by Patrick Zier | Feb 21, 2025 |
There was a time when the Daytona 500 was an actual race. You know, cars chasing each other down and passing on the track, managing tire wear, stuff like that. Real, actual racing. Not the demolition derby it is now. The Daytona 500 is NASCAR’s Super Bowl, the biggest race of the year, and winning it means absolutely nothing. Neither does winning the other race at Daytona, or any of the races at Talladega, or now Atlanta as well.
Atlanta was a perfectly serviceable mile-and-a-half oval until its owner, Speedway Motorsports, which didn’t have a super speedway of its own, decided it needed one. So it repaved Atlanta and tried to make it more like Talladega and Daytona. While it’s much shorter, the new Atlanta is serving its purpose, trying mightily to imitate the wreck fests that occur annually on its big brothers.
The green flag had barely dropped on the first Atlanta race last year when there was a 16-car pileup. In 2021, the last year Atlanta was a regular race track, there was just one wreck involving two cars in the first race. Combine that with the three-car wreck in the second race and you have just two incidents involving a grand total of five cars.
So what’s happened? And why? Denny Hamlin, one of stock car racing’s most articulate spokesmen and one of the few insiders in the sport not afraid to criticize NAASCAR, explained in one of his recent Actions Detrimental podcasts.
“We used to run 200 mph here (Daytona) and the cars were hard to drive and hard to handle,” Hamlin said. “The team that brought the best car that had a great setup under it had an edge. The giants of our sport that could navigate traffic and use it to their advantage had the best chance to win.
“That art is gone now,” Hamlin continued. “It’s just such a bleeping crapshoot now. It’s luck because you just have to avoid the wrecks. I hate the fact about how much luck is involved in NASCAR now. It’s just a matter of wrecks at super speedways and I feel like the Daytona 500 is a microcosm of our sport in general…
“It started with the competition group a decade ago when we started cutting horsepower because we wanted to look good on TV,” Hamlin went on. “We wanted you to think that they (the cars) can pass when they can’t really pass.” When a few cars got airborne, Hamlin said, NASCAR started reducing speeds to stop the flipping, and the lower the speed became the better the cars stuck to the track and the better the cars stuck to the track the more equal they became and the harder it was for one car to pull out and pass another.
This reached its zenith with the Next-Gen car NASCAR is running now. With teams no longer able to build their own cars and everybody using the same parts and pieces, and NASCAR allowing virtually no modification of those parts and pieces, there’s almost no difference between the cars on super speedways. That’s especially true because of the draft, which allows the cars to bunch up with the trailing car pushing the car in front and the car in front pulling the trailing car.
You can’t leave the draft by yourself, because then there’s no one to pull you and no one for you to push, which is why the cars form long lines which rarely break apart. And because the cars are all so close, you have the illusion that somebody might pass at any time, which they can’t, and that sets up the big wreck, which is almost certain to happen with the cars all running together.
So driver skill and team ingenuity play virtually no part in determining the winner. “The entertainment of it has far overtaken the sport of it,” Hamlin said. That’s why Michael McDowell, with two wins in his career, has won the Daytona 500. It’s why Ricky Stenhouse, with four wins in his career, has won the Daytona 500. His other three wins are also on super speedways. It’s why Austin Cindric, with two wins in his career, is another Daytona 500 winner.
All of this leaves you to wonder what NASCAR is shooting for here. True race fans are not interested in watching wrecks. They don’t want their favorite driver eliminated in a crash, like Chase Elliott was Sunday. Or Martin Truex. Or Kyle Larson. Or Kyle Busch and several others.
Like every other sport, NASCAR has sold it’s soul to television. This year, it starts a new seven year deal worth $7.7 billion. And television doesn’t care about the quality of the racing as long as it get viewers, many of whom are not real race fans. They are, as Hamlin pointed out, looking to be “entertained.”
And while NASCAR is genuinely interested in safety, it may have become a little bit complacent after watching drivers walk away from horrendous crashes like Ryan Preece did Sunday. NASCAR has the technical know-how to break up the packs that form on super speedways, to separate the cars, to bring back real racing. The question is, does it really want to?
While no one has been seriously injured – or worse – yet, and no matter how safe these cars appear to be, you can’t keep slamming cars together and hitting the wall indefinitely. You’re playing a game of Russian Roulette, and the hammer is not going to fall on an empty chamber forever.
