Brent Crews wins O’Reilly Series Rookie of the Year Award

HOMESTEAD, Fla. — Brent Crews officially wins the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series Sunoco Rookie of the Year award after his third place finish at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

Crews is the first Toyota driver to win the award since Sammy Smith in 2023 and the sixth driver to take home the honor for Joe Gibbs Racing.

Early Season

The now 18-year-old Brent Crews was too young to compete in four of the first six races of the O’Reilly Series season. However, he gave the field a glimpse of what was to come when he made his debut at Circuit of the Americas in early March at just 17 years old.

Crews ran with the front-runners throughout the race and came away with a sixth-place finish.

From that point forward, he quickly emerged as the favorite for Sunoco Rookie of the Year once he became eligible for full-time competition at Martinsville Speedway a few weeks later.

The young driver stepped into a competitive Joe Gibbs Racing seat and wasted little time showing his potential.

Beginning with just his third start of the season, Crews recorded five consecutive top ten finishes across his next six races, highlighted by a career-best runner-up result at Talladega.

A difficult outing at Dover and his first career DNF at Charlotte interrupted that stretch, but they set the stage for two of his strongest performances to date.

Crews appeared poised to break through for his first career victory at both Nashville and Pocono, only to come up just short with runner-up finishes on each occasion.

That demanding midseason stretch may have taken its toll. Over the final seven races of the regular season, Crews managed just three top-10 finishes.

Combined with the four races he missed to open the year and a 17th-place average finish during that final stretch, Crews narrowly missed qualifying for the drivers’ Chase after sustaining too much damage at Daytona.

Crews’ Chase Chance

Although he missed out on the individual championship battle, his No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota qualified for the owners’ Chase, giving the team another opportunity to compete for a title over the final nine races.

Crews opened the postseason in impressive fashion. He finished no worse than seventh across the first four Chase races and appeared poised to challenge some of the series’ established contenders for the owners’ championship.

Then, his momentum came to a halt. A second DNF of the season at Charlotte was followed by a 20th-place finish at Phoenix. A 34th-place result in the fall Talladega race effectively ended the team’s owners’ championship hopes.

Even so, Crews responded with a late-season rally. He finished ninth at Martinsville before capping off his rookie campaign with a third-place result at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

Crews finished the season without a victory but collected 12 top-five finishes and 18 top-tens across 29 starts. He also earned a pole at Sonoma Raceway, posting a 9.6 average starting position and a 12.9 average finish.

Crews and the No. 19 team will return in 2027, looking to build on a promising rookie season and pursue his first career victory and a spot in the drivers’ Chase.

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