by Patrick Zier | Jun 27, 2025 |
Few would dispute that Denny Hamlin gets more out of his ability then any driver in NASCAR. His work ethic, his attention to detail and his drive to succeed make him the premier driver in the sport.
And that’s true even though Hamlin is closing in on 45 and at a point in his career when most drivers start tailing off. But if anything, at least right now, advancing age has pushed Hamlin to hone his competitive instincts even more, to prove to himself and others he’s still the best there is at what he does.
Heading to Atlanta this weekend, NASCAR has Hamlin third in its standings with 545 points, putting him behind William Byron (623) and Kyle Larson (569). But the NASCAR system is based on finishing races, not competing in them.
The Old Guy Sport competition index more accurately reflects how Hamlin has performed this year. Hamlin leads the competition index, which only awards points for laps led under green and top five finishes, with 364 points. Larson, with 301, is second and Christopher Bell, with 269, is third.
And, in the last five races (four actually because Hamlin skipped Mexico City to be present at the birth of his son), Hamlin has scored a whopping 146 points including a win at Michigan, a second at Pocono and a third at Nashville. And at Charlotte, he led more laps under green than anybody except Byron, who completely dominated the race although he didn’t win.
“It’s just the way I’m wired, it’s the way I’ve always been,” Hamlin said after the Michigan win according to NASCAR.com. “I don’t know if I’ve always been this way,” he continued, amplifying his remarks. “But certainly over the last 10, 15 years I’ve been this way where I’m just really addicted to the process, the process of being good.
“It’s become harder and harder every single year,” Hamlin went on. “The process changes every year, what it takes to excel.”
If Hamlin is not the most physically gifted competitor on the track, he is probably the smartest. And he is almost certainly the hardest working. He spends hours on the racing simulator to perfect his skills.
As he has gotten older, Hamlin realized that to stay on top he’s needed to find an edge, a way to utilize his experience to gain an advantage. Hamlin doesn’t just drive with his hands and feet, he uses his head as well. He is thoroughly prepared. He knows what he can do. He knows what his race car can do. And he knows what to expect on the track.
“I’m racing guys, some of ’em pretty much half my age, and they’re so good,” Hamlin said. “They’re really, really good. It’s really gratifying when I know I can run with ’em and I know I can beat ’em.
“It just feels really good to 20 years later (after he started Cup racing) still feel like this is the best I’ve ever been,” Hamlin said. “You have another birthday. You keep wondering how long are you going to be able to do this at this level.
“Listen, 57 (the number of races Hamlin has won so far) might be it. None of us know. I’m going to enjoy it (the Michigan win) as if it’s my last. Then I’ll go to work on Monday just like I always have.
“I don’t ever want to be so ho-hum with winning that it becomes boring because then I lose my drive. It feels good because I’m going to hate it when I’m not at the level I’m at now,” Hamlin commented.
“I certainly will retire very quickly after that. I’m not going to hang around and do it just to do it,” He added. “This is how I want to spend my last season; still winning, you know?”
Right now, there is no sign Hamlin is slowing down, no indication he will be getting out of his car for good anytime soon. In fact if he keeps this up, who knows? Some of the kids he’s beating now may be gone before he is.
NASCAR NOTES
No race this week. The Old Guy Sport competition index does not include races at Atlanta, Daytona and Talladega because you can’t race on those tracks. Two things determine how you finish. First, you must avoid the big wreck, which can happen at any time and anyplace and is something totally out of your control.
Second, you must be in the right lane at the right time on the last lap because you can’t pass by yourself. You can be leading the race coming out of the fourth turn and if two or three cars behind you move down and break the draft, you can go from first to 20th with no chance to win even if you have the best car.
OGS competition index top 10 going into Atlanta: 1-Denny Hamlin, 364 points; 2-Kyle Larson, 301; 3-Christopher Bell, 269; 4-William Byron, 237; 5-Ryan Blaney, 211; 6-Chase Briscoe, 168; 7-Ross Chastain, 102; 8-Bubba Wallace, 93; 9-Chase Elliott, 92; 10-Joey Logano 91.
by Patrick Zier | Jun 11, 2025 |
Ty Gibbs wanted to race. His team told him “No.”
Welcome to the new NASCAR, where technology, engineering and analytics dictate whether you race or ride. In part, that’s because of a NASCAR point system that rewards you for finishing races, not competing in them.
This means that to a certain extent, drivers no longer control their own destiny. Depending on circumstances, a race strategy is formulated in the pits which projects the best possible outcome and is passed on to the driver, who simply follows instructions.
