The NASCAR Xfinity Series returns to competition after an off week with some interesting dynamics heading into Saturday’s SRS Distribution 250 (1:30 p.m. ET on FS1, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
There are no full-time NASCAR Xfinity Series drivers with a series win at the 1.5-mile Texas high banks this weekend. Two-time NASCAR Cup Series champion Kyle Busch is the defending race winner — collecting his 99th Xfinity Series victory last spring. John Hunter Nemechek, who is competing for the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series title this season, won the 2021 Xfinity playoff race in Texas.
Current championship leader AJ Allmendinger started on pole position and finished in sixth place in both races in 2022 — an interesting nod to his No. 16 on the Kaulig Racing Chevrolet. He is the only driver with top-10 finishes in all 11 races this season and holds a 25-point advantage over JR Motorsports driver Noah Gragson coming to Fort Worth, Texas.
Gragson, who drives the No. 9 JR Motorsports Chevrolet, has a pair of wins on the year and finished fourth or better in the last three races — including a victory at Talladega Superspeedway. He was runner-up to Ty Gibbs at the first 1.5-mile race this year at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. His best work at Texas is a runner-up in the 2020 playoff race.
Gibbs, the 19-year-old driver of the No. 54 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota, will be making his Texas driving debut. He already has wins at both the 1.5-mile tracks the series has competed on this year, and his 349 laps led is top among all drivers. Gibbs last win came April 2 at Richmond Raceway.
Veteran Justin Allgaier is the most recent Xfinity Series winner taking the trophy at Darlington Raceway two weeks ago. He was runner-up at Dover Motor Speedway the race before that, giving him a momentum swing. He was runner-up to Busch at this Texas race last spring, and in 23 starts at Texas, Allgaier has 12 top-10 finishes. His 193 laps led at Texas are the most among the championship contenders.
The last three Xfinity Series races have been won by JR Motorsports drivers — Gragson (Talladega), Josh Berry (Dover) and Allgaier (Darlington). A fourth consecutive win by the team this week with its fourth full-time entry — Sam Mayer — would mark the first time in series history a team has won four consecutive races with four different drivers. A win by any JR Motorsports driver would make the team only the fourth in series history to win four consecutive races. Joe Gibbs Racing holds the record with six straight wins in the spring of 2008.
Reigning Xfinity Series champion Daniel Hemric may be poised to snap out of a rather lackluster title defense season at Texas. The 31-year-old Kaulig Racing driver is looking for his first win of the year and holds a slim 22-point edge on Anthony Alfredo in 12th place in the standings. He has been strong at Texas, however, with four top-10 finishes in six series starts there, including a career-best runner-up to Nemechek in this race last fall.
Not to be overlooked, series rookie Sheldon Creed and driver Jeb Burton both have NASCAR Camping World Truck Series victories at Texas. And rookie Austin Hill — who already has a win this season — has three top-five Truck Series finishes at Texas, including a runner-up in 2020.
Special this weekend, NASCAR Cup Series driver William Byron will be making his first NASCAR Xfinity Series start in the No. 88 JRM Chevrolet — his first series start since his 2017 Xfinity Series championship season.
It’s a good bet that John Hunter Nemechek will be sporting a big smile when he returns to Texas Motor Speedway for Friday’s SpeedyCash.com 220 (8:30 p.m. ET on FS1, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Nemechek is the defending winner of the track’s Camping World Truck Series race and won an Xfinity Series race at the Fort Worth 1.5-miler last season. He trails Truck Series championship leader and reigning series champion Ben Rhodes by 20 points in a tightly contested run for the 2022 regular-season title.
The top three drivers — Rhodes, Nemechek and three-race winner Zane Smith are separated by only 21 points. Chandler Smith is in fourth place in the driver standings, only 29 points back from the lead.
Zane Smith arrives in the Lone Star State after a dominating victory last weekend in Kansas, leading 108 of the 134 laps. Smith is the only multi-time winner in the series this year and brings a solid Texas resume to the track this weekend, featuring top-10 finishes in all three previous starts there.
In fact, Rhodes, Nemechek and Zane Smith all boast top-three finishes at Texas — Rhodes was runner-up in 2018, Nemechek won in 2021 and Zane Smith was third in 2020.
With Smith’s three-win tally this season and only three other full-time drivers winning a race — Rhodes, Nemechek and Chandler Smith — there remain six playoff positions for championship-eligible drivers and eight races to formally set the field.
And this weekend presents a challenging lineup with a handful of savvy part-time veterans set to take the green flag.
