Projections have been updated after practice and qualifying on Saturday.
Christopher Bell and the No. 20 crew are intent on winning every weekend, and the next set of races lines up nicely for them to do that. Bell enters as the defending race winner, with Sunday’s Shriners Children’s 500 at Phoenix Raceway next on the docket (3:30 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Bell finished top five in both Phoenix races last year and scored 99 points between the two performances — 22 more than any other driver. It also doesn’t hurt that the last time the Cup Series was in Phoenix, he led 143 laps, which was a race-high in the season finale event.
However, while Bell tries to win his third consecutive NASCAR Cup Series race, other top-performing drivers should give Bell a run for his money and could prevent his three-peat from happening.
William Byron and Ryan Blaney — who sit 1-2, respectively, in the driver standings — are projected to make it a tight battle against Bell at Phoenix. These two have not just been consistent to start the year, but have been exceptional at Phoenix in the Next Gen era.
Looking at Byron first: Even though he sits as a projected third, the No. 24 team has turned in top-six efforts in four of the last five events at Phoenix, including a win in March 2023. He’s also off to an incredible start in 2025, with the second-best average running position (8.8) and tied for the second-best average finish with Blaney (10.0). Not only that, but Byron has an active streak of 17 straight stages with a top 10 in the desert, making a good case to not only retain the points lead after Sunday but possibly keep it at two winners through four races.
Blaney has also been superior out west. His worst finish over the last seven Phoenix races is fifth, which was in this race last year. Over that span, Blaney has netted two fourth-place finishes and four runner-ups. While he’s yet to win at the Arizona facility, he does have five stage wins and 266 laps led there in the Next Gen car.
BUBBA WALLACE: Another driver off to a solid start in 2025, Wallace has scored the most stage points this season if you include his Duel win (41 points). He’s recorded two top 10s in the last three Phoenix races, including a seventh-place effort last fall.
DENNY HAMLIN: Hamlin has had a slow start to the season, but Phoenix is a great track for him to turn things around. Last spring, he quickly got out front and led 68 laps to finish 11th. He also has two eighth-place finishes at Phoenix in the Next Gen car.
CHASE BRISCOE: You may notice a trend here, and that’s because Toyota led all but 14 laps in this race last year, and there’s a good chance we see similar dominance this Sunday, especially from Joe Gibbs Racing. Since Briscoe’s first Cup win came at Phoenix in 2022, he’s gone on to add three more top-10 finishes at the track.
MICHAEL MCDOWELL: McDowell’s 11.7 average finish currently ranks as the best in the Cup garage, and he’s done it without a top-10 finish. That should change Sunday as McDowell has two top 10s at his home track in the last three visits there.
RACING INSIGHTS’ PROJECTIONS FOR THE SHRINERS CHILDREN’s 500
Racing Insights’ advanced statistical formula includes current track, current track type, recent performance, team data and pit-crew data to arrive at a projected winner and full race results. Updated on raceday with practice and qualifying factored in.
Many of the usual road-course suspects were out in force for Sunday’s race at Circuit of The Americas in Austin, Texas. Kyle Busch, Shane Van Gisbergen, Tyler Reddick, Michael McDowell, AJ Allmendinger and William Byron all led laps — and all are among NASCAR Cup Series drivers who’ve won on road courses. But in the end, the race ultimately belonged to a driver who had just won the previous week at a dramatically different style of track: Christopher Bell, who mastered not only COTA’s twists and turns but also the pack-style drafting of Atlanta Motor Speedway.
In the process, Bell etched his name in NASCAR history — and he now has a chance to accomplish an even rarer feat on Sunday at Phoenix Raceway (3:30 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). So, let’s look at how Bell’s back-to-back wins compare to other drivers in history and see what his chances are of pulling off three wins in a row.
We aren’t used to seeing consecutive race winners very often in the Cup Series, especially in recent years. In the average season of the Gen 4 (1992-2007) or Car of Tomorrow (2007-2012) chassis, there were at least four instances per year of back-to-back winners. But the Gen 6 cars only yielded 3.3 cases of consecutive winners per season, and the Next Gen car has only given us an average of one back-to-back winner per year:
Before Bell won twice in the past two weekends, there hadn’t been a consecutive winner in the Cup Series since Chris Buescher in the middle of the 2023 season. Last year featured zero cases of back-to-back winners, the first season since 1984 in which that was the case.
So, Bell just jolted us out of a long stretch of 51 straight races won by different drivers. But he also did it in a special way — winning at a drafting-style track (I still sometimes call them “plate” tracks, even though I know we use tapered spacers now) and then a road course. Going back to the dawn of the modern era of the Cup Series in 1972, there have been only five such instances of back-to-back winners, with Bell being the first since Tony Stewart in 2005 at Sonoma Raceway and Daytona International Speedway:
Bell also became the first modern Cup Series driver to do it in this particular order — a superspeedway first, then a road course.
As impressive as all of that is, though, there’s a good chance Bell isn’t done yet.
Just to give a sense of how good Bell has been at this class of tracks recently, he made six starts at Phoenix, Richmond, Gateway and Loudon last season and scored two wins, finishing within the top six five times and never finishing worse than seventh. In other words, Bell ought to be at or near the top of the favorites list on Sunday, meaning he will probably make a strong run at a third consecutive win. And that, in turn, offers the chance for even more history to be made early this season.
