NASCAR’s 75th anniversary season is officially in the books, and in just a few days, the world will jump ahead to 2024.
But before we focus on the New Year and the upcoming 2024 season, let’s hand out some Frontstretch awards and look back at the greatest moments of the NASCAR Cup Series season as we enjoy the closing hours of 2023.
Read all of Frontstretch‘s content looking back on 2023 here
Dale Earnhardt Best Driver Award
Plenty of drivers fit the bill, but the one that stood out the most in 2023 was William Byron.
Byron, who entered the 2023 season with four Cup wins, left the year with 10. His six wins mark the most by one driver in the Next Gen era, and he scored the most points of any driver through all 36 races despite a 60-point penalty assessed in April.
Byron also led 1,016 laps this year, the second most behind Hendrick Motorsports teammate Kyle Larson (1,127). Unfortunately for Byron, his career year — which also included HMS’ 300th Cup win at Texas Motor Speedway — was unable to be sealed with a title, as he finished fourth in the season finale at Phoenix Raceway after starting on the pole.
But after a seven-win NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series season in 2016 and a NASCAR Xfinity Series championship in 2017 at the age of 19, Byron has finally arrived as one of the Cup Series’ premier drivers. Look for him to contend for years to come.
Martin Truex Jr. Most Improved Driver Award
Byron made quite the leap in 2023, but no one made more of a jump to prominence this year than Chris Buescher. After breaking a 222-race winless streak at Bristol Motor Speedway for his second career win in 2022, Buescher scored three victories in a five-race span during the summer of 2023.
The wins, which came at Richmond Raceway, Michigan International Speedway and Daytona International Speedway, clinched Buescher’s first playoff appearance since 2016.
He was ultimately eliminated in the Round of 8, and a seventh-place points finish marked the best of his career. Through the effort, Buescher recorded career highs in wins (three), top fives (nine), top 10s (17), laps led (255) and average finish (12.1), all of which beat his previous highs of one, three, 10, 194 and 17.3, respectively.
RFK Racing has undergone a renaissance since bringing Brad Keselowski on board in 2022, and Buescher, now 31, is enjoying the greatest stretch of his Cup career.
Tim Richmond Comeback of the Year Award
Instead of gifting the award to a driver, the honor will instead go to a track: North Wilkesboro Speedway.
After sitting untouched by NASCAR for more than a quarter century after the last race in 1996, it was announced in late 2022 that North Wilkesboro would make its triumphant return to the Cup schedule as the site of the 2023 All-Star Race.
The All-Star Race and the supporting Truck race in May were both run on the original 1981 pavement to give the return weekend a retro feel, but the 0.625-mile oval will be repaved ahead of its return in 2024.
After sitting abandoned for decades with weeds growing out of cracks in the pavement, North Wilkesboro returned from the dead. Funding from the North Carolina state government as well as Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s plan to clean the track and scan it for iRacing were the catalysts for the track’s resurgence, and it’s great to have one of NASCAR’s oldest and most historic racetracks back in the lineup.
Trevor Bayne Biggest Upset Award
NASCAR’s inaugural trip to the streets of Chicago saw a driver win his Cup debut, but there was no greater upset than Michael McDowell’s dominant victory at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course in July.
McDowell already had a Cup win in the form of the 2021 Daytona 500, but that win came after the two leaders wrecked in front of him in the last set of corners. At Indy, McDowell started in the top five and left the entire field in the dust.
In a race that ended with a grueling 77-lap green flag run that lasted two hours after one early caution, McDowell — who had never led more than 34 laps in a single race — paced the field with 54 circuits led in the 82-lap event.
In a race where just one mistake on track or on pit road would take a team out of winning contention, McDowell executed a flawless race and outdueled seven-time road course winner Chase Elliott to the checkered flag.
It was the most dominant single-race performance for both McDowell and Front Row Motorsports in terms of laps led and percentage of laps paced. And after a couple of near misses on road courses in the last two years, FRM brought a car to Indy that no one else could touch.
Jeff Gordon Breakout Star Award
Ty Gibbs won Rookie of the Year while Byron and Buescher had career years, but none of them fit the bill here. No, the Cup Series’ newest star was one who became an international sensation overnight: Shane van Gisbergen.
Van Gisbergen, a 34-year-old from Auckland, New Zealand, was already a star down under with 81 wins and three titles in Australia’s Supercars Championship. He made his Cup debut at the Chicago street course through Trackhouse Racing’s Project 91 car, and he immediately turned heads by qualifying third.
During a rainy race day with wet to moist track conditions, van Gisbergen kept pace with the leaders out front, as he hovered between third and fifth in the first 45 laps.
With the sun shining and the race shortened due to impending darkness, van Gisbergen restarted 18th with 30 laps to go after a strategy shuffle past halfway. What happened in the next 20 circuits can only be described as brilliance, as van Gisbergen slowly but methodically picked off one car at a time until he was inside the top five and running more than a second faster per lap than the leaders.
