The 2024 NASCAR season featured several fresh faces across the three national series.
From sons of past NASCAR drivers to grandchildren of the sport’s legends, relative newcomers to American motorsports to drivers finally getting a shot at the NASCAR Cup Series level, the sport was chock full of drivers new to their respective series. And in many respects, the Rookie of the Year battles did not disappoint.
Here’s a look back on the seasons of the rookies in each series, plus a check of what they plan to do in 2025.
Read all of Frontstretch‘s content looking back on 2024 here
Craftsman Truck Series
Piloting the No. 38 Ford F-150 for Front Rows Motorsports, Layne Riggs, son of former Cup Series regular Scott Riggs, cruised to the Truck Series Rookie of the Year honors.
Despite narrowly missing the playoffs, Riggs still acquitted himself well in his maiden voyage in Trucks. In fact, Riggs won the first races of the Round of 10 as a non-playoff driver, taking the checkered flag at both The Milwaukee Mile and Bristol Motor Speedway.
Overall, Riggs racked up seven top fives and 10 top 10s. Furthermore, seven of those top-10 finishes came in the second half of the season, showing considerable improvement.
Riggs’ only competition for the Rookie of the Year on the Truck side were Thad Moffitt and Conner Jones. Moffitt made 17 starts in the No. 46 Chevrolet Silverado, originally driving for Faction46 before the team shut down, turning the truck over to Young’s Motorsports. Moffitt failed to get a top 10, only mustering a best finish of 18th at Darlington in May.
Jones ran a part-time schedule in the No. 66 Ford for ThorSport, starting 13 of 23 races. Like Moffitt, Jones failed to crack the top 10. The most noteworthy event of his rookie season was a one-race suspension for the Martinsville Speedway race due to allegedly intentionally wrecking Matt Mills at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
Xfinity Series
The Xfinity Series offered arguably the most competitive and compelling of the three Rookie of the Year battles, with two ROTY contenders in Jesse Love and Shane van Gisbergen making the playoffs.
In the end, Love made the Round of 8 in his No. 2 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet to edge out van Gisbergen for Xfinity ROTY. Van Gisbergen got bounced in the Round of 12 driving the No. 97 Chevrolet for Kaulig.
Van Gisbergen arguably had a flashier season than Love, picking up three wins on road courses at Portland International Raceway, Sonoma Raceway and the Chicago street course. Those three victories put van Gisbergen in a three-way tie for most wins on the season alongside Sam Mayer and Aric Almirola.
Love, meanwhile, collected his lone checkered flag of 2024 in the spring race at Talladega Superspeedway to punch his playoff ticket. However, Love’s consistency won the day, accruing an average finish of 12th to van Gisbergen’s 16.5.
Love will return to the No. 2 Chevrolet in 2025 for another round in the NXS, while van Gisbergen is making the step up to the Cup Series, getting behind the wheel of the No. 88 Chevrolet for Trackhouse Racing.
Two other drivers were eligible for Xfinity Series ROTY in 2024 but did not seriously contend. Leland Honeyman started all 33 races in the No. 42 Chevrolet for Young’s, with a lone top five in the Talladega spring race, finishing fourth. Honeyman wound up 22nd in the final series standings.
Then there is Hailie Deegan, who began 2024 in the No. 15 Ford for AM Racing. Deegan started the first 17 races of the season, failing to collect a top-10 finish and settling for a season-best finish of 12th in that spring Talladega race.
Deegan was taken out of the ride prior to the Chicago and is currently out of NASCAR entirely, now looking to pursue a career in open-wheel racing.
Cup Series
In the top-tier Cup Series, Carson Hocevar, driver of the No. 77 Chevrolet for Spire Motorsports, outdueled Josh Berry for Rookie of the Year with a late-season surge.
Early on, Berry figured to be the top newcomer driver in the No. 4 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford, taking the honor of highest-finishing rookie in seven of the first 14 races of the season. Hocevar, by comparison, was only the best-finishing newcomer in four of the first 14 races.
Then, on May 28, SHR announced that it was shutting down at the end of the 2024 season, putting Berry in a lame-duck situation.
This news helped change the complexion of the Cup ROTY competition. Over the final 22 races, Hocevar was the best rookie in 11 of them, while Berry led the rookie class in just three of the final 22 races.
Hocevar picked up his lone top five of 2024 with a third-place showing at Watkins Glen International, along with six top 10s, to finish the season 21st in the standings with 686 points. Berry fell to 27th in the final standings with 579 points, with a season-best finish of third at both Darlington Raceway and New Hampshire Motor Speedway.
Zane Smith, Hocevar’s teammate at Spire, struggled mightily in his maiden Cup campaign, finishing 30th in the series standings with an average finish of 23.2. Smith did show flashes of potential with a pair of top-five finishes, taking runner-up honors at Nashville Superspeedway and fifth at Watkins Glen.
Kaz Grala was also eligible for Rookie of the Year, but he only made 24 of 36 starts splitting time between Rick Ware Racing and Front Row Motorsports. Grala’s best finish was 14th in the second race of the season at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
Hocevar will be back in the Spire No. 77 for 2025, while Berry has found a new Cup Series home at Wood Brothers Racing behind the wheel of the iconic No. 21 Ford. Smith and Grala’s 2025 plans are not yet set.
About the author
Andrew Stoddard joined Frontstretch in May of 2022 as an iRacing contributor. He is a graduate of Hampden-Sydney College, the University of Richmond, and VCU. He works as an athletic communications specialist at Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Va.
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Go Carson!
Yeah, go home…learn to drive and NOT crash into everything you see.
So tired of less than smart “ journalists” kissing Hocevar boots , it was a sad crop of drivers, Berry is much better, but his season was sideswiped by SHRs demise.
Not always a grumpy Gus…. Happy Thanksgiving to all!!!
Why would they select a driver that nobody likes? I wonder what the reaction would be when the award was handed out? Berry would have had a lot better year if he hadn’t been in crashes that weren’t his fault and a dubious DVP decision.