Joey Gase was fined $5,000 for a safety violation after throwing his rear bumper at a competitor’s car during Saturday’s NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Richmond Raceway, NASCAR officials announced Wednesday in their penalty report.
Gase, driver of the No. 35 Joey Gase Motorsports Chevrolet, was penalized for violating Sections 8.8.8K of the NASCAR Rule Book, which states: “A safety violation may be imposed for any action or omission by a Competitor or vehicle that creates an unsafe environment or poses a threat to the safety of the Competitors, as determined by NASCAR.”
The 31-year-0ld Iowa native was bumped on corner entry to Turn 1 by Dawson Cram at Lap 173 during Saturday’s event at Richmond, sending Gase’s No. 35 NCPC Race Against Crime Chevy rear-end first into the outside SAFER barrier. To show his displeasure, Gase climbed from the car, ripped the already-dangling rear bumper from the vehicle, walked toward traffic and threw the fiberglass bumper at Cram’s No. 4 Chevrolet — striking the car directly in the windshield.
Additionally, three Xfinity teams were found with one lug nut not properly installed after the checkered flag of Saturday’s ToyotaCare 250:
No. 16 Kaulig Racing Chevrolet driven by AJ Allmendinger
No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota driven by Taylor Gray
No. 26 Sam Hunt Racing Toyota driven by Corey Heim
The teams’ respective crew chiefs — Alex Yontz, Seth Chavka and Kristoffer Bowen — were each fined $5,000 in violation of Sections 8.8.10.4a in the NASCAR Rule Book.
The Xfinity Series returns to action Saturday (7:30 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) at Martinsville Speedway in the Dude Wipes 250.
Josh Berry will make just his 20th NASCAR Cup Series start this weekend at Martinsville Speedway. The measured progress he’s made in the early portions of his first full year at this level comes with a bit of a perspective — one he admits to and references — that Kevin Harvick, the Hall of Fame-caliber driver he succeeded at Stewart-Haas Racing, retired with 826 starts.
Sunday at Richmond Raceway, the track where Harvick scored the last of his 60 Cup wins, Berry played to his short-track strengths and turned in one of the best performances of his rookie Cup Series campaign. His 11th-place finish in SHR’s No. 4 Ford was marked by early charges into the top five, and only a miscue on a late-race stop kept his result from being better.
It’s all been part of the adjustment period to a new role, fostering chemistry with veteran crew chief Rodney Childers and growth within a new-look Cup Series roster at Stewart-Haas.
“It’s just a little bit of momentum building,” Berry said Tuesday during an availability at the NASCAR Productions Facility. “I think we’re working together, figuring each other out a little bit more. I’m getting more comfortable getting reacclimated to the Next Gen car, but more than anything, I think we’ve just had good cars the last couple weeks. I feel like, especially at the short tracks. It’s just going to take time.
“I told Rodney this not too long ago, Kevin was 800-and-something starts into racing, and I’m only in the teens, so it’s going to take a little time for me to get acclimated to eliminate some of the mistakes I’ve made at the start of the season. But I think we’re already seeing the potential’s there, the speed can be there, we’ve just got to start executing that and figuring out how to be more consistent, and I think we’ll be fine.”
Berry’s opportunities should be present again this weekend when the Cup Series convenes for more short-track racing at Martinsville Speedway for Sunday’s Cook Out 400 (3 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). The historic venue was the site of Berry’s breakthrough victory in the Xfinity Series in 2021, and Stewart-Haas Racing has had glimmers of improvement there, with teammates Chase Briscoe and Ryan Preece each leading 100-plus laps in this race last spring.
Richmond may have provided a springboard for Berry, who was a runner-up there a year ago in just his sixth Cup Series start, filling in for an injured Chase Elliott in Hendrick Motorsports’ No. 9 Chevrolet. Sunday, his rise on the leaderboard — first on wet-weather tires, then slicks as the weather cleared — prompted an attaboy from spotter Eddie D’Hondt after Stage 1: “You came to play today, buddy.”
Berry’s bobble on an attempted pit-road entry for his last green-flag stop hampered the final result, and the 33-year-old driver radioed his crew to say he’d neglected to adjust his brake bias to the proper setting. A re-rack of the field for an overtime restart also kept him on the fringes of the top 10.
