1. Do You Believe in 2025 Bubba Wallace?
The pro wrestler Joe Hendry says that if you say his name and believe in him, he’ll appear, and that’s proven to be true even in big moments. Bubba Wallace doesn’t quite have the same gimmick going, but he’s still trying to speak success into existence, saying after Homestead-Miami Speedway that he believes in his No. 23 team.
And why shouldn’t he? Wallace is currently seventh in NASCAR Cup Series points, third among Toyota drivers (behind teammate Tyler Reddick and Christopher Bell, the latter with three 2025 victories already). At Homestead, he looked very much the part of contender for the race win, showing consistent speed he hasn’t always had at that track.
The question, of course, is whether Wallace can run up front consistently and find his way to victory lane, a place he hasn’t visited in about 18 months. He also has a tendency to be his own worst critic, beating himself up over mistakes in a very public way that not all drivers do.
That’s why it’s refreshing to hear Wallace speak with confidence about what he and his team are capable of doing. His team owners believe in him. If he can match that belief and live up to it, maybe he will appear when it matters most.
2. How About Alex Bowman?
Before Kyle Larson made a late charge to spoil it at Homestead, every Cup Series race of 2025 had been won by a driver whose last name started with the letter “B.” It wasn’t for a lack of trying by Alex Bowman, who almost kept the streak going.
Despite being almost an afterthought in the four-man Hendrick Motorsports lineup going into the season, Bowman has been outstanding so far. He’s third in Cup Series points, and while that’s only good for third on his own team as well, the Showman has demonstrated uncanny consistency: He’s the only driver with five top 10s through six races.
Unlike Wallace, Bowman won a race just last year, but as they say in soccer, that victory in the Chicago Street Race came somewhat against the run of play. He did finish third the next week at Pocono Raceway but then managed no better than fifth for the remainder of the season.
But the best part of Bowman’s 2024 came in April and May, where he racked up five consecutive top-10 finishes. If he can find that same level of performance this time around as well, he’s going to join Wallace in convincing fans and observers he’s for real.
3. Austin Hill Could Be the Next Justin Allgaier, or Not
Despite winning 11 Xfinity Series races in less than four full-time campaigns — and proving especially hard to beat at superspeedways and early in each season — there hasn’t been a ton of noise about Austin Hill moving up to the Cup Series.
That changed just a bit this week when Richard Childress Racing revealed that Hill would make five Cup Series starts for the team in 2025, beginning at Darlington in just a few weeks. It was the kind of announcement that made eyebrows raise, even if it was ever so slightly.
Part of the reason no one assumed Hill would move up is that there were no seats for him to do so at RCR. But that could change soon, with neither of its Cup Series drivers reportedly under contract after this year. Kyle Busch certainly appears to be a candidate to move on or retire.
Hill has competed sporadically in the Cup Series before, and failing an upset victory, one wonders what he could prove in five events that would convince RCR to give him a shot in 2026. Maybe that’s the wrong way of looking at it, though: If Hill can keep winning Xfinity races the rest of this season and looks comfortable during his higher level opportunities, that might be the winning combo.
Just weeks away from turning 31, Hill is hardly at the now or never stage of his career. And there would certainly be no shame if he stayed at the Xfinity level and kept cranking out wins. He hasn’t won a championship yet, so he might even feel like he has unfinished business.
It’s also possible a team other than RCR tries to pry him away at some point. Whatever the outcome, it’s going to be an intriguing subplot to keep an eye on.
4. Will Two Times Become a Trend for Ryan Blaney?
Last year’s Cup Series runner-up, Ryan Blaney, has had plenty of speed to start 2025. What he hasn’t had on multiple occasions is an engine that can last a full race, as Homestead marked the second time in three races that Blaney had a DNF due to engine failure.
The reason there’s no cause to panic yet is because Blaney has been excellent at running near the front when stages end. His 69 stage points is just one behind stage-point leader William Byron, and a strong argument can be made that this kind of bad luck is precisely what NASCAR’s current point system is designed to mitigate.
Unless it isn’t bad luck. Two blown engines, even in short succession, is likely a coincidence. If it happens any more, or if Blaney’s Team Penske teammates start suffering the same fate, it might be time to start looking under the hood a bit more.
5. Could More Races on Streaming Services Mean Earlier Start Times?
A good article in the Bristol Herald Courier this week details the dismay many NASCAR fans feel under the sport’s current broadcast deal. A big part of that is the way Cup Series races are divided up between the most different TV networks and streaming services ever, but the other part is how start times for races have crept later and later on Sunday afternoons.
This is just a wild shot in the dark, but what if the first issue helps solve the second? Traditional TV networks have certain time windows they want to hit, with research that (supposedly) shows it’s better for races to air later than the O.G. 1 p.m. ET slot.
Streaming services have no such restraints and no history holding them back. Netflix proved that over the past two weeks with its WWE programming airing in mid-afternoon on the east coast as the company was touring Europe. “People will watch whenever we stream it” seems to be the thinking.
That doesn’t mean they will ask NASCAR to bump up start times, but it doesn’t seem too crazy to think that if, say, Prime Video gets the rights to more Cup Series races down the road, it will see the backlash among race fans and lobby for some earlier starts. Wishful thinking of this type can sure be fun.
