See where your favorite driver will pit for Sunday’s middle race of the Round of 8 in the NASCAR Playoffs at Texas Motor Speedway (3 p.m. ET, NBCSN, NBC Sports App, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
FORT WORTH, Texas – Christopher Bell shrugged off a short-lived brake problem in his No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota and cruised to a 5.635-second victory in Saturday night’s O’Reilly Auto Parts 300 at Texas Motor Speedway.
With his eighth win of the year — a career-best for a single season — Bell locked himself into the Championship 4 Round of the NASCAR Xfinity Series Playoffs, with the title to be decided two weeks hence at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
RELATED: Unofficial race results
Bell led 101 of 200 laps in winning for the first time at the 1.5-mile track and the 16th time in his career. Bell swept the first and second stages of the event, bringing his total of 2019 stage victories to 20.
“That’s pretty special to win here at Texas,” said Bell, a native of Norman, Oklahoma. “I have a lot of family here. This (checkered) flag right here is for my nephew (Trip). I promised him years ago that if I ever won, I’d give him the flag at Texas.
“I knew we were very competitive, and then I began having brake problems. And then whenever I got those brake problems, I just wasn’t as good. I couldn’t keep the car underneath me and I was really loose. So I had to work a little harder, and that red flag helped me and my brakes came back. We were able to drive away.”
Ross Chastain came home second after taking the lead by staying on the track under caution on Lap 142 while the other top contenders came to pit road for fuel. Chastain, driving the No. 10 Kaulig Racing Chevrolet he will race full-time next year, held the top spot through two subsequent cautions and led the field to the final restart on Lap 171.
But Bell surged past Chastain on the restart lap and widened his advantage over the final 29 laps.
One of the Xfinity Series’ Big Three took a big hit on Lap 161. Racing behind Chase Briscoe for the seventh position, Tyler Reddick lost control of his No. 2 Chevrolet when Briscoe ran too high in Turn 2 and hit the outside wall.
Reddick’s Chevy bounced off the outside wall, slid across the track and slammed nose-first into the inside SAFER barrier on the backstretch, destroying the radiator and knocking him out of the race. Reddick ended the night third in the Playoff standings, and despite the DNF, he holds a 36-point edge over fifth-place Briscoe heading to next Saturday’s elimination event at ISM Raceway in Phoenix.
“You’re never safe,” Reddick said after leaving the infield care center. “We had a lot better (points) cushion than that… I got us mired back in that mess there (after a restart on Lap 157) and that’s what I deserve, if I can’t be up front with a car like that, that fast.”
Briscoe stayed on the track after the contact with the wall and eventually paid the price. He lost three laps after his tire shredded and finished 22nd, falling 18 points behind sixth-place finisher Justin Allgaier for the final berth in the Championship 4.
“That was just unfortunate,” Briscoe said. “I don’t think we were the car to win by any means, but I think we would have run fifth to eighth area. We just had to stay in that same ballpark where the 7 (Allgaier) was. We were in really good contention to do that, and then I made a mistake running the top and tried to get too much.
“We thought all our tires looked good, but we had a rub and the tire went flat and put us three laps down. Obviously, we have our backs against the wall going into next week but we have really good fast race cars. We’ll go there and try to win the race.”
Playoff driver Austin Cindric finished third but goes to Phoenix seventh in the standings, 31 points behind Allgaier. Brandon Jones, John Hunter Nemechek, Allgaier, Harrison Burton and Cole Custer finished fourth through eighth, respectively.
Custer is second in the Playoff standings, 52 points ahead of Briscoe. Noah Gragson took the biggest hit in the Playoff race, crashing out of the race in 30th place after turning down across the nose of Burton’s Toyota on Lap 149 and oiling the track.
Gragson leaves Texas 57 points below the current cutline needing a victory at Phoenix to advance to the Championship 4.
