Posted on by Cameron Richardson

Last year’s Round of 8 opener at Las Vegas Motor Speedway was a wild one that saw half of the playoff drivers at the time finish outside the top 10 while the other half finished inside the top five. If drivers want their shot at the title at Phoenix in three weeks, they will need to perform well in the high desert.

Before the green flag drops for Sunday’s South Point 400 (2:30 p.m. ET, NBC, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App), see how the race is trending for drivers still vying for the Bill France Trophy, trends to watch, Goodyear tire info and interactive ways to follow all the weekend’s action.

RELATED: See paint schemes for Las Vegas | Betting favorites for Sunday’s Cup race

ROLL THE DICE IN VEGAS 🎲

It’s no exaggeration to say that the Round of 8 field is trending to dominate Sunday at Las Vegas. The door is open for any one of the eight remaining title-eligible competitors to punch their ticket to a Championship 4 berth as Homestead-Miami Speedway and Martinsville Speedway offer more challenges and have been dominated by only a handful of drivers in recent years.

Reverting to the spring race at Las Vegas, the lowest finish by a current playoff driver was Chris Buescher in 21st. Everyone else finished inside the top 15 with half of the Round of 8 scoring top-10 results.

Vegas will pay the points to most of the playoff drivers on Sunday, and teams are going to need to hit their setups perfectly right off the hauler in practice and qualifying to find any advantage they can entering the race.

MORE: Racing Insights’ projections for Sunday

📉 TRENDS TO WATCH 📈

— The last six races at Las Vegas have been won by different drivers.

— Six of the last seven Las Vegas winners started in the top 10.

— The driver who led the most laps won three of the last five Las Vegas races.

— Nine different drivers have won on 1.5-mile tracks in the Next Gen car. Only Tyler Reddick, Denny Hamlin, and William Byron have won more than once.

(Via Racing Insights)

CLASSIC LAS VEGAS MOTOR SPEEDWAY RACES 🎥

2018: First Las Vegas playoff race turns into wild affair for playoff drivers | WATCH

2020: Kurt Busch wins first race at his home track | WATCH

2022: Joey Logano wins thriller to clinch Champ. 4 berth | WATCH

ON-TRACK SCHEDULE 🗓️

Saturday, Oct. 14

— 12:35 p.m. ET: Practice (USA, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App)

— 1:20 p.m. ET: Qualifying (USA, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App

Sunday, Oct. 15

— 2:30 p.m. ET: South Point 400 (NBC, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App)

MORE: Full weekend schedule at Las Vegas

RULE CHANGES/GOODYEAR TIRE NOTES 🛞

Goodyear will run the same tire setup at Las Vegas that was introduced in last year’s playoff race. Teams will be allotted one set of tires for practice, one set for qualifying, and an additional eight sets for Sunday’s race.

NASCAR implemented safety updates to the Next Gen car.

Along the right-side door bars and extending toward the rear clip, teams are mandated to run a steel plate in addition to the chassis adjustments made for the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway. The right-side door bar gussets and the removal of the front clip V-brace are changes that remain, in addition to the removal of other front-clip components, to create a softer and larger crush zone for frontal impacts.

Also included in the updates are front-bumper strut softening (modifications to existing parts), the requirement of an empty front ballast box, and a modified cross brace. NASCAR incurs the cost of all these updates.

In the event of a lost wheel that is contained to pit road, the offending team will be subject to a pass-through penalty under green-flag conditions. If the infraction occurs during a caution period, the offending team will restart at the tail end of the field.

If the wheel breaks free outside of pit road, the new rules guidelines mandate a two-lap penalty plus a two-race suspension for two crew members. Each penalty is series-specific: Violations in one series will not impact those crew members’ eligibility to participate in other series.

RELATED: See rules changes for 2023

FAN REWARDS 🫵

Fans can get in on the action all season long with NASCAR Fan Rewards, a free program that rewards fans for participating in the action when they watch races and play NASCAR Fantasy.

There’s no cost to join. Fans must be 18 years or older to participate in the program.

Earn points by checking into a race from home or at the track, setting your Fantasy Live lineup, making purchases on the NASCAR.com shop, and more. Points can be redeemed for race tickets, merchandise, and VIP experiences at the track, including pace car rides and waving the green flag at qualifying.

JOIN TODAY

FOLLOW THE RACE 📲

NASCAR Mobile has now added support for fans to “Follow the Race” and access live leaderboard and race information from Live Activities in the current app release (v13.2.0), available now. Android users, we didn’t forget you — the same functionality has been custom-built for Android devices, as well.

How to access Live Activities on iPhones:

  1. Make sure your iOS device has been updated to 16.1 or higher.
  2. Available on the leaderboard of all NASCAR Series races.
  3. Click on the three-dot menu near the top right of the screen.
  4. Select “Follow the Race.”
  5. Swipe up to access the home screen, and you will see the Live Activities at the top.
  6. Lock the device, and you will see Live Activities on the Lock Screen.
  7. To turn it off, simply visit the leaderboard, click the three-dot menu, and “Unfollow the Race.”

FANTASY LIVE 🏆

Want to manage a team and race your way to the top of the leaderboards? Check out NASCAR Fantasy Live, which resets for the playoffs. The free-to-play game lets you choose your drivers each week and show off your crew-chief instincts by garaging a driver by the end of Stage 2, and there is a $10,000 prize for the winner.

