NASCAR Weekly Recap: A few best mid-running teams and more from the 2025 Coke Zero 400

A huge regular season finale night at Cup level with not many Playoffs spots before the doors slam closed going into Darlington next weekend. We instead saw one repeat winner succesfully fending off a bunch of other last-minute hopefuls followed by a “lucky loser” lifeline from someone (Alex Bowman, No.48 Chevy for Hendrick) who will now have the opportunity to redeem himself beginning with the opening round of 16 locked-in Playoff drivers all wanting to win the season-ending Bill France Cup.

NASCAR Cup Series: Coke Zero Sugar 400

Every lap counts where the odd mistake or two counts against you from The Big One crashes to handling errors on pit road when trying to get out of a must-win position. 

While none of them got away with the win off the back of Ryan Blaney’s superb winning move at the white flag, there were a few that made such a huge intent regardless of their current places on drivers’ points.

Daniel Suarez finished 2nd in the No.99 Camaro for Trackhouse following a fantastic weekend on paper with a few sniffs up front such as qualifying and Stage 1 – both 12th.

Whoever gets him onboard next year, he’s a safe pair of hands at Cup level. 

He’s age 33-34 right now as hard to tell which team would really suit him best outside Trackhouse but Daniel is the kind of driver who can bring you both funny and Top 10 results plus the odd win or two – a win-win for that kind of calibre.

Justin Haley also had a really good weekend in 3rd where he credits that fast No.7 Camaro & was so close to winning it until his defensive block was a bit too much to hold off towards the finish line. 

Better still, he needs more time than just big tracks to fulfill his full potential at an exciting project built by Spire Motorsports.

There’s a reason why he’s here than at Rick Ware Racing for most of last season.

Yes, the unexpected crew chief change hasn’t helped much when Rodney Childers shockingly walked out the door after the first 10 odd races. However, Ryan Sparks is doing everything he can to put out a good driver-crew chief relationship as it’s all about Top 10-15 results every week. 

Congrats to Justin on becoming a first time dad off-track with wife Haley Haley.

Career moment for Haas while one of the mid-pack Toyotas were oh so close

How good was Cole Custer out of nowhere in 4th for the one & only Haas Ford team who got the better of his Stage 3 adjustments from mid-pack and the same goes to Erik Jones as the lead finishing Toyota for Legacy 43 who was so good at building gradual blocks. 

Without the yellow flag crashes, things wouldn’t be much of the same and Erik managed to steer clear off the wall, which is good for his pit and garage crew.

For Custer, we can imagine what that big moment looks like if he did take out the race win out of everyone.

He had a few lead laps but sometimes superspeedway races like these are unpredictable where Cole and few other mid-running team drivers could not see that coming even this and that close. 

Playoffs berth or not, sure Custer would want to go one better this time early next year at a team who is currently at a complete new look without Tony Stewart.

Also a bummer Erik couldn’t hold on for 1st when he had no help after Kyle Larson managed to unpack more fire as if he turned up the BBQ at full heat past his No.43 Camry but he at least found the clearer side right on time to lock in 5th.

Xfinity Series: Wawa 250

Huge night from JR Motorsports with a 1-2-3 finish courtesy of a super sub win by versatile driver and analyst/pit reporter Parker Kligerman in the No.88 Chevy for Connor Zilisch. 

Connor did start the race but had to start from the back for the first few laps despite the pole award until the race was put on hold for some time due to rain.

Then Connor thought it’s best if Parker takes the lead from there since he’s still recovering from that post-race collarbone fracture when he climbed out of the car extremely exhausted before he was rushed to hospital with the all okay following his win two weeks ago at Watkins Glen International (road course).

For Parker’s part, glad he wanted to be on that race car so badly where he absolutely  killed it based on his respectable super speedways record – even though he usually turns up nearly every week throughout the year in the CW booth with Jamie McMurray and Adam Alexander. 

All he had to do was wait, wait and wait and somehow Parker was able to hold on under a superior equipment as always along with a bit of clean air on what has been a team No.88 effort by both drivers.

They’ve dominated both big tracks and road courses considering Parker also raced IMSA sports NASCAR cars every now and then for some time where driver swaps are nothing new although rare in NASCAR. 

Connor, however, does have a bit of everything to win all types of tracks which is why he’s in the box seat right now to hopefully wrap up the championship between now and Phoenix this November.

More JRM success with the best of Ford and Toyota cars

Oh so close to Justin Allgaier but he’s back in the Top 5 in 2nd with a Stage 2 win while Sammy Smith did benefit from a good Truck series stint last week at Richmond (4th) where he finished 3rd including the opening stage win.

It could’ve been Sammy’s race to win if it wasn’t for the Stage 2 spin but not bad based on the No.8 team’s impressive team work on pit road that got the better of him.

Best Ford goes to Sam Mayer in 4th for Haas who started up front & finished 2nd in Stage 1. Although he lost his way in Stage 2 but a few late yellows opened the door again for Sam to finish this strong.

Same with Brandon Jones as the top-placed Toyota Supra in 6th for Gibbs where things were more uniform earlier with thanks to the rain hold ahead of restarts before he struggled to gain spots as it goes. But credit to his No.19 crew that gave Brandon the good possible reprieve to hang in there through the checkered flag, particularly late yellows.

Brandon accrued all three Top 10 stage finishes which is a nice to have an extra stack of pennies with the upcoming Playoffs coming up next month also currently sitting 6th in points – such as 6th in Stage 1, 9th in Stage 2 & overall 6th.