The South Carolina racing community came together this weekend to celebrate the life of stock-car racing pioneer Raymond Arnold Jr., a figure whose behind-the-scenes work aided the cause of NASCAR Hall of Famer Wendell Scott.
Arnold, who served as a longtime member of Scott’s pit crew, died July 7 at the age of 85. His mechanical know-how, passion for racing and friendship endeared him to Scott, who became the NASCAR Cup Series’ first Black winner in 1963.
Arnold was in attendance when Scott was enshrined in the NASCAR Hall of Fame in 2015, and he was acknowledged by Scott’s sons, Franklin and Wendell Jr., as part of the induction speech. Scott’s children were part of the No. 34 team, but Arnold was also considered family.
“We got along good. I was an only child, never had a brother,” Arnold told NASCAR Productions in 2010. “And if I could’ve picked a brother, I probably would’ve picked him for big brother. … The more I was around him, the better I liked him.”
A STEM and Education Studies scholarship honoring Arnold is also available through the Spartanburg County Foundation. Visit RayArnoldLegacy.com for details.
The weekend-long memorial celebration — which was held with COVID-19 precautions in place — included visitation Thursday in Spartanburg, South Carolina, with graveside services the following day at Upper Shady Grove Baptist Church in nearby Wellford. Plans also included two racing-related tributes at Palmetto State tracks that were regular stops for Scott’s team — a Friday night meeting at the Piedmont Interstate Fairgrounds in Spartanburg and a Saturday afternoon victory lap at Greenville-Pickens Speedway.
The Spartanburg track holds a special place for the Arnold and Scott families. Ray Arnold was attending a race there with some friends, and when he met the driver, Scott was troubleshooting a problematic carburetor on his 1961 Chevrolet. Arnold said that just weeks earlier, he had bought a trimmed-out 1962 Impala with performance parts. After some wrenching and the addition of an adapter plate, Arnold’s new carburetor rode with Scott’s No. 34 to the finish, and a friendship was born.
“From then on, we just kept growing closer and closer,” Arnold said in 2010. “Every time he came in the area, I’d find out where he was going to be, and me and some of my buddies would just go to the race track.”
Arnold continued with Scott until his racing career ended in 1973, balancing his time helping the race team with his job as a teacher of automotive mechanics and driver education at Eastside High School in Greenville County. Fellow crew members nicknamed Arnold “Rags” because he was often seen with a shop rag hanging from his pockets.
Arnold said he was a witness to the challenges Scott and his team faced as a Black man competing in the Deep South during the height of the Civil Rights Movement. He also saw the struggles Scott had in his search for speed as a determined independent.
“The words ‘never’ and ‘can’t’ are two words he never used,” Arnold told the Spartanburg Herald-Journal in 2016. “He wouldn’t give up.”
Arnold is survived by three children, Dr. Sonya Arnold, Dr. Antonia “Toni” Arnold-McFarland and Raymond “Trey” Arnold III.
Austin Cindric collected his third consecutive NASCAR Xfinity Series win Saturday afternoon at Texas Motor Speedway after Kyle Busch’s No. 54 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota failed post-race inspection – the left rear on his car ruled too low.
The Team Penske driver Cindric, who swept a doubleheader weekend at Kentucky Speedway last week, originally finished less than a second behind Busch, but the finishing order was corrected to show Cindric the winner and Xfinity Series championship leader Chase Briscoe the race runner-up.
Justin Allgaier, who led a race-best 98 of the 201 laps, rallied back through the field for a third-place finish after being penalized for a pit-road exit violation with 30 laps remaining. The blend line penalty forced him to rally from two laps down making his third-place effort that much more impressive.
Sunoco Rookie of the Year candidate Harrison Burton, a two-time winner in 2020, finished fourth and Michael Annett was fifth. Jeb Burton, Brandon Jones, Kaulig Racing teammates Justin Haley and Ross Chastain and Brandon Brown rounded out the top 10. It marks the ninth consecutive top-10 finish for Chastain and is Brown’s fourth top 10 of the season.
