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NASCAR Cup Series
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Race Preview
Highly anticipated Talladega could shake-u…
- Thursday, October 3rd, 2024
- NASCAR Wire Service - Holly Cain
Highly anticipated Talladega could shake-up the Cup Playoffs
The NASCAR Cup Series takes the 2024 Playoffs to one of the most anticipated races of the season this weekend, Sunday’s YellaWood 500 (2 p.m. ET on NBC, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) on the world-famous Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway high-banks.
With a non-Playoff driver, Trackhouse Racing’s Ross Chastain claiming the trophy last weekend at Kansas Speedway, now only two races – at Talladega and at the Charlotte ROVAL next week – remain in this round for the 12 Playoff eligible drivers to score a win and automatic ticket to the Playoffs’ Round of 8.
With his runner-up showing at Kansas, Hendrick Motorsports’ William Byron has taken the lead in the Playoff standings – six points ahead of reigning NASCAR Cup Series champion, Team Penske’s Ryan Blaney and Joe Gibbs Racing’s Christopher Bell. Hendrick’s Kyle Larson is ranked fourth.
JGR’s Denny Hamlin, Hendrick teammates Alex Bowman and Chase Elliott and Team Penske’s Joey Logano complete the top eight drivers. Elliott and Logano, however, have only a four-point advantage on the Regular Season Champion, 23XI Racing’s Tyler Reddick for that final spot to advance in the Playoffs.
Trackhouse Racing’s Daniel Suarez (-14), Stewart-Haas Racing’s Chase Briscoe (-25) and Team Penske’s Austin Cindric (-29) are all below the cutoff line heading into the weekend. But when it comes to racing on the Talladega high banks anything can happen. And typically, does.
Blaney is the defending race winner, the victory last year setting him up for a Championship 4 Round appearance where he ultimately claimed the title in the Phoenix season finale. In fact, Blaney, driver of the No. 12 Team Penske Ford is a three-time winner at the big track and joins Elliott – the 2020 series champion – as the only multi-time Talladega winners in the last 10 races at the track.
Owner-driver Brad Keselowski is the winningest active driver at Talladega – scoring his first career NASCAR Cup Series win there in 2009 and making five additional trips to Victory Lane since. He finished runner-up to Reddick this spring.
Only three current Playoff drivers – Reddick, Byron and Bowman – finished among the top-10 this May.
Among the current Playoff contenders, Blaney, Elliott (two), Hamlin (two) and Logano (three) all have multiple Talladega victories.
Among those four drivers below the cutoff line and needing a solid performance at Talladega to advance their Playoff run, Stewart-Haas Racing’s Chase Briscoe brings a strong resume with him this weekend. In seven NASCAR Cup Series starts on the big track, his best finish was fourth in the 2023 spring race and he has finished worse than 15th only once. Briscoe’s average finish of 14.4 is fourth best in the field among drivers with multiple starts – behind only Beard Motorsport’s Anthony Alfredo (9.3), Front Row Motorsports’ Todd Gilliland (12.8) and Hendrick Motorsports’ Chase Elliott (13.7).
Instead of fearing the unpredictability of a track like Talladega, Briscoe, 29, said he has developed a calm mentality about the style of racing. And interestingly, since 2014 eight of the 10 Talladega Playoff races have been won by drivers ranked below the Round of 8 cutoff line – as Briscoe finds himself this weekend.
“I think you have to have a short memory,” the two-time NASCAR Cup Series race winner said. “I’ve gone through different kinds of spectrums of superspeedway racing. I’ve taken the conservative route and I’ve gone the super-aggressive route. And every time I’ve gone the conservative route, I typically end up crashed.
“So, I’m just going to go back to being on the aggressive side. It’s a little tougher with this Next Gen car just because you can’t take runs or do things like you typically would. You’re going to have to try to be up in the mix for stage points and try to just finish the best you can.
“… I’m just going to go with the mindset of being aggressive and trying to lead every lap and trying to make every move I can and hopefully, stay out of the chaos.”
Fifteen different drivers have won the 20 Talladega Playoff races. Team Penske teammates Blaney and Logano are the only current Playoff contenders to win multiple Playoff races at Talladega – both claiming two Playoff victories.
Of note, NASCAR has issued a technical bulletin for the Talladega race weekend with changes to the cars designed to increase safety at the big track. Modifications will be made to the Rocker skirt, Right side roof flap fabric and the Ride side roof rails will be extended to 2” with polycarbonate.
Busch Light Pole Qualifying is set for Saturday at 1:30 p.m. ET (USA Network, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App). Aric Almirola won the pole position for this race last year. Michael McDowell started on pole at Talladega this spring.
