A Wisconsin driver with one Cup Series win, three Xfinity Series wins and a later move into the Trans-Am Series, where he won back-to-back TA class titles.
Paul Menard is an American driver from Wisconsin who raced full-time in NASCAR's Cup Series from 2007 to 2019. His only Cup win came at the 2011 Brickyard 400, and he later won Trans-Am TA class titles in 2024 and 2025.
Paul Menard is an American racing driver from Eau Claire, Wisconsin, who raced in NASCAR's top Cup Series from 2007 to 2019. His only Cup victory came in the 2011 Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Since 2024 he has added two Trans-Am TA class championships to a career that began in karts.
Who is Paul Menard?
Paul Menard was born on 21 August 1980 and is the son of John Menard Jr., founder of the Menards home improvement chain. He ran full-time in the Cup Series for several teams before stepping back from full-time racing at the end of 2019. He now races in the Trans-Am Series with 3GT Racing. He has said publicly that he avoids social media, arguing that it offers little beyond watching other people's lives.
His route into professional racing ran through karting, ice racing, legends cars and late models in Wisconsin. He chose stock cars over open-wheel racing partly because his home state had no feeder series for IndyCar, a point he made in an interview with Motorsports Minute.
A Wisconsin karter who reached the Cup Series, won once at Indianapolis and found a second career in the Trans-Am Series.
How did Menard start racing?
Menard began racing at eight years old and took the Briggs Junior Karting Class title in Eau Claire. He later claimed the Briggs Medium Class title, started ice racing at fifteen and went on to win ten International Ice Racing Association events.
In summers he raced legends cars on Wisconsin short tracks. He once borrowed a late model for a week and won his heat race, which convinced him to build a car of his own. He then raced that car several times a week.
In 2000 he ran a restricted programme in the NASCAR Re/Max Challenge Series and ended thirteenth in points. The following year he took a pole and a win at Road America near Elkhart Lake, and he finished ninth in the standings. By 2002 he was running several series at once, including Grand Am Cup and the NASCAR Southwest Tour.
What happened at Dale Earnhardt Inc.?
Menard drove for Dale Earnhardt Inc. from midway through 2004 to 2008, starting in the Busch Series and moving into the Cup Series full-time in 2007. His strongest season came in 2008, when he won his first Sprint Cup pole at Daytona International Speedway and finished 26th in points, a career high for him.
The early DEI years were a learning curve. In 2004 he missed seven races and failed to score a top ten, yet still finished 23rd in the points. The following year, with Dan Stillman as crew chief, the team climbed from twentieth to the top ten and finished sixth in the standings.
His first Busch Series victory came on 24 June 2006 at the Milwaukee Mile, his home track, where he held off a late challenge from Kevin Harvick. That season he posted sixteen top-ten finishes and seven top fives in the series. Cup racing was tougher: in 2007 he failed to qualify for six races before DEI's merger with Ginn Racing gave him a locked-in place for the rest of the schedule.
The 2007 season also brought a feud with Tony Stewart. The two made contact on pit road after a fall race at Charlotte, Stewart had raced for John Menard during the first seasons of the Indy Racing League. Menard's best finish that year was twelfth in the Citizens Bank 400.
Late in 2008, at Talladega, he led laps and finished second, the strongest result of his Cup career. He ended the season with earnings of $3,559,130.
What came after Dale Earnhardt Inc.?
Menard joined Yates Racing for 2009, driving the No. 98 Ford Fusion. He showed flashes of speed and ran well in the top ten several times, but crashes and mechanical trouble undid many strong runs. Menard finished 31st in the final standings, and he was the only driver to run every race that year without a top-ten finish.
For 2010 the team moved to Richard Petty Motorsports after Yates merged with it. In his first race for the new organisation he finished thirteenth in the Daytona 500. He then ran in the top twenty at Las Vegas and Fontana, and at Atlanta he posted a fifth-place finish, his second-highest Cup result. He ended the season 23rd in points. He finished eighth at Charlotte after running in the top ten all race long, and in September he came home seventh at Dover. The following week he started second at Kansas.
The same year he took part in the Rolex 24 at Daytona for Spirit of Daytona Racing in the No. 90 Daytona Prototype. He also came close to victory in a Nationwide Series race at Road America, his home state circuit, but was spun out on the final lap while running seventh.
What was the 2011 Brickyard 400 win?
