NASCAR Silly Season is in full swing, from Stewart-Haas Racing shutting down to Martin Truex Jr. announcing his retirement! Many names, such as Chase Briscoe and Riley Herbst, have been linked to multiple rides, while drivers like Michael McDowell have secured their futures early during this grace period. But who’s missing from this discussion? There are plenty of names no one’s been talking about that can shake up this volatile NASCAR Silly Season. Let’s see who’s missing from the conversation.
After winning this past weekend at Iowa Speedway, Sam Mayer expressed how frustrated he is that he’s not receiving Cup Series attention. Mayer is currently in his third full-time season in the Xfinity Series and has won six of the last 29 races, including a Championship 4 appearance just a year ago.
Fans would love to see Mayer move up to the Cup Series. So why hasn’t his name been thrown around the garage? There are a couple of reasons. First, he’s a Chevy driver at a time when there’s not many seats with a Bowtie in Cup. Trackhouse is rumored to acquire a third charter, but that’ll go to one of their own drivers (either Zane Smith or Shane van Gisbergen). If Mayer wants a seat, he’d have to jump to either Ford, with two open seats at Front Row, or Toyota, with the No. 19 car; however, Briscoe is the current favorite for that seat.
The second is inconsistency. While Mayer has six wins in less than a year, he also had seven DNFs in 2023 and four in 2024. Mayer also started the year slow, despite nabbing a photo-finish win in Texas. He also currently sits 151 points behind the points lead and has only nine lead-lap finishes this year with a 16.0 average finish. For Mayer, it seems to be checkers or wreckers, and he’ll need to clean that up before he makes the jump to the NASCAR Cup Series, whether in 2025 or 2026.
Josh Berry is among many Stewart-Haas Racing employees looking for a home in 2025. While his teammates Briscoe and Gragson look to land rides next season, it’s been rather quiet for the rookie, who’s in the midst of a tight battle with Carson Hocevar for the Rookie of the Year Award.
Berry currently sits 21st in points, with three top-10s and an average finish of 20.7. While that seems mundane compared to his predecessor, those three top-10s have come in the last five races, meaning the 33-year-old is beginning to find his footing in the Cup Series. This should help his chances of finding a seat for the 2025 season.
Berry is a solid driver who’s improving every week. But with established names like Briscoe and Gragson on the market, along with young phenomen Corey Heim out there, Berry is finding his name quiet on the free agent market. The good news is that with two spots opened at Front Row, it has been theorized that he, along with Rodney Childers, could take one of those spots. The Ford connection is in his favor, and as his performance improves, expect to hear Berry’s name more during Silly Season.
It feels like Chandler has been in NASCAR for many years, but he’s only in his second full-time Xfinity Series season at just 21 years old. After a rocky rookie season, Smith sits second in points, just one shy of leader Cole Custer, with two wins and 10 top-10s. As one of the premiere prospects in the lower series, it leaves fans wondering: Why isn’t his name mentioned for a Cup Series seat?
With Truex announcing his retirement, the JGR No. 19 Camry should be a shoo-in for Smith to land in 2025. However, two things, or rather, two drivers, stand in his way. The first is Chase Briscoe, who looks to be at the top of Joe Gibbs’ list to replace MTJ. Joe Gibbs could be looking for Briscoe’s mix of youth and experience to vault him ahead of Smith on their free agent board.
What about a third 23XI car? The team has been in the market for a third charter and looks to get one from SHR in the coming weeks. However, that ride looks to go to Corey Heim, who’s been dominating in the Truck Series the past two years. That leaves Smith, at best, third in line for a Cup ride, and with seemingly only two seats on the table, he’d either have to jump manufacturers or wait until 2026 for a chance to drive a Toyota in the Cup.
It wasn’t long ago that Hailie Deegan was seen as a can’t-miss talent. Winning three races in the K&N Series coupled with her massive social media following, it seemed like it wouldn’t be long before we saw Deegan take the NASCAR world by storm. So what happened?
Deegan has struggled since entering the NASCAR national scene in 2021. She spent three years in Trucks with top equipment but could only achieve five top-10s and two laps lead during that time span. She’s currently in her first full-time year in Xfinity, with no top-10s, and sits 29th in points, well outside of the Rookie of the Year battle.
With Ford going through many changes on both the Cup and Xfinity side, Deegan’s name should be on the list. But her lack of performance leaves her on the bottom of the totem pole, with drivers like Custer and Herbst ahead of her. With SHR shutting down at season’s end, her team, AM Racing, might become the new top Ford team in Xfinity, meaning more resources to help the 22-year-old move up the grid. But until the results improve, Deegan’s name should still remain silent during Silly Season.
Who’s name should be discussed in Silly Season? Who did we leave out? What do you think about all this? Let us know on Discord or X what your take is, and don’t forget you can also follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and even YouTube.
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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