DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — NASCARtook home honors for “Sports Event of the Year” for the first-ever Chicago Street Race during the 2024 Sports Business Awards, a ceremony hosted by Sports Business Journal in New York City last evening to celebrate the best in sports business over the past year.
The award, which highlights the most outstanding events in sports, was recognition for one of the most ambitious events in NASCAR history. The Chicago Street Race, a first-of-its-kind two-day sports and entertainment event, saw stock cars take to city streets for the first time in the sport’s 75-year history, resulting in extraordinary levels of fan engagement, including more than 80% of ticket buyers attending a NASCAR event for the first time; the most-watched Cup Series race on NBC in six years; and an economic impact of more than $108.9 million for the local Chicago community.
“We’re incredibly proud of the first-ever Chicago Street Race, and we’re honored to have Sports Business Journal recognize it as the ‘Event of The Year’,” said Steve Phelps, President, NASCAR. “Following the leadership of Ben Kennedy, Julie Giese and many others, the entire NASCAR industry and the city of Chicago banded together to pull off something truly extraordinary that has opened up an entirely new world of possibility for this sport moving forward. We can’t wait to get back to Chicago for the second running this July.”
In approximately 12 months lead-time, NASCAR established an event that was not just a race in Chicago but was an event about and for Chicago — an opportunity to showcase the best of one of the world’s most recognizable cities on a global scale. From local artists designing the race-winning trophies to becoming ingrained in the community through local partnerships with organizations like Chicago Public Schools, Special Olympics of Illinois, the Art Institute of Chicago, After School Matters and All Kids Bike, NASCAR quickly became a pillar of the community and invested nearly $2 million in local initiatives throughout Chicago.
What’s more, NASCAR immediately established a new, permanent Chicago office in Nov. of 2022 immediately following the announcement that NASCAR would be coming to the city. Led by longtime executive and track president Julie Giese, the office currently has nearly 20 full-time employees, all of whom live and work year-round in the community.
The NASCAR Cup Series and NASCAR Xfinity Series will once again take to the streets of Chicago, along with musical performances by Keith Urban, The Chainsmokers, The Black Keys, Lauren Alaina, and a special House Music 40th Anniversary Showcase, for year two of the event on July 6-7, 2024.
Joining the Chicago Street Race as finalists for the “Event of the Year” award were the F1 Las Vegas Grand Prix, NHL Stadium Series, Super Bowl LVIII, U.S. Open Tennis Championships, and the World Baseball Classic.
As part of the ceremony, NASCAR was also recognized as a finalist for “League of the Year,” and NASCAR’s new media rights deal was a finalist for “Deal of the Year.”
Here’s what’s happening in the world of NASCAR with the All-Star Race in the rearview and the Coca-Cola 600 (Sun., 6 p.m. ET, FOX) right around the corner.
1. Joey Logano dominated North Wilkesboro — what does it mean?
The two-time champion was looking for a spark to ignite the hunt for his third title and just might’ve gotten it with his All-Star Race win.
It wasn’t the beatdown that had everybody talking Monday morning, but Joey Logano sure put a hurtin’ on the rest of the field in Sunday’s showing of All-Star dominance at North Wilkesboro Speedway.
The No. 22 Team Penske driver turned in an all-time performance at the North Carolina short track, pacing the field for a record 199 of 200 laps en route to his second career All-Star Race win.
A laps led count of 199, you say? That is, coincidentally, the exact same amount of laps at the front of the field that Logano has to date this season — in the other 13 races. In fact, that’s all the laps led he’s had dating back to Talladega during last year’s playoffs.
So, with a $1 million payday and all the momentum right now, is the two-time champ … “back?”
Big time.
Sort of lost in the mix of last year’s enthralling postseason (along with more spotlight on his eventual 2023 champion teammate, Ryan Blaney) Logano’s slump really extends back to about the midway point of last year. In what was a title-defense season for him, the veteran won early in the year at Atlanta before treading water over the summer and completely petering out in the playoffs with just 48 total laps led across them — stemming from just one race (Talladega).
Generally speaking, despite all the attention on his atypically subpar 2024 stats, Logano has actually looked and performed much better than the results sheet shows, and certainly better than he did at the tail end of last season. If you’ll recall, Logano started on the front row in each of this season’s first three races and actually led multiple laps in seven of 2024’s first 10 races. While he hasn’t turned in a top 10 since Martinsville, you got the sense around then that the ship had been righted and a trip to Victory Lane was right around the corner.
