Sunday’s green flag in the Cracker Barrel 400 at Nashville Superspeedway marked 700 career NASCAR Cup Series starts for Denny Hamlin.
The 44-year-old pilot became the 22nd driver in series history to accomplish the feat, joining NASCAR Hall of Famer Jimmie Johnson, who made his 700th career start last weekend at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
Leading 79 laps and grabbing a playoff point with a Stage 1 checkered flag, Hamlin ran in the top five throughout the 300-lapper on the 1.33-mile concrete oval, finishing third on the evening and snapping a skid of four finishes outside the top 15.
As the full-time driver of the No. 11 car for Joe Gibbs Racing since 2006, Hamlin has transformed into one of NASCAR’s premier stars, finding Victory Lane 56 times, currently the 11th-most all-time.
With two victories so far this season, Hamlin is slated to make his 19th career Cup Series Playoffs appearance dating back to 2006, creating another opportunity for Hamlin to capture his first career Bill France Cup.
SEEKONK, Mass. — Including spectators, competitors and officials, thousands packed into the third-mile bullring that is Seekonk Speedway on Sunday to witness the fourth race of the 2025 NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour season.
Not a single person doubted the prospect of Matt Hirschman delivering yet another dominant performance at the Massachusetts short track, this time in the J&R Precast 150.
Sure enough, after sweeping the afternoon’s pair of practice sessions and qualifying on the Hoosier Tire Pole, the 42-year-old scored his third consecutive Modified Tour victory at Seekonk.
Hirschman, who now has 10 victories on the Tour, won the series’ visits in 2023 and 2024, as well. He had not won a Tour race since last year’s Seekonk event; this despite the fact that he entered Sunday with the most laps led on Tour this season. He now has at least one series victory in five consecutive seasons.
(Photo: Jaiden Tripi/NASCAR)
“This car was torn up after North Wilkesboro,” Hirschman said of his increasingly iconic No. 60 Pee Dee Motorsports Modified. “We worked countless hours on this. … Just want to thank all the people who help us here.
“This has always been a tough race track, but it’s a race track I really like. I enjoy coming here and look forward to coming here. It’s not an easy place to duplicate things or do it three times. You have to race the track as much as you do the competitors here. I’ve lost some tough ones over the years here, too. So to put a whole day together today … just can’t ask for a better day. And we really needed it after what our last day was at North Wilkesboro.”
Thanks in part to a redraw that moved the pole winner to the third starting position, the big move for “Big Money” on Sunday occurred during the second restart of the race. Hirschman restarted outside of redraw pole-sitter Justin Bonsignore and held his ground in the upper groove for several laps. With 121 of 150 circuits still to run, Hirschman powered by Bonsignore for the lead.
Hirschman experienced little resistance from that point. He managed his tires knowing he likely would not pit from the lead, a strategy that paid off when a caution with 54 to go sent more than a dozen contenders to the pits for a tire change.
Hirschman and Bonsignore stayed out, but the latter was no match for the former as Hirschman drove away from the field.
Not even a late caution for debris could spoil Hirschman’s day at Seekonk. The race’s final restart arrived with just two laps to go, and Hirschman utilized a smooth entry into Turns 1-2 to reclaim the lead for good.
On the final lap, Bonsignore, still fighting to get back to Hirschman, got loose coming off Turn 2. He spun and collected multiple cars on the backstretch, resulting in the event’s only pile-up. The yellow flag marked the end of the race.
“Obviously we didn’t want to see a caution at all,” Hirschman said. “We survived it. It’s going to take laps to get back hooked up. Of course you want to protect the bottom from first, but that also hurts your center corner speed. (Bonsignore) was able to cross over and get a run. … I gave him the space he earned. … I think he got loose; I don’t know what happened from there.”
After the last-lap chaos, Stephen Kopcik was credited with a second-place finish. Austin Beers, who came agonizingly close to winning last year’s Seekonk race before Hirschman stole the show, finished third.
Jake Johnson finished fourth in his second race of the season for JMA Motorsports, which considered Seekonk a home event. Trevor Catalano ran fifth.
