The wait is over with the Cup Series’ highly anticipated event in Mexico City as the series travels south to the road course of Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez for the inaugural Viva Mexico 250 on Sunday (3 p.m. ET, Prime Video, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
The road course battle is the second of three races in the quest to set the bracket for the 32 drivers competing in the In-Season Challenge that begins June 28 at EchoPark Speedway (formerly Atlanta Motor Speedway).
Katherine Legge makes the second Cup start of her career this weekend, once again piloting the No. 78 Chevrolet for Live Fast Motorsports.
With every dramatic finish of a NASCAR Cup Series event, you may have heard this Spanish phrase signaling the white-flag lap belted during a compilation of international broadcasts. But who is behind the iconic and exhilarating voice?
That would be longtime broadcaster Tony Rivera, the play-by-play announcer for Cup Series races on FOX Deportes since 1994.
Despite having a voice so recognizable, Rivera’s story remains largely unknown. But this summer, the Cup Series is set to make its maiden voyage to Mexico — where NASCAR will venture to the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez on June 15 (3 p.m. ET, Prime Video, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). The race will be broadcast live in Mexico on TelevisaUnivision’s ‘Canal 5’ with full Spanish-language commentary starting at 1 p.m. local time.
Before putting on the headset, Rivera grew up in El Salvador loving sports across the board and developed a keen passion for cars.
“I’ve always been a fan of motorsports since I was a kid,” Rivera told NASCAR.com. “I want to say probably might have been around [age] 12, maybe around that time that I grew an interest in motorsports, car racing. That’s what I remember. I’ve always been passionate about cars, and then fast forward in life, many years later, I started my career in broadcasting.”
Rivera went to broadcasting school in Hollywood, California, where he would eventually land his first job in the sports media industry at a radio station in Southern California’s Inland Empire. From there, he went on to work at Telemundo and in 1993, applied to work at FOX Deportes where his race-calling chops were put to the test.
“They called me up. So I went back and got this casting — basically went blindfolded,” Rivera said. “I have no idea what they were gonna put on the screen. All they said was just get in that audio booth and do your play-by-play. I was like ‘OK, I don’t know how this is gonna be, man’, and they actually put some dragsters that I didn’t really know much about. But I was like, man, you gotta do what I gotta do, right?”
Thirty years later, Rivera has seen and called it all in NASCAR. From the Daytona 500, Darlington, Bristol to NASCAR’s first trip to Mexico City with the Xfinity Series back in the mid-2000s with Denny Hamlin, Martin Truex Jr., Juan Pablo Montoya and Kyle Busch all winning at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez.
He used to call races in the NASCAR Mexico Series, getting a firsthand look at then-rising star Daniel Suárez. While the two have only crossed paths a handful of times, the two-time Cup Series winner holds Rivera in high regard.
“Yeah, he’s a rock star,” Suárez said. “He’s been amazing for many, many years. Since I came into the sport, he’s been the guy. I personally wish we were doing more things with him internationally. I think he’s such a talent. He has so much experience, and already does the play-by-play for the NASCAR races here in the United States, but not everyone else. He’s just such a good talent, and very, very, very experienced guy that in my opinion, we should utilize him way more in Latin America.”
The key to a great play-by-play call is to have someone to add context to the picture on color commentary.
Insert Jessi Losada.
A longtime, decorated broadcaster, you’d be hard-pressed to find a sporting event Losada hasn’t lended his voice to.
Tony Rivera (left) with FOX Deportes analyst Giselle Zarur (middle) and color commentator Jessi Losada (Courtesy of FOX Sports)
With the Olympic Games, the World Cup and multiple Super Bowls already under his belt, the multitime Emmy Award winner joined FOX Deportes in 2015, ultimately crossing paths with Rivera a handful of years later.
“This was right before the pandemic. We had just started working together on the property. NASCAR is a fantastic thing to do, a great opportunity and what we did is we met and we started working right away,” Losada told NASCAR.com. “He’s very knowledgeable on anything that has to do with cars, but especially with NASCAR. And he started talking to me about, you know, NASCAR and this and that and then I started talking to him, and he was kind of impressed that like when I was a kid, Cale Yarborough was my favorite racer. I had a lot of experience with that. So we hit it off right away. He’s got a great sense of humor. He’s just really, really great to work with.”
As the two meshed in the booth, they began to banter and inject their personalities into the broadcasts while keeping fans informed of the action on track — perfectly towing the line of comedic timing and emphasizing when the drama ramps up late in a race.