How to play: Fantasy Live | Set up a team today!

PLAYOFFS GRID CHALLENGE 🏆

During the 2023 NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs, fans have the opportunity to compete in The Playoffs Grid™ Challenge presented by Ruoff Mortage. Fans can enter by visiting The Playoffs Grid™ Challenge page and registering for a free NASCAR.com account before filling out a bracket. From there, choose from a list of playoff-eligible drivers round by round, and you’re on your way to compete for prizes!

How to play: Playoffs Grid Challenge 

ALSO ON NASCAR.COM 💻

Get additional camera views by logging on to NASCAR Drive, where each week, a select number of in-car cameras will be available — as well as a battle cam and an overhead look.

NASCAR has partnered with LiveLike to add fan engagement to the NASCAR Mobile App. Log in to the mobile app during the race for polls, quizzes, the cheer meter, and more — and see instant results from NASCAR fans like you.

Posted on by Adam Fenwick

During NASCAR race weekends, shows cars are common sites at gas stations, home improvement stores and fast-food restaurants. The displays provide fans opportunities to take close looks at the machines wheeled by their favorite drivers.

In some cases, they serve as inspiration.

For Vicente Salas, a 21-year-old from Temecula, California, a chance encounter with a show car at his local Home Depot as a child helped set him on his path in motorsports.

“Racing has absolutely always been my dream,” Salas said. “Really the day it came to me and I figured that out was we went to Home Depot. My dad would always take me with him to run his errands. Tony Stewart’s No. 20 Home Depot car was sitting outside. We asked the guy if I could sit in it, and he was like, ‘You know, we normally don’t do this, but sure, go ahead.’

“The moment I got to sit down in that car and the wheel was put on, I just knew that this is what I wanted to do.”

Salas was just 3 when he sat in that car, but the moment became a core memory and created the foundation for what has quickly become a budding career.

Motorsports is not something that has always been a part of Salas’ family heritage, which has roots in Mexico and Latin America. Salas is the third generation of family to be born in the United States after they immigrated to the country and settled in Southern California.

“My mom’s side is from Europe, but it’s my dad’s side that is from Mexico and Latin America,” Salas explained. “I’m the third full generation to be here in the U.S. They actually had a big ranch down in León, Mexico, and basically it got taken from them during the drug wars down there. It forced them to move up here. They made a life up here, and now we’ve all settled here.”

Salas is the first member of his family to race stock cars, but he’s not the first to be part of the motorsports community. His father Don spent a little more than a decade as a motorsports photographer and even did a bit of motocross racing. Both helped fuel his son’s passion for the sport.

Vicente Salas (55) during a Late Model Stock Car event at North Carolina’s Hickory Motor Speedway earlier this year. (Photo: Gardner Street Photography/Hickory Motor Speedway)

Salas spent almost a decade of his childhood trying to convince his family to take his motorsports obsession seriously.

“It was kind of one of those things where some kids are like, ‘I want to be a football player or I want to be an astronaut,’” Salas said. “I think that’s kind of what they thought of me and how I wanted to drive. From the age of 3 or 4 all the way until I was 14 or 15, I would ask them constantly, ‘Can I go race? Can I get a go-kart? Can I get a bando? Can I get a Legend car?’

“I was just trying to find things to do that I could drive.”

When Salas was around 11, his father began taking him to local karting tracks in California, which helped scratch the racing itch. Eventually even that wasn’t enough, and Salas began begging his parents to let him race in a professional event.

As luck would have it, Salas’ best friend in high school ended up being the one to make the connection that would change the rest of his life.

“[He] met an incredible go-kart team,” Salas said. ‘He was like, ‘I’m going to go drive these go-karts at Auto Club Speedway.’ I was like whoa, that sounds really, really cool. So one day I went out there, and I got to test a shifter kart, and from there on it was kind of on.

“My parents, once they saw me on the race track on more of a competitive platform, they were like, ‘OK, now we understand. He really wants to do this.’”

Salas was 15 when he started racing shifter karts, much older than most start-up racers in the modern era. By his third season racing karts, he was competing nationally. His family quickly realized he needed to make the jump from karts to full-sized stock cars.

At nearly the same time, Salas began making inroads on the digital level by attempting to qualify for the eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Series. During the COVID-19 lockdown of 2020, Salas worked toward earning a spot in the series in 2021.

“That’s when I raced for Elliott Sadler. He helped me a ton,” Salas said about the 2020 iRacing season. “He was an awesome mentor. That was such a good time of learning.”

Salas successfully qualified for the eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Series in 2021 and stunned his competitors early in the year by leading every lap and winning at Richmond Raceway as a rookie.

That win, Salas said, put him on the map as an iRacer and helped him secure opportunities to test and later race a Pro Late Model with the CARS Tour in 2022.

“That win at Richmond in 2021 I think is what really helped open the doors for the late model opportunities I had later that year and to race the next year,” Salas said. “My first race was pretty much from a shifter kart to a Pro Late Model with the CARS Tour in 2022.”