Kyle Bonsignore, rookie Tyler Barry, Chase Dowling, Kyle Ebersole and Eric Goodale finished sixth through 10th, respectively.
Justin Bonsignore, the defending Modified Tour champion, was relegated to an 11th-place finish as a result of his last-lap crash. He led his first laps of the young season early in Sunday’s race.
The good news for Bonsignore: His home track of Riverhead Raceway is next on the Modified Tour schedule. The teams get a couple weeks off before returning to action on Long Island for the Miller Lite Salutes Steve Park 200 on Saturday, June 14.
That race is scheduled to take the green flag shortly after 8 p.m. ET. FloRacing will provide live coverage.
NASCAR heads to the 1.33-mile concrete track, Nashville Superspeedway, for tonight’s Cracker Barrel 400 (7 ET, Prime Video).
Nashville represents the fourth consecutive intermediate-track, points-paying race. Notably, practice times have been extremely useful over the first three races at Texas, Kansas, and Charlotte in predicting race speed.
In particular, my FLAGS metric identified Larson and Chastain as the clear best cars in each of the last two weeks. The week before, it pinned Austin Cindric as fastest in practice, and he won Stage 1 before ultimately running into issues with a poorly timed pit stop just before a caution, then getting caught up in a late wreck.
So it should be no surprise that I’ll be heavily relying on practice FLAGS to find some value for tonight’s NASCAR best bets for Nashville.
DraftKings is hanging a ton of head-to-head bets this week, and that’s the market I’m looking to attack.
I’m showing pretty clear value on four of these matchup bets, so without breaking down each individual matchup, I’ll simply list them with their FLAGS rating and their median finishing position as determined by my model.
1. Tyler Reddick -110 over Christopher Bell
FLAGS: Reddick 89.6% (1st), Bell 74.9% (8th)
Med. Finish: Reddick 6.5, Bell 7.5
2. Cody Ware -110 over J.J. Yeley
FLAGS: Ware 16.4% (36th), Yeley 4.6% (38th)
Med. Finish: Ware 30.5, Yeley 31.5
3. William Byron -115 over Kyle Larson
FLAGS: Byron 85.3% (4th), Larson 57.9% (16th)
Med. Finish: Byron 5.5, Larson 6.5
4. Chase Briscoe -120 over Joey Logano
FLAGS: Briscoe 78.7% (5th), Logano 49.8% (21st)
Med. Finish: Briscoe 11.5, Logano 13.5
Notably, in all four of these matchups, the driver I’m betting on is also starting ahead of their opponent, so we’re firing off with the early advantage on cars that also practiced faster.
I’m also going to have a little fun and parlay these four bets at DraftKings at +1149 odds. It’s quite unlikely to hit, but it’s a fun way to compound these edges.
LEBANON, Tenn. — Don’t ask Chris Buescher about points. The native Texan is solely focused on chasing checkered flags with RFK Racing.
“I adamantly hate points racing so much,” Buescher said on Saturday at Nashville Superspeedway. “If it didn’t happen to roll up on (X) feeds because I’m scrolling, I wouldn’t have a clue. I don’t like that it consumes so much of the conversation. I want to go to the track on a weekly basis and try to figure out how to win that, knowing that everything comes with winning races. It’s a pretty basic concept.”
However, Buescher was pleased to hear on Wednesday that the National Motorsports Appeals Panel amended the L1-level penalty issued to the No. 17 team after the Cup Series race last month at Kansas Speedway. He was in Nashville to promote the race weekend during the hearing.
Regaining 30 of the 60 points, Buescher jumped seven spots in the Regular Season Championship standings, slotting in 16th. Entering Sunday night’s Cracker Barrel 400 at Nashville Superspeedway (7 p.m. ET, Prime Video, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), he’s six points behind RFK teammate Ryan Preece for the provisional bubble spot with half the regular season remaining.
“It put us in a little better spot on that side of things, but ultimately, it doesn’t change our year,” Buescher said of the addition of 30 points. “We have the second half of the regular season to win some races. I believe that ultimately, it’s going to take wins to get you over the playoff bubble.”