Cindric was dressed in a Texas winner’s tradition white cowboy hat when he showed up for a second media video-conference availability Saturday after being officially declared the race winner. He conceded the Busch disqualification wasn’t how he liked to win races but victories are hard to come by at this level.
“Obviously great to get the Money Lion Ford Mustang in Victory Lane no matter how it happens,” Cindric said. “Great points day.”
Cindric – only the ninth driver in NASCAR Xfinity Series history to win three straight races – said he was tipped off to the possibility of a change in finishing order after walking out of his team transporter and seeing Busch’s car and team still undergoing inspection in the garage.
“You want to win it on track and I feel like we had a shot to do that today and maybe didn’t execute as well as we should have and that’s what kept us out, but fast race cars and being in position, that’s what counts,” Cindric said.
And, the ace road course racer laughed acknowledging that he now has more NASCAR Xfinity Series oval wins (three) than road course triumphs (two).
“I’ll take it,” he said. “It’s great to be able to capitalize on fast race cars. I said that last week and I’ll say that again. I didn’t think this weekend we were quite as good as what we had in Kentucky but overall being able to run up front all day and get great stage points was great and we’ve just got to keep building on that.”
Allgaier, the driver of the No. 7 JR Motorsports Chevrolet swept the opening two stages – the sixth time he’s done that in his career. But he’s only turned that early race dominance into a victory one previous time. And it was not to be on Saturday afternoon because of the late-race penalty. It’s the second time this season he has led the most laps but not earned the trophy. He led 156 laps at Bristol, Tenn., in June but finished 18th.
Noah Gragson, a two-time winner this year, finished 30th after his No. 9 JR Motorsports Chevrolet was involved in a pair of incidents. His Lap 5 contact with Riley Herbst brought out the day’s first caution flag, then Gragson exited 75 laps short of the finish after a close call with Cindric and a crunching of the Turn 2 retaining wall.
The series races next in the Kansas Lottery 250 at Kansas Speedway next Saturday (5 p.m. ET on NBCSN, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Contributing: Staff reports
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The South Carolina racing community came together this weekend to celebrate the life of stock-car racing pioneer Raymond Arnold Jr., a figure whose behind-the-scenes work aided the cause of NASCAR Hall of Famer Wendell Scott.
Arnold, who served as a longtime member of Scott’s pit crew, died July 7 at the age of 85. His mechanical know-how, passion for racing and friendship endeared him to Scott, who became the NASCAR Cup Series’ first Black winner in 1963.
Arnold was in attendance when Scott was enshrined in the NASCAR Hall of Fame in 2015, and he was acknowledged by Scott’s sons, Franklin and Wendell Jr., as part of the induction speech. Scott’s children were part of the No. 34 team, but Arnold was also considered family.
“We got along good. I was an only child, never had a brother,” Arnold told NASCAR Productions in 2010. “And if I could’ve picked a brother, I probably would’ve picked him for big brother. … The more I was around him, the better I liked him.”
A STEM and Education Studies scholarship honoring Arnold is also available through the Spartanburg County Foundation. Visit RayArnoldLegacy.com for details.
The weekend-long memorial celebration — which was held with COVID-19 precautions in place — included visitation Thursday in Spartanburg, South Carolina, with graveside services the following day at Upper Shady Grove Baptist Church in nearby Wellford. Plans also included two racing-related tributes at Palmetto State tracks that were regular stops for Scott’s team — a Friday night meeting at the Piedmont Interstate Fairgrounds in Spartanburg and a Saturday afternoon victory lap at Greenville-Pickens Speedway.
The Spartanburg track holds a special place for the Arnold and Scott families. Ray Arnold was attending a race there with some friends, and when he met the driver, Scott was troubleshooting a problematic carburetor on his 1961 Chevrolet. Arnold said that just weeks earlier, he had bought a trimmed-out 1962 Impala with performance parts. After some wrenching and the addition of an adapter plate, Arnold’s new carburetor rode with Scott’s No. 34 to the finish, and a friendship was born.
“From then on, we just kept growing closer and closer,” Arnold said in 2010. “Every time he came in the area, I’d find out where he was going to be, and me and some of my buddies would just go to the race track.”
