See where your favorite NASCAR Cup Series driver will pit for the Jack Link’s 500 at Talladega Superspeedway on Sunday (3 p.m. ET, FOX, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
See where your favorite NASCAR Xfinity Series driver will pit for the Ag-Pro 300 at Talladega Superspeedway on Saturday (4 p.m. ET, The CW, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
TALLADEGA, Ala. — NASCAR’s show-and-tell returned on Friday at Talladega Superspeedway, with Jesse Love’s No. 2 Chevrolet rear suspension from Rockingham Speedway last weekend on display.
Eric Peterson, managing director of the Xfinity Series, stood the No. 2 car’s left-side truck arm, the rear-end housing, the U-Bolt saddle and the lowering block. The rule violated at Rockingham was that all the mating surfaces between the U-Bolt saddle and the truck trailing arm were not in complete contact with each other. A significant gap was visible.
With the entire assembly not being tightened, Love had an aerodynamic advantage that eventual Rockingham winner Sammy Smith pointed out from the No. 8 team’s radio toward the end of the event.
RELATED: Talladega schedule | Xfinity Series standings
“What happens when you go into the corner and all this stuff is not tight is the load on the suspension moves left,” Peterson said, “and the cornering load moves right with the body and will move the right rear of the body towards the wall and adds side force to the car which is where the performance advantage comes from. It skews it out.”
After each race, the top two cars in the finishing order are inspected, along with a random car. The evaluation involves putting the car on jack stands where a feeler gauge (measuring the gap between two surfaces) is entered. If the feeler gauge goes through, NASCAR digs deeper into the issue. Before the race, the rear assembly is visually checked.
Peterson said this was the newest violation that he’s seen after inspecting more than 600 cars since joining NASCAR in 2019. He admitted that the issue could have occurred during the 256-lapper that saw 14 cautions.
“I wouldn’t say it’s necessarily intentional,” Peterson said. “It’s hard to judge whether it was or wasn’t with this one. It came back this way, and certainly there are things you could do to make things like this happen — I’m not saying this happened in this case. It was swayed and an aero advantage.”
Love was credited with a 37th-place finish at Rockingham. Justin Bonsignore was also disqualified for having more than two missing lug nuts.
Three-time NASCAR Cup Series champion Joey Logano traded his fire suit for a flak jacket as Mission 600 kicked off its 2025 campaign with a visit to Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune on Tuesday.
Charlotte Motor Speedway’s Mission 600 is an annual campaign that pairs drivers and regional military bases as a build-up to the Coca-Cola 600 on Memorial Day Weekend. Tuesday’s visit, which also comes ahead of the Marine Corps’ 250th birthday celebration later this year, provided the Coca-Cola Racing Family driver with an immersive day meeting Marines from the 2d Combat Engineer Battalion. The 2d CEB provides close-combat engineer support to the 2d Marine Division in order to enhance mobility, counter-mobility and survivability.
RELATED: Buy Coca-Cola 600 tickets
Alongside Charlotte Motor Speedway president and general manager Greg Walter, Logano learned about the battalion’s explosive ordinance capabilities, including watching the preparation and detonation of 40-pound shaper and crater charges.
Following a tour of the base in a UTV and lunch with a group of Marines, Logano and Walter faced off head-to-head in a heavy-equipment race designed to simulate digging trenches or breaching anti-tank ditches. The pair drove a JCB High Mobility Engineer Excavator (Combat Tractor) and a 30-ton D7 bulldozer to highlight the role engineers may play in combat situations.
“To get to see firsthand, a little bit of how these guys train, one, helps us go back and talk to our race fans to explain that what they are doing for our safety here in America,” Logano said. “But, I also take some stuff back to my race team. I get to see the way these teams work and how everyone works together. What these men and women are able to do, I’m proud to be here with the Marines and proud to be American.”
For leadership at Camp Lejeune, having someone like Logano visit is great for morale, but also for highlighting what these men and women do in service to the Marines.
“I think every Marine that chooses to join has a different path as to why they came here,” said Maj. Nicholas King. “Ultimately, it’s a great opportunity, especially around our 250th Marine Corps birthday celebration, to really capture that legacy and then show that bond to the future Marine Corps and to our civilian counterparts — not just an average civilian, but a NASCAR champion.