Former series champion Todd Bodine — Texas’s all-time winningest Truck Series driver (six victories) — will be racing the No. 62 Halmar Friesen Chevrolet along with this season’s two-time NASCAR Cup Series winner, Ross Chastain (No. 41 Niece Motorsports Chevrolet) and Ryan Preece, who is 3-for-3 in top 10s driving a partial Truck Series schedule in 2022. This will be Preece’s Texas Truck Series debut in the No. 17 DGR Ford.
Kyle Larson hasn’t picked up where he left off last season, but that hasn’t stopped the betting public from pounding the reigning NASCAR Cup Series champion at BetMGM.
Three months after capping one of the most dominant seasons in NASCAR history with a win in Arizona, Larson was the overwhelmingly popular pick to win the Busch Light Clash at the Coliseum with 24% of the sportsbook handle, nearly 11 percentage points higher than the next closest driver, Kyle Busch (13.4%).
It was the first of eight races in which Larson commanded both the highest ticket and handle shares.
Only four other drivers have done that in 2022, and only two have done so at least twice. Busch has done it three times, most recently in the Toyota Owners 400 at Richmond Raceway, and Chase Elliott has done it twice, most recently in the Blue-Emu Maximum Pain Relief 400 at Martinsville Speedway.
Bettors bought plenty of Larson stock after his win at Auto Club Speedway before cooling, relatively speaking, on him after incidents resulted in finishes of 30th or worse in consecutive weeks for the first time since late in the 2017 season. But the public returned before the Food City Dirt Race at Bristol Motor Speedway, and with the exception of season-worst, outlier shares at Talladega Superspeedway – sixth-most tickets and fifth-most handle – they haven’t left.
Through 15 races, Larson has 12.3% of the total handle bet on race-winner odds, by far the most among all drivers and nearly three times the combined total for the only drivers with multiple wins this season, William Byron (2.9%) and Ross Chastain (1.9%).
Neither Byron nor Chastain have posted the highest ticket or handle shares for a race this season, and both sit behind six winless drivers. The pair has the same number of combined wins (four) as the four most-bet drivers:
Driver
Tickets
Handle
Wins
Kyle Larson
8.46%
12.27%
1
Chase Elliott
7.48%
9.02%
1
Kyle Busch
7.09%
8.78%
1
Denny Hamlin
6.92%
8.76%
1
Even after his win at Talladega – for which he had just 2.9% of the handle, 15th-highest in the field – Chastain was buried at 13th in tickets and 11th in handle at Dover Motor Speedway. But after a third-place showing with a “fifth-place car” in the DuraMAX Drydene 400, Chastain has been on the public’s radar.
Chastain had back-to-back season-highs in both ticket and handle share at Darlington Raceway (6% of tickets, 6.6% of the handle) and Kansas Speedway (6.8% and 8.7%). Only Larson, Tyler Reddick, Christopher Bell and Busch had a higher handle share last weekend.
And while the 29-year-old “Melon Man” didn’t cash race-winner tickets in either start, it appears the public is taking notice. That’s not the case for Byron, who has had more than 4% of the handle only once this season and was outside the top 10 at Kansas.
CONCORD, N.C. (May 18, 2022) – Earlier this week, as part of a month-long prelude to the 63rd running of the Coca-Cola 600 on Memorial Day weekend, Charlotte Motor Speedway concluded its Mission 600 campaign by hosting a virtual visit with Coca-Cola Racing Family driver Joey Logano and members of the 386th Air Expeditionary Wing at Ali Al Salem Air Base in Kuwait.
Mission 600 is a campaign that pairs NASCAR drivers with military bases designed to educate the NASCAR community about the day-to-day lives of the men and women who serve in the U.S. Armed Forces.
As part of the hour-long virtual visit, members of the 386th AEW gave Logano, Charlotte Motor Speedway executive vice president and general manager Greg Walter and Performance Racing Network president Doug Rice a tour of one of the C-130 aircraft that serves Ali Al Salem Air Base and discussed the tenants of teamwork that – like with a NASCAR pit crew – are vital to mission success. The group compared notes on how the 112-foot aircraft powered by four 4,691-horsepower Rolls Royce-designed engines and supplied with a 6,250 fuel tank compares to its much smaller NASCAR Next Gen counterpart. Despite the differences in size and power, there’s also a great deal in common between NASCAR and the maintenance crew for a C-130.
For Logano, the opportunity to interact with so many specialists who keep the U.S. Air Force’s C-130 aircraft up and running – from engine and hydraulic specialists to those responsible for the aviation communications and all 40 miles of the electrical components that are required to operate the aircraft – drives home the vital nature of teamwork to mission success.