Since 1972, there have been only 28 total cases of the same driver winning at least three races in a row, and none of them has occurred in the Next Gen era; the last season it happened was 2021, when Kyle Larson did it on two different occasions. Aside from Larson, nobody has pieced together a three-race win streak since 2018, when Kevin Harvick, Kyle Busch and Brad Keselowski each did it in the same year. It’s a pretty special club of drivers to be a part of, too, with only 17 members in history — and they’re just about all legends, with Harry Gant being the only inclusion who doesn’t rank among the 30 winningest drivers in Cup history:
Bobby Allison
David Pearson
Richard Petty
Cale Yarborough
Darrell Waltrip
Dale Earnhardt
Rusty Wallace
Harry Gant
Bill Elliott
Mark Martin
Jeff Gordon
Jimmie Johnson
Kyle Busch
Joey Logano
Kevin Harvick
Brad Keselowski
Kyle Larson
If Bell joins the club, he would have 12 Cup wins, six fewer than Handsome Harry racked up in his career. But Bell would also stake claim to maybe the most impressive three-race win streak of them all.
Phoenix is a tough track to pin down; at exactly 1 mile with minimal banking and a distinctive dogleg, it defies easy classification as either a regular speedway — nobody would mistake it for Michigan International Speedway, Las Vegas Motor Speedway or Kansas Speedway — or a short track. But no matter how you classify it (my ratings consider it an “oval”), a Bell victory would mean he would have won three straight races at three different types of tracks, coming off those wins at a drafting track and a road course.
Out of all the legends above, only two can say they did the same: David Pearson, who won consecutively at Darlington (oval), Martinsville (short track) and Talladega (superspeedway) in 1973; and Mark Martin, who did it at Watkins Glen (road course), Michigan (oval) and Bristol (short track) in 1993. (Martin then won at Darlington to join the super-exclusive club of four-straight winners.)
Bell has a real chance to land in that group, especially given his track record at Phoenix and other similar sites. That’s a level of versatility that even most of the sport’s greatest legends never achieved. And for a driver with clear championship potential, don’t be surprised if a historic early-season hot streak for Bell leads to something much bigger by season’s end.
1. Is this the version of Kyle Busch we can expect?
Kyle Busch, riding a career-long winless streak, has displayed a noticeable uptick in performance through the first month of on-track activity. Will he keep it up and snap the skid, or is it too early to tell?
Kyle Busch finally returned to Victory Lane this past weekend at Circuit of The Americas … to congratulate former protegé Christopher Bell on the win, after the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing driver overtook him in the final laps and rode off to victory.
But what we saw from “Rowdy” in Austin, combined with how the No. 8 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet has performed through the first month of racing, has us wondering — is Busch, well, back?
After a 2024 campaign marked by a playoff miss and the worst average finish (18.3) he’s posted since his rookie season (21.0), the two-time Cup Series champion has displayed a noticeable uptick in performance to spark his third season at RCR after a brilliant start in Year 1 and just a whole lot of frustration since. In a young season thus far defined by a handful of top-heavy talented drivers (namely Bell, William Byron, Tyler Reddick and Ryan Blaney), Busch is right there in the mix, with his latest showing of a near-win at COTA reminding everyone why he’s been such a threat over the past two decades.
The Chevrolet-backed organization as a whole carries a new swagger into the year, harkening back to its glory days as a perennial championship contender after shaking up some internal personnel over the offseason to address inconsistencies. It may be paying dividends already.
“Anytime you add more people or new people, you hope it’s for the betterment of your team,” Busch said at Daytona.
We’re three wild-card tracks into a long season, so take it with a grain of salt, but early returns validate this theory: Busch’s No. 8 Chevrolet has apparent speed at disparate venues like COTA’s road course and Atlanta’s superspeedway, subtly suggesting broader competitiveness as we get into the meatier portion of the schedule.
His current ninth-place standing in points — after nearly earning himself a playoff spot this past weekend, had he held on — reflects steadiness absent since his three-win 2023 start. Yet history looms large.
As Busch himself noted, “You’ve got to keep that momentum. Two years ago, when I joined RCR in 2023, we had a good 16 races — I think we won three of the first 16 — and then tallied off after that. You have to keep the strength all year long. You can’t fumble; that’s when these other guys will take advantage of you.”
Phoenix Raceway, site of Sunday’s Shriners Children’s 500, presents both opportunity and uncertainty. Busch owns four wins at the track, including a dominant 2019 near-sweep en route to the title, but he hasn’t led a lap there since that November race. While RCR’s 2025 short-track package remains untested, the ancillary signs are all encouraging.
James Gilbert | Getty Images
2. Will Christopher Bell go back-to-back … to-back?
The No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing driver is off to a sizzling start, winning two of the season’s first three races. How likely — or not — is it that the Atlanta and COTA victor will make it three in a row at Phoenix?
Christopher Bell is going to do a lot of things behind the wheel of a race car that nobody’s done before.
He has a chance to wow us once again this weekend at Phoenix.
Fresh off back-to-back victories stemming from surviving Atlanta’s drafting chaos and outmaneuvering Kyle Busch and William Byron in COTA’s road-course chess match, the Joe Gibbs Racing star now barrels toward Phoenix Raceway looking for his third in a row — as the defending winner of this race.
No driver has yet to win three consecutive races in the Next Gen era, a reality Chris Buescher, the last to achieve back-to-back wins in 2023, attributes to the sport’s parity.
“It’s harder to consistently keep an advantage,” Buescher explained in a Tuesday teleconference. “You don’t have as clear of an idea when you go to certain race tracks … it’s just harder to consistently keep an advantage over the field.”
But Bell’s Phoenix credentials and recent pace are such that it almost might be the expectation, not the exception, that he gets it done. Last season, he won the spring race after starting outside the top 10, then followed it with a 143-lap domination en route to a top five in November.
Yet Phoenix’s abrasive surface could neutralize Bell’s momentum.
The track’s falloff for the Goodyear option tire — up to two seconds per lap over a green-flag run — rewards drivers who manage degradation, a skill Ryan Blaney, arguably Bell’s biggest competition heading into the weekend based on recent track history, has honed into an art, particularly here.