“We always focus a lot on showing how things work in NASCAR and explaining things a little bit more than you would normally hear in a broadcast,” Losada said. “But we love to play around and just say things and jokes and whatever. Like I said, he has a great sense of humor. I mean, sometimes he makes me laugh so much that I have to stop in the broadcast to just catch my breath because he’s so funny. When the white flag goes down, everything changes. His tone and everything. He’s right into it because most of the races are resolved in the last couple of laps. So that’s where he really comes through and that energy that he has is just, it’s amazing.”
Many sports broadcasters have their signature phrases. Like Mike Breen’s “Bang!” in the most exhilarating moments of NBA Playoff games or Bill Raftery’s “Onions!” during March Madness, Rivera’s “¡Sale la blanca!” meaning “the white flag comes out,” is belted each time on the final lap of Cup races.
However, Rivera says it’s all come natural to him with how enveloped he becomes in the action.
“I don’t really think about it,” Rivera said. “It’s just when you are doing your play-by-play, at least I can speak for myself, right? I get all into it. Don’t think for a moment that I think on a Friday and say, ‘Hey man, what should I say this Sunday during my broadcast?’ It just happens. It’s very spontaneous.”
Both Rivera’s and Losada’s enthusiasm exuberates the rising international fanbase as NASCAR begins to expand outside the United States for points-paying events this summer.
While they won’t call the Mexico City race together, Rivera will be in the booth for TelevisaUnivision, the exclusive free-to-air (FTA) broadcaster in Mexico bringing all the action when the Cup Series makes its inaugural trek to Mexico City in the first points-paying race for NASCAR’s premier series outside the country since 1958.
“He’s been doing this for a long time and to me, he’s one of the best I’ve ever worked with,” Losada said. “I’ve worked with quite a few very, very well-known sportscasters and Tony … he’s a gem.”
“I’m telling you if I’m not doing my play-by-play, let’s say I’m at home watching the race, I find myself standing up the entire race,” Rivera said. “It gets that intense. I’m telling you. It’s a blessing to call NASCAR.”
With 11 races left to go in the NASCAR Cup Series regular season, it’s time to start focusing on the battle for the playoffs. Only 16 drivers will make it when the field is finalized on Aug. 23 at Daytona International Speedway — also known as the “World Center of Racing” but perhaps more aptly the “World Center of Chaos” when it comes to setting the final playoff field.
There are just 20 points separating the seven drivers who are stacked tightly around the elimination line, and there are plenty of chances for the field to be shaken up by a surprise winner with Mexico City, EchoPark Speedway (formerly Atlanta Motor Speedway) and the Chicago Street Course among the tracks coming up on the schedule.
Let’s check in on the playoff race as we exit Michigan International Speedway and get ready to head to the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez on Sunday in Mexico City, Mexico (3 p.m. ET, Prime Video, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Stats courtesy of Racing Insights.
Drivers provisionally qualified for playoffs with a win (nine): Kyle Larson (three wins), Denny Hamlin (three wins), Christopher Bell (three wins), William Byron, Ryan Blaney, Joey Logano, Austin Cindric, Josh Berry and Ross Chastain.
Winless drivers more than 100 points above the elimination line (two): Chase Elliott (+142) and Tyler Reddick (+138).
With 11 spots filled by the above drivers, there are five spots open for the rest of the field to fight over, including these drivers closest to the elimination line:
Rank
Driver
Cutoff
12
Bubba Wallace
+61
13
Chase Briscoe
+41
14
Chris Buescher
+20
15
Alex Bowman
+13
16
Ryan Preece
+0
ELIMINATION LINE
17
Kyle Busch
-0
18
Carson Hocevar
-18
19
AJ Allmendinger
-18
20
Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
-20
Bubble analysis: Michigan runner-up Chris Buescher was the biggest beneficiary this week as he gained 12 points to the elimination line and moved up a spot in the standings. Buescher picked up his first stage win of the season, and it was his first top-five finish since March in Phoenix. Next week sets up well for him because of his success on road courses.
Buescher’s RFK Racing teammate Ryan Preece also moved up a spot in the standings and gained two points to the line. He hangs onto the final playoff spot over Kyle Busch because he holds the tiebreaker of best finish this season: Preece’s third-place result at Las Vegas vs. Busch’s fifth-place finish at Circuit of The Americas.
Alex Bowman, who crashed out at Michigan and finished last, lost 32 points against the elimination line and fell a spot in the standings.
