LAS VEGAS — Joe Gibbs Racing’s Christopher Bell earned the pole position for Sunday’s South Point 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway (2:30 p.m. ET, NBC, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App) — his third pole of the year and third at the 1.5-mile Vegas high banks.
Saturday’s lap of 185.344 mph in the No. 20 JGR Toyota bested fellow NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs driver Tyler Reddick’s No. 45 23XI Racing Toyota by a slight .013 seconds. It marks the 13th career pole position for the 29-year-old Bell, however, a win on Sunday would be his first victory from the top starting spot on the grid.
The second-place starter has won the last three Las Vegas races. Richard Childress Racing’s Kyle Busch is the last driver to win at Vegas from pole position — in 2009.
“I feel really good, I feel really comfortable,” said Bell, who is currently ranked second to Hendrick Motorsports’ Kyle Larson in the championship standings as the three-race Round of 8 takes the green flag Sunday.
“In practice, I don’t think the pace showed what we had but inside the car I felt super, super comfortable so I know we’ll have a shot tomorrow. I’ve been in this position many a time and haven’t won the race. …We’ve come close several times and this is a great race track for me so I’m really optimistic. I think we’ve got the car to do it.”
Six of the eight playoff cars advanced to the final round of qualifying, including Bell’s JGR teammate Denny Hamlin, who will roll off fourth. Larson — who has won the last two races in Las Vegas — will start fifth, with Hendrick’s William Byron ninth and Team Penske’s Joey Logano in 10th.
Hendrick’s Alex Bowman, who was eliminated from playoff contention just last week, will start third.
Hendrick Motorsports’ Chase Elliott was one of only two playoff drivers who did not make the final round of time trials and he will start his No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet 18th.
Of note, seven-time Cup Series champion Jimmie Johnson will start 29th in the No. 84 Legacy Motor Club Toyota — the eighth start of the season for the team’s owner-driver. New Zealander Shane van Gisbergen will start 34th in Kaulig Racing’s No. 16 Chevrolet.
Reddick rolls to top of practice leaderboard
Tyler Reddick posted the fastest lap in NASCAR Cup Series practice Saturday afternoon, leading a top-three sweep by Toyota drivers at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
Reddick logged a best lap of 183.187 mph in the No. 45 23XI Racing Toyota. He topped a pair of Joe Gibbs Racing teammates, Martin Truex Jr. (182.723) and Ty Gibbs (182.519), who completed the top three.
Ross Chastain was fourth-fastest in the session, with rookie Carson Hocevar rounding out the fastest five.
Ryan Blaney crashed early in the Group B session, looping his No. 12 Team Penske Ford into the outside wall after a tire went flat entering the first turn. Blaney was treated and released from the infield care center, and the defending series champ will start at the rear of the field Sunday.
Blaney was forced to miss qualifying and will put a backup No. 12 Penske Ford on the grid, starting last in the 37-car field.
“It’ll be a big challenge for multiple reasons, but I feel confident,’’ said Blaney, whose 11.4 average finish at Las Vegas is third-best among the playoff drivers. “Hopefully, we can make our way through there. We’ve got all race. We might not be able to get stage points in the first one, but hopefully by the second one maybe we’ll get some stage points and then hopefully the speed is good enough to where we can run up towards the front. Yeah, it sets us back a little bit, but this group is ready to go and they know the new task. It’s gonna be a tall one tomorrow, but I’ve got faith we can make the most of it.”
LAS VEGAS – Since the NASCAR Cup Series elimination-style postseason was introduced in 2014, 16 different drivers have advanced to the Championship 4. Never have the same four drivers battled for the championship in the final race in consecutive years.
That could change in 2024.
For just the third time in 10 tries, all four Championship 4 drivers from the previous season advanced into the Round of 8. The other years that the Championship 4 drivers from the previous season advanced were 2019, when defending champion Joey Logano, Martin Truex Jr., Kevin Harvick and Kyle Busch snuck through to the Round of 8. More recently, it happened in 2021 with Logano, Brad Keselowski, Chase Elliott and Denny Hamlin all reaching the final eight drivers.
This time around, defending Cup champion Ryan Blaney, who enters the Round of 8 with a pair of victories in 2024 has a shot to make it through. As does the series wins leader Kyle Larson, William Byron and Christopher Bell.
“I think the cream has risen to the top,” Bell said on Saturday at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. “Everyone in this room and everyone that pays attention is going to be in for a treat because I’m sure these three races are going to be a war for the race wins and a war for that final transfer spot to make it to Phoenix.”
The Round of 8 consists of tracks — Las Vegas, Homestead and Martinsville — that are more familiar to Cup drivers. After two rounds that drivers considered wild cards, the majority of the best teams, statistically, advanced, including the top seven in the regular season standings. The outlier is Joey Logano, though he’s the only multi-time champion remaining.
Don’t expect last year’s Championship 4 drivers to be surprised that the quartet is reunited in this year’s Round of 8. Collectively, they have combined to win 14 of the opening 32 races in 2024 and know how strong each team is.