The Team Penske veteran and 2023 champ have seven consecutive Phoenix top-five finishes. Blaney’s 1,683 laps spent in the top 10 since 2022, paired with an average running position of 5.5 in the last nine races, reveal a driver who could be ready to break through for win No. 1 there.
But Blaney’s not the only one standing in the way of history.
William Byron’s statistical stranglehold adds another layer of complexity for Bell, as the Daytona 500 winner has finished top 10 in 17 consecutive stages at Phoenix; a streak just two shy of the all-time record (19, Martin Truex Jr. at Richmond) and one that the points leader isn’t likely to see snapped this weekend. Byron’s 1,351 laps run in the top five since the Next Gen’s debut (even 368 more than Blaney) shows the caliber of Chevy that crew chief Rudy Fugle is putting under Byron and the No. 24 driver’s talent level to know what to do with it.
History offers Bell both caution and inspiration. The last driver to win three straight races, Kyle Larson in 2021, did so in the Gen-6 car. Still, Bell’s adaptability remains his X-factor. His 11 career wins span every track type (including dirt!) as he gives Larson a run for his money on the “best driver on the planet” moniker. Despite how generous the Next Gen is to the entire field, Bell is one of a small handful of drivers talented enough to find and exploit advantages over the long-haul.
As we’ve seen in this Next Gen era, it truly feels like if a driver gains an inch of an advantage, the field takes it back by Sunday.
After dominating his way to a victory at Phoenix Raceway in this race last year, Christopher Bell explains what he still needs to work on at the desert track. Will he have it cleaned up by Sunday or could it derail his shot at three in a row?
4. A brief history of Cup Series trailblazers
Live Fast Motorsports signed Katherine Legge up for Cup Series debut this weekend at Phoenix, and she’ll follow a long (but not long enough) line of women racers to make a start in the Cup Series, becoming just the eighth driver to do so. (Credit: Racing Insights)
Driver
Starts
Best Finish
Last race
Danica Patrick
191
6th
2/18/2018
Shawna Robinson
8
24th
7/6/2002
Patty Moise
5
26th
7/30/1989
Robin McCall
2
29th
8/22/1982
Janet Guthrie
33
6th
7/27/1980
Lella Lombardi
1
31st
7/4/1977
Christine Beckers
1
37th
7/4/1977
5. Catch the pack — news and notes from around the garage
The latest episode of the “Hauler Talk” podcast explored how Austin Cindric avoided a suspension for wrecking Ty Dillon at Circuit of The Americas.
Cindric was fined $50,000 and docked 50 points for spinning Dillon with right-rear contact after their cars collided in the March 2 race in Austin, Texas.
For similar right-rear hook maneuvers, NASCAR had suspended Bubba Wallace (for wrecking Kyle Larson in the Oct. 16, 2022 race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway) and Chase Elliott (who crashed Denny Hamlin in the May 29, 2023 race at Charlotte Motor Speedway). But those wrecks happened on ovals, which NASCAR managing director of racing communications Mike Forde said was an important distinction from Cindric’s penalty on a road course.
“The reason we landed on the points and fine is we take every situation and every violation as its own unique incident, and I know fans probably don’t love hearing that, but it’s said because it’s true,” Forde said. “Sure, we do look at past instances to help educate ourselves on how we should handle each subsequent one, but each incident is very different.
“In this case, we did feel that it was significantly different than the previous two. And the reasons are it is at a road course with lower speeds to begin with, and the results didn’t even draw a caution flag. So those were really the reasons why we chose to err on the side of letting (Cindric) race this weekend in Phoenix with a fine and a significant driver points penalty. … When I hit social media after this penalty is announced, my guess is that there is going to be several people who feel this is the wrong call. And it may not be the popular call, but when we look at penalties, we do not really care how popular we are. We try to do the right thing here.”
Cindric falls from 11th to 35th in the standings despite a promising start to the season. The Team Penske driver was wrecked after leading late in the Daytona 500 and at Atlanta Motor Speedway before retaliating against Dillon at COTA.
Forde said the recent wrecks of Cindric were raised during the penalty discussion but didn’t necessarily influence the penalty.
“His frustration was at a boiling point,” Forde said. “Why he did it doesn’t make it right and didn’t come into our thought process of where we should land here. It was strictly because of the speeds and the venue. We didn’t view this the same as Bubba Wallace and Chase Elliott incidents at mile-and-a-half tracks. So that’s really what the thinking was. But it was helpful to tell the story of what led into this whether that was brought up as food for thought or ‘Hey, if you’re wondering why someone who seems like a pretty level-headed dude in Austin Cindric would do something like that, this is probably why.’ ” …
The latest “Hauler Talk” guest was Goodyear senior technical project manager Mark Keto, who discussed the option tire that will be used at Phoenix Raceway in Sunday’s Cup race with an eye toward using it in the championship finale.
Keto confirmed the tire will be the same as the option tires used last year for the All-Star Race at North Wilkesboro Speedway and the Aug. 11 race at Richmond Raceway, which drew positive reviews from drivers lobbying to use it at last year’s title race in Phoenix.
“There was some discussion leading into the (2024) championship about running an option tire, but everybody kind of talked, and we decided we don’t want to throw that into the championship weekend,” Keto said. “So then we decided to bring it for the spring race to try to something different. There’s no better test than put it in right in the competition.
“Long term, we don’t plan on utilizing option tires and having two tire choices in most race weekends. We’re going to see what we learn here.”
Goodyear also will hold a tire test Monday at Phoenix with Chevrolet’s Austin Dillon, Ford’s Josh Berry and Toyota’s Tyler Reddick.
