NASCAR SERIES

NASCAR Weekend Preview: Nashville Superspeedway

May 29, 2025

By Holly Cain

NASCAR Wire Service

NASCAR hits halfway point with high stakes at Nashville Superspeedway

With only four previous NASCAR Cup Series races at the 1.33-mile Nashville Superspeedway, Sunday night’s primetime Cracker Barrel 400 (7 p.m. ET on Amazon Prime, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) presents a lot of unknowns and a lot of opportunity.

Last year’s Nashville race featured the most overtime finishes in series history – an extra 31 laps - with Team Penske’s Joey Logano coming out on top after a fifth overtime period. It marked the first race win of the season for Logano, who would go on to claim his third NASCAR Cup Series championship.

The 2025 regular season officially reached the half-way mark at Charlotte last week, where Trackhouse Racing’s Ross Chastain claimed his – and the team’s - first trophy of the season in a historic run from last place on the starting grid. The 32-year-old Floridian is also a former winner at Nashville (2023) and has top-five finishes in three of his four starts at the track, which bodes well for Chastain, personally, and the team, generally.

“The track is very unique," said Chastain, who pilots the No. 1 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet. “It feels like it’s a mile-and-a-half [track] but it’s not, so it takes me some time to get acclimated. But I've had fast cars there to be honest. If my cars aren't good, I can't go fast. We'll look to build off of things we've learned more recently about these cars and try to keep moving the needle."

Although Chastain was runner-up at Texas three weeks ago, consistency has been something the Trackhouse Racing team is still procuring as a perennial NASCAR Cup Series championship-level organization. And a good showing in the team’s Nashville headquarters this weekend would go a long way.

The first Trackhouse hire, veteran Daniel Suarez earned two of his 2025 season’s three top-10 finishes in the last five races but has suffered through adversity (often not of his own doing) with three other finishes of 33rd or worse in that stretch. His lone top-10 in four Nashville races came in 2021.

Shane Van Gisbergen, who is competing in his first full NASCAR Cup Series season in the No. 88 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet, has a single top-10 - at the Circuit of The Americas road course. The former Australian Supercars champion is, however, coming off his best finish (14th at Charlotte) in the 10 races since COTA. He finished 15th at Nashville in last year’s NASCAR Xfinity Series race there.

Of note, Hendrick Motorsports’ Kyle Larson is the only driver with top-10 finishes in all four Nashville races, with a win in 2021 and an average finish of 4.5 at the track.

Conversely, in the four previous Nashville races, the powerhouse Joe Gibbs Racing team only has two top-five finishes combined among its four drivers. Last year, the team led 203 of the 331 laps but did not come away with a single top-10.

This season, the race winner has led 10 laps or less seven times – including four of the last six races heading to Nashville.

Championship leader, Hendrick Motorsports’ William Byron has two top-10 finishes in four Nashville races and two others of 19th or worse. He’s led a total of five laps (all in 2023) and finished 19th last year.

Practice is set for 4:30 p.m. ET on Saturday, followed by Busch Light Pole Qualifying at 5:40 p.m. ET – both sessions airing on Amazon Prime, PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.

JGR’s Denny Hamlin won the pole position in 2024. Chastain is the only driver to win (2023) at Nashville from pole.

Turn up the music for Saturday night’s Xfinity showdown in Nashville

It’s been three races since a NASCAR Xfinity Series full-timer celebrated in Victory Lane this season so there’s plenty of motivation on the grid for Saturday night’s Tennessee Lottery 250 at Nashville Superspeedway (7:30 p.m. ET on CW Network, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

Richard Childress Racing’s Austin Hill was the last of the championship-eligible drivers to win a race, doing so April 26 at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway. And he is the only Xfinity Series regular to score top-10 finishes in the last four Nashville races.

Historically-speaking, Nashville has been a challenge for the series’ championship contenders. Seven different drivers have won the last seven races. Reigning series champ, JR Motorsports’ Justin Allgaier is the only fulltime driver with an Xfinity Series win at the 1.33-mile track, claiming the trophy in 2022 after leading 134 of the 188 laps and beating Trevor Bayne by an impressive 4.513-seconds.

Allgaier, a two-race winner already this season and the current championship leader by a healthy 72-points over three-race winner Hill, has seven top-five finishes in the opening nine races, but has suffered through some erratic finishes of late – a pair of top-10s alternating with finishes of 21st (Rockingham, N.C.) and 35th (Texas).

One driver to keep an eye on this weekend is Haas Factory Team’s Sam Mayer, the only championship contender among the top six in points without a trophy this season. He’s never finished worse than 10th at Nashville and has a pair of top-five showings in three races at the track.

The competition level in the series is so high right now, the past three races coming to Nashville have been decided by a pass in the final two laps.

Keep an eye out for rookie Connor Zilisch, whose runner-up effort last week in the No. 88 JR Motorsports Chevrolet moved him up six positions in the Xfinity Series championship standings to sixth place. This will be his Nashville Superspeedway debut.

“I’m really looking forward to going to Nashville for the first time," said the 18-year-old Zilisch, who leads the series Rookie of the Year standings by six-points over his teammate Carson Kvapil. “It’s such a cool city and I’ve raced at the Fairgrounds before, but this will be my first time racing at the NASCAR track in Nashville.

"I have some laps on the simulator and it’s definitely a technical racetrack. I’m looking forward to figuring it out quickly and keeping the momentum up from Charlotte.”

Last week’s NASCAR Cup Series race winner, Ross Chastain, will be driving the No. 9 Chevrolet for JR Motorsports. Former NASCAR Cup Series regular Aric Almirola, who won at Phoenix earlier this year, will be back behind the wheel of the No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota. And Katherine Legge will be driving the No. 32 Jordan Anderson Racing Chevrolet.

Practice is set for 2:05 p.m. ET on Saturday followed by Kennametal Pole Qualifying at 3:10 p.m. ET – both sessions airing live on the CW APP. Ty Gibbs, who is not racing this weekend, started from pole position last year. Kyle Busch (2021) is the last polesitter to win the race.

Cory Heim leads CRAFTSMAN Truck Series to Nashville with dominant momentum

The NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series is on race five of a season-high stretch of six consecutive race weekends with Friday night’s stop at Nashville Superspeedway for the Rackley Roofing 200 (8 p.m. ET on FS1, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

Championship frontrunner Cory Heim – who will be making his second NASCAR Cup Series start for 23XI Racing on Sunday night - collected his fourth truck series trophy of the season with a dominant performance at Charlotte Motor Speedway last weekend, extending his lead atop the standings to 100-points heading into Friday night’s race. The driver of the No. 11 TRICON Garage Toyota has twice as many wins (four), has led three times as many laps (754) as anyone else and only finished outside the top-10 twice in the 11 races to date this year - all series best statistics.

Heim, however, has never won at Nashville. He has two top-five finishes in three starts, crashing out in his Nashville debut in 2022. He was a career-best third place last year.

Take the huge frontrunner Heim out of it, and the standings are a lot closer among the other title contenders. Front Row Motorsports’ Chandler Smith, a two-race winner, is second to Heim but holds only a 10-point advantage over McAnally-Hilgemann Racing’s Daniel Hemric and a 19-point cushion over Hemric’s teammate Tyler Ankrum – the only other race winners among the full-time competitors in 2025.

No current fulltime drivers have ever won on the 1.33-mile Nashville oval.

Two-time NASCAR Cup Series champ Kyle Busch – who won both the 2010 and 2011 Nashville truck races from pole position - will be making one of his limited season starts Friday, driving the No. 07 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet.

Christian Eckes, who now races fulltime in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, led all 150 laps en route to the trophy last year in one of the most dominating showings in years.

Practice is at 4:05 p.m. ET Friday followed immediately by Kennametal Pole Qualifying at 5:10 p.m. ET – both sessions airing live on FS1. Stewart Friesen won pole position last year and finished 11th. It’s been three years since a polesitter also won the race – Ryan Preece last doing so in 2022.

--30--

Superb competition at Charlotte makes a case for a championship race

May 26, 2025

By Reid Spencer

NASCAR Wire Service

The historical high temperature in Concord, North Carolina, in early November is 66 degrees.

Why is that statistic relevant to stock car racing?

NASCAR is considering possible venues for its season-ending Championship weekend, which will start to move in rotation next year with a return to Homestead-Miami Speedway.

Phoenix Raceway, which has hosted Championship races in all three of NASCAR’s national series for the past five years, will remain in the mix.

With weather clearly a major consideration in the placement of the title races, Las Vegas is another city that immediately comes to mind. The average high temperature in November in Sin City is 66 degrees.

In determining the rotation for the Championship 4 races, weather clearly is a major consideration, but it isn’t the only one. The quality of the product on the track also should be an important element in the selection.

