by Patrick Zier | Mar 24, 2026 |
Tyler Reddick is the talk of the town, or at least the center of conversation, in NASCAR nation right now. Four wins in six starts will do that for you. And it has led to a lot of speculation over where Reddick and the 23XI team stand in relation to the Big Three, Gibbs, Hendrick and Penske.
Just six years old, 23XI, owned by Denny Hamlin and Michael Jordan, is unquestionably making waves beyond its years. But they’re not big enough to wash over Gibbs, Hendrick and Penske. Because right now, 23XI is a one trick pony.
To be really competitive with the Big Three, you need to have outstanding leadership and direction at the top, the best people building and preparing your cars, and drivers who consistently perform at a high level.
Hamlin, whose many years with Gibbs give him an insight into how an elite organization is run, and Jordan, who has had unparalleled success in the NBA, provide the necessary leadership.
Whether or not 23XI has developed enough skilled engine builders, mechanics, fabricators, data processors, etc, to compete at an elite level is still open to question, and it definitely has to improve the talent behind the wheel. Reddick can’t hold 23XI up by himself.
That said, if you look around, 23XI is still in the best position to eventually put itself on a par with the Big Three. For a while Trackhouse, owned by Justin Marks, was considered the Cup team most likely to make a move.
But Trackhouse does not appear to have the necessary resources to consistently compete with the Big Three, and in fact its performance has declined in recent years.
For one thing, it gets limited help from Chevrolet, while 23XI has a working agreement and full backing from Toyota through Joe Gibbs Racing.
And as the Big Three have improved the performance of their Next Gen cars, Trackhouse, a much smaller operation, has struggled. The best example of that is Ross Chastain, who has always been Trackhouse’s lead driver.
In 2023, Chastain scored 385 points on the Old Guy Sport competition index and finished fifth overall in the standings. The OGS competition index is being used instead of the NASCAR point system because it rewards racing, not finishing, which is still the primary criteria for NASCAR.
But Trackhouse immediately began falling off after that, as Chastain’s OGS totals indicate. In 2024, he fell to 183 points and in 2025, he was down to 124. This year, he has just two points after four races (OGS does not count superspeedways in its totals because winning on a superspeedway, like Daytona or Atlanta,, is basically a matter of luck.)
Meanwhile, led by Reddick, 23XI is thriving. Reddick did not perform well in 2025 when he scored just 154 points, but several things beyond his control, including too many mistakes on and off the track and poor decision making by the team as a whole, contributed to that.
Still, as mentioned, if 23XI is going to take the next step, it has to have more than one competent wheelman. Bubba Wallace, the first driver signed by 23XI, has been solid but not spectacular and doesn’t seem to be improving. Riley Herbst is new this year and is having trouble getting going.
Astute as ever, Hamlin has no illusions as to where his team stands. On his Actions Detrimental podcast, Hamlin was clear about where 23XI is now and what it needs to do if it is truly going to challenge the Big Three.
To be on a par with Gibbs, Hendrick and Penske, Hamlin said 23XI must have “long term, sustained success with multiple drivers. That’s the simplest definition I can give you.
“We’re in the neighborhood,” Hamlin continued. “We’ve got the framing up. Foundation’s built. The sticks are going up. Walls, roof are soon to follow,”
Hamlin added.
In other words, 23XI still has a ways to go, but it’s getting there. After he won the race at Darlington, Reddick was asked if 23XI was now at the same level as the Big Three.
“I’ll let y’all figure that out,” Reddick replied according to NASCAR’s website. “We’ll just keep working hard and winning races, and we’ll let you guys (the media) figure that part out. I don’t need to say anything about it.”
NASCAR NOTES
Three most likely winners at Martinsville: 1-Christopher Bell, 2-Kyle Larson, 3-Ryan Blaney. Last year’s winner in Martinsville spring race: Denny Hamlin. Top five in Martinsville spring race last year: 1-Hamlin, 2-Bell, 3-Bubba Wallace, 4-Chase Elliott, 5-Larson.
