Playoffs Media Day, a fountain of momentum and hope in Las Vegas

Posted on September 12, 2019 by Zack Albert

LAS VEGAS — A common refrain about the NASCAR Playoffs starting now is the idea of the clean slate, a chalkboard wiped fresh and ready for the 10-race story ready to be told. But that notion also discounts the 26 races that preceded the postseason and their impact.

Enter momentum. The 16-driver field will carry varying degrees of it from their regular-season body of work into the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs, which begin with Sunday’s South Point 400 (7 p.m. ET, NBCSN/NBC Sports App, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Seeding and a stockpile of playoff points matter, but so does the way drivers make an entrance into the season’s home stretch. Clint Bowyer and Ryan Newman sit in a virtual tie at the bottom rungs of the postseason pecking order, but the way they rallied and clawed their way into the playoff field could sustain them in the early going.

“Momentum is confidence. It is confidence in your decision making and your driving and everything,” Bowyer said during Thursday’s media day activities at the South Point Hotel Casino and Spa. “Your decisions for the setup and your decision for passing and stage points that are so important. You have to have that momentum and confidence in your mind. That is not just the driver, that is the crew chief making those calls.”

MORE: Newman’s underdog quest enters playoffs

There’s an intriguing duality at the other end of the playoff heap. Joe Gibbs Racing teammates Kyle Busch, Denny Hamlin and Martin Truex Jr. sit 1-2-3 with four victories each during the first 26 races. While Hamlin has roared into the playoffs with a sturdy finishing kick, Busch and Truex have cooled slightly, with Busch nursing a 12-race drought and Truex going 10 races without a triumph — losing streaks that most teams would envy.

“I think that we had a little bit of a lull there right after those four, but I feel like the last five or six races have been really good,” said Truex, who notched his four wins in a torrid eight-week span this spring. “We’ve been in position to do a lot of great things, it’s just … things haven’t played out. We’ve had a few mistakes here and there.”

Truex then listed a brief bout with misfortune — the flat tire at Bristol, a loose wheel elsewhere, some bad bounces with pit strategy. “It’s just been those kind of things have taken us out of a few races. … So we’ve been right there, we just haven’t had that spark, that magic. Nothing’s gone the way we wanted it to. We just need that little bit extra. Hopefully we can turn it up here this weekend.”

Hamlin’s head of steam ranks among the series’ strongest, with a recent streak of six straight top fives buoying his No. 11 JGR team. When asked if this represented his strongest chance at finally clinching the first championship in his 14-year career, Hamlin answer was clear: “No doubt.”

“We’ve been running as good as we ever have right in this moment,” Hamlin said. “I just don’t see any weaknesses that we necessarily have right now. We are performing well in all aspects of our race team. You just hope that the things you can control, you control well. If you do that, we will be fine.”

Erik Jones, the last of the Joe Gibbs Racing quartet of playoff hopefuls, has experienced both ends of the momentum pendulum in a two-week span: First place in a triumphant Darlington drive one week, then next-to-last place in the Indianapolis finale the next. The pre-playoff approach for him is obvious: savor the former, discard the latter.

“The points are reset, you’re racing a different group of guys and not really racing the whole field anymore and you just have to focus forward,” Jones said. “I look at what we’ve done the last few months and just focus on that. Think about what we’ve done to be fast, successful and in contention to win and just need to continue that trend.”

The idea of continuing trends or starting new ones was the theme of Thursday’s media gathering. The “I’m excited” buzzword — adapted from preseason media days — was nearly omnipresent, but contrasted against the backdrop of drivers who have weathered the regular-season grind to get here.

Momentum abounds, but so does the hope of reaching the ultimate goal in the 10 races ahead.

“I mean, why be here if you don’t think that?” said Chase Elliott, who enters as the No. 7 seed. “I mean, there’s no point in even coming to this Playoff Media Day if we don’t feel like we have a shot; or, even being in Vegas in general.

“So yes, I do think we can do it.”

Posted on September 12, 2019September 12, 2019 by Holly Cain

LAS VEGAS — This Saturday’s Rhino Pro Truck Outfitters 300 (7:30 p.m. ET on NBCSN, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) brings the regular season to a close and formalizes the 2019 Playoffs lineup for the Xfinity Series. And while three drivers – defending series champion Tyler Reddick, Christopher Bell and Cole Custer – have absolutely dominated the win column, none of the three has won at Las Vegas Motor Speedway before in this series.

