With just two top-20 finishes in the last 10 races, is it time to be concerned about Ty Gibbs?
Luken Glover: The fire isn’t blazing but alarm bells are starting to ring. Ty Gibbs made the playoffs last year, but the wheels have started to fall off the bus since the mid-summer of last season. There was a subtle excuse that could have been made for Gibbs, given the fact that Joe Gibbs Racing went the last 18 races of 2024 without a win, and the speed just seemed hit or miss. Now, the alarm “Bells” are ringing because of Christopher Bell, who is off to a scorching hot start with three consecutive wins. Denny Hamlin was a few feet away from breaking Bell’s streak at Phoenix Raceway. Despite his poor fortunes to begin the year, even Chase Briscoe rocketed to the Daytona 500 pole. Drivers like Kyle Larson, Chase Elliott and William Byron all won in the summer of their third season, so Gibbs does have that reference point. But if the struggles continue and he seems to be miles away from victory lane, the pressure to perform will be at an all-time high.
Mike Neff: Gibbs has shown he has the ability to drive racecars. His challenge has been this version of a racecar. It may be a situation similar to Joey Logano. Logano came into JGR as a kid, and his team members never really valued his feedback when it came to the car. They made changes they felt it needed and told him to learn to drive it. That may or may not be the situation with Gibbs, but it certainly appears that he needs someone on the box who values his feedback and can make him comfortable in the car.
Logan Kendall: I wouldn’t say that it is time to be concerned over Gibbs. Every driver goes through slumps, and this appears to be one of those times for Gibbs. Gibbs is far from the first young driver to take a little bit to get their footing in the Cup Series. Logano, Elliott and Byron were all the same way, and it took them a few seasons to get to form. Gibbs will get there eventually, and this start to the season will be long forgotten.
Aaron Bearden: Gibbs proved himself to be a Cup-caliber driver by making the playoffs on points in a 2024 season where there were few of those openings. It’s hard not to feel some concern over the No. 54 team’s struggles when Bell is atop the NASCAR world and Hamlin has gotten up to speed quickly with his new crew chief. But this team lost emphasis after an early playoff exit in 2024, and there’ve been few ’normal’ races so far in 2025, so let’s give Gibbs and Co. a few more weeks to sort things out before we hit the panic switch.
Who has been a pleasant surprise in the Cup Series through the first four races?
Landon Quesinberry: How about John Hunter Nemechek? Now, this hasn’t been the most traditional first four races to open a season, but the turnaround from last year is remarkable. When is the last time we’ve seen someone jump from last in points out of all full-time drivers to in the playoff hunt to open the season? It hasn’t been a flashy start, but he’s finishing races and getting results that would’ve been phenomenal days by Legacy Motor Club’s standard last season. The No. 42 team should be very proud of the start it’s had and keep pushing forward with this momentum.
Christopher Hansen: The obvious pick for me is Carson Hocevar in his second full-time Cup Series campaign with Spire Motorsports. Hocevar nearly shocked the NASCAR world by winning Atlanta Motor Speedway had the yellow not flown on the final lap, costing him a chance at the victory. Even at Phoenix, Hocevar showed great speed by starting inside the top 10 before getting swept up in an early crash, along with his Spire teammate Justin Haley.
Jake Altmayer: Nemechek. Last year, Nemechek finished 34th in the standings with just four top-10 and six top-15 finishes all season. After just four races this year, Nemechek is currently ranked 13th in points, and he is already halfway to equaling his number of top-10 and top-15 finishes throughout all of 2024. While that level of consistency likely won’t continue throughout the entire season as Legacy Motor Club works to improve its Cup Series program, it’s certainly been an impressive start for the young driver.
Kendall: Josh Berry and the No. 21 Wood Brothers Racing team have been a pleasant surprise. Berry had a great run going at Atlanta before being caught up in the wreck at the end, and he had a great weekend all around last week at Phoenix, where he qualified fourth, had himself in a great position on the final restart and brought the car home in fourth place. It is always great to see the historic Wood Brothers team run well. As the Cup Series heads to Martinsville Speedway and Bristol Motor Speedway in a few weeks, I wouldn’t be surprised if Berry puts the team in victory lane considering short tracks are his strong suit.
Which other tracks would you like to see NASCAR and Goodyear implement the option tire?
Altmayer: It would be interesting to see the effect that the option tires would have at some of the other short flat tracks like Martinsville and New Hampshire Motor Speedway as well as at Bristol, where the racing has been largely subpar since NASCAR switched to the Next Gen car in 2022. In addition, I’d be curious to see how much of a difference the option tires would make at road courses, particularly at Sonoma Raceway where the racing has been OK at best in recent years.
