Colby Howard will be piloting the No. 1 Toyota Tundra TRD Pro sponsored by Project Hope Foundation for TRICON Garage for next weekend’s NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series event at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
The news comes as the 22-year-old Howard from Simpsonville, South Carolina, is coming off a full-time campaign in the Truck Series with CR7 Motorsports, where he achieved a career-best fourth-place finish at Daytona International Speedway and accumulated a total of 10 top-20 results throughout the 23-race campaign before settling in 21st place in the final driver’s standings.
“I’m incredibly excited to be working with TRICON and the No. 1 team at Atlanta,” Howard said. “This is a massive opportunity for me at this point in my career and I’m looking forward to going out and making the most of it. Atlanta’s new configuration can be tricky, but I’m ready for the challenge and to prove I belong.”
Howard, who grew up competing in dirt bikes before transitioning to a career in stock car racing, made his Truck Series debut during the final two events of the 2019 season with Young’s Motorsports. Two years later, he competed in three events with CR7 Motorsports before notching a full-time Truck ride with McAnally-Hilgemann Racing for the 2022 season. He would record three top-10 results and 14 top-20 results throughout the 2022 season before settling in a career-best 17th place in the standings prior to his move back to CR7 Motorsports this past season.
Through 51 previous starts in the Truck Series, Howard has achieved one top-five result, four top-10 results, 12 laps led and an average finishing result of 21.0. He has also made 43 starts in the Xfinity Series and five in the ARCA Menards Series to date.
This season, Howard becomes the third competitor to be announced to be piloting TRICON Garage’s No. 1 “all-star” entry. Toni Breidinger is set to compete in this weekend’s season-opening event at Daytona International Speedway while William Sawalich will pilot the entry in nine events, beginning at Bristol Motor Speedway in March.
Additional details regarding TRICON’s No. 1 entry for additional Truck Series events and drivers throughout this season remain to be determined.
Colby Howard’s first Craftsman Truck Series start of the 2024 season with TRICON Garage is set to occur at Atlanta Motor Speedway for the FR8 208. The event is scheduled to occur next Saturday, February 24, and air at 2 p.m. ET on FS1.
Seventy days after the final checkered flag of the 2023 NASCAR Cup Series season flew, the time until the first green flag of the 2024 Cup Series season displays is four days away from occurring. For the teams and competitors who enter this season with the desire to gain a competitive edge over one another, the long regular-season battle to the Playoffs commences with this weekend’s 66th annual running of the Great American Race.
The Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway, with the event’s iconic Haley J. Earl Trophy, is up for grabs and epic bragging rights to forever be labeled a Daytona 500 champion.
Before this year’s Daytona 500 occurs, however, the teams and competitors will have to battle amongst one another through the event’s iconic two-day qualifying procedure that would enable them to achieve and earn a starting spot as high as possible over one another. What makes the Daytona 500’s qualifying procedure iconic?
In comparison to 35 of 36 scheduled events where the starting grid for a Cup Series event is determined one day before the main event, the qualifying format for the Daytona 500 is distinct, where it once took a week until the starting lineup for the Daytona 500 is determined. Since the 2021 season, it would take between three and four days until the official starting grid for the Great American Race would be determined.
The qualifying format for this year’s Daytona 500 commences with a single-car qualifying procedure on Wednesday, February 14, where each of the registered competitors (42 total in 2024) will run one timed lap around the 2.5-mile superspeedway venue. The single-car qualifying procedure will span two rounds, with the second round featuring the top 10 fastest competitors to contend for the pole position for the Daytona 500. At the conclusion of the second qualifying session, the competitor who generates the fastest lap time will be awarded the Busch Light Pole Award for the Daytona 500 while the competitor who generates the second-fastest lap time will be awarded the second-place starting spot for the 500-mile season opener, thus guaranteeing both front row starting spots for the main event.
The single-car qualifying procedure/sessions on Wednesday will also be a night of epic rewards for two competitors competing in open-chart (“open”) entries, meaning that their respective cars are not guaranteed a starting spot for the Daytona 500 due to not having a charter. At the conclusion of the single-car qualifying procedure, the top two open-chartered competitors who post the top two fastest qualifying times compared to the remaining open-chartered competitors will be guaranteed starting spots for the Great American Race based on their qualifying speed.
The rest of the competitors, including the open-charted teams currently not guaranteed a starting spot, will battle one another for their official starting spots for the Daytona 500 through a pair of Bluegreen Vacation Duels at Daytona that will occur on Thursday, February 15.
The first Bluegreen Vacation Duel at Daytona will consist of competitors who qualified in the odd positions during Wednesday’s single-car qualifying procedure, including the Daytona 500 pole winner, with the event spanning 60 laps. The second Duel event that will follow suit and also span 60 laps will consist of competitors who qualified in the even positions during the qualifying procedure, including the Daytona 500 second-place starter.
At the conclusion of both Duel events, the winning competitor in each Duel will be awarded the second-row starting spots, third and fourth place, for the Daytona 500. In the scenario where the Daytona 500 pole winner or second-place starter wins their respective Duel events while also retaining the front-row starting spots for the Great American Race, the third- and fourth-place starting spot will be awarded to the runner-up finisher between both Duel events.
Each finishing result in the first Duel event will determine the official starting lineup for the odd (“inside lane”) row for the Daytona 500, with the winner starting in third place for the 500, second starting fifth, third starting seventh, etc., in the respective order, while the finishing result in the second Duel event will determine the lineup for the even (“outside lane”) row for the 500, with the winner starting in fourth place, second starting sixth, third starting eighth, etc. In addition, the top-10 finishing competitors between both Duel events will be awarded points that count towards the regular-season stretch but not towards the Playoffs, with the winning competitor receiving 10 points while the 10th-place finisher receives just one.
Lastly and transitioning back to the theme of open-charter teams, the highest-finishing non-chartered competitor between both Duel events will secure a starting spot for the Daytona 500. If the highest-finishing non-chartered competitor in a Duel happens to be a competitor who is already guaranteed a starting spot for the 500 based on Wednesday’s single-car qualifying procedure, the next fastest non-chartered competitor will be awarded a spot in the Great American Race.
Upon completion of both Duel events, the starting spots 1st through 40th for this year’s 66th annual running of the Daytona 500 will be officially determined in preparation for the main event that will occur on Sunday, February 18. Even before the main event, the qualified Cup Series teams and competitors will then practice around Daytona once on Friday, February 16, at 5:35 p.m. ET on FS1 before practicing for the second and final time on Saturday, February 17, at 10:30 p.m. ET on FS1.
The 2024 Daytona 500 entry list features 42 competitors registered to battle for 40 starting spots for the main event, meaning that two non-chartered competitors will not make the main event on Sunday, February 18. This year’s open-chartered competitors feature Anthony Alfredo, Kaz Grala, Jimmie Johnson, BJ McLeod and David Ragan. NY Racing, a non-chartered team, is also entered for this weekend’s event, though a driver has yet to be named. From this list of six, two names will have their names locked into the 500 after Wednesday’s single-car qualifying procedure and two more will be locked in after Thursday’s Duels.
Currently, Johnson is the only non-chartered competitor from last season to return for another bid to claim a starting spot for this year’s 500. The seven-time Cup Series champion and two-time Daytona 500 champion from El Cajon, California, raced his way into last year’s 500 based on his qualifying speed and during his first event as a driver/co-owner of Legacy Motor Club. Returning for his first of nine planned Cup events this season, Johnson, who was also inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame in mid-January, will bid for his 21st start and potentially his third victory in the Great American Race.
Photo by Patrick Sue-Chan for SpeedwayMedia.com.
Earlier on Tuesday, February 13, the qualifying order for Wednesday’s single-car qualifying procedure was determined based on a random draw, where the ordered competitors will roll off of pit lane to post a single qualifying lap and contend for pole position for the Daytona 500. Following the random draw, newcomer Carson Hocevar will qualify first followed by Anthony Alfredo, Zane Smith, Ryan Preece, Justin Haley, David Ragan, AJ Allmendinger, BJ McLeod, John Hunter Nemechek and Riley Herbst.
This past season, Alex Bowman notched his third pole award and his sixth consecutive front-row starting spot for the Daytona 500 after the Tucson, Arizona, native posted a pole-winning lap at 181.686 mph in 49.536 seconds, where he shared the front row with teammate Kyle Larson. Bowman’s 2023 Daytona 500 pole also marked the eighth 500 pole award in nine years for Hendrick Motorsports and the 11th consecutive year where the Chevrolet nameplate achieved a pole for the Great American Race. Bowman will attempt to join Buddy Baker, Bill Elliott and Cale Yarborough in achieving the most Daytona 500 poles with four entering the 2024 season while Larson will attempt to win his second 500 pole after winning his first in 2022.
During the 2023 Daytona Speedweeks, Joey Logano and Aric Almirola each won a Bluegreen Vacations Duel while Ricky Stenhouse Jr. would proceed to win the 65th running of the Daytona 500 amid two overtime shootouts and emerging out in front of Logano and the field prior to a final multi-car wreck. Stenhouse’s victory made him the 42nd different competitor to win the Great American Race as he also delivered the first 500 victory for JTG-Daugherty Racing and veteran crew chief Mike Kelley. Stenhouse and Logano, the 2015 Daytona 500 champion, are set to contend for this year’s 500 event as full-time Cup Series competitors for JTG-Daugherty Racing and Team Penske, respectively, while Almirola has scaled back to the Xfinity Series on a part-time basis with Joe Gibbs Racing.
Photo by Patrick Sue-Chan for SpeedwayMedia.com.
The 2024 Daytona 500 Qualifying session is scheduled to occur on Wednesday, February 14, and air at 8:15 p.m. ET on FS1. The Bluegreen Vacations Duel at Daytona will follow suit on Thursday, February 15, and air beginning at 7 p.m. ET on FS1. The 66th running of the Daytona 500 is scheduled to commence on Sunday, February 18, and air at 2:30 p.m. ET on FOX.
With this week set to mark the official commencement of the 2024 NASCAR season, the first wave of entry lists across NASCAR’s top three national touring series was revealed on Monday, February 12, as the registered teams and competitors prepare to ignite a new season of competition with a trio of season-opening events at Daytona International Speedway.
Currently, 38 competitors are registered to contend for 36 starting spots for this year’s Craftsman Truck Series season-opening Fresh from Florida 250 which is set to occur at Daytona this Friday, February 16. In addition, 44 competitors are registered for 38 starting spots for this year’s Xfinity Series season-opening United Rentals 300 which will follow suit on Saturday, February 17. Lastly, 42 competitors will contend for 40 starting spots for this year’s 66th running of the Daytona 500 which will occur on Sunday, February 18. For the 500, the entry list includes NY Racing’s No. 44 entry that has yet to have a driver set to compete in the ride throughout Daytona Speedweeks.
