It's pretty typical for the NASCAR fanbase to get nostalgic.
Fans who grew up watching Tony Stewart, Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson, Kevin Harvick and several others grace and dominate the NASCAR Cup Series stage, are now left with the drivers who replaced them, wishing their favorite drivers, and those they grew up with would return to competition.
Unfortunately, that doesn't happen very often. It's not a common occurrence for a NASCAR driver who has decided to step away from competition to come back and return, and if they do come back it's usually for a one-off.
Take this weekend at Martinsville Speedway for example. Casey Mears, a frequent competitor in the NASCAR Cup Series in the 2000s and 2010s for organizations such as Hendrick Motorsports, Richard Childress Racing, and Germain Racing, is returning to compete in the Cook Out 400, driving the No. 66 for MBM Motorsports.
RELATED: Casey Mears Joins Garage 66 for Cup Series Return at Martinsville
Mears wasn't NASCAR's Most Popular Driver, and wasn't NASCAR's most successful driver either, but the buzz that his return has generated heading into this weekend's otherwise normal race weekend, has made several people excited to see cars hit the racetrack.
So, in honor of Casey Mears and his return to competition, here's eight drivers who have previously made returns to NASCAR's National Series after an extended hiatus.
Coming into the sport as a 22-year-old rising star in the world of stock car racing, Kasey Kahne spent more than 15 years competing across NASCAR's National Series, collecting 31 total victories (18 Cup, 8 Xfinity, and 5 Trucks) before his career came to an abrupt halt at the end of 2018.
What was already scheduled to be Kahne's final full-time campaign in the NASCAR Cup Series, driving the No. 95 Chevrolet for Leavine Family Racing, came to an end 11 weeks earlier than anticipated, when heat exhaustion from the Southern 500 the week prior sidelined him for the remainder of the year.
After removing himself from the NASCAR world, Kahne primarily focused on his sprint car racing efforts, but was injured a crash at Williams Grove Speedway the following March that left him out of a racecar for more than a year.
Kahne has been running on the dirt tracks full-time since then, competing in the World of Outlaws in 2022, and joining the High Limit Racing circuit in 2024.
The Enumclaw, Washington-native will be returning to NASCAR Xfinity Series competition in 2025 for a one-off event at Rockingham Speedway, as NASCAR returns to the historic facility for the first time in more than a decade.
At 44 years old, Kahne will drive the No. 33 HendrickCars.com Chevrolet for Richard Childress Racing, as he did in the pre-season testing session that took place at the 1.017-mile racetrack in January.
After spending just about a decade focusing on other forms of motorsports, a phone call last Summer from Steve Lauletta, President of 23XI Racing, got the attention of Juan Pablo Montoya.
The two-time NASCAR Cup Series race-winner got the opportunity to make a return to the top-echelon of stock car racing in the world, competing in last September's Go Bowling at The Glen at Watkins Glen International, driving the No. 50 Mobil 1 Toyota Camry XSE - a third entry for 23XI Racing.
A native of Bogota, Columvia, the event marked the first NASCAR National Series start for Montoya since the 2014 Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway more than a decade ago, when he was running a part-time schedule for Team Penske while competing in the NTT IndyCar Series.
Montoya's full-time career in the NASCAR Cup Series lasted for seven seasons, where he drove the No. 42 Chevrolet for Chip Ganassi Racing between 2007 and 2013, until being replaced by Kyle Larson in 2014, leaving him without a seat in NASCAR.
In his return to competition - and his first-time driving the NextGen car - Montoya posted a top-15 lap time in practice, before going out and qualifying 34th. However, during the race, things didn't go very smoothly, with multiple in-race issues and a late-race pit stop leaving the No. 50 outside the top-30, one lap off the race.
As for another one-off in the NASCAR Cup Series? Montoya said on Saturday (the day before the race) that if somebody were to call and offer him another one-off that he would probably say yes.
Throughout a career that spanned 20-plus seasons, Greg Biffle elected to stay loyal to Roush Fenway Racing, staying by the organization's side through the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series and the NASCAR Xfinity Series, and into the NASCAR Cup Series.
For doing that, the Vancouver, Washington-native was rewarded with a fruitful career, one that included championships in both the NASCAR Truck Series and NASCAR Xfinity Series, as well as a total of 52 victories across NASCAR's top three divisions.
