Is the 2025 field the most talented NASCAR has ever seen?
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Ryan McGee
As we all watched Josh Berry and the Wood Brothers celebrate their underdog victory at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Sunday, one thought kept swirling through my mind. I couldn’t shake it that night and I have not been able to shake it in the days since. Truthfully, I’ve been swishing it around for a while now.
It is a simple question, a divisive question, but it is also a question that we need to ask.
Is this the most talented NASCAR Cup Series garage we have ever seen?
Now, before we try to answer that, let’s be up front with a major clarification. I am not in any way, shape or aerodynamic form implying that the top of today’s talent scale is greater than it was in, say, 1974, when the still-newly named Winston Cup Series ran 30 races and all but one of them were won by the quartet of Richard Petty, Cale Yarborough, David Pearson and Bobby Allison (shoutout to Canadian Earl Ross for his win at Martinsville). They weren’t merely the four best of their time, they are all in the scrum for a spot on NASCAR’s all-time podium.
Nor am I saying that the leaders of today’s Cup standings are the demigods of 1992, when Alan Kulwicki drove his Ford Thunderbird to a championship by outsmarting Bill Elliott and outlasting Davey Allison and Harry Gant. This on a grid that also included Mark Martin, Dale Earnhardt, Rusty Wallace, Terry Labonte, Darrell Waltrip and a paddock loaded top heavy with future NASCAR Hall of Famers.
In more recent seasons, I think of 2011. A year with 18 different race winners. That’s when Tony Stewart won the title in a tiebreaker over just-inducted Hall member Carl Edwards. The rare season when Jimmie Johnson didn’t hoist the Cup included the heavyweight likes of Kevin Harvick, Matt Kenseth, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jeff Gordon and the Busch brothers. A traffic jam of talent so thick that David Ragan and Regan Smith both won races but still couldn’t crack the top 20 in points.
Those were all amazing seasons powered by amazing wheelmen, but let’s not commit the sin of allowing the nostalgia of the rearview mirror to cloud our vision and appreciation for what we are witnessing in this 4K UHD present day.
The argument for today’s roster as one of the most talented we’ve ever seen is about depth.
When Berry — the guy who not so long ago was running sim races before he was plucked out of the digital ether by Dale Jr. and dropped into the real-life short track world — pulled his No. 21 Ford into Vegas Victory Lane, the 34-year-old Tennessean was the 19th different race winner in the past 41 Cup Series races. And he did it by coming out on top of a field of 36 racers and becoming the 25th of them to win at least one Cup Series race. Yes, 25!
In NASCAR’s modern era, since 1972 when the Cup Series cut its schedule to 30-something races and fully shifted toward asphalt speedways, there have been only 14 seasons with 15 or more winners. Four of those years came in the past four seasons. After five races this year we already have three, even after Christopher Bell gobbled up three wins in a row.
Now, I’m not naïve. I know what this Next Gen car is, and I know that it was specifically designed with parity in mind, as are in-race and in-season rules that didn’t exist in any of those other seasons I already mentioned. All of that has undoubtedly opened doors for teams and drivers that in another era would have been left behind in a literal cloud of brake dust. However, before anyone starts touting the glory days of the second half of this century’s first decade, including that benchmark 2011 season previously mentioned, make sure to remember that was the age of the Car of Tomorrow, a shoebox with wings that had also been conjured up as a playing-field leveler.
But the Obi-Wan Kenobi-like voice that I keep hearing as I sort through all of that is really more of chorus. Words first spoken to me by then-teenager Austin Dillon, racing in the NASCAR Truck Series for his grandfather, Richard Childress, and catching all sorts of flak from the Raise Hell Praise Dale crowd for running the slanted No. 3 made famous by “The Intimidator.”
“Have I had opportunities because of my Pop-Pop? Yes. Are the rules different now than they were back in the day? Yes. But you know what? When the green flag drops, my granddad and those rules don’t drive the race car. I do.”
Since that conversation, he’s won seven Truck races and also added nine Xfinity wins and five Cup victories, including a Daytona 500 title. These days, he’s not winning much of anything and is currently mired back in 32nd in the rankings with nary a top-10 finish. And Dillon’s words have been repeated to me so many times by so many racers.
