What’s Happening?

The Brickyard 400 saw Bubba Wallace claim his first crown jewel victory and snap a 100-race winless streak. This win will go down as one of the most feel-good moments of the season. However, despite a unique winner, the race was typical of what we expect at Indianapolis, with few opportunities for drivers to work their way through the field, let alone battle for the lead. The NASCAR Xfinity Series race was more of the same, with the addition of more battles for the lead between Justin Allgaier, Kyle Larson, Sam Mayer, and eventual winner, Connor Zillisch. The NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series took their talents to Indianapolis Raceway Park (IRP), and saw Layne Riggs capture his second win of the season at the Indy short track.

Where do these three races stack up with the rest of the 2025 season? Check out Armany DePaul’s in-depth analysis in this week’s episode of The Cutline, featuring the Race Weekend Rankings Tier List.

Watch the latest episode of The Cutline to hear the detailed breakdown of the Brickyard 400 from Armany and special guest, ihave40wins.

Brickyard 400: D-Tier

• Armany acknowledged that Bubba Wallace winning the race was a great story for NASCAR and a feel-good moment for the sport, but stated that besides the winner, the race as a whole was very lackluster. The race was spread out, with little passing outside of restarts, which is the standard that fans have come to expect from Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
• He said that strategy was all over the place, which gave the race some intrigue. Seeing if the Penske cars’ strategy would prevail was a storyline that kept the race interesting. However, despite the strategies, they were mostly undone by tire failures from Austin Cindric, Joey Logano, and Erik Jones, which they could never recover from. Once Bubba cleared Larson on both overtime restarts, the race was settled, and despite Larson’s efforts, he couldn’t mount a push to pass the 23 and settled behind him.
• Armany ultimately placed the race at the bottom of D-tier, saying that it wasn’t an abomination of a race, due to the strategy that happened throughout the 400+ miles, but it wasn’t enough to overcome the lack of passing and strung-out field.

Pennzoil 250: C-Tier

• Armany said that the Xfinity race had a lot of the same issues as the Cup race, but with more battles throughout the field, especially for the lead. While the Cup cars couldn’t get too close to each other, Xfinity cars can, and that was shown with the battles for the top spot. Zillisch and Allgaier traded the lead a few times, and Larson through his hat in the ring as well.
• The race was similar to the Indianapolis 500, where the draft was very important, and knowing when to pull out of line to make a pass was crucial for victory. It makes the first two-thirds of the race meh, but the finish was exciting, seeing Zillisch and Sam Mayer swap the lead in the closing laps.
• Armany settled on C-Tier, stating that while the race as a whole was average, the finish made up for it a little bit.

TSport 200: C-Tier

• Armany wasn’t able to watch the race, so per his rules, any race he misses goes directly into C-Tier.

2025 Race Weekend Rankings (Post-Indy)

You can follow along with Armany by creating your own Race Weekend Rankings Tier List. Make sure to tag Armany and The Daily Downforce on X, and we’ll share your list with the rest of the NASCAR Community.