Winners and Losers of NASCAR Silly Season

oh this thanksgiving food comas lasted more than a day i'm gonna need some energy if i'm gonna do this show [Music] oh yeah [Music] [Applause] [Music] how's it going y'all my name is eric welcome to out of the groove i hope you had a fantastic thanksgiving things are getting festive over here we've got a special episode in store for you today you know nascar silly season the name is kind of misleading because unlike other seasons it's not limited to like a three month time frame now nascar silly season runs 24 7 365 year in year out you never know when the next big silly season move could be announced today we're gonna look back at many of the big announcements we've seen this year in 2021 and i'm gonna tell you who the winners losers and biggest unknowns are of this year's nascar silly season but first this episode is sponsored by fission zero sugar zero calories fission is the world's first customizable energy drink and what do i mean by that well to enjoy fission simply fill your bottle with water then select your favorite flavor and screw that into the top and then by using the flavor dial you can customize just how much kick how much flavor you get it's pretty fun to experiment with and i've enjoyed trying out their vast variety of unique flavors vision wants to hear your thoughts what your favorite flavors are you can get a special discount by heading to drinkvision.com eric eaststep you click that link down in the description there you'll get ten percent off your fission order so be sure to give vision a try for yourself over the holiday season and let me know down in the comments what your favorite flavor of fission is that's a tongue twister favorite flavor of fishing try saying that five times fast thank you so much to fishing for sponsoring this episode of out of the groove 2021 has already seen more than its fair share of major silly season shake-ups from you know brad keselowski leaving team penske where he won a championship to go test the waters at roush and actually become a co-owner chip ganassi is selling his team with kurt bush heading to toyota and rosh chastain landing with track house new teams like gms joining the cup series with ty dill there have been a ton of huge moves in this year's silly season and there still could be some other big moves here in the coming months drivers like ryan newman wants to race next year but doesn't have a ride lined up mata benedetto of course cup series regular has not announced any plans for next year so the holidays could be very very busy still but here today at the end of november i want to go through many of those major silly season moves that i just mentioned and i want to tell you who so far at least the winners losers and biggest unknowns of this year's silly season are purely subjective feel free to agree or disagree with me in the comment section below but let's have some fun let's begin with the biggest winners of this year's silly season so far let's begin with ty dillon he is without a doubt a huge winner this video is going to mainly focus on the cup series but ty dillon went from sitting on his couch most of this year to landing a full-time cup series ride with a brand new chevy back team next year and the few times he did get up off his couch this year he didn't really impress i mean he was like the only driver in that 54 xfinity car this year to not only not win a race but he failed to finish inside the top 10 in four starts granted two of those were at super speedways and he had mechanical failure in the other start but still the fact that ty dillon was not full-time in any nascar series this year has not won a nascar race since 2014. that was his lone xfinity win the fact that he landed a full-time cup series gig with a chevy back team that has to make him a huge winner he's got those chevy connections we can't deny that he's a recognizable name and he likely won't destroy any of your brand new next gen car so it's an understandable choice by gms but you gotta say that's a pretty big win considering the low point he was at at the beginning of 2021. next up 2311 racing yeah they're big winners they managed to sign probably the most talented free agent on the market this year kurt busch he's a veteran high pedigree championship caliber driver he will bring to 2311 racing everything they were missing this year this year they were lacking in experience especially experience winning races kirkbush is bringing winning experience to that team and he's also bringing some sponsorship from monster energy which never hurts yes 2311 racing did struggle to find a charter and they have not actually announced the acquisition of a charter publicly yet but it sounds like according to reports they have purchased starcom's charter so kurt busch in the 45 car will have a charter next year so i think 23 11 has to be one of the biggest winners of this silly season focusing on teams roush fenway racing or now rfk racing big big winners roush fenway racing has been floundering for more than half a decade something radical needed to happen to hopefully boost roush fenway into being a contender once again and it doesn't get much more radical than bringing in an all-new championship caliber driver who is also now going to be a business partner his name is on the sign this is a huge win for roush fenway racing they're getting brad keselowski who's gonna be 38 at the beginning of next year still in his prime he's won at least