Austin Dillon’s No. 3 BetMGM Chevrolet will take to the track this weekend at Las Vegas Motor Speedway for the Pennzoil 400 presented by Jiffy Lube (Sunday at 3:30 p.m. ET on FOX, PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Tyler Reddick’s No. 8 BetMGM Chevrolet will be getting down and dirty for the Food City Dirt Race at Bristol Motor Speedway on March 28 (3:30 p.m. ET on FOX, PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
We’ll be using this space, about twice each week, to provide you with sports betting content as it relates to NASCAR. We’ll educate you on the concepts, terminology and nuances of sports betting with the intention of helping create a more informed, responsible and enjoyable gambling experience for race fans.
With the circuit in Las Vegas this week, what better time to drop the green flag …
Before 2018, the year the Supreme Court struck down the law forbidding sports betting in all but four states, NASCAR races in Las Vegas were special. For races in their hometown, in addition to the Daytona 500, Vegas bookmakers would expand their wagering menus, posting multiple proposition bets (props) for race fans to gamble on. For most races, bettors could wager only on the race winner or on one driver to finish ahead of another in a matchup set by the bookmakers. But even before legalization, props such as number of cautions, the finishing positions of specific drivers, and the winning manufacturer were available for fans’ wagering pleasure when the NASCAR season opened in Daytona or the circuit stopped in Vegas.
Fast forward to today, when there’s legal sports betting in 20 states plus Washington, D.C., and there is no longer much unique, from a betting perspective at least, about NASCAR races in Las Vegas.
And this is wonderful for those of us who enjoy getting a few dollars down on a race.
Thanks to legalization and the competition among sportsbooks it has inspired, now every race has a long list of betting options. Want to bet on Chase Elliott to finish in the top 3? You can do that. How about Kyle Busch to be the top Toyota car? Sure. Or whether the number on the winning car will be odd or even? Yes, you can bet on that, too.
“Vegas was our big race,” Johnny Avello, the longtime sportsbook director at The Wynn in Sin City before taking over bookmaking operations at DraftKings in 2018, said this week. “That race took the most handle and had the most action and all the other offerings and proposition bets we put up. Not the case with DraftKings (whose sportsbook is now live in 13 states). With DraftKings, the Las Vegas race doesn’t have to be the most popular because there are so many other races around the country, and we’re putting up a lot of content on each and every race because we have a lot of customers in a lot of states. It’s not about one race for us.”
This phenomenon is not unique to NASCAR. Open a betting app any day of the week and find plenty of ways to get involved on a regular-season NBA basketball game, a Champions League soccer match, or a PGA Tour golf tournament.
Indeed, props are not just for the Super Bowl anymore.
The NFL’s marquee game, of course, is where prop betting all started and has grown exponentially. Along with legalization, though, prop betting has expanded, and there’s no shortage of ways to wager, regardless of the sport or the size of the event.
“The Super Bowl was the big event, and that’s the event we would do multiple propositions bet on,” Avello said. “We would have a minimum of 400 or 500 different ways to bet the game, and that one game kind of took precedent over everything else in football. But now you can pull up a regular-season NFL game on Sunday morning, any game, and you’re going to find first touchdown scorer, first team to score, last team to score, all those Super Bowl offerings but on a regular-season basis.
“We’ve expanded the menu on not only that but for every NASCAR race as well.”
Here’s just a sampling of offerings for Sunday’s Pennzoil 400 presented by Jiffy Lube from various sportsbooks around the country as of Wednesday morning:
Outright winner (BetMGM):
Martin Truex Jr. +600 (these odds mean a winning $100 bet would result in a $600 profit; +600 may also be expressed as 6/1)
Kevin Harvick +650
Brad Keselowski +650
Joey Logano +650
Denny Hamlin +900 Check out a full list of BetMGM’s odds to win here
To finish in Top 3 (Barstool Sportsbook):
Chase Elliott +235 (bet $100 to win $235)
Kyle Busch +375
William Byron +450
To finish in Top 10 (Barstool Sportsbook):
Kurt Busch -134 (bet $134 to win $100)
Bubba Wallace +285
Michael McDowell +375
Manufacturer of winning car (Barstool Sportsbook):
Ford +135
Chevrolet +170
Toyota +230
Any driver to win both Stage 1 and 2 and win race (DraftKings):
Yes +650
No -1430 (not a fun one for most bettors, as a $1430 risk is required to cash $100)
Matchups, pick one driver to beat the other (SuperBook USA):
Harvick (-130) vs. Hamlin (+110)
Christopher Bell (-110) vs. Austin Dillon (-110)
Kyle Larson (-120) vs. Ryan Blaney (even-money or bet $100 to win $100).
Group matchup, pick one driver to finish first among a group of four (SuperBook USA):
Harvick +240
Hamlin +280
Elliott +280
TruexJr. +285
Total cautions (SuperBook USA):
Over -120
Under +100 (or even-money)
Marcus DiNitto is a writer and editor living in Charlotte. He’s been covering sports betting for more than 10 years. His first NASCAR betting experience was in 1995 at North Wilkesboro Speedway, where he went 0-for-3 in his matchup picks. Read his articles; do not bet his picks.