And if what fans saw in Sunday night’s Coca-Cola 600 is an indication, Charlotte Motor Speedway deserves a place in the championship lineup.

After William Byron dominated the first two stages of the race in fading daylight, the track changed, as it always does. Denny Hamlin arrived at the front of the field to challenge Byron, who had won the second stage by more than seven seconds.

Over the last 300 miles of NASCAR’s longest race, Byron and Hamlin battled back and forth, swapping the lead 14 times—nine times in the third stage alone.

Hamlin would attack. Byron would defend. Hamlin would edge ahead at the start/finish line by thousandths of a second. Byron would charge through the first two corners and regain the top spot.

It was sustained, close competition at the highest level.

And then, seemingly out of nowhere, crew chief Phil Surgen made an adjustment to Ross Chastain’s No. 1 Chevrolet that brought the car to life for the final run.

With Hamlin out of fuel and out of the picture after an unscheduled pit stop, Chastain was relentless in his pursuit of Byron, who led 283 of the 400 laps. On Lap 394, Byron’s car tightened up in Turns 3 and 4.

Seizing the opportunity, Chastain carried his momentum into Turns 1 and 2, dived to the inside and cleared Byron’s Chevrolet off the corner. Chastain went on to win one of the most memorable races of the last four years.

Notably, the Coca-Cola 600 produced some of the most compelling racing of the Gen 7 era, and it happened in front of a packed house.

Let’s hope Charlotte Motor Speedway gets the consideration it deserves when NASCAR decides which venues are worthy of the championship races.

Let’s table the “Double” for the time being

Kyle Larson’s second attempt at the Indianapolis 500/Coca-Cola 600 double ended in disappointment—twice.

Larson crashed on Lap 92 at Indy, spinning in dirty air behind Takuma Sata. Out of the 500 early, Larson had plenty of time to arrive at Charlotte Motor Speedway for the start of the Coke 600, but he slapped the wall during the opening run and damaged the front suspension of his Chevrolet.

Later, on Lap 42, Larson spun through the infield grass, and on Lap 246 of 400, he was collected in a five-car wreck off Turn 4 and eliminated from the race.

As unflappable as Larson appears, he was clearly chagrined by the wreck at Indy. After the accident at Charlotte, he was already evaluating the wisdom of trying to run both races on the same day.

“I don’t know, it’s so fresh right now I don’t really have a good answer for you,” Larson said. “The double is just a tough undertaking. The window of time is too tight. Even if I didn’t wreck, I don’t think I would have made it here on time and probably would have had to end that race short anyways.

“So, I don’t really think it’s worth it. But I would love to run the Indy 500 again. Just doing the double, I think, is just logistically too tough.”

Larson is right. With a 12:45 starting time for the Indy 500, circumstances have to fall into line perfectly for a driver to complete both races, and in Larson’s two attempts, rain worked against him.

When Tony Stewart completed all 1,100 miles in 2001, the Indianapolis 500 started at its traditional time of 11 a.m. A 12:45 p.m. start means weather can’t be a factor at Indy, and nothing is more undependable than spring weather in the Midwest.

In addition, pulling off the double requires an enormous commitment of time, money and personnel on the part of Hendrick Motorsports.

It’s a glamorous undertaking that generates a treasure trove of publicity, but the cost is too high, given the risks inherent in the process.

--30--

Saturday Charlotte Notebook

Notebook Items:

Veteran driver Kyle Busch will stay with RCR through 2026 season
William Byron says contact extension with Hendrick is business as usual
Jimmie Johnson proves that you can go home again
Reassurance meant a lot to Ryan Blaney, who thought he was fired
Christopher Bell, Brad Keselowski have new spotters this weekend

May 24, 2025

By Reid Spencer

NASCAR Wire Service

Veteran driver Kyle Busch will stay with RCR through 2026 season

CONCORD, N.C.—Kyle Busch will stay put for the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series season, now that Richard Childress Racing has picked up the option on Busch’s contract with the organization.

Busch and team owner Richard Childress made the announcement in the Charlotte Motor Speedway media center on Saturday morning, complete with the commitment that the organization is working hard to return the two-time series champion to Victory Lane.

After winning three of the first 15 races of 2023, his first season with RCR, Busch has experienced the longest drought of his career. His winless streak stands at 69 races entering Sunday’s Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte (6 p.m. ET on Amazon Prime, PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

"This is extending our contract for another year, and we're really excited,” Childress said. “Kyle has been great to work with. Everybody had questions going in. I love a driver that doesn't like to lose. We've worked hard. We've got some exciting things coming up.

“He and I are both alike in one area, that we don't like to lose. We want to win races. I still think Kyle will win him a championship, and we're going to have it at RCR. That's our plans. We've got a lot of new things coming.”

Childress indicated the organization has made changes and improvements on the engineering side of the sport.

“I certainly echo Richard's statements that there's a lot of things happening behind the scenes,” Busch said. “It's a great place to be, a great place to work, a great atmosphere, and a lot of grit and determination with a lot of people up there in Welcome, North Carolina. We have certainly had our battles. It's been fun, but yet challenging. It definitely isn't easy. This sport is very, very tough, very, very close and challenging.

“Being able to score those wins and compete for those each and every week… we know those areas in which we can improve both behind the wheel, on pit road, in engineering, all of the above. This is just the pinnacle of that, and I hope to continue to build on our successes that we've been working towards for the last two years.”

William Byron says contact extension with Hendrick is business as usual

Driver William Byron is so comfortable with his current role at Hendrick Motorsports that his negotiations for a contract extension were all but routine.

The organization announced on Friday that Byron has agreed to a four-year contract extension that will keep him at HMS through 2029.

“I definitely wanted to be here, and really for me, just want to focus on winning races,” Byron said on Saturday at Charlotte Motor Speedway. “That’s what it's all about at Hendrick Motorsports, and that's what I personally enjoy and want to be here to do.

“So, for me personally, I try to just kind of keep my head down this year and focus. I’m just really happy that it's done… it's a bit of a relief, I guess you could say, just to be able to focus on what we're doing here. We have a lot of goals to accomplish.”

That Byron re-signed with Hendrick was a surprise to no one. His 14 career victories include back-to-back Daytona 500 wins in 2023 and 2024.

“This is my third (contract), because I had sort of my rookie deal that was included in Xfinity, and then my second one was back in 2022,” Byron said. “So, I think this one, we've definitely won a lot more races since then and sort of become a consistent threat at the front of the field.

“So, I think just kind of working through that, and all the conversations I think this time around were really positive.”

All four Hendrick drivers are now signed through at least 2026, which is a contract year for both Kyle Larson and Alex Bowman. Chase Elliott is under contract to the organization through 2027.

Jimmie Johnson proves that you can go home again

In Sunday’s Coca-Cola 600, NASCAR Hall of Famer Jimmie Johnson will make his 700th NASCAR Cup Series start on the same track where he made his debut in the series in 2001.

On Oct. 7 of that year, Johnson drove the No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet for the first time, but his race ended early. On Lap 151, Johnson tangled with the Penske Ford of Ryan Newman, who would edge Johnson for Cup rookie-of-the-year honors the following season.

Johnson retired from the race in 39th place after 192 laps, but that was hardly predictive of his future performance at the track.

Eight of Johnson’s 83 career victories have come at Charlotte. In 2004 and 2005, he won four straight races at the 1.5-mile speedway.

“It’s wild how my first start just coincidentally ends up being my 700th,” said Johnson, who now co-owns and drives occasionally for LEGACY Motor Club. “It means a ton to me. I am a numbers guy, and to have these numbers play out on their own is really special.”

Johnson was quick to emphasize that his 700th Cup start will not be his last.

“Last year, I ran nine—it was a little too much on the organization,” said Johnson, who finished third in the Daytona 500 in his only start so far this season. “This year, I’m at two. Maybe we do a few more, so as we plan for next year, as long as it doesn’t take away from our full-time cars, we hope to run an unchartered vehicle and have me in it, and use that to develop talent, and also help develop partnerships and such.

“It is part of our plan. We don’t have ’26 picked yet, but rest assured, there (are) more than 700 starts. I’m jumping up and down asking for more races than two.”

Reassurance meant a lot to Ryan Blaney, who thought he was fired

Ryan Blaney is an established NASCAR Cup Series star with 13 victories and the 2023 championship, but back in 2015, he wasn’t on such firm footing.

In fact, after a particularly frustrating run in a NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Blaney was afraid team owner Roger Penske was ready to fire him.

“I did think I was going to get fired one year—not really, but in my mind I was,” Blaney said on Monday at a proclamation from the city of Mooresville, N.C., honoring Team Penske’s three straight Cup championships.

