Friday 5: Is William Byron the model or the exception for future racers?

Eleven years after first competing in a race car at age 14, William Byron could be headed for his first NASCAR Cup championship.

If the 25-year-old Byron wins the title next month at Phoenix Raceway, he’d be one of the sport’s youngest series champions. Only Bill Rexford (23), Jeff Gordon (24) and Chase Elliott (24) would have won a Cup crown at a younger age.

But if William Byron were 14 years old today and just starting to drive a race car, could he still have a chance to win the Cup championship a little over a decade later?

There are more avenues available for children to begin racing at an early age these days. Getting a late start racing cars as Byron did — even with his previous experience on iRacing — could be challenging.

INEX, the sanctioning body for U.S. Legend Cars International, lowered the minimum age requirement for its Bandolero division from age 8 to 7 in September 2022. INEX also lowered the minimum age to compete in a Legend Car from age 12 to 10 provided drivers had sufficient experience racing at an earlier age.

While the NASCAR Cup and Xfinity Series are at Charlotte Motor Speedway this weekend, about 150 NASCAR Youth Series quarter midget drivers will compete across the street at zMax Dragway. There are about 6,000 quarter midget drivers, age 5-17, across the country, according to Ben McFarland, series director.

Although some of those racing at an early age will move to other interests, those that remain will gain valuable experience that could help their climb up the racing ladder. That makes the question of how far a late starter to racing, such as Byron, can go if they are beginning years behind some of their competitors.

Byron doesn’t see reason for late-starters to be too worried.

“I think you can still do it that way, just because I feel like it’s more of a maturity thing,” Byron said. “I don’t think that me starting younger would have yielded the same results. I just feel like me starting when I did, I felt like I understood things. I watched racing for a long time, and I had a little bit better idea of what I was looking to do.

“I feel like starting really young is fine, if that’s what you choose to do. But it’s easy to get burnt out, too. So you don’t want to be burnt out at 14 years old — have raced for so many years, so many weekends, that you don’t have much of a life outside of that. I feel like I’ve learned a lot of things by starting when I did and kind of going from there, and still having the desire and the drive now to do it every weekend.”

More than half the 12 remaining playoff drivers first began competing in motorsports before they were 10 years old, including Ryan Blaney, Denny Hamlin and former champion Kyle Larson.

Blaney, who won last weekend at Talladega, and Byron are the only drivers to secure a spot in the Round of 8. This marks the third year in a row the 29-year-old Blaney has reached that round. It is the second year in a row in the Round of 8 for Byron, who secured a spot with his Texas victory.

The last three Cup champions — Joey Logano, Larson and Chase Elliott — each started racing by the time they were 8 years old.

Byron says there’s more than running lap after lap to excel as a driver.

“It’s more quality than quantity, I think, and getting yourself in competitive environments where it’s very difficult to compete and win,” Byron said of what matters for youth racers. “I think that’s really important because having that false sense of confidence that you’re going to win every race is not real. So you have to put your kid in different situations that he’s going to be challenged – see how they perform and see if they enjoy it.

“If they enjoy that challenge, that’s usually what it takes. When you get to this level, you’re only going to win maybe 10 to 20 percent of the time. So it’s very difficult – you go a lot of weeks losing.”

Kyle Busch didn’t start racing Legend Cars until he was 13. His 8-year-old son Brexton already is a racing veteran.

Busch said the key is to make it fun for children at an early age.

“I think if your kids want to do it and just go out there and have fun and you don’t push them too hard early on, then let them go do it,” he said. “That’s what we did with Brexton. I was pushy on him to get him better than what we were when we first started. But honestly, I think everything that we’ve done, he’s come so far and has been a really good listener and his growth of how fast he’s been in all the different things that he drives has been cool to watch.

“It’s only going to get tougher as you get older. Kids racing against kids – yeah, if your kid is really, really good, they’re going to win a lot like we do. But as we get older and as we get into other classes – right now, (Brexton is) eight years old and racing against 16 year olds, so it’s only going to get tougher as you get higher.. the competition, the cars, everything.

“I think 10, 11, 12, you could probably get started around that age and still make it. I don’t see a problem in that. Obviously money and a name is going to take you there a lot faster than being a nobody with no money. it’s just a fact.

“So I think there’s a lot of drivers out there that I get to see racing with Brexton that do have the potential and could make it someday. It’s just a matter of if they’ll ever get seen and picked up.”

2. Looking ahead to 2025 schedule and beyond

While NASCAR was not able to come to agreement with Montreal for a Cup race in 2024, the sanctioning body seeks to have an international Cup race in the future.

“We still are bullish about finding our way either north of the border, whether that be in Montreal or Toronto or another market, or south of the border down into Mexico,” said Ben Kennedy, NASCAR senior vice president of racing development and strategy.

“As we’ve mentioned in the past, we want to bring our NASCAR Cup Series there at some point. We think it’s important for us to get outside of the United States with our series in some way, shape or form. So that’s something we’re going to keep our pulse on as we think about 2025 and beyond.”

Atlanta, Iowa lead biggest changes to Cup schedule

Kim Coon, Nate Ryan and Dale Jarrett react to the biggest changes coming to the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series schedule, including a double dip at Atlanta and the addition of Iowa Speedway.

Another track that was spoken about a little bit this summer was Rockingham Speedway, which hosted Cup races from 1965-2004.

