3 Drivers Whose First Career NASCAR Cup Series Win Came in Phoenix

Phoenix Raceway has a way of writing stories that stick. Many have conquered it, but very few have found their names in the fabric of this place.

Something about that one-mile oval in the Arizona desert brings out the kind of racing moments that get talked about for decades.

It’s not just a track, but it’s a proving ground. And for a handful of drivers throughout NASCAR history, Phoenix is where everything changed.

Where the grind finally paid off. Where the first career Cup win became real. Three names stand out. Three very different paths. One common thread is Phoenix.

1. Chase Briscoe

March 13, 2022. The Ruoff Mortgage 500. Chase Briscoe climbed out of the No. 14 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford and let the emotions take over completely. Tears streamed down his face before he even made it to the media area. He didn’t try to hide it. He didn’t have to. “It’s unbelievable,” Briscoe said. “I was crying the whole last lap. Just seven years ago, I was sleeping on couches, volunteering at race shops, and was literally driving home to give up. To be here driving for this team is a blessing.” That context matters. Briscoe didn’t arrive at Phoenix Raceway as a blue-chip prospect with a clear path forward. He scraped his way through the lower series, bet on himself when almost no one else would, and somehow turned perseverance into a career. By the time he pulled into Victory Lane at Phoenix, it was his 40th Cup Series start. The race itself was no gimme, either. Ryan Blaney dominated for stretches, leading 144 laps from the pole. But Briscoe’s pit crew kept him in the game with clean, fast stops, and when it mattered most, two late-race restarts with everything on the line, Briscoe held off a ferocious challenge from Ross Chastain and Tyler Reddick. He led 101 laps and crossed the finish line .771 seconds ahead of Chastain when it was all said and done. The win made Briscoe the 200th different winner in NASCAR Cup Series history. It gave Stewart-Haas Racing a jolt of energy early in the 2022 season. And it came in the car numbered 14, the same number once associated with Tony Stewart, Briscoe’s childhood hero. You genuinely could not script that any better.

2. Bobby Hamilton Sr.

Bobby Hamilton Sr. earned his reputation the hard way. It was through consistency, toughness, and a blue-collar approach to racing that never really drew headlines but always produced results. Hamilton’s first Cup win came at Phoenix International Raceway in the 1996 Dura Lube 500. Driving the No. 43 STP Pontiac for Petty Enterprises, Hamilton made it happen in a way that was very much on-brand for his style: methodical, controlled, and built on patience. For a driver who had spent years establishing himself as a solid mid-pack competitor capable of mixing it up with the best, that Phoenix win validated everything. It wasn’t flashy. Hamilton wasn’t a driver who commanded the spotlight or delivered quotable soundbites on a weekly basis. But the win was real, and Phoenix was the place that gave him his breakthrough moment in NASCAR’s premier division. He went on to win the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series championship in 2004 and remained a respected presence in the sport until his passing in 2008. For Hamilton, Phoenix represented exactly what the track has always represented. It is a place where a driver who simply refuses to quit eventually gets rewarded.

3. Alan Kulwicki

If you want to understand what Phoenix means to NASCAR history, you have to start here. You have to start with Alan Kulwicki. November 6, 1988. The Checker 500. Kulwicki, an independent owner-driver who had turned down a ride with Junior Johnson’s powerhouse operation to run his own team, drove his No. 7 Zerex Ford to victory at Phoenix International Raceway. It was his first career Cup Series win. And then he did something nobody had ever done before. Instead of pulling into Victory Lane the standard way, Kulwicki drove his car backward around the track, nose toward the outside wall, driver’s side facing the grandstands, so he could look directly at the fans celebrating his win. He called it the Polish Victory Lap, a nod to his Polish heritage. Phoenix witnessed the birth of a NASCAR tradition that drivers still carry on today. Kulwicki’s path to that Phoenix win was unlike anyone else’s. An engineer by training, he left a promising career in Wisconsin to chase a dream in NASCAR with minimal funding and maximum self-belief. When team owners came calling with bigger resources and better equipment, he turned them down and bet on himself. That Phoenix victory in 1988 proved he made the right call. He went on to win the 1992 NASCAR Winston Cup championship in one of the most dramatic final-race title fights the sport has ever seen. Tragically, he died in a plane crash in April 1993, just months after claiming that championship. But the Polish Victory Lap lives on. Every time a NASCAR driver pulls that backward loop after a win, Kulwicki’s Phoenix moment echoes through it.

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