Here’s a look at the prospects who told reporters they’d had formal and informal interviews with the #Chiefs at the 2023 NFL Scouting Combine.
The media portion of the 2023 NFL Scouting Combine is officially over, but we’ve learned plenty about the upcoming crop of draft prospects, including information about the teams they’ve interviewed with. Over 30 prospects confirmed they’d met with the Kansas City Chiefs in either formal or informal interviews at the combine.
Informal interviews are exactly how they sound. They’re quick and dirty, usually taking place with a scout or position coach in an informal setting. Usually, it’s just a way to get introduced to a prospect or check in after a meeting at another event like an All-Star Game.
Formal interviews are what the combine is all about for NFL teams. That’s where they really get an opportunity to know draft prospects. These are longer, highly structured, sit-down meetings that happen with multiple members of an organization. In the case of Kansas City, this usually means Andy Reid, the coordinator, the position coach, Brett Veach and an area scout.
Teams are only permitted 45 formal interviews and they typically use those on players they hold in high regard. Some of these interviews are done so teams can learn more about medical or character concerns, others are strictly an opportunity to better understand the type of player a particular prospect is. Reid and the rest of those in the room will watch tape with them and get them on the whiteboard breaking down plays. It’s an exercise that they use to get to know both the person and the player.
Below you’ll find a list of the prospects who said they met with the Chiefs at the combine or elsewhere during the course of the pre-draft process:
From meetings with the #Chiefs to interesting quotes and notes, here are the latest updates from DB/ST media availability at the 2023 NFL Scouting Combine.
Meetings and interviews with teams are continuing throughout the week, so we’re getting a few updates on the players that have met with the Kansas City Chiefs. We’re also hearing plenty about what makes this latest group of NFL draft prospects tick.
Chiefs Wire’s Ed Easton Jr. is again out at the 2023 NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis speaking with prospects along with other members of the media. Be sure to follow along below for the latest updates as they come in:
Peter Danyliv’s basketball journey went from a feel-good Hollywood movie to a drama-filled obstacle testing his love for the game.
At his gym, Peter Danyliv is floating atop a sea of Yeezys, Kobes and Jordans for his 330,000-plus Instagram following to admire.
One particular pair helps explain the rise of a basketball trainer sought out by pros and amateurs who’s as much of a respected instructor as he is a social media sensation. There, in one of the Instagram slides, stands Danyliv with Allen Iverson’s signature shoe in each hand. One was the AI Answer IX. The other was the AI Answer X — his first-ever pair of basketball shoes.
These are the kicks that tell his story. One that began in Ukraine, brought him to America as a teen, shattered his childhood basketball dreams and birthed new ones.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CZj308ZLxb6/?hl=en
Both iconic sneakers hold a special place in Danyliv’s heart. They represent a humble beginning and take him back to a time when he didn’t have much. Before the large Instagram following, which has become one of his favorite tools for showcasing his 90/10 Training brand. Before cracking north of one million followers on TikTok, an app that Danyliv uses to share informative, motivational and humorous videos for millions of basketball consumers across the world. And surely before he began running a nationally known basketball training business from the comfort of Immanuel Lutheran Church in Lawrence, Kansas, where some of the nation’s elite college players like Luka Garza, Mark Mitchell, Christian Braun and Marcus Garrett dedicate their time and resources to progress as players.
Before all that, there was just a pair of Reeboks and a dream — things that would play a significant role in creating the brand that is 90/10 Training.
***
Danyliv’s introduction to the game of basketball was hardly unique. Casually taking in a local college’s open gym while alongside his grandfather is what initially sparked his interest in hoops. But seriously pursuing basketball as a career path and doing so in the United States? Well, how that came about was certainly unusual, and all the credit goes to two DVDs: NBA Street Series Ankle Breakers and the AND1 Mixtape collection.
“[Ankle Breakers] had Stephon Marbury, Steve Francis, Allen Iverson, T.J. Ford,“ Danyliv said. “…it was the first time I had ever seen anything that has to do with the NBA and America. Ever since I was introduced to that around age 11 or 12, I really fell in love with the game more.”
A dream rarely becomes reality without some sort of action, and in Danyliv’s case, Ukraine native Boris Vukobrat’s action is what set everything off. Danyliv was 15 years old at the time Vukobrat served as an international scout for the Minnesota Timberwolves. Vukobrat would regularly host basketball camps in Kyiv for the European youth to attend at the time, and Danyliv made his way to one. Inspired by the open gyms he’d consumed and the basketball films he’d watched over the years, Danyliv put his skills on full display. Vukobrat noticed, was impressed with what he’d seen and connected Danyliv with a high school basketball program at Westlake Prep in Florida, where a full scholarship materialized shortly after. Without hesitation, Danyliv was off to America.
But Danyliv’s basketball journey quickly went from a feel-good Hollywood movie to a drama-filled one with obstacles that would test his love for the game.
By his senior year at Westlake Prep, Danyliv had mostly seen his college basketball interest fall by the wayside thanks to a career-threatening knee injury that required a microfracture surgery — the same operation that threw daggers into the careers of NBA greats like Brandon Roy and Greg Oden.
The injury left Danyliv without a Division I basketball offer after high school and led him to a junior college in Oklahoma. He held onto hope that his knees and basketball career would last a bit longer, but as time went on, it became apparent nothing would heal Danyliv’s body in a way that would allow him to perform up to his standards. Like Roy and like Oden, Danyliv’s microfracture devoured another promising basketball career in its early stages. And although he knew the ball would stop bouncing one day, this kid chased his dream halfway around the world and wasn’t ready for it to end so soon.
After acknowledging his playing career was all but over, Danyliv knew he needed to find another way to finish school and also stick around the game he loved so passionately. That prompted him to take matters into his own hands. Danyliv exchanged emails with several NAIA schools, trying vigorously to latch on at a four-year program. Eventually, he made his way to Ottawa University in Kansas, not as a student-athlete but as a student-assistant coach.
There, his life would forever change.
***
Danyliv quickly realized how little went into being a student-assistant coach. He had minimal say in the day-to-day management of the team — practice plans, input on plays, skill development — and mainly spent time running errands for coaches. And while Danyliv was beyond thankful for the opportunity Ottawa had given him — allowing him to come in on scholarship, no less — he just knew there was more he could offer the program than assisting with the coaching staff’s day-to-day chores. He owed it to the program to become more valuable and was on a mission to figure out what that value was. So, Danyliv made it a priority to hang around and make himself available outside of practice. He began working out guys on the team who wanted additional reps and slowly adding his own flair.
“I was doing some B.S. cone drills, some tennis ball drills, some heavy ball stuff,” Danyliv said. “I had no clue what I was doing. But guys seemed to like it, and they were working out hard, so they felt like they were getting better. And that’s how everything kind of started for me.”
The workouts remained team-specific until the university’s chaplain, Briley Rivers, took note. Rivers, blown away with the amount of time and energy Danyliv was putting in during his free time to help the student-athletes, asked if he would be willing to do individual training with his 10-year-old son. Danyliv happily agreed and officially had his first client. The reward for his services was $10 per hour, twice a week — a price that now ranges between $55 and $125 per hour, depending on the specific types of workouts (individual or group) and the frequency of them.
A few training sessions led to a few more until Danyliv’s calendar was packed with new clients and they outgrew the facilities at the university. Rivers, appreciative of Danyliv and all he was doing, went out of his way to find him a small gym located inside a local church. It was a bit outdated but came with perks that more than made up for it — namely 24/7 access and no usage fees.
It took a lot of DIY renovation to get it in shape: scrubbing and putting new finishes on the hardwood floors (for both visual aid and performance enhancement), installing new backboards and rims and rehabilitating the walls surrounding the court.
When all was said and done, Danyliv and his business partner, Ashley Beets, ran a successful basketball training gig at the Ottawa-based church for two years. Beets and Danyliv originally met when she’d brought her son in for training while Danyliv was still in his student-assistant coach role at Ottawa University. Like Rivers, the Chaplain mentioned previously, Beets was impressed enough to want to help. Once Danyliv finished school, she helped him set up the basketball training business that became 90/10 Training, a business they’d put their all into.
“We put so much of our heart and soul into making that a beautiful place that kids wanted to come into and wanted to work hard,” Beets said. “We took so much pride in the fact that the two of us legitimately did it ourselves.”
But the church’s congregation began to dwindle. Fewer and fewer people were attending worship services, and dollars stopped coming in and the doors to the church closed completely, leaving Danyliv and Beets in scramble mode to find a new home for their growing partnership. They briefly set up shop at a recreation center near the University of Kansas, but that lasted less than a year. Between volleyball and basketball practices occupying bits and pieces of the 14-court facility and pickup games taking place on others, it was nearly impossible to orchestrate a proper distraction-free workout.
Danyliv was losing hope by the day. His patience dwindled. Then he stumbled upon another incredible blessing when a friend suggested the basketball gym at Immanuel Lutheran Church in Lawrence.
For Danyliv, the idea of this church that he’d routinely driven by every day having a functional basketball court where he could run 90/10 Training felt impossible. Nevertheless, he called the church, set up a tour, and was, well, blown away.
“I’m thinking carpet floors, bad backboards, or something small and not very good,” Danyliv said. “When the lady at the church met with us and showed us around, my jaw just dropped. [It was a] state-of-the-art gym with a regulation-size backboard, backboard padding, mats on the wall, a lounge room with a big couch and a TV. It had a kitchen, a storage room, AC and heat.”