“The smiles on the Marines’ faces, actually getting to meet, interact with him and realize he’s just a genuine, down-to-earth person was something to remember.”
At Charlotte Motor Speedway, Memorial Day Weekend provides the opportunity to pay tribute to the men and women of the U.S. Armed Forces, particularly those who paid the ultimate sacrifice. With the support of the U.S. Department of Defense, the patriotic Coca-Cola 600 pre-race show includes representation from all six major branches of the military.
“When you think about the commitment that it takes, the discipline that it takes to be in our military, it makes me proud to live in this country every day,” Logano said. “They’re putting their lives on the line for strangers, people that they’ve never met before. How grateful we all should be to be living in a country like this where, we have people that are willing to pay the ultimate sacrifice.”
Prime Video announced Friday that the first two episodes of “Earnhardt” will premiere May 22, three days before the outlet kicks off its NASCAR Cup Series broadcast coverage at Charlotte Motor Speedway for the Coca-Cola 600.
The docuseries, premiering exclusively on Prime Video in more than 240 countries and territories worldwide, will have four episodes total. The final two episodes will air May 29.
RELATED: Sign up for Prime Video today | How to watch NASCAR races on Prime Video
“Earnhardt” will dive into the rich history of Dale Earnhardt, one of the sport’s most influential figures to ever compete at NASCAR’s highest level. Through rare archival footage, thrilling races and emotional interviews from his children, colleagues and closest friends, the docuseries will depict Dale Earnhardt’s rise to NASCAR stardom and nationwide fame. Earnhardt’s navigation of family dynamics — including that of his son, Dale Earnhardt. Jr. — will also be explored.
An icon to millions of race fans, “The Intimidator” won 76 Cup Series races and claimed a record-tying seven Cup Series championships over 27 years. He died in a last-lap crash during the 2001 Daytona 500, just two months before his 50th birthday.
“Earnhardt” is produced by Imagine Documentaries, NASCAR Studios and Everyone Else, in association with Dirty Mo Media. The series is directed by Joshua Altman and executive produced by Brian Grazer, Ron Howard, Sara Bernstein, Christopher St. John and Justin Wilkes of Imagine Documentaries; TJ Martin and Dan Lindsay of Everyone Else; and Tim Clark and John Dahl of NASCAR Studios.
Ahead of next month’s historic 66th running of the Coca-Cola 600 on Memorial Day Weekend, Charlotte Motor Speedway continued its 2025 Mission 600 campaign Wednesday, visiting the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg with Coca-Cola Racing Family driver Daniel Suárez.
Now in its eighth year, Mission 600 brings together NASCAR drivers with units from regional military bases in an effort to educate the NASCAR community about the day-to-day lives of the men and women who serve in the U.S. Armed Forces and to build meaningful connections between the worlds of motorsports and the military.
“I have always appreciated the military — what all the men and women do for this amazing country,” said Suárez. “But when you get to experience exactly what they have to do 24/7, it’s just a completely different level… Huge respect for them. The level of discipline is pretty high. I very, very much appreciate the opportunity.”
RELATED: Buy Coca-Cola 600 tickets
During his visit, Suárez spent the day learning about the equipment and training that paratroopers with the 82nd Airborne receive. With coaching by the 3rd Brigade Combat Team and 16th Military Police Brigade, the Trackhouse Racing driver strapped on parachutes and gear, then leaped from the installation’s 34-foot jump tower. Suárez also participated in live-fire exercises, learning weapons systems ranging from grenade training to firing the M4 Carbine and a Howitzer, a 105mm weapon that uses a six-man team — much like a NASCAR pit crew — to aim and fire. He finished the day behind the controls of two helicopter flight simulators.
“I never thought they were going to let me jump out of the tower, or try to fly in the simulator or get on the big machine gun — the big, automatic one. I think I burned 150 bullets in a minute,” Suárez said. “Doing all these different things, for them, it’s normal, but for me — today was the very first time I grabbed a 9mm gun. I think they call it a ‘pistol.’ It’s quite an experience and I feel very fortunate to be part of it.”