Arnold continued with Scott until his racing career ended in 1973, balancing his time helping the race team with his job as a teacher of automotive mechanics and driver education at Eastside High School in Greenville County. Fellow crew members nicknamed Arnold “Rags” because he was often seen with a shop rag hanging from his pockets.
Arnold said he was a witness to the challenges Scott and his team faced as a Black man competing in the Deep South during the height of the Civil Rights Movement. He also saw the struggles Scott had in his search for speed as a determined independent.
“The words ‘never’ and ‘can’t’ are two words he never used,” Arnold told the Spartanburg Herald-Journal in 2016. “He wouldn’t give up.”
Arnold is survived by three children, Dr. Sonya Arnold, Dr. Antonia “Toni” Arnold-McFarland and Raymond “Trey” Arnold III.
The NASCAR Cup Series heads west for its first trip to Texas Motor Speedway in 2020. The O’Reilly Auto Parts 500 was originally March 29, but the race was postponed amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, the action is set to be made up Sunday at 3 p.m. ET (NBCSN, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) and mark the premier series’ 14th event since it returned to racing.
Texas will actually host all three of NASCAR’s national series this weekend — with the Xfinity Series (3 p.m. ET on NBCSN) and Gander RV & Outdoors Truck Series (8 p.m. ET on FS1) taking over Saturday and the Cup Series being the main feature Sunday.
Here’s a primer with helpful information for the 18th of a scheduled 36 Cup Series races this year.
Texas Motor Speedway is a 1.5-mile oval with a minimum width of 58 feet. The banking is 20 degrees in Turns 1 and 2 and then 24 degrees in Turns 3 and 4, with five degrees of banking in the straightaways. The frontstretch is 2,250 feet long, while the backstretch stretches 1,330 feet. The asphalt surface was repaved and the track was reconfigured before the spring race in 2017.
Jeff Burton won the first Cup Series race in Fort Worth, Texas, on April 6, 1997 — the Interstate Batteries 500. Burton led 60 of the 334 laps and beat Dale Jarrett to the finish line by 4.067 seconds. Terry Labonte led a race-high 104 laps but finished fourth.
Sunday’s 334-lap race will be the 39th race for NASCAR’s top division at the Texas track.
STAGE LENGTHS
Stage 1 is set to end at Lap 105, Stage 2 at Lap 210, and the final stage is slated to conclude on Lap 334.
STARTING LINEUP
The NASCAR Cup Series race will be held without practice and qualifying as the sanctioning body tries to limit exposure for on-site personnel to control the spread of coronavirus. Sunday’s starting lineup was determined by a random draw among groups in the team owner standings:
Positions 1-12: Random draw from charter teams in those positions in owner points
Positions 13-24: Random draw from charter teams in those positions in owner points
Positions 25-36: Random draw from charter teams in those positions in owner points
Positions 37-40: Open teams in order of owners points
Pit-stall selection is based on the finishing order from last Sunday’s event at Kentucky Speedway.
The 2020 NASCAR rules package for intermediate-sized tracks will be in effect with a tapered spacer used to achieve a target of 550 horsepower. The cars will use aero ducts in addition to other aerodynamic devices to increase downforce.
GOODYEAR TIRES
Teams in all three NASCAR national series will run the same tire setup. This will be the first time teams run these Goodyear tire codes at Texas Motor Speedway, though they ran them at Kentucky Speedway last weekend and Las Vegas Motor Speedway in February. For Cup Series and Xfinity Series, the setup features a compound change to add more grip on the left side and a construction update on the right side. For the Gander Truck Series, the setup will have construction updates on both sides but the compound change for more grip on the left side.
“Repaved tracks create their own set of challenges for us and the teams of NASCAR,” said Greg Stucker, Goodyear’s director of racing. “At places like Texas, high tire wear is not the issue. In fact, it’s the opposite. After being repaved just a few seasons ago, Texas’ track surface is still very smooth, so we have to design our tread compounds to wear. Tire wear is a good thing and is especially important on a smooth surface. When a tire wears, that means the tread is shredding rubber and allowing some of the heat generated to be dissipated from the tire. That makes the tire run cooler with better grip and performance.”