And in a case of two guys who just can’t seem to get away from each other in the news, Carson Hocevar and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. were the next biggest losers after each of them fell 14 points against the elimination line at Michigan.
Off the charts: Lurking lower is Ty Gibbs (-52), who moved up three spots in the playoff standings to 24th and gained three points to the elimination line after his third-place finish.
And while Shane van Gisbergen lost 12 points to the elimination line after Michigan and sits 33rd in the playoff standings at minus-130, everyone in the playoff race is probably shuddering at the thought of the road courses coming up in the summer schedule that could pop SVG right back into the picture.
For the first time this season and 76th time in history, the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour heads to New York’s Long Island to compete at Riverhead Raceway this Sunday with the running of the Miller Lite Salutes Steve Park 200 (2:30 p.m. ET on FloRacing; rescheduled from Saturday).
Riverhead has a long and storied history with the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour, which has been visiting the track since the its inaugural season in 1985. Future NASCAR Cup Series driver Jimmy Spencer won the first two events at the track that year, with Richie Evans claiming the third.
Justin Bonsignore and Mike Ewanitsko share the all-time NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour win record at Riverhead Raceway with 11 apiece. Other notable Riverhead winners include Mike Stefanik, Donny Lia, Ryan Preece, Ted Christopher, Doug Coby, Ron Silk, Timmy Solomito, Tom Baldwin, Rick Fuller, Jerry Marquis, Steve Park, Reggie Ruggiero and Wayne Anderson, among others.
Tickets to Sunday’s Miller Lite Salutes Steve Park 200 will be available trackside. Below is everything you need to know about the fifth race of the 2025 NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour season.
Ron Silk during the Miller Lite 200 Salutes Wayne Anderson for the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour at Riverhead Raceway on May 19, 2024 in Riverhead, New York. (Photo: Susan Wong/NASCAR)
Miller Lite Salutes Steve Park 200 at Riverhead Raceway
Through four NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour race this season, parity has been the name of the game.
Four different drivers – Patrick Emerling, Ron Silk, Craig Lutz and Matt Hirschman – have visited Victory Lane. Yet somehow, none of them find themselves at the top of the series championship standings.
That honor belongs to Austin Beers, who leads the standings largely due to his incredible consistency. In the first four NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour races held this year, Beers has finished no worse than fifth and has an average finish of 4.3.
Beers will look to continue his stalwart start to the 2025 campaign during Sunday’s Miller Lite Salutes Steve Park 200 at Riverhead Raceway. A win at Riverhead would not only be his first of the season, but his first at the historic venue, which continues to feature Modified racing as its premier NASCAR Advance Auto Parts Weekly Series division.
As such, several drivers who call Riverhead home will be in the field for Sunday’s event. They include Mark Stewart, who finished second there in just his second career NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour start back in 2023. Roger Turbush, uncle to Stewart, will also be in the field Sunday.
Justin Bonsignore will make another attempt at overtaking Mike Ewanitsko as the all-time Riverhead series wins leader this weekend. The defending NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour champion is seeking to end his longest winless drought to open a year since 2017 when he did not visit Victory Lane once.
Other notable entrants include Luke Baldwin, Patrick Emerling, Craig Lutz, Stephen Kopcik, Eric Goodale, Tommy and Trevor Catalano and Tyler Rypkema, among others.
Justin Bonsignore during practice for the Miller Lite Salutes Wayne Anderson 200 for the Whelen Modified Tour at Riverhead Raceway on May 18, 2024 in Riverhead, New York. (Photo: Kostas Lymperopoulos/NASCAR)
RE-DRAW PROCEDURE: The fastest qualifier will draw a pill to determine the number of drivers that will re-draw for their starting positions: 4,6,8 or 10 positions will re-draw. Once the fastest qualifier draws the initial pill, NASCAR will have the various buckets ready to immediately start the re-draw procedure. Drivers will re-draw in their qualifying order after qualifying has been completed (1 through 10, or however many are applicable). The pole position and/or any bonus point(s), if applicable, will be awarded to the fastest qualifier and will be the pole of record. If, due to adverse conditions, qualifying is canceled, the field will be set in accordance with the 2025 NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour Rule Book. The re-draw procedure will still take place regardless of how the field is set.
QUALIFYING: Two consecutive qualifying laps. Faster lap determines qualifying position. Adjustments or repairs may not be made on the vehicle after the vehicle has taken the green flag at the start/finish line. NASCAR reserves the right to have more than one vehicle engage in qualifying runs at the same time. Starting field for the Miller Lite Salutes Steve Park 200 is limited to 26 starters including Provisional Positions.
