The Wide World of Dirt

It is the 75th year of NASCAR Cup Series Racing, and I’m going to give you 75 predictions for this upcoming NASCAR season!

I’m kidding because 75 predictions is absurd, so I’ll give you 7 instead, sound good?

#7: The Xfinity Series will be at an all-time low.

I want to make one thing extremely clear before I go any further: all of these kids and veterans that strap into these vehicles have more talent and ability in a race car than I ever will.

Will that stop me from criticizing them?

With that tidbit out of the way, yeah, the Xfinity Series will be at an all-time low this year as the once-fruitful development pipeline seems to be drying up.

All it takes is looking at the marquee teams in the series and their driver lineups.

JR Motorsports will field four teams again in 2023, and while I love Josh Berry and Justin Allgaier, Sam Mayer has yet to park his #1 Camaro into victory lane while all three of his teammates made it to the Championship Race at Phoenix. Yikes.

Filling their fourth car will be JGR defect Brandon Jones in the #9 Menards Chevy, and I just don’t see him ever developing more than what he’s already shown us.

Maybe with crew chief Jason Burdett and the best team in the field, he’ll find some magic, but I highly doubt it.

Moving over to Joe Gibbs Racing, much of their lineup is unproven.

Sammy Smith showed flashes of immense potential last season, but he couldn’t capitalize by pulling his Pilot/Flying J machine into the winner’s circle.

Their #19 entry will be their rotational car for drivers to pop in and out of, and John Hunter Nemechek will get behind the wheel of the #20.

Nemechek went back down to the Truck Series with KBM the past two seasons and came back relatively empty-handed. My expectations aren’t high for his 2023 campaign, but we’ll have to see, I guess.

The only other big teams left are Stewart-Haas Racing and Kaulig Racing.

SHR demoted Cole Custer to the Xfinity Series for 2023 to team up with winless Riley Herbst, and Kaulig swooped in on the KBM-Toyota fire sale and snagged Chandler Smith to replace AJ Allmendinger in their #16 Camaro.

Then, you have the rest of the field.

This will likely be a year we go back and look at in the future as an odd one. I foresee a bunch of drivers from other disciplines wanting to give NASCAR a try getting their feet under them in an Xfinity car this year, and we just might see some new winners because of that.

If I were a betting human, I wouldn’t put a whole lot of stock in this Xfinity Series season and field in terms of what a driver might truly be capable of going forward.

#6: Kevin Harvick will make the Championship 4

I’m not saying Kevin Harvick will return to his 2020 form, his 2018 form, or even his 2014 form in order to make this possible.

However, if you look at recent history, Harvick experienced his most consistent success the second season after a big change is made.

His 2014 title was insanely impressive, but his 2015 season was even more so. Had it not been for him preserving his chances at Talladega by causing a restart pileup, Kyle Busch wouldn’t have raced for a title to beat him.

The #4 team went through a bit of a lull in 2017 after switching to Ford, but they still found themselves winning Texas and racing for a title in Miami in November before coming back in 2018 to barnstorm the Cup field.

Despite domination in 2018, SHR fell a bit behind in 2019 as Ford transitioned to the Mustang for Cup competition. Like 2017, it took Rodney and Kevin a bit to get the hang of things, but sure enough, they locked themselves into the title race in Miami.

2020 saw Harvick have the best year of his career through 33 races, collecting nine wins after mastering the NA18D package before falling in the Round of 8.

2021 saw SHR just completely forget how to put a race car together, but after a tumultuous 2022 season that saw the implementation of the NextGen car, Rodney and Kevin started to figure the car out by the season’s midpoint and won again.

Considering his relationships with Tony Stewart and Rodney Childers, Kevin’s going to be ready to go this year. I think he’ll win four races en route to a title race berth at the track he’s dominated many, many times before in the desert.

#5: The TV deal will be finalized before season’s end.

I don’t know if the team-sport split of revenue will necessarily be resolved by season’s end, but I think the money and who’s covering it will be decided.

ESPN left the NASCAR circuit after Harvick claimed his first title in Miami in 2014, and with their recent acquisition of SRX, I believe they’re bringing NASCAR back.

I also don’t find it a coincidence that Harvick will be taking part in two races in the series this year while he runs his swan song in the Cup Series.

This is gearing up for Harvick to join the SRX booth for 2024 as a full-time announcer alongside (assumingly) Allen Bestwick to give them a solid tandem heading into their first season back in stock car racing for 2025.

Sadly, I think Fox will also be coming back, so what happens to Race for the Championship, the Dale Jr. Download, etc is anyone’s guess past 2024.

Personally, I’d prefer NASCAR to take a bit less money and keep NBC around with ESPN while kicking Fox to the curb, but that’s just not going to happen.

Fox is desperate for non-political content and engagement, and if you take one look at FS1’s weekday lineups, you’ll know exactly what I mean.

They could be spending that money developing a better television product for NASCAR’s lower divisions, but we all know Fox and its subsidiaries are masters of lighting money on fire.

#4: Hendrick Motorsports will be slow to start.

I’m fully prepared to eat my words when HMS wins 8 of the first 12 races, but I just don’t get the feeling they’ll be winning a lot of races to start the year.

A big part of that is how 2022 ended for them.

They took their eye off the ball in the playoffs, and this couldn’t be seen more than their decision to appeal William Byron’s penalty in the middle of the Round of 12.

Byron was rightfully given a points penalty for his contact with Denny Hamlin under caution at Texas, and the points penalty was rescinded prior to the Roval.

The result was defending champion and teammate Kyle Larson missing the Round of 8 by two points, and had that not happened, Larson would’ve raced for a championship in Phoenix after scoring a win at Homestead.

They also leaned on Chase Elliott throughout the playoffs, which didn’t quite work out as he finished outside the top-10 seven times in the final ten races.