Other topics covered during the fourth episode of “Hauler Talk,” which explores competition issues in NASCAR:
— The confusion over why track limits never were called in the Turn 6 section of the COTA race weekend and why the TecPro Barriers (which originally were intended to serve as “natural” track limits) were removed after concerns from NASCAR and drivers.
Click on the embed above to listen or search for “Hauler Talk” wherever you download podcasts to hear it on your phone, tablet or mobile device.
Nate Ryan has written about NASCAR since 1996 while working at the San Bernardino Sun, Richmond Times-Dispatch, USA TODAY and for the past 10 years at NBC Sports Digital. He is a contributor to the new “Hauler Talk” show on the NASCAR Podcast Network. He also has covered various other motorsports, including the IndyCar and IMSA series.
The National Motorsports Appeals Panel on Wednesday overturned the L2-level penalty levied against the Joe Gibbs Racing No. 19 team stemming from the season-opening race at Daytona International Speedway.
Chase Briscoe piloted the No. 19 JGR Toyota to a fourth-place finish in the 2025 Daytona 500 while claiming the Busch Light Pole Award for the race as well. However, further inspection at the NASCAR Research & Development Center in Concord, North Carolina, initially found the No. 19 in violation of Section 14.1 of the Rule Book, which pertains to overall assembled vehicles rules, and 14.5.8, which deals with the spoiler.
Specifically, the spoiler base was found to be modified on the No. 19 car. The spoiler base is a single-source part and cannot be modified.
In overturning the ruling, the three-member panel determined: “The panel believes that the elongation of some of the holes on the No. 19 Cup car spoiler base is caused by the process of attaching that specific spoiler base to the rear deck and not modification of the single source part.”
“We appreciate the process NASCAR has in place that allowed us the opportunity to present our explanation of what led to the penalty issued to our No. 19 team,” team owner Joe Gibbs said in a statement. “We are thankful for the consideration and ruling by the National Motorsports Appeals Panel. It is obviously great news for our 19 team and everyone at Joe Gibbs Racing. We look forward to focusing on the remainder of our season starting this weekend in Phoenix.”
Briscoe was initially docked 100 driver points and 10 playoff points. JGR was fined $100,000 and deducted 100 owner points, as well as 10 playoff points. Crew chief James Small was suspended for four races. All of that is rescinded following the appeal.
With the ruling overturned, Briscoe is now 15th in the Cup Series standings with 72 points earned on the season. Before the panel’s decision, Briscoe was placed 40th in the Cup table.
“Biggest points day of my career! We’re back!” Briscoe posted on social media. “In all seriousness thank you to NASCAR for giving us the option to show our evidence and huge thank you to everyone at (Joe Gibbs Racing) who put in countless hours to put everything together.”
The three-member panel was comprised of Dixon Johnston, Hunter Nickell and Cathy Rice.
Briscoe and the No. 19 team will next compete at Phoenix Raceway on Sunday (3:30 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
NASCAR penalized Austin Cindric, driver of the No. 2 Team Penske Ford, on Wednesday after an incident between him and Ty Dillon in last Sunday’s Cup Series race at Circuit of The Americas. NASCAR also hit the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports team with two pit crew suspensions after a lost wheel during the race.
Early in Sunday’s race, Cindric contacted the right rear of Dillon’s No. 10 Kaulig Racing Chevrolet, sending Dillon spinning down the frontstretch. NASCAR deemed Cindric’s move to fall into the category of intentionally wrecking another vehicle under Sections 4.4 B&D: NASCAR Member Code of Conduct Penalty Options and Guidelines.
As a result, Cindric lost 50 driver points and was fined $50,000, dropping him from 11th to 35th in the standings. NASCAR stopped short of giving him a 1-race suspension, something it did previously for drivers who intentionally wrecked other vehicles, most recently with Bubba Wallace on Kyle Larson in 2022 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway and with Chase Elliott on Denny Hamlin in 2023 at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
Mike Forde, NASCAR managing director of racing communications, said in today’s episode of “Hauler Talk” the reasoning Cindric wasn’t suspended included the race being on a road course, with lower speeds and tighter confines already, and that the incident didn’t lead to a caution flag. The previous two incidents that led to those suspensions occurred on 1.5-mile speedways.
In addition to the No. 2 team’s penalties, the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports team will be without jackman Brandon Johnson and front tire changer Blaine Anderson after they were suspended for two races as part of the safety violation penalty noted in Sections 8.8.10.4.A&C: Tires and Wheels of the NASCAR Rule Book.
Toward the end of Stage 2, No. 5 driver Kyle Larson lost a right-front wheel on-track shortly after a pit stop.
Due to the incident, Larson was immediately penalized two laps, leading to a 32nd-place finish for the 2021 series titleholder.
Hendrick brings on jackman Eric Ludwig and front tire changer Jafar Hall to the No. 5 team for Sunday’s Cup Series race at Phoenix Raceway (3:30 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). They are Hendrick crew members who were previously assigned to Spire Motorsports cars.
MOORESVILLE, N.C. (March 3, 2025) – The calendar notifications on Rick Ware’s mobile phone are incessant. The frequent buzzes and constant dings are ever-present reminders that the sun never sets at Rick Ware Racing (RWR).
This weekend highlights the scope of RWR’s motorsports footprint. The No. 51 Mighty Fire Breaker Ford Mustang Dark Horse RWR fields for Cody Ware in the NASCAR Cup Series is at Phoenix Raceway for Sunday’s Shriners Children’s 500. Two thousand miles and two time zones east in Gainesville, Florida, the 12,000-horsepower Top Fuel dragster that Clay Millican pilots for RWR in the NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series kicks off its season with the 56th annual Gatornationals. One hundred miles southeast of Gainesville at Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway, Progressive American Flat Track (AFT) begins its 2025 campaign with rider Chase Saathoff representing RWR in the 450 Singles class and RWR rider Briar Bauman in the SuperTwins division.