TIRE ALLOTMENT: The maximum tire allotment available for this event is eight (8) tires per team. All tires used for qualifying and the race must be purchased at the track and scanned by Hoosier, unless otherwise approved in advance by the Series Director. Four (4) tires must be used for qualifying and to begin the race. All qualifying tires must remain in impound until released by NASCAR Officials. The remaining tire allotment may be used for practice and/or change tires during the event. The tire change rule is one (1) tire per caution period.
Rightly so, Sunday’s race winner Denny Hamlin celebrated his dramatic victory in Sunday’s FireKeepers Casino 400 at Michigan International Speedway with a huge burnout and even a wink-wink tease to those in the massive crowd who booed the Toyota driver’s clutch win in “The Wolverine State.”
But as significant as Hamlin’s third win of the season was – the 57th of his NASCAR Hall of Fame-bound career – the driver that finished runner-up to him had some legitimate reason to feel good, too. In fact, Chris Buescher’s entire Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing team took Sunday’s checkered flag with some legitimately good vibes.
Buescher’s runner-up finish in the No. 17 RFK Racing Ford was his best showing of the season and, for the first time this year, all three of the RFK Ford Mustangs finished in the top 10 in a race.
It was exactly the kind of summer-swing boost the team needed as it heads toward the final 11 regular-season races to set the 16-driver NASCAR Playoffs grid.
“That was such a fast Kroger/Heinz Ford Mustang, I really appreciate everybody on this team working so hard to put us in this situation and to have a chance to win,” said Buescher, the 2023 Michigan race winner.
“I’m disappointed I didn’t get it done. It’s on me. I had a couple different decisions I would love to go back and make and ultimately should have had us ahead of the 11. We were faster on the day, and I didn’t do a good enough job. We’ll certainly take the good with it. We certainly need a little bit of good luck or fortune on our side.
“It hurts right now, but there’s a ton of positive out of today,” he continued. “Our car was so fast here from the time we unloaded off the truck yesterday. I’m certainly proud of that and excited for what we have to come, but there’s a little bit of a sting right now to be that close and miss out.”
Although Buescher took a self-critical assessment of his day in the immediate moments after climbing out of his car on pit road Sunday, looking at the big picture, Michigan represented a significant step forward for the team.
His teammate Ryan Preece finished ninth, his third top-10 run in the last four races and sixth of the season. Owner-driver Brad Keselowski finished just behind in 10th place for his second top 10 of the year – both coming in just the last three weeks, however.
“We had a really good car,” Keselowski said. “I felt like we had a top two or three car and just didn’t get to see it through. I’m really disappointed.
“We kind of crushed ourselves on pit road with the speeding penalty and then having to go around the 45 and the 71. Every time we pitted, we would lose a lot of spots. It wasn’t the pit crew’s fault, we just needed a better pit stall. I’m not really sure on the speeding penalty. I felt I was way slow, so getting called fast didn’t really add up, but we had the speed to do a lot more than we did today, and I’m disappointed to not get that. Still, we’re reasonably happy with a top 10.”
The difference on Sunday is that the drivers were disappointed because they were justifiably competitive. And that’s a step forward for a team that carries perpetual and legitimate high expectations.
Buescher is currently 14th in the standings, 20 points to the good on the 16-driver grid. Preece is tied for 16th with Kyle Busch, but holds that final position based on a higher race finish this season. Keselowski, who has had a rough start to the year, is ranked 32nd and will likely need a victory in these next 11 races to ensure his chance for another title run.
Rank
Driver
Cutoff
12
Bubba Wallace
+61
13
Chase Briscoe
+41
14
Chris Buescher
+20
15
Alex Bowman
+13
16
Ryan Preece
+0
ELIMINATION LINE
17
Kyle Busch
-0
18
Carson Hocevar
-18
19
AJ Allmendinger
-18
20
Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
-20
The series now moves to Mexico City for the inaugural race, the Viva Mexico 250 (3 p.m. ET on Prime Video, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) at the world-renowned Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez road course. And there is reason for RFK to be optimistic.
Not only is this a first-time event for the entire field – an equalizer in itself — but Buescher, Preece and Keselowski are proficient road-course racers. Buescher is the defending Watkins Glen International race winner and has six top-five finishes on road or street courses. Preece has a pair of top 10s on road courses, and Keselowski has seven top 10s over the course of his championship career.
