#12 | Chuck Magnum
Team: Team Penske
Active Seasons: 1993-2014
Starts: 756
Wins: 69 | 2009 Cup Series Champion
"Hehe, funi name with the funi number" -Me, when trying to come up with names for the All-Time Wins list for my league's history, because I was bored and couldn't come up with something better.
In seriousness, Chuck Magnum (despite his name) actually was a soft spoken person, and wasn't built like a Norse god. That didn't stop him from being a damned good racecar driver though. Having earned at least 1 win in every season he competed (with exception to 2006, more on that later), Chuck was able to capitalize on Penske Racing's rise to the top in the late 90s and early 2000s. Known as "The Rocket Man"
(shut up, not like that), Chuck to this day still holds the record for most pole positions in a single season, clocking in in 14 poles in 2003, half of which he translated to wins. Unfortunately, he had a tendency to run
every lap like a qualifying lap during the race, and as a result pushed his engines too far, which led to almost as many DNFs as he had wins by the end of his career. In 2011, he would jump from Team Penske over to Chuck Rinsci Racing, where he would spend the last four years of his career, still earning wins....
Schemes:
2000 Mobil 1 - Magnum's first real "big" year in terms of stat block numbers, Chuck found himself thrust into his first championship battle, and would wind up finishing 4th in points despite having the most wins of the championship favorites. His 8 wins were his only top 5s of the season, and he only had a few more top 10s, while everyone else had much greater consistency with running up near the front. Still, nothing to scoff at when looked upon in hindsight.
2003 Alltel - After 2001, Mobil 1 stepped down from being the #12 car's full-season primary sponsor. With the rise of telecommunications companies expanding services for phones and dipping into being internet service providers, so did their advertising spending in the world of racing, and Alltel was no different. In 2002, the company began sponsoring Magnum's car in it's now vacant sponsorship spots on the schedule. In 2003, the number of races Alltel covered increased from 27 of the 36 events to all but two. Unrelated to his sponsor's coverage, Magnum also posted his best statistical season. 10 wins, the aforementioned 14 poles, 11 top 5s and 23 top 10s over the course of 34 races...... However, the other 11 races saw Magnum DNF due to a mixture of mechanical failures and being caught up in wrecks, including a scary and violent barrel roll in that year's Daytona 500.
2006 Alltel - While 2004 and 2005 in terms of stats may have paled in comparison to 2003, Magnum thankfully didn't see as many DNFs, however 2006 would wind up being his worst statistical year, and his only winless season of his career in the Cup Series. Meanwhile, on the sponsorship front Alltel had begun to cut back on the number of races per year they covered for the #12 team. With Verizon now the title sponsor of the Cup Series since 2004, other telecommunication companies were pressured to begin bowing out as soon as possible, most of which only had year-to-year or even just race-to-race deals with teams, and as a result left the sport. Only the three companies that had preexisting multi-year contracts stood firm: Cingular Wireless, Sprint-NEXTEL, and Alltel.
2007 Verizon - In late 2006, however, Alltel would be bought-out and absorbed into Verizon. As a result, Team Penske had to work out terms of their sponsorship contracts with Verizon, whom agreed to see out the end of Alltel's current contract, which would last until the end of the 2008 season. Chuck Magnum, meanwhile, would find victory lane again, albeit only twice: the first time in the All-Star Race, and the second in the fall even at Charlotte Motor Speedway, breaking a winning streak at that track that Cody Llamas held. Team Penske went with a striking red scheme for 2007 - despite input from Verizon - but only because they had already revealed it's light blue counterpart for Alltel prior to the buyout.
2008 Verizon - For 2008, however, Team Penske did run a scheme incorporating Verizon's input. Chuck Magnum would once again win twice in 2008, but this time both visits to victory lane were in points events. This season was special for Chuck for a different reason, however. His son, Chadwick Magnum, would begin his racing career at the age of 9. Fast forward to 2023 and Chadwick will enter the NSCA Bud Light National Series, and is looking to make the move to Cup and follow in his father's footsteps within the next couple of years.
