It is hard to remember the last time there was such a drastic dominance in one qualifying group compared to the other. Joey Logano posted the second slowest lap in Group B, yet ranked 23rd in the final rundown, better than 12 cars from Group A. When all was said and done, Tyler Reddick earned his first pole while driving for 23XI Racing at a track where he typically has had little success.
Dustin Albino’s race-day lineup: Starter 1: Denny Hamlin Starter 2: Martin Truex Jr. Starter 3: Kevin Harvick Starter 4: William Byron Starter 5: Kyle Busch Garage pick: Christopher Bell
NEXT IN LINE: Tyler Reddick, Chase Elliott, Kyle Larson, Bubba Wallace.
RISING: With how Busch’s first year with Richard Childress Racing has gone on short tracks, it can overshadow his tenacity on short tracks. He is a six-time Richmond winner and said following his qualifying run that he felt good about his car this weekend. That could be scary for the competition because the No. 8 team has thrown everything but the kitchen sink in — maybe that, too — to figure out its short-track program. Something seems to be working this weekend. Busch will start second.
Despite it being just Reddick’s fourth year of competition at the Cup level, it is hard to believe he has not even led a lap yet on a short track. His stats at Richmond are not pretty, having never cracked the top 10 in the finishing order. Alas, Reddick will lead the field to the green flag and could finally lead his first lap at Richmond. One cause for concern is the No. 45 Toyota seemed to fall off on the long run.
FALLING: Richmond has been a track where drivers can utilize all racing grooves up to the wall. Logano will need that as he will start the 400-lap race from 23rd starting position on Sunday. He is the only driver to fall out of my lineup from earlier this week. Having no track position at the start could be a small hindrance and cost the No. 22 team stage points.
The same thing could be said for Christopher Bell, who qualified even worse in 29th. However, Joe Gibbs Racing had the best pace of all teams, which is typical at Richmond. I’m confident that Adam Stevens will figure out the No. 20 car and Bell will make a hard charge in the race. He has an average finish of 5.7 in six starts.
FEATURED MATCHUPS
Austin Dillon vs. Tyler Reddick: Over the last handful of years, Richmond has become one of the best stops on the circuit for Dillon. Entering the weekend, the No. 3 team had the upper hand in qualifying and was quicker off the hauler during practice. Sunday has the potential to be a breakout run for Reddick on a short track, and I would consider using him for your lineup.
Denny Hamlin vs. Kyle Larson: The No. 11 team’s speed in practice might look concerning, given Hamlin ranked 34th. But considering he did not hit the track until more than five minutes had passed in his group, that was not bad. And it was by design, knowing more heat in the track would suit better for race conditions. Larson will likely be good, as he won in April at Richmond, and the No. 5 team has had a good short-track program in 2023. Leaning on Hamlin’s consistency at Richmond this weekend, as he has an average finish of 8.7 across 33 starts.
Corey LaJoie vs. Ryan Preece: Richmond is not one of LaJoie’s best tracks on the schedule, with a best finish of 21st in 11 starts (twice). Preece has made his living at winning on short tracks and dominated the first third of the Martinsville race earlier this year. The 11th-place starting spot for Preece is his best since Martinsville, so I would advise taking the No. 41 car.
Christopher Bell vs. Kevin Harvick: Saturday had a Kevin Harvick feel to it. He’s familiar with Richmond’s Victory Lane, as the 0.75-mile short track is the track he’s won at most recently. Harvick had better long-run speed than Bell as well, so I’m leaning in his direction. As noted earlier, I do believe there is potential with the No. 20 car, should the team find the correct setup.
RICHMOND, Va. — Matt Crafton’s bid for the final berth in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Playoffs field bore fruit Saturday at Richmond Raceway, and he converted on a night where he merely needed to hold serve. A nothing-flashy performance did the job at the expense of fellow veteran Stewart Friesen, the first driver out.
Crafton gathered up a seventh-place finish in Saturday’s Worldwide Express 250, the regular-season finale that determined the 10-driver playoff grid. The effort was enough to unofficially clear the elimination line by 39 points, ensuring the ThorSport Racing driver will have a shot at a fourth series championship in the seven races that follow.
