Auto racing is a sport where the hyperbole often runs roughshod at 200 mph. So it‘s always wise to temper conclusions when declaring a race as “the best ever.”
But Sunday at Circuit of The Americas spawned enough buzz to put the Austin, Texas, road course in its own special category.
How do we know this was the best road-course race of the Next Gen era?
Partly because the best drivers were running to the best of their ability while battling for the win. Three races into the 2025 season, there have been two winners — and they also were the top two finishers at COTA.
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William Byron opened the year with his second consecutive Daytona 500 victory, and the spotlight since has remained on Christopher Bell, the first back-to-back winner in the NASCAR Cup Series since Chris Buescher at Michigan and Richmond in 2023 (that 52-race stretch is the longest in series history without a consecutive winner).
Having combined for four championship race appearances since 2022, there‘s little debate that Bell and Byron are the current class of NASCAR‘s premier series. They ran nose to tail for the final five laps at COTA in a nail-biting cat-and-mouse game that featured everything but a lead change — which didn‘t diminish the drama.
By that point, COTA already had produced 20 lead changes, tying the most for a road course in Cup Series history since the 1979-80 races at Riverside International Raceway that were an apropos marker.
Sunday‘s thriller was a throwback to an era when Darrell Waltrip, Bobby Allison and Dale Earnhardt fought fiercely and respectfully on road courses.
Those Riverside races of nearly a half-century ago featured only two caution flags apiece. That kind of courtesy is anathema to modern-day road-course racing in NASCAR — when compelling action usually is the unwitting byproduct of uncomplimentary chaos.
The 2023 race at COTA featured three overtime restarts and four cautions in the last 15 laps amid an explosion of banzai dive bombs and unwarranted aggression. When Ross Chastain drove Chase Elliott into Turn 1 on the first lap Sunday, another afternoon of overexuberant and aggressive driving seemed in the offing.
But instead, it was the most skillful driving display yet of the 2025 season.
After using the Formula One layout for its first four Cup races, COTA reconfigured to a shorter course for NASCAR this year and yet still produced many of the deft moves and passing that you find in an elite European racing series. It wasn‘t necessarily graceful — and shouldn‘t be with 3,600-pound stock cars armed with fenders — but drivers notably used their heads with patience and precision.
Bell, Byron, Kyle Busch and Tyler Reddick all were within five car lengths of the lead with four laps to go but somehow never seemed out of control.
The high-quality racing could be attributed partly to the reimagined course (whose 2.4-mile length was more in line with Sonoma and Watkins Glen) and a softer tire that required good management.
But don‘t forget the role of the car in elevating talent.
When the Next Gen was introduced in 2022 with better braking and turning capability than its predecessor, this was the type of action that had been envisioned. Maybe it took three full seasons for Cup drivers to get comfortable with a car that has some sports car DNA and a design that was inspired by Supercars.
Shane van Gisbergen, a three-time champion of that Australian-based series, finished sixth at COTA while looking less of a world-beater in the Next Gen than he had against the superstars of Cup when he won the Chicago Street Race in his premier series debut.
But the best example was Bell‘s battle with Busch, who gamely hung on to lead a race-high 42 laps trying to end a 60-race winless streak in his No. 8 Chevrolet.
Bell‘s No. 20 Toyota clearly was faster, but the Joe Gibbs Racing driver declined to play rough despite many opportunities. Trying to outbrake Busch in Turn 1 on Lap 89, Bell locked his rear tires but still elected to swerve right around Busch rather than staying left and easily knocking aside the Richard Childress Racing driver — just as Bell had done to Busch last year at COTA.
MORE: Kyle Busch comes up short at COTA win | How Bell bested Busch at COTA
After eventually clearing Busch on a clean pass, Bell began struggling while in first. But while slipping and sliding all over the track in the final five laps, he got a fair shake from Byron.
“I pride myself on racing respectful, and I feel like my image around the garage is respected in that aspect, and people know that I race clean,” Bell said. “William repaid that today. He ran extremely hard but fair and clean. We saw a heck of a race out of it. I can’t reiterate enough how amazing it was to have such respectful, clean and hard racing. That was a beautiful ending to a race.”
And a lovely start to a critical West Coast swing at Phoenix Raceway (site of the Championship Race) and Las Vegas Motor Speedway (the first 1.5-mile barometer). Bell, who won at Phoenix last year, will be a favorite to become the first with three consecutive Cup wins since Kyle Larson in 2021. Many conclusions will be drawn about potential championship contenders starting this weekend.
But a definitive message already was sent at COTA.
The best road-course race of the Next Gen era was the best of what NASCAR has to offer.
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