In Gibbs’ case, this meant conserving fuel at the end of the race at Michigan so he could move up when his competition ran out. And it worked. Gibbs finished third, his best showing of the season, and another JGR driver, Denny Hamlin, won the race using the same strategy.
Gibbs, though, wasn’t happy. Just 22 and now in his third year on the cup circuit, Gibbs is considered somewhat of a prodigy and he wants to win.
“I was going to go until we ran out of fuel,” Gibbs said according to NASCAR’s website. “That was my plan. I think a win is more important than third. It’s good to have a good finish, for sure. Good to have a good day, a good comeback. We started out very horrible. Glad we could come back and get better.
“I’m definitely upset,” he continued. “We work hard to come out here and win. It’s definitely frustrating. It’s unfortunate because I feel like we had the capability to do it. I feel like we showed we were fast enough to do it,” Gibbs said.
Using the Old Guy Sport competition index as a measurement rather than NASCAR’s point system, Gibbs made tremendous improvement from 2023, his first year in Cup when he scored just 61 points, to 2024, when he had 239 including seven top fives. That was good enough for 10th in the OGS competition index final standings. But there were no wins.
In some ways, Gibbs’ approach is a throwback to another time, when drivers just mashed the gas and went all out all the time. In their minds, there were only two possible finishes, first place and no-place.
It’s different now. For one thing, aerodynamics is critical to any team’s success and because of the inability to pass in the NextGen car, getting and staying up front is key to maximizing aerodynamic efficiency.
When you’re up front, air flows smoothly over, under and around the car, making it more stable. In addition, the air coming out from under the car swirls into the trailing car, upsetting its balance.
And because the NextGen cars have low horsepower and slow throttle response, that makes it difficult to pass the lead car without using up your tires. So, once out front in clean air, the lead car can run a comfortable pace without going all out and control the race.
This has led to a new dynamic in NASCAR, where any car that can get the lead tends to stay in the lead. Of the 15 Cup races so far, one driver has led over half the race five times and in four more, one driver has led almost half.
At Martinsville, Denny Hamlin led 274 of 400 laps. At Darlington, William Byron led 243 of 293. At Bristol, Kyle Larson led 411 of 500 and at Kansas, he led 221 of 267. And Byron led 283 of 400 at Charlotte.
Then there were the guys who came close. Kyle Busch, who has really struggled the past two years at Richard Childress Racing, led 42 of 95 laps at Austin, TX, in the first race of the season. He has only led 20 laps since.
Ryan Blaney led 124 of 267 at Homestead and 139 of 300 at Nashville, and Byron led 98 of 200 at Michigan.
Given all that, NASCAR teams have had to totally re-think pit stops. Since it’s so tough to pass on the track, the best way to get to the front is to do something different when you pit.
So teams will short pit, meaning they will bring the car in before they need to hoping fresh tires will get it to the front while the rest of the field is on old tires, or take two tires or no tires in an effort to get the lead.
Because in NASCAR now, track position is everything. You can run your race while everybody behind you is scrambling.
It’s not a guarantee you’re going to win, but it’s as close to one as you can get; of the five drivers who have led more than half the laps in a race, three finished first and two were second.
As for Gibbs, he’s headed for Mexico City and the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez road course this week along with everybody else in the Cup series. And if he gets a call from the pits to conserve fuel, he’ll probably do it. That doesn’t mean he has to like it, though.
NASCAR NOTES
Three most likely winners a Mexico City: 1-Christopher Bell, 2-William Byron, 3-Tyler Reddick. Last year’s winner at Mexico City: No race. Top five in last year’s race at Mexico City: No race.
Last week’s Old Guy Sport Michigan picks: 1-Byron, 2-Denny Hamlin, 3-Kyle Larson. Michigan winner: Hamlin. OGS season record: 6-6.
OGS competition index top 10 after 12 races: 1-Hamlin 314 points, 2-Larson 301, 3-Byron 237, 4-Bell 228, 5-Blaney 180, 6-Ross Chastain 102, Chase Briscoe 102, 8-Bubba Wallace 93, 9-Joey Logano 90, 10-Josh Berry 83.