Hopefully, it won’t take another Dale Earnhardt for NASCAR to figure that out.
by Patrick Zier | Feb 8, 2025 |
Michael Jordan has the cash. Denny Hamlin has the expertise. And Toyota, through Joe Gibbs Racing, has the cars. Put them all together and you get 23XI Racing, which combines Michael Jordan’s NBA number(23) and Hamlin’s car number to get its name (Hamlin’s still racing for Gibbs, even though he’s part owner of another team).
In NASCAR, 23XI is kind of the Hendrick Motorsports of the teams and drivers a level below the Big Three – Hendrick, Gibbs and Penske, the best of the rest if you will. That’s because it has, or has access to, the same kind of resources that make the Big Three the Big Three. And that’s rare at this level.
Jordan is the front man, a guy who still has star power and the ability to keep the money flowing. Hamlin knows how to build a winning organization, what the team needs to be successful and how to put it together. And 23XI and Gibbs are joined at the hip, which means the 23XI Toyotas are very competitive. In fact, with 23XI adding a third driver this year, it will be interesting to see how it compares with the Big Three.
Essentially, the second tier is composed of 23XI, RFK Racing, Richard Childress Racing and Trackhouse with Front Row and Spire Motorsports joining them this year. Front Row and Spire have been around a while and haven’t done much, but with more support from Ford and Chevy, respectively, they hope to be improved.
Putting them aside for the moment, the other teams have had varying degrees of success since the Next-Gen car came on line in 2022. As might be expected, 23XI has run the best. Using the OldGuySport competition index as a guide, 23XI, after a slow start with just 304 points in 2022, jumped to 472 in 2023 and 534 last year. Next best has been RFK, with 165 in 2022, 306 in 2023 and 484 last year.
The two Chevy teams, Trackhouse and RCR, both got off to hot starts; Trackhouse was No. 1 among the four teams in 2022 with 579 points and RCR No. 2 with 479, but both have collapsed in the interim and the deterioration of RCR, with the glory years of Dale Earnhardt now a distant memory, is especially concerning.
While RCR as an organization was already in a state of decline, that was covered up in 2022 by the success of Tyler Reddick and in 2023 by the performance of Kyle Busch. Reddick scored 386 points on the OGS competition index, second only to Trackhouse’s Ross Chastain, who had 410. Notably, Reddick had 205 on the intermediate tracks, tops among drivers on the four tier two teams. He also had three wins. That was the most by an RCR driver since Kevin Harvick won four in 2013.
In 2023, Reddick moved to 23XI where he has become one of the best drivers in the sport at any level and far better than anyone in tier two. His 439 OGS competition index points in 2024 were more, by themselves, than any team in NASCAR outside of the Big Three – Hendrick, Gibbs and Penske – And RFK Racing, which had 484.
Meanwhile RCR and Busch are scrambling to pick up the pieces. After 2022, when the Next-Gen car was introduced and RCR finished strong with 429 points, it fell to 317 in 2023 and just 153 last year. Busch, who had 313 points and three wins in 2023, dipped to just 99 and no wins in 2024.
Childress made some in-house changes after 2024, but it mostly involved shuffling people in the organization around. Busch has been careful not to be overly critical of RCR, but he is in a contract year and could leave if things don’t pick up. The problem is, he doesn’t seem to have anyplace better to go. And at 39, he wouldn’t be a long term fix for anybody.
In what is another problem for Childress, his team is the only one at a tier one or tier two level that doesn’t have at least three cars. But whether adding another team would help rejuvenate this organization is an open question.
At the opposite end of the spectrum is RFK Racing, which was built on the foundation laid by Jack Roush. Fenway Sports Group, which owns the Boston Red Sox among other properties, and driver Brad Keselowski comprise the rest of the ownership group.
This team has simply taken off in the Nest-Gen era. It went from 165 OGS points in 2022 to 306 in 2023 and 484 last year. That was only 50 points less than 23XI, which sets the standard in tier two. Steady Chris Buescher, whose 205 points placed him 10th among all drivers in the OGS competition index in 2023 and who was 11th with 220 in 2024 has been the team leader.
