2025 NASCAR Season

[Déjà Bru]

In my ambition to achieve "Omni-sports" status (or should it be "Pan-sports"?), I even picked up on this:

‘The Rental Car 500’: NASCAR drivers plus borrowed cars often equals mischief



If today was a few days from now, namely April Fool's Day, I would know what is afoot. But I believe this is supposed to be a real story.

In that case, are you kidding me? I wouldn't rent bicycles to these guys.

[Déjà Bru]

In my ambition to achieve "Omni-sports" status (or should it be "Pan-sports"?), I even picked up on this:
[URL="https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6234619/2025/03/27/nascar-drivers-rental-cars-racing/"]

Aaargh, double post.

Well, I will use this opportunity to report on two teammates battling for the lead in the "Straight Talk Wireless 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway." Apparently, both used a strategy termed "ripping the wall" but the loser ripped a bit too much.

NASCAR at Homestead results: Kyle Larson capitalizes on Alex Bowman's mistake for first win of 2025

[Westheim]

William Byron led from the start for 244 of 244 laps at Darlington!

Too bad the race was 293 laps (plus overtime) and the #24 team got duped on strategy, then on the restart as Denny Hamlin and the #11 crew made off with the win like robbers.

(deep, deep sigh)

[Westheim]

When you're two races and four baseball games into your Sunday, those bagpipes are beginning to be a bit much...

There are so many nice instruments. And then NASCAR's like, no no, let's use the one that sounds like two cats in a blender.

On the other paw, Larson crashed out early enough at Indy to make it to the Coke 600 in time. Yay?

[thehef]

Not a great day for Hendrick Motorsports. First, Larson wrecks out of the Indy 500, then his strong car in the Charlotte 600 gets wrecked out through no fault of his own... other than the fact that his earlier spin put him back in the field, making him susceptible to being collected in others' wrecks, which is what happened...

Then Willie Byron - in a showing reminiscent of Darlington - dominates & wins the first three stages, but his car fades in the last few laps. Just bad timing to have the best car 90% of the day, but not at the end.

Ross Chastain's win was apparently the first time a guy went from starting dead last to winning since Bobby Allison did it in 1969. That's 56 years. Wow! And by taking the checkers he broke a 37-race winless streak that dates back to the 2023 season.

Good for him! And good for us all (well, except for people that root for jerks ) that Denny Hamlin not only didn't win despite a strong car that ran at or near the for much of the day, but he ran out of gas in the late stages. Love it!

[Westheim]

I winced considerably when Byron was passed with 6 to go. He's my favorite these days.

But I got a Lando W in Monaco, so I still claim I came out on top on Sunday

How many Cup titles would Denny Hamlin have if that #11 crew would have made just an average amount of pit stop errors over the years, and not all of them? That includes Denny speeding in pit lane. Again and again and again.

[thehef]

Originally Posted by Westheim

I winced considerably when Byron was passed with 6 to go. He's my favorite these days.

I like Byron, too.

MY FAVES
1. Larson - Just an easy guy to like. Very down-to-earth, classy, awesome driver who's never dirty; therefore, very likable. Never blames others. Love that he's up for racing anywhere, anytime, any type of track. And his wife is really cool, too. Not that I have *anything* against the supermodels & swimsuit Insta models many of the other drives have for wives & girlfriends, but Katelyn just seems like that awesome girl next door. And her ability to shotgun beers is legendary! So what's not to like?

2. Byron - I like Hendrick as a team and there's nothing not to like about Byron, who's a worthy successor to the 23 car (J Gordon was my fave back in the day).

3. Bowman - Since my top 2 guys are Hendrick guys, I can't help but also like Bowman, who pretty much the overlooked driver on the team. Seems like a cool dude, easy to root for.

4. Gragson - Seems like a nice kid and is a longshot I like rooting for.

5. Hocevar - Same as Gragson.

6. Cindric - Seems like a nice guy, easy to root for. You can probably tell I like rooting for the cool/classy/nice guys

7. Berry - Same as Gragson, Hocevar...

THE VILLAINS
7. Bell - He's great. I don't really have anything against the guy other than he's awesome, super bland, and easy to root against. He's on the Gibbs team - the clear top rival to Hendrick - and a teammate of Hamlin. These do not help his cause

6. Chastain - I used to root against him more than I do now due to his dirty tactics. His win last weekend was impressive, but over the last year or so it seems his results have mirrored the trajectory of his aggressiveness...

