JR Motorsports has finished at least one of its cars inside the top 10 in 78 consecutive races. One more ties the longest such streak in the history of NASCAR's second-tier series, 79, set between 2008 and 2010 by the team now called Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing.
Race 79 is Saturday's Pennzoil 250, 100 laps around the 2.5-mile Indianapolis Motor Speedway oval, 4 p.m. ET on the CW.
One of the five cars the team enters will be driven by Chase Elliott, the 2020 Cup champion, making his second start of the season in the JR Motorsports No. 88. His first was at Chicagoland, where he led 78 laps, won the second stage and finished second. He has two top 10s in three Indianapolis starts. His father Bill won the Brickyard 400, the Cup race at this track, on this same oval in August 2002.
The streak is one line in a season that has produced several. Through 21 races JR Motorsports has 13 wins, matching the most any team has ever had this deep into a season, and 61 top 10s, more than any team has ever had at this point. Five different drivers in four different cars have won for the team this year.
The one who has won most is Justin Allgaier, who drives the No. 7 and is the only past Indianapolis winner in Saturday's field. He took the 2018 race here. Nobody else entered has won at this track.
Allgaier is 40 and having the best season of a 525-start career. Six wins are his most ever, one more than 2018 and the most of any driver this year. He leads the series in wins, runner-up finishes, top fives, top 10s, stage wins and average finish. He has already clinched a spot in the Chase, the series' 12-driver playoff, and locked up the No. 1 seed. His lead over second place is 240 points, larger than the gap between second place and 14th.
The career file is stranger than the season. Allgaier ranks fourth all-time in starts, sixth in wins, third in runner-up finishes, third in top fives and fourth in laps led. In top 10s he is first, ahead of everyone who has ever run this series, with 318. No other driver sits inside the all-time top 10 of every one of those categories.
Allgaier's seeding is settled. Nobody else's is. Sheldon Creed can clinch a Chase spot Saturday by scoring 16 points, Corey Day 19, Carson Kvapil 27, Brandon Jones 45, Austin Hill 48 and Sammy Smith 64. Positions 11th through 14th, the last spot in and the three chasing it, are separated by 22 points.
Whoever wins will most likely be near the front early. The series has run 10 races at Indianapolis since 2012 and every winner started inside the top eight. In the nine of those where qualifying was held, the pole winner finished top four every time. The finish tends to be tight anyway: four of the last nine went to a pass for the win inside the final three laps, and the last two were settled on the final two.
Allgaier will start Saturday as the best driver in the series at the only track on the schedule where his name is the only one on the winners' list. The number worth watching is smaller than any of his. It is 79, and it belongs to everybody in the shop.