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Hollywood Casino 400 presented by ESPN BET
Sunday, September 29th at 3:00pm ET
Kansas Speedway, Kansas City, KS
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Race Recap
Ross Chastain plays spoiler in NASCAR Cup …
- Sunday, September 29th, 2024
- NASCAR Wire Service - Reid Spencer
Ross Chastain plays spoiler in NASCAR Cup Round of 12 opener at Kansas
Enter the Great Disrupter.
Ross Chastain’s No 1. Trackhouse Chevrolet came to life in the second half of Sunday’s Hollywood Casino 400 and beat William Byron’s Chevrolet to the finish line in a hotly contested Round of 12 opener in the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs.
Chastain grabbed the lead from Martin Truex Jr. moments after the final restart on Lap 248 at Kansas Speedway and held off a charging Byron by 0.388 seconds to thwart the Playoff driver’s bid for automatic advancement into the Round of 8.
Having failed to qualify for the postseason this year, Chastain reveled in his first victory of the season, his first at Kansas and the fifth of his career.
“For us on this 1 team, it’s what Cup racing is all about,” said Chastain, who led 52 laps. “It’s what (team co-owner) Justin Marks bought into Trackhouse with Pitbull, bought into NASCAR with Trackhouse to do stuff like this—to disrupt.
“Look, there’s been times this year where we couldn’t have disrupted the minnow pond outside of Darlington, let alone a Cup race. It’s hard. It’s really tough.
“To come and do this, there are times where I didn’t think after practicing and qualifying we had what it took. I thought we have been way stronger here in the past. It didn’t feel great all day, but our Kubota Chevy, it was better as the rubber went down, and the adjustments were great.”
Byron led 24 laps but couldn’t overcome Chastain’s aerodynamic advantage over the closing laps.
“Yeah, just clean air,” Byron said ruefully. “I feel like he got the restart he needed to, and I was in the second row just trying to clear those guys. Once I got clear of them, my balance was OK. Just a little bit tight, but just kind of inching up on him. I needed probably, you know, for it to be a longer run being in second.
“Damn it, I wanted that one really bad. It just sucks, man. You’re so close, and you know going to Talladega you know what that is. So just sucks, but proud of the effort.”
Truex finished third after restarting in the top lane and surrendering the first two positions to Chastain and Byron. Playoff driver and defending series champion Ryan Blaney rallied to finish fourth after an unscheduled pit stop for a loose wheel.
Ty Gibbs, eliminated from the Playoffs at Bristol in the final Round of 16 race, came home fifth, followed by Playoff drivers Alex Bowman, Christopher Bell (the pole winner), Denny Hamlin and Chase Elliott, who started from the rear of the field after an engine change in his No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet.
Byron heads to next Sunday’s race at Talladega Superspeedway as the series leader, with a six-point edge over Bell and Blaney and a 34-point margin over ninth-place Tyler Reddick, the first driver below the cut line for the next round.
Hamlin and Bowman are fifth and sixth in the standings, 11 and eight points above the cutoff, respectively.
For Kyle Larson, top seed in the Playoffs entering the Round of 12, Sunday’s race was an unwelcome instance of déjà vu. Reminiscent of his early exit after a slamming the wall in Turn 2 in the first Round of 16 race at Atlanta, Larson cut a right rear tire and bounced of the Turn 2 wall on Sunday at Kansas just 19 laps into the race.
During the subsequent 56-lap green-flag run to the end of Stage 1, Larson complained of a vibration in his No. 5 Chevrolet. fell one lap down and finished the stage in 35th place.
Larson got his lap back as the beneficiary car under caution for Daniel Hemric’s spin on Lap 143 and mitigated some of the damage to his points position with a 26th-place finish. Larson leaves Kansas fourth in the standings, 18 points above the current cut line for the Round of 8.
Reddick, Daniel Suarez, Chase Briscoe and Austin Cindric weren’t as fortunate.
Reddick, the defending race winner, could only manage a 25th-place result and leaves Kansas four points below the cutoff. Suarez finished 14th and trials Elliott and Joey Logano (tied for eighth) by 14 points.
Briscoe fought an ill-handling car and finished 24th, falling 25 points down to eighth place. Cindric sustained damage during a spin on the backstretch on Lap 157, finished four laps down in 34th and trails Logano and Elliott by 29 points.
Seeking his first victory of the season—with a record 19-year streak of winning at least one race per season on the line—Kyle Busch held the lead on Lap 26, with Chastain in pursuit. But as Busch attempted to put Briscoe a lap down though a narrow gap at the top of the track, his car broke loose and spun off Turn 2, causing the ninth caution.
“I’m sure he was racing to stay on the lead lap with whoever was in front of him there,” said Busch, who finished 19th. “Granted, they have a race to run, but back in the old days when you were under 30 (laps) to go or whatever it was, lapped traffic would kind of lay over and give you a lane and let the leaders race.