Salas, driving for noted team owner Donnie Wilson, made his Pro Late Model debut at Hickory Motor Speedway on March 26, 2022 with the CARS Tour. He qualified third and finished fourth that day in a field that included the two drivers that battled for the ARCA Menards Series East championship this year, William Sawalich and Luke Fenhaus.

In fact, Sawalich and Fenhaus were two of the three drivers who beat Salas that day. The other was Caden Kvapil, son of 2003 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series champion Travis Kvapil.

Vicente Salas poses in Victory Lane following his first victory at Hickory Motor Speedway earlier this year. (Photo: Gardner Street Photography/Hickory Motor Speedway)

After getting his first taste of racing a stock car, Salas knew he wanted more. This season he was able to secure enough funding to race a Late Model Stock Car regularly for team owner Justin Carroll at Hickory Motor Speedway, where he earned his first victory with a daring, last-lap pass on March 25.

He also continued to compete in the eNASCAR series for Williams eSports.

“That victory meant a lot, because it was another one of those solidifying moments for not just me and the people around us, but especially for my family,” Salas said. “This is all that I’ve wanted to do. We worked very, very hard to make the Late Model opportunity happen and get me out here. It wasn’t just me by any means.

“That [win] honestly was just a dream come true.”

Salas’ goal is to race in the NASCAR Cup Series, and he’s already in the process of planning for what he is hoping will be a busy 2024 season.

While he isn’t yet sure what his schedule will look like, Salas is hopeful he’ll not only be able to take the next step in his racing career, but also continue to set an example for others.

“I’ve had a lot of kids come up to me and ask me how does this happen or how to do this,” Salas said. “It was cool to show them absolutely anything is possible regardless of who you are or where you come from or what your background is.

“If you work hard, you’re dedicated and you know what you want, you can make it happen.”

Posted on by Staff Report

While Christopher Bell will look to prime his No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota to his second consecutive Championship 4 berth, the 28-year-old additionally acknowledged how aware he will need to be when it comes to Daniel Suárez.

During Sunday’s Bank of America ROVAL 400 at the Charlotte Motor Speedway road course, Bell and Suárez’s No. 99 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet made contact several times throughout the race, including on a Stage 2 restart. The final incident came during the final stage with less than 15 to go, where Bell clipped Suárez’s left-rear quarter panel and caused the No. 99 to spin out. Bell went on to claim a 15th-place result, while Suárez finished 33rd.

RELATED: Top Moments from Charlotte Roval | Race Rewind 

Bell has since reached out to Suárez and made note of future ramifications.

“Certainly, I didn’t mean to get into him [Suárez], and you know, he and I have had run-ins in the past, so that’s the last guy I wanted to get into and have a problem with moving forward,” Bell said during a virtual teleconference with the media on Wednesday. “I reached out to him and told him that it wasn’t intentional, but I’m sure he’s going to be coming after me, which is not ideal going into the next four races, but it’s a mistake, and I’ll have to keep that in the back of my head moving forward.”

Bell, a NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs driver, currently sits below the elimination line (-8) as the Round of 8 begins at Las Vegas Motor Speedway this weekend. In addition to racing playoff competitors on the track, Bell mentioned how he would need to be cognizant of Suárez, should they both be in each other’s vicinity.

“I think it really just depends on where we’re at on track. If we’re not around each other, then it’s something that is pretty easy to put away, but I just have to be smart whenever it comes time to whenever I’m around him,” Bell said. “Certainly give him as much room as possible, and it is what it is. It was not a smart move on my behalf to … It was a mistake. It wasn’t like that was a move I was trying to do, but I should’ve been more mindful of the position I was in and where we were at in that race. Not ideal, I’ll just have to pay attention moving forward and do the best I can.”

MORE: 2023 playoff standings | Las Vegas schedule

The Cup Series will race in the South Point 400 at Las Vegas on Oct. 15 (2:30 p.m. ET, NBC, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App).

Posted on by Cameron Richardson

Next season, the NASCAR Cup Series will kick off the 2024 calendar with the third consecutive Busch Light Clash inside the famed Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

To add even more pizazz to the spectacle, the NASCAR Mexico Series will host a race on the same day as the heat races and main event for the Clash. While the 2023 season still rolls on in the midst of the playoffs, Cup drivers are already looking forward to sharing the stage with an international series.

“I think that’s a massive platform for those guys, and I think it’s really, really cool to showcase for them, but also for the fans that come out to the track,” 23XI Racing driver Bubba Wallace said. “So all around, that’s a good weekend for us. Excited to see how it all unfolds.”

MORE: Buy tickets to the Clash

Before going full-time in the Cup Series in 2018, Wallace drove for Rev Racing, a developmental team for drivers at the regional level and in the ARCA Menards Series and Craftsman Truck Series.

Rev has also been a landing spot for a handful of drivers from the Mexico Series, such as Daniel Suárez and, currently, Andrés Pérez de Lara.

Two-time Cup Series champion Kyle Busch has an alliance with Rev Racing through his Kyle Busch Motorsports team, currently in its final season in the Truck Series before handing the reins over to Spire Motorsports following a sale. Not only is he looking forward to spotlighting the series, but Busch also noted his familiarity with the talent that continues to rise up the ranks from the Mexico Series.