Alex Daus | NASCAR.com
“It’s part of that learning curve and figuring this stuff out, and what can we help him with on all those kinds of things — reminders and different things like that. But he was awesome all night,” Childers told NASCAR.com, noting how few adjustments the team needed to make during the course of the weekend. “I was hoping that we could get some on that last restart and get back up there where I felt like we deserved, and it just didn’t work out. It was like a roadblock, but overall, he did a great job.”
Berry is still writing this chapter of his racing career, but so is Stewart-Haas Racing in the first season of the post-Harvick era. The contributions by Harvick — both in leadership and the win column — were invaluable to the organization during his 10-year run with the No. 4 team, but his retirement and transition to the FOX Sports broadcast booth have forced the group to move forward without relying on his expertise.
“Honestly, it was really great to lean on him, but at the same time, there’s been some really productive conversations that we’ve had this year in our group, between the four of us,” said Preece, who — like Berry — is a client with Harvick’s sports-marketing agency. “I feel like that’s, between the vibe and some of those conversations, also going to help us. It was time … I don’t know how to really put this, but man, he carried it for so long, right? How are we supposed to carry it? How do we find our direction? I know Josh and I both, we talk to Kevin and we race for Kevin, but this is sink or swim. Figure it out. You can’t always keep going back to Dad, right?”
Berry, even in his brief time under the SHR roof, has seen a notable shift.
“I just feel like just the philosophy itself has changed, and everybody just seems like they’re more motivated to work together and being open-minded,” Berry said. “I mean, everybody’s done a really good job of that, I feel like. Like Ryan said, what we want to see is just the consistency. Everybody’s searching for the balance and speed and to get better, so one car might hit it better than others because we’re not all the same. We’re working together but it’s, ‘Hey, you try this. Hey, you try that,’ from what I see. I’m sure it’s a lot different, but I think change was needed.”
The other side benefit to Berry’s showing last weekend was a tangible boost in the Cup Series standings and the Sunoco Rookie of the Year race. Berry jumped five spots to 23rd in the points, leapfrogging fellow first-year driver Carson Hocevar to grab the lead in the rookie standings.
“That definitely was a goal of ours, for sure, so we want to get as many points as we can and give ourselves the best opportunity to win that award,” Berry said. “Like I said before, I think the potential’s there. We felt like what we had Sunday night and what we had at Bristol, we feel like those nights are in front of us. We’ve just got to figure out how to get there, week in and week out, and it’s going to take some time to get there, but I feel like the potential’s there to keep getting better and running well. Just got to figure it out and go do it.”
For the first time since 2019, the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour will invade Thompson Speedway Motorsports Park as part of the annual IceBreaker weekend this Sunday for the running of the IceBreaker 150 (4:30 p.m. ET on FloRacing).
Thompson is one of the Whelen Modified Tour’s most prolific race tracks. Dating back to the Tour’s formation in 1985, the series has competed at Thompson 152 times leading into Sunday’s 150-lap event, which is more than any other track in series history.
Mike Stefanik has won more Whelen Modified Tour events at Thompson than any other driver, earning 15 victories between 1988 and 2013. Ted Christopher earned 13 victories at Thompson during his career and Justin Bonsignore, fresh off a win one weekend ago at Richmond Raceway, also has 13 Thompson victories.
Other notable Thompson winners include brothers Jeff and Rick Fuller, Tony Hirschman, Doug Coby, Steve Park, Reggie Ruggiero, Ron Silk, Mike McLaughlin, Bobby Santos III and Richie Evans, among others.
Tickets to the IceBreaker 150 are available at the track on race day. Below is everything you need to know about the third of 16 races on the 2024 NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour schedule.
Drivers line up for a rolling start during the World Series 150 presented by Flosports.com for the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour at Thompson Speedway Motorsports Park on October 8, 2023 in Thompson, Connecticut. (Photo: Jaiden Tripi/NASCAR)
IceBreaker 150 at Thompson Speedway Motorsports Park
What to watch for:
It’s been five years since the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour last competed during IceBreaker weekend at Thompson Speedway Motorsports Park.