5. Busch - I sort of feel for him given how great he used to be and how long it's been since he's been relevant. That said, his overall personality - especially his willingness to semi-publicly blame others for failure - is most irritating.

4. Logano - Just don't like the guy. Hard to say why...

1c. Keselowski - He's a jerk, especially for the way he and his team have disrespected the classy and legendary Mark Martin (who used to drive the #6 for the previous iteration of the team).

1b. Wallace - When he was initially on the scene I rooted for him for the same reason I root for most underdogs. Not anymore... His role in perpetuating noose-gate hoax can't be forgiven in my book...

1a. Hamlin - Completely classless d-bag and a dirty racer. Nothing makes me happier in NASCAR than his failures

OTHERS OF NOTE
Suarez - He's a funny dude. And I dig that he both celebrates his Mexican heritage AND loves America.

van Ginsbergen - The New Zealander street racer is an underdog - when on the ovals - who's fun to root for.

J Johnson - The guy was a legend at Hendrick. I don't really understand why he's chosen the path he did, and it's kinda painful to watch such a formerly great driver struggle.

Elliott - I like the Hendrick team so I root for Chase, but honestly it baffles me how he keeps winning the Most Popular Driver Award. He's pretty prickly. And when he's not being prickly, he's being pretty bland. I don't get it. He's still a contending driver and collects his points, but he hasn't been in that top tier / always-a-threat-to-win category (that's currently occupied by Larson, Byron, Bell, maybe Hamlin) in a few years.

[Déjà Bru]

Every year for the past four, NASCAR has been included as a category on Jeopardy! I present you with the clues from tonight's televised game, plus the three previous ones. You need to highlight the answers with your mouse (white font on white background).

Category: REV UP FOR NASCAR (June 18, 2025)

$200
During a race there can be 5 or 6 members of this team "over the wall" to aid drivers & their cars
Answer: the pit crew

$400
Flags used during NASCAR races include checkered, yellow, green & this one meaning one lap to go
Answer: white

$600
The shape of Martinsville Speedway in Virginia has given it this nickname of a common office supply
Answer: "The Paperclip"

$800
Designed to limit engine power, these plates were made mandatory in certain races beginning in 1988
Answer: restrictor plates

$1000
With a record 200 Cup Series wins during his career, this King of NASCAR drove the Number 43 car for much of his reign
Answer: Richard Petty


Category: MUSCLE CARS (May 17, 2024)

$200
(Lisa Ann Walter delivers the clue.) Designed to dominate NASCAR, the Plymouth Superbird shows its racing origins in its aerodynamic nose & its huge wing type of this device designed to counteract lift & keep the rear end on the track
Answer: a spoiler

$400
(Lisa Ann Walter delivers the clue.) Featuring a mammoth 455-cubic-inch V8 engine, the 1970 Buick GSX zoomed around with an impressive 350 horsepower & 510 foot-pounds of this
Answer: torque

$600
(Lisa Ann Walter delivers the clue.) Melissa Schemmenti, my character on "Abbott Elementary", loves Italian stuff, but in real life, I love this legendary American muscle car that was rolled out by Dodge in 1970 & rebooted to great acclaim in 2008; I've owned four
Answer: a Challenger

$800
(Lisa Ann Walter delivers the clue.) Pontiac introduced the sporty Firebird in 1967; in 1969 it brought out this even more powerful variant that took its name from a series of races held at tracks across the country
Answer: the Pontiac Trans Am

$1000
(Lisa Ann Walter delivers the clue.) Count off the barrels in its carburetor, the speeds in its transmission & its dual exhaust pipes to get the numeric name of this classic 1964 Oldsmobile
Answer: the 442


Category: NASCAR GEOGRAPHY (October 10, 2023)
(Ken: We need the state where each NASCAR track is located.)

