NASCAR: Yet another stat that shows just how good the Big 3 have been
By Nick Tylwalk
You don’t need to hear any more about how many races the Big 3 are winning, but let’s discuss how far ahead of the second-place cars they usually are when they win.
With the notable exception of Chase Elliott’s long awaited first NASCAR Cup Series win and the feel good story of Clint Bowyer returning to winning form, the Big 3 of Kevin Harvick, Kyle Busch and Martin Truex Jr. have sucked the air out of most other stories this season. They’ve earned that distinction by winning early and often.
They’ve also done it by winning big, more often that not.
Matt Willis of ESPN dug up an interesting tidbit about how big the average margin of victory has been in 2018. Despite several memorable close finishes during the summer months, we’re on pace for a record in terms of how small the second-place car appears in the race winner’s mirror.
"Overall, the average margin of victory this season is 2.9 seconds. That would be the highest in a season since NASCAR began using electronic scoring in 1993, and that season holds the distinction at 2.3 seconds, a half-second less in margin of victory than the 2018 season so far."
That’s interesting in and of itself, but add in the fact that the Big 3 is responsible for most of the 2018 victories and we just had to dig a little deeper. Are Harvick, Busch and Truex not just winning but usually doing it by a wide margin?
Indeed they are. Taking only the 17 races won by the Big 3 into account, the average margin of victory is even higher than the overall NASCAR Cup Series mark at 3.2 seconds.That mark has been aided by three truly absurd, blowing away the field deals: Truex’s victories at California (11.685 seconds) and Sonoma (10.513 seconds) and Harvick’s Dover win (7.45 seconds).
As a group, they’ve had remarkably few close calls, with just five of the 17 wins coming by less than a second. Three of those belong to Busch, so he’s the weak link in the domination chain, if there is such a thing (and there is not).
Next. Wait, what is there was no Big 3 this season?. dark
Again, you didn’t necessarily need another stat to remind you of how these three drivers have been getting it done all season long, but it does reinforce what your eyes are already telling you: When any one of the Big 3 are feeling it in 2018, there’s not a whole lot the rest of the field can do about it.