“We definitely earned it today, and we did everything to give it away throughout the year,” Crafton said. “I mean, from getting run over by our teammate (Hailie Deegan) in Texas (at Circuit of The Americas) earlier this year. I finished running like 10th and finished 32nd. There was so many different things, had electrical issues, and we blew all of our feet off, and luckily, we got where we are today and had a shot, to be honest.”
Crafton qualified eighth for the 250-lapper, providing his No. 88 ThorSport Racing Ford with a 15-position edge over Friesen at the green flag. He stayed steady throughout and used finishes of fifth and seventh at the stage breaks to pad 10 points onto his season total.
Friesen, who entered the race with a nine-point deficit in the standings, started 23rd in his No. 52 Halmar Friesen Racing Toyota and struggled to make hay in the early going. He dropped one lap down on Lap 48 and slipped to 26th place by the end of Stage 1, 22 laps later. Friesen moved to 20th place by the end of Stage 2 but just missed out on being the beneficiary of the race’s third caution for Justin Carroll’s looping spin.
The free pass instead went to Deegan, forcing Friesen to stay out during the Stage 2 intermission to take a wave-around to get back on the lead lap. Without fresh tires, he dropped back to one lap down early in the final stage and lost another lap to the leader midway through. He wound up three laps down in 27th by the end and remarked post-race: “We brought a dull knife to a gunfight tonight.”
“All of it,” said Friesen when asked about the battles with his truck’s balance. “I don’t know. We were in the wrong league tonight, that’s for sure.”
Friesen lamented the misfortune he’d encountered over the last month in an abrasive transmission over the No. 52 team radio. The most recent sting was a late-race crash last weekend at Pocono Raceway, where he absorbed his worst finish of the season in 32nd, but he indicated that the hardships went beyond that.
“Oh, yeah,” said Friesen. “We’ve had hauler problems, the dirt mod fuel pressure the other night, trailer broke down, flights canceled, we were a quarter-truck away from getting the lucky dog tonight when the caution comes out. … I’ve been in this thing a long time, and it’s frustrating, you know. But that’s how it goes.”
At the other end of the playoff picture, Corey Heim clinched the Regular Season Championship trophy early on, finishing third in Stage 1 to seal an insurmountable lead in the Craftsman Truck Series standings. The 21-year-old driver headed the standings despite missing last month’s race at World Wide Technology Raceway with illness.
Heim led briefly for nine laps and ultimately finished sixth Saturday night at Richmond, and he enters the seven-race postseason as a two-time winner. He’ll begin his quest for the big year-end trophy in the playoff opener Aug. 11 at Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park (9 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), clinging to an eight-point advantage over defending series champ Zane Smith.
“I would certainly say so,” Heim said when asked if he was among the early title favorites. “We’ve been about the most consistent these last two or three months. If we can carry that into the playoffs, we will be tough to beat. Definitely have to improve on tonight, but it’s a different track – unique. We’ve got a couple more short tracks coming up, and I think we will be good.”
RICHMOND, Va. – Carson Hocevar’s race started in the pits with a flat tire even before the green flag for Saturday night’s Worldwide Express 250 at Richmond Raceway and ended with a celebration in Victory Lane.
The 20-year-old driver of the No. 42 Niece Motorsports Chevrolet passed the night’s most dominant driver Ty Majeski with only four laps remaining thanks to pit road strategy and a fast Chevy Silverado to claim his third win of the season by 2.308 seconds over Majeski.
“We didn’t come here to run second,’’ Hocevar said, adding, “I knew we had to do something different and new tires prevailed.’’
Corey Heim officially became the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series 2023 Regular Season Champion with a third-place finish in the opening stage. The 21-year old driver of the No. 11 Tricon Garage Toyota will start the seven-race playoff portion of the season with an important 15-point bonus thanks to an incredible run to the regular-season title that included a pair of wins. He finished sixth on Saturday, his series-best 13th top-10 finish in 16 races.
“It really means a lot,’’ Heim said. “With Tricon Garage and Toyota Racing coming such a long way from the beginning of the year. I really felt like we had a lot of progress to make in the first four or five weeks and we’ve really been improving ever since.
“Tonight, it was a rough night at Richmond. It is kind of a unique race track. On the normal tracks, we’ve been really consistent. Still a good finish for us, but definitely want to do better leading into the playoffs.”
