by Julian Spivey The 2024 NASCAR season begins this weekend and at the moment there are so many talented drivers in the Cup Series that it feels like the majority of the field could win any given week. That makes trying to predict the 16-driver NASCAR Playoffs field pretty hard but we’ll find out in September how many I got right. 16. Brad Keselowski Veteran Brad Keselowski enters his third season as co-owner of Roush Fenway Keselowski (RFK) Racing and has yet to win a race with his team, which has to be a disappointment for him even if he did point his way into the playoffs last year. Keselowski’s 98-race winless streak is the second longest of any active Cup driver who has won a race (only Justin Haley’s 105-race streak is longer). I feel like Keselowski will finally get that RFK win this season but even if he doesn’t will likely point his way in again. 15. Kyle Busch It might sound ridiculous because Kyle Busch won three races in 2023 but I briefly considered leaving him off the list because I do not trust Richard Childress Racing. The team pretty much disappeared on Busch last season when it mattered most in the playoffs but ultimately I couldn’t predict against him. He’s just too talented. 14. Chris Buescher For about the stretch of a month late last summer, Chris Buescher was the hottest driver in NASCAR. He won three races in the span of five (including three straight ovals) but then he kind of faded a bit in the postseason – he wasn’t bad but he just wasn’t close enough to the front to capitalize and win. I certainly don’t think you could predict Buescher to win three races again – but there’s no reason to believe he won’t break through at least once to clinch a playoff spot. 13. Alex Bowman Alex Bowman won seven races between 2019 and 2023, including a career-high four races in 2022. When you drive for Hendrick Motorsports you’re expected to win races but last year Bowman hurt himself in an extracurricular dirt track race that forced him to miss three races. When he returned he just never looked right. I assume he’ll be back to his normal self this season, which should mean at least one win. 12. Darrell “Bubba” Wallace Jr. Darrell “Bubba” Wallace Jr. had the best season of his NASCAR Cup Series career in 2023 making the playoffs for the first time despite failing to win a race. Wallace seems to be gaining more and more confidence with age and the next box he needs to tick off is winning multiple races in a season and I think that’s coming in 2024. 11. Ty Gibbs Some might say that Ty Gibbs had a disappointing rookie Cup Series season coming off an Xfinity Series championship the year before, but I don’t see it that way. It’s hard to win a race in the Cup Series, especially for a rookie, and even though he didn’t find Victory Lane in his rookie season he almost pointed his way into the playoffs being the first driver to miss the cut. With Joe Gibbs Racing equipment and his talent level, I’d be shocked if Gibbs didn’t win a race in 2024 and he might win multiple ones. 10. Joey Logano Joey Logano only won one race in 2023, which is quite shocking for a driver of his caliber, and that came on the newly pack-racing style of Atlanta Motor Speedway in the fifth race of the year. So, he enters 2024 with a 30-plus race winless streak that I know he’s going to be raring to snap. I just don’t know what to expect from Logano in 2024. I would assume multiple race wins – but even if it’s more of the same from last season he still finds a way into the playoff field. 9. Ross Chastain Ross Chastain had an interesting 2023 season. He won the same number of races as he did the previous year (two) but his overall numbers were down with five fewer top-5s and seven fewer top-10s. It seemed like he let some of the talk of him being too aggressive get into his head and interfered with his mojo a bit. I think we’re going to see a return to form for Chastain, in which he doesn’t give a damn what others think … or at least I hope we are for excitement's sake. 8. Tyler Reddick Tyler Reddick seems like a no-brainer for the playoffs after his last two seasons: 2022 with Richard Childress Racing and last year in his first season at 23XI Racing. The 27-year-old have combined for five race wins over the last two seasons. The question now for Reddick is can he move forward and jump from a winning driver to one of the elite drivers in the sport? I’m not sure he’s there yet but expect him to win at least a couple of races again, especially with as talented as he is on road courses. 7. Christopher Bell Christopher Bell has made the Championship Four the last two seasons so having him at only No. 7 on this list could be seen as a bit disrespectful. However, I feel like Bell is going to need to take one more step before I can buy him as a title threat and that is to win more often. He won six races over the last three seasons, but no more than three in any given season. Typically, the champion has to win more than that. 6. Chase Elliott Chase Elliott was, without a doubt, the biggest disappointment in NASCAR last season. The sport’s most popular driver missed seven races – six due to an injury sustained in an extracurricular activity and one due to suspension for intentionally wrecking a competitor in a race – in 2023, but he didn’t quite look right following his return from said injury. At times it feels like Elliott would rather be doing anything but racing his No. 9 Rick Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet, but I see no reason why he shouldn’t get back to his winning ways that saw him win 18 times from 2018-2022 in 2024. NASCAR needs him to return to winning form, for sure. 5. Martin Truex Jr. I don’t understand what happened to Martin Truex Jr. in the NASCAR Playoffs in 2023. He won the regular season point standings, which gave him a big bonus for the playoffs. He won three races during the regular season. Then he just fell off a cliff in the playoffs looking like the kind of driver that deserved to be nowhere near the chase for the championship. I assume Truex will get back to his winning ways in 2024 but you never know. Sometimes when a driver hits a certain age, Truex is 43, they just seem to lose “it” and never return. If that could happen to maybe the sport's all-time greatest driver Jimmie Johnson it could certainly be the case for Truex. 4. Ryan Blaney Ryan Blaney surprised many by winning the NASCAR Cup Series championship in 2023 taking full advantage of the playoff system by clinching his way into the championship race by winning the penultimate race of the year at Martinsville and then finishing the highest of the four contenders at the season finale at Phoenix to win the title. Some within the sport’s media didn’t think he was a championship-caliber driver. Despite winning three races and the title in 2023 some still don’t seem to be giving him the credit he’s due. I’ve seen the phrase “worst champion” thrown about multiple times on social media when describing Blaney. I think 2024 will be the year Blaney proves he wasn’t some fluke champion. 3. William Byron William Byron led all of NASCAR’s Cup Series in wins in 2023 with six, which was more than his first five seasons in the series combined. It was truly the breakout year for William Byron, who would go on to finish third in the championship. You don’t just luck your way into six wins, 15 top-5s, 21 top-10s and an average finish of 11th. I’m not going to predict Byron will once again lead the sport in wins but I don’t see much falloff coming his way. 2. Denny Hamlin Denny Hamlin is the greatest bridesmaid in the history of NASCAR. He may not have as many runner-up finishes as Hall of Famer Mark Martin (he only has one) but he’s been the most successful driver in the history of the sport to not win a championship. The last two seasons have seen Hamlin as the first man out of the championship four at Phoenix. Hamlin is good for multiple wins a season. I’ve got him once again as the bridesmaid. 1. Kyle Larson Kyle Larson seems like the year-in-year-out title favorite right now in NASCAR’s Cup Series. The 2021 champion has won at least three races in every season he’s been with Hendrick Motorsports and has appeared in the Championship Four in two of his three years with the team. Larson was the runner-up to Ryan Blaney in 2023, despite having better numbers overall during the season, which included four wins and 15 top-5s. I do believe there may be a stretch during this season where Larson might be off as he’s focused on his debut run in the Indianapolis 500 but that’ll wear off well before playoff time and he’ll be the driver to beat.
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