“I blew a race at Indy, an (Xfinity) race, like 2015, I think. I lost the race, blew Turn 2 the last lap, Kyle Busch goes on and wins the race. And I’m like, ‘Oh, my God, I just lost at Indy for Roger. I’m canned. I’m done.’”

When Penske’s number popped up on Blaney’s phone later that evening, he feared the worst.

“He called me that night, and it was a pretty cool moment of reassurance, like ‘We believe in you; you’re going to make mistakes; this is how you learn,’ things like that.

“That was like the only time in my mind I was like, ‘Oh, my God, I’m getting fired.’ And when I saw him call me, I’m like, ‘This is it, I’m done.’ But those words afterwards really helped me out. I was 22, so it was a cool moment to talk to someone like that.”

In fact, just one week later, Blaney won his first race of the season at Iowa Speedway.

Christopher Bell, Brad Keselowski have new spotters this weekend

The timing seemed odd.

On Wednesday, three days after Christopher Bell won the NASCAR All-Star Race at North Wilkesboro Speedway, Joe Gibbs Racing confirmed that Matt Philpott has replaced Stevie Reeves as spotter on Bell’s No. 20 Toyota.

Reeves had spotted for Bell from his debut in the Cup Series in 2020 through last weekend but unexpectedly decided to leave the role.

“I was surprised as well,” Bell said. “It was all Stevie’s decision. He made the decision on his own to quit, and that’s all I’m going to say.”

Philpott is not an experienced spotter. Accordingly, he and Bell worked on an iRacing event together earlier this week, and Bell planned to spend time on the spotters’ stand with Philpott during Saturday’s Xfinity race at Charlotte.

“I’ve been around Philpott a lot as a mechanic,” Bell said. “He was on the 11 car (of Denny Hamlin) full-time, and he was on my car a couple of times throughout the course of the years.

“I have a relationship with him. I’ve listened to the feedback that we have online, but we’ll just play it week by week and see how it goes.”

Reeves has the habit of going out on top. After spotting for Jimmie Johnson during the NASCAR Hall of Famer’s second championship season in 2007, Reeves was informed with two races left in the 2008 campaign that he would not be retained in 2009.

Johnson went on to win his third straight title in 2008 and added championships the following two years with spotter Earl Barban.

Brad Keselowski will have a different spotter this weekend, too, though not by choice. Veteran spotter T.J. Majors has been sidelined because of a medical procedure that’s expected to keep him out of action for a month.

“It’s part of life, I guess,” Keselowski said on Friday during a sponsor announcement at Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing. “We don’t like it, but we’re doing our best to adapt for it.

“Thankfully, because there was some warning, we had ample time to prepare, and he had ample time to do his homework and share that. But we’re hopeful he’ll be back real soon.”

Keselowski’s brother, Brian Keselowski, will provide a familiar voice from the spotters’ stand during Majors’ absence.

“Yeah, very familiar,” Keselowski said. “We have some depth today.”

indianapolis 500 Advance: Larson is poised for his attempt at history

May 24, 2025

By Holly Cain

NASCAR Wire Service

SPEEDWAY, Ind. – Trotting down the grandstand steps after being introduced in Saturday morning’s traditional Indianapolis 500 Public Drivers Meeting, NASCAR champion Kyle Larson encountered a standing ovation, loud cheers and a steady line of high-five greetings indicative of being the crowd favorite that he absolutely is for Sunday’s 109th Running of the Indianapolis 500 (Noon ET on FOX).

The 2021 NASCAR Cup Series champion and current championship leader would love nothing more than to reward the support with a massive celebration in the famed Indianapolis Motor Speedway Victory Lane where he celebrated last summer after winning NASCAR’s Brickyard 400 at the famous track.

Larson’s No. 17 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet lines up 19th on the 33-car grid Sunday for his second consecutive start in the Indianapolis 500; the first leg of a Memorial Day race “Double” that begins at the famed Indianapolis Motor Speedway and concludes eight hours away in NASCAR’s longest race of the season, the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway (6 p.m. ET on Amazon Prime, PRN and SiriusXM).

Last year the 32-year-old Californian finished 21st in a rain-delayed Indy 500 but by the time he got to Charlotte, the race had already started and was in a rain delay, ultimately called “official” before Larson was able to climb into his No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet.

This year, Larson is committed to making the start of the race in Charlotte. He’d sure like to arrive, however, fully-hydrated with whole milk – his choice – the beverage traditionally given to the Indy 500 race winner.

Larson’s second Indy 500 go-round on the famed 2.5-mile oval has been markedly different than his debut last year. He’s had a pair of crashes in practice in race preparation and instead of starting from the second row as he did in his debut, he’ll roll off from the seventh row.

However, after Friday’s “Carb Day” final practice, he said he was comfortable with his car and more prepared for what the big race will ask of him. He was among the fastest six drivers in both 10-lap and 20-lap speed.

With a controversy involving two of the fastest cars – Team Penske’s Josef Newgarden – the two-time defending race winner – and his teammate, 2018 winner Will Power, Larson’s quest has shared the big-type headlines. Those two former winners will have to start on the last row after failing inspection prior to pole qualifying last Sunday.

It's indicative of a starting grid featuring plenty of bold headlines. The race will showcase the first rookie polesitter – Robert Shwartzman - since 1983. And the season’s most dominant driver, three-time and reigning NTT IndyCar Series champion Alex Palou, who has won four of the opening five races, is starting from the second row trying to claim his first ever oval win in the sport’s biggest race.

Having a NASCAR champion like Larson in the race with a competitive team would normally dominate the pre-race talk, but there has been a lot going on. And Larson says that’s fine by him.

“I actually like that a lot," a smiling Larson said of the other storylines.

“I feel like I get a lot of attention in everything that I do and race, and I don't really like that because I feel like it takes away from the spotlight of others. This year has been better because I feel like I've kind of flown under the radar a little bit more. Not really under the radar, still obviously an important thing, and I have still gotten a lot of coverage. But last year I felt like it was crazy. It’s been good and I like that, more normal.”

Larson is the fifth full-time NASCAR Cup Series driver to attempt “The Double” joining the late John Andretti, Robby Gordon and NASCAR Hall of Famers Tony Stewart and Kurt Busch. Of them, Stewart is the only driver to complete all 1,100 laps – that 2001 effort including a sixth place at Indy and a third place at Charlotte – best all-time among those doubling-up.

But there is a lot of optimism and a lot of support for Larson’s effort Sunday.

Most of Larson’s No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports team - crew chief Cliff Daniels and most of his pit crew - came to Indy for Friday’s final two-hour practice, showing their solidarity for this milestone effort.

“Seeing the NASCAR Cup drivers doing it, it’s a really big deal and so awesome to be a part of," said Eric Ludwig, the jackman on Larson’s Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet.

“Kyle is just a racer through and through. Everything in his passion is just to race a car wherever he can, whenever he can and it’s just so cool to be a part of.”

It’s a common theme and one that Larson hopes to reward.

"He's unique, he's special, and we're living in this moment where we're getting to experience it and will be telling the next generation all about it one day," NASCAR Hall of Famer Dale Earnhardt Jr. said of Larson. “And so hopefully he has a great experience at Indy, represents the NASCAR crowd well with a great run, and we'll see what he does next."

NASCAR Weekend Preview: Charlotte Motor Speedway

May 22, 2025

By Reid Spencer

NASCAR Wire Service

Kyle Larson’s double is top of mind as Coca-Cola 600 approaches

On a tripleheader NASCAR weekend at Charlotte Motor Speedway, the big news is clearly “The Double.”

For the second straight year, Hendrick Motorsports driver Kyle Larson will attempt to run both the Indianapolis 500 and Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte.

If the day goes according to plan, Larson will complete 500 miles in the 109th running of the Indy 500, scheduled to start at 12:45 p.m., and commute to Charlotte to start in NASCAR’s longest race (6 p.m. ET Sunday on Amazon Prime, PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

Larson hopes to join an elite group of drivers who have competed in both races on the same day—the late John Andretti, Robby Gordon, Tony Stewart and Kurt Busch.

Stewart is the only driver to have completed all 1,100 miles while attempting the Double, a feat he accomplished in 2001 when he finished sixth in the Indy 500 and third in the Coke 600.

Typically, Larson is taking a low-key approach to his potential race results, and he doesn’t appear concerned with the attention that might accrue to successful runs in both races.

“I don’t really think about it a whole lot,” Larson said on Wednesday during a video conference call with reporters. “I love to race, and I try to do the best job that I can. Usually, if you’re doing a good job and you’re prepared and all that, the accolades and the stuff that goes with it will just naturally come.

“The same goes for this weekend. If I can just do a good job, get good finishes and show that we were capable of running up front with these (IndyCar) guys, I think that would do a lot. I think there’s more positives to be made from the results this weekend than negatives.”

