Seeing one’s name on the roofline of a NASCAR Cup Series race car is often a dream come true. It’s an announcement that the pinnacle has been reached.
Some in NASCAR’s past have been quite successful with single-car teams, winning races and championships as the best of the best. Others only see victory lane in a glimpse or may never see it again.
Some drivers have wanted no part of a two-car team, while others have seen their benefits as a way to become stronger. Those objecting to having more than one car would mean having to share team resources and personnel. There have been instances where some have driven for teams that have created ill feelings between fellow teammates.
A look back at some of those unions helps tell the story.
Holman-Moody-Ford’s stock car factory team built, sold and fielded cars out of its Charlotte, N.C., factory. Their top entries — Fred Lorenzen’s No. 28 Ford Fairlane and Mario Andretti’s No. 11 Fairlane — were the frontrunners of their fleet.
As told in an article in Road and Track written by Marshall Pruett in 2017, Andretti, 26 years of age, had become friends with NASCAR drivers Bobby and Donnie Allison and both had told him his gearing in the car was too low for Daytona Int’l Speedway.
Further, he and his assigned crew had to work to get the car to handle but was successful enough to qualify 12th for the Daytona 500.
The car was so loose, Andretti thought he had an oil leak as the rear tires smoked badly throughout the 200-lap race. He drove low on the apron and went high on the track lap after lap, so much so that fellow drivers didn’t want to race with him.
His engine was strong enough to pull away on the back straightway of the 2.5-mile track. He was seemingly on his way to victory, leading 112 laps, until he had to pit alongside Lorenzen late in the race.
Some in the media thought his Ford was purposely left on the jack too long to let Lorenzen get out ahead of him. Andretti angrily agreed. He would have no part of it and passed Lorenzen to win NASCAR’s biggest race.
Andretti’s Daytona 500 win was his lone win in NASCAR. He went on to win the Indy 500 in 1969 and the Formula 1 world championship in 1978.
Others had great success, while others have not. Still, the glory has been there’s to enjoy.
From 1973 through 1980, Cale Yarborough won three Cup Series championships and 55 of his 83-career victories while with team owner Junior Johnson. In 1974, Johnson fielded a second car for Canadian driver Earl Ross, who earned his lone Cup Series victory at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway that season.
During the days when Darrell Waltrip and Neil Bonnett drove for Johnson, Waltrip won three Cup Series championships in 1981, 1982 and 1985. Bonnett logged 18 career wins with only three victories coming in Johnson’s Chevrolets.
Fellow competitor and 1983 Cup Series champion Bobby Allison logged 85 Cup Series wins during his career, including a controversial Grand American win at Bowman Gray Stadium in 1971. He won three times with Stavola Brothers Racing, with his final win coming in the 1988 Daytona 500.
Bobby Hillin Jr. drove a second car for Billy and Mickey Stavola from 1986 through 1990 and scored a lone victory at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway in his first season with the team.
Larry McReynolds worked as a crew chief in the Cup Series from 1982 through 2000 and logged 23 victories. His final victory came with Dale Earnhardt in the 1998 Daytona 500.
McReynolds also worked with the two-car effort of Robert Yates Racing and Richard Childress Racing Enterprises dating back to 1995 and 1997, respectively.
“When we were a two-car team at Robert Yates Racing, 90 percent of the time it worked the way it was supposed to,” McReynolds said. “We had everything under one roof. The fabrication guys worked on Robert Yates Racing cars. Todd Parrott had his guys, and I had my guys. A few times there were some bad feelings. I know at Talladega one year; we sat on the pole with the 28 Ford (Ernie Irvan) and the 88 (Dale Jarrett) Ford was on the outside. But overall, it worked like it was supposed to.
“A lot of people including myself had to convince Robert to have a second team. We could see the benefits of doing that because we could feed off each other if it was done the right way,” McReynolds continued. “It was Robert that we had to convince to do it. He had the philosophy that when they build victory lane big enough for two cars, then he would entertain the idea of building a two-car team. He would say, ‘As long as one car can get to victory lane, that’s what we’ll have.’”
Mike Skinner, a former Cup Series driver with RCR, won the 1997 NASCAR Thunder Special Suzuka non-points event in Suzuka, Japan and the 1998 NASCAR Special Motegi non-points event in Motegi, Japan. Skinner also won the 1995 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series championship.
“There was a guy that we unfortunately lost in 2001 that won a lot of Cup Series championships that was involved in a multi-car team with me,” Skinner said of seven-time Cup Series champion Dale Earnhardt. “He realized that two heads are better than one and with that, you have a bigger pond to draw from. The information is so much better.
“Unfortunately, it took Dale a few years to figure that out. Unfortunately, again, we figured it out and we lost him. It was very unfortunate for RCR, and I feel like he would have won another championship, and I would have won multiple races.
“Today, you’re on an island if you don’t have a two, three or four-car team. You must have that information to draw from,” Skinner added. “Nowadays, you would have a hard time finding a driver unless you have a multi-car team. You use that information pool to your advantage. He finally got on aboard. I think at the first part of it, he felt like there was nothing I could give to him. I could only learn from him, and I did learn a lot from him. But the first few years he didn’t want to work with me.”
Skinner could feel the tension but tried to find the positives and utilize them for the good of the organization. The communication was bad enough that crew members from the No. 31 crew would not tell Earnhardt the shocks they used in Skinner’s car.
Earnhardt wouldn’t draft with Skinner at the superspeedways, lending more evidence of Earnhardt’s discontent for the second-car effort during the four years the No. 3 and No. 31 teams were together was no secret.
“It was like having two drivers with two teams instead of two drivers with one team,” Skinner said. “We got to test back then. Toward the end, Richard made it mandatory that we test. Dale had to get in the 31 car, and I had to get in the 3 car. By doing that, we both learned stuff. I would say, ‘this doesn’t feel right to me,’ but it was still fast.
“We would incorporate the pluses that we found, and I really feel like toward the end (in 2000) the 31 car was at the top of the board at Texas. In practice, Dale was 42nd. We talked about it and he came back in and put his car third in practice. From that moment on, we were a team.”
Earnhardt built Dale Earnhardt Inc. into a winning organization and fielded multi-car teams with drivers Dale Earnhardt Jr., Michael Waltrip and Steve Park.