Owner/driver Keselowski, now 40, doesn’t have a lot of time left and tapered off at the end of 2024, but he still totaled 248 points, eighth overall on the OGS competition index. Even more significantly, he had 198, fourth best, on the all important intermediate tracks.
The team added a third driver this year, Ryan Preece from the old Stewart-Haas team. Preece has never been competitive although in fairness, most of his career has been spent in second class equipment.
“We’ve had an amazing offseason,” Keselowski said during Fox TV’s preseason production days as reported by Bob Pockrass. “With adding a third team, that’s brought a lot of people with new ideas, fresh ideas, that we’ve been able to see some immediate gains out of, at least from what we can tell without being at the track.”
So, after reviewing the tier two teams, which drivers are likely to dominate in 2025? Since Reddick and Buescher have both been included in our overall top 10, neither are ranked here. The tier two top 10:
1-Ross Chastain, Trackhouse: Chastain is a solid veteran who was ranked as the fifth most competitive driver in the sport in 2023. If he regains his short track form, he will be tough.
2-Brad Keselowski, RFK: Keselowski has a top tier two car and seems enthused about his and his teams chances this season. Like Chastain, he has to run better on the short tracks.
3-Shane van Gisbergen, Trackhouse: An experienced veteran who dominated on New Zealand ovals, he won his first time out in NASCAR, winning the Chicago street race in 2023. He ran in the Xfinity Series last year and is a quick learner.
4-Kyle Busch, RCR: There is no one in this group with more talent or experience in first class equipment than Busch. If RCR gives him any kind of a decent ride, he’ll dominate. The car is the problem here, not the driver.
5-Bubba Wallace, 23XI: Wallace has been decent, but should be running better. He has not really been as competitive as he should be in a car this good and has gotten steadily less competitive each year of the Nest-Gen era.
6-Josh Berry, Wood Brothers Racing: This team is aligned with Penske, which hasn’t meant much in the past. But if you give Berry a competitive car he will get the most out of it. He deserves a better ride than this.
7-Riley Herbst, 23XI: Team owner Denny Hamlin thinks he’s got the goods, but he’s very inexperienced.
8-Daniel Suarez, Trackhouse: There’s not much to chose from among these last three. Suarez won on a road course in 2022 with this car and has shown flashes on intermediate tracks.
9-Michael McDowell, Spire: In what’s kind of a head scratcher, McDowell moved from Front Row, which is supposed to be getting tier one support from Ford this year, to Spire, which is ambitious but not very successful. Like Suarez, McDowell has a road course win in this car, in 2023.
10-Eric Jones, Legacy: Jones is still young and once drove for Joe Gibbs racing. He won in the Next-Gen car at Darlington in 2022 and is trying to revive his career. Legacy won’t help him much.
by Patrick Zier | Feb 7, 2025 |
Hendrick Motorsports has pretty much figured it out. So has Joe Gibbs Racing. Penske? Not so much. Despite winning all three championships in the Next-Gen car era (Joey Logano two, Ryan Blaney one), Penske and Ford have simply not been competitive with Hendrick and Gibbs. And that says more about NASCAR’s present point system than anything else. What’s more, don’t expect things to change much in 2025.
Hendrick, with its four-car stable of emerging super star Kyle Larson, established veteran Chase Elliott who, at 29, is three years younger than Larson but has a Cup championship and nine years experience on the circuit; Williams Byron, one of three or four of the top young talents racing Cup; and Alex Bowman who, frankly, needs to get his act together to keep from being the weak link, is still the team to beat.
And only one other organization, Gibbs, is in a position to challenge Hendrick. Like Hendrick, Gibbs has the people, resources, analytics and engineering to compete at Hendrick’s level on a weekly basis. And it’s drivers can match Hendrick wheel-to-wheel.
Denny Hamlin is in his 20th season, has 54 wins and is one of the most prepared and cerebral racers in the sport. Christopher Bell, a maturing talent who, using the OGS competition index as a measure, ranked second only to Larson last year with 584 points, is at or near Hamlin’s level. Ty Gibbs ranks with Byron as one of NASCAR’s ascending talents. Only newcomer Chase Briscoe, who replaces the retired Martin Truex, has yet to prove himself.
Penske should be competitive with the other two but despite the three championships, it isn’t. Logano was a legitimate champion in 2022, the only time NASCAR and OGS agreed on the top spot, and Blaney also ran well. That despite the fact Ford felt is was at a disadvantage with the new car. Austin Cindric, the third Penske driver, has never made much of a contribution and is a younger version of Bowman.
