Ryan Truex takes Xfinity Series win at Daytona

Posted on August 23, 2024August 24, 2024 by Holly Cain

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Ryan Truex claimed his second NASCAR Xfinity Series win of the season — the third of his career — leading the field to the yellow and checkered flags on the final lap of overtime in Saturday night’s Wawa 250 Powered by Coca-Cola at Daytona International Speedway.

With very limited green-flag runs and the pace interrupted all night with incidents, ultimately it was an accident among the front-running cars that ended the overtime period with Truex out front as he was so frequently through the night.

Running among that front group of cars, Parker Kligerman’s No. 48 Big Machine Racing Chevrolet hit the No. 16 Kaulig Racing Chevrolet driven by AJ Allmendinger from behind, sending Allmendinger’s Chevy hard into the wall, which brought out the final caution to end the night.

RELATED: Race results | At-track photos: Daytona

Truex, 32, the younger brother of Cup Series champion Martin Truex Jr., crossed the line just ahead of his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Chandler Smith in the No. 81 JGR Toyota. Kligerman finished in third place. Stewart-Haas Racing’s Riley Herbst and RSS Racing’s Ryan Sieg rounded out the top five.

“Oh my gosh, thanks to these fans, it’s so amazing to race here,’’ said Truex, who is racing part-time this season but now has two wins in eight starts this season.

“Just thanks to these guys,’’ Truex, driver of the No. 20 JGR Toyota, said of his team. “I don’t get to race that often and I don’t know what I’m going to do next year. It’s all a work in progress. Just a great car [tonight].”

The veteran Allmendinger, who was running second at the time of his last lap accident, finished 24th. A frustrated Kligerman insisted he did not mean to wreck Allmendinger, especially because the pair had worked well together throughout the race.

“I just had a run and I had to go, I felt it was the run I had to take to put myself on the bottom if I was going to win this race,’’ Kligerman added. “I love him like a brother, he and I have been in this a long time together.

In many ways, the ending was indicative of the whole evening — hard racing followed by the kind of contact so common at the famous 2.5-mile Daytona high banks.

Owner-driver Jordan Anderson, who competes part-time in the series and was making only his fourth start of the year — finished sixth, answering a fourth-place effort in the Daytona season opener.

Justin Allgaier, who led a race-best 35 laps, was seventh, followed by Sheldon Creed, Leland Honeyman and Kyle Weatherman.

The points standings were majorly affected with the season-long leader, the defending Xfinity Series champion Cole Custer losing the points lead to JR Motorsports’ Justin Allgaier, who won both stages.

Custer had a rough night, colliding with his Stewart-Haas Racing teammate Herbst on pit road on the first pit stop — his No. 00 SHR Ford suffering damage that required attention the rest of the race and relegated him to a 32nd-place finish. Custer, who held a 50-point advantage over Allgaier in the championship just two races ago, now trails Allgaier by 33 points with five races remaining to decide the regular-season title winner.

MORE: Get notified for 2025 schedule release

The other end of the current 12-driver playoff field also featured a lot of important action. JR Motorsports’ Sammy Smith dropped out of the last playoff position after being collected in a seven-car accident on Lap 26. Meanwhile, Sieg’s fifth-place finish vaulted him inside the playoff standings and he sits in that all-important 12th-place position now — 15 points up on Smith.

Another championship favorite, Richard Childress Racing’s Austin Hill also took a big hit in the standings — his night was tough even before the green flag flew to start the race. His No. 21 RCR Chevrolet had to pit for attention as cars were making pace laps and instead of starting on the outside of the front row where he qualified, he started from the rear of the field.

The precarious position ended up costing Hill immediately as he was collected in a multi-car accident on the very first lap of racing. After pitting throughout the night for repairs — and more repairs — he ultimately parked the car, finishing 34th. Hill, who won the opening two races of the season, is ranked fourth — more than 100 points behind Allgaier — heading into the final summer stretch before the playoffs start.

The Xfinity Series will be heading to Darlington Raceway for the Sport Clips Haircuts VFW Help A Hero 200 on Aug. 31 (USA, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App). Denny Hamlin is the defending winner of the race. Justin Allgaier is the most recent winner at the track.

NOTE: Post-race inspection was completed without issue in the Xfinity Series garage, confirming Ryan Truex as the winner. The Nos. 2, 7, 81 and 98 will head to the NASCAR Research & Development Center in Concord, North Carolina, for further evaluation.

