In NASCAR Cup Series competition the #24 car has started 1,665 races with 64 drivers and has 103 wins, 97 poles, 427 top 5s, and 743 top 10s.
Jeff Gordon drove the #24 in 797 consecutive starts from 1992-2015 for 93 wins, 3rd most all time. In 1992, Roush Racing owner Jack Roush expressed interest in signing Gordon, which would keep him in the Ford Racing stable, but Gordon’s stepfather John Bickford had wanted Ray Evernham as crew chief, but Roush stated he selected crew chiefs, not his drivers. Gordon and Evernham were signed away from Bill Davis Racing after Rick Hendrick watched Gordon’s first Busch Series victory at Atlanta Motor Speedway in March of 1992.
The car number was originally to have been 46 , a car fielded by Hendrick for Greg Sacks for the filming of Days of Thunder in 1989, but was changed after a licensing conflict with Paramount Pictures. The number 24 was selected due to it having little significance in NASCAR history prior to Gordon. Gordon debuted in the 1992 Hooters 500, with the now iconic DuPont rainbow paint scheme designed by Sam Bass, qualifying twenty-first and finishing thirty-first following a crash.
The team went full-time in 1993 with crew chief Ray Evernham. Gordon won his Twin 125 qualifying race at Daytona and finished fifth in the Daytona 500 . He finished fourteenth in points and took home rookie of the year honors. In 1994, Gordon won his first career race at the Coca-Cola 600 and also won the inaugural Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis. Gordon improved to eighth in the points that year. The following year, Gordon would go on to win the 1995 Winston Cup (Sprint Cup)championship . He finished runner-up to teammate Terry Labonte for the 1996 championship. He was given the nickname “Wonder Boy” by Dale Earnhardt, and his crew was called the “Rainbow Warriors” . In addition to the 1997 Daytona 500 , Gordon won back-to-back championships in 1997 and 1998 and also tied Richard Petty’s modern era record for most victories in a season with thirteen.
Gordon won the 1999 Daytona 500, but the team struggled with consistency that year. Crew chief Ray Evernham announced he was leaving the team to help with Dodge’s return to NASCAR that September. He was replaced by Brian Whitesell, who guided Gordon to wins in the first two races after Evernham’s departure. At the end of the season, Gordon signed a lifetime contract with the team that gave him part ownership. In 2000, Whitesell moved to a new position within the organization and was replaced by Robbie Loomis. Gordon picked up his fiftieth career victory at Talladega but finished ninth in points. He bounced back in 2001, winning his fourth championship.
In 2002, Gordon became car owner for Jimmie Johnson and announced his first wife Brooke had filed for divorce. He finished fourth in points in 2003. In 2004, Gordon finished third in the inaugural Chase for the Nextel Cup. After winning three of the first nine races in 2005 including the Daytona 500 , his season fell into a downward spiral. Gordon missed the chase for the Nextel Cup and finished eleventh in points that year, which was the first time since his rookie season that he finished outside the top ten in points. 2006 was Gordon’s comeback year. With the help of new crew chief Steve Letarte, Gordon would rebound to make the Chase for the Sprint Cup and finish sixth in points. In 2006 he also married his second wife Ingrid Vandebosch.
In 2007, despite winning six races and scoring a modern era record thirty top 10s, Gordon wound up finishing second in points to teammate Jimmie Johnson. In 2008 Gordon returned to the Chase, but he failed to win a race for the first time since his rookie year. Despite that statistic, he managed to enter the Chase and finish seventh in the season points standings. At the end of the 2008 season, Gordon unveiled on The Today Show his new Firestorm paint scheme for 2009 and beyond. Beginning in 2011, Alan Gustafson became the crew chief of the No. 24 team. Gordon’s primary sponsor changed to AARP and Gordon partnering to form the “Drive to End Hunger” initiative. The deal lasts for 22 races over the next two years, with Pepsi and DuPont continuing their associate deals. The new combination saw a resurgence for Gordon, as he won at Phoenix, Pocono, and Atlanta and finished 8th in points.
The following season, Gordon would be hampered by bad luck during most of the regular season. However, a win at Pocono and a 2nd place finish at Richmond vaulted Gordon into the 2012 Chase. At the Phoenix race, Gordon would tangle with fellow Chase contender Clint Bowyer, intentionally taking him out late in the race after initial contact early on. Gordon was fined $100,000 by NASCAR for the incident.
Gordon bounced back to take his first win in the season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway, the first time a Hendrick team had won at the circuit in Sprint Cup, in the final race for DuPont as Gordon’s sponsor, as a restructuring of DuPont meant the Performance Coatings group that sponsored Gordon would be spun off. That spinoff company, Axalta Coating Systems, owned by The Carlyle Group, replaced DuPont as the primary sponsor for the 14 races not covered by the AARP or Pepsi in 2013.
