RICHMOND, Va. – Joe Gibbs Racing teammates Denny Hamlin and Martin Truex Jr. will lead the field to the green flag for Sunday night’s NASCAR Cup Series Cook Out 400 at Richmond Raceway (6 p.m. ET, USA, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App).
The fast lap of 118.162 mph in the No. 11 JGR Toyota landed Hamlin, 43, his third Busch Light Pole Award of the 2024 season. It’s his fourth career pole position at the 0.75-mile Virginia short track for Hamlin, who grew up in the Richmond area and is the hometown favorite this weekend. It is the 54th career pole position for the five-time Richmond winner.
Asked after the session about his work, Hamlin grinned and noted, “We were the slowest car in the first round, but the team made great adjustments and that’s the bottom line to it.
“Was I surprised it held up? Yes, I was,” Hamlin said of being the first to turn in a lap in the final session.
“He [crew chief Chris Gabehart] told me if we backed up my [first round] time we’d have a shot at it. Certainly a great job by this whole FedEx Camry team. Certainly unexpected given the practice and first-round qualifying we had.
“We just made the correct adjustments that we’re going to have to make in the race as well. I think we’re headed in the right direction.”
It is the first front-row start of the season for Truex, a three-time Richmond winner who is still racing for his first trophy of the year. He’s ranked 13th in the playoff standings, 108 points up on the field with the top-16 drivers advancing to the 10-race championship battle.
Stewart-Haas Racing’s Josh Berry and Hendrick Motorsports’ Chase Elliott will start from the second row, followed by JGR’s Christopher Bell and Richard Childress Racing’s Austin Dillon, who is making only his second top-10 start of the season.
Defending race winner, RFK Racing’s Chris Buescher qualified seventh and will start alongside 23XI Racing’s Bubba Wallace. Team Penske’s Joey Logano and 23XI Racing’s Tyler Reddick rounded out the top 10 who advanced to the final qualifying session.
Current Cup Series championship leader, Hendrick Motorsports’ Kyle Larson will start 15th. The track’s winningest active driver Kyle Busch (six wins) will roll off 12th.
“I love winning here and to have five [wins] is certainly exciting and I feel like they have each been a little different,’’ Hamlin said, adding, “It feels good to come here and still be able to perform 20 years later.’’
A 45-minute practice session before qualifying allowed teams to try out the special “option tire” that NASCAR has made available this week. Teams have been given six sets of “prime tires” and two sets of “option tires” for use during the race.
Goodyear’s “prime” tires are a harder rubber compound with typically less grip but will last longer. The new “option” tire has a softer rubber compound offering more grip and speed but will not last as long.
“I think both the option and primary tire behaved about as we expected,’’ said Goodyear’s Director of Racing Greg Stucker, adding, “So far in the conditions we have now, we like what we see.’’
The drivers were also complimentary.
“I understand why we’re doing it and I think it was a good idea,’’ Hamlin said of the option tire.
Richard Childress Racing’s Austin Dillon topped the leaderboard at 118.953 mph in the 45-minute practice session. Bubba Wallace (118.859 mph), Christopher Bell (118.760 mph), Martin Truex Jr. (118.707 mph) and Zane Smith (118.702 mph) rounded out the top five.
Carson Hocevar (118.530 mph), Chris Buescher (118.457 mph), Michael McDowell (118.229 mph), Daniel Suárez (118.203 mph) and Ty Gibbs (118.043 mph) completed the top 10.
NASCAR.com’s 36 for 36 continues at Richmond Raceway.
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: 554
Dustin Albino: -63
r/NASCAR Community: -72
Cameron Richardson: -101
Race 23 of 36: Richmond
Before the Olympic break, Kyle Larson took top honors in Indianapolis, earning the win in the Brickyard 400. As far as the 36 for 36 picking panel is concerned, it was a mixed bag. Cameron Richardson’s dreadful summer luck continued when his William Byron pick crashed out early, earning just eight points. Dustin Albino went with Brad Keselowski, who finished 21st, while the r/NASCAR community pick of Zane Smith earned 20 points from the No. 71’s 17th-place finish. Steve Luvender extended his points lead by picking Chase Elliott, whose 10th-place effort racked up 36 additional points.
It’s now officially the run-up to the playoffs — just four races remain — and our pickers’ remaining options are dwindling. And now, with an option tire available at Richmond, there’s an entirely new layer of unpredictability.
Dustin’s pick last week: No. 6, Brad Keselowski (16 points)
Total season points: 491 (second place)
Dustin: That was a needed two-week break here. Just about anything that could go wrong did go wrong for my picks, spanning the previous two months. Add Brad Keselowski running out of fuel while leading the Brickyard 400 to the laundry list. I’m going with a short-track stud at Richmond, though. Berry has transitioned nicely to the Cup Series on short(er) tracks, leading 25 laps at Bristol and finishing on the podium at New Hampshire. He made a spirited early charge through the field in March at the 0.75-mile track, dropping to 11th at the checkered flag. It’s an incredibly small sample size, but Berry has an average finish of 6.5 in two Richmond starts, including a runner-up finish while driving in place of Chase Elliott last year.