However, in 2016, as Roush Fenway Racing began to slide down the totem pole in the NASCAR Cup Series and the performance on the No. 16 Ford Fusion declined, Biffle and the organization he'd spent his whole career with, elected to part ways.
That left Biffle without a seat in the NASCAR Cup Series, and for three years after that, one of NASCAR's most recognizable drivers vanished without a trace.
Then, in 2019, it was announced that Biffle would compete in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series event at Texas Motor Speedway, driving the No. 51 Toyota for Kyle Busch Motorsports, marking his first start in the series since 2004.
Well, Biffle won... and surprisingly, that didn't result in any kind of opportunity, except for another one-off effort in the Truck Series at Darlington the following season, driving the No. 24 for GMS Racing.
Two years after running for GMS Racing, Biffle got an interesting opportunity - running a partial schedule in the NASCAR Cup Series for NY Racing, which was returning to the series with the introduction of the seventh-generation racecar, designed to make competition closer.
Biffle competed in five events driving the No. 44 Chevrolet, and collected a single top-20 finish on the superspeedway-adjacent Atlanta Motor Speedway, but after a 35th-place finish at Talladega Superspeedway, the then 52-year-old driver never returned to competition.
Much like his brothers Geoffrey and Brett Bodine, Todd Bodine had a fruitful career throughout the 1990s and 2000s, finding success in both the NASCAR Xfinity Series (where he scored 15 victories) and the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series (where he scored another 22 wins).
The youngest of the three siblings, Bodine found himself having success in waves, first with several near-miss championship runs in the Xfinity Series throughout the 1990s with Cicci-Welliver Racing and Pro Tech Motorsports.
Then, in the mid-2000s, the Chemung, New York-native focused on the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series, signing with Germain Racing in 2004 and finding his career-defining success with the organization through 2011, recording 21 of his 22 victories with the team, and winning a pair of championships (2006, 2010).
After running his (at the time) final Truck Series event at Pocono in 2013 with Turner-Scott Motorsports, Bodine moved on to running intermittent Xfinity Series events for various organizations until 2017, including DGM Racing and SS-Greenlight Racing.
That left the driver nicknamed "The Onion" at 794 NASCAR National Series starts... and that's not a very even number, is it? So, why not make it 800?
In 2022, Marcus Lemonis, CEO of Camping World, offered Bodine a six-race sponsorship deal in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series to make it happen. At 58 years old, Bodine put together a six-race deal to drive the No. 62 Toyota Tundra TRD Pro for Halmar Friesen Racing, in which he scored a best finish of 10th at Darlington.
Pocono marked the final NASCAR start for Bodine, more than 36 years after making his NASCAR National Series debut at Martinsville Speedway in 1986 for Tim Pistone.
Miguel Paludo, a native of Nova Prata, Brazil, wasn't in NASCAR's National Series for very long the first time around, running three full-time campaigns in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series, one for Red Horse Racing and two for Turner Scott Motorsports, which resulted in eight top-fives and 25 top-10s.
Then, the 29-year-old driver was released from the organization due to a lack of funding and couldn't find a NASCAR opportunity for the 2014 season. That sent the Brazilian driver back to Brazil to compete in the Porsche GT3 Cup Series again, while also winning a championship in the Porsche Endurance Series and Carrera Cup.
In terms of the NASCAR world, Paludo was absent for more than eight years, before getting the opportunity to compete in three road course events for JR Motorsports in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, driving the No. 8 Chevrolet with sponsorship from BRANDT.
Paludo, in his first race back on the NASCAR scene, captured a seventh-place finish at Daytona's Road Course. This three-race road course stint would continue for Paludo in both 2022 and 2023, earning a second top-10 finish in the Xfinity Series at Circuit of The Americas (COTA) while driving the No. 88 BRANDT Chevrolet.
Throughout the 2000s, Bill Lester made an impression on the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series as the series' only full-time African American driver, competing for several organizations throughout the years including Bobby Hamilton Racing, Bill Davis Racing, and Billy Ballew Motorsports.
However, at the midway point of the 2007 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series campaign, Lester ran into some significant sponsorship issues that forced the Oakland, California-native to step away from his duties as the driver of the No. 15 Billy Ballew Motorsports entry.
