Experience key for Zane Smith as he navigates second Cup Series season

Rookie seasons in NASCAR Cup Series racing are incredibly difficult to navigate. Nobody knows that better than second-year driver Zane Smith, who in Year 2 of his Cup Series career, called his maiden Cup Series voyage a "bad luck year."

"You just see these brutal rookie seasons for guys in Cup," Smith said in a virtual news conference on Wednesday. "I don't remember anyone that just dominated races. You pretty much just try to survive that first year, learn as much as you can and take all the smack talk. It just feels like a bad luck year, your rookie year. I don't really know why." 

Smith didn't finish better than 13th over the first 18 races of his rookie season in 2024 with Spire Motorsports, but scored five finishes inside the top 13 over the final 18 races of the year. He's taken that momentum to Front Row Motorsports — the team he won the Truck Series championship with in 2022 — for his second Cup Series season in 2025. 

Through the first 15 races of 2025, Smith is the best of the three-car FRM stable. He sits 22nd in the points standings and is coming off his second top-10 finish of the year at Michigan on Sunday, and when his cars are clean, he usually finishes inside the top 20, just as he's done in 10 races so far this season. 

The experience of Smith's rookie season, however rough-and-tumble it was, has been the key to his solid start to 2025 and the reason why he feels more comfortable behind the wheel. 

"Your second year around, you know what to expect," Smith explained. "By then, you've experienced a lot of highs and lows. You're still going to experience highs and lows in your second year, but I feel like you know how to react to them a little bit better.

"You just know what a race weekend brings," Smith continued. "Sunday can totally be a little overwhelming at times, but trying to keep a level head and knowing what's important and what's not is probably the biggest thing." 

Smith will join the rest of the Cup Series field in Sunday's Viva Mexico 250 at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez — the first Cup Series race in Mexico City.