NASCAR.com’s Steve Luvender: No. 4, Josh Berry
Steve’s pick last week: No. 9, Chase Elliott (36 points)
Total season points: 554 (first place)
Steve: I vowed earlier in the season to save rookie Josh Berry for the second half of the season when things would have time to click for the No. 4 team, and I believe Richmond is the right time. Statistically, Richmond is Berry’s best track in terms of average finish, where he’s run more than one race, and he’s also quite the short-track racer. Combine this with the added strategy element of option tires, and I think we’ve got a recipe for a good evening … a Berry good one. (Sorry, I had to.)
Cameron’s pick last week: No. 24, William Byron (8 points)
Total season points: 453 (fourth place)
Cameron: Only two short tracks remain after Richmond, so I’m all in on going 4/4 with Stewart-Haas picks on tracks a mile or smaller. Briscoe (Phoenix), Berry (Richmond spring) and Preece (Martinsville) all delivered strong points days in their respective races, and I’m putting all my chips into Gragson this Sunday night. Gragson was 12th in the spring under the lights at the Virginia short track, and while his recent outings and shorter tracks like Iowa (16th) and New Hampshire (27th) didn’t pan out well, SHR seems to put together a fast setup whenever the organization visits Richmond.
r/NASCAR Community: No. 22, Joey Logano
r/NASCAR’s pick last week: No. 71, Zane Smith (20 points)
Total season points: 482 (third place)
Joey Logano got the nod from Reddit’s r/NASCAR community this week. From the voting thread:
u/Quasar_24: “I can get on the Joey bandwagon. The 22 team is really good at recognizing low tire falloff and abusing it for insane track position.”
u/Extreme-Bite-9123: “They are also going to have the same tires they had at Wilkesboro here, the track where Joey led all but one lap, and that one lap is a technicality.”
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!
HUNTERSVILLE, N.C. — Every weekend during the NASCAR Cup Series season, drivers strap in and prepare to tackle the high-octane, adrenaline-fueled challenges of the track. But have you ever wondered what it truly takes to master a circuit when competition levels are closer than ever?
Part of the answer lies in the cutting-edge realm of simulation. This sophisticated technology allows drivers to navigate virtual yet hyper-realistic versions of tracks, honing their skills and strategies in a risk-free environment. By immersing themselves in these digital landscapes, teams gain invaluable insights and practice, transforming prior uncertainties into advantages before they even hit the race track. So while the roar of the engines and the thrill of competition unfold on race day, much of the groundwork is laid in the quiet precision behind the curtain of team headquarters.
23XI Racing recently opened its doors to NASCAR.com to discuss how it best utilizes simulation data and applies it to its Nos. 23 and 45 Toyotas, driven by Bubba Wallace and Tyler Reddick.
MINDS BEHIND THE SCREENS
Keegan Leahy’s journey began in Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, where he majored in physics and atmospheric science as he eyed a career in meteorology. With a foundation built on unraveling the complexities of weather patterns and physical forces, Leahy now channels his expertise into the virtual racing world, where he dove into iRacing back in 2013.
That endeavor paid dividends in just a few short years, catching the attention of Denny Hamlin as he sought to start an eNASCAR team for the 2020 season. Their relationship strengthened throughout the year during the COVID-19 pandemic. While the sport was on hiatus, NASCAR drivers were paired with iRacers for the eNASCAR iRacing Pro Invitational Series, with Leahy paired with Hamlin, driver of the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota and then budding co-owner of 23XI Racing.
So when Hamlin launched his NASCAR Cup Series team into reality in 2021, he also made sure to put in a good word for Leahy. He was able to convert those iRacing skills into something even more valuable as the team’s simulation driver, joining 23XI in its inaugural season in 2021. In his current role, Leahy has been tasked with turning the digital race track into a canvas for precision and innovation both behind the wheel and behind the screen.
On the flip side is Marcos Telles, a mastermind in modeling the software for 23XI’s simulation work. A native of Brazil, Telles began his studies in São Paulo in mechanical engineering. Upon graduation, he continued his work in the Porsche Cup Brasil for three years before making a major life change and moving to Germany. Though he shifted continents and time zones, the crux of his work remained the same, focusing on the exact same Porsche Cup cars, only this time battling for the Porsche Sports Cup Deutschland.
“It was a really cool transition because I was actually doing the same championship, same tires, same cars, same everything, same rules even,” Telles said. “But I had to learn how to live alone, how to go to the market, how to wash my clothes, and how to speak German, because I didn’t know the words.”
Telles’ long and winding path through motorsports eventually led him to 23XI Racing in March of 2022. His skills brought him to the United States, knowing very little about the NASCAR scene and its drivers, yet bringing fresh knowledge to the sport, thanks in large part to the Cup Series’ then-new Next Gen vehicle that was similar to the sports cars he was accustomed to.
“This is a completely different new world that I can learn from,” Telles said. “At the same time, I can bring everything I know from my world to them because they never saw that.”