During the 2014 Coca-Cola 600 weekend, Gordon complained of back spasms, and skipped final practice; Regan Smith was tabbed to run in the event Gordon needed to be substituted, but Gordon ran the full 600 miles, finishing seventh. During the AAA Texas 500, Gordon and Keselowski were racing along with Jimmie Johnson for the win with a handful of laps left when Gordon collided with Keselowski, which cut out his own tire and led to him spinning. Gordon would fall to 29th, while Keselowski would finish third. Following the race, Gordon verbally confronted Keselowski in pit road over the incident with both drivers being surrounded by their pit crews. However, it escalated into a brawl due to Keselowski being shoved from behind by Harvick, who had also battled with Keselowski in the final laps. The brawl ended up involving the crew chiefs of both teams as well as other members from Kahne, Danica Patrick and Paul Menard’s teams. Both Gordon and Keselowski sustained facial cuts.
At Phoenix, Gordon finished 2nd to Harvick, but Newman edged him out for the fourth and final championship spot by one point to transfer to the final four in contention for the championship. Gordon won the pole for the final race at Homestead, and led a race-high 161 laps, but the decision to pit with 13 laps to go relegated him to 24th, and he finished 10th. The finish marked his 454th top-ten, surpassing Mark Martin for second in all-time top tens, behind Richard Petty’s 712. After the season ended, Gordon finished sixth in points; had the Chase not existed, he would have won a series record-tying 7th title based on total points scored in a season. Gordon, along with Austin Dillon, were the only drivers in 2014 to finish every race.
On January 22, 2015, Gordon announced that 2015 would be his last as a full-time driver, but did not rule out retirement entirely. Three days later, USA Today writer Jeff Gluck reported that Gordon was hired by NASCAR on Fox to work as a rotating analyst for Xfinity Series races alongside Kevin Harvick and Brad Keselowski. Gordon’s 2015 season climaxed at Martinsville in October where he would win his only race of the season, clinching a spot in the Championship 4. Gordon finished 3rd in the final standings.
Starting in 2016, Gordon became a full-time member of the NASCAR on FOX broadcasting team, sharing the booth with Mike Joy and Darrell Waltrip. He was brought out of retirement in late 2016 to fill-in for injured Dale Earnhardt Jr and Hendrick Motorsports. These 8 starts in car #88 are the only races in Gordon’s Cup Career in a number that is not #24. Following the 2021 season, Gordon departed the announcers booth to take on a larger role a HMS.
After Jeff Gordon’s retirement, 2014 XFINITY Series Champion Chase Elliott was promoted to the Cup series to take the helm of the #24 car, bringing his sponsor NAPA Auto Parts with him.
In his Daytona 500 debut, Elliott won the pole and, at the age of 20, became the youngest pole-sitter in 500 history. Elliott led three laps in the race, but on lap 18, spun exiting turn four and slid into the grass, damaging the front of the car. Elliott returned to the race on lap 59, 40 laps down, and finished 37th.
The next week he finished 8th at Atlanta for his first Sprint Cup top ten finish. The following week, at Las Vegas, Elliott showed a strong car all day and even had his car inside the top 5 with 40 laps to go, but crashed and finished 38th. Elliott picked up more top tens during the spring, finishing 5th at Texas for his first career Top-5, 4th at Bristol, 5th at Talladega, 9th at Kansas, 3rd at Dover, 8th in the Coca-Cola 600, and a career best 2nd at Michigan.
He won the fan vote to advance into the All-Star Race along with Danica Patrick where he finished a respectable 7th after nearly winning the final segment of the Sprint Showdown, losing to Kyle Larson in a photo finish.
At Pocono for the running of the Axalta “We Paint Winners” 400, Elliott would have his breakout race of his Sprint Cup career, Elliott would start 13th and later get the lead in the race and he would lead a race high of 51 laps, leading the most laps in a Sprint Cup race for the first time in his career. On a restart Elliott would lose the lead and then race came down close to fuel but the fuel would hold and he would finish 4th. At Michigan in June, Elliott finished second after he missed a shift in the lead. He was one of the first rookies to qualify for The Chase for the Sprint Cup, along with Chris Buescher, since Denny Hamlin in 2006.
His sophomore season of 2017 showed improvement and frustration. Elliott started the 2017 season by winning the pole for the Daytona 500 for the second year in a row. He followed it up with a win in the first Can-Am Duel race, becoming the first driver since Dale Earnhardt in 1996 to win both the Daytona 500 pole and a qualifying race and the third in NASCAR history.
