Who are the favorites to win the regular season championship in all three series?
It’s a new season, and between team changes and drivers moving up the racing ladder, every series will have its own unique feel for the 2023 season.
The question everyone asks at the start of the season is who will win the championship. But since the championship is only decided by one race and is all but impossible to predict before the season starts, I’ll instead focus on the drivers who have the best chance at the regular-season championship. The regular season is 26 races for the NASCAR Cup Series and NASCAR Xfinity Series and 16 races for the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series.
Chevrolet has won back-to-back manufacturers titles in the Cup Series, and it looks poised to continue its dominance. Chase Elliott won the regular-season championship last year, and while he will be a factor, Kyle Larson will be back and gunning for the top spot. Larson wasn’t leading much in the first two-thirds of 2022, but he came to life with a dominant win at Homestead-Miami Speedway in October. No one was able to beat the No. 5 team when it hit its stride in 2021, and it looks like the team has figured out how to dominate in the Next Gen car.
Beyond Hendrick Motorsports, Ross Chastain built a solid foundation in year one at Trackhouse Racing and has the potential to build on that first year. And if Toyota and Ford are back in the game, Denny Hamlin and Joey Logano will be in the mix for 2023 as well.
With Ty Gibbs, Noah Gragson and AJ Allmendinger moving up to the Cup Series, the Xfinity Series faces an unknown landscape in 2023. Justin Allgaier and Josh Berry each scored three wins and were right behind the trio in dominance for 2022, and they will be joined by John Hunter Nemechek at Joe Gibbs Racing, who will be the leader of Toyota’s top Xfinity team. Those three will likely duke it out for position as top dog.
The Truck Series is a no-brainer. Zane Smith dominated in 2022, and his two closest competitors in Nemechek and Chandler Smith left for the Xfinity Series. Ty Majeski, who ended 2022 on a hot streak with two wins, and Corey Heim, who scored two wins in a part-time schedule for Kyle Busch Motorsports last season, will likely play spoiler for Zane Smith this season.
What did NASCAR get right with the Jan. 31 rule changes?
NASCAR announced a plethora of rule changes for the 2023 NASCAR season on Jan. 31.
And for the most part, it got…
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