It was indeed; it’s just that it came in an exhibition race. Still, he’d rather be the one holding the giant check in the air at North Wilkesboro than not, and this might’ve been just what the doctor ordered to really turn things around and push for a playoff spot.
All the pieces are still there, too. He’s still, you know, Joey Logano — a titan of the NASCAR Cup Series for going on two decades and one of just two active multi-time champions. Paul Wolfe is still calling the shots atop the pit box, and Logano is still driving a car brought to the track by Roger Penske. That’s always going to be a recipe for wins.
A driver with those resources and his level of skill and stock-car acumen isn’t down for long, and it feels completely evident that Logano will follow his former teammate Brad Keselowski’s footsteps and snap his points-paying-race winless streak much sooner than later.
Slumps happen, but they certainly don’t last forever when the driver is this talented and this driven, with the extensive track record and history of winning that Logano boasts.
We’re entering a portion of the season where he could really do some damage and click off not just one win, but a few in bunches.
Hope you weren’t too quick to write off Logano’s season as being toast, because this Sliced Bread is most definitely still rising.
James Gilbert | Getty Images
2. Did Ricky Stenhouse Jr. awaken the beast that is Rowdy Busch?
Sunday’s North Wilkesboro brawl saw two drivers at their wits’ end come to blows — but could it spark a second-half resurgence for either?
At the halfway point of the regular season, teams and drivers generally know where they stand among the field; whether they’re going to be contenders or pretenders down the stretch run.
Sunday’s post-race scuffle after the 2024 All-Star Race involved a pair of NASCAR Cup Series veteran mainstays on the back nine of their respective careers yet each further away from “contender” status than they’d like to be.
Kyle Busch and Ricky Stenhouse Jr.’s All-Star fight felt as much about what happened on Lap 2 of the exhibition contest, when contact between the two ended the No. 47 Chevrolet’s night early — on the track, at least — as it did the fact that it’s just been a frustrating period of stagnancy for each, at a time when they individually probably feel like they’re at the height of their respective talent levels. Instead, neither appears to have anything resembling a clear path to the 2024 title at the moment — for instance, Busch and Stenhouse have just 38 more points combined than series points leader Kyle Larson’s 486 total. No. 8 is currently in the projected playoff field, but as one of the “last four in” and certainly not in a comfortable position.
Needless to say, there was a lot of truth behind Busch’s exclamation of “I don’t give a [expletive]. I suck just as bad as you!”
But where do things head now? Setting aside any talk of retaliation, how does this shape each of their individual seasons the rest of the way?
Rowdy’s immediate start to his Richard Childress Racing tenure was excellent, turning in three wins in his first 15 races last year. It’s been nothing since but oscillating three-to-four-week stretches that either leave you scratching your head or claiming, “Oh, there he is. He’s back.” But still no wins.
It feels unlikely this trend will just continue per usual the rest of the way after what just transpired; this was either the low point of the season for the No. 8 team and it’s going to be a slog the rest of the way, or it’s the catalyst that saves its season and Busch fights for title No. 3.
Given what we’ve seen out of Rowdy for two decades now, you can assume the latter.
I’m not sure there’s another driver in the sport that can fuel themselves on pure emotion and alchemize the adrenaline to unlock a new level of driving talent like Busch can, and it’s possible we see vintage Rowdy band together with a supremely fired-up Richard Childress to figure out what hasn’t been working and fix it — immediately.
The Coca-Cola 600 has been one of the Las Vegas native’s best races in the past several years, finishing in the top 10 in each of the last seven runnings (all of which were in the top six), tying the all-time record for most consecutive top 10s in the race. He won the 2018 edition of NASCAR’s marathon crown jewel, leading 377 of 400 laps and sweeping every stage. His 1,061 laps led in the race rank third all time, too.
Wouldn’t it be the most Kyle-Busch-thing to just come out and stomp the field, reminding everybody this weekend why he’s NASCAR’s all-time winningest driver? That scenario feels like it’s extremely on the table despite his unsavory season to date.
Turning to Stenhouse, he could actually surprise some people this weekend as well. Coming off a 2023 playoff appearance, the Mississippi native probably wasn’t anticipating being outside the top 25 in points and essentially in need of a win before we hit June to make the playoffs, but there has to be some degree of optimism at the JTG Daugherty Racing shop, at least — he signed a multiyear extension with the team just three weeks ago.