Basketball is religion in Kansas, after all, so it made all the sense in the world that a house of worship would provide the best facilities around.
The church’s proximity to Kansas’ campus boosted Danyliv’s business by expanding its clientele in Lawrence and Topeka. But more importantly, it was a move that fully opened the door to accessing the Jayhawks men’s basketball team, even if it would mean mending a past relationship with the program.
One year earlier Danyliv had trained then-Jayhawks Marcus Garrett and Sam Cunliffe at the team’s practice gym, which he didn’t know was against NCAA rules at the time. A member of the Kansas staff had to be the bad cop regarding the situation, but the connection between the two sides would smoothen out over time thanks to a previously formed bond with the Selden family.
Wayne Selden is the former Rock Chalk star turned NBA player most college fans are familiar with. His younger brother, Anthony, had taken up training with the 90/10 crew back during Danyliv’s time in Ottawa. One day, little bro brought big bro to a training session to get some work in with Danyliv. Acknowledgment of the workout was shared and later reposted by Wayne on social media, which immediately caught the eye of many other Kansas players.
“Ever since we posted that workout on our Instagram, and then Wayne reposting it, we started getting other guys that were on the team to reach out,” said Danyliv. “LeGerald Vick and Silvio [De Sousa] were reaching out asking [me] to work them out. And that’s kind of how it started. Then, when we moved to Lawrence, one of my first full-time guys was Silvio, and then after Silvio, we started having Marcus Garrett and then Jalen Wilson.”
A simple social media repost marked the initial breakout for Danyliv and Beets’ 90/10 brand during the 2010s. Instagram and TikTok have since taken the basketball training brand to new heights in the 2020s. Ironically, the breakout arose from another one of the team’s fork-in-the-road moments.
“The first things we were posting when we first started using Instagram was nothing but players,” said Beets. “It wasn’t Peter at all, he was hardly in any of the videos that we posted. It was all about the players and the moves that they were working on, the skill that they were building, and it wasn’t actually about [Danyliv] teaching as much as it was about them learning.
“That kind of started to change for us with social media absolutely blowing up right around the time of COVID. We couldn’t get anybody in the gym and everything that we had to film to continue to stay relevant had to be Peter. It had to be him teaching and showing what it is that he knew, and it had to be his face, his likeness and his voice. That started to change things for us.”
Originally hesitant and totally against the idea of sharing his work with the world, Danyliv is now fully embracing the concept. He understands the vision, and with his social media posts, he’s influencing an audience and a generation of hoopers in the same way the former NBA icons and streetball legends did for him. In doing so, the business is running to him. Danyliv’s earned access to shoe and apparel companies he’d only dreamt of sporting as a kid, has formed a social media following that enables his work and message to reach millions of basketball fans worldwide, and now has access to the world’s most high-profile athletes — collegiate and professional.
Needless to say, the doors to the Jayhawks’ basketball facilities are open once again for the 90/10 crew. You can look up and down past Kansas rosters and find many players who excelled at the collegiate level before moving onto the professional ranks — many of which have trained with Danyliv during off-seasons. The list of clients is seemingly endless, including former Kansas national champions Christian Braun and David McCormack and current Jayhawk standouts Gradey Dick and Jalen Wilson.
So when you revert back to Danyliv’s Instagram page and find him lying in a pile of shoes, see videos of him training NBA players or doing any of the fun things his lifestyle provides, don’t forget his story. Think about a guy who left the comforts of home to go out and chase a dream. Think about a guy who continuously pulled himself up and bet on himself each time the going got tough. Think about a self-made basketball icon who’s embracing the way basketball training and social media should coexist.
Just five years ago, Rajah Caruth had zero racing experience. Now, he’s got a full-time NASCAR Truck Series ride.
The first time Rajah Caruth climbed behind the wheel of a race car, he knew nothing about it would be easy.
A rising senior at a Washington, D.C. high school in the summer of 2019, his only racing experience was on a virtual track with his iRacing rig. He wasn’t scared but had no idea what to expect, and he certainly wasn’t prepared for the physicality his virtual world could never fully simulate.
He instantly felt the pressure and vibrations in his hips, chest and legs, initially struggling to merge his iRacing experience with his novice on-track skills. On a real-life track, the stakes are exponentially higher.
“You have a reset button on [iRacing], so there’s almost zero consequences for crashing,” Caruth says. “Versus in real life, you slip a tire at one point or place your vehicle in a spot it shouldn’t be in, it’s game over.”
He doesn’t come from a family of racers with NASCAR ties. The Caruth family’s D.C. home is about 100 miles from the nearest NASCAR track. His parents work in academia and stressed education, despite college not being a priority for some aspiring racers, many of whom begin competing before they’re teenagers.
But Caruth’s fixation on NASCAR and becoming a professional driver only grew as he did. Already an avid student of the sport, Caruth kept digging.
Now, the 20-year-old racer and Winston-Salem State junior, who had zero NASCAR or racing experience just five years ago, is making his full-time debut in the third-tier NASCAR Truck Series on Friday at Daytona International Speedway.
Caruth, piloting the No. 24 Chevrolet for GMS Racing, is in an exclusive club with Cup Series driver William Byron, believed to be the only other driver who traversed the rare but conceivable route of converting simulated racing into a NASCAR career.
https://www.instagram.com/p/ClPOPx_gIv1/
***
Rajah Caruth is a Cars kid. His racing curiosity was piqued as a toddler with his first glimpse of Lightning McQueen before evolving into a full-blown motorsports obsession.
“Racing was always it for me,” Caruth tells me in the lobby of a downtown Los Angeles hotel ahead of NASCAR’s Clash at the Coliseum earlier this month.
Dressed in all black with a Chevy pullover and Chicago colorway Air Jordan 1s, he’s reserved, at first, but it only takes a couple minutes for his charismatic personality to burst through. He seems to shed initial signs of fatigue from his coast-to-coast flight earlier that day, each response becoming more animated and detailed. He’s just excited to talk racing.
He’s got an air of coolness about him, though he’s quick to admit even he has no idea how he’s balancing his fledgling career with his motorsports management major — four classes a term, all in person, while getting all As and Bs for the first time last semester, he says. But his parents insisted he have a backup plan.
Entranced by the cars and their speed, he was the kid who coaxed his family into planning Sundays after church around NASCAR races. Especially the Daytona 500, Sunday’s Cup Series season opener. He’d douse his Diecast cars in Wite-Out to create his own customized paint schemes and endlessly studied racing on YouTube. Motorsports even made its way into school projects, as he idolized Wendell Scott, the first Black driver to win a Cup race in 1963, and seven-time champion Jimmie Johnson.
When he saw NASCAR up close for the first time on a surprise family trip to Richmond Raceway when he was 12, his zeal intensified. NASCAR, especially at the 0.75-mile short track, blitzes the senses with deafening engines and the lingering smell of burnt rubber.
“Everything just seemed so infectious,” Caruth recalls. “From that point forward, it was like, I want to be a race car driver.”
iRacing, he thought, was going to help him get there. So as a rising high school junior in 2018, he shifted his focus.
Juggling school, basketball and track, plus a summer job, Caruth and his family fundraised for an iRacing rig. Every spare second he had was spent in that seat, teaching himself to be a better racer.
“That was my only shot,” he says.
And it worked.
(Daylon Barr)
***
Caruth subscribes to the idea that you get out of iRacing what you put in. Treat it like a professional craft to master, not a video game, and you could end up with professional results. But making it to NASCAR requires more than that. Opportunity and financial support are necessities, and he needed to maximize iRacing to procure each piece.
The summer he turned 16, he was racing online for the first time in the eNASCAR Ignite Series, and his rapid improvements elevated him into NASCAR’s Drive for Diversity program the next year as the first participant with a majority-iRacing background.
Through the program, which NASCAR estimates has about 80 alumni, and help from Max Siegel’s Rev Racing team, Caruth was finally behind the wheel of a real race car. The following season in 2020, he won his first Late Model race at South Carolina’s Greenville-Pickens Speedway.
He went from iRacing to Legends to Late Models and ARCA, and after just four years, he made his NASCAR debut with seven Xfinity and four Truck races, all in 2022.
“That program gives you the leniency to develop and make mistakes, for the most part, and grow into your abilities and who you are as a person,” he says.
In his third Xfinity start, he made an unfortunate error, crashing on Lap 2 and taking out another driver. He says veterans — Bubba Wallace, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Austin Dillon among them — were quick to reach out. They know the learning curve is almost insurmountable, but they also recognize significant potential in young drivers, says Brandon Thompson, NASCAR’s VP of diversity and inclusion.
“I’ve gotten that same text from drivers or from team owners or whoever it may be, like, ‘Hey, we’ve all been there,’” Wallace says. “The biggest thing you can do, though, is make sure you don’t do that again because that means you’ve learned from it. … I’ll go to his ass on certain things, but I keep it real with him.”
***
Making the jump from virtual to real-life racing was hardly seamless, Caruth remembers.
iRacing feeds drivers an abundance of information, and simulators are a common tool for the best of the best. But the virtual world can’t simulate all the physical sensations from a real car and track. It can be overwhelming.
He had to shake his bad habits, like toning down the aggression, not oversteering and not smashing the gas and destroying his rear tires. He reminds himself to be more present with his actual race car.
