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We are closing in on the final handful of weeks of the 2023 NASCAR Cup Series season, the stock car series’ 75th anniversary campaign. To celebrate, each week through the end of the season, Ryan McGee is presenting his top five favorite things about the sport.

Top five best-looking cars? Check. Top five toughest drivers? We’ve got it. Top five mustaches? There can be only one, so maybe not.

Without further ado, our 75 favorite things about NASCAR, celebrating 75 years of stock car racing.

Previous installments: Toughest drivers | Greatest races | Best title fights


Top five best-looking cars

As we have dropped the hammer on our series of NASCAR 75 top-five greatest lists, we spent the first four weeks dealing with the racers and races, but what about the machines those racers drove in those races?

Nearly 2-ton machines snarling around ovals, road courses and dirt tracks at speeds exceeding 200 mph. It sounds like there’s no way they couldn’t all look cool while in the midst of doing that, but the reality is that, like people, some race cars just look more awesome than others, no matter whether they are pushing the edge of the envelope at Talladega or just sitting on the race shop floor.

So, what NASCAR models stand out above the rest in stock car racing’s grand 75-year-old showroom? Grab a can of Simoniz and a chamois cloth and read ahead as we present our top five best-looking NASCAR race cars.

Honorable mention: 1955-56 Chrysler 300C

Anyone who gets frustrated now when Hendrick Motorsports or Joe Gibbs Racing gets on a hot streak and seemingly wins all the races and titles would have totally hated these cars back in the day, and really hated the team that fielded them.

Team owner Elmer Carl “EC” Kiekhaefer ran a fleet of long, sleek Chrysler 300Cs for two seasons, and they won 49 races (plus three more via other cars) and both Grand National titles. Tim Flock, Buck Baker and their teammates drove machines up and down Daytona Beach with giant three-digit car numbers and a script “Full Jeweled” painted above that number.

The 300C was so dominant and looked so cool that every race led to protests from defeated rivals, although none ever turned up any cheating. It made Kiekhaefer so angry that he quit racing and went back to selling his Mercury boat motors in Wisconsin, taking his awesome 300Cs with him.

5. 1951-54 Hudson Hornet

The 300C’s predecessor was a car that was so sleek in its design that it looked like it was racing even when it was sitting still. Heck, even the car numbers were painted with cartoon vapor trails as if they were in constant motion.

The Hudson Hornet won 79 races in all, piloted by everyone from Daytona Beach legend Marshall Teague and two-time champ Herb Thomas to Flock’s 1952 ride that famously had a shotgun spot for his pet monkey, Jocko Flocko. This car was so cool that Paul Newman voiced it in “Cars” for a character featuring Thomas’ “Fabulous Hudson Hornet” paint scheme.

4. 1995-99 Chevrolet Monte Carlo

After years of success with its squared-off 1980s Monte Carlo models and the equally boxy Lumina made famous by “Days of Thunder,” Chevy showed up at Daytona in 1995 with a brand-new Monte Carlo that was shaped like it was designed by a wind tunnel itself.

It immediately started crushing the field, thanks to the arrival of some kid named Jeff Gordon. It’s also the machine that finally delivered a Daytona 500 win for Dale Earnhardt.

Unfortunately, it also delivered the super-whiny “Their spoiler is higher than ours!” aerodynamic age of Cup Series racing that was the late 1990s and early 2000s, but hey, it still looked cool.

3. 1987 Ford Thunderbird

The impetus for Chevy’s move to a sleeker machine in the 1990s was because even when it was winning races and Cups with the likes of Earnhardt and Darrell Waltrip, their rivals’ rides always seemed to look sleeker thanks to the perpetually futuristic design of the Ford Thunderbird.

Peak T-Bird was reached in 1987. That was the year when Bill Elliott’s No. 9 red-and-white Coors Ford set the record for fastest lap recorded in a stock car, 212.809 mph at Talladega, and Davey Allison embarked on a rookie campaign in a black-and-white ride with the gold No. 28 on the door.