After earning his second pole position of the season, Majeski absolutely dominated so much of the race, sweeping both stage wins for the first time in his career and leading an impressive 168 of the 250 laps in the No. 98 ThorSport Racing Ford. His truck was so good Saturday that he even overcame a mid-race pit stop speeding penalty to regain the lead late race and try to hold off Hocevar. Majeski stayed out while Hocevar pit for tires with 40 laps remaining, however, and was ultimately unable to hold off the fresh tires in the closing laps.
“Just didn’t have enough there,’’ a frustrated Majeski said. “Obviously made a mistake there, speeding on pit road but we had a chance to win even with the penalty. It’s just so disappointing. I don’t know if I’ve ever had a dominant vehicle that much faster than the field and to not win with it is so hard.
“But we have fast race trucks and we’ll make a run at the playoffs,’’ he added.
The playoff field – in points order – includes Heim; 2022 series champion Zane Smith, who finished third at Richmond; Hocevar; Christian Eckes; Grant Enfinger; Majeski; 2021 series champion Ben Rhodes; rookie Nick Sanchez; Matt DiBenedetto; and three-time series champion Matt Crafton.
Stewart Friesen came into the race ranked 11th, trailing Crafton by nine points, but Friesen’s No. 52 Halmar Friesen Racing Chevrolet had a disappointing qualifying run – 23rd – and never really mounted a challenge forward on Saturday. He finished 27th.
“We brought a dull knife to a gunfight tonight,’’ a disappointed Friesen said.
Hocevar led 64 laps on the evening – moving into the lead position while Majeski was recovering from his pit-road penalty.
“We passed every single truck here, the 98 (Majeski) was the class of the field but I thought we were second and won with the second-best truck because I have the first-best pit crew and first-best crew chief on the box,’’ Hocevar said.
“I just love it,’’ he added.
Rookie Jake Garcia and Matt Mills rounded out the top five at Richmond. Heim finished sixth, followed by Crafton, Sanchez, Enfinger and 16-year old William Sawalich making only his third series start.
The 2023 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Playoffs begin on Aug. 11 with the TSport 200 at Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park (9 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Enfinger is the defending race winner.
Note: Post-race technical inspection concluded without issue at Richmond, confirming Hocevar’s third victory of the 2023 season.
Matt Crafton claimed the final playoff spot over Stewart Friesen.
The Round of 10 begins Aug. 11 at Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park (9 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). The opening round will continue at the Milwaukee Mile on Aug. 27 in what will be the circuit’s first contest at the track since 2009. The Round of 8 will conclude at Kansas Speedway on Sept. 8, where two drivers will be eliminated from championship contention. The Round of 8 will consist of Bristol Motor Speedway (Sept. 14), Talladega Superspeedway (Sept. 30) and Homestead Miami Speedway (Oct. 21).
The championship race will be held at Phoenix Raceway on Nov. 3.
The 10 drivers listed below make up the playoff field. The field includes three former champions: Zane Smith (defending champion), Ben Rhodes (2021) and Matt Crafton (2013, 2014, 2019).
RICHMOND, Va. — Michael McDowell and Todd Gilliland, Front Row Motorsports’ two incumbent Cup Series drivers, said this weekend that their future with the organization hasn’t been determined, but that their 2024 plans should materialize soon.
The two drivers offered their perspectives Saturday at Richmond Raceway, on the eve of Sunday’s Cook Out 400 (3 p.m. ET, USA Network, NBC Sports App, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Five races remain before the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs field is set, and the veteran McDowell currently clings to the provisional 16th and final berth.
McDowell’s performance in Front Row’s No. 34 Ford has been the in-house leader on the Cup Series side for the Bob Jenkins-owned operation, which now has three drivers on a modest rise. Gilliland, 23, has shown more pluck and consistency in his second Cup Series season with the No. 38 Ford team, and the organization also fields Craftsman Truck Series entries for 24-year-old Zane Smith, who won the tour’s championship last year and has come back strong in his title defense.
Smith seems destined for a Cup Series ride in the nearer rather than later future, and Front Row has added him to the premier-series roster for six races this season in the No. 38 — splitting time with Gilliland. How all three pieces may fit next year is what Gilliland called a good problem to have.