“I feel like at any point of the year, one of the four of us has been the dominant car,” Byron said. “I feel like the teams and drivers are really stout and those teams know how to get the most out of their weekends. We’ve had our ups and downs, and I feel like each team in that four have had our ups and downs.”
Three of last year’s Championship 4 pointed to limited turnover amongst their teams and rules remaining the same from year to year. While there has been parity in different winners and how close the field runs, the same teams step up to the plate come crunch time.
“It shows that a handful of teams are in the groove the last couple of years and shows the strength of them,” Blaney said.
Blaney’s crew chief Jonathan Hassler backed up his driver’s thoughts, believing that the best teams excel when the pressure ramps up.
“It definitely just highlights which guys are the best,” Hassler said. “I think in this format, throughout a lot of the year, it can be certainly misleading at times. Once guys get a win, I think at that point, they really start to try some different things and experiment. And some weeks they hit it, and some weeks they don’t. But you get to this point in the year and everybody’s bringing kind of what they know is the best and I think you see kind of the best groups rise to the top.”
Larson, the only driver to have multiple playoff wins this year, knows that it’s going to be an intriguing round. He enters Las Vegas with a 33-point buffer over the elimination line.
“It’s going to be an ultra-competitive round, just like every time the Round of 8 comes about,” Larson said. “It comes down to the final few laps at Martinsville, so this year will probably be no different.”
Blaney’s Round of 8 got off to a rough start in practice, when the No. 12 Ford spun after running a single lap.
Blaney had completed one lap in the 20-minute practice session, but a flat tire caused his No. 12 Team Penske Ford to spin and make an impact with the outside wall.
“I had no warning,” Blaney told his No. 12 crew through his in-car communications, comments that he reiterated after he was treated and released at the infield care center.
“I didn’t really feel anything odd or out of the normal, out of the ordinary,” Blaney said. “I figured, you know, a couple laps, the (air) pressures come up and you’ll be fine. Yeah, I didn’t feel anything down the front (straightaway) the lap that it blew into (turn) one, so it kind of caught me by surprise. But yeah, I didn’t feel anything like super out of place to make me think that it was going to be flat into one. So that’s one of those things that stinks and catches you off guard. No indication, just the worst part of the corner.”
Meg Oliphant | Getty Images
Blaney, the defending Cup Series champion, will start Sunday’s South Point 400 (2:30 p.m. ET, NBC, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App) from the rear of the field and faces a four-point deficit to the elimination line in the Cup Series Playoffs.
“It’ll be a big challenge for multiple reasons,” Blaney said, “but I feel confident hopefully we can make our way through there and we’ve got all race. Might not be able to get stage points in the first one, but hopefully by the second one, maybe we’ll get some stage points, and then hopefully the speed’s good enough to where we could run up toward the front. So yeah, it sets us back a little bit, but this group is ready to go, and they know the new task, and that’s going to be a tall one tomorrow, but I’ve got faith we can make the most of it.”
Sunday’s 400-miler opens the three-race Round of 8 that will determine the final four drivers who will battle for the championship in the Nov. 10 finale at Phoenix Raceway.
Justin Allgaier has been around for a time or two. He’s the only driver to qualify for all nine NASCAR Xfinity Series Playoffs, dating back to the format’s inception in 2016.
With four races remaining in the 2024 season, one thing remains the same: There is still a goose egg in the championship column for the Illinois native, who has sole possession of 10th on the all-time series wins list, passing his team owner Dale Earnhardt Jr. earlier this season.
“I’m going to keep doing this until I’m not able to do this anymore or I’m not asked to come back or where I can’t compete at a high level,” Allgaier said openly on Friday at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. “If that opportunity never presents itself, it’s not going to be the difference in me considering my career a success or not. I love what I do, I’m proud to be here and have the opportunities that I have and keep going forward.”
By all measures, Allgaier has had an extraordinary career. That has blossomed into a standout 2024 season, scoring 15 stage wins, more than double the amount of the next driver on the list (Chandler Smith, seven). He also leads the series in laps led at 663.
But Allgaier’s raw pace hasn’t translated to race wins. The No. 7 Chevrolet has visited Victory Lane just twice this season, with the most recent trip coming two months ago at Michigan International Speedway. He saw five playoff points evaporate from his grasp by giving up a 43-point lead in the regular-season finale at Bristol Motor Speedway.
That Bristol performance was the third race of a five-race stretch between Atlanta Motor Speedway and the second race in the Round of 12 at Talladega Superspeedway where Allgaier had three finishes of 25th or worse. It dropped him from being the championship favorite to having to scratch and claw his way through the Round of 12, entering last weekend’s Charlotte Roval event 10 points below the elimination line.
