The Top 5: Breaking down the NASCAR Homestead weekend (2024)

Five thoughts after this weekend’s NASCAR races at Homestead-Miami Speedway…

1. Your guess is as good as mine

You might think it would be embarrassing for a NASCAR journalist to be blindsided by the results of the first three races. Michael McDowell as the Daytona 500 winner? Wasn’t totally shocked, but also didn’t guess it. Christopher Bell winning his first career Cup Series race on a road course? No way. William Byron leading triple-digit laps en route to a victory at Homestead? Whaaaat?

But I’m actually quite happy about being wrong. The worst NASCAR seasons to cover are the ones that quickly turn predictable, when the same drivers dominate the races over and over. It turns the spring and summer into a long slog to the playoffs, which then can see fairly by-the-numbers results themselves.

So far, this is notthat type of season. And it’s setting up to be the most unpredictable in years.

What a breath of fresh air. As if two first-time winners to open the season weren’t exciting enough, we were gifted another surprise on Sunday.

Homestead had a stunning early-race leader in Chris Buescher, who led 57 laps (second-most of anyone on Sunday). Though Buescher faded when the sun went down, Roush Fenway Racing teammate Ryan Newman ended up getting the team’s first top 10 at an intermediate track since the 2019 season finale.

Sunday also had a surprise top-10 finisher in McDowell, who got the first such result on a 1.5-mile track in Front Row Motorsports’ team history. Then the race was topped off by runner-up Tyler Reddick, who put on a show streaking to the front, but couldn’t catch a relatively surprising winner in Byron, whose previous three Homestead starts had an average finish of 24th with zero laps led.

What world are we living in? What is going on here?

The results so far can most likely be explained by the combination of three unique tracks (even Homestead isn’t a typical intermediate) plus offseason gains that have momentarily provided a shot of parity. With teams forbidden to do any parts development on their cars and wind tunnel time restricted, less-funded organizations have gotten a chance to make gains with the rules package unchanged from last year.

“We used to fall so far behind,” McDowell said. “Now I feel like we’re able to build on what we had in the past and make our cars a little bit better each time we come to the racetrack without changing all the fundamental pieces and kind of starting over and having to re-engineer everything.”

“Everybody is really just trying to work on the same things every week,” said Martin Truex Jr., who finished third. “So it gives you time to work on your stuff and not have to really develop a lot of things. The smaller teams definitely get to catch up.”

Even so, crediting the parts freeze for newfound parity is a theory born out of some surprising results rather than an explanation of something everyone saw coming.

For example: Denny Hamlin is one of the better prognosticators in the garage, and I asked him four days before the race to predict what Homestead might bring.

“I think it will be more status quo on where we were last year,” he said. “With the mid-tier teams, this is where the resources they don’t have will come into factor a little bit more.

“We are about to get into a chunk of the season where you are going to start to see some of your normal winners in the bracket.”

That might be true starting next week, but it certainly wasn’t the case on Sunday. The usual faces are 0-for-3 this season, with the start of the year instead being claimed by three drivers who had a combined one career victory a month ago.

2. Can it last?

The next three racetracks — Las Vegas, Phoenix and Atlanta — are not typically the type for “weird winners” (a term used by Byron crew chief Rudy Fugle).

Vegas, for example, has never seen an underdog driver in its victory lane (though Kurt Busch was a mild surprise last fall). Phoenix hasn’t had a first-time winner since Bobby Hamilton in 1996. The last shocker at Atlanta was when Carl Edwards beat Jimmie Johnson for his first career win in 2005 — but that Edwards fella went on to be pretty good.

Homestead is its own beast, where running the Reddick/Kyle Larson line can make a difference and tire strategy can change the race. If drivers like McDowell and Buescher have good runs again next week, perhaps that will be the evidence people need to start believing.

But their speed is unlikely to stick around, isn’t it?

“I still think the strong teams will end up being the teams to beat when all is said and done,” Truex said.

McDowell, listening on the same Zoom, could be seen nodding at Truex’s words.

“I agree with Martin that it definitely has closed the gap, but the top teams will always be the top teams,” McDowell said. “They just consistently do it just a tad better: Pit road, execution, lighter, faster, more downforce.”

That said, here’s something to consider for the future. If an R&D freeze is really to be credited for the field’s increased competitiveness, the Next Gen car’s arrival could truly be a boost for NASCAR. Teams will be required to buy their cars and parts from a single source; they won’t be allowed to manufacture some cutting-edge piece that pushes the limits of the rule book.

If that’s the case, the Next Gen concept — including the long-term financial savings with fewer employees needed — might truly deliver on its promise.

3. McDazzle

In case McDowell and Front Row Motorsports return to earth next week, let’s appreciate the No. 34 team’s remarkable accomplishment thus far.

Prior to this season, McDowell had 12 career top-10 finishes in 357 starts. He wasn’t exactly a top-10 machine; the most he’d gotten in a single season was four (2020).

But after the first three races of 2021, McDowell has yet to place outside the top 10. There are only two drivers in the Cup Series who have gotten top-10s in every race so far: McDowell and Kevin Harvick.

That’s not just impressive — it’s actually jaw-dropping. McDowell is the best story of 2021 so far.

“To make a big jump like we did, I wouldn’t say that it’s a complete, unbelievable shock,” McDowell said after finishing sixth at Homestead, “but it’s pretty close to it.”

Seriously! Before last week, McDowell never had back-to-back top-10s in his career. Now he has three in a row.

“We’re really doing it, and it’s fun to be a part of it right now,” McDowell said. “I didn’t do anything different (Sunday) as far as me. I didn’t come with a different approach of how I was going to drive it. I just did what I normally did do, and we were fast.”