$200
Daytona International Speedway
Answer: Florida

$400
Sonoma Raceway
Answer: California

$600
Talladega Superspeedway
Answer: Alabama

$800
Martinsville Speedway, Richmond Raceway
Answer: Virginia

$1000
Watkins Glen International
Answer: New York


Category: FROM THE SPEEDWAY (July 7, 2022)

$200
(Jimmy of the Clue Crew presents from the Las Vegas Motor Speedway.) The Las Vegas Motor Speedway track, like most NASCAR tracks, is made of this paving material, also called blacktop, but specially formulated as it has to stand up to 150-degree temperatures.
Answer: asphalt

$400
(Jimmy of the Clue Crew presents from the Las Vegas Motor Speedway.) Yes, there are speed limits in NASCAR; at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, it's 45 miles per hour on this road where cars are serviced.
Answer: the pit (road)

$600
(Jimmy of the Clue Crew presents from the Las Vegas Motor Speedway.) The era of one-company sponsorship for the championship of NASCAR began with this tobacco brand in 1971.
Answer: Winston

$800
(Jimmy of the Clue Crew presents from the Las Vegas Motor Speedway.) In 2019, the Vegas Speedway was the site of aerodynamic testing, including a longer splitter, the front end equivalent to this rear piece; by increasing downforce, it reduces lift & maintains traction.
Answer: a spoiler

$1000
(Jimmy of the Clue Crew presents from the Las Vegas Motor Speedway.) The purpose of drafting, or following closely behind another car, is to create this between his tail & your nose; so he pulls you along as your draft is reduced substantially.
Answer: a vacuum

[Westheim]

I have to … I just have to.

DISCLAIMER: This is a rant. It contains at least a trace of a personal vendetta and built-up frustrations from 20 years of stupid decisions made by one of the best racing series in the world (by spectacle at least). It was compiled with a red head and while trying to cross-match data across seven browser windows all without breathing once. As such it is prone to be riddled with errors, some of them crucial to forming my personal biases in the first place. Thank you for your understanding.

+++

The following drivers are currently locked into the damn playoffs due to having multiple wins, e.g. they can’t be knocked under any circumstances other than being naughty boys or taking drugs or saying something on a Twitch stream (with current rank in points):

#5 Kyle Larson (2nd)
#11 Denny Hamlin (3rd)
#20 Christopher Bell (4th)

The following drivers have one win on the season and could only fail to make the playoffs if there are more than 16 race winners by the end of the regular season, which is mathematically possible at this point in time since there are nine races to go and just five spots open (keep in mind that there have never been more than 15 different qualifying winners inside the first 26 races of a season during this iteration of the playoffs):

#24 William Byron (1st)
#12 Ryan Blaney (4th)
#1 Ross Chastain (8th)
#19 Chase Briscoe (9th)
#22 Joey Logano (10th)
#2 Austin Cindric (15th)
#4 Josh Berry (16th)
#88 Shane van Gisbergen (31st)

That leaves the remainder of the damn playoff field to be filled by the remaining drivers with the most points:

#9 Chase Elliott (5th)
#45 Tyler Reddick (7th)
#17 Chris Buescher (11th)
#23 Bubba Wallace (12th)
#48 Alex Bowman (13th)

Actually, wait a second, what was that up there?

“Shane van Gisbergen (31st)”

Who left that up there??

See, this pisses me off. The guy ran away with the awful race at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez last week, a track that struggles to create excitement with F1, and even oddball weather failed to make it better. In fact the highlight of the race was when Kyle Busch’s car decided it had enough and tried to bowl the entire field entering turn 1 on a restart. Anyway. Mr. van Gisbergen has an average finish of 24.2 (this season). His average finish on non-restrictor plate oval tracks is 26.6 (same). He is barely beating Riley Herbst in terms of average finish. Behind them there’s only Cody Ware. CODY. WARE. Being a race car driver is the only thing Cody Ware is worse at than basic human decency, but I must refrain from calling him a wifebeater, since the charges were dropped.

Never mind that the damn playoffs are a scam and reward boneheaded driving more than anything else, and leading the regular season points is all but worthless now if you can’t get a car built for Phoenix (looking at #24 team with some contempt), why are they now actively incentivizing random road course ringers (there, I said it!) from around the world to just hang it round the outside on one of the disturbingly multiplying road courses on the schedule and punch a playoff ticket that way, while in the absence of right-hand turns they are sucking the air out of the bloody sport? Van Gisbergen has not done a damn thing outside of a road course, why should he get to go to the damn playoffs??