Leahy and Telles exemplify the fresh outlook 23XI attempts to bring to its execution. Both are internationally-born individuals with no prior real-word experience in NASCAR, yet the team was willing to bring them into its organization to utilize their best attributes to help drive the program forward on-track.
“That’s the really cool thing about 23XI Racing — they aim to take risks on people, like a sim driver who’s never driven a real car, or an engineer who has never heard of NASCAR,” Leahy said. “They look for people from diverse backgrounds and interesting perspectives on stuff.”
HOW SIMULATION DRIVES 23XI’S PREPARATION
During the weeks leading up to a race, drivers dedicate time to prepare their bodies and minds to chase a win. However, there is limited time to practice on the track.
This is where the art of simulation becomes critical.
Tracks within the NASCAR Cup Series schedule have been scanned into the simulation, down to the millimeter of precision. There are millions of different combinations that can be made to the car, from tire models to shocks to aero packages, specializing from short tracks to superspeedways. Through these combinations, both Leahy and Telles work to make sure every model of the simulation is as realistic as possible.
“The amount of options we have to go through to find the optimum of every single parameter is just huge,” Telles said. “That’s why we use the simulation a lot — that’s one of the reasons. Of course, we cannot test, so basically what we do is everything based off a simulation.”
A portion of the simulation data is pulled from historical material from races and tracks. There are, though, a few cases in which this isn’t entirely possible, like when a track has been repaved or a new circuit has been added to the schedule. In advance of those events, Goodyear tire tests allow each manufacturer to collect data to provide teams an expectation ahead of race weekend. Telles said most anything can be done in simulation, but that comes at a cost.
“We can add stuff on top of what we have,” Telles said. “We can add new ideas and develop things, but the more precise you want to be, the harder it gets.”
On-track testing, while limited, allows 23XI Racing to accumulate the remainder of the data. There are at least a thousand channels per wheel on the test car, each with sensors to track data. Attributes such as brake pressure and car speed are calculated, as well as the speed and temperature of each individual wheel, alongside many other characteristics of the car like surface temperature, bolt temperature, tire pressure and more.
With such detailed information to pull from, Leahy and Telles then collaborate to create the most realistic simulation for that respective race weekend.
“I’ll spend a lot of time, very early on in our process, making sure the car drives similarly to how it does in real life,” Leahy said. “That involves taking last race’s data, last race’s car and driving in our simulator and making sure it lines up to real data. Make sure lap times are right, make sure we are running the right lines, make sure I’m using throttle, brake and steering very similarly to how Tyler (Reddick) and Bubba (Wallace) were doing last year. We call that correlation. From there, we can run stuff like setup options and try different stuff out in the sim. By the time we run through a lot of that, the car should be pretty close to what we show up with to the race track.”
TEAMWORK MAKES THE DREAM WORK
Such devoted efforts into simulation data are necessary for the team to help adequately prepare the drivers, creating a mutually beneficial relationship between Bubba Wallace, Tyler Reddick and the simulation team.
While Leahy test pilots the simulation, both 23XI drivers confirm his feedback, hopping into the simulator themselves to dial in the feel each competitor is searching for.
“Once the grunt work is done, Tyler and Bubba can jump in, and the car should be pretty close to what we show up with at the race track,” Leahy said. “They can drive it, get their feedback about how the car drives, potential setup changes and also get a bunch of laps in for practice.”
A few other members of the Nos. 45 and 23 car teams work closely with the simulation. Telles runs hand-in-hand weekly with crew chiefs and engineers to ensure the best solutions are being created within the simulation, as well as providing the best version possible to the teams.
With many intelligent minds in a room, discussions regarding modeling of a car and its setups can be difficult. Telles said there are many different points of view between himself and the race engineers, which can provide a level of disagreement. But at the end of the day, everyone is fighting for the same goal.
“We’re not arguing to be right; we’re arguing to go faster,” Leahy said.
Those spirited debates only drive the team forward, evidenced in results. Heading into Sunday’s race at Richmond Raceway (6 p.m. ET, USA Network, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App), Reddick sits third in the regular-season points standings with Wallace just seven points out from a playoff spot.
23XI Racing utilizes simulations in a way that can prepare them for the weekends to come. As the playoffs lurk around the corner, the team will capitalize on both Leahy’s and Telles’ skills to guide them to success through their simulation work.
Daniel Suárez, driver of the No. 99 Chevrolet, will return to Trackhouse Racing for the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series season, the team announced Friday.
Freeway Insurance will also return to the No. 99 team in 2025 and be the primary sponsor for one-third of next season’s campaign, including the Daytona 500 and NASCAR All-Star Race.
“Trackhouse is home to me, and I have enjoyed every minute I have been here,” Suárez said in a team release. “We plan to keep working, growing and winning more races. We can only do that with the support of my Amigos and Amigas at Freeway Insurance. They have backed me for the last several years and we have grown close with their customers and employees.”
