There’s always a new name knocking on the garage door every year across all three NASCAR National Series. This season, the NASCAR Cup Series has one man in that lane with Connor Zilisch, while the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series has a slightly wider field in the Rookie of the Year race. Here’s how the class stacks up.
Luke Fenhaus is still finding his footing on this level after the Wisconsin driver made his name on short tracks before stepping into national stock car racing.
Running part-time with Hettinger Racing in the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series this year, he has previously made 15 starts in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series, with one top five and three top-ten finishes. His best outing came at Michigan International Speedway, where he started from the pole and brought it home in third.
This year, he made early starts at Daytona and Atlanta, finishing 23rd and 20th. For now, his schedule hangs in the balance because of the sponsorship, with plans that could stretch from a handful of races to a full campaign.
Brent Crews has wasted no time getting his foot in the door. The 17-year-old is set to tackle the 2026 season in the No. 19 Toyota for Joe Gibbs Racing, after years in the Toyota Racing Development ladder.
He started his racing journey with go-karts at a young age, then climbed the ranks and left his mark in the ARCA Menards Series with a win at the Illinois State Fairgrounds, becoming the second-youngest driver to win an ARCA race.
Last season, he even took a swing at running his own team, setting up Brent Crews Motorsports and putting a truck on track once, alongside nine starts with Tricon Garage that brought two top-five and three top-10 finishes.
This season, he has also hit the ground running in the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series, with a 6th place finish at Circuit of the Americas and leading five laps along the way. In the next race at Phoenix, Crew finished 18th. Age rules kept him on the sidelines at tracks like Daytona International Speedway and Atlanta Motor Speedway, but once he turns 18 on March 30, he is ready to take the wheel full-time for the rest of the season.
Lavar Scott has had to take it on the chin early in the season. Driving the No. 45 Chevrolet as a full-time driver for Alpha Prime Racing in the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series, through the early part of the season, he sits 24th in the standings after five starts, with a best result of 16th at Daytona.
Before stepping up, Scott spent two seasons in ARCA with Rev Racing, finishing runner-up both times in the final standings, and came through the NASCAR Drive for Diversity Program.
Through his career, Patrick Staropoli has taken a road less traveled.
The full-time driver of the No. 48 Chevrolet for Big Machine Racing has split his life between racing and medicine, having studied at Harvard University and the University of Miami. Prior to this, he found Victory Lane with a win in the ARCA Menards Series West at Irwindale Speedway.
So far in his rookie NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts season, Staropoli has made five starts and has managed to keep things steady, stringing together finishes inside the top 20 three times before results at Phoenix Raceway and Las Vegas Motor Speedway saw him fall back in the order.
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