Reddick won the 2016 NASCAR Gander Outdoors Truck Series race at Vegas, but has not hoisted an Xfinity Series trophy there. Yet.

He’s highly motivated coming off his worst showing of the season last week (30th) following an accident with fellow title contender Christopher Bell in the final laps of the Indianapolis race. Bell finished 29^th.

And still the Richard Childress Racing driver’s consistency this season – 19 top-five and 21 top-10 finishes through the opening 25 races – will likely land him the regular-season championship (he needs to earn 11 points this weekend to clinch). Reddick holds a 50-point lead over Joe Gibbs Racing’s Bell and an insurmountable 113-point edge over Stewart-Haas Racing’s Custer heading into this week’s season finale.

MORE: Full Xfinity Series standings| Playoff clinching scenarios

Certainly the top of the standings is a known quantity with these three accounting for 16 victories already – Reddick (four), Bell (six) and Custer (six). But the playoffs present a sort of reset.

The 12 drivers currently holding postseason spots are clinched on points, but this regular-season finale could prove interesting if a driver outside that group of 12 wins the race and the automatic playoff spot that accompanies. RSS Racing’s Ryan Sieg currently sits in that precarious 12^thposition.

The other drivers who have clinched a postseason bid are Team Penske’s Austin Cindric, Stewart-Haas Racing with Fred Biagi’s Chase Briscoe, JR Motorsports teammates Michael Annett, Justin Allgaier and Noah Gragson, and Kaulig Racing’s Justin Haley. In position to clinch this week are Brandon Jones, rookie John Hunter Nemechek and Sieg.

Of note, Haley will have a celebrated teammate at Kaulig Racing this week as longtime Xfinity Series championship challenger Elliott Sadler will make his final NASCAR national series start. Sadler – a three-time Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race winner and 13-time Xfinity Series winner – retired from full-time competition last year and has announced his race Saturday will be his last in NASCAR’s highest tiers of competition. He has four top-fives in 13 Las Vegas Xfinity Series starts.

Posted on September 12, 2019September 13, 2019 by Holly Cain

LAS VEGAS — The first elimination of the 2019 NASCAR Gander Outdoors Truck Series Playoffs happens this week following Friday night’s World of Westgate 200 (9 p.m. ET on FS1, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

The 2016 Gander Trucks champion Johnny Sauter is on the wrong side of the cutoff, but this is a tightly packed playoff field – only six points separate third-place Stewart Friesen and seventh-place Sauter, with six drivers advancing to the Round of 6.

Brett Moffitt has reminded everyone why he’s the defending series champion, winning the first two Round of 8 races – at Bristol and the Bowmanville, Ontario,road course – and he’s technically the only racer with a sure spot in the next round. He has never won a race on this week’s 1.5-mile Las Vegas high banks, however. And regular season champion Grant Enfinger is actually the defending winner of this September race.

Ross Chastain, a three-time winner this season, won the NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Las Vegas last fall and is currently second to Moffitt in the championship standings by 22 points.

Friesen is third, 44 points behind Moffitt with two-time series champ Matt Crafton on his heels, just one point off Friesen. Austin Hill is fifth in the title run, only a point behind Crafton and Enfinger is only two points behind Hill. Sauter is two points behind Enfinger and Tyler Ankrum is 12 points behind Enfinger, who holds that sixth and final cut-off position.

Moffitt finished runner-up to Kyle Busch in the March truck race at Vegas with Crafton and Friesen in third and fourth place. Sauter was eighth, Chastain 10th and Hill 30th. At that point in the early season, the now 18-year-old Ankrum wasn’t old enough to compete on the 1.5-mile speedway.

Among the championship eight, only Enfinger (last year) and Sauter (in 2009) have celebrated in Las Vegas’ Victory Lane. Ben Rhodes joins the pair as the only other driver entered this weekend who has won at Vegas.

Posted on September 12, 2019September 12, 2019 by Chase Wilhelm

LAS VEGAS – Although Ryan Newman narrowly clawed his way into the 2019 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs, he says making a deep run in the 10-race stretch is possible.

And why not? He’s done it before.

In 2014, Newman raced the No. 31 Richard Childress Racing entry into the Championship 4 following a last-ditch effort in the season’s penultimate race at ISM Raceway. He nearly completed the underdog story with his first title, falling just short of Kevin Harvick at Homestead by finishing second in the standings.