The Cup Series will be allowed nine sets for the race. The Xfinity Series will have five sets. And the Gander Truck Series will have four sets.
STATS TO KNOW
— Kevin Harvick has won three of the last six races (fall 2017, fall 2018 and fall 2019) at Texas Motor Speedway since the track was repaved and reconfigured in 2017, including two of the last three. Otherwise, three different drivers made a trip to Victory Lane: Jimmie Johnson (spring 2017), Kyle Busch (spring 2018) and Denny Hamlin (spring 2019).
— Sixteen of the last 18 races at Texas Motor Speedway were won from a top-10 starting position. Three of the victories came from the polesitter (Jimmie Johnson, fall 2012; Kyle Busch, spring 2013; Kevin Harvick, fall 2019).
— The driver who led the most laps won three of the last nine races at Texas Motor Speedway. Also, the race winner led more than 115 laps in three of the last four Texas races.
— The final green-flag stretch was 30 laps or longer in four of the last six races at Texas Motor Speedway. Both of the 2019 events had a final green-flag run of 74 laps or longer.
— Team Penske has won three times at Texas Motor Speedway, but the last was the spring race of 2014 by Joey Logano. All three of the team’s drivers have won at least one race this season. Logano and Brad Keselowski each have two wins, while Ryan Blaney has one.
— Erik Jones, who has yet to win a race in 2020, boasts the best average finish (9.43 in seven starts) at Texas Motor Speedway among all active drivers.
Source: NASCAR statistics, Racing Insights
LIVE COVERAGE
Tune in to television coverage Sunday on NBCSN (3 p.m. ET) or on the NBC Sports App. For full radio coverage from Texas Motor Speedway, listen in to PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio on-air.
For a more interactive experience, head over to NASCAR.com or the NASCAR app to check out an enhanced Race Center, live Lap-by-Lap coverage, the customizable live leaderboard with Scanner and the return of Drive (featuring in-car cameras).
Denny Hamlin won the first of two Cup Series races at Texas Motor Speedway in 2019. His No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota led 45 of the 334 laps and beat Clint Bowyer’s No. 14 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford to the finish line by 2.743 seconds. Kyle Busch was out front for a race-high 66 laps but ultimately finished 10th in Joe Gibbs Racing’s No. 18 Toyota.
There’s a plethora of routes that can be taken to begin a career in NASCAR, but one that continually stands out is nestled right in the sport’s backyard.
NASCAR Technical Institute, located in Mooresville, North Carolina, is a branch of Universal Technical Institute, headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona, with 12 campus locations in cities across the country. While many students elect to attend NASCAR Tech right out of the gate, students also have the option to transfer from other campuses if they decide a path in NASCAR is one they want to pursue.
While the lengths of classes vary, students can complete most programs at UTI in one year or less. New classes start every three to six weeks, meaning incoming students aren’t forced to wait a full semester before they are able to enroll into the next round of courses, compared to traditional four-year and two-year schools. With accelerated courses and revolving enrollment, UTI also allows students to finish school and go right to work, speeding up the process of obtaining a job shortly after graduation by partnering closely with industry and employers and placing four out of five graduates in their particular field of study.
John Dodson changes tires on the No. 27 Pontiac of Rusty Wallace.
John Dodson, brother of the late crew chief Barry Dodson who helped lead Rusty Wallace to his lone NASCAR Cup Series championship in 1989, serves as the Vice President of Business Alliances & NASCAR at NASCAR Technical Institute. While brother Barry led on the pit box, John was a tire changer and a fabricator on the title-winning team.
John Dodson used his 25 years of NASCAR competition experience from 1977-2002 to transition to helping younger generations learn how to be successful in the industry. He has been with NASCAR Tech since the school’s inception in 2002.
Admittedly, Dodson said he has received more joy from assisting students achieve their dream careers than when he was living the NASCAR dream for himself.
“I never thought I would be in the education and workforce development business, but I love it,” Dodson told NASCAR.com. “… Racing and education are two different worlds in a way, but it’s great to see students train for exciting and fulfilling careers.”