“To come to Vegas, I have to laugh because with the DNFs we’ve had and still be the points leader, to still have 15 stage wins, it’s pretty wild,” Allgaier admitted. “When I step back and look back at the year as a whole, I’m like, ‘How did we not win 10 races and absolutely be killing it right now?’ My team deserves that. As fast as cars we’ve brought to the race track every week, I look back at the mistakes that I’ve made and think, ‘Holy cow, we have given away some points this year.
“These last two months have given me a lot of time to reflect and focus on what is important. This reset is like icing on the cake. We went into Charlotte with a different mentality, and I think that we executed. We come here to Vegas, and as long as we execute, it’s going to be tough to beat the 7 team.”
The No. 7 team’s strategy for the Roval was to chase stage points. With fellow playoff drivers Riley Herbst and Sheldon Creed having their own issues, the key was to keep all four tires on the pavement around a challenging 17-turn course.
“Charlotte was a great example of execution,” Allgaier said. “We got to where we needed to get to. We got to the end of the race and did what we needed to do points-wise and Jim [Pohlman, crew chief] told me to just sit where you’re at. Don’t try to race anybody. Just don’t wreck. Don’t go off the race track, don’t make mistakes.”
When the checkered flag waved, Allgaier was seventh on the playoff grid, with a four-point buffer over Shane van Gisbergen, who was the first driver eliminated.
The No. 7 team lives by the moniker of pressure being a privilege. That feeling will only intensify by advancing to the Round of 8 and resetting as the points leader with an 18-point advantage over the elimination line entering the Round of 8.
By escaping a tumultuous Round of 12, it’s realistic to believe this is Allgaier’s best shot at winning the championship. Between the three tracks in the Round of 8 – Las Vegas, Homestead and Martinsville – Allgaier has one win in 43 starts. Homestead is among the tracks he’s faced the most challenges throughout his career, having yet to score a top-five finish in 15 starts. He has defined consistency at Vegas and Martinsville, tallying 24 top-10 finishes in 28 total starts.
“We have new life,” Allgaier said. “We put ourselves in this spot. You don’t ever know the peaks without having the valleys. I think sometimes, if everything is flat and smooth and you don’t enjoy those big moments, you have to get down in those deep valleys and dig through it. I think that’s where we’re at. If we were to come out of this with a championship, it wouldn’t be easy.”
Allgaier has qualified for the Championship 4 in six years, earning a best finish of second in the championship battle (2020, 2023).
NASCAR.com’s 36 for 36 continues at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
With 36 races and 36 full-time Charter cars, our players select one car per race, but there’s a simple twist: once they’ve made the pick, they can’t choose that car again for the rest of the 36-race season. Yes, that means every car will be selected exactly once … a survivor pool, by another name.
Follow along weekly as our panel of pickers — Dustin Albino from Jayski, along with Steve Luvender and Cameron Richardson from NASCAR.com — embarks on a season-long journey to think like strategists and prove their picking prowess.
We’ll also feature a fourth “community” 36 for 36 pick each week, as decided by fan vote on the r/NASCAR subreddit. Can the collective vote topple our trio of full-timers?
Current Standings:
Steve Luvender: 826
Dustin Albino: -102
r/NASCAR Community: -130
Cameron Richardson: -140
Race 33 of 36: Las Vegas
It was a story of feast or famine last week at the Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval for our pickers. A disappointing six-point day for Ty Gibbs after a mechanical issue left the NASCAR subreddit earning just six points, while Dustin Albino’s pick of Justin Haley netted 11 points. On the other side of the coin, AJ Allmendinger netted 44 points for Steve Luvender, extending his points lead, while Cameron Richardson’s big 48-point day from Chase Elliott helped heat up the battle for third place.
Just four races remain in 2024, starting with Sunday’s Round of 8 opener from Las Vegas Motor Speedway. With available options scarce, how will our pickers strategize the rest of their seasons?
Jayski’s Dustin Albino: No. 45, Tyler Reddick
Dustin’s pick last week: No. 7, Justin Haley (11 points)
Total season points: 724 (second place)
Dustin: The last two weeks have been brutal. For the first time all season, I’m triple-digit points off the lead with four races remaining. Not ideal. But with nothing to lose, I might as well throw my own “Hail Melon” and play a different strategy. If I wanted to stay the course, I’d pick Kyle Larson this weekend, who has back-to-back victories in Sin City. But he’s going to be the popular pick, so I’ll take Tyler Reddick. The No. 45 Toyota was best in class behind the No. 5 car in the spring race at Vegas and was chasing down Larson in the waning laps. Reddick has five top-10 finishes in the last six trips to Las Vegas and desperately needs to find his playoff stride soon.
NASCAR.com’s Steve Luvender: No. 5, Kyle Larson
Steve’s pick last week: No. 16, AJ Allmendinger (44 points)
Total season points: 826 (first place)
Steve: It’s time. After waiting until Race 33, I’m finally going with the No. 5. Kyle Larson won the last two Las Vegas races and led 27 or more laps in six of his seven races at the track when driving for Hendrick Motorsports. Coming off his sixth win of the season last week at the Charlotte Roval, he has momentum on his side, too. Another consideration: At least one driver from the Round of 8 will advance to the Championship 4 on points, regardless of who wins the next three races. I suspect the No. 5 team and others will keep this in mind to help rack up stage markers.
