Car number 54 has started 465 races with 3 wins, 9 poles, 67 top 5s, 166 top 10s, and 205 DNFs in the NASCAR Cup Series
Jimmy Pardue ran the #54 in 177 races from 1960-1964. During his career he earned 2 wins in #54. A part of his career was during the same time that the popular television show, “Car 54, Where Are You” was running on network television. On the door of his car, he added a small “Car” above the number, and “Here I Am” below it. In 1964, he was doing a tire test for Goodyear at Charlotte Motor Speedway, when a tire blew and caused him to lose control. The car went through the guardrail in Turns 3 and 4 and came to rest outside the track. The 33-year-old Pardue did not survive the wreck. Despite his season being cut short, he still finished 5th in points.
Lennie Pond started #54 a total of 141 times from 1973-1979. Pond beat out Darrell Waltrip to win the 1978 Talladega 500 in the #54, his only career win. Crew Chief Waddell Wilson would frequently change the setup on the car without telling Lennie, so Pond would regularly end up sleeping in his car so that Waddell wouldn’t be able to change the setup on his vehicle without him knowing about it.
Todd Bodine drove the #54 most recently. He ran 35 of 36 races in the 2003 season driving the National Guard Ford; he DNQ’d for the fall race at Talladega.
From 1969-1970 Bill Dennis made 24 starts in #54.
Robert Pressley drove the #54 for 3 races in 1994. His father Bob Pressley used the #54 while dominating his local short track.
In 2019 the #54 hit the track for 4 races as an extra entry for Rick Ware Racing. Garrett Smithley & J.J. Yeley each made 2 starts in the car.
Other notable names in #54:
Nance Mattingly , 14 starts
David Simko , 4 starts
Ralph Earnhardt , 1 start
Donnie Allison, 1 start
In the XFINITY series the #54 has started 299 races with 47 wins. The number was the flagship number for Kyle Busch Motorsports in 2012, with Kurt Busch starting 11 races in #54 with 1 win, with the rest of the season filled out by Kyle. Since Kyle did not find victory lane in 2012, he moved back to running Joe Gibbs Racing cars, bringing the #54 team with him.
In 2015, Kyle Busch’s Daytona crash sidelined him for the first half of the season, allowing a host of guest stars in the car. Kurt Busch has 11 starts in #54 with 1 win. Erik Jones started 8 races in the 54 car with 1 win. Sam Hornish Jr. started 7 races in #54 earning 1 win. Denny Hamlin has started 5 races in #54. John Hunter Nemecheck started 3 races in #54 with 1 win. Boris Said, Joey Coulter, Ty Dillon, Martin Truex Jr., Gray Gaulding, and Owen Kelley have also started the #54 in 5 or less races each.
In 2021 Ty Gibbs made 17 starts in the #54 car. Ty started with a bang, winning in his first XFINITY Series start at the Daytona Road Course. It was one of his 4 wins of the season, and Ty finished 13th in XFINITY series points, despite the limited schedule.
Ty became the full-time driver of the #54 for the 2022 season, where he would score an additional 7 wins on his way to becoming the 2022 XFINITY Series Champion. Ty will take his #54 to the Cup Series level in 2023.
KBM also fielded the #54 in the Truck Series. Bubba Wallace drove the number in 2013 & 2014, and has 4 wins in the series driving #54. Wallace’s 5th Truck Series win came on a weekend when he was honoring Wendell Scott by driving #34. The #54 was fielded by KBM again in 2015 with a rotating cast of drivers.