At Talladega on May 7, 2017 he was involved in a 16 car pileup that nearly saw him flip over, as his car got airborne. At Michigan in June Elliott got his 3rd second place finish in a row at the track. On October 1st, Elliott had another chance at his first career win leading his first 138 laps at Dover and having a 4 second lead over Kyle Busch with 50 laps to go, but caught lap traffic and allowed Busch to pass Elliott with 2 laps to go for the win while Elliott finished second.
At the fall race at Martinsville, Elliott was able to take the lead from Brad Keslowski with 4 to go, but his winning chances were ruined after being hit by Denny Hamlin from behind and spun out with 3 to go. Unhappy with Hamlin, he drove him to the outside wall after the race ended on the cooling lap. “My mom always said if you don’t have anything nice to say don’t say anything at all,” Elliott told NBCSN. “He’s not even worth my time. … We had a good opportunity. I can’t control his decisions and whatever the hell that was. On to Texas.” He later got an apology from Hamlin after the race via twitter.
At Phoenix, Elliott was in a must-win situation to advance to Miami. He did lead two final laps of the race but once again, his win got taken away as Matt Kenseth passed him late in the race and ended up finishing 2nd that ended his championship hopes. Elliott would finish 5th in Cup Series points that year.
Elliott returned to Hendrick Motorsports and the Cup series in 2018, but not driving #24. His car was be re-branded as #9, the number his father famously drove, and the #24 transferred to his new teammate- William Byron. Elliott started a total of 72 races in car #24, fourth all time.
In 2018 William Byron inherited Kasey Kahne’s No. 5 team, renumbered to No. 24, including crew chief Darian Grubb. In his first season in the Cup Series, Byron earned 4 top-10 finishes and failed to finish 9 times. Byron clinched rookie of the year honors after the penultimate race of the year at ISM Raceway, becoming the second driver next to Erik Jones to win rookie of the year in all three national series. On October 10, 2018, Hendrick Motorsports announced that Darian Grubb will move on to a technical director position while Chad Knaus would take over crew chief duties for Byron and the No. 24 in 2019.
Byron started the 2019 season on a strong note as he won the Daytona 500 pole, heading a Hendrick lockout of the first two rows. Byron earned 2 runner up finishes and a total of 5 top-5s across the 2020 season, the first top-5s of his Cup career. His consistency in the regular season landed him in the playoffs for the first time in his career. Byron finished sixth at the Charlotte Roval to advance to the Round of 12. He was eliminated in the Round of 12 after the Kansas race.
In 2020, Byron scored the win in Duel 2 of the Daytona qualifying races to start fourth in the Daytona 500. He scored his first career Cup victory at the track in August at the Coke Zero Sugar 400, avoiding various wrecks and winning in overtime to advance to the playoffs. Byron became the only driver to win a NASCAR points-paying race in the #24 besides Jeff Gordon. However, he was eliminated following the third round at Bristol after finishing 38th due to an accident.
In 2021, Byron scored his second career victory by taking the checkered flag at Homestead Miami Speedway. His victory secured his place in the 2021 NASCAR Playoffs. Byron made it to the Round of 12, but struggled with poor finishes at Las Vegas and Talladega. Following the Charlotte Roval race, he was eliminated from the Round of 8. He finished the season 10th in the standings.
Byron scored 2 wins early in the 2022 season at the newly reconfigured Atlanta and Martinsville. At the Texas playoff race, Byron spun Denny Hamlin towards the infield grass during a late-caution period; he was subsequently fined $50,000 and the No. 24 was docked 25 driver and owner points. Byron was eliminated from the playoffs after the Round of 8, though he finished a career high of 6th in the final standings.
2023 was a year of dominance for Byron, scoring 6 wins, 15 top-5s, and 21 top-10s in 36 races. He would contend for the championship in the season finale at Phoenix, but ultimately he would finish 4th in the race and 3rd in the standings, a career high. Byron has 10 wins in his 216 starts in car #24, and he will return in 2024.
No relation to Jeff or Robby, Cecil Gordon drove in the NASCAR Grand National (Cup) Series, for 17 years and drove in a total of 449 races, 373 in #24 from 1970-1983. He never won and never got a pole, but got 29 top fives, 111 top tens. He finished third in points in 1971 and 1973. He completed 112,908 laps and only led 23 of them.
Other notable names in #24
Bobby Allison, 11 starts
Lennie Pond, 11 starts
Bob Welborn, 8 starts
Morgan Shepherd, 7 starts
Dick Trickle, 6 starts
Tiny Lund, 3 starts
Butch Gilliland, 3 starts
Kenny Wallace, 3 starts
Glen Wood, 1 start
Richard Petty, 1 start
Curtis Turner, 1 start