With each of the three national touring series entry lists featuring a mixture of new and familiar names, the common theme that all three lists share highlights a bevy of names who will contend for a first-time victory within their respective series either for this upcoming weekend at Daytona International Speedway or ever as the 2024 NASCAR season progresses.
For the Truck Series opener at Daytona, 27 of 38 registered competitors (full-time and part-time) currently have no victories logged within their resumes, which is 71% of the field. In addition, all but three participants have never won a Truck event at Daytona, which is 92% of the field.
Since the Truck Series first raced at Daytona’s 2.5-mile superspeedway venue in Daytona Beach, Florida, in 2000, 20 competitors have won at least once in the series at Daytona. The most recent was Zane Smith, the 2022 Truck Series champion who won the last two scheduled events at Daytona (2022 & 2023). With Smith set to compete in the Cup Series this season for Spire Motorsports and not registered in this year’s Truck list, the honorable mention of the most recent Daytona Truck winner for this season is Ben Rhodes, who won for the first time at Daytona in 2021 and is the reigning series champion. In addition to Rhodes, Grant Enfinger (2020) and Johnny Sauter (2013, 2016 & 2018) are the only other participants for this season who have previously won a Truck event at Daytona. Rhodes and Enfinger are full-time Truck Series competitors while Sauter is currently scheduled to compete in this weekend’s opener at Daytona as part of his part-time campaign with Niece Motorsports.
With Rhodes and Enfinger also set to bid for spots in this year’s Truck Series Playoff field, Corey Heim, a five-time race winner in the series who currently competes for TRICON Garage, headlines a long list of full-time competitors who have yet to win at Daytona for the first time as he also strives for another championship bid after falling short during last year’s Championship 4 battle. Among other notables include Christian Eckes, Ty Majeski and Matt Crafton, all of whom made the Playoffs during the previous season.
The Truck event at Daytona is also known to generate first-time winners, with the first occurrence dating back to 2002 when Robert Pressley won in his first series start. Since then, five other competitors (Michael Waltrip 2011, John King 2012, Tyler Reddick 2015, Kaz Grala 2017 and Austin Hill 2019) have accomplished this feat.
For this season, Toni Breidinger and Nick Sanchez headline a long list of names who have yet to win in the Truck circuit for the first time. Breidinger, who will be pulling double-duty efforts this weekend alongside her full-time campaign in the ARCA Menards Series with Venturini Motorsports, will pilot the No. 1 Toyota Tundra TRD Pro for TRICON Garage as part of a part-time campaign in the series while Sanchez, the reigning Rookie-of-the-Year recipient, returns to pilot the No. 2 Chevrolet Silverado RST for Rev Racing on a full-time basis. Other notables of potential first-time winners include Chase Purdy, Jake Garcia, brothers Tanner and Taylor Gray, Rajah Caruth, Daniel Dye and Dean Thompson, all of whom ended up in the top 20 in last year’s final standings. Corey LaJoie, a full-time Cup Series competitor for Spire Motorsports, is another notable who has yet to win in the Truck Series as he will pilot the No. 7 Chevrolet Silverado RST for Spire this Friday at Daytona.
With 38 registered competitors vying for 36 starting spots, however, two will not make the field, which will be determined following the series’ qualifying session that will occur on Friday, February 16, at 3 p.m. ET on FS1.
For the Xfinity Series’ opener at Daytona, 30 of 44 registered competitors have yet to achieve a victory in the series, which is 68% of the field. In addition, all but three participants have yet to record an Xfinity victory at Daytona, which is 93% of the field.
Since the inception of the Xfinity Series and their first competition in 1982, 38 competitors have won at Daytona at least once. The list of competitors who have won at Daytona includes the season-opening event that spans 300 miles and the second event that occurs in late summer and currently spans 250 miles. This past season, Austin Hill notched his second consecutive Daytona opener win in February while Justin Allgaier edged Sheldon Creed by 0.005 seconds to notch his first victory at Daytona after 26 previous attempts. Hill and Allgaier are full-time competitors in the Xfinity circuit as both are set to campaign for additional bids to make the Playoffs and contend for the series’ championship.
This year, Cole Custer, the reigning Xfinity champion for Stewart-Haas Racing, headlines a bevy of competitors who will be pursuing one of two opportunities to win at Daytona for the first time. Other notables include Sam Mayer, Sammy Smith, Chandler Smith, Jeb Burton, Riley Herbst and Brandon Jones, all of whom finished in the top 15 in the final Xfinity driver’s standings last season.
Like the Truck Series, the pair of Xfinity events at Daytona is known to generate first-time winners, with eight competitors in total achieving the feat. Among the names include Dale Earnhardt (1982), Chad Little (1995), Tony Stewart (2005), James Buescher (2012), Ryan Reed (2015), Michael Annett (2019), Noah Gragson (2020) and Austin Hill (2022), all of whom made the accomplishment during the season-opening 300-mile event in February.
For the 2024 season, Jesse Love, the reigning ARCA Menards Series champion, headlines a bevy of competitors seeking a first Xfinity victory anywhere as he assumes the No. 2 Chevrolet Camaro for Richard Childress Racing for his inaugural full-time campaign in the series. Other notables include Sheldon Creed, Parker Kligerman, Parker Retzlaff, Ryan Sieg, Anthony Alfredo, Josh Williams, Kyle Sieg, Brennan Poole and Ryan Ellis, all of whom settled in the top 25 in the final driver’s standings in 2023.
Other notables who highlight the Xfinity opener’s entry list include Daniel Suarez, Hailie Deegan, Ryan Truex, John Hunter Nemechek, Sage Karam, Jordan Anderson, Frankie Muniz, Natalie Decker and Shane van Gisbergen, all of whom will either contend for either a first Xfinity win at Daytona, in general or combined.
With 44 competitors vying for 38 spots, six will not make the field, which will be determined following the series’ qualifying session that will occur on Saturday, February 17, at 11:30 p.m. ET on FS1.
Lastly for the Cup Series, 15 of 41 registered competitors have never won in NASCAR’s premier series, which is approximately 37% of the field. This excludes NY Racing’s No. 44 entry that has yet to be filled. In addition, 34 of 41 competitors have yet to win the Great American Race at least once, which is approximately 83% of the field.
During the previous 65 years of Cup Series competition, 42 competitors achieved at least one victory in the Daytona 500. The most recent newcomer added to this prestigious list was Ricky Stenhouse Jr., who capitalized during two overtime shootouts to emerge out in front amid a final lap multi-car wreck to win while driving for JTG-Daugherty Racing.
The competitor who headlines a long list of competitors who have yet to win the Daytona 500 is Martin Truex Jr., who will make his 20th career start in the Great American Race this season while also embarking on his 19th full-time season as a Cup competitor. To date, Truex’s best result in the 500 is second after he was edged by Denny Hamlin by 0.010 seconds in 2016, which marks the closest-recorded finish in the 500’s history. Additional notables include Kyle Busch (19th attempt in 2024), David Ragan (17th attempt), Brad Keselowski (15th attempt), Kyle Larson and AJ Allmendinger (both making 11th attempt), Ryan Blaney (10th attempt), Chris Buescher and Erik Jones (both making ninth attempt), and the trio Alex Bowman, Erik Jones and Corey LaJoie (all making eighth attempt).
Within the list of 42 names who have won the Daytona 500 at least once, a total of nine competitors scored a first Cup career victory in the Great American Race. The most recent to accomplish this feat was Austin Cindric, who made the accomplishment in 2022 during his eighth Cup career start and would proceed to both make the 2022 Playoffs and claim the Rookie-of-the-Year title. Previously, Michael McDowell notched his first Cup career victory in the 500 and his 358th series start after dodging a final lap multi-car wreck. Other notables to claim a first Cup career victory in the Daytona 500 include Tiny Lund (1963), Mario Andretti (1967), Pete Hamilton (1970), Derrike Cope (1990), Sterling Marlin (1994), Michael Waltrip (2001 and Trevor Bayne (2011).
This season, Josh Berry and Ty Gibbs headline a group of registered competitors who strive to strike two goals off their bucket lists including winning for the first time both in the 500 and the Cup Series. Other notables include Corey LaJoie, Noah Gragson, Riley Herbst, Harrison Burton, Daniel Hemric, Kaz Grala, Todd Gilliland, Ryan Preece, John Hunter Nemechek, Anthony Alfredo, Zane Smith, Carson Hocevar and BJ McLeod.
Alfredo, Grala and McLeod will have to contend against David Ragan, Jimmie Johnson and NY Racing’s No. 44 competitor for four vacant spots since they are registered as open-chartered competitors, meaning that two will not make this year’s 500 starting lineup. The Daytona 500 qualifying session will occur on Wednesday, February 14, and air at 8:15 p.m. ET on FS1 followed by a pair of Bluegreen Vacations Duels that will follow suit on Thursday, February 15, and air beginning at 7 p.m. ET on FS1, which will establish the official starting lineup for the 500.
As the countdown to the official start of the 2024 NASCAR season reaches its final days and hours before commencement, a series of new chapters and new beginnings await for many who strive to gain an early advantage and etch their name as a winner in any series’ opener at the World Center of Racing.
The 2024 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series season is set to commence at Daytona for the Fresh from Florida 250 on Friday, February 16, at 7:30 p.m. ET on FS1 while the 2024 Xfinity Series season will follow suit for the United Rentals 300 on Saturday, February 17, at 5 p.m. ET on FS1. The 2024 Cup Series season will cap off the weekend by hosting the 66th running of the Daytona 500 on Sunday, February 18, at 2:30 p.m. ET on FOX.
Niece Motorsports took to social media to reveal the team’s crew chief lineup for the 2024 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series season that is set to commence this upcoming Friday, February 16, at Daytona International Speedway.
Veteran Mike Hillman Jr. will return to Niece for a second consecutive season as he will call the shots atop the No. 41 Chevrolet Silverado RST pit box that is set to be piloted by Bayley Currey, who will campaign in the series on a full-time basis for the first time.
Hillman Jr., a native of Lockport, New York, enters the 2024 Truck Series season with 391 series events called as a crew chief, where he has accumulated 23 victories while working with 34 competitors during his tenure. He also achieved two Truck Series championships with Todd Bodine (2006 & 2010).