“I mean, I think this is a position that Front Row has never been in, honestly though,” Gilliland said. “I feel like with three of us that they feel are capable of putting in their Cup cars and doing well, so I think to me that it’s cool to see them in that position. So I’d say maybe not … it’s a little stressful sometimes being three that feel like you’re going for two seats, but I feel at home. I’ve been there for four years, and yeah, just definitely hoping that we can get something figured out.”
McDowell, who has been with Front Row since 2018, acknowledged that his destination for next season still has some uncertainty. He said that his mind has been primarily occupied with the pursuit of the second postseason berth of his career, sitting just plus-17 above the provisional elimination line.
“I really haven’t thought a whole lot about it,” McDowell said. “Part of it is, it’s not up to me. I’m not sitting there with choices, and I get to make the choice. So to me, I’m just trying to do my job every week and get the best results as we can to get in the playoffs. But the time is coming soon, so we’ll see how it all shakes out.”
Gilliland also is on an upward trajectory, making incremental gains in his sophomore Cup Series season and noting that “it’s nice that we’re having talks now rather than November, December.” He ranks 24th in points, but his statistical markers have shown some improvement over his rookie campaign.
“Overall, I feel like I’m in a much better position this year in general of just like, my name is in more talks,” Gilliland said, “and I feel like I’m a more viable option for more people.”
RICHMOND, Va. — Martin Truex Jr. has become accustomed to anticipating the speculation about his future in the NASCAR Cup Series. Saturday, the 43-year-old veteran gave a pre-emptive answer before the question could even be asked.
Truex enters Sunday’s Cook Out 400 (3 p.m. ET, USA, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App) as the Cup Series points leader and a three-time winner at Richmond Raceway. He’s also found Victory Lane three times this year, and after the most recent trip — at New Hampshire Motor Speedway — he noted he was “bad at making big decisions” both about his racing career as the driver of Joe Gibbs Racing’s No. 19 Toyota and a big-ticket purchase of a saltwater boat.
Saturday at Richmond, Truex said he’d bought the boat, a mid-size vessel that’s helped him with his recent run on catching tuna. The other resolution remains undetermined.
“I’m not sure, honestly. I’ll figure it out pretty soon,” Truex said, adding later about the gravity of the decision: “It’s not an easy one, I can promise you that. Yeah, it’s a tough one to figure out.”
Truex weighed this decision heavily last year as well, announcing on June 24 that he would return to the No. 19 team for the 2023 season, saying, “The competitive side of me said I’m not done, and I’m going to keep fighting, so here we are.” Truex has acknowledged that his timetable is growing shorter by the week, and he also noted after his New Hampshire victory that this year’s success has not made a huge difference in his decision.
David Wilson, president of Toyota Racing Development (TRD) USA, said earlier this week that he’s providing Truex with as much runway as he needs to make his choice. Truex’s 2017 championship and 32 of his 34 Cup Series victories have come with Toyota, and he has been associated with Joe Gibbs Racing — either as with the team or an affiliate — since 2016.
Wilson noted that there are drivers in the Toyota development program who could potentially get a Cup Series call-up in the event that Truex elects to retire but that the decision will rest with the driver.
“I listened to an interview that Coach Gibbs gave to SiriusXM yesterday morning, and Coach was pretty candid in saying that he’s happy to give Martin as much time as he needs. That’s really a reflection on his respect for Martin, how valuable we view Martin in this partnership that we have. … We do have a pipeline and that’s one of the reasons why we have a pipeline. And of course in the background, as you expect, we’re also doing a lot of contingency planning because we have to be prepared regardless of what happens. We all know what we want to happen, but life isn’t that clean and pretty in many cases.”
Sam Mayer took a dramatic double-overtime victory in Saturday’s Road America 180 at the Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin, road course. The 20-year-old from Franklin, Wisconsin, claimed his first career NASCAR Xfinity Series victory, climbed onto his driver’s side window and pulled apart his fire suit like Superman to a happy and familiar crowd.
Mayer’s win in the No. 1 JR Motorsports Chevrolet made him the 14th different driver to take the trophy at Road America in as many NASCAR Xfinity Series races there. He is the sixth different driver to earn his first career win at the 4.048-mile track and the fourth different driver to claim his first series trophy in 2023.
“It was just about getting track position,’’ Mayer said of the frantic second overtime start that featured door-to-door racing among the top four cars. “We got it there at the end, I lost it for a second and then all hell broke loose there at the end, and we ended up on top,’’ Mayer said. “This team, it’s so special to get that first win, that monkey off your back. It feels so good.”
