u/Extreme-Bite-9123

With Retzlaff being on a legacy partnered car, the only other ones being for Dario and Jimmie, it made me realize that there is a lot of people with possible ties to cup rides next year.

Corey Heim

Corey Heim is probably the only one I can say with absolute certainty will be here. With how much 23XI has been doing with him, there’s no way he isn’t driving the 35/67/11/whatever the number ends up being next year.

Jesse Love

Love hasn’t had the level of conversation as Heim has, but it’s pretty likely hes going to cup with all the rumors circulating and now him not being in the 33. I see three realistic options, the 71, the 21, and the 88/99/third trackhouse car. The 71 and 21 are cut and dry, McDowell and Berry have been fairly underwhelming, and it wouldnt be surprising to see one of them get swapped for a young up and comer. The third trackhouse car requires zilisch going to HMS, and Trackhouse taking him on. There is the possible link of hocevar leaving spire, but I don’t personally believe that he is.

Austin Hill

With it looking more and more likely that Jesse love won’t be staying at RCR next season (first with his open car getting pulled, then with Hill getting the 33 over him, and now with hill getting Nashville over him) it leaves hill the prime suspect to take over the 33 full time next year

Corey Day

Now they’re much more up in the air. Corey day has been linked to the Hendrick 48 for next year, and although I think it would be too fast of a jump, I can’t say it’s unlikely to happen, hendrick is high on him and he’s really come into his own lately.

Chandler Smith/Layne Riggs

These two basically occupy the same spot, of gragson keeps doing… literally nothing, he could be dropped, and it’d be likely they promote internally. I think both bring pluses and minuses, chandler has more experience and doesn’t make mistakes as often (plus he has a lot more money than Riggs) while Riggs has shown more raw speed. They could pull an outside driver like Berry or try for a McDowell return, but I can’t see that.

Parker retzlaff

Parker has a weak yet strong link to a ride with the news of him being in a legacy prepped ride. I don’t know if he’s cup ready yet, but if he goes to cup it’d require one of Erik jones or, more likely, JHN getting kicked to the curb.

Brent Crews

Definitely the least likely here, but he has a tie to cup. If Denny wins the title this year, he’ll probably try and retire on the spot, and if JGR can’t find a stop gap and crews has done well in Oreilly, he would likely be the one promoted to cup.

In the end, I don’t expect them all to make it. Crews is a tenuous connection, Day is in my opinion too young, who knows what’s going on at FRM, and Retzlaff is a new development. But all of these are strong drivers, heim and love are champions, hill is one of the eldest oreilly drivers, day has already won two races his rookie year, Csmith and Riggs are early favorites for the truck championship, retzlaff is the only non top team in the oreilly chase, and crews is an extremely promising young driver. And that’s only the people with easily made connections, there’s a lot of drivers with a possible word in for cup, both HFT guys are doing well, kvapil has his supposed “Penske contract”, who knows what ram does, and theres a lot of people who could pay their way into rides.