Stat Darlings: Celebrating the best drivers of 2021

By David SmithDec 30, 2021, 7:00 AM EST

For the last few years and across different media outlets, I’ve recognized “Stat Darlings” for each NASCAR Cup Series season. These awards are doled out subjectively with objective, statistics-based reasoning.

Let’s hand out some hardware!

Best Rookie: Chase Briscoe

NASCAR’s award for Rookie of the Year isn’t as straightforward as it sounds.

Consider Cole Custer’s 2020 award, given to him automatically after the first 26 races solely because of his team’s playoff qualification. He was, by definition, the award’s recipient. But a cogent argument could be made that fellow rookies Tyler Reddick, Christopher Bell and John Hunter Nemechek had better statistical production across 36 races.

This year, the award and the designation coalesce with Briscoe smack in the middle of the Venn diagram.

Granted, 2021 saw a thin rookie class – Anthony Alfredo was the only other eligible newcomer. Briscoe displayed some slow-burn development that, to the surprise of some, shone brightest on 550-horsepower tracks.

A former dirt racer who scored nine Xfinity Series victories in 2020, the 27-year-old’s best days previously came at tracks of all types where the horsepower is high. This year, he proved most efficient as a passer on the larger oval tracks utilizing the 550 package, ranked 13th among series regulars in surplus passing value.

He was also, across all tracks, an above-average restarter on preferred groove attempt, with a 71.43% position retention rate – a mark besting all of last year’s rookies and Stewart-Haas Racing stable mate Aric Almirola, whose improved numbers regressed mightily during the season’s home stretch. Among drivers averaging running positions 20th-25th, Briscoe ranked first in position retention rate and second in weighted positions gained on restarts.

How Briscoe improves from this point is a considerable question, given the age at which he entered the Cup Series. He’s older than all of the drivers in the rookie class that preceded him. He’s also older than William Byron, Erik Jones and 2020 champion Chase Elliott.

The ceiling on his potential is unclear, but it’s inarguable that the competition he’ll likely see for the remainder of his career received a head start on obtaining valuable experience at stock car racing’s top level.

Most Improved: William Byron

Based on previous career benchmarks, no other driver enjoyed an improvement anywhere near Byron’s magnitude in 2021.

The 24-year-old driver saw a 0.625-point increase over his 2020 Production in Equal Equipment Rating; a nine-spot improvement to his speed ranking (measured by his average median lap rank); his position retention rate on restarts jump by over six percentage points; and his surplus passing on non-drafting ovals move from +0.16%, ranked 12th among series regulars, to +1.67%, ranked fifth.

Combined, these improvements manifested in three times as many top-five finishes (12) than what he secured last year (four).

Incredibly, it seems his improvement isn’t finished. Byron was one of five drivers competing in the Cup Series at age 23 or younger, and the only one of the five who qualified for the playoffs in three of his four seasons. On average, the age-24 season, which will come in 2022 for Byron, sees a monumental improvement in the overall production of Cup drivers.

It’s entirely possible we’ll be back here in a year’s time detailing more improvement from a driver that’s more regularly turning good statistical efforts on paper into tangible race finishes.

Best Restarter: Kyle Larson

Larson was good at everything in 2021 — more on that later — but if we were to pinpoint his best peripheral category, it’d be restarts. His 76.77% position retention rate ranked first among series regulars, over six percentage points greater than the second-best rate (Elliott at 70.56%). He also ranked first in retention (with a 77.22% rate) specifically on restarts utilizing the choose rule.

Now, it’s easier to maintain positioning when, as the leader, you have all the clean-air advantages of the front row. And Larson frequently led, restarting from the P1 spot on nearly 32% of his attempts. He also selected his positioning well; over 62% of his restarts from inside the first 14 spots originated from a preferred groove slot, putting the odds of retention in his favor.