Kevin Harvick is on the pole for Sunday’s AAA Texas 500 (3 p.m. ET, NBCSN/NBC Sports App, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Is the two-time Texas winner — both victories coming since the 2017 repave — worthy of a spot on your roster? How should you navigate the playoff game format? We’ve dissected the numbers to offer a suggested lineup worthy of your Fantasy Live consideration.
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RJ Kraft’s Fantasy Live lineup for race day at Texas
Playoff driver 1: Kevin Harvick
Playoff driver 2: Denny Hamlin
Non-playoff driver 1: Kurt Busch
Non-playoff driver 2: Erik Jones
Garage: Kyle Larson
RELATED: Odds for Texas | Lap averages | Weekend preview
Analysis: For the playoff plays, Harvick and Hamlin — the two most recent winners at Texas — will anchor my lineup. I already have five points in the bank with Harvick as my pole pick. Both Harvick and Hamlin had strong cars on the lap average board and the recent history for Harvick is extremely favorable — two wins in his last four here. Larson is my garage play because the long-run averages are right there with Harvick and a tick above Hamlin. The Texas history has been hot and cold for Larson, so I like the safety net of having him in the garage and seeing what happens.
On the non-playoff side, Kurt Busch is at the top of my list. The recently-extended Chip Ganassi Racing driver has the third-most points on the repaved 1.5-mile track and has been fast all weekend. For the other spot, I am taking a bit of a gamble with Jones. The gamble isn’t in his Texas numbers of late — three straight fourth-place finishes. It’s in his recent 2019 results with five races of three points or less in the past eight. That said, I think the upside and track history are extremely favorable. Alex Bowman was a consideration for me if I wanted to play it a little safer.
For the bonus picks: I’ll take Harvick for everything — the Stage 1 win, the Stage 2 win and the race win with Ford as the manufacturer.
Each week in this space, we’ll also highlight two Props Challenge items for players.
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1. A playoff driver below the cutline wins on Sunday: Yes or No. Simply put, I think Harvick has THE car to beat and will win on Sunday. He is currently below the cutline to advance, so I am a YES on this one.
2. O/U 4.5 Fords finish in the top 10. The over has been hit in three of the past four Texas races. We have five Fords starting in the top 10 and does not include playoff drivers Joey Logano and Ryan Blaney, who, based on their history at the repave, are two drivers I’d expect to see in the top 10 when the checkered flag falls. I think two other Blue Ovals join them with Harvick so I’ll take the OVER here.
FORT WORTH, Texas — The thesis has always been that, if rim-rider Kyle Larson ever advances to Homestead-Miami Speedway as one of the Championship 4, he’d have to be considered a favorite for the title, given his unmatched prowess at running the wall at the 1.5-mile speedway.
The problem has been getting there, and approaching Sunday’s AAA Texas 500, Larson is 24 points behind fourth-place Joey Logano in the race for a playoff berth in the season finale. Accordingly, Larson has no margin for error—and he knows it.
RELATED: Full Playoffs standings
“Obviously, we have to have a really good day,” Larson said. “Twenty-four points out, if I can’t win, I need to do a really good job in each stage and probably finish in the top three. Hopefully, I can go win, and that would make next week (at Phoenix) easy. I know I have to have a really good day.”
Fortunately for Larson, his average finish of 20.4 at Texas belies the speed he typically has in his No. 42 Chevrolets.
“We’re always really fast here at Texas, especially since the repave (after the November 2016 race),” Larson said. “I’ve just had a crash and two blown right-front tires. I’ve always ran really well here. If you just look at a piece of paper, you would think that I don’t run well here. But we’re always really fast. We just have to keep the right-front holding air.”
FORT WORTH, Texas – Kevin Harvick took the first step toward getting back on the right side of the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Playoff cutline, winning the pole for Sunday’s AAA Texas 500 at Texas Motor Speedway (3 p.m. ET on NBCSN, PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Harvick, who trails fourth-place Joey Logano by 14 points entering the second race of the Round of 8, toured the 1.5-mile track in 28.465 seconds (189.707 mph) to win his second Busch Pole Award at Texas, his series-best sixth of the season and the 31st of his career.
