Rumor Mill: Riley Herbst To 23XI Racing
What’s Happening? In the wake of Stewart-Haas Racing’s closure, Bob Pockrass quickly reported that 23XI Racing would purchase one of…
As Silly Season rolls on, the picture becomes more clear at all levels of NASCAR. Today, we focus on the second-tier series, the Xfinity Series, to see which drivers could be on the move for 2025.
What’s Happening? In the wake of Stewart-Haas Racing’s closure, Bob Pockrass quickly reported that 23XI Racing would purchase one of…
With Stewart-Haas Racing shutting down, the future of the team’s current drivers, Riley Herbst and Cole Custer, is also uncertain. Whereas Custer seems likely to end up at Haas Factory Team in some capacity, it’s not as simple for Herbst. However, he brings a lot of funding and has performed reasonably well this season in the Xfinity Series.
The latest rumors indicate that Herbst could end up at 23XI Racing. Someone else will probably pick him up if that does not work out, but we will have to see who.
What’s Happening? Front Row Motorsports has two seats available for 2025, and the team is well on its way to figuring…
Sam Mayer admitted after Iowa that he was upset more Cup Series teams were not looking at him. Bob Pockrass reported in June that Mayuer is a candidate at Front Row Motorsports. There are two seats available, and three candidates for it.
Pockrass described Noah Gragson as the “Favorite”, and another candidate, Josh Berry, is already signed to The Wood Brothers. That means Mayer may need to fight with another lower series driver, Christian Eckes, for the ride. Who ends up where?
What’s Happening? As Silly Season 2025 rolls on, Kaulig Racing is one team that no one can figure out. The closest…
In late June, Bob Pockrass reported that Kaulig Racing still has open seats for 2025, and it all depends on funding. While Pockrass did mention A.J. Allmendinger as a Cup Series candidate, does the funding exist to take him there? Allmendinger is in the Xfinity Series in first place due to a lack of sponsorship.
When specifically discussing NASCAR, Allmendinger is Kaulig’s most experienced and accomplished racer. He has the talent to be in the Cup, and he has won three races there. However, life is not always that simple.
What’s Happening? On Tuesday, Adam Stern of Sports Business Journal dropped another Silly Season nugget. According to Stern, 2023 Xfinity…
Cole Custer seems very likely to go to Haas Factory Team in 2025, and Adam Stern reported earlier this week that Custer is the favorite to land the team’s only Cup Series ride. This would be a big move for Custer, as he dropped to Xfinity in 2023 after three subpar seasons in the Cup Series.
Haas Factory Team is being born from the ashes of the current Stewart-Haas Racing. Custer’s father, Joe Custer, will be the team President, so everything is there for Custer to head up to Cup. Performance, funding, and connections all help Custer.
What’s Happening? Trackhouse is slowly putting its complicated driver jigsaw puzzle together for 2025. Ross Chastain and Daniel Suarez are…
Shane Van Gisbergen needs to move up to Cup eventually, and the opportunity might open up for him at Trackhouse. With SHR shutting down, Trackhouse is reportedly in line to purchase one of the team’s three available charters, giving them three cars. However, SVG has some internal competition for this seat.
Zane Smith is another Trackhouse development driver looking for a ride for 2025. Trackhouse will have to choose between Smith and SVG, and who knows where they will end up.
Brandon Jones has been a disappointment in his first two seasons at JR Motorsports. he went from the doorstep of the Championship 4 in 2022 to out of the Playoffs in 2023 and nearly a full race outside of the Playoffs 17 races into 2024. Jones told Fronstretch in 2023 that he initially signed a two-year deal with JRM.
If his contract is out, and Connor Zilisch is reportedly coming into the fold, could Jones lose his ride? Time will tell, but JRM plans to field five entries in nearly half of the races in 2024, and Jones brings funding from Menards.
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Another race weekend in the books. While Ryan Blaney battled back from several pit road setbacks to win his second straight race at Phoenix, other drivers were much to be desired. It was a big win for Penske but for several others, they leave the first “real” race of the season scratching their head with a lot that they need to figure out. Here are the biggest losers of NASCAR’s Spring 2026 Phoenix race weekend.
I’m afraid that this is starting to be habitual. Another race weekend at RCR for Kyle Busch, another terrible result. Well, the finish wasn’t exactly awful. While 17th is hardly up to Kyle’s standards, it’s about as good as it gets anymore for the two-time champion who hasn’t won a race in nearly a hundred starts.
