Vegas Surge As NASCAR Enters Fontana

Strat 200 for the Gander Truck Series turned into a rip-roaring sidedraft fight on two separate occasions between Kyle Busch, the prohibitive favorite, and Sheldon Creed.

Winston Cup Las Vegas Pennzoil 400



After a week of controversy centered on Ryan Newman's crash NASCAR got some positive momentum at Las Vegas with a spirited pair of races in Winston Cup and the Gander Truck Series and an unplanned two-day affair for the Xfinity Series.   The big picture takeaways -



1 - Goodyear brought a softer left side tire for the Winston Cup cars and it seemed to be a substantially better for the high downforce-draft duct package.  We'd be surprised if this softer left side tire doesn't become a standard right now for Fontana next week and other tracks like it.


2 - Chevrolet's new car showed eye-opening improvement from the last two seasons.   Not only did Chevrolets lead 101 laps (mostly by Chase Elliott who spun on Lap 222 thus producing a typical underachievement finish for him of 20th) but six Chevrolets from six different teams finished in the top ten - Ricky Stenhouse in JTG-Daugherty's 47, Austin Dillon in the RCR 3, Jimmie Johnson with Hendrick, Bubba Wallace with Petty thanks to a gutsy non-pitstop call by his former JGR crew chief Jerry Baxter, Kyle Larson with Ganassi, and Ty Dillon with Germain Racing.   This is the kind of depth Chevrolet needs to strengthen and should have been pursuing from the beginning; it will be a key angle to watch at Fontana.


3 - Toyota's strength without numbers strategy backfired as no Toyota finished higher than Kyle Busch's 15th, this after three Camrys were busted in prerace tech and started in the back, including Busch.   With just five cars Toyota is grossly outnumbered with in essence just one team.


4 - The story everyone watched was Ross Chastain subbing for Ryan Newman.   Chastain, borriwed from Ganassi Racing, acquitted himself well enough - despite a late spin - that speculation soon began circulating on social media whether when Newman returns a third Roush car will have to be fielded to accommodate Newman while retaining Chastain.   We expect Chastain to run respectably at Fontana.

Steve O'Donnell's opening presser on Ryan Newman's crash



5 - There has been a growing controversy in angry exchanges in NASCAR media involving the Barstool Sports website.  While at least some of the controversy may be legitimate, having followed NASCAR media coverage all these decades what has always been striking is the groupthink mentality that has long existed there and the longstanding need for fresh and differing perspectives to be brought to the press room and to coverage in general, such as media that will challenge the opinions of drivers should the issue in question warrant it.   





So it proceeds as the series enters Fontana.

Going Forward Following Daytona

The Daytona 150s were some of the best racing of Speedweeks and will be among the most competitive events of the season


The Winston Cup season of 2020 is now underway with the Daytona 500 and going forward the Cup tour has something to look back on with Speedweeks.   Some quick takes on the race where dreams can be made but where they also go to die -


Chevrolet's ballyhooed new car ultimately didn't deliver.    The 150s showed promise for the Chevrolet with its redesigned front, and Ryan Preece in Brad Daugherty's 47 led 24 total laps - but almost none of them happened after the race was postponed with twenty laps in to Monday afternoon.  Chase Elliott led 23 laps but he's a driver who can never advance beyond doing less with more, and he didn't deliver when it mattered either in his 150 or the 500; in fact Hendrick Motorsports as a group personifies the continued weakness of the Chevrolet camp as William Byron won his 150 but crashed in the 500, Alex Bowman qualified on the front row and led in his 150 but faded and was mostly MIA in the 500 (finishing 24th), and Jimmie Johnson led three laps and contended for a long time but ended the 500 in 35th. 

Only two Chevrolets finished in the top ten and neither got there because they were all that good or even decent at all - Brendan Gaughn, whose racing career never really recovered from collapsing at the end of the 2003 Truck season, and Kyle Larson, like Elliott a less-with-more underachiever whose commitment to Winston Cup now can be seriously questioned.   The rest of the Chevy fleet didn't even do that well - RCR saw Austin Dillon run decently all week but with only 12th to show for it, Bubba Wallace finished an eye-opening fifth in his 150 but his car never really sucked up in the draft or pushed anyone, RCR's new rookie Tyler Reddick didn't look like an improvement in the 8 over his predecessor, and Stenhouse's JTG-Daugherty teammate Ryan Preece looks like a drafting failure.