Last week’s Darlington picks: 1-Bell, 2-Larson, 3-Hamlin. Darlington winner: Tyler Reddick. Old Guy Sport record after four races, 2-2.
OGS competition index top 10: 1-Reddick 138 points, 2-Bell 115, 3-Hamlin 86, 4-Blaney 84, 5-Brad Keselowski 63, 6-Ty Gibbs 52, 7-Larson 43, 8-Shane van Gisbergen 41, Elliott 41, 10-William Byron 35.
OGS competition index top 10 on short tracks (tracks most similar to Martinsville): 1-Bell 61, 2-Blaney 53, 3-Larson 30, 4-Gibbs 20, 5-Hamlin 11, Joey Logano 11, 7-Ryan Preece 1.
by Patrick Zier | Mar 21, 2026 |
It still stings. Even after Denny Hamlin’s big win at Las Vegas Sunday – and it was a big win, huge even – the disappointment still lingers. For Hamlin and his crew chief, Chris Gayle, it bubbled to the surface once again while the two were celebrating Hamlin’s 61st career victory.
It was a monumental achievement. It moved Hamlin out of a tie with Kevin Harvick on NASCAR’s all-time winners list and put him in sole possession of 10th place.
Just ahead is Kyle Busch with 63 wins and Hamlin could very well pass him before the season ends because outside of the superspeedways, Busch has no realistic shot at winning anyplace else.
And that has nothing to do with the driver and everything to do with Richard Childress Racing, which no longer builds cars that can contend and win races on regular tracks.
“It’s very gratifying because I saw, like, the legendary Mount Rushmore guys, I’ve raced against them,” Hamlin said of his 61st win, according to NASCAR’s website.
Hamlin was referring to Hall of Famers Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson. Gordon is third all-time in wins with 93. Johnson is tied for sixth with 83 along with Cale Yarborough. “I think probably there’s at least two on Mount Rushmore I got to race against and I know how good they are,” Hamlin added.
“Winning your first race of the season is always gratifying,” Hamlin continued. “I’m no fool. I know my reactions are deteriorating. There’s all kinds of things that are deteriorating.
“Father Time is undefeated,” Hamlin, who will be 46 Nov. 18th, remarked. “Three months is a long time to be off. It’s like ‘Okay, am I still at the level that I was last year?’
“Today (last Sunday) confirmed that nothing has changed, which is really good” Hamlin said. “It’s a good sign. We’re still able to do it (race) at a really, really high level. So it’s just gratifying to me that I’m still getting it done at this age.”
But then you look up and there’s that black cloud again. The 2025 NASCAR championship that Hamlin deserved to win and should have won but lost because of NASCAR’s convoluted points system.
The Old Guy Sport competition index, which is a much better measure of how good teams are because it rewards racing over finishing, the primary criteria in the NASCAR points system, had Hamlin as the clear winner in 2025 with 677 points. Kyle Larson, NASCAR’s champ, was second with 530.
Four drivers entered the final race at Phoenix with a shot at the NASCAR title, and Hamlin dominated on the track, leading 208 of the 319 laps. But when Gale opted for a four-tire change instead of two on the last pit stop, Hamlin, who had come in first, lost track position and went out 10th, and he simply didn’t have enough time to make up the ground he had lost.
“We didn’t talk about it,” Hamlin, who has never won a championship, commented on NASCAR’s website. “If we did it was like 15 seconds. I think he might have…like I said, I don’t care,” Hamlin continued.
“It’s fine. I don’t need any explanation,” Hamlin went on. “We’re going to win and lose together. It’s been an absolute pleasure to work with Chris Gayle for these seven wins over the course of these 40 races or so we’ve been together.
“He’s just a great guy,” Hamlin said. “So underrated in what he does. I’m glad he’s getting the wins now that he deserves.”
For Gayle, it was tougher. He knew his four-tire call had cost Hamlin a championship. “Leaving Phoenix, that was probably the most dejected I’ve been in my life from a personal standpoint, from a business standpoint, right?” he said.
“I mean I probably sat around for three days rethinking everything I could have done. Then you go through those three days of where you’re kicking yourself. What are you going to do about it? You get over it.