But his attempts at mitigating loss from non-preferred groove restarts, typically a source of positional drops, was a cut above anyone else in the series. His was the only retention rate hitting the 60% mark, while his average loss of 0.41 spots served as the most team-friendly clip – enough water treaded for the runs that’d soon follow.

Best Passer: Chase Elliott

Elliott and Larson were relatively neck and neck when it came to passes on short runs and long runs. But whereas the latter saw 8% of his adjusted pass differential come from positions earned within the two-lap window for restarts, the former made traditional passes across long green-flag runs his primary wellspring for track position.

Elliott’s +2.59% surplus passing value ranked first among series regulars, as did his +446 adjusted pass differential. Despite his good positional defense on restarts, ranked second in retention rate to Larson, his seasonal net gain within the window was -1, indicating the totality of his forward movement was the result of the work being done on long runs.

This was a strength exploited by his team, who took more risks than most during the pre-race buildup. Elliott started from the tail end of fields six times in 2021 as a result of inspection penalties or unapproved adjustments, and scored at least one point during the first stages of all six races.

Best All-Around Driver: Kyle Larson

Larson won 10 times in 36 starts, a testament to both a good driver and a good team. But individually, the 29-year-old impressed thanks to rankings in key statistical categories:

1st in Production in Equal Equipment Rating (PEER)
1st in PEER on 550-horsepower tracks
1st in PEER on 750-horsepower tracks
1st in PEER in races with zero late restarts
1st in PEER in races with at least one late restart
1st in position retention rate on all restarts
1st in position retention rate on choose-rule restarts
1st in position retention rate on preferred groove restarts
1st in position retention rate on non-preferred groove restarts
1st in adjusted pass efficiency on non-drafting tracks
2nd in surplus passing value on non-drafting tracks
2nd in surplus passing value on 750-horsepower ovals
4th in crash avoidance

The 2021 title went to its most worthy potential recipient – never a guarantee in the playoff era.

Larson crashed just 0.19 times per race, a rate trailing only Joey Logano (0.14), Chris Buescher (0.17) and Erik Jones (0.17) among those regularly running inside the top 30. His clean driving combined with elite production, restarting and passing is a tough riddle for all others to solve and comprises a statistical profile unquestionably deserving of this designation.

Across the whole of 2021, Larson was the ultimate stat darling and the most important cog of a team with one of the greatest seasons in modern NASCAR history.

Smokin’: Winston fueled NASCAR for 33 years

By Mike HembreeMar 30, 2023, 5:00 PM EDT

Ranking historic moments in any sport is a risky business, but it’s difficult to deny that one of the biggest items in NASCAR’s 75-year history was the 33-year sponsorship of its top series by the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. and its Winston cigarette brand.

When federal legislation derailed cigarette advertising on television, RJR moved its millions from the tube to the racetrack, transforming NASCAR forever and adding layers of financial strength to its teams, drivers and promoters.

From 1971-2003, NASCAR and RJR enjoyed one of the most powerful sponsorship relationships in the history of professional sports, each entity feeding off the other as stock car racing grew from a regional curiosity to a national phenomenon.

Although giant superspeedways had opened in several states in the late 1950s and 1960s, as the calendar turned to the 1970s NASCAR’s Grand National schedule remained frozen in another time. For an organization that hinted at joining the big leagues of pro sports and longed for television exposure that might take it there, NASCAR’s 48-race schedule was far too unwieldy and tied to shorter, smaller tracks with little or no national impact.

When RJR signed the dotted line to become the top-level series’ primary sponsor in 1971, the name changed from Grand National to Winston Cup Grand National (and later to simply Winston Cup), but the evolution of the title barely scratched the surface of the shifts to come. Working with ideas suggested by RJR officials, NASCAR did major surgery on the Cup schedule for the 1972 season, abandoning outposts like Beltsville, Maryland and Macon, Georgia to concentrate on a streamlined “national” schedule that emphasized big events and a year-long march toward a driving championship.

So the 1972 season opened with 31 races on the schedule, dramatically downsized from 48 in both 1970 and 1971. The RJR/Winston effect was on.