A lot has changed in those five years, but one thing that hasn’t is the fact that Bonsignore continues to win races. Bonsignore was the last Modified Tour competitor to win at Thompson on IceBreaker weekend, and he’s also the most recent Modified Tour winner following his victory Friday at Richmond Raceway.
He now has 41 series victories, one behind Ted Christopher for third on the all-time Modified Tour winners list. He’ll look to tie Christopher for that mark while also surpassing him in career Thompson victories with a win Sunday.
There will be plenty of competitors looking to deny him that honor during the 50th IceBreaker weekend, including defending series champion and most recent Thompson winner, Ron Silk. The two-time Whelen Modified Tour champion is a six-time Thompson winner following his victory last October during the World Series 150. With finishes of first and second to start the 2024 season, Silk is expected to be Bonsignore’s primary competition Sunday.
Two other potential contenders Sunday at Thompson are Craig Lutz and Eric Goodale. Lutz and Goodale captured victories at Thompson during the 2022 season, and both would like to return to winning form during IceBreaker weekend. Lutz will be in the Goodie Racing No. 46, while Goodale will be in the Goodie Motorsports No. 58.
Austin Beers will be looking to rebound from a dismal performance at Richmond that saw him crash out of the race early. Trevor Catalano, with two top-five finishes in his first two starts during his rookie campaign, will look to continue his positive momentum in the Catalano Motorsports No. 56. Jake Johnson, who was second last October at Thompson, will continue his pursuit of his first series victory in the Boehler Racing Enterprises No. 3.
Other notable entries include Patrick Emerling, Matt Hirschman, Matt Swanson, Bobby Santos III, Kyle Bonsignore and Tyler Rypkema, among others.
The full entry list for the IceBreaker 150 is available here.
A general view during the World Series 150 presented by Flosports.com for the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour at Thompson Speedway Motorsports Park on October 8, 2023 in Thompson, Connecticut. (Photo: Jaiden Tripi/NASCAR)
Schedule: Sunday, April 7 … Final practice from 12:30 to 1:30 p.m. ET … Qualifying at 3:30 p.m. ET … IceBreaker 150 at 4:30 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 50th Annual Icebreaker 150 is limited to 30 starters including Provisional Positions.
Tire allotment: The maximum tire allotment available for this event is twelve (12) 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 four (4) tires, any position.
RICHMOND, Va. — Joey Logano’s 550th NASCAR Cup Series start nearly had the makings of his 33rd Cup Series victory, a would-be triumph that would have broken a yearlong dry spell. Instead, his Sunday night showing at Richmond Raceway yielded a building-block outcome that produced positives after a shaky launch to the season.
Logano finished second in Sunday’s Toyota Owners 400, gaining one spot in an overtime scramble but winding up just 0.269 seconds short of eventual winner Denny Hamlin at the checkered flag. The result marked his first top-five finish of the season, providing a boost to the No. 22 Team Penske group. Even then, Logano admitted there was a bittersweet nature to the evening.
“It feels good, and it hurts at the same time because we were so close to winning the race,” Logano said. “I mean, it’s a race track that we expect to run well at, it’s our best race track and we’ve been consistently in the top five and having shots to win.”
Top-five territory is where Logano spent much of the evening after working his way up from a 10th-place starting spot, evidenced by an average running position of 4.6, per NASCAR’s loop data. Stage finishes of fifth and third added to his points total, and by the time the final-stage pit strategies shook out, Logano had moved into second place and in a dogged pursuit of Martin Truex Jr.’s dominant No. 19 Toyota, which led the most laps (228).
Before Kyle Larson’s spin after contact from Bubba Wallace with two laps remaining in regulation forced overtime, Logano was methodically searching for ways to cut into Truex’s lead.
“I started pressuring the 19 at the end of that long run, and he got to racing hard with Ross (Chastain) trying to stay on the lead lap,” Logano said. “I said, ‘This is my opportunity.’ I got Denny to burn his stuff up trying to pass me, and I said, ‘OK, this is my chance,’ and I got close to him and burned my stuff up with about three (laps) to go, and I wasn’t going to get him.”