Team co-owner Brad Keselowski was pleased with the ruling. But, like Buescher, he believes it’s going to take a checkered flag to punch a ticket to the postseason, thinking that drivers below the elimination line will win their way in.
“It’s a good thing to move [Buescher] up in points,” Keselowski said. “The reality of the series and the way it’s judged with the way the playoff format works, I think our mindset is that we need to win races to be relevant and to guarantee we’re going to the playoffs. It wasn’t a bad thing, but I don’t know that it really changes anything for us.”
What has changed for RFK is the allocation of a few roles and responsibilities within the organization to ensure there is no overlooking of the NASCAR rule book moving forward, Keselowski mentioned in his Saturday press conference. In addition to Buescher’s penalty, Ryan Preece was disqualified from a runner-up finish in April at Talladega Superspeedway for a spoiler modification, setting the No. 60 car back.
“The situations at hand were not what I would call pushing too much, as I would call not having any regard to understanding the rule book and all of its complexities,” Keselowski said. “Ultimately, that burden falls on us, so we’ve had those conversations internally. Everyone knows what is expected of them.”
Through the first half of the regular season, Buescher has six top-10 finishes, more than reigning Regular Season Champion Tyler Reddick (four) and defending Cup champion Joey Logano (three). It’s the same amount as two-time 2025 winner Denny Hamlin.
That said, Buescher has a single top-five finish (Phoenix in March) since last visiting Victory Lane in September at Watkins Glen International. The path forward is to perform better.
“What we wanted so badly this year was to improve our first 10 races,” Buescher said. “Proud of the fact that we have been better; there’s no doubt about that in my mind. We’ve been able to measure that in a lot of ways, and it may not show in all of the results, but we’ve been a lot better.
“We haven’t been able to get the win that we hoped for in the first handful like we hoped for. We’ve been in the hunt across all three of our teams. All things considered, it’s been a fairly successful beginning of the season, call it a B-plus, with a lot of room for improvement to get to the point to where we can win every week.”
After Nashville and on the radar are visits to Michigan International Speedway, where Buescher is a recent winner, and Mexico City, where the No. 17 car should be a strong contender.
Exactly halfway through the regular season, only eight drivers have provisionally locked their spot in the NASCAR Playoffs with a win. However, three of the last four drivers who stepped into Victory Lane did so for the first time this season, which signals there’s still runway for a driver’s season to launch.
Looking at Nashville, it will be just the fifth Cup Series race at the 1.33-mile concrete speedway, and a few candidates have a chance this Sunday to change their season’s tune in Music City (7 p.m. ET, Prime Video, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Ryan Blaney, pole winner Chase Briscoe and Chase Elliott are drivers from the powerhouse teams that currently remain winless. Yes, they would each be safe on points to make the playoff field if things stay the same by the end of August. But asking for the next 13 weeks to go smoothly is a lot, given that a turbulent shake-up could happen at any moment. It’s always better to be safe than sorry and win to ensure you’re in, rather than leaving it up to chance.
Starting with Elliott, he’s finished every race in the top 20, with seven of those being top 10s. The 2020 Cup Series champ also has two wins on concrete, with one of them at Nashville in 2022. The way Hendrick Motorsports has been humming this season — it currently leads all teams in poles (five), top fives (19), top 10s (31), laps led (1,706) and stage wins (14) — it only seems like a matter of time until Elliott places a winner sticker on the No. 9 Chevrolet.
On to Blaney, who hasn’t won yet, mainly because he has five DNFs, which are tied for the most this season. But he has the speed to win, given NASCAR Insights ranks Blaney first in both long-run speed and passing for the season. At Nashville, Blaney finished sixth there last year after a chaotic run of five overtimes and has a career-best finish of third at the facility in 2022. However, his other two results in Music City hit a different note, with crashes being scored 36th or worse.
Finally, there’s Briscoe, who said last week the No. 19 team is “still learning each other,” but then went out and earned his second pole of 2025 and finished third in one of the toughest races on the schedule. While his driver average of 29.3 at Nashville indicates it’s one of his worst tracks, all four of those starts were with Stewart-Haas Racing. He’s shown plenty of flashes in Joe Gibbs Racing’s equipment, adding a second straight pole on Saturday, with three of his last five finishes being fourth or better, and it could all come together this weekend.
