A 2022 “Halfway” Season Recap

The 2022 NASCAR season has reached its halfway point.

Okay, not exactly. We just call it that because it’s close enough to the mid-season point for the NASCAR Cup Series and we just had a week off; in reality, we’re just shy of halfway for Cup, not even close to halfway for the Xfinity Series and more than midway for the Camping World Truck Series.

Whoaaaaaaaa, we’re halfway there

Whoaaaaaaaa, livin’ on a prayer

– Bon Jovi

Maybe not living on a prayer, per se, but definitely almost halfway there.

With all that said, let’s break down the three series and where we’re at as the push towards the playoffs begins in earnest at Nashville Superspeedway this weekend.

Cup

Next Gen. Parity. Wheel issues. You’ve heard all these for more than four months this season.

There’ve been 12 different winners across 16 races, a third of them first-time winners: Austin Cindric led off the season with his Daytona 500 triumph, while Chase Briscoe and Ross Chastain followed in later races with their first career victories. Most recently, Daniel Suarez dominated late at Sonoma Raceway for his maiden win.

Alongside four first-time winners, there’s also four multi-win drivers in 2022: Chastain, Joey Logano, Denny Hamlin and William Byron.

Hamlin leads a Joe Gibbs Racing stable with just one win outside of the No. 11 crew, which came in the form of Kyle Busch on the dirt at Bristol Motor Speedway. Busch ran well enough to be in position to capitalize as Briscoe and Tyler Reddick made contact to end both drivers’ chances at a victory, but teammates Martin Truex Jr. and Christopher Bell still haven’t found the winner’s circle in 2022. Truex came close at Las Vegas Motor Speedway while battling Busch, but a late caution made it a Hendrick Motorsports 1-2 instead of a Gibbs 1-2.

Speaking of Hendrick, Chase Elliott leads the points but was the last driver — by quite a bit — in the stable to finally secure a win. Kyle Larson and Alex Bowman won the second and third races, respectively, while Byron claimed two wins in a four-race span and nearly won a third in that window at Richmond Raceway.

Also winning in that span was Chastain at Circuit of the Americas, and the “Melon Man” followed that up less than a month later with a triumph at Talladega Superspeedway. Suarez’s win at Sonoma — which meant Trackhouse Racing Team swept the two road course races in the first half of 2022 — means both of the team’s machines are locked into the postseason,…