In NASCAR Cup Series competition the #19 car has started 1,646 races with 91 drivers and has 23 wins, 23 poles, 130 top 5s, and 386 top 10s.

From 1957-1963 Herman Beam raced #19 a total of 194 times, every single start of his career. He is famous for holding the longest streak of races without a DNF, with 84, from 1961 until 1963. He had 57 Top 10 finishes in 194 races.

John Rostek  started #19 in 4 races in 1960 & 1963 with 1 win in Arizona in 1960.

From 1963-1964 Cale Yarborough  made 33 starts in #19 for Herman Beam. His best finish was fifth twice, at Myrtle Beach and Savannah Speedway, respectively.

From 1965-1967 J.T Putney  started the #19 car 71 times, almost half of his career starts. At Fonda Speedway in 1966, Putney carelessly pulled back onto the track after receiving service in the pits. He re-entered the track right into the path of the oncoming car of Tiny Lund. Putney not only took out four cars in his bonehead maneuver, but he was KO’d by a punch from Lund. Lund had approached Putney following the incident in the garage area, and knocked Putney unconscious with a right-cut to Putney’s jaw. NASCAR officials fined Lund $100.

Henley Gray  has the most starts in #19 with 231 from 1967-1977. Out of the 76045 laps committed in his career, Gray only led two of them.

Dick May  drove 47 races in #19 from 1974-1982. Following his career as a driver, May worked as a NASCAR official.

Chad Little  started #19 a total of 50 times in 1988  & 1990-1993.

Loy Allen Jr.  started 37 of his 48 career Cup Series races in #19 from 1994-1997. Allen was hired for Tri-Star’s #19 Hooters Ford in 1994. He won the pole position for the season-opening Daytona 500 (the first rookie to ever do so), finishing 22nd. He won two more poles at Atlanta and the Michigan, as well as the outside pole for that year’s running of the Pepsi 400. However, Allen’s team missed twelve races due to a tight budget. He only had a best finish of 11th at Charlotte. In addition, he only had two more top-20 finishes, and had a DNF count of seven. It kept the team from making a serious bid at NASCAR Rookie of the Year honors, and Allen Jr. finished 39th in points that year.

The #19 car was Evernham Motorsports’ first foray into Cup racing. It debuted at the 2000 Chevrolet Monte Carlo 400 at Richmond International Raceway as the #19 Motorola Ford. 20-year old Busch Series driver Casey Atwood  drove the car to a nineteenth-place finish. The abbreviated season was capped off by Atwood’s tenth place finish at Homestead that year. For Evernham’s full-time debut in 2001, Atwood  was named as the driver of the 19 car, teammate to Bill Elliott’s 9 car. The team was part of Dodge’s reentry into NASCAR, with Dodge Dealers sponsoring the full season. The year was off to a sluggish start when Atwood failed to qualify at the spring Atlanta race, but picked up steam towards the end of the year, winning the pole at Phoenix International Raceway, and almost winning the Homestead race before relinquishing the lead to teammate Elliott late in the race. Atwood barely missed wrestling the rookie of the year crown away from Kevin Harvick, despite Harvick finishing much higher in the points (ninth) and winning twice. For the 2002 season Casey was moved the the #7 Dodge , an Evernham satellite team. The inferior equipment would ultimately lead to the demise of Awtood’s once promising career. Atwood started 38 races from 2000-2001 in #19.

Jeremy Mayfield took over for Atwood in the #19 starting in the 2002 season. Mayfield earned 2 wins in 165 starts in the number. Mayfield struggled in his initial year with Evernham, posting just four top tens and finishing 26th in points. He won a pole at Talladega Superspeedway the next year however, and improved to 19th in points. 2004 was even better, winning at Richmond  and barely making the cut for the inaugural Chase For The NEXTEL Cup. He claimed one more win at Michigan  in 2005 and also made the Chase for the NEXTEL Cup once again. However, after the 2006 Allstate 400 at the Brickyard , where an early-race crash dropped the #19 team out of the top-35 in owner points (thus requiring the team to qualify for each race on time), Ray Evernham replaced Mayfield with Bill Elliott for the race at Watkins Glen, citing a lack of performance through the 2006 season. However, in affidavits filed in court Mayfield blamed his lack of performance and subsequent termination from the team on Evernham’s heavy involvement with his rookie driver Erin Crocker , and the “close personal relationship” that developed between the two. Evernham and Crocker are now married.

On August 16, 2006, Elliott Sadler, after leaving Robert Yates Racing due to differences, was officially named the driver of the #19 car for the remainder of the 2006 season, as well as being named the driver for the 2007 season. In his first race, Sadler qualified second and finished tenth. This was the #19 car’s best finish of the 2006 season until Sadler scored a sixth-place finish at New Hampshire several weeks later. After the conclusion of the 2006 NASCAR season with Sadler at the wheel, the #19 team finished 34th in owner points, guaranteeing it a spot in the first five races of the 2007 season. In November 2007, Best Buy  was announced as the new official sponsor for fifteen races in the 2008 NASCAR Sprint Cup season. Later Stanley  and McDonald’s  were announced as the two other primary sponsors on the #19. On December 27, 2008, GEM announced that A.J. Allmendinger would be replacing Sadler in the #19 for the 2009 season. At the same time the team also announced several of its sponsors were considering leaving the team and that Ray Evernham had cleared his personal belongings out of the team’s race shop, but it was not clear whether it was related to the hire. On January 3, 2009, Sadler’s attorney announced that he would be seeking a breach of contract lawsuit against GEM for the dismissal. Looking to avoid the lawsuit GEM and Sadler’s attorneys reached a settlement six days later that would return Sadler to the #19 for 2009 while keeping Allmendinger with the team. Sadler had five top-ten finishes in 2009, and finished twenty-sixth in points. Stanley was the team’s sponsor for all 36 races in 2010. Due to a lack of results, Sadler announced his departure from the team in mid-season allowing this team to shut down. The team was considered to return in 2012 after Clint Bowyer was offered a contract, but Bowyer accepted a 3-year contract with Michael Waltrip Racing to drive the #15 5-hour Energy Toyota Camry, thus leaving this team inactive.

