Will the road course aces find victory lane in this summer stretch?
Three of the next five races in this summer stretch take place on a variety of road courses.
It starts on a new, unfamiliar Formula 1 track in Mexico City and then, in three weeks, Cup drivers will go to a street race, followed by an event at Sonoma, one of NASCAR’s original road courses.
This next month presents a major opportunity to some of NASCAR’s best road course racers, some of whom are in must-win positions.
The biggest threat to find victory lane at any of the three road courses has to be Shane van Gisbergen. The driver of the Trackhouse Racing No. 88 has struggled on ovals in his first full-time season, although he has shown some recent improvement.
The ovals are still a worry, but winning on road courses and snatching a Playoff spot is exactly what SVG was hired to do. He already has a win at Chicago, but his best shot to win is actually going to be this weekend in Mexico, and not just because he’s starting from the pole.
The biggest reason why SVG has to be a favorite this weekend is because he is starting the race equal to the field in experience. Going to any road course, everyone knows van Gisbergen has a leg up on drivers who have much less experience on those tracks.
When all drivers have zero experience, that will play even more so into the hands of drivers with road racing in their background, like van Gisbergen. The last time he started the race with the same amount of experience at the track was when he went to victory lane in the inaugural Chicago Street Race.
The No. 88 car is all the way down in 33rd in the points standings, very much in a must-win position, and he has the best opportunity to go to victory lane in this road course stretch.
Another driver with a background in road racing who sometimes gets forgotten is Michael McDowell. Sure, he won at the Indianapolis Road Course in 2023, but McDowell doesn’t jump to the top of mind when talking about road courses.
However, with the massive improvements Spire Motorsports has shown so far this season, this short stretch is a great opportunity to see if the group can carry that speed over into the road courses.
McDowell topped the opening practice at Mexico, but if there’s any road course to watch out for the No. 71 in the next few weeks, McDowell will be the strongest at Sonoma. Regardless, these are three great opportunities for McDowell to get out of 23rd in the standings and into the Playoffs.
Of course, you can’t go to a road course without talking about AJ Allmendinger. While that Kaulig Racing No. 16 has been fast as well so far this season – Allmendinger is top 20 in points – he surprisingly struggled in practice.
In fact, Allmendinger has been average – more or less – on road courses ever since he went to victory lane at the Charlotte ROVAL in 2023. In his six road course starts since that win, Allmendinger’s best finish is sixth on three occasions. In the other three races, he finished 30th or worse.
It’s never a great idea to count out Allmendinger at road courses, but he’s had more success recently on 1.5-mile tracks than road courses.
Which Cup regulars will take it to the road ringers?
The conversation is always going to trend toward covering guys like van Gisbergen and Allmendinger as favorites at road courses, but the rest of the Cup field are no slouches at going left and right these days.
Because the volume of road courses on the schedule has increased, drivers these days work much harder on their road course craft. Additionally, more and more drivers are used to running a larger number of road courses on the schedule.
The Cup drivers at the top of the grid are there for a reason: they can get it done on intermediates, short tracks, and road courses. A few drivers, while not known for having a road racing background, have adapted their skillsets extremely well to the road courses.
Some drivers are great at certain road courses but struggle at others. One of the drivers who most consistently appears near the front at a road course, no matter where, is Ross Chastain.
The No. 1 team already got that win at Charlotte, and that frees up the team to go all out for more wins this summer. Chastain earned his first career win at a road course, and he consistently runs near the front, if he’s not already leading.
Chastain has been the lead driver for Trackhouse this season so far. While road courses even things out between him and his teammates, Chastain has to feel like he can win another race in these next few road course events.
Another driver who consistently goes toe-to-toe with the road course aces is Chris Buescher. In fact, he did that already last fall, beating SVG in a late-race battle at Watkins Glen.
It’s hard to connect Prosper, Texas, to being a great road racer, but Buescher has a great road course average. He’s not always the fastest guy going left and right, but he is a lock to get that No. 17 into a great position to be there when it matters, and he could snag another road course win in this summer stretch.
