Did You Notice?… The NASCAR Cup Series parity with the Next Gen car may be fading away? A car that has been hailed for its ability to increase competition on intermediate tracks and give underdogs a chance to win has instead seen its wealthiest, most-established teams rise to the top of the charts thus far in 2024.
Just two organizations, Hendrick Motorsports and Joe Gibbs Racing, have combined to capture eight of the first nine events. The only outlier is Daniel Suarez of Trackhouse Racing, who earned a victory by inches in a pack race at Atlanta Motor Speedway, which typically gives more drivers a chance to win.
That dominance by HMS and JGR extends out to laps led. Seven of the eight drivers who have led 120 laps or more this season are from those two organizations; Joey Logano, the lone outlier, is a two-time defending Cup champ from Team Penske.
Together, HMS and JGR make up half the 16 playoff spots on the grid. Penske is right behind those two, taking up two more positions with Ryan Blaney and Logano, respectively. 23XI Racing and Trackhouse take up four more spots, in playoff position with both of its full-time cars and drivers.
The final two postseason slots are currently with Stewart-Haas Racing (Chase Briscoe) and RFK Racing (Chris Buescher). That gives you a total of seven individualized teams currently in the postseason with no one else anywhere close. Legacy Motor Club, the first new team outside playoff position, sits 38 points behind in 19th with Erik Jones.
Denny Hamlin expanded on the evolution of the Next Gen competition this past weekend at Texas Motor Speedway.
“The day of the mid-tiers popping up and winning races,” he said, “it could happen, certainly. But it’s really down to six or seven guys that are really going to win most of the bulk of them.”
Is Hamlin right? How lopsided, really, are things right now in year three of the Next Gen era?
The answers are more mixed than you might think.
NASCAR Next Gen Stats
Through 9 Races
| Year | Different Winners | Organizations In Playoff Position | Drivers With 120+ Laps Led |
| 2022 | 8 | 6 | 6 |
| 2023 | 7 | 9 | 7 |
| 2024 | 6 | 7 | 8 |
As you can see, in the first year of the Next Gen, turns out the parity was even worse. People forget that early in 2022, HMS, JGR and Penske had all 11 of its drivers in playoff position – more than those teams have now. Just like in 2024, three of four HMS drivers had a victory and it looked like Hendrick was the most formidable team on the circuit.
But who won the title that year? None other than Logano and Penske. One of the Championship 4 drivers that year, Christopher Bell, was barely a blip on the radar screen, holding onto 16th in points after nine races. It just goes to show you how quickly things can change in this sport.
With that said… it’s notable someone like Hamlin, who owns one of those mid-tier organizations capable of winning races, is speaking out so openly about the competition gap. It helps feed into a perception that HMS and JGR just are so much better than everyone else.
But a closer look at the individual races says that’s not always the case, at least at the pack-racing tracks. It was the Ford of Logano that led the most laps (45) in a topsy-turvy Daytona 500. Third-year driver Todd Gilliland, part of mid-tier Front Row Motorsports, led a career and race-high 58 laps the following week at Atlanta.
The key, then, for some of these other teams is to claw back through opportunities where all teams are on equal ground, like this weekend at Talladega Superspeedway. Ford is overdue for its first win of 2024 and drivers like Gilliland, Michael McDowell and Brad Keselowski will be well positioned to cash in.
Speaking of… Keselowski came up just short of a win at Texas, finishing second. Ross Chastain of Trackhouse had a shot after starting on the front row for the final restart. Last week at Martinsville Speedway, Bubba Wallace had the best finish of his season (fourth). So there are still drivers from other teams hanging around.
It seems a little early, then, to say this season will be limited to a select few. There’s still plenty of time to go with new tracks like Iowa Speedway on the schedule and wild cards like the Chicago street course to shake things up.
But if everyone else is going to make gains against HMS and JGR… they better start soon.
Did You Notice?… Quick hits before taking off…
- Lost in the chaos of that Texas finish was the first top 10 of rookie Carson Hocevar’s Cup career. That came after a mid-race spin, an impressive comeback to leave him the top freshman overall (22nd in points) nine races in. He’s the first rookie out of the four to earn a top 10 this year.
- It’s nice for NASCAR to have Jimmie Johnson around, racing part-time as a seven-time champion with a strong following. However, his moonlighting tour is becoming reminiscent of other Hall of Fame drivers, like Terry Labonte and Bill Elliott, who kept coming back only to run in the back. The hope is Johnson will learn the Next Gen with more reps, but so far? The results just haven’t come (no top-25 finishes in five starts in the past two years).
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The author of Did You Notice? (Wednesdays) Tom spends his time overseeing Frontstretch’s 40+ staff members as its majority owner and Editor-in-Chief. Based outside Philadelphia, Bowles is a two-time Emmy winner in NASCAR television and has worked in racing production with FOX, TNT, and ESPN while appearing on-air for SIRIUS XM Radio and FOX Sports 1's former show, the Crowd Goes Wild. He most recently consulted with SRX Racing, helping manage cutting-edge technology and graphics that appeared on their CBS broadcasts during 2021 and 2022.
You can find Tom’s writing here, at CBSSports.com and Athlonsports.com, where he’s been an editorial consultant for the annual racing magazine for 15 years.