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.
by Patrick Zier | Feb 28, 2026 |
The real season starts now. In Austin, Tx, with Sunday’s running of the DuraMAX Texas Grand Prix on the COTA road course. What, you say? Haven’t we already run two races, one at Daytona and the other at Atlanta?
Yes, but they don’t count. Under current NASCAR rules, it’s impossible to race on superspeedways. They turn into demolition derbies and wreck fests. In fact, with fuel saving now critical to winning, the cars often run at less than full throttle, so they REALLY don’t race.
Two things determine whether or not you win on a superspeedway. First, you have to avoid the “big wreck,” and you don’t know when it’s going to happen – you just know it’s going to happen. So avoiding it is pure, blind luck.
Second, you have to be in the right line at the right time coming off the fourth corner on the last lap. And again, this is pure luck. You can be leading the race coming out of the turn, and if a bunch of cars decide to leave your line and form another, you’re cooked. You can go from first to 15th in a heartbeat.
Which is why Old Guy Sport doesn’t include them in its points standings. You can’t learn anything about how competitive a team will be from a superspeedway race because the tracks are so different from everything else NASCAR runs on.
Even Billy Scott admits that. Scott is crew chief for Tyler Reddick, who not only won the Daytona 500 but Atlanta’s Autotrader 400 as well, creating quite a stir.
Scott said, and virtually everybody in the garage would agree with him, that you can’t tell much about how you’re going to run during the season based on how you perform on superspeedways.
“I think, other than momentum and confidence, no, they’re very different tracks (compared to the others on the schedule),” Scott said after the Atlanta race according to NASCAR’s website.
“So many times, the outcome is out of your control,” Scott continued. “There are so many things that have to go right to win these kind of races, I think more so than the ones that are coming up.”
Keeping that in mind, let’s take a look at the upcoming season and make some prognostications.
Best driver in the sport right now: No, it’s not current NASCAR champ Kyle Larson or Denny Hamlin, whose laser focus has enabled him to stay at the head of the pack and defy his age.
It’s Ford’s Ryan Blaney. Blaney has done more with less than anybody else. He is the only driver in the Old Guy Sport competition index who has improved competitively each of the last three years despite the fact that Ford is arguably the least aerodynamically sound car on the circuit.
More importantly, Blaney is the only driver in Cup who has gotten better each of the last three years on both the intermediate and short tracks, which host 32 of the 36 Cup events.
Behind Blaney, the other top contenders for the Cup championship should be: 2-Chase Briscoe and 3-Hamlin. During the last half of 2025, Briscoe outran everybody, scoring 332 points on the Old Guy Sport competition index. Now that he has adjusted to running in first-class equipment, he should be very tough.
Hamlin is the most focused and thoroughly prepared driver in the sport. His physical skills may have diminished slightly as he has aged, but he has more than made up for it with his understanding of the cars, race strategy and ability to make the right move at the right time.
But because of the way NASCAR determines its champion; the point system is basically designed to keep as many drivers eligible for as long as possible and not to determine a true champion, it is quite possible some other driver will win the title.
Clearly, in 2025, Hamlin should have won, but he didn’t. NASCAR has made some improvements to the system for 2026, like eliminating the win-and-you’re-in automatic qualifier, but the standings still reward finishing races over competing in them and thus make crowning a true champion less likely.
Most underrated driver in NASCAR – Josh Berry. This guy just can’t catch a break. In 2023, he demonstrated that he was ready to drive first class race cars when he subbed for Chase Elliott and Alex Bowman while they were injured.
Subbing for Elliott, he consistently ran up front and had a second place finish at Richmond. Subbing for Bowman, he put the car in the All-Star race by winning the qualifier.
Now with the Wood brothers, Penske’s satellite team, he won last year at Las Vegas. Despite Penske’s help, the Wood brothers cars are simply not competitive off the superspeedways. That Berry was able to win at Las Vegas in their equipment is remarkable.
Also noteworthy as we head into a new season: Joe Gibbs Racing is now the most competitive team in the sport, replacing Hendrick Motorsports. Gibbs’ four drivers scored 1,793 points last year according to the Old Guy Sport competition index while Hendrick fell to 1,412.
Penske Racing, the third of the three powerhouse teams, had just 888. While Ford continues to make progress with its cars, it has never really gotten a handle on the Next-Gen body changes.
The most important off-track development in the sport this year will be what happens in the lawsuit brought by Joe Gibbs against his former director of competition, Chris Gabehart, which accuses Gabehart of giving proprietary information to another team.
Gabehart has countersued Gibbs, claiming the organization is dysfunctional and never allowed him to perform his duties. It also claims preferential treatment for Ty Gibbs, Joe Gibbs’ grandson, over the other drivers.
This could tear Gibbs apart. To be elite, you have to have clear operating procedures and strong leadership from the top down. Lacking that, a team will usually struggle.
NASCAR NOTES
Three most likely winners at COTA Sunday: 1-Shane van Gisbergen, 2-Christopher Bell, 3-Ryan Blaney. Last year’s winner at COTA: Bell.
Top five at COTA last year: 1-Bell, 2-William Byron, 3-Tyler Reddick, 4-Chase Elliott, 5-Kyle Busch.
Old Guy Sport competition index 2025 final top 10: 1-Denny Hamlin 677 points, 2-Kyle Larson 530, 3-Blaney 516, 4-Chase Briscoe 507, 5-Bell 473, 6-Byron 446, 7-van Gisbergen 368, 8-Elliott 278, 9-Joey Logano 205, 10-Bubba Wallace 186.
OGS competition index 2025 top 10 on road courses: 1-van Gisbergen 368, 2-Bell 175, 3-Elliott 80, 4-Reddick 66, 5-Byron 60, 6-Briscoe 59, 7-Michael McDowell 58, 8-Chris Buescher 54, 9-Larson 53, 10-Ty Gibbs 51.
