NASCAR Cup Series: Power rankings entering the 2021 season
By Asher Fair
2021 NASCAR Cup Series Power Rankings: #32 and #31
No. 00. StarCom Racing, Chevrolet. QUIN HOUFF. #32.
Quin Houff signed a multi-year deal to compete with StarCom Racing ahead of the 2020 season, and he will be looking to improve in year number two after a rookie season that saw him in the news many times for the wrong reasons, including a race-changing incident late at Texas Motor Speedway. But his rookie year did have plenty of bright spots driving for the underfunded team. After entering the year with a career-high finish of 28th place at Charlotte Motor Speedway, he bettered that mark eight times and recorded a new career-high result of 13th at Talladega Superspeedway, at which point his top result was a 23rd place effort at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
B.J. MCLEOD. #31. . No. 78. Live Fast Motorsports, Ford
For the first time in his career, B.J. McLeod is set to compete full-time in the Cup Series in 2020 for Live Fast Motorsports, the team he co-owns along with former Front Row Motorsports driver Matt Tifft. In 57 career starts over five seasons, McLeod’s top finish is his 19th place effort in the 2019 Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway. While the new team’s technical alliance with Stewart-Haas Racing should allow them to be more competitive than they otherwise would be, it may not happen right away. Go Fas Racing, the team from which they purchased the charter they are set to use to run the #78 Ford, also had a technical alliance with the four-car Ford powerhouse in 2020 and still struggled.