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Did You Notice?: NASCAR’s Record-Setting Parity & Its Weird Timing

Did You Notice? … The NASCAR Cup Series now has 18 winners in 31 races?

Ricky Stenhouse Jr. joined the party on Sunday (Oct. 6), beating Brad Keselowski to the line at Talladega Superspeedway by about the width of his front bumper.

The official margin of victory was just 0.006 seconds, the fourth race decided by less than of a tenth of a second in NASCAR this year (easily a modern-era record).

Stenhouse and his single-car JTG Daugherty Racing team won their first race since the 2023 Daytona 500, helping erase the sting of a season-long slump. He’s also the latest underdog in a surprising postseason trend: three of the five playoff races have been won by those who didn’t crack the 16-driver playoff field.

See also
The Underdog House: Ricky Stenhouse Jr. Pulls a Vanderbilt in Alabama

Suddenly, the Next Gen is showing signs of parity we haven’t seen since the middle of its first year in 2022. When you include the last two races of the regular season, we’ve seen five new winners in the last seven races, several of whom were serious longshots.

Last 7 Cup Race Winners

TrackWinner
Daytona International SpeedwayHarrison Burton*
Darlington Raceway (Southern 500)Chase Briscoe*
Atlanta Motor SpeedwayJoey Logano
Watkins Glen InternationalChris Buescher*
Bristol Motor SpeedwayKyle Larson
Kansas SpeedwayRoss Chastain*
Talladega SuperspeedwayRicky Stenhouse, Jr.*
*New winner

It’s given the postseason a weird feel. Right now, Hendrick Motorsports is in position to sweep half of the spots inside the Round of 8 even though it’s won just once (Larson at Bristol). Joe Gibbs Racing is in position to get Denny Hamlin into the next round even though Hamlin has led just one lap the entire playoffs.

Regular-season champion Tyler Reddick sits on the bubble for 23XI Racing, only 14 points to the good with a total of zero top-five postseason finishes. He could technically advance Sunday, Oct. 13, with a fifth straight result of 20th or worse.

In the meantime, multiple drivers who slept through the regular season have suddenly woken up and started throwing punches. None of the top five at Watkins Glen were postseason eligible. Zane Smith, a rookie who finished fifth, doesn’t even have a full-time ride secured for 2025. Let’s salute some part-time performances, too: Shane van Gisbergen, not Larson nor Chase Elliott, was giving Buescher everything he can handle down the stretch in that Glen race.

It doesn’t feel like this group is done either. Five races remain for this Cup season to break a modern-era record with 20 winners (the current mark, 19, was first set in 2001).

Two could easily come from the list below.

AJ Allmendinger. The most obvious choice considering ‘Dinger is the defending champion of this weekend’s race at the Charlotte Motor Speedway ROVAL. He’s going back to full time in Cup with Kaulig Racing next year and already has two top 10s this season on road courses while running his part-time schedule.

Shane van Gisbergen. If not Allmendinger, why not SVG? While the NASCAR Xfinity Series championship could serve as a distraction this weekend at Charlotte, he’s only a month removed from the Glen and has three NXS road course wins this year alone. He was also arguably the fastest car on the Chicago street course in July before his wreck.

Kyle Busch. It’s getting a little crazy Busch hasn’t won a Cup race this year, putting his streak of 19 years with at least one win in serious jeopardy. Talladega was the latest near-miss, as Busch pulled out of line for a last-lap run … only to have no one in the field pair up with him.

Busch has earned four of his 10 top-10 finishes this year in just the last eight races. He was a serious contender to win at Michigan International Speedway, Daytona, Darlington, Atlanta and Kansas two weeks ago. Busch’s spin while leading at that Kansas event may very well come back to haunt him, but consider that other 1.5-milers like Homestead-Miami Speedway and his hometown track of Las Vegas Motor Speedway remain on the schedule.

See also
Up to Speed: Did Team Penske’s Playoff Strategy Backfire at Talladega?

Martin Truex Jr. Knocked out of the playoffs with nothing to lose, Truex still drives top-tier Joe Gibbs Racing equipment with five races left in his full-time career. He was in the top 10 at Las Vegas in March, has three career wins at Martinsville Speedway and could even play a role in the Phoenix Raceway finale.

Yes, Phoenix. Chastain reminded us last year non-Championship-4 drivers can still break through there, and Truex had one of the best cars there this spring, leading 55 laps and finishing seventh. Could you imagine the uproar from the crowd and Toyota if Hamlin won his first title that weekend while Truex ended a full-time career in victory lane?

Ty Gibbs. The JGR sophomore has eight top-five finishes, more than half the playoff field, and has led 42 laps during the postseason. Anything from Charlotte’s ROVAL to Vegas feels fair game from a driver that’s excelled at every track type in 2024.

