Did You Notice? … We’re edging closer to NASCAR Silly Season?
It was in late May 2024 we learned Stewart-Haas Racing was ceasing NASCAR Cup Series operations, closing their four-car team and setting off a wild Silly Season. Within weeks, Martin Truex Jr. had followed suit by announcing his retirement, setting the yearly game of racing musical chairs in full swing.
This year, it feels unlikely the earthquake of a Cup championship team or driver leaving the sport will hit a second year in a row. Instead, it’s not retirement but the rise of top prospects that could cause 2026 dominoes to start falling.
Let’s start there for a look at where some changes at the Cup level might start happening.
Corey Heim
Apologies to Connor Zilisch but there is no hotter prospect in NASCAR right now. The 23-year-old Heim has won a dozen Craftsman Truck Series races since joining TRICON, Toyota’s top development team, at the start of the 2023 season. He’s earned two straight Championship 4 appearances and is a heavy favorite to win the 2025 title going away.
If not for NASCAR’s playoff system, no one else in Trucks would have a shot to catch Heim this year. Having already won three times, it could be twice that number if not for some rough luck and poor pit strategy during the spring. Heim’s 492 laps led this season is more than twice the number of anyone else on the grid.
It’s clear an above-average stint in Trucks has left the NASCAR Xfinity Series feeling like an extra step; it’s clear this prospect is Cup ready. Need proof? Try last Sunday (May 11) when Heim jumped in a fourth, part-time Cup ride for 23XI Racing and finished an impressive 13th. By comparison, that result is one spot better than anything rookie Riley Herbst has produced for this Toyota outfit all year.
So, where does he go?
Heim starts at a disadvantage with Toyota as its top team, Joe Gibbs Racing, seems unable to sign him due to longstanding friction with Ty Gibbs. Years after a 2021 ARCA Menards Series Championship feud turned deeply personal, Gibbs’ grudge and lifetime tenure at his family-owned outfit all but rules a partnership out.
Over at 23XI, all three drivers are signed to long-term deals: Bubba Wallace, Tyler Reddick and Herbst, signed through 2026 with big-time sponsor money. They’d have to form a fourth team full-time and, last I checked, there’s a little lawsuit going on with NASCAR that puts the whole future of the team in question.
Those issues leave Legacy Motor Club as the only Toyota option left. Heim has run for them in a few spot Cup starts and the organization was looking to expand to three full-time Cup teams, currently in litigation with Rick Ware Racing over a potential sale gone sideways. There’s also the option for Legacy to stay at two cars, perhaps splitting with John Hunter Nemechek after he was on the hot seat late last year.
But does Heim really want the lowest rung on Toyota’s ladder? The question is whether he’s impressed enough for anyone Ford or Chevy to reach out and grab him. Heim does have a deal to run even more races for 23XI in 2026, but if someone were to come along with a full-time Cup opportunity, could he take it?
Austin Hill … or Jesse Love … or Kyle Busch… or Austin Dillon
Right now, Hill and Love are championship contenders in the NASCAR Xfinity Series. They’ve combined to win four times in 12 races, with a potential fifth taken away after Love’s post-race inspection at Rockingham Speedway in April.
Hill, in particular, feels ready for promotion after 13 wins in four seasons for Richard Childress Racing. Love, at 20 years old, feels like the long-term growth prospect this organization has been waiting for since Kevin Harvick.
Here’s the problem: there’s currently no room at the inn. One seat is filled by a two-time Cup champion, Kyle Busch, while the other is driven by Childress’ grandson Austin Dillon. It’s a rare situation where both men will likely hold all the cards in determining their future – along with Hill and Love’s.
Dillon’s situation has ticked up after another sorry start to a season. 22nd in the standings, he has three top 10s in the past four races along with a fifth-place qualifying effort at Talladega Superspeedway last month.