This didn’t use to be possible. There once was a “top 30” rule meaning that you had to be at least that good in the points to gain entry into the playoffs. That was before the sport went all KFC though with franchise charters, when they changed the rule to only admit drivers that contested all races. If you’re 36th in points and win your way in, you’re so welcome now.

Actually, that brings me to Harrison Burton, who lucked his way into the playoffs last year with a longshot win at the summer Daytona race before getting roflstomped into 16th place in the final standings and finding himself out of a ride for a lack of talent otherwise.

And to Daniel Suarez, who I consider similarly bereft of actual competence on ovals and who is an absolute waste of a cockpit. He made it to the second round last year solely because NASCAR ruined Atlanta and turned into some more restrictor plate ********. Suarez won his playoff ticket with a W in the spring race, and then defrauded the sport of enough points with a second-place run in the fall Atlanta race in that first playoff round to suck his way into the second round, where he promptly drowned. His only other playoff run in 2022? Came with a W at Sonoma. At which point we have already comprehensively brought up all his Cup wins in over 300 races.

Let me actually bring up another driver that never won a non-restrictor plate oval race in his career. Robby Gordon ran 396 Cup races, much of it in his own material at a time when owner-drivers were definitely being squeezed out of the sport. He took three wins in total, sweeping the road course races at Sonoma and Watkins Glen in 2003, and winning the cursed, season-ending, 9/11-induced postponed race at Loudon that was run with restrictor plates as a safety precaution – all of these in Childress’ #31 Chevy, though. His average career finish was 26.7 – largely the same as van Gisbergen’s, and in a time of 43-car fields.

And with what right would Robby Gordon have become NASCAR Cup champion? His best show in the final standings was 2003, where he came 16th, about 1,200 points (about eight wins’ worth under the GOOD points system in place then) off Matt Kenseth, who had the gall to run away with the championship on just one actual race win, which gave us the bedeviled playoffs in the first place!

And boy, have they tried and failed to get them playoffs “right” over the last 20 years. Maybe, just maybe, if your harebrained scheme never seems to work out the way you want to, maybe it’s because IT’S A HAREBRAINED SCHEME!!

So what are van Gisbergen’s chances at winning the title this year? Disturbingly non-zero. The first round consists of Darlington, Gateway, and Bristol. Not a road course in sight, although van Gisbergen somehow scored a top 20 at Darlington in the spring, and Gateway with its flat and differently shaped corners gives some people road course vibes, although he’s never driven there in his two partial Cup seasons previously, so what the **** do I know? Bristol as the cutoff race is gonna be a free-for-all, as usual, but if he makes himself invisible for the first 300 laps he might just as well sneak through. F.e. in 2022, rookie Austin Cindric somehow won the Daytona 500 and survived the first round of the playoffs on little more than three top 20 finishes and vibes.

And then he has the damn Roval in the second round, and Talladega – because why not him!? – in the third round. And suddenly he’s in the final four and there he can win the title by finishing his customary 27th if only the other three contenders are befallen by a blown engine (Bell, 2023), or by Ross Chastain having a mood. And then Denny Hamlin will exclude himself by speeding on pit lane on the final pit stop, wouldn’t that be fun??

Needless to say, the sport would jump the shark at that point. Maybe it would be the end of the ****** playoffs!

Because nobody can tell me that that road course ringer dork makes for a more deserving champion than Matt Kenseth did in 2003.

[Déjà Bru]

Well, you have to be feeling better after getting that out of your craw, cookies or no. For further relief, play my NASCAR-themed Jeopardy! game featured above.

[Westheim]

I did, and I am awaiting that $10,200 check from you.

[Westheim]

Can this stupid Chicago race just DIE? Three laps in, and we're under red because Hocevar ran out of talent, smacked the wall, came sideways in a passage that is maybe three cars wide, and eight cars piled into him to completely block the track.

[Westheim]

NASCAR in its Shane van Gisbergen era

1948 - 2025

RIP