“You talk about how big the team is that is taking care of these airplanes… how it takes so many people to make it fly. It’s very similar to what we have in NASCAR in a lot of ways,” Logano told the unit. “You may just see the end product if you live near a base, but it’s the details and the prep that means everything. Everyone has a role. Your team’s much bigger than mine. Obviously, you need everyone working on the same page. It’s one of the biggest challenges for us, too.”
After the tour, members of the 386th AEW took the opportunity to ask the 28-time NASCAR Cup Series winner a variety of questions about everything from handling the challenges of being a good teammate when racing for the win to how the 31-year-old driver stays positive during a slump.
“Attitudes are contagious. That is the number one thing to keep in mind,” Logano said. “Negative attitudes are just as contagious as a positive attitude, and it’s a lot easier to be negative than it is to be positive. We see that in our society. Sometimes it’s important to recognize things we can be better at, sure. But it’s doing that in a positive way and trying to find little wins throughout.”
At Charlotte Motor Speedway, Memorial Day weekend provides the opportunity to pay tribute to the men and women of the U.S. Armed Forces, particularly those who paid the ultimate sacrifice. The patriotic Coca-Cola 600 pre-race show includes representation from all six major branches of the military.
“You guys probably hear it a lot, but we take this for granted way too often in America about what you guys do for us,” Logano said. “We just live in our own little world and we worry about the little issues in our life when you guys are handling the big problems. And it’s easy for us to fall into this area where we just take stuff for granted. It’s easy for us to do that until you don’t have it anymore. When you don’t have that freedom, that’s when the game changes. I think these holidays like Memorial Day are so important, but we should be acting like it’s Memorial Day every day.”
Previous Mission 600 visits this year included Denny Hamlin virtually meeting members of U.S. Army Central in Kuwait, Daniel Suárez visiting Coast Guard Station at Wrightsville Beach, defending Coca-Cola 600 winner Kyle Larson and Jeff Gordon laying a wreath at The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery and Richard Childress Racing teammates Austin Dillon and Tyler Reddick spending a day with paratroopers at the U.S. Army 82nd Airborne’s Advanced Airborne School at Fort Bragg.
“These Mission 600 visits have taken on this life over the last few years,” Walter said. “One of the great things about our sport is the fact that our athletes really appreciate what our service men and women do each and every day – the fact that they are away from families and deployed abroad, but also the fact that the Coca-Cola 600 being on the eve of Memorial Day, we don’t lose sight of what that holiday is about and the fact that we pause and remember those who have paid the ultimate sacrifice.”
The event takes its name from the Kentucky Derby, the famous horse race held annually in Louisville, Kentucky, that typically draws more than 150,000 people to Churchill Downs.
Josh Vanada, the owner of JDV Productions and promoter of the Granite State Derby presented by USA Insulation, explained he was looking for a way to connect the race at Lee USA Speedway to a major sporting event during the month of May when he settled on the Kentucky Derby theme.
“When you think of the some of the most iconic regional motorsports events, they are tied to larger sporting events happening nationally,” Vanada said. “I was looking to see what major sporting events were going on in May, and that one (the Kentucky Derby) stuck out. I thought there was something we could do with that, and it turns out that, in fact, there was.
“When you start to think of … in the Kentucky Derby, what’s competing? Horses,” Vanada continued. “Well, what’s under these Whelen Modified Tour cars? 600 horsepower.”
Vanada is not just borrowing the Derby name for Saturday’s race. He is utilizing a number of the same themes for the Granite State Derby, including having a bugler on hand as part of the pre-race ceremonies. Tracking down a bugler, as it turned out, was one of the more difficult parts of organizing the Granite State Derby.
“It was probably one of the most challenging things of the whole event,” said Vanada, who confirmed his bugler for the Granite State Derby will even wear a red sport coat just like the bugler who performs at the Kentucky Derby. “Somehow or another we found a local music organization, and it turns out he does placement for musicians at events. We told him what he wanted to do, and he said no problem.”
Having a bugler perform is just one small part of what Vanada and his JDV Productions team are doing to give Saturday’s race a Derby flare.
“The pre-race will mirror very similar to what happens at the Kentucky Derby when the horses are brought to post,” said Vanada. “The trophy is a replica of the Kentucky Derby trophy. I actually saw a picture of it yesterday, it looks truly amazing. It’s going to be really, really cool.
“Our event production, our sound elements and other things you’ll see throughout the event, they’ll make you feel like you’re at a horse race.”