Stenhouse has finished seventh in the last two Coca-Cola 600s, landing in the top 15 in seven of the previous eight runnings of the 600-mile endurance contest. Maybe he’s not a lock to compete for the win, but personally I wouldn’t rule out a driver that has been hanging around the front of the field that consistently — it’ll break his way eventually, you’d think — and the only guy in the field that once exclaimed “America, 1776, we are the champs!” after winning at Daytona on Fourth of July Weekend.
The Coca-Cola 600 is NASCAR’s most patriotic race, after all.
We’ll find out how it all shakes out this weekend under the lights at Charlotte Motor Speedway — and it’ll be interesting to see if any barbs are traded before then as everyone piles back into the track — but, man. This season just continues to deliver fresh story lines week after week and it’s likely over 600 miles that we’ll see some more jaw-dropping moments that’ll have everybody talking Monday morning yet again.
CONCORD, N.C. — Ahead of Sunday’s Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, Jockey and Folds of Honor teamed up Wednesday to unveil Ross Chastain’s commemorative paint scheme at the NASCAR Productions Facility.
The scheme dons the red, white and blue of the American flag and honors United States Marine Corps Master Sergeant Aaron Torian, who made the ultimate sacrifice in service to the country.
“What this is going to do for their family and for so many families that lost somebody is absolutely incredible,” Chastain said. “Hopefully it does exactly what live sports is so great at. It gives everybody else a chance to take a break from the real world to just kick back and enjoy the race and think about the good times. Remember all the great times and remember Aaron for what his sacrifice means to this world.”
Anchoring the race weekend is the powerful 600 Miles of Remembrance tribute, where all Cup Series entries feature the name of a fallen service member on the windshield.
Torian’s son, Elijah, honored his late father by creating a piece of artwork that is displayed on the decklid of Chastain’s No. 1 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet.
Cameron Richardson | NASCAR.com
Chastain’s scheme is set for its first laps Saturday afternoon during practice and qualifying to prepare for Sunday’s 600-miler in front of a soldout crowd for a third consecutive year.
RELATED: More from NASCAR Salutes
NASCAR officials issued penalties Wednesday morning stemming from an altercation after Sunday’s NASCAR All-Star Race, fining Ricky Stenhouse Jr. $75,000 for punching fellow Cup Series driver Kyle Busch and suspending two crew members from the No. 47 JTG Daugherty Racing team.
Stenhouse’s knock set off a post-race fracas between his crew and Busch’s No. 8 Richard Childress Racing team in the Cup Series garage at North Wilkesboro Speedway. Officials handed down multi-race suspensions to two crew members and also indefinitely suspended Richard Stenhouse — Ricky’s father — for violations of the NASCAR Member Code of Conduct (Sections 4.4.D in the NASCAR Rule Book).
Team mechanic Clint Myrick was suspended for the next eight Cup Series races (through events at Pocono Raceway on July 14) for his role, and tuner Keith Matthews was suspended for the next four Cup Series events (through Iowa Speedway on June 16).
“I think it’s fair to say that when you have crew members and family members that put their hands on our drivers, we’re going to react,” NASCAR Senior Vice President of Competition Elton Sawyer said Wednesday morning on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. “There’s not a lot of detail I’m going to get into due to the fact that these are appealable penalties, and I want to make sure that we’re fair to that process.
“With that being said, and we’ve been consistent about this, when crew members and family members get involved, we are going to react. That’s exactly what we did.”
Stenhouse and Busch tussled on track shortly after the green flag in Sunday’s non-points event, and Stenhouse’s No. 47 Chevrolet took the brunt of the damage after a bump from Busch’s No. 8 Chevy. Stenhouse was sidelined after completing just two of the 200 laps, and he parked and left his wrecked car in the No. 8 team’s pit stall to show his displeasure.
Stenhouse signaled that a post-race confrontation was approaching in interviews after he was checked and released from the infield care center. “I’ll handle it,” Stenhouse said, elaborating on what that meant by later adding, “Eh, you can just watch afterward.”
Stenhouse was waiting for Busch’s arrival at the No. 8 hauler after the event. After a brief discussion, Stenhouse threw a quick right hand that caught Busch in the side of the face. Both drivers went to the ground, and the elder Stenhouse intervened in a face-to-face square-off with Busch as both crews scuffled.
“When you wait 198 laps and you make those decisions that were made, again, we’re going to react to that,” Sawyer said. ” … Once we get to the point where it gets physical, we want the two drivers to be able to have time to express their differences. Once it escalates to a physical altercation, we are going to react.