RELATED: Starting lineup | Photos: All 40 cars
Erik Jones, already eliminated from the playoffs, was second fastest at 188.890 mph, .123 seconds behind Harvick. Denny Hamlin, second in the playoff standings, qualified third at 188.12 mph, followed by Kurt Busch, Alex Bowman and Aric Almirola.
“The best part is our car drove really well in race trim yesterday and still had a lot of speed when we put it in qualifying trim today,” said Harvick, winner of the last two playoff races at Texas. “So, hopefully, we can keep our track position.
“As you saw the last race (at Texas), you want to be up front and you want to be on the right cycle of rotation of pit strategy. Having that first pit stall is definitely an advantage here. It will be a track position game, and hopefully we can play it right and keep ourselves up front.”
Logano will start 11th in his attempt to protect his position in the standings. Other playoff drivers earned the following positions on the grid: Kyle Busch 12th, Kyle Larson 13th, Chase Elliott 14th, Ryan Blaney 15th and Martin Truex Jr. 17th.
Truex has already qualified for the Nov. 17 Championship 4 race at Homestead-Miami Speedway by virtue of last Sunday’s victory at Martinsville.
After a broken axle and a 36th-place finish at Martinsville, Elliott trails Logano by 44 points and likely must win one of the next two races to advance to the Championship 4.
In a substitute role for Front Row Motorsports driver Matt Tifft, who suffered a seizure last Saturday at Martinsville, John Hunter Nemechek qualified 29th.
“That was the first qualifying run I have ever done in a Cup car,” Nemechek said. “It was pretty interesting. We went faster today than we did yesterday. That is a positive. We’re getting faster every time on the race track. It’s a whole new deal for myself, being over here in the Cup garage. Different scenarios, a whole new team. Different communications. A lot of variables that play into this weekend.
“I’m really thankful for the opportunity from (owner) Bob (Jenkins) and everyone at Front Row Motorsports. I hate that the circumstances are like this. I really wish Matt Tifft a speedy recovery and hope he is back at the race track very soon.”
FORT WORTH, Texas – Kurt Busch will be driving for Chip Ganassi Racing for at least two more years, with Monster Energy as his primary sponsor.
Busch and team owner Chip Ganassi announced the multiyear extension of Busch’s Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series contract on Saturday at Texas Motor Speedway, but not before Busch teased reporters with an impending retirement gag, amplified by the gift of a rocking chair from TMS president Eddie Gossage.
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The specific terms of the driver and sponsor contracts weren’t revealed, other than that both were multiyear commitments.
“It’s been a good career, it’s been fun, and it’s been tough at the same time to see how things have changed and how things have gone,” deadpanned Busch, the 2004 series champion who advanced to the Playoffs this year on the strength of his win at Kentucky Speedway. “Wait! Eddie, really? A rocking chair? It’s not time for a rocking chair. This old guy’s got some kick left.”
With that, Busch and accompanying Monster girls popped a spray of confetti out of champagne bottles to announce the new contract.
Ganassi had high praise for the 41-year-old driver, crediting him with elevating the performance of not only the No. 1 Chevrolet but also with helping teammate Kyle Larson’s effort in the No. 42 Chevy.
“With his driving this year, he’s sparked the No. 1 car, taken it to a place it’s never been before,” Ganassi said. “That was the first time a Chevrolet won at Kentucky, so we were pretty pleased with that. And, obviously, having Monster as a great partner has been a real shot in the arm for our team …
“As Kurt will tell you, he and Kyle Larson have had a great time becoming teammates, and I think it’s made Larson a better driver. … So this guy brings a lot more than just what’s on the track. He brought a lot of guys on that 1 team their first Cup win, and I think you saw that in the exuberance at Kentucky. So I’m proud to keep him as part of this team for the foreseeable future.”