NASCAR.com’s Cameron Richardson: No. 20, Christopher Bell
Cameron’s pick last week: No. 9, Chase Elliott (48 points)
Total season points: 686 (fourth place)
Cameron: We’re alive! (For second place, that is.) Going to go with the late-season juggernaut that is Christopher Bell. He’s won one race in the semifinal round in both 2022 and 2023 to make the Championship 4 the last two seasons and scored top 10s in all three Round of 8 events last year. Bell’s had love-hate moments with Vegas so far in his career but came up just short of Kyle Larson in a thrilling finish in the Vegas playoff race in 2023.
r/NASCAR Community: No. 19, Martin Truex Jr.
r/NASCAR’s pick last week: No. 54, Ty Gibbs (6 points)
Total season points: 696 (third place)
It’s back-to-back Joe Gibbs Racing picks for the NASCAR subreddit. This time, the community voted to use Martin Truex Jr., who’s making his final start at Las Vegas as a full-time driver.
Here’s what Redditors had to say this week in the voting thread:
u/FridgusDomin8or: “Truex I think has to be our pick this week even though this team has less than no momentum currently. Vegas has been Truex’s best track in the Next Gen era, he hasn’t finished worse than 9th here over the last 5 races here I believe. I think we have to save Reddick for Homestead, use Preece at Martinsville, and then Blaney at Phoenix (and hope he doesn’t make the Championship 4 since the final 4 drivers do not earn stage points)”
u/Joey_Logano (no relation): “I’d say Truex is the pick here, Reddick at Homestead, my beloved Preece at Martinsville and Blaney at Phoenix. Truex has won at Las Vegas before and is simply are best remaining pick left this late in the season.”
u/Extreme-Bite-9123: “Truex here for sure. Firstly because we have everyone else being used somewhere, but also because this is his statistical best track”
u/Dont_hate_the_8: “Yes. I need say no more.”
Check back next week to see how our pickers fared as the season-long 36 for 36 journey continues.
And, if you’ve got a competitive itch beyond meticulously managing your Fantasy Live lineup each week, feel free to save or print your own 36 for 36 sheet and see if you can beat our pickers and the Reddit community!
In just one calendar year, Leigh Diffey has covered IMSA’s Rolex 24 at Daytona, the Indianapolis 500, the Summer Olympics in Paris and his current assignment for NBC Sports as the lead play-by-play voice for the NASCAR Playoffs. The variety is as rich as his frequent-flyer odometer is long.
“I like to say I’m in the club of one,” Diffey says with a laugh, acknowledging the level of exclusivity, but also how far the French capital city is from say, Talladega or Bristol. Diffey has deftly navigated both the globe and those transitions this year, and his journey continues with this weekend’s racing at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. In three weeks, he’ll call the Cup Series’ championship race in Phoenix for the first time as the broadcast booth’s primary anchor.
“I mean, if you’re a motorsport commentator, that’s the stuff that dreams are made of,” Diffey says. “I haven’t stopped pinching myself.”
Diffey has been a fixture on NBC Sports’ roster of broadcasters since joining the network in 2013, but this year has been his first as the outlet’s lead NASCAR announcer. Though the 53-year-old veteran still jokingly refers to himself as “the new guy” on the broadcast team, he’s drawn on his experience working alongside analysts Jeff Burton and Steve Letarte to make his move to the main chair a seamless one.
Diffey has already earned raves for his energetic calls of several memorable moments in the second half of the Cup Series campaign. His fellow broadcasters have thrived off that natural enthusiasm, seeing him visit some of NASCAR’s iconic tracks for the first time.
“Look, Leigh’s passion, and you’ve heard Leigh call races and other sporting events …,” Burton says. “Everybody is very much aware of what Leigh is capable of that has listened to him.”
* * *
Funny enough, Diffey’s career could have taken a far different turn had some friends in a motorcycle club back in his home country of Australia not invited him to handle public-address announcing duties at a local meet. Diffey had long been a fan of two-wheeled racing, a passion handed down from his father, and he competed alongside his older brother from the age of 6 well into his teenage years. “I was OK. I wasn’t great,” Diffey says in reflection, noting how some of his friends went on to championship-caliber careers.
“I didn’t grow up dreaming of a career in motorsport broadcasting or sports broadcasting at all,” Diffey says. “At one stage of my career or one stage of my life, I thought I was going to be a farmer or work in agricultural economics because I studied agriculture at high school.”
A career in teaching was also on the table. Diffey earned his bachelor’s degree in education and briefly worked as a physical education teacher. “As my part-time job, I didn’t work at McDonald’s or an ice cream store. I worked on a farm,” he said. “I picked tomatoes and grapes and zucchinis and hung out with a farmer. So that’s where I thought my life was going.”