“We’re in this stretch of races where we’ve won at a few of these things,” Buescher said. “We’ve run really strong at a lot of others. We’re gonna get in the summer where it’s gonna get hot and we’re gonna start catching a few drivers off guard here or there.
“Ultimately, there’s a lot of good race tracks coming up for some good racing for us, selfishly at RFK and probably some good ones for some other teams as well. We’ll see where it all plays out, but I guess, for us, I don’t think we have any race tracks on the schedule that we don’t feel good about. One, it’s fun to have that mindset and not have to head into a race weekend just hoping to get through it, and that comes from fast race cars.”
BROOKLYN, Mich. — A third-place result for Ty Gibbs and the No. 54 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota didn’t come without mixed emotions after the conclusion of Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Michigan International Speedway.
Although Denny Hamlin — thanks to a savvy fuel strategy — tallied the race win, fellow JGR pilot Gibbs expressed frustration, believing there was ripe opportunity for more late-race aggression, which could have been enough to clinch the third-year Cup starter his first career premier-series victory.
“Yeah, it’s just unfortunate because I feel like we had the capability to go do it,” Gibbs said. “I feel like we showed we were fast enough to go do it. It’s definitely frustrating, but it’s just part of it sometimes.”
Such frustrations stemmed from fuel conservation, especially during the contest’s later segments. Gibbs — who capitalized on cautions and wheeled the No. 54 to race-contending speed entering the final stage — needed to go 70-80% throttle during the final green-flag run to conserve enough fuel for the finish. Gibbs, however, expressed his desire to be more aggressive, believing the No. 54’s strategy was similar to that of the No. 11’s.
Tyler Allen, crew chief for the No. 54, had a lengthy conversation with Gibbs post-race and understood Gibbs’ mindset.
“It’s always frustrating when you have to save fuel and you can see those leaders up front,” Allen said. “I mean, I can’t imagine holding the steering wheel and watching your teammate go win the race. We were really close on fuel and we had to do what was best for our finish for the day. We’ll obviously look back and take all our measurements and see how close we were, but all of our signs were pointing to we were going to run out of fuel.
“So, he did a great job saving. You know, he’s understandably frustrated to watch that we had a fast enough car by the end to go compete for the win. So it’s one of those days that that’s racing, and feel like we made all the right decisions.”
An extended green-flag run over the final 49 laps shaped the entire field’s strategy, with a collection of drivers limiting throttle to save fuel. This included Hendrick Motorsports’ William Byron, who led a race-high 98 laps and ran out of juice coming to the white flag. And while Hamlin took advantage, Gibbs believed his machine could have done the same.
“I was going to go until we were going to run out of fuel. I didn’t run out of fuel yet. That was my plan,” Gibbs said. “I think a win is more important than third. It’s good to have a good finish, for sure. Good to have a good day, a good comeback. We started off just very horrible. Glad we could come back and got better. Thanks for my team for sticking behind me.”
Said Allen: “He doesn’t know how much we saved or if we were going to run. So he’s frustrated because he could see it, and he was fast enough to go take it. Unfortunately, we weren’t going to make it on fuel, and that wouldn’t have done any good to our team and our point situation.”
JGR co-owner Heather Gibbs — and mother of Ty — believes the top-three result was not only a positive outcome but a learning experience, too, especially given her 22-year-old son contended with a handful of race heavyweights, including Byron and JGR teammate Hamlin.
“There’s so much to learn. I mean, it’s so hard. Sundays are hard,” Heather said. “I was talking to [Chris] Gabehart (JGR competition director) about that. It’s really hard, really hard to learn, and just so much to try to take in. All the veterans have so much experience, and in every race, you just get a little bit more knowledge and understanding and try to capitalize on it, but hopefully, the momentum will move forward. It was a great day.”
And a great day — and weekend — it was for the No. 54; Gibbs wheeled his Toyota to the 11th-fastest practice time and eighth-best qualifying lap. The speed continued Sunday, with Gibbs’ third-place result acting as his first top five since Bristol Motor Speedway in April and second of the 2025 campaign.
With the finish, Gibbs now sits 24th in the driver standings, and with 11 regular-season races remaining, the trek toward a potential postseason berth is on for driver and team alike. This trek will continue internationally when Gibbs and the No. 54 team tackle the iconic Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez next Sunday in Mexico City (3 p.m. ET, Prime Video, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
“This team’s needed a boost over the last month, and we’ve shown the performance and really haven’t shown the results,” Allen said. “So to have the performance and the results today is really nice, and hopefully, we can get a streak going and start marching up the points.”