Mayer led only the final two laps, jolting to the lead after JR Motorsports teammate Justin Allgaier and Sage Karam jostled for the top spot on the penultimate lap. Allgaier, who won the opening two stages and led 42 laps, spun in Turn 8 after Mayer and Sage Karam had passed him. Karam momentarily led with Parker Kligerman second, but Karam went wide in Turn 13 and Kligerman the same in Turn 14, allowing Mayer to take the lead coming to the white flag en route to the win.
Kligerman finished second ahead of Karam, Austin Hill and Riley Herbst. Josh Berry, Kaz Grala, Josh Bilicki, AJ Allmendinger and Brandon Jones completed the top 10. Allgaier finished 18th.
“It was a great race all around,’’ said Karam, who earned his first career top five in his seventh start of the season. “The last restart was very aggressive. I just had to get to the lead and had a good move on Allgaier, it was really aggressive and got three-wide. I can’t thank Sam Hunt Racing enough.”
The race was first sent into NASCAR Overtime when Connor Mosack’s No. 19 laid fluid on the race track from an expired motor before stopping on track unable to continue at Lap 45.
A pileup with four laps remaining in regulation took out several top contenders in Turn 5. Under braking, Berry’s No. 8 Chevrolet broke traction and contacted Sammy Smith, spinning him left into Allmendinger’s door and sending the two spinning. In their slide, they collected second-place driver Cole Custer, destroying the rear suspension on the No. 00 Ford, which won two road races earlier this season.
Kaulig Racing’s Allmendinger, who set an Xfinity Series track record in qualifying en route to the pole position on Friday, voiced concerns about his brakes as well as electrical issues all afternoon. His teammate, however, faced the most extreme problem for the team all day.
Chandler Smith appeared to suffer a brake failure entering Turn 1 at Lap 21. Upon realizing he had no braking power, Smith veered left to the outside wall to avoid a head-on impact at the end of the frontstretch. The hit resulted in damage to his No. 16 Chevrolet, but Smith walked from the car under his own power and was subsequently evaluated and released from the infield care center.
“I was definitely having some brake fade throughout the run, but I didn’t think I was abusing them by any means to make them fail,” Smith said. “I was going up the hill on the front straight and I heard something snap and I felt something come off the car and the whole front nose just dropped and when that happened, I was like, ‘What in the world was was that?’
“I went to pump the brakes but there was nothing there,” he added, “I was just trying to scrub speed at that point.”
Alex Labbe appeared to incur a similar issue at Lap 39, when his No. 08 car suddenly began smoking on entry to Turn 1. Labbe steered right in attempt to slow his vehicle but the car carried straight into the sand trap, contacting the Turn 1 tire barrier nose-first. Labbe climbed from the car and laid on the ground briefly before walking to the AMR safety vehicle. He was later evaluated and released from the infield care center.
The NASCAR Xfinity Series returns to competition next Saturday in the Cabo Wabo 250 at Michigan International Speedway (3:30 p.m. ET, NBC, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Note: Post-race inspection in the Xfinity Series garage at Road America concluded without issue, confirming Mayer as the race winner.
RICHMOND, Va. — One week and a host of podcast proclamations later, Denny Hamlin said he’s spoken with Kyle Larson after their late-race clash last weekend at Pocono Raceway, sparing the intimate details of their back-and-forth, but generally saying, “I thought it went good.”
Hamlin drove away to his 50th NASCAR Cup Series victory last week after his contentious contest for the lead with Larson, bolstering his Hall of Fame-caliber credentials and firming up his playoff bona fides with the personal milestone. He arrives this weekend for a homecoming at Richmond Raceway, the site of Sunday’s Cook Out 400 (3 p.m. ET, USA, MRN, SiriusXM, NBC Sports App).
Six days later, Hamlin’s move — a drifting path that his No. 11 Toyota cut through Turn 1 that crowded Larson’s No. 5 Chevrolet into the outside retaining wall — was still being dissected, with the jury still out on whether the move was fair or foul, and whether the circuit’s recent trend toward more aggressive driving was fueled by the stakes, the Next Gen car’s aero character and give, or a generational divide from the NASCAR garage’s old guard vs. the new school.