“How am I going to react to this?” Gayle went on. “I could let it bother me forever. That’s not going to happen. I can move on, learn from it.
“In hindsight, seeing the bigger picture, putting it all on myself, I could have made some different decisions but…”
But last year is last year. This year, it looks like Gayle and Hamlin will get another chance, and this time maybe it will work out. Hamlin is as good as anybody at what he does and so is Gayle. They need to do this soon, though, because Father Time won’t wait forever.
NASCAR NOTES
Three most likely winners at Darlington: 1-Christopher Bell, 2-Kyle Larson, 3-Denny Hamlin. Last year’s winner of Darlington spring race: Hamlin. Top five in Darlington spring race: 1-Hamlin, 2-William Byron, 3-Bell, 4-Tyler Reddick, 5-Ryan Blaney.
Last week’s Old Guy Sport Vegas picks: 1-Hamlin, 2-Chase Briscoe, 3-Blaney. Vegas winner: Hamlin. OGS season record, 2-1.
OGS competition index top 10 after three races: 1-Bell 115 points, 2-Hamlin 86, 3-Reddick 75, 4-Blaney 54, 5-Ty Gibbs 52, 6-Shane van Gisbergen 41, Larson 41, 8-Chase Elliott 40, 9-Byron 35, 10-Michael McDowell 15.
OGS top 10 on intermediate tracks (tracks most like Darlington): 1-Hamlin 75, 2-Elliott 40, 3-Byron 34, 4-Bell 24, 5-Larson 11, 6-Gibbs 10, 7-Blaney 1, Logano 1, Brad Keselowski 1.
by Patrick Zier | Mar 14, 2026 |
Okay, let’s see now. Superspeedways? Check. Short tracks? Check. Intermediate tracks? Ch….aaah, maybe we better wait until after the race in Vegas before we call that one. Road courses? Ouch!
So, what’s all this, you ask? It’s a progress report on how Ford’s top Cup team, Penske Racing, is performing early in the season.
Ever since NASCAR went to the Next Gen car in 2022, Ford and Penske have struggled to get a handle on it. They ran pretty good on the superspeedways, but that tells you nothing because only two things matter on superspeedways, missing the “big wreck” and being in the right lane at the right time on the last lap. And that’s pure luck.
But wait a minute. Haven’t Penske and Ford won three out of the last four Cup championships? Yes, they have. All that indicates, though, is how much the NASCAR point system distorts what’s actually happening on the track. You don’t have to race to score points in NASCAR. You just have to finish the race.
This is evident when you look at the Old Guy Sport competition index, which rewards racing and leading laps under green, and compare Penske’s performance with Hendrick Motorsports and Joe Gibbs Racing, the other members of the “Big Three.” For our purposes, the Wood Brothers, Penske’s satellite team, is considered part of Penske to give them a fourth car.
And except for Ryan Blaney, Penske has simply not been competitive on the short and intermediate tracks, which host 26 of the 36 Cup races and are critical to any team’s success.
Take 2025. JGR scored 573 points on the short tracks, Hendrick 538 and Penske 467. Blaney, who may be the best driver in NASCAR right now, had 273, topping all drivers. Hamlin led JGR with 236 and William Byron had 192 for Hendrick.
On the intermediate tracks, JGR had 915 points, Hendrick 661 and Penske just 398. Hamlin led JGR and all drivers with 421 points, Larson had 300 for Hendrick and Blaney 220 for Penske.
As for the road courses, Penske is, well, horrible. Blaney was the only driver who had any points, 23. Since there are only four road courses on the schedule this year, though, Penske might survive with minimal improvement.
One thing is apparent from these numbers. Although he has won a championship, Blaney does not get nearly enough credit for being as good as he is.
This was evident at the start of this year when Blaney won the first short track race last Sunday at Phoenix. In fact with the exception of Austin Cindric, all the Penske cars plus Josh Berry in the Wood Brothers Ford ran extremely well, which could mean Ford is finally starting to turn the corner.
Blaney’s run at Phoenix was truly remarkable. On lap 94, he went into the pits third only to have to come back in because of a loose wheel. NASCAR penalized him and he went to the end of the lead lap which left him 24th.