In addition to the Derby theme, the Granite State Derby presented by USA Insulation is the first of three races that are part of the Whelen Granite State Short Track Cup. The three-race mini series includes the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour races at Lee USA Speedway, Monadnock Speedway and Claremont Motorsports Park and features its own purse and bonus structure.
📝 PREVIEW: Lee USA Speedway Set To Host #GraniteStateDerby This Weekend 👀#NWMT 175 laps@GSProStocks 100 laps
NHSTRA Mini Stocks 50 laps
Pro 4 Modifieds 25 laps
NEMA Lites 25 laps
“Whelen’s partnership on the Granite State Short Track Cup has really I think elevated these three New Hampshire races, and we’ve drawn some local talent who has never competed on the Tour and will make their debut on Saturday or who has had very random starts, but we anticipate competing in the three Cup races,” Vanada said.
Tickets for Saturday’s Granite State Derby presented by USA Insulation are available by visiting JDVProductions.com. Tickets for the JDV Experience, an all-inclusive premium ticket package for each of the JDV Production events on the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour schedule that includes premium seating and a private autograph session, are also available.
Early owner’s championship lead for Tommy Baldwin Jr.
Doug Coby (Photo: Mike Lawrence/NASCAR)
Through three NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour races this year, Tommy Baldwin Jr. sits atop the series’ car owner standings.
He has accomplished that with three different drivers steering his No. 7 Modified at three different race tracks.
Baldwin opened the season at Florida’s New Smyrna Speedway with Mike Christopher Jr. piloting his car to a third-place finish, followed by Jimmy Blewett taking the reins and delivering a seventh-place run at Richmond Raceway in April.
Doug Coby got the call to drive for Baldwin last Saturday night at New York’s Riverhead Raceway in place of Blewett, who sat out the race in order to care for his sick daughter. Coby rewarded Baldwin’s confidence with a dominant victory in the Miller Lite 200, his third in four races at the New York oval.
Those three results combined have given Baldwin a 12-point edge in the owner standings, a position he would like to maintain throughout the season.
With that in mind, Coby will once again pilot Baldwin’s No. 7 this Saturday night at Lee USA Speedway while Blewett continues to spend time with his family at home.
While Coby does not have any NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour experience at Lee USA Speedway since the last event there took place in 1998, he does have experience on abrasive surfaces like the one he’ll face Saturday. He won the last Tour race at South Carolina’s Myrtle Beach Speedway, another track with a famously abrasive surface.
“At Myrtle Beach, you couldn’t even go 100 percent,” Coby said earlier this week. “In these races, it’s definitely timing of when you take tires, versus when the cautions fall. In the last race I won at Myrtle Beach, we timed our pit stop well, when some others stayed out and were hoping for a caution later in the race, but it never came out. Being a six-tire race at Lee, it’s a big difference to be able to come into the pits twice. Someone may even try to time it right and only pit once and not need the second stop.
“The race is going to be about pacing yourself and not abusing the car. At Riverhead, I was able to pace myself the whole race, and knowing how the car responded to it, it gives me a lot more confidence. At Lee, we will be in a tire saving mindset from the drop of the green. Lee is a great facility and the track is a ton of fun.”
Matt Hirschman, driver of the No. 60 PeeDee Motorsports Car, celebrates in Victory Lane after the New Smyrna Visitors Bureau 200 for the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour during night 2 of the World Series of Asphalt Stock Car Racing at New Smyrna Speedway in New Smyrna Beach, Florida, on Feb. 12, 2022. (Photo: Adam Glanzman/NASCAR)
New Smyrna winner Matt Hirschman back in action
For the first time since he won the opening race of the 2022 season, Matt Hirschman will return to action with the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour on Saturday evening.
Hirschman’s win at New Smyrna in February was his fifth Tour victory dating back to 2005. While he hasn’t been a regular with the Tour since 2014, Hirschman is always a threat when he shows up at the race track.
His victory at New Smyrna was a prime example of that, as he led 112 of 200 laps and held off Eric Goodale at the checkered flag.
Last year in three starts with the Tour, Hirschman won once at New York’s Oswego Speedway and finished no worse than second in the other two events he entered. He also has experience at Lee USA Speedway, where he has at least one victory in a Modified during his career.
If you’re picking favorites for the Inaugural Granite State Derby presented by USA Insulation, you can’t go wrong with a thoroughbred like Hirschman.
Notes:
Patrick Emerling, who currently sits sixth in the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour standings, has withdrawn from Saturday’s race in order to compete in the NASCAR Xfinity Series race Saturday afternoon at Texas Motor Speedway.
