2006 NASCAR Nextel Cup Series (Start Your Engines!)

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The 2006 NASCAR Nextel Cup Series was the 58th season of professional stock car racing in the United States and the 35th modern-era Cup series season.

This was the first season without Dale Earnhardt since 1974.

Teams and drivers

Complete schedule

Manufacturer Team No. Race driver
Chevrolet Cale Yarborough Motorsports 98 Jeremy Mayfield
Dale Earnhardt, Inc. 1 Martin Truex Jr. (R) Kevin Manion
8 Dale Earnhardt Jr. Tony Eury Jr.
14 Sterling Marlin Doug Randolph
17 Michael Waltrip Derrick Finley
48 Jimmie Johnson Chad Knaus
Furniture Row Racing 78 Kenny Wallace Joe Garone
Jimmy Spencer
Travis Kvapil
Max Papis
Haas CNC Racing 166 Jeff Green Harold Holly
Hall of Fame Racing 96 Terry Labonte Phillipe Lopez
Tony Raines
Hendrick Motorsports 5 Kyle Busch Alan Gustafson
25 Ricky Hendrick Steve Letarte
35 Casey Atwood Lance McGrew
50 Brian Vickers Peter Sospenzo
Joe Gibbs Racing 11 Denny Hamlin (R) Mike Ford
18 Dale Jarrett Steve Addington
20 Tony Stewart Greg Zipadelli
MB2 Motorsports 01 Joe Nemechek Ryan Pemberton
Morgan-McClure Motorsports 4 Scott Wimmer Chris Carrier
P. J. Jones
Todd Bodine
PPI Motorsports 32 Jerry Nadeau James Ince
Richard Childress Racing 07 Clint Bowyer Gil Martin
3 Kevin Harvick Todd Berrier
30 Dave Blaney Scott Miller
31 Jeff Burton Scott Miller
Robby Gordon Motorsports 107 Robby Gordon Greg Erwin
Dodge AK Racing 7 Alan Kulwicki Chris Andrews
BAM Racing 49 Brent Sherman (R) Ron Otto
Jimmy Spencer
Mike Wallace
Kevin Lepage
Chris Cook
Mike Bliss
Bill Davis Racing 22 Jeff Gordon Tommy Baldwin Jr.
23 Bobby Labonte
24 Ward Burton Kevin Hamlin
Chip Ganassi Racing

with Felix Sabates

40 David Stremme (R) Jeff Vandermoss
Scott Pruett
41 Reed Sorenson (R) Jimmy Elledge
42 Kenny Irwin Jr. Donnie Wingo
Evernham Motorsports 9 Kasey Kahne Kenny Francis
10 Scott Riggs Rodney Childers
19 Casey Elliott Ernie Elliott
Kelman Racing 86 Ryan Kelman Scott Searle
McDuffie Racing 170 Crissy Hillsworth
Moroso-Rudd Racing 82 Rob Moroso
83 Brendan Gaughan (R)
84 Shawna Robinson
Pacific Coast Racing 60 Chloe Johnson Jed Luke
69 Jenny Smith Barry Baker
80 Tim Johnson Charlie Davis
85 Belle Armstrong Scott Smith
Penske Racing South 2 Kurt Busch Roy McCauley
12 Tim Richmond
39 Ryan Newman Matt Borland
77 Blaise Alexander
Petty Enterprises 43 John Andretti Todd Parrott
44 Kyle Petty
45 Adam Petty Paul Andrews
46 Austin Petty
Ford Robert Yates Racing 28 Clifford Allison
38 Elliott Sadler
David Gilliland
88 Ernie Irvan Slugger Labbe
Roush Racing 6 Mark Martin Pat Tryson
16 Greg Biffle Doug Richert
66 Matt Kenseth Robbie Reiser
26 Jamie McMurray Jimmy Fennig/Wally Brown
99 Carl Edwards Bob Osborne
Steele Racing with Brett Favre 15 Tim Steele
90 Davey Allison
Wood Brothers/JTG Racing 21 Bill Elliott David Hyder
Pontiac Kennedy Racing 03 Melvin Kennedy Mark Cutter
04 Willy T. Ribbs

Technical changes

The next major round of model changes took place in 2006. The Ford Taurus, which had been run since 1998, was pulled from NASCAR competition after being discontinued, and was replaced by the brand-new Ford Fusion (a few underfunded teams continued using the Taurus).

Chevrolet upgraded the Monte Carlo to the Monte Carlo SS, marking the first time the "SS" moniker had been used in NASCAR since 1989.

Dodge made multiple changes to the problematic Charger. While the changes helped, especially on the superspeedways, Pacific Coast Racing still refused to run the model on the intermediates and instead continued using the 2004 Stratus. Penske and Petty also used the Stratus at certain intermediates such as California and Texas, before Dodge threatened to pull factory support from them; this caused Roger Penske to accuse Dodge of playing favorites with PCR, and he threatened to go back to Ford. This, in turn, caused Dodge to go back to the drawing board to completely rework the Charger nose for 2007.