Suárez, a two-time winner in the Cup Series, was the first driver signed to Trackhouse Racing for its inaugural season in 2021. Suárez claimed his first Cup Series win at Sonoma Raceway in June 2022, becoming only the fifth internationally-born winner in Cup history.
The 32-year-old driver has one win in the 2024 season so far at Atlanta Motor Speedway. A 0.003-second margin separated Suárez and the No. 12 car of Ryan Blaney in the fourth-closest finish in NASCAR history, solidifying the No. 99 car’s spot in the playoffs in a three-wide finish that saw Kyle Busch third, only 0.007 seconds behind Suárez.
Suárez is also a three-time winner in the Xfinity Series and has one career NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series victory. The Monterrey, Mexico native won the 2016 Xfinity Championship, becoming the first internationally born driver to win a title across NASCAR’s three national series.
Suárez enters Sunday’s race at Richmond Raceway (6 p.m. ET, USA, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App) 17th in the series standings following his eighth-place finish at Indianapolis Motor Speedway on July 21.
The second of three visits to Connecticut’s Thompson Speedway Motorsports Park awaits NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour teams and drivers on Wednesday, Aug. 14 (8 p.m. ET on FloRacing).
The Thompson 150 presented by FloSports will be the 154th race in the history of the Whelen Modified Tour at Thompson, the most frequently visited track in series history. Thompson has been a stalwart on the Whelen Modified Tour schedule since the modern series made its debut in 1985. During that season, Thompson hosted five series events. Four of them were won by Richie Evans, and George Kent Jr. captured the fifth event.
Mike Stefanik holds the record for most Whelen Modified Tour wins at Thompson with 15, though he is closely followed by Justin Bonsignore, a 13-time Thompson winner. Others who have enjoyed success at Thompson include Ted Christopher, Jeff Fuller, Rick Fuller, Tony Hirschman, Ron Silk, Doug Coby, Steve Park and Reggie Ruggiero.
Tickets for Wednesday’s Thompson 150 presented by FloSports are available at the track. Below is everything you need to know about the 10th race of the 2024 NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour season.
Ron Silk, driver of the No. 16 Modified, during the IceBreaker 150 for the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour at Thompson Speedway Motorsports Park in Thompson, Connecticut on April 7, 2024. (Photo: Susan Wong/NASCAR)
Thompson 150 presented by FloSports.com at Thompson Speedway Motorsports Park
When things are going well for Ron Silk, he’s nearly unbeatable.
He’s won three times this year as he seeks to defend his NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour championship. In three other starts, he’s finished second twice and third once. However, he also has three finishes of 10th, including two in the last three races.
That might not sound bad, but Justin Bonsignore hasn’t finished worse than seventh this year and is only one point behind Silk in the battle for the series championship. Both drivers should be considered among the contenders to win when the series returns to Thompson Speedway Motorsports Park on Wednesday evening.
Another likely contender on Wednesday evening will be Doug Coby, who will pilot Tommy Baldwin Racing’s No. 7NY that will again carry a tribute scheme to honoring the late Bugsy Stevens. Chase Dowling, who finished third at New Hampshire Motor Speedway in his first start of the year, will be back in the Tinio No. 44 for Thompson.
Austin Beers, fresh off a win at Lancaster Motorplex, will attempt to add a win at Thompson to his resume in the No. 64 Modified owned by KLM Motorsports. Other likely contenders include Matt Hirschman, Jake Johnson and Trevor Catalano, all of whom will be looking to secure their second wins of the season.
Other notable entrants include Woody Pitkat, who will again pilot the No. 82 for Danny Watts Jr., Patrick Emerling, Dave Sapienza, Matt Swanson, Kyle Bonsignore, Tommy Catalano, Craig Lutz, Andrew Krause and Eric Goodale, among others.
The full entry list for the Thompson 150 presented by FloSports.com is available here.
Cars on the backstretch during the IceBreaker 150 for the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour at Thompson Speedway Motorsports Park in Thompson, Connecticut on April 7, 2024. (Photo: Susan Wong/NASCAR)
Schedule: Wednesday, August 14 … Final practice from 4 to 5 p.m. ET … Qualifying at 6:20 p.m. ET … Thompson 150 presented by FloSports.com at 8 p.m. ET (FloRacing).
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 Thompson 150 presented by FloSports.com is limited to 30 starters including Provisional Positions.
Tire allotment: The maximum tire allotment available for this event is eleven (11) 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 two (2) tires per caution period.
These should be the happy, golden years for Kyle Busch — and Richmond Raceway normally would be the perfect place to celebrate the greatness of NASCAR’s greatest lightning rod.
Love him or hate him, Busch is the most polarizing superstar of his generation, and the 0.75-mile oval in Virginia’s capital city has been the flashpoint for many episodes in which he has been the straw that stirred the drink in stock-car racing’s major leagues.
In May 2008, he punted Dale Earnhardt Jr. from the lead in the closing laps, igniting the ire of millions supporting NASCAR’s most popular driver. On May 2, 2009, Busch celebrated his 24th birthday with the first of four consecutive spring victories at Richmond.