Joe Skibinski | Penske Entertainment
Though his dirt-bike racing days were behind him by then, Diffey had kept in touch with his friends in those circles. Taking the microphone for that PA-announcing gig changed his outlook.
“I think I was about 20 years old or something like that and just never expected that,” Diffey says, “and I’m sure glad that it happened.”
Doors eventually opened with the Australia-based Supercars circuit, and assignments for motorcycle and rally racing events followed. Diffey came to America more than 20 years ago to cover IndyCar and other forms of racing, and he served as the voice for U.S. broadcasts of Formula 1 events for a number of seasons.
Diffey’s IndyCar ride ended this season with the news that FOX Sports would become the series’ broadcast home in 2025. He called that transition “bittersweet” but that there was little time to dwell on that chapter of his 27-year career in television closing.
“I never dreamed that I’d be fortunate enough to call the Indy 500, and I got to do six of them. So I feel incredibly blessed and just very fortunate that that happened,” Diffey says. “… When anything comes to an end that you’re passionate about, it’s always difficult. But what helped was that my attention and my bandwidth was consumed with the Olympics, doing a great job, it’s all-encompassing, it’s all-consuming, I should say. And then I knew that I had this 7,000-pound gorilla waiting at the end of the year that is NASCAR. So I had to kind of compartmentalize my year. I had to go through it in blocks.”
A big block came this summer, calling track and field events at his sixth Olympic Games on the worldwide stage. “No disrespect to any of the other host nations or cities, but that was the best,” Diffey said, describing the mood in Paris as unmatched. His lodging for his time there was within walking distance of the Stade de France, providing the opportunity to intermingle with spectators and supporters in an on-foot commute.
“Just walking with the masses, with the fans, everyone’s laughing and joking, and there was music and cheering, and they had their nation’s colors on,” Diffey said. “It was just … it was great to go to work every day.”
Just a scant two weeks after the Closing Ceremonies, Diffey was in the booth at Daytona International Speedway to helm coverage of the penultimate race of the NASCAR Cup Series’ regular season. Diffey said the trust that the network has placed in him to cover such a dizzying blend of sports — from luge, bobsled, track and rugby to big-league stock-car racing — can be traced back to the influence of Sam Flood, NBC Sports’ executive producer and president of production.
“We’re going to throw a variety of things at you and see what sticks,” Diffey recalled Flood telling him early in his NBC tenure. “And he said, ‘So you’re going to call different kinds of racing for us, so are you up for that?’ And I said, sure. I mean, I was hired by NBC primarily to do Formula 1 and IndyCar, and then he said, but we’re going to put you on the Olympics as well. Sam is the same gentleman who had the foresight and also the commitment and the belief in me to put me on track and field and also to put me on NASCAR, so I owe a lot to Sam and his belief in me to be able to be flexible enough and to adapt and get on with it.
“Whatever his ideas were and are, then I have to go and execute it, and so far, so good. It’s been a fun ride.”
* * *
Leigh Diffey says he doesn’t really read his own reviews, save for some interactions on social media. “They’re either going to love you or hate you,” he says. “It’s kind of like politics, really. There’s no middle ground. It’s a massive swing.”
On one side are the kudos that glow with praise. “We’re convinced NBC’s Leigh Diffey can narrate a Monday morning commute to work and make it sound thrilling and history-making,” the Associated Press wrote during the Pyeongchang Winter Games in 2018, when Diffey delivered the play-by-play call of the skeleton competition.
On the other side are those who might be surprised to hear an accent in the NASCAR broadcast booth that’s not plucked from the American South. Most of the reception, however, has been a warm one, with Diffey winning over any skeptics with his engaging, upbeat style.
“It has absolutely blown me away. They have been so lovely,” Diffey says of the welcoming spirit. “Of course, I’m not going to be everybody’s cup of tea. I’m not silly enough to not acknowledge that or know that, and look, NASCAR has been around for 75 years, and there’s never been a non-American voice in the play-by-play position. So Jackie Stewart and David Hobbs did it — one from Scotland, one from England — they did it back in the day as analysts. There’s never been a foreign-voiced play-by-play for the American audience on the Indy 500, and I got to do that, and then on NASCAR, and I’m doing that now, and I’m very proud of that.
“But also you’ve got to remember, too, I’m an American — even though I don’t talk like an American. I’m a proud naturalized American citizen, and I have been for 13 years. My children, our two sons, were born in Atlanta, Georgia. I chose to become an American citizen, and I’m really proud of that. Of course, I’ll always be proud of my Aussie heritage, of where I grew up, but this is where my career has been defined. And I love this country, and it’s done so much for me and to me, giving back and becoming a U.S. citizen, I feel really fortunate, and I feel really passionate about that.”
NBC Sports
Diffey has been here long enough that he hasn’t had to worry about much Aussie slang slipping into his broadcast patter. That said, the breadth of his vocabulary has occasionally produced double-takes from some of his colleagues — in particular Letarte, who lightheartedly admits to limiting himself to a two-syllable maximum as an analyst.