A multiyear deal for Busch is an anomaly. His recent contracts — and Monster’s accompanying commitments — have been for one year each.
“To have a multiyear deal, it’s comforting that I won’t have to answer the questions weekly about being a 41-year-old veteran in a sport where there’s a young push,” Busch said. “To have that done, that’ll be refreshing, because the focus should be on track.
“It should be the on-track product, what happens out there racing, what happens during the week with different promotional things and continuing to build this sport that’s given me so much — those are some of the big reasons why I signed on again to keep going, smile out there and go for the trophy.”
Chip Ganassi Racing is the sixth stop for Busch in his Monster Energy Series career. He spent the previous five seasons with Stewart-Haas Racing, where Busch landed six of his 31 big-league wins.
Contributing: Staff reports
FORT WORTH, Texas — The word Chase Elliott kept coming back to was unfortunate.
It was unfortunate his engine choked eight laps in at Dover International Speedway four weeks ago, forcing Elliott to exit early and finish in dead-last 38th. It was unfortunate once again his engine failed in the first practice at Martinsville Speedway last weekend, requiring Elliott to start competition from the rear after a complete change. And it was unfortunate in that following race his axle broke on Lap 180 of 400, leaving him 36th and 55 laps down when the checkered flag waved.
“Like I said, it is unfortunate,” Elliott said Wednesday at Texas Motor Speedway. “And I think if you’re going to fail something, now is not the time to fail it.”
Both incidents were during round openers in the NASCAR Playoffs. Dover kicked off the Round of 12. Martinsville started the Round of 8, which continues Sunday with the AAA Texas 500 (3 p.m. ET, NBCSN/NBC Sports App, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
RELATED: Texas schedule | Texas 101 | Texas gallery
A scant three points and a runner-up performance at Kansas Speedway squeaked Elliott into the latest three-race set. Now, though, the driver of the No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet sits eighth in the standings and 44 points below the cutline with two races to go until the Championship 4 is set.
“We can’t break parts,” No. 9 crew chief Alan Gustafson said at Martinsville. “You can’t win these races if you don’t finish them. Certainly can’t gain any points if you don’t finish them.
“Yeah, we gotta finish races. We can’t continue to do this. This is not acceptable and we’re not going to get very far if we don’t finish, so that’s a lot to clean up in my opinion.”
Elliott survived but did not thrive in Wednesday’s pair of practices at Texas, coming in 26th at 185.293 mph for the first and 15th at 187.039 mph for the final. He, along with the rest of the field, will qualify Saturday at 7:05 p.m. ET (CNBC/NBC Sports App, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
When it comes to the 1.5-mile Texas track, Elliott’s best run in seven starts through 3.5 seasons is fourth in fall 2016. His worst is 13th earlier this season, in which he did lead a career-high 35 laps, though. Elliott has tallied two top-five and five top-10 finishes, ultimately good for an 8.0 average finish in Forth Worth.
“All you can do, in my opinion, is do the best you can do, right?” Gustafson said. “Optimism, stats, history – all that (expletive) does not matter. It doesn’t pay any points. You’ve got to go, and you’ve got to perform.”
And, like Gustafson already noted, actually complete races.
There have been 10 instances this season where Elliott has not completed every lap. He has turned 8,754 of the 9,342 laps run through 36 events. That cranks out to be 93.7%.
OK, but of the 588 he missed, 448 (55 at Martinsville, 392 at Dover and one at Richmond Raceway) have been during the NASCAR Playoffs alone. Now that’s 76% within seven postseason races.
“I think that it’s unfortunate,” Elliott said. “But it’s not like somebody is back there putting stuff together and thinking, ‘Look, this is going in the 9 car. I want to mess that up.’ That’s not the mentality, and that’s not how this stuff works. It is unfortunate, but it is what it is.”