Mike Bliss  started the #19 a total of 29 time between 2012-2013.

Starting in 2015 Carl Edwards began driving the #19 Toyota full time for Joe Gibbs Racing. He won 2 races that year: The Coke 600 and the Southern 500, and was eliminated after the Eliminator round, finishing 5th in points.

In 2016, Carl returned to JGR and the #19 team.

Edwards dominated the final laps of the 2016 Food City 500 to win the race after starting on pole. He also dominated nearly the whole race as he led 276 of 500 laps, holding off Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Kurt Busch on 4 restarts to win the race. On the final lap at Richmond, Edwards won the race after making a last-lap pass on teammate Kyle Busch, by moving him up the race track. He became the first driver to make a last lap pass in Richmond Speedway’s history. This elevated him from 6th in the standings to 3rd.

Carl would qualify for the chase and win a rain shortened race at Texas to clinch a spot in the final four. In the final race at Homestead-Miami speedway, he was caught up in a wreck with ten laps to go.

On January 9, 2017, FOX Sports reported Edwards planned to step away from NASCAR to pursue other opportunities. In his retirement press conference on January 11, Edwards said, “I don’t have a life raft I’m jumping onto; I’m just jumping. And in a way, that makes it easier. This is a pure, simple, personal decision.” Carl started 72 races in #19 with 5 wins.

Daniel Suarez took over the #19 Camry following Edward’s departure. Suarez had a moderately successful rookie season, posting 12 top-10 finishes with a best finish of 3rd at Watkins Glen.

Suarez was involved in controversy from one of his now former sponsors, Subway. In July, at the New Hampshire Motor Speedway as a publicity stunt to gain more fans with the help of NBC Sports, he gave out free Dunkin Donuts doughnuts out to fans camping out in the infield and the surrounding areas of the track. About a month and a half later at the end of August, his sponsor Subway decided to pull out, with a race remaining on their contract. It was later revealed that Suarez “breached his contract with promoting with a competitor”. Controversy arose since this was announced over 45 days after the promo aired. Fans and media claim that Subway wanted out A.S.A.P of their contract. A week later, Camping World CEO, Marcus Lemonis said he would personally sponsor Suarez for the race and it was announced on October 10th that Camping World would sponsor 19 car for Talladega.

During the 2018 season, Suárez won his first career Cup Series pole at Pocono, after Kevin Harvick and Kyle Busch’s qualifying times were disallowed following inspection. He also scored a career-best second place in the race. Suárez, however, struggled to stay consistent throughout the season with three top-fives and nine top-10 finishes.

On September 21, 2018, it was reported that Suárez removed all references to Joe Gibbs Racing from his Twitter profile, hinting that he would be out of the team by the end of the 2018 season. On November 7, 2018, it was announced that Suárez would be replaced by Martin Truex Jr. following the closure of fellow Toyota team Furniture Row Racing. Suarez will head to Stewart-Haas racing along with sponsor  Arris to join the #41 team.

In 2019, Martin Truex Jr. began piloting the #19 car for JGR. He scored 4 wins in the regular season at  Richmond (his first Cup win on a short track), Dover, Charlotte, and Sonoma. In the playoffs he would score 3 more wins at Richmond, Las Vegas, and Martinsville. At the season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway, Truex dominated the first half of the race, winning the first stage and leading into green flag pit stops at the midpoint of stage 2. However, the race and championship hopes unraveled due to a miscue during the pit stop, in which the left and right front tires were switched around, and installed to the incorrect sides. The pit road error forced an unscheduled stop and rendered Truex a lap down for much of the second stage. He recovered and began to rally back through the field, but could not overcome the loss of track position, ultimately finishing second in the race to teammate Kyle Busch and in the final championship standings for the second season in a row.

In 2020, Truex Jr. won the Spring race at Martinsville, but ultimately failed to find the dominant form of the previous few seasons. This may have been partially due to the departure of  crew cheif Cole Pearn at the conclusion of the 2019 season. Truex missed the Championship 4 for the first time since 2016 and finished 7th in points.

2021 saw Truex notching 4 more victories: Phoenix, Martinsville, Darlington, and Richmond. Truex earned a spot in the Championship 4 before ultimately finishing runner up in the race and the Championship to Kyle Larson.

In 2022, Truex would fail to win a race for the first season since 2014. Ultimately this would cost him a spot in the Playoffs, despite being 4th in the regular season point standings

He returned to victory lane 3 times in 2023, scoring victories at Dover, Sonoma, and New Hampshire. At the conclusion of the Daytona night race, he had clinched the regular season championship, though he would ultimately finish 11th in the season standings. Truex has 180 starts in #19 to date, and he will return in 2024.

Jason “LEFturn” Leffler , 2 starts

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