Jacob Perry will make his second career NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour start and first since 2019 on Saturday. His only previous start with the series came at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, where he completed only two laps before retiring from the race following a crash.
Steven Dickey Jr., who has experience in a Late Model at Lee USA Speedway, is entered in his first NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour event.
Sam Rameau is set for his season debut with the Tour on Saturday. He last competed with the series in 2021, making starts at New Hampshire Motor Speedway and Martinsville Speedway.
In addition to the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour, the Granite State Pro Stock Series, NEMA Lites, New England Pro 4 Modifieds and NHSTRA Mini Stocks will also be in action as part of the Granite State Derby presented by USA Insulation.
Hendrick Motorsports driver William Byron is already in the midst of what appears to be a breakout season, earning two wins in the opening 13 races and being within a lap and a half of a third at Darlington Raceway.
With his fleet of Next Gen No. 24 Chevrolets built up, he may get even better.
Byron joined a NASCAR Twitter Spaces event with hosts Alex Weaver and Kim Coon on Wednesday, and he shared a recent perspective he holds with crew chief Rudy Fugle.
“I’m definitely not worried about the car,” Byron said when discussing Sunday’s All-Star Race and beyond. “My crew chief told me after Kansas after we qualified 13th, he’s like, ‘I’m done telling you to be conservative. Just go race. We’ve got enough cars now.'”
It’s the first year of the Next Gen car, and teams spent long hours over the offseason — while facing supply-chain delays — to build a new fleet of cars.
For Byron and likely others, the transitional period passing has brought a sense of relief.
“The narrative definitely has changed over the past three weeks, I’d say,” Byron said. “For now we kind of know what the car needs and we’re not so worried about crashing. I think you’re going to start to see guys get a lot more comfortable.”
Could be bad news for the rest of the field as Byron — who has led a season-high 569 laps — looks plenty comfortable so far.
Check out the entirety of Wednesday’s audio conversation with Byron, Team Penske driver Austin Cindric and Stacking Pennies co-host Ryan Flores, as the three get into the upcoming All-Star Race, rookie stripes, pit-crew competitions and more.
The National Motorsports Appeals Panel ruled Wednesday that penalties levied against Joe Gibbs Racing’s No. 11 Toyota team will stand.
The three-member panel met to hear the organization’s appeal Wednesday, and the group later confirmed that the No. 11 team did violate Section 10.5.2.6 of the NASCAR Rule Book. That heading covers the separation of an improperly installed wheel.
The safety infraction occurred May 2 during the rain-delayed conclusion of the DuraMAX Drydene 400 for the NASCAR Cup Series at Dover Motor Speedway. Hamlin won Stage 1 of the 400-mile race, but the left-front wheel detached from his No. 11 Toyota as he left pit road.
NASCAR announced penalties the next day, issuing four-race suspensions to three members of the No. 11 team — crew chief Chris Gabehart, jackman Derrell Edwards and tire changer Blake Houston. Those suspensions were deferred pending the appeal, and the trio was in place for Cup Series events at Darlington and Kansas the last two weeks.
As a part of Wednesday’s ruling, the panel modified the original penalty to make those suspensions take effect for the next four points-paying Cup Series events — if the decision is not appealed further. The initial suspensions had included this weekend’s NASCAR All-Star Race exhibition at Texas Motor Speedway among the four races. The penalty is now scheduled to span races at Charlotte (May 29), Gateway (June 5), Sonoma (June 12) and Nashville (June 26).
Joe Gibbs Racing has the option to take its case to the National Motorsports Final Appeals Officer, but the team did not immediately indicate whether it would file a final appeal.
NASCAR teams moved to the Next Gen car for the 2022 Cup Series, and the vehicle features a single, center-locking lug nut for the larger 18-inch wheels. Those replaced the 15-inch wheels and the five-lug fastening system from the previous-generation car. Since the start of the season, competition officials have issued nine penalties to Cup Series teams for the separation of a wheel during a race event.
The three members of the National Motorsports Appeals Panel who served in Wednesday’s hearing were: Kelly Housby, Bill Mullis and Kevin Whitaker.
Corey LaJoie expresses a light-hearted regret about the years-ago beginnings of his friendship with Ryan Flores. “I wish we would have had a lot more foresight to fire up a YouTube channel,” LaJoie says, thinking about all the viral moments left uncaptured in those rambunctious early years. “… We were doing some wild stuff.”
What started as a bond between youngsters and forged by a common love of racing has grown along parallel paths. From those days of goofing off with go-karts, big wheels and late nights working on race cars, both LaJoie and Flores traced their journeys to established roles at NASCAR’s highest level, but also as hosts for a loyal audience of podcast listeners.