Hamlin and Larson had aired out their sides in post-race interviews and their podcast platforms, and the two shared texts Friday. Hamlin said he preferred an in-person meeting, but Larson said, “I didn’t feel like there was a reason to meet up because we were just going to agree to disagree and probably get more frustrated with him and I’m sure vice versa, he’d probably be frustrated with me afterward.”
Hamlin was asked Saturday if he would make the same move again, and he hedged, saying the decision was “split-second.” Milestones for the driver (50 wins and a record seventh at Pocono) and manufacturer (Toyota’s 600th NASCAR national series victory) were up for grabs, and Hamlin basked in those achievements as much as he did the jeers from the Pocono partisans.
Hamlin has had aggressive racing on his resume through the years but redoubled his dedication to that style after a series of heavily publicized run-ins with rival Ross Chastain. The 42-year-old driver pointed to those mounting incidents as a tipping point.
“Certainly, I was very vocal that I need to do something, I need to do something,” Hamlin said. “At the time, the scales were like three to nothing. I was very frustrated. My team was very frustrated at me for not doing anything. The mindset has just changed. You have to put it out there that you are going to be aggressive. I think if a guy is going to run into you, you are going to run right back into him. That’s the way I’ve got to change things from this point forward because, for the most part, it has been tough results for us at the end of races, especially the last three years.
“I’ve been spun out of the lead three times. That’s really, really tough, so I just said it’s time to be more aggressive. Certainly, hate that it came at Kyle’s expense, for sure. If there is anyone that I should protect, it’s those guys and my teammates. The win just meant a lot to me at the time. I made an attempt to pass him, and it didn’t happen the way I intended, for sure.”
Hamlin had executed a similar pass for an apparent win a year earlier at Pocono, with Chastain being the foil in that spot. Last week’s incident had a familiar feel, but Larson said he thought his treatment from an off-track buddy might be different.
“I would say I wasn’t surprised because he made the exact same move work last year with Ross, a driver who he does not respect — who he shouldn’t respect, at least in that point back then,” Larson said. “So I knew the opportunity was there for him to pull that move. I was more concerned about at the restart before me restore my inside, but even when I got the good push on the frontstretch, I was knowing or thinking that, yeah, if he gets inside, he’s probably just going to do what he did last year because it worked. But I thought I was hoping I guess, maybe because of all the times he’s wrecked me and our friendship off track, he’d maybe have a little bit more respect for me on the track, but then he pulled the same exact, same move. I guess don’t … whatever.”
Jonathan Bachman | Getty Images
Hamlin’s post-race defense was built on declaring that the two cars never touched, but several drivers agreed that the Next Gen car’s side-by-side aero characteristics can cause a driver to lose control with packed air almost as easily as with contact. The previous-generation car — which was phased out after the 2021 season — made racing on the inside of another car more treacherous; the current-gen car has reversed that.
“It’s so backwards to what it used to be with this car compared to the other car,” said Ryan Blaney. “You used to be scared to death to be in the inside car with a car tight on your right-side door, you’d spin out. And now the advantage is flipped to the inside car. If you get close to the outside car, you make them extremely tight, and you can put guys in bad spots of getting on their left-side door pretty early (in the) exit of the corner to get them out of position. And then you just lift and turn left and say, ‘Well, I gave ’em a lane,’ when you kind of already had that guy in a bad spot to begin with. But that’s just part of the game.”
If there is contact, there’s less penalty with the current Cup Series racer in terms of damage. The Next Gen car’s composite-body construction has shown more durability than the previous vehicle’s sheet metal.
“I mean, it is definitely different in this particular car just because you can get away with so much more damage,” said Kevin Harvick, the defending race winner this weekend. “Well, you can have less damage because you can just use it like a battering ram, so you definitely have to be more aggressive, and passing is just different. So when you have the opportunity, you have to try to capitalize on it in that particular instance.”
With cars being closer, Hamlin said that the veteran driver corps have had to adapt to more take and less give. He invoked the name of a previous-generation NASCAR Hall of Famer known for hard but fair racing as an example of how driving styles once were.
