Chevrolet Seeks Continued NASCAR Success in 2024

Coming off a season in which Team Chevy won exactly half the points-paying races in the NASCAR Cup Series, along with its third consecutive and 42nd Manufacturer Championship overall, the Bowtie has a lot to celebrate heading into the 2024 campaign.

But with 851 victories and counting, the winningest brand in NASCAR premier series history is always looking for more.

This year, another stout team and driver lineup is poised to provide Chevrolet with an opportunity for continued success with the Camaro ZL1. Plus, offseason changes were limited in the Chevrolet camp, providing many organizations with a sense of consistency as the season gets underway.

In 2023, longtime Chevrolet team Hendrick Motorsports scored 10 wins and two of its drivers reached the Championship Four at Phoenix Raceway. However, they came up just short of giving the Bowtie Brand its 34th Driver Championship, as Kyle Larson took the runner-up spot in the final point standings while William Byron finished third.

Byron led the series with six wins and Larson, the 2021 Cup Series champion, grabbed the checkered flag four times and won the All-Star Race in NASCAR’s return to historic North Wilkesboro Speedway. Larson has proven to be a consistent threat for the title each year, while Byron emerged as a Cup Series superstar last season.

He now hopes to carry the momentum into 2024.

“It’s going to be tough for us to repeat the things we did last year, but I feel like we’ve got the team capable,” Byron said. “We have all the same people and even made some improvements in the off-season to get our team a little bit tighter.”

Hendrick Motorsports’ other two drivers, 2020 champ Chase Elliott and Alex Bowman, both missed significant time with injuries last season. Each was unable to win a race and qualify for the playoffs, but expect them to be motivated to reach Victory Lane and contend for the title.

"Winning would be great. Winning a championship would be great,” Elliott said. “We just want to have pace on a week-to-week basis and that is where my head has been for a long time. I want to show up and have a shot every week. I think we are very capable of doing that but you’ve got to be perfect. If you are not perfect, you have to be really close to it and just keep yourself in contention. That’s really where I am at with it. I want to have pace, be fast and be in the hunt more often."

Another longtime Chevrolet team, Richard Childress Racing, also has high expectations entering the 2024 season. Last year, two-time Cup Series champion Kyle Busch rejoined Team Chevy with RCR and found immediate success, winning three of the season’s first 15 races. Although Busch made the playoffs, he and his team faced struggles in the second half of the year and were eliminated in the playoffs’ first round.

Now, after a year with crew chief Randall Burdett under his belt, “Rowdy” is motivated to win more trophies with the flair for which he has become known.

“We started the year really well last year,” Busch said. “We had some good speed and we did things early on in the year just kind of based on their notes, and then we built off of that. We had some good races in the second half of the year, I just did not capitalize very well on those. Had some issues myself, and then also just some other issues. Slow pit stops would sometimes knock us back, and then I would try too hard to get to the front and spin out or whatever.

“So just a lot of things – It’s not just one single area, I feel like. I know we’ve kind of changed some processes and procedures over the off-season of how we were doing cars, how we were looking at parts of cars and things like that. So hopefully all that helps, too.”

Busch will again be paired with 2018 Daytona 500 winner Austin Dillon at RCR, who will campaign the famous black No. 3 car for the 11th consecutive season. Dillon has developed a reputation as one of the Cup Series’ most consistent drivers and looks to return to the playoffs this year.

In terms of consistency, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and the JTG Daugherty Racing team also turned in a successful 2023, beginning with a win in the Daytona 500. While the win in NASCAR’s most prestigious event virtually locked Stenhouse into the playoffs, he followed up the “Great American Race” victory by matching his career high in top-five finishes with nine.

Upstart Chevrolet team Trackhouse Racing had an impressive 2023 campaign, with Ross Chastain scoring two wins en route to a ninth-place result in the final standings. In addition, the team pulled off one of the biggest upsets in NASCAR history when Shane van Gisbergen took the win in the inaugural Chicago Street Race in his first Cup Series start. Meanwhile, Daniel Suarez narrowly missed the playoffs.

This year, Chastain and Suarez return full-time for the third consecutive season, while van Gisbergen will make several Cup starts for Kaulig Racing thanks to an agreement between the two organizations. He will also compete for the championship in the NASCAR Xfinity Series with Kaulig.

Trackhouse’s unique aesthetic and disruptive approach has quickly made the team one of the most successful in NASCAR, both on and off the track.

Additionally, Trackhouse Racing signed 2022 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series champion Zane Smith as last season wound down. Smith will campaign a third entry for rapidly expanding Spire Motorsports through an alliance with Trackhouse.

"It has been pretty surreal,” Smith said. “The day that we announced I was signing with Trackhouse Racing at Bristol was truly a dream come true. I think every kid that wants to make it in racing, wants to see Sunday. To have the opportunity that I have and to have a foreseeable future in front of me is everything I ever wanted."

Smith and teammate Carson Hocevar, who also moves up from the Truck Series, will each compete for Rookie of the Honors with the Spire team. They will join Corey LaJoie, who has become a mainstay of Spire Motorsports and looks poised for his first career win.

The aforementioned Kaulig Racing also has a restructured driver lineup heading into 2024. Daniel Hemric, the 2018 Cup Series top rookie and 2021 NASCAR Xfinity Series titleist, will return to Cup for a full-time schedule in Kaulig’s No. 31 Camaro ZL1. Meanwhile, AJ Allmendinger – a winner last season at the Charlotte Roval – returns to Xfinity full-time. However, Allmenindger, full-time Xfinity competitor Josh Williams and van Gisbergen will all spend time behind the wheel of the team’s No. 16 Cup entry.

Multiple part-time teams will represent the Bowtie Brand in the Cup Series during 2024 as well. After competing full-time for the last three seasons, Live Fast Motorsports returns to a part-time schedule with B.J. McLeod and other drivers set to steer the tem’s car. Beard Motorsports will once again enter the four superspeedway races, with Anthony Alfredo set to pilot the organization’s entry in the Daytona 500 and the first race at Talladega. The Money Team has announced plans to compete in multiple events this year, too.

Along with its success in the NASCAR Cup Series, Chevrolet claimed its 25th Bill France Performance Cup in the NASCAR Xfinity Series and its 11th NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Manufacturer Championship in 2023. The Bowtie has swept the manufacturer titles in NASCAR’s three national series on five occasions, having previously done so in 1996, 1998, 2005 and 2012.

JR Motorsports drivers Justin Allgaier and Sam Mayer represented Team Chevy in the Xfinity Series Championship Four last season, while GMS Racing’s Grant Enfinger and Hocevar, driving for Niece Motorsports, were among the final four in the Camping World Truck Series. A full complement of Chevrolet-powered teams will again contend for the driver and manufacturer championships in both series throughout 2024.

The Bowtie is also set to feature prominently in the ARCA Menards Series, on NASCAR’s regional tours, and at NASCAR Advance Auto Parts Weekly Series tracks across the United States and Canada.

Without a doubt, Team Chevy is once again poised to claim checkered flags and trophies throughout the NASCAR world in 2024.

The NASCAR Cup Series season kicked off with the exhibition Busch Light Clash at the Coliseum in Los Angeles on February 3, with the points-paying calendar getting underway with the 66th running of the Daytona 500 on February 18.

Keep watching The BLOCK for NASCAR coverage throughout the year, along with content spotlighting Chevrolet Performance and all motorsports disciplines.