Sunday’s result was Logano’s fourth consecutive top-10 finish at Richmond, and crew chief Paul Wolfe remarked that the performance was close to the best showing here for the No. 22 team since the advent of the Next Gen car in 2022. Wolfe said that the team made gains with learnings from Logano’s participation in a Goodyear tire test March 13-14 at North Wilkesboro Speedway, but that more gains were made in keeping up morale after a rough opening stretch to the season.
“I think it’s good for the team, for Joey,” Wolfe told NASCAR.com. “I mean, it’s not easy when you look at where we’re at in the garage and 22nd in points and you’re just in a place where you haven’t been before. You’ve got to be careful. It’s easy to get down and lose focus. So these next couple of weeks, I felt like it’d be good opportunities for us. Going to Martinsville next week is another good one. So yeah, it was a great day, came up a little short, but we’re going to keep working.”
Logano has gained 11 spots in the Cup Series standings in the last three weeks with finishes of 22nd at Bristol and 11th at Circuit of The Americas swaying the pendulum back in a positive direction. In Saturday’s interview sessions, Logano said that there were no quick fixes to the team’s early struggles, but another three-spot jump up to 19th in the points Sunday night offers at least incremental help.
“I don’t know if this completely takes us out of the deep end,” Logano said, “but I think ultimately it’s a good momentum-builder, for sure.”
The start of Sunday’s Toyota Owners 400 was soggy, damp and wet.
But more importantly, it happened.
Goodyear’s wet-weather tires saved a significant delay at Richmond Raceway, an option still new to the NASCAR Cup Series on ovals but welcomed as drizzles hit the Virginia commonwealth shortly before the scheduled green flag.
Goodyear’s wet-weather oval tires first hit the track competitively with Cup Series cars last year at North Wilkesboro Speedway in the All-Star Race exhibition, but Sunday at Richmond marked the series’ first endeavor into damp oval conditions in a points-paying event. NASCAR officials deemed the track wet shortly before driver introductions and required teams to put on the treaded Goodyear rubber.
A brief hold between the national anthem and the command to start engines became the only true delay to Sunday’s action, with pace laps and green-flag racing on a dampened asphalt surface shining bright under the Richmond lights.
“First of all, credit to (NASCAR CEO) Jim France. This was his vision,” Elton Sawyer, NASCAR’s senior vice president of competition, said post-race. “A couple of years ago, he tasked the R&D Center and Goodyear to come up with a tire that we could run in the damp, and tonight was a success. We were able to get the race started pretty much on time. The guys did a great job with the tire. Goodyear did a phenomenal job.”
As the track dried from the combined lack of precipitation and extra heat from the tires and race cars, officials called for a competition caution at Lap 30, freezing the field and bringing everyone to pit road for non-competitive pit stops to replace the wet-weather treaded tires with traditional racing slicks. The decision to keep those stops non-competitive stemmed largely from safety. Sunday’s race marked only the third instance of wet-weather tires on a short oval in competition, factoring in a NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series contest into both Sunday’s race and last year’s All-Star Race.
“Unlike road courses when pit road is wet, where we would allow the teams to make the decisions whether to put drys or wets on,” Sawyer explained, “on the short ovals, we’re still not to a place where we feel comfortable doing that. We’re looking out for the safety. This is only our third event that we’ve actually run wet-weather tires. …
“So we have another data point. That’s one thing we want to work hard on; is to be able to start the race, put all the competition in the teams’ hands and strategy. When to put tires on, when to take them off and the sanctioning body not be in the middle of that decision-making. I think we’ll get there sooner than later.”
The green flag for Sunday’s race was scheduled for 7:12 p.m. ET but flew at 7:31 — an official delay of just 19 minutes.
“We could have been sitting there another hour getting everything dry like we have in the past,” Sawyer said. “So again, huge credit to everyone that put the effort in to get us to this point with the tires and a huge success. We’ll learn from this, and we’ll be able to make better decisions going forward.”
RICHMOND, Va. – Martin Truex Jr. and Kyle Larson were the class of the NASCAR Cup Series field in Sunday night’s Easter special at Richmond Raceway, leading 372 of the 407 laps in the Toyota Owners 400. It’s that extra seven laps and the critical moments leading up to it when everything fell apart for both.
Truex’s hopes for his first Cup Series win of the season were dashed when three occurrences unraveled the race for the No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing veteran. There was the late caution that forced overtime, the loss of one spot in the race off pit road, and the fateful final green flag when teammate Denny Hamlin scooted by with a quick-reflex restart and pushed his way to the point.