2. 1969-70 Dodge Charger Daytona/Plymouth Superbird

Actually, just go on and throw the 1969 Ford Torino Talladega/Mercury Cyclone Spoiler in here too, because it also looked awesome and, if not for it, we wouldn’t have gotten the other two.

After Richard Petty won 27(!) races in 1967 driving a Plymouth Belvedere (a car that should probably also be on this list), Ford built an extended, slope-nosed beast with a Blue Crescent 429 engine in it and stomped the field. Dodge responded in late 1969 with its own Boss 429-powered Daytona, which took the Torino’s knife-edged style and added a 2-foot-high fiberglass wing on the back.

For real.

Petty, who had switched to Ford in 1969, came back to Chrysler and ran the now-world-famous Petty Blue No. 43 Plymouth Superbird. All season, those wings ran around speedways looking like a Star Wars prequel.

Also, can we take a moment and acknowledge an entry that includes the terms “Torino,” “Cyclone,” “Charger,” “Superbird,” “Belvedere,” “Blue Crescent” and “Boss”? Weren’t the names of everything just more awesome back then?

1. 1972 Dodge Charger

Could this list have been five Petty-driven machines and been done at that? Totally. From the NASCAR Convertibles Division (yes, that was a real thing) to Belvederes to Pontiacs, “His Royal Fastness” piloted some of the most beautiful rides ever witnessed on a racetrack (and also some of the ugliest, more on that coming in our next list).

The best-looking race car that has ever taken a green or checkered flag, though, is Petty’s 1972 Dodge Charger. That’s the one with the giant signature Charger grill, the raised rear end, “The Racer’s Edge” printed on the front spoiler, the slanted roof number and the thick-striped melding of STP DayGlo red with Petty Blue.

That color compromise dang near killed the deal that became the model for all future sponsorship contracts. For more on how that went down, read this story from 2010.

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Sources: Knights land Marner, give star 8 years

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Sources: Knights land Marner, give star 8 years

Mitch Marner was traded to the Vegas Golden Knights — with an eight-year extension in place, sources told ESPN on Monday. Forward Nicolas Roy will go to the Toronto Maple Leafs in return.

Marner’s new deal has a $12 million average annual value, according to sources. Marner, 28, was the biggest name entering Tuesday’s NHL free agency, and multiple teams were hoping to make pitches. Marner was the NHL’s fifth-leading scorer last season with 102 points — 36 more than the next-closest free agent. The winger was drafted by his hometown Maple Leafs with the No. 4 pick in 2015.

The Maple Leafs knew that Marner was looking to test free agency at the end of the season. Over the past few days, Toronto worked with Vegas, which was Marner’s preferred destination, on a trade. The Maple Leafs held Marner’s rights until just before midnight Tuesday.

Had Marner become an unrestricted free agent, he couldn’t have signed a deal for more than seven years.

Marner finished a six-year deal that paid him $10.9 million annually. Marner, who played for Team Canada at Four Nations and likely will make their Olympic team, has 221 goals and 741 points in nine NHL seasons.

Toronto general manager Brad Treliving has stayed busy this week, re-signing John Tavares and Matthew Knies while trading for Utah forward Matias Maccelli earlier Monday.

Roy, 28, is a center who is entering Year 4 of a five-year deal that pays him $3 million annually.

Ahead of the Marner trade, the Golden Knights created cap space by sending defenseman Nicolas Hague to the Nashville Predators on Monday.

The deal makes Marner the highest-paid player on Vegas, however, center Jack Eichel ($10 million AAV) is entering the final year of his contract and is eligible to sign an extension this summer. The Golden Knights might not be done this offseason. According to sources, defenseman Alex Pietrangelo is expected to go on long-term injured reserve, which could create more flexibility.

Sign-and-trades ahead of free agency are becoming a trend for NHL teams that know they will not sign their coveted player; last season, the Carolina Hurricanes dealt Jake Guentzel‘s rights to the Tampa Bay Lightning before he signed a seven-year deal.

