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Spade Racing: THE ROOKIES—Mid-September Rakings

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!