During a recent broadcast, Diffey characterized a driver’s maneuver as “dodgy,” which stopped Letarte cold. “He goes, ‘Oh, you’ve got to run that by me again,'” Diffey recalled, saying that both Letarte and Burton have poked good-natured fun at some of his descriptions. That levity comes with a measure of respect, and Letarte effortlessly mentions Diffey alongside legendary broadcasters who have earned Hall of Fame recognition.
“I will say that it never ceases to amaze me the words that Leigh can find,” Letarte says. “It reminds me of some of the greats that we’ve had. You know, Mike Joy has that signature ability to put something in context. Barney Hall had that same ability. Ken Squier, for sure. The Squier-isms are as famous as the man himself. That’s the thing is the calls are not just energetic and not just accurate, but they are poetic and colorful, and they make for a bigger moment than the moment itself already is.”
Diffey had a doozy of a moment and a call to match it with his arrival in the Daytona booth two months ago, when he heralded Harrison Burton’s first Cup Series win as his father, Jeff, watched alongside him. Diffey captured the high drama, noting how close Kyle Busch was to ending the longest skid of his career until Burton’s compelling charge on the backstretch ultimately proved victorious, sealing a milestone 100th win for the Wood Brothers team.
“Jeff, your little boy has done it!” Diffey exclaimed, setting the tone in one of NASCAR’s biggest recent upsets.
“Watching Harrison come off Turn 4 and seeing Jeff’s excitement when he went to Victory Lane and to hear Leigh’s call is a moment I’ll always remember,” Letarte said. “It’s up there with Jimmie’s seventh championship or some of the other great races I have been a part of. We all have our own skill sets, but finding those words in those moments really adds to it. It’s a lot of fun.”
All three boothmates mentioned the chemistry bonds that have grown through the season, but that awareness of each other’s responsibilities has made it all click. When pit stops, strategy or officiating rules crop up during the course of a race, former crew chief Letarte takes a more prominent role. When crashes or driver situations arise, Burton tends to become more vocal. Setting the stage and depicting the climactic action as an on-air quarterback is where Diffey makes his mark, and Letarte and Burton are more than happy to leave that obligation to him.
“We enjoy the opportunity to get the hell out of his way and let him do it,” Burton said. “It’s important to know that there’s a time that I for sure need to shut up and let him roll. So, yeah, it’s been fun. He’s had some big moments on top of that.”
Diffey says he’s savored soaking up the atmosphere as he navigates this portion of his busy year, calling the NASCAR experience “the epitome of Americana.” His increased stock-car workload has brought him to new venues, but it’s also put him in touch with new fans who have been eager to receive his insights.
During last weekend’s track walk at the Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval, one fan shouted for him from the campground area. The Aussie transplant — at home here in the cradle of stock-car racing — walked over to have a conversation, melting away the fencing that separated the two.
“That’s where you get the pulse and the heartbeat of the sport,” Diffey says. “That’s what it’s all about.”
Most seasons, Bryce Allen isn’t able to make every race at Iowa’s Adams County Speedway. As a full-time soybean and corn farmer, he’s busiest in the spring when the race season is just getting started.
Thankfully for both Allen’s farming and racing, Adams County had several rainouts early in the year.
“It rained at the race track, but it didn’t rain in the field, so I was able to get my work done and not miss any races,” Allen said. “And then I kind of found myself in the hunt, I guess.”
In his 11th season at Adams County, a NASCAR Advance Auto Parts Weekly Series dirt track in Corning, Iowa, Allen won nine of 16 races in the track’s B Modified division and finished in the top five 15 times. He won the track championship by 10 points and broke a track record for wins in his division.
(Photo: CK Imaging/Adams County Speedway)
Not only did he do well enough to win his first track title; Allen’s dominant season also led to his first NASCAR national championship. He won the NASCAR Advance Auto Parts Weekly Series Division III national championships title by 48 points ahead of Berlin Raceway’s Ryan Holtzlander.
Allen and his team built a new car for the 2024 season: “It was just really good for me,” he said.
While Allen was in the fields for work, his chassis builder took the car to the track for practice. From there, he said the car was “definitely exactly what I was looking for.”
Bryce Allen competed in 16 races at Iowa’s Adams County Speedway this year, winning nine of them. (Photo: CK Imaging/Adams County Speedway)
The team suffered a setback early in June when he was disqualified from a race, but they bounced back, and Allen won the next four races in a row.
“The DQ actually probably had a positive effect,” he said. “It lit a fire underneath us and the entire team that we knew we needed to come back and win.
“I thought, ‘Well, we’re probably out of the hunt for a track title now,’ and we just kept winning races and dug ourselves back into that deal… and then midway through the summer, I knew how the national points worked and that it was different and I actually found myself climbing the ladder in national points faster than the track points.”