Analytics racing doesn't work.    The Busch Clash was an "analytics race," to quote Kurt Busch, and the first segment of the 500 looked like one as well, one that left everyone from drivers to media confused as to the purpose.   The Toyotas forfeited the first segment before finally going for the lead, as Denny Hamlin and Kyle Busch combined to lead 93 laps.   In the end the analytics approach accomplished nothing.



Toyota's strength in lack of numbers isn't succeeding because it's a good strategy.   Toyota deliberately backs only one organization - Joe Gibbs, with its satellite deal with Bob Leavine's team and Christopher Bell.  There were thus five Toyotas in the 500 and only one finished higher than 18th.  The notion that Toyota is succeeding because it limits its backing to one organization is seriously debatable; it seems absurd that Toyota would struggle if it backed two or three organizations, notably when JGR and the Barney Visser team were nose to nose for championships in the 2016-18 period, combining to win 45 races.  If anything there truly is strength in numbers.



Joey Logano is Ernie Irvan.   The Busch Clash began Joey Logano's roller coaster week.   He swerved into Kyle Busch and wiped out a number of cars, and one of them was teammate Brad Keselowski, who was angry enough to lash out afterward.   Logano then won his 150 in a terrific sidedraft fight, then took out a bunch of cars in the final laps of the 500 before getting wrecked himself a few laps later.   It's always what he's been since the infamous January 2009 NASCAR Toyota All-Star Shootout at Irwindale Speedway. 

An interesting side note; since joining Penske Logano and Keselowski have each won 21 races.




So the Winston Cup tour heads to Las Vegas, most of the field hoping something better develops of it.

NASCAR Now Must Address Blocking Following Newman Disaster

So the 2020 Daytona 500 will not be remembered for terrific racing.  It will be remembered for Ryan Newman's bad crash.   That Newman as of this late-Monday authorship is stable albeit seriously hurt is a sign he'll pull through, though we seriously doubt he'll ever race again. 

Newman started this entire mess when he swerved to chop off Ryan Blaney and got nailed. 

Steve O'Donnell's statement on Newman's injuries following the 500

On social media there was widespread comparison to Dale Earnhardt's fatal 2001 crash - to which this mess has zero comparison.   The 1995 Jimmy Horton crash where he was T-boned in midair by Ed Dixon is what the Newman crash resembled. 


The epidemic of crashes at the end of the Daytona 500 came a week after melees in the Busch Clash, and both bring to the fore what a problem blocking has become in NASCAR.   The first big melee on the backstretch was a slam draft gone wrong; the irony is the drivers had pretty well policed it following the Clash.   Other wrecks such as the late Turn One mess were caused by blocks; again drivers seemed to have policed it reasonably following the Busch Clash.

It's been an issue for some years now with blocks going wrong, such as Aric Almirola's last lap crash in 2018 and Austin Dillon's disastrous swerve last July in the Firecracker 400 - ironically the first of now-three straight "plate" races that have been delayed or cut into two days by rain.

Correspondent Michael Dickinson makes an interesting analogy to the 2009 Keselowski-Edwards melee, ironically involving Newman, and which also illustrates the issue of blocking.

Contrast this with Grant Enfinger in winning the NextEra 250 on Friday night before the 500.  He held his line and simply raced a challenging Jordan Anderson to the stripe.  The two bounced off each other but none of it was gratuitous, and it made for a terrific finish to what had become a rip-roaring race.  

Another, more historical, contrast is the famous 1974 Firecracker 400 finish where Richard Petty tried to stop David Pearson's pass but left room rather than wreck himself and Pearson.


These wrecks simply shouldn't be happening.   I certainly do not favor adding more officiating to the sport - a sport that like all sports needs to start reducing incidence of officiating.   But NASCAR does need to address the epidemic of blocking, and drivers need to police each other a lot more.   Trying to protect the lead - we get that.   Pushing another car to speed up him and thus yourself - we favor that.  NASCAR needs to discourage the gratuitous blocking that's become a clear problem and drivers need to police it themselves better.   


Terrific racing doesn't need wrecks.   Nose to nose combat first on back is what it needs. UPDATE: Newman was released from the hospital Wednesday afternoon.