Posted on August 23, 2024 by Staff Report

See where your favorite NASCAR Cup Series driver will pit for the Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona International Speedway on Saturday (7:30 p.m. ET, NBC, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App).

Posted on August 23, 2024August 23, 2024 by Holly Cain

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — 2021 Daytona 500 winner Michael McDowell captured the pole position for Saturday night’s Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona International Speedway (7:30 p.m. ET, NBC, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App) — his fourth career pole, but first at the sport’s iconic track.

It will be an all-Front Row Motorsports front row, thanks to McDowell’s qualifying lap of 183.165 mph around the 2.5-mile high banks in the No. 34 FRM Ford during Friday evening’s qualifying session. His teammate Todd Gilliland will start beside him in the No. 38 FRM Ford — the two actually posting the exact same time in the first round of qualifying

Fords swept the top-six positions in time trials and had seven cars in the top 10 on the Daytona speed chart.

“Qualifying has never been a strength at superspeedways for us [as a team] but racing has,’’ McDowell said with a smile. “We just decided, okay, we are going to take as much time as we possibly have available to execute everything we can to the best of our ability.’’

“We just proved to ourselves with a lot of extra time put in, it has paid off,’’ he said of the team’s emphasis on improving qualifying at the big tracks such as Daytona.

Joey Logano, the 2015 Daytona 500 winner, will start third in the No. 22 Team Penske Ford, followed by Ryan Preece in the No. 41 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford and teammates Josh Berry in the No. 4 SHR Ford and Chase Briscoe in the No. 14 SHR Ford.

This year’s Daytona 500 winner William Byron was seventh fastest in the No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet, with Team Penske’s Austin Cindric — the 2022 Daytona 500 winner — starting from the eighth position. Hendrick Motorsports teammates Kyle Larson and Chase Elliott rounded out the top 10.

MORE: How to get notified for 2025 schedule release

The starting positions are key for Front Row Motorsports, which is still trying to qualify for the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs. FRM will need a race win to jump into the 16-driver playoff field, with only two races remaining to settle the championship eligibility.

“When it comes to tomorrow night, we’ll do what we always do. We’re going to race and help ourselves get to the front and stay in the front and be in good position,’’ McDowell said, adding. “The best thing we can do for our team and ourselves is work together because we have fast cars.”

Defending Daytona summer race winner, RFK Racing’s Chris Buescher, holds a 16-point advantage in 15th place and Trackhouse Racing’s Ross Chastain takes a mere one-point lead into Saturday night’s race. They will start 13th and 24th, respectively. 23XI Racing’s Bubba Wallace, who sits just behind Chastain a single point back, will start 18th.

Posted on August 23, 2024August 23, 2024 by Zach Sturniolo

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — On Thursday, Denny Hamlin, crew chief Chris Gabehart and the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing team were handed an L2-level penalty for an engine inspection infraction.

The penalty cost Hamlin and Gibbs 75 points in the drivers’ and owners’ points standings, respectively, all but wiping Hamlin from contention to win the Regular Season Championship. He was also docked 10 playoff points and Gabehart was fined $100,000, all after Toyota Racing Development mistakenly returned the No. 11 team’s race-winning engine from Bristol Motor Speedway to headquarters in Costa Mesa, California, where it was disassembled without first being inspected by NASCAR officials per the rule book.

On Friday, the team’s focus was set squarely on doing what it’s done all season: priming the No. 11 Toyota for a chance to win another NASCAR Cup Series race.

MORE: Cup standings | Details on penalty

“I mean, sure we’re all disappointed, every one of us — TRD, JGR, 11 car, all of our sponsors are really disappointed in the news,” Gabehart told NASCAR.com Friday at Daytona International Speedway. “But context is, at Bristol, we won with this engine. But as some may not realize, for process-savings measures, you run the engines more than once, and the engine was scheduled to run at a later date, and it did. And one thing led to another, and instead of ultimately ending up at NASCAR, it went back home to its home.”

Hamlin explained later Friday evening that particular engine was run at Darlington Raceway following the Bristol victory.

Now sitting sixth in the points standings as opposed to third, Hamlin was no less disappointed Friday at Daytona than when he had the news broken to him Thursday in a meeting by TRD and JGR leadership.

“It’s just really hard,” Hamlin said. “It’s really hard in this kind of format when you work so hard in the regular season to get all those bonus points. It’s really tough to see it just wiped away. But it’s part of it and we’ve got to just overcome now.”