“I can’t be on 10 all the time,” he jokes.
He’s extra hard on himself, especially when, at first, the real-life results weren’t there. He describes 2019 and 2020 as “a pretty tumultuous” time.
Even as he adapted to real cars and tracks, confidence eluded him. So he turned to his family for guidance and began therapy last year, saying the combination led him to a turning point in the past six months as he released some of his self-inflicted pressure.
Rajah Caruth with his father, Roger; sister Liyah; and mother, Samantha. (Daylon Barr)
“I’ve kind of learned to give myself grace,” Caruth says. “You’ve got to hold yourself accountable, but you cannot have negative self-talk.”
Not all the attention the rising star has gained is positive, though. He faces misinformed stigmas about starting in iRacing and seizing his Drive for Diversity opportunity as a young Black man breaking into a predominantly white sport with an ugly, racist history.
Both factors fuel his haters, Caruth says, despite NASCAR progressing to be more inclusive and diverse. He’s been booed at races and trolled on social media, leading him to delete the apps from his phone. Just a few weeks ago, during an iRacing event, he recalls a racer he passed a couple times chirping at him afterward: “‘Everybody knows how you got your ride.’”
Those comments are “pretty frequent,” Caruth says. And if critics aren’t questioning his credentials as an iRacer, they point to the Drive for Diversity program as giving him an unearned ride, when the program’s goal is quite literally the opposite. Aiming to provide equitable opportunities in motorsports for those historically discriminated against, the program helped launch NASCAR careers for Wallace, Daniel Suárez and Kyle Larson.
“Bubba has been one of the most helpful to me, not only for on-the-race-track things but … also on a personal level, like understanding the similar things we go through,” Caruth says. “Since I was in Legend cars, it’s been big to have him in my corner.”
Bubba Wallace and Rajah Caruth (Daylon Barr)
By 2021, only about three years after he began iRacing, Caruth’s shot at a full-time NASCAR ride was in sight. But he needed financial support to help him advance from the ARCA racing to the next level: the NASCAR Truck Series.
When Warrick Scott — founder and CEO of the Wendell Scott Foundation honoring his late grandfather — met Caruth at Charlotte Motor Speedway in 2021, he asked the young driver what was needed. Simply, help securing sponsors.
“It resonated with me because we’re the family that never got sponsored, and I understood that he would need that help,” says Warrick, seeing Caruth’s potential for global stardom.
Warrick was determined to provide an opportunity that escaped his grandfather, so the Wendell Scott Foundation teamed up with GMS Racing to be Caruth’s primary sponsor for the 2023 season.
With Wendell Scott’s name on the hood of Caruth’s truck more than 60 years after the Hall of Famer’s first NASCAR start, there’s a clear throughline connecting him to Caruth and the future of the sport. For Warrick, the foundation’s investment in Caruth is not hollow; it furthers Wendell’s legacy and posthumously celebrates his career while also offering Caruth the chance to build on the history of Black NASCAR drivers.
“His parents have raised him to be a leader and to be a champion, so that’s my expectation,” Warrick says.
“This is not some type of diversity and inclusion ploy. No, no, no. This is a collaborative effort through strategic partnerships, racing proficiency and internal know-how that we think will create a situation for him to become the best.”
Rajah Caruth during practice for the NASCAR Truck Series NextEra Energy 250 at Daytona International Speedway. (Sean Gardner/Getty Images)
***
About five years after he conceived his path to NASCAR, Caruth’s experience with iRacing and on a real track now complement each other.
Even with his full-time Truck Series ride, he says he’ll continue relying on iRacing, not only for reps but also to help prepare him for tracks he’s never raced on, like Circuit of The Americas, where he’ll compete in his first NASCAR road course race in March.
With an insatiable hunger, Caruth studies his own film and that of racers he wants to emulate while drivers, like Wallace, share competitive feedback and push him to utilize the track limits, he says. He’s seemingly always taking notes, perhaps compensating for having only run a few more than 100 races on a real track.
“He’s really a student of the sport trying to hone his craft, and I truly admire the efforts he’s made,” says Johnson, a co-owner of Legacy Motor Club, the sister organization to GMS Racing.
“The interest he’s created in the corporate world and the way he carries himself and conducts himself and his performance on track so far, he has all the ingredients to be a Cup champion.”
(Daylon Barr)
One thing clear to anyone watching Caruth race is his speed. His crew chief, Chad Walter, says thanks to iRacing and studying YouTube videos, Caruth is able to share detailed feedback about how the truck is handling in a way drivers twice his age are unable to describe.
“I really don’t want to jinx anything, but success is not as far around the corner as he thinks,” the veteran crew chief said. “It really isn’t.”
Caruth easily rattles off the many areas for improvement but is almost speechless about where he excels — somehow all while exuding confidence. The self-described superhero geek invokes Captain America’s “whatever it takes” Endgame line as his mentality for rising to the Cup Series.
Though guided by others before him, Caruth paved his own way to the NASCAR Truck Series. But he hopes other aspiring drivers, especially children of color, will try to follow him.
Comfortably a member of Gen Z — a demographic the sport needs to engage — NASCAR and those in racing see his star-power potential too. He joined icon Richard Petty, a Legacy Motor Club team ambassador, last month in the Rose Bowl Parade on NASCAR’s 75th anniversary float celebrating the sport’s history and future.
Richard Petty and Rajah Caruth in the 2023 Rose Parade. (AP Photo/Michael Owen Baker)
“Rajah is in a unique position because he represents both the future of what Cup racing could be one day, but also the present of someone who is experiencing success in the moment,” Thompson says.
“Standing next to someone who has 200 wins and has defined the sport for a generation, having Rajah be there to sort of represent what that next generation of drivers looks like, I think it’s pretty significant.”
He possesses a sophistication unusual for someone who was a teenager last year. He craves Game 7 moments on the track, now trusting his instincts and abilities as he gains invaluable experience. He wants to be the best, ever, in NASCAR, and that, in his eyes, would mean surpassing Johnson.
“I feel like he’s the best of all time,” Caruth says, “and that is who I want to beat one day.”
The motor sports icon and stunt performer will attempt to qualify for the Daytona 500 for Michael Jordan and Denny Hamlin’s NASCAR team.
UPDATE: Travis Pastrana successfully qualified Wednesday for the 40-car Daytona 500 field.
Travis Pastrana is about to make a big jump, just perhaps not the jump you’d expect from him.
The 39-year-old motor sports icon and stunt performer famous for competing with two- and four-wheeled vehicles — his resume includes several X Games medals, along with championships in motocross, supercross, offshore powerboat racing, per the Associated Press, and Nitro RallyCross, a series he created in 2018 and is currently the reigning champ — is about to make his return to NASCAR. And he’s doing it with some help from Michael Jordan’s team.
Pastrana will attempt to qualify this week for Sunday’s Daytona 500, the NASCAR Cup Series’ season opener at Daytona International Speedway, behind the wheel of the No. 67 Toyota for 23XI Racing, which is co-owned by Jordan and Denny Hamlin.
“This was always [on] the bucket list,” Pastrana said last month. “And this is definitely not a profitable thing for me to race the Daytona 500. But it’s something I really wanted to do, and I’m not getting any younger.”
NASCAR’s biggest race of the year, the Daytona 500 features a 40-car field, but 36 of those rides are already locked into the main event as chartered teams, including fellow 23XI drivers Bubba Wallace and Tyler Reddick. That leaves four open entries available, and Pastrana will attempt to qualify and steal one of them.
“But this, this is my run,” Pastrana said. “It’s one chance. If I win or don’t qualify, this is my one chance to be a part of the Daytona 500. I’m pumped, man. We’re gonna have a blast all week.”
Should he qualify, the Daytona 500 will be his first career Cup race. But he competed in 42 second-tier Xfinity Series races between 2012 and 2013, including running a full schedule in the latter season. He collected four top-10 finishes in 2013 with a NASCAR career-best ninth-place finish at Richmond Raceway and won the pole at Talladega Superspeedway. He also competed in five third-tier Truck Series races between 2012 and 2020.
Pastana has made two career starts at Daytona, both in 2013. In the Xfinity season opener that year, he started fourth and finished 10th, and in the second race, he started second but crashed with a handful of laps remaining.
“This is bigger than anything that I’ve done,” Pastrana said. “It’s the best drivers all over the world, but especially the best drivers in America. And to be able to line up alongside of them, especially if I can qualify and get in for the actual 500, that’ll be something that I’ll be able to smile proudly about for the rest of my life.”
“We wanted to be legendary,” Georgia DB Kelee Ringo said.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. — It was over long before it actually ended. But when it did, the Georgia Bulldogs reveled.
Smoke hovered over the field at SoFi Stadium as they lit their celebratory cigars. College Football Playoff-branded confetti trickled onto their shoulders, undeterred by the misty weather. They jumped in each other’s arms, danced with newspapers announcing their second straight title, tossed on-field souvenirs to their families in the stands and began declaring a three-peat future for their budding dynasty.
When history looks back on Georgia’s second consecutive national title win, a 65-7 beatdown over TCU, the offensive brilliance of Stetson Bennett and Brock Bowers and Ladd McConkey and the rest of the Bulldogs will tell the story. The 58-point differential will be remembered as the most dominating beatdown ever in a college bowl game, including the national championship. People will joke about Georgia hitting the over all by itself. And rightfully so.
