Outgoing Joe Gibbs Racing driver Chandler Smith revealed following Saturday’s (Oct. 26) NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Homestead-Miami Speedway that he has no plans for next year.
In some ways it was not a surprise, looking at what had already been announced during silly season. But it was indicative of where this series is right now.
“Pay drivers,” or drivers subsidizing their car by paying a lot of money to a team, is always going to be an issue in motor racing. IndyCar just had what I think should be a major controversy, where Kyffin Simpson just bought his way to another season at Chip Ganassi Racing while the team released promising rookie Linus Lundqvist.
The reliance of pay drivers in the highest forms of motorsport have fallen in recent years, but they are still there if you look. But the Xfinity Series is just chock-full of them at this point.
Smith has the highest average finish of all full-time drivers this season. Barring a win, he’s a long shot to get into the Championship 4, but if NASCAR didn’t have a crappy format, he’d be only four points off from the points lead entering Martinsville.
It’s just ridiculous that a prospect that good, in his own words, might be looking at construction work next season. And it’s not like Smith is dirt poor, but a dad owning a construction business is not going to have the funds to compete against a dad who runs the company that built my water heater.
And it’s not like this is a series that is just the junior league of NASCAR anymore. The CW contract will be worth about $115 million annually, a 60% increase from the reported value of the previous contract that runs out this year. That’s on top of being able to attract about a million viewers weekly, depending on the time of year, which makes it one of the most-watched TV series in the country today.
But yet, here we are. And if Smith is getting shafted, there’s also his fellow JGR driver Ryan Truex.
Truex has had a scattershot of results up and down the field in 15 years of NASCAR racing, but he’s had success this season. He’s outperformed John Hunter Nemechek in the No. 20 Toyota and, like both Nemechek and Aric Almirola, has two wins in the car.
However, Truex doesn’t bring the funding to the car, as can be seen with Toyota having been the sponsor on his rides. He also has no announced plans for next season. Maybe, at best, he gets the same part-time gig as he’s had this season.
This is a problem NXS has always had. Longtime fans will remember the days of the “Buschwhackers”, when sponsors wouldn’t want to pony up the money for a Cup car but would demand Cup drivers anyway. So one or two Cup drivers would race 25 to 30 races, and a rookie would be in the car for the other handful as a thank you.
But still having an issue with so many seats being subsidized in 2025, with all the advantages this series has now? It’s a bit embarrassing.
About 10 years ago, all the Cup owners came together and formed the Race Team Alliance. Although the RTA is probably most known as representing a unified front for the Cup teams in negotiations with NASCAR (even though they’ve been pretty quiet on the 23XI lawsuit, hmm what a surprise), that’s not the only function of the alliance.
The RTA also works together to promote cost-saving measures, such as bulk deals at hotels and transportation. It’s a small thing, but why aren’t NXS owners doing this as well? Most of them are already RTA members through their Cup programs. Either let NXS teams such as RSS Racing or JR Motorsports into the alliance, or maybe even the existing teams can start their own alliance together.
That alone isn’t going to solve the problem, but it will help treat it. Another common sense idea here, while I’m spit-balling, would be to remove the race at Portland International Raceway.
It’s not a slight on Portland, which is a nice city with a great little race track. Nor is it a slight on the Pacific Northwest, a region NASCAR should go to. But standalone races, especially this one with where it is, is a money drain on teams. Cutting that out would, again, not solve the issue but be part of several answers.
The goal of NXS, besides putting on great races, should be to help promote and determine tomorrow’s Cup stars. It’s a goal that NXS has largely succeeded in, but as evidenced by the tweet above, it’s one that it is showing signs of failure in.
Nobody wants this series to fall behind. Just shrugging and going “well, that’s just how it’s always been”, instead of trying to solve the problem, would be a good way for it to do so.
About the author
Michael has watched NASCAR for 20 years and regularly covered the sport from 2013-2021, and also formerly covered the SRX series from 2021-2023. He now covers the FIA Formula 1 World Championship, the NASCAR Xfinity Series, and road course events in the NASCAR Cup Series.
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This is the problem with racing today Long gone are the days when the owner had sponsorship and recruited talent No money no ride sad but true and it’s not going to change
No worse example than JGR. Jones and Menards. Sawalich and Sound Gear which is owned by Grampa and run by Daddy