Larson won the Coca-Cola 600 from the pole during his NASCAR Cup Series championship season in 2021. He’s one of eight different drivers to triumph in the last eight races.

Three of the last five Coke 600 winners have gone on to win the series championship in the same year they won the race—Chase Elliott (2020), Larson (2021) and Ryan Blaney (2023).

Blaney’s victory in the only NASCAR race that features four stages (100 laps each) rather than three was his first of the 2023 season. This year he comes to Charlotte seeking his first win of 2025. Both his Team Penske teammates—Joey Logano and Austin Cindric—already have won races this year.

“It was cool to win this race a couple years ago,” Blaney said. “I grew up going to this race a lot, watching Dad (Dave Blaney) run it, spending the time with family. Memorial Day weekend’s always really special, being able to see a lot of troops and meet their families around the race track.

“Meeting the families (whose) son or daughter is running with us on our windshield is always a really special moment. But, yeah, it was neat to accomplish a huge feat two years ago. And last year, I thought we had a decent run going, and unfortunately, we didn’t finish it.”

On a day when weather played havoc with both the Indy 500 and Coke 600, Christopher Bell won the 2024 Charlotte race, which was shortened from 400 to 249 laps because of rain.

A downpour at Indianapolis Motor Speedway delayed the start of the 500 and caused Larson to miss the Charlotte race. This year, he has committed to start the 600, even if it means leaving Indianapolis before the completion of the event.

Larson’s three victories, eight top fives, nine top 10s and 817 laps led in 2025 all are career high-water marks for the first 12 races of a season.

Note: Sunday’s race will be the first on the Amazon Prime streaming service under this year’s new broadcast deal.

Connor Zilisch returns to action in double-duty role at Charlotte

After hard contact with the inside wall during a late wreck at Talladega Superspeedway on April 26, Connor Zilisch missed the following NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Texas Motor Speedway, citing lower back issues.

The good news? A healthy Zilisch will return to action in Saturday’s BetMGM 300 (4:30 p.m. ET on CW, PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

Moreover, Zilisch also will make his oval-track debut in the NASCAR Cup Series in Sunday’s Coca-Cola 600 (6 p.m. ET on Amazon Prime, PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

“Charlotte is my first race in my hometown, and a lot of my family will be there this weekend so that’s exciting, for sure,” said Zilisch, who will drive the No. 88 JR Motorsports Chevrolet on Saturday and the No. 87 Trackhouse Racing Chevy on Sunday. “It’s going to be special for me to go there and race for the first time in the Xfinity car and to also double up and race the Cup car.

“I think the Xfinity race at Charlotte is going to be really good for us, considering how well we’ve done on the intermediate tracks this year. We’ve just got to continue to build on what we’ve learned throughout the season and hopefully have a good run in the Jarrett Chevrolet at my home track.”

Zilisch will have plenty of competition. Full-time Cup driver William Byron is driving the No. 17 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet, hoping to duplicate teammate Chase Elliott’s victory in last year’s edition of this race.

Series leader Justin Allgaier, Zilisch’s teammate at JRM, is another strong entry. Allgaier dominated the race in 2023, winning from the pole and leading 83 of 200 laps. The reigning series champion already has two victories this season on 1.5-mile tracks, Las Vegas Motor Speedway and Homestead-Miami Speedway.

Allgaier, however, will have to buck a trend to win on Saturday. There has not been a repeat winner in the last 12 Xfinity Series races at Charlotte.

Last 1.5-miler hosts a home game for most NASCAR Truck Series teams

It’s old home week for most of the NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series teams competing in Friday night’s North Carolina Education Lottery 200 at Charlotte Motor Speedway (8:30 p.m. ET on FS1, NRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

All but two of the teams in the series are based in the Charlotte area. The exceptions are ThorSport Racing from Sandusky, Ohio, and Rackley W.A.R. from Centerville, Tenn.

If you’re looking for a favorite for Friday’s race, it might be wise to stay close to home, specifically at TRICON Garage in Mooresville, N.C. That’s home base for Corey Heim, who has won four of the last eight Truck Series races on intermediate speedways.

Unfortunately for the driver of the No. 11 Toyota, Friday’s Truck Series event will be the last on a 1.5-mile intermediate track this season.

A three-time winner so far this year, Heim is the only driver to have led laps in all 10 Truck Series races this season. With 14 career victories, he needs one more to tie three-time series champion Matt Crafton for 10th on the all-time win list.

Standing in Heim’s way are full-time NASCAR Cup Series drivers Kyle Busch and Ross Chastain. Busch’s record at Charlotte is unassailable—he has eight wins and 12 top-two finishes in 15 Truck Series starts at the track.

Driving the No. 44 Chevrolet for Niece Motorsports, Chastain hopes to reprise his 2022 victory at the track.

"I think Charlotte is a great track for us to race on,” Chastain said. “The pavement is wore out and bumpy, so we're always searching around for grip. With how short the truck race is (134 laps) compared to the other series, we all know that we have to make moves quickly to get track position.

“When we were able to win here a few years ago, it felt so rewarding because we had been close so many other times. I'm hoping we can have another chance at doing that again this week.”

Does North Wilkesboro deserve a NASCAR Cup Series points race?

May 19, 2025

By Reid Spencer

NASCAR Wire Service

Why not?

Why not hold a NASCAR Cup Series points race at North Wilkesboro Speedway?

Still basking in the afterglow of a hard-earned victory in Sunday night’s NASCAR All-Star Race, Christopher Bell declared the 0.625-mile venue the “best short track on the schedule.”

Many of the drivers who didn’t win on Sunday agreed with him.

“It looked like a great race for the win,” said fifth-place finisher Chase Elliott, who won the season-opening Cook Out Clash at another historic property, Bowman Gray Stadium. “I wish I could have been a part of it.

“I thought the race was much better this year than last year, so that was cool to see. We had another great crowd here, great environment for an All-Star race, so hopefully everyone enjoyed that.”

The racing surface has matured remarkably since North Wilkesboro was repaved for its first All-Star Race in 2023. The aging of the asphalt, combined with progressive banking in the corners, allowed for a variety of racing options on Sunday.

Chasing Logano during the final 28-lap green-flag run, Bell tried a variety of lines, ultimately steering beneath Logano’s Ford and forcing him up the track for the winning pass.

For much of the run, Logano tried to keep Bell pinned down in the inside lane, using his momentum off the corners to keep Bell behind him. It worked for a while.

Kyle Larson, on the other hand, made progress at the top of the track but eventually paid the price when he smacked the outside wall while running third—until Lap 241 of 250.

Clearly, there were plenty of options that prevented the race from becoming a blowout, as it was with Larson’s All-Star win in 2023 and Logano’s last year.

“As this place continues to age, it’s just going to get better and better,” Bell said. “Man, that was an amazing race. There were so many guys up there racing for the lead. We saw two-wide, three-wide for the lead. It’s just a pleasure to race here.”

Brad Keselowski, who won the pole for the All-Star Race and the first of two qualifying heats, would like to see a race at North Wilkesboro count in the standings.

“I think this needs to be a points race track,” Keselowski said. “I’d like to see the All-Star Race most likely return to Charlotte. That’s my personal opinion. I think the Charlotte race track, particularly since it only has one race on the oval, I think that’s a miss for our sport.

“It’s a great race track and puts on some of the best racing, so it would make sense to me if we were to revert back to that and make this (North Wilkesboro) a season race.”

The atmosphere on Sunday night was electric. The grandstands were packed to overflowing, and fans were standing throughout the final run, as Bell chased Logano for the win.

And, of course, there was another element necessary to a good short-track stew—raw emotion. Logano didn’t appreciate the way Bell passed him for the lead.

“We’re racing for a million dollars,” Logano said. “I get it, but we race each other every week, and we’re like elephants. We don’t forget anything.”

Bell’s response?

“Well, I had got to him a couple times before, and he made it very difficult on me, as he should. I got my run, and I took the moment, as I should.

“Yeah, I don't think that I did anything that Joey has not done, and I've seen Joey do much worse. We will continue on.”

As good as the All-Star race was, imagine, if you will, a full field of 38 Cup Series cars racing for 400 laps around the historic short track. Imagine the top contenders catching the back of the field and working traffic as they pursue each other for the lead.

Imagine the Cup drivers racing at North Wilkesboro with a spot in the Playoffs on the line.

Too much of a good thing? Hardly.

So, the question remains “Why not?”

Saturday North Wilkesboro Notebook

May 17, 2025

By Reid Spencer

NASCAR Wire Service

For Josh Berry, competitive performance is the antidote to frustration

NORTH WILKESBORO, N.C.—After his victory at Las Vegas Motor Speedway in the fifth NASCAR Cup Series race of the season, Josh Berry’s luck went from bad to worse.

