Contenders and Pretenders - COTA

Hello everyone! One of your three proud leaders of Nascar Amino, Tanor Campos, here and welcome to the third installment of Contenders and Pretenders! The superspeedway doubleheader is officially in the rearview mirror as Christopher Bell captured his first win of the 2025 Cup Series season after surviving the chaotic final moments at Atlanta Motor Speedway! Today, Nascar will tackle the new layout at COTA as the Nascar Cup Series will try to punch their ticket into the postseason by winning the first road course race of the year so anyways let's get started with the third installment of Contenders and Pretenders in 2025!

Major Pretender

51 Cody Ware - Back-To-Back DNF's

21 Josh Berry - Winner Of Stage 1 At Atlanta

10 Ty Dillon - 1st Finish Outside The Top 25

47 Ricky Stenhouse Jr - +15 Above The Cutoff

43 Erik Jones - 1st Finish Outside The Top 30

41 Cole Custer - Scored His 1st DNF Of The Year

3 Austin Dillon - 1st Top 20 Finish Of The Year

Slight Pretender

35 Riley Herbst - Leader Of The ROTY Standings

60 Ryan Preece - 1st Top 20 Finish Of The Year

34 Todd Gilliland - 1st Top 15 Finish Of The Year

42 John Hunter Nemechek - +15 Above The Cutoff

38 Zane Smith - 1st Top 15 Finish Of The Year

7 Justin Haley - Back-To-Back Top 25 Finishes

6 Brad Keselowski - Scored His 1st DNF Of The Year

4 Noah Gragson - Scored His 1st DNF Of The Year

22 Joey Logano - Leader In Laps Led/+9 Above

23 Bubba Wallace - 18 Points Above The Cutoff

Possible Contender

2 Austin Cindric - 22 Points Above The Cutoff

16 Aj Allmendinger - 1st Top 15 Finish Of The Year

71 Michael McDowell - 5 Points Above The Cutoff

20 Christopher Bell - Won Last Week's Race At Atlanta

77 Carson Hocevar - 2 Points Above The Cutoff

17 Chris Buescher - 1 Point Above The Cutoff

11 Denny Hamlin - 5 Points Above The Cutoff

8 Kyle Busch - Scored His 1st Top 10 Of The Year

19 Chase Briscoe - Still Negative In The Championship

12 Ryan Blaney - 41 Points Above The Cutoff

Major Contender

99 Daniel Suarez - Scored His 1st DNF Of The Year

5 Kyle Larson - Won Stage 2/+15 Above The Cutoff

87 Connor Zilisch - Nascar Cup Series Debut

9 Chase Elliott - 10 Points Above The Cutoff

54 Ty Gibbs - Scored His 1st DNF Of The Year

48 Alex Bowman - 13 Points Above The Cutoff

88 Shane Van Gisbergen - 1st Top 25 Finish Of 2025

24 William Byron - Locked Into The Playoffs

1 Ross Chastain - Scored His 1st Top 10 Of The Year

Race Winner

Tyler Reddick

#CandP