In the 2012 regular-season finale at Richmond, he missed the playoffs in an epically tense battle with Jeff Gordon for the final postseason berth, and Busch was controversially on the wrong end of a last-lap bump from the lead by Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Carl Edwards in April 2016.
Coming off a two-week break into a race weekend at Richmond, where he has 28 top 10s and six wins (second only to his eight at Bristol), this track normally would be an excellent opportunity for talking up Busch as a favorite to extend his streak of consecutive winning seasons to 20.
Instead, Busch is mired in a career-long, 43-race winless skid with four races remaining in the regular season and in jeopardy of failing to make the playoffs for the first time in 12 years. And those hard truths are accompanied by the jarring reality that a disappointing 2024 season isn’t an anomaly.
It’s possibly only the latest excruciating chapter in a slow-motion slide that seems inconceivable for a once-consistent top newsmaker — and one of just two active multi-time champions — who now barely seems to matter on the track most weeks.
As Busch infamously and dismissively said to Ricky Stenhouse Jr. after their All-Star Race brawl at North Wilkesboro Speedway, “I suck just as bad as you.”
It’s a cruel twist for a driver known for obsessively studying his place in history. When he was on the cusp of his 200th national series win in NASCAR six years ago, Busch revealed some deep research into Richard Petty’s 200 Cup victories.
So surely, Busch knows that his baffling slump is an outlier for a Cup champion in middle age.
He turned 39 three months ago, a mythical age in NASCAR that often has signified when stars tend to enter their prime years of production. Denny Hamlin, Martin Truex Jr. and Brad Keselowski (who ended a three-year victory drought in May at Darlington) are Busch’s contemporaries who have borne out that trend.
Consider that after his only winless Cup season in 2018, Hamlin catapulted into a career resurrection by amassing 23 of his 54 victories since turning 38. Hamlin, who will turn 44 in three months, remains in the thick of a six-year run as a perennial championship contender at the peak of his powers to blend confidence, experience and skill.
For Busch, his former Joe Gibbs Racing teammate, it’s the opposite trajectory.
At a time when he should be entering a sweet spot during his 20th season in NASCAR’s premier series, winning seems further away than ever and with little hope of recapturing his 2015-19 dominance of two championships and a record five consecutive appearances in the Championship 4.
His second crown came during a 2019 season of five victories but none between June 2 and the Nov. 17 title clincher at Homestead-Miami Speedway. Busch mightily wrestled with a lower horsepower package that he openly detested, and though he still claimed the ultimate prize, it portended a demoralizing stretch.
Over the next five seasons, the engine, setups and car would change in Cup, yet the tumult remained for Busch. In 2020, he split with crew chief Adam Stevens after a one-win season. After a slight rebound the next year, 2022 was a summer of sleepless nights about the future during an agonizingly prolonged split from Joe Gibbs Racing that took months to finalize.
A move to Richard Childress Racing last year brought three victories in barely four months. But it was followed by a late-season fade to 14th in the points standings that makes 2023 now appear a false spring that led into an even deeper winter of Busch’s discontent.
Was that another frustrating reminder of what a slog this season had become?
“Sure,” Busch said during an Indianapolis Motor Speedway media availability that yielded several one-word answers.
A day later, he spun while trying to hang onto a strategy-driven top 10, triggering the yellow flag that set up the double-overtime finish to the Brickyard 400.
That’s as close as Busch’s No. 8 Chevrolet often gets lately to being consequential. Because of crashes or a mechanical failure, he has failed to finish five of the past eight races. He is three months removed from his last top five and on pace for career worsts in virtually every major statistical category.
To his clear-eyed credit, he has been blunt about his mediocrity. Busch never sugar-coats his outlook, which can make his interviews sometimes feel like cries for help.
“I would say anything’s possible, always,” Busch said when asked in mid-June if he could return to JGR, where he raced from 2008-22 after starting his Cup career with three seasons at Hendrick Motorsports. “Certainly, if I was welcomed, I would go back. If Hendrick welcomed me back, I would go back, but right now I’m at RCR with my group of guys and the deal that I have right now in place, so we’re trying to work and build this program and make RCR great again.”
But in the meantime, Busch can do little but wait — and hope — for improvement.
“It’s been so dismal and so heartbreaking,” Busch said at Chicago last month. “I have a hard time dealing with enough stuff in my life that every Sunday to keep adding to it is getting harder and harder to deal with. Just got to keep going on to the next week and keep fighting on.”
Is a sudden rejuvenation on the horizon?
Or are we witnessing the premature twilight of a Hall of Fame career whose prime years are somehow on the precipice?
Richmond, a longtime gold standard for Busch, could begin to tell us a lot about whether his golden years are truly golden after all.
NateRyan has written about NASCAR since 1996 while working at the San Bernardino Sun, Richmond Times-Dispatch, USA TODAY and for the past 10 years at NBC Sports Digital. He is the host of the NASCAR on NBC Podcast and also has covered various other motorsports, including the IndyCar and IMSA series.
BRISTOL, Tenn. — Major League Baseball is heading to Thunder Valley.
