On Tuesday, NASCAR announced the addition of two international provisionals for the NASCAR Xfinity Series race in Mexico City.
Officials added language to the entry blank that expands the typical 38-car limit to a 40-car maximum for The Chilango 150 (June 14, 4:30 p.m. ET, The CW, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) at Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez. Per the update: The race may include up to two additional entries for a maximum starting field of 40 based on qualifying results. The starting position eligibility of such additional entrants shall be in accordance with Section 7.9 of the NASCAR Rule Book.
As provisionals will be determined based on qualifying, teams that qualify 39th or 40th will not be eligible for prize money, regardless of their finishing position. Neither the driver nor the team will receive any points or playoff benefits for competing in the event.
Mike Forde, NASCAR’s managing director of racing communications, said the sanctioning body currently expects 39 teams to trek to Mexico City and compete in the series’ first race there since 2008. With the increased effort required to cross the border without issue, NASCAR Xfinity Series managing director Eric Peterson sought an exemption to allow teams willing to make the effort to start the event, even if they would otherwise have failed to qualify, resulting in the addition of these provisionals.
The restrictions on prize money and points for those who qualify outside the top 38 are similar in nature to those for the Open Exempt Provisional, which was introduced in the offseason. Hélio Castroneves and Trackhouse Racing utilized the OEP for the Daytona 500 when its No. 91 Chevrolet failed to qualify otherwise, guaranteeing their spot in the field as a unique 41st entry but not receiving any points or prize money.
For more information, tune in to a new episode of the “Hauler Talk” podcast on Wednesday, wherever you find your podcasts.
The 2025 Coca-Cola 600 brought the excitement, seeing Ross Chastain emerge and overtake race dominator William Byron in the closing laps for his first win of the season. Will Byron’s near-win — which would have been his first since the season-opening Daytona 500 — set him up for success this weekend?
NASCAR.com’s Pat DeCola ranks the top 20 Cup Series contenders after the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway and ahead of the Cracker Barrel 400 at Nashville Superspeedway (7 p.m. ET, Prime Video, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Analysis: Byron didn’t leave with the trophy in Sunday’s Coca-Cola 600, but he was the clear “winner,” picking up a whole 15 points more than any other driver, including winner Ross Chastain. That vaults him back to the top here and also in the Cup Series standings, heading to a track where he should be in the mix for the win. Fresh off a (lengthy) contract extension, too, it’s good to be No. 24 right now.
Analysis: A second straight tremendously frustrating Memorial Day Weekend Sunday for Larson not only resulted in him finishing neither the Indianapolis 500 nor the Coca-Cola 600, but knocking him out of the points lead as well. He’s been quite good at Nashville, though, dominating his first start there for the win and following it up with three more top 10s. A butt-kicking might be just what the doctor ordered.
Analysis: In terms of consistency, Bell is right there with Byron among this season’s elite, with his only non-top-10 in the past two-plus months — including the All-Star Race, which he won — came after getting caught up in a wreck at Talladega. He appears destined for another Championship 4 appearance later this season and after leading 131 laps last year at Nashville, a fourth 2025 points win could come Sunday.
Analysis: Elliott has now finished fifth, sixth, 15th or 16th in five straight races — on top of not finishing outside the top 20 at all this year — as his fun with numbers and solid runs continue into June, riding a career-best 11.2 average finish. He’s a past Nashville victor and has been competitive in each race there; this could certainly be the weekend he becomes a 2025 winner.
Analysis: Hamlin likely would’ve been in the mix at the very end at Charlotte had his pit crew executed correctly on the final stop … which wound up not being the final stop, since he needed more fuel. The Coca-Cola 600 was still a fruitful, 44-point day for him, however, and with 70-plus laps led in each of the last three Nashville races he should be competitive once again Sunday.
Analysis: We mentioned here last week that Chastain was capable of winning the Coca-Cola 600 and, well, he did just that to quiet all of his many doubters and reinsert himself into championship talk. And, as these things seem to always go, he actually might be the favorite to win at Nashville, too, as he’s been lights out there across its four recent Cup races with a win and three top fives.
Analysis: Team Penske was essentially absent from the Coca-Cola 600, and Logano was the highest-finishing driver among them in 17th, the last driver on the lead lap. He could use a little bit of a boost after that showing, and it could certainly come at Nashville, where he sparked his title run with a victory last season.