He had fought his way back to 10th before pitting on lap 134 when again, his crew left a wheel loose, so he stopped in Joey Logano’s pit to fix it. Penalized once more, he went back to 38th.
On his last stop, with 25 to go, his crew went with a two tire change instead of four, Blaney came out of the pits third and went on to win the race. In all, he passed 49 cars.
“I kept the end goal in mind,” Blaney said in his post-race interview according to NASCAR’s website. “How do we get back to where we were? It (the loose wheels) happened early enough in the race to where we still had enough time to be able to try to get back up there. And we were able to do that.”
Now comes Las Vegas, an intermediate track, and except for Blaney, who qualified 6th, the Penske Fords are not off to an auspicious start. Joey Logano starts 21st, Cindric 31st and Berry 32nd.
If Ford is going to do anything this year, then somebody besides Blaney has got to step up. The intermediate tracks are critical to Penske – and Ford’s – success, and if only Blaney can go to the front, that doesn’t bode well for Ford, even if it has improved on the short tracks. Unless Penske can figure a way for Blaney to drive all his cars.
NASCAR NOTES
Three most likely winners at Las Vegas: 1-Denny Hamlin, 2-Chase Briscoe, 3-Ryan Blaney. Last year’s winner in spring race at Las Vegas: Josh Berry. Top five at Las Vegas last year: 1-Berry, 2-Dennis Suarez, 3-Ryan Preece, 4-William Byron, 5-Ross Chastain.
Last week’s Phoenix picks: 1-Blaney, 2-Byron, 3-Kyle Larson. Phoenix winner: Blaney. OGS season record, 1-1, .500.
Top 10 in OGS competition index after two races: 1-Christopher Bell 91 points, 2-Tyler Reddick 75, 3-Blaney 53, 4-Ty Gibbs 42, 5-Shane van Gisbergen 41, 6-Larson 30, 7-Michael McDowell 15, 8-Hamlin 11, Joey Logano 11, 10-
Briscoe 4.
Top 10 on intermediate tracks (tracks most similar to Las Vegas) last year: 1-Hamlin 421, 2-Briscoe 326, 3-Larson 300, 4-Blaney 220, 5-Byron 194, 6-Bubba Wallace 142, 7-Chase Elliott 103, 9-Chastain 102, 10-Logano 89.
by Patrick Zier | Mar 7, 2026 |
Denny Hamlin doesn’t want to be like Mike. He wants to be like Roger Penske. Or Rick Hendrick. Or Joe Gibbs. Mike, of course is Michael Jordan, who co-owns the 23XI Cup team along with Hamlin.
The 23XI team has been front and center in NASCAR so far this year thanks to Tyler Reddick, who has grabbed three straight checkered flags to start the season. In NASCAR’s 77-year history, nobody else has ever done that.
Although he was not the first driver Hamlin hired; that would be Bubba Wallace, Reddick is foundational to any chance Hamlin has of achieving his goal, which is building a team that can compete with the Big Three – Penske Racing, Hendrick Motorsports and Joe Gibbs Racing – on a consistent basis.
And despite the fact that Jordan has enough cash to make it happen and Hamlin has enough know-how to put together on organization that can compete with anybody, this will be a real challenge, just like Reddick’s chances of winning a fourth straight at Phoenix Sunday.
That’s because 23XI can’t match the depth that exists at Penske, Gibbs and Hendrick. All three have been at it a long time, and they have the best engineers, the best engine tuners, the best analytics analysts, the best shock specialists, etc.
Not to mention the most talented drivers and crew chiefs. At 23XI, only Reddick is competitive with the elite; he is one of the top 10 drivers in the sport, and Mike Wheeler, Hamlin’s former crew chief and an ex-JGR engineer, can hold his own, but 23XI simply doesn’t have depth necessary to compete with the Big Three.
To some extent, this does not show up in the NASCAR point standings because NASCAR still rewards finishing races more than it does competing in them, but as the Old Guy Sport competition index indicates – and even Hamlin admits to some of this – 23XI’s short track program is a disaster and while it’s a bit better on the intermediate tracks, it still has a long way to go to get any consistency.
