NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Rookie of the Year Standings: Who’s Who?
What’s Happening? The Rookie of the Year battle is one of the best battles throughout the NASCAR season. The award, given…
Floundering early on during the NASCAR season is not fun for anybody. While racing is a sport of streaks, both hot and cold, by April, fans typically know who is a contender and who is a flop in each series. These six drivers have done everything but achieve this season. Trust us, you don’t want to be on this list.
With the promotion of Dean Thompson, who may find himself on this list, Toni Breidinger was finally given her shot at full-time NASCAR National Series action. For a driver with 65 races in the ARCA Menards Series, this was a long time coming.
So far, Breidinger’s average start is 25.5, and her average finish is 24.7, both ranking in the bottom three of full-time drivers. Now, improving on your average start for a better average finish is great, but Breidinger, by far, is having the worst statistical season amongst her TRICON Garage teammates.
Breidinger is also the only full-time driver at TRICON not to score a top-ten finish this season. She also has just one lead lap finish through six races and sits 24th in points, 72 points behind her Tricon teammate and Rookie of the Year leader, Giovanni Ruggiero. At least we all had high hopes. Right?
Though the stats would rank poorly in almost any Truck Series season, Breidinger is far from the worst driver this season.
What’s Happening? The Rookie of the Year battle is one of the best battles throughout the NASCAR season. The award, given…
Young Motorsports’ Nathan Byrd finds himself 27th in points, three behind Breidinger. However, a telling sign of Byrd’s struggles is the drivers that divide him and Breidinger in the standings.
Byrd finds himself behind part-time drivers Luke Fenhaus and Josh Reaume. Although Byrd has two more races than these drivers, he is far enough behind them that Lawless Alan, who has one start, is literally eight points behind the No. 02 in points.
Okay, so this is based on points; what do his stats look like?
For reference, Mason Massey drove the No. 02 for the majority of races in 2024. had a 25.8 average finish through the first five races. So, there’s that.
If we played a NASCAR version of Guess Who? and you asked:
We would be left with Garrett Smithley and only Garrett Smithley. Smithley handed the reigns to his No. 14 SS-Greenlight Racing Chevrolet to Carson Hocevar at COTA in the most awkward NASCAR social media post of the season (at least for now.)
This obviously is not why Smithley makes our list. Smithley, who technically clocks in as a full-time driver, sits last in full-time points, thanks, of course, to his non-start at COTA. Smithley also clocks in with the worst average starting spot this season, 33.3, and the second worst average finish this season, 27.3 (both amongst full-time drivers.)
His best finish this year was 15th at Martinsville, a stark outlier in his average finish, as his second-best finish this season was 24th at Atlanta. He could have saved himself from this list with an extra race, maybe COTA, in his stat book. For now, he is making it over Kyle Sieg and Anthony Alfredo.
Kris Wright took over the OUR Motorsports No. 5 this year. At 30 years old, Wright is currently racing in his first full-time season in a NASCAR National Series. So, how’s it going?
Wright was at the center of online hate after COTA, and the No. 5 finds itself just a tick above Smithely’s spot in points. Once again, the driver of the No. 14 missed an entire race. Looking past the drama with Josh Billicki at COTA, Wright’s only highlight this season was a career-first top-ten after slipping through the last-lap commotion at Martinsville.
To add insult to injury, Anthony Alfredo, whom OUR Motorsports moved on from after last season, averaged a 14th-place finish through the first nine races in 2024. Wright has inflated that number to a striking 27.9 this year.
What’s Happening? A rough start to the season can stir up off-track drama for any driver. However, just three races into…
For the Cup Series, we find two drivers that sit at the bottom of the standings.
Cole Custer departed the NASCAR Cup Series via demotion after the 2022 season. However, after the 2024 season, which reshaped what was Stewart-Haas Racing into the Haas Factory team, with Custer’s dad Joe still the team’s president, Cole, now an Xfinity Series Champion, found his way back in.
Looking back at the start of the season, Custer wasn’t expected to break out in a big way; however, he, now more experienced, and HFT, with support from RFK Racing, could find new ground in 2025. Well, the stats say different; Custer is on pace for a career-worst full-time Cup Series season, with some of the worst stats in the series.
For a prophetic look at Custer’s 2025, we look back to the Daytona 500, in which Custer was involved and perhaps the cause of the two most important wrecks of the day. Likewise, his spotter made headlines as he thought Custer was race winner William Byron, whom he spotted to the finish, all while the 41 rode the turn three and four wall.
We aren’t sure what fans expected from Cody Ware this season. The only recent bright spot for the No. 51 team was their tremendous improvement in 2024. That improvement came with Justin Haley behind the wheel for 2/3 of the 2024 season.
After swapping Haley for Corey LaJoie, RWR was faced with a question: the veteran LaJoie or the owner’s son? Since this crossroads, Ware has been on a war path for one of the worst full-time Cup Series seasons in recent memory. Ware currently has two lead lap finishes, the worst average starting and finishing position amongst full-time drivers.
Speaking of full-time drivers, Ware is currently 36th in the NASCAR Cup Series standings, the worst of all full-time drivers, and only after Darlington did he FINALLY pass Jimmie Johnson for 36th. If you aren’t picking up on what I’m saying, we’ll put it in one sentence.
Cody Ware, a full-time driver at the top level of stock car racing, took eight races to pass 49-year-old Jimmie Johnson, who had 34 points from his ONE RACE in 2025. That makes our point here pretty clear, right?
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