David Wilson, president of TRD USA, said in a Thursday statement, in part: “We have reviewed our processes and have implemented several additional steps to ensure that this never happens again. TRD takes full responsibility for this grievous mistake, and we apologize to Denny, Chris, Coach Gibbs, the entire JGR organization, NASCAR and our fans.”

As Wilson, Tyler Gibbs and others explained how everything unfolded to Hamlin, the driver of the No. 11 Toyota was left trying to wrap his head around the situation.

“Just had questions, you know?” Hamlin said. “Tried to get some clarification on exactly how, what, when, and all that stuff. But they obviously were very regrettable to have to give me that information when they did. I feel bad for them because I knew that they did not want to have to bring me in a room and tell me that we were going to have something that is going to affect our season.”

While a costly mistake, Gabehart sympathized with what led to the mistake in the first place.

“How it happens is simple. All of this is done by humans,” Gabehart said. “Like in any pro sport, when you turn on the TV or you go to the game and you watch such an amazing thing unfold so seemingly effortlessly, it doesn’t look human. It looks robotic, as does racing at the top level. Anybody who knows about details about what this garage area is capable of producing week in and week out, it’s superhuman. It’s every bit as superhuman as watching the NFL’s Super Bowl. It just is.

“But it’s done by humans, and humans aren’t perfect, and they make mistakes, and that’s what happened. I’ve made plenty of them that have cost the 11 car a win. Denny’s made plenty of them that have cost the 11 car a win. JGR, Toyota. I mean, we’re teammates. We all do it together, and it’s a really hard way to incur such a stiff penalty for sure, and none of us are going to take it lightly. I’m confident our partners at Toyota will not be taking it lightly, but at the end of the day, we’re humans and we’re not perfect.”

Hamlin echoed that sentiment, noting missteps of his own that have set the team back. But he also noted there is no time to sulk despite his negativity with just two events remaining in the regular season.

“I mean, you just gotta (look at it like) so what, now what?” Hamlin said. “I mean, you have to just figure out what’s the best path forward? And the best path is just to win, right? Win and just make sure you can finish races the best you can. And obviously our room for error is gone now. We’ll just hope to get through the rounds.”

Hamlin sits 103 points back of 23XI Racing’s Tyler Reddick for the Regular Season Championship. There are 14 more playoff points available across the next two races (five per race win, one per stage win). Hamlin has finished inside the top 10 in three of the last four races and has led 21 or more laps in five of the last seven events.

“We’re gonna do the same thing we’ve been trying to do the first 24 races, and that’s win — and we’ve been more than capable to win a lot of them,” Gabehart said. “We’ll be more than capable of winning the next 12. So really, there is no refocus. … Quantifiably, the fact is, you win and you’re in. You win and then you advance in rounds. And there’s no one in this garage more capable of winning week in and week out than us — absolutely zero people — and this will be nothing but a little extra motivation to prove that.”

Hamlin is also a three-time winner at Daytona and a four-time victor at Darlington, making all 14 of those playoff points that much more attainable.

“If we can get hot and win some races, it won’t hurt as bad, right?” Hamlin said. “We could get back to a decent number for playoff points for the first round, second round, third round. But yeah, there’s always an opportunity, and certainly the tracks line up nicely for us.”

Posted on August 23, 2024 by Steve Luvender

NASCAR.com’s 36 for 36 continues at Daytona International 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: 615
r/NASCAR Community: -64
Dustin Albino: -70
Cameron Richardson: -108

Race 25 of 36: Daytona

Our picking panel had a decent outing last week in Michigan. While three pickers selected defending race winner Chris Buescher, who drove a crash-damaged car to a sixth-place finish, Dustin Albino’s pick of Zane Smith cruised to a far-better-than-average P7.

Now, Daytona awaits our four pickers, and with the playoffs just two races away, it may be one of the most unpredictable races for our 36 for 36 players. Let’s see what they’re thinking.

Jayski’s Dustin Albino: No. 42, John Hunter Nemechek

Dustin’s pick last week: No. 71, Zane Smith (30 points)

Total season points: 545 (third place, -1 position)

Dustin: Despite Smith putting together one of the best performances of his rookie season at Michigan, I still lost points to the lead. That should be expected when my three competitors all chose the defending winner. Granted, Buescher had a frantic comeback. It’s been a bumpy transition to Toyota for Legacy Motor Club, but Daytona is an opportunity for the team to have a rebound weekend. Nemechek desperately needs one. Over the last 12 races, the No. 42 team has 11 finishes outside the top 25. The lone exception was New Hampshire. Nemechek is an aggressive driver, which could bode well for this weekend. He placed seventh in the Daytona 500.

