In NASCAR Cup Series competition the #00 car has started 462 races and has 2 wins, 5 poles, 17 top 5s, 41 top 10s, and 127 DNFs.
David Reutimann has the most starts in #00 with 140 including 2 wins. In his rookie year of 2007, the Michael Waltrip Racing team struggled to qualify for races, as did other Toyota teams, making only 26 of 36 races in the season.
Reutimann experienced one of the hardest crashes ever recorded at the 2007 Auto Club 500 at California Speedway. Because of the struggles, the team finished 39th in points and had a best finish of 13th. Sponsors Burger King and Dominos then pulled their sponsorship for 2008.
Reutimann opened 2008 in the #00 with backing from Aaron’s. After the first five races Reutimann moved to MWR’s #44 UPS Toyota. In 2009, Reutimann returned to #00 for his breakout year. Reutimann won a rain-shortened Coca-Cola 600 on May 25, 2009, giving Michael Waltrip Racing its first victory in a Sprint Cup race.
Reutiman showed consistency throughout the season and looked like they would make the Chase for the Sprint Cup before a few late summer problems left the team just outside the Chase grid. In 2010, Reutimann won his second career race at the 2010 LifeLock.com 400 at by dominating the day at Chicagoland Speedway. After struggling in 2011, MWR announced that Reutimann would not return to the team in 2012 and the car was renumbered #55.
Michael McDowell drove the MWR #00 for 20 races during the 2008 season when Reutimann drove the #44. During this time, McDowell experienced a spectacular crash while qualifying at Texas, but would walk away unharmed. After struggling to keep the car in the top 35 of owner points, McDowell was replaced by Mike Skinner for the final 4 races of the season.
In 2017 Derrike Cope started 2 races for the newly formed StarCom Racing. In 2018 the team acquired a charter and fielded the entry full time with driver Jeffrey Earnhardt (5 starts), Joey Gase (5 starts), Tomy Drissi (1 start), and Landon Cassill (25 starts). Cassill returned for the entire 2019 season, bringing his total to 61 starts in the number.
In 2020, Quin Houff took the reigns of Starcom’s #00 for his rookie campaign in the Cup Series. At the 2020 O’Reilly Auto Parts 500 at Texas, Houff made a last-minute decision to enter pit-road with 29 laps to go, clipping the cars of Christopher Bell and Matt DiBenedetto in the process before crashing into the outside retaining wall. He was later on criticized by DiBenedetto and Brad Keselowski, who proposed that NASCAR should add a relegation structure that would demote developmental drivers to the lower divisions should they commit a mistake similar to Houff’s. His best finish of the year was a 13th at Talladega in October, his only top-20 finish of the year. Houff returned for 36 more races in 2021, but his performance did not improve. Starcom did not return for the 2022 season.
In 1954 Blackie Pitt started 25 races in #00.
Other notable names in #00
Buckshot Jones , 16 starts
Carl Long , 10 starts
Tom Pistone, 12 starts
Kenny Wallace , 8 starts
Morgan Shepherd, 7 start
Hermie Sadler , 7 starts
Bill Elliott , 5 starts
AJ Foyt, 5 starts
Buddy Baker, 5 starts
Cale Yarborough, 4 starts
Johnny Benson Jr., 2 starts
Junior Johnson, 1 start
Lee Petty, 1 start
Sterling Marlin, 1 start
AJ Allmendinger, 1 start