“Granted there was no tunnel, granted there was no crossover bridge (to allow Stenhouse Jr. to leave the track), better decisions could have been made throughout that period of time between the incident on the race track and the incident in the garage post-race.”
Also on the penalty report, competition officials issued two penalties after the Craftsman Truck Series’ most recent race at North Wilkesboro. Officials gave a one-race suspension to crew member Dawson Backus, rear tire changer for the No. 7 Spire Motorsports team, for violating the rule book section on crew protective clothing/equipment, specifically helmet straps. Officials also fined crew chief Jeff Stankiewicz $2,500 after the No. 9 CR7 Motorsports Chevrolet driven by Grant Enfinger was found with one unsecured lug nut in a post-race check.
Lastly, NASCAR officials also handed an indefinite suspension to Rowan Mason for a behavioral violation of Sections 4.1 and 10.1.A in the Rule Book (Substance Abuse Policy). Mason was last listed on NASCAR’s team roster portal as a mechanic for the No. 5 Our Motorsports team in the Xfinity Series.
Editor’s note: NASCAR.com’s Zack Albert is among the 63 voting members — plus the fan vote — casting ballots to elect the NASCAR Hall of Fame’s Class of 2025. This year marks his sixth time participating in Voting Day. Here, he shares an explanation of his three choices on his ballot, a handful of honorable mentions and his pick for the Landmark Award for Outstanding Contributions to NASCAR.
Class of 2025 selections
Ricky Rudd — In his eighth year on the ballot, this one feels like a long time coming. Rudd was regarded as one of stock-car racing’s toughest competitors and set a high bar for his peers with his longevity with 906 Cup Series starts. Rudd delivered at least one Cup Series win each season in a remarkable 16-year stretch and drove for Hall of Fame team owners in Richard Childress, Bud Moore, Rick Hendrick, Robert Yates and the Wood Brothers. That list now includes himself, a nod to his six-season run as an owner/driver.
Carl Edwards — Like Rudd, Edwards earned recognition last year as one of NASCAR’s 75 Greatest Drivers. His merits are many, but the 28 Cup Series wins ranked as the most among the Modern Era driver nominees. He also came as close to winning a premier-series championship as one could get, famously coming up short in a tiebreaker to Tony Stewart in 2011. The only question now is whether he’ll do his traditional victory celebration with a backflip off the Hall of Fame stage next February.
Banjo Matthews — The Pioneer Ballot was as crowded as ever with worthy candidates, but Matthews was the pick this year for his enduring proficiency as a car builder. Think of him as virtually the original single-source supplier because the Cup Series field was often packed with his masterfully built chassis — a benchmark in performance and safety. He also made his mark as a driver with scores of short-track wins and occasional Cup starts.
Honorable mentions: Harry Gant was the next choice on the Modern Era ballot, and his popularity and ageless record of success should be recognized in future votes. … Ralph Moody was a deserving selection from the field of five on the Pioneer list in his sixth year on the ballot, and he nearly got my vote in a toss-up. … Ray Hendrick was also a superb first-year nominee and should get his due in ballots to come.
Landmark Award
Dr. Dean Sicking — This is a perfect spot for a nominee with a lasting effect on safety, and Sicking’s invention of SAFER barrier technology has saved lives. It was a difficult choice here, with Alvin Hawkins’ pioneering efforts to launch the sport and Lesa France Kennedy’s work to advance it. But Sicking’s contributions made a major leap in a crucial area that should be duly recognized.
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Carl Edwards and Ricky Rudd were elected to the NASCAR Hall of Fame on Tuesday as the top vote-getters from the Modern Era Ballot. They will be inducted as part of the Class of 2025 along with Ralph Moody, the top choice from the Pioneer Ballot.
Dr. Dean Sicking was selected as the recipient of the Landmark Award for Outstanding Contributions to NASCAR. Sicking, who was instrumental in advancing motorsports safety through the development of the SAFER (Steel And Foam Energy Reduction) barrier, will be honored along with the other 2025 electees on Feb. 7, 2025 at the NASCAR Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Rudd received 87% of the Modern Era ballot votes, and Edwards got 52%. Harry Gant finished third, followed by Jeff Burton and Harry Hyde. Ralph Moody received 60% of the Pioneer ballot votes. Ray Hendrick finished second.