NASCAR Doubleheaders Schedule?

With Pocono running a Winston Cup doubleheader in 2020 the concept has no doubt circulated discussion of more tracks perhaps trying the idea.   With that in mind a possible Winston Cup schedule with doubleheader; Xfinity and Truck support races would of course be a major part of the majority of "Classic" doubleheaders -


FEBRUARY

DAYTONA 500
LAS VEGAS


MARCH


PHOENIX
CALIFORNIA 500 CLASSIC, Fontana
MIAMI 500 CLASSIC, Homestead
ATLANTA 500 CLASSIC

APRIL

MUSIC CITY CLASSIC, Nashville
TEXAS MOTOR SPEEDWAY
VIRGINIA 500 CLASSIC, Martinsville



MAY

TALLADEGA
KANSAS
WORLD 600 CLASSIC, Charlotte - two 300 lappers Saturday & Sunday


JUNE
DELAWARE 500 CLASSIC, Dover Downs.
MOSPORT
CHICAGOLAND
POCONO SUMMER CLASSIC
WATKINS GLEN


JULY

BRICKYARD CLASSIC (Truck race added; second Xfinity race added to Indianapolis as second, separate date for the road course, presumably during Indy GP week).
NEW ENGLAND CLASSIC, New Hampshire
GATEWAY
IOWA CLASSIC



AUGUST

SEARS POINT
MOTOR STATE 500 CLASSIC, Michigan
FIRECRACKER 400, Daytona
VOLUNTEER 500 CLASSIC, Bristol



SEPTEMBER

SOUTHERN 500 CLASSIC, Darlington
CAPITAL CITY 500 CLASSIC, Richmond
TEXAS MOTOR SPEEDWAY
TALLADEGA



OCTOBER 

CHARLOTTE ROAD RACE
KANSAS
PHOENIX
LAS VEGAS.

Speedweeks 2020: Busch Bash High/Low-lights First Weekend

Daytona pre-Clash 500 practice


NASCAR begins its 2020 season with Daytona Speedweeks and controversy is already in mid-season form.

The Busch Clash began as "an analytics race," to quote Kurt Busch, as there was some spirited combat but also quite a bit of single file running to pound out laps and potentially stretch fuel.   It turned ugly when Joey Logano threw two blocks on Kyle Busch and it ended in a big wreck.   Yet it wasn't all as a gagged restart led to another crash, then more blockheaded Ernie Irvan-esque swerves among Chase Elliott and Kyle Larson left only six cars to finish - yet they still put on a rip-roaring finish as the battered Toyota of Erik Jones drafted to the win with huge slam-draft help from teammate Denny Hamlin. 

The incidence of wrecks naturally left everyone outside of the race winner livid.   But drivers know who's at fault - themselves.   Drivers know holding their line better is a preferable option.  NASCAR shouldn't want to enforce a no-blocking rule but it may come to that. 

Others try to portray it as "what superspeedway racing has become." This though is an exercise in denial of responsibility.  Claiming "the current package just has the packs too tightly wound together with a (draft) that is just too prominent" is excusing the drivers.  The draft is supposed to be this strong, and the current wicker package has made the racing far better than it had been for a number of years.   If anything the wicker needs to be added to more tracks - all of them truthfully.   The intermediates and lower banked tracks like Pocono, Michigan, Indianapolis, etc. are supposed to be drafting tracks, certainly not to the same "extreme" as Daytona..........

.........but more like with the Modifieds at New Hampshire (here illustrated by the 2018 Eastern Propane 100),  Indeed the history of Atlanta, Charlotte, Pocono, Michigan, and the old Ontario Motor Speedway were long drafting histories.

As for the short tracks, there's no drafting effect to be had but the short tracks also have aero impediment issues and the wicker by all accounts has killed the "beachball" aero impediment effect that has plagued the racing.  I can't help but think having the wicker can help change aero impediment for the better at those places as well.

Matt Weaver's suggestion to run the Busch Clash at New Smyrna is his usual flippant annoyance, especially as short tracks are as prone to bad crashes as superspeedways and aren't that conducive to passing as shown in a pretty anticlimatic finish to the Skips 175, the first race of the revamped Eastern tour of NASCAR integrated into the ARCA division.


So Speedweeks 2020 is underway and we await more competitive excitement.