When it comes to teaching students how to succeed in the challenging industry, Dodson reflected on his younger years when he earned his first job in the sport, noting it took six years before anyone on the team even asked for his opinion.
The first person to do so just happened to be championship-winning team owner Rick Hendrick while working with Dodson’s brother at a spoiler test. It was at that moment when Dodson had an epiphany, one he carries with him to this day and passes along to his students.
“I realized that life happens in stages for these students and graduates,” Dodson said. “You’re grinding and learning in your 20s, you’re getting to provide more input in your 30s and in the 40s you’re becoming the boss.
“I have really tough conversations with these young people when they graduate,” Dodson added. “… It’s kind of jokingly, but it really means a lot to go in with your ears open and your mouth shut. I give that speech to all of them. … You’re going to have to show them what you can do, don’t talk your way into anything. Work hard, grind and the sky is the limit in this industry.”
Dodson noted that 2019 served as a banner year for the institute’s spec engine program as NASCAR Tech student-built power units won three of the 12 races on the K&N Pro Series East schedule, as well as six pole awards with two different drivers. Drivers who were victorious with NASCAR Tech engines included a pair of wins with Chase Cabre at Memphis International Raceway and New Hampshire Motor Speedway and then Max McLaughlin at Watkins Glen International.
At Bowman Gray Stadium in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, in the NASCAR Modified Division, student-built engines recorded seven feature wins, plus the track championship with driver Burt Myers.
Along with the engine-building courses, NASCAR Tech also offers a variety of other courses based on student interest, including chassis applications, pit crew, finish fabrication, chassis fabrication, advanced fabrication and aerodynamics and CNC machining.
“Every week in every series, we have NASCAR Tech graduates on every team,” Dodson said. “We go to Victory Lane every single time NASCAR drops the checkered flag with our graduates. That is exciting.”
The roof of the No. 2 Team Penske Ford of Brad Keselowski for Texas. Credit: Team Penske
On Sunday at Texas Motor Speedway, NASCAR Cup Series driver Brad Keselowski will honor a total of 225 graduates who have completed their education at one of UTI’s campuses nationwide since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. The graduates’ names will be featured on the roof of the No. 2 Team Penske Ford Mustang in the O’Reilly Auto Parts 500 (3 p.m. ET on NBCSN, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Team Penske currently has graduates working on pit crews for Keselowski, Joey Logano and Ryan Blaney at NASCAR’s highest level.
“Universal Technical Institute graduates have the skills to deliver for our organization, which is why we rely on UTI to help us identify new talent,” team owner Roger Penske said. “UTI has not only helped us win on the race track, its graduates work throughout our organization. This special paint scheme is a great way to recognize the recent graduates of UTI and celebrate our partnership. We look forward to honoring the UTI graduates on the No. 2 car in Texas next weekend.”
Additionally, Team Penske’s NASCAR entries have been powered by the mighty FR9 Roush Yates Ford engines since 2013, and Roush Yates Engines have hired more than 115 UTI graduates since NASCAR Tech opened its doors.
Not only are graduates earning jobs in the NASCAR realm, but Keselowski is also tapping into the UTI talent pool for his own company, Keselowski Advanced Manufacturing, located in Statesville, North Carolina.
To give you an idea of the confidence Keselowski has in UTI’s NASCAR program, Dodson noted Keselowski most recently called him in February while down at Daytona International Speedway preparing for the Daytona 500 to inquire about potential graduates to fill a position. After offering a recommendation, Keselowski approached Dodson at the drivers’ meeting before the Daytona 500 to tell him the company hired the recommended graduate on the spot and praised the graduate’s work.
“(Keselowski) knows that he could not have his facility here in North Carolina without the right workforce,” Dodson said. “It’s really cool when you get a call from Brad Keselowski saying I’m depending on you guys, we need the right kind of guys up here. He wants the all-star graduates, he gets them and he pays them well. Their future’s bright. I think that’s quite a testament when a NASCAR champion is contacting you for their own trained talent.
