Five thoughts after Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Phoenix Raceway…
1. The Kids Are All Right
Four years ago, NASCAR focused its marketing efforts on a bunch of young drivers who had barely won a thing.
Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jeff Gordon and Tony Stewart had retired, leaving NASCAR anxious to help fans get attached to the next generation. So the series pushed drivers such s Chase Elliott, Ryan Blaney and Kyle Larson — hard — and irritated some veterans in the process.
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Kyle Busch called the emphasis on young drivers “stupid” and “bothersome.” When Texas Motor Speedway put up a large banner featuring caricatures of Blaney, Elliott, Daniel Suarez, Bubba Wallace, Alex Bowman, William Byron and Erik Jones, Kevin Harvick laughed it off because those drivers had a combined one career victory.
“If you like good marketing, it is good,” Harvick said then. “If you like winners, you go for the old guys.”
Harvick also took a Twitter jab at the youngsters after the veterans came out strong at the start of the 2018 season. He noted the average age of the winners in the first six races was 38.5 and tacked on the hashtag #oldguysrule at the end of his tweet.
Welp.
Four years later, that’s no longer the case. The average age of the winners after 2022’s first four races is 26.8. Meanwhile, Fox Sports’ Bob Pockrass noted there have been 10 consecutive Cup Series races won by drivers under 30 — a series record.
Now, it’s not like today’s veteran drivers stink. The top five from the Phoenix race had a 46-year-old (Harvick) and a 43-year-old (Kurt Busch). Experience is often the key to unlocking the combination of speed and consistency needed to win in NASCAR.
But the Phoenix top five also had three drivers in their 20s, all of whom were battling for the victory without a single Cup Series win to their name before Sunday. Chase Briscoe (27), Tyler Reddick (26) and Ross Chastain (29) are fierce, aggressive and talented drivers. Their emergence is no fluke; that trio is among the top four drivers in laps led this season (behind 28-year-old Ryan Blaney).
It’s still early, and the drivers who have more laps under their belts — Joey Logano, Kyle Busch, Denny Hamlin, Martin Truex Jr. among them — will strike back for plenty of victories this season.
The difference now? It’s not just Elliott (26) and Larson (29) who appear ready to take home the trophies. There’s a whole group of twentysomething drivers ready to prove themselves, and no marketing campaign is needed to capture everyone’s attention.
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2. That Other Chase
First of all, if you don’t know the complete Chase Briscoe backstory — you’re in luck! As a subscriber to The Athletic, you have access to this piece, which explains the whole thing.
If you don’t have the time right now to read it, a quick synopsis: An extraordinary amount of circumstances had to fall just the right way for Briscoe to even make it to NASCAR’s top level. It’s the sort of thing that seems so far-fetched, it would cause eye rolls from movie audiences if they watched it unfold on the big screen.
Ultimately, Briscoe made it. Or at least got a chance. But a dream opportunity isn’t worth much if a driver doesn’t do anything with it. And, after Briscoe’s rough rookie season (three top-10s in 36 races, 23rd in points), it was fair to wonder if he would capitalize on his big break.
That question has seemingly been answered already this season. Briscoe has been relevant and running up front. He was third at the Daytona 500, led a career-high 20 laps at Fontana and then blew that away by pacing 101 laps at Phoenix — while holding off the field on a late restart to secure the victory.
It’s a tiny sample size of races, but Briscoe is tied for fourth in the point standings with defending Cup Series champion Larson. The three drivers ahead of them (Joey Logano, Kyle Busch and Chase Elliott) are all former Cup champs.
Hanging with that kind of elite company means his results can’t be easily dismissed as a short-term burst. Briscoe has arrived, and now he’s going to continue to be a threat.
“I feel like I belong,” he said. “Especially now winning, I’ve proven I belong in the Cup Series. When you come in in your rookie year, you think you’re ready — but you’re never ready.”
Briscoe, a lifelong race fan, acknowledged there was a wow factor when racing against big names last year as a rookie. He’d see the No. 18 car and think, That’s Kyle Busch!
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Not anymore. Briscoe is one of them now, and part of a 200-strong club of drivers who have won at least one Cup Series race since 1948.
“These guys are incredible race car drivers,” he said. “To be on the racetrack with them is humbling, and to beat them is definitely humbling.”
You could end the Briscoe story right here and make that Disney movie out of the journey. The thing is, it would feel incomplete — because Briscoe is only getting started.
3. Struggling Start
Just as the new car has benefited some, there are other drivers and teams who seem to be behind on unlocking its secrets.
Brad Keselowski had high expectations after joining Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing, hoping the same-for-everybody parts and pieces of the new car would help his team compete right away. He’s a future Hall of Famer in the prime of his career and should be able to elevate the team with his talent, along with the addition of a sharp crew chief in Matt McCall.
But Keselowski was way off at Phoenix, getting lapped and finishing 23rd — only his second result outside the top 20 there since his rookie season in 2010. He’s 18th in the point standings after four races (teammate Chris Buescher is 21st) and now has three straight finishes of 23rd or worse.
