nascaR.data

nascaR.data provides historical race results from NASCAR’s top three series: Cup (1949-present), NXS (1982-present), and Trucks (1995-present). Explore driver, team, and manufacturer performance in a race-by-race, season, or career format. This data has been expertly curated and scraped with permission from DriverAverages.com.

Note for v3.0.0: The second-tier series identifier has changed from "xfinity" to "nxs". See vignette("migrating-to-nxs") for details.

Installation

Install from CRAN:

install.packages("nascaR.data")

Or install the development version from GitHub:

remotes::install_github("kyleGrealis/nascaR.data")

Note: This package requires the arrow package for reading parquet data from cloud storage. It will be installed automatically.

Loading Data

All data is served from cloud storage. Use load_series() to access race results:

library(nascaR.data)

cup <- load_series("cup")
nxs <- load_series("nxs")
truck <- load_series("truck")

Data is cached locally after the first download for instant access. Use refresh = TRUE to force a fresh download, or clear_cache() to wipe the cache.

Data is updated automatically every Monday during the racing season (February through November).

In the Pits

NASCAR is one of the top-tier racing sports in North America and competes against Formula-1 and IndyCar for the top viewership spot. Approximately 3.22 million people watch a race on any given weekend throughout the season. The nascaR.data package is the result of wanting to share a passion for the sport and provide an option to the typical go-to packages when learning new data cleaning & visualization tools.

Data Structure

Three series are available via load_series():

load_series("cup"): NASCAR Cup Series race results (1949-present)
load_series("nxs"): NASCAR NXS (second-tier) race results (1982-present)
load_series("truck"): NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series results (1995-present)

Each dataset contains detailed race information including:

Race details (Season, Race number, Track, Name)
Results (Finish position, Start position)
Performance metrics (Laps completed, Laps led, Points earned)
Driver and team information

Data is sourced with permission from DriverAverages.com and is automatically updated every Monday at 5AM EST during the racing season (February through November).

Usage

Load the package:

library(nascaR.data)

Driver, Team, & Manufacturer Data

Use the suite of get_*_info() functions to examine specific performance results on a race-by-race, season, or career level.

# Career results across all series
get_driver_info("Christopher Bell")

Driver: Christopher Bell
# A tibble: 3 × 8
  Series Seasons `Career Races`  Wins `Best Finish` `Avg Finish` `Laps Raced` `Laps Led`
  <chr>    <int>          <int> <dbl>         <int>        <dbl>        <int>      <int>
1 Cup          6            216    13             1         14.5        54607       2717
2 NXS          7             81    19             1         10.3        13092       3272
3 Truck        7             58     7             1          8.4         8213       1246

# Season results across all series
get_driver_info("Christopher Bell", type = "season")

Driver: Christopher Bell
# A tibble: 20 × 8
   Series Season Races  Wins `Best Finish` `Avg Finish` `Laps Raced` `Laps Led`
   <chr>   <int> <int> <dbl>         <int>        <dbl>        <int>      <int>
 1 Cup      2020    36     0             3         20.2         9428         18
 2 Cup      2021    36     1             1         15.8         8911        100
 3 Cup      2022    36     3             1         13.8         8816        573
 4 Cup      2023    36     2             1         12.9         8868        599
 5 Cup      2024    35     3             1         12.8         9298       1145
 6 Cup      2025    35     4             1         11.2         9286        282
 7 NXS      2017     8     1             1         11.5         1423        156
 8 NXS      2018    32     7             1         11.1         5112        759
 9 NXS      2019    31     8             1          9.1         5574       2005
10 NXS      2021     2     1             1          3.5          300        174
11 NXS      2022     1     0             7          7            147          0
12 NXS      2024     2     2             1          1            353        151
13 NXS      2025     2     0            25         32            183         27
14 Truck    2015     7     1             1         11.9         1018        111
15 Truck    2016    23     1             1          9.5         3237        197
16 Truck    2017    23     5             1          5.7         3247        875
17 Truck    2018     1     0            28         28            184         31
18 Truck    2023     2     0             4         10            312          0
19 Truck    2024     1     0             5          5            134          2
20 Truck    2025     1     0             4          4             81         30

Or search by race team or manufacturer:

get_team_info("Joe Gibbs Racing")
get_manufacturer_info("Toyota")

The Backstretch

This package provides rich historical data for:

Analyzing race trends across series
Comparing driver performances
Creating visualizations of NASCAR statistics

Functions Reference

Function	Description
`load_series()`	Load race data from cloud storage (with caching)
`clear_cache()`	Clear cached data from memory and disk
`get_driver_info()`	Obtain race, season, or career performance results
`get_team_info()`	Team-specific race, season, or career results (i.e., Petty Enterprises)
`get_manufacturer_info()`	Ford, Chevy, Toyota, Dodge, even Studebaker

Contributing

We’re open to suggestions! If you have ideas for new features, please open an issue on our GitHub repository.

License

GNU General Public License (Version 3)

Developed by Kyle Grealis