This eye-popping NASCAR stat is exposing the truth about DNFs

Through 21 races of the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series season, it shouldn't come as a surprise that the carnage rate has been slightly down from 2025. Due to the elimination of the "win and in" playoffs and return of the Chase for the Cup, consistency is key and mistakes will kill you in points.

Last season, there were an average of 7.53 caution flags and 5.22 driver DNFs per race. This season, those numbers are down to 6.62 and 4.95. No driver completed every race in 2025, while in 2026, three competitors are still without a blemish.

They are Denny Hamlin, Erik Jones, and... checks notes... Carson Hocevar.

Yes. That Carson Hocevar.

Carson Hocevar's 2026 season is proving DNFs don't really correlate to driver errors

Hamlin is no surprise. He's leading the point standings for a reason. In addition to driving the overwhelmingly fastest car most weeks, he seldom ever puts himself in bad situations. Neither does Jones, who has long been one of the most underrated racers on the Cup Series circuit.

Then there's Hocevar. The Hurricane. The most notoriously reckless driver in the series, whose unapologetic aggression has turned many of his peers against him. Every other week, he's in the headlines for causing some incident that made somebody else mad.

Yet somehow, he hasn't recorded a single DNF. Because DNFs don't actually measure anything related to driver skill, or even avoiding mistakes.

The numbers prove it. Only 15% of DNFs during the 2026 season have come due to driver error. In a similar vein, only 22% of on-track incidents have resulted in a DNF for the driver at fault. The correlation is slim to none.

It gets better. If you exclude mechanical failures, there's a fourth driver who has finished every race this season: drumroll please... Ty Dillon.

Sure, Dillon might be one of the cleanest drivers on the grid (at least, most of the time). But who cares? When you're a 30th place driver, you're a 30th place driver. And anytime a stat can be led by a 30th place driver, it's not a very useful stat.

Hocevar is obviously much more talented than that, but not because of his ability to avoid mistakes. Because he doesn't. He's just been incredibly lucky that none of them have taken him out of a race yet this year. On the flip side, Ryan Blaney had nine DNFs in 2025, without a single one of them coming due to his own errors.

DNFs are the quarterback sacks of NASCAR. The vast majority of what they measure amounts to nothing but pure luck and situation, and if you're still using them as a basis for driver "consistency", you're vastly misled.