1. If you were starting a race team, which Front Row Motorsports NASCAR Cup Series driver would you want behind the wheel?
Luken Glover: Zane Smith has a skillset that remains underrated. Coming over to Front Row Motorsports after a rocky freshman season in 2024 was no easy task, especially with the dark cloud of the team’s joint lawsuit with 23XI Racing hanging over it this season. While Todd Gilliland was expected to be the leader of the FRM trio this season, Smith has been the most consistent and competitive. Sure, he hasn’t won in the Cup Series yet, but the parity of the Next Gen has seemingly given way to powerhouses Hendrick Motorsports, Team Penske and Joe Gibbs Racing. That makes runs like Smith’s third-place performance at Bristol Motor Speedway even more impressive, and he’s been competitive on some of the sport’s toughest tracks. Smith could be a diamond in the rough.
Christopher Hansen: Smith has really turned his fortunes around in his first full season driving for FRM compared to tough beginnings during his rookie season with Spire Motorsports. His ability to put complete races together is what it takes to succeed in the Cup Series nowadays, and Smith has done that more consistently compared to teammates Noah Gragson and Gilliland. As long as he continues to improve behind the wheel during his Cup career and put complete races together during an entire season, Smith could find himself competing against the series’ best for wins in the near future.
Andrew Stoddard: You could make a reasonable case for all three of them. Gragson is probably the most marketable and has the biggest personality. Gilliland is the most consistent driver and most likely to bring home the equipment in one piece on a week-to-week basis. However, only one of the three FRM drivers has a NASCAR championship to his name: Smith. Smith won the 2022 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series title with FRM’s No. 38 team on the strength of four wins and a playoff run with just one finish outside the top 10. Smith has a combination of prior success and future potential that makes him the FRM driver I would build a team around.
2. Which four drivers will be eliminated in the Cup Round of 12?
Hansen: This is where it starts to get tricky, but I have Ross Chastain, Austin Cindric, Bubba Wallace and Tyler Reddick failing to advance. Chastain scored the 10th-most points in the first round of the playoffs. Seventy-three points in a three-race mini-season won’t cut it in later rounds of the postseason. Cindric failed to score a top 10 in any of the first three races, with a best finish of 12th. Wallace’s strong start to the 2025 playoffs will end this round. Aside from Kansas Speedway, where he was a winner in the fall of 2022, Wallace boasts a 20th-place average finish in seven career starts at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, and 18th at the Charlotte Motor Speedway ROVAL, also with seven starts. If Wallace is solely counting on Kansas Speedway to be his ticket to reaching the Round of 8, it could be very tricky for him to advance if that’s the case. Reddick, whose Round of 16 was highlighted by a runner-up finish at Darlington Raceway, starts the Round of 12 seeded 12th of the remaining playoff drivers. If he has any hopes of making another run for the Cup title at Phoenix Raceway, he needs to score more playoff points, something he struggled with in the regular season.
Stoddard: Cindric will not make the cut for the Round of 8. I mean, Alex Bowman was one late-race rally away from eliminating the No. 2 team in the Round of 16. While Penske has shown great speed and had a great deal of success with the Next Gen car, that has not fully carried over to Cindric. Chastain has no top fives and just three top 10s since his playoff-clinching victory in the Coca-Cola 600 way back in May. Those are not the numbers of a legit championship contender. Then Joey Logano, simply because it’s not an even-numbered year like his three Cup championship seasons (2018, 2022, 2024). Chase Elliott will join Hendrick teammate Bowman on the playoff sidelines. Elliott should be commended for his consistency, but the fact of the matter is that this playoff system does not sufficiently award consistent top-10 and top-15 finishes. This will come back to bite Elliott in the Round of 12.