Great things were ahead. Reynolds dumped millions into speedway improvements, from the biggest of tracks to the smallest. Red and white (not surprisingly, Winston’s colors) paint was slapped on speedway walls and buildings, adding spice to tracks that had fallen on hard times. Billboards and other signage promoting races went up in communities near racetracks.

Purses at Cup Series tracks grew, and RJR added incentives, boosting season-end points money and designing programs like the Winston Million, which paid $1 million to a driver who could win three of what then were considered the sport’s biggest races: the Daytona 500, Winston 500 (at Talladega), Coca-Cola 600 and Southern 500.

The Winston, a rich all-star race, was added to the schedule. It continues today, although its name and format has changed over the years.

Perhaps most importantly, however, RJR invested millions in widespread and business-smart promotion of NASCAR, which, at the start of the 1970s, had a very limited – both in personnel and in dollars – public relations and communications presence. RJR unleashed dozens of public relations and marketing individuals into its NASCAR operations, bringing a professionalism and thoroughness rarely seen in such circles prior to the company’s arrival.

“I’ve been in this sport 50-plus years, and there have been some big moments,” team owner Richard Childress told NBC Sports. “R.J. Reynolds coming in was certainly one of the biggest. They brought in paint and built buildings and brought in media from all over the United States. And the billboards. I remember going to North Wilkesboro, and there was a big billboard about Winston and the race. That was a big deal back in the day – stuff that we never had before.”

Sports Marketing Enterprises, the sports arm of RJR, in effect became NASCAR’s public relations headquarters. SME employees produced annual NASCAR media guides, usually working through the Christmas holiday break to have updated editions ready for January distribution. Winston introduced weekly media phone press conferences with drivers, lobbied media outlets with little interest in NASCAR to cover races and developed fan experiences like the Winston Cup Preview, an annual January event in which drivers signed autographs for fans in a Winston-Salem, North Carolina, arena.

RJR also was instrumental in moving NASCAR’s annual Cup Series end-of-season awards banquet to the Waldorf-Astoria hotel in New York City, a change that put the sport and its drivers in the media capital of the world for a few late-autumn days.

*Bill Elliott celebrates winning the Winston Million bonus Sept. 1, 1985, at Darlington Raceway. (Photo by ISC Archives/CQ-Roll Call Group via Getty Images)*

“Anybody at NASCAR recognizes the role that Winston played in helping promote the sport from so many different angles,” Chris Powell, a former RJR employee and now the president of Las Vegas Motor Speedway, told NBC Sports. “There was no question that the sport was a great vehicle to advertise the product. So many other corporations recognized the possibilities of promoting their products through the sport. It all made it grow and grow.”

Steadily, as RJR’s influence in the sport grew, NASCAR tracks (from the Cup Series down to weekly tracks with NASCAR affiliations) were splashed with Winston red and white. Women wearing Winston outfits offered fans entering tracks a free pack of Winstons if they would trade the brand they smoked. Red and white Winston “show” cars appeared in on-track parades prior to races and at events in towns hosting races.

The Winston name and colors were seemingly everywhere in and around tracks. If you weren’t a smoker entering the facility, you might be converted being there all day; and if you were a smoker but used a competing brand you might consider switching. The Winston presence was commanding.

As a former RJR employee put it, “It was about moving the sticks,” in-house vernacular for cigarettes.

“We were always in a tussle to outdo Marlboro,” Powell said. “There was data to show to executive management in the company that adult smokers who were NASCAR fans were more likely to be Winston smokers.”

RJR involved NASCAR drivers in all manner of activities. Race-week golf events sponsored by the company brought together drivers, NASCAR and track officials and others with track tie-ins. Winston representatives invited drivers and their team members to dinner gatherings during race weeks, with the check often reaching into four figures.

