Riley Herbst Enjoying Transition to NASCAR Cup Series
Riley Herbst picked up a 19th-place finish, the fourth top-20 finish through the opening five races of the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series season, in last Sunday's Pennzoil 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
The Rookie of the Year contender drives the No. 35 Toyota Camry XSE for 23XI Racing, and after his latest top-20 effort, Herbst has vaulted to the lead of the NASCAR Cup Series rookie point standings by seven markers over Trackhouse Racing's Shane van Gisbergen.
Before the Las Vegas native contested his first-career NASCAR Cup Series start at his home track, he spoke in a media availability about his transition to NASCAR's premier division after a five-year stint in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, which produced three victories.
“It has been a lot of fun honestly," Herbst said of the challenges moving to the Cup Series. "I feel like it has gone okay the first three weeks as well. Just some solid finishes. Obviously, last week was unfortunate, but the jump is tremendous, and everyone tells you about it. It is one of those things that you don’t really know until you experience it, but I’ve felt like I’ve surrounded myself with really good people at 23XI and really good mentors with Denny (Hamlin), Tyler (Reddick), and Bubba (Wallace)."
While Herbst knows he will see ups and downs throughout his rookie season, he explained, "I’m taking it in stride each week and trying to enjoy each week and everything new about it. It has been a lot of fun these last two months getting to know everybody and just get[ting] my feet underneath me. Hopefully, we will continue to build a good foundation.”
The 26-year-old has certainly began crafting a stout foundation to what he hopes is a lengthy stay in the NASCAR Cup Series. The lone sub-par finish of the season was a 37th-place finish at Phoenix Raceway after he was wiped out in a massive melee on Lap 99, which wasn't of his doing.
Other than his early exit from the Shriners Children's 500 at Phoenix, Herbst has completed every single lap this season in the NASCAR Cup Series, which he admits is his goal in the early portion of the season as he attempts to get fully acclimated to the Next Gen car.
“The biggest thing is to finish the race. You don’t get any points if you don’t finish," Herbst said. "I think that is what kind of put us in a big hole from this past weekend at Phoenix, but quite honestly, I don’t think anyone is micromanaging the points by any means. That is not our objective. Our objective to get better each week and run more competitive each week. We fall where we fall."
Where Herbst and the new No. 35 23XI Racing entry have landed is 27th in the championship standings after the opening five races. While they haven't set the world on fire by any means, they also haven't had any major glaring issues, either.
Next up for Herbst is Sunday's Straight Talk Wireless 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway, a track that he competed very well at throughout his NASCAR Xfinity Series career. In six starts at the 1.5-mile speedway, Herbst had a best finish of second, which he achieved in 2023, and he had five top-10 finishes in those six starts.
The one finish outside of the top 10 for Herbst at Homestead in the NASCAR Xfinity Series was an 11th-place result in 2021. While he's competed well at the track in the past, Herbst is trying to temper his expectations heading into his first NASCAR Cup Series race at the facility.
“So my kind of new thing is to throw all of the stats, every result at every race track, in the previous – because this race car is so different than anything I’ve ever driven, so it is kind of hard to look back on history and hope that it repeats itself going forward," Herbst explained.
While he is not resting on his past performances at the track, Herbst is still very excited to be heading to Homestead-Miami Speedway, a track that he feels is one of the most fun circuits on the schedule.
"I think Homestead is such a cool race track because it is starting to wear more and more. The bumps are getting bigger in (turns) three and four but running along the fence is a lot of fun," Herbst noted. "The bottom, when your race car is really good, is a lot of fun as well, because you can go into clean air. You just have to hook the line. That race track is awesome. I like the rectangle shape of it, rather than the d-shaped oval. It is very unique. Good race track, great weather and good fans, so looking forward to it.”
If everything falls his way this weekend, there's a chance that the Rookie of the Year contender can exit South Florida with the best finish of his rookie season in the NASCAR Cup Series.
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Toby Christie is the Editor-in-Chief of Racing America. He has 15 years of experience as a motorsports journalist and has been with Racing America since 2023.