Martin Truex Jr.’s triumph in last Sunday’s race at Martinsville Speedway served as his 26th career Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series victory, continuing Truex Jr.’s surge up the all-time wins list late in his NASCAR career.
As it turns out, when it comes to winning, it’s actually Truex and Dale Jarrett who have much in common at NASCAR’s highest tier. Truex is just six wins away from tying the Hall of Fame driver on the all-time wins list, but it’s a particular span where their success on the race track link up.
RELATED: 10 stats: Truex still searching for Texas win
Let’s first focus on the initial nine seasons of their respective Cup Series careers. While his first career win came at Michigan International Speedway in 1991 driving the iconic Wood Brothers Racing No. 21, Jarrett scored four race wins in that time span, earning two victories driving the No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing entry in 1993-94, including the ’93 Daytona 500. He followed that up with another win in his inaugural season driving the No. 28 for Robert Yates Racing in 1995.
For Truex, his first nine years brought along a pair of checkered flags. His maiden Cup Series victory came at Dover International Speedway in 2007 in the No. 1 Dale Earnhardt Inc. machine. In 2013, his first season with Michael Waltrip Racing, Truex scored another win at Sonoma Raceway.
But it’s their next 177 starts where the similarities between their accomplishments really begin to take shape. Truex’s span of 177 starts stretches from the 2015 Daytona 500 through last Sunday’s race at Martinsville, while Jarrett’s begins with the 1996 Daytona 500 and ends with the 2001 spring race at Dover.
| Dale Jarrett | Martin Truex Jr. | |
| Starts | 177 | 177 |
| Wins | 23 | 24 |
| Championships | 1 (1999) | 1 (2017) |
Among the 24 victories for Truex include a trio of crown-jewel events, including the Coca-Cola 600 (2016, ’19) and 2016 Southern 500. Jarrett was able to earn five trips to Victory Lane in crown-jewel races during that stretch — the Coca-Cola 600 (1996), Brickyard 400 (1996, ’99) and Daytona 500 (1996, ’00).
The only major difference overall lies in Daytona 500 victories where Jarrett owns three triumphs, while Truex’s quest for his first Harley J. Earl trophy continues into the 2020 season.
The biggest takeaway is Jarrett’s 2014 induction into the NASCAR Hall of Fame makes it almost certain that Truex is destined to have a place among the sport’s legends. With a bid now secured in the Championship 4 at Homestead-Miami Speedway later this month, Truex has the opportunity to bolster that cause even more with a second title, which would surpass Jarrett on another all-time list.
Contributing: Stats from Racing Insights
As part of a successful outreach to the Latino community, Mexican driver Daniel Suarez will have his own cheering section for Sunday’s AAA Texas 500 at Texas Motor Speedway (3 p.m. ET on NBCSN, PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
“Yeah, it’s a special weekend for myself and the team,” Suarez said on Friday afternoon at Texas. “We have a lot of exciting things going on, starting with another weekend of Daniel’s Amigos. We are bringing a lot of people that are Latinos out to the race track. We have pretty incredible numbers.
“We have over 5,000 subscribers for this weekend alone which is pretty amazing since this is just the fourth race we have been doing this. I feel like we are moving the needle. Last time in Las Vegas we had almost 2,000 and that was pretty unbelievable. We have high expectations for the weekend. Hopefully we can have fun with Daniel’s Amigos and have some good results on Sunday.”
RELATED: Full schedule for Texas
Suarez expects more than 1,000 of his subscribing amigos to attend Sunday’s race.
“I am very happy to be a small part of this,” Suarez said. “It’s something that just started as an idea and is now a reality. I am very happy to be a part of this. Of course, without help from the race tracks and NASCAR and Coca-Cola and a lot of people, this wouldn’t be possible. I feel very fortunate to be able to bring new fans to the race track.”
Suarez is wearing a special helmet designed by Dallas-based artist Agustin Chavez, who is from Suarez’s home state of Nuevo Leon. The helmet, featuring the image of a “sugar skull,” was created in celebration of the “Dia de los Muertos” (Day of the Dead), which is celebrated Nov. 1 and 2.
