Our annual Christmas season tradition is upon us. The year 2023 is effectively over. Most of us are mailing it in for the next 11 days. We will get back to 100% on January 2, maybe we hold off until January 3. But with the year closing, let's look to next year and consider what we could see in 2024. We start with NASCAR!
1. The Cup Series champion will have at least five top five finishes between the months of June, July, August and September
This is in response to the 2023 champion. Ryan Blaney did not have a top five finish from his victory in the Coca-Cola 600 in May to his victory at Talladega on October 1. Blaney went 124 days between top five finishes. He ended with the fewest top five finishes for a Cup champion since Bill Rexford in 1950, NASCAR's second season.
In all likelihood, that was a fluke. A driver with only eight top five finishes the entire season and none for the entire summer will not win the championship a second consecutive year nor a second time in a decade nor not for another 73 years. It is not likely to happen...
But with this playoff format it is increasingly more likely than any previous format. You don't have to win a lot to win the championship, you just have to win at the right time. That is essentially how Blaney won the championship in 2023.
However, the cream rises to the top. We are going to see a driver win five or six races and have about 18 top five finishes in the entire season and that driver will win the championship more times than a driver who goes over four months without a top five finish.
The 2024 champion will have a more prolific season and be at the front more than the 2023 champion, specifically for the four months that make up summer.
2. Every Cup playoff driver finishes the season with at least four top five finishes
The more you look at the Cup Series and consider the competitiveness of this generation of car, we see more variety at the front. There were fewer winners in 2023 than 2022, but there were still 15 winners, including a driver winning on debut. We are seeing more teams clicking at a few tracks or a few disciplines and able to be in the front while running more in the middle elsewhere.
In 2023, 14 playoff drivers ended the season with five top five finishes or more. However, outside the playoffs was Chase Elliott, who had seven top five finishes. Ty Gibbs, Alex Bowman and A.J. Allmendinger each had four top five finishes. Even Chase Briscoe had four top five finishes.
Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. and Michael McDowell each won a race to make the playoffs, though they only finished with two top five finishes. Elliott and Gibbs will make significant playoff pushes in 2024. Bowman should also be in the picture. Briscoe has won before.
The door will remain open for a driver to win once and sneak in with an otherwise lackluster season, but I think the bar will be high to make the playoffs, and we will see that at the end of the season.
3. William Byron will have fewer victories where he lead 20 laps or fewer
Byron won the most races in 2023. He had six victories. He also ended tied for the most top five finishes (18 with Kyle Larson) and Byron was the only driver to break 20 top ten finishes in 2023 (21 to be specific).
However, if you take a closer look at Byron's victories, a few of those were fortunate.
He won at Darlington in May after Martin Truex, Jr., Ross Chastain and Kyle Larson were all caught in late accidents. Byron won having led only seven laps.
At Atlanta in July, he had only led 19 laps when rain ended the race, and those were the final 19 laps before weather ended the race.
He won at Texas in September having led only the final six laps after a late restart after Kyle Larson spun out of the race battling Bubba Wallace in the late laps.
Half of his victories saw him led 20 laps or fewer. Two of those saw him lead fewer than ten laps, and in each of those races he led he led none of the laps in the first 97% of the race.
Byron might win six races again in 2024, but he isn't going to win three times like he did in 2023. He was set up to pounce when an opportunity opened, but you cannot always put yourself in that position. Even if you do, the breaks don't always go your way.
4. 23XI Racing will win more Cup races but have fewer drivers in the final top ten championship standings
There is a world where Tyler Reddick wins twice, Bubba Wallace wins once but those drivers finish sixth and 11th in the championship.
On paper, that season would be one more victory for 23XI than it had in 2023, which would look good, but Wallace losing a spot would look bad. Wallace only finished in the top ten by ten points over Martin Truex, Jr. in 2023.
The way the championship positions are decided in the playoffs is fluid. Once the playoffs start, the points matter less and once a driver is eliminated from the playoffs, we see teams fall off. Truex, Jr. was ranked in the top five of the championship after 17 of the 26 regular season races. At the end of the regular season, Truex was first, 47 points ahead of Denny Hamlin in second and 179 points ahead of Joey Logano in 11th.
Yet, due to the resets and Truex's dip in results, he ended up 11th in the championship. Was he really the 11th best driver? No, but he wasn't 17th in 2022 either and that is where he was placed in the championship standings. Without the playoffs, Truex wouldn't have been champion this year, but he would have been fourth.
With that said, 23XI could have another banner year, but the championship positions will not reflect that. Wallace should have won a race in 2023. I think he will in 2024. Reddick has a good chance of winning more in 2024. Each driver could win three times, but Reddick could end up 12th because results took a turn at the wrong time or Wallace could be boom or bust, winning three times but only having four top five finishes all season.
