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As wild as the 2024 NASCAR season was, the Silly Season, as the name might imply, was even crazier. A handful of drivers lost their rides following the 2024 season. Some of them landed on their feet with a massive upgrade, and others had to settle to have a ride next year. Who hit the jackpot in the 2025 season, and who lost to the House? Let’s break it down. Here are the biggest winners and losers of the 2024/25 NASCAR Silly Season.
Riley Herbst scoring the third car at 23XI might be a little controversial for some fans, and it’s easy to see why. He ran 5 full-time seasons in the NASCAR Xfinity Series and didn’t win a race until 2023. He won two more races in 2024 for a total of 3 victories. That’s all right, but it’s not great by any means. Herbst was given the boot after the closure/rebranding of SHR in the Xfinity Series. For a long time, Herbst was rumored to join 23XI in a third car, with a charter purchased from Stewart-Haas Racing. However, the drama between 23XI and NASCAR involving the antitrust lawsuit seemed to stall until the team made it official last week.
Riley Herbst landed this ride primarily due to his family’s monetary backing and his relationship with Monster Energy. It had less to do with his on-track performance. All of that said, Herbst really did hit the jackpot here. He went from only being good enough to win a NASCAR Xfinity Series race here and there to a Cup Series regular in Championship caliber equipment.
A couple of years ago, Corey Lajoie was viewed as a top prospect who just never got a chance to be in good equipment. In 2019 and 2020, he raced for the back-marker team, Go Fas Racing. Heading into 2021, he decided to “take a chance on himself,” and he made the leap to Spire Motorsports. Spire insisted at the time that Lajoie was their cornerstone driver and that the team would be built around him. That lasted not even 4 full seasons. During his tenure with Spire, Corey Lajoie has finished 29th, 31st, and 25th points. He did get a shot to fill in for an injured Chase Elliott in 2023 but ran in the back of the pack the whole race.
Throughout the 2024 season, Lajoie and his number 7 team ran horribly. Even Zane Smith showed him up in his final few runs in the 7 car. His performance was so bad that Spire announced mid-way through the year that Lajoie would not return to the team in 2025. Instead, it was announced that he was going to be replaced by Michael McDowell. Lajoie did not take this news very well. In response, there was an unofficial trade between Spire and Rick Ware Racing.
Justin Haley took over the number 7 car, and it was announced that he would be the team’s new driver in 2025. Meanwhile, Lajoie had to settle for the RWR 51 seat. As of this writing, his 2025 plans have not yet been announced. Maybe he’ll go to the RWR. Or maybe he’s just out of a ride entirely.
Trading up big time is Chase Briscoe. Unlike others on this list, Chase is a proven winner at the Cup Series level. It was just unfortunate that his first team was amidst a downward spiral when he joined. He did them their last win, though, so that’s awesome!
Following the announcement of Martin Truex Jr.’s retirement and Stewart-Haas Racing’s closure, Chase Briscoe’s plan to take over the 19-car fleet in 2025 was one of the garage’s worst-kept secrets. Joe Gibbs Racing made it official, and instantly, Briscoe and his fans started looking ahead to next year. Joe Gibbs Racing is a championship-level organization. During the years Briscoe raced for them, Stewart-Haas Racing simply wasn’t. This is a huge trade-up for Briscoe. In fact, he might’ve won the 2024 Silly Season with this move. Only time will tell.
Harrison Burton has had a terrible career in the NASCAR Cup Series. In his rookie year in 2021, he had 2 top-10 finishes. The same goes for 2023…and 2024. The only silver lining of the 2024 season was that one of those top-10s was actually a win. So now he’s a proven Cup Series winner. Yay! But otherwise, he and the 21 bunch were just embarrassingly slow. In 2022, he finished 27th in points. In 2023, it was a 31st-place points finish, last of all full-time drivers. He managed to make the 2024 Playoffs with his win at Daytona in the summer, but before that, he was 34th in points. Terrible!
It’s not hard to see why Penske and the Wood Brothers would want to go in another direction. So, there really is no mystery here. But if Chase Briscoe won the 2024 Silly Season, Harrison Burton finished dead last, a whole race worth of laps down. Not only did he lose his Cup ride and was forced to go back down to the Xfinity Series, but the team he will race for is AM Racing. You know, that team that Joey Logano even struggled to run halfway decent with? Yeah…
Spire has quickly turned into the little team that would. Not so long ago, if you said that Spire was on the verge of having not one, not two, but three competitive teams in 2025, they’d call you crazy. Let’s take a look at their lineup. In their flagship number 7 car, they have Justin Haley. In my opinion, that’s a huge trade-up from Spire. Haley won them their first race at Daytona back in 2019. When he was with Kaulig, he really seemed to elevate their equipment. Heck, he was even in contention to win Chicago in its first year before SVG ran him down! Even at Rick Ware, he made that 51 car look better than Ryan Newman ever did.
For the 71 team, Spire ditched Zane Smith, who started 2024 off miserably, for veteran Michael McDowell. Enough said. McDowell is a proven winner of the sport. The only one returning is Carson Hocevar. He won the 2024 Rookie of the Year and was easily the best-running entry out of the Spire shop. Perhaps the biggest win for Spire was scoring championship-winning crew chief Rodney Childers. Childers will be atop the pot box for the 7 crew in 2025.
I’m not saying they’re going to go out and win races or anything. But I do expect their performance to improve drastically just because of these personnel changes.
What are some of your favorite Silly Season moves, NASCAR fans? Which ones made sense, and which ones left you scratching your heads? Let us know what you think! And be sure to continue tuning into DailyDownforce.com for all the latest news and, yes, silly season rumors in the world of NASCAR!