Sure, Ware is not the only team owner to field entries in multiple series. Penske, Trackhouse and McLaren immediately come to mind. But RWR is the most diverse. NASCAR tracks. NHRA dragstrips. Dirt ovals lined with hay bales. Four wheels. Two wheels. RWR is there, domestically and internationally, as its FIM World Supercross Championship (WSX) team doesn’t begin its season until October at iconic London Stadium, home of West Ham United Football Club.
“It’s not for the faint of heart. It’s a seven-day-a-week, 52-week endeavor, so you have to love it,” said Ware, a native of Los Angeles who relocated to North Carolina in the mid-1990s. “I’m going to be in Florida this weekend, splitting my time between AFT in Daytona and NHRA in Gainesville. I don’t get to as many AFT and Top Fuel races as I would like, so with each being in the same state and relatively close, I need to make the most of the schedule.”
At any one time, stock cars, dragsters, motorcycles and the sportscars from RWR’s 2019-2020 LMP2 championship in the Asian Le Mans Series and podium finish last January in the IMSA VP Racing SportsCar Challenge LMP3 class at Daytona are all under one roof.
Courtesy of Rick Ware Racing
“This is a very addictive sport. To be on podiums and to hoist trophies, and to high-five for top-10s and even top-20s in NASCAR, is really something else,” Ware said. “That being said, we’re in the business of trying to win races, so you need to make a business case to justify why you do it. This platform allows us to have a diverse volume of events, from coast to coast, where we can deliver for our partners.”
In addition to that Asian Le Mans Series championship, RWR has delivered championships on the two-wheeled front. It won the 2022 WSX 250cc class title with rider Shane McElrath, and a second motorcycle crown was earned last year when rider Kody Kopp delivered the AFT 450 Singles class title to RWR.
Among those championships are wins. Millican has four Top Fuel event victories since joining RWR in late 2022, including last year’s U.S. Nationals, drag racing’s equivalent of the Daytona 500 and Indianapolis 500. And AFT rider Bauman, now in his third season with RWR, has earned four of his 26 career SuperTwins wins with RWR.
“We want to win in every series where we compete, but that’s tough to do in these disciplines. By fielding entries in different series, we’re able to provide a broader reach to our partners,” Ware said. “When we earn success in one discipline, it’s every partners’ success too. This also allows our partners to reach a variety of demographics.
“For instance, motorcycle racing skews younger, while NASCAR has a little bit older audience. With the cross-promotion we’re able to do with all of these different racing series, what we offer is financially beneficial for brands. They can engage more of their customers and VIP guests with more opportunities and different experiences. It’s allowed us to really bring added value to all of our partners.”
Arby’s is RWR’s most recent example. When Millican won the U.S. Nationals, he did it with Arby’s adorned on his nitro-powered Top Fuel dragster. The victory fueled a partnership that in 2025 extends to the NASCAR Cup Series. Arby’s is the primary partner on the No. 51 Ford Mustang for 12 races, all while remaining with Millican’s Top Fuel ride, including a return to the U.S. Nationals.
“I love motorsports, and I don’t care if it’s two-wheel, four-wheel, it doesn’t matter to me, I love it and I keep up with it,” Millican said. “That’s the way we’re all wired at RWR. We’re committed to performing and, even before that, we’re committed to putting in the prep work to perform. And that’s not just on the track. We know we need to deliver off the track, and whatever we have to do to make that happen, we do it. That’s a racer’s mentality. You just find a way.”
The brands visible on one RWR entry are typically seen on the multiple entries in the various disciplines where RWR competes.
“We’ve had partners who had traditionally been active in the NHRA, but we exposed them to NASCAR and American Flat Track, and now they’re activating across all three of these series,” Ware said. “When you deliver that kind of return, where what you’re able to provide is unique from everyone else, that’s how you continue to grow.”
Cody Ware has had a front-row seat to the time, energy and effort his father has put into RWR.
Courtesy of Rick Ware Racing
“When I see where we are now compared to where we were five years ago, you can’t even compare. It’s a whole different race team now,” Cody said. “With what we’ve accomplished on the AFT and NHRA side, I think it’s helped us gain respect in NASCAR and motorsports as a whole. To win NHRA’s crown jewel in the U.S. Nationals with Clay Millican, and to win last year’s AFT 450 Singles championship with Kody Klopp, and the 2022 WSX 250 class title with Shane McElrath, I mean, that doesn’t just magically happen. The organization put in a lot of work to earn those wins and championships, and I think that’s given dad the confidence to continue to build the NASCAR program.
“NASCAR takes a lot more manpower and engineering resources and, quite frankly, dollars, compared to some of the other series, but it’s still an upward trajectory.”
It’s that grind to constantly improve, to be better than the last finish, to go quicker than the last pass, which drives Ware.
“I haven’t been able to always stop and smell the roses, like I should,” Ware said. “That’s one of the goals I’m going to try to achieve this year, because it is pretty cool and I’m proud of the people I have around me. They’ve worked so hard to make all of this happen. It’s cool to see people happy and excited about the success we’ve earned, and that’s really important to me.”
So, what does success look like this weekend?
Millican: “It’s leaving Gainesville with a Wally. That’s what our trophy is called, after NHRA founder Wally Parks, and that’s what we want. We know we’re capable of doing it – we’ve done it with RWR multiple times now – so winning is the bar for success.”
Saathoff, who takes over the reigning championship-winning ride in AFT’s 450 Singles class: “I’m shooting for the podium. I want to win every weekend, but the competition is tough. I was a privateer last year, so to be with a team of this caliber, I want to be smart and make the most of it.”