On March 30 at Martinsville Speedway, Berry led 40 laps before electrical problems in his No. 21 Wood Brothers Racing Ford—necessitating a battery change—dropped him to 32nd at the finish.

A week later, a crash on Lap 195 ended a promising run at Darlington Raceway. After a 12th-place finish at Bristol, Berry drew a speeding penalty at Talladega that dropped him to a 26th-place result.

He led 41 laps with an extremely fast car on May 4 at Texas Motor Speedway, before the bumps in the final corner upset his car and shot the No. 21 Mustang into the outside wall.

After he scraped the wall during qualifying last Sunday at Kansas Speedway, Berry’s fortunes began to improve. He drove from his 38th starting position to finish sixth, despite a pit road speeding penalty that sent him to the back of the field for a second time.

Rather than becoming frustrated by his series of misfortunes, Berry has been buoyed by the speed in his cars.

“The frustration is considerably less compared to last year,” Berry said of his lame-duck season at Stewart-Haas Racing. “Being competitive is the biggest thing. That’s the hardest thing to figure out is how to be fast and lead these races and get yourself in contention, and we’ve done that a lot.

“It’s frustrating to make mistakes and those mistakes fall on me, but all we can do is just continue to put me in that position and keep working on those things and getting better and the finishes will come. We’re fortunate to have that win in the bank and, like I said, I’m not very frustrated with how it’s been going.

“Last week (at Kansas), I think we had a chance at that one if I didn’t speed on pit road, so that one stung a little bit more, but all in all, our whole team is doing a great job. Our cars are fast, and we’ve just got to do the little things a little bit better, and we’ll be up there.”

Christopher Bell needs more speed on intermediate tracks

After winning three straight NASCAR Cup Series races early this season, Christopher Bell hasn’t fallen off the face of the earth—but at times it might feel that way to the driver of the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota.

The reason? A lack of optimal performance at intermediate speedways. The finishes may not show the deficiency, because Bell acknowledges that he and his team have been outperforming the potential in the cars.

In the three most recent downforce races, Bell ran third at Darlington Raceway, ninth at Texas Motor Speedway and a fast-closing second at Kansas Speedway, but to the driver, those results are somewhat illusory.

“Well, I wouldn’t say that I’m not surprised that we haven’t won (since the three-race streak) because winning is very hard, but I’ve definitely been surprised about just lacking pace on the intermediate tracks,” Bell said. “At the end of last year, we did really well at the intermediates, and (were among) the strongest contenders.

“And then the last couple of weeks, week-in and week-out, we just haven’t been there yet. Hopefully, we make gains on it. I feel like Kansas was a little bit better than what we had at Texas and Darlington, so if we can make another step like that going into Charlotte, maybe we will be contending for the win, but we are definitely lacking a little bit at this point in time.”

Charlotte was good to Bell last year. He led 90 laps and won the Coca-Cola 600, which was shortened from 400 laps to 249 because of rain.

North Wilkesboro brings a new experience to modified driver Tim Connolly

News of his selection as one of the top 40 drivers in the history of the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour left Tim Connolly speechless—a rarity for the popular, garrulous competitor.

Connolly was driving from his home in New York to North Wilkesboro Speedway when he got the news.

“Pretty big surprise,” Connolly said of his selection as one of the first 10 drivers revealed during the 40th anniversary of the series. “A lot of great company out there. It’s like race weekend—it’s a tough field.

“It’s just very flattering, very honored and also humbling.”

A former star quarterback at Ithaca College, Connolly found his calling in racing. His career blossomed when he landed a ride in the iconic “Mystic Missile,” the No. 4 car owned by Robert Garbarino.

In 1997, driving Garbarino’s car, Connolly claimed four of his nine career victories and finished second in the series standings.

Connolly ran three races in 2002 and subsequently left the tour, only to return in 2023 at age 62 with his own car.

But Connolly faces a new experience in Sunday’s Whelen Modified Tour race at North Wilkesboro. Ryan Newman, not Connolly, will be driving the car.

“I miss the seat horribly—I won’t lie to you,” said Connolly, who is on his third back surgery. “The problem is I keep forgetting I’m 64. I’m not making any promises to anyone about anything right now. I’m going to keep my mouth shut and my options open.”

Even with a fierce competitor like Newman in his car, Connolly said it will be difficult to spend the race as a spectator.

“I want to kick Ryan out and get back in my car,” Connolly quipped. “You’ve got a lot of big names in the show. It’s not going to be a lot of fun being on the sidelines, honestly. I’d rather be out there.

“This will be my first time, having somebody else drive my car. I don’t even let people drive my passenger car. I don’t let anyone drive my hauler other than me.”

NASCAR Weekend Preview: North Wilkesboro Speedway

May 15, 2025

By Reid Spencer

NASCAR Wire Service

Reigning NASCAR Cup champ Joey Logano primed for All-Star Race defense

If you‘re trying to find a predictor of the eventual NASCAR Cup Series champion, the winner of the NASCAR All-Star Race might be a good place to look.

In three of the last five years, the All-Star Race winner has gone on to win the title: Chase Elliott at Bristol in 2020; Kyle Larson at Texas Motor Speedway in 2021; and Joey Logano at North Wilkesboro Speedway last year.

Add Ryan Blaney’s All-Star victory at Texas in 2022, and you have another impressive statistic: the organization that has won the All-Star Race has won the Cup championship in four of the last five years—Hendrick Motorsports in 2020 and 2021 and Team Penske in 2022 and 2024.

Moreover, Logano credits last year’s March 14 tire test at North Wilkesboro, leading up to the All-Star Race, as one of the factors that flipped the switch for Team Penske and propelled him toward his third Cup championship.

As one of 20 drivers already qualified for the event, Logano will defend his victory in Sunday’s NASCAR All-Star Race at the iconic 0.625-mile short track (8 p.m. ET on FS1, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

“I’m looking forward to getting up there,” Logano said. “The track’s really wide for a repave. It’s a really good race track. I’m looking forward to seeing where it gets to this year. Last year it widened all the way out to the wall…

“Where the dominant lane is will be interesting, even in qualifying.”

Three more drivers will be added to the 20-driver field before the green flag, two from the 100-lap All-Star Open and one chosen through the All-Star Fan Vote.

Qualifying for both the Open and All-Star Race will take place on Friday and includes a Pit Crew Challenge component. Those time trials will set the starting order for a pair of Saturday heat races that will determine the grid for the All-Star Race.

The first 75-lap heat sets the order for the inside row of the All-Star lineup, with the second heat ordering the outside row. The qualifiers from the Open and Fan Vote will be added to the rear of the field.

Front Row Motorsports driver Noah Gragson has won the last two Fan Votes. Josh Berry and Ty Gibbs are the two Open winners at North Wilkesboro. Berry already is eligible for this year’s All-Star Race because of his victory at Las Vegas in March.

The All-Star Race itself is scheduled for 250 laps (up from the 200 laps run in the first two editions of the race at North Wilkesboro), with a competition caution to take place at or around Lap 100.

In addition, a single, optional promoter’s caution—at the discretion of Speedway Motorsports Inc. CEO Marcus Smith—can be used to reshape the race before Lap 220 but cannot be used after Lap 200 if preempted by a naturally occurring caution.

There are six former winners of the NASCAR All-Star Race already qualified for Sunday’s 41st running of the event: Larson, Logano, Blaney, Chase Elliott, Kyle Busch and Denny Hamlin.

Larson has three All-Star Race victories to his credit (2019, 2021 and 2023) and can tie NASCAR Hall of Famer Jimmie Johnson for most all-time with another win.

Hendrick Motorsports has compiled a series-best 11 All-Star victories. Team Penske is next with five. Busch claimed the most recent All-Star victory for Toyota in 2017.

Logano relishes not only the competition but also the history North Wilkesboro embodies.

“It was shut down for years, just sitting there empty,” Logano said. "Now you see it come back, and so many people are there. They did such a tasteful job renovating the place, where they’ve kept a lot of that old feeling but a lot of the newer amenities fans have become accustomed to.”

Defending NASCAR truck race winner Corey Heim faces major challenge

Corey Heim has been the dominant force in the NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series this season.

With three victories already in hand, the driver of the No. 11 TRICON Garage Toyota is the only multiple winner in the series so far this year.

Atop the standings by 64 points over second-place Chandler Smith, Heim also is the defending winner of Saturday’s Window World 250 at North Wilkesboro Speedway (1:30 p.m. ET on FS1, NRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

He’s the only driver to lead laps in every race this season, and he’s the only active North Wilkesboro winner entered in Saturday’s race.

Heim, however, will face a stern challenge from a driver doing double duty in both the Truck Series event and the NASCAR All-Star Race on Sunday.

Kyle Busch is making his second Truck Series start of the season, this time in the No. 07 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet. In February, Busch won at Atlanta in Spire’s No. 7 Silverado, extending his career record for victories in the series to 67.

