The total NASCAR schedule, including overtimes and shortened races, added up to 12,733.4 miles and 9,744 laps. But no driver actually ran every mile or every lap.
For that matter, no full-time driver completed every race running, either.
2024 Completion Rates by DNFs
There were a total of 180 DNFs across the 2024 season’s 36 races for an overall 13.2% DNF rate over 1358 cars. That’s 11 more DNFs than last year, but there were fewer cars last year. The 2023 DNF rate was 12.8%.
But there were a whopping 47 fewer DNFs in 2024 than there were in 2022, the first year of the Gen-7 car. The 2022 DNF rate was 17.1%, the highest DNF rate since 2012.
Let’s look first at the number of drivers who didn’t complete all the the races. The graph below shows the number of dnfs for the top nine drivers. I picked nine because that includes all the drivers with six DNFs.
Josh Berry led the season in DNFs with a whopping 10 out of 36 races or 27.8% DNF rate. That’s significantly more than his nearest competitors, each of whom had seven DNFS (19.4%.)
Berry’s DNFs were all due to accidents, except for one suspension failure.
Three drivers who made the round of eight appear on this list. Each driver’s DNFs were all due to accidents that either took them directly out of the race, or that could not be repaired within the DVP times
- 2024 champion Joey Logano appears on this graph with six DNFs,
- Christopher Bell also had six DNFs.
- Ryan Blaney had seven DNFs
Kyle Larson had five DNFS, which gives him a 14.28% DNF rate over 35 races. That’s not as high as the eight DNFS he had last year over 36 races, but it’s also as low as it should be for a driver of Larson’s caliber.
Michael McDowell had seven DNFs, but only four were accidents. He also experienced one powertrain failure, one steering failure, and a wheel issue.
Most-DNFS-in-a-Season by Year
Over the stage-racing years, the drivers with the most DNFs in a full single season were:
- 2017: Jeffrey Earnhardt – 14
- 2018: Timmy Hill – 10
- 2019: Reed Sorenson – 9
- 2020: Timmy Hill – 14
- 2021: Quin Houff – 10
- 2022: Ty Dillon and Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. – 9 each
- 2023: Austin Dillon – 10
DNFs by Reason
As usual, the vast majority of DNFs are due to accidents and the dvp clock running out. Together, they comprised 79.2% of all DNFs this year. There were 135 accidents and 6 failures to repair before the dvp clock ran out. The top remaining causes for DNFs are:
- Engines: 5.6%
- Steering: 3.9%
- Suspension: 3.4%
- Powertrain: 1.7%
- Overheating: 1.7%
But you also have to remember that there 1356 cars ran. So although there were 10 engine failures, that was only 0.74% of the total fields’ engines. Likewise, abut 10.4% of all cars didn’t finish races because of accidents/dvp clock running out.
Season DNFs by Track
The second Daytona race had the largest absolute number of DNFs with 15. But superspeedway races did not dominate the DNF list this year.
Nashville Superspeedway, with its five overtimes, contributed 13 DNFs to the total. Pocono managed 13 DNFS without any overtimes. Indy racked up with 12 DNFs. No other race had more than 10 DNFs. The first Las Vegas Race, spring Bristol, COTA, and Homestead had only one DNF each.
2024 Completion Rates By Laps
I only include drivers who ran full time. The one exception is Kyle Larson, whom I include, but whose numbers are calculated excluding the the Coca-Cola 600, which he missed.
Daniel Hemric wins the 2024 award for most laps run with 9690 out of 9744 possible, giving him a 99.44% lap completion rate. The next four drivers in laps completed are:
- Justin Haley: 9680 laps / 99.34%
- Chase Elliott: 9598 laps / 98.50%
- Daniel Suárez: 9595 laps / 98.47%
- Bubba Wallace: 9579 laps / 98.30%
One the other end of the list, drivers completing the fewest laps in 2024 are:
- Ryan Blaney: 8910 laps / 91.44%
- Zane Smith: 8985 laps / 92.21%
- Josh Berry: 9058 laps / 92.96%
- Corey LaJoie: 9101 laps / 93.40%
- Harrison Burton: 9126 laps / 93.66%
Other drivers of note:
- Joey Logano: 96.83 %
- Kyle Larson: 95.33% (excludes Coca Cola 600)
- Tyler Reddick: 97.31%
- William Byron: 97.88%
- Christopher Bell: 95.42%
2024 Completion Rates By Miles
The list is slightly different by miles, simply because there’s a mileage penalty for crashing out in lap 30 for a 300-lap race relative to a 100-lap race. Here are the drivers who ran the large percentage of miles in the season.
- Daniel Hemric: 99.23%
- Justin Haley: 99.13%
- Chase Elliott: 98.5%
As for drivers on the bottom of the list:
- Ryan Blaney 91.44%
- Zane Smith: 92.21%
- Josh Berry: 92.95%
- Corey LaJoie: 93.40%
- Harrison Burton: 93.65%
Other notable drivers’ percentage of total miles run:
- Joey Logano: 96.82 %
- Kyle Larson: 95.33% (excludes Coca Cola 600)
- Tyler Reddick: 97.31%
- William Byron: 97.87%
- Christopher Bell: 95.42%
And that’s the 2024 Completion Rates: By the Numbers Blog. For the rest of the entries in this series, take a look at the 2024 compilation page.
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