We have completed one of the most unprecedented NASCAR Cup Series seasons in its 74-year history. It began with a race in a football stadium with a bespoke common chassis. Composite body panels replaced sheet metal. Five lug nuts decreased to one. The rearview mirror was digital. That was revolutionary change in its own right but this season also saw 19 different winners, tying a single season Cup record. Sixteen winners occurred in the regular season and only one playoff driver qualified on points.
With all the unthinkable things that happened, how did any set of predictions hold up let alone this one? We are about to find out.
1. At least four teams are represented in the semifinals of the Cup playoffs
Correct!
Five teams made the semifinal round.
Team Penske had two drivers, Hendrick Motorsports had two drivers, Joe Gibbs Racing had two drivers, Stewart-Haas Racing had a driver and Trackhouse had a driver. Four teams were represented in the final four with Penske, Hendrick, Gibbs and Trackhouse each having a representative.
The first four teams were the usual suspects. I don't think anyone thought Trackhouse would have a driver in the final eight, but Ross Chastain made it and even went a step further to the final four.
2. Kevin Harvick will have the largest positive gain in victories compared to the 2021 season
Wrong!
Harvick won twice, twice more than he won in all of 2021, but for this prediction to be correct he had to have the largest positive gain on his own. Well, Harvick didn't even have the largest positive gain in victories. That honor would go to Chase Elliott, who went from two victories to five victories, a +3 gain.
Harvick was +2. Tyler Reddick was also +2, as were Christopher Bell and Ross Chastain. Harvick made a positive gain, but not the largest, and a rather common gain this season.
3. At least four drivers win at least four pole positions in Cup
Wrong!
We had two drivers reach four pole positions, Joey Logano and Kyle Larson, and then we had four drivers reach three pole positions (Chase Elliott, Denny Hamlin, Ryan Blaney and Tyler Reddick). Six drivers combined for 20 pole positions. Then we had nine drivers claim the other nine pole positions with seven qualifying sessions cancelled due to weather.
If a few of those cancelled sessions go differently than perhaps this prediction would have been correct.
4. Alex Bowman will spend at least nine races inside the top ten of most points scored
Correct!
This one may surprise you considering how the season ended for Bowman. He started the year 25th in points after Daytona and 24th after Fontana. Then he won at Las Vegas, vaulting him up to eighth. He dropped to 11th after Phoenix but got back to ninth in points after Atlanta.
He spent 15 consecutive races in the top ten in points from Atlanta to Atlanta and then dropped to 11th after Loudon.
On points, he kept falling and was 12th after Daytona in August before missing five races late in the season after suffering a concussion at Texas.
Bowman is a streaky driver. He hasn't ever really been able to put two halves of a season together. He had four top five finishes this season, three of which came in the first 11 races. He had 12 top ten finishes this season, nine of which came in his first 14 starts. He ended the season with one top five and three top ten finishes in his first 17 races. He went from batting 0.642 on top tens through Memorial Day to 0.1764 from the start of June through the end of the season.
When he is good, Bowman looks like one of the best drivers in Cup, but when he is off, he is disappears. If he can find any consistency he will be a championship contender someday.
For the sake of this prediction, his 16 races in the top ten were plenty for it to be correct.
5. Toyota will have at least five drivers win a Cup race for the second consecutive season
Correct!
And they only won in four different entries. Talk about efficient.
Denny Hamlin was the first Toyota winner at Richmond, the seventh race of the season. Kyle Busch won two weeks later at the Bristol dirt race. Kurt Busch won at Kansas a week before Denny Hamlin's second victory of the season at the Coca-Cola 600. Christopher Bell won at Loudon in July. The fifth Toyota winner was Bubba Wallace at Kansas in September after he moved into the #45 entry when Kurt Busch was sidelined with a concussion.
Toyota only won eight races this year and Bell had the most with three. Martin Truex, Jr. didn't despite only leading one fewer lap than Bell. Strange year.
6. At least one driver who misses the Cup playoffs has at least ten top ten finishes or more
Correct!
We had more than one driver, we had five!
It started with Martin Truex, Jr., who missed the playoffs despite being fourth in points at the end of the regular season, but only one spot was left available for a non-race winner and it went to Ryan Blaney, who has third in the championship, three points ahead of Truex. Truex had 15 top ten finishes. That was good enough for the prediction, but this season gave us more.
Erik Jones had 13 top ten finishes and didn't make the playoffs, and Jones won a race. Bubba Wallace had ten top ten finishes and didn't make the playoffs, and even Wallace won a race. Chris Buescher had ten top ten finishes and didn't make the playoffs, and even Buescher won a race. Michael McDowell had 12 top ten finishes and didn't make the playoffs.
Fifteen top ten finishes is a good year, but it was the fewest for Truex in a season since he had five in 2014. This was the fifth time in six seasons Jones has had at least 13 top ten finishes. Wallace had 12 career top ten finishes entering this year and he picked up ten more. His previous most in a season was five in 2020. This was Buescher's first Cup season reaching double figures in top ten results. McDowell entered this season with 17 career top ten finishes and he increased his career total by 70.5% this year alone. He had 12 top ten finishes combined over the previous four seasons and had 12 this year alone.
