Herbst finding his way in NASCAR's Cup Series

Yesterday at 02:34 PM

Seven races into his full time NASCAR Cup Series career in competing in the No. 35 Monster Energy Toyota Camry XSE for 23XI Racing, Riley Herbst is looking forward to this weekend’s trip to Darlington Raceway.

"I'm walking out of the shop right now," said Herbst from the 23XI Racing Airspeed headquarters in Huntersville, North Carolina. "I just got done working out and now I'm going to prepare a little bit more for the weekend and then I'm going to go down to Darlington."

Coming off five seasons in the Xfinity Series where he competed for Joe Gibbs Racing and Stewart-Haas Racing, which yielded three race wins, 34 top five finishes and 86 top 10s, Herbst explained what the graduation to the Cup Series has been like.

"It's pretty awesome," he said. "It's obviously a huge jump from Xfinity to Cup, but everybody at 23XI Racing has helped me along the way and the mentality right now is just small victories and trying to improve each week. The results haven't been showing it, but we've been doing the process right and that's what counts right now. We'll just keep grinding away it.

"Everything that you've learned since you were a young kid is fundamentally different now in Cup. The suspension being independent rear suspension is different. The throttle linkage is different. The steering system is back to a steering rack. The tires are wider. So, everything is just different from what I've learned, and what everybody has learned their whole life."

New to 23XI Racing in 2025, Herbst has faced, front and center, the high expectations the 23XI Racing organization places upon their drivers and their race results.

"The expectations at 23XI Racing are extremely high, which is good," offered Herbst. "That means you have fast race cars and good people around you and that's all I can ask for. Now it is about capitalizing on this opportunity and just trying to be better.

“We talk about expectations quite often. It's a work in progress. It's just such a big jump and all so huge that you have to take it in stride. Obviously, I want to win and we all want to win, but it's about finding victories each weekend and getting the weekend to go your way. We've been doing that. We've been improving. We've just been trying to stick to our process and what we know we can do.

“Bubba (Wallace) and Tyler (Reddick) have been phenomenal around me. Obviously, I have leaned on Denny (Hamlin, team co-owner) quite a bit, as well. It's like I said, you know going in how difficult this transition is, and the key is to surround yourself with really cool people, and I feel like we've done that. We've just been focusing on ourselves and on myself in trying to be a better race car driver and a person. I'm just trying to be better each week. It's a big deal.  I can't iterate how hard it is, but I'm in the best situation possible. I'm excited about that, and just trying to get better."

Currently 34th in the points, Herbst spoke about having to fight for every single point he and the No. 35 Camry earn.

"The biggest thing in Cup is that everybody is really, really good,” he said. “I mean, it is half a tenth of a second that separates the field, so you have just got to be perfect for every lap, and if you're not, people are going to take advantage of you. So there is no slacking and no bad drivers. It's all cutthroat 100-percent of the time.

“Whether it be yourself or your race car, you're just trying to find that little edge. Our main objective is to finish these races and learn. You can't learn if you're not finishing, so that's priority number one. And I think a win is possible on those superspeedway tracks, but what will make us happy is finishing and improving each week. We want the results to improve and we think that they'll be just fine and take care of themselves if we improve from week one to week 39. At the end of the season, if we are ahead of our goals and continuing to improve each week, that's satisfactory for us. I love the grind and I embrace it, for sure. I've never shied away from hard work. There is a lot of hard work and we are good with it."