BUBBA WALLACE: All four times Wallace has entered Nashville, he’s earned a top 20; his average finish of 13.5 at the speedway makes it one of his best tracks. Plus, he could use a rebound after three straight finishes of 33rd or worse.
RYAN PREECE: The No. 60 RFK Racing driver has been making 2025 a career year so far, as he currently holds the 16th playoff spot. Preece has two wins at Nashville in the Truck Series and his 17.3 average finish is his best for active non-short tracks.
AJ ALLMENDINGER: Coming off a fourth-place finish in the 600, Allmendinger now has four top 10s this season. He only has three starts at Nashville at the Cup level with a best finish of 10th, but did win an Xfinity race there two years ago. (UPDATE: Allmendinger will be starting from the rear.)
COREY HEIM: It’s a long shot for Heim to win in his second start of 2025, but that’s not why he’s here. At Kansas this year, Heim was the highest-finishing 23XI car in 13th. He recently became the youngest driver to reach 15 truck wins and his career numbers mirror Kyle Busch’s so far. Nashville will be the first oval he’s seeing twice at the Cup level, and a good indication of whether he’s ready to make the full-time jump soon.
RACING INSIGHTS’ PROJECTIONS FOR THE CRACKER BARREL 400
Racing Insights’ advanced statistical formula includes current track, current track type, recent performance, team data and pit-crew data to arrive at a projected winner and full race results. Updated on race day with practice and qualifying factored in.
LEBANON, Tenn. — Sheldon Creed desperately needed a good finish. He had free-fallen in the Xfinity Series regular–season championship battle.
Creed began his tenure with Haas Factory Team ranking third in the points standings through the opening three events. The No. 00 team had its first setback of 2025 at Phoenix Raceway, getting involved in a wreck triggered by Austin Hill. He followed that up with four straight top-10 finishes through Darlington Raceway.
Since then, though, it’s been an abysmal five-race stretch for Creed. The No. 00 Ford had consecutive DNFs due to wrecks at Bristol Motor Speedway and Rockingham Speedway. He managed a best finish during that span of ninth at Talladega Superspeedway before wrecking out just past the halfway point at Texas Motor Speedway the following week. He dropped to 12th on the playoff grid, only 11 markers above the elimination line. With a different strategy compared to most of the field, he rebounded to 10th at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
After posting the fifth-best time in qualifying on Saturday at Nashville Superspeedway, Creed had a good start for the Tennessee Lottery 250. He finished sixth in the opening stage and improved to second by the conclusion of Stage 2. The No. 00 pit crew thrived at the stage break, getting Creed the lead off pit road.
“They were on it tonight and got us the lead,” Creed said of his No. 00 bunch. “Just got us track position all night. Could have made a few different decisions on restarts to try to get the lead back like [Justin Allgaier] did. I don’t know if I was going to hold him off, I was getting too tight every run.”
Allgaier was in a class of his own on Saturday, leading a race-high 101 laps and having a maximum 61-point day. Creed dropped to fourth in the closing laps, with his Haas teammate Sam Mayer getting by to be the best finishing Ford driver. Rookie Connor Zilisch finished runner-up.
Still, a fourth-place finish is Creed’s first top five since the end of March at Martinsville Speedway, extending his record-breaking runner-up streak to 14 occasions before winning a race.
Creed stated: “We’ve been wrecked when we’ve struggled, and we’ve been wrecked running good. You try to keep doing your job, showing up and working hard. We knew we were capable of running like we did tonight.
“Still a little bit of work for us both to do to run mainly with the 7, he’s consistently fast every week. Need to keep working on it.”
Creed leaped four spots in the standings to sixth, now 38 points above the bubble with 12 races remaining in the regular season.
The 47 points earned at Nashville were the most Creed tallied in a race since the season opener at Daytona International Speedway (51). Of his ranking, he put it simply, “Love it. Need to keep trying to stack them and move up the ladder.”