“Even Mark Martin would have to adjust his style in this type of car because the days of the gentleman letting the guys go and you will just go and get them later – it’s just a different game these days,” Hamlin said. “I wish we could go back to those days, but that is not where we are at. You have to adapt to where you are at. You adapt, or you die. Certainly, I feel like over the last few years, I’ve decided to be more aggressive because I’ve got used up by aggressive, and it is hard to blame them at the time – especially in a race-winning situation.”
There’s also the question of upbringing and how the current crop of young drivers have adopted a brash on-track attitude. Harvick says he’s seen that first-hand with his 11-year-old son, Keelan, who is forging his own path in the developmental racing ranks.
“I think everybody’s taught differently from the very beginning,” Harvick said. “I’ve watched it all the way through with everything that Keelan has done at this particular point, and it’s rough. Like, it’s much more aggressive than how we grew up racing, for sure. That’s how you teach ’em, and I teach my son to do the exact same thing. So you know, it’s just the style and the nature of how they’re taught to race, and it’s just evolving into all the way to the top now. So it’s no different than these guys have raced since they were young kids, and it’s just much more aggressive than what we were brought up racing because it’s just a different style of racing.”
All those factors stack up, suggesting that the confrontation that came to a head at Pocono wasn’t all on Hamlin. Even drivers who have a history with the Pocono winner seem to agree that those run-ins are now part of the environment.
“I’m not surprised in general, I think, just regardless of who it is,” said Chase Elliott, who famously squared off with Hamlin at Martinsville Speedway in 2017. “It just seems like that’s just kind of the world we live in now. And yeah, that’s just however much each individual is willing to put up with is kind of up to them, I guess.”
See where your favorite driver will pit during Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series Cook Out 400 at Richmond Raceway (3 p.m. ET, USA, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App).
Tyler Reddick earned his first Busch Light Pole Award of the season — and first with his new team, 23XI Racing — Saturday afternoon with a lap of 113.669 mph in the No. 45 23XI Racing Toyota at Richmond Raceway.
Reddick will lead the field to green for Sunday’s Cook Out 400 (3 p.m. ET, USA Network, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App) after winning his fifth career Cup Series pole in 132 starts. Richard Childress Racing’s Kyle Busch will join Reddick on the front row.
“I’m really excited to be on the pole for the first time this year with 23XI,” Reddick said. “We’ve been really strong when we’ve had the opportunities to qualify this year, and it is nice to get that first pole as a team.”
The Californian Reddick, 27, who has a win already this year at the Circuit of The Americas road course, was especially pleased to notch his first pole position for his new team. And with Toyota winning three of the last six races — including the last two — he’s optimistic about his chances come Sunday.
“I feel like we’ve been really strong since the year started,’’ Reddick said. “We had the speed and were kind of giving away the races and opportunities, and all of us have done a better job of executing and closing out those races and getting those wins.’’
Denny Hamlin, Chase Elliott and Bubba Wallace rounded out Saturday’s top five qualifiers.
Denny Hamlin was the fastest in Group A qualifying at 114.606 mph, with William Byron, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Wallace and Elliott also advancing to the final round of qualifying.
Kevin Harvick was the fastest in Group B at 115.587 mph, with Martin Truex Jr., Ty Gibbs, Reddick and Busch also advancing.
Reddick scrubbed the outside retaining wall in Group B qualifying and scraped the right-rear and right-front quarter panels in the No. 45 Toyota.
“We will look it over and see; if there is anything super concerning, we will have to address that,” Reddick said of the damage. “We will just see how it goes.”
There are five more races left in the regular season. Truex leads Byron by 30 points in the battle for the regular-season championship. AJ Allmendinger is the first driver beneath the playoff elimination line, 17 points behind Michael McDowell.
PRACTICE RECAP
William Byron from Group A posted the fastest lap from Saturday’s practice at Richmond (117.101 mph). Meanwhile, Tyler Reddick led Group B at 113.804 mph as the field split in half for two 20-minute sessions.
Chase Elliott, Chris Buescher and Erik Jones — all in Group A — also were among the fastest cars as drivers prepared for Sunday’s race in Virginia.
Byron also showed the most speed over a 10-lap interval at 113.740 mph. Aric Almirola, Bubba Wallace, Buescher and Elliott rounded out the top five in 10-lap averages.
Kevin Harvick, in the No. 4 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford, ran over a piece of debris in Turn 4 late in Group B practice, and his team was examining the underside of the car afterward.