That chemistry — years in the making — plays out each week on the Stacking Pennies podcast. LaJoie currently drives the No. 7 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet in the Cup Series. Flores is a tire changer with Team Penske’s No. 12 Ford team for driver Ryan Blaney. Together, they’ve grown through similar challenges on their path to stock-car racing’s big leagues.
“I think that’s what’s cool now is we both worked toward a goal,” Flores says. “I wanted to be a tire changer, he wanted to be a driver and we both probably got beat around pretty good trying to get there, but not to be at this level … obviously he’s not where he wants to be at yet in the Cup Series but it’s been cool to grow together and to be able to ride to the race track together now and do all that stuff competing in the same race, it’s a big deal.”
Alejandro Alvarez | NASCAR Digital Media
LaJoie’s path has been well-documented, and his knack for grinding throughout his career against taller odds is reflected in the podcast’s name — a creative re-use of his personal mantra. The 30-year-old journeyman has done a little bit of everything from racing in the Late Model ranks, winning as a driver and a crew chief at the ARCA Menards Series level, and building racing seats at the shop founded by his father, two-time Xfinity Series champion Randy LaJoie.
Flores’ journey took similar turns — BMX racing by age 3, quarter-midgets by 5 and a stock-car jump at 14. He moved from his native New Jersey five years later, hoping to catch on with a NASCAR team as a spotter. Shortly after the move in 2006, Flores landed with what was then known as Roush Fenway Racing as a fabricator.
Mutual friends and relationships led their paths to cross in North Carolina. Before long, Flores’ regular routine became finishing work at Roush Fenway, then heading to LaJoie’s shop in the evening to help out with his Late Model program and participate in all those shenanigans that YouTube missed.
“We would be in the shop so late that Randy would call and tell us ‘hey, man, you guys got to shut it down. I’m not paying the power bill anymore,’ ” Flores recalls. “You know, working on race cars … some 20-year-olds would be playing video games and we’d just be building race cars.”
Other jobs followed for Flores — welder, tire specialist, mechanic — before he found his calling with over-the-wall duty. He was a reserve crew member for Tony Stewart’s final championship run in 2011, then joined Team Penske’s operations in 2014.
“It takes so much commitment and drive and sacrifice to get to the level that he’s at being a tire changer, and people don’t really understand the mental side of everything,” LaJoie says. “There’s the talent piece of being a quote-unquote professional, then there’s the mental stuff. Unless you’re in the fire next to somebody else, they really don’t understand. So as much as I’m in the fire in the public eye, driving around in circles, he’s up against the same similar battles, trying to stay on top of the depth chart doing what he’s doing. So we can relate on so many things.”
Alejandro Alvarez | NASCAR Digital Media
Being able to relate is part of what prompted LaJoie to get Flores involved on the podcasting side. His addition to the Stacking Pennies lineup has provided perspective about the week-to-week pressures from the pit-crew member’s point of view, but his long-running rapport with LaJoie has kept the conversation light.
“I think that’s why people tune in because they do feel like they’re just somebody else at the table listening to a couple of buddies BS about racing, whether we either work in it or just enjoy being genuine fans of the sport,” LaJoie says. “You know, I didn’t wake up one day being like, ‘Man, you know what, I really want to be a podcaster,’ or like, ‘I need my own podcast.’ Like it kind of just happened.”
Since then, LaJoie is in his fourth year as a podcast host, counting his time with MRN Radio’s “Sunday Money” show from 2019-2020 to his transition to NASCAR’s podcast platform a year ago. “I just kept doing it, but now I realize the impact that it can have for my career off the track of just cultivating fans and making my story,” he says. “You know, it’s one thing to tell your story on social media, but to have longform conversations about the actual grind week to week of what happens in the sport, I think it’s a good way to give fans a peek into the struggles. It’s not all the red carpet and rock-star life that people make it out to be.”
Having Flores in the Stacking Pennies co-host rotation gave LaJoie another friendly voice to lean on in recording sessions, but added an educational element about his evolving pit-crew role. That focus has grown this year as teams have adapted to the Next Gen car and its new single-lug setup, a pit-stop process that Flores has shed light on this season.
“I’ve always had a heart for talking about racing, but especially the more I’ve been on the pit-crew side and been in the trenches in that, I understand how high that level of competition is, and it’s just getting to be more and more competitive,” says Flores. “… I think we’ve both talked about this, and it’s something Joey (Logano) says, who is one of our really good friends, too … try to leave the sport in a better place than you found it. Really, at the end of the day, we’re good friends because we’re students of the sport and we both want to succeed in racing but also want to see racing succeed.”