This time around, it’s a more daunting task for the No. 16 seed, but not impossible.

“We’ve proved that we know how to fight,” Newman said during NASCAR Playoffs Media Day at the South Point Hotel and Casino on Thursday. “We’ve proved that we can point our way in. It’s going to be harder and harder to do that and the math is different than it was in 2014. To me, we need to go out there and step up our performance and still have a level of consistency.”

While that consistency is what landed him in the playoffs in the first place, it’s the unpredictability of the postseason where Newman might have the moxie to thrive.

“I think it takes a pretty stubborn individual to thrive in unpredictability,” Newman said. “I guess maybe I fit that criteria. It’s so situational because if something happens in the first race and then you see a little retaliation or payback or people start driving differently because they’re desperate. That desperation is something you just can’t predict.”

Aside from the confidence Newman has in his team, he also noted that the math works out for him to advance through the first round, at the very least. Through the season’s first 13 races, Newman had an 18th-place points car, while the second half of the regular season saw him rise to a 12th-place points car.

“We have to step that up again another four, six spots or whatever, but we have to do it in a three-race stretch,” Newman said. “That’s good enough, but I don’t want to be just good enough, I want to show progression. That shows that we can keep our feet on each rung of the ladder as we work our way up.”

If Newman can produce strong runs in the first three playoff races at Las Vegas, Richmond and the Charlotte Roval, a replication of 2014 could happen — but the road will be long.

Good thing he’s traveled down the same path before.

“It’s interesting because to me the hardest round is the first round, especially when you’re in my position where you’re the last man in and have zero points to your advantage,” he added. “Basically, I think we’re 11 points out of eighth, which is just a number, but that’s a little bit of a stage in one race. It’s all easily doable.”

Posted on September 12, 2019September 13, 2019 by Staff Report

Trackside Live is back this weekend in Sin City! The Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series, Xfinity Series and Gander Outdoors Truck Series all head to Las Vegas Motor Speedway this weekend for desert races — and two Trackside Live shows.

The live shows are Saturday at 5:30 p.m. ET and Sunday at 3:30 p.m. ET. Guests for the shows include Kyle Busch, Noah Gragson and Tyler Reddick on Saturday and Kyle Larson, Erik Jones, Austin Dillon, Brendan Gaughan, Matt DiBenedetto and Barstool Sports’ Dave Portnoy on Sunday.

WATCH: Trackside Live | MORE: Full schedule for Las Vegas | Buy tickets

The Trackside Live crew will come prepared with games, Q&As with drivers, prizes and a lot of family fun for everyone. Join in on this unique experience, take home some great stuff and even better memories in advance of Sunday night’s playoff opener, the South Point 400 (7 p.m. ET, NBCSN/NBC Sports App, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

Aren’t able to make it to the track this weekend? Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered! You don’t have to miss a second of the Trackside Live fun as the entire show will be streamed live on NASCAR.com here.

Posted on September 11, 2019September 11, 2019 by Staff Report

The Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs kick off this weekend at Las Vegas Motor Speedway with the South Point 400. Sixteen drivers will vie for the title over the final 10 races of the season.

This first of the three-race Round of 16 is on the 1.5-mile Sin City track for the second year in a row. The point totals have been reset for the playoffs, with regular-season champ Kyle Busch leading the way in the standings by a 15-point margin over Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Denny Hamlin.

Here is the rest of the need-to-know information for Sunday’s playoff opener.

TRACK DETAILS

Las Vegas is a 1.5-mile, tri-oval asphalt track with 20-degree banking in the turns and 9-12 degree banking on the front and backstretch. The track was built in 1996, and the Cup Series has been racing there since 1998.

RULES PACKAGE

The race at Las Vegas will feature the 2019 rules package with aero ducts and a tapered-spacer engine generating a targeted 550 horsepower.

Each team will be provided with three sets of Goodyear Eagle Speedway Radial tires for practice, one set for qualifying and 10 sets for the 400-mile race (nine, plus one transferred from practice or qualifying).

The Monster Energy Series gets a break from its string of hard-wear tracks with its trip to Vegas.

“Las Vegas is widely known on the NASCAR circuit as a track that does not wear tires,” said Greg Stucker, Goodyear’s director of racing. “That is an important concern for Goodyear and the race teams because when tires don’t wear, they don’t shed rubber and therefore retain more heat. What that requires us to do is bring tread compounds that will wear more and help the tire run cooler. We’ve done a lot of development work in this area, with a number of tracks that have ‘smoother’ surfaces. We’ve come up with a successful right-side tire that accomplishes that, and we now bring that to multiple tracks — Texas (Motor Speedway), Kansas (Speedway), Michigan (International Speedway) and Kentucky (Speedway), in addition to Las Vegas.”