Two of those five drivers winning doesn’t feel like a heavy lift. It would add credence to the fact this Next Gen chassis puts the vast majority of the 36 chartered cars on a level playing field.

It’s just a weird time for it all to happen, with the undercard distracting fans from what’s supposed to be a heavyweight fight at the top. It’s not like drivers like William Byron, Hamlin or Ryan Blaney have limped through the regular season — that trio alone has eight wins to their name.

But a potential champion that goes winless in the postseason and potentially the final six to seven months of the year? That would be the case for Byron and Hamlin, and it would hardly be the Game 7 moment NASCAR looks to achieve for these playoffs.

It’s as if all these 10 seeds hit the jackpot in the NCAA Tournament and knocked off all the 1 and 2 seeds they were playing … except the top seeds still get to advance. For me, it’s just the latest example that the sport could benefit from a shorter, more compacted playoff schedule.

Stock car racing is unique in that everyone else still gets to race while the championship battle rages on. And when you put all your cards in that basket, that runs the risk of the two of spades upstaging the aces you actually want to focus on.

Did You Notice? … Quick hits before taking off …

  • Drivers may be mad about the unpredictability of Talladega, but the TV verdict is in: ratings and viewership are up 20% from the year before. Sixty-six lead changes along with the 72 in the spring race combined to produce the most at this track since the tandem drafting era in 2011 (160 combined). It’s a tough pill to swallow for drivers and teams who want change. Fan involvement and excitement around this type of racing gives NASCAR cover to stay the course.
  • One thing that should be reconsidered, in my opinion, is NASCAR’s decision to include Talladega in the Round of 8 next season. As I explored in depth this week in my CBS column, we’ve already seen the difference one lap and a 27-car crash can make.

It’s incredible how one bad bump of Austin Cindric changed the outcome of the race that much. It’s a type of racing where, unlike stick-and-ball sports, the most critical moments are outside your control. Your chance to finish, and finish well, is based largely on whether an unavoidable wreck happens around you.

But a closer look at the points shows the best drivers may still advance to the Round of 8. Cindric may have deserved to move on with his strength at Talladega, but was he really one of the eight best drivers this year? There’s a lot of evidence that points to a resounding NO. Logano, meanwhile, is only 13 points behind Elliott and Reddick in their battle for the final spot.

The seven drivers ahead of them feel like the right drivers to be advancing. Reddick’s the regular-season champ, Hamlin/Byron/Blaney/Larson/Bell are all multi-race winners and Alex Bowman has had an outstanding postseason under pressure. So, in a weird way, Talladega’s Russian Roulette didn’t produce a murder; the championship race feels intact.

But here’s what doesn’t feel right: when all those heavyweights are in the semifinal round and their Championship 4 appearance gets dictated by the Big One in the last 10 laps at Talladega. Their ability to fight for a title could rely on a driver slowing down to lose the draft, crossing their fingers and hoping they finish 10th when everyone crashes.

Talladega is truly a sight to behold. Making it the race that decides the championship ruins a unique feel it has otherwise — a racetrack where drivers can go four-abreast every lap and everyone truly has a chance to win.

NASCAR would be wise to at least listen to this criticism and realign the track on its schedule for 2026.

Follow Tom Bowles on X at @NASCARBowles

About the author

Tom Bowles

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.

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7 Comments
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Ricky

Nascar should be assessed a fine payable to each owner who has a car wrecked in a super speedway fiasco. Nascar benefits from the added viewership while the owners are stuck with hundreds of thousands of dollars in repair bills or cars that are totaled.

Echo

The word “wise” doesn’t pertain to Nascar. The drivers hate running half throttle most of the race at Dega. But Nascar got their wish, increased viewers.

DoninAjax

And an epic wreck that will be every ad from now on!

Brian

One issue I have that coincides with a couple of the points about the championship race.
Should drivers that are not performing well during the playoff be rewarded by the points reset after each round? In the article it mentions a champion not winning since the spring. This is why after the 3 races of the round of 16 reset points and now only points earn in the playoffs matter. This would include points earned in the round of 16 races as well. This gives 6 races to earn a spot in the round of 8 instead of luck and relying on points reset giving currently under performing team an out for poor performances.

This would stop the riding around for many post season drivers starting with the first race of the round of 12 to actually race as now points collected actually mean something since the team cannot rely on bonus points and all that to advance.
It also puts even more motivation on winning as that is the only guarantee to move to the next round.

Kevin in SoCal

The bonus points you get during the regular season should definitely continue in the playoffs, in my opinion. Its an incentive to win more, so your regular season points standings carry you further. Like being the #1 seed gets you home-field advantage.

DoninAjax

Anyone who believes numbers don’t lie has never read NA$CAR stats!

Echo

lol don’t you hope Nascar has to open up the books lololol talk about a mad family. Mad in two ways. I want to hear Lesa squeel.