Analysis: Reddick finished top five in each stage at Charlotte, so it’s not like he had a miserable Sunday, but it’s worth noting that he hasn’t had a race finish better than 14th since the beginning of April. Things definitely seem a tick off his 2024 level of performance when he landed in the Championship 4, and with just one top 10 in four Nashville starts it might not mark the best place for a turnaround.
Analysis: Blaney’s super weird season continues, as in the past four races he has scored exactly one point in two of them and finished exactly third in the other two. This team and driver are just too good and too fast to not be winning races, and once they get on a stretch of several complete races being put together in a row … you can guarantee they’re going to win some of them. It can certainly happen at Nashville, but his results there follow a similar trajectory: two finishes of sixth or better and two of 36th or worse.
Analysis: The Charlotte pole winner only led a single lap in the Coca-Cola 600 — ironically, not even the first one — but Briscoe still managed to corral his second straight top-five finish, the first time he’s done that since early 2023. Things are starting to click here, and we might know for sure this weekend, if No. 19 is able to secure his first top 20 at Nashville in his fifth try.
Analysis: Bowman is struggling from the same sort of inconsistency as Blaney; there is clearly some speed here but for whatever reason the finishes are anything but consistent. Literally all of No. 48’s finishes in 2025 are top 10s or outside the top 25 and off of the lead lap. He’s still hanging around the top 10 in the standings, however, but with no top 10s at Nashville to date, this likely lines up as one of his “outside the top 25” weekends.
Analysis: 23XI Racing’s recent woes stretch across the board, and Wallace is no exclusion — he’s finished 33rd or worse in May’s three points races and missed the cut for the All-Star Race entirely. All four of his Nashville results have been top-20 finishes with the most recent being a P7, however, so perhaps this might be a bit of a rebound weekend for him.
Analysis: Stenhouse Jr. fell just shy of his third top 10 of the season at Charlotte, but it still helped to lower his season-long average finish to what’s shaping up to be a career-best 16.8. Though his recent Nashville results leave some room for improvement, he was P6 there in his first shot in 2021 and it’s not impossible to think he could replicate it with how well he’s running.
Analysis: Thirteen races into his RFK Racing tenure — his sixth full-time Cup Series season — Preece has already matched a career-high in top 10s and is quite surprisingly looking like the team’s best shot at the playoffs at the moment. Given he had a top five running for a lame-duck team at Nashville last year, there’s little reason to think he won’t keep it rolling in Tennessee.
Analysis: A difficult weekend for Team Penske as a whole didn’t spare Cindric, who faced questioning about his job status after his father and former Penske president Tim Cindric was let go from the organization before Austin took home the No. 2 Ford in 31st at Charlotte. His lone top 10 since the middle of March was his win at Talladega and with his only such finish at Nashville coming in 2022, another top 10 this weekend looks like a stretch.
Analysis: Allmendinger’s 49 points scored at Charlotte were only one tally shy of race-winner Chastain and the most he’d scored in a Cup race since 2010 (which used a different, higher points format; this was essentially his most lucrative race ever, points-wise). The Coca-Cola 600 might be exactly the jolt this team needed and Allmendinger — who finished 10th and 11th the past two years at Nashville — should be competitive again this weekend.
Analysis: Berry is still going to be in the playoffs by virtue of his early season win at Las Vegas, but he currently holds the final spot and is about to be doubled in points by standings leader William Byron. This likely signals a one-round-and-done kind of playoff run, but at least he’ll be motivated for a good showing at Nashville this weekend after starting on the front row last year and crashing out.
Analysis: The highlight of Busch’s weekend came in the media center, where he and Richard Childress Racing announced a contract extension for next year. Otherwise, another finish outside the top 10 and more questions than answers was what he walked away with. He’s also led just seven total laps since COTA and while he’s led in three of the four Nashville races, it’s hard to see more materializing this weekend.
Analysis: McDowell has looked like a contender this year, but it hadn’t quite turned into anything resembling a solid finish for him … until Charlotte, where he finally landed his first top 10 and collected 31 points for his largest total since COTA. Nashville could be a sneaky track for him, too — though he averages a 23.0 finish, he led 31 laps there last year before losing a transmission.
Analysis: While Preece may seem like RFK’s best overall shot to make the playoffs right now, Buescher arguably remains the driver in its stable most likely to win his way in, despite a recent downturn. With a top five last year at Nashville, it may even come Sunday.