It all equaled a fourth-place finish for a driver who spent most of the night in first, a frustrating result at a track where Truex has won three times but has lost a handful more under heartbreaking circumstances.
“Unfortunately, it’s happened to us a few times in Richmond here,” said Truex, who led a race-high 228 laps. “You know, lead the whole race and then some stupid, some dumbass move brings out a caution coming to the white flag and ruins our whole night, so it was unfortunate. But honestly, just awesome job by my team. The Auto-Owners Camry was a rocket. It was something like we’ve had here in the past, and unfortunately, this has happened to us a few times. Come in with the lead, go out second to the fastest pit crew on pit road is, it’s a tough one to swallow. But I feel like we still could’ve had a race for it, but just got used up in Turn 1 on the restart.”
Truex used his No. 19 Toyota’s bumper to show his disdain for two targets on the cool-down lap. Larson, who scraped by him for third place in the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet, was first after the two came together multiple times in the final lap of overtime. Truex also nudged Hamlin’s No. 11 Toyota before parking on pit road, telling reporters later that he felt his teammate had one, jumped the overtime restart, and two, aggressively forced his way by in the first turn.
“I just, I felt like the 11 used me up down there in Turn 1, and I didn’t really appreciate a teammate racing me like that,” said Truex, who leaves Richmond with his lead in the Cup Series standings intact — now 14 points over new second-place driver Larson. “I wish he would have, you know, gave me a chance. But yeah, that’s the way it is. And then, the 5 just bumped me, drove into the side of me in Turns 1 and 2, and I got a little loose down the backstretch. I don’t know if my left-rear (tire) was going down or what, and I kind of slammed into him. No big deal.”
Hamlin defended his restart tactics, saying that eventual second-place finisher Joey Logano was laying back and that Truex was inching ahead. “I wasn’t going to let them have an advantage that my team earned on pit road,” said Hamlin, who added that he “went right at it” as he reached the restart zone. “Certainly made sure I went to my nose, got there, but I took off right away. Still, we were side by side down the water into Turn 1.”
Larson led twice for 144 laps, and when his No. 5 Chevy wasn’t out front, it was typically found running second to Truex. Larson seemed to get the upper hand on a pit-stop exchange when he squeezed his way in front of Truex, using the first pit stall he earned as the pole winner to his advantage, but the No. 19 Toyota reasserted his strength and regained the spot from Larson five laps later.
Larson faded slightly during the last green-flag run on what crew chief Cliff Daniels called a mismatched set of tires, but his night threatened to take a more drastic turn when Bubba Wallace’s No. 23 Toyota clipped him at the exit of Turn 4 with two laps left in regulation. Larson’s No. 5 dipped into the frontstretch grass, and he quickly righted himself, asking Daniels if he’d only lost two spots in the off-course excursion. Daniels replied yes, saying he planned on getting them back.
Patrick Vallely | For NASCAR.com
“Just good fortune, I guess. I don’t know. I don’t really know how to describe it,” Larson said with a laugh. “Just got lucky. Got lucky that I had room to spin and thankfully I was hoping the grass wasn’t going to be too slick, and I kind of got it pointed somewhat straighter when I got to the grass. That helped me get going. So just yeah, thanking my lucky stars.”
Wallace walked 20-some pit stalls from his parking spot on pit road to offer a face-to-face apology, taking Larson by the shoulder to explain his side and to make a mention about karma. Larson finished one spot better than where he was running at the time of his spin; Wallace’s No. 23 Toyota crew had trouble fastening a left-side wheel on the team’s final pit stop, and he wound up 13th. “Whatever’s coming my way, I know it,” Wallace told Larson. “I expect it.”
“I appreciate it for sure,” Larson said. “I guess I would have been pissed off if I would have fully spun, and his comment or his apology probably wouldn’t have mattered as much right now, but I would have eventually gotten over it. Because I kept going straight, and he came up, whatever, it’s good. We’ve had our run-ins, and I don’t think tonight was anything intentional.”
As for his back-and-forth with Truex on the two-lap overtime dash, Larson said he felt he was just a convenient scapegoat for Truex’s earlier frustration with Hamlin.
