NASCAR news

[Spike]

2022 silly season's starting early...rumors floating around Nascar garages is 23xi will expand to 2nd team in 2022 and a Chevy team will make the switch to Toyota for 2022. Will keep you updated on these rumors.

[Spike]

William Byron won the Dixie Vodka 400 at Homestead miami yesterday leading over 100 laps and winning the 2nd stage blowing past the battling Gibbs teammates on a late stage restart. Early on it looked like the race would be dominated by the Penske teammates. Then Chris Buescher came out of nowhere showing some speed from the Roush stable that hasn't been seen in a decade winning stage 1. Unfortunately the 17 car was not setup for the later part of the race when it transitioned into night and fell back to the teens. His teammate Ryan Newman faired better when the track transitioned eventually finishing 7th. Michael McDowell also had a good race in the final stage finishing 6th now if the FRR pit crew can get better at pitstops he could be a contender for the playoffs well beyond the round of 16. Tyler Reddick was the fastest car late in the race, with 10 to go he made up 8.3 seconds of a 11 second deficit to the leader William Byron. If he would have been able to pass Kyle Larson and Martin Tried jr faster he would have caught Byron on the final lap as he was gaining about 1 second a lap.

Here's the top 10.

1 William Byron

2 Tyler Reddick

3 Martin Truex jr

4 Kyle Larson

5 Kevin Harvick

6 Michael McDowell

7 Ryan Newman

8 Kurt Busch

9 Alex Bowman

10 Kyle Busch

[Hobie Hartkins]

Well, I'll keep you guys up on when the Moonshine 400  is going to be but some of the guys in that list are NOT in the running!    ( I think Harvick might have the pole position though.....)

[RogerDuke]

Always my second favorite race of the year....after the Buttermilk 400 where you chug a quart of buttermilk and try to sprint 400 feet with it still in your stomach.

[Hobie Hartkins]

16 hours ago, RogerDuke said:

Always my second favorite race of the year....after the Buttermilk 400 where you chug a quart of buttermilk and try to sprint 400 feet with it still in your stomach.

The name of the game is called,  " Keepin' It Down!!" 

 

[RogerDuke]

5 minutes ago, Hobie Hartkins said:

The name of the game is called,  " Keepin' It Down!!" 

 

if nobody makes it 400 feet, the winner is whoever makes it the farthest. 

[Hobie Hartkins]

You know....that  COULD get nasty! That might  be the only episode with parental advisory!    

[Spike]

Kyle Larson won the Pennzoil 400 at Las Vegas yesterday in only his 4th start in the Hendrick Motorsports #5 Chevy. Him and Brad Keselowski had the dominant cars of the race though Larson's was just a wee bit better. Hendricks, Penske and Gibbs teams took all but the 10th spot which Erik Jones nabbed in the #43 RPM Chevy. Hendrick motorsports is now just 3 wins away from tying most team wins which is still held by Petty Enterprises.

Appears there might be a rivalry building in the Gibbs stable between Denny Hamlin and Martin Truex jr. The past few races they've been racing and blocking each other like they're not on the same team. I expect Martin will eventually get tired of Denny's antics and bump and run him out of the way.

Top 10

1 Kyle Larson

2 Brad Keselowski

3 Kyle Busch

4 Denny Hamlin

5 Ryan Blaney

6 Martin Truex jr

7 Christopher Bell

8 William Byron

9 Joey Logano

10 Erik Jones

 

[Spike]

Nascar is going to take a close look at Kyle Busch's spin that caused a caution in the Las Vegas truck race https://nascar.nbcsports.com/2021/03/09/kyle-busch-bubba-wallace-kyle-larson-dale-jr-nascar-to-examine-issue-of-intentional-spin-after-truck-incident/

Nashville Fairgrounds neighbors voice their opinion about the track reopening https://fox17-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/fox17.com/amp/news/local/neighbors-voice-concerns-about-nascars-possible-return-to-nashville-racing-fairgrounds-speedway-bms-metro?amp_js_v=a6&amp_gsa=1&usqp=mq331AQFKAGwASA%3D#aoh=16154033053831&csi=0&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&amp_tf=From %1%24s&ampshare=https%3A%2F%2Ffox17.com%2Fnews%2Flocal%2Fneighbors-voice-concerns-about-nascars-possible-return-to-nashville-racing-fairgrounds-speedway-bms-metro. They're not happy about it or Nascar coming back. We'll have to wait and see if the NIMBY's get their wish. 

Carl Edwards name was dropped into the hat of possible candidates for Roy Blunts Senate seat in a tweet by Jason Hancock

[HossC]

I'm hijacking this thread briefly with the sad news that legendary F1 commentator Murray Walker has died at the age of 97. For many, not just in the UK, he was the voice of F1 with a career spanning well over 50 years. Not bad considering that his first career was in advertising. Even in more recent years he'd still make appearances at the British Grand Prix.

Here's a short tribute from BBC News:

And here's a clip from when he was on Letterman circa 2002 (the Letterman part starts at about 38 seconds in):

 

[RogerDuke]

Sorry to hear that Hoss. It sounds like you were a fan of his. He must have been good  if he did it for over half a century. 