Fort Bragg is the largest military installation by population in the U.S., providing the infrastructure and training that enables a ready, capable force to fight and win the nation’s wars. The 82nd Airborne Division is America’s immediate response force – ready to deploy and answer the nation’s call in 18 hours.
At Charlotte Motor Speedway, Memorial Day Weekend provides the opportunity to pay tribute to the men and women of the U.S. Armed Forces, particularly those who paid the ultimate sacrifice. With the support of the U.S. Department of Defense, the patriotic Coca-Cola 600 pre-race show includes representation from all six major branches of the military.
NEW YORK (April 24, 2025) — Prime Video is revving up for its inaugural season of NASCAR Cup Series coverage, introducing an electrifying anthem that brings together country superstar Eric Church and rock legend John Fogerty. “Up Around The Bend (Amazon Music Original)” with Eric Church and John Fogerty is a reimagined version of Fogerty’s original classic and transforms the iconic song into the signature sound for NASCAR on Prime, capturing the excitement of race day with a high-energy track.
Fans will get their first taste of the collaboration when the song debuts today as part of the new NASCAR on Prime marketing campaign. The commercial, produced by 77 Ventures and Boomshot, features racing icon and Prime Video analyst Dale Earnhardt Jr., veteran analyst Steve Letarte, and Cup Series star Chase Elliott, with a classic Chevelle serving as a visual bridge between NASCAR’s heritage and future, with production spanning five days at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
RELATED: Talladega schedule | Join Prime Video today!
“Working with both Eric Church — an incredible artist who is a genuine NASCAR fan — and the legendary John Fogerty to put a fresh spin on his iconic hit gives our coverage a distinctive sound that matches the energy of the sport,” said Stacey Rosenson, Head of U.S. Sports Marketing, Prime Video. “Incorporating the anthem into our new commercial featuring the legendary duo of Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Steve Letarte, alongside current Cup Series star Chase Elliott, taps into the heartbeat of NASCAR and highlights our commitment to delivering a unique, fun and exciting viewing experience for fans.”
Grammy Award winner and Rock & Roll Hall of Famer Fogerty will mark his 80th birthday on May 28, 2025 — and he’s celebrating all year long with concerts, new music releases and more. As the leader of Creedence Clearwater Revival, Fogerty helped shape the sound of American music, and has received multiple awards and honors for his undeniable impact on the culture, including induction in the Songwriters Hall of Fame, the Baseball Hall of Fame and much more.
The @NASCAR Cup Series on Prime is coming Up Around The Bend! :notes:
Eric Church and John Fogerty team up for our new signature anthem, debuting May 25th ahead of the Coca-Cola 600. pic.twitter.com/bknA8564Ve
— Sports on Prime (@SportsonPrime) April 24, 2025
The NASCAR on Prime anthem consists of Church and Fogerty joining forces to create a dynamic new version of the timeless hit. The anthem will premiere during Prime Video’s presentation of the Coca-Cola 600 from Charlotte Motor Speedway on Sunday, May 25, and will be woven into broadcasts throughout the exclusive five-race NASCAR Cup Series package.
Fans can discover a wide range of official NASCAR products and merchandise with filters for their favorite drivers by searching ‘Shop The Race’ on the Amazon Shopping App, and can also shop items from Field & Stream, the outdoor brand Eric Church, Morgan Wallen, and a group of brand builders acquired and relaunched in 2024, by visiting amazon.com/fieldandstream.
Starting on Sunday, May 25 with the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, Prime Video will exclusively stream five consecutive NASCAR Cup Series races to conclude the first half of the season.
In addition, Prime Video will present exclusive coverage of practice and qualifying for almost the entire first half of the NASCAR season (excluding the NASCAR All-Star Race). Adam Alexander serves as race announcer, alongside analysts Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Steve Letarte in the booth, with Trevor Bayne, Kim Coon, and Marty Snider patrolling pit road. Danielle Trotta hosts Prime Video’s extensive on-site studio coverage, joined by analysts Carl Edwards and Corey LaJoie. Fans in the U.S. will be able to watch NASCAR live at home or on the go, and across hundreds of compatible devices, streaming from the web, or using the Prime Video app on smartphones, tablets, set-top boxes, game consoles, and connected TVs. For a complete list of compatible devices, visit amazon.com/howtostream.