On 31 July 2011, Menard won the Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. It was his 167th Cup start and the only Cup victory of his career. He made his final pit stop with 36 laps remaining and led late in the race.
Jamie McMurray passed him with nine laps to go, but Menard regained the lead with four to go. He then held off Jeff Gordon, who had won the inaugural Brickyard 400, and crossed the line first with enough fuel to keep the lead. It made him the first Menard family member to win at Indianapolis in any race staged there.
The victory came in his first season with Richard Childress Racing, where he drove the No. 27 car. He was also one of the season's first-time winners, joining Bayne, Smith, Ragan and Ambrose on that list.
How did the Richard Childress and Wood Brothers years compare?
Menard stayed with Richard Childress Racing through 2017 and then joined Wood Brothers Racing. The Childress years were uneven. He went winless in 2012 after a crash at Talladega, and a blown engine at the Coke Zero 400 in 2013 cost him a Chase place. A tyre blew in his pit box at the season finale that year.
A September 2011 spin at Richmond in the closing laps drew attention because it was widely believed to have been deliberate, meant to help his teammate Kevin Harvick, who went on to win that race.
The 2016 Sprint Unlimited exhibition race gave him a career-best third place. In 2017 he survived a string of wrecks at Daytona to take fifth in the Daytona 500, after several cars ran out of fuel, and he was third in the Coke Zero 400 that year, just short of Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Clint Bowyer.
The 2014 season gave him thirteen top-ten finishes, his career high. For most of the regular season he sat in a Chase position, until two eighteenth-place finishes at Atlanta and Richmond ended his hopes. That summer he also won a Nationwide Series race at Michigan, his first in that series since 2006, after Joey Logano blew a tyre with four laps to go.
Earlier in 2015, at the Sprint Unlimited, he won the pole by drawing and led the first seven laps before a big wreck dropped him to 21st. Over the full season he finished fourteenth in the standings, his best ever, after making the Chase for the first time. He also won at Road America on the Xfinity schedule, his third win in that series, and was a few miles from the track where he had grown up.
For 2018 he took over the No. 21 Ford at Wood Brothers Racing, replacing Ryan Blaney. On 30 June 2018 he qualified on pole for the Overton's 400 at Chicagoland, his second Cup pole. He announced on 10 September 2019 that he would retire from full-time racing after the season.
Career highlights by team and year
| Year | Team or series | Highlight |
|---|---|---|
| 2003 | Andy Petree Racing; ARCA | First ARCA victory at Talladega Superspeedway |
| 2006 | Dale Earnhardt Inc. | First Cup top-ten, seventh at Atlanta |
| 2008 | Dale Earnhardt Inc. | First Sprint Cup pole at Daytona; 26th in points |
| 2010 | Richard Petty Motorsports | Thirteenth in the Daytona 500; 23rd in points |
| 2011 | Richard Childress Racing | Brickyard 400 win, his only Cup victory |
| 2014 | Richard Childress Racing | Thirteen top-ten finishes, a career high |
| 2015 | Richard Childress Racing | Fourteenth in the standings, a career best |
| 2018 | Wood Brothers Racing | Second Cup pole, Chicagoland Speedway |
| 2021 | ThorSport Racing | Truck Series start at Circuit of the Americas |
What has Menard done since leaving full-time racing?
Menard returned for a single Truck Series start in 2021. ThorSport Racing announced the move on 17 May 2021, entering him in the No. 66 truck as a fifth part-time entry for the team at the new Circuit of the Americas event. It was his first NASCAR start since stepping back from full-time competition, and his first Truck Series start since 2007. Since then his main focus has been the Trans-Am Series.
He now competes in the Trans-Am Series, where he drives a Ford Mustang carrying the No. 3 for 3GT Racing. He won the TA class championship in 2024 and again in 2025.
How is Menard remembered?
Menard is remembered first for the 2011 Brickyard 400, the single Cup victory that carries his name in the record books. His wider record includes three Xfinity Series wins and one ARCA Menards Series win. Among those wins, the 2015 Road America victory ranks next to Indianapolis, because he grew up a few miles from that track.
His best points finish came in 2015, when he ended fourteenth overall. Those results, along with the Brickyard victory, form the core of a Cup record built on consistent finishes rather than a string of wins.
His career shows how a driver who began in Wisconsin karting can progress through regional and national series into full-time Cup racing, then move into a different touring car series later on.
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