1. Is Front Row Motorsports in store for its biggest season yet?
Front Row Motorsports had its best NASCAR Cup Series season in history after Michael McDowell made the playoffs and dominated at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course last year.
It was monumental moment for the organization, but it’s not even close to the team’s potential ceiling.
Starting in 2024 — FRM’s 20th season in Cup competition — the team will expand its relationship with Ford and form a new alliance with Team Penske.
Part of FRM’s new deal with Ford Performance is its inclusion as what’s called a tier one program, which will feature increased support and communications from both Ford and Penske.
The partnership looked to be on full display during Wednesday’s (Feb. 14) Daytona 500 qualifying, as McDowell will start on the outside pole — tying the best start in his Cup career — alongside Penske’s Joey Logano for Sunday’s (Feb. 18) Daytona 500.
During Daytona 500 media day, McDowell said he expects to win this year and the next.
After two decades in NASCAR, FRM has built a formidable team with McDowell and third-year driver Todd Gilliland. Last year was not the end, but only the beginning.
2. Who will win Rookie of the Year in all three series?
There are three exciting rookie classes in the upcoming 2024 season. And while the race will be relatively uncontested in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series, both the Cup and NASCAR Xfinity series will feature tight battles.
For Cup, the contenders are Josh Berry, Carson Hocevar and Zane Smith. Of the three, my pick is Hocevar. Right now, the biggest question mark surrounding him performance wise is the strength of Spire Motorsports. The team has made great strides in the past, but the team is still a way away from being a weekly contender. But 2024 will be the first full season with Gainbridge’s involvement in the team, and the Trackhouse connection with Smith’s No. 71 car will also serve to improve the team’s performance across the board.
Hocevar arguably has the highest ceiling of the three. He had multiple top-20 runs in Legacy Motor Club’s No. 42 last season, in what can only be described as the season from hell for the organization. One of these runs include an 11th at Bristol Motor Speedway after running top 10 most of the night. He may be inconsistent with poor results or wrecks based on his driving style, but he has shown so many flashes of brilliance in the Next Gen car that he will shine the brightest of the three if Spire is up to par.
In Xfinity, the race will come down to either Jesse Love, the 2023 ARCA Menards Series champion, or Shane van Gisbergen, an Australian Supercars sensation who has moved to the States for his first full-time NASCAR season after taking the racing world by storm with a Cup win on the Chicago street course last year. Love may perform better on ovals and have better week-in, week-out performance, but the advantage goes to van Gisbergen, as he will be a winning threat in all the road courses on the schedule. He will win at least one of them, and by then, he may have acquired enough oval experience to make a run through the playoffs.
The two Truck rookies are Thad Moffitt and Layne Riggs, plus part-timer Conner Jones, and Riggs will win the award going away. He has already collected a top five and multiple top 10s despite bouncing between teams for part-time starts the last two years, and he will be taking over the ride with which Smith won the 2022 Truck championship. While FRM’s Cup team has slowly risen through the ranks, its Truck team has been an elite ride since inception. That will only continue with FRM’s new alliance with Ford, and Riggs will claim multiple victories this season.
3. Which non-chartered team will have the best performance on Sunday?
The final four spots for the Daytona 500 were up for grabs between six cars, and the official field was set during Thursday’s (Feb. 15) Bluegreen Vacations Duels. Of the four that qualified, Anthony Alfredo and David Ragan locked in their spots through qualifying speed, while Jimmie Johnson and Kaz Grala punched their tickets in the Duels.
Alfredo surprised with his qualifying lap and Johnson is back with a new-look Legacy team under Toyota, but it will be Ragan and RFK’s No. 60 that will have the best finish of all the part-time teams.
Ford has brought hot rods to superspeedways in the last several years, and the Blue Ovals ended a 11-year streak of Chevrolet winning the Daytona 500 pole on Wednesday. RFK’s Brad Keselowski led the most laps in the last two Daytona 500s, and with Ford’s speed, Ragan’s experience and the manufacturer’s strength in numbers, Ragan will be a key player in Sunday’s finish.
4. Who will win the 66th running of the Great American Race?
This is a prediction that’s akin to throwing darts on a dartboard, but I’m going to choose the driver who I’ve been singing praise to all offseason: defending Cup champion Ryan Blaney.
On an episode of Happy Hour in November, I predicted that Blaney would go back-to-back and be in store for a six-win season. I stuck with Blaney during an appearance in The Fast Lane with Ed Lane radio show on Monday (Feb. 12), when I predicted that Blaney would be the favorite on Sunday.
And why wouldn’t he be? He’s arguably the best superspeedway racer in the business today with three wins at Talladega Superspeedway and a 2021 victory in Daytona’s 400-miler. He won a Duel in 2020, and he’s finished second in the 500 twice (2017 and 2020). He led 118 laps in the 2018 running before finish seventh, which marks the most laps led by a single driver in the 500 since 1992.
He’s done everything but win the 500, and teammates Logano and Austin Cindric each have a Harley J. Earl trophy to their name. One of those teammates will start on the pole, and it’s the speed of Penske and Ford, combined with Blaney’s superspeedway prowess and his momentum as the defending series champion, that will net the No. 12 team the victory.
Stephen Stumpf is the NASCAR Content Director for Frontstretch and is a three-year veteran of the site. His weekly column is “Stat Sheet,” and he formerly wrote "4 Burning Questions" for three years. He also writes commentaries, contributes to podcasts, edits articles and is frequently at the track for on-site coverage.
Find Stephen on Twitter @stephen_stumpf