“I just wasn’t getting that, so I tried to force my hand into getting that and get to his outside, and for whatever reason, it just gave all the air in all the wrong places, and I spun out.”
The race featured 30 lead changes among 15 drivers, the latter a track record. Bell led a race-high 122 laps. Hendrick teammates Byron and Bowman won stages 1 and 2, respectively.
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NASCAR Xfinity Series
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Race Preview
Xfinity Series returns to the unpredictabl…
- Thursday, October 3rd, 2024
- NASCAR Wire Service - Holly Cain
Xfinity Series returns to the unpredictable Talladega Superspeedway
For the first time in two years, the NASCAR Xfinity Series returns to Talladega Superspeedway for a Playoff race – the United Rentals 250 Saturday at 4 p.m. ET (The CW, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Aric Almirola won last week’s 2024 Playoff opener at Kansas Speedway but because he is not Playoff eligible- this second race of the three-race round becomes even more pivotal in deciding which eight drivers will advance to the next round.
Playoff driver A.J. Allmendinger won the last Fall Playoff race at Talladega in 2022. Jordan Anderson Racing’s Jeb Burton is a two-time Talladega winner and joins Playoff rookie Jesse Love, who won at the big track this Spring as the only current fulltime drivers to hoist a Talladega trophy.
Entering the race, Regular Season Champion, Stewart-Haas Racing’s Cole Custer, Joe Gibbs Racing’s Chandler Smith, Richard Childress Racing’s Austin Hill, JR Motorsports Sam Mayer, JGR’s Sheldon Creed, Kaulig Racing’s Shane van Gisbergen, RCR’s Love and SHR’s Riley Herbst sit above the Playoff cutoff line.
Meanwhile, a pair of preseason title favorites – JR Motorsports’ Justin Allgaier and Kaulig’s Allmendinger are currently just below that cutoff line. Allgaier, a two-time race winner this season, is a single point behind Herbst, has only four top-five finishes in 17 Talladega starts and has never hoisted a trophy there.
A victory this week would similarly go a long way for Allmendinger, who is still racing for his first win of the season and currently sits 10th in the Playoff standings, 13 points below the cutoff line.
“Anything can and usually does happen at Talladega. JR Motorsports has always had an incredibly strong superspeedway program and I know that that will be the case once again on Saturday,” Allgaier said.
“We just need to be smart out there and not get ourselves caught in a bad position in the middle of the pack. If we can keep our nose clean and run up front all day long, I see no reason why we won’t be fighting for the win with our JRM teammates and get ourselves into the next round of the Playoffs once the checkered flag falls.”
Qualifying is set for 11:30 a.m. ET on Saturday (USA Network, NBC Sports App). Austin Hill won the pole position in the Spring race. Mayer won the pole for the last Playoff race at Talladega two years ago.
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Kansas Lottery 300
Saturday, September 28th at 3:30pm ET
Kansas Speedway, Kansas City, KS
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Race Recap
Aric Almirola beats Playoff drivers in NAS…
- Saturday, September 28th, 2024
- NASCAR Wire Service - Reid Spencer
Aric Almirola beats Playoff drivers in NASCAR Xfinity postseason opener at Kansas
Part-time NASCAR Xfinity Series driver Aric Almirola ran down Playoff leader Cole Custer in the closing laps of Saturday’s Kansas Lottery 300 at Kansas Speedway and pulled away for his second victory of the season in the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota.
In a Round of 12 Playoff opener that ended with several unhappy drivers and a handful of post-race conversations between Playoff contenders, Almirola picked up his first win at the 1.5-mile track and the sixth of his career.
Almirola beat Custer to the finish line by 0.660 seconds, with Chandler Smith trailing in third after raising Custer’s ire by squeezing the No. 00 Ford into the outside wall as Custer chased Smith for the lead—before Almirola made his late-race run.
To seal the win, Almirola had to overcome a brush with the outside wall on Lap 124 and a resulting cut tire that forced him to the pits. An opportune caution that interrupted a cycle of green flag stops on Lap 145 was all Almirola needed to get back on equal footing with the other contenders.
Almirola is the fourth driver to win two races this season in the No. 20 JGR Toyota, joining Christopher Bell, John Hunter Nemechek and Ryan Truex.
“I’m wore out,” said Almirola, who passed Custer for the lead on Lap 197 of 200. “That was a hard day at the office for a guy that’s been sitting on the couch. I just pushed too hard there when we had the issue on pit road (a slow stop), and I got in the fence and cut the right-rear tire down.
“I knew I had to put my head down and go to work after that. We got lucky to get the caution when we did, and we were out of tires, so the fact that it went green there to the end (for the final 49 laps)… that’s where we were strong. We were really strong on the long runs.”