But the possibility of a playoff spot for him remains … farfetched. He’s one of just three drivers in the top 30 in points (add Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Justin Haley) who have failed to lead a lap this season. Other than striking gold at Richmond Raceway last summer, he hasn’t so much as sniffed the front outside of the occasional drafting race. That win, of course, was mired in controversy when Dillon took a wrecking ball to Joey Logano and Denny Hamlin heading to the finish line.
Now 35 and with his grandfather turning 80 this year, it feels like Dillon’s future should be behind a desk running RCR rather than running its cars. That said, athletes are stubborn enough when the reality of retirement comes calling; they’re near impossible to budge with a guaranteed ride for life. Hill is just four years younger than Dillon, making the sell of “stepping aside for someone younger” that much harder. Plus, Dillon said on the podcast Door, Bumper, Clear this week that he has a contract through next year.
As for Busch, it’s a wild card that it feels like could go either way. Turning 40 this month, it’s no secret he’s taken a step back with the Next Gen, losing his mind during a Kansas race the No. 8 car had top-five speed at times only to wind up stuck in place.
Busch currently sits 14 points out of a playoff spot, nursing a winless streak of nearly two years. He looks and sounds unhappy with the sport’s current direction and has an expiring contract with RCR.
But here’s the thing despite it all: this ride remains Busch’s best option in a limited pool of them. Top-tier opportunities at JGR, Hendrick Motorsports and Team Penske will not be available. And Kyle still wants to be racing NASCAR when son Brexton conceivably is elevated into the Truck Series: that takes him to 2031.
Who RCR decides to hang onto is probably the closest to a SHR-type domino we’ll see.
Connor Zilisch
Zilisch, Trackhouse Racing’s top prospect, feels like a driver you don’t need to rush. An instant sensation at 18 years old after winning the first NXS race he entered at Watkins Glen, he’s looked every bit a teenager despite adding another victory this March at Circuit of the Americas.
Nursing a back injury suffered at Talladega, Zilisch missed a race to recover and has slumped to 12th in the NXS standings. He has yet to post a top-five finish in 12 starts this year other than that COTA win. Instead, three DNFs litter the resume, all of them at drafting tracks that haven’t exactly proven to be his forte.
All of it screams NXS at least through 2026. There doesn’t have to be any openings above him in Cup.
But there might be.
Daniel Suarez sits 27th in the standings right now, stumbling through the year in the No. 99 Chevrolet on an expiring contract. Shane van Gisbergen is even worse, sitting 35th out of 36 full-time drivers with no finish on an oval higher than 20th.
Even Ross Chastain is getting antsy, calling out his team for being slow in qualifying trim. It makes you wonder what could happen if, say, Hendrick decides to find a way out of Alex Bowman’s contract. Chastain did listen, after all, to the owner’s criticism in 2023 after a Darlington Raceway run-in with Kyle Larson and has become the more politically correct-yet on-track talented driver HMS likes to poach, then tweak in its image.
It all means Zilisch may wind up with a Cup home whether he’s ready or not.
Lawsuit Fallout
Of course, the elephant in the room remains the NASCAR vs. 23XI/Front Row Motorsports lawsuit. Would either team leave the sport for good if things didn’t go their way? Or would a lack of funding force a top-tier driver like Tyler Reddick out into free agency?
That ripple would make things interesting, especially in a contract year for Denny Hamlin at JGR. It also feels unlikely but… far from impossible.
Did You Notice? … Quick hits before taking off…
- What made Kansas a bad race? Simple: Larson only had 1-2 drivers capable of running in the same stratosphere. Passing seemed invisible after wild restarts. The stands were half full. But most importantly … this track is supposed to be the best the Next Gen has to offer. If suddenly Kansas is losing its luster with this car, where are we? And what can be done?
- Stenhouse and the No. 47 Cup team deserve credit. As a single-car outfit, they’re holding their own and would snag the final playoff spot if the season ended today. A driver known for wrecking earlier in his career has completed all but three laps all year and finished no lower than 25th in any race.
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.