NASCAR Silly Season report
As we move into the halfway point of the 2022 season, drivers are beginning to figure out what their plans for the future are. Over the past few weeks, a few big dominos have already fallen into place but there are still a lot of big names figuring out what their racing futures will look like. In my first blog, I will be highlighting each team and each driver's contract status for next season.
- Hendrick Motorsports: We’ll start with the team that is expected to see no amount of change. All four of their drivers are signed for 2023 as Kyle Larson and William Byron all signed long term deals this year and Chase Elliott is locked in till 2028. The only uncertainty is with Alex Bowman but, that’s not an issue that will come up till next season. Even if Bowman can’t come to an agreement next season, this team has a lot of talent in the Xfinity series that they are developing in Sam Mayer and Noah Gragson. Hendrick is the best team in NASCAR right now and will continue to be for years to come.
- Penske Racing: Like Hendrick, there isn’t expected to be any change for 2023 at Penske. Their three drivers in Austin Cindric, Joey Logano, and Ryan Blaney all have deals that run through next season. While they don’t have the young prospects that Hendrick or Gibbs have, their drivers are all still relatively young and will continue to be fast long into the future
- Joe Gibbs Racing: This is where the waters get a little bit muddy. Of this team's four drivers, only Denny Hamlin and Martin Truex Jr are signed through 2023. Their other two drivers Christopher Bell and Kyle Busch do not have a signed contract for next season. Obviously, bringing back Bell is definitely a priority for this team but bringing back Kyle Busch will be their number one agenda in the coming months. There is no question that Busch is the greatest driver to ever get behind the wheel of a Toyota Camry in NASCAR history and Toyota would love to keep him but with his longtime sponsor Mars Candy leaving at the end of the season, this complicates things as they look for a sponsor to fill the void. It gets even more complicated considering that Joe’s grandson Ty is ripping it up in the Xfinity series and will need to be called up to cup soon. I believe that Busch will come back but his future might be a little more unclear for Christopher Bell. Coach Gibbs will have his work cut out for him in the coming months to try to resign both of these drivers. I would expect him to get a deal done with both.
- Stewart-Haas Racing: It’s been a difficult past two seasons for Stewart-Haas. Their performance has been lacking quite a bit, on the bright side Chase Briscoe is continuing to improve each week and even captured the first win of his career at Phoenix earlier this season. Briscoe should return next season as the cornerstone of this race team for many years to come. At the beginning of the season, Aric Almirola announced that he was going to retire at the end of the season but now there are reports that Aric may return next season. Their other driver Cole Custer has deep ties to the team considering his father is the president of Stewart-Haas and is likely to stay in the car next season. Stewart-Haas will be the most intriguing team to follow this silly season as Tony Stewart clearly has a lot on his plate right now and has been rumored to have reduced his role around the team.
- Trackhouse Racing: What an incredible rise to fame it’s been for this race team and in a very short time. They have taken the racing world by storm by winning three races this season and appear to have their 2023 plans locked up with both their drivers in Daniel Suarez and Ross Chastain returning. Their team owner Justin Marks is quite a visionary when it comes to ideas about this race team, his most ambitious plan for this team is Project91. This will be a third car that will be driven by international drivers including 2007 F1 Champion Kimi Raikkonen starting this season at Watkins Glen. Some of the drivers being considered next season are Juan Pablo Montoya, Daniel Riccardo, and even Lewis Hamilton. One thing that’s likely is we will see Jimmie Johnson return next season to run both the Indy 500 for Ganassi and the Coke 600 in this car.
- 23XII: 2022 has been a season of up and down results for one of NASCAR’s newest teams. They announced last season that they would expand to two cars and add Kurt Busch to the team. This proved to be successful as Busch went on to score a win earlier this year at Kansas. Both Kurt Busch and Bubba Wallace are expected to return next season as team owners Michael Jordan and Denny Hamlin continue to build this team. On Tuesday, Bob Pockrass announced that Tyler Reddick will be joining this team in 2024. It’s unknown what car he will drive or if they will start a third team or if he will replace Kurt Busch or Bubba Wallace.
- Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing: 2022 has been a rough year for Brad Keselowski and Roush racing. The team has a lot of promise, Chris Buescher has been showing a lot of speed but untimely crashes have put them in bad positions. Both drivers will almost certainly need a victory to get into the playoffs. I would be shocked to see anything change in the driver lineup for next season. Hopefully for both 2023 fares are much better than this season has.
- Richard Childress Racing: This team seemed to have everything figured out, they had their driver of the future in Tyler Reddick and were getting competitive races out of Austin Dillon in the #3 car. Then everything changed. It was announced on Tuesday that Tyler Reddick will depart from RCR at the end of 2023 and move to 23XII racing. While on the service this looks like it will hurt the team but on the bright side they have two drivers in the pipeline in Austin Hill and Sheldon Creed (If he improves). They also supply the engines for Kaulig, Petty GMS, and Trackhouse so they have some flexibility with finding another driver. One theory that is highly unlikely is the possibility of Dale Earnhardt Jr coming in and investing in his father's old team so he can finally go cup Racing but that’s for another day.
- Kaulig Racing: The decision to move his cars up to the cup this season was long overdue for roofing entrepreneur Matt Kaulig and they have hit the ground running. They currently have two cars running full-time with Justin Hayley driving the #31 and a trio of Daniel Hemric, AJ Allmendinger, and Noah Gragson driving the #16. It’s fairly certain that Justin Hayley will return next season. The speculation is as to who will drive the #16 next season or if they will run more than one driver like they did this season. The biggest three candidates are the ones in the car right now. Personally, I believe the favorite has to be Noah Gragson considering how fast he’s been in the Xfinity Series.
- Petty-GMS: We have seen major improvements with this team since Maurice Gallagher made the decision to purchase the team, Erik Jones has been putting together some solid results this season. It was announced that Ty Dillon is out at the end of 2022. There is plenty of speculation as to who will replace him but the leading candidate is Noah Gragson.
- Front Row Racing: Another team that has been making a lot of big gains this season with Michael McDowell scoring the most top tens in his career. Front Row seems like they are close to making the leap from mid-pack to playoff contender. A big reason for their success has been crew-chief Blake Harris. He has done wonders in helping this team improve. His teammate, Todd Gilland should return for next season.
- JTG-Daugherty Racing: Just when you think this team is on Death's doorstep, they keep coming back. After scaling down to one car this season driven by Ricky Stenhouse Jr, they are now looking to sign a one-year extension for the Missippi driver. It will be interesting to see what’s next for this team.
- Wood Brothers Racing: The Last team, I will go over is Wood Brothers racing. This has been a tough go for NASCAR’s oldest team, their rookie driver Harrison Burton has had a rough rookie season. Luckly though, the team has strong backing from Ford and Penske Racing so I don’t see them going anywhere. They will look to continue to build around Harrison and getting him to where he needs to be for the immediate future.