NASCAR.com’s Steve Luvender: No. 43, Erik Jones

Steve’s pick last week: No. 17, Chris Buescher (37 points)

Total season points: 615 (first place)

Steve: Erik Jones has a single top-10 finish this season, and that took place in this year’s Daytona 500. I considered saving Jones for next week’s race at Darlington, the site of two of his three career wins, but the No. 43 team’s struggles this season have left me not feeling less than optimistic. Jones won the 2018 running of the summer Daytona race as well as the 2020 Clash in a heavily damaged car, so he knows how to get to the front at the “World Center of Racing.”

NASCAR.com’s Cameron Richardson: No. 71, Zane Smith

Cameron’s pick last week: No. 17, Chris Buescher (37 points)

Total season points: 507 (fourth place)

Cameron: Anything can happen at Daytona, and I’m going with a rookie who’s shown tremendous strides this summer. With a seventh-place result last week at Michigan, Smith showed that his runner-up result at Nashville was no fluke. Since Gateway, the No. 71 Spire Motorsports stable has managed six top-20 results in the last 10 races. It may not look like much but it will go a long way in both Spire and Zane’s growth in the Cup Series. Give me a Saturday night shocker.

r/NASCAR Community: No. 21, Harrison Burton

r/NASCAR’s pick last week: No. 17, Chris Buescher (37 points)

Total season points: 551 (second place, +1 position)

The NASCAR subreddit has spoken, and Harrison Burton is this week’s pick based on community activity in the voting thread. What Redditors had to say:

u/Dont_hate_the_8: “Gotta use him somewhere. No sense is using a top car when it’s 50/50 that they’ll wreck. He’s had some decent superspeedway runs, let’s give it a shot.”

u/Extreme-Bite-9123: “This is the clear best choice for Daytona. We have to use Burton at some point, so we had better use him at a track where he’s either gonna flip or get a top ten”

u/FridgusDomin8or: “Yep. Ford typically shows up in a big way on the plate tracks and Harrison doesn’t have any standout tracks at all so it makes sense to use him here. I say go for it; if he wrecks then oh well”

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!

Posted on August 23, 2024August 24, 2024 by Staff Report

DAYTONA BEACH, FL. — Daniel Dye will join Kaulig Racing to compete full-time in the NASCAR Xfinity Series in 2025, the team announced Friday at Daytona International Speedway.

Dye, currently a contender in the Craftsman Truck Series Playoffs, will drive the No. 10 Chevrolet in 2025. The 20-year-old has made nine starts for Kaulig in Xfinity competition, dating back to his series debut at Texas in 2023. Dye has made seven starts in the No. 10 car this year, recording top-10 finishes at both Iowa Speedway (10th) and Indianapolis Motor Speedway, where he posted a career-best seventh-place result.

MORE: See the latest Silly Season moves

A native of DeLand, Florida, roughly 20 miles southwest of the 2.5-mile superspeedway in Daytona, Dye is in the midst of his second full season in the Truck Series. After posting just one top-10 finish in 2023 with GMS Racing, Dye and the No. 43 McAnally-Hilgemann Racing team have combined for one top five and six top 10s through 16 races, enough for Dye to charge into the postseason through the regular-season finale at Richmond Raceway on Aug. 10. Dye enters as the 10th and final seed in the playoffs.

Kaulig Racing announced in January that Dye would compete in 10 Xfinity races for the team in 2024. Upcoming Xfinity appearances on Dye’s calendar include Sept. 28 at Kansas Speedway, Oct. 19 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway and Nov. 9 at Phoenix Raceway.

Posted on August 23, 2024 by Seth Sharp

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 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 Saturday’s Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona International Speedway.

NASCAR Research & Archives Center | Getty Images

1961 Firecracker 250:

The third annual July 4th race at the newly opened Daytona International Speedway was the 32nd race on the 52-race schedule.

The 30-car field was full of names transcendent through time. Junior Johnson, Buck Baker, Joe Weatherly, Fred Lorenzen, Ned Jarrett, Ralph Earnhardt, Tiny Lund and defending series champion Rex White were just some of the bigger names filling the field.

Another of those names, Fireball Roberts, started the race on the pole alongside a younger driver who was in the middle of his second Cup Series campaign.