This past season, Hillman Jr., who teamed up with Niece Motorsports for the first time, was a crew chief for the team’s No. 41 entry that served as the team’s “all-star” entry and was piloted between seven competitors: Tyler Carpenter, Ross Chastain, Bayley Currey, Conor Daly, Shane van Gisbergen and Travis Pastrana. With a total of one pole, five top-five results and seven top-10 results, the No. 41 entry ended up in 17th place in the 2023 Truck Series’ owner’s standings.
With his latest Truck victory occurring at Talladega Superspeedway in October 2020 with Raphael Lessard and Kyle Busch Motorsports, Hillman Jr. aims to return to Victory Lane this season. In addition, his driver, Bayley Currey, also aims to win for the first time in the series after notching his first three top-five results in 11 starts in 2023.
Next, Jon Leonard joins Niece Motorsports for the first time to serve as a full-time crew chief for Matt Mills and the No. 42 Chevrolet Silverado RST team.
Leonard, a native of Vinton, Iowa, who was a crew chief in the Cup Series for Leavine Family Racing for 26 races between 2017 and 2018, returns as a full-time crew chief in the Truck Series for the first time since 2022, where he navigated Stewart Friesen to a thrilling last-lap victory at Texas Motor Speedway, a total of 13 top-10 results and into the Playoffs, where they ended up in sixth place in the final standings.
Leonard, who previously worked with Friesen and Todd Gilliland between 2019 and 2021, spent this past season serving as Friesen’s crew chief for the first two events before being replaced by Blake Bainbridge. He would return for eight additional Truck events for the remainder of the 2023 season with Hattori Racing Enterprises, where he worked with Christopher Bell, Jake Drew and Sean Hingorani.
For the 2024 season, Leonard teams up with Matt Mills, who will campaign in the Truck Series on a full-time basis for the first time after spending this past season competing in eight events between Young’s Motorsports and Kyle Busch Motorsports. During the eight-race stint, Mills registered a career-best fifth-place run with KBM at Richmond Raceway in late July as he strives to both win and make the Playoffs for the first time in his career.
Lastly, Phil Gould will remain as the crew chief for Niece’s No. 45 Chevrolet Silverado RST entry that will contend for this year’s Truck Series owner’s championship and will be piloted between Johnny Sauter, Ross Chastain, Kaden Honeycutt and Connor Mosack.
Gould, a native of Lexington, North Carolina, returns to Niece for a sixth consecutive season of being a Truck Series crew chief. He is coming off a strong season with Carson Hocevar, who achieved his first four career victories in the season, a total of 13 top-10 results, qualified for the Playoffs and transferred to the Championship 4 round at Phoenix Raceway before ending up in third place in the final driver’s standings. With Hocevar graduating to the Cup Series to drive for Spire Motorsports, Gould will serve as Niece’s “all-star” crew chief for the first time since the 2021 season.
Previously, Gould navigated Ross Chastain to three victories, one pole, a total of 18 top-10 results and a spot into the 2019 Truck Series Playoffs, where the duo transferred all the way into the Championship 4 round before settling in a career-best runner-up result in the final standings.
Speaking of Chastain, the veteran racer from Alva, Florida, will pilot Niece’s No. 45 entry at Circuit of the Americas, Darlington Raceway, North Wilkesboro Speedway, Pocono Raceway and Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park, respectively, this season. Sauter will pilot the No. 45 entry for this upcoming weekend’s season opener at Daytona while the racing schedules for Honeycutt and Mosack, both of whom are contending for their first series victory, remain to be determined.
Through 114 appearances as a Truck Series crew chief, Gould has achieved seven victories, two poles and 57 top-10 results while working with eight different competitors. He also worked as a crew chief in the Xfinity Series for Roush Fenway Racing and Richard Childress Racing between 2013 to 2018, where he notched his first and only Xfinity victory to date with Ryan Reed at Daytona in February 2017.
The 2024 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series season is set to commence this Friday, February 16, at Daytona International Speedway for the Fresh from Florida 250. The event’s opener is slated to broadcast at 7:30 p.m. ET on FS1.
Amid an off-season surgery that nearly placed his availability status for NASCAR’s exhibition event at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in question, Denny Hamlin responded with resurgence and early momentum after surviving a war of attrition evening to win the third annual Busch Light Clash at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum on Saturday, February 3.
The three-time Daytona 500 champion from Chesterfield, Virginia, led twice for 58 of 151 laps in an event where he claimed the pole position for The Clash based on setting the fastest lap during the event’s practice session that set the starting lineup. The event was bumped a day early from its original starting time on Sunday amid threat concerns of rain and flash flooding.
Despite losing the lead to Joey Logano early, Hamlin regained the lead on the third lap and led through Lap 49 until he was overtaken by teammate Ty Gibbs. Amid a series of bumps and on-track chaos ensuing throughout the event, Hamlin would then capitalize on a 10-lap restart to overtake Gibbs and Logano for the lead. He retained the lead to fend off Kyle Busch and Ryan Blaney during a two-lap shootout to achieve his fourth career victory at The Clash.
The eligibility for the event included all NASCAR Cup Series chartered and non-chartered team competitors. The lineup for The Clash was initially set to be determined through each competitor’s fastest lap time from their final practice session that was originally scheduled to occur on Saturday. This would then be followed by four heat events and a Last Chance Qualifier Race between Saturday and Sunday that would feature 36 participants battling for 23 entrance spots.
With the exhibition event being rescheduled to occur on Saturday night instead of Sunday due to the threat of rain and flooding on Sunday within the Southern California region, the starting lineup was instead determined through the event’s practice sessions separated into three groups, including the final session being a qualifying session, where the first 22 starting spots were determined based on practice speeds while the 23rd and final provisional spot was left for the top finisher in the 2023 NASCAR Cup Series standings who has not qualified for the event.
At the conclusion of the practice sessions that included qualifying, Denny Hamlin secured the pole position for the main event after posting a pole-winning speed at 68.498 mph in 13.139 seconds during his practice session. Joey Logano joined Hamlin on the front row after he posted the second-fastest speed at 67.925 mph in 13.25 seconds while Ty Gibbs, Alex Bowman, Kyle Busch, William Byron, Ross Chastain, Kyle Larson, Bubba Wallace and Justin Haley started in the top 10. The following names that included Tyler Reddick, Ryan Preece, Brad Keselowski, Chase Elliott, Todd Gilliland, Michael McDowell, Noah Gragson, Corey LaJoie, Martin Truex Jr., Ricky Stenhouse Jr., John Hunter Nemechek and Chase Briscoe started 11th through 22nd, respectively, while Ryan Blaney was awarded the provisional, 23rd and final, starting spot into the main event based on being last year’s Cup Series champion.
The following names that include Josh Williams, Carson Hocevar, Josh Berry, Daniel Suarez, Austin Dillon, Erik Jones, Chris Buescher, Austin Cindric, Daniel Hemric, Christopher Bell, Kaz Grala, Harrison Burton and Zane Smith did not qualify for the main event.
When the main event commenced under green, Hamlin and Logano dueled for the lead amid two tight-packed lanes entering Turn 1 until Logano used the outside lane to rocket his No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Ford Mustang Dark Horse ahead of Hamlin through Turn 2. Despite Hamlin’s efforts in side-drafting and making contact with Logano to stall his momentum, Logano managed to withstand his ground as he proceeded to lead the first lap. With Logano leading Hamlin, Ty Gibbs and Alex Bowman battled for third place before William Byron joined the battle along with Kyle Busch.
Two laps later, Hamlin prevailed in his early battle and on-track skirmish with Logano to lead for the first time in his No. 11 Sport Clips Toyota Camry XSE, where he moved in front of Logano in Turn 3, as Ty Gibbs would assume the runner-up spot over Logano during the following lap. Gibbs would then find himself locked in a tight situation of fending off Logano, Byron and a bevy of competitors for the runner-up spot while teammate Hamlin retained the lead by the fifth lap mark.
Through the first 10 laps of the event, Hamlin was leading by six-tenths of a second over teammate Ty Gibbs followed by Logano, Byron and Kyle Busch while Alex Bowman, Ryan Preece, Kyle Larson, Justin Haley and Ross Chastain were scored in the top 10. Behind, Bubba Wallace occupied 11th place in front of Chase Elliott, Tyler Reddick, Martin Truex Jr. and Michael McDowell while Noah Gragson, Corey LaJoie, Todd Gilliland, Chase Briscoe, Brad Keselowski, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. John Hunter Nemechek and Ryan Blaney rounded out the 23-car field.
Ten laps later, Hamlin extended his advantage to nearly a second over teammate Gibbs while Logano, Byron and Busch occupied the top five in front of Bowman, Preece, Larson, Haley and Chastain. Meanwhile, Blaney, mired in 22nd place, was trying to carve his way up the leaderboard to avoid being pinned a lap down.
Another 10 laps later, Hamlin lapped last-place Noah Gragson, all while having his advantage shrink to within four-tenths of a second over teammate Gibbs and nearly a second over third-place Logano. In the process, Byron and Busch remained in the top five ahead of Bowman, Larson, Preece, Haley and Wallace.
At the Lap 50 mark and with the leaders mired in tight lapped traffic, the battle for the lead re-ignited as Gibbs used the lapped competitors of Gragson to move into the lead. Behind, Logano challenged Hamlin for the runner-up spot while Busch and Byron remained within close distance.
Just past the Lap 60 mark, Gibbs stretched his advantage to more than two seconds over Logano while Busch, Larson and Byron moved into the top five. Meanwhile, Hamlin fell back to seventh behind Bowman while Haley, Wallace and Chase Elliott were mired in the top 10.
Then 10 laps later, the first caution of the event flew after Todd Gilliland spun sideways into the Turn 1 outside wall as he became the first retiree of the event.
With the event restarting on Lap 71, where Gibbs and Logano occupied the front row, Logano and Gibbs dueled for the lead through Turn 1 until Gibbs bounced off of Logano and nearly got loose, which allowed Busch to place Gibbs and Logano in a tight three-wide battle for the lead until the latter muscled ahead from the outside lane in Turn 2. Logano would retain the lead through Turns 3 and 4 over Busch while Gibbs fell back to third in front of Larson and Byron. During the following lap, Hamlin would overtake Bowman for sixth place while Wallace tried to follow suit.
Then on Lap 74 and just as Logano was within reach of reaching the halfway segment under green flag conditions, the caution returned after John Hunter Nemechek was sent for a spin in between Turns 3 and 4 after Corey LaJoie threw a divebomb move beneath Nemechek entering Turn 3 that sent the latter into a spin.