Don’t forget that defense, though. The defense that lost so many key players to the NFL Draft last year. The defense that was perplexingly dominant yet unable to keep some opponents at a distance during Georgia’s perfect 15-0 season.
But defense wins championships, amirite?
So while Georgia’s offensive fireworks broke records Monday night in a game where its talent overwhelmed TCU, the Bulldogs’ defense deserves its moment too.
That Georgia defense forced three turnovers, all in the first half, and 25-year-old Bennett and co. quickly capitalized on each takeaway opportunity, including finding Adonai Mitchell for a 22-yard touchdown at the end of the second quarter just 10 seconds after Javon Bullard picked off TCU’s Heisman Trophy finalist Max Duggan deep in Horned Frogs territory.
It helped that the Bulldogs basically had the mostly dull game locked up at the break with their 38-7 lead — the most points ever scored in a half of a College Football Playoff title game.
“We wanted to be legendary, as a group, and I feel like we were able to do that, man,” said sophomore defensive back Kelee Ringo, who declared for the 2023 NFL Draft after the game. “Just the love throughout this entire locker room definitely helped us throughout the entire time from last year and also this year.”
The back-to-back champs’ smothering defense limited TCU to converting just two out of 11 total third-down opportunities and zero fourth downs. It held the Horned Frogs — who entered the title game averaging 474.1 yards per game — to a measly 188 total yards. 188. Duggan threw for more than that in all but two games, including Monday, he started this season.
This was not the same defense we saw barely a week earlier that gave up 41 points and 467 yards to a talented Ohio State team in a nail-biter that almost swung the other way. This was the championship-caliber defense with bright spots throughout the undefeated season that showed up and shut down almost anything the Horned Frogs tried to get away with.
“Every single time something’s went wrong, no matter where it is — the secondary, inside the box or anything like that — we’ve answered the bell and next play or whenever the time came that we needed to answer that,” Ringo said. “Just how we faced adversity this entire year as a defense, and also an offense, man, it’s been great.”
Since their one-point win over the Buckeyes in the semifinal game, the defense amped up its aggression, Ringo added, and things like in-practice turnover competitions certainly helped.
Although Ringo said he’s won that contest in practice a couple times, Bullard ultimately won the final turnover competition of the season, intercepting Duggan twice in the first half.
“As a kid, you know, you always dream of moments like this,” the sophomore defensive back said. “And just to see those moments and accomplishments and things like that come true, it’s just a surreal feeling.”
As much as the Bulldogs put on a stunner and ran up the score so much it had TCU fans leaving at halftime, or not long after it, their defense put on an impressive clinic, relentlessly suffocating TCU at every turn. Duggan took five sacks, tying a season-high, from five different Georgia players.
Even the Horned Frogs’ lone score of the game was a short little run into the end zone in the first quarter — though it came on the heels of a stunning 60-yard reception from Derius Davis — and that was it. They barely made it into Georgia territory for the rest of the game.
It seemed like if one Georgia defender went in for a tackle, there were five. If TCU made it past the line of scrimmage, one blink and the whole front seven practically was dog-piled on the ball-carrier. They made it impossible for TCU to ignite anything, holding the Horned Frogs to just four plays of 10 yards or more and keeping them scoreless in a half for the first time this season.
“We just wanted to play for each other,” said defensive back Kamari Lassiter, who finished with three tackles. “We made it personal for each other, and we became powerful, and we just wanted to knock guys out with a bang.”
By the time the title game was almost over — in a literal sense because it was over by halftime — Georgia head coach Kirby Smart was subbing out players on both sides of the ball, eliciting a mock-senior day vibe after a less-than-competitive game.
And with several key members of this championship roster expected to enter the 2023 NFL Draft, Georgia will again have to make adjustments if it wants to pull off a three-peat. But Monday, it was all about the seniors and those who played their last game as a Bulldog.
“You win it for each other, you fight for your brothers,” said defensive back JaCorey Thomas, who’s already looking forward. “We don’t replace; we reload. We just keep reloading next year, next year, next year, so hopefully we’ll go back to back to back.”
LOS ANGELES — You can’t talk about TCU football’s incredible 2022-23 season and road to the College Football Playoff national championship game without mentioning the team’s unofficial mascot, the quirky and psychedelic amphibian, the hypnotoad.
While the concept of the hypnotoad originated with the animated show Futurama, as The New York Times reported in a recent profile, it’s not new to TCU football. But throughout this season, it’s taken off and has become a memed phenomenon for the Horned Frogs and their fan base. And the powers of the trippy toad, the players say, have helped propel them to Monday’s national title game against Georgia at SoFi Stadium.
With the help of some delightfully unhinged celebratory videos TCU football’s Twitter account has been posting after wins, it seems like everyone has embraced the power of this unofficial mascot.
Hypnotoad signs and flags have become ubiquitous at games, head coach Sonny Dykes has been seen wearing a hypnotoad sweatshirt and receiver Derius Davis added a colorful tie-dye hypnotoad to the white Air Force 1s he got for the national championship game.
And, of course, the hypnotoad all over social media.
For The Win polled NASCAR drivers to see what they think about their competitors on and off the track.
The 2022 NASCAR Cup Series season ended Sunday with Joey Logano winning his second championship after taking the checkered flag at Phoenix Raceway. And the end of the season means it’s time for For The Win’s annual NASCAR Superlatives.
Throughout the last several weeks, we polled 13 drivers with the same 10 questions about their competitors’ skills behind the wheel, as well as their personalities away from the track.
Obviously, there have been numerous examples this year of drivers being furious and frustrated with each other, but some of them are friends who have been racing against each other for a while. Our annual investigation reveals what some of them really think about each other.
Here’s what some of NASCAR’s top drivers had to say about each other this year. And if you’re curious about previous editions…
These answers have been condensed and edited for clarity.
1. Which driver who is not a champion will be a champion at some point?
(Meg Oliphant/Getty Images)
Daniel Suárez: You’re talking to him.
Joey Logano: Probably Ryan Blaney. I see the improvement he’s made over the last few years, and he’s got a ton of speed. So I’d say he’s getting closer and closer. He’s consistently in the Round of 8 every year for the last few, so I’d say he’s on the brink of making it to the Championship 4.
Bubba Wallace: Ryan Blaney.
Chase Elliott: Ryan Blaney.
Ryan Blaney: I don’t want to say myself because that would be too obvious of like, boosting your own ego. But obviously you want see yourself win a championship. Other than me, [William] Byron has been strong. Obviously, Denny Hamlin has kind of been on the verge of one for a long time.
Austin Cindric: It’s hard to not say Denny Hamlin. He’s come very close, and I think he’s probably the most realistic answer.
Ross Chastain: Ross Chastain.
Kyle Larson: William Byron. I feel like he’s very driven, very focused, works really hard and has a lot of talent, mentally is pretty tough. He just seems like a NASCAR champion.
Martin Truex Jr.: Christopher Bell.
Alex Bowman: William Byron.
Brad Keselowski: I’m going to say William Byron. He’s growing, he’s maturing, he’s with a great team. I think it will click, it just hasn’t yet.
William Byron: I’d first like to say myself, selfishly. There’s a lot of options there. Denny Hamlin comes to mind. If he’s not a champion really soon, I think he’ll be a champion, just the way that he is able to run consistently well. And I think he’s an intelligent race car driver and knows how to put himself in position towards the end of the year to have a chance to win in this format.
Harrison Burton: I think there’s a lot of good young guys that haven’t won one yet. But I think a good one would probably be William Byron. He’s been fast a lot, won a lot of races, so he’ll probably end up being [a champion] one day.
2. Which driver who hasn’t won the Daytona 500 will win it at some point?
(Chris Graythen/Getty Images)
Suárez: Same question, same answer, me.
Chastain: Ross Chastain.
Wallace: Us! It’s funny, [Ryan] Blaney’s also had two or three second-place finishes, so we’re kind of tied on that scenario. But I’m gonna go with myself.
Elliott: Same guy for me, [Blaney]. He’s finished second about 10 times.
Blaney: Either myself or I think Chase Elliott. He runs pretty good at superspeedways.
Truex: [Laughs] I want to say me.
Bowman: Probably also William Byron.
Larson: Ryan Blaney, for sure. I think he’s just a really good superspeedway racer and is in contention a lot of times. All drivers, they’ll probably mostly say Ryan Blaney.
Cindric: Ryan Blaney.
Logano: Pick one, anyone could win.
Byron: I’d say Ryan Blaney because I think he’s really good at the superspeedway races. He’s always, always at the front. He’s very aggressive, knows how to make the right decisions and stuff. He’s been close already.
Burton: That’s a hard, hard race to win. I think Ryan Blaney will probably get one soon.
Keselowski: Shoot, the last three years, I’ve been in the top-3 in the last few laps and gotten wrecked or something’s happened. Just gotta keep [getting into position] and eventually it’ll happen.
3. Which driver has the best social media personality?
Suárez: Oh my god, you want to have the same answer for every question?
Blaney: [Kevin] Harvick’s been cracking me up here the last couple months, which has been fun to watch. He’ll get all sassy with everybody, and I get a good chuckle out of that. He and Hamlin have a really funny Twitter. I love waking up and seeing [Harvick] go on rants the next morning. I love reading all through it.