With 19 different winners, 16 in the regular season, this was a crazy year where the likes of Truex and Jones, two drivers who were in the top 16 in points at the end of the regular season and that is normally enough to make the playoffs, didn't. We also saw the new car level the playing field and teams were inconsistent with greatly regularity. There were weekends where all the Ford teams were off or all the Toyota teams. A team could be great for five weeks and then off the next six. What a wacky year.
7. A Ford driver will not finish fifth in the Cup championship
Correct!
This was not the fifth consecutive year of a Ford driver finishing fifth in the championship because Toyota driver Denny Hamlin wound up fifth, the best of the rest non-championship four drivers. Hamlin got fifth by a single point over William Byron. Then there were 25 points between Hamlin and Kyle Larson and Ryan Blaney, who finished tied on 2,354 points, but the tiebreaker went to Larson, leaving Blaney eighth in the championship, the closest Ford outside the top four.
Chase Briscoe was ninth, making it three Ford drivers in the top ten while Ford's other playoff drivers were Austin Cindric in 12th and Kevin Harvick in 15th, significantly stunted from a 100-point penalty handed late in the season. Harvick did finish exactly 100 points behind Cindric.
8. There will be at least ten four-tire pit stops under ten seconds
Correct!
According to Racing Insights, there were 54 four-tire pit stops under ten seconds this season, the fastest of which was 8.382 seconds by the #45 23XI Racing pit crew at Fontana, and the #18 Joe Gibbs Racing pit crew had the most sub-10 second pit stops with 12.
The teams blew this one out of the water. They were quick, and pit stops felt more vital this year. It felt like we saw more swings with teams gaining or losing four of five spots on pit lane than previous years. That trend will likely continue forward.
9. The ARCA pole-sitter will have a faster time than the Cup pole-sitter in at least one of the shared race weekends
Correct!
And it happened sooner than I expected. It happened at the first race at Daytona. I figured even with the new car the Cup series would still be quicker at Daytona. But that wasn't the case. How did it look over the eight shared weekends?
Daytona: ARCA (183.113 mph vs. 181.159 mph)
Phoenix: ARCA (133.769 mph vs. 132.709 mph)
Kansas: Cup (179.581 mph vs. 175.730 mph)
Charlotte: Cup (183.68 mph vs. 175.16 mph)
Michigan: Cup (190.703 mph vs. 184.89 mph)
Watkins Glen: Cup (125.147 mph vs. 119.123 mph)
Kansas: Cup (180.608 mph vs. 175.856 mph)
Bristol: Cup (128.382 mph vs. 126.478 mph)
It should be noted Cup and ARCA also ran together at Talladega in the spring and Pocono, but qualifying was cancelled on both occasions for ARCA.
I think as we saw the new Cup car be developed, the teams found more speed and even with the horsepower package the Cup teams weren't held back. ARCA scored early and then was shutout for the rest of the season.
10. Daniel Hemric will win more races but not make the championship four in the Grand National Series
Wrong and Correct!
Hemric returned to his winless ways despite switching to Kaulig Racing for 2022. Considering Kaulig has been a regular race winning team for the last few seasons, Hemric had no victories and he only had three top five finishes all season, fifth at Las Vegas in March, fifth at Atlanta in July and fourth at Homestead in October.
He only led 66 laps all season, 48 of which came in the first two races. Hemric started on pole position for the Daytona season opener. He led 663 laps the year before and 440 in his previous full season in this division in 2018.
Hemric had made the final four in each of his three full seasons at this level. This year, he ended up ninth in the championship and was a first-round elimination.
11. There will be a minimum of five new playoff drivers in NASCAR's second division
Correct... but only just.
Noah Gragson, Justin Allgaier, A.J. Allmendinger, Brandon Jones, Daniel Hemric, Riley Herbst and Jeremy Clements all returned to the playoffs this year. Seven drivers. This prediction was correct with no margin for error.
It helped that Austin Cindric, Harrison Burton and Justin Haley left for the Cup Series. We were guaranteed at least three different drivers. We also had two 2021 race winners who weren't full-time that were full-time in 2022, won a race this year and made the playoffs, the eventual champion Ty Gibbs and championship finalist Josh Berry.
Who are the other three changes? Austin Hill won the Daytona season opener and made it in his first full season. Sam Mayer made it in his first full season. Ryan Sieg made it back to the playoffs after being 14th last year.
Who were the other two drivers out? Myatt Snider won at Homestead in 2021 and then ended up 18th in the championship this year after leaving Richard Childress Racing for Jordan Anderson Racing. Jeb Burton did not make it with Our Motorsports after making it in 2021 with Kaulig Racing.
12. John Hunter Nemechek will win at least three races on tracks shorter than 1.5 miles
Wrong!
Nemechek only won twice all year, so he didn't even reach the pre-requisite for this prediction. He won once on a track shorter than 1.5 miles, which came at Darlington. His other victory was at Kansas.
There were a few short track races where he came close. The first was in NASCAR's second division, where he was leading on the final lap at Richmond before being moved when Ty Gibbs bumped him entering turn three. Nemechek was leading late at Knoxville before finishing second. He led the most laps at Indianapolis Raceway Park and was leading when the green-white-checkered finish occurred before being knocked back to tenth. He was also second at Richmond in Trucks and fourth in the Truck finale at Phoenix with a decent number of laps led.
This one was close, but Nemechek didn't quite close out races.
That is 8.5 out of 12! Not bad. Down from 11 out of 12 last year, but there wasn't much room to move up.