Hansen: I’d like to see the option tire run at all short tracks and road courses for the rest of the season. If it’s anything like we saw this past weekend at Phoenix with drivers having to strategically use the option tire, it would certainly add another wrinkle into the typical strategy teams employ on road courses.
Neff: Tires have been an out of control fiasco for years. There should be option tires at every type of track, and there should be consistency with the tires for each type of track across the board. Formula 1 has three options at every track, so why doesn’t NASCAR? There should be a soft, medium and hard tire available to the teams for short tracks, intermediates, superspeedways and road courses. Teams would save money by not having to purchase unique tires for every track, and crew chiefs would have strategic flexibility. Tires should not be rocket science.
We’re a month into the season and the Truck Series has yet to race on a non-superspeedway. Does the two-week break between Atlanta and Las Vegas need to be bridged?
Bearden: The Truck Series schedule has had inconsistent pacing at stretches in recent years. It’ll run every week in May and then take nearly a month off between Lime Rock Park and Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park this summer. That’s less than ideal and could use some tweaking.
Glover: This is a slight concern not only in the Truck Series but across the board. Sure, Daytona and Atlanta are entertaining, and they are some of the most high-profile tracks on the schedule. Yet it feels like the season doesn’t find a rhythm until mid-to-late March, as two superspeedways and a road course make up the first three races. For the Truck Series, there should be another race between those two events. It would be a good opportunity to go to a short track like an IRP, or even a new track like Hickory Motor Speedway. Having the Truck teams sit for two weeks after two battering superspeedways can offset any rhythm quickly.
Quesinberry: Actually, I’m going to say no. While I thought it was a little strange that they didn’t make the trip to Circuit of the Americas this year, I think that giving the Truck teams a few weeks off after two straight drafting tracks is a good idea. We all know how chaotic those races can be, and a lot of those teams are smaller and have to work really hard to get those trucks ready for the next weekend. Yeah, it stinks to not see Truck racing for two weeks, but they are about to run 13 of the next 16 weeks before the three-week break for the series starting July 5. They’ve got a busy schedule ahead of them, so I think the break is warranted.
Aaron Bearden is a Frontstretch alumnus who’s come back home as the site’s Short Track Editor. When he isn’t working with our grassroots writers, he can be found talking about racing on his Morning Warmup newsletter, pestering his wife/dog or convincing himself the Indiana Pacers can win an NBA title.
Jake Altmayer joined the Frontstretch team in 2025, assisting as a news writer and contributing to other weekly columns and articles, such as Friday Faceoff and Xfinity Breakdown. A 2024 graduate of DePaul University. Altmayer has closely followed NASCAR's national series (Cup, Xfinity and Trucks) for nearly a decade and has attended over a dozen races over the course of that time. In his free time, he enjoys cycling, spending time with his loved ones, and listening to his favorite band, the Beach Boys.
Logan Kendall joined the Frontstretch team in 2025 as the Tuesday News Writer and fills in other roles as needed. He resides in the Finger Lakes region of New York and spends his free time writing as a hobby creatively and is a self published author.
Logan can be found on X @LoganKendall48
Luken Glover joined the Frontstretch team in 2020 as a contributor, furthering a love for racing that traces back to his earliest memories. Glover inherited his passion for racing from his grandfather, who used to help former NASCAR team owner Junie Donlavey in his Richmond, Va. garage. A 2023 graduate from the University of the Cumberlands, Glover is the author of "The Underdog House," contributes to commentary pieces, and does occasional at-track reporting. Additionally, Glover enjoys working in ministry, coaching basketball, playing sports, and karting.
What is it that Mike Neff doesn’t do? The writer, radio contributor and racetrack announcer coordinates the site’s local short track coverage, hitting up Saturday Night Specials across the country while tracking the sport’s future racing stars. The writer for our signature Cup post-race column, Thinkin’ Out Loud (Mondays) also sits down with Cup crew chiefs to talk shop every Friday with Tech Talk. Mike announces several shows each year for the Good Guys Rod and Custom Association. He also pops up everywhere from PRN Pit Reporters and the Press Box with Alan Smothers to SIRIUS XM Radio. He has announced at tracks all over the Southeast, starting at Millbridge Speedway. He's also announced at East Lincoln Speedway, Concord Speedway, Tri-County Speedway, Caraway Speedway, and Charlotte Motor Speedway.
How can NASCAR have three different tires available, and yet teams save money by not having to buy special tires? I didn’t understand that.
Every time NA$CAR says, “We’re doing this to save the teams money” you can bet that NA$CAR is costing the teams more money and making money off it. Wasn’t the new NA$CAR designed “race” car (anything but) supposed to be cheaper to run?