Dr. Diandra: RFK Racing by the numbers

Dominance — whether by manufacturers, owners or drivers — waxes and wanes with time. The racing team now known as RFK Racing is a prime example. So let’s look at RFK Racing by the numbers.

The team (then called Roush Racing) ran its first race in 1998. It became a NASCAR powerhouse by strategically pooling data from multiple cars and sharing resources.

Roush remains the only organization to have fielded five full-time Cup-level cars — and the only company to place five cars in the championship playoff system.

In 2010, NASCAR limited each owner to no more than four Cup Series teams to prevent a small number of very large companies from dominating the series.

Roush cut one car in 2010 to meet the mandate, and another in 2011. By 2017, the company was fielding only two cars.

Roush merged with Fenway Sports Group in 2007 to become Roush Fenway Racing, and then transitioned to RFK racing last year when Brad Keselowski became driver and part-owner.

Although RFK has won 137 races and 90 poles, the graph below shows its decline in recent years. The team hasn’t won a race since 2017, when Ricky Stenhouse Jr. had his career-best Cup season with wins at Talladega and Daytona.

Brad Keselowski is a Cup Series champion with 35 wins over 472 races. Chris Buescher, in his seventh full-time Cup Series season, has one win.

The Next Gen car was intended to minimize the advantages dominant teams had built up. Teams like Trackhouse Racing seized on that promise, earning wins and top-10 finishes.

RFK’s season started out promising, with both drivers winning their Daytona Duels. Things went downhill from there.

Keselowski has yet to post a top-5 finish and has only three top 10s. His streak of winning at least one race each season since 2011