OGS competition index top 10 on road courses (tracks similar to Mexico City): 1-Bell 54 points, 2-Byron 40, 3-Reddick 35, 4-Kyle Busch 28, 5-Chase Elliott 20, 6-Shane van Gisbergen 11, 7-Wallace 2, Ryan Preece 2.
by Patrick Zier | Jun 8, 2025 |
Justin Marks, owner of Trackhouse Racing, was commenting on his team’s status after his driver, Ross Chastain, had just won Charlotte’s Coca-Cola 600. Chastain’s win was a breakthrough of sorts, one for the little guys.
In NASCAR, the little guys are all the teams that compete against the sport’s big three, Rick Hendrick Motorsports, Joe Gibbs Racing and Team Penske, who dominate stock car racing.
There have been 14 races so far this year and the big three had won 12 straight until Chastain stopped the streak at Charlotte. The big three quickly re-established themselves though, Penske’s Ryan Blaney winning at Nashville last week.
And it’s expected one of their drivers will win again Sunday at Michigan and the next week in Mexico City and the next week after that, because going in, one of the big three is always expected to win.
The NextGen car, introduced in 2022, was supposed to change that and for a while it looked like it might. In the past, what mainly separated the big three from everybody else was the level of sponsorship and factory support they got and the ability to basically build their own cars.
The other teams, lacking the financial resources and personnel of the big three, didn’t have the technical expertise to craft aerodynamic bodies and downforce where fractions of inches could mean the difference between being competitive and staying stuck in the back of the pack.
But with the NextGen car, everybody got the same parts and pieces and NASCAR mandated that they could not be altered in any way. So, when the car was introduced and was basically new to everybody, the smaller teams had a shot. In 2022, the little guys won 14 of the 36 races. And they won 14 more in 2023.
But even then, things were changing as the big three started to regain the advantage. Since the NextGen cars couldn’t be altered, research and development, looking for some way to get an edge, became extremely important.
And when you have hundreds of employees and state-of-the art technology, your chances of finding something are much better than someone who doesn’t have access to that kind of equipment or the time or personnel to work with it.
And slowly, the big three are starting to flex their muscles again, Last year, the little guys won 10 of 36 races, a dip from the two years before. And as we start closing in on the mid-point of the season in 2025, Chastain’s win stands alone. It seems the big guys are back.
“We don’t have the speed we’ve had the last couple years,” Marks said according to nascar.com. “The sport kind of ebbs and flows and teams have periods of a lot of winning and then get passed by and kind of have to regroup or re-engineer the team to get back. That’s kind of where we are right now,” Marks added.
Trackhouse is a relative newcomer to the NASCAR scene but it’s made a pretty big splash. In fact, you can make a strong case that the two best little guys in NASCAR are two of its newest teams, Trackhouse and 23XI.
Despite the fact that it is virtually an independent, it gets no help from Chevy and is not aligned with any of the big three although it does get engines from the ECR (Earnhardt Childress Racing) and Hendrick, Trackhouse has been competitive.
That’s not the norm though. The best little guy teams usually have some kind of factory backing and/or alliances with one of the big three. Like 23XI, for example. It has a technical alliance with Gibbs and is supported by Toyota.
There are 15 teams that compete regularly in the NASCAR Cup series, the three big guys and 12 little guys, but of those 12, very few are competitive, maybe five or six at most, and of that group Trackhouse and 23XI clearly stand out.
Since the NextGen car was introduced in 2022, the little guys have won 39 races. Trackhouse has won nine of those and 23XI seven. Combined, that’s 41 percent of the total.
Richard Childress Racing has won eight, but it has been in steady decline, gotten worse every year since the NextGen car was introduced, and of the six little guy teams ranked by the Old Guy Sport competition index, it sits last this year with a pathetic 29 points, and 28 of those came in the first race of the season.
Chastain has opened the door for more little guy victories in 2025, but they’re getting harder to come by as the big three try to slam it shut. We’ll just have to wait and see if one of them can win again. Frankly, the odds are against it but especially in racing, never say never.
NASCAR NOTES
Three most likely winners at Michigan: 1-William Byron, 2-Denny Hamlin, 3-Kyle Larson. Last year’s winner at Michigan: Tyler Reddick. Top five at Michigan last year: 1-Reddick, 2-Byron, 3-Ty Gibbs, 4-Kyle Busch, 5-Ron Keselowski.
Last week’s Old Guy Sport picks: 1-Larson, 2-Christopher Bell, 3-Byron. Nashville winner: Ryan Blaney. OGS record: 5-6.