For an unexpected Daytona 500 winner, this is quite unusual. When Derrike Cope won the 1990 Daytona 500, he was 13th in points by the end of the third race. More recently, Austin Dillon was a mild surprise as the 2018 Daytona 500 victor — and promptly fell to 10th in points following the next couple events.

Even Jamie McMurray plummeted to 14th in the standings two races after winning the 2010 Daytona 500.

But in 2021, the point standings currently read like this: Hamlin, Harvick, Joey Logano, McDowell. Andthis is a driver who finished a career-best 23rd in points last season.

Nothing against the Daytona 500, but finishing sixth on a 1.5-mile track without any fluky circ*mstances says a lot more about a race team’s strength than winning at a superspeedway.

“To be running down Kevin Harvick with five laps to go for a top-five, that’s stinking awesome for us to even be in that sentence,” McDowell said. “It just shows how much hard work everyone has done at Front Row. It’s just awesome right now.”

4. Willy B Good

This season seemed to hold the danger of Byron becoming the fourth Hendrick Motorsports car. You know, when three Hendrick cars run well and the fourth can’t keep up the pace. We’ve seen it happen with Brian Vickers and Casey Mears and Kasey Kahne over the last two decades.

With Chase Elliott as the defending Cup champion, Kyle Larson’s arrival and Alex Bowman poised for a breakout year, Byron entered his fourth Cup season with only one victory (on a superspeedway at that) and lost the GOAT crew chief, Chad Knaus.

So would the 23-year-old step up or get left behind in 2021? Well, it looks like we have our answer.

Byron drove a smart and smooth race at Homestead, with new crew chief Rudy Fugle delivering a fast car and a victory in only his third Cup race. The pair picked up where they left off in 2016 at Kyle Busch Motorsports, when Byron won seven Truck Series races as a teenager.

Suddenly, Byron is in the playoffs and much of the pressure to produce results has been lifted. He won’t have to win his way into the playoffs at the regular-season finale this time around.

“I’ve spent a lot of my Cup Series career on the bubble of the playoffs and now I don’t have to worry about that,” Byron said.

But one win per year isn’t enough to stick around at Hendrick in the long run, nor does it make a season. Bowman won the third race of last year at Fontana, and it seemed he would have several more; he didn’t win another race after that. In that sense, the No. 24 team still has much to prove.

At least the opportunity is there. That’s the gift of an early-season win under NASCAR’s current system; playoff points are great, but actual strength in the playoffs is even better.

“We want to learn how to be a winning race team,” Fugle said. “To win a championship, you have to win a lot of races. So we have to learn how to do that now and get used to that.

“We’re not a championship team yet, but over the next 20-some weeks we’re going to become one.”

5. Oh No-ah!

In the past eight months, Noah Gragson has led a series-high 198 laps across three Homestead races — and has nothing to show for it.

At last year’s doubleheader weekend, Gragson built big leads at both races only to see them evaporate with late cautions that cost him the win. And on Saturday, Gragson had a huge lead in the waning laps, only to bethe caution this time.

As Gragson raced around the top line, David Starr’s soon-to-be-lapped car suddenly had a tire coming apart. Although the tire wasn’t flat yet, Starr lost control and slid up into the wall right in front of Gragson — who promptly ran into the back of Starr’s car at full speed and destroyed the front end.

The list of heartbreaks is growing to agonizing levels for Gragson. Four months ago at Texas Motor Speedway, Gragson was leading until he slipped up in the final corner and was passed by Harrison Burton — a moment that cost Gragson a shot at the Xfinity Series championship.

This continued pattern of setbacks would be a lot for anyone to deal with and, frankly, some drivers would crumble. Gragson has two career Xfinity wins, but should have at least five thanks to his Homestead dominance alone; that’s a major difference for a driver’s resume, and Gragson is well aware of the impact.

Here’s the good news for Gragson: He’s still only 22 years old. The clock is ticking in the sense he has to prove himself while in great equipment. But there will be other opportunities to win races, and painful situations like Saturday must turn into learning experiences.

Gragson didn’t necessarily do anythingwrong at Homestead, but there are things he could have done differently. Once Brett Moffitt hit the wall while trying to chase Gragson, the No. 9 car’s lead ballooned to an 8.75-second margin with 2.5 laps to go.

Because of that, you can make an argument Gragson didn’t need to be on the high side anymore. He left himself no room for escape in case a fluke incident happened.

But under normal circ*mstances, why would Gragson expect something like that to happen? Starr is 53 years old — almost 2 1/2 times older than Gragson — and has 537 NASCAR national series starts to Gragson’s 119. Based on experience alone, one would think Starr would be well out of the way by the time Gragson arrived on the scene.

Starr only moved one lane below where the leader was running, though, so his tire issue sent him right into Gragson’s lane.

Gragson drew criticism Saturday for saying he was frustrated with “dipsh*ts” who get in the way. Carl Long, Starr’s team owner, fired back in a Facebook post that Gragson was an “over entitled mouthpiece” who “did not have enough talent to miss our wreck.”

I don’t agree with either statement. Starr isn’t a dipsh*t, but if he was more than happy to take home a 12th-place finish — as Long suggested in his post — then as a veteran driver, he should have been far out of the leader’s path. And I don’t see how Gragson could have missed the wreck at that closing speed once Starr came up the track.

Next time, Gragson could do more to protect his car and not put his fate in the hands of someone else. He could have not tried to make a pass in the corner or run lower instead. But I don’t see how he can beblamed for not doing that, since he was the victim of bad timing.

Either way, these all serve as potential lessons — just like the others Gragson has learned in the public eye. As long as he doesn’t make the same mistakes over and over again, he’ll be better for it in the long run.

(Top photo: Michael Reaves / Getty Images)