1. Is Nick Sanchez poised for a breakout season?
After winning the ARCA Menards Series championship in 2022, Nick Sanchez’s rookie season in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series wasn’t one without growing pains, heartbreak and near misses.
He impressed in qualifying to the tune of five poles and nine front-row starts, but he only finished in the top five twice and was unable to visit victory lane despite leading 309 laps in his first season. The races at Atlanta Motor Speedway and Texas Motor Speedway were particularly crushing, as he was passed by Christian Eckes in the final set of corners at the former, and he crashed out on the final lap at the latter after leading 168 of the 172 laps.
Sanchez did make the playoffs last year, but he missed advancing to the Championship 4 by just one point. He won Rookie of the Year honors and showed flashes of brilliance, but overall, it was a year of close but no cigar.
Fast forward to 2024, and it only took one race for him to find victory lane after leading the most laps in Friday’s (Feb. 16) season opener at Daytona International Speedway.
With a year of experience under his belt, Sanchez won’t be the championship favorite (that honor goes to Corey Heim), but he will continue to improve on putting complete races together. The speed of Sanchez and the No. 2 team was well on display last year, and now, it’s just a matter of having it carry over from start to finish.
With a win already under his belt, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see Sanchez win multiple races in 2024 and race for a championship at Phoenix Raceway in November.
2. Will Austin Hill go back-to-back to start the NASCAR Xfinity Series season?
Dread it, run from it, but Austin Hill arrives all the same at Daytona.
He scored back-to-back victories in the 2022 and 2023 Xfinity season openers, and he asserted himself to the lead with three laps to go on Monday (Feb. 19) to complete the hat trick, all while his No. 21 had significant nose damage from an earlier incident.
Richard Childress Racing has been the team to beat on superspeedways, and last week was no different. Hill now has five Xfinity wins on drafting tracks, split between three at Daytona and two at Atlanta. New teammate Jesse Love also impressed in his Xfinity debut, as he won the pole and led the most laps before succumbing to a last lap crash and a 20th-place finish.
Up next on the Xfinity schedule is Atlanta, Hill’s home track and one…
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