Bauman: “We’ve gotten a couple days of testing, and my goal is to get on the podium and win. I’m back with my crew chief and my mechanic from about eight years prior. We’ve all won together before, and we aim to do that again this year.”
Cody Ware: “It’s been a rough start to our year on the NASCAR side. I just want a good, clean weekend where we come out with a solid finish and get our season pointed in the right direction.”
Perhaps the opinion that matters most is that of the team owner.
“Most of all, I want to make sure all of our partners are happy and that we’ve helped them reach their goals. That’s job one,” Ware said. “I would really like to get a top-25 at Phoenix in the Cup race. I’m expecting to be on both podiums in Singles and SuperTwins in Flat Track and, man, I sure hope we get to the final round at the Gatornationals. We have the riders and drivers and the programs in place to do all of that. Obviously, there are a lot of variables – riders can get knocked down, we can blow stuff up in the Top Fuel car, and we can have issues at the mile at Phoenix, but that success is achievable, and it all just helps us grow our fan base, deliver for our partners, and add value to the series we’re competing in.”
Sheldon Creed bet on himself by moving to Joe Gibbs Racing for the 2024 NASCAR Xfinity Series season. He wanted to stay within the Toyota pipeline for years to come.
Though Creed didn’t win in 2024, he defined consistency in his one-year stint with JGR. His 23 top-10 finishes were tied for the series lead (Cole Custer), and he ranked second in top fives (16). Being a weekly contender was a trait that, admittedly, he needed to improve upon from his two years with Richard Childress Racing.
“I was hoping – maybe they knew it was a one-year deal – I didn’t know,” Creed told Jayski.com. “I was hoping to go back and then midyear, I saw how things were playing out for other guys and knew that it probably wasn’t going to work with money and what they need.”
With 2023 series champion Custer being promoted to the Cup Series with Haas Factory Team and Riley Herbst departing for an opportunity with 23XI Racing, Creed saw an opening. He had spoken to Haas in past years about potentially making the jump, and the stars finally aligned.
“It reminds me of GMS when we were a truck team,” Creed said.
Joe Custer, president of Haas Factory Team, needed to fill two slots for his Xfinity organization. He got the two drivers he wanted with Creed and Sam Mayer.
With the rebrand from Stewart-Haas Racing to Haas Factory Team, Custer found it fortuitous to get two drivers with loads of experience at the Xfinity level. Though Ford lacks the number of entries compared to Chevrolet, Custer didn’t want his team to be at a deficit at any style of race track. He found what he believes are two well-rounded individuals.
With Creed bouncing between three different teams, all with different manufacturers in a 15-month period, Custer knows the California native has something to prove in 2025 after going winless in his first 106 Xfinity Series starts.
“I think there’s an edge about him,” Custer said. “He’s a laid-back guy, but make no mistake, it gnaws at him (that Creed has yet to win), and that’s what I look for in a driver. Not somebody that is just out there riding, but somebody that is frustrated in a good way. We need to put him in a situation where he has the confidence that the car is there.”
Creed’s pairing with 2023 championship-winning crew chief Jonathan Toney was vital. The duo shares similar relaxed swaggers, allowing them to mesh at and away from the race track.
Creed knows that Toney and Cole had a special mix after competing against the No. 00 team for the previous two seasons. He plans on running the setups they did in the past to start the season before providing his input.
Away from the track, Custer said Creed has committed to his fitness and leadership. Haas believes Creed can reach his maximum potential.
“He was willing because of the fact that he had been in situations that I don’t think got the most out of him; we intend to get every bit out of him,” Custer added. “He embraced that discussion. It’s not just showing up with your helmet. You’ve got to show up on Monday at the shop and be on kill to get everything we can.”
Creed holds the series record of 13 runner-up finishes before winning his first race, and it’s not a record he bloats about. He knows he has to win.
“With the way it ended at RCR, I felt like I needed to have [2024],” Creed said. “I’ve proved that I can run top five all the time. Now, I need to show that I can go win races. That’s what I’m missing: winning races.
“I really enjoyed last year, but I feel like I’m really enjoying my time right now. I’m getting older, and there are a lot of kids — I guess I still am a kid, but an older version of them. So, I’m trying to enjoy it all. I don’t know where my mindset is at. I’m going to do the best that I can, and I think we will find ourselves in Victory Lane.”
Through the first three races of 2025, Creed ranks third in the championship standings with one top-10 finish (third, Daytona). Creed will next race at Phoenix Raceway on Saturday in the GOVX 200 (5 p.m. ET, The CW, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
MOORESVILLE, N.C. (March 4, 2025) — Kyle Larson, the 2021 NASCAR Cup Series Champion and William Byron, a 14-time race winner in NASCAR’s premier division, will split time behind the wheel of Spire Motorsports’ No. 07 HendrickCars.com Chevrolet Silverado in a trifecta of NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series races in 2025.
Larson, a native of Elk Grove, California, will race the No. 07 Chevy Silverado in the March 21 Baptist Health 200 at Homestead-Miami Speedway and return to the cockpit two races later for the April 11 Weather Guard Truck Race at Bristol Motor Speedway.
Byron will thread the needle between Larson’s two stints and handle the driving chores for the Allen Hart-led program March 28 at Martinsville Speedway. Byron returns to the site of his most recent Craftsman Truck Series win, where, ironically, he collected Spire Motorsports’ inaugural victory in the division.
Both Hendrick Motorsports drivers have picked up checkered flags in Truck Series competition for the Mooresville, North Carolina, organization over the last three seasons.