That driver was Spartanburg, South Carolina’s David Pearson, who was just 26 years old.

Pearson was racing a partial schedule in 1961 and was just a handful of starts removed from winning the World 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway. That was the first victory of his young career, finishing one spot ahead of Roberts.

History was made at Daytona that weekend as it marked the first nationally televised NASCAR event that was presented in a tape-delay format. Bill France Sr. was in the booth for the event, while Chris Economaki worked the pits for his first TV broadcast.

Roberts and Weatherly traded the lead back and forth a handful of times through the race’s first 20 laps before Roberts took control.

In the end, Pearson held off a hard-charging Lorenzen at the start/finish line for the second victory of his Cup Series career.

NASCAR Research & Archives Center | Getty Images

1966 Firecracker 400:

Every once in a while, a small moment can turn out to be something that can alter the future. The summer race at Daytona in 1966 proved to be just that.

Sam McQuagg showed up to Daytona with an inch-and-a-half spoiler attached to the rear deck lid of his Dodge Charger. McQuagg and his team developed the spoiler over a few weeks in the middle of June after struggling mightily to show speed.

The Columbus, Georgia native was not necessarily someone who was looked at for being a threat to win heading into Daytona, even with the new spoiler. Daytona was set to be the 30th start of his career, with a career-best finish of third coming at Bristol Motor Speedway in 1965. More noticeably, McQuagg had 18 DNFs over that span, including his previous four starts due to mechanical issues.

The new spoiler seemingly paid off for the Ray Nichels-powered team in qualifying as McQuagg put the No. 98 Dodge in fourth. He sat behind a trio of fast cars, including pole-winner LeeRoy Yarbrough, Richard Petty and Curtis Turner.

Attrition proved to be one of the toughest battles under the July sky that day. Seventeen of the 40 starters finished the race in the garage, including the polesitter, who only made it 126 laps.

Petty was involved in a mid-race crash, while Mario Andretti, Buck Baker, Buddy Baker and Paul Goldsmith were among other names not to make it to the finish.

McQuagg surprised everyone, leading seven times for a race-high 126 laps en route to the first and only Cup Series victory of his career. Second-place finisher Darel Dieringer coasted across the line for a second-place finish as his No. 16 car ran out of gas.

NASCAR Research & Archives Center | Getty Images

1984 Firecracker 400:

Sometimes, everything just seems to fall into place to create a memorable day.

Ronald Reagan, the President of the United States, kicked off the July 4 celebration in Daytona with the command to start engines before eventually making his way to the MRN radio booth.

One of the biggest story lines was that of Richard Petty, who had just picked up his 199th career victory less than two months earlier at Dover Motor Speedway. Petty was in sole command of the most victories in series history but found tough luck after his Delaware triumph.

Petty’s 13th-place finish at Pocono Raceway was his only finish in between the two events where he finished above 23rd. His cold streak dropped him from sixth to ninth in the series points standings.

He was always strong at Daytona and qualified sixth for the Firecracker 400. Petty would have a hoard of strong cars to beat if he wanted that 200th victory to come at Daytona as Cale Yarborough, Dale Earnhardt, Bill Elliott, Terry Labonte and David Pearson all qualified in front of him. All of those drivers have since been enshrined in the NASCAR Hall of Fame.

Yarborough was driving a partial schedule in 1984 but was just as fast as ever. He kicked off the season with a victory in the Daytona 500 while also winning at Talladega Superspeedway and Pocono. Over his first eight starts of the season, he finished fourth or better in five of them. It was no surprise he put his No. 28 Chevrolet on the pole at Daytona for the second time that season.

Yarborough led 79 of the race’s first 124 laps, but it was Petty who was in command of the race as the final laps passed by.

The race came down to Petty and Yarborough battling for the win in a thrilling race back to the start/finish line after a crash involving Doug Heveron brought out the yellow flag with two laps remaining. With the race ending under yellow, whoever made it back to the line first would most certainly be able to make the final two laps behind the pace car on the way to victory.

Petty and his No. 43 car beat Yarborough to the line by inches for the 200th victory of his career.

Surprisingly, Yarborough pulled off the track one lap early by accident and was credited with a third-place finish behind Petty and Harry Gant.

Posted on August 23, 2024August 23, 2024 by Cameron Richardson

Editor’s Note: Racing Insights’ playoff projections use a combination of current standings and historical performance at upcoming tracks to determine the probability of each driver winning or making the playoffs on points.