“Everything out there is working against you, whether it’s the car or changes in the car or the racetrack and changes to the racetrack or the points and changes to the points, or just all those guys out there with you who are working to beat your ass,” Earnhardt Jr. said to me late in his career. “Just because you got a break here or there or maybe, yeah, your last name is a big deal, that doesn’t do a damn thing for you when you are on the track with that wheel in your hands. Winning races … hell, winning one race, it is so hard to do. So, when you are in a room with a bunch of people who have done that, and some of them have done it a lot, it’s intimidating, but you also need to appreciate that. It’s a gift to be there and see that.”
That’s precisely the point. When we are given the chance to watch this 2025 Cup Series field go to work every weekend, we need to appreciate that.
Appreciate the fact that this series has been racing for three-quarters of a century, having had nearly 3,000 drivers on its racetracks, and yet Berry became only the 205th to win a race at NASCAR’s highest level.
Appreciate the fact that this weekend at Homestead-Miami Speedway, 25 of those 205 winners, a whopping 12%, will be on the grid. Of those 25, there will also be six Cup Series champions, seven Daytona 500 winners, and, in my estimation, at least seven no-brainer NASCAR Hall of Famers even if they decided to hang up their helmet today (Ryan Blaney, Kyle Busch, Chase Elliott, Denny Hamlin, Brad Keselowski, Kyle Larson, Joey Logano … hey, you win a Cup title, you’re in).
Appreciate the fact that even the racers who have “only” won a race or two have brought into the Cup garage the kind of résumés that every racer dreams of handing to a potential sponsor. The same stuff — and in many cases that and much more — than we all gushed over upon the arrivals of Gordon and Ryan Newman and those preordained Young Guns back in the day.
I’m talking about Trucks and Xfinity titles, USAC championships and garages full of Snowball Derby and Chili Bowl trophies. There are even guys who have come from places that most stateside fans had never heard of until they showed up and started whipping the names we knew. See: New Zealander Shane van Gisbergen and his 63 Repco Supercars wins, now teammates with Ross Chastain and Daniel Suarez, also Cup race winners.
Then there is the youth factor. So many of these so-talented racers are just getting started. This year’s three winners — William Byron and Bell (who with any luck would already have a Cup title each), along with Berry — have collected all of their combined 27 wins since 2021. And for many of the ever-shrinking group of non-winners in the current Cup field, earning that first trophy feels like an inevitability for the likes of, say, a Ty Gibbs, winner of a dozen Xfinity races and barely 22 years old.
The reality is that we can never truly know how great a single group of racers really are until we can have the benefit of hindsight to look back over a larger span of time and see how great they truly were.
All I know is that when one walks this garage, as I did at Daytona, and sees its mix of living legends racing alongside 30-somethings just now reaching the height of their powers, all being chased by a pack of youngsters who are bringing the best training and trophy collections ever hauled into the ground floor entrance of the Cup Series … it might not be the right time for the answer. But it sure feels like the right time to ponder that question.
Is this the most talented NASCAR Cup Series garage we have ever seen?
“We all think our time was the best time, that’s just how it is and it will always be,” says Richard Petty, who was in attendance for the first Cup race in 1949 and will co-own cars in its latest race, with three-time winner Erik Jones and a 24-time Truck/Xfinity winner seeking his first Cup win, 27-year-old John Hunter Nemechek. “But when I look at these guys, I don’t see any riders. I see racers. Top to bottom. As a racer, that’s all you can ask for.”
As a watcher of racers, too.
ATLANTA — As Alabama looks to improve upon last season’s 9-4 record in its second season under head coach Kalen DeBoer, those within the program are well aware of the lofty expectations but say they enter this season with a greater sense of comfort surrounding the program’s future under DeBoer.
“I feel like especially last year, it is hard, man,” Alabama linebacker Deontae Lawson told ESPN on Wednesday at SEC media days. “You’re coming from Coach Saban to Coach DeBoer, everyone — everyone — is going to have something to say. Everyone wants to know, ‘How’s the new coach?’ or ‘What’s the difference?’ or something like that. But yeah man, we were all for Coach DeBoer. I remember he walked in — the first day he walked in — we all sat up in our chairs ready to go. And from that day we all been on the DeBoer train, probably more now than ever.”
