile speedway. Making the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs for the first time this year, Byron advanced to the Round of 12 and now sits ninth in points – the highest of the Hendrick Motorsports cars as one race remains in the season.
- Jimmie Johnson heads to the 2019 NASCAR Cup Series season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway this weekend 18th in the point standings. He owns one win at Homestead, a thrilling victory in 2016 in which he captured his record-tying seventh NASCAR Cup Series championship. He is the NASCAR Cup Series’ all-time wins leader on 1.5-mile tracks with 28 trips to Victory Lane. He has one win, five top-five finishes and 11 top-10s at the 1.5-mile track in his career. He has led 102 laps around the South Florida venue and scored two pole positions.
- Alex Bowman has four starts in the NASCAR Cup Series at Homestead-Miami Speedway. The 26-year-old driver’s best finish of 16th came in 2016 while he was filling in behind the wheel of the No. 88 machine for Earnhardt. Out of 1,069 total laps in those four events, Bowman has completed 99.2 percent. So far this season, Bowman has the third-best average finish in the Cup Series, 9.3, on tracks measuring 1.5 miles in length. It is the best average of all Chevrolet drivers. In the last seven races on 1.5-mile tracks, his average finish is 7.0, which leads the series. All five of his best finishes on tracks of that length have come in the last seven events. Exactly half of his 10 career top-10 finishes have come on 1.5-mile tracks this season. Bowman was the first Chevrolet driver to get a win at a 1.5-mile facility this season when he claimed the victory at Chicagoland Speedway in June.
Be sure to catch our four teams in action this Sunday, Nov. 17 for the season finale at 3 p.m. ET on NBC.