OGS competition index top 10 after Nashville: 1-Larson 291 points, 2-Hamlin 263, 3-Bell 228, 4-Byron 214, 5-Blaney 179, 6-Ross Chastain 102, 7-Chase Briscoe 99, 8-Joey Logano 90, 9-Josh Berry 83, 10-Bubba Wallace 73.
OGS competition index on intermediate tracks (tracks similar to Michigan): 1-Larson 176, 2-Blaney 164, 3-Byron 163, 4-Hamlin 108, 5-Chastain 102, 6-Briscoe 79, 7-Logano 78, 8-Bell 71, 9-Berry 59, 10=Alex Bowman 58.
by Patrick Zier | Jun 5, 2025 |
Locklan Hewlett is, right now, the No.3 quarterback on South Florida’s football team, so if everything goes according to plan, meaning if Byrum Brown stays healthy, you probably won’t hear from him this year. But that doesn’t mean you won’t hear from him.
Hewlett, a 6-foot-1, 190-pounder out of St. Augustine high, has already gotten the attention of the USF coaching staff even though he is just a freshman and hasn’t played a down in competition.
But he did play in USF’s spring game, sharing time with Bryce Archie, Brown’s back-up, and completing 13-of-14 passes for 110 yards and three touchdowns as Brown, still in somewhat of a healing mode after suffering a lower leg injury last year, was held out just to be on the safe side.
The spring game was just a sample of the kind of talent Hewlett displayed in high school, where he was a three-year starter and threw for 7,917 yards over the course of his career, including his senior season when he was 198-of-298, 66 percent, for 2,910 yards with 31 touchdowns and nine interceptions.
Rated as the No.52 quarterback in the country in On3’s industry rankings, Hewlett was sought by several schools including Miami, Pitt and Texas A-M before signing with Wake Forest.
But then, he decommitted from Wake Forest and switched to USF. According to On3, Hewlett said he decided on Wake Forest early in his recruitment and didn’t give himself enough time to think things through and that USF was a better fit.
“They play with tempo and play fast and that’s my style,” Hewlett told On3. “The future is really bright here,” he continued. “People are still sitting (on USF) but they’ll be awake soon,” Hewlett added.
Going into the season, USF is in an interesting position. The Bulls open against Boise State, which made the College Football Playoffs last year and is generally considered the standard by which other Group of 5 teams are judged.
Win that game and suddenly, USF has a chance to break out of the pack, move away from mediocrity to big boy status. Anything would be possible, even being the Group of 5 representative in the CFP. While that would still be a longshot, it would be possible.
Much of that, particularly on offense, would depend on Brown, and what happens to Brown will go a long way toward determining what happens to Hewlett. If Brown avoids injury, USF has a chance to make a serious run and Hewlett remains in the background, at least for this year.
But Hewlett has already shown enough so that if he continues to develop, he could pass Archie, a steady workman-like player who has experience but lacks Hewlett’s upside, as the team’s No.2 quarterback.
Right now, the plan would be to get Hewlett into four games, which would allow him to preserve his redshirt season and leave him with four years of eligibility.
But if Brown were to go down again USF might see Hewlett as giving it the best chance to win, particularly if it were in contention for a major bowl or post season play.
“Just in terms of attention to detail and the growth he has made as a young quarterback, for a young guy that just got here, man, he continues to be really, really special in a lot of ways,” USF Coach Alex Golesh said after the spring game.
“He’s a little baller and he’s fun to coach and we’ll see how his progression goes,” Golesh continued. “But I think he’s got a really bright future here.” The question is whether the future is now.
Even Archie, who played solidly as Brown’s replacement last year and, in some ways, saved USF’s season, has picked up positive vibes from Hewlett.
“He did nothing but come here and work,” Archie commented. “He didn’t really care about anything else. He was in the facility as much as I was. I’d get back from baseball practice (In addition to football, Archie is a pitcher on the USF baseball team) and he’d just be coming back from meetings with one of the coaches and I think that just showed on the field.
“Really, he came to the first practice; you know a lot of guys just expect a young quarterback to come in and just kind of look mediocre,” Archie said. “He didn’t.
“He came in and executed and I think it wowed a lot of people, even the coaches. He just put his head down and worked and it shows every day on the field.”
Without question, Brown is USF’s big gun. He has the ability to be one of the best quarterbacks in the country and that ability is going to get him noticed by Power 4 teams. If he has a big year, he could hit the transfer portal and if he leaves, then the quarterback spot is open and Hewlett just might fill it.
And while he may not be the next Byrum Brown, maybe he won’t have to be. Maybe being Locklan Hewlett will be good enough.
