NASCAR’s Q-rating could use boost with big-name winner at Daytona 500

DAYTONA BEACH — Kyle Busch’s star has begun to fade, while his Daytona 500 chances are clearly running out.

Coming off his first winless season since he joined the Cup Series full time in 2005, the 39-year-old continues his push to capture the one race that has eluded him. If he does, Busch would deliver NASCAR’s showcase event a big-name champion absent in recent years and boost his sport’s Q rating Sunday at Daytona International Speedway.

Busch isn’t the only driver capable of providing NASCAR a lift entering the 2025 season. The list, though, is short, and includes three-time winner Denny Hamlin, three-time Cup Series champion Joey Logano and fan favorite Chase Elliott, the ’20 champion, a 19-time race winner and five-time most popular driver award winner.

“If it was a Chase Elliott or a me or a Logano that won the 500, that would put us more mainstream-ish,” Busch said during Wednesday’s Media Day. “Me and Chase would be the biggest story of being able to do that. There’s some other other drivers out there that, if they were to win people would be like, ‘OK, that was the Daytona 500, what’s next?’

“Where arguably, if it was Chase or myself, there would be a bigger story — not through just that week or after the 500, but even for a couple months.”

Once a villain, Busch, a 63-time winner and two-time Cup Series champion, has become increasingly popular as his on-track excellence continued and his brashness softened with age and fatherhood.

Busch also is familiar to fans as one of the only full-time drivers with ties to the sport’s last hey-day, in the 2000s when Jeff Gordon, Tony Stewart, Jimmie Johnson and Dale Earnhardt Jr. won big races, created rivalries and generated TV ratings, eyeballs and sponsorships.

Hamlin, 44, remembers those days fondly. He wonders and worries whether they’re repeatable.

“It’s a problem within our sport,” he recently told the Orlando Sentinel.

Unlike those halcyon days, before social media, competition for eyeballs is immense. It’s also harder for a driver to break away from the pack and stand out.

Since its ’22 arrival, the Gen 7 car has created tighter racing and parity at the expense of regular trips to Victory Lane.

Kyle Larson’s 10-win ’21 was the first double-digit win season since Johnson’s in ’07. But five other drivers, including Busch and Hamlin, subsequently had seasons with at least eight wins prior to Larson’s monster year.

No one has done so since, though stellar seasons are still available.

Larson in ’24 and reigning Daytona 500 winner William Byron in ’23 each had six victories while Elliott had five in ’22. None, however, prevailed during the season-ending playoffs.

Meanwhile, Johnson won seven titles and posted nine five-win seasons; Gordon won four titles and posted eight five-win seasons, including at least 10 for three straight (1996-98); and Stewart had four five-win seasons and won three Cup titles.

Busch has five five-win seasons and Hamlin four. Elliott (31), Larson (32) and Logano (34) still have time for more big years, but ’24 also featured 18 different winners in 36 races.

“The box that we’re all operating just gets smaller and smaller the more that we learn about this car,” said Tyler Reddick, the ’24 regular-season champion who won three times. “Unless there’s drastic changes, that box will just continue to get smaller. It’s just going to get harder and harder to have those kind of years and dominate, just because the competition is so close.”

Winning isn’t the only measure of popularity, but remains the surest path to stardom.

“You can’t just be popular because of your personality or character,” Larry McReynolds, a longtime Fox analyst and former crew chief, told the Sentinel. “In the Cup Series, wins have to go along with it.”

Competition spawns must-see rivalries, too.

Dale Earnhardt Sr.’s turf battle with Gordon arose naturally, the grizzled veteran and people’s champion from the South versus the pretty boy upstart from California.

The hot-tempered Stewart routinely was embroiled in feuds, be it with Logano, Brad Keselowski or Carl Edwards, a nine-time winner himself in ’08.

“You usually had two or three really big names and successful names that would create those rivalries — maybe Dale Earnhardt on the backside of his career and Jeff Gordon on the front side of his career,” Johnson recalled. “Those elements were just those unicorn moments that helped the sport grow. I hope that we can recreate that, but I do think with parity there are unintended consequences that happen.

“The parity has allowed me to come in as an owner.”

Johnson, who retired from full-time racing five years ago, will race Sunday in the No. 84 Toyota of the Legacy Motor Club team that he co-owns. The Gen 7 car’s introduction also allowed more teams to join the sport because of significantly lower costs.

A more level playing field and the unpredictability of the Daytona 500 give every driver a shot. Consider three of the past four winners since Hamlin’s ‘20 win, Michael McDowell (’21), Austin Cindric (’22) and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. (’23), didn’t win another race that season.

NASCAR might not need a star to be born this time, rather one to rise again.

“We’re struggling right now for relevance in the sports market,” Hamlin said. “It isn’t a knock on anyone in particular, especially the drivers. But the sport has to change some things, and ultimately, star power is the one key thing that we got to work on.”

Edgar Thompson can be reached at egthompson@orlandosentinel.com