The three races at Michigan International Speedway, Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez and Pocono Raceway determine the seeding for NASCAR’s In-Season Challenge. Seeding is based on a driver’s best finish in the three races. The first tiebreaker is the next-best finish in the three races, followed by the third-best finish in the three races. If there’s still a tie after that, then season-long points standings after Pocono will determine who gets the better seed for the challenge opener on June 28 at EchoPark Speedway (formerly Atlanta Motor Speedway).
We’ll track how the seeding is stacking up, from No. 1 to No. 32, after each of the three seeding races — and provide instant analysis. Here’s where we stand after the first seeding race at Michigan, which admittedly will be the easiest race to sort through because we only have one race’s data to digest:
Michigan race winner: Denny Hamlin of Joe Gibbs Racing won for the third time this season, passing William Byron with a little more than three laps to go and saving enough fuel to get through the finish and even do a burnout. Hamlin’s first-place finish rockets him to the top of the seedings for the In-Season Challenge. It’s on to Mexico City, where Hamlin won in the Xfinity Series way back in 2006.
Who’s in line for the top four seeds: Besides Hamlin, it was a big day for RFK Racing’s Chris Buescher, JGR’s Ty Gibbs and 23XI Racing’s Bubba Wallace. Although none of these drivers have a victory this season, it shouldn’t have been a surprise to see them finish well on Sunday. Buescher won here in 2023 in the Next Gen car while Wallace was the runner-up in 2022. Gibbs, meanwhile, was the leader in 10-lap averages in practice on Saturday.
Out of these three, who has the best chance to keep a top-four seed after Mexico City? We’re leaning toward Buescher, who has the best average finish on road courses among active drivers since NASCAR switched over to the Next Gen car. Buescher’s average finish of 7.938 is even good enough to put Shane van Gisbergen in the rearview mirror at 9.0.
If the In-Season Challenge started today, Buescher would be matched up with John Hunter Nemechek in the first round, while Gibbs would get a first-round matchup with Todd Gilliland. As for who Bubba would match up against? …
Most interesting matchup if the Challenge started today:Bubba Wallace vs. Ryan Blaney. Good friends would be going toe-to-toe at Atlanta if the matchups hold from Sunday. And what a matchup it would be with two of NASCAR’s better superspeedway racers going at it at a track where either guy could be in the mix for the victory. Blaney has four drafting track wins in his career along with six straight top-10 finishes at Atlanta. Wallace has two top-10 finishes in the last three races at Atlanta.
Who’s Up
RFK Racing: All three of their cars finished in the top 10 at Michigan with the aforementioned runner-up by Buescher to go with Ryan Preece in ninth place and Brad Keselowski in 10th. Preece now has top-10 finishes in three of his last four races, and if the challenge started today, he’d be matched up with Noah Gragson in the first round. And after a slow start to the season for Keselowski, the 2012 champ now has top-10 finishes in two of his last three races. He’d be matched up with Ty Dillon in the first round if the challenge started today.
Who’s Down
Alex Bowman, Hendrick Motorsports No. 48 Chevrolet: Bowman started the season strong with top-10 finishes in five of the first six races, including a runner-up finish at Homestead-Miami Speedway that had him sitting third in the standings. But that all seems like a long time ago, given how he’s struggled lately. Bowman’s No. 48 Chevrolet took a hard hit in a Stage 2 melee that took him out of the Michigan race, scoring him in 36th place. Since Homestead, Bowman has five finishes of 35th or worse.
BROOKLYN, Mich. – With 20 laps to go, the fight for the win appeared to be between Carson Hocevar and William Byron.
Instead, both left Michigan International Speedway heartbroken outside the top 25 after Sunday’s FireKeepers Casino 400. Hocevar’s left-rear tire went flat at Lap 182 while trying to conserve fuel from the lead. In his own fuel save, Byron lost the top spot to Denny Hamlin with four laps remaining before Byron’s tank ran dry with just one-and-a-half laps remaining, allowing Hamlin to escape with the win.
Coming off a career-best second-place finish at Nashville last week, Hocevar led a career-high 32 laps Sunday at Michigan, his home track. But the No. 77 Spire Motorsports team knew they were short on fuel in the final run, expecting to run out with approximately four laps remaining.
Hocevar and Co. never got to see that play out. The flat tire threw them to pit road instead with 18 laps remaining, ending any shot for the sophomore to celebrate his first career win at home and relegating him to 29th in the final rundown.
