76 years later: The shared history of Ryan Preece and NASCAR's forgotten champion

2026 has been a fun season for NASCAR fans interested in numerology, specifically in relation to race-winning car numbers.

Tyler Reddick was the first driver to ever win the Daytona 500 with the No. 45, while it also became the 31st different car number to win NASCAR’s biggest race.

Shane van Gisbergen finally got to drive his No. 97 in the Cup Series, and was the first driver in 21 years to win with it at the highest level of the sport.

Carson Hocevar was just the third driver to ever win with the No. 77, and Ty Gibbs gave the No. 54 its first Cup victory since 1978 — 48 years ago.

But perhaps most interesting story was the shock win by part-timer Corey Heim at San Diego. Heim, who later won again at Indianapolis, is the only driver to ever win a Cup race with the No. 67, doing so in the number’s 650th race!

76 years later, a champion’s number returns to Victory Lane

Ryan Preece, RFK Racing

Ryan Preece’s first-career NASCAR Cup win at Daytona was just the latest chapter in the rapidly changing history of race-winning car numbers. He won at Daytona in his 249th start, stealing the 16th and final Chase spot as he celebrated his first points-paying win as a Cup driver.

It was also a special win for the No. 60. That car number has started over 400 Cup races, but until Preece’s Daytona triumph, it only had one victory. That win came 76 years ago in just the sixth race run by the No. 60, and it happened in second-ever season for the Cup Series.

On May 30, 1950, Bill Rexford won the Poor Man’s 500 (actual race name) at Canfield Speedway — a half-mile dirt track in Ohio. After leading 80 of 200 laps, Rexford won by over two laps with Glenn Dunaway in the runner-up position.

That was the only win for Rexford as a driver, who actually went on to win the 1950 NASCAR Cup Series championship! At the age of 23, he is still the youngest champion in NASCAR Cup history, beating Jeff Gordon by eight months. There were some interesting circumstances around that title, like how Lee Petty was stripped of over 800 points for competing in a non-NASCAR sanctioned race. Rexford is also the only NASCAR Cup champion yet to make it into the Hall of Fame and is sometimes known as the sport’s ‘forgotten champion.’

Rexford used the No. 60 in seven of 17 events during that championship year, also running the No. 80, No. 20, No. 8, No. 59, No. 61, and No. 62.

Bill Rexford in 1951

So now the No. 60 has two Cup wins — 1950 via Rexford and 2026 via Preece. Rexford still holds the record for most laps led in a single race while driving the No. 60, but Preece has gotten close to that in past races and could very well eclipse it.

Before RFK Racing brought the number back part-time in 2024 (and then full-time from 2025 onward), the No. 60 was actually absent from the Cup Series for 13 years.

Numbers in the 60s haven’t won that many Cup races either, as Nos. 60-69 combine to have just eight total wins, and three of those have occurred in 2026 alone thanks to Heim and Preece.

Preece is now looking to make an improbable run at the 2026 title, and while unlikely, so was Rexford’s title run after his one and only Cup Series win…and history does love to repeat itself.