Cody please take the time to read all of my tweets before typing. Thank you…. https://t.co/uT8hGM4D1G
Chastain: Not Ross Chastain. Pretty much anybody but [me]. I honestly don’t even have a good working knowledge of what people are posting.
Logano: Can I pick myself? I pick myself because I like cars.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CfaMwfjpZ0y/
Wallace: Depends on what you’re going for. First ones that come to mind are Denny, Kyle [Busch], myself.
Byron: I don’t think any of us are that great at it, I’ll be honest. Bubba comes to mind. He’s probably the most comfortable with social media, I would say, so his personality comes across. I would look at it as who’s the most authentic? Whose personality is really showing? And I think he’s the most authentic on there, speaks his mind.
Larson: Probably Denny [Hamlin]. Over the last probably three or four or five years, he’s really stepped up, it seems, his social media stuff, and he’s pretty funny on there. He does do, I would say, a lot of it himself, but I know his social media guy, and he’s pretty witty with all that too.
Cindric: I don’t really like Twitter. I use it, but I don’t like it. I like Instagram a lot better. But I don’t know.
Burton: I don’t follow them all. So I don’t know. I would say my dad, Jeff Burton. He’s killing his Instagram game recently. For an old guy, he’s doing pretty good.
4. Which driver has the best sense of humor?
(Gary A. Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports)
Truex: I got nothing.
Bowman: Definitely me. Dry as the desert.
Blaney: Bubba [Wallace] and Chase [Elliott]. I think you get different personalities out of people away from their job. It’s kind of hard to judge somebody from how they act at the race track or something because a lot of times, you’re you’re dead-set focused on the task at hand, and it’s hard to kind of really let loose or joke around too much. Everyone’s personality is very different away from the race track.
Wallace: Myself.
Chastain: Ryan Blaney. It’s dry, but I think I understand it though. Most people probably don’t.
Keselowski: Blaney. He’s just a fun guy to be around, and he’s chill.
Elliott: Skip.
Logano: This used to be the Clint Bowyer answer back in the day. Can I pick myself again? I can’t keep picking myself [laughs].
Cindric: Kevin Harvick has a pretty dry sense of humor, which I always enjoy. Sometimes it’s at the expense of something or someone else, but it’s Kevin Harvick.
Byron: Kyle Busch kind of has a pretty funny sense of humor. Like, when I drove for for [Kyle Busch Motorsports], I always thought he was kind of funny. He’s pretty brash, but it’s kind of funny sometimes because he’s so unfiltered.
Suárez: Probably Noah Gragson.
Burton: Todd Gilliland is the guy that probably makes me laugh the most in the garage. He’s a rookie, so I hang out with him quite a bit. And yeah, he’s funny as heck, that’s for sure.
Larson: The first name that came to my mind was Corey LaJoie. He’s really funny and quick.
5. Which driver is most likely to drop an f-bomb in a live TV interview?
(Gary A. Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports)
Logano: Typically, I’d say Kyle Busch, but he seems like he’s cleaned it up a little lately. Kevin [Harvick] is not likely anymore either. Those are two likely candidates back in the day. Bubba [Wallace] maybe?
Suárez: Probably me! I did that a few times after I won.
Cindric: Kyle Busch.
Keselowski: Yeah, probably Kyle Busch.
Chastain: Darrell Wallace.
Elliott: [Kevin] Harvick.
Byron: Oh, for sure [Kyle Busch]. I think that’s already happened. He’s for sure halfway there, if not already there.
Burton: Kyle Busch, I’d say it’s a good guess.
Truex: Kyle Busch.
Larson: Probably Noah Gragson.
Wallace: Noah Gragson.
Bowman: Noah Gragson.
Blaney: Man, I think any of us are capable of it. It’s just a matter of how upset you are. But I feel like that’s a big one to drop. I could see dropping a number of other cuss words, so you really have to mean it to drop that one. I could see Kyle Busch dropping one, but he hasn’t yet, I don’t believe, in his whole career, so maybe he won’t.
6. Which driver has had the most surprising season?
(Gary A. Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports)
Truex: I would say Ross Chastain because they just consistently perform well, and they’re still a fairly new team.
Keselowski: Ross Chastain. He’s still in the final four, and I guess I probably didn’t see that coming.
Blaney: Chastain’s had a really good first year at Trackhouse. Not surprising, he’s doing well, but I think he’s, you know, run better than people have thought in his first year over there. Another one who I’m surprised hasn’t run better or won like they’re used to doing is [Martin] Truex.
Cindric: Daniel Suárez. He’s been in the sport for a while and, quite honestly, in very capable cars. And whether he’s grown or he’s in a great situation or he wasn’t in good situations before, I feel like it’s kind of his third attempt at being in a top team, and he’s done very well with it.
Wallace: Probably Briscoe. Obviously got that win at Phoenix [in the spring], and the Stewart-Haas [Racing] cars haven’t been that great all year. But the last 10 races, he’s gotten hot at the right time.
Byron: Definitely Ross Chastain. I assumed he would be a playoff contender, for sure, based on how he ran the 42. But I felt like it would just be a steady progression from last year and the 42 car. Those guys, as soon as the season started, have been contenders and been difficult and hard to beat basically a lot of tracks.
Suárez: My team as a whole — not just myself but my teammate as well. Trackhouse as a whole, more [successful] than most people expected. We are having some good success and that has been very, very good.
Bowman: Ross Chastain. I just didn’t see that much success coming this year. They’ve been really strong, and I know Ross is really good. I just didn’t expect them to do what they’ve done.
Logano: This whole year’s been a surprise. Kurt Busch is one who comes to my mind, not for good reasons. Obviously, the win early in the year was great, but his whole year is just a surprise probably to all of us.
Burton: Chase Briscoe is having a really good year. Not that it’s surprising, I guess, because he’s won a lot of races in Xfinity, but he’s done a really good job from last year to this year, making it as far as he has in the playoffs and getting good finishes when he hasn’t run well. I feel like there are days where he’ll run towards the back and then find a way to finish up front, which is really hard to do in this series.
Larson: Surprisingly good — great! — Ross Chastain. I knew he was going to be good. I wasn’t surprised to see them strong early in the year, but I thought that that team might tail off as the season got on. But they haven’t. Surprisingly not good — not that he hasn’t been great because he’s been in contention a lot — but Martin Truex. I’m just surprised that they haven’t won.
Chastain: Ross Chastain. I’ve never won races. I’d only finished in the top-5 three times in my career before this year, and now we’ve done it [15] times. Brand-new team, new ownership and two drivers that had never competed at the front consistently, and we’ve done that this year. I’m a [watermelon] farmer, so it’s surprising that I can drive a race car.
7. You’re leading the race and there are two laps left; which driver would you want behind you?
(Logan Riely/Getty Images)
Blaney: None of them. I don’t think you want any of them within a car length or two of you.
Logano: All of them.
Elliott: No one. I hope they’re far enough away or nobody’s close to you.
Wallace: I’ll go with Blaney.
Bowman: I don’t care.
Truex: Probably Kyle Busch, just because I know he’d race with respect. We have a good relationship, and we always race well together. Very, very hard racing, but clean and fair.
Byron: A teammate would be better than than others probably. So I’d say maybe Chase [Elliott] or Alex [Bowman] or Kyle [Larson]. Any of those three would be a good one to have.
Larson: I guess it depends on the race track, but I don’t I don’t really care. I guess any of them.
Suárez: For a comfortable situation, I’d say my teammate, Ross [Chastain].
Keselowski: Probably Chris Buescher. He’s a good teammate.
Burton: Another rookie, probably Todd Gilliland or Austin Cindric, I’d say, because I feel like we’re all in the same boat. So we’ll be in good shape there.
Chastain: Line ’em up however they want, doesn’t matter.
8. You’re leading the race and there are two laps left; which driver do you absolutely not want behind you?
(John David Mercer-USA TODAY Sports)
Logano: I really don’t care. You’ve got to beat them all, so it doesn’t matter. Whoever, I don’t think it makes a difference, honestly. Everybody’s gonna be willing to do something to win a race, and what they’re willing to do is sometimes pretty fluid. I think you treat them all the same because you just don’t know.
Suárez: A driver that is in a must-win situation, that has a lot of pressure. Any of the drivers that are in the playoffs that are below the cutline, those guys, they have to do whatever they have to do. If I was in their position, I would do the same thing. Those guys, it’s not good to have them behind me because they will have to do dumb moves to do whatever they have to do to get the job done.
Keselowski: Probably Chase Briscoe. the last few times he’s been running second with like two or three laps to go, he’s wrecked the leader — in case you were wondering the rationale.
Byron: Man, I don’t want any of them behind me. But I don’t think really any of them intimidate me, per se. I think some are more strategic than others. It just depends on the situation. I can’t pick one there.
Blaney: It doesn’t really matter. To me, you kind of understand and you race around guys enough to where you know who will be more aggressive than others. But this year, everyone’s been really aggressive, so you never know.
Burton: I think I don’t want Ross Chastain behind me because I feel like he’s gonna probably put me in a spot where I’m gonna either have to crash us both, or crash him to try and win. So it’s gonna be crazy at the end if he’s right behind you.
Larson: Seems like Ross Chastain — and I’m not saying this on the on the part that he would crash you for the win — I just feel like he’s really good right now, and he’s really fast. He understands traffic really well. I feel like he does the best job of passing.
Cindric: Ross Chastain. Probably a popular answer.