“It’s also really important that when we send our employer partners these graduates, they’re getting thoroughbreds,” Dodson added. “They’re getting what we say we’re going to deliver, because without that, then the phone quits ringing. … It’s important to us that these great kids keep coming here so we can continue to feed the industry well-trained winning talent.”
If ever there was a venue where some of the NASCAR Gander RV & Outdoors Truck Series veterans feel prepared to make a run up the championship standings, Texas Motor Speedway is likely the place.
Former series champion Johnny Sauter boasts the most wins (five) among active drivers at Texas. Twice he has won back to back – sweeping the 2012 season and winning three out of four races between 2016-18.
Sauter’s ThorSport Racing teammate and reigning series champion, Matt Crafton, has a pair of victories (2014 and 2015) and is currently riding an unequaled streak of 17 consecutive top-10 finishes, including four runner-up finishes in addition to a pair of wins.
Last season’s winner, Kyle Busch, is entered this weekend and will look to defend his win in Saturday’s Vankor 350 (8 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Busch has made nine starts at Texas in the Gander Trucks, posting four wins, nine top fives and an average finish of 10.2.
Series standings leader Austin Hill takes a strong 46-point advantage over last week’s Kentucky Speedway race winner, Sheldon Creed, into the Texas race. Hill has held the top spot in the series driver standings – leading the points for the last six weeks – but the driver of the No. 16 Hattori Racing Enterprises Toyota is still looking for his first victory of the year. He has finished runner-up twice (at Atlanta Motor Speedway and Pocono Raceway) and was fifth in last week’s rain-shortened Kentucky race. He has a pair of top 10s in seven Texas starts with a best-ever showing of fifth place in 2018.
“We’ve been right there every week and have put ourselves in a good position in the point standings,” Hill said. “Everybody on our United Rentals team has put a ton of effort into our trucks. The guys put together a brand-new piece for this week, so I can’t wait to get in and see what we have.
“I feel like we should have won the summer race at Texas last year and we were really fast in the spring race but had an overheating issue, so I’m looking forward to going back this weekend. It’s definitely a place that we’ve had good speed and the mile-and-a-halfs have been one of our strong suits this year.”
Ben Rhodes, who is third in the Gander Trucks driver standings and 57 points behind Hill, is also looking for his first 2020 victory. The 23-year-old has five top-10 finishes in the seven races. His best finish at Texas is runner-up in 2018, but he has only three top-10 showings in the last eight starts there.
The 19-year old Californian Tyler Ankrum, who is ranked 10th in the championship, is a perfect 2-for-2 when it comes to top-10 finishes at Texas. And another 2019 Championship 4 driver, Stewart Friesen, would love to see Texas revitalize his season. He has two past runner-up finishes in Fort Worth, Texas, (2018 and 2019) and currently is ranked 14th in the championship. His best 2020 finish is eighth place at Pocono two races ago.
Certainly, based on recent history, Sunday’s O’Reilly Auto Parts 500 at Texas Motor Speedway (3 p.m. ET on NBCSN, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) looks to feature the best of the 2020 top NASCAR Cup Series championship contenders.
Series standings leader Kevin Harvick won the fall NASCAR Playoffs race at Texas last season and has three wins in the last five races on the 1.5-mile track. Denny Hamlin, one of Harvick’s chief 2020 rivals, is the defending winner of this weekend’s race and also has three career victories at Texas – including a 2010 season sweep.
Five drivers entered this weekend have multiple Texas wins, including the track’s best, Jimmie Johnson, who has seven wins – more than double that of any other active driver – and last won there in spring of 2017. Kyle Busch, another three-race Texas winner, last won in the spring of 2018 and shows up in Fort Worth, Texas, after an impressive runner-up finish in Wednesday night’s All-Star Race at Bristol Motor Speedway.
Statistically speaking, Matt Kenseth (who won at Texas in 2002 and 2011) boasts the best driver rating (103.8). Johnson (102.6), Busch (102.1) and Harvick (97.2) are right behind.
While certainly the Texas weekend could fall in line with the opening 17 races and be a tight battle with Harvick, fellow four-race winner Hamlin and Team Penske drivers Brad Keselowski and Ryan Blaney, there is reason to believe a first-time season winner is also a reasonable expectation.
