New for 2020, Spade Racing took 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 at the end of the season:
1. Cole Custer (Stewart Haas Racing). Best race finish: 1st (Kentucky). PRETTY grade: B+. Cole was the unquestioned leader of the 2021 rookie class, courtesy of his race win. But his PRETTY grade was a bit tougher to nail down. Considering that SHR seems like Kevin Harvick and The Other Guys, Cole did the best of the others, so he gets a slight boost into “my grades in college besides math and science” territory.
2. Tyler Reddick (Richard Childress Racing). Best race finish: 2nd (Texas). PRETTY grade: B. It was a real bounce back year for RCR, and Tyler Reddick’s contributions can’t be overlooked. Mostly because its HIS sponsors that tend to adorn the car.
3. Christopher Bell (Leavine Family Racing). Best race finish: 3rd (Texas). PRETTY grade: B-. C.Bell’s 2020 was an odd one. He showed he could compete for top-fives on occasion despite running for a satellite team planning to shut down, but had a number of stretches of poor finishes. Oh well—at least he’s not going to RPM next year.
4. John Hunter Nemechek (Front Row Motorsports). Best race finish: 8th (Talladega twice). PRETTY grade: C+. Nemechek will enter 2021 in a unique situation. The coming next-gen car in 2022 could lead to a free-for-all next year for lower-level teams like Front Row, throwing caution to the wind and taking plenty of risks. Orrrr he could just post two more eighth-place finishes at Talladega again and call it a year.
5. Brennan Poole (Premium Motorsports). Best race finish: 9th (Talladega). PRETTY grade: D+. Impressive that Brennan Poole raced all but one race in the same car for the same team with pretty much the same sponsor for most races. Will this lead to a better 2021? Well, probably not.
6. Quin Houff (StarCom Racing). Best race finish: 13th (Talladega). PRETTY grade: D-. 2020 was…not good for Quin. He had the lowest points total of any driver to compete in every race—and finished behind five drivers who missed races. He failed to post a single top-ten race finish, and prompted discussion about drivers being demoted or relegated to lower series from Cup. On the bright side…well, there really is no bright side. But at least the car usually looked bright!