Needing some random and totally useless NASCAR facts about the 2012 season to tantalize your friends with at your New Year's Eve party? You've come to the right spot! Today, it's the Nationwide Series!
Ricky Stenhouse Jr. scored 29 more points to win the title this year than he did last year. That's attributable in part to four more wins (6 to 2) and three more top 10s (19 to 16).
In fact, both Elliott Sadler and Austin Dillon scored more points in 2012 than Stenhouse did in 2011 when he won the title.
Just like younger brother Ty in the Camping World Truck Series, Austin Dillon completed the most laps in the Nationwide Series and completed all but one circuit. That's pretty impressive. That one lap he missed was at the second Iowa race when he finished 15th, the first car a lap down.
To continue the Dillon theme, he had the highest average finish of all Nationwide regulars with an average finish of 7.1. Stenhouse's average finish was 7.3, while Sadler's was 7.5.
13 drivers started all 33 Nationwide Series races. Jason Bowles was the only one of them to not score a top 10 finish.
Drivers who weren't eligible for Nationwide Series points won 20 races, led by Joey Logano with nine. Other points-ineligible winners were Brad Keselowski (3), Kevin Harvick (2), Kurt Busch (2), Carl Edwards, Regan Smith, James Buescher, Nelson Piquet Jr. and Nur Ali. (OK, so we're kidding on that one.)
413 points separated Stenhouse from the 10th place driver in the Nationwide standings, Danica Patrick. To put that in an average finish perspective, while Stenhouse's points average out to approximately 7th place, Patrick's average finish was 18.8.
Stephen Leicht boasted the series worst start-to-miles driven ratio. In five races, Leicht completed 24.57 miles, good for an average of 4.914 miles per race. And Leicht made no starts at tracks shorter than a mile.
The first race on the new configuration at Kansas Speedway boasted the most cautions in the series at 12. The only other race in double digits in the yellow flag category was the second Phoenix race. The fewest number of cautions came at Kentucky (2).
Predictably, the three races with the most lead changes were the three restrictor plate races. The non-restrictor plate race with the most lead changes was the fall Charlotte race with 21. 15 races featured fewer than 10 lead changes.