The National Motorsports Appeals Panel today heard and considered an appeal of a behavioral penalty issued on May 21, 2025, to No. 21 NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour driver Stephen Kopcik.
Upon hearing the testimony, the decisions of the National Motorsports Appeals Panel are:
That the Appellant violated the Rule(s) set forth in the Penalty Notice.
That the Panel amends the punishment to the following:
$2500 fine. Suspended from NASCAR until the fine is paid.
Probation until December 31, 2025
In reaching the above decision, the panel provided the following explanation: “The panel believes that although there were several factors that contributed to the wreck, ultimately, the contact by the 21 car against the 3 car was intentional.”
The Appeals Panel members for this hearing:
Mr. Chuck Deery
Mr. Hunter Nickell
Ms. Cathy Rice
The Appellant has the right to appeal the decision of the National Motorsports Appeals Panel to the National Motorsports Final Appeals Officer in accordance with the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour Rule Book.
The NASCAR Xfinity Series continues its regular-season push with the Tennessee Lottery 250 on Saturday (7:30 p.m. ET, The CW, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Katherine Legge makes her fifth Xfinity Series start of the season; she will race in the No. 32 Jordan Anderson Racing Chevrolet. 2025 Coca-Cola 600 winner Ross Chastain will additionally make his third Xfinity start of the season, driving the No. 9 JR Motorsports Chevrolet.
With a thrilling Coca-Cola 600 in the books, the NASCAR Cup Series next sets its sights on Nashville Superspeedway for the Cracker Barrel 400 on Sunday (7 p.m. ET, Prime Video, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Corey Heim makes his second Cup start of 2025 this weekend, driving the No. 67 23XI Racing Toyota with Bootie Barker as crew chief as one of three Open entries.
The NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series returns to Nashville Superspeedway for action under the Friday night lights (8 p.m. ET, FS1, NASCAR Racing Network Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
After picking up his 99th career win in the Brad’s Golf Cars Modified Series at Bowman Gray Stadium last week, Burt Myers didn’t take long to hit the century mark.
He came from second to pass Brandon Ward around turn 4 on the 22nd of the 25 laps. Myers was able to hold off Ward to pick up his 100th win in the first 25-lap Modified race on double points night in all divisions.
“How about that, man,” Myers said. “It’s still, you know I keep saying it, 100 wins, 100 wins, 100 wins, but I don’t think it’ll set in until we leave here tonight, and it all dies down. It’s hard to believe. It’s hard to believe.”
Burt Myers and his family have a long history at Bowman Gray.
“To think how long I’ve been coming here and have been racing here, and I’ve never really looked at like milestone wins,” he said. “I’m still the youngest featured-winner champion. And they talk about that, but at the same time I don’t really think about, you know me, I don’t think about, we think about next week, next week, next week. But I think this one might be a little special.
“It might be a little bit different. This one will be a little different. I think we’ll relish this one just a little bit because it’s such a landmark.”
Not only does Myers have 100 wins, but he also has 11 Modified championships.
“It’s like tonight, you know in double-points night you’re really better to finish second and you’ll get the most points,” Myers said. “That’s what Brandon did.”
Ward finished runner-up in the first 25-lap race and fifth in the second race.
“But we’ve talked about it, we’ve won three weeks in a row,” Myers said. “Should’ve won the first week, had a shot to win the next week. We are just a couple bad breaks from being five in a row. So, we’ve got a good car, we’ve got a great team, but this is still Bowman Gray.”
Myers is in second place in total wins to Tim Brown’s 101, and Myers is also second to Brown’s 12 championships.
“At the same time, we’ve talked about for years, you know to win 12 championships would be great, but if we can keep racking up these wins and celebrating the moment and help support the people who have supported us to get to this point that’s what it’s about for us right now.”
Myers just harkened back to when he was a child and sat along the front stretch of Bowman Gray Stadium for the races on Saturday night.
“Not in a million years did I think that I think it would even be talked about,” Myers said. “You know, to even think about Tim doing it, to think about a driver winning 100 races at Bowman Gray. But me and Tim have dedicated our lives, so to think about me and Tim have dedicated our lives over here, and we’ve got 100 and 101, and we’ve got 11 and 12 championships.
“That’s what it takes is dedication and hard work, and that’s what we’ve both put into this place. And for us tonight, we got 100, man.”
Myers was in second for most of the first race, but he kept trying to slide underneath Ward to take the lead. Myers surged ahead with just over two laps remaining. It was reminiscent of the first race of season in the Hayes Jewelers 200 after Ward overtook Myers to win.
