Gentlemen, start your season.
Or, in the words of Owensboro Oracle: Boogity-boogity-boogity.
Time to start determining who’s got what it takes to maneuver the Cup Series’ regular season and perhaps hit the playoff on-ramp with a full head of steam.
Let’s go racin’ …
Huh, what’s that? Oh, sure, we’re three weeks deep into the 2025 schedule, which is a full twelfth of the way to the season’s finish line (Math!). But the fact is, we still don’t know much, not after two plate-races and a road course.
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After Sunday in Austin, we do know Shane van Gisbergen isn’t gonna run the road-course table, and we also know Ross Chastain is still capable of a damn-the-torpedoes moment. But as for who’s holding a strong hand, who needs to pluck an ace from his sleeve, and who might need to fold and wait for a new deal?
As they say: Nobody knows nothin’.
But we will, and soon. Grab a gear and find out why …
First Gear: All ovals for a while, and no speed limits!
The Cup Series schedule includes six different road courses and six “plate-races” — two each at Daytona, Talladega and Atlanta, where the horsepower-sapping rules make it anybody’s ballgame.
Good chunk of the schedule right there, but it still leaves 24 races on a variety of ovals between a half-mile and 2½ miles in length. All without the need for speed governors or right-hand turns.
Over the next six Sundays, we get enough oval variety to give a real clue about 2025’s real contenders: Phoenix, Las Vegas, Homestead, Martinsville, Darlington, Bristol.
Peruse the south side of the Week 3 points standings and you’ll see some guys who should be ready to move along to the more traditional stock-car offerings. That list includes Ty Gibbs (35th in points), Daniel Suarez (29th), Brad Keselowski (26th) and Ross Chastain (20th).
Speaking of Ross the Boss …
Second Gear: Quite an opening statement from Ross Chastain
Chastain is coming off a downer of a 2024 season. Worse yet, he wrecked out of Daytona and finished 40th to start this year. Then ended up eighth after the dust cleared at Atlanta.
At the Circuit of the Americas, he wasted no time in trying to turn around his fortunes. Instead, he jammed his No. 1 Chevy deep into the first turn of the first lap — a hairpin, by the way — and turned around the No. 9 Chevy of Chase Elliott, among others.
It led to some enjoyable and enlightening back-and-forth on the radio between Chase and his irritated crew chief, Alan Gustafson. At first, Chase wondered if he possibly did something wrong. Nope, said Alan, who appeared ready to take the wheel himself.
Alan: “When we get a chance to send ’em, we’re sending that 1 car.”
Chase: “That’s totally fine. I’ll do what I need to do, but I just need to make sure I wasn’t in the wrong before I do it.”
That’s calm and cool hit-man stuff from Chase right there. But when the time for payback came, six laps from the end with the No. 9 closing in on the No. 1, Chastain was aware of what his mirror was telling him, and basically aborted — he slowed dramatically and cleared the way for Chase to pass and, eventually, take a hard-earned fourth-place finish.
Third Gear: Oh, by the way, Christopher Bell won again
Reckon we should finally mention Christopher Bell? All he’s done is win two in a row, you know.
Bell’s two wins come after a long run of unrewarded decency dating back to last season. His third win of 2024 came at the season’s midway point, Week 18 at New Hampshire. Didn’t win again the rest of the way but damn sure challenged.
He had back-to-back thirds to end the regular season, and once in the playoffs, finished seventh or better in eight of the 10 races. And now, after Sunday, he’s confirmed himself as an upper-rung favorite heading into road courses until further notice.
In 11 road-course starts dating back to the 2022 playoffs, he’s had two wins, two runners-up and eight overall top-10s.
Fourth Gear: Too early to talk playoff fixes? Apparently not
Did you know NASCAR held a “playoff committee” meeting a few weeks back at Daytona?
No? So it wasn’t just my invitation that went to spam.
Did you know NASCAR has a new in-house podcast called “Hauler Talk”? Just learned that, too. On a recent pod, talk turned to the Daytona playoff meeting and the variety of opinions out there about either tweaking or overhauling the playoff system, which has been nipped and tucked like an aging Hollywood prima donna.
A current and popular angle says the final winner-take-all, as we have at Phoenix among the top four drivers, isn’t exactly the fairest way to crown a champ. No offense, Joey (maybe). So there’s some talk of perhaps ending things with, say, a three-race final playoff leg among however many drivers is deemed appropriate.
Since nobody asked, I’ll have to push it out there on my own …
∎ 15 playoff drivers.
∎ Nine playoff races.
∎ Cut five drivers after three races, five more after the next three.
∎ The remaining five battle through the final three races, either with the normal points format, or maybe a format that further rewards a race win.
You’re welcome.
If you don’t like cutting a playoff race, make it a 12-race playoff with 16 drivers and cut three times (four each cut) after each three-race leg, and leave four to race for the Cup over the final three races.
And I know what you’re thinking, but tell Uncle Ed they’re never going back to the season-long points chase without playoffs.
— Email Ken Willis at ken.willis@news-jrnl.com
This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: NASCAR on to ovals, Bell tolls, Chase dumped, and here’s a playoff fix
