We are in the final ten days of 2022 and we should start to look ahead to 2023. Our annual prediction series is back to close out the calendar year, and we begin in the normal place. NASCAR had an electric 2022 with more big plans in store for 2023 and change appearing to be a consistent theme for the near-future. What should we expect next year?
1. At least three winless drivers make the Cup playoffs
The 2022 NASCAR Cup Series season will be remembered for the 15 race winners that filled the 16-driver playoff field. There were technically 16 winners during the regular season when taking into consideration Kurt Busch who had his season ended due to a concussion.
There was only one playoff spot left for a driver on points in 2022. Ryan Blaney was second on points after 26 races and made it while Martin Truex, Jr. in fourth did not. Prior to 2022, the fewest number of drivers to make the playoffs on points was three, which occurred in 2014, 2017 and 2021. The most winless drivers to qualify for the playoffs is six, which occurred in 2018 and 2019.
The new car has leveled the playing field, but I think we will see a market correction in 2023. There will still be races where an unexpected teams are in contention and could still win a race. There are still the plate races where any schmuck can win.
However, I don't think we are going to see another season with 16 winners in 26 races. Thirteen winners? Sure. A few drivers will feel more comfortable with the new car and have more consistency running at the front. Teams will figure this out and we will likely see at least one driver with four victories before we even get to the playoffs. In 2023, A few extra drivers will get to rest on their points totals at the end of August and have a shot at a championship.
2. At least two new teams make the Cup playoffs
Just because there will be three playoff drivers on points doesn't mean we will not see surprise winners over the 26-race regular season. Truth is we will see a few teams raise our eyebrows, take a surprise win and lock up a playoff spot. Two of those possible teams already won in 2022.
Petty GMS Racing and Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing each won in the first round of the playoffs. The only problem is neither Erik Jones nor Chris Buescher were in the playoffs when they won. Jones had a handful of good days prior to his Southern 500 success and RFK was trending in the right direction at the end of the season. Either of those drivers could win and each will have capable teammates. Brad Keselowski isn't going to be that dreadful for a second consecutive year, and Noah Gragson started a healthy number of Cup races in the new car between driving for Kaulig Racing and Hendrick Motorsports.
Kaulig Racing is another organization to keep in mind. A.J. Allmendinger should have won at Austin last year. Now, Allmendinger will be full-time in 2023 and everyone is penciling him in as a playoff driver.
Throw in Front Row Motorsports' plate race history, Corey LaJoie being in the mix at Atlanta with Spire Motorsports and Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. somehow repeating his 2017 success with JTG Daugherty Racing, and we are bound to see some new teams in the playoffs next year.
3. Kyle Busch wins at least two pole positions in the Cup Series
Busch has accomplished a lot in his NASCAR Cup Series career and even if he only won one race in 2022, he is still a driver to keep an eye on each weekend. He has won a race in 18 consecutive seasons and has amassed 60 victories in that time frame. While Busch is winning races, he hasn't been winning pole positions.
Busch has not won a pole position since the penultimate round of the 2019 season at Phoenix. He did lose about 31 chances at qualifying in 2020 due to the pandemic and starting grids being set via a qualifying metric and owners' points, but it has been over three seasons since he has won a pole position. In 2017, he won eight pole positions and he won four poles in 2018.
Busch's new team, Richard Childress Racing, has a knack for winning pole positions. RCR might not always have the best race cars, but it can make horsepower and take center stage in qualifying. Tyler Reddick won three pole positions last year. RCR only had one pole position in 2021, but it had four pole positions in 2019 despite having only one top five finishes all season.
Combine the two, Busch will take at least two pole positions.
4. Every driver that makes the round of eight will have double-digit top ten finish totals entering that round
It was a wonky 2022 season. No better example of that than William Byron and Chase Briscoe each made the round of eight while not lighting the world on fire.
Briscoe had only seven top ten finishes entering the semifinal round and, while he had top ten finishes in all three races in the second round, prior to that run he had gone 15 consecutive races without a top ten finish.
Byron won twice early in the season, but entering the semifinal round, he had only nine top ten finishes. Four of those came in the first four races of the playoffs. Entering the playoffs, he had only five top ten finishes, four of which came in the first eight races of the season, and entering the playoffs he had not had a top ten result in the prior ten races.
I think drivers are going to be better next year. No one is going to be able to go nearly a third of the season without a top ten result and make a deep playoff run.
5. Denny Hamlin will be in the top five on raw points for at least 15 races
In the final playoff standings, Hamlin was fifth in the championship, however, his season was far from that great. Hamlin was outside the top twenty in points through the first 12 races. He didn’t enter the top fifteen on points until the 24th race at Richmond. He wouldn't enter the top ten on points until after the 31st race of the season at Talladega. On pure points, Hamlin would have finished ninth in the championship.
This wasn't a great season for Hamlin despite what the final championship standings say. But I think 2023 will be a better year. Hamlin had some bad days that weren't his fault. We will see more of the best from Hamlin and less of the worst. On pure points, he will rank in the top five for at least 15 of 36 races this season.
6. A.J. Allmendinger makes it to at least the round of 12 in the Cup playoffs
Allmendinger is back in the Cup Series after a few seasons running in the second division. Expectations are high for this return and partially because it looks like Allmendinger is a more complete driver than when he was last in the Cup Series.
He is a better oval driver. He scored his second career Cup victory while being a part-timer. There are six road/street courses on the 2023 Cup schedule. Everyone thinks Allmendinger will win one of those. If he wins one of five regular season road courses, he will make the playoffs. I think Allmendinger will drive smart and find a way into the second round of the playoffs.