As long as NASCAR has been racing, cars have been wrecking. And as the NASCAR Cup Series returns to the track this weekend at Talladega Superspeedway, no track has the ability to produce more chaos than the 2.66-mile high-banked behemoth.
No wrecks are more terrifying than when a stock car leaves the racing surface and goes into the air, and that’s the topic of a special mid-week edition of NASCAR Inside the Race hosted by Steve Letarte.
Joining Letarte on Inside the Race is Dr. Eric Jacuzzi, NASCAR’s vice president of vehicle performance innovation aero, who walks through three unique wrecks in the Next Gen era when a car has gone into the air — and explains how NASCAR’s best attempts at keeping the car grounded sometimes get overruled by the laws of science.
Michigan was the site of one of the airborne incidents highlighted by Letarte and Jacuzzi on Thursday’s episode. During last year’s Cup race, Corey LaJoie spun down the backstretch and flipped upside down, sliding hundreds of feet on his lid before finally landing on all four wheels in the grass near Turn 3. That incident, according to Jacuzzi, was primarily due to a strong headwind that pushed the car into the air when LaJoie spun.
Letarte and Jacuzzi also analyzed Ryan Preece’s airborne crashes at Daytona International Speedway in 2023 and 2025, both of which had separate causes. (You can see the full interview with Jacuzzi below.)
“We spent a lot of time looking at this. … When Ryan’s car crossed from the track, it hit the lip of the bus-stop chicane, which was protruding about 2 inches. So we had a pretty significant tire mark there and a chunk of asphalt missing,” Jacuzzi said of the horrifying Preece wreck in the 2023 Daytona summer race.
“The other part … I went and looked at some helicopter research and when you hover a helicopter over pavement, the engine power is let’s say ‘100.’ When you move over to grass you need ‘120’ or ‘130’ — I believe it was 30% more power. That’s because of that surface. To me, it makes a lot of sense that the grass, we would have lost some of that downforce we had.”
Jacuzzi also revealed that NASCAR is in the final stages of developing a new aerodynamical device intended to decrease the chances of airborne crashes at high-speed tracks, such as Daytona, Talladega, Atlanta and Michigan.
A new flap added to the A-post on the Next Gen car may debut beginning with the August race at Daytona. The flap is expected to increase the chances of a car staying on the ground in a 90-degree spin by 40 to 50%, Jacuzzi said.
After months of testing, the new flap hit the track for the first time when three Cup Series teams participated in a Goodyear tire test at Michigan earlier this month.
RELATED: Talladega weekend schedule | Cup Series standings
“It started out as a concept that wasn’t really viable, and then we had a couple brainstorms and sort of came up with this idea,” Jacuzzi told Letarte. “It proved to be very, very effective.”
By adding the additional flap, the goal is to decrease lift in the early part of the spin and ultimately reduce the amount of airborne crashes.
“We think that the less lift that we can have on the car early in the spin, that’s more tire contact with the ground, more slowing it down, which is all good for us,” Jacuzzi said.
The NASCAR Cup Series and Xfinity Series race at Talladega Superspeedway this weekend. Bookmark this page and come back often for your race-week essentials — from links to qualifying order, results and more.
RELATED: Weekend schedule
Race day: Sunday at 3 p.m. ET on FOX. The categories listed below will be filled out with links as the information is available.
Tires: Seven sets (including one set for qualifying)
Entry list
Qualifying order
Qualifying Results
Pit Stalls
Stage 1 Results
Stage 2 Results
Race Results
Race day: Saturday at 4 p.m. ET on The CW. The categories listed below will be filled out with links as the information is available.
Tires: Four sets
Entry list
Qualifying order
Qualifying Results
Pit Stalls
Stage 1 Results
Stage 2 Results
Race Results
Odds and projections say these winless drivers have the best shot at winning — if they make it through the wreckage.
For NASCAR drivers seeking a checkered flag, there are a lot more reliable places to go looking than Talladega. As we found in our research last year, fellow superspeedway Daytona was the only regular Cup Series track where the pre-race favorite tended to finish lower on average — and only Daytona and New Hampshire produced winners with a lower average placement in the pre-race driver rankings.