Kenseth, who came out of retirement after the COVID-19 break to steer the No. 42 Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet, earned his best finish of the year – runner-up – at Indianapolis Motor Speedway two weeks ago. Seven-time NASCAR Cup Series champion Johnson, who is retiring from full-time competition at the end of the season, hasn’t won a series race since June 2017 at Dover International Speedway. But both are perennial favorites at Texas, where they lead many statistical categories.
Busch, the reigning NASCAR Cup Series champion, is similarly looking to snap a winless streak. His last victory came in the November season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway, earning him the 2019 title. He has rallied from a slow start this season to 11th in the driver standings now with nine top-10 finishes in the No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota, including three runner-up finishes (at Auto Club Speedway, Darlington Raceway and Atlanta Motor Speedway). And his record nine wins at Texas in the NASCAR Xfinity Series surely provide a healthy dose of optimism this weekend.
“Unfortunately, I don’t have a win yet (in the NASCAR Cup Series),” Busch said after his second-place finish in Wednesday’s All-Star race. “We’ve been close a couple times. We got to fight harder, do better. That’s all there is to it.”
Johnson, driver of the No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet, is ranked 15th in the championship standings with six top-10 finishes this season. His last top 10, however, was at Martinsville Speedway in June – the last of a three-race string of top 10s. His last victory at Texas came in 2017, and he has only one top-10 finish in the five races since, a fifth place in this race last year.
Keselowski and Blaney are certainly keeping Harvick honest this season, but neither has a NASCAR Cup Series win at Texas. Team Penske teammate Joey Logano, who won two races before the break this year, won at the Texas track in 2014. And all three drivers are ranked among the top 12 in driver ratings at Texas.
Keselowski tops his teammates in laps led at the track (639), but the driver of the No. 2 Team Penske Ford is 0-for-23 with only a pair of top-10 finishes in the last eight races. His best work was runner-up in 2012 and 2015. He does have a pair of NASCAR Xfinity Series wins, the most recent in 2015.
In addition to Logano’s 2014 win, he finished second or third in three straight races in the 2016-17 seasons. He has earned top-10 finishes in eight of the last 10 races at Texas.
The 26-year-old Blaney has led 233 laps in 10 Texas starts with a best single race showing in the 2018 playoff race when he won the pole position and finished runner-up. He led a race-best 148 laps and finished 12th in 2017. He’s also a past NASCAR Xfinity Series winner (2018) at the track.
Hamlin certainly is eager to famously don that winner’s cowboy hat in Victory Lane again. He dominated the field in his Texas win last fall, leading 119 of 335 laps. But he has had only two finishes of 20th or better in the last six races – his win last year and a third place in the 2017 playoff race. He had a string of four top-five finishes (including a pair of wins) snapped at Indianapolis two weeks ago. He led 19 laps and crashed while leading only seven laps from the scheduled finish. He was 12th at Kentucky Speedway last weekend.
Saturday’s NASCAR Xfinity Series race — the My Bariatric Solutions 300 (3 p.m. ET on NBCSN, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) — may feature a first-time, full-time driver victory. That is if the field can beat the race’s all-time winningest driver, Kyle Busch, who has a record nine wins in this race — including five consecutively between 2008-10.
Busch is the only previous winner of the last five Xfinity Series races at the track entered this weekend, which opens the door to Victory Lane for any of the series championship contenders in what has been an especially competitive season.
Although starting positions are picked based on draw in these unusual 2020 racing circumstances, it is worth noting only one time in the past 23 races has a winner started worse than sixth on the grid. And that was still a reasonable 10th-place start, when Trevor Bayne won in the fall of 2011.
Last year’s Texas races featured two very different circumstantial outcomes with Busch beating eventual season champion Tyler Reddick in the first race by a mere .861 seconds. Christopher Bell won the second race of 2019, driving away from the field with a 5.561-second advantage over runner-up Ross Chastain.
