When Brad Keselowski wheeled his Team Penske Ford to victory in Saturday nights' Coke Zero 400 at Daytona International Speedway, it was the 85th time the No. 2 has won a NASCAR Premier Series race.
And Keselowski will be one of the favorites again this week in the Quaker State 400 at Kentucky Speedway, where he's won two of the five Sprint Cup Series races run so far at the 1.5-mile track.
Team Penske has a long and successful history with the No. 2 dating back to 1991, when the team signed Rusty Wallace and resumed racing full time in NASCAR for the first time since 1976.
The highlight, of course, was Keselowski's NASCAR Sprint Cup Series championship in 2012, the only NASCAR Premier Series title for Team Penske so far.
But Keselowski's championship wasn't the first for the No. 2.
That honor belonged to the late Dale Earnhardt, who won his first of seven Cup titles in 1980, driving the No. 2 Chevrolet Monte Carlo for Mike Curb.
And go back a little further and you find the No. 2 competed in the very first NASCAR Strictly Stock Series race at the old Charlotte Speedway dirt track, where Sam Rice started 14th and finished fourth in a 1949 Oldsmobile.
In terms of race winners, the No. 2 has been driven to Victory Lane by some of the most revered names in NASCAR history. Wallace has the most wins in the No. 2 at 37, followed by Keselowski (19), Kurt Busch (8), Bobby Allison (7), Earnhardt (6), Bill Blair (3) and Tim Richmond (2).
David Pearson, Jim Paschal and Herb Thomas each had a single victory in the No. 2.
Thomas was the first to put the No. 2 in Victory Lane for a NASCAR Premier Series race, winning at Heidelberg Raceway in 1951 in an Oldsmobile.
By the numbers for the No. 2:
Races: 1,786
Drivers: 130
Wins: 85
Top 5s: 467
Top 10s: 811
Poles: 65
Laps led: 28,922
Laps run: 441,851
DNFs: 416
* All stats per DriverAverages.com