Akinori Ogata arrived in the United States from his home country of Japan in 2003 with the goal of becoming a successful NASCAR driver.
Despite knowing little about American culture at the time, Ogata had always been fascinated by the vibrant atmosphere of NASCAR. He wanted to add his name to a long and prestigious list of winners in the sport that included Richard Petty, Dale Earnhardt and many more.
Almost two decades of hard work and determination to reach that goal is finally paying off for Ogata, who tallied his first three victories on American soil this year at Hickory Motor Speedway.
For Ogata, getting that elusive first win back on Apr. 9 could not have come at a more perfect location with Hickory having a storied reputation as ‘The Birthplace of the NASCAR Stars.’
“Hickory has such a great history behind it,” Ogata told NASCAR.com. “So many drivers started their own careers there. I’m a Japanese driver, but I want to be like the American racers. If I want to race in the Cup Series one day, I need to win at the local tracks, so people know that Akinori Ogata is a good driver.”
Akinori Ogata walks the grid prior to the NASCAR Xfinity Series Go Bowling 250 at Richmond Raceway on Sept. 11, 2021. (Photo by Sean Gardner/Getty Images)
There were many days when Ogata wondered whether his leap of faith into NASCAR would ever work out.
Back in Japan, Ogata had established himself as a solid driver in multiple forms of motorsports. He claimed 30 victories as a motocross rider and even visited Victory Lane at Twin Ring Motegi driving a dirt Midget back in 2007.
Transitioning to full-time auto racing in the United States served as a clean slate for Ogata. He had to get acclimated with competing inside a full-bodied stock car all while trying to build relationships in the industry with a limited understanding of the English language.
Those challenges for Ogata were only compounded when he moved his family to Mooresville, North Carolina, back in 2010 so he could devote more time and energy toward getting comfortable with NASCAR.
“Moving to North Carolina was hard, because we honestly didn’t know anybody here,” Ogata said. “I could not speak any English, and it was difficult to understand what other people were saying. My English is much better now, but it was so hard when we first moved here.”
Ogata admitted adjusting to racing in the United States would have been more difficult without the assistance of people like Billy Larrimore, who was his first crew chief when he started racing at Concord Speedway in 2003, as well as his current crew chief in Zach McDaniels.
Being able to regularly compete at Hickory has also helped Ogata find a comfort zone in becoming a staple of the track’s Saturday night festivities, even with him occasionally branching out into the NASCAR Xfinity and Camping World Truck Series, as well as the ARCA Menards Series East.
Hickory track operator Kevin Piercy has seen Ogata come close to winning on so many occasions during his tenure and has been overjoyed by the amount of success the veteran has experienced in 2022.
“Akinori is a very respectful driver to his competitors,” Piercy said. “He will race you hard but clean, and I think he has a lot of grit. Akinori is a tough customer who digs in week in and week out, so I was happy to see him finally fulfill this opportunity.”
We made it to win in the race tonight @hickoryspeedway
I believe that you never seen Japanese racecar driver had a win in the American Stock Car Racing Series. Definitely today is special moment. Thanks for all of my sponsors and your support🏁#NASCAR@NASCARRoots@NASCARpic.twitter.com/xCCO7h3zeR
Piercy added that Ogata’s consistency reinforces the idea of Hickory as a track where anybody can win regardless of nationality or skin color. Rajah Caruth joined Chris Bristol as a Black winner at Hickory last year, while Annabeth Barnes-Crum, Gracie Trotter, Katie Hettinger and Kate Dallenbach are among the women who have found Victory Lane throughout the track’s storied history.
What Piercy enjoyed the most about seeing Ogata add to that legacy was how popular the win was not only amongst his fellow competitors, but also the local fanbase that had watched him grind over the past several years.
As Ogata continues to add wins in Hickory’s Limited Late Model division, Piercy hopes the driver’s dedication will allow him to contend for a Late Model Stock championship within the next few years.
“I would love to see Akinori have an opportunity to move up to Late Models,” Piercy said. “He needs a genuine chance to win a NASCAR Advance Auto Parts Weekly Series championship. It would be a great honor for him to go to the banquet and accept that trophy.”
Akinori Ogata pictured during East Series competition at Georgia’s Gresham Motorsports Park on June 9, 2012. (Photo: Kevin Liles)
The confidence Ogata had from Hickory gave him extra motivation heading into first Truck Series start of the year at Darlington Raceway, where he drove a Mike Skinner tribute scheme for Reaume Brothers Racing.