Jimmy Spencer #23 — *In April 1999, Jimmy Spencer runs practice laps at Bristol Motor Speedway in a Ford sponsored by Winston. (Photo by Jamie Squire/Allsport)*

RJR often scheduled events pairing drivers and media members with an eye toward enhancing relations between the two. During a Talladega race week, a Winston skeetshooting competition resulted in Jeff Gordon, not particularly known as an outdoorsman, defeating big-game hunter Dale Earnhardt, who was so shocked by the result that he was seen closely examining his rifle in the aftermath.

Winston employees became involved in almost every official operation – and some not so official — related to race weekends. At Pocono one year, several Winston operatives, quite aware of the traffic difficulties associated with exiting the track after races, basically created a new exit route through a nearby wooded area.

The RJR ties to NASCAR included sponsorship of drivers and teams. Long-time Cup driver Jimmy Spencer ran for teams carrying Winston and Camel cigarettes sponsorship.

“They were probably the best sponsor I ever drove for,” Spencer told NBC Sports. “They knew what it took. They were all about promoting and all about the fans. That’s what made the sport grow. It will never be as big as it was with them. I remember (late NASCAR president) Bill France Jr. telling me it would change the sport forever.”

The key RJR officials involved with NASCAR were Ralph Seagraves, who started the Winston racing program, and T. Wayne Robertson, who directed operations through years when the Winston presence expanded significantly.

“T. Wayne was a hell of a visionary,” Spencer said. “Everybody around him learned so much. I remember him saying that they weren’t coming into the sport to take over, that they were there to help. ‘We don’t want to be bullies,’ he said. ‘We want to move it to the next level.’ ”

Some insiders predicted that Robertson, who was widely respected across motorsports and sports marketing, eventually would move into a management role with NASCAR. Tragically, he died in 1998 at the age of 47 in a boating accident.

RJR’s talent pool produced leaders who moved on to more prominent roles in racing. In addition to Powell becoming LVMS president, Ty Norris moved from RJR to lead Dale Earnhardt’s racing team and now is president of Trackhouse Racing. Curtis Gray worked at RJR before becoming president at Homestead-Miami Speedway. Grant Lynch, who directed sports operations for RJR, became president at Talladega Superspeedway and a key lieutenant for NASCAR and its ruling France family. Jeff Byrd, who was involved in media operations at RJR, became president at Bristol Motor Speedway.

Dr. Diandra: Data points to speed as key to breaking Blaney’s losing streak

By Diandra Leslie-PeleckyMar 30, 2023, 11:00 AM EDT

Richmond Raceway presents a chance for Ryan Blaney to break a losing streak that started after his win at the regular-season-ending Daytona race in 2021. A fast scan of his stats suggests Blaney is off to a good start to do just that in 2023.

Despite a poor showing at COTA, where he failed to run any higher than 16^th all race, Blaney has a season average finishing position of 12.8. He’s tied with Kevin Harvick for fourth-best average finishing position among full-time drivers.

Blaney finished second at Phoenix, where the new short track aeropackage debuted. But he has not won.

Things look good on the surface

Before getting too worried by Blaney’s drought, remember that the season is only six races old. Two of those six races were superspeedway events, and a third was a road course where running through other cars has become the norm.

With 30 more races in the season, it’s far from time to hit the panic button.

Basic statistics suggest that Blaney is matching (and sometimes beating) his teammate, defending champion Joey Logano. I’ve included the statistics for sophomore driver Austin Cindric in the table below, as well.

Logano won Atlanta and has two top-five finishes. No driver has more than three top fives thus far. Despite Logano’s win, Blaney’s average finishing position beats Logano’s.

Cindric has two top-10 finishes and an average finish of 16.5. His best finishes are sixth-place finishes at Las Vegas and last week at COTA.

After the National Motorsports Appeals Panel rescinded the 100-point penalty assessed to each Hendrick Motorsports driver and team, Ryan Blaney occupies eighth place in the season points standings.

Things would appear to look good for breaking Blaney’s losing streak this year.