The OGS competition index shows how Penske has struggled. In 2022, the first year with the Next-Gen car, the three Penske drivers totaled 802 points. In 2023, that dropped to 514. Penske rebounded some in 2024 with its redesigned car, but still had only 743 points. That compared with 1656 for Hendrick and 1456 for Gibbs.
Even taking into account that Penske has only three cars compared to four for the other two, those totals are disturbing. In 2022, Penske was 423 points behind Hendrick and 428 behind Gibbs. In 2023, it was 1,001 points behind Hendrick and 743 behind Gibbs. And in 2024, while it’s performance improved a bit, Penske was still 913 points behind Hendrick and, again, 743 behind Gibbs.
Essentially, the Penske cars ran poorly on NASCAR’s intermediate tracks (ovals more than a mile and less than two and one-half miles in length for our purposes) That was very apparent in 2023 when the three Penske cars combined for just 187 OGS competition index points, less than six individual drivers by themselves. That included Larson (360) and Byron (321) from Hendrick and Hamlin (326) and Martin Truex (209) from Gibbs.
Penske made dramatic improvement on the intermediate tracks in 2024, but with both Hendrick and Gibbs far ahead technically from the start and continuing to improve each year, the gap between those two teams and Penske continues to widen.
Hendrick is Led by Larson, by far the most dominant driver of the Next-Gen era. After a relatively slow start (by his standards) in 2022, when his 439 OGS competition index points placed him third, 34 points behind Logano, the 2022 season leader, Larson has simply crushed the competition. He led the OGS competition index in 2023 with 643 points and was first again last year with 739. That totals 1,851 points, almost as many as Penske’s entire team for the same three year period.
“I would say in 2022, the first year with the Next-Gen car, we were kind of a little bit off,” Larson told hendrickmotorsports.com before the start of this season. “But I feel like we learned a lot and in 2023 we were really strong, really fast.
“I feel like we’ve done a great job in the Next-Gen era,” Larson continued. “I haven’t looked at the stats of the other top guys, but last year we had six wins, led a ton of laps, won a ton of stages. I don’t know if anybody else has had a season like that in the Next-Gen era. News flash – they haven’t.
So, as we look ahead to Daytona and the 2025 season, and with Hendrick and Gibbs clearly established as the teams to beat, who will be the most competitive drivers of the new year? Let’s take a stab at it:
1-Kyle Larson: Larson is dominant on the short and intermediate tracks and in his prime. He will be extremely difficult to beat.
2- Tyler Reddick: This is a bit of a long shot but if Reddick can improve his abysmal short track record he could push Larson. Reddick (334 points), and not Larson (271), was the most competitive driver on the intermediate ovals in 2024.
3-Denny Hamlin: At 44, some think his best years are behind him and he’s going through some changes at Gibbs, but this guy still can take a competitive car to the front.
4-.Christopher Bell: Bell made a huge leap from 2023 to 2024 and has long been considered a top talent. At 30 he is starting to peak and if he can continue to build on 2024, he will be tough.
5-William Byron: Byron is young and talented, but fell off a bit in 2024 after a strong run in 2023 when he finished second to Larson in points, just 44 behind. He needs more consistency.
6-Ryan Blaney: Despite Logano’s two championships, Blaney, and not Logano, is Penske’s most competitive driver. He and his crew struggled with the Next-Gen car in 2022 while Logano started hot, but Blaney has continued to get better; Logano has gotten worse.
7-Chase Elliott: Elliott is only 29 and has a NASCAR championship, but something seems just a little off with this team.
8-Ty Gibbs: At 22, Gibbs is the youngest of the sport’s leading drivers but he is good enough to eventually challenge Larson. Not this year though.
9-Chris Buescher: Buescher has had a quiet career but until he signed with RFK Racing, he never had a good car. RFK, with technical assistance from Ford, has gotten better every year. So has Buescher.
10-Joey Logano: Logano has been called the most undeserving champion in NASCAR history, but that’s NASCAR’s fault, not his. He played by their rules and won and, according to the OGS competition index was more competitive than people give him credit for.
In the finale of this series, we will look at some of the top teams which aren’t part of the Big Three.
