Roush especially was a juggernaut for years, bringing up drivers like Greg Biffle through the then-Busch Series ranks on his way to Cup, and winning five series championships between Biffle, Carl Edwards, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Chris Buescher. Their Xfinity program shut down after the 2018 season.
Penske has also had a ton of success over the years in the Busch/Nationwide/Xfinity series, most recently winning the title with Austin Cindric in 2020, but they shuttered their program after the 2021 season.
I recognize that Cup is the most important series and should be the focus for Ford, and that expanding to other series comes with a cost, but it can be a helpful tool to encourage overall success by the organization.
While the O’Reilly cars are no longer anything like the Cup series cars, even for the sake of driver development it’s good to have a team in the lower series to get young drivers time behind the wheel. For example, Hendrick Motorsports is adding a full-time O’Reilly ride for 2026, which will be driven by potential future star Corey Day.
With the defections of Haas and RSS, young drivers in the Ford pipeline are now pretty much adrift in terms of getting meaningful seat time at the O’Reilly level, which will prove problematic in the long-term.
While I don’t know what can happen short-term for 2026, Ford has to be smart about their approach to the lower levels of NASCAR. Yes, they do have truck teams like Front Row Motorsports and ThorSport who can take some young drivers, but O’Reilly shouldn’t be a throwaway series for the Blue Oval Brigade.
My wish is that the financing will align for Penske and RFK to make a return to the Xfinity Series in the next couple years, as it’s providing some of the best racing the sport has ever seen, and they would make it that much more exciting.
Both for the future of the series, and the future of Ford’s talent development, I hope the lack of Ford participation is a short-term issue in the O'Reilly Series.
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