BY NATHAN SOLOMON, SPORTS EDITOR
Ahead of the 2021 NASCAR season, FOX, one of the sport’s broadcast partners, deemed the season might just be the “best season ever” in an off-season promotion.
After many great races with thrilling finishes across NASCAR’s three main touring series, FOX is exactly right. The 2021 NASCAR season fully lived up to the hype and brought new fans into the sport.
It all started in February’s Daytona 500, where Michael McDowell made it through a fiery last-lap crash to win his first-ever Cup Series race. Just one week later, Norman, Oklahoma’s Christopher Bell surprisingly won the Daytona Road Course for his first-ever victory.
Just weeks later, Kyle Larson, then recently reinstated by NASCAR after a suspension for a racial slur, won his first of 10 points-paying races en route to a Cup Series Championship.
NASCAR’s premier series saw a variety of winners throughout the season, including an upset victory at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Road Course by AJ Allmendinger, a regular in the XFINITY Series, which is one level below Cup.
However, Larson remained the dominant car all season, winning three races in a row on two different occasions this season and winning five of the final eight races of the season. Denny Hamlin’s consistency wasn’t enough to match Larson’s winning ways, and he finished third to Larson in the points standings.
To support the Cup Series, both the XFINITY and Truck Series both lived up to expectations, as well.
Daniel Hemric won the XFINITY Series Championship in stellar fashion, moving Austin Cindric in the final corner of the race to win. It was Hemric’s first-ever NASCAR victory, and fortunately, it happened to be for the championship.
18-year-old Ty Gibbs won four races on a part-time schedule, turning some heads with dominant performances. Allmendinger won five races, including a victory at Bristol while wrecking with Cindric coming out of the final corner. Additionally, Myatt Snider, Brandon Brown and Josh Berry all won their first-ever XFINITY Series races.
Overall, the XFINITY Series racing and rules package is the best in the sport and it led to an incredible season to support the Cup Series.
On the Truck Series side of things, Ben Rhodes won his first-ever championship with a third-place finish in the season finale. He won the first two races of the season and maintained consistency throughout the entire season to hoist the trophy last weekend.
The Truck Series saw an incredibly high aggression level and it made for exciting racing. John Hunter Nemechek won five times and Sheldon Creed, the 2020 champion, won three times. Zane Smith struggled throughout most of the regular season, but a win at Martinsville to conclude the Round of 8 advanced him to the Championship 4.
A great mixture of short tracks compared to intermediate tracks and aggressive racing made the 2021 Truck Series season exciting.
Fox Sports deemed the 2021 NASCAR season would be the “best season ever”, and I believe it was. Great racing across all three series made for an exciting season and it should give people who don’t watch the sport some encouragement to watch a few races next season.
solomonj20@bonaventure.edu
