New for 2020, Spade Racing will take a monthly look at the heralded Cup Series rookie class to determine who’s hot and who’s not. The PRETTY grade: Performance Relative to Equating Team’s Typical Year (its pretty much how well each driver is doing considering their equipment). Here’s how things look going into tonight’s Bristol Night Race:
1. Cole Custer (Stewart Haas Racing). Best race finish: 1st (Kentucky). PRETTY grade: B+. Cole is still head-and-shoulders above the rest thanks to his win, but he’s settled a bit more into the midfield on the back of four top-15 finishes in five races—only one of them a top-ten. On the plus side his Playoff berth has given plenty of exposure to Haas Tooling, whatever the heck THAT is.
2. Tyler Reddick (Richard Childress Racing). Best race finish: 2nd (Texas). PRETTY grade: B. Austin Dillon has been pouring it on lately, so it seems like RCR has the resources to run one contending car at a time. So of course they might absorb the 13 car into their team.
3. Christopher Bell (Leavine Family Racing). Best race finish: 4th (Pocono). PRETTY grade: C+. Not much has changed for Bell—other than his team announcing they’ll be shutting down at the end of the year, its still struggles for top-20s and looking ahead to 2021—where he’ll promptly be competing with three championship-caliber drivers. Out of the fire and into the erupting volcano.
4. John Hunter Nemechek (Front Row Motorsports). Best race finish: 8th (Talladega). PRETTY grade: C. An 11th at Daytona (the oval) breaks up a disappointing stretch for the FRM driver. Then again there are worse things to be known for than being a plate-track contender—like, oh, I don’t know, racing for Rick Ware.
5. Brennan Poole (Premium Motorsports). Best race finish: 15th (Daytona). PRETTY grade: C-. Poole’s shown that he can contend at plate tracks…and that’s about it.
6. Quin Houff (StarCom Racing). Best race finish: 23rd (Indianapolis/Daytona). PRETTY grade: D. In case you’re wondering, yes—the rankings have stayed pretty much set-in-stone for the past few months. Come on Quin—make me change the formatting!