With the Cup Series Playoffs on the mind throughout the season, what if there was a way to project how the 16-driver field could look before each race weekend?

It now exists via Racing Insights. From now until the start of the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs, “The Field of 16” will give fans a weekly look at where their favorite drivers could potentially land in the postseason field — and the likelihood of having a shot at the Bill France Cup.

Here’s this week’s update on the projections heading into Daytona International Speedway.

NOTABLE PROBABILITY SHIFTS POST-MICHIGAN

DRIVER	AT MICHIGAN	ENTERING DAYTONA	DIFFERENCE
Ty Gibbs	62.63%	80.19%	+17.56
Ross Chastain	56.39%	56.85%	+0.46
Chris Buescher	71.90%	70.15%	-1.75
Bubba Wallace	71.12%	63.26%	-7.86

PROBABILITY CALCULATED BY RACING INSIGHTS AHEAD OF COKE ZERO SUGAR 400, AUGUST 24, 2024

DRIVERS SOLIDLY IN PLAYOFF PICTURE

After winning last week’s race at Michigan, Tyler Reddick has now jumped into first place in the Cup Series standings by 10 points over Chase Elliott. Reddick, driver of the No. 45 23XI Racing Toyota, has been the hottest driver in NASCAR this summer and on one of the most impressive runs in recent memory. Going back to the Coca-Cola 600, he’s finished inside the top 10 in every race except for Iowa.

Elliott (-10) and Kyle Larson (-32) remain in the mix for the coveted Regular Season Championship but all three had respective issues in Michigan. Larson took the biggest hit out of the bunch after starting a multicar wreck in Stage 2.

Ryan Blaney, Christopher Bell and William Byron have all won multiple races this season, and while a regular-season title isn’t within grasp for the trio, they can still continue to rack up playoff points to position themselves well for the start of the postseason.

Brad Keselowski, Joey Logano, Alex Bowman, Daniel Suárez and Austin Cindric each own a win and have locked in spots in the postseason. Both Suárez and Cindric return to the playoffs after missing out in 2023.

LAST 4 IN

With 16 unique winners not possible this year, Martin Truex Jr.’s 2022 nightmare will not repeat itself this season. However, a 77-point cushion is anything but safe, especially with Truex’s luck at superspeedways in his Cup career. He’s completed every lap at drafting tracks this season but only has six top 10s in 38 starts at the “World Center of Racing.”

Ty Gibbs had one of his most complete outings of 2024 at Michigan. A third-place finish moved him 39 points above the elimination line but experience is limited at Daytona for the Cup sophomore and he will need to rely on his Joe Gibbs Racing team to help get to the checkered flag with a clean race car.

Daytona may be best suited for the likes of Chris Buescher and Bubba Wallace. Both have produced results and won at drafting tracks in their Cup career, with Buescher being the defending Daytona summer race winner. Buescher was involved in the late Stage 2 crash with Larson and Wallace but the damage to the No. 17 RFK Racing Ford didn’t stop Buescher from finishing inside the top 10.

However, the damage to Wallace’s No. 23 Toyota kept him from finding speed the rest of the day at Michigan, and all he could was watch his teammate take the checkered flag while Gibbs finished not too far behind. Now, just one point below Ross Chastain for the final playoff spot, Wallace will have to manage, balance stage points and go for the win Saturday night.

FIRST 4 OUT

It appeared Chastain was on his way to a solid top-10 outing at Michigan until a spin in overtime parachuted him to a 25th-place finish. Now, Chastain only holds a single-point gap over Wallace entering Saturday night’s showdown. The driver of the No. 1 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet has been in the mix late in Daytona races but he’s been on the short end of calamity more times than not with a 42% DNF rate at the 2.5-mile superspeedway.

Kyle Busch has had fast Chevrolets at Daytona since joining Richard Childress Racing in 2023. He nearly won his first Daytona 500 in Feb. 2023 and had a rocket in the season-opening race this year but couldn’t get to the front late and finished 12th. Busch and teammate Austin Dillon will have speed Saturday night, if they can put a complete race together, one of them could find their way into the postseason.

WHO CAN SHAKE UP PLAYOFF PICTURE AT DAYTONA?

Anybody.

