Early career in 2006 in 2006 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 fifteen and won ten 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. On July 31, 2011, Menard won his first and only Sprint Cup race in his 167th start, in the
Brickyard 400 at the prestigious
Indianapolis Motor Speedway. He did so by making his last pit stop with 36 laps to go. He led late, but with nine laps to go, he was passed by
Jamie McMurray. With four to go, he regained the lead and held off
Jeff Gordon, the winner of the inaugural Brickyard 400 in the final laps, having enough fuel to do so. He was the first member of the Menard family to win at Indianapolis, in any event, held at the track. He also joined
Trevor Bayne,
Regan Smith,
David Ragan, and
Marcos Ambrose as first-time winners in the 2011 season. In September 2011 at Richmond, Menard and RCR became the center of controversy when Menard spun in the waning laps. It was believed that his accident was intentional, intended to assist his teammate Kevin Harvick who later won the race against Jeff Gordon who would have won if the caution did not come out. In 2012, Menard did not perform well. He crashed during the Aaron's 499 at Talladega and went winless for 2012. In 2013, he slightly improved when he was briefly in
Chase for the Sprint Cup contention. A blown engine early in the
Coke Zero 400 caused him to be knocked out of the Chase with a few races left before the Chase began. In the season-ending
Ford EcoBoost 400, Menard's tire exploded upon stopping in his pit box; Menard stated, "About a lap later, they told me I was on fire. I lost my brakes, and the damned wheel blew right off." In 2014, Menard scored thirteen top-tens (a career high) and held a chase spot for most of the regular season but two consecutive eighteenth place finishes at Atlanta and Richmond (final race of the regular season) dropped him out of contention. Menard won the Nationwide race at Michigan for his first NNS win since 2006 in June 2014. He won after
Joey Logano blew a tire with four laps to go. In the
2015 Sprint Unlimited at Daytona, Menard won the pole for the race by drawing. He led the first seven laps until he was involved in a big wreck, finishing 21st. The race was later won by
Matt Kenseth. Menard later finished in the top-five in Auto Club and in Talladega and got five top-tens and 22 top-fifteens. He made the Chase for the first time in his career mostly because he had only one DNF (a blown engine in Texas), grabbing the final spot by seventeen points over Aric Almirola. He was eliminated in the first round, but with Matt Kenseth's two-race suspension, Menard passed him and finished in a career-best of fourteenth in the standings. Also in August 2015, Menard took the checkers at
Road America, holding off
Blake Koch and
Ryan Blaney for his third Xfinity Series win. Aside from the 2011 Brickyard 400, the win was Menard's biggest of his career, as Menard had grown up a few miles from the track. In the 2016 Sprint Unlimited, Menard finished in a career best third place, after surviving several big ones. To start of 2017, Menard survived wrecks in the Daytona 500 and brought home a fifth place finish after a few cars ran out of gas. The next week at Atlanta, he finished 25th. Menard scored his second top-ten of the year in the GEICO 500 at Talladega, finishing ninth. In the Coke Zero 400, Menard ran up front late and came home third, barely behind
Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and
Clint Bowyer. Menard survived most of the carnage in the Brickyard 400 but crashed in a late big one.
Wood Brothers Racing (2018–2019) On July 26, 2017, Menard was announced as the replacement for
Ryan Blaney in the No. 21
Wood Brothers Racing Ford starting in 2018. On June 30, 2018, almost ten years to the day, Menard got his second ever
NASCAR Cup Series pole at
Chicagoland Speedway for the
Overton's 400. On July 12, 2019, Menard announced he had a contract for the 2020 season, indicating that he planned to stay with the Wood Brothers. On September 10, 2019, Menard announced his retirement from full-time racing after the 2019 season.
ThorSport Racing (2021) On May 17, 2021, Truck Series team
ThorSport Racing announced that Menard would return to NASCAR and compete in a fifth part-time truck for the team, the No. 66, in the series' new race at
Circuit of the Americas. It is his first NASCAR start in his semi-retirement, and his first Truck Series start since
2007 when he competed in the spring
Martinsville race in the No. 51 for
Billy Ballew Motorsports. ==Personal life==