“It’ll be my first time racing a truck at North Wilkesboro and my first time racing with (crew chief) Allen (Hart) and the No. 07 group, so practice will be important for us this week,” Busch said.

“The 07 team has shown good speed winning with (Kyle) Larson (at Homestead-Miami Speedway) and picking up a couple runner-up finishes in recent weeks, so hopefully we can continue the momentum they’ve been building and put our Gainbridge Silverado in Victory Lane this weekend.”

--30--

Did Kyle Larson’s stats at Kansas Speedway paint an accurate picture?

May 13, 2025

By Reid Spencer

NASCAR Wire Service

Let’s not concede the NASCAR Cup Series championship to Kyle Larson just yet.

That said, all the following assertions are true:

Larson is a generational talent with the ability to drive anything with four wheels, regardless of body style, degree of downforce or horsepower-to-weight ratio.

After he was knocked out of Friday night’s High Limit Racing event at Lakeside Speedway in a gnarly-looking wreck, Larson put his No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet on the pole at nearby Kansas Speedway on Saturday afternoon.

In Sunday’s AdventHealth 400 at the 1.5-mile track, Larson led 221 of 267 laps and won his third Cup race of the season, tying Joe Gibbs Racing’s Christopher Bell for the series lead in victories.

In the process, Larson swept the stages for the 14th time in his career. His eight stage wins this season constitute a record for the first 12 races. The 221 laps led at Kansas are the most by a driver in a single race at the track.

During the Kansas race, Larson surpassed 10,000 career laps led. Now at 10,073, his total in that category trails only those of Kyle Busch and Denny Hamlin among full-time active drivers.

Larson will be in the spotlight even more than usual this month as he attempts the Indianapolis 500/Coca-Cola 600 double for the second time.

All the above being true, Larson’s performance in Sunday’s race at Kansas nevertheless revealed a potential weakness, one that Hamlin noted on Monday’s edition of his podcast.

“I think the stats are showing a more dominant race than it actually was,” Hamlin said.

Hamlin is right, and the evidence revealed itself after Larson won the second stage. During pit stops at the break, Chase Elliott took the lead off pit road. After the subsequent restart, it was Elliott who drove away, as Larson lost a tight battle for second place to Brad Keselowski.

In dirty air, Larson’s car appeared almost ordinary. The same had been true when Larson lost the lead a week earlier at Texas Motor Speedway after leading 90 laps. Falling back in the running order, Larson struggled to advance and finished fourth.

What saved Larson at Kansas was a caution on Lap 195, when Keselowski blew a tire and slammed into the Turn 1 wall while chasing Elliott for the lead. Elliott lost 11 positions with a slow pit stop under yellow and was no longer a factor.

Because of that miscue, Larson was back out front, controlling the race.

“When he lost the lead (at Kansas), he became pedestrian, just like he was at Texas,” Hamlin said. "I caution this. I think he’s less dominant than what he’s been in years past.

“I think he’s fast, but I think he can be had, in the sense of he’s doing a really good job of qualifying well, executing, not making mistakes and not putting himself in the middle of the pack. When he gets in the middle of the pack, I haven’t seen the speed that I’ve seen them have before.”

The speed issue aside, Larson’s performance is a credit to his entire team. Consistently fast pit stops, well-planned strategy and exemplary execution have kept him out front. In the last four Cup races, Larson has led 725 of a possible 1,226 laps.

Larson’s ability to put the past behind him and move on to the next race in an unbelievably busy schedule is perhaps his greatest asset as a driver.

“I do think it's because I race a lot, I'm guessing,” Larson said. “I would say that that's a big part of me being able to move on quickly from things, whether it's a good race or a bad race or a wreck or good result, bad result, whatever.”

His temperament is another major factor. Larson appears unflappable, even in exigent circumstances.

“He just doesn't carry stuff over,” said Cliff Daniels, Larson’s Cup crew chief. “He had a heck of a spill the other night in the High Limit race and walks right into the NASCAR race ready to go. He doesn't carry one race to the next.

“Obviously, momentum can be a real thing, which is always a good thing, for but him, he's racing all the time, so I think he's just ready to go.”

But, as Hamlin cautions, he’s not invincible—no matter what the statistics might suggest.

Saturday Kansas Notebook

Even though Chevrolet driver Kyle Larson won last year’s spring race at Kansas Speedway by the closest margin in NASCAR Cup Series history over Ford driver Chris Buescher, Larson still thinks Toyota drivers have an edge at the 1.5-mile track.

Depending on your point of view, you could make an argument for all three manufacturers entering Sunday’s AdventHealth 400 at the intermediate speedway in Wyandotte County, Kansas (3 p.m. ET on FS1, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

“Whether I won or I didn’t, it was really neat to be a part of a finish like that,” said Larson, who edged Buescher by 0.001 second last May. “So obviously, I was happy to come out a thousandth ahead, but still, to be a part of a finish like that was pretty neat.

“The Toyotas—they’re still the best there, I think, anyways. We’ve chipped away at it and gotten better, I think. I’ve led lots of laps there since we’ve gone there with the Next Gen. I just hadn’t gotten the win until last year. But you always work to get better every time you go to a track.”

Even though Chevrolet drivers swept last year’s Kansas events, with Ross Chastain winning in the fall, there’s ample reason for Larson to look to the Toyotas as fierce competition. Before 2024, four different Camry drivers—Kurt Busch, Bubba Wallace, Denny Hamlin and Tyler Reddick—won four straight races at the track.

Wallace, however, acknowledges that his No. 23 23XI Racing team has lost a bit of the magic that propelled him to the second and most recent of his two career wins in 2022.

“I don’t know where we got off pace there, but we did,” said Wallace, who finished 17th in both Kansas races last year. “But I think we know what we need to do there, so it’s just a matter of getting back on the horse and doing it…

“It’s not like we’re way out in left field from what we had a couple years ago. It’s maybe one thing that’s giving us the wrong feel. It’s crazy. We just have to show up and, like I said, get back on the horse and get out there and ride.”

Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota driver Christopher Bell has won the last three poles at Kansas Speedway, which is hosting the second of three straight Cup Series points races on 1.5-mile intermediate speedways.

The last driver to win four straight poles at a track was Larson at Sonoma Raceway from 2017 through 2022.

On the flip side of Larson’s win, Buescher prefers not to dwell on his runner-up finish last year.

“When it does come up, I try to make a joke about being the closest loser ever,” he said. “Ultimately, we’re trying to look further ahead… Ultimately, don’t look back, just because, one: it’s not going to change anything; two: to relive that moment in that race and study it, I would do things differently going back, but no time wasted in that.”

Joey Logano, last week’s winner at Texas Motor Speedway, is the only Ford driver to visit Victory Lane at Kansas in the last 12 races there.

However, with Josh Berry winning for the Wood Brothers at Las Vegas, Ford drivers have claimed victory in two of the three 1.5-milers so far this year. Larson’s victory at Homestead-Miami Speedway accounts for the other.

No matter whom you might favor, Kansas Speedway is a venue likely to produce high drama. Not only does the track have the closest Cup finish in Cup history to its credit, but it also featured 37 lead changes in the spring race of 2023—most on a 1.5-mile speedway in series history using a conventional downforce competition package.

Note: When Chastain triumphed from the 20th starting position last year, it broke a string of nine straight winners from the top 10 positions on the grid.

Even with NASCAR Cup Series drivers in the field, it’s hard to argue against NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series regular Corey Heim as the favorite for Saturday night’s Heart of Health Care 200 at Kansas Speedway (7:30 p.m. ET on FS1, NRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

In three previous races on 1.5-mile speedways this season, Heim has two victories—at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on March 14 and most recently at Texas Motor Speedway on May 2.

Heim is the only multiple winner in the series so far this season with three victories.

Moreover, driving the No. 11 TRICON Garage Toyota, Heim is seeking his third straight victory at Kansas, having swept last year’s races.

At age 22, Heim is the youngest driver to reach 14 wins in the series. He’s one victory away from tying 48-year-old three-time series champion Matt Crafton for 10th on the all-time victory list.

But it’s not that Heim will have an easy time on Friday. Challenging his quest for a Kansas trifecta are Cup drivers William Byron and Carson Hocevar, both doing double duty in Spire Motorsports Chevrolet Silverados.

“I’m excited to get back in a truck this weekend, especially at Kansas,” said Byron, who finished 14th in his only other start this season, at Martinsville. “This is a track where I’ve run well at during my career, but extra laps are always helpful no matter where it is.

“I appreciate Spire giving me the chance to run a truck again this year and hopefully we can have a good showing for them and (sponsor) HendrickCars.com.”

Coincidentally, Byron picked up his first career Truck Series victory at Kansas in 2016.