Chastain: I don’t discriminate. Pick anybody you want, put them right behind me. That’s fine by me.
9. Which driver is most likely to believe in wild conspiracy theories?
(Mike Mulholland/Getty Images)
Blaney: Oh, gosh, Chase [Elliott]. This was when we were living in the same apartment complex together in North Carolina years ago, like 2015. He’d go down rabbit holes of conspiracy theories all the time. And I’d be over at his apartment sitting there, and he’d just go into a deep dive. I don’t know if he’s still that way or not. But back in 2015, ’16, Chase was a big conspiracy theorist on the aliens, government schemes, all this kind of stuff. And I wasn’t really interested in them. But yeah, he was pretty big into it a handful of years ago.
Wallace: Brad Keselowski.
Logano: Brad [Keselowski] will read the conspiracy theories, for sure, and get fairly deep into stuff before he realizes what the heck’s going on.
Byron: Oh man, I’d say Brad Keselowski. He comes across that way on social media, I think. He definitely reads into things for sure. So I would say him. I’ve seen him do some things with his methods, [like] when he goes out to qualify, he’ll do something different than everybody else.
Bowman: Brad Keselowski.
Keselowski: Me. I’m assuming everybody else has answered me.
Larson: Kyle Busch, for sure. Kyle or Kurt — either of the Buschs.
Burton: I don’t really know why, but the first guy that came to my mind is Denny Hamlin.
Elliott: Tyler Reddick. He just strikes me as a conspiracy theorist maybe, I don’t know.
Cindric: Oh, Michael McDowell. I’ve got a hunch, I’ll leave it at that.
Chastain: Michael McDowell. I don’t think he gets the credit he deserves. I know him well, and so I can say this: He doesn’t get the credit he deserves for being a little different, little out there in some ways. I love him. I love everything about him and what he stands for and being his friend. But you give him a few crumbs of maybe truth, and he’s gonna run with it.
10. Which driver is having the largest impact on the sport this season?
(Gary A. Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports)
Logano: Kurt Busch. Kurt, right now, has a very loud voice, and he has more time than anybody to focus on the health of our sport and health of our drivers and health and the safety of our cars. And he has taken the ball and run with it. And we all should be appreciative for what Kurt’s been doing for us lately. Kurt takes the cake by a mile.
Truex: Kevin Harvick has had a big impact, especially in talks with NASCAR about the Next Gen car and just bringing things out in the open. And I feel like things are starting to get changed and looked at a lot harder because of him being outspoken.
Completely unacceptable that those in charge have let things get to this point. I remember it like it was yesterday @dennyhamlin in the presentation of the new car to the drivers pleading that the car was to stiff. Data didn’t agree. TIME TO LISTEN TO THE DRIVERS CRASHING THEM! https://t.co/Q9urnlbaWa
Cindric: I’d say it’s a toss up between Kevin Harvick and Denny Hamlin. I wouldn’t say it’s positive or negative, just impact on the larger scale. They’ve been very outspoken about the car and the series and some things are productive. Some things probably aren’t aimed at being productive. So, from that standpoint, they’ve definitely been been the leaders in that category.
Keselowski: Probably either Kevin Harvick or Denny Hamlin because they’re so outspoken across the board.
Larson: Probably if I had to pick one over everybody, Harvick just on the safety side. Him and Denny together, them two. They’re moving the needle.
(Logan Riely/Getty Images)
Wallace: Ross Chastain. He’s obviously made a lot of headlines this year for the way he races, and obviously, Martinsville was no shortage of that.
Blaney: Honestly, I think like last two years, we’ve seen Bubba [Wallace] have a huge impact on the sport, reaching new audiences, and that’s grown the sport tremendously. I think he’s had a great influence on it. He’s grown different fan bases and grown the sport in a good way. So he’s had a massive impact on it, and I think it’s really cool what he’s done.
Chastain: I’ll say Darrell [Wallace]. He won a race. The following he has and the reach that he has, [it’s] far beyond what I have, in good and bad. What he does travels farther, and what he says carries a heavier weight than something I say. So I think in his winning moments and his not great moments, his car makes it to front pages and headlines farther than mine. He has this opportunity to carry the sport through his career and through his accomplishments on track that I hope to get to. He’s got the potential to just really elevate this sport. I’m glad to be his friend and a competitor. I want to beat him, right? But yeah, I think he’s got the most potential.
Suárez: Honestly, I will say myself because of the win that we had in Sonoma and everything that came with that. I felt like we gained a lot of traction with the Hispanic community, and that was great and I feel like that was amazing, not just for myself but for the entire sport and the history of the sport. So I think that that was pretty remarkable, and it just happened that I was driving.
Byron: I’d say Denny Hamlin because of just the 23XI being a new team and the national presence that the Jordan brand has and stuff like that. So I would say they’ve had the biggest impact on on the way the seasons gone with how vocal they are.
Blaney: Hard to argue against Ross [Chastain] after [Martinsville].
Burton: I’d say probably Kevin Harvick. Actually, I take that back — I’d say Kurt Busch is. Even though he was out for the year, he has been a really good advocate for the drivers and comes to meetings with NASCAR and the drivers and is really involved still. So a guy like that who kind of has just recently announced his retirement, I think he’s been really influencing the sport a lot. So either those two guys have been really influential though.
Chase Elliott: Ross Chastain has certainly been a storyline a lot throughout the year, both good and bad. But he’s been talked about quite a bit, so seems like a pretty good story between him and and Trackhouse and the things they’ve had going on.
For The Win polled NASCAR drivers to see what they think about their competitors on and off the track.
The 2022 NASCAR Cup Series season ended Sunday with Joey Logano winning his second championship after taking the checkered flag at Phoenix Raceway. And the end of the season means it’s time for For The Win’s annual NASCAR Superlatives.
Throughout the last several weeks, we polled 13 drivers with the same 10 questions about their competitors’ skills behind the wheel, as well as their personalities away from the track.
Obviously, there have been numerous examples this year of drivers being furious and frustrated with each other, but some of them are friends who have been racing against each other for a while. Our annual investigation reveals what some of them really think about each other.
Here’s what some of NASCAR’s top drivers had to say about each other this year. And if you’re curious about previous editions…
These answers have been condensed and edited for clarity.
1. Which driver who is not a champion will be a champion at some point?
(Meg Oliphant/Getty Images)
Daniel Suárez: You’re talking to him.
Joey Logano: Probably Ryan Blaney. I see the improvement he’s made over the last few years, and he’s got a ton of speed. So I’d say he’s getting closer and closer. He’s consistently in the Round of 8 every year for the last few, so I’d say he’s on the brink of making it to the Championship 4.
Bubba Wallace: Ryan Blaney.
Chase Elliott: Ryan Blaney.
Ryan Blaney: I don’t want to say myself because that would be too obvious of like, boosting your own ego. But obviously you want see yourself win a championship. Other than me, [William] Byron has been strong. Obviously, Denny Hamlin has kind of been on the verge of one for a long time.
Austin Cindric: It’s hard to not say Denny Hamlin. He’s come very close, and I think he’s probably the most realistic answer.
Ross Chastain: Ross Chastain.
Kyle Larson: William Byron. I feel like he’s very driven, very focused, works really hard and has a lot of talent, mentally is pretty tough. He just seems like a NASCAR champion.
Martin Truex Jr.: Christopher Bell.
Alex Bowman: William Byron.
Brad Keselowski: I’m going to say William Byron. He’s growing, he’s maturing, he’s with a great team. I think it will click, it just hasn’t yet.
William Byron: I’d first like to say myself, selfishly. There’s a lot of options there. Denny Hamlin comes to mind. If he’s not a champion really soon, I think he’ll be a champion, just the way that he is able to run consistently well. And I think he’s an intelligent race car driver and knows how to put himself in position towards the end of the year to have a chance to win in this format.
Harrison Burton: I think there’s a lot of good young guys that haven’t won one yet. But I think a good one would probably be William Byron. He’s been fast a lot, won a lot of races, so he’ll probably end up being [a champion] one day.
2. Which driver who hasn’t won the Daytona 500 will win it at some point?
(Chris Graythen/Getty Images)
Suárez: Same question, same answer, me.
Chastain: Ross Chastain.
Wallace: Us! It’s funny, [Ryan] Blaney’s also had two or three second-place finishes, so we’re kind of tied on that scenario. But I’m gonna go with myself.
Elliott: Same guy for me, [Blaney]. He’s finished second about 10 times.
Blaney: Either myself or I think Chase Elliott. He runs pretty good at superspeedways.
Truex: [Laughs] I want to say me.
Bowman: Probably also William Byron.
Larson: Ryan Blaney, for sure. I think he’s just a really good superspeedway racer and is in contention a lot of times. All drivers, they’ll probably mostly say Ryan Blaney.
Cindric: Ryan Blaney.
Logano: Pick one, anyone could win.
Byron: I’d say Ryan Blaney because I think he’s really good at the superspeedway races. He’s always, always at the front. He’s very aggressive, knows how to make the right decisions and stuff. He’s been close already.
Burton: That’s a hard, hard race to win. I think Ryan Blaney will probably get one soon.
Keselowski: Shoot, the last three years, I’ve been in the top-3 in the last few laps and gotten wrecked or something’s happened. Just gotta keep [getting into position] and eventually it’ll happen.
3. Which driver has the best social media personality?
Suárez: Oh my god, you want to have the same answer for every question?