“This weekend is Dia de los Muertos in Mexico and is a very important holiday for every Mexican,” Suarez said. “We celebrate all those people, family members that have passed. It is a big holiday in Mexico.
“For years now I had an idea of doing a Dia de los Muertos helmet. It has skulls and flowers and is very colorful. A friend of mine did a really cool design and we decided to put it into reality onto the helmet and it turned out amazing. It’s pretty cool to see the outcome of the helmet and a lot of people like it so far.”
A work of art! 😍 This weekend at @TXMotorSpeedway, @Daniel_SuarezG will wear a specially designed helmet in celebration of #DiadelosMuertos. Whatcha think, #SHRFans?#SuarezNation | #DanielsAmigos pic.twitter.com/bG1cCwFcnE
— Stewart-Haas Racing (@StewartHaasRcng) November 1, 2019
FORT WORTH, Texas — Joey Logano plans to race Denny Hamlin however he wants, regardless of recent drama on and off the track.
The two NASCAR Playoffs drivers got into a heated argument last weekend at Martinsville Speedway that turned into all-out fight, involving members from both Logano’s No. 22 Team Penske crew and Hamlin’s No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing team. Logano first approached Hamlin to confront him about his racing style – Logano’s Ford and Hamlin’s Toyota made contact late in the First Data 500, and Logano sustained the brunt of the damage – but the moment Logano pushed Hamlin’s right shoulder, things escalated quickly. They were ready to fight but ended up physically separated.
“I probably shouldn’t have gone down there for something he probably wasn’t going to apologize for,” Logano said Friday in between the Monster Energy Series’ two practices at Texas Motor Speedway. “I let my emotions get the best of me, and that’s a mistake on my part. I probably didn’t handle that correctly. Doesn’t make what he did on the race track right, running like that. But at the same time, I think he’s going to play that card as much as he wants, he’s going to run his mouth as much as he wants. I’m going to run my race, and we’ll see who ends up on top.”
RELATED: Hamlin still irked | Full schedule for Texas
Sunday is the AAA Texas 500 (3 p.m. ET, NBCSN/NBC Sports App, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), the second race in the NASCAR Playoffs’ Round of 8. Both Logano and Hamlin are still competing for a spot in the Championship 4 and the ultimate title at Homestead-Miami Speedway. Hamlin is second in the standings, 24 points above the cutline with two races left before elimination. Logano is fourth, 14 points safe in the final transfer spot.
When asked whether he thinks Hamlin underestimates him, Logano grinned.
“He might say that,” Logano said. “I’m sure he doesn’t inside his mind.”
Logano and Hamlin have not spoken since the pit-road incident. Anything they’ve learned about one another has been through word of mouth. Hamlin was first to speak out, too.
Also on Friday, Hamlin made it clear he believes No. 22 crew chief Todd Gordon does not have full control of his team. Logano disagreed later in the afternoon when told that tidbit, saying Gordon is a great leader.
And then there was the minor detail Hamlin did admit was his mistake, going too high and bumping into Logano.
“I misjudged,” Hamlin said. “The on-track stuff was definitely my fault. There was no intention to run into him or run him into the wall or anything like that.”
Logano ended up spinning and had to rally back from 19th place to finish eighth. Hamlin cruised on to fourth come the checkered flag.
What happened afterward is why the drivers aren’t on speaking terms, and the rest is now well-documented history.
“He didn’t own up to it when we talked about it at the time,” Logano said. “I know for me, as a man, the first thing I do is own up to my mistakes. I probably would have walked down to him if I did the same thing and said I’m sorry I screwed up.
“But, you know, that’s what set me off the edge, which I’m regretful of the way I handled it. I let someone affect my character, and that’s something I’m not proud of. But we get stronger from these moments. You live, and you learn, and you move on.”