To start things off, there was a reason to be cautiously optimistic about the future of that RCR No. 8 Chevy. New crew chief. Personnel changes. A new Chevy body. He even scored the pole for the 68th running of the Daytona 500 last month. But, since then, it has been a sharp slope downward. He was mostly a non-factor in the first three races. And, today, it seemed like the No. 8 Chevy was out to lunch. They unloaded slow. They qualified in the back of the pack. And, before Stage 1 even ended, Kyle was running 34th with no apparent issues and went a lap down to leader Ryan Blaney. To add insult to injury, Kyle Bush had a tire go down on him three times today. More than any other driver. It appears to be back to the drawing board for team No. 8.
You could say that the Hendrick No. 48 team had a rough weekend in general. But I think it would be more accurate to say that the entire start to 2026 has been catastrophic. Heading into today’s race, even with Bowman starting the first three races of the season, the No. 48 team was 36th in points, last among all full-time drivers. Even Cody Ware was ahead of him. If that’s not bad, I don’t know what is.
To rub salt in the wound, their driver missed today at Phoenix due to showing symptoms of vertigo. So, Anthony Alfredo was into sub and…it went about as well as you’d expect. He went a lap down early and never recovered. He got caught up in the incident involving Joey Logano and DNF’d. Officially, they scored a 33rd finishing position. This is the worst start Bowman could ever imagine, considering that he’s in a contract year.
I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking that I’ve lost my marbles. “Come on, dude! Penske just swept the weekend! How can they be losers?” Hear me out. Let’s start first with the two other Penske drivers, shall we? Joey Logano caused not one, but two multi-car pileups, one involving his Penske teammate, Austin Cindric. Cars were utterly destroyed. Before that, both Cindric and Logano were running solidly in the top 10.
So, it’s not for a lack of speed that they make our Biggest Losers list. The reason they’re listed here is that a lot of their problems today, if not all of them, were self-inflicted. Logano was driving sloppily and that took out Cindric. And even race winner Ryan Blaney almost lost this race on pit road numerous times. Rookie mistakes by the pit crew constantly had him charging from behind. Pit road penalties. He was like a yo-yo going back and forth throughout the field. What saved him in the end was that, on that last restart, Blaney took two tires and Christopher Bell took 4. If that had not happened, it is extremely possible that Blaney ultimately would have lost the race and it would have been because of their numerous mistakes in the pits.
They got lucky this week. They probably won’t get that lucky again. They need to clean up those nagging, senseless mistakes.
Ole, Danny boy. If Alex Bowman’s seat is the hottest in the series, Daniel Suarez has to be the second hottest in the garage. That No. 7 car has been a revolving door of drivers for the last several years and it looks like Suarez is shaping up to be Spire’s latest victim. It’s the same old story with the team: they show impressive speed in qualifying and even early on in the race. But rarely do they ever put a full race together. That criticism isn’t just for Suarez, it applies to the team across the board.
But Carson Hocevar is the team’s golden child. He’s not going anywhere. And the team seems pretty high on Michael McDowell at the moment. That leaves Suarez looking like the odd man out, a seat-warmer, if you will. He needs to perform. And, he’s done well to start, admittedly. But he qualified 5th for today’s race. He even earned a few stage points in the opening stage. Then, he faltered and left the race with an unceremonious whimper. Ultimately, after he was no longer a factor, he was caught up in a mid-race wreck. He finished 30th. That’s a tough pill to swallow for the Mexican-born driver. If he wants to keep his ride next year, he needs to show stark improvement in the coming weeks. I have a strong feeling that that ride is about to be a highly sought-after commodity once silly season rolls around.
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The first checkered flag of the 2026 rendition of the NASCAR West Coast Swing (as abbreviated as it is) has officially flown. It was an exciting race, full of close, tight-cornered racing, a plethora of tire issues littered throughout, and a couple of heartbreaking, hard hits. Surviving it all was Ryan Blaney, who captured the flag in the Straight Talk 500 at Phoenix Raceway. He survived pit road mishaps and passed a total of 49 cars to win the race today. It marks his 18th career victory, sweeping the weekend for Team Penske. So, for Blaney and Team Penske, the race was the highest of highs. Not everyone escaped unscathed, though. Here are the key takeaways from NASCAR’s spring date at Phoenix.
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Following a relatively clean first stage, Stage number 2 and beyond was littered with cautions. Most of these cautions were a result of tires going down after only about 20 laps or so of use. But the caution on Lao 216 was purely driver error. Joey Logano, who was running 7th at the time, made a move down on the apron approaching the finish line. Chaos ensued. Here’s what happened.
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