one race in 11 straight seasons he's the 2012 series champion at his age he will still be an elite driver for at least a few more years and once he does choose to hang up the helmet once and for all he also has a very bright future as a team owner jack roush just signed his retirement plan if you will and my last big winner i gotta say ross chastain let me explain when chip ganassi racing announced that they had sold the team to track house there were some concerns about ross chastain's future kurt busch had said that track house had reached out to him about possibly getting their second seat for a short period of time their chastain's cup series future seemed to be in doubt once again he'd had a respectable 2021 season but there was no guarantee that he would still have a job next year until track house finally gave him the call he signed a contract look track house had plenty of growing pains in their first year last season plenty of mechanical failures but they also showed flashes of brilliance they moved into their new race shop which i believe is actually chip ganassi's shop this week the future is bright for trackhouse and ross chastain hitching himself to that bandwagon in the early stages could be huge for his career based on last year i don't think track house is quite as competitive as chip ganassi racing was but the next gen car again in many ways will be an equalizer can ross chastain contend for a playoff spot next year i think that should be the goal at least going in all right now i want to talk about the losers real quick and this is a tough category because you know silly season's not over things could change and there also aren't many losers in this deal because i mean typically when a team is swapping out drivers they're doing so because they think their new drivers can be better than the last so usually teams are getting an upgrade drivers are trying to land better rides so there aren't a whole lot of clear-cut obvious losers in this year's silly season but let's begin with an obvious one chip ganassi racing is without a doubt a loser they cut their losses and will not be racing in nascar next season i can't call them total losers i mean they were able to sell their charters for probably a pretty penny to track house as well as a lot of the other resources like the race shop so i'm sure chip ganassi made out okay at the end of the day but for fans of chip ganassi racing for just that team in general they won't be racing next season they have sold they're not going to compete in nascar to me that makes them losers they've gone away unfortunately so uh i gotta start with them the only driver i'm gonna put definitively in this category and this is a risky play by me but i'm gonna say and i hate to say this ryan newman is is in the loser category see this is what i mean silly season is not over yet ryan newman could announce next week that he signed a deal with the team to race next season see the only reason i'm putting newman in the loser category is because i do think that's very unlikely i mean he could he could theoretically sign a deal with the team he might have something in the works i have not heard anything but i also don't have eyes and ears in newman's camp but it seems unlikely at this point he's one of the oldest drivers in the cup series his stats have been lacking the last two seasons his performance has clearly dipped since 2019 he made that impressive playoff run i just don't think ryan newman is an attractive candidate to any current nascar cup series program he could theoretically land an expanded or truck series ride i don't think newman's done racing you'll see him out in like at a dirt track or something at some point in the next couple of years probably the next couple of months if i had to guess but i i'm skeptical that he will race in the nascar cup series next season at least not full-time he could pull him at ken's up if somebody gets hurt somebody gets removed from their seat mid-season ryan newman could be the optimal substitute driver team's call on i would be shocked if newman never races in the nascar cup series again i would be shocked if he comes back and does it full-time though so i have to put him in the loser category because it sounds like he wants to race full-time i just don't think there's a decent team out there that would be willing to give him a ride so i'm gonna put him in the loser category tentatively i'll end that category right there let's move over to the unknown slot because this is where things get really really interesting i want to begin with two drivers first matt de benedetto matt debadeto is on the bubble i almost put him in the loser category because he's losing his ride with the wood brothers who is a fairly competitive me that's a playoff contending team he's lost that ride and no other cup series ride appears to be on the horizon but again because silly season is not over because the off season still has another couple months to go i'm not gonna write off the possibility that matt dimandetto could land a decent xfinity or truck series ride or maybe even something in the cup series just probably not as good as what he had with the wood brothers so he's teetering on that line between unknown and the loser category for this video but i'll keep him in the unknown category because he seems to have a strategy in mind that could lead him to some funding the question then will remain will any teams take that funding i don't know i think mata benedetto