Kyle Busch won the Busch Pole Qualifying Award and will start in the top position in Sunday’s Coca-Cola 600 (6 p.m. ET on FOX, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) at Charlotte Motor Speedway. After two practice sessions (one was rained out) and qualifying, we’ve dissected the numbers and 10-lap averages to offer a suggested lineup worthy of your Fantasy Live consideration as you go to make roster decisions for the 13th Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race of 2018.
Rules review: Remember that the garage locks at the END of Stage 3 for this race. Fantasy Live players WILL ONLY receive stage points for the Stage 1 AND 2 results. There will be no stage points awarded in the game for Stage 3 nor will there be a bonus pick for the Stage 3 winner.
RJ Kraft’s revised Fantasy Live lineup following practices and the lineup being set:
1: Joey Logano
2: Denny Hamlin
3: Erik Jones
4: Kyle Larson
5: Ryan Blaney
Garage: Martin Truex Jr.
Analysis: The big move for me is sitting Kevin Harvick. Yes, he has won three of the four intermediate races this year and is strong at Charlotte with three career wins. However, he is starting 39th after not making it through qualifying inspection and a recent rule change for teams to not have to start on qualifying tires makes coming from the back less of an advantage than in the past (what we saw in Kyle Larson’s drive up through the field at Kansas two weeks ago is going to be a bit more difficult). Plus, I am down to five uses with him, so conserving a use with “Happy” is not a bad idea for me either and this is all about maximizing your uses.
I am already down to five uses on Kyle Busch, so I am electing to save him as well. He has been solid this weekend, but I am eying him for some races over the summer (Kentucky, Bristol, Darlington, Indianapolis to name some options). Also, he is 0-for-28 in points-paying Charlotte races — the lone track he has yet to win at on the circuit — and Joe Gibbs Racing has just one Charlotte win since 2004.
Logano, Hamlin, Larson and Truex were all part of my original lineup and had strong showings on the 10-lap board. MTJ also placed third on the 15-lap board (h/t @MikeJoy500) and he has been a monster in this race the past three years (one win, 3.0 average finish and led 756 of 1,200 laps — 63 percent — in that stretch). Jones topped the leaderboard in final practice and paced the 10-and 15-lap boards. Given his strong intermediate races this season with four top-11 finishes, I like flipping him into the lineup.
My last roster move was a bit of a toss up between Ryan Blaney and Kurt Busch. Blaney has not fared too well at Charlotte but I like his solid intermediate results on the season so far. Busch has six top 11s in his last seven Charlotte starts, but Blaney was a bit better on the 10-lap board in final practice and they were pretty close on the 15-and 20-lap boards as well. YRB also has the better starting spot on Sunday so I’m placing my trust in the young Penske star for this one.
CONCORD, N.C. — It’s not difficult to identify the unquestioned top highlight of Bubba Wallace’s 2018 season so far.
His runner-up finish in a dramatic Daytona 500 in his first full-time Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series season — and his emotional reaction afterwards — were defining moments both for Wallace and the sport.
Since then, however, the results have been spotty for the Richard Petty Motorsports driver. An eighth-place finish at Texas is Wallace’s only other top 10, but his charge to the front at Bristol, with his car bedecked in traditional red-and-blue Petty colors, was another noteworthy accomplishment.
Ultimately, Wallace finished 16th after the handling of No. 43 Chevrolet deteriorated late in that race, and since then, Wallace has leveled off at 22nd in the series standings.
The results may be uneven, but make no mistake — the effort hasn’t diminished. And neither has Wallace’s enthusiasm.
“I’m enjoying the hell out of this year,” said Wallace, whose NASCAR Camping World Truck Series victory at Martinsville in 2013 was the first for an African-American driver on one of NASCAR’s top three tours since 1963. “I’m having so much fun, and some weeks are good. Some weeks are not what we want, but we’re continuing and growing and learning from it, and that is all you can do.
“Everybody I’ve run into that has been around for many years in this sport continues to kind of tell me the same message… saying we’re doing the right things. We’re doing the best with what we’ve got, and when the car is right, it shows. When we are off a little bit, that also shows as well, but as long as we capitalize on those days and get the most out of it that we can, that is a successful day despite the finish that we didn’t really want.”
Wallace got his first taste of Cup racing last year when he subbed for injured Aric Almirola in the No. 43 car at Pocono, Michigan, Daytona and Kentucky. The series returns to those tracks over the next six weeks, and Wallace relishes the prospect.
