NASCAR series loses powerhouse team for 2022

As the 2022 NASCAR Xfinity Series season begins at Daytona International Speedway, the series is without a perennial powerhouse.

The 2022 NASCAR Xfinity Series season is scheduled to get underway this evening at Daytona International Speedway with the Beef. It’s What’s For Dinner. 300 (5:00 p.m. ET, Fox Sports 1; get your free trial of FuboTV here!), but one team is notably absent from the 47-car entry list.

Not competing in this 120-lap race around the four-turn, 2.5-mile (4.023-kilometer) high-banked oval in Daytona Beach, Florida — and possibly not competing in any of the 33 races on this year’s Xfinity Series schedule — is perennial powerhouse Team Penske.

While they have not ruled out competing in select races this season if a good sponsorship opportunity presents itself, they do not currently have any plans to compete in the series this year.

Their absence wasn’t completely unexpected, however.

Austin Cindric competed for the team full-time behind the wheel of the #22 Ford from 2019 to 2021, earning 13 victories and the 2020 championship in the process — and nearly winning the 2021 title as well.

But he graduated to the organization’s Cup Series program for 2022, replacing the RFK Racing-bound Brad Keselowski behind the wheel of the #2 Ford.

He was initially slated to move to the Team Penske-affiliated Wood Brothers Racing to replace Matt DiBenedetto behind the wheel of the #21 Ford, but with Keselowski moving to RFK Racing as a driver and co-owner, he was promoted straight to Team Penske’s Cup Series team.

In fact, Cindric’s promotion to Wood Brothers Racing was actually slated to come in 2021, but DiBenedetto’s 2020 performance landed him another season with the team, which kept Cindric in the Xfinity Series for another year.

While Cindric was the only full-time Xfinity Series driver for whom Team Penske had fielded a car since Sam Hornish Jr. in 2013, they had run a full-time entry every year since 2009. They did not compete full-time in 2008, but they haven’t been completely absent from the series since 2004.

That may change in 2022.

Team Penske’s Xfinity Series absence is also a significant blow to Ford, which lack the depth of Chevrolet and Toyota in the 2022 driver lineup. On paper, their top entry is now the #98 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford, which is set to be driven by Riley Herbst.

Herbst went winless in 2020 with Joe Gibbs Racing in a Toyota, and he went winless again in 2021 with Stewart-Haas Racing. He has yet to post a top 10 finish in the championship standings.