DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (March 26, 2008) – Four different drivers have posted victories in the
NASCAR Sprint Cup Series in 2008: Ryan Newman (Daytona), Carl Edwards (California and Las
Vegas), Kyle Busch (Atlanta), Jeff Burton (Bristol). Four drivers have posted top-10 finishes in four of
the five races: Greg Biffle, Kevin Harvick, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Kasey Kahne.
 
2008 Season Highlights
• Ryan Newman won the season-opening Daytona 500, his first career restrictor-plate victory.
Teammate Kurt Busch finished second, giving car owner Roger Penske not only his first restrictor-
plate victory, but also his first 1-2 finish in 25 years of NASCAR Sprint Cup racing.  
• Ryan Newman led the points following Daytona; Kyle Busch following California and Carl Edwards
following Las Vegas – the first time for all three.
• Carl Edwards won back-to-back races at California and Las Vegas – the second time in his career
that he had posted consecutive wins.
• Kyle Busch won at Atlanta – the first victory on the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series for Toyota. The
victory came in the 40th start for Toyota on NASCAR’s premier circuit and was the first by a foreign-
based manufacturer since Jaguar won with All Keller at the wheel at Linden (N.J.) Airport in 1954.
• Jeff Burton won at Bristol and was followed across the line by teammates Kevin Harvick and Clint
Bowyer – giving car owner Richard Childress his first-ever 1-2-3 sweep.
 
Qualifying
• Jimmie Johnson won the first-ever Coors Light Pole Award, posting his second pole at Daytona.
• Qualifying was canceled due to weather at Auto Club Speedway and Bristol.
• Kyle Busch became the second pole winner of 2008 – taking the top spot in qualifying for Las Vegas
by .125 second over Carl Edwards.
• Jeff Gordon won the pole at Atlanta – making this his 16th consecutive year with a pole. Gordon is
third on the all-time list for consecutive years with a pole, behind David Pearson (20) and Richard
Petty (17).
• Twenty-five different drivers have posted at least one top-10 start this season.
• Jeff Gordon is the only driver to start from the top 10 in every race in 2008.
• The all-time record for the number of different pole winners is 24 (1957) and the Modern Era record is
18 (1997, 2001 and 2007).
• There has been a first-time pole winner each season since 1987 – 21 consecutive years.  

The Races
• Twenty-three different drivers have posted at least one top-10 finish in 2008.
• No one has posted a top-10 finish in every race this season.
• After 18 wins in 2007, Hendrick Motorsports has yet to win a race in 2008. The organization began
competing on the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series in 1984 and won its first race in 1986. HMS has posted
at least one victory each of the 22 seasons since and has gone past the fifth race of a season before
posting its first win just nine times. The deepest that HMS has gone into a season before scoring a
win was 1992 when the first victory for Hendrick did not come until race No. 23.

CREDIT: NASCAR PR