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Sources: Panthers keeping Marchand, Ekblad

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Sources: Panthers keeping Marchand, Ekblad

Hours after re-signing Aaron Ekblad, the Florida Panthers kept another integral piece of their Stanley Cup team by re-signing Brad Marchand to a six-year contract extension, sources told ESPN’s Emily Kaplan.

Marchand’s deal has an average annual value of $5.25 million, sources told Kaplan.

Coming to terms with Ekblad on an eight-year extension worth $6.1 million annually left the Panthers with what PuckPedia projected to be $4.9 million in salary cap space.

There was the possibility that Marchand, 37, could have left the Panthers for a more lucrative offer elsewhere considering there were teams that had more than enough cap space to sign him.

Instead? Marchand, who arrived ahead of the NHL trade deadline from the Boston Bruins, appears as if he will remain in South Florida for the rest of his career.

Acquiring defenseman Seth Jones from the Chicago Blackhawks and then adding Marchand were two decisions made by Panthers general manager Bill Zito with the intent of seeing the Panthers win a second consecutive Stanley Cup as part of a run that now has included three straight Cup Final appearances.

Marchand, who was a pending UFA entering the final day before free agency begins Tuesday, used the 2025 postseason to further cement why the Panthers and other teams throughout the NHL would still seek his services. He scored 10 goals and finished with 20 points in 23 playoff games.

For all the contributions he made, his greatest came during the Cup Final series against the Edmonton Oilers.

Marchand, who previously won a Cup with the Bruins back in 2011, opened the series with a goal in the first three games. That includes the two goals he scored in the Panthers’ 5-4 double-overtime win to tie the series with his second being the game-winning salvo.

He scored two more goals in a 5-2 win in Game 5 that allowed the Panthers to take a 3-1 series lead before returning to Sunrise, Florida, where they closed out the series with an emphatic 5-1 win.

Capturing a consecutive title created questions about whether the Panthers can win a third in a row. But there was the understanding that it might be difficult given there was only so much salary cap space to re-sign Conn Smythe winner Sam Bennett, Ekblad and Marchand.

Knowing there was a chance they could lose one, or more, of them, Zito laid the foundation to retain the trio. He began by signing Bennett to an eight-year contract worth $8 million annually on June 27 before using Monday to sign Ekblad and Marchand.

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Sources: Provorov nets 7-year deal from Jackets

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Sources: Provorov nets 7-year deal from Jackets

Ivan Provorov decided to forgo free agency, with the veteran defenseman finalizing a seven-year extension Monday worth $8.5 million annually to remain with the Columbus Blue Jackets, sources told ESPN, confirming earlier reports.

With free agency slated to start Tuesday, the 28-year-old was one of the most notable defenseman who had a chance to hit the open market.

Provorov’s decision to stay with the Blue Jackets comes shortly after it was reported that Aaron Ekblad also avoided free agency by agreeing to an eight-year extension to remain with the Florida Panthers. That now leaves players such as Vladislav Gavrikov, Ryan Lindgren, and Dmitry Orlov among the more prominent pending UFAs who could be available should they fail to strike a deal with their current teams.

Retaining Provorov comes months after a season that witnessed the Blue Jackets shed the title of being a rebuilding franchise to one that could challenge for the playoffs in 2025-26.

Four consecutive seasons without the playoffs created the idea that the 2024-25 campaign could be another challenging one. But a six-game winning streak in January saw Columbus post a 22-17-6 record to create the belief that a turnaround could be in order.

The Jackets closed the season with another six-game winning streak but fell short of the final Eastern Conference wild-card playoff spot, which went to the Montreal Canadiens by two points.

Provorov would finish with seven goals and 33 points in 82 games while his 23 minutes, 21 seconds in average ice time was second behind Norris Trophy finalist Zach Werenski.

Re-signing Provorov comes in an offseason that saw the Blue Jackets also strengthen their bottom-six forward corps by adding Charlie Coyle and Miles Wood in a trade with the Colorado Avalanche.

PuckPedia projects that the Blue Jackets now have $20.957 million in cap space ahead of free agency.

TSN was first to report news of Provorov’s decision.

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