As much as you think winning means everyone goes up, let's not forget, along with Truex, Joey Logano was not in the top ten of the championship. Kyle Busch was not in the top ten of the championship. Chase Elliott, Ty Gibbs and Alex Bowman didn't make the playoffs. There is a world where all six of those drivers are in the top ten in 2024. If they are in, somebody has to get moved out.
5. Shane van Gisbergen's average finish across the three national NASCAR series will be greater than 15.5
The full Shane van Gisbergen experiment will begin in 2024. Van Gisbergen will be full-time in NASCAR's second division. It has already been announced van Gisbergen will run seven Cup races. Any Truck participation will be determined and announced at a later time.
We already saw van Gisbergen win for Trackhouse and he will be competing for Kaulig Racing in the second division. He is in good cars, but ovals will still be new to him. Most of his races will be with Kaulig. In the Grand National Series, a Kaulig car should be a top 20 car at worse. You put the average driver in a Kaulig car and that car should still finish 20th.
Van Gisbergen will have rough days, but there will be races where it clicks for him and he is closer to the top ten or in the top ten. There will be six road course races, which will help his average finish. A victory or two and four or five top five finishes on road courses will bring the average down, but van Gisbergen's numbers will reflect his inexperience.
Consider that Chandler Smith and Daniel Hemric were Kaulig's full-time drivers in 2023. Smith's average finish was 15.6 and Hemric's was 13.5. We considered Smith's season respectable. I am not sure van Gisbergen can match that.
If you factor in every race van Gisbergen runs across the three series in 2024, I think any stellar success on road courses will be balanced out with teething problems on ovals.
6. Ty Gibbs will get his first career Cup victory before the All-Star Race
This is as straight up of a prediction as you can get. Gibbs will win one of the first 13 races. He was getting better over the course of the season. All four of his top five finishes came in the final 15 races of the season. He had a few good races early in the season. With another season under his belt, driving for Joe Gibbs Racing, he is bound to win once.
Why do I think he is going to win early?
A hunch. Nothing more than that.
Within those first 13 races you have Daytona, Atlanta and Talladega, three races where you just have to be at the right place at the right time. There is Austin, and Gibbs is good on road courses. He won at Las Vegas, Kansas, Richmond, Martinsville and Phoenix in NASCAR's second division and all five of those tracks host one of the first 13 races.
If he is going to win, I think he is going to win early and lock up a playoff spot.
7. Both Legacy Motor Club entries finish in the top 25 of the owners' championship
The first year of the rebranded Legacy Motor Club was rather dismal.
Erik Jones was 27th in the championship. Jones had one top five finish and seven top ten finishes. His average finish was 20.4.
Before being fired, Noah Gragson had an average finish of 28.2 in 21 races. Gragson was outside the top 30 in eight of those races and outside the top 25 in 14 races. He had two top 20 finishes!
In the 15 other races for the #42 Chevrolet, things were a little better. The average finish was 24.733 and it had five top 20 finishes.
Why should we think 2024 will be better?
Legacy is switching to Toyota. Instead of being at best the sixth best Chevrolet team, it will now be one of the top three Toyota teams. Of the six full-time Toyota entries in 2023, four made the playoffs. All six made the top 18 in the championship.
Switching manufacturers isn't going to just flip fortune, but the lineup is set up for improvement. Jones has experience with Toyota, and in his previous two seasons with this organization he was 24th and 18th in the championship. John Hunter Nemechek will be the new full-time driver in the #42 Toyota, and he has found new confidence in the last few years driving for Toyota in the lower two divisions.
We are not looking for a massive swing upward. The cars ending up 24th and 25th will be good enough.
8. The Iowa Cup winner will have won there previously in one of NASCAR's other national series
Iowa is finally getting a Cup race. After years of being neglected and ignored, NASCAR is doing the right thing and running a Cup race there.
It has been a few seasons since any NASCAR national series has gone to the 0.875-mile oval, but plenty of drivers have experience there, whether it be in the second division or Trucks. Many of those drivers have even won at Iowa.
Of the 14 drivers to win at Iowa in NASCAR's second division, ten will likely be in the Cup race in June. Those drivers are Brad Keselowski, Kyle Busch, Ricky Stenhouse, Jr., Ryan Blaney, Erik Jones, Chris Buescher, William Byron, Ryan Preece, Christopher Bell and Chase Briscoe.
Throw in Austin Dillon and John Hunter Nemechek and about a third of the tentative Cup grid at Iowa has won there already.
Give me the those drivers against the field.
Why?
Why not?
Don't get me wrong. The field is pretty good: Kyle Larson, Chase Elliott, Denny Hamlin, Martin Truex, Jr., Joey Logano, Ross Chastain, Tyler Reddick, Bubba Wallace, Alex Bowman, Ty Gibbs.
I don't think Iowa experience will matter one way or another. Iowa's worn surface will likely favor those who run well at Darlington, a place Larson, Hamlin and Truex have had success at.
It is a tossup, but I will go with the drivers who have won there before.
