Now more than ever there’s a pretty solid caste system in Nascar—Championship Contenders, Race Win Contenders, and Independents. Who fits in where? Who will be making the 2021 Playoffs? And will there be any races anywhere that Timmy Hill doesn’t compete in? That’s what this preview is for!
Check out the three tiers of Xfinity Competition—Cup Affiliates, Strong Independents, and Backmarkers—and figure out if this is FINALLY the last year of Kyle Busch in the series.
Teams listed in order of overall “power rankings”, then drivers listed in order of expected finish within them, full time then part time. *—new driver
TIER 1—Cup Affiliated Teams: These teams are either owned by a Cup team or operate in close tandem with one.
1. JOE GIBBS RACING (20 Harrison Burton, 18 *Daniel Hemric, 19 Brandon Jones, 54 Kyle Busch et al). With Chase Briscoe promoted to Cup this year could see JGR be an all-conquering force in the Xfinity Series. And with a maturing Harrison Burton, two solid Xfinity regulars, and the always dangerous Rowdy, there’s not much of a reason to expect them not to be. Gulp. FUN FACT—Kyle Busch said that if he wins 100 Xfinity Series races on his career (he’s at 97 now), he’ll retire permanently from the series. So for the first time ever, we could ALL be rooting for Rowdy.
2. TEAM PENSKE (22 Austin Cindric). While Cindric holds the best chance of competing with the Gibbs juggernaut, you gotta figure that with a 2022 Cup ride all but guaranteed, he’ll be spending most of 2021 testing the Next Gen Cup car. Then again, too much testing COULD lead to unforeseen problems like, uh, well, hand cramping? FUN FACT—Austin’s scheduled to run a few Cup races for seasoning this year. So we’ll all pretend that the Wood Bros. car isn’t just the fourth Penske entry those weekends.
3. JR MOTORSPORTS (7 Justin Allgaier, 9 Noah Gragson, 1 Michael Annett, 8 Sam Mayer, Josh Berry, and Dale Earnhardt Jr.). The Hendrick Motorsports-JR Motorsports partnership (they co-own the team) has proven fruitful, and all three full-time drivers return minus any change—even sponsorship is steady. Much better than those days where it seemed like about a dozen guys ran that Navy car, huh? FUN FACT—the 8 car features all three aspects of the Nascar Developmental System—a young inexperienced teenager (Sam Mayer), a more-seasoned late-model pro (Josh Berry), and an unknown with virtually zero fanbase (Dale Earnhardt Jr.).
4. KAULIG RACING (11 Justin Haley, 10 *Jeb Burton 16 AJ Allmendinger). Kaulig Racing has made them most of its solid affiliation with RCR (they’re based on the RCR campus). With Ross Chastain getting the #42 Cup ride, and Justin Haley a prime candidate for the #1 Cup ride, who knew that an RCR feeder team would feed to Chip Ganassi Racing? FUN FACT—Chastain is expected to return for some races, presumably in a fourth car or, if necessary, as a substitute. Either way the most exciting part of any Kaulig race win will still be seeing if it passes post-race inspection.
5. STEWART-HAAS RACING with BIAGI DENBESTE (98 * Riley Herbst). The 98 was a dominant force in 2020 with Chase Briscoe, who got promoted up to Cup. Now there’s a new driver with new sponsorship who’s going to shake things up—hopefully more in the metaphorical sense than smashing the car into the wall. FUN FACT—Riley Herbst is the only driver for whom being called “Terrible” is a compliment.
6. RICHARD CHILDRESS RACING (2 Myatt Snyder, 21—???). RCR scales back to a full-time schedule for one car alone in 2021. And with Myatt being the son of Marty Snider, technically this continues the streak of RCR only hiring legacy kids. FUN FACT—Slayer sponsoring a car is bad, but TaxSlayer is ok. Huh.
TIER 2—Somewhat competitive teams with limited resources.