That’s the beauty of the Daytona summer race taking place just before the postseason kicks off. If you are looking for specific drivers outside the playoff picture that have momentum heading into Saturday night, look no further than a pair of Spire Motorsports drivers Zane Smith and Carson Hocevar. Smith’s summer has been bountiful in the No. 71 Chevrolet, with two top 10s highlighted by a runner-up at Nashville. Hocevar enters Saturday night’s affair with back-to-back top 10s at Richmond and Michigan.

MORE: 2024 Cup Series schedule | How to get notified for 2025 schedule release

Before each race weekend, check back into The Field of 16 to see the latest projections of the 2024 Cup Series playoff field.

Posted on August 22, 2024August 22, 2024 by Staff Report

The No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing team and driver Denny Hamlin were issued an L2-level penalty for violating NASCAR’s engine inspection requirements, the sanctioning body announced Thursday.

The team was found in violation of Sections 14.7.1.E&F and 14.7.1.1.B&E of the NASCAR Rule Book. As a result, Hamlin and team owner Joe Gibbs were each docked 75 points and 10 playoff points, while crew chief Chris Gabehart was fined $100,000.

Section 14.7.1.E states all race-winning engines “will be long block sealed by NASCAR and must be completely inspected by NASCAR before the engine may be disassembled by the team. If the team chooses to use the long block sealed race winning engine again before being inspected, the engine must be used in the same vehicle number the next time it is used.” Section 14.7.1.F states the long block engine assembly seals of a long block sealed engine must not be altered, removed or replaced.

Additionally, the team violated 14.7.1.1.B&E, which respectively states, “seals must not be removed without prior approval by NASCAR,” and “if a race winning engine is sealed and presented for post-race inspection at a later date with damaged, altered or missing seals, an L2 Penalty will be assessed.”

“Each race-winning engine must be inspected by NASCAR once the race team determines that its life cycle is complete,” a NASCAR statement read. “In this instance, prior to presenting the engine to NASCAR for inspection, Toyota Racing Development disassembled and rebuilt the No. 11’s Bristol-winning race engine. Per the NASCAR Rule Book, this violation results in an L2 penalty to the race team and driver. Toyota Racing Development self-reported this violation.”

RELATED: Driver standings | Cup schedule

The penalties levied against Hamlin and the No. 11 team are the lowest L2-level penalties permissible, according to the rule book.

Additionally, Hamlin’s Bristol win will no longer count toward eligibility for the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs, advancement in the playoffs or eligibility for non-points events and tiebreakers. Hamlin is a three-time race winner in 2024, including his Bristol triumph and is still locked into the postseason.

The penalty drops Hamlin from third in the regular-season standings to sixth, effectively eliminating him from contention to win the Regular Season Championship.

“As the engine builder for our partner NASCAR Cup Series teams, TRD (Toyota Racing Development) is solely responsible for the handling and disposition of all our engines pre- and post-race,” David Wilson, president of TRD USA, said in a statement. “Despite procedures being in place, Denny’s race-winning engine from Bristol was mistakenly returned to our Costa Mesa facility, disassembled and rebuilt instead of being torn down and inspected by NASCAR per the rule book. Although we know with absolute certainty that the engine was legal and would have passed inspection, we left NASCAR in an impossible position because they were not given the opportunity to properly inspect our engine. We have reviewed our processes and have implemented several additional steps to ensure that this never happens again. TRD takes full responsibility for this grievous mistake, and we apologize to Denny, Chris, Coach Gibbs, the entire JGR organization, NASCAR and our fans.”

Hamlin still has the opportunity to gain playoff points, of course, in the final two regular-season races at Daytona International Speedway and Darlington Raceway.

A 54-time winner at the Cup level, Hamlin is a three-time champion of the Daytona 500, and the series will race at Daytona in the Coke Zero Sugar 400 on Saturday (7:30 p.m. ET, NBC, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, Peacock). He also is a four-time winner at Darlington, where the Cup Series’ regular season will come to an end Sept. 1.

Posted on August 22, 2024 by Neil Paine

As the fight for the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs reaches its frenzied conclusion, two races remain for at least five drivers to fight over no more than four postseason spots. So if you haven’t locked in your playoff status yet, things are starting to feel mighty precarious right now.

That is especially the case considering the first of those two races, Saturday night’s Coke Zero Sugar 400 (7:30 p.m. ET, NBC, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCA Radio, NBC Sports App), comes at Daytona International Speedway.

