Michael Jordan has the cash. Denny Hamlin has the expertise. And Toyota, through Joe Gibbs Racing, has the cars. Put them all together and you get 23XI Racing, which combines Michael Jordan’s NBA number(23) and Hamlin’s car number to get its name (Hamlin’s still racing for Gibbs, even though he’s part owner of another team).
In NASCAR, 23XI is kind of the Hendrick Motorsports of the teams and drivers a level below the Big Three – Hendrick, Gibbs and Penske, the best of the rest if you will. That’s because it has, or has access to, the same kind of resources that make the Big Three the Big Three. And that’s rare at this level.
Jordan is the front man, a guy who still has star power and the ability to keep the money flowing. Hamlin knows how to build a winning organization, what the team needs to be successful and how to put it together. And 23XI and Gibbs are joined at the hip, which means the 23XI Toyotas are very competitive. In fact, with 23XI adding a third driver this year, it will be interesting to see how it compares with the Big Three.
Essentially, the second tier is composed of 23XI, RFK Racing, Richard Childress Racing and Trackhouse with Front Row and Spire Motorsports joining them this year. Front Row and Spire have been around a while and haven’t done much, but with more support from Ford and Chevy, respectively, they hope to be improved.
Putting them aside for the moment, the other teams have had varying degrees of success since the Next-Gen car came on line in 2022. As might be expected, 23XI has run the best. Using the OldGuySport competition index as a guide, 23XI, after a slow start with just 304 points in 2022, jumped to 472 in 2023 and 534 last year. Next best has been RFK, with 165 in 2022, 306 in 2023 and 484 last year.
The two Chevy teams, Trackhouse and RCR, both got off to hot starts; Trackhouse was No. 1 among the four teams in 2022 with 579 points and RCR No. 2 with 479, but both have collapsed in the interim and the deterioration of RCR, with the glory years of Dale Earnhardt now a distant memory, is especially concerning.
While RCR as an organization was already in a state of decline, that was covered up in 2022 by the success of Tyler Reddick and in 2023 by the performance of Kyle Busch. Reddick scored 386 points on the OGS competition index, second only to Trackhouse’s Ross Chastain, who had 410. Notably, Reddick had 205 on the intermediate tracks, tops among drivers on the four tier two teams. He also had three wins. That was the most by an RCR driver since Kevin Harvick won four in 2013.
In 2023, Reddick moved to 23XI where he has become one of the best drivers in the sport at any level and far better than anyone in tier two. His 439 OGS competition index points in 2024 were more, by themselves, than any team in NASCAR outside of the Big Three – Hendrick, Gibbs and Penske – And RFK Racing, which had 484.
Meanwhile RCR and Busch are scrambling to pick up the pieces. After 2022, when the Next-Gen car was introduced and RCR finished strong with 429 points, it fell to 317 in 2023 and just 153 last year. Busch, who had 313 points and three wins in 2023, dipped to just 99 and no wins in 2024.
Childress made some in-house changes after 2024, but it mostly involved shuffling people in the organization around. Busch has been careful not to be overly critical of RCR, but he is in a contract year and could leave if things don’t pick up. The problem is, he doesn’t seem to have anyplace better to go. And at 39, he wouldn’t be a long term fix for anybody.
In what is another problem for Childress, his team is the only one at a tier one or tier two level that doesn’t have at least three cars. But whether adding another team would help rejuvenate this organization is an open question.
At the opposite end of the spectrum is RFK Racing, which was built on the foundation laid by Jack Roush. Fenway Sports Group, which owns the Boston Red Sox among other properties, and driver Brad Keselowski comprise the rest of the ownership group.
This team has simply taken off in the Nest-Gen era. It went from 165 OGS points in 2022 to 306 in 2023 and 484 last year. That was only 50 points less than 23XI, which sets the standard in tier two. Steady Chris Buescher, whose 205 points placed him 10th among all drivers in the OGS competition index in 2023 and who was 11th with 220 in 2024 has been the team leader.
Owner/driver Keselowski, now 40, doesn’t have a lot of time left and tapered off at the end of 2024, but he still totaled 248 points, eighth overall on the OGS competition index. Even more significantly, he had 198, fourth best, on the all important intermediate tracks.
The team added a third driver this year, Ryan Preece from the old Stewart-Haas team. Preece has never been competitive although in fairness, most of his career has been spent in second class equipment.
“We’ve had an amazing offseason,” Keselowski said during Fox TV’s preseason production days as reported by Bob Pockrass. “With adding a third team, that’s brought a lot of people with new ideas, fresh ideas, that we’ve been able to see some immediate gains out of, at least from what we can tell without being at the track.”
So, after reviewing the tier two teams, which drivers are likely to dominate in 2025? Since Reddick and Buescher have both been included in our overall top 10, neither are ranked here. The tier two top 10:
1-Ross Chastain, Trackhouse: Chastain is a solid veteran who was ranked as the fifth most competitive driver in the sport in 2023. If he regains his short track form, he will be tough.
2-Brad Keselowski, RFK: Keselowski has a top tier two car and seems enthused about his and his teams chances this season. Like Chastain, he has to run better on the short tracks.
3-Shane van Gisbergen, Trackhouse: An experienced veteran who dominated on New Zealand ovals, he won his first time out in NASCAR, winning the Chicago street race in 2023. He ran in the Xfinity Series last year and is a quick learner.
4-Kyle Busch, RCR: There is no one in this group with more talent or experience in first class equipment than Busch. If RCR gives him any kind of a decent ride, he’ll dominate. The car is the problem here, not the driver.
5-Bubba Wallace, 23XI: Wallace has been decent, but should be running better. He has not really been as competitive as he should be in a car this good and has gotten steadily less competitive each year of the Nest-Gen era.
6-Josh Berry, Wood Brothers Racing: This team is aligned with Penske, which hasn’t meant much in the past. But if you give Berry a competitive car he will get the most out of it. He deserves a better ride than this.
7-Riley Herbst, 23XI: Team owner Denny Hamlin thinks he’s got the goods, but he’s very inexperienced.
8-Daniel Suarez, Trackhouse: There’s not much to chose from among these last three. Suarez won on a road course in 2022 with this car and has shown flashes on intermediate tracks.
9-Michael McDowell, Spire: In what’s kind of a head scratcher, McDowell moved from Front Row, which is supposed to be getting tier one support from Ford this year, to Spire, which is ambitious but not very successful. Like Suarez, McDowell has a road course win in this car, in 2023.
10-Eric Jones, Legacy: Jones is still young and once drove for Joe Gibbs racing. He won in the Next-Gen car at Darlington in 2022 and is trying to revive his career. Legacy won’t help him much.