Blaney: [Kevin] Harvick’s been cracking me up here the last couple months, which has been fun to watch. He’ll get all sassy with everybody, and I get a good chuckle out of that. He and Hamlin have a really funny Twitter. I love waking up and seeing [Harvick] go on rants the next morning. I love reading all through it.
Cody please take the time to read all of my tweets before typing. Thank you…. https://t.co/uT8hGM4D1G
Chastain: Not Ross Chastain. Pretty much anybody but [me]. I honestly don’t even have a good working knowledge of what people are posting.
Logano: Can I pick myself? I pick myself because I like cars.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CfaMwfjpZ0y/
Wallace: Depends on what you’re going for. First ones that come to mind are Denny, Kyle [Busch], myself.
Byron: I don’t think any of us are that great at it, I’ll be honest. Bubba comes to mind. He’s probably the most comfortable with social media, I would say, so his personality comes across. I would look at it as who’s the most authentic? Whose personality is really showing? And I think he’s the most authentic on there, speaks his mind.
Larson: Probably Denny [Hamlin]. Over the last probably three or four or five years, he’s really stepped up, it seems, his social media stuff, and he’s pretty funny on there. He does do, I would say, a lot of it himself, but I know his social media guy, and he’s pretty witty with all that too.
Cindric: I don’t really like Twitter. I use it, but I don’t like it. I like Instagram a lot better. But I don’t know.
Burton: I don’t follow them all. So I don’t know. I would say my dad, Jeff Burton. He’s killing his Instagram game recently. For an old guy, he’s doing pretty good.
4. Which driver has the best sense of humor?
(Gary A. Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports)
Truex: I got nothing.
Bowman: Definitely me. Dry as the desert.
Blaney: Bubba [Wallace] and Chase [Elliott]. I think you get different personalities out of people away from their job. It’s kind of hard to judge somebody from how they act at the race track or something because a lot of times, you’re you’re dead-set focused on the task at hand, and it’s hard to kind of really let loose or joke around too much. Everyone’s personality is very different away from the race track.
Wallace: Myself.
Chastain: Ryan Blaney. It’s dry, but I think I understand it though. Most people probably don’t.
Keselowski: Blaney. He’s just a fun guy to be around, and he’s chill.
Elliott: Skip.
Logano: This used to be the Clint Bowyer answer back in the day. Can I pick myself again? I can’t keep picking myself [laughs].
Cindric: Kevin Harvick has a pretty dry sense of humor, which I always enjoy. Sometimes it’s at the expense of something or someone else, but it’s Kevin Harvick.
Byron: Kyle Busch kind of has a pretty funny sense of humor. Like, when I drove for for [Kyle Busch Motorsports], I always thought he was kind of funny. He’s pretty brash, but it’s kind of funny sometimes because he’s so unfiltered.
Suárez: Probably Noah Gragson.
Burton: Todd Gilliland is the guy that probably makes me laugh the most in the garage. He’s a rookie, so I hang out with him quite a bit. And yeah, he’s funny as heck, that’s for sure.
Larson: The first name that came to my mind was Corey LaJoie. He’s really funny and quick.
5. Which driver is most likely to drop an f-bomb in a live TV interview?
(Gary A. Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports)
Logano: Typically, I’d say Kyle Busch, but he seems like he’s cleaned it up a little lately. Kevin [Harvick] is not likely anymore either. Those are two likely candidates back in the day. Bubba [Wallace] maybe?
Suárez: Probably me! I did that a few times after I won.
Cindric: Kyle Busch.
Keselowski: Yeah, probably Kyle Busch.
Chastain: Darrell Wallace.
Elliott: [Kevin] Harvick.
Byron: Oh, for sure [Kyle Busch]. I think that’s already happened. He’s for sure halfway there, if not already there.
Burton: Kyle Busch, I’d say it’s a good guess.
Truex: Kyle Busch.
Larson: Probably Noah Gragson.
Wallace: Noah Gragson.
Bowman: Noah Gragson.
Blaney: Man, I think any of us are capable of it. It’s just a matter of how upset you are. But I feel like that’s a big one to drop. I could see dropping a number of other cuss words, so you really have to mean it to drop that one. I could see Kyle Busch dropping one, but he hasn’t yet, I don’t believe, in his whole career, so maybe he won’t.
6. Which driver has had the most surprising season?
(Gary A. Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports)
Truex: I would say Ross Chastain because they just consistently perform well, and they’re still a fairly new team.
Keselowski: Ross Chastain. He’s still in the final four, and I guess I probably didn’t see that coming.
Blaney: Chastain’s had a really good first year at Trackhouse. Not surprising, he’s doing well, but I think he’s, you know, run better than people have thought in his first year over there. Another one who I’m surprised hasn’t run better or won like they’re used to doing is [Martin] Truex.
Cindric: Daniel Suárez. He’s been in the sport for a while and, quite honestly, in very capable cars. And whether he’s grown or he’s in a great situation or he wasn’t in good situations before, I feel like it’s kind of his third attempt at being in a top team, and he’s done very well with it.
Wallace: Probably Briscoe. Obviously got that win at Phoenix [in the spring], and the Stewart-Haas [Racing] cars haven’t been that great all year. But the last 10 races, he’s gotten hot at the right time.
Byron: Definitely Ross Chastain. I assumed he would be a playoff contender, for sure, based on how he ran the 42. But I felt like it would just be a steady progression from last year and the 42 car. Those guys, as soon as the season started, have been contenders and been difficult and hard to beat basically a lot of tracks.
Suárez: My team as a whole — not just myself but my teammate as well. Trackhouse as a whole, more [successful] than most people expected. We are having some good success and that has been very, very good.
Bowman: Ross Chastain. I just didn’t see that much success coming this year. They’ve been really strong, and I know Ross is really good. I just didn’t expect them to do what they’ve done.
Logano: This whole year’s been a surprise. Kurt Busch is one who comes to my mind, not for good reasons. Obviously, the win early in the year was great, but his whole year is just a surprise probably to all of us.
Burton: Chase Briscoe is having a really good year. Not that it’s surprising, I guess, because he’s won a lot of races in Xfinity, but he’s done a really good job from last year to this year, making it as far as he has in the playoffs and getting good finishes when he hasn’t run well. I feel like there are days where he’ll run towards the back and then find a way to finish up front, which is really hard to do in this series.
Larson: Surprisingly good — great! — Ross Chastain. I knew he was going to be good. I wasn’t surprised to see them strong early in the year, but I thought that that team might tail off as the season got on. But they haven’t. Surprisingly not good — not that he hasn’t been great because he’s been in contention a lot — but Martin Truex. I’m just surprised that they haven’t won.
Chastain: Ross Chastain. I’ve never won races. I’d only finished in the top-5 three times in my career before this year, and now we’ve done it [15] times. Brand-new team, new ownership and two drivers that had never competed at the front consistently, and we’ve done that this year. I’m a [watermelon] farmer, so it’s surprising that I can drive a race car.
7. You’re leading the race and there are two laps left; which driver would you want behind you?
(Logan Riely/Getty Images)
Blaney: None of them. I don’t think you want any of them within a car length or two of you.
Logano: All of them.
Elliott: No one. I hope they’re far enough away or nobody’s close to you.
Wallace: I’ll go with Blaney.
Bowman: I don’t care.
Truex: Probably Kyle Busch, just because I know he’d race with respect. We have a good relationship, and we always race well together. Very, very hard racing, but clean and fair.
Byron: A teammate would be better than than others probably. So I’d say maybe Chase [Elliott] or Alex [Bowman] or Kyle [Larson]. Any of those three would be a good one to have.
Larson: I guess it depends on the race track, but I don’t I don’t really care. I guess any of them.
Suárez: For a comfortable situation, I’d say my teammate, Ross [Chastain].
Keselowski: Probably Chris Buescher. He’s a good teammate.
Burton: Another rookie, probably Todd Gilliland or Austin Cindric, I’d say, because I feel like we’re all in the same boat. So we’ll be in good shape there.
Chastain: Line ’em up however they want, doesn’t matter.
8. You’re leading the race and there are two laps left; which driver do you absolutely not want behind you?
(John David Mercer-USA TODAY Sports)
Logano: I really don’t care. You’ve got to beat them all, so it doesn’t matter. Whoever, I don’t think it makes a difference, honestly. Everybody’s gonna be willing to do something to win a race, and what they’re willing to do is sometimes pretty fluid. I think you treat them all the same because you just don’t know.
Suárez: A driver that is in a must-win situation, that has a lot of pressure. Any of the drivers that are in the playoffs that are below the cutline, those guys, they have to do whatever they have to do. If I was in their position, I would do the same thing. Those guys, it’s not good to have them behind me because they will have to do dumb moves to do whatever they have to do to get the job done.
Keselowski: Probably Chase Briscoe. the last few times he’s been running second with like two or three laps to go, he’s wrecked the leader — in case you were wondering the rationale.
Byron: Man, I don’t want any of them behind me. But I don’t think really any of them intimidate me, per se. I think some are more strategic than others. It just depends on the situation. I can’t pick one there.
Blaney: It doesn’t really matter. To me, you kind of understand and you race around guys enough to where you know who will be more aggressive than others. But this year, everyone’s been really aggressive, so you never know.