Simply put, Talladega is no place to be counting on predictable outcomes.
But still, you gotta get out there anyway and ride the draft at 190 mph, hoping for the best and trying to avoid the worst. And that’s especially the case if a driver hasn’t won yet this season. Although it feels like the 2025 schedule just started, the regular season will be halfway over in just a few races’ time. So the clock is ticking to get that first win and punch a ticket to the playoffs.
With that in mind, let’s take a look at which winless drivers are in the best position to leave that club on Sunday … provided they survive the chaos that is sure to come. First, here’s a plot of the leading favorites at Talladega, based on a combination of their win probabilities — implied from DraftKings’ odds (as of Tuesday) — and their projected Driver Ratings, according to my predictive rankings (based on recent performance at ‘Dega and similar tracks):
So, which winless drivers have the best shot at getting that breakthrough win this weekend? Based on pre-race betting odds and track-specific performance, here are the top names to watch with a realistic shot to leave Alabama with their first trophy of 2025:
1. Ryan Blaney
Odds to win: +1000 (implied chance: 6.2%)
Projected Driver Rating: 91.4
Talladega career stats: 21 starts, 3 wins, 6 top fives, 15.9 avg. finish
After a bit of a rough March — with an average finish of 25.8 in five races — April has been kinder to Blaney as the No. 12 Team Penske car has finished fifth in consecutive races. Perhaps just as importantly, Blaney has finished three consecutive races without incident after posting a DNF in three of his first six races this season. Now he goes to a track where he’s had plenty of success; he’s one of just three active three-time winners at Talladega and is usually a good bet to contend here, whether it’s the spring race or in the fall. Blaney is due for a W anyway; his 97.5 average Driver Rating this season ranks second in Cup behind only William Byron, and he and Tyler Reddick are the only members in the top six by that metric to have not won yet.
2. (tie) Joey Logano
Odds to win: +1100 (implied chance: 5.7%)
Projected Driver Rating: 86.1
Talladega career stats: 32 starts, 3 wins, 9 top fives, 18.9 avg. finish
Another member of the three-time winner’s club at Talladega, Logano is nonetheless looking for better consistency — both here and overall in 2025. The defending Cup champion has just a single top-10 finish (at Martinsville) and is coming off a 24th-place finish with a 54.0 Driver Rating at Bristol two weeks ago. Despite his history of wins at Talladega, he’s finished better than 19th here just once in his past nine races. Still, he drove better in a few of those races than his finishes gave him credit for, and he has long been very strong at superspeedways overall. Logano ranks No. 7 in average Driver Rating this season (86.0), just outside that group we mentioned above that either has won or really should have won, so far.
2. (tie) Kyle Busch
Odds to win: +1100 (implied chance: 5.7%)
Projected Driver Rating: 85.8
Talladega career stats: 39 starts, 2 wins, 8 top fives, 20.2 avg. finish
Busch has been all over the place to start 2025, following an early stretch of three straight top 10s with back-to-back finishes outside the top 20, then sandwiching a couple of mid-teens finishes around a top 10 at Darlington. Though he has driven well enough to win a few times, Busch is currently riding a 66-race winless streak — uncharacteristic for a guy who set a Cup Series record for consecutive seasons with at least one win (19). But the second-most recent win of his career did come at Talladega in the 2023 spring race. (Granted, that was the only time he finished better than 19th here in the past five races.) And even when things go sideways for him in the end at ‘Dega, Busch is usually coming off a solid performance on the day, so there’s no reason to think that won’t be the case again this weekend.
4. Austin Cindric
Odds to win: +1600 (implied chance: 4.0%)
Projected Driver Rating: 93.0
Talladega career stats: 6 starts, 0 wins, 1 top five, 19.3 avg. finish
Cindric isn’t quite as high in the betting odds as some of the other drivers on this list, but he has the highest projected Driver Rating (93.0) of anyone in the field on Sunday. Why’s that? Cindric just always seems to be a factor at the superspeedways. In addition to posting a rating of 91.6 or higher in each of his past three outings at Talladega, he also had back-to-back ratings of 94.8 or higher at Daytona, and his rating has been in triple-digits in three of his past four races at Atlanta. Overall, there may not be a better driver in Cup at tracks where the draft plays a major factor, and that makes Cindric a good pick to be in the mix late for what would be his first career win in the state of Alabama.