Results for the NASCAR.com Fan Vote were: Ray Hendrick (Pioneer); Carl Edwards and Harry Gant (Modern Era).
Rudd was NASCAR’s original “Iron Man” for more than a decade and held the record for consecutive starts in the Cup Series with 788 before Jeff Gordon broke it in 2015. The Chesapeake, Virginia, native’s 906 starts in the Cup Series rank second all-time to Richard Petty.
During his 33-year Cup Series career, Rudd posted 23 wins, 194 top fives and 29 poles. He recorded victories driving cars for owners such as Richard Childress, Bud Moore and Rick Hendrick. Rudd was also named the 1977 Rookie of the Year.
Known for his hard-nosed style, Rudd won at least one race in 16 straight seasons (1983-98) and is one of NASCAR’s 75 Greatest Drivers. This was Rudd’s eighth year on the ballot.
Rudd got word of his election while he was raking leaves at his home in Cornelius, North Carolina, north of Charlotte.
“Today I got an anonymous text (saying) ‘You might want to be in Charlotte downtown,’ ” Rudd, 67, told the NASCAR Wire Service. “I was thinking, ‘Downtown Charlotte — that’s Hall of Fame day. Are you serious?’
“It didn’t take long. I hopped in the shower, jumped into some clothes, and here we are.”
Edwards had 72 NASCAR national series wins, including 28 in the Cup Series. The Columbia, Missouri, native punctuated many of those victories with his signature “backflip” celebration.
Edwards started in the NASCAR national series in 2002 driving part-time for Mike Mittler in the Craftsman Truck Series, but his first win in the Trucks came in 2003 for Jack Roush.
Edwards also began his Cup career for Roush in 2004 and broke through in his first full-time season in 2005 with four wins and a third-place finish in the standings.
In the Xfinity Series, Edwards had a run from 2005-2010 when he finished no worse than third in the standings. This era also included an Xfinity Series championship in 2007.
However, Edwards never did punch through for a Cup Series title, despite coming close. He finished second in the Cup standings twice, including in a battle with Tony Stewart in 2011 that came down to a tiebreaker.
Edwards was named to NASCAR’s 75 Greatest Drivers in the sport’s 75-year anniversary celebration in 2023. This was Edwards’ fourth year on the ballot.
Moody, who was from Taunton, Massachusetts, started out as a driver in 1956 and had five Cup Series wins. But known as a mechanical whiz, Moody paired with John Holman in 1957 to create Holman-Moody, a dominant team that claimed two championships with David Pearson and scored Daytona 500 wins with Fred Lorenzen (1965) and Mario Andretti (1967).
Moody was also an adept strategist and driver coach, and Holman-Moody racked up 96 Cup wins and 83 poles. This was Moody’s sixth year on the ballot.
NASCAR Hall of Fame Voting Day will take place on Tuesday at the NASCAR Hall of Fame in Charlotte, North Carolina. A select panel will gather and ultimately produce results that will determine the three selectees into the Class of 2025 as well as the Landmark Award winner.
NASCAR will stream the announcement at 5 p.m. ET on NASCAR.com and YouTube. Tune in to find out who will be the next group to have their names permanently enshrined into the NASCAR Hall of Fame in 2025.
Two honorees will be selected from the 10 names on the Modern Era ballot, and one will be elected from the five nominees on the Pioneer Ballot.
Fan balloting, which closed on Sunday, will count as one vote among those cast by the voting panel. Ryan Blaney, the defending Cup Series champion, will also cast a vote.
Greg Biffle, Randy Dorton and Jack Sprague were revealed last month to be the newest nominees on the Modern Era ballot, and Ray Hendrick and Bob Welborn were announced as the newest names on the Pioneer ballot.
Larry Phillips, a short-track legend and a nominee since 2014, was moved from the Modern Era ballot to the Pioneer Ballot. Safety innovator Dean Sicking joined the list of five nominees for the Landmark Award for Outstanding Contributions to NASCAR.
The full list of nominees on the Modern Era ballot includes Greg Biffle, Neil Bonnett, Tim Brewer, Jeff Burton, Randy Dorton, Carl Edwards, Harry Gant, Harry Hyde, Ricky Rudd and Jack Sprague.
The full list of nominees on the Pioneer Ballot includes Ray Hendrick, Banjo Matthews, Ralph Moody, Larry Phillips and Bob Welborn.