Digging Deeper

But a different pattern emerges upon diving into the loop data. The next table compares more detailed statistics for all three Penske drivers. I’ve highlighted the lowest-scoring driver’s numbers in red for each metric.

Cindric lags his more experienced teammates in number of laps led, number of fastest laps and number of laps run in the top 15. But in the other stats, Blaney is the third out of three at Penske.

Average running position measures driver performance across all laps of a race, instead of just the last one. Blaney’s best average running position of the season was at Phoenix, with a 7.47. His worst was last week at COTA, where his average running position was 29.28. Apart from Phoenix, Blaney didn’t break the top 10 in average running position at any race this year.

The average speed-on-restarts rank compares a driver’s average speed in the first two laps of each green-flag run to other drivers’ speeds. Blaney ranks 32nd out of 35 full-time drivers in average restart speed rank. That places him behind Logano and Cindric.

Speed early in a run and speed late in a run measure a driver’s speed compared to everyone else on track during the first and last 25% of each green-flag run. In both metrics, Blaney again ranks 32 out of 35.

The fact that top-ranking Penske driver Logano only ranks 12th and 16th in early and late speed respectively suggests that the problem is at least partly company wide.

In overall green-flag speed — the average speed over a full green-flag run — Blaney ranks 29th out of 35. Logano ranks 12th and Cindric 19th.

These numbers identify one challenge that must be overcome to break Blaney’s losing streak.

Year over year

I’ll set aside Cindric’s numbers in this section for the sake of clarity. Blaney’s first six races this year show a large drop-off in most metrics relative to the first six races of 2022. Logano, however, either improved or stayed relatively constant in the same metrics.

In the table below:

Green indicates a 10% or better improvement in 2023.
Red indicates the 2023 value is at least 10% worse.
Black indicates a change (either way) less than 10%.

Blaney has led a little more than 10% of the laps he led in 2022 and has less than half the number of fastest laps. His drop-offs on the speed metrics (the last four rows) are much greater than Logano’s changes.

In 2022, Blaney was beating Logano in all four speed metrics. This year, Logano is ahead.

The Promise of Richmond

The encouraging news to pull from this analysis is that Blaney’s numbers for Phoenix are the best of the 2023 season so far. He ranked seventh in green-flag speed, second in restart rank, eight in early-run speed and fourth in late-run speed. All of that bodes well for a good finish at Richmond.

Blaney won the pole in last spring’s Richmond race and finished seventh. He finished 10^th in the fall race after qualifying 10th.

And Blaney himself is optimistic.

“Richmond will be a good gauge of where you stack up – slow, a bunch of mechanical grip, tire conservation,” Blaney said. “So I’m optimistic for it, for sure. I thought we had good cars there last year in both races from the whole team, and I’m excited to get there.”

But breaking Blaney’s losing streak is only the start to a successful season. He must improve his speed metrics at other tracks if he is to contend for a championship.

NASCAR weekend schedules: Richmond/Texas

By Mike HembreeMar 30, 2023, 7:00 AM EDT

NASCAR’s three major national series will be in action this weekend at two locations.

The Cup and Xfinity Series will race at Richmond Raceway in Virginia, and the Craftsman Truck Series will share the weekend with the IndyCar Series at Texas Motor Speedway near Fort Worth.

MORE: Drivers to watch at Richmond

Tyler Reddick won last Sunday’s Cup race at Circuit of the Americas to put Toyota in the win column for the first time this season.

Here is a look at the weekend schedule for both tracks:

Richmond Raceway (Cup and Xfinity)

Weekend weather

Friday: Mostly cloudy. High of 72. Winds 10-20 mph. 13% chance of rain.

Saturday: Light rain early. Sunshine later. High of 75. Winds 20-30 mph. 24% chance of rain at start of Xfinity race.

Sunday: Sunny. High of 62. No chance of rain at start of Cup race.

