Nick Sanchez’s career on the surface has been remarkably unremarkable. That’s meant as a compliment.
Sanchez hasn’t had the meteoric rise in popularity and notoriety that Carson Hocevar did, nor the incredible success out the gate like Ty Gibbs had.
He won three races and the ARCA Menards Series title in 2022.
In 47 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series races, he won twice, registered 26 top 10s and only failed to finish three times. He had points finishes of fifth and sixth in his two full-time seasons in Trucks.
Then again, most of Sanchez’s more memorable moments so far have been either off-track or as a side character. There was his last-lap crash after dominating at Texas Motor Speedway in 2023.
Then his fight with Matt Crafton at Talladega Superspeedway later that season.
Last season, there was a confrontation with Stewart Friesen at Bristol Motor Speedway after an on-track run-in that wasn’t entirely Sanchez’s fault.
EXCLUSIVE: @Nicksanchez080 involved in a post race fight after Talladega. #NASCAR #NASCARPlayoffs
— Frontstretch (@Frontstretch) September 30, 2023
📹@WyattGametime pic.twitter.com/3qy3RxDH4Y
Sanchez doesn’t have the reputation of a particularly dirty driver or one who chews up equipment. If he has a brash or cocky attitude, it doesn’t show in how he drives too often. He is, as NBC Sports’ Dustin Long put it Saturday night in the post-race Q&A, a low-key guy.
Nobody questioned if Sanchez was ready to step into Parker Kligerman’s ride at Big Machine Racing when it was announced this offseason. Then again, it didn’t get much thought to begin with. Sanchez and Big Machine came into the season flying well under the radar among this year’s stacked NASCAR Xfinity Series rookie class and were marked as long-shots for the playoffs.
Fast forward to Friday (June 28) at EchoPark Speedway. Sanchez became the first driver in that class — besides Connor Zilisch, but he had a win last year so we’ll say he doesn’t count — to pick up an Xfinity Series win.
After the big crash near the end of stage 1 that took out the usual suspects at superspeedways — Austin Hill, Justin Allgaier, Sheldon Creed, to name a few — Sanchez was already in line for a solid points day by finishing fourth in that stage and having the field heavily depleted. Even after contact with Matt DiBenedetto and a spin through the grass during stage 2, it was not a total reset for Sanchez, as he restarted 23rd and finished the stage seventh.
With 24 laps to go, Sanchez found himself on the front row inside of Aric Almirola. It took him four laps, but he finally got a car-length advantage on Almirola. In a similar spot in the spring race, with even fewer laps left on the board, Allgaier hesitated to cut up in front of Hill and ultimately lost the race because of it.
Fortune favors the bold. Sanchez, the often quiet and consistent rookie, jumped up to the top ahead of Almirola and took control of the field.
A debris caution meant Sanchez would have to fend off the field again. With a fellow ECR engine in Jesse Love’s No. 2 car on his inside, Sanchez made a slip-up that nearly cost him the race.
“That last restart, I got hung up between third and fourth gear and actually lost the lead,” Sanchez said.
Thankfully, Sanchez fell back to Almirola, who gave him a shove and a run on Love and fellow rookie Carson Kvapil. Sanchez broke loose for a moment, then squeezed himself between Love and Kvapil to take second. On the frontstretch, Sanchez immediately cut under the damaged car of Love and sailed off into the lead.
“Once we got control of the race, I felt like we were in a really good position,” Sanchez said. “Just hoping for no caution, managing runs from both lanes and doing whatever my spotter told me to do.”
And he executed it to perfection. It’s without a doubt the standout performance of Sanchez’s career that toed the line between aggressive and calculated. It’s a bit of a rare sight in NASCAR, let alone the Xfinity Series.
Had something broken the rest of the field’s way, like the caution at the Charlotte Motor Speedway ROVAL last year that cost Kligerman a win in this very car, it still would have been a solid night that probably jumped Sanchez above the cut line.
But we’re not talking about those at the cut line week-to-week, at least not yet. Sanchez is in the conversation he wants to be in. Someone who was born to Cuban immigrants and started his career outside of the racing hotbeds of the Southeast in Miami is now in the same conversation as some of the highest prospects in the sport.
“In this sport, winning is everything,” Sanchez said. “Nobody cares about second or third. Nobody cares if I ran great at Pocono or Texas. They look at the results, and that’s all they see. That’s frustrating, because I feel I’m better than a lot of my results. I’m not going to shy away from the fact that winning is the only way you’re going to advance in the sport.”
Hey, maybe there is something remarkable about this guy after all.
James Krause joined Frontstretch in March 2024 as a contributor. Krause was born and raised in Illinois and graduated from Northern Illinois University. He currently works in La Crosse, Wisconsin as a local sports reporter, including local short track racing. Outside of racing, Krause loves to keep up with football, music, anime and video games.