“I felt like I screwed us a little bit by going a little early to put us in that fuel number,” Hocevar said. “You lose the race both ways, right? You either run out (or this). But they should probably go to bed a little bit (easier) that somehow, some way we ran something over or something in the universe wanted a left-rear flat.”
Hocevar has had his fair share of near misses in pursuit of his inaugural trip to Victory Lane in the Cup Series. He’s spent plenty of time in contention this season with fast cars, but results haven’t always rewarded him. That isn’t new territory for the Portage, Michigan, native.
“Just like I’m reliving the Truck Series days, but you’re doing it in front of a big stage,” Hocevar said. “And then, the difference is like I felt like I was throwing them away. Now, they’re getting taken away – I use that term loosely – but just things out of our control.
“It’s such a double-edged sword, right? There’s nothing I could go back and just be like, we could be better in this moment to win the race or not. There’s so many moments where we’re just like, ‘Man, I just wish we had that opportunity to see if we even would have had a fighting shot at the end at these races.’ I’d much rather be in these spots and have these things happening than just slow.”
Byron remains the NASCAR Cup Series points leader leaving Michigan, but a 28th-place finish nerfed what could have been an exceptional points day for the No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports driver.
Byron was in a better position to make it to the end than Hocevar, needing to save roughly two laps of fuel. He was able to conserve some while trailing Hocevar, but the hot pursuit applied by Hamlin forced Byron to forget about saving and instead use everything had left to fend off the No. 11 Toyota.
“When I was in second, it was like, ‘OK, I can save here a little bit and maybe manage,’” Byron told NASCAR.com. “And then when I got the lead with the 77’s flat, then it was like, ‘OK, I’m in a really good spot to manage because I can just kind of pace it here.’ And it just didn’t pan out that way. Just burning too much fuel up towards the front, and those guys had been further back and able to take more (gas during pit stops).”
Unlike the leaders, Hamlin never had to worry about saving fuel. His No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota had plenty, according to crew chief Chris Gayle, allowing Hamlin to keep his right foot planted on the gas pedal.
“He was pushing my pace, and I was having to run hard, and he had the benefit of the draft,” Byron said. “I’ll just have to think about it obviously, but it was just trying to manage both, which was difficult to do, but I thought we’re doing an OK job of it.”
Hamlin, now a 57-time winner in the Cup Series, knew he had the upper hand on fuel but “never will assume someone’s going to run out” of fuel. Understanding Byron was going to go all-out to defend the lead – and willing to run out trying – Hamlin knew he needed to use every trick in his arsenal to muster his way past the No. 24 car.
“At the time, I had the upper hand on him with the car, the lines that I was able to run versus the lines he was able to run,” Hamlin said. “And I just saw some vulnerabilities with his car that, after running right on his bumper for 10 laps, I was able to pick him apart or pick the car apart and capitalize on this one spot of the track that I thought that I could get him. It’s a cat-and-mouse game.”
Ultimately, Denny Hamlin’s No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota had just enough fuel to claim the checkered flag at Michigan International Speedway and do one celebratory series of burnouts in front of the huge grandstand crowd before running out of gas on his encore celebration and needing a tow to his ultimate destination: Victory Lane.
The 44-year-old put on a master class in fuel saving and end-of-race pressure at the 2-mile oval – taking his third win of the season and 57th of his career. Hamlin crossed the line 1.099 seconds ahead of RFK Racing’s Chris Buescher and his JGR teammate, Ty Gibbs, after the day’s most dominant driver, Hendrick Motorsports’ William Byron, had to pit for fuel on the next-to-last lap.
“No, not really,” Hamlin said, insisting he wasn’t overly worried about running out of fuel in the closing laps. “I wanted to get the lead, and obviously he [Byron] was doing a really good job defending.
“Sorry, but I beat your favorite driver,” a grinning Hamlin – in his 701st career series start – addressed the rowdy Michigan crowd.
“This whole team just stepped up,” he said. “Great job. We’ve been so fast this entire year, just haven’t finished it for one reason or another, so it feels good to come to Michigan, where we’ve been so close the last couple of years.
“Such a gratifying day to restart 11th or 12th and charge to the front,” added Hamlin, who has now won multiple races in the last seven consecutive seasons.
With 20 laps remaining, Hamlin had made his way from 11th place to fifth in the running order, behind the day’s most dominant cars – Carson Hocevar in the No. 77 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet and Byron in the No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet.
Both Hocevar, a Michigan native racing for his first career NASCAR Cup Series win, and Byron were informed by their crew chiefs that they would run out of fuel before the end of the race. Instead of a fuel issue however, Hocevar, who led 32 laps, had to pit from the race lead with 19 laps remaining for a flat tire.