Denny Hamlin has shown better speed than Keselowski, but is statistically in worse shape following yet another finish outside of the top 10. There are 26 drivers who have at least one top-10 finish through the parity-filled first four races, but Hamlin isn’t one of them. The 46-time race winner’s results have been marred by mistakes and he currently sits 27th in the standings — tied with rookie Todd Gilliland and behind the inexperienced Justin Haley.
It’s also ugly for Hamlin’s Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Christopher Bell. The 2021 playoff driver is 30th in points, one point behind Corey LaJoie — who is racing for a team with vastly fewer resources. Bell has crashed or spun in all four races so far, negating some of the speed he’s shown (like when he won the pole position at Las Vegas).
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Then there’s Bubba Wallace, who came into the season with high hopes for his second year at 23XI Racing. But after finishing second at the Daytona 500, Wallace has tumbled to 17th in the standings thanks to finishes of 19th, 25th and 22nd.
Will these drivers recover from their slow starts? It’s not panic time yet, because catching up during the hectic West Coast Swing isn’t easy for teams. There are plenty of races left in the regular season and it only takes one victory to make everything look pretty again.
But it’s certainly notable to see four of last year’s race winners struggling to accumulate points and post the results they anticipated, and the chances of each one turning things around becomes more difficult with each disappointing week.
4. What We Learned Out West
NASCAR’s three-race West Coast Swing — also known as the first real races of the season — was supposed to reveal the initial answers about how the season would unfold.
It’s obvious the new car is harder to drive, has created some new faces at the front of the field and is reliable enough to make it through races without falling apart.
But other than that, how much do we really know?
Hendrick Motorsports won two races, but that doesn’t mean that team has the best grip on the car (no Hendrick driver has led the most laps in a race this season). Chevrolet cars looked strong at Fontana and Vegas, but then Ford led 79 percent of the laps at Phoenix.
Toyota hasn’t won a race since Wallace’s Talladega victory last October, but it would have won at Vegas without a late caution that changed the narrative.
And while the younger drivers have a leg up early in the learning process of the Next Gen car, is it really going to stay that way? That seems like a leap at this point.
If you’re looking for trends, it does appear that drivers with dirt racing backgrounds have a solid grasp on the car. The three West Coast race winners (Larson, Bowman and Briscoe) all grew up on dirt — as did Reddick, who has been impressive each week.
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In dirt racing, there’s very little practice and drivers are required to figure out the track quickly. Perhaps that has helped with the new car, when there hasn’t been much track time and the car’s handling is uncertain for everyone.
“The guys that grew up Late Model or pavement racing, they don’t necessarily have that,” Briscoe said. “They go and test and run hours of practice. The dirt guys, you got to figure it out quickly and adapt.”
Aside from those drivers getting up to speed faster than others, can we really say with any confidence who the top contenders of the season will be? Given the lack of a dominant team and driver so far, it seems like we’re going to be waiting a while to see the full picture develop.
5. Ben Boosted
In case you missed it this week, Ben Kennedy earned himself another promotion as he continues his rise up the NASCAR ladder. The 30-year-old scion of NASCAR’s founding France family now has the title of “senior vice president, racing development and strategy.”
That’s an important role and a fitting one for a man seemingly on track to be in charge of the whole thing. Kennedy’s NASCAR colleagues feel he’s deserving of the increased responsibility, rather than being rushed to the top without merit.
But as the former driver moves back to NASCAR’s competition side, Kennedy will almost certainly become a target for fans’ ire whenever they’re unhappy with a NASCAR decision.
Steve O’Donnell knows how that feels. O’Donnell, promoted to chief operating officer last week, was an early Twitter adopter who used the platform to engage with fans. But as fans realized they had a direct line to a NASCAR power player, they used their voices to shower him with criticism and vent their anger over anything from caution flags to the rules package.
O’Donnell eventually deleted his Twitter account.
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“I went on there to interact with fans, and that became a place where that no longer was (viable) … it just became a bit of a mess for me,” O’Donnell said last week.
So how will NASCAR shield Kennedy, now out front as a decision-maker (and also on Twitter), from getting blasted?
For one thing, Kennedy won’t be involved in calling the races.
“We used to have a sport where our president was in race control, and that’s different than other sports,” O’Donnell said. “(NFL commissioner) Roger Goodell is not calling (a penalty like) holding. There’s some distance there. That’s where we want to evolve as a sport.”
Kennedy might be in race control at times to evaluate the processes and people, but there’s a team of NASCAR personnel (like race director Jusan Hamilton) who are in charge of officiating the event itself.
That said, Kennedy will still get his fair share of blowback if something goes wrong or fans dislike the direction NASCAR is going on a given topic. But O’Donnell said Kennedy was born into the sport and already understands how not to get too caught up in the highs and lows.
“The best advice I ever got was when you’re in a really tough spot, picture yourself going underwater, say whatever you’re going to say, then resurface and try to have the conversation,” O’Donnell said. “I have full confidence. I’ve seen Ben work. (He has a) great style and takes criticism even better than I do. So he’ll be in a good spot.”
(Photo: Sean Gardner / Getty Images)