Ranking the First Ten Races of the 2022 NASCAR Cup Series Season

In this piece, I decided to look back on the first ten races of the 2022 Season to see what tracks adapted well to the NextGen car and what have been the best races so far this season.

1. Auto Club

The track didn’t see racing in 2021 due to the pandemic, but it got a pretty good welcome back with an outstanding race in Fontana, California. The race featured 32 lead changes, compared to the 2020 race which had 16. The NextGen made a great first impression on the 2-mile oval, in which has made some rethink if the track should be converted to a short track. Not to mention that the race offered an exciting finish to the race when Daniel Suarez was close to his first career win, but Kyle Larson completed the pass in the final couple of laps to win the race. The original plan was for the track to be converted to a half-mile short track for 2023, but nothing has been announced or done at the site to show that. Most likely it’ll stay in its current configuration for the 2023 race. I will say that I think this track would make a great season-finale in the future if NASCAR decides to relocate the season finale. With the track located 50-miles from the heart of LA, it could be an interesting site for NASCAR to push for a bigger market to host the season finale.

2. Las Vegas

This was probably one of the best, if not the best 1.5-mile race we have seen in a while. The 2022 Pennzoil 400 had 23 lead changes and plenty of green-flag passes. The 2021 fall race has 21 lead changes and 9.2 passes per green flag lap. The 2021 spring race had 27 lead changes with 17.1 passes per green flag lap. It is on par with previous Gen 6 races, but the race showed that the NextGen car was creating a tighter competition in the Cup Series. Alex Bowman won the race, but we began seeing flashes out of Ross Chastain to where he now looks like a potential championship contender with a team in just its second season.

3. Talladega

Nothing to complain about here, a solid race for the new car at Talladega and the race was quite different compared to previous races. This one went green in the final 63 laps but still gave us that exciting Talladega finish we love to see, as Ross Chastain earned his second career win and second of the season. It does show that while yes, we had our share of wrecks in the race, the race doesn’t have to go into five overtimes for a finish to be exciting. 

4. Circuit of the Americas

COTA gave us a first look at what the NextGen car can do on a road course and it didn’t disappoint. What also helped was that the weather was much better for this race than last year, which was called early due to the rain. Once again this race gave us a thrilling finish between Alex Bowman, AJ Allmendinger, and Ross Chastain, giving Chastain his first career win. 

5. Daytona 500

I was expecting this year’s Great American Race to be a little more laid back and conservative with there being a new car and current supply chain issues with parts. Compared to last year’s Daytona 500, which had seven cautions and 22 lead changes, this year’s event also had seven cautions and 35 lead changes. The race however had plenty of wrecks near the end, unlike last year when it had a big pileup on lap 14. Overall the Daytona 500 kicked off the NextGen era well, resulting in a rookie winning the Daytona 500 in Austin Cindric.

6. Atlanta

Atlanta was placed a bit lower than most for me. The racing was interesting, and it was certainly something that NASCAR drivers and fans haven’t seen before. We saw Daytona-like racing on a 1.5-mile track. It looked harder to pass and the racing was much tighter with the new repave. There were plenty of wrecks, as this race had 11 cautions compared to both races last year which had 5 (spring) and 4 (summer). Plus it shattered lead change records as well. While the pack racing was interesting, I do believe that this should be a once-a-year kind of event. I don’t want to see every other mile-and-a-half track turned into a superspeedway. I do believe that the new reconfiguration can provide a good racing product if the racing was with a normal 1.5-mile package. I did feel 50/50 about the reconfiguration. I’m not saying Atlanta was a bad race, it wasn’t. It was interesting, different, and obviously, it’s good to experiment with different things. Now the summer race, when it’s hotter and slicker on the racing surface, that could get rather interesting in the July race.  

7. Bristol Dirt

This race was certainly better than last year but once again the spring Bristol race was plagued with rain. The good news was that this was the most attended race for the spring Bristol race in five years. Kudos to NASCAR for letting this race complete in its entirety, despite that the race was halted twice due to rain. We got a fantastic finish with the battle between Tyler Reddick and Chase Briscoe, with Kyle Busch pulling off the win in the end. This race was solid for sure. The biggest problem was when the race was halted for rain at the end of stage two and the positioning was frozen during pit stops, which might have been a situation that NASCAR wasn’t prepared for. The 2021 race had only 5.5 green flag passes per lap, while in 2022, the race had 16.1 green flag passes per lap.

8. Phoenix

This race was a bit quieter, but it wasn’t a bad race by any means. This and the bottom two races are ranked lower due to how the season has been so far. 2022 was been off to a great start to where this race didn’t create as much noise as other races did. This race had 14 lead changes and 7.9 passes per green flag lap. Compared to the recent race there, being the 2021 Championship race, that race had 18 lead changes and 7.5 green flag passes per lap. Chase Briscoe got his first career victory that day, which was a long time coming for the young Indiana native.

9. Richmond

This race to me was a classic Richmond race. Long green flag runs and a race that came down to pit strategies. It led to a fun four-car battle that resulted in Denny Hamlin getting a much-needed win with his early-season struggles. 

10. Martinsville

Martinsville wasn’t “bad” at all. Though this race only had five lead changes and 3.4 green flag passes per lap. This race a year ago had 18 lead changes and 5.0 green flag passes per lap, and the fall race had 15 lead changes with 4.2 green flag passes per lap. The NextGen short track package could use some work, as there has been expressed interest from many fans for there to be more short tracks. It’s only been on race here however and the next race here will have a lot more at stake with a ticket to be punched for the Championship Four. That race can play out and look a lot different than the spring race, so no need to hit the panic button. Just some early thoughts.

Crazy to think we are already 10 races in and I might just update this list as we are 20 races in or so to see how the next handful of races stack up compared to the ones on this list already. 2022 has been a great season so far and we are in for more exciting competition in the coming weeks.