Bristol Motor Speedway will host the “MLB Speedway Classic” on Aug. 2, 2025, a regular-season baseball game between the Atlanta Braves and Cincinnati Reds, MLB Vice President of Global Events Jeremiah Yolkut announced at the track Friday.
The milestone announcement marks a meshing of the baseball and racing worlds in its most unique fashion yet.
“I think it’s an amazing opportunity — and it’s already begun — to see NASCAR and MLB pull together,” Jerry Caldwell, president and general manager of Bristol Motor Speedway, said Friday. “I think this is a great platform for that. I think our fan bases fit naturally together, but I think we can do a lot of fun things to expose folks to both sides of that.”
Representing the NASCAR contingent at the 0.533-mile bullring race track were drivers Chase Elliott, Ross Chastain and analyst Kevin Harvick, along with Speedway Motorsports president and CEO Marcus Smith, while Atlanta Braves legend Chipper Jones and Reds legend Eric Davis joined to represent their respective former teams. Elliott, the 2020 NASCAR Cup Series champion, is a longtime Braves fan hailing from Dawsonville, Georgia, with Jones a NASCAR fan dating back decades.
Friday, though, marked Jones’ first time inside the “Last Great Colosseum” before taking hot laps as a passenger in a stock car with Elliott. The mammoth stadium — albeit a short track by NASCAR’s standards — took Jones aback despite having attended multiple Daytona 500s as a Florida native just 20 miles inland from the “World Center of Racing.”
“I think if you had a camera on me, my mouth would have been wide open,” Jones said of his initial reaction to Bristol, imagining the tens of racing haulers packed into the center of the track. “I think seeing these stands full — being from the South and knowing what NASCAR means to everybody in the South, seeing all these butts in the seats and how loud it gets and just the bumping for four hours.
“Like I said, my pucker factor was a 9.5, and it was just me and him (Elliott) out there, you know? I mean, can you imagine 38, 39 other cars in such close proximity? All professional athletes stand in awe of professional athletes in other sports, and like no other, I stand in amazement at what these guys do.”
Yolkut has led numerous global projects in his time with MLB, including events at the historic Rickwood Field in Alabama and the MLB London Series at London Stadium in England. With a keen eye for big events, Yolkut sought a big venue that brought its own history. Enter Bristol.
“It all starts with an idea,” Yolkut said. “And for many years, a lot of folks within our organization and some of our partner organizations brought up the concept of playing at a large-scale sporting venue. And there’s not a lot of places that can host Major League Baseball. Our diamond obviously is unique — much different than some of the other sports. And so you really have to be strategic about what places you look at.
“But Bristol kept coming up as a possibility. And a few years ago, we came down here to take a look at it. And as Jerry mentioned in his commentary, you walk into the venue, and right away, you know you’re in a different kind of place, something incredibly special. Not only is it big on the outside, but the energy that’s on the inside, even when it’s empty, is different than any of the places that we’ve recently been, and that’s something you’re looking to make true.”
Yolkut said MLB will work with BaAM Productions, BrightView and Populous as it has in past builds to create the layout of the playing field and “allow us to bring these sites to life and figure out ways in which you can put a baseball diamond on an infield track with a giant scoreboard in the middle, and then bring in tens of thousands of fans to watch that and create that environment.”
“So, with those folks, as well as the folks here at Bristol, we have no doubt that we will be able to work through all the various things that will come up over the next year,” Yolkut said. “But for the most part, a good amount of the planning is done, and now it’s a matter of executing on that plan and building a diamond here in August of 2025.”
Murray Cook, leading BrightView’s field design and construction, acknowledged the challenges of fitting an MLB diamond with the confines of the Bristol footprint, noting a portion of the Goodyear building inside Turns 1 and 2 will need to be removed in addition to several pit walls. He added the build is expected to take 30 days, with an anticipated start on July 1, 2025.
“We’ve got a good design laid out as far as the actual dimensions of the park,” Cook said. “Got 330 (feet) down the lines and 400 to center. We got 375 to the right field alley, which is going to require part of the building out there to be removed, and we’re 384 (feet) to the left field alley. So we’ve got good dimensions all the way around, very respectable to any major-league park in the US.
“I think that, from a construction standpoint and planning, you know, again, there’s a lot of leveling needs to be done as you mentioned, and our goal there is to level that up with gravel like they typically would under the baseball fields and soccer fields that they use synthetic turf on. And obviously that’s also creating a large drainage issue with the actual infield pit area, so we’re putting a lot of drainage. So we’re in the engineering process to get that buttoned up. But again, we’re on a good path and got some good local partners here to work with.”
Tyler Strong | NASCAR Digital Media
Elliott, NASCAR’s six-time defending Most Popular Driver, has long rooted for the Braves and was rewarded for it as a fan in 2021 as the Braves stormed to its first World Series title since 1995. In fact, Elliott even pulled his own version of double-duty as a driver-fan on Halloween that year, leading 289 laps at Martinsville Speedway, qualifying for the Championship 4 and then flying home to Dawsonville while the Braves played the Houston Astros in Game 5 with a 3-1 series advantage.