5. Chase Elliott
Odds to win: +1600 (implied chance: 4.0%)
Projected Driver Rating: 83.9
Talladega career stats: 18 starts, 2 wins, 5 top fives, 14.6 avg. finish
Elliott is a fascinating candidate for this list as he is a multi-time winner at Talladega and has been Mr. Consistency overall in 2025. His average finish of 11.6 ranks fourth-best among regular drivers this season, trailing only William Byron (9.1), Denny Hamlin (9.7) and Christopher Bell (9.8). And yet, he has won in just one of his last 79 starts, and his performance at Talladega — or superspeedways in general — has been on the decline over the past few seasons. Since the start of 2023, Elliott has an average Driver Rating of 83.1 (merely decent, not great) at ‘Dega and 80.8 at all “restrictor plate” tracks, after sitting at 94.7 in the preceding four seasons. Then again, it’s also worth noting that Elliott’s 29th-place finish here last fall snapped a streak of five straight finishes of 15th or better at Talladega, including a win late in 2022. So it’s anybody’s guess whether that two-time winning form will show up on Sunday or not.
6. Brad Keselowski
Odds to win: +1200 (implied chance: 5.3%)
Projected Driver Rating: 76.1
Talladega career stats: 32 starts, 6 wins, 12 top fives, 15.0 avg. finish
Speaking of fascinating wild-card drivers to watch, there’s the case of Brad K. On the positive side, he is by far the winningest active driver at Talladega in his career, with double the victories of the next-highest-ranked rivals. On the negative side, Keselowski is still searching for better results in what has been the worst season of his career so far by a variety of different metrics. Let’s put it this way: things have gotten so dire that a 16th-place finish at Bristol two weeks ago was considered a massive improvement after three straight races outside the top 25. For this reason, it’s tough to know exactly what to expect from the No. 6 car in this weekend’s race. The Cup Series has only run two other drafting-style races so far this year — Keselowski posted a below-average Driver Rating in both — but he has consistently been one of the better plate-track performers in a much larger sample size over the previous five years. He deserves a look among the favorites here.
7. (tie) Tyler Reddick
Odds to win: +1600 (implied chance: 4.0%)
Projected Driver Rating: 76.5
Talladega career stats: 10 starts, 1 win, 1 top five, 19.3 avg. finish
Like Blaney, Reddick’s overall performance this season — he ranks fourth among regular drivers with an average Driver Rating of 96.2, including four races of 98.8 or higher — is screaming out for a win sooner or later. Will Talladega be the place, though? Well, he has won here before, taking the checkered flag almost exactly a year ago, and he escaped the late carnage to finish second at Daytona in February. However, Reddick is not known as a superspeedway specialist by any means; his career average Driver Rating at Talladega is a subpar 68.6, and his number across all tracks of the type is only barely average (71.3). Reddick’s win here last season was the only time in the past seven races he finished better than 16th at Talladega, a stretch that included four finishes of 20th or worse and a couple of 39th-place runs.
7. (tie) Bubba Wallace
Odds to win: +2000 (implied chance: 3.3%)
Projected Driver Rating: 80.5
Talladega career stats: 14 starts, 1 win, 1 top five, 20.4 avg. finish
As the site of half of Bubba’s career victories, it makes sense that Talladega would stand out as a track with the potential to earn him another this weekend — and end an 88-race winless drought. Wallace is another one who always seems to be squarely in the mix at superspeedways. Since 2020, his average Driver Rating on those tracks (79.6) ranks ninth among regular drivers, trailing only the usual suspects you’d expect (mostly the guys on this list already, plus some ‘25 winners in William Byron and Denny Hamlin). Anybody with that knack for being in the right place at the right time can win at a track like Talladega, though last fall’s top-10 showing snapped a stretch of three straight finishes of 23rd or worse for Wallace here.
Here’s what’s happening in the world of NASCAR with Bristol Motor Speedway in the rearview and Talladega Superspeedway (Sun., 3 p.m. ET, FOX) up next.