“The big test is going to be when he (Reddick) goes to a track that he hasn’t had a ton of success at, Phoenix. That’s when we’re going to know whether this team has got – how big the momentum is – when they go out there to Phoenix and see what they’ve got,” Hamlin said after Reddick’s road course win at COTA according to NASCAR’s website.
“The one area that we continue to work on with him is on the short tracks. I think that’s where he can still improve a little bit,” Hamlin continued. That just might be the understatement of the year, because it applies not only to Reddick but to 23XI as a whole.
Unless 23XI can make major strides in its short and intermediate track programs, it has no chance of moving up, because 26 of the 36 Cup races are on intermediate or short tracks. And what’s disturbing is that, over the last three years, there has been no discernable improvement.
The only thing 23XI can point to is the ’24 season when Reddick won NASCAR’s regular season championship by dominating on the intermediate tracks. That year, Reddick finished fifth overall in the OGS competition index with 439 points, 334 of which were on intermediate ovals, by far the best in NASCAR.
But that has proven to be an anomaly. The 2025 season OGS competition index numbers show just how far behind 23XI really is. On the short tracks, the top three were: 1-Ryan Blaney 273, 2-Hamlin 236, 3-William Byron 192. Reddick scored five points and Wallace 42.
On the intermediate tracks, the top three were: 1-Hamlin 421, 2-Chase Briscoe 326, 3-Kyle Larson 300. Wallace scored 142 points and Reddick 83. And again, with the exception of Reddick’s run on the intermediate tracks in ’24, that’s representative of how the 23XI cars have performed throughout the Next-Gen era.
For his part, Hamlin is determined to turn this around, is firm in his belief that 23XI has the financial support and organizational resources needed to move up.
“When I started kicking around trying to find a race team that would let me buy in, none of them were going to give me the control I wanted,” Hamlin said according to NASCAR’s website.
“I don’t know what the word is for that, but I wanted to make sure if it failed, it was because of something I did, not someone else,” Hamlin said.
“When the stars aligned and we (he and Jordan) were able to start this and I was able to get him as a partner, I was just so appreciative of the fact that he said ‘okay, here’s my percent, here’s your percent, but you’re going to have to build it.
“‘You’re going to have to do the work. You’re the boots on the ground.’ That was what I wanted,” Hamlin declared. “Where I get the gratification is from building something from scratch.”
But the process is not always smooth. For example, many think adding a third car last year, driven by Corey Herbst, was a mistake.
The thought is that 23XI spread itself too thin. Herbst was a huge disappointment. He didn’t have a single top 10 finish and the effort to put him on the track may help account for the poor performances by Reddick and Wallace.
At any rate, if 23XI is to reach its goals, it still has a very long way to go and a hard climb to get there.
NASCAR NOTES
Three most likely winners at Phoenix: 1-Ryan Blaney, 2-William Byron, 3-Kyle Larson. Last year’s winner in the first race at Phoenix: Christopher Bell. Top five in the first race at Phoenix last year: 1-Bell, 2-Denny Hamlin, 3-Larson, 4-Josh Berry, 5-Chris Buescher.
Last week’s Old Guy Sport picks in race No.1 at COTA: 1-Shane van Gisbergen, 2-Christopher Bell, 3-Ryan Blaney. Last week’s winner at COTA: Tyler Reddick. OGS record: 0-1.
OGS competition index top 10 after one race: 1-Reddick 75, 2-van Gisbergen 41, 3-Bell 30, 4-Ty Gibbs 22, 5-Michael McDowell 15, 6-Chase Briscoe 4, 7-Ross Chastain 2, 8-Byron 1.
OGS competition index top 10 on short tracks (tracks similar to Phoenix) at end of last year: 1-Blaney 273, 2-Hamlin 236, 3-Byron 192, 4-Larson 177, 5-Bell 161, 6-Brad Keselowski 120, 7-Joey Logano 116, 8-Chase Elliott 95, 9-Alex Bowman 74, 10-Josh Berry 65.