Unfortunately, in the immediate aftermath of losing his seat in the NASCAR Truck Series, Lester, a veteran of six seasons in the series was unable to find the funding necessary to secure another ride. That forced the experienced Truck Series racer to step away from NASCAR and return to the NASCAR Rolex Grand-Am Sports Car Series from 2008 to 2012.
It would be nearly 15 years after Lester stepped away from NASCAR Truck Series competition that he would return, announcing his intentions to compete in the series' event at Atlanta Motor Speedway, piloting the No. 17 Ford F-150 with sponsorship from Camping World and Local Ford Dealers.
Without the benefit of practice or qualifying to get reacclimated, Lester's first laps in a NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series vehicle in a decade and a half would come when the green flag was displayed for the 130-lap contest at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
Lester finished the race 36th of 40 trucks, seven laps off the pace.
Niece Motorsports definitely understood the assignment when it came to Throwback Weekend at Darlington Raceway in 2021.
The NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series organization tapped two-time NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race-winner Erik Darnell to pilot the No. 45 Chevrolet Silverado for the organization and also brought back sponsor Northern Tool & Equipment in the process.
Darnell spent three seasons competing full-time in the NASCAR Truck Series between 2006 and 2008, driving for Roush Racing, and serving as a development driver for the NASCAR Cup Series team. However, once funding dried up for the Beach Park, Illinois-native, that opportunity quickly faded away.
In 2012, the opportunity presented itself for Darnell to run the majority of the NASCAR Xfinity Series campaign, driving for underfunded start-and-park team The Motorsport Group (TMG), which fielded several backmarker entries in the second-tier series.
Darnell finished 17th in NASCAR Xfinity Series points that season, and before his 30th birthday, managed to vanish from the NASCAR universe, not to be seen again until his return with Niece Motorsports almost a decade later.
After three straight top three points finishes in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series (2011, 2012, 2013), including the 2012 championship, plus a full-time campaign in the NASCAR Xfinity Series in 2014, James Buescher saw his NASCAR career begin to fizzle out.
For a half-decade afterwards, one of NASCAR's brightest young talents was nowhere to be found.
Then, during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Niece Motorsports team owner Al Niece made a phone call to a fellow Texan and got Buescher back into a NASCAR Truck Series vehicle, placing him in the No. 42 Chevrolet Silverado at Texas Motor Speedway.
Buescher managed to scrape together a top 15 run in October 2020, leading to another phone call from Al Niece to drive the No. 44 Chevrolet Silverado in the season-opener at Daytona International Speedway. The then 31-year-old made the race through a Past Champions Provisional (PCP) but crashed before taking the green-flag.
There's more to the story of Buescher's return, though...
Less than six weeks before the start of the 2021 NASCAR Truck Series campaign, Richie Wauters and Wauters Motorsports were preparing to return to the racetrack, having landed a full-season sponsor to field the No. 5 Toyota Tundra with James Buescher as the driver. But, when it came time to sign the sponsorship agreement, the company was nowhere to be found, derailing any plans the team had of making it to the racetrack.
Buescher has been absent from NASCAR's National Series for the four years since.
In one of the stranger returns to competition in NASCAR history, 62-year-old Bill Elliott climbed aboard the No. 23 GMS Racing Chevrolet for the NASCAR Xfinity Series' annual trip to Road America, continuing an interesting line of fill-in drivers for the suspended Spencer Gallagher that included Casey Roderick, Johnny Sauter, and AJ Allmendinger.
Elliott, the 1988 NASCAR Winston Cup Series champion, was contesting his first event in the second-tier NASCAR division in more than a decade - last running in the series with Evernham Motorsports in 2005. However, in terms of NASCAR's National Series, the Dawsonville, Georgia-native had run an event as recently as the July 2012 event at Daytona.
In a throwback paint scheme paying tribute to his time at Junior Johnson and Associates in the NASCAR Cup Series, Elliott qualified the GMS Racing machine in 23rd-place, and after surviving the typical road course chaos that unfolds in the second-tier series - especially at the four-mile road course of Road America - Elliott managed to bring home his red-and-white No. 23 home inside the top-20.