STATS

Nine different drivers have won the pole for the last nine Las Vegas races that held qualifying.
Brad Keselowski has either won or been passed for the win in six of the last seven Las Vegas races, including in March when Joey Logano passed him with 24 laps remaining.
All six of the active Monster Energy Series drivers with wins at Las Vegas (Busch, Keselowski, Logano, Jimmie Johnson, Kevin Harvick and Martin Truex Jr.) are also former Cup Series champions.

Source: Racing Insights

LIVE COVERAGE

This weekend’s race will air live Sunday at 7 p.m. ET on NBCSN and streamed on the NBC Sports App. Radio coverage can be found on PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. Also, follow along on NASCAR.com for live Lap-by-Lap coverage, the live leaderboard, Drive (featuring in-car cameras) and RaceView (subscription: in-car audio, stats, more). Be sure to set your lineup in Fantasy Live and make your picks in the Props Challenge.

2018 RACE WINNER

Keselowski is the defending race winner at Las Vegas, a victory that capped his third straight win during a 2018 hot streak that also included triumphs at Indianapolis Motor Speedway and Darlington Raceway. Keselowski scored Team Penske’s 500th organizational win with this checkered flag. He avoided a series of wrecks and mishaps that befell several other playoff drives, and he beat Kyle Larson to the finish line in a two-lap, overtime shootout.

ACTIVE LAS VEGAS WINNERS

Johnson, four times; Keselowski, three times; Harvick, two times; Logano, Truex and Busch, one time each.

Posted on September 11, 2019September 11, 2019 by PJ Walsh

The Action Network specializes in providing sports betting insights/analytics and is a content partner with NASCAR. Check out more NASCAR betting analysis here.

After a 26-race regular season, the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series (MENCS) playoffs get underway this weekend at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

While 16 drivers are now eligible to run for the hardware, seven-time champion Jimmie Johnson finds himself on the outside looking in for the first time in his career.

To make this week’s NASCAR Props Challenge picks, I’ll rely heavily on betting odds to project expected driver performance, as well as race trends from the March MENCS race at Las Vegas.

1. Which playoff driver earns the higher finish: Kyle Larson and Ryan Blaney?

Larson is currently 12-1 at the Westgate SuperBook in Las Vegas to win Sunday’s race, while Blaney is 20-1. Let’s lean on Vegas here and take Kyle.

Pick: Larson

2. Kyle Busch has four top fives in his last seven starts at his home track. Does he earn another top five on Sunday?

Busch is currently the favorite to win with +450 odds, but expecting a top-five finish in a field with so many fast race cars is too rich for my blood.

Pick: No

3. Which team will have the highest finishing driver: Joe Gibbs Racing or Team Penske?

This is really close, but with Busch the favorite and all four Joe Gibbs cars listed with odds of 12 or better, I have to go JGR.

Pick: Joe Gibbs Racing

4. Ford drivers have won the last three Las Vegas races. Does that streak continue: Yes or No?

Download the FREE Action Network app to finish reading this article and get the rest of PJ Walsh’s NASCAR Props Challenge Picks.

Posted on September 10, 2019September 10, 2019 by Zack Albert

Matt DiBenedetto’s answer to his uncertain job status was to come out fighting, a stance underscored by his boxing-attired entrance at Bristol Motor Speedway last month.

Tuesday, DiBenedetto answered the bell for another round in his well-traveled NASCAR career.

DiBenedetto’s deal with the storied Wood Brothers Racing organization for 2020 fell into place quickly, as both sides described in a Tuesday news conference. DiBenedetto will replace Paul Menard, who steps away from a full-time racing career spanning 13 seasons to focus on spending more time with his family.

It represented another “pinch me” moment for the 28-year-old journeyman, who has cemented his reputation as a scrapper as he enters his next chapter as the pilot of the iconic No. 21 Ford.

“Shoot, it’s been a dream of mine to be able to drive for one of the almost legendary teams in NASCAR is going to be unbelievable,” said DiBenedetto, who is on the move after one season at Leavine Family Racing. “It’s been surreal. It’s been amazing to have the opportunity this year driving for LFR to showcase what we can do and to elevate me and give me the opportunity to come over here and drive for the Wood Brothers, so it’s going to be an incredible opportunity.”