“Martin, I don’t know if his spotter didn’t say that I was inside of him or what, but he just hung a left and hit my right-front, had me up on the apron and then turned left on me down the middle of the backstretch,” Larson said. “So I kind of just, we’re drag-racing to the start/finish line and didn’t really care at that point if I was going to squeeze him in the wall since he decided to turn left on me down the backstretch. So I think, ultimately, he’s just mad at Denny, and I was the closest guy to him to take some anger out on.”
Denny Hamlin’s No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing team gave him a clutch pit stop to emerge with the lead out of the pits and then was able to hold the advantage on a two-lap overtime shootout to claim the Toyota Owners 400 victory Sunday night at Richmond Raceway, his home track.
It was Hamlin’s 53rd career NASCAR Cup Series win, second of the season and fifth victory at the 0.75-mile Richmond oval — a 0.269-second margin of victory over Team Penske’s Joey Logano. And it came at the expense of his JGR teammate Martin Truex Jr., who finished fourth despite leading a dominant 228 of the race’s 407 laps.
“This was a team win for sure,” said Hamlin, who led 17 laps on the night. “Each one of these pit crew members just did an amazing job. They’ve been killing it all year.
“Such a great feeling when you can come in and have a pit crew like that.”
It was a frustrating ending for Truex, who had been out front 54 consecutive laps in his No. 19 JGR Toyota when a caution flag flew with only two laps of regulation remaining. On the ensuing pit stop, Hamlin beat him off pit road, and Truex was unable to take the lead back in that final two-lap run, ultimately getting passed by Logano for second and polesitter Kyle Larson for third.
“It’s unfortunate, but it’s happened a few times over the years,” Truex said. “We were in a great spot and had a great Auto Owners Camry all night long and the guys did a really good job. Just got beat out of the pits and then he [Hamlin] jumped the start and just used me up in Turn 1.
“Definitely sucks. Another car capable of winning. We’ll just have to come back next week and try to get one.”
The silver lining for Truex is that he still holds the championship lead by 14 points over Larson, who had a busy ending to the race. Contact between Hendrick Motorsports’ Larson and 23XI Racing’s Bubba Wallace brought out the final yellow flag to force the first overtime period for a NASCAR Cup Series race this season.
Larson was still able to come out fourth place on the pit stop and challenge for the win, although he and Truex banged doors in the closing laps fighting for position.
“My pit crew did a really good job to get us off pit road and get us those spots to restart fourth and gain one more,” Larson said. “I’ll take third after what could have been a lot worse there on the front stretch. Proud of the HendrickCars.com team.
“It was a good weekend for us, winning the pole, winning a stage and getting back to third. Happy about that.”
As for the late race contact between him and a frustrated Truex, Larson said: “I think he was just mad. He was mad the 11 [Hamlin] used him up on the restart and that’s probably where it really started from.
“I think he was more mad at Denny, but I was the closest one for him to take his anger out on,” Larson added with a smile.
Joe Gibbs Racing’s Christopher Bell, Hendrick’s William Byron, RFK Racing teammates Brad Keselowski and Chris Buescher and 23XI Racing’s Tyler Reddick rounded out the top 10. Stewart-Haas Racing’s Josh Berry finished 11th, having run in the top-10 most of the night and Wallace, who also ran top 10 most of the race finished 13th after that late race contact with Larson and a slow pit stop before the overtime shootout.
Of note, with the track still damp from afternoon showers, the field started the race on wet-weather tires. NASCAR threw a competition caution at Lap 30, bringing the cars down pit road for a mandatory change to racing slicks. And cars returned to the track in the order they were running at the time of caution. The move to use the wet weather tires allowed the race to start only a few minutes late and was widely praised.
The NASCAR Cup Series moves to another short-track challenge on April 7 with the Cook Out 400 (3 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) at Martinsville Speedway. Larson is the defending race winner.
NOTE: Post-race technical inspection concluded without issue, confirming Hamlin as the race winner. The Nos. 5, 8, 12 and 20 cars will be taken to the NASCAR R&D Center in Concord, North Carolina for engine dyno testing, with the Nos. 12 and 20 vehicles scheduled to receive further inspection.