Glover: Chastain did what he needed to in order to advance out of the Round of 16, but the level picks up now, and the speed just hasn’t been there for Trackhouse Racing as a whole. Chastain has just one top 10 in the last 10 races, and despite being the defending winner at Kansas, it feels like this team has flamed out. The same goes for Logano, even though it’s really hard to go against him. Sure, he has a master strategist for a crew chief in Paul Wolfe, and Logano is brilliant at closing races, but the speed is arguably more hit-or-miss than ever and other teams just appear stronger. My last two picks are Cindric and Reddick. Cindric could be a sleeper for the Round of 8, but the finishes have to match his speed in this round. And despite a hot start to the playoffs at Darlington, Reddick returned to the struggles we have seen from the No. 45 this season, shaking my confidence that this team will advance, especially with a lack of playoff points.
3. NASCAR announced that this year’s awards ceremony will take place in Scottsdale, Ariz., just a few days after championship weekend. Is this a good move, or is there a better location/timing?
Stoddard: The part of this announcement that stands out is not so much the location but the timing of the ceremony almost immediately after championship weekend. This is a favorable move for the drivers and teams across all of NASCAR’s series. By having the ceremony soon after the final weekend of racing, it allows everyone in the industry to close the book on the season and move forward into the offseason, rather than coming back three of four weeks later to celebrate. There’s a good chance that both the championship weekend and the awards ceremony will start rotating to different places, which is a good move by NASCAR.
Hansen: The banquet should be at least one or two weeks after the season officially ends. This gives the drivers and teams a chance to get some much-needed downtime before the offseason fully kicks off. As far as location goes, I’d prefer to see the awards banquet be held in NASCAR’s backyard in Charlotte, N.C. That creates less travel headaches for drivers and teams after months of being on the road through the course of the season.
Glover: With the championship race shifting to Homestead next season, this feels like an honorable notion to give Phoenix a sendoff as the championship venue for the time being. Phoenix’s track team deserves applause for its efforts to revamp the facility and turn it into a venue worthy of hosting the season finale. While I’ll always prefer the awards ceremony to be held closer to home for the teams and drivers, a one-off to commend the Phoenix area for hosting one of the sport’s biggest weekends is nice.
4. Grant Enfinger and Daniel Hemric are the only NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series playoff drivers with any prior series experience at New Hampshire. How much of an edge does that give them in the Round of 10 elimination race?
Glover: While both drivers should be competitive at the front of the field, there is virtually no advantage. That speaks more to the prowess of Corey Heim and Layne Riggs than the quietly consistent seasons of Grant Enfinger and Daniel Hemric, with Heim and Riggs combining to win the last seven races. Both have won at tracks that reflect certain characteristics of New Hampshire, and both are also quick learners. Enfinger and Hemric might have a thicker notebook, but they still will have to wrestle the win away from the series’ two most dominant drivers this season.
Stoddard: It will help them to an extent. For both Enfinger and Hemric, those prior New Hampshire Truck starts came not only with different race teams but also with different manufacturers than what they drive in 2025. That said, there are certain aspects of getting around a racetrack that carry over regardless of team or manufacturer, so don’t be surprised if Enfinger and Hemric have great days and are contending for a lobster.
Hansen: The prior on-track experience could prove useful for both Enfinger and Hemric. Enfinger’s lone Truck race at the Magic Mile ended with a top-five run for ThorSport Racing in 2017, while Hemric has scored two top five and one top-10 finish between Xfinity and Trucks there. Even just a little experience could prove valuable as the veterans seek to advance into the next round.
Entering his fifth year with Frontstretch, Luken Glover is the author of The Underdog House, shedding light on the motivation and performance of NASCAR's dark horse teams as they strive to fight to the top. Additionally, Glover reports for the site at various events, and he contributes in the video editing department.
A 2023 graduate of the University of the Cumberlands, Glover is a middle school math and PE teacher, as well as a basketball coach. He is passionate about serving in his church, playing/coaching a wide variety of sports, and researching motorsports history.
Andrew Stoddard joined Frontstretch in May of 2022 as an iRacing contributor. He is a graduate of Hampden-Sydney College, the University of Richmond, and VCU. He works as an athletic communications specialist at Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Va.