“I think that’s cool. I think we had a little bit of that crossover a couple years ago at Phoenix; they were there,” Busch said. “Other than that, yeah, we haven’t seen much of the Mexico Series. I know Daniel Suárez spent a lot of time there in that series, and there’s a few other drivers that are coming up through the ranks that have been in that series. One of those guys at Rev Racing with Max Siegel’s team in the ARCA Series and also Max Gutierrez is another one that’s there, so yeah, there’s some notable names that I’ve heard come through there, so it’d be nice to get them some more recognition on a bigger stage.”

Before hoisting the 2016 Xfinity title and becoming a Cup Series winner in 2022, Suárez was a 10-time winner in the Mexico Series between 2012-2014, with three of those victories coming at Autódromo Hermanos Rodriguez in Mexico City, which played host to the Xfinity Series from 2005-2008.

Busch won at Mexico in 2008, while two other current Cup playoff drivers — Martin Truex Jr. (2005) and Denny Hamlin (2006) — also nabbed victories at the road course.

RELATED: Learn more about Mexico Series | 2024 NASCAR schedule

RFK Racing co-owner Brad Keselowski also competed in two of those Xfinity Series races, scoring an eighth-place finish in 2008. He emphasized the importance of change within NASCAR and bringing new ideas to the table.

“It’s different, and I appreciate the efforts that the sport is making to keep things fresh, but not just the schedule,” Keselowski said. “I think there’s always limits to what’s too far and what’s not too far. Sometimes, you don’t find those out until you live them, but that seems like a very reasonable thing to try.”

The Mexico Series event at the Clash will consist of 20 drivers. Pérez de Lara, Rubén García Jr., Salvador de Alba, Germán Quiroga, Max Gutiérrez, Alex De Alba (Challenge Series) and Ruben Rovelo (Championship Provisional 1) are among those who have already secured their spot in the race. Two of the guaranteed spots will be determined by a fan vote and a guest driver, who will be announced at a later date.

Kyle Larson said he will be paying attention to the event and stressed the importance of showing the fans the different brands of NASCAR that aren’t just the national series, which include the NASCAR Whelen Euro Series, Pinty’s Series (Canada), and Brasil Sprint Race that debuted this year.

“I obviously think it’s really good for the sport to show the diversity of the brand of NASCAR,” Larson said. “I also think it’s good for those drivers to showcase their brands and talents as well because I couldn’t name you a single driver from that series right now.

“We can tell when drivers have talent, and so can team owners. I think there’s a good opportunity for drivers to showcase their abilities, and who knows, it might propel them on down the road a little bit better, so I think it’s great, and it should be a good show.”

Posted on by Staff Report

Kyle Larson is scheduled to make the first on-track step toward his 2024 Indianapolis 500 bid on Thursday, participating in Rookie Orientation Program testing at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Larson, the 2021 NASCAR Cup Series champion, is set to test the Arrow McLaren/Hendrick Motorsports IndyCar entry for the first time from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. ET on the 2.5-mile track. The test, a requirement for entry, will involve three controlled sessions with progressively higher speeds at each phase — 10 laps between 205-210 mph, 15 laps at 210-215 mph and 15 laps faster than 215 mph.

RELATED: Larson’s Indy and 600 rides debut | 2024 NASCAR Cup Series schedule

Rookie orientation marks a preliminary checklist item for Larson’s aspirations of competing in two crown-jewel races on May 26, 2024. The project — dubbed the “Hendrick 1100” by the team — is set to include 500 miles in the Indianapolis classic before he travels to Charlotte Motor Speedway for the Coca-Cola 600, NASCAR’s longest race.

Larson is attempting to become the fifth driver to compete in both Memorial Day races. He was preceded in the endeavor by John Andretti, Tony Stewart, Robby Gordon and most recently, Kurt Busch in 2014.

Hendrick Motorsports team owner Rick Hendrick, vice chairman Jeff Gordon, and Arrow McLaren sporting director Tony Kanaan — the 2013 Indy 500 winner — are scheduled to attend Larson’s test.

Posted on by Zach Sturniolo

Carson Hocevar will move to the NASCAR Cup Series full time in 2024, becoming the driver of the No. 77 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet with a multiyear deal, the team announced Tuesday on FS1’s “NASCAR Race Hub.”

The 20-year-old Michigan native branched into the Cup Series this year, registering an average finish of 22.5 in six starts — one for Spire Motorsports at World Wide Technology Raceway and five in the No. 42 Chevrolet for Legacy Motor Club, netting a best finish of 11th at Bristol Motor Speedway.

MORE: All Hocevar stats | Spire purchases Kyle Busch Motorsports

“I mean, anybody in my position wants to be a Cup Series driver,” Hocevar said in a statement. “That’s what you dream about when you’re young. You want to race on Sundays. So, my opportunity to run a few times this year, to run on Sunday and get ready, I feel more than prepared to get in the No. 77 car with Spire.”

Hocevar is currently competing in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Playoffs as the third-year driver of Niece Motorsports’ No. 42 Chevrolet. The first of his three career wins came in April 2023 at Texas Motor Speedway, his breakthrough after four previous runner-up finishes.

His success in his full-time job continued through the regular season, and he scored wins at Nashville Superspeedway and Richmond Raceway before the postseason began. While he has yet to win through four playoff races this year, Hocevar has netted nine top-five finishes in his last 13 races, including a second-place finish in August at the Milwaukee Mile.