Daytona is a fascinating subject because it’s the sport’s flagship track — home of the most famous race in America, the Daytona 500 — but it also carries a reputation for being one of the most chaotic. That duality was represented in the career of the late, great Dale Earnhardt, who hated the type of pack racing that emerged at Daytona in the restrictor-plate era, even as he became the greatest plate-racer in history. (So remarkable was Earnhardt’s ability to manipulate the draft that legend held he could “see the air” as he maneuvered through the field.)

Pack racing means one mistake or miscommunication, by any of dozens of different cars, can create the “Big One” at any moment. So, it’s natural that drivers would be anxious to cast their fate to the Daytona winds with the playoffs on the line. And the numbers support that feeling.

There are a few ways to measure just how random Daytona races can be. Back when William Byron won the 500 in February, I wrote about how surprisingly rare it was for the best driver in the Cup Series to win the Super Bowl of Stock Car Racing — with Daytona winners performing worse on average in the previous season (according to my Adjusted Points+ index metric) than the winners at any other track since the early 1970s. But let’s expand on that further by retroactively calculating my rolling driver rankings going into each race, tracking how well the top driver did — as well as where the eventual winner was ranked going into the race.

In the average Cup Series race (at all tracks) since 1975, the No. 1 driver in the pre-race rankings wins 15.7% of the time, with an average finish of 10.8; meanwhile, the eventual winner of any given race had an average ranking of 6.6 going in. And those numbers get more predictable at short tracks, for instance, where the No. 1 driver wins 21.1% of the time with an average finish of 9.1, while the average winner had a pre-race ranking of 5.5.

However, we see how much more chaotic things can be at restrictor-plate tracks like Daytona and Talladega. Across all plate tracks, the No. 1 driver wins just 8.9% of races with an average finish of 15.8, while the average winner went into the race with a ranking of 9.0. And Daytona is even more unpredictable. While the No. 1 driver has historically won 9.1% of the time — about on par with Talladega — they’ve also posted an average finish of 15.9, with the winner going into the race with an average rank of 9.8. Both of those latter figures are the highest for any track on the current Cup Series schedule with at least 10 races run since 1975.

And the midseason Daytona race, which has been run at night under the lights since 1998, is the most helter-skelter of all. It sees the No. 1 ranked driver win just 8.2% of the time with an average finish of 17.1, and the average winner has gone in with a ranking of 9.8. For every time this race was won by the top driver, as happened with Earnhardt (in 1990 and 1993), Jeff Gordon (1998) and Jimmie Johnson (2013), it was just as often won by comparatively less-heralded drivers like Greg Sacks (No. 28 in 1985), John Andretti (No. 31 in 1997), Greg Biffle (No. 29 in 2003), David Ragan (No. 25 in 2011) and Justin Haley (No. 32 in 2019).

And all of this is from the perspective of the top driver before the race. How about the best driver in the race itself?

You might think the best driver and the race winner are one and the same — and for sure, there’s a certain school of thought that “if you ain’t first, you’re last.” But since we’re on the topic of randomness, it’s worth looking at how often the statistical best driver of the race, as measured by Driver Rating, actually wins at Daytona (and other tracks), and how often their day is spoiled by unforeseen circumstances.

Since 2005, the earliest season of loop data at Racing-Reference.info, the driver with the highest rating in the race wins at a surprisingly low clip of 56.2% overall, which underscores just how much stands between the car with the best pure speed and Victory Lane each week, regardless of the track. But that number falls to 43.6% at Daytona — the third-lowest success rate at any current track with at least 10 races in that span, trailing only Talladega (41.0%) and Indianapolis (41.2%).

Moreover, the driver with the best driver rating in Daytona races has an average finish of just 5.8, which is far worse than the overall Cup Series average of 3.0 since 2005, and easily the worst of any active qualified track:

This, perhaps more than anything else, speaks to the chaos sitting at the heart of Daytona. Because the Big One’s potential lurks around every turn, drivers can do everything right and still get sent to the back of the field by the end of the race, if they get caught up in a massive wreck. The top stars in the sport are far from immune to this — remember how mediocre the No. 1 ranked pre-race driver tends to do here — which in turn opens up chances for cars deeper in the field to rise to the front.

If you are one of the drivers on the cusp of the playoffs, you could look at this as something to fear: Everything you prepared for all season could be cruelly swept away at any moment. But it also represents an opportunity. Since a win can officially stamp your ticket to the postseason — and any high finish can help solidify your points position — Daytona could also be what makes a driver’s playoff hopes instead of breaking them. After all, somebody has to win, no matter how much chaos it takes to get there in the end.