“We’re a small team, small budget, and we have shown some signs of great success throughout the year,” said Wallace, who was 19th fastest in Saturday’s final practice for the Coca-Cola 600 (6 p.m. Sunday on FOX, PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). “I’m excited about the tracks that are coming up.
“We get into the tracks that I made my first four starts at last year while subbing in for Aric, so looking for a lot of momentum throughout this next month or so, this next stretch.”
Erik Jones showed the most speed in Saturday’s final Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series practice in preparation for the Coca-Cola 600, circling Charlotte Motor Speedway at 187.045 mph in the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota.
Kyle Larson was second-fastest, urging his No. 42 Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet to 186.664 mph.
Ryan Blaney (186.104 mph), Joey Logano (186.047 mph) and Denny Hamlin (185.938 mph) rounded out the top five in practice. Saturday’s earlier practice was canceled because of rain, so this served as the only post-qualifying tune-up for Sunday’s race (6 p.m., FOX, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Kyle Busch, who was 18th-fastest in Saturday’s practice, will start on the pole for the Coca-Cola 600.
Several cars served practice holds including: the No. 10 of Aric Almirola, the No. 95 of Kasey Kahne and the No. 96 of Parker Kligerman, all for failing inspection twice. The No. 4 of Kevin Harvick (failed inspection three times) and No. 7 of JJ Yeley (failed inspection twice and late to qualifying inspection) served 30-minute practice holds.
Rain reared its head in the final stage of the NASCAR Xfinity Series Alsco 300 at Charlotte Motor Speedway. The red flag came out at Lap 172 for weather before a big downpour hit the 1.5-mile track and caused a delay of one hour, one minute and 12 seconds. Television coverage of the conclusion of the race shifted from FS1 to FS2. Weather had played a role earlier in the race, bringing out a previous caution on Lap 125.
At the time of the red flag, Brad Keselowski was scored as the race leader, according to NASCAR Timing & Scoring, with Daniel Hemric in second. Kyle Busch won the first two stages of the race and led 93 laps. However, a rash of cautions put drivers on varying strategies and caught in traffic, and Busch clipped the grass and went spinning and sliding into Chase Briscoe on Lap 161. Keselowski would go on to hold off Cole Custer for the race win in a NASCAR Overtime finish.
A mechanical issue derailed Chase Elliott’s day shortly into the final stage. Elliott is filling in for the suspended Spencer Gallagher in five races for GMS Racing starting with Saturday’s race at Charlotte.
Rain canceled Saturday’s opening Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series practice as teams prepared for Sunday’s Memorial Day tradition, the Coca-Cola 600 (6 p.m. ET, FOX). The session was scheduled to begin at 9:05 a.m. ET and run for 50 minutes. The schedule for the day was adjusted to move Xfinity Series qualifying to 10:20 a.m. ET with the final Monster Energy Series practice starting shortly after 11 a.m. ET and running for about an hour.
NASCAR has 12 Toyota Tundra track drying units, 13 jet dryers, three vacuums (two track vacuums, 1 Elgin sweeper) and two tractor brooms on hand for track-drying efforts.
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, today’s forecast for Concord, North Carolina, included scattered showers and thunderstorms, mostly cloudy, with a high near 83. Chance of precipitation is 50%.
Matt Kenseth hoisted his very first Monster Energy NASCAR Cup trophy at Charlotte Motor Speedway following the 2000 Coca-Cola 600. It’s been 18 years, a series championship and 38 more wins since that time, but Kenseth is hopeful the longtime good vibe here will be a positive sign of things to come in Sunday night’s running of the race.
Kenseth rejoined the Roush-Fenway Racing Ford team this month after five seasons driving a Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota. Kenseth, however, was driving for the newly-selected NASCAR Hall of Famer Jack Roush when he won at Charlotte those years ago (once in the 600 and once in the fall). He was hired by the team again to help in re-energizing and re-focusing the storied organization.
The veteran is driving a part-time schedule, sharing time in the No. 6 Ford Fusion with Trevor Bayne. This weekend’s start will be only his second points race of the 2018 season. He started 35th and finished 36th at Kansas Speedway two weeks ago. He won the pole position for last week’s Monster Energy All-Star race at Charlotte and finished 14th in the non-points event.
“We’re not very far into this year,” Kenseth cautioned anyone bringing too-lofty expectations to the 600 weekend.
“Kansas was a struggle the whole weekend. Last weekend was very unique, running restrictor plates and all that stuff at Charlotte and the All-Star format and stuff, so that was kind of different.
