Parity or Powerhouses?

1. Will the 2023 season look like another one where anyone can win on any given week … and do NASCAR fans want that?

Sports fans don’t know their own hearts’ desires.

Sure, everyone with a rooting interest wants their team, player or driver to win. They say they want as level a playing field as possible, and for it to be possible for anyone to win at any time.

Numbers suggest the opposite is true. TV ratings and other gauges of interest almost always find that when there’s one superstar or team at the forefront, more people care. The masses love a winner and will jump on the bandwagon. Others will root against them with all their might. Either way, dominance gets people interested.

That idea has never been more relevant for the NASCAR Cup Series than it is right now, on the cusp of the 2023 season. Last year was one for parity lovers, with 19 different drivers winning at least one race and no one winning more than five. Joey Logano won four times, making him a fine series champion. Clutch, for sure. But dominant? Not really.

Contrast that to the 2022 campaign, where Kyle Larson was The Man. He took the checkered flag 10 times, more than twice as many as anyone else, and surprised absolutely no one when he took the championship as well. You were either on board or hoping against hope that someone would upset him.

If you took a straw poll of NASCAR fans, everyone except Larson fans would probably say last season was more fun. There was a sense of unpredictability and freshness to it all, aided by the new Cup Series car. It’s likely that the lack of one or two drivers really flexing their muscles and winning a ton was at least partly due to teams needing all year to figure it out.

The 2023 season might be like that too, with no repeat drivers for a while and tons of parity. But it’s just as likely that some organization will hit on something that will make them the obvious class in the garage.

Which way will it go? And if it’s parity, will fans eat it up, or will they tire of a second straight year where there’s no one power in the garage? Those are the most interesting fundamental questions as Daytona International Speedway beckons.

2. Can TrackHouse pull off an encore?

At the center of the parity party from last year was the emergence of TrackHouse Racing.

It would have been difficult for a Hollywood scriptwriter to concoct a more feel-good story: one owner had been around stock car racing for a…