Statistically speaking, championship leader Chase Briscoe — who has already surpassed his career-best single-season total with five victories through the opening 15 races — has a best showing at Texas of fourth place in the 2019 spring race. He was 22nd in the fall. His current season effort, however, would indicate reason for optimism.
The driver of the No. 98 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford has top-10 finishes in eight of the last nine races, which includes two wins and two runner-up finishes. He has been especially good on the 1.5-mile tracks like Texas, earning half (six) of his top-10 finishes on those tracks and winning at Las Vegas Motor Speedway and Homestead-Miami Speedway.
With the wins, Briscoe is assured a place in the NASCAR Playoffs, and that will mean a return to Texas during the playoff run in the fall. With a position already guaranteed in the championship mix, Briscoe said this week’s Texas stop will include a little homework for the title chase later in the year.
“Obviously this week is still very important,” Briscoe said. “We always want to do well when we show up to the track. We’ve been in position to win every week, so there’s no reason to back off of that. But, big picture, the playoff races are important so we will try a mix of what we know works at Texas as well as trying stuff for the future.”
Briscoe’s primary championship threats right now are Noah Gragson and Austin Cindric — the series’ only other multiple race winners, both with two trophies. Gragson trails Briscoe by 19 points in the championship standings, and like Briscoe, the No. 9 JR Motorsports Chevrolet driver has experienced vastly different outcomes in his Texas starts — 13th in Texas-1 last spring and then 30th after crashing out in the fall return.
Gragson, who celebrated his 22nd birthday Thursday, has 11 top-10 finishes in 15 races this season, and his 468 laps led is most in the series. He has had only one top-five finish (third at Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s road course) in the last five races. However, that’s certainly not to a lack of effort. Gragson has been a big-time contender in deciding the last two races — leading a combined 124 laps in last week’s Kentucky Speedway doubleheader, even though he didn’t celebrate in Victory Lane.
Cindric, who is third in the championship standings and 33 points behind Briscoe, has a solid Texas resume. He has finished 11th or better in all four starts, including a best of third-place twice – in the fall 2018 and 2019 races. His 441 laps out front this season are second only to Gragson, and Cindric is coming off a huge confidence boost sweeping both Kentucky races last weekend, the road-course ace’s first series wins on an oval. Cindric (38 laps) and veteran Justin Allgaier (37 laps) lead the current Xfinity Series championship contenders in career laps led at Texas.
Allgaier, driver of the No. 7 JR Motorsports Chevrolet, has nine top-10 finishes at Texas, most among the full-time Xfinity Series drivers. His best showing is fifth in 2018, and two of his 11 series wins have come on 1.5-milers like Texas. He has four top-10 and two top-five finishes in the seven 1.5-mile races in 2020.
All four of the JR Motorsports drivers entered this week — Gragson, Allgaier, Michael Annett and Jeb Burton — have had success at Texas. Annett, driver of the No. 1 JRM Chevrolet had his career-best showing at Texas (sixth) last summer, and he has completed 99 percent of the laps in his 15 career starts there. He has one top-five and five top-10 finishes in 2020 on 1.5-mile tracks and is averaging an 8.9 finish. Burton, who will steer the No. 8 JRM Chevrolet this week, has two top-10 finishes in four Texas starts, including a career-best fifth in Fort Worth last season.
“Coming off a great weekend in Kentucky, I’m looking forward to keeping the momentum rolling this week at Texas,” Annett said. “We had fast Chevrolets at Kentucky and had a chance to double up on top-fives and that just shows the strength of this No. 1 team. Over the four last four races, we have an average finish of 6.8 and we’re looking to keep that going this weekend at Texas.”
The starting lineup for Sunday’s O’Reilly Auto Parts 500 NASCAR Cup Series race at Texas Motor Speedway (3 p.m. ET on NBCSN, NBC Sports App, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) has been set.
Aric Almirola will start from the pole position, with Ryan Blaney joining him on the front row to lead the field to green for the 334-lap, 501-mile race.
See where your favorite driver will pit for Sunday’s O’Reilly Auto Parts 500 at Texas Motor Speedway (3 p.m. ET, NBCSN, NBC Sports App, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
