Away from the race track, you can find Dean Thompson actively kickboxing, an intense method for his cardio training. From behind the wheel, he’s one of several rookies looking to leave their mark in what is a stout NASCAR Xfinity Series field.
It was nearly all for naught. Thompson began racing quarter midgets at 5 years old with 2023 Xfinity champion Cole Custer. However, he took a break from racing until Joe Custer reached out, inquiring about Thompson being a guest at Auto Club Speedway.
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The racing bug bit Thompson again, and he started competing in late models regularly. Before making the transition to NASCAR, he won consecutive championships in 2020 and 2021 at Irwindale Speedway. He moved rapidly to the Craftsman Truck Series in 2022 full time with Niece Motorsports before making the jump to Tricon Garage in 2023.
“I would say that I moved up pretty quickly from late models to ARCA to trucks, but looking back on it, I don’t regret it at all,” Thompson told NASCAR.com of his career trajectory. “I feel like it’s better to get into it sooner rather than later. Just getting into the thick of it and diving into the deep end has helped me.”
Thompson earned a pair of top-five finishes in 2023, finishing 20th in the championship standings. He tallied 11 top-10 finishes through 70 truck starts, but questions arose about his craft, having multiple brouhahas with competitor Hailie Deegan and others.
Regardless, Thompson wanted to transition to Xfinity for 2025. He competed in a pair of races for Sam Hunt Racing last year, hoping to confirm his belief that he was ready for the next step.
“When you’ve been working at Tricon for two years, been with Niece for a year and been in trucks for three years, it was time for a change in scenery,” Thompson said. “It wasn’t working for me. Sam and I build each other’s needs for this year.”
Hunt, amid his fifth full season as a team owner, knew of the rumblings around Thompson. Yet he believed in the 23-year-old as he has shown speed throughout his young career.
“We knew he was fast, we just knew there was going to be a challenge of helping him mature as a race car driver,” Hunt said. “I think that’s something he’s open in talking about now of how it took him so long to see the full picture coming from running 25-lap late model races at Irwindale to 300-mile races now. Just realizing that everybody at this level is fast. It doesn’t make you special if you’re fast once you get to this series. You have to develop that race craft.
“Going into this year, the primary objective was for him to mature and become a complete race car driver. I think now more than ever, I’m seeing him become that guy.”
Thompson is coming off a career-best sixth-place finish at Martinsville Speedway, which featured plenty of madness. He remained clean, despite getting turned multiple times throughout the 250-lap event.
That run bookended a three-week spurt where Thompson cracked the top 15. His spotter, Freddie Kraft, has guided him to success, knowing that speed has never been the issue. It’s more about settling in and cleaning up errors.
“He’s a good race car driver and puts the work in,” Kraft said. “He’s doing whatever it takes to get better, which is what you want to see out of somebody. From my side of it, it’s helping him be in position to succeed and things to look out for, and if we need to sit down to go over something, we can. It’s all about trying to help him understand that he’s got everything to do it right, it’s just a matter of putting it all together on a weekly basis.”
With a strong three-race stretch, Thompson has jumped five spots in the championship standings, slotting 19th heading into Saturday’s Xfinity Series race at Darlington Raceway (3:30 p.m. ET, The CW, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). He’s ahead of fellow Rookie of the Year contenders Christian Eckes (20th) and William Sawalich (22nd), both of whom are on powerhouse Xfinity teams in Kaulig Racing and Joe Gibbs Racing, respectively.
MORE: Xfinity Series standings | Xfinity Series schedule
“Right now, the focus is getting base hits because if you base-hit them to death, you end up in a pretty good position,” Hunt said. “The joy for me right now is I feel like I’m watching the kid mature and become someone that everyone said he couldn’t become. Not that he’s still not making mistakes; he’s going to continue making small mistakes. He’s beginning to drive more like a veteran race car driver.”
Hunt admitted that the No. 26 team, led by crew chief Kris Bowen, holds each other accountable. Before the 2025 season began, Thompson was told that the only way the pairing would work was if he pulled the rope as hard as the rest of the team did.
So far, so good, as Thompson is a frequent visitor at the race shop.
“He knows that he’s got to make the most out of these next couple of years, or he’s not going to be a race car driver anymore,” Hunt said. “I think that’s showing up with how he’s working right now.”
Thompson is hesitant to put his expectations out to the universe. He refuses to compare himself to his competitors, falling into that trap in the Truck Series. For now, his main focus is continuing to work on himself.
“I don’t have one where I’m trying to shoot for the stars,” Thompson said. “Just try to set goals of running in the top 10, better average finish than average start, finishing in the top 10, being in the middle of the rookie standings consistently. Those are the goals.”
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