As a part-time driver in Cup, Hocevar has impressed in the No. 42 Chevrolet for Legacy Motor Club with four top 20s in five starts, the only exception coming at Talladega Superspeedway where he was involved in a late crash. The No. 42 car — piloted by Noah Gragson, Josh Berry and Mike Rockenfeller at various times — collected just three top-20 finishes this year in 26 races before Hocevar’s arrival.

“Carson Hocevar is a proven winner and excels with every opportunity,” Spire Motorsports co-owner Jeff Dickerson said. “He’s an undeniable talent and reminds me a lot of a young Kyle Busch and Brad Keselowski. We’re thrilled to have him join the Spire Motorsports family and help us continue to raise our competitive bar. Carson has driven the wheels off everything he’s ever raced and done more with less on multiple occasions. He has a knack for getting the most out of his equipment and that speaks directly to his desire behind the wheel. His attitude is infectious and he’s the kind of guy who’s just fun to be around. We think he’ll complement Corey and Zane very well.”

Hocevar correlates his on-track success to his extensive off-track work as a simulation driver for Chevrolet teams as the Next Gen vehicle entered Cup Series competition — his services utilized by Hendrick Motorsports and Trackhouse Racing ahead of his arrival at Legacy Motor Club.

“It’s similar to the truck,” Hocevar said Sept. 9 at Kansas Speedway. “That helps, but it’s more (that) I just have a lot of sim time in this thing. I started sim when the car was first introduced and I’ve been driving sim since, so I’ve seen how these cars build and develop and I bring a little bit of knowledge of what a real winning car should feel like.

“And when I ran Spire, they gave me the full access to rebuild that car and Legacy has given me the same thing. So I don’t want to toot my own horn — I’m not smart or anything and know the springs and shocks and all the everything — but I know what it’s supposed to feel like and I feel like for me to come in and elevate programs and help, it is more rewarding than just driving.”

Hocevar becomes teammates at Spire Motorsports with Corey LaJoie, who earlier this year signed a multiyear extension to remain driver of the team’s No. 7 Chevrolet.

“Corey and I have a great relationship,” Hocevar said. “Obviously, that’s going to exponentially grow when we spend day-to-day and week-on-week together, talking in the same meetings, working with the same people and same group, trying to pull the rope in the same direction. We’ve already started. He seems to have a lot of interest in what I’m doing, what my cars are driving like, and vice versa. We’ve started to compare driving notes a little bit. We talk about what each other is doing. I’m sure we’ll constantly be making ourselves go faster. There’s not a race within the shop, but we’ll work to make each other better.”

After Rockenfeller wheeled the car at the Charlotte road course, Hocevar will drive the No. 42 Chevrolet in each of the remaining four races of 2023, beginning on Sunday at Las Vegas Motor Speedway (2:30 p.m. ET, NBC, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App).

Posted on by Holly Cain

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — With the second round of the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs complete, the series moves west to the 1.5-mile Las Vegas Motor Speedway for Sunday’s penultimate round opener, the South Point 400 (2:30 p.m. ET on NBC, PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). A win in this round is a ticket to race for the 2023 championship.

A pair of former champions — Kyle Larson and Martin Truex Jr. — a highly motivated veteran in Denny Hamlin and five fast next-generation stars in six-race winner William Byron, Chris Buescher, Christopher Bell, Tyler Reddick  and Ryan Blaney bring in this next three-race round of competition to determine which four drivers will vie for the title Nov. 5 at Phoenix Raceway.

The Las Vegas oval has played host to five previous playoff races, with Joe Gibbs Racing teammates Hamlin (2021) and Truex (2019) the only two current playoff contenders to hoist a trophy. Truex’s two Vegas wins (also spring 2017) make him the only multi-race winner among the eight.

RELATED: Analysis: Byron primed as Round of 8 readies for launch | Las Vegas schedule

Byron, driver of the No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet and the current championship leader, won at Las Vegas this spring — leading a dominating 176 of the 271 laps but having to beat his teammate Larson in a wild overtime thriller. Larson (2021) is the only other playoff driver with a NASCAR Cup Series win at the track.

Reddick (2019) and Larson (2018) have Xfinity Series Vegas victories. And Reddick won the 2016 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race there, too.

It all sets up a compelling start to this playoff round. With the points reset, Byron goes into this stretch, including races at the 1.5-mile Homestead-Miami Speedway and the half-mile Martinsville Speedway — with a five-point edge on the Regular Season Champion Truex.

The 40-year-old Hamlin is only nine points behind the 23-year-old Byron, and Larson is 17 points back in what would be the fourth and final cut-off position for the Championship Race in Phoenix.

Chasing them is RFK Racing’s Chris Buescher, the three-race winner is only three points below Larson at the cutoff line. JGR’s Bell and 23XI Racing’s Reddick are tied, eight points back, and Team Penske’s Blaney is only 10 points below the transfer line, making this an extremely tight competition in this all-important playoff round.

Certainly, the 25-year-old Byron’s work this season — including those series-best, career-high six wins — has made him a favorite this weekend. He rallied to a runner-up finish at the Charlotte road course in last week’s second-round elimination race despite being under the weather — wrapping up a three-race round that included a win and a pair of second places. He heads west with a lot of well-deserved optimism with a pair of top-five finishes in the last three Las Vegas races.