Kennedy admitted to conversations with officials from Rockingham Speedway.

“It’s something that we certainly keep on the radar as is a number of other facilities,” he said.

Among the challenges for Rockingham is that NASCAR already hosts seven Cup races within a 2-hour, 30-minute drive of Rockingham. Charlotte, Martinsville and Darlington host two races each, and the All-Star Race is at North Wilkesboro.

Bristol, Richmond and Atlanta — each has two races — are within a five-hour drive of Rockingham, putting 13 Cup races within that distance of the track.

This year marked the last year of Cup racing on dirt at Bristol. The track’s spring date returns to the concrete track, but Kennedy says dirt still could have a place in NASCAR.

“We’re certainly open to dirt racing, whether it be with our Cup Series, Xfinity Series or Craftsman Truck Series,” he said. “It’s something we’re going to continue to consider.

“With that said, I think after we’ve seen racing on the dirt at Bristol play out for the past few years and hearing some of the fan feedback, we felt like it was an opportunity for us to shake things up a bit and move back to the concrete surface in the spring and move back to all asphalt and concrete tracks for ’24.

“I think that said, as we think about what the future looks like, dirt racing does have a unique place in motorsports. You think about a lot of our drivers, they came from dirt racing. You think of some of the best racing that I’ve personally seen, it’s on dirt. Do I think there is going to be a dirt race sometime in the future? I think so. What that track looks like or what the time is, we’ll see, but it’s something we’re going to keep our pulse on for sure.”

3. Chicago backs 2024 NASCAR race after changes

The City of Chicago issued a statement this week supporting the return of NASCAR to its streets July 6-7 after some changes.

The city noted that NASCAR “has agreed to shorten the event’s set up and tear down windows, reducing travel disruptions.” The city also noted that NASCAR has committed to addressing costs incurred by city departments and agencies in facilitating and securing the event as consistent with other large-scale events.

“This is a win for Chicago taxpayers, as the original agreement did not include provisions for such costs,” the City of Chicago stated.

NASCAR’s agreement with the city called for the sanctioning body to pay a permit fee of $500,000 this year, $550,000 next year and $605,000 for the 2025 event. NASCAR also paid $2 per ticket sold and 15% of net commission food and beverage concessions and NASCAR merchandise sold at the event. That percentage increases to 20% next year and 25% in 2025.

The (Chicago) South Side Weekly estimated that Chicago paid $1.1 million in police overtime associated with the race.

The City of Chicago also stated: “Finally, NASCAR has committed to growing its impressive investments in Chicago communities and expanding opportunities for small-, minority- and women-owned businesses to participate as vendors in 2024.”

The additional agreements are with a new administration. The original deal was done with former Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who was not re-elected earlier this year. Brandon Johnson was elected mayor this year. He spoke at the drivers meeting before the Chicago Cup race in July.

The City of Chicago ended its statement with: “The City looks forward to working with NASCAR and other stakeholders to deliver a successful Chicago Street Race weekend in 2024 that works for residents, fans and Chicago’s economy.”

4. Race to make the Round of 8

Brad Keselowski enters Sunday’s Cup race at the Charlotte Roval (2 p.m. ET on NBC) holding the final transfer spot to the Round of 8, but his advantage is slim.

Keselowski leads Tyler Reddick by two points.

Keselowski has never won a Cup road course race in 42 starts. He has only two top-five finishes in his last 27 Cup road course starts.

“I think every loss annoys you and if it doesn’t, you’re not really a great competitor,” Keselowski said of how much his road course record bothers him. “I work at it and work at it and I haven’t had the results I’ve wanted.

“I’ve got a number of seconds and thirds on a whole bunch of road courses, but haven’t been able to punch through and that can be frustrating, but then you look at other tracks where I have punched through and said, ‘Wow, maybe I deserved that one and maybe I didn’t,’ so you just kind of take that as it goes.”

Keselowski finished fifth at the Roval in 2019 but has not placed better than 14th in his other four starts at the track.

Reddick has finished no worse than 12th in his three previous Roval starts.

Reddick is the only driver with multiple road course wins in the Next Gen era. He has three, including a victory at Circuit of the Americas in March.

“With how strong we’ve been at the road courses, we’ll take minus-two (to the cutline),” Reddick said after last weekend’s race at Talladega.

Also below the cutline is Bubba Wallace (-9 points to Keselowski), Ross Chastain (-10) and Kyle Busch (-26).

Assessing Cup playoff bubble ahead of ROVAL cutoff

Kim Coon, Nate Ryan and Dale Jarrett assess the NASCAR Cup Series playoff bubble ahead of the cutoff race at the Charlotte ROVAL and discuss who they are eyeing to advance into the Round of 8.

5. Number crunching

Kyle Larson has led a series-high 898 laps this season but none in the five previous road course races this year.

Martin Truex Jr. has six consecutive finishes outside the top 15. It’s his worst streak since 2011.

The last 10 road course races were won from a top-10 starting spot.

The last seven playoff races have been won by seven different drivers, the longest streak in playoff history. They are:

2023 Talladega — Ryan Blaney

2023 Texas — William Byron

2023 Bristol — Denny Hamlin

2023 Kansas — Tyler Reddick

2023 Darlington — Kyle Larson

2022 Phoenix — Joey Logano

2022 Martinsville — Christopher Bell