There is a world where Allmendinger wins two or three road courses in the regular season, amasses ten to 15 playoff points right there, picks up another five to seven playoff points through stage wins and then is ninth or tenth in the regular season, scoops up another playoff point or two and enters round one with about 20-25 playoff points and just need three smart races to advance.
That is doable.
7. Project 91 will start fewer than six races
A big surprise from the 2022 season is Kimi Räikkönen made his NASCAR Cup Series debut driving for Trackhouse. But this was more than a one-off.
Räikkönen's debut came from the ambition of Trackhouse owner Justin Marks to have an additional entry for drivers from around the globe. Billed "Project 91" the aim is to run a handful of races with drivers who otherwise would never run a NASCAR Cup race. Räikkönen was the maiden voyager but the plan is for Project 91 to run six to eight races in 2023.
I will take the under. I feel like we hear about these programs from time to time and they never live up to the potential. I think this will be harder to pull off that Marks thinks and it will not be six to eight occasions but he could get three to five races. This requires money and sponsorship and as easy as it sounds to find the funds to run the likes of Räikkönen or Daniel Ricciardo remember that Kyle Busch and Kyle Larson have been struggling to put together Indianapolis 500 entries.
We will see Project 91 a few times, but less than the hopeful six to eight.
8. At least one championship ineligible driver wins multiple times in NASCAR's second division
The rule to limit Cup guys running in the lower series has been working, and with Kyle Busch effectively retired from the second-tier series after he surpassed the century mark in victories, there really isn't that Cup driver you regularly count on competing on Saturdays.
If you want an idea of how much things have changed, only three NASCAR Grand National Series races had Cup drivers as winners in 2022, Cole Custer at Fontana, Tyler Reddick at Texas and Kyle Larson at Watkins Glen. In 2013, series regulars only won a combined four races.
Things have changed, but I think we will see someone not going for the Xfinity title win at least twice in 2023. For starters, Ty Gibbs is still going to be allowed to run more than five races because he has less than five years of Cup experience. I think Gibbs alone will win two or three races.
Add to it, Larson nearly had two victories last year. It isn't clear if Hendrick Motorsports is going to keep up running as much as they did at the lower levels, but if Larson or Reddick or Chase Elliott or even the likes of Ross Chastain run four or five races in the second division they could win twice and no one would be surprised.
There is always the chance Kyle Busch does come back. You wouldn't pencil him down for fewer than two victories.
9. Sheldon Creed has at least five top five finishes in the first 17 races of the Grand National Series
Creed was one of the biggest disappointments of the 2022 season. After a few strong seasons in the Truck Series, which included the series championship in 2020, moving up to the second division with Richard Childress Racing felt like a match made in Heaven. Creed was expected to be a playoff driver and a possible outsider for the championship.
Instead, he didn't qualify for the playoffs while RCR teammate Austin Hill did and single-car team drivers Riley Herbst, Ryan Sieg and Jeremy Clements also made it.
But thing were turning around in the later stages of the season. He didn't get his first top five finishes in 2022 until the 18th race of the season. He had four top five finishes in the final 16 races of the season. I think he exceeds his 2022 total within the first half of the 2023 season.
Creed will be back with RCR. His results were getting better late. He had a great run going at Bristol only to have an accident. He should be more prominent in a good way in 2023.
10. Chase Elliott does not win the SRX season finale
This prediction spans multiple series.
There have been two Superstar Racing Experience seasons. In each of those seasons, Elliott has won the season finale. In 2021, it was at the Nashville Fairgrounds. In 2022, it was Sharon Speedway in Ohio.
One is a happenstance. Twice is a coincidence. Three times is a pattern.
We will not get a pattern. Either Elliott will not be entered for the finale at Lucas Oil Speedway in Missouri, or he flat out doesn't win while competing. Not all the predictions are complicated. This is simple.
11. Layne Riggs averages 27 points or more per Truck start
Riggs only started three races in the 2022 season, but in each race he was competitive. He was at the front for most of the Indianapolis Raceway Park race and he was running well at Phoenix before being shuffled back late.
An established short track driver, he was the 2022 NASCAR Weekly Series national champion. There are hopes he will get more Truck races in 2023 and could possibly be full-time. I hope Riggs is full-time because he has a bright future and he would make the Truck Series much better.
Last year, Matt Crafton was the final driver to make the Truck playoffs and he did it with 430 points from the 16-race regular season, averaging 26.875 points per race.
I think Riggs will be a playoff caliber driver. Based on 2022 numbers, 27 points per start will be good enough. Riggs might not be full-time next year but he could be one of the top competitors at the Truck level.
12. Jimmie Johnson's average finish in the Cup Series will be worse than 18.588
After two seasons away from NASCAR competition, Johnson is set to return in a part-time effort with Petty GMS Racing, a team he now owns a portion of.
We know he will at least attempt to make the Daytona 500. His total number of races is still undecided, but Johnson has been gone for two years. The field has gotten a year with the new car. He will be behind a learning curve after he stepped away while on a downward slide in his career.
I don't think he will be massively competitive. If he was struggling to crack the top ten while full-time and only a few seasons removed from a seventh championship, how will things be better as a part-timer?
What is the significance of an average finish of 18.588? That is Johnson's average finish in the 2022 IndyCar season. I think Johnson returns and he does worse than he did when full-time in IndyCar. I know the series have different field sizes and an average finish of 19th would actually be finishing in the top half of the field in the Cup Series, but this will not be a Mark Martin-esque 2007 season that launches a second act.
One prediction down, four to go. Those will come next week. Tomorrow comes the annual motorsports Christmas list. Stay tuned.