The winner in Austin, Christopher Bell, is another great road racer. He won at COTA, he’s been fast in practice at Mexico and he’s shown speed at Chicago in years past. The No. 20 could rack up more wins at road courses this summer, but this stretch presents a massive opportunity for his younger teammate.
Ty Gibbs earned his first Xfinity Series win on a road course, and he’s won four road course races in the series, going head-to-head with the likes of Kyle Larson, William Byron and Austin Cindric.
It’s been a rough go for Gibbs at the road courses over the last year, getting involved in dust-ups and other issues that were not of his doing. If you look at his road course stats in 2023, however, Gibbs had serious top-five speed, and he ran third in Chicago in 2024.
Gibbs has climbed in the standings to 24th over the past few weeks. As long as things stay clean, he could really close in on the bubble battle. That is, if he doesn’t go ahead and get his first career win.
How will travel logistics affect future international events?
It’s been interesting, to say the least, to watch the journey of the cars, teams, and drivers as the NASCAR industry made its way to Mexico City.
It started with photos of haulers at the border, followed by more images of an escort party through the country. Logistically, things seemingly ran smoothly, and the cars made it to the track.
Then, the Thursday travel happened. Issues at the airport delayed travel for crews, and even for some drivers. During Cup Series practice on Friday, some teams were still missing crew members, and there are stories of team members driving to other states to be able to catch flights to Mexico.
Altogether, the lengthy travel adds an extra component to cause potential problems for NASCAR, its teams, and its competitors, and it will cause one of two reactions.
The extra logistics could cause enough of a headache to cause NASCAR to decide to stay stateside for the near future once again. While easier, this would be unfair to fans outside of the States.
The other option is that NASCAR could use this opportunity to learn how to make the logistics flow smoother from their side of things.
For starters, having a race closer to the border would be a big help. Some of the chatter is that this race weekend was initially meant to be in Montreal. If you look at the schedule, it would have made perfect sense. Last week was Michigan, and next week is Pocono, so a race in Canada would have been much easier logistically, but things happen, and we ended up with a race in Mexico instead.
If racing in Mexico continues and scheduling another southern race becomes a priority, you then have to consider the time of year. Racing in Texas would be the best logistically, but having that race in the summer would be suboptimal.
Logistics have been rough this first go around, but hopefully it won’t be enough to deter future races outside of the United States. After all, F1 does this each time they race, so hopefully NASCAR can take some notes to smooth things out in the future.
Can anyone catch the Xfinity Chevrolets?
The Xfinity Series has continued to put on quality racing in 2025, and there have been a lot of different winners.
However, the drivers occupying the front of the field almost always wear a bowtie.
The Chevrolets have been absolutely dominant in the Xfinity Series in 2025. Of the 15 races so far this season, 13 have been won by Chevy drivers. The other two were won by Joe Gibbs Racing Toyotas. Ford has zero Xfinity Series wins this year, and the last Toyota win happened more than two months ago at Darlington.
In fact, non-Chevy entries have just five stage wins this season, and the Chevrolets haven’t lost so much as a stage since Dean Thompson won stage two at Rockingham.
While Richard Childress Racing has notched four of those Chevy wins, the most power is coming from the JR Motorsports group. Every week, those two teams are mixing it up at the front, with the No. 17 Hendrick Motorsports entry occasionally in the battle.
I still remember Jesse Love mentioning at Bristol in April just how fast those JRM cars are, and it still holds true today.
Outside of the occasional Cup driver stepping into a JGR car, the Toyotas have almost always been a step behind. Not to mention, Haas Factory Team jumped to a two-car operation this year, but neither of their drivers has made serious noise so far this season.
The JRM stable has four solid drivers in their equipment. When you factor in an experienced Austin Hill and a vastly improved Love, you have to think that the Championship 4 at the end of the year could be decided between four Chevrolets.
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!