Much of Allen’s team is his own family. His brother helps in the shop during the week and is in the pits for each race. He’s also joined by his brother-in-law, wife and two daughters, who are 2 and 4 years old.
Allen said his family is the reason he stuck with racing this year.
“My life and job are pretty busy, but they love to go,” Allen said. “And it gives us a chance to go as a family. My mom loves it, too. It’s something we do on Saturday nights that keeps us all together.”
Allen’s daughters even got used to celebrating his many wins this season.
“I don’t think they quite understand, but it got to be a deal later in the season that on Saturday mornings we always say, ‘OK, it’s race day. Dad’s got to go to work for a while and then I’ll see you tonight.’ And it turned into, ‘We’ll see you in Victory Lane, Dad.’ And I’m like, ‘Well, don’t get used to it because it doesn’t always work like this.’
“It’s very special. There was a lot of those wins that one of the officials would hand the trophy to one of my girls to give to me in Victory Lane. That’s pretty special. You don’t get those moments back.”
Bryce Allen is joined by his family and crew in Victory Lane after capturing the Adams County Speedway B Modified track championship this year. (Photo: CK Imaging/Adams County Speedway)
Allen hasn’t decided if he’ll race again next season. Last October, he still hadn’t decided if he’d be racing in 2024.
“It’s a stressful sport. Points racing, especially,” he said. “You ask a guy at the end of the year, a lot of them say they’re never racing again or they’re done racing, and then it gets to be about January, and it’s like, ‘Well, I suppose we can start working on the car again.’
“I still have the car, and I haven’t really made up my mind yet.”
Whatever he plans to do in 2025, Allen can forever call himself a track and national champion, which makes his decision for his future of racing even tougher.
“It feels pretty special, and I think that that’s kind of the other battle of trying to decide if I’m done or not,” he said. “It’s pretty tough to have had a year like that. I mean, that might be a once in a lifetime thing, and maybe you quit while you’re ahead. I don’t know. It’s definitely very special.
“I’ve just got to thank my family and all my sponsors and everybody that’s done this since 2013 with me. It’s been fun.”
A wave of youthful exuberance overcame Hendrick Motorsports’ campus Wednesday afternoon as the racing team and one of its premier partners Ally hosted its sixth annual Fueling Futures event. Fifty high school students from various Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools gathered for this initiative aimed for students to learn and gain firsthand knowledge about diverse career opportunities within the motorsports industry, emphasizing not only the allure of being a driver but also the multitude of supporting roles from marketing and public relations to data engineering and being on the pit crew.
The event featured juniors and seniors taking turns touring various parts of Hendrick’s expansive campus, hearing from industry professionals and learning about their career paths and how they got to Hendrick Motorsports. Each session highlighted that there are more essential roles within a racing organization that are not always thought about on the surface level when it comes to working in motorsports.
“This is a holistic way for us to share with students the different career paths they can have,” Natalie Brown, senior director of corporate citizenship at Ally, stated. “These students have so many different challenges today than I had when I was in high school many years ago. Hearing from leaders in professional sports, it’s an opportunity that a lot of students don’t get to touch. This is also exposing students to understanding that these leaders are just like them, they have challenges and they have successes and how they overcame those challenges motivates the students.”
At the end of the sessions, Bernard Pollard, a former NFL player and Super Bowl champion with the Baltimore Ravens, held a candid interview with the wheelman of the No. 48 Ally Chevrolet, Alex Bowman, who talked about his career path to Hendrick and what it took to reach NASCAR’s top level of competition. During the interview, Bowman honed in on a recurring theme to not let adversity hinder you from accomplishing your goals. Both Pollard and Bowman encouraged the students to “soak in” all the information they learned, as they explore various avenues after high school whether it be in college or the workforce and to pursue their passions without hesitation.
“I think a lot of people think [careers in motorsports] are pretty narrow,” Bowman said after the event. “There’s just so many opportunities in racing at different organizations and different levels, it’s super cool to kind of expose them to that, but also teaching kids about financial literacy with Ally, it’s definitely cool to be a part of it.”
Another key focus of the event included a Money Matters workshop where students got to learn about the importance of budgeting, saving and having a financial plan once they find a job. It encouraged them to start thinking about finances in a way that could empower them as they approached adulthood.
“The biggest thing for me is being able to pour back into so many kids that I’ve been in their position,” Pollard added. “This is an opportunity to expose them to a company, a brand and a sport that can do really good things for them for setting them up in life and allowing them to see and do things in life that they never thought they’d be a part of, that’s truly a blessing.”
The Fueling Futures event served as a powerful catalyst for inspiration and continues to be one of Ally’s ongoing programs with the goal of fostering economic empowerment and career inspiration for younger generations, allowing students to gain access to resources outside of their school system to help prepare for life after high school.
Throughout the 2024 NASCAR season, Ken Martin, director of historical content for the sanctioning body, will offer his suggestions on which historical races fans should watch from the NASCAR Classics library in preparation for each upcoming race weekend.
