When was the last time a NASCAR driver won 4 races in a row?
By Nick Tylwalk
When Kevin Harvick goes for four straight race wins in a row next weekend in California, he’ll be shooting for an achievement that NASCAR hasn’t seen in more than a decade.
Even though it seems right now that Kevin Harvick is the hottest driver in years, one only needs to go back three seasons to find someone who won three NASCAR Cup Series races in a row. In fact, two different drivers pulled off the hat trick in 2015: Kyle Busch, who won at Kentucky, New Hampshire and the Brickyard; and Joey Logano, who won Charlotte, Kansas and Talladega during the Chase (but didn’t win the title).
But four wins in a row at the top level of NASCAR? That’s a tougher task, one that hasn’t been accomplished since 2007, and by a driver who is struggling at the moment.
Jimmie Johnson was the last driver to capture four straight checkered flags in the Cup Series, doing it down the stretch of the Chase and essentially sealing up the championship in the process. Johnson went to Victory Lane at Martinsville, Atlanta, Texas and Phoenix before finally letting someone else in on the fun in the season-ender at Homestead (won by Matt Kenseth). Under the Chase rules at the time, Johnson piled up so many points during his winning streak that Jeff Gordon finished a distant second for the title.
That run was even more impressive considering how it consisted of a short track, two fairly different intermediate circuits and Phoenix’s mile-long layout. Interestingly, three different Roush Fenway Racing Fords finished runner-up to Johnson’s Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet during the last three of those four races.
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Harvick has never won even won three straight before, much less four. On the plus side, he’s won the Auto Club 400 before back in 2011. Right now, it simply doesn’t look like anyone can catch him, and if he can fly around Fontana the same way he has the last three weeks, he could achieve the kind of dominance the sport hasn’t seen this decade.