Been back behind the wall dealing with some DVP for too many laps now. Hopefully, I’ve got all the pieces and parts back on and secure and can continue on. This will be a shakedown just to see.
This piece is a bit late, but it lays the foundation for future stuff, so bear with me. Hopefully, this should bring things up to speed so we can continue on in a more timely manner. Fingers crossed.
REGULAR SEASON
At the end of the Regular Season, 2024 Cup Champion and Racing Lead Change (RLC) Champ Joey Logano found himself atop the Racing Lead Change Leaderboard again to win the 2025 Regular Season Championship. Logano registered 19 RLCs over the course of the 26 race Regular Season that culminated in Daytona for the Coke 400, where he scored a race high 5 RLCs.
Logano scored RLCs (passing the leader for a lead change under Green Flag conditions without benefit of bunch on starts or restarts or having the leader relinquish the lead to him by pitting) in 8 of the 26 races. In addition to his 5 RLCs at the second Daytona he also scored 4 RLCs each at Atlanta 1 and Talladega.
The 2024 Champ finished 4 RLCs ahead of teammate, Austin Cindric who scored 15 RLCs in 6 races and opened with nearly half (7) at the opening Daytona 500. William Byron finished third with 13 RLCs.
Below is the Regular Season Breakdown that saw 222 of the 590 Lead Changes (37%) were from RLCs.
Here is the Regular Season RLC Standings. Drivers highlighted in red qualified for the 2025 Playoffs.
REGULAR SEASON TRACKS
The following is a ranking of the tracks by RLCs. There is no additional analysis like RLC per Racing Lap. That will come later. This is just the raw numbers so you can get an idea. Understandably the “Pack Track” rise to the tops with Road Courses settling to the bottom. This season so far has two races with 0 RLCs-POCONO and INDY. That is up from 1 last season
PLAYOFFS ROUND 1
DARLINGTON
The opening race in Round 1 saw Chase Briscoe wins the race and pitch a shutout in the Racing Lead Changes. He added 3 more RLCs to move him up the Leaderboard, while no other drivers were able to make a Racing Lead Change throughout the race that saw 13 of the 21 Green Flag Lead Changes occur because the Leader relinquished the lead due to Pit Stop Strategy.
Below is the Darlington Breakdown:
GATEWAY/WORLDWIDE TECHNOLOGY
Denny Hamlin won the 240 lapper at the Madison IL, where he took the lead 4 times for a race high 75 laps. But it was Kyle Larson who scored the only Racing Lead Change in the race when he passed Hamlin on Lap 7 for the first Lead Change of the race. For the next 233 Laps fans saw another 14 Lead Changes but none were for P2 racing past P1 to take the lead.
Here is the Gateway Breakdown:
BRISTOL 2
Bristol was a wild card when it came to RLCs. Goodyear was bringing a new right-side tire that promised more fall off to go with the left side tire that produced widely varying results over the last three races – ranging from 39 RLCs in Spring 2024 to 1 in Fall 2024. The Spring 2025 had 4, and the practice results for this race had performance leaning more to the low side.
But the tire had a different idea, which turned out to be a good thing for RLCs.
It didn’t take long for the demons to rear their heads and the tires began to chunk and wear. The outer lane filled with rubber to the point that after long runs it looked like the start of a cushion at Eldora. Teams started going through tires at a rate Goodyear had to issue an extra set to get them to the end of the race. The rubber buildup started building in the cars to the point the old exhaust fire issue reappeared.
Out of the chaos, Christopher Bell got the race win along with 1 RLC. Ty Gibbs got a race-high 6 RLCs, besting the other seven RLC drivers.
Below is the Bristol Breakdown:
Followed by the ROUND 1 Breakdown. Playoff Contenders through this Round are in bold red.
The Season Standings after ROUND 1 is as follows with Joey Logano still atop the Leader Board. Bold red designates drivers advancing to ROUND 2. Red designates drivers eliminated in ROUND 1.
And here is a breakdown of the Tracks RLCs including ROUND 1 Results, where we see Bristol climbing up amongst the “Pack Tracks”.
ROUND 2 and BEYOND
Round 2 opens at New Hampshire which historically has scored low RLC numbers. Goodyear is bringing a different tire there so not sure what to expect. Will it be Bristol Fall or Bristol Spring? I’m leaning to the latter.
One thing is for sure, we’ll find out Sunday afternoon so tune in to get the answer to this and many other questions. Till then…
Thunder On… and Stay Safe!
David Nance
Photo Credit (cover): James Gilbert/Getty Images
David, have had so much going on I haven’t had time to read much. Got to read this one and still am amazed that you can keep everything in order and relay it to us.
Thank you for staying around and writing great and interesting articles with facts for us