7. OUR MOTORSPORTS (02 Brett Moffitt, 03 various drivers). Brand-new last year, this little outfit came out of nowhere to run competitively almost every week. Having Brett Moffitt full-time this year could see them take a step forward in the car number made famous by such luminaries as Hermie Sadler, young Mark Martin, and original hair Ryan Newman. FUN FACT—The “Our” in Our Motorsports refers to team owner Chris Our, not to be confused with pirate-themed race team Arr Motorsports.
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| Tier 2.5--Could post a few top-tens, could leave for another series after three races, could be banned for life ?. SAM HUNT RACING (26 Santino Ferrucci) |
8. RSS MOTORSPORTS (39 Ryan Sieg, 38 ?, 93 ?). Nascar’s Official Underdog continues to put up solid results on a shoestring budget. A reminder that “shoestring budget” means spending a very minimal amount, NOT paying for things with old shoestrings. I learned THAT the hard way. FUN FACT—this team receives engines and chassis from RCR, but doesn’t get any tuning or test track info with them. Its like buying an expensive Lego set on deal because it doesn’t come with an instruction manual.
9. JEREMY CLEMENTS RACING (51 Jeremy Clements). This long-running single-car team will need new sponsorship after losing Repairable Vehicles. Who knows what generic fake-sounding company will take their place? Associated Services? The Company Company? FUN FACT—JCR has competed in 339 Xfinity Series races going into this season with one race win. That level of success is comparable to me asking girls out on dates.
10. BRANDONBILT MOTORSPORTS (68 Brandon Brown). Its unknown if this team will run its “B-team” car the #86 next year, although you can be sure that any of this team’s cars will have a cartoon bird on the side. FUN FACT—Making the playoffs is a major accomplishment for this team. Next up on the goals hierarchy is “making the playoffs and not having it be a surprise”.
11. JDM w/GARY KELLER (15 Colby Howard, 0 Jeffrey Earnhardt, 4 *Landon Cassill, 6 Ryan Vargas). Always good for a longshot drive to a Playoff berth, JD Motorsports returns with what I can only assume will be really red paint schemes. FUN FACT—Now that Flex Seal doesn’t seem to be involved with the team, how will they repair the boats they sawed in half?
12. SS-GREEN LIGHT RACING (08 Joe Graf Jr., 07 ???). While this small, independent team has yet to visit victory lane in the Xfinity Series, their team owner Bobby Dotter was cool with me when I met him, so there’s that. FUN FACT—time will tell if Ray Black Jr. runs any races for them this year, allowing Michael Waltrip to make plenty of diving puns.
13. DGM RACING (92 Josh Williams, 90 ???, 36 Alex Labbe). The Canadian Invasion has been, well, pretty tame, as this team continues to show up and occasionally contend. Polite and unassuming—just like a Canadian, eh? FUN FACT—Alex Labbe’s pre-race Facebook Live feeds are my weekly reminder that I didn’t learn anything in three years of high school French.
14. HATTORI RACING ENTERPRISES (61 Austin Hill, ???). HRE is really the only non-JGR Toyota team to even threaten for top-tens, but their lack of a full-time program has them at the bottom of Tier 2. FUN FACT—nobody other than me cares about where HRE ranks on this website.
TIER 3—Typically just trying to survive.
15. MARTINS MOTORSPORTS (44 Tommy Joe Martins)
16. B.J. MCLEOD MOTORSPORTS (5 Matt Mills, 78 *Jesse Little, 99 various drivers)
17. MBM RACING (49 ???, 66 ???)
18. JIMMY MEANS RACING (52 *Gray Gaulding)
19. RICK WARE RACING (17 ???, ? ???)
20. MIKE HARMON RACING (47 Kyle Weatherman, 74 Bayley Currey)
So if we’re being honest, none of these teams have a shot to win outside of a plate track or a rainy road course with a ringer. But if we’re NOT being honest, all of these teams represent the spirit of racing in Nascar, real throwbacks to the early days of the sport, made up of men trying their best just to make an impact. FUN FACT—each of these teams has a Facebook page with at least one frequent commenter who seems determined to point out that they do, in fact, suck.