“We’ve got to keep it rolling,” Byron said. “I’d like to do one-two-two in the next round. That would be ideal, but keep performing where we want to be.”

The two-time Vegas winner, Truex, has 14 top-10 finishes in 23 races — 11 of those top 10s have come in the last 12 races, making him a strong trophy pick this weekend. Hamlin has a similar record with top-10 finishes in nearly half (11) of his 23 starts and has only finished worse than 11th place once in the last six races at Las Vegas.

Larson is another good bet in Vegas with an amazing 10 top-10 finishes in 14 starts — a 71 percent showing — placing outside the top-10 only twice since 2017; the last time came in the 2022 Playoff race.

Four times in the last ten races, overtime has been necessary to decide the Las Vegas trophy, twice in the playoff race (2020 and 2018). Only three times in that 10-race span has the driver who led the most laps gone on to celebrate the win.

A victory this weekend is more than a really cool trophy; it’s a ticket to race for the NASCAR Cup Series Championship and a crucial head-start on preparation for that. In the last two seasons, Kyle Larson and Joey Logano won Las Vegas Playoff races and then went on to win the championship.

“It’s huge,” said Blaney, who has eight top-10 finishes there in 14 starts. “Just having that prep time for two weeks with nothing else on your mind. … It’s a huge advantage.

“Obviously, everyone is gunning to do it and try to win that one and move on, but it was massive for our group (Team Penske) last year, and it would be the same big advantage for any group if a Playoff car were to win next week at Vegas.

“I think Vegas has been a good place for us in the past,” Blaney added. “I feel like it’s been one of our best tracks as an organization. It’s something that whatever we do in general as a group kind of works for that place, and hopefully that applies this year.”

Posted on by Dustin Albino

When Kyle Busch found out that he and Adam Stevens were separating ahead of the 2021 NASCAR Cup Series season, Busch knew who he wanted to lead the No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing team.

Ben Beshore spent four seasons as the lead engineer for Busch. They had a dominant run, collecting 22 trophies and never missing the Championship 4 between 2015 and 2018. Beshore was also coming off two successful seasons as a NASCAR Xfinity Series crew chief, racking up eight victories.

“I really enjoyed Ben and liked him a lot as an engineer and as a crew chief, but more so as an engineer based on our results and the success that we had together,” Busch said. “We were unstoppable in 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018 and even through the first part of 2019. Then, we won [the championship] in 2019 as well, but then it fell off from there.

“Whether we got the full potential out of his team or me or not, there was a little bit of a disconnect when [Beshore] was the leader. It didn’t work as well as I would have hoped.”

RELATED: Ben Beshore’s crew chief statistics

Beshore called the shots during the final two seasons of Busch’s 15-year run with JGR. However, they scored just three victories and didn’t make it to the Championship 4 either year.

Although there were plenty of close calls — 22 top fives and 36 top 10s in their 68 races together between those seasons — it all came to a head when Busch failed to advance out of the Round of 16 in 2022, his lowest postseason finish.

“Having a couple of motor issues in the first round of the playoffs really set us back and knocked us out of the first round,” Beshore recalled. “That was disappointing last year, and 2021 with missing the final four by a couple of points and finishing second at Martinsville in that transfer race. There were just a lot of near misses and a lot of heartache for sure.”

Beshore also had to tune out Busch’s public contract talks and focus on the race team. Fortunately for the crew chief, he managed that, not believing it was a factor in the team’s dearth of success.

“I had a great group of guys that were all professional and put their best foot forward every week,” Beshore added. “We tried to put the best car we could underneath [Busch] and focus on the things we could control and keep our head down and work on your area of the car and block out the outside stuff.”

With Busch moving to Richard Childress Racing and Ty Gibbs’ promotion to Cup with veteran crew chief Chris Gayle, Beshore was on the outside looking in at JGR’s Cup operation. Over the offseason, he was paired with John Hunter Nemechek, who was returning to the Xfinity Series after two seasons in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series.

“We had a couple of phone calls towards the end of last year to talk it over, see what his goals were and what my goals were,” Beshore recalled. “That’s something that JGR does when there’s a little more turnover in the Xfinity Series than the Cup Series, as far as driver-crew chief lineups. They just see what chemistry meshes the best.”

MORE: Nemechek’s driver page

The No. 20 team had instant success to begin the 2023 Xfinity season. Nemechek was inches behind Austin Hill when a caution flew to end the season-opening race at Daytona International Speedway. The following week at Auto Club Speedway, Nemechek controlled the final stage en route to his first 2023 win.

Nemechek began the season with five straight top 10s before picking up his second win at Martinsville Speedway in early April. Although he didn’t find Victory Lane again until July, Nemechek went on a summer streak of three wins over five races between Atlanta Motor Speedway, New Hampshire Motor Speedway and Michigan International Speedway.

The pairing ended the regular season five points shy of the regular-season crown after leading 154 of 200 laps and scoring maximum points at Kansas Speedway.

Ben Beshore and John Hunter Nemechek embrace.
Sean Gardner | Getty Images

“I feel like at the start, [Beshore] and I had to figure out how to communicate with one another,” Nemechek said. “We are different people than what we had worked with in the past. We’re different personalities from what we worked with in the past.