Friday, March 31

(All times Eastern)

Garage open

10 a.m. – 3 p.m. — Xfinity Series
4 – 9 p.m. — Cup Series

Saturday, April 1

Garage open

6 a.m. – 6:30 p.m. — Xfinity Series
7 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. — Cup Series

Track activity

8:05 – 8:35 a.m. — Xfinity practice (FS1)
8:35 – 9:30 a.m. — Xfinity qualifying (FS1)
10:05 – 10:50 a.m. — Cup practice (FS1, Motor Racing Network, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio)
10:50 – noon — Cup qualifying (FS1, Motor Racing Network, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio)
1 p.m. — Xfinity race (250 laps, 187 miles; FS1, Motor Racing Network, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio)

Sunday, April 2

Garage open

12:30 – 10 p.m. — Cup Series

Track activity

3:30 p.m. — Cup race (400 laps, 300 miles; FS1, Motor Racing Network, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio)

Texas Motor Speedway (Truck)

Weekend weather

Friday: Scattered thunderstorms in morning. Sunny and windy later. High of 79. Winds 20-30 mph. 50% chance of rain.

Saturday: Intervals of clouds and sun. High of 74. Winds 10-15 mph. No chance of rain at start of Truck race.

Friday, March 31

(All times Eastern)

Garage open

Noon – 5 p.m. — Truck Series

Saturday, April 1

Garage open

8 a.m. – 10 p.m. — Truck Series

Track activity

10:35 – 11:05 a.m. — Truck practice
11:05 a.m. – noon — Truck qualifying
4:30 p.m. — Truck race (167 laps, 250 miles; FS1, Motor Racing Network, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio)

NASCAR fines Daniel Suarez $50,000 for pit road incident

By Dustin LongMar 29, 2023, 5:26 PM EDT

NASCAR fined Daniel Suarez $50,000 for running into the cars of Alex Bowman and teammate Ross Chastain on pit road after last weekend’s race at Circuit of the Americas.

Suarez was upset after a potential top-five finish was lost in an incident in overtime.

MORE: Appeals Panel rescinds 100-point penalty to Hendrick drivers

Suarez restarted fifth in the second overtime restart but left the inside lane open. Alex Bowman, with Ross Chastain and Chase Briscoe aligned behind, charged and got beside Suarez as they approached Turn 1.

As Bowman slowed to make the tight turn, he was hit from behind and that sent him into Suarez, who clipped the left rear of Martin Truex Jr.’s car. Truex spun in front of Suarez and blocked his path, allowing the rest of the field to drive by and costing Suarez a top-five finish. Suarez finished 27th.

Suarez spoke briefly with Bowman before having a discussion with Chastain.

“It’s uncharacteristic of Daniel,” Elton Sawyer, NASCAR senior vice president of competition, said Tuesday on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. “There’s no excuse for what happened.”

.@Daniel_SuarezG not happy with @Alex_Bowman. He raced to catch up (even booted his teammate out of the way) and hit the back of the 48. No real confrontation, though. #NASCAR | #NASCAR75 | #EchoParkGP pic.twitter.com/ZszBAALAhs

— JJ (@TomcatNASCAR_2) March 26, 2023

Best Rookie: Chase Briscoe

Most Improved: William Byron

Best Restarter: Kyle Larson

Best Passer: Chase Elliott

Best All-Around Driver: Kyle Larson

Read more about NASCAR

Read more about NASCAR

Things look good on the surface

Digging Deeper

Year over year

The Promise of Richmond

Read more about NASCAR

MORE: Drivers to watch at Richmond

Richmond Raceway (Cup and Xfinity)

Weekend weather

Friday, March 31

(All times Eastern)

Saturday, April 1

Sunday, April 2

Texas Motor Speedway (Truck)

Weekend weather

Friday, March 31

(All times Eastern)

Saturday, April 1

Read more about NASCAR

MORE: Appeals Panel rescinds 100-point penalty to Hendrick drivers

Read more about NASCAR