During a one-lap shootout to the halfway mark, Logano and Busch dueled for the lead through the first turn until Logano managed to pull ahead with the lead through Turn 2. Shortly after, Larson and Gibbs placed Busch in a tight three-wide battle for the runner-up spot through Turn 2, which resulted in Larson assuming the runner-up spot as Gibbs and Busch nearly got sideways amid light contact, which allowed Byron to join the battle while Logano retained the lead. As the field returned to the start/finish line to reach the halfway mark on Lap 75, the event was placed in a brief intermission period. By then, Logano was scored the leader followed by Larson, Gibbs, Byron and Busch while Hamlin, Wallace, Bowman, Reddick and Chastain were scored in the top 10.
At the conclusion of the intermission period, the event restarted under green on Lap 76. At the start, Logano retained the lead over Larson, Busch and Ty Gibbs until Larson made his move on the inside lane as he challenged Logano for the top spot during the following lap. The caution, however, would return on Lap 77 after Bowman bumped Reddick into Wallace entering Turn 3 as Wallace spun his No. 23 Columbia Toyota Camry XSE in between Turns 3 and 4. Amid the incident, Elliott took his car to the Coliseum’s infield area due to a mechanical issue to his No. 9 NAPA Chevrolet Camaro ZL1.
When the race restarted on Lap 78, Logano and Gibbs dueled for the lead again while Reddick, who restarted in the top 10, made a bold three-wide move on the inside lane to move his No. 45 Jordan Brand Toyota Camry XSE up within the top five just before entering Turn 1. Amid more bumps and side-by-side action within the field, the caution quickly returned after McDowell and Stenhouse bumped against one another and proceeded to send Chastain for a spin in Turn 1 while LaJoie slammed on the brakes to avoid hitting Chastain’s No. 1 Busch Light Chevrolet Camaro ZL1. The incident resulted in McDowell and Stenhouse rubbing fenders under a cautious pace to express their displeasure towards one another. Meanwhile, Reddick, who made the three-wide move during the restart, was assessed a restart violation and sent to the rear of the field for pulling out of line before reaching the start/finish line.
During another Lap 78 restart, Gibbs muscled ahead of Logano and cleared the field through Turns 1 and 2. Entering Turn 3 and as Gibbs retained the lead, Larson bumped and sent Hamlin up the track and almost into the path of Byron, which enabled Larson to move into third place followed by Truex while Hamlin was left battling and bumping Busch for fifth place. Four laps later, Larson engaged in repetitive bumps into Logano’s rear bumper for the runner-up spot while Truex maintained his distance in fourth place. Amid the battles, Gibbs stretched his advantage to more than two seconds.
By Lap 90, Gibbs was leading in his No. 54 Monster Energy Toyota Camry XSE by more than two seconds over Logano, who was continuing to fend off Larson for the runner-up spot as Truex, Busch, Hamlin, Preece, Byron, Bowman and Blaney followed suit in a tight single-file line in the top 10.
At the Lap 100 mark, Ty Gibbs continued to lead by more than two seconds over Logano while Larson, Truex, Busch, Hamlin, Preece, Byron, Blaney and Bowman continued to run in the top 10. Behind, Wallace occupied 11th place in front of Chastain, Bowman, Haley and Keselowski while Stenhouse, Reddick, McDowell, Nemechek, LaJoie and Gragson occupied the remaining top-21 spots on the track.
With 35 laps remaining, Ty Gibbs retained the lead by within two seconds over Logano. By then, Busch was up in third place in his No. 8 Morgan & Morgan Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 followed by Hamlin and Truex while Blaney continued his late march to the front in sixth place. Meanwhile, Larson dropped to seventh ahead of teammate Byron, Briscoe and Wallace while Preece was down in 11th ahead of Chastain, Bowman, Haley and Keselowski.
Down to the final 25 laps of the event and as the leaders were navigating through lapped traffic, Gibbs continued to lead despite having his advantage decreased to a second over a hard-charging Logano. Behind, Hamlin trailed in third place by two seconds while Busch and Truex followed suit in the top five. Gibbs would continue to lead Logano by more than a second with 20 laps remaining, all while trying to bump and place Chastain a lap down.
With 14 laps remaining, Haley, who was having a steady run within the top 15, fell off the pace due to a mechanical issue to his No. 51 Walmart Ford Mustang Dark Horse. Amid the issue, he managed to coast his entry into the infield without drawing a caution. Amid Haley’s late issues, Gibbs retained the lead by a second over Logano.
Then with 10 laps remaining, the caution flew after McDowell, who was battling Chastain for 13th place, made contact with Chastain through Turn 2, which resulted in the latter sending the former sideways as he spun his No. 34 Margaritaville at Sea Ford Mustang Dark Horse backward towards the outside wall in Turn 3.
As the event restarted with 10 laps remaining, Gibbs and Logano briefly dueled for the lead through Turn 1 until Gibbs slipped and moved Logano up the track, which resulted with Logano getting sideways and losing his momentum as Hamlin issued his challenge for the lead beneath teammate Gibbs through Turn 2. Then in Turn 3, Hamlin moved into the lead over teammate Gibbs as Busch joined the battle and tried to shove Gibbs up the track in Turn 1 while Hamlin locked up his front tires. Hamlin, though, maintained his ground through Turn 2 over teammate Gibbs and Busch while Logano was mired back in sixth behind teammate Blaney and Larson.
With seven laps remaining, Hamlin went wide entering Turn 1, which allowed teammate Gibbs to draw even with Hamlin entering Turn 2 until Hamlin quickly rocketed back ahead with the lead. Hamlin would continue to retain the lead by a tight margin over teammate Gibbs, Busch and Blaney with five laps remaining despite getting constantly bumped by Gibbs through the turns.
With four laps remaining, however, Gibbs overshot Turn 1, which allowed Busch to draw even with Gibbs entering Turn 2. As Busch and Gibbs made contact entering Turn 3, Blaney tried to shove his way in between both, but Busch assumed the runner-up spot during the following lap. Blaney would follow suit into third place followed by Logano as Gibbs fell back to fifth. Then just as Hamlin was about to start the final lap of the event, the caution flew after Gibbs was bumped and sent for a spin off the front nose of Larson in Turn 3 as he plummeted below the leaderboard.
With the field restarting under green for a two-lap shootout to conclude the event, where Hamlin and Blaney occupied the front row, Hamlin launched ahead from the inside lane as he fended off both Blaney and Busch through Turns 1 and 2. Despite locking up his tires entering Turn 3, which allowed Busch to try and get to Hamlin’s rear bumper, Hamlin maintained the top spot as he started the final lap of the event.
During the final lap, Hamlin again locked up his front tires entering Turn 1, which nearly provided another opportunity for Busch to use the bumper. Hamlin, though, managed to pull away from the field through Turn 2. With Hamlin placing a reasonable gap between himself and Busch with the lead through Turn 3, he was able to smoothly navigate his way to the fourth turn and streak across the finish line to claim the first checkered flag of the 2024 Cup Series season.
With the victory, Hamlin notched his fourth career victory in The Clash, which makes him the second-winningest competitor in The Clash behind Dale Earnhardt, who has six Clash victories, and his first in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. He also recorded the first NASCAR victory for the new Toyota Camry XSE Cup Series’ stock car as the nameplate racked up its eighth victory in The Clash. The 2024 Clash victory was also the fourth in five years and the 12th overall for Joe Gibbs Racing.
“A lot of it was just what happened in front of me, with [Gibbs] and [Logano], and you just never know what was going to happen there, but I got a really good run off of Turn 2 and just got position and was able to hang on from there,” Hamlin said on FS1. “It’s so chaotic, the restarts, with everyone just bumping and banging, but it feels great to win here at [Los Angeles]. [The win]’s just a great momentum boost. It doesn’t do much more than that, but I’ve cleaned off all the trophies every January 1st into the entryway of the house and now, we get to add one pretty quick. Really happy about that.”
Meanwhile, Kyle Busch, a two-time winner of The Clash, settled in the runner-up spot for the second time in three years while Ryan Blaney, the reigning Cup Series champion, navigated his way from the rear of the field to settle in third place. Amid the disappointment of ending up in second place in The Clash, Busch remained optimistic ahead of the 2024 season.
“[The runner-up finish] definitely does sting,” Busch said. “I felt like the first half [of the race], we were better. [I] Had a better car than [Hamlin], but some of the adjustments we made weren’t as good, some of the adjustments they made were better. All in all, just glad to have a good night. Glad to come out of here in one piece, even with all the bumping and banging and everything else that happens. We’ll try to figure out rest of the year.”
Logano, who led eight laps, came home in fourth place followed by Larson while Bowman, Briscoe, Brad Keselowski, Truex and Byron finished in the top 10. Notably, Ty Gibbs, who led a race-high 84 laps, ended up in 18th place, the final competitor on the lead lap.
There were seven lead changes for four different leaders. The race featured a total of seven cautions.
Results.
1. Denny Hamlin, 58 laps led
2. Kyle Busch
3. Ryan Blaney
4. Joey Logano, eight laps led
5. Kyle Larson
6. Alex Bowman
7. Chase Briscoe
8. Brad Keselowski, one lap led
9. Martin Truex Jr.
10. William Byron
11. Ryan Preece
12. Bubba Wallace
13. John Hunter Nemechek
14. Tyler Reddick
15. Ross Chastain
16. Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
17. Corey LaJoie
18. Ty Gibs, 84 laps led
19. Michael McDowell, one lap down
20. Noah Gragson, three laps down
21. Justin Haley – OUT, Engine
22. Chase Elliott – OUT, Steering
23. Todd Gilliland – OUT, Brakes
The NASCAR Cup Series teams and competitors will be taking a one-week break before returning to action at Daytona International Speedway in preparation for the 66th running of the Daytona 500. Qualifying that will determine the front row for the main event will occur on February 14 and air at 8:15 p.m. ET on FS1 while the rest of the lineup will be determined through the Bluegreen Vacation Duels on February 15, beginning at 7 p.m. ET on FS1. The Daytona 500, which will officially launch NASCAR’s 76th season of competition, is scheduled to commence on February 18 with the event’s coverage to occur at 2:30 p.m. ET on FOX.
Shane van Gisbergen will be competing in seven NASCAR Cup Series events in a joint effort between Kaulig Racing and Trackhouse Racing for the 2024 season.
The news comes as the three-time Supercars champion from Auckland, New Zealand, is set to compete with Kaulig for the upcoming Xfinity Series season on a full-time basis while under contract with Trackhouse Racing.