Though he scored a win at Talladega and made the Championship race, Elliott and the #9 team didn’t quite inspire confidence in me that they’ll storm back this year.

Alex Bowman is fresh off of a concussion absence, so I don’t want to speculate what will become of him this season before I see him in the car more.

William Byron was great in the first eight weeks of 2022 before falling the fuck off the map entirely. He needs to right the ship with Rudy Fugle this season, or HMS might want to consider other options moving forward.

A small part of what will distract this team and one that will go under the radar is the Garage 56 experiment for Le Mans.

I know none of their current roster is participating, but that’s still millions of dollars in resources and people being taken away from the race teams. That’s important.

So, I wouldn’t expect HMS to start kicking it into high gear until around Indianapolis in the summer, but I’ve been wrong many, many times in the past.

#3: Don’t be surprised if Joe Log repeats.

With the departure of 2012 champion Brad Keselowski, Team Penske entered an odd era where there wasn’t a true number one driver on their team.

Or, so it seemed.

Ryan Blaney has been at the doorstep of being an elite driver since 2020, but the eight-year veteran (funny to call him that) failed to find a win last season.

Rookie Austin Cindric hopped into the #2 car for the first time at Speedweeks and did what Keselowski, Kurt Busch, and Rusty Wallace were unable to do before him: win the Daytona 500.

After that win though, he wasn’t a factor again for the rest of the season in terms of contending for wins, but he made the playoffs and went to the Round of 12. You can’t ask much more from a rookie these days.

Then, there’s Joey Logano, our now-defending champion.

Logano was sneaky good all year, especially at the flat tracks. He claimed his first victory of the year at the LA Coliseum at the Clash to start the year and muscled William Byron out of the way at Darlington to get his first true win of 2022.

Not long after that, Logano outraced Kyle Busch at NASCAR’s other egg-shaped oval at Gateway, carrying his two wins into the postseason real sly and unassuming.

But, as the rounds dwindled down, Joey Logano avoided elimination by plugging away and collecting stage points in the first two rounds until arriving in Las Vegas.

Logano stole a win away in the waning laps by passing Ross Chastain to lock his Shell/Pennzoil Ford Mustang into the title race three weeks early.

The preparation paid off with Logano leading the most laps on his way to his second Cup Series championship, this time with crew chief Paul Wolfe on the pit box.

Joey will be heading into this season with a full head of steam, and I think we could see him have a true career year. Try to act shocked when he goes out and wins seven or eight races in 2023.

#2: 23XI will be competitive out of the gate.

Last season was a trying one for 23XI Racing.

The first dozen races of their season couldn’t have been more tumultuous with both drivers only combining for five top-10s through that span.

Toyota lacked the raw speed necessary to compete with Ford and Chevy, but a lot of 23XI’s problems were self-inflicted. A solid run at CotA for Bubba ending in a broken transaxle and losing a wheel, kicking Booty off the pit box for a month.

Kurt scraped and clawed for good finishes, but even he wasn’t able to escape the nonstop calamity that would doom worse, less mentally strong teams.

After Kurt went out and took the Kansas win from defending champ Kyle Larson in the Jordan car, a switch flipped for the #45 team.

Kurt found his stride, scoring 2 top-5s in the next seven races, but his season came to a tragic and abrupt end when he suffered a concussion at Pocono that kept him out of his ride for the rest of the year, and perhaps for good.

Ty Gibbs filled the second slot at 23XI while the focus of the program was shifted completely towards Bubba, and boy did it pay off.

The fifth-year driver put on a hell of a charge in the season’s second half, finishing in the top-20 12 times in the final 18 races of the season and silencing the doubters by completing a team sweep at Kansas.

Bringing in Tyler Reddick will only make life easier for co-owners Hamlin and Jordan because he’s coming off of his best season to date.

I expect 23XI to get off to a great start this season and lock both drivers into the playoffs long before the cutoff race at Daytona.

#1: Kyle Busch is gonna be just fine this year.

I understand this is a lot of build-up for this to end up number one. While this may appear to be a lukewarm take, I don’t think this is a common take by any means.

A lot of how you feel Kyle Busch will do is on how you view him as a driver.

People that dislike him, dislike RCR, love JGR at all costs, or whatever the reason will be on the side of saying this is a toxic partnership that’ll be terrible for both sides.

The other side that leans towards Kyle Busch see the success RCR had last season with Tyler Reddick and the #8 team, and combined with Kyle’s overt talent and experience, they should be a shoo-in for the championship four.

Personally, I really like Kyle Busch and think he’s a top-5 all-time talent in stock car racing, so I want you, the reader, to know where I’m coming from: he’ll do fine.

Kyle is coming off of the worst three seasons of his career where he’s struggled to find speed with JGR, causing him to consider other options.

Toyota poached Reddick from RCR in the middle of last season for what was supposed to be a 23XI ride beginning in 2024, but with the Kurt Busch concussion situation unfolding, 23XI bought out Reddick’s contract to bring him on early.

I think the season will feature KFB reverting back to his more rugged, brash racing style that brought him notoriety in previous years. He’ll nudge more cars out of the way. He might get in a scrape here and there. He’ll take the black hat back.

RCR won’t have the leg up on their competition that they had last season. They were competitive because they helped develop the NextGen car with NASCAR, so they had a much more expansive well of knowledge from which to pull.

After an adjustment period, I think Kyle gets back to his winning ways a little bit. I don’t foresee him missing the playoffs. He’ll win before the playoffs to lock himself in.

He would be my preseason pick to win the Bristol Night Race and lock himself into the round of 12 before falling out of that round again.

So, I think he wins two races and finishes like 9th in points. A really solid season from KFB and Childress as they plot to take over the sport in 2024.