1️⃣ Are we already looking at the 2025 Championship 4?
2️⃣ Will regular-season winners hit double digits?
3️⃣ Skip Flores on move off No. 12: ‘Just part of the business’
4️⃣ Right back at it — drivers to win after a bye week
5️⃣ Catch the pack — news and notes from around the garage
The Cup Series has seen a “Big 4” win eight of the season’s nine races. Is it too early to pencil them in as this year’s Championship 4?
Ask any diehard NASCAR fan what they remember about the 2018 Cup Series season and you’re bound to get a whole lot of answers mentioning “The Big 3 and Me” — referring to Kyle Busch, Kevin Harvick and Martin Truex Jr., who dominated all year, before Joey Logano bested them in the finale to win the damn war and take home his first career title.
The fearsome foursome combined to win 23 races that year, including 12 of the first 14. That is … pretty ridiculous.
Of course, this was pre-Next Gen, when the degree of parity throughout the field was a bit less evident, so surely a repeat of that dominance by a select handful of drivers is a thing of the past, right?
Wrong. So very, very wrong.
We’re seeing a similar trend play out in 2025, with this year’s version featuring Christopher Bell, William Byron, Denny Hamlin and Kyle Larson thus far only allowing one other driver (Josh Berry at Las Vegas) to claim victory. The season’s five winners through nine races is the fewest the sport has seen since just four did it in 1992 (Davey Allison, Bill Elliott, Alan Kulwicki, Mark Martin).
It’s never a foregone conclusion who’ll be racing for the Bill France Cup until the checkered flag falls in October at Martinsville (and sometimes even a little bit later than that), but we sort of knew what the Championship 4 was shaping up to be in 2018 before we even hit the All-Star Race. It’s hard not to feel the same way with what we’ve already experienced in 2025 — right now, you’d absolutely pencil in these four drivers to compete for the title come November.
MORE: Biggest Cup Series story lines after off weekend
Byron leads the series in points, thanks in part to a season-opening win in the Daytona 500 — a rare, successful defense of a “Great American Race” crown — and a series-best average finish of 9.1. That alone is championship material, but Byron’s superspeedway prowess takes it to another level and merits mentioning with Talladega on deck. In the Next Gen era, Byron has four drafting-track wins and more points on those tracks than anyone else since the start of last year. Byron has evolved into a true superstar, executing like a veteran title contender — smart, steady and opportunistic.
Bell is also no stranger to the Championship 4, but he’s taken a major leap in 2025 and has clearly “arrived.” His three consecutive wins — including Joe Gibbs Racing’s first superspeedway victory in the Next Gen era — propelled him to early championship-favorite status, and he briefly appeared to be in a class of his own. He might still be.
At 42, Hamlin continues to rebuke Father Time as the only driver to finish on the lead lap in all nine races — winning two of them. He’s fresh off a Darlington win earlier this month and riding a three-race streak of top-two finishes — the first time he’s done that since 2020. He’s been in the mix at nearly every kind of track, collecting valuable playoff points and avoiding the sort of mistakes he’s often been knocked for in the past. If he and the revamped No. 11 team continue to keep it clean, his experience could make him stand out above the other three come crunch time.
And of course there is our most recent victor in Larson — he’s as fast as heck, and arguably a more complete driver than ever before, phantom spins be damned. The 2021 champ has led 503 laps already, far more than anyone else, and has won twice. The big shift? His performance on drafting tracks. For years, superspeedways were Larson’s Achilles’ heel, but he’s had top fives in two of the last three and nearly stole Atlanta from Bell in a photo finish. That’s a game-changer, and Talladega looming in the Round of 8 doesn’t feel as big of a threat to his championship chances as it once did.
The bigger picture is this: these four drivers aren’t just the best in 2025 — they’re becoming the only reliable picks in a season full of unpredictability and head-scratching slow starters (reigning champ Logano included). They’re consistent where others aren’t. Fast where others fade. And they’re smart enough to survive chaotic races while still collecting playoff points in bulk, which could provide just the cushion necessary to propel them to Phoenix several months from now.
