How NASCAR drivers have fared in attempt to win three straight Daytona 500s

For all of the incredible accomplishments in NASCAR history, no driver has ever been able to win its greatest race thrice in a row. 

In fact, only four times has a driver ever won the Daytona 500 in back-to-back years: Richard Petty in 1973-74, Cale Yarborough in 1983-84, Sterling Marlin in 1994-95 and Denny Hamlin in 2019-20. 

William Byron has won the last two Daytona 500s after surviving the inevitable "Big One" in both 2024 and 2025. The Hendrick Motorsports driver enters 2026 looking to etch his name into history as the first driver to ever win the "Great American Race" three years in a row. 

But history clearly sees that goal as a lofty one. Here's how the attempts of Petty, Yarborough, Marlin and Hamlin to win the race three years in a row shook out.

Richard Petty, 1975

Petty's 1975 season would eventually yield his fourth NASCAR Cup Series title in five years. But that year's Daytona 500 did not go according to plan for "The King."

Petty started fourth and led 51 laps before a leaking radiator took him out of contention. While he himself was out of contention, he did help the eventual race winner, Benny Parsons, score the victory over David Pearson, who ironically was Petty's biggest rival during the 1970s. Parsons was the only driver to finish the race on the lead lap, while Petty finished seventh. 

Cale Yarborough, 1985

Yarborough was 55 when he raced for a third consecutive Daytona 500 crown and in his fifth straight season of racing on only a part-time schedule. But that made him no less formidable.

The talk of Daytona Beach in 1985 wasn't Yarborough, however. It was Bill Elliott, then just a four-time Cup Series winner. Elliott's No. 9 Ford Thunderbird put down a record speed of over 205 miles per hour in qualifying, with Yarborough joining him on the front row. 

Like Petty, mechanical issues were the end of Yarborough's day. He completed just 62 of 200 laps due to a blown motor as Elliott drove off into the Florida sunset for the first of two Daytona 500 wins.

Sterling Marlin, 1996

In the mid-1990s, Sterling Marlin and the No. 4 Morgan-McClure Motorsports team were incredibly fast on superspeedways. At Daytona and Talladega, Marlin was always a sure bet to be battling for the lead. That speed translated into a pair of Daytona 500 wins in 1994 and 1995. 

But like Petty and Yarborough, mechanical issues once again reared their ugly head and took away Marlin's chance of winning three straight Daytona 500s. Marlin qualified third and led three laps before engine issues after just 81 laps relegated him to a 40th-place result. 

Denny Hamlin, 2021

Even as pack racing at Daytona became more unpredictable and reliant on a driver's ability to miss big wrecks, Hamlin still found himself near the front in every Daytona 500. He'd won his first 500 in 2016 and rolled into Daytona in 2021 having finished top five in six of the last seven Daytona 500s. 

Fortunately for Hamlin, mechanical issues didn't come his way. He avoided an early pile-up, led 98 laps and swept the stages. 

But Hamlin found himself outside of the top 10 with half a lap to go. Despite a big wreck at the front of the field that took out leaders Brad Keselowski and Joey Logano, Hamlin finished fifth as Michael McDowell scored his first Cup Series win, denying Hamlin a third straight Harley J. Earl trophy.