“The way that me and Brandon raced each, or the way that first week went, I told Brandon, I said, ‘I’m not mad at you. You know, you didn’t wreck me. You moved me for the win in a big race,’” Myers said. “It was only a twin-25, but for me this was a big race. So, it was just a flip of what happened that first week.”
Lee Jeffreys finished third, Chris Fleming was fourth, and Riley Neal finished fifth.
“But Brandon gave me thumbs up as he drove by. I don’t think he’s upset, no more than I was the first race. But at the same time to me that was just good, hard Bowman Gray racing. You know, we did it with respect both times.”
To Myers it came down to situational racing.
“We didn’t wreck each other. We didn’t put each other in the wall. But at the same time with the car, I had tonight and the situation i was in it was going to be hard pressed to keep me from winning that race.”
After the first 25-lap Modified race Myers drew 8 in the “Madhouse Scramble,” which meant the field for the second race was inverted with Myers starting eighth.
Bobby Measmer, Jr. started on the pole for the second 25-lap race, with Brown just behind him.
There were three cautions, and Chris Fleming, who finished second to bump Measmer and slide underneath. Measmer withstood his ground and fended off Fleming for the win.
It was Measmer’s third career win.
“I’ve got to thank Chris,” Measmer said. “He could’ve ran me a lot worse. But he was doing what he needed to do trying to rattle my cage, and I was able to hold him off.”
Bobby Measmer Jr. took the second 25-lap Modified feature at Bowman Gray Stadium on Saturday, the third win of his career. (Photo: Erick Messer/Bowman Gray Stadium)
The win was special for Measmer.
“I’ve got to thank my crew,” he said. “I took a whole year off last year to race with my son, and tonight he was spotting for me. He did it last week, and I tell you what, that’s pretty special. My dad used to spot for me, and went through a bunch of other people, but to have my son spotting for me, that’s pretty cool.”
Brown finished third, Neal was fourth, and Ward was fifth.
Chase Robertson proved to be too good down the stretch of the 100-lap Sportsman Series race, which went to 103 laps because it went to overtime.
It was Robertson’s third win of the season, and it was his 15th career win.
Robertson qualified fifth, but after a redraw for the top six drivers, he started fourth.
Robertson kept weaving through the pack and used to cautions to his advantage. Robertson took the lead at about the 70-lap mark.
After a caution on lap 86, and a double-file restart on lap 90, Dylan Ward, who was second at the time, had a flat tire and slid into the fence.
Ward qualified first and started second, and Connor Branch, who qualified fifth, started on the pole.
“It was a good battle,” Robertson said. “I slipped up a little bit in Q (qualifying), but I don’t know if I had anything for Dylan in qualifying…I knew if draw good and get the lead early that was really my plan.”
Zack Ore spun out Tommy Neal at lap 96, which set off a five-car crash around turn 1. That moved Ryan Robertson to second behind his brother, Chase.
After the caution, the race resumed at lap 101, but after two laps of racing, Chase Robertson withstood the charge from his brother, Ryan.
Ore finished third, followed by Zack Clifton and Justin Taylor.
In the 20-lap race in the QRC HVAC & Refrigeration Street Stock Series, Kyler Staley won after holding off Bryant Robertson.
Staley led wire-to-wire, but on turn 4 of the final lap Roberson bumped him and tried to get underneath Staley. Robertson did get underneath, but Staley won by about one-half of a car length.
“I don’t know, man,” Staley said. “So, my spotter…he drawed the pole. He drawed the 1 and I walked. I didn’t know who drew where. Bryant told he wasn’t going to wreck me…I appreciate him running me clean.”
Brian Sykes Jr was third, followed by Kevin Gilbert, and Emilee Lewis.
In the first 15-lap race in the Q104.1 Stadium Stock Series, Brandon Brendle won the first 15-lap Stadium Stock race, defeating runner-up Brad Mickalowski.
Mickalowski finished third, followed by Tyler McDonald, Grayson Keaton, and Austin Cates.
In the second 15-lap Stadium Stock Series race, A.J. Sanders won followed by Connor Keaton.
Sanders had to withstand a push from Keaton and Levi Holt throughout much of the race.
“I knew what I had to do and not overdrive the car there because he was giving me shots,” Sanders said. “If I overdrove the car he was going to turn me around.”