DiBenedetto rocketed to the top of the list of available free agents in the Monster Energy Series garage a month ago, when he was notified that Leavine Family Racing would not bring him back for a second season. DiBenedetto found an advocate in the taciturn Menard, who vouched for the driver of the No. 95 Toyota as he considered his retirement.

In the same time frame, the newly lame-duck DiBenedetto wowed the Bristol faithful with a spirited drive to second place in search of his first big-league victory. That result only solidified Menard’s endorsement.

“He was the first choice, the only choice and that’s just the way it turned out,” team president Eddie Wood said. “I think it was just meant to be.”

The one-year contract means that DiBenedetto will have pressure to perform again in an effort to shore up some long-term stability on the Monster Energy Series roster. His recent uptick — four top-10 finishes in the last seven races — helps.

The Wood Brothers will be his fourth team since 2015, but the No. 21 group also represents his best opportunity to prove he belongs.

“It’s what makes it so rewarding and makes me appreciate it so much,” DiBenedetto said. “And it’s what’s taught me everything, not only as a person but as a driver to fight and claw and be the best that I can be, and it teaches you to appreciate it and a lot about life. I wouldn’t trade the path and journey for the world. Everything’s led into great opportunities. This is the best opportunity of my life, and I think we can altogether build something great to come for many years. That’s definitely the goal.”

Posted on September 10, 2019September 10, 2019 by Staff Report

With one regular-season race remaining in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, it’s time to analyze how drivers can clinch a spot in the Xfinity Series Playoffs. Of course, the easiest way to clinch is to win this weekend.

But if that doesn’t happen, here are the drivers who have a chance to clinch on points when the checkered flag drops at Las Vegas. Three spots in the 12-driver field are open.

RELATED: Xfinity Series standings

• Brandon Jones: He would clinch on points with 16 points and a new winner. If there is a repeat winner (or a win by Justin Allgaier, Noah Gragson, Justin Haley, John Hunter Nemechek or Ryan Sieg), he would clinch on points, regardless of finish.

• John Hunter Nemechek: He would clinch on points with 43 points and a new winner. If there is a repeat winner (or a win by Justin Allgaier, Noah Gragson, Justin Haley, Brandon Jones or Ryan Sieg), he would clinch on points, regardless of finish.

• Ryan Sieg: Sieg would clinch with a win. If there is a repeat winner (or a win by Justin Allgaier, Noah Gragson, Justin Haley, Brandon Jones or John Hunter Nemechek), he would clinch on points, regardless of finish. He could clinch on points with a new winner and help.

The remaining playoff eligible drivers can only clinch with a win.

Clinching for Regular Season Championship
• Tyler Reddick can clinch the Regular Season Championship with 11 points

Posted on September 10, 2019September 11, 2019 by Staff Report

Chase Elliott and Hendrick Motorsports revealed a new look for the No. 9 Chevrolet Camaro that will hit the track in the October playoff race at Dover International Speedway.

The primarily pink scheme will promote Hooters’ Give a Hoot campaign in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month in October. Elliott is the defending race winner for the opening event in the Round of 12 of the NASCAR Playoffs.

MORE: Buy this die-cast

Give A Hoot fundraising in October benefits the V Foundation for Cancer Research, one of the nation’s leading cancer research funding organizations, as well as other local beneficiaries through the Kelly Jo Dowd Breast Cancer Research Fund.

The Kelly Jo Dowd Breast Cancer Research Fund was established in honor of the late Kelly Jo Dowd, an original Hooters Girl and the 1995 Hooters Calendar Cover Girl. She battled breast cancer for five years before her death 2007.

Elliott is seeded seventh in the 16-driver Monster Energy Series Playoffs, which begin this weekend at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

In his fourth full-time season for Hendrick Motorsports, Elliott, 23, has two wins and eight top-five finishes through the 26 regular-season races. A win at Talladega Superspeedway, where his father, Bill, set speed records, and a repeat victory at Watkins Glen International put Elliott in solid standing as the postseason begins.

Following the Oct. 6 race, Hooters will host a charity auction in which fans will have the chance to bid on a pair of his racing gloves and shoes – both pink. All auction proceeds will benefit The V Foundation for Cancer Research through its Give A Hoot fundraising platform.