Hocevar is one of four drivers in the field who have finished second at Kansas but have never won. The others are two-time champion Ben Rhodes, defending champion Ty Majeski and Layne Riggs.

FORT WORTH, Tex. — Joey Logano’s victory at Texas Motor Speedway on Sunday was all the more impressive because of the uncomplicated, straightforward nature of his NASCAR Cup Series win.

There were no frills, no gimmicks, no two-tire calls and no convoluted strategies to get Logano to the front of the field when it counted.

It was a blue-collar effort from start to finish on the part of Logano and his No. 22 Team Penske Ford contingent.

Logano qualified poorly on Saturday—27th among 38 drivers—precluding crew chief Paul Wolfe from selecting a desirable pit box. Instead, Wolfe had to settle for Stall 37, with Daniel Suarez pitting behind him and Riley Herbst in front.

As Logano explained, that negated the option for a two-tire pit stop, a move that helped Michael McDowell get to the front in the late stages of the race.

“We never even swung the bat at two tires because of the stall that we had with the 35 (Herbst) in front of us,” Logano said. “We just felt like putting two tires on was asking for a crash on pit road, because we would be leaving when he is coming in. We just kept putting four on it and trying to methodically pick off a couple here and there.

“So we didn't really go for the haymaker pit strategy. We just kept it basic, and we felt like our car was fast enough to get up there, and honestly, I thought, race in the top five. I didn't know we were going to get to the lead. Our lap times were good enough to be in the lead, but we took so long to get there. Yeah, everything ended up working well.”

Logano’s progress through the field was deliberate. He didn’t show up on the box score until the end of Stage 2, when he had climbed to ninth in the running order.

The reigning series champion got some unexpected help when a caution for Jesse Love’s crash on the backstretch on Lap 219 took several contenders, including William Byron, Chase Elliott and Logano’s teammate Austin Cindric out of the mix for the victory.

Those drivers already had come to pit road for service and were trapped a lap down, pending wave-arounds. By waiting to pit, Logano and teammate Ryan Blaney gained positions and lined up fifth and third, respectively, for the subsequent restart.

From that point on, Logano was relentless in his pursuit of the win, doubtless additionally motivated by the disqualification from fifth place a week earlier at Talladega for a rear spoiler infraction.

“Joey did what he typically does at the end of these races when you put him in position,” Wolfe said. “I think (spotter) Coleman (Pressley) said it. There's nobody better at it than him. He just continues to show us that as we go along here. It's exciting to be part of, and I'm glad we could get our first win of the season.

“It's been a bit of a struggle this year to get the results that I feel like we've shown the speed, but we haven't put it all together, and it was nice to just have a nice solid day and be able to find Victory Lane finally.”

Team Penske’s strength on downforce tracks ought to be a red flag to other competitors. Josh Berry, who drives for Penske affiliate Wood Brothers Racing, won the fifth race of the season at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Berry led 41 laps at Texas before the pronounced bump in Turn 4 got the better of him on Lap 125.

Cindric led 60 laps, second only to Kyle Larson’s 90, before losing track position during the pit stop cycle and getting collected in a four-car crash on Lap 247.

Blaney finished third after starting 24th in a top-five effort that mirrored Logano’s run to the front.

For the third time in four years, Cindric had broken the ice with the first win of the season for Team Penske, claiming the trophy April 27 at Talladega Superspeedway, a Playoff track.

Team Penske has won the last three NASCAR Cup championships, with Logano prevailing in 2022 and 2024 and Blaney claiming the title in 2023.

The pattern for those championships has been consistent—a sluggish early season followed by a late-season charge.

With Team Penske showing consistent strength this early, it’s hard to imagine the organization won’t be fielding contenders for a fourth straight title.

FORT WORTH, Tex.—There’s a glaring hole in Chris Buescher’s resume—one he’s determined to fill.

Buescher grew up in Prosper, Texas, 37 miles north of Dallas. By default, Texas Motor Speedway is his home track on the NASCAR Cup Series circuit.

It’s also a track that has baffled him throughout his career. In 15 starts at the challenging 1.5-mile speedway, Buescher has yet to post a top 10.

In fact, he has finished on the lead lap in only two of the 15 starts—his two most recent—and he has led just two of the 4,735 laps completed.

“Since Texas has been reconfigured, we’ve been a lot better there from a speed standpoint but haven’t really closed the deal to (finish) better,” Buescher said. “We’ve had really good runs that just haven’t ended well.

“All that being said, you want it to be better, being a home track and having so many friends and family come out to that one. It takes a little extra out of you not to be able to seal the deal there.”

To conquer Texas, NASCAR Cup teams must find a workable setup balance between the two ends of the track, which are markedly different. Turns 1 and 2 are flatter (maximum 20 degrees of banking) and consequently slower than Turns 3 and 4, which are banked at 24 degrees.

Conventional wisdom suggests a trade-off is required, but negotiating Turns 1 and 2 with speed is critical to a fast lap. With the Gen 7 car, introduced in 2022, the trade-off isn’t as extreme as it used to be.

“It was a lot at first, but with this car and the ability to shift (from fifth to fourth gear in the first two corners), that took away a lot of the compromise,” Buescher said. “You’re able to drop a gear and keep that momentum up in Turns 1 and 2 a lot better.

“It’s taken away that old Kentucky feel, where you had to set up for one side or the other. The (Turn) 1 and 2 (end) is not the crawling corner that it was with the last generation car.”

Tyler Reddick found a comfort level with Netflix series “Full Speed Season 2”

When Netflix began filming “Full Speed Season 2,” which chronicles the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs, 23XI Racing driver Tyler Reddick found himself in familiar territory.

As a Championship 4 driver in 2023, Reddick was a featured player in Season 1, so when Netflix came calling last year, he knew what to expect.

“I’ve done it both years now, and it’s fun,” said Reddick, who finished sixth in the 2024 final standings. “You get to know the people you’re working with. As long as you are open to and embrace the idea of letting everyone see what happens behind the scenes, if you’re comfortable with that, it’s a lot of fun.”

The five-episode series debuts on Wednesday, May 7, with particular emphasis on the top stars of the sport who qualified for the Playoffs, among them Reddick, three-time champion Joey Logano, Ryan Blaney and Christopher Bell.

Contributors to the series include Dale Earnhardt Jr., broadcaster Marty Smith, former crew chief/current television analyst Steve Letarte, Fox Sports’ Bob Pockrass and broadcaster/pit reporter Kim Coon.

Full Speed Season 2 not only takes a close look at the technical and emotional aspects of competition, but it also highlights the drivers’ home lives and activities away from the race track.

“I think you always (have to draw lines),” Reddick said. “It’s been a while ago now, so I couldn’t even tell you what those things were. You want to share as much as you can, but there are certain things that take place that you could classify as industry secrets, right?

“You’ve got to be careful sometimes, but for the most part, given the environment, it doesn’t happen very often.”

The term “spoiler” was more apt than either Ryan Preece or Joey Logano knew after they both finished in the top five in last Sunday’s Jack Link’s 500 at Talladega Superspeedway.

Subsequently, during post-race inspection, infractions involving that key part of the car spoiled excellent runs and resulted in the disqualification of both their cars.

On Logano’s fifth-place No. 22 Team Penske Ford, a nut was missing from a bolt connecting a brace (specific to superspeedway cars) that holds the rear spoiler firmly in place. The missing nut itself is cause for disqualification, as it violates a rule that mandates all components being in place for the entire race.

After Preece’s No. 60 Roush Fenway Keselowski Ford failed pre-race inspection once, along with more than 29 other cars, his team inserted a third shim (a thin metal part that runs the length of the spoiler and sits between the base and the spoiler blade) to correct the amount of deflection to legal limits (1.5 degrees).

Only two shims are allowed under NASCAR rules, and Preece was disqualified from second place because of the infraction.

“Pretty cut-and-dried, black-and-white,” said NASCAR Cup Series director Brad Moran. “Unfortunate. The 60 had a great race. Same with the 22. But we have to do our job to keep the parity in the field.

“Everybody knows the rules. This is our job to find things like this and clean it up.”

Preece was driving his motor home when he heard the news of the disqualification.

“I was about an hour-and-a-half, two hours in when I got the call that we got disqualified, and the next four hours were pretty miserable,” Preece said before Saturday’s Cup practice at Texas Motor Speedway.

“It was just an oversight, to meet their rule and get through tech. But it is a rule.”

FORT WORTH, Tex.— NASCAR Cup Series drivers will face what is arguably the sport’s most challenging 1.5-mile track when they head to Texas Motor Speedway for Sunday’s WÜRTH 400 presented by LIQUI MOLY (3:30 p.m. ET on FS1, PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

Last year’s race at Texas, contested over 400 miles, produced a track-record-tying 16 cautions, equaling a mark established over 500 miles in 2022. In fact, 16 yellows constitute a NASCAR record for cautions in a 400-mile race on a 1.5-mile speedway.