“I’m glad to be able to get on the track and get a full practice in (at Charlotte). … I feel like we learned a couple things so far and hopefully we can get qualified respectable and then get back to work Saturday on race trim.”
Kenseth’s return has been a steep and immediate learning curve, back in the driver’s seat after an 11-week season-opening sabbatical. He was immediately challenged with two radically different refreshers in the 1.5-mile Kansas track and then the unique restrictor plate, special format of the All-Star race.
This week’s 600-miler should give him plenty of opportunity to find his groove and truly start to work on the greater task he’s accepted — helping the Roush team regain the prominence it had when Kenseth won a Cup championship.
“It’s still pretty new and there’s a lot of different things to try to work through, at least, what I’d like to work through and just trying to keep getting a better feel for it every week and kind of try to give my opinions, for what they’re worth,” Kenseth said. “What I feel like we could do different and better and what we’re doing good. It’s that type of thing.”
The No. 6 team has only four top-five finishes in the last four seasons and is eager to see if a change in the driver lineup can boost the competitive flair. Kenseth qualified 17th Thursday night. And he comes into the race ranked among the top five in all major statistical categories at Charlotte, from average finish (13.577 – fifth best) to driver rating (96.1 – fourth best).
In addition to his winning resume here (two wins and two pole positions), Kenseth also has victories at both of the next two tracks where he’s scheduled to compete — at Pocono (one win) and at Michigan (three wins).
“I’ve had a lot of time to train the last six months, so I’m not worried about the physical aspect of it,” Kenseth said. “I’m more worried about trying to keep up, get our cars a little faster so we can first of all stay on the lead lap, second of all, hopefully start moving forward and getting kind of in the mix and start to go get forward.”
Kyle Busch’s Fan Day on Friday saw one special guest line up for an autograph: Kyle Busch Motorsports driver Noah Gragson approached Busch hunched over and wearing a yellow No. 18 jacket, hat and sunglasses.
For a moment, “Rowdy” thought he was just another fan, as he signed the No. 51 die cast. One gesture after that, though, may have blown his cover.
For five races in 2018, Kevin Harvick and the No. 4 team’s race day has ended with hat dances and Busch Beer, the team plane carrying five winner’s trophies (plus one $1 million check) back to the Stewart-Haas Racing shop.
Once that plane lands back in North Carolina, however, it’s time to toss the beer – and pick up a wrench.
“As hard as it is to do, when you get off the plane Sunday night, you’ve got to be over what happened on the weekend, whether you’ve won or lost and I believe that’s the key to pushing yourself forward and pushing your team forward to make sure that the goal is to always get better,” Kevin Harvick told NASCAR.com on a recent visit to the Mobil 1 research and engineering facility. “If you’re coming home and going to dwell on the fact that you won the race over the weekend or you lost the race over the weekend, you’re not accomplishing anything in preparation for the next week.
“Monday is all about preparation for the next week and nothing to do with last week.”
Winning has become the standard for Stewart-Haas Racing in 2018. As a group, the team has won exactly half of the first 12 points races of 2018, with Harvick & Co. earning five and Clint Bowyer’s No. 14 team breaking through for a Martinsville victory in March. All four drivers rank in the top 10 in points.
But what exactly has caused this improvement in performance as a group?
Jared C. Tilton | Getty Images
The answers vary: No. 10 crew chief Johnny Klausmeier said the team has worked out some of its “growing pains” from 2017, its first season with Ford. Kurt Busch referenced the team’s newfound “synergy” and the notion that each driver is “pushing each other” harder. No. 4 crew chief Rodney Childers pointed out everyone is “working together” and “communicating.”
SHR Competition Director Greg Zipadelli said the team spent the winter “really looking at the details.”
“Last year, we did everything we could to just make it to the race track, to prepare cars. This winter, we made a lot of changes in-house and how we do things and I think we’re kind of seeing the benefits of it …,” he said. “A lot of the things that we did with the Chevrolets didn’t work with the Fords; these noses are so different, airflow and a lot of those types of things. So we had to stop, kind of relook at things … So, from all our engineers on a weekly basis to people in the aero group to everybody in our engineering group has been able to give their input, refine things at every level.”
They just seem to have all the pieces of the puzzle now, Harvick summarized.