He made the pass for the win against Justin Haley on lap 71, and he navigated an overtime restart to take home the win in his debut by 1.259 seconds.
No driver had ever won their Cup debut in NASCAR’s modern era, and van Gisbergen became the first to do so since Johnny Rutherford in 1963. He returned to Indy a month later and backed up his win with a 10th-place finish.
Upon getting released from his Supercars contract at the end of the 2023 season, van Gisbergen moved to the United States and is looking to find his footing in NASCAR with a full-time Xfinity schedule for Kaulig Racing and seven Cup starts for Trackhouse in 2024.
Jimmie Johnson Most Dominant Race Award
The beauty of racing is that the only lap led that truly counts is the last one. A driver can win a race by leading every circuit, by leading just the final go-round or everywhere in between.
For Martin Truex Jr., his win at New Hampshire Motor Speedway was of the dominant variety.
Truex entered July 0-for-29 at New Hampshire, and his 916 laps led at the track was more than double the second-most by a driver without a win at the Magic Mile. He especially had something to prove after the 2022 race, in which he won the pole and led 172 times until poor pit strategy doomed him to a fourth-place finish.
This time, Truex took the lead from polesitter Christopher Bell on lap two and never looked back.
Truex took the checkered flag with 254 laps led in a 301-lap race. Almost all of the 47 circuits he didn’t lead were the result of pit strategy, and although he faced late challenges from Ryan Blaney and Joey Logano, Truex held serve in the closing laps to seal the deal.
Tony Stewart Best Soundbite Award
There was perhaps no driver more in the news for the 2023 season than Denny Hamlin in 2023. Most of it stemmed from controversial moments on the track and controversial comments off it, but negative publicity is still publicity, right?
Hamlin’s first two wins of the season at Kansas Speedway and Pocono Raceway were unpopular after run-ins with Larson, and after running away from the pack for his third win of the season at Bristol Motor Speedway, the boos rained down from the Last Great Colosseum.
What was Hamlin’s response?
“I beat your favorite driver. All of them.”
Unfortunately for Hamlin, Bristol was the last race of the year where that rang true, as he finished the 2023 season with three wins and a Round of 8 elimination for the second straight year.
1992 Hooters 500 Best Race Award
There were plenty of contenders for race of the year, but that honor will go to the aforementioned Kansas race that Hamlin won in May.
In what can only be described as Next Gen intermediate racing at its best, the May Kansas race had 37 lead changes, which set a new Cup record for the most lead changes in a 400-mile race at a 1.5-mile track.
The 267-lap race was a race-long duel between Toyota and Hendrick, and its drivers swapped the lead often and with ease on a hot day with a slick racetrack.
The final green-flag run was marked with a battle between Hamlin and Larson, with Larson holding on to the lead by a thread despite Hamlin hounding his rear bumper for the final 30 laps. Out of turn 2 on the last lap, Larson got loose, and got turned into the outside wall after Hamlin was unable to avoid.
Hamlin took the checkered flag for a record fourth Cup win at Kansas, while Larson gathered his car to cross the line in second. And just like Bristol, Hamlin was met with a chorus of jeers after exiting the car.
The post-race fireworks didn’t end there, as a fist fight broke out between Ross Chastain and Noah Gragson on pit road that stemmed from an incident toward the end of the race.
2003 Carolina Dodge Dealers 400 Best Finish Award
The YellaWood 500 at Talladega in October had a riveting 70 lead changes, which made it just the seventh race in Cup history to reach that mark and the first since 2011.
After side-by-side racing between the inside and outside lines all day, the final five laps of the race turned into a duel between Kevin Harvick and Blaney.
After thrilling, anxiety-inducing racing throughout the pack, the field reached the white flag to make the race official. Harvick had a lead in the first two turns, but Blaney pulled beside him on the backstretch. As the field rounded turn 4 and headed to the trioval, the two were neck-and-neck.
In the end, Blaney nosed Harvick to the line by just over one one-hundredth of a second to score his third win at Talladega while the rest of the field wrecked three seconds before reaching the stripe.
It was thrilling ending, and the second of three wins for Blaney en route to his first title. For Harvick, it was one of his final shots at a win in his farewell season, but all of it felt subdued after Harvick was disqualified from his second-place finish for a windshield violation. Nevertheless, the final 20 seconds of the race had everyone standing, jumping, screaming and cheering as the pack roared to the checkered flag.
About the author
Stephen Stumpf is the NASCAR Content Director for Frontstretch and is a three-year veteran of the site. His weekly columns include “Stat Sheet” and “4 Burning Questions.” He also writes commentary, contributes to podcasts, edits articles and is frequently at the track for on-site coverage.
Can find on Twitter @stephen_stumpf.
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All well-deserved award winners, but Dinger should’ve got something just for being so chill.