After the race, Custer had a brief conversation with Smith and vowed revenge.
“Everybody wants to try and talk afterwards,” Custer said. “At the end of the day, he put me in the fence, and he’s going to pay for it.”
Smith countered that he didn’t believe Custer ever had position to his outside.
“We’re racing for the win and five extra Playoff points,” said Smith, who led 114 laps. “You’ve got a very, very valid statement, I understand, but I also wouldn’t change what I did, because I was giving myself the best shot to win.”
Non-Playoff driver Connor Zilisch finished fourth, followed by Sheldon Creed, who improved his position in the Playoff standings by four spots with his seventh top five in the last nine races.
Pole winner Brandon Jones, who didn’t make the postseason, was fifth, followed by Playoff drivers Austin Hill, Shane van Gisbergen, Jesse Love and Riley Herbst.
In another post-race conversation, Hill apologized to Herbst for Lap 90 contact that sent Herbst’s Ford spinning through the infield grass at the end of the second stage. In yet another tete a tete between Playoff drivers, Sammy Smith took AJ Allmendinger to task for early contact that damaged Smith’s Chevrolet.
Smith finished 22nd and heads to next Saturday’s Playoff race at Talladega 12th in the standings, 23 points below the cut line for the Round of 8.
Allmendinger (17th Saturday) and Parker Kligerman (12th) are 10th and 11th in the Playoff standings, 13 and 15 points below the cutoff, respectively.
The shockingly bad luck haunting top-seeded Justin Allgaier continued in force on Saturday. Racing in close quarters with Creed after a restart on Lap 70, Allgaier’s No. 7 Chevrolet broke loose, slid across traffic and nosed into the inside wall on the backstretch.
After frantic repairs, Allgaier attempted to return to the race, but a cut left-front tire sent him into the outside wall and out of action in 36th place.
Allgaier’s exit came eight days after a series of accidents knocked him out of the Food City 300 at Bristol Motor Speedway and cost him the regular-season championship.
“I don’t know if I’ve had a stretch of races that have been like these last three or four weeks,” said Allgaier. “We’re not out of it by any stretch. Obviously, that’s why you do all the work to get all the bonus points you can.
“We’ve got a long road the next two weeks. I’ve got the team that can do it. We’ve just got to go have some luck on our side.”
Allgaier fell from first to ninth in the standings and trails Herbst by one point in the battle for the final berth in the Round of 8.
Custer now leads the series by five points over Chandler Smith, with Hill 15 points back. Fourth-place Sam Mayer, who ran 13th at Kansas, is 28 points behind Custer and three points ahead of Creed in fifth.
Van Gisbergen and Love are sixth and seventh in the Playoff standings, respectively eight and three points above cut line for the next round.
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NASCAR Truck Series
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Race Preview
CRAFTSMAN Truck Series Playoffs’ Round of …
- Thursday, October 3rd, 2024
- NASCAR Wire Service - Holly Cain
CRAFTSMAN Truck Series Playoffs’ Round of 8 starts now
The NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series begins the final three-race Playoff round to set the Championship Four with Friday’s Love’s RV Stop 225 at Talladega Superspeedway (4:30 p.m. ET on FS1, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Last weekend’s Kansas winner Corey Heim arrives at the 2.66-mile superspeedway now boasting six wins on the season – double that of any other competitor, The 22-year-old TRICON Garage driver scored the win in the final race of the opening round last week when race leader, ThorSport’s Ty Majeski ran out of gas on the final lap. Heim finished just ahead of Front Row Motorsports’ Layne Riggs, who had won the previous two races but is not among the Playoff drivers.
Regular Season Champion , McAnally-Hilgemann’s Christian Eckes, Majeski and REV Racing’s Nick Sanchez sit safely atop the cutoff mark entering the first race of this all-important round. Rajah Caruth trails Sanchez by eight points just outside the Playoff bubble with Tyler Ankrum and Grant Enfinger both -11 points and Taylor Gray -15 points back.
Enfinger is the only current Playoff driver with a previous Talladega win, earning his trophy in 2016. Former series champion Johnny Sauter – the 2013 Talladega trophy winner – will be competing this weekend for Hattori Racing Enterprises. Brett Moffitt is the defending race winner.
There have been eight different winners in the last eight Talladega races. Heim, Eckes and Enfinger (2) are the only Playoff drivers to have scored top-five finishes at the big track.
Among those entered this week, William Sawalich (No. 1 TRICON Garage Toyota) and 18-year-old Connor Zilisch (No. 7 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet) are hoping to make their first career superspeedway start. And crowd favorite, veteran Norm Benning is hoping to qualify for his first race of the season.
Cometic Gasket Qualifying is set for 1 p.m. ET Friday (FS2). Chase Purdy is the defending polesitter.
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