“When you add all those pieces to the puzzle up and you look the experience of the team, you look at the partnerships that we have with Ford and Mobil 1 and all the support that we have from our ownership group to let us go out and explore and do the things and take the chance of switching to a different manufacturer … and controlling more of our own parts and pieces and things,” he said. “Those things all added up and in my opinion, the light at the tunnel is very bright still because I feel like we have a long ways to go to achieve and really get a full understanding and the most out of all the resources and things that we have. I feel like we can get a lot more out of them.”
One of those resources is SHR partner Mobil 1, whose impact was witnessed firsthand when Harvick, Busch, Aric Almirola and their respective crew chiefs flew to Paulsboro, New Jersey, to tour its research and engineering facility on May 15. Donning lab coats and safety glasses, the drivers and crew chiefs peered into Mobil 1’s laboratories and went behind the scenes with chemists to learn what goes into their race cars each week.
Jessica Ruffin | NASCAR Digital Media
The team’s newest driver, Almirola seemed particularly fascinated in his first trip to the state-of-the-art facility, asking several questions during the tour.
“We … had our minds blown,” he said afterward. “It’s just an information overload. To see how much detail, all the way down to microscopic detail, is amazing and to know that they put a lot of that technology and resources and development into our race engines before it ever sees a passenger car. And that’s really neat to be able to be the proving grounds because we operate under such extreme conditions and require and demand so much out of the engine oil.”
Kevin Harvick recalled his first year at Stewart-Haas and how he was impressed during qualifying that they’d pick up a “tenth-and-a-half or two-tenths of a second and it literally came down to the oil in the engine.” From his crew chief’s perspective, every little bit makes a big difference.
“Any advantage you can get right now is an advantage in the Cup Series,” Childers said. “You just have everybody so close together, their lap times are so close together, so you have a lot different products where you can go about getting more speed, whether it’s engine oil or greases in the rear housing or the hubs. All that stuff makes a huge difference. So, (Mobil 1 is) constantly working on that stuff to make it better and get a little bit more advantage on people.”
Competitive advantage, through all the team’s facets, is what a race team strives for each week. The No. 4 team in particular has been in a different league than many of the competitors at the race track this year; Harvick is the first driver since Jeff Gordon in 1997 to win five of the first 12 races. While Harvick doesn’t liken himself to the newly tapped Hall of Famer, he does see the parallels with his group and the Rainbow Warriors.
“You have such a cohesiveness in the team that everybody believes in each other and an organization that believes in what they’re doing and what they can accomplish,” he said. “I look at what Tony Stewart did when he won the championship back in 2011. What that organization did is what it does every day now. I think one of the things that’s changed the most is as a company we can race at a championship-weekend level on a weekly basis now. And that’s really a lot of fun to be a part of.”
Childers smiled when asked about the atmosphere back at the race shop, calling it “crazy good.”
Brian Lawdermilk | Getty Images
“Winning is addicting and you just want to keep doing it more and more,” he said. “It makes everybody work harder every week. You want to just continue that and see how many races you can win. It’s just something that we may never get to do again in our careers, so we’re trying to work really hard to keep all that going.”
Being a part of a winning group is exciting; the No. 4 team has its sights set on more Victory Lane trophies and eventually, its second championship at Homestead-Miami Speedway. But after the confetti’s cleared, the celebration has simmered down and the lights go out at the race track, what’s left to keep them inspired isn’t so flashy: It’s the people at the shop who work hard together every week to keep the team going — no matter the race outcome.
“You’re going to have good weekends and you’re going to have bad weekends and right now it seems to be going good,” Childers said. “So, the next time we have a really bad one, it’s probably not going to be good. It’s just hard — you get used to winning, just like in any sport you want to continue that. The more you strive for that, the more disappointed you are when you do have a bad day.
“We’ve got a good group of people, we have each other’s backs and I think that that group of people is what keeps us all grounded and motivated at the same time.”
Trackside Live is bringing fans at Charlotte Motor Speedway a patriotic weekend with shows on Saturday, May 26 (post-NASCAR Xfinity Series race) AND Sunday, May 27 (2:30 p.m. ET).
The Saturday show was scheduled for 4:15 p.m. ET but wet weather and a delay in the Xfinity Series race pushed that show to be approximately 15 minutes after the Xfinity race ends.
Don’t miss your chance to meet your favorite drivers and have some fun along the way. Watch the video above and get excited for the historic Coca-Cola 600!
Editor’s note: Fantasy Fastlane will look at each race from a fantasy perspective, examining the top plays as well as several under-the-radar options and a play to avoid for NASCAR Fantasy Live. See the full analysis here.