The treachery at Texas lies in the distinctly different ends of the track. Turns 1 and 2 are flatter and slower, while Turns 3 and 4 are higher-banker and faster. Negotiating both sets of corners while maintaining pace can be a daunting task.

“It’s a huge compromise,” said Denny Hamlin, a three-time winner at Texas. “It’s essentially kind of what we felt caused me to wreck in that green-white-checker situation last year when we had the lead.

“We were really good on one end, aggressive on the other, and when I needed to push it, just spun out. Certainly, it’s a really, really tough balance to have.”

Hamlin and Kyle Busch (four victories) are the only multiple winners at the track in the field for Sunday’s race, the first of three straight points events on 1.5-mile intermediate speedways (followed by Kansas Speedway on May 11 and Charlotte Motor Speedway on May 25).

For Austin Cindric, last Sunday’s winner at Talladega Superspeedway, the string of intermediates represents an opportunity to continue the momentum he established at NASCAR’s largest oval track.

“Yeah, I think they’re all opportunities to win races, all opportunities to gain points,” Cindric said. “I think our intermediate races at the beginning of this year were strong, ‘cause I feel like we picked up where we left off in the Playoffs last year, which was a key detail for me.

“So I think the team is pretty energized to go to those races and try and contend and continue to learn.”

Interestingly, in three of the last four years, Cindric has been the first race winner for Team Penske, while his teammates, Joey Logano and Ryan Blaney, have combined to win the last three series championships.

Nine different drivers have won the last nine races at Texas, but Hendrick Motorsports drivers have won three of the last four. Kyle Larson won from the pole in 2021, William Byron claimed victory in the Playoff race of 2023, and Chase Elliott broke a 42-race drought with his win at Texas last year.

“I had lost the lead to Denny (Hamlin) on that (late) run that went green there for a little bit,” Elliott said of last year’s race. “He was certainly outpacing me and was able to get by. Then had a caution, lined up on the front row and had a good restart, good push into Turn 1…

“He was going to end up winning, I think, the drag race down the back, but the caution came out, and we were ahead and ended up getting the spot. So I had control for the next (restart) and ended up getting the lead into (Turn) 3. Had some good fortune there, the way the caution fell.”

Elliott could use some more good luck on Sunday. He hasn’t won since that race, and his winless streak has now reached 37 races.

Last year’s NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Texas Motor Speedway produced the second closest finish in series history, but that likely won’t be repeated with Kyle Larson in the field this year.

Sam Mayer beat Ryan Sieg to the finish line by 0.002 seconds last spring in a drag race to the stripe. Larson, on the other hand, prefers to win by as large a margin as possible, as he did in April at Bristol, where he led 276 laps and won by 2.054 seconds in his second Xfinity start of the season.

Larson, however, won’t be in the No. 17 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet in Saturday’s Andy’s Frozen Custard 300 at Texas Motor Speedway (2 p.m. ET on CW, PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

In fact, he wasn’t scheduled to race at all until JR Motorsports rookie Connor Zilisch withdrew because of a back injury he sustained in a hard crash at Talladega.

As a consequence, Larson will be driving the No. 88 JRM Camaro, competing against teammate and series leader Justin Allgaier.

“Texas has been a strong track for us the last few years,” said Allgaier, who finished third behind Mayer and Sieg last spring. “We were close last year, and I know that we are going to have that same speed when we unload on Friday.

“Everyone on this Jarrett team is ready to go, and we know what we need to do to be just those couple spots better at the end on Saturday.”

In addition to NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series regulars Rajah Caruth and Andrés Pérez de Lara, Spire Motorsports is bring some serious additional firepower to Friday night’s SpeedyCash.com 250 at Texas Motor Speedway (8 p.m. ET on FS1, NRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

Full-time NASCAR Cup Series driver Carson Hocevar will make his first start in the series since 2023, when he picked up the first of his four Truck Series victories at the 1.5-mile Fort Worth track.

“I'm really excited to get behind the wheel of a truck again,” said Hocevar, who also drives for Spire in the Cup Series. “It has been a while since I've run in the series, but I’m really looking forward to it. I won my first truck race there and will be with one of the best teams in the garage and with one of the most experienced crew chiefs (Brian Pattie).”

Hocevar is driving the No. 7 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet on Friday. In the No. 07 is full-time NASCAR Xfinity Series driver Nick Sanchez, who won the pole for the two most recent Truck Series races at Texas and finished third last year before moving up to his current ride with Big Machine Racing in the Xfinity ranks.

To take the checkered flag, however, the Spire contingent will have to contend with TRICON Garage’s Corey Heim, who leads all active drivers with a 5.3 average finishing position at Texas.

A two-time winner this season, Heim also leads the series standings by 22 points over Chandler Smith in second.

Note: Tyler Ankrum comes to Texas riding a streak of six top-10 finishes, including the April 18 win at Rockingham that ended a 130-race drought—the most starts between wins in Truck Series history.

TALLADEGA, Ala. – Austin Cindric’s dramatic victory in Sunday’s Jack Link’s 500 at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway was certainly a huge confidence boost for the 26-year-old NASCAR Cup Series star. Not only did it punch Cindric’s 2025 Playoff ticket but perhaps as importantly the success put his iconic Team Penske organization back in the winner’s column for the first time this season.

Despite Penske’s three drivers, Cindric, Joey Logano and Ryan Blaney, being legitimate contenders in nearly all 10 races this season, the team has been slow to Victory Lane by the perpetually high Penske standard, at least, and by the strong output week-after-week.

All three drivers have stage wins and all three had led triple-digit laps on the season, before Cindric hoisted the Talladega trophy. And the Wood Brothers Racing team, which operates under the Penske technical umbrella won with driver Josh Berry at Las Vegas.

“I think a combination of encouragement to heads beating against the table," Cindric said of the challenging start to the year for the team in general. “You have four-five days to get over yourself and try not to let that bleed into each week. Just being able to watch guys like Ryan [Blaney] and Joey [Logano], these guys are champions, but they go through adversity just like the next guy, no different than in how these races play out.

“I guess misery loves company in some ways. I feel like Ryan’s had his fair share of tough breaks this season and I know there’s a lot of strength in our company and a win like this only helps the whole team be able to push forward in the same direction, no different than the 21 car winning in Vegas this year and now with us. A concentrated effort to get all our cars in the Playoffs is first priority and I think this only helps concentrate that.”

Perhaps most perplexing is that three-time and reigning NASCAR Cup Series champion Joey Logano, is not only winless, but still racing for his first top-five of the year.

After leading laps and looking strong Sunday, what looked like a fifth-place finish at Talladega was negated after failing NASCAR’s routine post-race inspection for a loose bolt. Logano was dropped to 37th in the official finishing order and the team was quick to issue a mea culpa, saying it would not protest the action.

“It was not intentional and happened throughout the course of the race event. Team Penske accepts the disqualification," the statement read.

Logano’s best finish now is eighth at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway on March 30 despite the fact his No. 22 has led laps in six races, including a race best 83 at Atlanta, where he finished 12th and 81 laps at Phoenix, where he finished 13th. The good news is his 284 laps led is fourth most in the series this year and despite the frustrating start, Logano is still ranked 11th in the championship driver standings.

“It’s about time one of us wins these things," Logano said. “You think about the amount of laps led by Team Penske and Ford in general and we just haven’t been able to close, so to see a couple Fords there on the front row duking it out, I wish one of them was me in a selfish way, but it’s also good to see those guys running up there and being able to click one off for Penske.”

Blaney, driver of the No. 12 Team Penske Ford, won pole position at Atlanta and has three top-five finishes, but has absolutely suffered through a tough opening of the season – much of it, like Sunday, not of his doing. At Talladega, he was unavoidably collected in an accident started by Kyle Busch and Brad Keselowski as the field (including Blaney) was headed to pit road.

The 2023 NASCAR Cup champion led a race best 124 laps at Homestead, only to be sidelined with a rare engine failure – the third consecutive race (also Phoenix and Las Vegas) where he did not finish despite promising showings. The good news for Blaney is that despite the disappointing he’s still ranked eighth in the championship driver standings and still an absolute favorite each week.

The promising news for the team is that Texas Motor Speedway, where the series races Sunday in the Wurth 400 presented by LIQUI MOLY (3:30 p.m. ET on FS1, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) has been a solid venue, particularly for Logano and Blaney.

Logano won there in 2014 and has 12 top-five showings there including runner-up in 2016 and 2022. Blaney has top-10 finishes in half of his 16 starts at the 1.5-mile track, including five straight from 2019-22. In 2018 he won the pole and finished runner-up at the 1.5-mile track.