Martin has worked exclusively for NASCAR since 2008 but has been involved with the sport since 1982, overseeing various projects. He has worked in the broadcast booth for hundreds of races, assisting the broadcast team with different tasks. This includes calculating the “points as they run” for the historic 1992 finale, the Hooters 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
The following suggestions are Ken’s picks to watch before this Sunday’s South Point 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway (2:30 p.m. ET, NBC, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App).
The 2018 NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs kicked off with a chaotic race at Las Vegas as the playoff field was split between having great days and struggles.
Erik Jones put his No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota on pole for the race as all 16 of the playoff drivers qualified in the top 18 positions; Jamie McMurray (12th) and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. (14th) were the only non-playoff drivers to be in the top 18.
Jones and fellow playoff driver Kevin Harvick saw their chance at a great run go out the window on the 147th lap. Harvick blew a tire, and Jones was caught up in the accident, ending the day for both drivers. Harvick had entered the playoffs after winning seven of the first 26 races in 2018. He left Las Vegas third in points, but Jones wasn’t as lucky. His last-place finish left him 15th in points, 19 points behind the elimination line.
Chase Elliott and Denny Hamlin were two drivers who also saw their days end with a DNF following an incident. Elliott finished 36th, and Hamlin finished 32nd.
As the race progressed, the strongest car of the day seemed to be the strongest car in the series at the time: Brad Keselowski’s No. 2 Ford. He finished off the regular season with wins at Darlington Raceway and Indianapolis Motor Speedway while leading a handful of times at Las Vegas before a handful of late cautions set the field up for an overtime finish.
Playoff drivers Jimmie Johnson and Alex Bowman each had tire issues late in the race following a restart for a hard crash involving Stenhouse Jr.
Keselowski stayed out front throughout those incidents — as well as another multi-car incident that brought out the red flag — to capture his third consecutive Cup Series victory.
Playoff drivers finished in the top seven spots in the field, while half of the playoff field finished 19th or worse.
It seemed all too familiar that the Las Vegas playoff race would come down to another thrilling overtime finish. But this time, it was somewhat of a surprise winner.
Hometown driver Kurt Busch always dreamed of winning at the speedway, but luck was never on his side. He had been Cup racing since 2000 but had yet to find Victory Lane at the track, seldom cracking the top 10.
As one of 12 drivers remaining who were chasing the title, he was on the championship hunt, so it would mean just a little bit more if he was able to finally capture that elusive victory at a track where he had always chased the glory.
Busch entered the race sitting 12th in points, one spot behind his brother Kyle. Luckily for Kurt, sixth through 12th in the standings were only separated by 15 points, giving him all the chances in the world to advance to the next round.
Denny Hamlin seemed to have the strongest car of the day, leading a race-high 121 laps, but a late caution flag shuffled the field after drivers came into the pits. The caution flag flew again late, setting up an overtime finish, but Busch was able to hold off the already-eliminated Matt DiBenedetto to take the checkered flag.
An overly emotional Busch took pride in his victory after the race, especially knowing how he was safely into the next round with the two unknown races at Talladega Superspeedway and the Charlotte Motor Roval coming up.
Hamlin came home third, while a handful of other playoff drivers in Martin Truex Jr., Alex Bowman and Kyle followed DiBenedetto for third through sixth. Austin Dillon was the lone playoff driver to finish lower than 22nd as he came home 32nd, putting him a hefty amount of points back of the elimination line with two races left.
The 2022 South Point 400 was the first race in which the playoff drivers had the opportunity to punch their ticket to Phoenix Raceway for a chance at the championship as the eight remaining playoff drivers looked to be the one driver remaining to hoist the trophy.
The race kicked off in historic fashion as Mark Martin paced the field in the No. 6 machine he won with at the speedway’s inaugural race in 1998. Who would be the next driver to finish his day in Victory Lane at the track?
Emotions were high as the 36-car field battled for the victory, even between a pair of drivers who were not still in the hunt for the championship.
Bubba Wallace captured the first stage victory, but things quickly went sour after contact with Kyle Larson. The two drivers received extensive damage in the incident, which ended with Wallace shoving Larson in the infield after confronting him about the incident.
The two drivers were credited with a 35th (Larson) and 36th-place finish (Wallace). Christopher Bell, another playoff driver, received damage in the accident and also was unable to continue, ending the race in 34th.
Ryan Blaney, who captured the second stage victory of the day, saw his chance at a strong run end after spinning, relegating him to a 28th-place finish.
At the end of the day, the battle for the victory came down to two playoff drivers, as Joey Logano passed Ross Chastain with three laps remaining to capture his third career victory at the track and, more importantly, punch his ticket to Phoenix for a chance to race for another title.
Chastain, Chase Elliott and Denny Hamlin found themselves inside the top four with two races remaining before Phoenix.
Hamlin held a six-point advantage over William Byron, who held a small advantage over Chase Briscoe and Blaney. Bell’s troubles left him with a larger gap as he left the track 23 points back of Hamlin.