Luke Smith finished third, Robert Strmiska was fourth, and Holt was fifth.
Next week’s racing is highlighted by the Elite Underground Utility 100, which is a 100-lap race in the Brad’s Golf Cars Series. Because it’s a 100-lap race, the top four qualifiers will have a chance to accept the Fans’ Challenge. Even though there is a full-field redraw, if one or more of the top four qualifiers elects to take the Fans’ Challenge, they will automatically go to the back of the field.
If one or more of those four drivers that elects to go to the rear and finishes in the top four, that driver or drivers will have a chance to win all or part of the Fans’ Challenge. Since no racer won previous $3,000 Fans’ Challenge earlier this season the Challenge jumps to $6,000.
In addition to the Elite Underground Utility 100, there will be twin 25-lap races in the Law Offices of John Barrow Sportsman Series, a 20-lap race in the QRC HVAC & Refrigeration Street Stock Series, and there will be either one or two 15-lap races in the Q104.1 Stadium Stock Series.
Following an electric Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, only one NASCAR Cup Series race remains before the 32-driver field is set for the inaugural NASCAR In-Season Challenge.
Upon the conclusion of this Sunday’s Cracker Barrel 400 at Nashville Superspeedway (7 p.m. ET, Prime Video, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), the 32-driver grid will be cemented, and with it, the pool vying for the $1 million prize. As such, a handful of drivers will look to the 1.33-mile Tennessee facility as one final opportunity to show enough speed and savvy strategy to clinch a coveted berth.
Similarly to last week, four drivers in particular — Brad Keselowski, Shane van Gisbergen, Riley Herbst and Cole Custer — are the immediate contenders in play for the 32nd and final challenge spot. However, compared to the week prior, a new driver among the quartet currently holds onto that final position.
Following a fifth-place finish in the Coca-Cola 600, Keselowski’s No. 6 RFK Racing Ford now sits 32nd in the driver standings, taking the position from Herbst, who held it going into the race weekend. Of the quartet, Keselowski’s fifth-place result was the highest, with van Gisbergen (14th), Custer (21st) and Herbst (28th) rounding out the order of Charlotte finishes. With these results, van Gisbergen trails Keselowski by 19 points in 33rd, with Herbst one point behind the No. 88 Trackhouse Racing pilot for 34th. Custer rounds out the four, sitting five points behind Herbst in 35th.
Enter Nashville, where all four drivers will look to find just enough speed to pull away from their competitors and clinch an In-Season Challenge berth. The playing field will be relatively even, given the four drivers haven’t found success — or, in some cases, experience — at the track in NASCAR’s premier series.
Of the four, Keselowski holds the most Cup Series starts at Nashville, with four to his name. However, none of the four starts have yielded a top-10 finish. In fact, in only one of those four races did Keselowski finish inside the top 20 (11th in 2023). Custer, meanwhile, has two Cup starts at the Tennessee track, which came in 2021-22 as a member of Stewart-Haas Racing. Despite starting seventh in 2021 and 17th in 2022, Custer finished both races outside the top 25, placing 30th in 2021 and 26th in 2022. Custer’s Nashville luck fared better in the Xfinity Series, where, in two starts spanning 2023-24, he finished ninth both times and started on the pole in 2023.
While Herbst possesses no Cup experience at Nashville, he, too, has compiled Xfinity reps, finishing inside the top 10 in all four career starts there, with a 2022 pole position to boot. Van Gisbergen, on the other hand, carries no Cup experience at Nashville and only one start in Xfinity action there, tallying a 15th-place finish in 2024.
In other words, experience is, collectively, relatively light when speaking about the quartet and Nashville in the same sentence, which in turn should create plenty of intrigue as they — and perhaps additional dark horses — contend for In-Season Challenge positioning.
The NASCAR In-Season Challenge will consist of five races, beginning on June 28 at Atlanta Motor Speedway. Following Atlanta, the challenge will move to the Chicago Street Course on July 6, then to Sonoma Raceway on July 13, Dover Motor Speedway on July 20 and conclude at Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the annual Brickyard 400 on July 27. The winner will receive a $1 million prize.
The seeding for the 32-driver bracket will be determined by the results of the final three races aired on Prime Video before the challenge begins (Michigan, Mexico City, Pocono). Drivers will be seeded based on their best finish in the three races, with tiebreakers determined by the next-best finish, followed by the season points position.