Those being considered for the Landmark Award includes Alvin Hawkins, Lesa France Kennedy, Les Richter, Dr. Joseph Mattioli and Dr. Dean Sicking.
The NASCAR Hall of Fame has extended a Voting Day invitation to each reigning Cup Series champion since 2014. The latest title-holder to join the voting panel is Ryan Blaney, who won his first Cup crown last year and says he’s accepting the invite with a measure of gratitude.
The latest group of three inductees will be selected Tuesday in the Charlotte Convention Center as a panel of industry figures, legends and media gather to cast ballots for the Hall’s Class of 2025. The two selections from the Modern Era Ballot, the single inductee from the Pioneer Ballot, plus the Landmark Award recipient for outstanding contributions to NASCAR will be announced Tuesday at 5 p.m. ET in the shrine’s Great Hall.
For his first go-around, Blaney will have a list of 15 nominees — 10 on the Modern Era side, and five among the Pioneer choices — to consider. And though some names are more familiar to the 30-year-old driver, Blaney says he’s embracing the opportunity.
“It’s a big honor to be a part of. I’m really looking forward to that,” Blaney said Friday during All-Star Weekend at North Wilkesboro Speedway. “You know, some of the folks on the ballot, I grew up watching. Others, I wasn’t around when they were racing or participating in the sport, but I enjoy seeing videos and hearing stories of them, so it’s just going to be a really cool process.”
Jimmie Johnson was the first Cup Series champion to join the Hall of Fame Voting Panel. He participated after claiming his sixth and record-tying seventh titles, and he became a Hall of Fame inductee with the Class of 2024 last year.
Blaney becomes the second consecutive driver from Team Penske to take part in the Hall of Fame voting process. Teammate Joey Logano made his second appearance on the voting panel after achieving his second Cup Series title in 2022.
The panel will hold discussions before each vote. There are typically history lessons to be heard in each discourse.
“I think just to get to sit down in the room with everybody who votes for the Hall of Fame, too, I think that’s all those legends and people I admired, that’s a really cool thing to be a part of,” Blaney said. “So I’m really giddy for that on Tuesday.”
“Bugsy Stevens was one of the greatest to race a modified, winning three consecutive NASCAR National Modified Championships (1967-69), and countless championships across tracks in the Northeast including Thompson Speedway Motorsports Park, Stafford Motor Speedway, and Seekonk Speedway. A fan favorite who drew crowds to his races, he was one of the legendary drivers who piloted the iconic “Ole Blue” No. 3 car that still races today on the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour. Our thoughts are with Bugsy’s family and friends as we honor his life.”
NORTH WILKESBORO, N.C. — All up and down the gently sloping pit road at North Wilkesboro Speedway this weekend, the Goodyear tires for NASCAR All-Star Weekend had a new look to them, with sidewall lettering at the top of each stack in red, yellow and white. It was the latest curve to the ever-changing All-Star Race format, one that promised to jumble up the strategies and grip levels under the microscope of a non-points event.
If nothing else, the takeaway from a weekend of racing is that we have options.
Goodyear’s softer, red-lettered “option” tire was the winning ticket in Sunday’s All-Star main event, and Joey Logano rode them to victory in the 200-lap invitational, then promptly melted the rear ones with a professional-grade burnout in his No. 22 Team Penske Ford. The mix of option tires with the yellow-lettered and more durable “prime” tire was intended to add a new degree of pit-call intrigue, and the results were a mixed outcome. Thankfully, at least, the white-lettered wet-weather tires weren’t needed after apocalyptic rain Saturday blew through to leave race-day Sunday high and dry.
Friday afternoon’s lively practice session earned raves with a glimpse at varying performance, grip and wear with both tire options in play. Come Sunday in cooler, nighttime conditions, though, the fall-off wasn’t as dramatic, and teams and drivers could push the red-marked option tires more aggressively. Though the risk-reward nature of the option tires ended up being less risky and more rewarding, the kudos for taking on such an experiment to enhance short-track racing for the series was palpable.
“First, hats off to Goodyear and NASCAR, trying to do something different,” said Cliff Daniels, crew chief for Hendrick Motorsports’ No. 5 Chevrolet and Kyle Larson. “I do think a very genuine, a very solid attempt was there to try to do something different, and unfortunately, kind of to everyone’s surprise, the tire didn’t have the fall-off, the degradation that we thought it would have — especially at the end of the one long run, the first segment, whatever you want to call it. I was expecting guys to have blisters, and maybe the tires come apart and fade, and it just didn’t happen. So Goodyear was still almost making too good of a tire. You know, it’s crazy, and there could be some margin there that we can take. I think steps like this are steps that we need to take anytime we can, to try to learn and we all know we want to help the short-track package and yeah, we’ll just keep learning.”