Van Gisbergen will be piloting Kaulig’s No. 16 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 entry that will serve as the team’s “all-star” entry, where AJ Allmendinger and Josh Williams will also make select Cup starts throughout the 2024 season while Travis Mack will serve as the entry’s crew chief. The New Zealander will make his first start of the season at Circuit of the Americas in late March. His other Cup starts include both Talladega Superspeedway events (April & October), the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway (May), the Chicago Street Course (July), Watkins Glen International (September) and at Las Vegas Motor Speedway (October). During the Cup events, he will compete alongside Daniel Hemric, who will be piloting Kaulig’s No. 31 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 on a full-time basis.
“When I first started talking with Trackhouse about moving to the U.S., we had no idea how many races we could secure but I knew I wanted to be with that team and organization,” van Gisbergen said. “There has been a lot of hard work to get to this point and I could not be happier to know that I get to race for an Xfinity Series championship and then get a proper go at the Cup Series on road courses and ovals. Kaulig is a proven winner in both the Xfinity and the Cup Series, and I know with the alliance with Trackhouse, this will be an incredible first year for me in NASCAR.”
Van Gisbergen took the NASCAR competition by storm during the 2023 season when he piloted Trackhouse Racing’s PROJECT91 entry to his first Cup Series win in his series’ debut at Chicago last July. In doing so, he became the 204th different competitor to win in NASCAR’s premier series and the seventh to do so in a Cup debut. He would proceed to finish 10th in his second Cup career start at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Road Course and 19th in his Craftsman Truck Series debut at Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park, both occurring in August, all of which elevated his interest in transitioning from Supercars to NASCAR competition in the years to follow.
Last September, van Gisbergen was announced to participate across NASCAR’s top three national touring series for the 2024 season as part of a development deal with Trackhouse Racing. Three months later, an alliance was formed with Kaulig Racing that would result in van Gisbergen inking a full-time Xfinity Series ride and a part-time Cup Series campaign. He will compete alongside Allmendinger and Josh Williams as full-time Xfinity competitors while Daniel Dye will make 10 Xfinity starts this upcoming season.
In addition to his Xfinity and Cup efforts, van Gisbergen is set to compete in this year’s ARCA Menards Series’ season-opening event at Daytona International Speedway with Pinnacle Racing Group two weeks from now to receive approval to compete in superspeedway venues in NASCAR.
“I’m excited to work with Trackhouse and have Shane join our Cup program this season,” Chris Rice, president of Kaulig Racing, said. “When we locked in [Shane van Gisbergen] for the Xfinity Series, it just became a natural next step on the Cup side since we have all the existing infrastructure and a relationship with the pit crews. Remember, SVG had to pass our car to win the Chicago race. We finished second. So, now we get to race with him which is kind of awesome.”
“Shane is one of the best talents I’ve ever seen.” Justin Marks, owner of Trackhouse Racing, added. “We know he will be competitive on the road courses, so we needed to challenge him and ourselves on oval tracks against Cup Series drivers. This is a big freshman season for Shane, and I really appreciate Matt Kaulig and Chris Rice for helping us bring this to life.”
Shane van Gisbergen’s 2024 part-time Cup Series campaign with Kaulig Racing is set to commence at Circuit of the Americas for the fourth annual running of the EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix. The event is scheduled to occur on March 24 and air at 3:30 p.m. ET on FOX.
With Kevin Harvick set to join the FOX Sports’ NASCAR broadcast team for the 2024 season following his retirement from full-time Cup Series competition, Denny Hamlin enters this year’s Busch Light Clash at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum weekend with the most starts in the Clash as an active Cup competitor at 18, all occurring in consecutive years.
Hamlin and former teammate Kyle Busch, who has made 17 starts in the Clash, will also enter this weekend with potential milestone starts in the Clash set to occur. By earning a spot and competing in the main event at The Coliseum, Hamlin will tie Harvick, Ken Schrader and Rusty Wallace for having the fourth-most starts in the Clash at 19 while Busch will tie brother Kurt, Jimmie Johnson and Terry Labonte for eighth place in the Clash’s all-time starts list at 18.
Hamlin’s debut in the Clash occurred during the 2006 season at Daytona International Speedway. By then, the Chesterfield, Virginia, native had made his first seven career starts in the Cup Series in Joe Gibbs Racing’s No. 11 FedEx entry in the second half of the 2005 season, where he recorded three top-10 results and notched his first career pole position at Phoenix Raceway in November, the latter of which earned him a spot into the 2006 Clash.
During his first Clash start, Hamlin pulled the upset by leading three times for 16 laps and fending off a bevy of Cup stars amid a two-lap shootout to win the event and become the first Rookie-of-the-Year candidate to win the Clash. The Clash victory would serve as a pivotal moment for Hamlin, who would proceed to win his first two Cup points-paying victories by sweeping both Pocono Raceway events, qualifying for the Playoffs, settling in third place in the 2006 final driver’s standings and capturing the Rookie-of-the-Year title.
Following the 2006 season, Hamlin finished no higher than ninth place during his next three starts at The Clash as he would be involved in two final lap accidents during the three years. Then after finishing in fifth place during the 2010 Clash event, Hamlin was in a prime position to win the 2011 Clash as he pulled a slingshot move on drafting partner Ryan Newman entering the frontstretch on the final lap and came across the finish line dead even with Kurt Busch. With Hamlin overtaking Newman’s No. 39 Wix Filters Chevrolet by racing below the double yellow line boundary zone, however, he was relegated to 12th place, the final competitor scored on the lead lap, as Busch would be awarded the victory.
Three years later, Hamlin achieved his second career Clash victory after overtaking teammate Kyle Busch and Brad Keselowski amid a three-wide pass for the lead with two laps remaining before steering his No. 11 FedEx Toyota to victory in an event where he led a race-high 27 laps and where only eight of 18 starters finished the event. Another two years later, the Virginia veteran would fend off a late challenge from former teammate Joey Logano amid an overtime shootout to claim his third Clash victory after retaining the lead before a multi-car wreck on the final lap that concluded the event under caution. Ironically, Hamlin, who led a race-high 39 laps, rallied from being involved in an early incident with Ricky Stenhouse Jr. During the 2016 season, he would proceed to win the 58th running of the Daytona 500 and achieve his first Great American Race victory after edging Martin Truex Jr. across the finish line by 0.010 seconds, which stands as the closet margin of victory in a 500 event.
Following the 2016 Clash victory, Hamlin would finish no higher than sixth three times in the next five Clash events that continued to occur at Daytona. Since the Clash’s move to the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in 2022, he has finished no higher than ninth, which occurred during the previous season’s event.
Through 18 previous starts at The Clash, Hamlin has racked up a total of three victories, five top-five results, 10 top-10 results, 201 laps led and an average-finishing result of 9.89.
Ironically, Kyle Busch’s first start in the Clash also occurred in 2006, a year after he won his first two Cup career victories, claimed his first pole position at Auto Club Speedway and achieved the 2005 Rookie-of-the-Year title. Driving the No. 5 CARQUEST Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports, Busch ended up in 15th place despite leading four laps. The following season, the Las Vegas native led a race-high 39 laps and was leading with eight laps remaining until he was shoved out of both the lead and draft by Tony Stewart. Stewart would proceed to win while Busch, who dodged a final lap wreck, managed to finish seventh.
After not being eligible to compete in the 2008 Clash due to not securing a pole position in 2007, Busch returned to the featured event in 2009. By then, he was campaigning in his second season piloting the No. 18 Toyota for Joe Gibbs Racing and was coming off a season where he had notched 10 victories and finished in 10th place in the final standings. Ultimately, Busch would finish in 10th place after being involved in a final lap wreck and would finish fourth and 16th, respectively, during his next two Clash starts (2010-11).
Then during the 2012 Clash, Busch achieved the impossible by rallying from two near spins amid a shower of sparks to draft Stewart to the lead on the final lap and pull a successful slingshot move on Stewart to win his first career Clash event by 0.013 seconds. By then, Busch recorded the fifth Clash career victory for Joe Gibbs Racing and the first for the Toyota nameplate. As noted earlier, Busch’s victory occurred after he slipped sideways twice on different occasions, but managed to straighten his car amid a shower of sparks to finish and ultimately, win the race.
The first incident occurred with 28 laps remaining after Busch, who was carving his way to the front, attempted to turn left and move his No. 18 M&M’s Toyota in front of Jimmie Johnson’s No. 48 Lowe’s Chevrolet amid the draft in Turn 1 when he made contact with Johnson and veered sideways twice through the superspeedway’s banked apron before managing to proceed without completely spinning sideways as the field scattered to avoid him. Then with two laps remaining, Busch was running in the runner-up spot behind Stewart and had Jeff Gordon drafting him through Turns 3 and 4 when Busch veered sideways off of Gordon’s No. 24 Drive To End Hunger Chevrolet and triggered a multi-car wreck.
As a result, Gordon was turned across the outside wall and sent on his side before he slid across the track and barrel-rolled three times entering the frontstretch before coming to rest on his roof. Amid the carnage, Busch veered sideways three times across the apron in a shower of sparks before he fully spun below the track entering the frontstretch and managed to keep his car intact before he proceeded and eventually navigated his way to victory.
During his next eight starts in the Clash, Busch notched two top-three results and four top-10 finishes in the Clash, with his best result being a runner-up result in 2017 after edging Alex Bowman and Danica Patrick in a three-wide photo finish. Then in 2021, when the Clash occurred on the Daytona road-course layout for the first time, Busch capitalized on a final lap incident involving Ryan Blaney and reigning Cup Series champion Chase Elliott to storm to his second Clash career victory.
Busch’s 2021 Clash victory would serve as the final time where the exhibition event occurred at Daytona International Speedway. For the previous two seasons, where the Clash occurred at The Coliseum, Busch has finished in the top three during both events. He finished in the runner-up spot behind Logano despite leading a race-high 64 laps and ended up in third place during the 2023 Clash in his first event driving the No. 8 Chevrolet for Richard Childress Racing.
Through 18 previous starts at The Clash, Busch has achieved two victories, seven top-five results, 12 top-10 results, 131 laps led and an average-finishing result of 7.71.
Photo by David Myers for SpeedwayMedia.com.
Currently, Hamlin and Kyle Busch are the top two active Cup Series competitors with the most starts in the Clash at 18 and 17, respectively, followed by Joey Logano (15), Martin Truex Jr. (12), Austin Dillon and Brad Keselowski (nine) and Kyle Larson (eight), as they attempt to race their way into the main event to extend their current starts streak in The Clash and contend for more victories.
Hamlin’s three Clash victories place him in a four-way tie with Dale Jarrett, Tony Stewart and Kevin Harvick for the second-most wins in The Clash while Dale Earnhardt holds the record for most Clash wins at six. Meanwhile, Busch is tied with Neil Bonnett, Ken Schrader, Jeff Gordon, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jimmie Johnson and Joey Logano for the third-most Clash victories at two.
