Save these stats: Facts to know heading to Bristol

The Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series makes its eighth stop of the 2019 season for Sunday's Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway. Take a deep dive into the stats, trends and story lines for drivers like Chase Elliott, Ryan Blaney, Kyle Busch and more to get ready for racing at the Tennessee short track.


RELATED: Take a further dive into driver stats

Kyle Busch heads into Bristol with a 3.7 average finish so far this season – a personal best for him through the first seven races. Aside from 'Rowdy,' only three other drivers currently hold an average finish better than 10th, including Denny Hamlin (5.7), Kevin Harvick (8.7) and Kurt Busch (9.6). Busch has finished in the top 10 in all seven events, becoming the 17th driver in history to done so and first since Joey Logano and Kevin Harvick both accomplished it in 2015.

Want more proof that Kyle Busch is the driver to beat? Busch holds the most Bristol wins by active drivers with seven triumphs. He's also the winner of five of the last 11 short-track races and has 15 total short-track wins, highest among active drivers. Oh yeah, and he's the defending winner of this race.

Ryan Blaney has led a total of 195 laps this year, which leads drivers among most laps led in 2019 without a win. Kyle Larson is second at 142 laps, while Kevin Harvick is third at 133 laps.

Jimmie Johnson has now gone 66 races without a victory, tying the longest of former Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jeff Gordon's career from 2009-11. Winless streaks of over 50 races have been broken at Bristol on five occasions throughout NASCAR history. Johnson finished third in the Food City 500 in 2018 and heads to the .533-mile track with boosted confidence following a fifth-place at Texas.

While Jimmie Johnson holds the best average finish at Bristol since 2014 (among drivers to compete in all 10 races in that span) at 8.3, it's Ricky Stenhouse Jr. who is a close second at 10.2. Stenhouse Jr. finished fourth in the Food City 500 in 2018. Overall, he holds two runner-up results, four top-five and six top-10 finishes at the short track.

Ford Performance has shown its muscle with the new Mustang. Ford drivers have led a total of 1,120 laps in seven races, more than Toyota (610) and Chevrolet (415) combined. Toyota also has yet to win a pole in 2019.

Hoping Martin Truex Jr. can finally break into Victory Lane at a short track for the first time in his career? Well, Bristol might not be the best shot for him to do it. Truex Jr. holds one top-10 finish in the last 13 races at Bristol. Although he was running well in the summer race last year before a crash triggered by Kyle Busch, the No. 19 driver only holds an average finish of 21.1 in 26 starts.

Are you part of the crowd that thinks Kevin Harvick is in a "slump" without a win yet this season? Well, Bristol could bode well for him to turn the tide. Harvick has finished in the top 10 in the last seven straight races at Bristol, including a win in August of 2016. The Stewart-Haas Racing driver has also finished in the top three in three of the last seven trips to the concrete oval. So far in 2019, he's finished fourth in three of the last six races.

Joe Gibbs Racing has had at least three cars finish in the top 10 in every race this season, equaling an all-time record they set in 2015. In total, JGR drivers have scored 13 top fives and 21 top 10s so far in 2019 -- both serving as the most all time through the first seven races of a season.

Chase Elliott has spent an impressive amount of time in the top five the past two races -- 97.6 percent at Martinsville and 40.1 percent at Texas. You can potentially expect more of the same at Bristol, where Elliott has two top fives and three top 10s in six starts.