RICHMOND, Va. — The start of Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Richmond Raceway featured wet-weather tires due to damp conditions.
The Toyota Owners 400 was scheduled for a 7 p.m. ET start, broadcast on FOX, MRN Radio and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. But rain showers lingered around the 0.75-mile track, delaying the start of the seventh of 36 points-paying Cup Series races this season. Goodyear’s wet-weather tires helped NASCAR hit the track sooner than usual, however, with its rubber featuring treads to help shed water from the racing surface, along with defoggers placed inside the car to eliminate windshield condensation.
Kyle Larson’s No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet led the field from the No. 1 starting position, a spot earned with a fast lap of 120.332 mph in Saturday’s Busch Light Pole qualifying. He was flanked on the front row by teammate Chase Elliott in the No. 9 Chevy.
Per the NASCAR Rule Book, if the Series Managing Director declares wet-weather conditions prior to race start, all vehicles must make a tire configuration change and will retain their original starting positions. As the track dried out under green-flag conditions, NASCAR officials called a competition caution at Lap 30 for teams to perform non-competitive pit stops and change back to traditional slick racing tires. Because the stops were not competitive, the running order was not impacted by the speed of the stops.
Alex Daus | NASCAR.com
Competition officials have a fleet of track-drying equipment available this weekend — six Toyota Tundra dryers, three jet dryers, one vacuum truck and one sweeper.
The 400-lap, 300-mile race is the first of two stops for the Cup Series at Richmond Raceway this year. The circuit returns for the Cook Out 400 weekend Aug. 10-11, with the Craftsman Truck Series’ Clean Harbors 250 as a companion event.
RICHMOND, Va. — Ryan Blaney sits third in the NASCAR Cup Series standings after six races this season, but his Ford’s blue oval is on an island in a sea of Chevrolet bow ties and Toyota ellipses in the top portion of the points so far.
Ford aims for its first Cup Series win of the year in Sunday’s Toyota Owners 400 (7 p.m. ET, FOX, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) at Richmond Raceway, and Blaney — the defending Cup champion — figures to be a likely candidate for making that breakthrough happen. Ford teams are currently in an adjustment period with their new Mustang Dark Horse body for the 2024 season, but Blaney and his No. 12 Team Penske group have separated themselves from the rest, keeping up their pace from last season’s title-winning finish.
Austin Cindric, Blaney’s teammate in the No. 2 Penske Ford, offered a candid explanation for why that is.
“I think Ryan and his team, you guys all saw it at the end of last year, execution, confidence in the packages that they bring,” Cindric said after Saturday’s qualifying session at the 0.75-mile track. “Execution, I say it twice — it is so critically important and I would say, quite frankly, that used to be one of Ryan’s weaknesses. He’s always been extremely fast and now I think it’s one of his strengths and he’s probably better than most in the field at doing it. Between him and that team — that pit crew has gotten a lot of criticism over the years and those guys are executing probably better than most on pit road.
“I don’t want to jinx anybody, but they set a great example for us within the team as far as what it takes to be the best and consistently do that each week.”
After crashing out of the season-opening Daytona 500, Blaney strung together three consecutive top-five finishes to briefly hold the Cup Series points lead. Other Ford drivers — notably, fellow Penske driver and two-time Cup champ Joey Logano — have made slow starts to the year. RFK Racing’s Chris Buescher is the only other Ford campaigner among the top 15 in the series standings.
Blaney says there’s still room for growth to make the Mustang Dark Horse more competitive as the season progresses.
“It’s a place we got to improve a little bit, just kind of overall,” said Blaney, who will start 12th in Sunday’s 400-lap race. “Toyota has done a good job of having a new car and figuring out what they need to do right away to be competitive. We did a lot of hard work in the winter trying to figure out, ‘OK, where’s the maximum potential of this new car,’ and we just haven’t quite hit that yet, and we’re working on it. I mean, you’re trying and it’s hard to do, especially when there’s no testing or anything like that. You don’t know where you’re at until you unload at the race track.
“There’s a handful of things I think we can improve on, but they’re all little. Little things go a long way, so I think we’re close as a group. It’s just a matter of ironing out a few things — car, engine — and I think we’ll be right there.”
What to watch for:
