Riley Herbst ‘Not Confident’ About 2025 Plans As Xfinity Playoffs Begin
Riley Herbst isn't extremely confident about the status of his plans for the 2025 NASCAR season.
As the NASCAR Xfinity Series begins its seven-race post-season at Kansas Speedway, the 25-year-old driver has yet to officially announce any plans, telling members of the media during Tuesday's Playoff Media Day that he isn't overly confident in what's going to happen next year.
For several months, the Las Vegas, Nevada native has been heavily rumored as the favorite to join Bubba Wallace and Tyler Reddick as a NASCAR Cup Series driver for 23XI Racing, piloting a third entry with a charter obtained from Stewart-Haas Racing.
Herbst, both in his spoken words and body language, shows no signs of that being a 100-percent confirmed endeavor and said on Tuesday that he would be lying if he said it wasn't a slight distraction.
"[I'm] not confident, by any means," Herbst said. "Distraction-wise, I think it weighs on all of us a little bit. I'd be lying if I said it didn't, hopefully, things kind of sort themselves out in the meantime for the future, but I can't worry about that now."
"I have to worry about the No. 98 [Xfinity] team and trying to get the best results we can at Kansas to put ourselves higher above the cutline, but yeah, it's been a little bit of a distraction, but I'm not too confident in what's going to happen next year."
Whether or not Herbst is to finalize that potential opportunity with 23XI Racing could be in the hands of NASCAR, after the organization co-owned by Denny Hamlin and Michael Jordan confirmed it hadn't signed NASCAR's take-it-or-leave-it charter proposal ahead of the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs.
For now, the status of the organization's charters are in limbo, as several media reports suggested that NASCAR threatened to take away the charters of any team that didn't sign the agreement. Neither NASCAR nor 23XI Racing have said anything further on the subject.
In June, Herbst confirmed he was pondering options in each of NASCAR's National Series for 2025. At that time, he had an offer from Haas Factory Team to remain with the transforming team, but the organization has since filled its two Xfinity Series seats.
The two-time NASCAR Xfinity Series winner is part of the Kevin Harvick Incorporated management group, which represents several drivers including Josh Berry, Harrison Burton, Todd Gilliland, Corey LaJoie, and Shane Van Gisbergen.
Throughout the entire process, Herbst has been completely transparent about relying on the resources available at KHI with both Kevin Harvick and Josh Jones, as he looks to navigate what is best for his career, and his sponsor Monster Energy.
“There’s a lot of things going on behind the scenes, but it’s not really just Riley Herbst, it’s Monster Energy as well,” Herbst said in June. “The biggest thing is trying to see what’s right for me, what’s right for Monster Energy.”
“I have really good people around me with Josh Jones and Kevin Harvick trying to guide me in the right position and I’m gonna lean on their experience. I have last year and I’m going to again this year and there’s a lot of options on the table, so we’re looking forward to everything and hearing everybody out."
In the meantime, Riley Herbst will look to close out his four-year stint with Stewart-Haas Racing with a NASCAR Xfinity Series championship, as he looks to develop some momentum in the post-season and advance to Phoenix with a shot at bringing the SHR brand one more championship.