“I had some tickets, and I wasn’t sure whether or not I was gonna go,” Elliott recalled, “and I had decided coming home I was pretty tired, and I wasn’t gonna go. And I was driving to my house, and I was listening on radio, and (Adam Duvall) hit a four-run home run there early in the game. … And they would have won the series that night if they had won. And I was like, oh my gosh, they just hit this home run. I’m gonna have to go. So I took a right, went south, and I showed up down there, and they ended up blowing the game. But they got it back a couple nights later. It was pretty fun, though.”
The ties between baseball and racing run deep, and that has perhaps never been more true than Friday’s announcement. And while it’s a baseball game on deck at Bristol, Chastain sees beauty on both sides of the proverbial coin.
“I think it’s unmeasurable what it could do for both sports,” Chastain said. “People coming here may have never even heard of Bristol, but they’re coming for the baseball game. And Bristol season-ticket holders might think, ‘You know what? I went to the football game. I went to the dirt sprint car races and the dirt races here and a bunch of NASCAR races. I want to go see a baseball game here.’ I think you’re gonna have quite a bit of cross-pollination with that.”
Indeed, the “World’s Fastest Half-Mile” housed the 2016 “Battle at Bristol,” a regular-season college football contest between the University of Tennessee and Virginia Tech, a game that drew an NCAA football record crowd of 156,990 people to the “Last Great Colosseum.”
The track additionally hosted an NCAA FCS football game between East Tennessee State and Western Carolina one week after the “Battle of Bristol,” while the National Football League played an exhibition football game at Bristol between Philadelphia and Washington in 1961.
What’s set to come in 2025, however, is something entirely new. The facility has never played host to professional baseball, and the state of Tennessee has never hosted an MLB game. Now, two franchises steeped in history are set to write a new chapter within the concrete oval next year.
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 Richmond Raceway.
NOTABLE PROBABILITY SHIFTS POST-INDIANAPOLIS
DRIVER
BEFORE INDY
ENTERING RICHMOND
DIFFERENCE
Bubba Wallace
24.68%
44.52%
+19.84
Ross Chastain
64.55%
51.26%
-13.29
PROBABILITY CALCULATED BY RACING INSIGHTS AHEAD OF COOK OUT 400, AUGUST 11, 2024
DRIVERS SOLIDLY IN PLAYOFF PICTURE
Kyle Larson became the first Cup Series driver to four wins in 2024 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway and simultaneously reclaimed the regular-season points lead over Hendrick Motorsports teammate Chase Elliott. Tyler Reddick’s runner-up result in the Brickyard 400 now finds him right in the mix for the regular-season title as he’s just 15 points behind Larson.
Denny Hamlin dropped 43 points back of Larson after being involved in a late-race incident in the second overtime that resulted in a second straight DNF at the Indy oval for the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing driver.
With just four races left, William Byron, Christopher Bell, Ryan Blaney, Brad Keselowski, Joey Logano, Alex Bowman, Daniel Suárez and Austin Cindric are all additionally locked into the playoffs on wins as it is only possible for 16 different winners now until the end of the regular season.
LAST 4 IN
Martin Truex Jr. sits a comfortable 108 points above the elimination line, but we’ve seen a similar trend play out for the No. 19 Toyota driver when he can’t snag a regular-season win. While four new winners to close the regular season seems nearly impossible, there’s still the outside chance the 2017 series champion is locked out of the postseason like he was just two years ago. The 44-year-old driver will be hungry for redemption at Richmond after leading over 200 laps in the spring race and failing to secure the victory.
Three drivers feeling anything but comfort in their playoff hopes are Ty Gibbs, Chris Buescher and Ross Chastain.
The trio all had woeful performances at Indianapolis, with Chastain finishing the highest of the bunch in 15th. Buescher suffered two flat tires in Stage 1 that put him multiple laps down, and Gibbs suffered engine issues that disallowed him moving toward the front of the field.
Time is running out for all three to nab playoff berths, but all are more than capable of being the 13th different winner of 2024 at Richmond.
FIRST 4 OUT
Here comes Bubba Wallace. What was a deficit of more than 50 points pre-Chicago has now dwindled to just seven points as Wallace scored consecutive top 10s at Pocono Raceway and Indianapolis.
The No. 23 23XI Racing driver was among the contenders in last summer’s race at Richmond, leading 80 laps before Chris Buescher took over in the closing stages.
Josh Berry offers a sneaky outside chance of stunning the Cup Series with a potential maiden victory. He had a fast No. 4 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford under the lights in the spring and with the addition of the option tire this weekend, Berry and crew chief Rodney Childers could get aggressive on their strategy to get out front.
WHO CAN SHAKE UP PLAYOFF PICTURE AT RICHMOND?
This is going to be Kyle Busch’s best shot of winning his way into the playoffs, which is the only way he can make it at this rate. A playoff streak and a 19-year win streak are both on the line for Busch this season, and with each passing week, it looks dimmer and dimmer that the two-time Cup champion can keep either alive. Richmond is a must-win for the No. 8 RCR team.
