Should North Wilkesboro get a points-paying race?
The resurrection of North Wilkesboro Speedway has been incredible to see over the last three years now. Hosting a NASCAR Cup Series race was once thought impossible, but it now looks closer than ever as the venue looks better than ever.
The track already has a points-paying race for the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series, and drivers and fans are keen to get a full race on the Cup Series schedule as well.
However, I think we should be careful what to wish for in this era of Next Gen NASCAR racing.
Short tracks, for the most part, have been less than thrilling. A few exciting moments and finishes at Martinsville Speedway in the fall are a small bright spot in what is otherwise a really, really rough record for this car and the racing action it produces on a short tracks.
The high-grip, high-corner-speed nature of the platform of this car, plus the parity it provides, makes passing extremely hard. Not to mention, aerodynamics has also become a factor on short tracks, a sentence that should never exist.
It’s the same argument for why NASCAR should wait before adding Rockingham Speedway to the Cup Series schedule, and it could also be a reason why NASCAR has waited to start building the short track on top of the remains of Auto Club Speedway.
The current short track regenesis just barely missed what could have been a peak era for reviving short track racing in the Cup Series at the end of the Gen 6 era.
As much as I would love to see North Wilkesboro get its flowers and finish the full comeback, I think NASCAR should wait for the right time, that being when they finally get the short track car in a much better place.
Until then, keep Wilkesboro in the exhibition rotation. Just don’t let it stall out too quickly.
Which drivers are making the most out of their races?
With All-Star weekend coming up, we’re almost halfway through the regular season. The Coke 600 will officially be that point, and it’s an important one for teams trying to either point their way in to the playoffs, or try a few crazy strategies to try and win a race.
With that, there are a few drivers at or near the playoff cut line that have earned that place by finishing races well ahead of where they were running. Let’s take a look at some.
The first one that comes to mind is Ricky Stenhouse Jr. The No. 47 has qualified outside of the top 25 in nine of the 12 races and has rarely been a force at the front in the early and middle stages of the race.
However, he always seems to finish better than where he was running. In fact, Stenhouse has a better average finish than Ryan Blaney, Kyle Busch, and Alex Bowman. Some of that is attributed to his team for making the right adjustments.
Another reason is, simply stated, Stenhouse is just finishing races.
Did you know:
— NASCAR Insights (@NASCARInsights) May 13, 2025
There are 6 drivers without a DNF through 12 races in the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series season pic.twitter.com/Wd6i2QSOxv
In fact, simply finishing has been a major ingredient for earning points this season.
It’s no secret that Trackhouse Racing hasn’t quite had the same amount of success or speed from the past three years.
They have struggled mightily at times in the weekend, but one driver, the No. 1 of Ross Chastain, is avoiding (and sometimes causing) the chaos.
Chastain is solidly in the playoffs at this moment, and he seems to be carrying the entire organization to its best runs again this season.
He is not running up front early on in the race, qualifying 25th or worse in six of the last seven races. However, Chastain is passing a ton of cars and finishing well.
Another driver sneaking into the picture is John Hunter Nemechek. Again, Nemechek hasn’t necessarily had the outright speed early in the race, but he’s found the top 10 late in the going on four occasions, and Nemechek is another driver who does not have a DNF so far this season.
I will also throw in a nod to Chase Briscoe. While he seems to qualify behind the rest of his teammates and at times struggles to run well in the early going, he somehow finds the front frequently at the end of the race.
Just when I’m ready to ask the question ‘Why is no one talking about Chase Briscoe?’ he ends up with another fourth-place finish, something he’s done on four separate occasions.
Which drivers are struggling to put races together?
On the flip side, there are also a number of drivers who have speed and run well early, but just cannot finish the race in their running position.
Probably the two biggest culprits are Brad Keselowski and Carson Hocevar. Both of them put on similar performances at Kansas Speedway.
Although Keselowski had trouble in practice and qualifying, the No. 6 slowly moved to the front until he looked like a contender at the end. Call it bad luck, or maybe a case of the commentator’s curse, Keselowski crashed out instead of finishing inside of the top five. Heck, even a top 10 would have been a pretty big accomplishment for that team.
That’s been the story of the season for Keselowski. At times, the team has completely missed the setup, but there have been quite a few occasions, like at Kansas, where the team is either contending, or expected to contend, and they end up getting involved in a crash or another mistake.
That includes the loose wheel at Darlington Raceway and getting crashed out early at Talladega Superspeedway. These poor finishes already have Keselowski near a must-win position, as he sits in 33rd in the points.
Hocevar has had the same luck. Really, Spire Motorsports has been the same way, starting fast but not finishing, and Hocevar has the most drastic examples.
The No. 77 has a lot of Saturday speed, but it seems like something breaks every Sunday. He was on the charge at Kansas when the wheels fell off. I also think back to Bristol Motor Speedway, where he had a great run going until a bad pit stop late in the race.
While Hocevar hasn’t been able to finish the races, his speed throughout, plus a few decent finishes, have him in reach for the playoffs.
Will another driver dominate the All-Star race?
Since the return of North Wilkesboro and its use as the venue for the All-Star Race, the racing — at least at the front of the field — hasn’t exactly been the most competitive.
In the first year, on the extremely old pavement, Kyle Larson put on a clinic, leading 145 laps and opening up a large gap over the field.
With the new pavement and option tires, Joey Logano put on a dominant performance in the 2024 All-Star event as well, leading all but one lap.
There could be a few reasons for the dominance. For starters, a much smaller field means less cars on the track and less people to potentially cause cautions that would shake things up.
The other reason is that the North Wilkesboro All-Star event hasn’t had any sort of inverts like previous All-Star Races at the mile-and-a-half racetracks. Then again, with this car, an invert might prove too much for drivers to be able to make their way back to the front of the field.
The All-Star event also isn’t a full-length race distance. That means less endurance and less opportunity for strategy.
Don’t get me wrong, being back at a venue with the history of North Wilkesboro Speedway is an incredible win for the sports each year NASCAR continues to return.
But as for the All-Star Race Sunday night (May 18), don’t be surprised if the trend continues of one driver finding the front and leading just about all of the laps.
Caleb began sports writing in 2023 with The Liberty Champion, where he officially covered his first NASCAR race at Richmond in the spring. While there, Caleb met some of the guys from Frontstretch, and he joined the video editing team after graduating from Liberty University with degrees in Strategic Communications and Sports Journalism. Caleb currently work full-time as a Multi-Media Journalist with LEX 18 News in Lexington, Kentucky and contributes to Frontstretch with writing and video editing. He's also behind-the-scenes or on camera for the Happy Hour Podcast, live every Tuesday night at 7:30!