– Five foreign-born drivers participated at Infineon Raceway: Marcos Ambrose (Australia), Patrick Carpentier and Ron Fellows (Canada), Juan Pablo Montoya (Colombia) and Max Papis (Italy). It was the largest contingent of foreign-born drivers in a race in NASCAR Sprint Cup history, eclipsing the previous mark of three which was set eight times – most recently at Infineon in 2007. – At Watkins Glen, three nations were represented among the top five for the first time in Sprint Cup Series history: Kyle Busch (first), Tony Stewart (second) and Martin Truex Jr. (fifth) from the United States, Marcos Ambrose (third) from Australia and Juan Pablo Montoya (fourth) is from Colombia. – The 28 different drivers that led at Talladega-2 set the all-time Sprint Cup Series record for different lap leaders in a race. It eclipsed the mark of 26 set at Talladega in July 1986 and tied in April 2001, also at Talladega. – Mark Martin started second six times this season – all as a result of timed qualifying. The modern era record for second-place starts is 10 by Jeff Gordon in 1996. Richard Petty (1964) and David Pearson (1968) each had 17 second-place starts – the all-time record – but both came in seasons with more than 48 races. – There has been a first-time pole winner in each of the past 22 years (1987-2008). – All 43 cars at Richmond in September completed the race, just the second time since the standardized 43-car field was implemented (1998) that all cars were running at the finish in a race. Driver Milestones.(NASCAR)(12-8-2008)