“I have the trust in him that I’m going to tell him something and he’s going to go and try and fix it. I feel like Ben is older than he is age-wise, but he’s been around for a while. Being able to have a little bit of a younger mindset with Ben and having him come off the Cup Series the last two years working with KB, getting a lot of good information and feedback.”

MORE: Xfinity playoff standings | 2023 Xfinity schedule

Nemechek stamped his name into the Round of 8 by winning at Texas Motor Speedway in late September. The No. 20 enters the round with a 37-point cushion over the elimination line and goes to three of Nemechek’s best tracks on the circuit.

By most measures, Nemechek is the championship favorite, should the No. 20 team arrive at Phoenix still in championship contention. However, Beshore won’t put the pressure of having to win the championship on his team.

“I don’t think it’s championship or bust, but that’s the ultimate goal,” Beshore said. “With the pedigree of this team and organization, that’s what our sight is set on for sure.”

Following Phoenix, Nemechek will move to Legacy Motor Club, taking over the No. 42 Cup car full-time. Beshore hopes to return to the Cup Series himself, but first, the focus is on winning another NASCAR championship.

“This certainly wouldn’t have been my first choice if you asked me what I was going to be doing in 2023 at the start of 2022,” Beshore said. “There are some benefits to the Xfinity Series. It’s a little bit better for family balance, but would that have been my first choice at the time? Probably not.

“I would like another crack at the Cup Series again in the future, and hopefully that works out.”

Busch believes Beshore is a Cup-level crew chief, too.

“I feel like he’s a great crew chief,” Busch said. “He can do the job, and he’s good at it.”

Posted on by Staff Report

Legacy Motor Club announced Tuesday that NASCAR Hall of Famer Matt Kenseth has joined the organization as a competition adviser.

Kenseth’s appointment — effective immediately — comes in the team’s first season under the Legacy M.C. umbrella and in a transitional time. Team officials indicated that Kenseth will help assist in the operation’s switch from Chevrolet to Toyota in 2024, and he will serve as a mentor to Erik Jones and John Hunter Nemechek, who will round out the team’s NASCAR Cup Series driver roster next year.

RELATED: Key players in Silly Season | 2024 Cup Series schedule

Kenseth, 51, is a 39-time winner in Cup Series competition and reigned as the circuit’s 2003 champion. He will join forces with team co-owner Jimmie Johnson, the seven-time Cup champ who will follow the 2023 Hall of Fame inductee into NASCAR enshrinement next year.

“Jimmie and I have so much respect for each other as both competitors and friends – we are alike in many ways and at similar points in our careers,” Kenseth said in a news release provided by the team. “This is a great opportunity for me to be a resource for two extremely talented drivers and help on the racing operations side with this transition to Toyota. I’m really looking forward to seeing what we can accomplish together.”

Kenseth last competed in the Cup Series in 2020, the same season that Johnson ended his full-time racing career in NASCAR.  Johnson indicated that the two have remained close, and both have branched into marathon running in recent years. Kenseth ran the Boston Marathon in 2022, three years after Johnson completed the 26.2-mile distance.

“Not only is Matt an excellent driver and a fierce competitor, he’s also a great friend,” Johnson said in the Legacy M.C. release. “This alliance makes so much sense. Matt is extremely smart, has worked with Toyota while racing for Joe Gibbs Racing, and is still as competitive as ever. He’s a natural-born athlete and as fit as I have ever seen him. I’m so glad he is willing to share his knowledge and experience with us, and we look forward to all Matt has to offer.”

Legacy Motor Club emerged before the season from the merger of Richard Petty Motorsports and GMS Racing after Johnson was added to the ownership group last fall. Joey Cohen, Legacy M.C.’s vice president of racing operations, worked with Kenseth during their time together with team owner Jack Roush.

“Matt is going to help make this transition to Toyota smooth,” said Cohen, an engineer at Roush during Kenseth’s driving days there. “He is one of the best drivers out there, and even though he is no longer behind the wheel, his perspective and advice will be crucial heading into next season for both our drivers and crews.”

Posted on by Zach Sturniolo

CONCORD, N.C. — First, second and second. A Round of 12 average finish of 1.67. William Byron is acting every bit the part of a No. 1 seed entering the penultimate round of the postseason.

The Round of 8 in the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs is here — and so is Byron. A win at Texas Motor Speedway on Sept. 24 gave the No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports driver an additional five playoff points to his total tallies, creating separation from second-seeded Martin Truex Jr. ahead of the round reset.

And while only five markers separate the two competitors, their respective swings in momentum could not be more opposite.

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Byron capitalized on being in the right place at the right time in every Round of 12 race, riding a streak of seven top 10s in his last eight races dating back to his Aug. 20 win at Watkins Glen International. A six-time winner this year — tripling his previous career-best season win total — Byron pounced on a late-race restart in Fort Worth to charge past Chase Briscoe and Bubba Wallace in the closing laps to capture victory.

At Talladega Superspeedway, a third-place finish morphed to second when Kevin Harvick’s No. 4 Ford was disqualified for an issue regarding loosened windshield fasteners. Byron was quick at his hometown track in Charlotte on Sunday, but his average running position of 7.58 didn’t indicate a runner-up finish was in store for the No. 24 team. He found a way to pick through the field toward the finish, though, and was just 0.666 seconds shy of his seventh win of 2023.