“One of the coolest things of having a Craftsman Truck Series team is to have the crossover from Hendrick Motorsports and Hendrick Automotive Group,” said Spire Motorsports co-owner Jeff Dickerson. “We’ve had all their drivers in our trucks from time to time, and to have two guys in William (Byron) and Kyle (Larson), who have won races with us back in the seat, certainly gives the team a little more pep in our step. It also raises the bar for those races to win or bust. You don’t show up with those guys to do anything else but win.”
Larson and Byron will be part of a HendrickCars.com trio of Spire Motorsports-prepared entries at all three events. In addition to the No. 07 machine, Rajah Caruth will sport his traditional HendrickCars.com paint scheme aboard his No. 71 Chevy, while Larson’s fellow Hendrick Motorsports stablemate Corey Day will pilot the team’s No. 7 Chevrolet Silverado, featuring an identical livery.
The 32-year-old Larson, often referred to as “Yung Money,” owns three Homestead Craftsman Truck Series starts where he tallied one pole and a pair of top fives, including a runner-up finish in the 2014 season finale.
Larson made his lone Bristol start in Truck Series competition in 2021 when the famed half-mile was covered in dirt. Regrettably, he was saddled with a 35th-place finish after being collected in an incident just past the halfway mark of the 150-lap event.
“I love racing at Homestead-Miami (Speedway) and Bristol (Motor Speedway), so I’m excited to add those Truck races to my schedule,” said Larson. “Hopefully, we can put on a great show with HendrickCars.com on board and battle for the victories in the Spire truck.”
In addition to his success in the Cup Series, Byron was highly accomplished on the Craftsman Truck Series side of the sport and lays claim to eight victories across 29 starts — seven of which came during the 2016 season.
Meanwhile, the Charlotte, North Carolina, native owns two Martinsville wins on NASCAR’s grandest stage, where he secured the historic half-mile’s famed grandfather clock trophy in the spring of 2022 and 2024.
“I’m excited to get back to the Truck Series,” said Byron. “It’s been a couple years for me, so I’m ready to try it again. Plus, the last time I ran a truck at Martinsville, we won. Hopefully, we can do that again because it really paid off for us on the Cup side of things. Spire is a great group, and I’m excited to work with them again.”
The Baptist Health 200 from Homestead-Miami Speedway will be televised live on FOX Friday, March 21, beginning at 8 p.m. ET. The fourth of 25 races on the 2025 Craftsman Truck Series schedule will also be broadcast live on the NASCAR Radio Network and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Channel 90.
Christopher Bell outlasted some heavy hitters at Circuit of The Americas to earn his second consecutive victory in just the season’s third race.
NASCAR.com’s Pat DeCola ranks the top 20 Cup Series contenders after the EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix at Circuit of The Americas and before Sunday’s Shriners Children’s 500 at Phoenix Raceway (3:30 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Analysis: I mean, jeez. There’s no denying Bell was likely destined for greatness this season as he elevated into a more senior role among the JGR driver cohort and had plenty of motivation after how his season ended last year, but this is really something. Two wins in the books already and you get the sense many, many more are coming. As the most recent winner of this race — and laps-led leader in last fall’s championship — three in a row might not just be possible, it may be likely.
Analysis: Gosh, this guy is good, and it very nearly could’ve been him taking his second trip to Victory Lane this past weekend instead of Bell. As it is, Byron still holds the points lead and it’s clear he’s going to be a major player once again this year as his star continues to rise. Phoenix is already an exceptional track for him as well, and the 2023 spring winner has led double-digit laps in four of the past six races there.
Analysis: Reddick got his first taste of the Championship 4 last year … and was the only one of the four not to lead a lap in the championship race, finishing sixth behind eventual champ Joey Logano, his teammate Ryan Blaney and Byron. Needless to say, he’ll be itching to get back out west this weekend and erase the sour taste from his mouth and maybe replace it with some champagne. Arguably the best winless driver of 2025 so far may no longer hold that distinction by Sunday evening, because he may no longer qualify.
Analysis: Don’t sweat Blaney’s P19 at COTA as it came along with a strong 27 points — just nine fewer than his P4 run a week earlier at Atlanta — as No. 12 looks to be formidable this year once again. He might hold the distinction as the best driver at Phoenix to have never won there, averaging a 10.4 finish with 13 top 10s in 18 starts … including a truly ridiculous four runner-ups in the last five races. There has never been a driver more set to break through at a track than Ryan Blaney at Phoenix.
Analysis: It’s a bit shocking to see just the two laps led next to Elliott’s name so far, as The Clash winner has felt much more competitive than that through the first month of on-track activity. With 553 laps led scattered across eight of his 17 Phoenix starts, there’s a strong chance we see No. 9 out front at some point on Sunday. And perhaps in Victory Lane, as well.
Analysis: Not a whole lot a driver can do with just three wheels on the car, even if that driver happens to be Kyle Larson, so we’ll just chalk that one up to bad luck and move on. Phoenix feels like a track he’s close to mastering, and despite just the one win there, No. 5 has led a strong 395 laps for an average finish of 11.0. He’ll be among the favorites entering the weekend and, seeing as he really has to play catchup now with rival Bell winning the past two races, there’s a strong chance he cracks open the win column on Sunday.
Analysis: Logano could’ve had a much better day at COTA before fading late; No. 22 was the Stage 1 runner-up, which helped him salvage a decent afternoon despite finishing 24th. We could start to see him turn on the jets from here, though — the three-time and defending champion obviously knows how to get it done at Phoenix, entering the weekend as the most recent winner with four total victories there. That said, he did crash out of this race last year for his second-worst Phoenix finish across 32 starts.
Analysis: Beyond the eventual P20 finish, Wallace had a pretty strong weekend out in Austin, landing a front-row starting spot alongside his teammate along with a stage win and 30 total points (to match seventh-place finisher Chris Buescher). We keep hearing about a “new” Bubba Wallace this year and so far it’s bearing out. Let’s see if this refreshed No. 23 driver can build off last fall’s seventh-place run at Phoenix — just his third top 10 there in 14 tries.
Analysis: Hamlin’s race got a little derailed at COTA after contact with Austin Dillon, and he could not rally to make it back-to-back top 10s after a strong Atlanta run. While he has just two wins in 29 starts — one of which was a couple of generations of car ago — No. 11 always seems to be a factor at Phoenix and it feels likely we’ll see him at the front of the field at some point, especially where he tends to qualify so well there.
Analysis: It’s early yet, but Bowman’s 13.7 average finish would stand as a career-best and he has already compiled 25% of the laps led that he had for the entire 2024 season in just three races, so you have to like what you’re seeing here so far. The Arizona native gets to test that out at his home track this weekend, however, as No. 48 has just a pair of top 10s in 19 starts there, with one of them coming all the way back in 2016 in fill-in duty for Dale Earnhardt Jr. That said, the other one came in this race in 2023 so it’s not like he can’t make it happen.
Analysis: Look, we’re just along for the ride here and have no idea if 2025 is going to really be “Rowdy” rounding back into form or if this hot start of his is just an oasis, but just enjoy it while it’s here. Busch has been dominant and then some for nearly his entire career, so it’s just felt … off? … seeing him go winless the past 60 races. It sure seemed like he was headed for Victory Lane this past Sunday, though, and it’s encouraging to see that kind of speed as he now heads to one of his best tracks. Surely, it’ll all be on display and he’ll be strong again at Phoenix, right?
Analysis: The first two races of the year Cindric looked like a force of nature, even if Atlanta wound up not quite going his way at the end and it resulted in a P28 after 47 laps led. You’d think, in Austin of all places, this would continue at COTA, but alas … not quite. His 2025 prowess will receive another solid test this weekend, however, with Phoenix so far shutting him out from the top 10 in six tries for an overall average finish of 24.0.
Analysis: Chastain isn’t lighting the world on fire by any means (though Elliott Nation might be another story) but we’d probably be looking at his season a little differently so far if he hadn’t wrecked out of the Daytona 500 and finished 40th; he’s been pretty good otherwise. He could start to enter the conversation a little more this weekend at Phoenix, where he won the 2023 finale and had a pair of top threes in 2022.
Analysis: The top 10 at COTA was littered with the typical assortment of names we’ve grown accustomed to on road courses, Buescher right up there among them in seventh, for his second top 10 of the year. Phoenix historically hasn’t been a great track for him, but he’s really turned it around there in recent years. All four of his top 10s have come from 2022-on and he enters this weekend as the defending runner-up. Could happen.
Analysis: The road courses will likely continue to be McDowell’s bread-and-butter and his best chances to win his way into the playoffs (along with superspeedways, of course) and he had a great day at COTA (34 points, three laps led) but ultimately fell short of his prize, landing 11th. The Arizona native certainly would’ve loved to return home already holding a playoff spot, because he has just a pair of top 10s at Phoenix in 28 starts there. That said, both of those came in the last three races there, and he should have a solid weekend ahead with former Phoenix master Rodney Childers now in-house and at his disposal.
Analysis: Things could certainly be going a little bit better for Briscoe in his maiden season with Joe Gibbs Racing, but it’s extremely early and more than likely you’re still looking at a playoff driver here. In fact, there’s a significant chance he and the No. 19 team turn things around in a big way this weekend, as Briscoe enters with Phoenix being one of his best tracks (one win and four top 10s in eight starts) and a place that JGR, in particular, excels at. Not impossible we see a literal-bottom-of-the-standings-to-third-driver-locked-into-playoffs glow up come Sunday.
Analysis: Coming into a road-course race with that much heat is a recipe for disaster for any driver hoping to actually finish said road-course race, but Hocevar managed to get out of COTA without ruffling too many feathers en route to a solid P13. It’ll be tight quarters once again this weekend at the 1-mile Phoenix, where No. 77 actually has a trio of Cup Series starts dating back to 2023, with no finishes worse than 19th. Sounds like he’ll be in the mix once again on Sunday.
Analysis: Van Gisbergen was exceptional, as expected, at COTA, turning in 23 laps led en route to a 45-point day, just one shy of Busch’s race-high 46. This catapulted him an eye-popping 16 spots up the standings and there’s actually a solid chance he could continue to climb. SVG obviously gets most of his attention on the road courses, but he fared reasonably well at Phoenix — a difficult track in both complexity and ability to pass — in the Xfinity Series last year in his first crack at it. No. 88 nearly turned in a top five in his first run and averaged a 9.0 finish for the year there.
Analysis: Stenhouse will have to wait for that elusive second career road-course top 10 to come in perhaps his next try — which will be his 42nd start on one — but he’s probably not too upset about a 19-point day to remain in the top 10 in points, all told. Unfortunately, his solid start is at risk of running afoul at Phoenix, where No. 47 has just straight up not been good over a solid decade-plus of racing there in the Cup Series. Stenhouse has just two top 10s in 24 starts — both of which came in 2017 — and has led just a pair of laps out front across the 7,424 circuits he’s run there.
Analysis: Gilliland proved that his recent improvements on road courses weren’t solely because he had a ringer constantly in his ear as a teammate, with McDowell now racing for Spire Motorsports and the new No. 34 driver — Gilliland — earning his first top 10 since Indianapolis last year this past weekend at COTA. His run here in Power Rankings could be short-lived, with so much talent in the field this year, but with a pair of top 20s at Phoenix last year — including leading 14 laps in this particular race — expect him to hang around for at least another week.