Unless something dramatic changes, the road to the Bill France Cup runs directly through these four garages. Whether it’s Byron’s balance, Bell’s breakout, Larson’s all-around power, or Hamlin’s hunger — this might be the Championship 4 in waiting.
Will the aforementioned “Big 4” leave any elbow room for others to dine on the spoils of victory, or are we going to see several drivers rely on points to get into the 2025 NASCAR Playoffs?
You see four drivers win eight of the first nine races and, well, it stands to reason that they’re probably going to win a whole bunch of the rest of the races, too.
With 17 contests remaining before the 2025 NASCAR Playoffs lock in its 16-driver field, how many new winners are we actually going to see?
Given what we’ve witnessed so far, with three of them already hitting for multiple wins and Byron, the lone driver among them with just one, running arguably the best of the bunch, it feels like a safe assumption that at least two more victories are coming for each of them by the time we return to Darlington.
That’s eight wins right there, leaving just nine more for potential new winners. If that were to happen, that would bring us to 14 total victors and likely two drivers relying on points for their playoff berths. For context, the 2018 season mentioned above didn’t experience its ninth driver (Kurt Busch) celebrating a win until Race 24, with the 10th and final regular-season victor (Brad Keselowski) claiming the last two.
A case can be made that these four drivers are off to an even more dominant start than the Class of ’18 was, too. Harvick led the bunch with seven wins at that point, with Busch tallying six, Truex four and Logano just one. That’s 18 total, and the current quick quartet, thus far, is on pace for about 23.
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We’ve typically seen regular-season winners total in the 13-to-14 range in this playoff format, rising to a high of 16 in 2022, so we’d be bucking the trend in a big way. So, will we get to 10? It’s possible — but the path is narrower than usual.
Consider the usual suspects still searching for a win: Chase Elliott, Ryan Blaney, Tyler Reddick, Joey Logano, even Kyle Busch. All playoff staples.
Elliott has five top 10s but hasn’t looked as dominant as his Hendrick teammates. Blaney has led races but hasn’t been able to finish the job for a multitude of reasons, though often not of his own doing. Reddick came close at Daytona and remains a driver to watch, particularly at road courses. Logano, the defending champion, has led 260 laps yet has zero top-fives to show for it. These are all superstars, but they are displaying nowhere near the consistency of the 2025 elite. Still, it’s likely that at least three or four of those five drivers will win a race. Getting closer.
Then there are the long shots, who certainly come into play this weekend down in Alabama. Ricky Stenhouse Jr. — last fall’s Talladega winner — is always dangerous on drafting tracks. Ross Chastain has found rhythm again with three straight top 10s. Bubba Wallace is having his best start to a year ever and Chris Buescher, Alex Bowman, Chase Briscoe, Ryan Preece and AJ Allmendinger all continue to quietly run well.
But every week, the “Big 4” keep asserting control. Their consistency is suffocating.
What might change the math is schedule diversity in the coming months, which could produce surprises. If not, we might cruise into the playoffs with a throwback stat line — a year where eight or nine winners through the first 26 races is all we get.
And what happens if that’s the case? It doesn’t break the playoff format a bit; it instead reemphasizes the importance of consistency. It could also create the most dramatic last few weeks of the regular season to date, where point accumulation among bubble drivers suddenly matters more than striving for an opportunistic win.
Will we hit double digits? The answer might depend less on who’s ready to break through — and more on whether the “Big 4” ever cool off.
And believe it or not, they might just be warming up.
Change is in the air in the Non-cents Garage. Get front-tire changer Skip Flores’ thoughts as he heads to the No. 38 of Zane Smith after two years — and a championship — with Ryan Blaney.
Some drivers were ready for a break, while some others likely wanted to keep their hot streaks rolling. Either way, here’s who has historically won after a week off for the Cup Series among active drivers. (Credit: Racing Insights)
| Driver | Wins |
|---|---|
| Kyle Busch | 7 |
| Denny Hamlin | 2 |
| Brad Keselowski | 2 |
| Chase Elliott | 2 |
| Joey Logano | 1 |
| Austin Dillon | 1 |
| Kyle Larson | 1 |
| Erik Jones | 1 |
| Ross Chastain | 1 |
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