It’s not the first time Goodyear tire development has been in the spotlight at North Wilkesboro. It was here that the tiremaker notched its first victory with radial-tire technology with Dale Earnhardt in 1989. This weekend’s wrinkle to the race-ready rubber was a different development, but it could also prove to be a significant step forward.
Logano benefited the most from the red tire’s performance characteristics. He had track position at the outset from winning the pole position in Saturday qualifying, then kept it when No. 22 crew chief Paul Wolfe joined four other teams opting not to pit after an early caution flag. The rest of the field swapped to the yellow, prime tires for the rest of the opening 100-lap stint, but the front five largely kept their momentum without experiencing drastic wear. Logano kept the lead after a halfway pit stop for fresh reds; he stayed out during another break with 50 laps to go and held on for his second All-Star win.
Alejandro Alvarez | NASCAR Digital Media
John Probst, NASCAR senior vice president of racing development, said that competition officials gathered feedback in informal post-race conversations with drivers and crew, but that further evaluation would take place in Tuesday’s competition meeting and subsequent talks.
“Did everything go exactly like we thought? No. I think we would have liked to see the tires fall off a little more, and credit to the 22 for doing something that honestly Friday in practice, and working with Goodyear, we didn’t think you could do,” Probst said. “We didn’t think we’d see somebody run it that long and that hard and have it hold up that well. So the good thing is, we’ve got some tire tests coming up here in the near future at Iowa and Martinsville, and we’ll just get more aggressive. We’ll keep stepping up on it. It’s always hard when we come to a track and you practice in the daylight, you race at night, the track temperature has a lot to do with how the tires perform. So we’re going to stay at it. By no means are we done. We’ll get more aggressive.”
Denny Hamlin placed second to Logano, and the veteran driver and his crew chief, Chris Gabehart, had a compelling debate about whether to pit their No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota when the final competition break fell with 50 laps to go. Hamlin’s strategy suggestion was fresh reds, but Gabehart leaned toward staying out to preserve track position running P2. Hamlin eventually skipped pit road to keep his place in the running order, and that held up the rest of the way. “My guy likes offense,” Gabehart said of Hamlin’s initial hunch.
But Gabehart said he appreciated the effort in bringing tire alternates to a non-points race, even if Sunday’s conditions weren’t as ripe for the same sort of Friday fall-off from practice. Trying the same format in a longer event on one of the circuit’s shorter ovals, Gabehart said, could open up more strategy possibilities.
“Again, let’s be clear, you’re never going to finish four-wide at the finish line every week, and we’ve got to temper expectations and understand that the Game 7 walk-off home run scenario is not … if that’s what we want every week, you’re going to be disappointed,” Gabehart said. “Absolutely, it was a step in the right direction. No question about it, the industry learned a lot this weekend, And then, like I said earlier in the week, this option tire experiment, the way this weekend played out, there weren’t going to be a lot of opportunities to see diverging strategies. But if you only give me two (sets) of them of my eight sets of Loudon — I’m making it up — or Richmond or Phoenix, and I only get two of them, and it’s 400 laps, well now we can’t just figure out a way to use those two sets the whole race, right? We’ve got to pick and choose, and you’ve got stage points that matter, and playoff points that get paid at the end of them, and the end of the race obviously matters. So then you’ll start seeing a lot of comers and goers because you don’t have infinite supply the way you kind of did tonight.”
Special mention needs to be made for the quality of the repaving project at the 0.625-mile track, which now has fresh asphalt for the first time since 1981. The historic oval retained a measure of its character, but the new surface also took tire rubber readily, and the groove widened out far more quickly than with past repaves at other facilities.
The surface should only get better with more age and use, and Gabehart lauded both the overhaul and the nostalgic buzz that gave the second All-Star edition at the Wilkes County track that extra pop.
“First off, let me say fantastic atmosphere,” Gabehart said. “Fantastic job to Marcus Smith and his team here at North Wilkesboro. You don’t get a repave better than that. That’s as good as it gets. Multiple lanes, literally from the SAFER barrier to the bottom. You can’t get any better. The short track’s not what’s broke, and tonight is evident of that. The track’s fantastic.”
