Paul Menard

John Paul Christian Menard (born August 21, 1980) is an American semi-retired professional stock car racing driver who last competed part-time in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series, driving the No. 66 Toyota Tundra for ThorSport Racing.

In 2000, he began racing a limited schedule in the NASCAR Re/Max Challenge Series, finishing 13th in points.

During his rookie season in 2001, he earned a pole and victory at Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin, finishing ninth in points.

The 2002 season saw Menard compete in ReMax Challenge (two poles, seventh in points), SCCA Trans-Am (one front-row start, four top-10 finishes), Grand Am Cup (victories at Fontana and Phoenix) and the NASCAR Southwest Tour.

He capped his season in the latter series with a last-lap pass of veteran Ken Schrader for the Phoenix victory.

He has also competed in the NASCAR Xfinity Series in the past, including running part-time with Andy Petree Racing in 2003 and 2004, full-time with DEI in 2005 and 2006, and full-time with Roush Fenway Racing in 2010.

In 2003, Menard joined Andy Petree Racing to compete in NASCAR Cup Series, Busch, and Truck Series events while still competing in ARCA.

In his first ARCA start at Salem Speedway, he qualified second and finished fourth.

Later that year, he started on the pole at Winchester, Indiana, and then scored his first ARCA victory at Talladega Superspeedway.

He also had top finishes of ninth in the Busch race at Indianapolis Raceway Park and eighth in the Truck race at the Kansas Speedway.

In 2004, Menard began the NASCAR Busch Series season driving the No. 33 Chevrolet.

Midway through the season, he moved to Dale Earnhardt, Inc. in the No. 11 Chevy.

With Dan Stillman as crew chief beginning in 2005, they started out by leading 57 laps at Daytona.

Winning the Bud Pole Award at Talladega also had them running up front until getting caught up in a wreck.

He got his first top-10 and top-five by placing fifth at the Kentucky Speedway.

From there, the team went from 20th to the top-10 in points before finishing in sixth place overall, for the season.

In 2006, driving the No. 15 car part-time for DEI, Menard scored his first top-10 finish in the NASCAR Nextel Cup Series by coming in seventh place at the Golden Corral 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

Menard also won his first Busch Series race on June 24 at his home track of the Milwaukee Mile by holding off a late race charge and bump from Cup regular Kevin Harvick.

Harvick eventually caused a multi-car wreck attempting to bump him out of the way.

Menard finished off 2006 with a sixth-place finish in the standings, tying his best finish in the standings last year (2005).

He scored 16 top-10 finishes and 7 top-5 finishes in the Busch Series.

Menard competed full-time in the NASCAR Cup Series from 2007 to 2019, driving for Dale Earnhardt Inc., Yates Racing, Richard Petty Motorsports, Richard Childress Racing, and Wood Brothers Racing.

In 2007, Menard ran his first full-time Cup season.

He failed to qualify for six races that season, but after DEI's merger with Ginn Racing, the owner's points were transferred from Sterling Marlin's No. 14 car to Menard, who was then locked into the rest of the races.

His best finish of 2007 was in the Citizens Bank 400 where he finished 12th.

In the Busch Series, he picked up 5 top-5 finishes.

After the fall race at Charlotte, in which Menard and Tony Stewart made contact on pit road, a feud between the drivers ensued; Stewart had driven for John Menard in the Indy Racing League's early years.

In 2008, Menard won his first Sprint Cup Series pole at Daytona International Speedway in early July and remained in the top 35 in owner's points for the entire season.

10 races later, Menard won his first career pole position at Kansas Speedway and finished 23rd in points despite no top-tens and missing seven races.

He has won 1 Cup Series race (the 2011 Brickyard 400), 3 Xfinity Series races, and 1 ARCA Menards Series race.

He is the son of entrepreneur John Menard Jr.., the founder of the Menards chain of home improvement stores.

Menard's racing career began at the age of eight when he won the Briggs Junior Karting Class Championship in his native Eau Claire, Wisconsin.

He later won the Briggs Medium Class Champion before working his way up to higher level racing.

He began ice racing at the age of 15 and won 10 International Ice Racing Association events in his career.

He continues to compete in IIRA events in and around Wisconsin.

In the summers he raced legends cars on short tracks in Wisconsin.

He borrowed Bryan Reffner's Late Model for a week winning his heat race and placing around fourth in the feature.

He decided to build his own late model and raced the car three to four times per week.

In an interview with Motorsports Minute, Menard said he chose stock cars over Indy Cars because there was no feeder series for Indy Car in his native Wisconsin.

He retired from full-time competition after the 2019 season.