Throughout the challenge, drivers will compete head-to-head in a bracket-style competition, with the highest-finishing driver in each matchup advancing to the next round. The field will be narrowed down from 32 drivers in the opening race to 16 in the second, eight in the third, four in the fourth, and finally, two drivers battling for the challenge win in the fifth and final contest at The Brickyard.
In NASCAR’s marathon event, Noah Gragson and the No. 4 Front Row Motorsports team delivered one of its best performances of the season.
With a 10th-place finish (his third top 10 of the season), Gragson now sits 28th in the driver standings. The result was also the first time in Gragson’s Cup career where he completed all 600 miles at Charlotte (in four starts), solidifying the finish as his best in “America’s Home for Racing.”
According to NASCAR Insights, the statistics back up Gragson’s performance as a solid one across the board. On Sunday, he was third-best in Restart Rating, which was crucial given there were five restarts in the second half of the 400-lapper. Having the ninth-best Speed Rating didn’t hurt either, but Gragson’s 11th-ranked Passer Rating and 14th-best Defense Rating proved vital as these areas improved as the race reached the middle stages. This, in turn, allowed him to remain a top 10 car for most of the evening and collect critical stage points.
But the valiant performance didn’t just come from Gragson; his crew on pit road also met the moment, ranking seventh-best in Pit Crew Rating, which was nine spots better than the team’s season average. In other words, the No. 4 team was zeroed in on all the details this past week for the crown-jewel race, and a top-10 finish was the reward for such an effort.
All in all, Gragson walked away from Charlotte moving up from 31st to 28th in the regular-season standings, which firmly puts him inside the 32-driver grid for the looming NASCAR In-Season Challenge, with the field being cemented following this Sunday’s Cup race at Nashville Superspeedway (7 p.m. ET, Prime Video, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
As such, Nashville will be on tap for Gragson and the No. 4 Ford team. He only has two Cup starts on the 1.33-mile concrete oval, but finished 10th there last year after a record-breaking five overtimes, which gives him a chance to build off the momentum he has already gained.
Other notables from Sunday:
— Todd Gilliland and Zane Smith — Gragson’s Front Row teammates — ranked seventh or better in Restart Rating.
— Carson Hocevar’s No. 77 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet had the fourth-best Speed Rating.
— Brad Keselowski finished fifth despite not ranking top 10 in any of the five categories.
In early November, the historical high temperature in Concord, North Carolina, is 66 degrees Fahrenheit.
Why is that statistic relevant to stock car racing?
NASCAR is considering possible venues for its season-ending Championship Weekend, which will start to move in rotation next year with a return to Homestead-Miami Speedway.
Phoenix Raceway, which has hosted championship races in all three of NASCAR’s national series for the past five years, will remain in the mix.
With weather a major consideration in the placement of the title races, Las Vegas is another city that immediately comes to mind. The average high temperature in November in Sin City is 66 degrees.
In determining the rotation for the Championship 4 races, weather clearly is a major consideration, but it isn’t the only one. The quality of the product on the track should also be an important element in the selection.
And if what fans saw in Sunday night’s Coca-Cola 600 is an indication, Charlotte Motor Speedway deserves a place in the championship lineup.
After William Byron dominated the first two stages of the race in fading daylight, the track changed, as it always does. Denny Hamlin arrived at the front of the field to challenge Byron, who won the second stage by more than seven seconds.
Over the last 300 miles of NASCAR’s longest race, Byron and Hamlin battled back and forth, swapping the lead 15 times over the contest’s entirety.
Hamlin would attack. Byron would defend. Hamlin would edge ahead at the start/finish line by thousandths of a second. Byron would charge through the first two corners and regain the top spot. It was sustained, close competition at the highest level.
And then, seemingly out of nowhere, crew chief Phil Surgen made an adjustment to Ross Chastain’s No. 1 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet that brought the car to life for the final run.
With Hamlin out of fuel and out of the picture after an unscheduled pit stop, Chastain was relentless in his pursuit of Byron, who led 283 of the 400 laps. On Lap 394, Byron’s car tightened up in Turns 3 and 4.
Seizing the opportunity, Chastain carried his momentum into Turns 1 and 2, dived to the inside and cleared Byron’s Chevrolet off the corner. Chastain went on to win one of the most memorable races of the last four years.
Notably, the Coca-Cola 600 produced some of the most compelling racing of the Next Gen era, and it happened in front of a packed house.
Perhaps that performance puts it into possible championship consideration in the future.