Byron, who led a race-best 98 of the 200 laps, inherited the lead from Hocevar and then had to try to fend off Hamlin – who methodically started moving forward – racing Byron hard and forcing the championship leader out of any sort of fuel-save mode.
Hamlin got by Byron with four laps to go, and Byron dove down pit road for fuel, having to settle for a 28th-place finish. Hocevar finished 29th.
“Ultimately, maybe not as good mileage as the guys farther back to start that run, and that’s just the way the cautions go and the nature of being closer to the front and burning a lot of fuel,” Byron said. “That one, you can’t really do a lot about. It sucks. It really stings. But we had a really good car. I thought we executed well. It seemed like we waited a little more on fuel on that last stop and just burned more, not able to do much about that. So it is what it is.”
Bubba Wallace drove the No. 23 23XI Racing Toyota – a team Hamlin co-owns – to fourth place. Hendrick Motorsports’ Kyle Larson was fifth.
Trackhouse Racing’s Ross Chastain was sixth. Front Row Motorsports’ Zane Smith finished a season-best seventh place. Richard Childress Racing’s Kyle Busch was eighth, followed by RFK teammates Ryan Preece and Brad Keselowski, marking the first time all three RFK cars finished among the top 10 this season.
There were 13 lead changes among 11 drivers, and Hamlin led only five laps on the day.
A nearly 12-minute red flag period occurred early in the race while workers ensured the track was race-worthy after a four-car incident that sent the No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet, driven by Alex Bowman, hard into the wall after being clipped by Cole Custer’s spinning No. 41 Haas Factory Team Ford. Bowman spoke to reporters after being checked out at the medical center. It marked the seventh time in the last nine races, however, that the perennial championship contender Bowman has finished 25th or worse.
With 11 races remaining in the regular season, Byron holds a 41-point lead over Larson in the championship points standings. There have been nine race winners.
The Cup Series’ next race is the Viva Mexico 250, scheduled Sunday (3 p.m. ET, Prime Video, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) at Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez. The event will be the series’ first in Mexico.
Notes: Post-race inspection in the Cup Series garage was completed without issue, confirming Hamlin’s victory … Byron clinched a bonus point for the Xfinity Fastest Lap Award.
Alex Bowman found early trouble in Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race, walking away after a multicar crash during Stage 2 at Michigan International Speedway.
Bowman’s No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet was running in the 29th position when contact between the cars of Austin Cindric and Cole Custer collected him on the 67th of 200 laps in the FireKeepers Casino 400. Bowman’s car nosed head-on into the outside retaining wall in Turn 2, and the cars of pole winner Chase Briscoe and Daniel Suárez were also involved.
The race was red-flagged for clean-up and for safety workers to attend to Bowman, who walked to the ambulance under his own power for the mandatory ride to the infield care center, where he was checked and released.
“I mean, I feel OK. It was the biggest hit I’ve ever taken in a stock car by a mile, but head-on into the wall at Michigan, it’s gonna be that way,” Bowman said. “So yeah, just try to go get them next week.”
Bowman finished last in the 36-car field. Custer was the only other driver who was sidelined, and he placed 35th. Suárez rallied from his spin to finish 14th, and Briscoe drove to a 23rd-place result.
Bowman said he saw Custer’s car break loose in front of him and the impact caused his No. 48 Chevy to veer sharply into the outside barrier. The Hendrick Motorsports driver lamented how the No. 48 missed the setup Sunday; he had started 16th and faded to 32nd by the end of Stage 1.
“It’s a bummer. We shouldn’t be back there to put ourselves in that situation,” Bowman said. “Same thing I said at Texas. But unfortunately, when you’re back there, you kind of just open the door for stuff like that to happen, and we’re better than that. We should have been in a better spot, but we weren’t and then that happened.”
Bowman entered Sunday’s race — the 15th of 36 points-paying events this season — ranked 12th in the Cup Series standings. He has been involved in crashes in four of the last five events, including three consecutive races.
“You got any good ideas?” Bowman replied when asked how he might turn his fortunes around. “Because I’ll take what I can get at this point for luck-changer ideas. But yeah, it’s unfortunate, right? A lot of those races were really good runs. I would say Texas and Kansas, we were plenty capable of winning before we got damage. Charlotte was my fault. Nashville was my fault. This week, not much we can do.”
Through four NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour race this season, parity has been the name of the game.