“Just proud of the whole team. We definitely improved a lot as the race went on,” Byron said. “… Just good momentum. We’ve got to keep it rolling. I’d like to finish one-two-two in the next round, too. That would be ideal, but we just have to keep performing like this, and we’ll be where we want to be.”

On the other hand, Truex is struggling mightily by his standards. The 2017 Cup champion has won three races this year but hasn’t even finished inside the top 15 during the postseason — not since a sixth-place finish at Watkins Glen. His best finish in the six playoff races thus far? A 17th-place run at Texas.

The No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing team did enough to advance through the Round of 12 with finishes of 17th, 18th at Talladega and 20th at the Charlotte Motor Speedway road course.

“This track has just been a thorn in our side,” Truex said after Charlotte. “Feel good about moving on and feel good about what we can do the next three races. Some good tracks for us, and hopefully, we can get something going. It’s been a pretty tough playoffs so far.”

The playoff points accrued over the course of the regular season have cushioned Truex’s buffer to the elimination line in each round of the postseason. Three wins garnered five playoff points apiece for 15 total, accompanied by an additional 15 for winning the Regular Season Championship. Throw in six stage wins for an additional six, and Truex has had 36 total playoff points to lean on as they carry over from round to round.

“I didn’t create the system. We used it to our advantage. That won’t get us through the next one,” Truex said. “The next one, you’ve got to be running up front. Two winners of the next three races are probably going to be playoff guys that are still going. Need to turn it up, and we need to figure it out quickly.

“That’s the beauty, and that’s the thing that sucks about this deal, you know what I mean? I’m sure there’s guys that are upset. They outran us enough to get in, but they didn’t have the bonus points. It is what it is. I hate that we didn’t run better today or finish better, at least. I thought the first two stages, maybe our car was pretty decent, but, man, I don’t know what happened. Need to go back and look at that. It wasn’t much fun, but we made it, so here we go. We’ll try three more.”

As it stands, Byron enters the Round of 8 with a 20-point margin over the elimination line, with the next divide set to occur after races at Las Vegas Motor Speedway (Oct. 15), Homestead-Miami Speedway (Oct. 22) and Martinsville Speedway (Oct. 29). Following Martinsville, four drivers will ship to Phoenix Raceway (Nov. 5) to fight for the Cup championship. The other four will see their title hopes erased.

Denny Hamlin, left, and Tyler Reddick race in the NASCAR Cup Series at the Charlotte road course
Alejandro Alvarez | NASCAR Studios

Truex sits 15 points above that elimination line, with Denny Hamlin third (+11) and Kyle Larson fourth (+3). On the outside looking in are Chris Buescher (-3), Christopher Bell (-8), Tyler Reddick (-8) and Ryan Blaney (-10).

Hamlin led just three laps (all at Talladega) during the Round of 12 — a stark contrast from the Round of 16 in which he led 382 laps with finishes of 25th, second and first. Larson, who dominated the race at Homestead-Miami last year with 199 of 267 laps led, struggled through the Round of 12 after crashing out at Texas before midpack results at Talladega and the Charlotte road course, 15th and 13th respectively.

However, those two remain favorites to advance to the Championship 4. Results of fifth at Texas and third at Talladega propelled Hamlin forward, highlighting the speed the No. 11 Toyota has shown all year. Larson’s No. 5 team proved ever-resilient in Charlotte, where a practice crash led to a thrash two miles down the street at Hendrick Motorsports to prepare a worthy backup car. Team members worked until 3 a.m. ET Sunday morning to get the secondary vehicle ready. Their efforts paid off, and the 2021 Cup champion has a seemingly clear path to compete for title No. 2.

MORE: Larson crew chief Daniels on gritty Charlotte effort | Updated title odds

Buescher ended the 26-race regular season on a tear, winning three of the final five events (Michigan, Richmond, Daytona) to net a critical 15 Playoff Points. The speed he showed in Michigan could translate to strong runs at Las Vegas and Homestead, but his hill to climb into the Championship 4 isn’t as steep as others.

Bell is used to life beneath the elimination line but used walk-off victories a season ago, both in the Round of 12 and the Round of 8, winning at the Charlotte road course and at Martinsville to launch into the title round. His 2023 Round of 8 entry was far less dramatic, and he’ll hope to need less flair to advance to the title round for a second straight season.

Reddick impressed with a late charge at Kansas Speedway in September to score the victory at the 1.5-mile tri-oval on a late-race restart. Vegas sets up similarly to Kansas and could play in his favor — as could Homestead, another 1.5-mile oval where he’s finished inside the top five twice in three starts.

Blaney enters at the worst deficit but perhaps with the sneakiest path to the Championship 4. This year marks the third consecutive season — and fifth overall — that Blaney has qualified for the Round of 8. Last year, strong runs at Vegas and Homestead were derailed by mistakes that saw the No. 12 Team Penske Ford spin in consecutive weeks. But he has performed well at both in the past — and his 9.5 average finish at Martinsville is his best anywhere in the Cup Series. And oh, by the way — he’s also finished second in each of the last two races at Phoenix.