Unfortunately for Ogata, he struggled to find speed with his truck in qualifying and found himself out of the race before the halfway point after a collision with teammate and owner Josh Reaume just eight laps into the event.
“[Darlington] was a tough weekend,” Ogata said. “I was disappointed, because I felt I had momentum from the Late Models and thought I was in for a good race. We started slow and then we got into Josh on the track, so it was frustrating.”
Despite the rough outing at Darlington, Ogata is still dreaming big on his racing aspirations in the United States even as he continues to deal with challenges on and off the track.
Staying in touch with his wife Eniko and two children in Ken and Ryo has been difficult since they now reside in Japan again, but he knows they are supporting his journey and is eager to celebrate his on-track success with them.
With his program making significant strides, Ogata is confident that he and his family will have plenty more to cheer about once the 2022 season ends.
“Now that I have three wins, I want to try and win the [Limited Late Model] championship at Hickory,” Ogata said. “I also want to keep moving up through NASCAR, but my goal is to keep having great performances wherever I race.”
Ogata still plans to make his debut in the NASCAR Cup Series sooner rather than later and is hoping to at least have an opportunity to race in the Daytona 500 before he eventually decides to retire.
As someone used to overcoming adversity, Ogata remains determined to pursue that Cup Series ride and keep alive a dream that has been ongoing for almost two decades.
Toyota Racing Development (TRD) President David Wilson expressed his strong support Tuesday for keeping Kyle Busch on the automaker’s driver roster with Joe Gibbs Racing until his retirement, hinting that maintaining that partnership would pave the way for the next generation of Buschs to continue that legacy.
Busch has driven the No. 18 Toyota for Coach Joe Gibbs’ team since the 2008 season. In that time, he’s amassed 56 of his 60 NASCAR Cup Series victories. His agreement with JGR runs through the end of this season, and Busch periodically has spoken candidly, sometimes in blunt terms, about his contract status in recent weeks.
Tuesday, Wilson reaffirmed his commitment to Busch in a roundtable with reporters, making reference to Busch’s ebbs and flows with the manufacturer but also his 203 NASCAR national series wins in Toyota equipment.
“We’ve been very close to Kyle for years and years and years, and some of that relationship, to be candid, has been born through trials that we’ve gone through together and through controversy that we’ve gone through together,” Wilson said. “We’ve had some really tough times with Kyle Busch but we also are sitting on two championships and in celebrating recently our 1,500 starts across the three national series.
“I’ll pull this up, because I keep the stat handy all the time: One driver has accounted for 36% of our total wins across all three series, and you know who that driver is. It’s just amazing. So any scenario that doesn’t have Kyle Busch retiring from Joe Gibbs Racing and Toyota would be a monstrous disappointment — for us and for Coach Gibbs and the family.”
Wilson admitted that the offseason decision of primary sponsor Mars, through its M&M’s brand, to leave the No. 18 team at year’s end had added a surprise wrinkle to the negotiations. But the TRD executive said he understood and was “somewhat empathetic” to Busch’s stance on the delays, which he has aired out in media interviews at recent races.
Wilson said he hoped to keep Busch as part of the Toyota family, making overtures that his son — Brexton, who turns 7 years old Wednesday — could keep the family connection going one day, starting with the Camping World Truck Series team that his father owns.
“Put yourself in his shoes. He’s on an out year of his contract. This is so rare, because, of course, what the team, what we try and do is get well ahead of this, particularly with a tier-one driver like Kyle Busch,” Wilson said. “The circumstances, unfortunately, have made that challenging. So you know, we’re working on it. This is a conversation I have with Joe every week, and I’m optimistic.
“I know, and Kyle wants … you know, he doesn’t want to go anywhere else. He has been very candid. You know, he can’t wait for the day that his little boy, Brexton, races a Toyota Tundra out of the Kyle Busch Motorsports stable. He has that in his sights. And that’s not going to be for another 10-plus years, which means that we’ve got to make sure that we’re still together long after Kyle’s out of the driver’s seat full time.”
Busch, 37, competed in his first three seasons for Hendrick Motorsports, collecting four Cup Series wins in that span. His first season with JGR coincided with the organization’s first year under the Toyota banner.
That driver-owner-carmaker relationship now stands at nearly a decade and a half, a grouping that Wilson intends to keep going.
“If nothing else, I can’t envision any other scenario. Any other scenario is just unacceptable,” Wilson said. “The last I’ll add is just the point of obvious — it takes both of us to get there, right? It takes Toyota, Joe Gibbs Racing and Kyle Busch to get there. So we can’t control everything, and I’ll leave it at that.”