The starting lineup for the 2024 Busch Light Clash at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum will be determined through four Heat Race qualifying events that will set the majority of the grid and occur on Saturday, February 3, beginning at 8:30 p.m. ET on FS1 followed by a 75-lap Last Chance Qualifying Race that will occur on Sunday, February 4, at 6:30 p.m. on FOX. Afterward, 23 competitors from a field of 40 will make the main event, The Clash, which will occur on Sunday and air at 8 p.m. ET on FOX.
In 75 years of NASCAR competition, a total of 204 competitors have achieved at least one victory in the sport’s premier series: the Cup Series.
The commencement of the list of Cup Series winners dates back to June 19, 1949, when Jim Roper, a native of Halstead, Kansas, won NASCAR’s first-ever event at Charlotte Speedway after initial winner Glenn Dunaway was disqualified due to illegal springs being detected in his race-winning car during the post-race inspection process.
The most recent occurrence of a first-time Cup Series winner was during NASCAR’s inaugural event on the Streets of Chicago this past July when Shane van Gisbergen, a three-time Supercars champion from Auckland, New Zealand, won in his series debut while driving Trackhouse Racing’s Project 91 entry. In winning at Chicago, van Gisbergen became the seventh different competitor to win in a Cup Series debut, a feat that includes Roper, Jack White, Harold Kite, Leon Sales, Marvin Burke and Johnny Rutherford.
Over the last decade (2014-23), 22 competitors won for the first time in the Cup Series, minus the 2015 season that featured no first-time winners. The list of 22 first-time winners between the 2014-23 seasons is more than the list between the 1974-83 seasons (14), the 1984-93 seasons (15) and the 2004-13 seasons (17), but the same as between the 1994-2003 seasons combined. Currently, the season that holds the all-time record of occurrences of first-time Cup winners is 1950, which featured 12 first-timers, including the season’s eventual champion Bill Rexford.
During the last decade (2014-23), a Cup Series season featured on average two first-time winners, minus the 2017 and 2021 seasons that featured three. Another season within the last decade that did not feature two first-time winners is 2022. Instead, it was a season that featured five first-timers (Chase Briscoe, Ross Chastain, Austin Cindric, Tyler Reddick and Daniel Suarez) stapling their names among NASCAR’s elite, from the past to the present and future, as winners in NASCAR’s premier series. The previous season with the most first-time winners was back in 2011, which also featured five first-time winners (Marcos Ambrose, Trevor Bayne, Paul Menard, David Ragan and Regan Smith).
To date, the 2011 and 2022 seasons along with the 2001 and 2002 seasons hold the record with the most first-time winners in the modern era of NASCAR at five each. Between 2001 and 2002, the following names that include Johnny Benson Jr., Kurt Busch, Ricky Craven, Robby Gordon, Kevin Harvick, Jimmie Johnson, Jamie McMurray, Ryan Newman, Elliott Sadler and Michael Waltrip each scored their first Cup career victory.
Additional names that have won in the Cup Series for the first time from 2003 to 2023 include AJ Allmendinger, Aric Almirola, Christopher Bell, Greg Biffle, Ryan Blaney, Alex Bowman, Clint Bowyer, Kyle Busch, Chris Buescher, William Byron, Cole Custer, Austin Dillon, Carl Edwards, Chase Elliott, Justin Haley, Denny Hamlin, Joey Logano, Erik Jones, Kasey Kahne, Kyle Larson, Brad Keselowski, Michael McDowell, Casey Mears, Juan Pablo Montoya, David Reutimann, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Martin Truex Jr., Brian Vickers and Bubba Wallace.
From the list of 49 first-time winners between 2001 to 2023, 37 would proceed to win multiple Cup events. In addition, 10 would become Cup Series champions and 12 would become Daytona 500 champions.
With the 2024 season set to present a new season of Cup Series competition, beginning this upcoming weekend for the third annual running of the Busch Light Clash at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, it also presents an array of opportunities for a bevy of competitors, new and familiar, to elevate their names and achieve the title of race winner in NASCAR’s premier series.
The competitor who leads the group of potential first-time Cup Series winners entering the 2024 season is Ty Gibbs. The 21-year-old Gibbs, who is the grandson of NASCAR championship-winning team owner and Hall of Famer Joe Gibbs from Charlotte, North Carolina, is coming off his first full-time campaign in the Cup Series, where he achieved the 2023 Rookie-of-the-Year title on the strength of four top-five results, 10 top-10 results, 112 laps led, an average-finishing result of 18.4 and an 18th-place finish in the final standings.
A former champion of both the NASCAR Xfinity Series and the ARCA Menards Series divisions, Gibbs’ highest finish in the Cup Series is fourth place, which occurred at the Charlotte Motor Speedway Road Course last October. He also displayed a strong performance at Bristol Motor Speedway last September, where he led 102 laps before finishing fifth. Having completed his first full-time Cup season, new goals await for Gibbs and the No. 54 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota Camry XSE team in the form of achieving a first Cup victory, making the Playoffs and continuing to make the presence of running towards the front known frequently.
Photo by John Knittel for SpeedwayMedia.com.
Another name that stands out as a potential first-time winner is Josh Berry. The 33-year-old Berry from Hendersonville, Tennessee, graduates to the Cup Series to drive the No. 4 Ford Mustang Dark Horse for Stewart-Haas Racing as he replaces the 2014 Cup champion Kevin Harvick, who retired at the 2023 season’s conclusion. Berry, a former champion of the CARS Late Model Stock Tour is the all-time wins leader in the series and spent the bulk of his career competing in late models and earning his way toward the top level of stock car competition.
He spent the previous three seasons as an Xfinity Series competitor for JR Motorsports, where he made the Playoffs during the last two seasons, made the Championship 4 round in 2022, and notched five series victories. He has also made 10 career starts in the Cup Series, with his first two occurring with Spire Motorsports in 2021.
This past season, he made 10 Cup starts as an interim competitor between Hendrick Motorsports and Legacy Motor Club, where he filled in for top names that included Chase Elliott, Alex Bowman and Noah Gragson. During the short stint, he piloted Hendrick Motorsports’ No. 48 Chevrolet to a non-points victory in the NASCAR All-Star Race Open at North Wilkesboro Speedway that allowed him to compete in his first All-Star Race in May. He also piloted the No. 9 Chevrolet to a career-best runner-up finish behind teammate Kyle Larson at Richmond Raceway in April. With a new opportunity in the form of a new seat in a new team earned for him in 2024, the next goal for Berry is to earn a first Cup career victory.
Next is Harrison Burton, who returns to pilot the No. 21 Wood Brothers Racing Ford Mustang Dark Horse for a third consecutive Cup season. A 23-year-old, second-generation racer from Huntersville, North Carolina, Burton, who is also the 2017 ARCA Menards Series East champion and a four-time Xfinity Series race winner, is coming off two consecutive seasons in the Cup Series. During those two seasons, he has tallied only a total of four top-10 results, 60 laps led, average-finishing results outside the top-20 mark and final points results below the top-25 mark. His best on-track result was a third-place finish at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Road Course in July 2022.
Amid the on-track difficulties, Burton remains optimistic about turning the tide and regaining his competitiveness from his early racing career that would enable him to join his father Jeff, and Uncle Ward, as Cup Series winners. Should Burton accomplish his goal of winning in 2024, he would also strike gold in recording the elusive 100th Cup career win for Wood Brothers Racing, a goal that has eluded the organization since 2017.
After relinquishing his full-time seat at Front Row Motorsports for select events but managing to compete the entire 36-race schedule with select starts with Rick Ware Racing last season, Todd Gilliland reclaims his seat in FRM’s No. 38 Ford Mustang Dark Horse for the entire 2024 season. Like Burton, the 23-year-old, second-generation Gilliland from Sherrills Ford, North Carolina, is also a two-time ARCA Menards Series West champion and a three-time Craftsman Truck Series race winner. is coming off two full-time Cup seasons, where he has only achieved a single top-five result, six top-10 results, 11 laps led, average-finishing results outside the top-20 mark and two consecutive 28th-place finishes in the final standings, with his best result being a fourth-place finish at Indianapolis in July 2022.
Compared to his rookie season in 2022, Gilliland steadily improved his stats to notch 11 top-15 results this past season, which is seven more than the 2022 season, and he tallied a total of 554 points at this season’s conclusion, which is 23 points extra than the previous season. With Front Row Motorsports slowly becoming competitive on a weekly basis and coming off a dominant victory at Indianapolis with teammate Michael McDowell that enabled them to contend in the first round of the 2023 Cup Playoffs, the next step for Gilliland remains to gain more consistency that would enable him to contend for victories with FRM and become the first member of the Gilliland racing family to win in the Cup Series.
Photo by Chad Wells for SpeedwayMedia.com.
Coming off his strongest Cup Series season to date, Corey LaJoie enters the 2024 season with an aim to continue to elevate both himself and Spire Motorsports from the midfield to the front on a consistent basis that would enable both to motor their way to Victory Lane. The 32-year-old, third-generation LaJoie from Kannapolis, North Carolina, is coming off his fifth full-time season in NASCAR’s premier series, second piloting the No. 7 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 for Spire Motorsports, where he recorded career-high stats in top fives (two), top 10s (three) and laps led (66) as he also notched a career-best average-finishing result of 20.8 on the strength of 18 top-20 results and a career-best 25th place in the final standings. Throughout the season, he scored a career-best fourth-place finish twice, the first at Atlanta Motor Speedway in March and the second at Talladega Superspeedway in October, and made a single start in Hendrick Motorsports’ No. 9 entry in place of the suspended Chase Elliott at World Wide Technology Raceway in June, where he finished 21st.
LaJoie’s closet opportunity to win a first Cup event still dates back to July 2022 at Atlanta, where he led 19 laps and was leading during a three-lap shootout until he was overtaken by Elliott during the final lap and wrecked on the final lap while trying to overtake Elliott through the first turn as he plummeted to 21st place in the final running order. Compared to the 2022 season, where he ended up with eight DNFs throughout the 36-race schedule, LaJoie was the only competitor to sustain no DNFs throughout the 2023 campaign, which marks a drastic level of improvement amid a rocky start to his career as the driver strives to march closer to the front and contend for the first Cup victory regularly beyond superspeedway venues.
Coming off a difficult first-time campaign with Stewart-Haas Racing, Ryan Preece aims to turn the tide amid the on-track struggles directed to SHR and Preece’s No. 41 Ford Mustang Dark Horse entry entering the 2024 Cup season. The 33-year-old Preece from Berlin, Connecticut, who is the 2013 NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour champion and a race winner across the Truck and Xfinity Series divisions, made his return to full-time Cup competition after previously competing in the series from 2019 to 2021 with JTG-Daugherty Racing.
