Did You Notice? … The new NASCAR Open Exemption Provisional hasn’t been used since the season-opening Daytona 500? That’s when four-time Indy 500 winner Helio Castroneves made his NASCAR debut, starting 41st and sticking in the draft until one of those nasty Big Ones wiped him out.
That’s it so far for a 2025 rule that sparked fiery debate from fans when introduced back in January. It’s designed to draw in famous drivers from other forms of motorsports, giving them a guaranteed spot in the Cup field if they want to try their hand at NASCAR Cup Series racing. (Others, like Jimmie Johnson and Martin Truex Jr., have argued it should be used for semi-retired past Cup champions as well).
The rules around the OEP are cumbersome at best; teams have to apply for it a whopping 90 days before a race event and NASCAR has final say in determining if a driver’s resume is “world class” enough. Outside of the drafting tracks of Daytona and Talladega Superspeedway, it’s unlikely the sport will even draw more than a 40-car entry list to any Cup event the rest of the season.
But there’s a long-term play behind this rule. NASCAR understands how crossovers like Kyle Larson’s Indy 500 bid can jumpstart the popularity of both series involved. They also remember Shane van Gisbergen’s incredible upset at the 2023 Chicago Street Race, in his Cup Series debut, which led to him jumping halfway around the world to try stock cars full-time. The win-win scenario gave NBC its largest NASCAR viewership since the Homestead-Miami Speedway championship finale in November 2017.
The question is who NASCAR can realistically get to become the next SVG. Drivers like Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen, for example, appear off limits due to their Formula 1 contracts and international schedule.
But there’s still plenty of world class drivers with the time and the talent to take a stab at it. Here’s six that come to mind.
Josef Newgarden
Newgarden tops the list for me for a few reasons. He’s a popular IndyCar star, a back-to-back Indy 500 winner for Team Penske who has a realistic chance for three straight this May. He’s got crossover popularity appeal, recently showing off his fitness routine at South by Southwest as part of an athletic career that’s included moonlighting at the NFL combine.
Newgarden’s got stock car oval experience, running competitively with the former SRX Series and winning a heat at their Nashville Fairgrounds race in 2022. Open about wanting to try driving in NASCAR someday, Newgarden gushed just this weekend at Thermal Club about new-to-the-Penske-pipeline Wood Brothers Racing driver Josh Berry.
For him, there are championship-level Penske resources at Newgarden’s fingertips to make it happen. A drafting track like this summer’s race at Atlanta Motor Speedway (June 28), an off weekend for IndyCar, feels like a perfect opportunity to try it.
Sergio Perez
The more marketable F1 stars, Verstappen and Hamilton, seem hopelessly out of reach. So why not Perez? The six-time F1 winner is out of a job this season after being replaced on Verstappen’s Red Bull Racing team by Liam Lawson. The 34-year-old who boasts 7.5 million Instagram followers (more, it feels like, than the entire NASCAR grid combined) has nearly 15 years’ worth of F1 experience.
Now, Perez finds himself open for business as NASCAR descends on his home country, Mexico, for the first time in Cup Series history. It’s a track Perez finished third at as recently as 2022 but has never won in a top-tier racing division. Would both sides be willing to throw each other a lifeline?
Daniel Ricciardo
Ricciardo is an Australian F1 driver who fell flat the past few years, squandering what may have been his final chances in that series. But he remains a wildly popular driver (nearly 10 million on Instagram; NASCAR, where is your Drive to Survive?!) who is in the midst of a fork in the road. It’s led to plenty of speculation, FOX Sports’ Bob Pockrass among those predicting stock cars could be next for the 35-year-old who’s always been interested in them.
That’s where I feel someone like Trackhouse Racing, who ran its Project 91 entry in the past for international drivers, could be in position to reach out and offer something. The team just did a one-off for Connor Zilisch in March at Circuit of the Americas, and the Chicago Street Race looms large in July. The organization has already proven it can build a winning effort with the way SVG mastered things in 2023. Sponsorship feels like it wouldn’t be a problem if all sides could find a way to come together.
Jett Lawrence
This one’s a little bit of wishful thinking at the moment; Lawrence tore his ACL in February, leaving him sidelined for the time being. But the 21-year-old reigning Supercross 450SX champion has rocketed to the top of two-wheel competition.
Could AMA success ever carry over to NASCAR? Lawrence is sure young enough to try it as a one-off. One of the best to ever step on a motorcycle, Ricky Carmichael, is the most notable crossover story: he posted four top-five finishes in a three-year Craftsman Truck Series career running for Kevin Harvick’s former team. One potential holdup here is that Lawrence races for Honda, leaving no current NASCAR match in the series.
Donny Schatz
One of the biggest names ever to race in sprint cars, Schatz has 11 Knoxville Nationals wins and 10 World of Outlaw championships. At age 47, Schatz has accomplished just about everything he can: over 300 WoO victories and wins on his series’ biggest stages: Knoxville, the Kings Royal, you name it.
So why not NASCAR?
Schatz would follow in the footsteps of sprint car legend Steve Kinser, who had a short, ill-fated run at the Cup Series in 1995 with a No. 26 car owned by drag racer Kenny Bernstein. Kinser’s best run was 27th at Rockingham Speedway, some 56 laps off the pace, before a Rookie of the Year bid was capped by back-to-back DNQs that caused his release.
Schatz did play around in the Craftsman Truck Series when dirt racing was on the schedule, crashing in the 2021 Knoxville race (he ran 32nd). So why not try him on Cup asphalt on a short track somewhere? Or add a little spice to a Richmond Raceway weekend in need of a kick? Schatz has a dedicated fan base who might turn out to see it.
Will Brown
The 2024 Australian Supercars champion, Brown hails from the same town as IndyCar champion Will Power (Toowomba, Australia) and has big dreams to follow in SVG’s footsteps. A one-race stint with Richard Childress Racing (31st at Sonoma Raceway last year) didn’t live up to expectations but an offseason report had the two collaborating again for 2025.
So far, that hasn’t happened. A potential start at COTA came and went this March, leaving July in Chicago next on the “potential” calendar. Could Brown pull off a sequel there? The popularity pares in comparison to SVG but so does Brown’s age; turning 27 in June, he’s got a decade-plus of racing ahead of him with the right stock car backing and opportunity.
Did You Notice? … Quick hits before taking off…
- Homestead-Miami Speedway feels like it needs the championship weekend back in 2026 to survive on the schedule. Chances are, it’ll get it, and there’s no other driver who wants it more than Sunday’s (March 23) winner Kyle Larson. When he drives a mistake-free race, there’s no one better. And sometimes, Larson makes mistakes there and finds ways to win anyway. Depending on how playoff tweaks shake out in 2026, it could literally alter the number of Cup titles he wins in his career. That’s how much better there it feels like he is over everyone else (645 laps led and six top-five finishes in 12 starts).
- Six races in, it feels like a NASCAR Xfinity Series championship has given Justin Allgaier new life. With two straight wins, he’s already a favorite to earn the championship once again and a top-10 Daytona 500 finish has him thinking more Cup starts with JR Motorsports before hanging up the helmet. For a driver who’s suffered through so much tough luck in his career, it’s living proof confidence can and does carry over.
Follow Tom Bowles on X at @NASCARBowles
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.