Last year, Alabama lost four games and finished outside the Associated Press Top 10 for the first time since 2007. It was the third time in 11 seasons the Tide missed the playoff, this time finishing No. 11 in the selection committee’s final ranking but getting bumped from the 12-team field to make room for three-loss ACC champion Clemson.
While preseason favorite Texas has garnered the most spotlight here at the College Football Hall of Fame, where media days are being held, there’s a quiet confidence brewing at Alabama.
“We’re starving,” Lawson said. “We’re not hungry, we’re like starving. And that’s different. That’s different. … Just to see no one transfer out of here when the time came, man, it just shows you that we got guys that’s willing to do what they have to do to make us the most successful team that we can be. I’m just super excited. I know the guys are ready, and we go at it with each other every day, and I’m sure we all can’t wait until we see a different color jersey even though we haven’t even got into camp yet.”
DeBoer said he’s spending less time building the culture of the program and more time breaking down what happened in the four losses last year, and how they’ll operate when certain situations happen.
“That’s where we have to be better,” he said. “because we fell short, five- six- seven-point losses. It’s one play here, one play there that might have changed the outlook of the game.
“In some cases, it wasn’t something anyone was doing wrong, it was just, ‘Man, be better,'” he said. “It’s not on the players, it’s not on the coaches, it’s just reps. Repetitions. Just do more together, more time together helps you feel more comfortable.”
Even with a new quarterback and a familiar face in first-year offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb, who was with DeBoer at Washington, DeBoer said his gut feeling about this year’s team is simply having a better sense of who it is.
“You still don’t know Week 1 exactly what it’s going to look like, right?” he said. “… I know what I’ve got with these guys. It doesn’t guarantee you anything, but it gives you optimism, a lot of excitement, and continue to keep it honed in and headed in the right direction all together.”
DeBoer has said that if the season started today, Simpson would be the starter, but he continued to stress that he will be tracking all of the quarterbacks’ throws at practices, and watching their poise and leadership. Simpson, the most experienced of the bunch, completed 58% of his passes for 381 yards in three seasons at Alabama. Austin Mack was with DeBoer at Washington before following him to Alabama, where he went 2-for-3 for 39 yards and a touchdown in his lone appearance last season. Incoming freshman Keelon Russell was the No. 2 overall recruit in this year’s ESPN 300 and was the 2024 Gatorade High School Football Player of the Year.
DeBoer said Simpson doesn’t want to let anyone down — almost to a fault — and wants to make sure the young quarterback knows that, “if you’ve given everything you have, you’re not letting us down because he didn’t convert a third down, or didn’t have a drive that ended in a touchdown. … you don’t have to live in that, the fear of failure.”
“When you’re not experienced … sometimes you feel like, ‘Man, I want to go make that play,’ and it isn’t the right calculated risk to take,” DeBoer said, “… or things happen a little faster because you don’t have enough of those reps, but he’s done a great job. He’s working hard to make sure he’s taking care of the football, leading us. He’s obviously a great teammate.”
Alabama offensive lineman Kadyn Proctor said he’s confident in the pass protection “for whoever’s back there” at quarterback. He, too, said he’s confident in DeBoer, whom he said shares some of the same qualities as former legendary coach Nick Saban.
“I knew that our athletic director wasn’t just going to choose anybody to have this position,” Proctor said, “and if coach DeBoer being there is the right fit, then I’m behind it.”
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Chris Low
Auburn wide receiver Malcolm Simmons, an expected starter this season, was arrested Wednesday on a charge of domestic assault with strangulation or suffocation, according to Lee County (Alabama) Sheriff’s Office records.
Simmons was booked into Lee County Jail at 7:20 p.m. ET. His bond was set at $20,000.
An Auburn spokesperson said in a statement, “We are aware of the situation, are gathering the facts, and will address the situation.”
As a freshman last season, Simmons was second on the team with 40 receptions, including three going for touchdowns. He also returned a punt for a score.
He is one of the players Hugh Freeze mentioned at SEC media days earlier this week, when the Auburn coach said he thinks this can be his best receiving corps since he was at Ole Miss.
Simmons is the second Auburn player to be arrested this month. Linebacker D.J. Barber was dismissed from the team last week while facing multiple drug charges, including trafficking marijuana.
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