Amid five DNFs throughout the 2023 season, including a harrowing barrel-roll accident at Daytona in August while contending for a Playoff berth, Preece managed to pilot SHR’s No. 41 entry to 12 top-15 results and 19 top-20 results throughout the 36-race campaign before settling in 23rd place in the final standings. With Richmond Raceway in late July providing his best run of the season in fifth place, he notched his first pole at Martinsville Speedway in April in an event where he led the first 135 laps before he was penalized early for speeding on pit road and rallying up to 15th place. He also displayed a strong performance during last year’s Busch Light Clash at The Coliseum, where he led a race-high 43 laps before fading to seventh place. After concluding the 2023 season with a steady gain in the form of five top-15 results in the final eight-scheduled events, the next step for Preece involves steadily gaining consistency within the top-10 mark that would enable him to contend and add a Cup Series victory next to his accomplished modified tour resume.
Within this year’s list of potential first-time Cup Series winners, the series will also feature two future stars who have been elevated from Truck Series competition to full-time Cup Series rookies in 2024.
The first is Zane Smith, the 2022 Truck Series champion who won nine series races, including twice at Daytona, in four seasons (92 starts) and made 12 career starts in the Xfinity Series. The 24-year-old Smith from Huntington Beach, California, will pilot the No. 71 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 for Spire Motorsports in collaboration with Trackhouse Racing, a team which Smith is under contract with on a multi-year basis. While Smith enters the Cup Series as a first-time full-time competitor, he does so with limited Cup starts noted on his resume as he made his series’ debut at World Wide Technology Raceway as an interim competitor for Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing in 2022 before making eight starts between Front Row Motorsports and Rick Ware Racing this past season. His best result in the Cup circuit is a 10th-place run at Charlotte Motor Speedway during the Coca-Cola 600 in May followed by a 13th-place finish during the 65th running of the Daytona 500 in February. Having made his name known within the top ranks of NASCAR based on his Truck Series performance and championship, the next step for Smith will involve elevating himself amongst NASCAR’s elite as he contends for both his first series victory and the Rookie-of-the-Year title.
Photo by Kirk Schroll for SpeedwayMedia.com.
Another Cup Series rookie contender who has been elevated from the Truck Series is Carson Hocevar, a 21-year-old native from Portage, Michigan, who comes with three full-time seasons of Truck competition and a total of five Xfinity starts within his resume. A former winner of the Winchester 400, Hocevar is coming off a career year to date, where he notched his first four career victories in the Truck Series and transferred to the Championship 4 round before ending up in third place in the final standings while competing for Niece Motorsports. Amid his full-time Truck campaign, Hocevar made his first nine career starts in NASCAR’s premier series in 2023, with his first occurring at World Wide Technology Raceway in June. He then competed in eight of the final 10 races for Legacy Motor Club, where he achieved a season-best 11th-place result at Bristol in September. Driving the No. 77 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 for Spire Motorsports for the 2024 season, Hocevar aims to implement the select Cup starts gained throughout the 2023 season along with his early Truck Series success to gain consistency in NASCAR’s premier series that would enable him to contend for both a first Cup victory and this year’s Rookie-of-the-Year title.
This year’s growing list of potential first-time winners also features a host of names who re-enter the series and aim for redemption by being consistently competitive against NASCAR’s elite. One of the names from this category is Noah Gragson, a competitor who was deemed a prominent star at the start of the 2023 season before his career was placed on a hiatus amid an off-track action that nearly derailed his path to becoming a future Cup Series winner and champion. After graduating to the Cup level with a full-time ride at Legacy Motor Club this past season, the 25-year-old Gragson from Las Vegas, Nevada, competed in 21 events, where he recorded an average-finishing result of 28.2 and a season-best 12th-place finish at Atlanta in March, before being suspended indefinitely from both Legacy Motor Club and NASCAR for violating the sport’s member conduct policy and liking an offensive meme on social media in early August.
A month later, Gragson was reinstated by NASCAR after completing the sport’s diversity and inclusion program. Another three months later, the opportunity for him to return to the Cup level arrived when he was selected as the driver of the No. 10 Ford Mustang Dark Horse for Stewart-Haas Racing on a multiyear basis, beginning in 2024, as he replaced veteran Aric Almirola, who scaled back to competing on a part-time basis in the Xfinity Series.
Before his suspension, Gragson had already developed a name for himself within the NASCAR ranks, having achieved victories across both the ARCA Menards Series East and West divisions along with the Truck and Xfinity circuits. His best results in championship standings are a pair of runner-up finishes, the first occurring during the 2018 Truck season and the second occurring during the 2022 Xfinity season. The Las Vegas native also campaigned in half of the Cup events throughout the 2022 season between Beard Motorsports, Kaulig Racing and Hendrick Motorsports, where he notched a strong fifth-place run at Daytona while driving the No. 62 Beard entry. With his past success, Gragson strives to make the most of a second opportunity and transform a hard-working, off-season period into success with a championship-winning organization.
Another competitor who returns to full-time Cup Series competition for a second opportunity amid a five-year absence is Daniel Hemric. The 33-year-old Hemric from Kannapolis, North Carolina, who also won the 2010 Legends Million, made his first two Cup career starts in 2018 with Richard Childress Racing before achieving a full-time Cup ride in RCR’s No. 8 entry in 2019. Despite claiming the rookie title, Hemric, who only notched one pole, two top-10 results with an average-finish result of 22.5, was replaced by Tyler Reddick before the 2020 season.
Since the 2020 season, the North Carolina native scaled back down to the Xfinity Series, a series in which he made two Championship 4 appearances in 2017 and 2018, where he started as a part-time competitor for JR Motorsports before returning as a full-time competitor in 2021 with Joe Gibbs Racing. During his series’ return, Hemric achieved a breakthrough moment by achieving both his first Xfinity victory and championship during the 2021 finale at Phoenix. He also recorded a pole, 31 top-five results, 65 top-10 results and nearly 800 laps led while also achieving three Playoff appearances.
With Hemric coming off two full-time Xfinity seasons with Kaulig Racing, where he made the Playoffs and ended up in the top 10 in the final standings during both seasons, an opportunity to return to Cup competition for this season was announced last August as he replaces the departing Justin Haley in Kaulig’s No. 31 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 entry. With his new Cup ride, the next step for Hemric involves striving to both keep his name in the series and continue to have the final word against his doubters for years to come.
Photo by Meg Oliphant/Getty Images.
Like Hemric, John Hunter Nemechek experienced a similar path in having a first full-time Cup season marred with on-track challenges that resulted in him scaling back down in NASCAR’s divisional ranks and working his way back up to the top to obtain another opportunity to compete against NASCAR’s elite.
A 26-year-old, second-generation racer from Mooresville, North Carolina, Nemechek’s inaugural presence in the Cup Series occurred in the final three events of the 2019 season, where he replaced Matt Tifft to drive for Front Row Motorsports before becoming a full-time FRM competitor in 2020.
After only obtaining three top-10 results and finishing 27th in the final standings with an average-finishing result of 22.4, Nemechek made the big decision to scale back down to the Truck Series and join forces with Kyle Busch Motorsports in 2021 with a goal to win races and regain his competitiveness. Having previously achieved six Truck Series victories and two Playoff appearances in 2016 and 2017, Nemechek quickly regained his competitive form as he notched six victories between 2021 and 2022 with KBM, won the 2021 Truck Series Regular Season championship, clinched a Playoff berth during both seasons and the Championship 4 round in 2021, where he ended up in third place in the final standings.
This past season, Nemechek, who competed for Joe Gibbs Racing in the Xfinity Series, nabbed seven victories and made it to the Championship 4 round, where he contended for the series’ title until a final lap incident during an overtime shootout resulted with the North Carolina native settling in fourth place in the final standings. Nonetheless, this past season marked Nemechek’s strongest in the Xfinity circuit as he ended up with an average-finishing result of 9.5 and finished in the top 10 in all but nine of the 33-race schedule. Now set to pilot the No. 42 Toyota Camry XSE for Legacy Motor Club for the 2024 Cup season amid a rejuvenated, three-year climb back to the top, Nemechek next strives to both etch a new legacy towards his racing family and a new chapter to his racing career in the form of winning in the Cup Series.
Lastly, this year’s list of potential first-time Cup winners features a host of names who will campaign in NASCAR’s premier series on a part-time basis, but remain on the radar for any element of potential on-track surprises. The first name within this category is Anthony Alfredo, who is currently scheduled to make two Cup starts in the No. 62 Beard Motorsports Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 entry for Beard Motorsports, which includes this year’s 66th running of the Daytona 500. The 24-year-old Alfredo from Ridgefield, Connecticut, makes a limited return to the Cup circuit after campaigning in two events with Live Fast Motorsports this past season.
Previously, he competed on a full-time Cup basis with Front Row Motorsports in 2021, where he recorded a single top-10 result, a total of five top-20 results and a 30th-place result in the final standings. To date, he has also made a total of 85 starts in the Xfinity Series and 13 in the Truck Series. Despite having his overall average-finishing result in the Cup circuit hovering outside of the top-25 mark, the Connecticut native’s previous successes of strong runs on superspeedway venues across NASCAR’s top three national touring series along with Beard Motorsports’ grit in vying for spots on superspeedway venues, including the Daytona 500, gives Alfredo a strong sense of optimism to place himself in a potential spot of vying for a victory in the Great American Race. Aside from his part-time Cup campaign, Alfredo is set to compete on a full-time basis in this year’s Xfinity season with Our Motorsports.
After making select premier series starts in three of the previous four seasons, Kaz Grala will campaign in an expanded Cup slate of 26 races, 25 in the No. 15 Ford Mustang Dark Horse for Rick Ware Racing and one in the No. 36 Front Row Motorsports Ford Mustang Dark Horse throughout Daytona Speedweeks as he attempts to qualify for this year’s 66th running of the Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway.
The 25-year-old Grala from Boston, Massachusetts, notches Cup Series rides for the majority of the 2024 season after competing in this past season’s Xfinity Series circuit with Sam Hunt Racing, where he ended up in 17th place in the final driver’s standings on the strength of nine top-10 results and an average-finishing result of 19.1. In total, Grala has 77 Xfinity career starts and 51 Truck Series starts within his racing resume, with a single victory occurring during the Truck opener at Daytona in 2017.