is going to have a very interesting offseason another driver in a similar situation well kind of ryan priests ryan priest is also in this unknown category a huge mystery for him you know he's lost his right at jtg that car didn't even have a charter last season so it wasn't a shock to see that team effectively go away but i'm not gonna put him in the loser category because honestly in my opinion that jtg ride was like the nascar equivalent of a dead end job i don't know that he has much funding but if you've watched simrace modifieds if you watched what he did in his one and only truck series start this year at nashville the dude clearly has talent he might not land a full-time cup series ride next season but i could absolutely see priests landing with a competitive truck or xfannie series team he could be out of the sport come february i would be surprised i would be disappointed if that was the case i think he has enough talent to succeed in any of the top three levels of nascar he's proven it before and you know one-off appearances for competitive teams i think if any competitive team in the lower ranks gave him a shot he would be an instant championship contender so i think a team will see that in ryan priest and will make something happen before february that's just my gut feeling so i'm going to leave him in the unknown category for now brad keselowski fits into the unknown category like i said this is a big win for roush they're bringing in the championship caliber driver who's also gonna be a team owner for perhaps decades to come that's a huge win from the team's perspective but from brad keselowski's perspective this is a huge risk especially in the short term because in the short term from a driver's perspective at least rfk is an equipment downgrade from penske again next gen car who knows maybe roush becomes more competitive next year i think that's very possible but based on the last seven eight ten years roush is worse than penske so he's taking a downgrade there so his on-track results will likely be down next year compared to his last decade or so at penske but it's about the long-term vision for keslowski will he be able to make rfk a more competitive team how will the next gen car play into that can keslowski get this team their first win since 2018. like those are the questions and i think those are all very difficult tasks brad keselowski has in front of him kurt busch is another big unknown again this is a huge win for 2311 they're bringing in a championship veteran driver but if you're kurt busch you know kirkbush all year long he's had options and i think based on what was on the table i think him going to 2311 racing was probably the best option but 23-11 racing yeah they did win a race last year at talladega but overall they did not appear to be as competitive as chip ganassi racing's equipment what kirbush drove last year but i'm optimistic because one this is year two they brought in some new people over at 2311 including kurt busch and two the next gen car again could help a team like 23 11 racing get their feet underneath them faster i mean kurt busch he's going over to a toyota racing development a trd-back team on paper this team looks super attractive but they are still very inexperienced so next year will be a huge unknown for kurt busch my last big unknown is the wood brothers wood brothers racing you know manta benedetto did not like the world on fire last season missed the playoffs but i don't expect harrison burton in his rookie cup series season to do any better harrison is going to be a project he's not going to be as good as mata benedetto off the bat but hopefully over the next couple of years he could evolve into a very solid a very good cup series driver i think that's possible burton was winless last year in the xfinity series he did win four races the year before in 2020 and he does bring some sponsorship you know decks to the wood brothers so i think that's the team probably likes that but i don't expect their on track performance to improve next season in fact i expect 2022 to look worse for the wood brothers than 2021 did it's all about the long game can harrison burton be a legitimate force in the cup series two three four years from now that's when we'll know whether or not this was the right decision from the wood brothers perspective but for now at least it's a big big unknown because harrison burton is really young and from a statistical standpoint at least he has been very inconsistent during his truck and xfinity 10 years so wood brothers racing big big unknowns for next year i could get into some of the other transactions but those are the biggest ones i want to hit on today those are the biggest ones that i thought led those respective categories share your thoughts down below do you agree or disagree with with me on any of these topics i look forward to hearing what y'all have to say be sure to hit that subscribe button so you don't miss any future episodes as always a huge thank you to my amazing patreon supporters as well i couldn't do the show without your continued support every single month i greatly greatly appreciate it thank you so much for watching again i hope you all had a very happy thanksgiving i will see you all again later this weekend have a fantastic rest of your friday folks [Music] you

Channel: Eric Estepp

Views: 47,045

Keywords:

Id: 8KDztiuMmyQ

Length: 13min 53sec (833 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 26 2021