Burton: I think I don’t want Ross Chastain behind me because I feel like he’s gonna probably put me in a spot where I’m gonna either have to crash us both, or crash him to try and win. So it’s gonna be crazy at the end if he’s right behind you.
Larson: Seems like Ross Chastain — and I’m not saying this on the on the part that he would crash you for the win — I just feel like he’s really good right now, and he’s really fast. He understands traffic really well. I feel like he does the best job of passing.
Cindric: Ross Chastain. Probably a popular answer.
Chastain: I don’t discriminate. Pick anybody you want, put them right behind me. That’s fine by me.
9. Which driver is most likely to believe in wild conspiracy theories?
(Mike Mulholland/Getty Images)
Blaney: Oh, gosh, Chase [Elliott]. This was when we were living in the same apartment complex together in North Carolina years ago, like 2015. He’d go down rabbit holes of conspiracy theories all the time. And I’d be over at his apartment sitting there, and he’d just go into a deep dive. I don’t know if he’s still that way or not. But back in 2015, ’16, Chase was a big conspiracy theorist on the aliens, government schemes, all this kind of stuff. And I wasn’t really interested in them. But yeah, he was pretty big into it a handful of years ago.
Wallace: Brad Keselowski.
Logano: Brad [Keselowski] will read the conspiracy theories, for sure, and get fairly deep into stuff before he realizes what the heck’s going on.
Byron: Oh man, I’d say Brad Keselowski. He comes across that way on social media, I think. He definitely reads into things for sure. So I would say him. I’ve seen him do some things with his methods, [like] when he goes out to qualify, he’ll do something different than everybody else.
Bowman: Brad Keselowski.
Keselowski: Me. I’m assuming everybody else has answered me.
Larson: Kyle Busch, for sure. Kyle or Kurt — either of the Buschs.
Burton: I don’t really know why, but the first guy that came to my mind is Denny Hamlin.
Elliott: Tyler Reddick. He just strikes me as a conspiracy theorist maybe, I don’t know.
Cindric: Oh, Michael McDowell. I’ve got a hunch, I’ll leave it at that.
Chastain: Michael McDowell. I don’t think he gets the credit he deserves. I know him well, and so I can say this: He doesn’t get the credit he deserves for being a little different, little out there in some ways. I love him. I love everything about him and what he stands for and being his friend. But you give him a few crumbs of maybe truth, and he’s gonna run with it.
10. Which driver is having the largest impact on the sport this season?
(Gary A. Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports)
Logano: Kurt Busch. Kurt, right now, has a very loud voice, and he has more time than anybody to focus on the health of our sport and health of our drivers and health and the safety of our cars. And he has taken the ball and run with it. And we all should be appreciative for what Kurt’s been doing for us lately. Kurt takes the cake by a mile.
Truex: Kevin Harvick has had a big impact, especially in talks with NASCAR about the Next Gen car and just bringing things out in the open. And I feel like things are starting to get changed and looked at a lot harder because of him being outspoken.
Completely unacceptable that those in charge have let things get to this point. I remember it like it was yesterday @dennyhamlin in the presentation of the new car to the drivers pleading that the car was to stiff. Data didn’t agree. TIME TO LISTEN TO THE DRIVERS CRASHING THEM! https://t.co/Q9urnlbaWa
Cindric: I’d say it’s a toss up between Kevin Harvick and Denny Hamlin. I wouldn’t say it’s positive or negative, just impact on the larger scale. They’ve been very outspoken about the car and the series and some things are productive. Some things probably aren’t aimed at being productive. So, from that standpoint, they’ve definitely been been the leaders in that category.
Keselowski: Probably either Kevin Harvick or Denny Hamlin because they’re so outspoken across the board.
Larson: Probably if I had to pick one over everybody, Harvick just on the safety side. Him and Denny together, them two. They’re moving the needle.
(Logan Riely/Getty Images)
Wallace: Ross Chastain. He’s obviously made a lot of headlines this year for the way he races, and obviously, Martinsville was no shortage of that.
Blaney: Honestly, I think like last two years, we’ve seen Bubba [Wallace] have a huge impact on the sport, reaching new audiences, and that’s grown the sport tremendously. I think he’s had a great influence on it. He’s grown different fan bases and grown the sport in a good way. So he’s had a massive impact on it, and I think it’s really cool what he’s done.
Chastain: I’ll say Darrell [Wallace]. He won a race. The following he has and the reach that he has, [it’s] far beyond what I have, in good and bad. What he does travels farther, and what he says carries a heavier weight than something I say. So I think in his winning moments and his not great moments, his car makes it to front pages and headlines farther than mine. He has this opportunity to carry the sport through his career and through his accomplishments on track that I hope to get to. He’s got the potential to just really elevate this sport. I’m glad to be his friend and a competitor. I want to beat him, right? But yeah, I think he’s got the most potential.
Suárez: Honestly, I will say myself because of the win that we had in Sonoma and everything that came with that. I felt like we gained a lot of traction with the Hispanic community, and that was great and I feel like that was amazing, not just for myself but for the entire sport and the history of the sport. So I think that that was pretty remarkable, and it just happened that I was driving.
Byron: I’d say Denny Hamlin because of just the 23XI being a new team and the national presence that the Jordan brand has and stuff like that. So I would say they’ve had the biggest impact on on the way the seasons gone with how vocal they are.
Blaney: Hard to argue against Ross [Chastain] after [Martinsville].
Burton: I’d say probably Kevin Harvick. Actually, I take that back — I’d say Kurt Busch is. Even though he was out for the year, he has been a really good advocate for the drivers and comes to meetings with NASCAR and the drivers and is really involved still. So a guy like that who kind of has just recently announced his retirement, I think he’s been really influencing the sport a lot. So either those two guys have been really influential though.
Chase Elliott: Ross Chastain has certainly been a storyline a lot throughout the year, both good and bad. But he’s been talked about quite a bit, so seems like a pretty good story between him and and Trackhouse and the things they’ve had going on.
Joey Logano absolutely dominated at Phoenix Raceway to win his second NASCAR championship.
AVONDALE, Ariz. — Joey Logano never doubted he’d be the NASCAR driver hoisting the Cup Series trophy at the end of the season.
Of course, plenty of drivers enter a new season or the beginning of the playoffs with the same mentality. But Logano felt his No. 22 Team Penske Ford team was immensely prepared for this moment — including a 7 a.m. team meeting in crew chief Paul Wolfe’s bus Sunday — and he had two extra weeks to get ready after being the first Championship 4 driver to qualify for the title race at Phoenix Raceway.
He won at Las Vegas Motor Speedway in mid-October, and his team quickly began eyeing the championship race, watching film, reviewing pit stops, dissecting the details and capitalizing on their advantage.
So by the time Phoenix rolled around, noticeable confidence and excitement were bursting from the 32-year-old driver through his almost-always jovial personality.
“When you saw how confident I was in my team [it was] because we were truly ready,” Logano said while wearing his gigantic championship ring.
“And you can’t fake confidence. I mean, you can maybe show it a little bit, but truly deep down inside, you have to believe that if you’re going to be ready for this battle ahead of you. And I never felt more ready.”
So when he hit the one-mile desert track, and he absolutely dominated.
He first won the pole before ultimately leading a race-high 187 laps of the 312 laps total, taking the checkered flag and winning his second career NASCAR Cup championship, along with his 2018 crown. It was also his third win at Phoenix in 28 starts.
But actually, Logano said he feels maybe a little short-changed when it comes to his championship count.
(John David Mercer-USA TODAY Sports)
“The greed in me feels like I should have four or five at the moment,” he said, chuckling at his own joke.
After being out front for the first 87 laps, Logano then traded the lead with a handful of challengers, but never with the other three championship contenders: Chase Elliott, Ross Chastain or Christopher Bell. He crushed his title competition, and for most of the race, it felt like it was his trophy to lose.
And by the time he crossed the finish line first, he was 0.301 seconds ahead of race runner-up Ryan Blaney, 1.268 ahead of Chastain in third and at least three seconds ahead of the rest of the field. Bell finished 10th, and Elliott was 28th after a run-in with Chastain that damaged his car.
“The 22 [team] was lights out all weekend, winning the pole and being super strong in practice,” Bell said. “We were just kind of playing catch-up — the rest of us were playing catch-up to him. The best car won the championship for sure.”
The oldest and most veteran of the title contenders — though Elliott was the 2020 champion — Logano said the experience delivered him an advantage beyond the obvious. Of course, he appreciates what it takes to win it all.
But he noted his fifth appearance in the Championship 4 helped him identify his competitors’ weaknesses, and when they may have been convincing themselves Sunday was just another race, Logano cranked up the pressure. He relishes it.
“I love making situations bigger than what they are — even bigger — because that pressure, to me, makes me better,” he said. “Is it uncomforting? Yeah.”
“Let me tell you, I felt like I had a 10,000-pound gorilla on my shoulder,” he continued. “It’s tough. Like, I felt the pressure, don’t get me wrong. But you gotta learn to love it because it’s right around the corner from having a moment like this.”
And it carried him to victory, making Team Penske the first organization to win a NASCAR and IndyCar Series championship in the same year.
(Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports)
“We don’t win every day, do we?” said team owner Roger Penske, who’s No. 2 Ford squad also won the season-opening Daytona 500. “But it teaches us how to win and how to stay in the game, and I think that’s what it’s done. … So I can’t say one is better than the other. I’m just glad to be here.”