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 Cook Out 400 at Richmond Raceway.
When the lights turn on at Richmond Raceway, the fireworks always follow — and that was no different in 2003.
The race for the championship was quiet at the top of the standings, as Cambridge, Wisconsin’s Matt Kenseth led the rest of the drivers by 389 points, with just a handful of races remaining on the schedule.
The battle behind Kenseth was not as quiet, as Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Kevin Harvick were separated by less than 30 points for the second spot in the standings. Other close battles littered the rest of the top half of the standings.
The weekend started out with a feel-good story, as the series returned to the track for the first time since Jerry Nadaeu was seriously injured in a practice crash at the track in May.
Former Truck Series champion Mike Skinner, who was making his fifth start in Nadeau’s No. 01 car, put the car on the pole position. Unfortunately, the team’s comeback story didn’t last long, as Skinner crashed during final practice for the event, forcing him to start at the back of the field.
The race featured 13 different drivers leading over the first 200 laps, with no car standing out as the dominant driver in the field.
One of those drivers, Ryan Newman, took over the lead with 124 laps remaining and set sail, including a handful of late restarts.
Third-year-driver Kevin Harvick gave Newman a run for his money with just under ten laps remaining until Richmond’s usual fireworks started going off.
Ricky Rudd got into the back of Harvick, sending him slamming into the first-turn wall. It wasn’t the first time the two drivers had a run-in, as they raced for the win at Richmond in 2001.
Newman held off Jeremy Mayfield on a late restart to capture his sixth victory of the season. His victory was overshadowed by Harvick and Rudd, who let their anger boil over on pit road.
What followed was Harvick being fined $35,000 and placed on probation for the remainder of the season. His crew chief and two other crew members were also fined, while two of his crew members were fined and suspended.
Rudd’s team only saw crew chief Pat Tryson fined $5,000 for the altercation.
Following Newman and Mayfield were Rudd, Jeff Burton, and Rusty Wallace.
The 2004 NASCAR Cup Series season was the first that would finish the season under the new playoff format, with the points of the top-10 drivers in the standings being reset for the final 10 races.
The regular season finale at Richmond couldn’t have been scripted any better, as the race for the final few playoff spots were up for grabs. Ryan Newman entered the race seventh in the standings, only 76 points up on Kevin Harvick, who sat 15th in the standings.
The eight drivers who were set to battle it out for the final three playoff spots were Newman, Kasey Kahne, Mark Martin, Jamie McMurray, Bobby Labonte, Dale Jarrett, Jeremy Mayfield, and Harvick.
As the laps wound down, it was Kurt Busch out in front of the field with Mayfield right behind him. It seemed like Mayfield was destined to run second until Busch ran out of gas with under five laps remaining, opening the door for Mayfield to jump those drivers in the standings and clinch himself a clutch appearance in the NASCAR playoffs.
“Man, I love your new points system! You couldn’t have come up with anything better than this,” Mayfield proclaimed after his clutch victory.
His teammate, Kasey Kahne, was not as lucky. He dropped from ninth in the standings after a 24th-place finish, missing the playoffs entirely.
Martin, Mayfield, and Newman were the three drivers who filled up the 10-driver playoff field, but it was McMurray and his team who were left wondering, “What could have been?”
McMurray was penalized 25 points earlier in the season by NASCAR at Bristol for an infraction. He missed the playoff field by just 15 points.
The final race of the NASCAR Cup Series regular-season always involved intense battles for the final playoff spots as drivers sought to win the championship.
The 2013 regular season finale proved nothing different, as chaos ensued, causing one of the most unique situations in NASCAR history.
Fast forward to the final few laps of the race, and Ryan Newman was out in front of the field with a clear hold on a playoff berth for himself, as Michael Waltrip Racing’s Martin Truex Jr. seemed to be on the outside looking in.
With just under 10 laps remaining, another Michael Waltrip Racing driver, Clint Bowyer, spun and brought out the caution, resetting the field in the process.
This led to Carl Edwards eventually grabbing the checkered flag, with Kurt Busch coming home second and Newman in third. Truex Jr. was able to capture the playoff berth, as Newman was left empty-handed.
NASCAR soon began reviewing in-car audio and video from Bowyer’s team, as well as Michael Waltrip Racing communications after another one of their cars came to the pits at one point late in the event.
What followed was a historic $300,000 fine to Michael Waltrip Racing, with fines, suspensions and probation being handed out to multiple team personnel. The biggest dagger to the team was a 50-point penalty to Truex Jr., which inadvertently knocked the team out of the playoffs, allowing Newman to race for a championship.
At the time of Bowyer’s spin, Gordon was battling Joey Logano for a playoff spot and had the upper hand at the time of the incident in question. The restart knocked Gordon from the playoffs, but he was added in as a 13th entrant into the playoff field due to the presumed manipulation.
Bowyer and his team also received a 50-point penalty, but they had accumulated enough points during the regular season to still qualify for the playoffs.