[HossC]

18 hours ago, RogerDuke said:

Sorry to hear that Hoss. It sounds like you were a fan of his. He must have been good  if he did it for over half a century. 

He was so much a part of the sport when I started watching it. I read his autobiography about 20 years ago, and I bought it in hardback. The BBC are putting on a tribute show on Tuesday night, so I'll being staying up to watch that. In the meantime, there's a shorter tribute on the F1 site - I hope you take the time to watch it:

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article.watch-the-voice-of-f1-a-tribute-to-murray-walker.3T4SIVeX26z0vrreUS2X6w.html

[Spike]

Gonna miss hearing that voice. He definitely added some excitement to races.

Martin Truex jr won the Instacart 500 in Phoenix Sunday. The Penske racing trio started off strong even finishing 1,2,3 in the first stage but Joey Logano was the only Penske car that kept up with the track changes except at the end. Three Hendrick motorsports cars had to start from the back due inspection issues but they finished strong within the top 10. 

Top 10

1 Martin Truex jr

2 Joey Logano

3 Denny Hamlin

4 Brad Keselowski

5 Chase Elliot

6 Kevin Harvick

7 Kyle Larson

8 William Byron

9 Christopher Bell

10 Ryan Blaney

Seems tv ratings have hit a plateau, staying around 4.3 million viewers every Sunday for the cup races. That's the good news, bad news is if this keeps up it will be the least watched season since the early 2000's

[RogerDuke]

Thanks for the update Spike. Some folks are saying the numbers have dropped after NASCAR banned the flag but I don't know if that's true or not.

[Spike]

19 hours ago, RogerDuke said:

Thanks for the update Spike. Some folks are saying the numbers have dropped after NASCAR banned the flag but I don't know if that's true or not.

I think it's due to all the changes they made the past decade to try and make it more 'entertaining'. The COT car sure as heck didn't help either.

I found it funny Sunday that they kept putting the #23 on camera no matter where he was in the field. I know McDonald's is one if their partners but dang they missed some good racing keeping a camera on that car.

[RogerDuke]

Where's the race this weekend? 

[Spike]

5 hours ago, RogerDuke said:

Where's the race this weekend? 

Atlanta. Saturdays Truck and Xfinity races are on FS1, Sunday's Cup race is on Fox.

[Spike]

Was an exciting weekend in Atlanta. Fists were flying after the Xfinity race Saturday between Daniel Hemric and Noah Gragson. Nascar wisely is not going to penalize either driver.

Kyle Larson dominated Sunday's cup race winning both Stages 1 & 2 having about a 10 second lead over 2nd place. However the #5 team couldn't keep up with the changes to the track and Kyle couldn't drive away from the field like he did in the stages. Ryan Blaney eventually caught up to him when his teammate Joey Logano kept Kyle from lapping him. Ryan easily passed Kyle Larson and then Joey moved aside and let Ryan and Kyle pass.

Top 10

1. Ryan Blaney

2. Kyle Larson

3. Alex Bowman

4. Denny Hamlin

5. Kyle Busch

6. Austin Dillon

7. Chris Buescher

8. William Byron

9. Martin Truex jr

10. Kevin Harvick

Interesting tidbit this is the first time there have been 6 different winners at the first 6 races of the season since 2014.

Edited March 22, 2021 by Spike

[RogerDuke]

wow 6 different winners in 6 races!  Thanks for the update Spike. Garrett hasn't logged in for awhile. 

[Spike]

Barring any weather delays the Bristol dirt racing starts @4:30pm eastern today with the Truck series on FS1. The Cup race will be on Fox at 3:30pm eastern tomorrow.

[Spike]

All of Saturdays qualifying races have been cancelled and the truck race has been postponed till Sunday night at 9pm eastern. Cup starting positions will be set but practice times.

[Spike]

Races have been postponed till Monday at 4pm on Fox.

[Spike]

It sure is interesting to see the cup cars on dirt. 

[RogerDuke]

I love dirt tracks. I go to our local one a lot on Friday nights. We also have a local dirt bike track that is open some Saturdays.

[Spike]

Well that certainly was an interesting race. Though I think they should have just held it at an actual dirt track. There's plenty of 1/2 mile dirt tracks in the USA and I'm sure there's a few that could handle a Cup race. Doesn't really matter though since the Bristol 'dirt' race has already been announced for next season. 

Everyone expected the dirt ringers to be the cream of the crop and dominate the race but that didn't happen. Way out of left field Martin Truex jr, Joey Logano and Daniel Suarez led most of the laps. Joey Logano went on to win it leading the final 61 laps. This is the first time since 2014 that there have been 7 different winners in 7 races.

Top 10

1. Joey Logano

2. Ricky Stenhouse jr

3. Denny Hamlin

4. Daniel Suarez

5. Ryan Newman

6. William Byron

7. Tyler Reddick

8. Ryan Blaney

9. Erik Jones

10. Chase Elliott