9. The driver that wins the most races in NASCAR's second division wins the championship
This is more due to the absurdity that the champion in NASCAR's second division has not been the driver to win the most races since Kyle Busch in 2009. The last time the Grand National Series champion had the most race victories and wasn't a full-time Cup driver was Martin Truex, Jr. in 2005.
There was that long period of Cup driver dominance, that continued even when Cup drivers were made championship ineligible, but for most of the playoff era, the Grand National Series has shifted to being about the full-time drivers in the series. We don't see Cup drivers moonlighting and taking 25 victories from 33 races. In 2023, championship ineligible drivers combined for six victories, 27 of 33 races went to the regulars.
And still, the driver with the most victories didn't win the championship!
It is bound to end. It will end in 2024.
10. This will be the season with the most race winners qualifying for the playoff in NASCAR's second division
For the second consecutive year, the Grand National Series has a deep field of drivers. This isn't the case of there being nine really good teams and drivers and then three guys who combine for three top five finishes and ten top ten finishes have to fill the final three spots. There are about 16 drivers with legitimate playoff aspirations and only 12 playoff spots.
Since the adoption of playoffs in 2016, the most drivers to qualify for the playoffs on race victories is eight. It happened the last two seasons.
I think we are going to see at least nine drivers win in the regular season and earn a playoff spot that way, and it could be higher. I am not sure it will be 12-for-12, but ten sounds practical as well.
Consider any of the four JR Motorsports drivers can win a race (Justin Allgaier, Sam Mayer, Sammy Smith and Brandon Jones). Then you have the defending champion (Cole Custer) and his Stewart-Haas Racing teammate, who ended 2023 on a strong note (Riley Herbst). Austin Hill has a knack for winning and Richard Childress Racing does well in this series, which should boost the confidence of its newest driver (Jesse Love).
Sheldon Creed has had a tough two seasons at this level, but he is now at Joe Gibbs Racing, and the equipment is proven. Chandler Smith has already won in this series and is moving to Gibbs.
Then you have A.J. Allmendinger and Shane van Gisbergen at Kaulig Racing. Both will likely win one road course race. Jeb Burton can win at Talladega or Atlanta. Burton's Jordan Anderson Racing teammate Parker Retzlaff showed some promise last year. Parker Kligerman had a few close calls in 2023, and it would not be surprising if he won in 2024. Josh Williams is a question mark, but he will be at Kaulig.
That is 16 drivers and not factoring in Jeremy Clements just won at Daytona in 2022, Ryan Sieg has been hanging around the periphery for a victory for a few seasons, and there could be another five drivers that could steal a win at Daytona or Talladega.
It is hard to make an argument there will not be nine or ten winners in the regular season.
11. Drivers with a first name beginning with the letter "C" will combine to win fewer than ten Truck races
Goofy prediction!
Last season, drivers with a first name beginning with the letter "C" combined to win 11 races.
Christian Eckes and Carson Hocevar each won four times and Corey Heim won three times.
Hocevar is moving to the Cup Series. That is three victories gone. Eckes and/or Heim could win more. Chase Purdy will be full-time with Spire Motorsports, which takes over the Kyle Busch Motorsports operation, but I think it will be lower.
ThorSport has four capable drivers in Ben Rhodes, Ty Majeski, Matt Crafton and Jake Garcia. None of those first names begin with the letter "C." Layne Riggs is finally full-time with Front Row Racing. Nick Sanchez is due for a victory or two. Grant Enfinger will still be out there.
I don't sense any one driver will dominate the Truck Series in 2024. Heim had a really good season, but I don't see him winning six times and then Eckes winning three and Purdy winning twice. I don't see any of those three drivers winning eight times and the other two combining to win at least twice.
This is a little more unusual of a prediction. We will have to wait and see.
12. Each Chicago race will complete at least 95% of the scheduled distances but neither will exceed 110% of the scheduled distances.
It will be remembered fondly, but the inaugural Chicago event had the disappointment that the Grand National Series race did not even reach halfway and the Cup race was shortened due to darkness mid-race. It cannot be called a smashing success, but there was definitely some joyous relief that the Cup race was at least respectable when the weekend is over.
A historic rainstorm picked the wrong weekend to circle over the Windy City. That will likely not happen two consecutive years for NASCAR. The 2024 weekend should be pleasant. The weather should be favorable with each race getting in, no delays and no abbreviations. Each race should get to full distance.
However, I am leaving this one open and also putting a restriction on it. Each race will at least complete 95% of the scheduled laps, but neither will exceed 110%. That means there will not be a crazy overtime situation.
For the Grand National Series, the race is scheduled for 50 laps. That means at least 48 laps will be completed, but it will not go beyond 55 laps. The Cup race has already been shortened for 2024 to 75 laps. We are going to see at least 72 laps completed, but the Cup race will not go beyond 82 laps.
We need good weather and everyone to be on their best behavior in the closing laps to get this one correct.
One set of predictions down, four more to come next week, and keep an eye out for a Christmas list in the coming days.
