Road to Cup: The changing path to Sundays in the Next Gen era

For NASCAR’s next generation of Cup drivers, the “ladder” still matters—but the path is getting harder to map. The Truck and O’Reilly Auto Parts Series have long been seen as preparation for Sunday, with some of the same skills and even similar hardware when teams used Cup-built components. In the 2000s, drivers like Denny Hamlin and Brad Keselowski rose through that system, and their early success was aided by continuity between series. That changed with the 2022 Next Gen Cup platform: independent rear suspension, a flat carbon underbody and a sequential five-speed transaxle. Hamlin calls comparisons difficult, while drivers like Austin Cindric report the learning curve.