Meanwhile, the Boston native has only made seven Cup career starts, with his first occurring during the series’ inaugural event at the Daytona International Speedway Road Course in 2020, where he achieved an impressive seventh-place result as a fill-in competitor for Austin Dillon and the No. 3 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet team after Dillon was absent following a positive COVID-19 test. His other Cup starts include three with Kaulig Racing in 2021 and three with The Money Team Racing in 2022, where he competed in the Daytona 500 during both seasons and notched a career-best sixth-place finish at Talladega in 2021.
Amid his limited Cup starts, the newly formed alliance for Rick Ware Racing with Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing, a championship-winning organization that achieved three victories and placed both owner Brad Keselowski and veteran Chris Buescher into the 2023 Cup Series Playoffs, gives both the team and driver a sense of optimism and excitement approaching the new season, with Grala striving to claw his way to the top amongst NASCAR’s elite. Grala’s 2024 campaign with Rick Ware Racing commences with this weekend’s Busch Light Clash at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum followed by Atlanta Motor Speedway in late February. The rest of his schedule with RWR remains to be determined.
Photo by Ron Olds for SpeedwayMedia.com.
More than two months after scoring a full-time seat in Kaulig Racing’s No. 11 entry for this year’s NASCAR Xfinity Series season, Josh Williams has scored again by notching a part-time Cup Series ride in Kaulig’s No. 16 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 entry, beginning this upcoming weekend at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum for the Busch Light Clash. The 30-year-old Williams from Port Charlotte, Florida, leaps into the spotlight amongst NASCAR’s elite with only three previous Cup starts listed in his extensive racing resume that includes 186 career starts in the Xfinity circuit, two in the Truck Series and 102 in the ARCA Menards Series.
Within his three Cup career starts, all occurring with Live Fast Motorsports in 2022, the Floridian managed to finish on average 10 spots better than where he started, with his best results being a pair of 25th-place runs at the Bristol Motor Speedway Dirt Course and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Road Course. Having full confidence in the team’s model and management amid the intensity to boost his performance, Williams strives to capitalize on the biggest opportunity of his racing career by being both consistent and competitive on the track that would enable him to contend for an Xfinity Series championship and potentially become a future Cup Series star. Following The Clash, Williams will make his first points-paying start of the season at Atlanta Motor Speedway in late February while the rest of his schedule remains to be determined. He will have race-winning crew chief Travis Mack as his crew chief and share the No. 16 ride with veteran AJ Allmendinger while the rest of the entry’s driver lineup also remains to be determined.
The 2024 NASCAR Cup Series season is set to commence this Sunday, February 4, with the third annual running of the Busch Light Clash at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum that will air at 8 p.m. ET on FOX. Afterward, the 66th running of the Daytona 500 will follow suit on February 18, which will serve as the first points-paying event on the schedule and provide one of 36 opportunities for any competitors listed above to achieve a first-time win in NASCAR’s premier series. The 2024 Daytona 500’s broadcast time is set to air at 2:30 p.m. ET on FOX.
Ten years ago on this day, January 30, NASCAR announced a major overhaul to the Cup Series Playoff system by revealing a new 10-week format and postseason battle for the championship. This new format places a heavy emphasis on winning throughout an entire season for an expanded postseason field. It also leaves very little room for error as the field narrows by quarter sections per round throughout the Playoffs until the last competitor standing after the finale will emerge as a champion in NASCAR’s premier series.
From the new format, a victory for any full-time competitor who qualified and competed in every regular-season event on the schedule, from the season-opening Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway through Race No. 26, the regular-season finale, would guarantee him/herself a berth for the 10-race Playoffs (except for waiver instances from NASCAR that would even grant those who did not compete the entire regular-season stretch to still be eligible to contend for the Playoffs). In addition, the Playoff field that started with 10 vacant spots (2004-06) and grew to 12 (2007-12) and 13 (2013) would expand to 16, with those accumulating the most regular-season victories along with points and a winless regular-season points leader (if needed due to less than 16 regular-season victors for the latter two categories) clinching spots for the postseason format.
Once the Playoffs commenced, the first nine postseason events would be sliced into three per Playoff round and eliminate the bottom four competitors in the Playoff standings, from 16 to 12 to eight and lastly, four. Within the new elimination format, a victory within any round (maximum three for three races per round) would guarantee a Playoff competitor a spot into the proceeding round with the remaining vacant rounds being set by those highest in points. After each round, the remaining competitors who are still championship eligible would have their points reset while those who are eliminated would have their points total readjusted to the normal points format in sync with the rest of the field, but still eligible to battle as high as for fifth place in the standings.
Once the Round of 8, the penultimate round, concluded, the top-four competitors in points would transfer to the Championship 4 round and square off against one another in the final event on the schedule. During the finale, the highest-finishing title contender would be awarded the Bill France Cup championship-winning trophy in NASCAR’s premier series.
Since the inception of the current Playoff format (2014-23), a total of 40 competitors qualified for the Playoffs at least once, either by winning at least once throughout the regular-season stretch or based on points. In addition, 19 teams had at least one competitor/entry represented in the Playoffs. Through the 2023 season, the following names that include Kyle Busch, Denny Hamlin and Kevin Harvick are the only competitors to make the postseason since the current Playoff format’s debut in 2014. Harvick, however, is set to depart this list after retiring from full-time Cup Series competition as he is replaced by incoming rookie Josh Berry for the 2024 season.
Within the list of 40 names, 19 clinched a Playoff spot by winning for the first time in the Cup Series in the process. In 2014, Aric Almirola and AJ Allmendinger guaranteed themselves first-time opportunities to make the Playoffs and contend for a championship after both scored their first Cup career victory throughout the regular-season stretch. Additional names of first-time winners claiming automatic berths to the Playoffs from 2014 to 2023 include Christopher Bell, Ryan Blaney, Alex Bowman, Chris Buescher, Chase Briscoe, William Byron, Ross Chastain, Austin Cindric, Cole Custer, Austin Dillon, Chase Elliott, Erik Jones, Kyle Larson, Michael McDowell, Tyler Reddick, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Daniel Suarez. The most recent newcomer to the Playoffs is Bubba Wallace, who secured the 16th and final transfer berth into the 2023 Playoffs based on points.
Of the 40 Playoff qualifiers recorded, 16 transferred to the Championship 4 round and contended for a Cup Series championship. Of the 16 finalists, eight won a championship. Of the eight championship-winning competitors, seven became first-time Cup champions. During the current Playoff’s inaugural use in 2014, Kevin Harvick achieved his first Cup title after fending off a late charge from title rival Ryan Newman to also win the finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway in his first season driving for Stewart-Haas Racing.
Most recently, Team Penske’s Ryan Blaney etched his name as a first-time Cup champion in 2023 after emerging as the highest-finishing title contender over Kyle Larson, William Byron and Christopher Bell during the season’s finale at Phoenix Raceway. Other notable names who became first-time champions from the format include Kyle Busch, Martin Truex Jr., Joey Logano, Chase Elliott and Kyle Larson. The only competitor who had previously won a championship during the Playoff’s former use from 2004 to 2013 and proceeded to win again during the Playoff’s current use is Jimmie Johnson, who joined Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt as the only competitors to win a record-tying seven titles in 2016. From the list of seven competitors who became first-time champions, Busch and Logano would each proceed to win a second Cup title (2019 & 2022).
With the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series season set to mark the 11th consecutive season of the current Playoff format’s use, it presents an abundance of new memories toward the postseason battle for the premier series championship that remains to be determined with the commencement of this year’s Playoffs.
With this year’s Cup Series regular-season finale occurring at Darlington Raceway on September 1, the 2024 Cup Series Playoffs are scheduled to commence at Atlanta Motor Speedway a week later, on September 8, and air at 3 p.m. ET on USA Network. The 2024 Cup Series Championship Race is set to return to Phoenix Raceway for a fifth consecutive season and air on November 10 at 3 p.m. ET on NBC.
Toni Breidinger will be returning to full-time driving status in the ARCA Menards Series with Venturini Motorsports for the 2024 season.
The news comes as the 24-year-old Breidinger from Hillsborough, California, is coming off her strongest racing season to date, where she competed in a total of 19 ARCA Menards Series divisional events (ARCA Menards Series, ARCA West & ARCA East). During the 19-race slate, she recorded a total of five top-five results and 10 top-10 results, both occurring between the ARCA and ARCA East series. In addition, she notched a career-best third-place finish during the ARCA event at Kansas Speedway last September.
Breidinger also made her first three career starts in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series with TRICON Garage. She finished a season-best 15th in her debut at Kansas in May before proceeding to finish 24th at World Wide Technology Raceway and 17th at Nashville Superspeedway, respectively, in June.
“I’m really excited to run another full season with Toyota Racing and Venturini Motorsports,” Breidinger said. “Working with Toyota Racing and Venturini Motorsports has given me the tools and resources to develop as a driver. This is a great opportunity for me, and I’m ready to capitalize on the moment. There’s a lot that goes on behind the scenes to make this all come together, and I’m grateful for the support I’ve been able to pursue my dreams. I truly cannot thank my partners enough for believing in not only me but female athletes. I’m ready to kick off this season with Toyota and [Venturini Motorsports] at Daytona.”
Breidinger, a former champion and Rookie-of-the-Year recipient in the USAC Speed2 Western US Asphalt Midget Series made her inaugural presence in the ARCA Menards Series in 2018 at Oregon’s Madison International Speedway in June 2018 with Venturini Motorsports, where she finished 10th. She would proceed to make a total of 12 ARCA starts between Venturini and Young’s Motorsports for her first two seasons (2018 & 2021) before competing in the series on a full-time basis with Venturini in 2022. During the 2022 season, she recorded a total of six top-10 results, including a season-best eighth-place finish at Salem Speedway, before finishing in sixth place in the final driver’s standings with 824 points.
Breidinger will have Cayden Lapcevich, the 2016 NASCAR Pinty’s Series champion, as her crew chief, where she will be piloting the No. 25 Toyota Camry, while her sponsorship details for the 2024 season remain to be determined. She is also set to join Venturini’s current driver lineup that features full-time competitors Kris Wright and Amber Balcaen along with part-time competitors Jake Finch and Gio Ruggiero.
“It’s great to have Toni back with the team full-time,” Billy Venturini, team owner of Venturini Motorsports, added. “Her growth behind the wheel is as impressive as I’ve seen with any other driver throughout the years; she’s really come into her own. Toni is a great driver to work with and a real asset to our team. I expect good things from her and the team this year.”
Toni Breidinger’s 2024 full-time ARCA Menards Series campaign is set to commence at Daytona International Speedway on February 17, with the event’s broadcast time to start at 1:30 p.m. ET on FS1.