See where your favorite driver will pit for Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway (3:30 p.m. ET on FOX, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Kevin Harvick has won the Busch Pole Award for Sunday’s Pennzoil 400 presented by Jiffy Lube (3:30 p.m. ET, FOX, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Harvick will start his No. 4 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford from the pole position with William Byron in the No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet sharing the front row in the field.
Additionally, Myatt Snider won the pole for Saturday’s Alsco Uniforms 300 (4:30 p.m. ET, FS1, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) for the NASCAR Xfinity Series, and Ben Rhodes is on the pole for Friday’s Bucked Up 200 (9 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series.
As NASCAR adapted to COVID-19 protocols last season, practice and qualifying were eliminated at a majority of national-series events to limit at-track time, exposure and to cut race weekend costs. To determine starting lineups, competition officials used grouped draws, added inversions for weekend doubleheaders, and eventually adopted a performance-metrics formula. That metrics format remains in place this season, drawing on performance from both individual races and season-long results.
NASCAR’s metrics formula for 2021 weighs:
25 percent: Driver’s finishing position from the previous race
25 percent: Car owner’s finishing position from the previous race
35 percent: Team owner points ranking
15 percent: Fastest lap from the previous race
See the full lineup for Sunday’s Cup Series race below.
Start pos.
Driver
Car #
Team
1
Kevin Harvick
4
Stewart-Haas Racing
2
William Byron
24
Hendrick Motorsports
3
Kyle Larson
5
Hendrick Motorsports
4
Martin Truex Jr.
19
Joe Gibbs Racing
5
Michael McDowell
34
Front Row Motorsports
6
Denny Hamlin
11
Joe Gibbs Racing
7
Kurt Busch
1
Chip Ganassi Racing
8
Chase Elliott
9
Hendrick Motorsports
9
Alex Bowman
48
Hendrick Motorsports
10
Brad Keselowski
2
Team Penske
11
Tyler Reddick
8
Richard Childress Racing
12
Austin Dillon
3
Richard Childress Racing
13
Ryan Newman
6
Roush Fenway Racing
14
Kyle Busch
18
Joe Gibbs Racing
15
Joey Logano
22
Team Penske
16
Christopher Bell
20
Joe Gibbs Racing
17
Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
47
JTG Daugherty Racing
18
Chris Buescher
17
Roush Fenway Racing
19
Ryan Preece
37
JTG Daugherty Racing
20
Cole Custer
41
Stewart-Haas Racing
21
Ross Chastain
42
Chip Ganassi Racing
22
Daniel Suarez
99
Trackhouse Racing Team
23
Bubba Wallace
23
23XI Racing
24
Chase Briscoe
14
Stewart-Haas Racing
25
Justin Haley
77
Spire Motorsports
26
Ryan Blaney
12
Team Penske
27
Anthony Alfredo
38
Front Row Motorsports
28
Aric Almirola
10
Stewart-Haas Racing
29
Erik Jones
43
Richard Petty Motorsports
30
Matt DiBenedetto
21
Wood Brothers Racing
31
Garrett Smithley
53
Rick Ware Racing
32
Cody Ware
51
Petty Ware Racing
33
Corey LaJoie
7
Spire Motorsports
34
BJ McLeod
78
Live Fast Motorsports
35
Josh Bilicki
52
Rick Ware Racing
36
Quin Houff
00
StarCom Racing
37
Joey Gase
15
Rick Ware Racing
38
Timmy Hill
66
Motorsports Business Management
Practice and qualifying are tentatively scheduled for eight Cup Series races this year. Busch Pole Qualifying was held for the season-opening Daytona 500; the next race with time trials scheduled is the March 28 event at Bristol Motor Speedway’s dirt track.
NASCAR officials penalized six Cup Series teams and four Xfinity Series teams for lug-nut infractions during last weekend’s events at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
Crew chiefs for each Cup Series team were fined $10,000 and Xfinity crew chiefs were docked $5,000 for violations of Section 10.9.10.4 in the NASCAR Rule Book, with each team found with one unsecured lug nut in a post-race check.
On the Cup Series side, officials penalized:
No. 8 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet (crew chief Randall Burnett; driver Tyler Reddick)
No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet (crew chief Alan Gustafson; driver Chase Elliott)
No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota (crew chief Ben Beshore; driver Kyle Busch)
No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota (crew chief James Small; driver Martin Truex Jr.)
No. 41 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford (crew chief Mike Shiplett; driver Cole Custer)
No. 42 Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet (crew chief Phil Surgen; driver Ross Chastain)
In the Xfinity Series, penalized were:
No. 8 JR Motorsports Chevrolet (crew chief Taylor Moyer; driver Josh Berry)
No. 16 Kaulig Racing Chevrolet (crew chief Jason Trinchere; driver AJ Allmendinger)
No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota (crew chief Jeff Meendering; driver Brandon Jones)
No. 51 Jeremy Clements Racing Chevrolet (crew chief Mark Setzer; driver Jeremy Clements)
A disqualification was assessed Saturday in the Xfinity Series after post-race inspection at the 1.5-mile track. The No. 23 Chevrolet driven by Tyler Reddick to an apparent second-place finish failed the rear height requirement and was dropped to last in the 40-car field.
While 2021 is a year that is hopefully more normal than 2020, one area that will be different in the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour garage area will be at tech inspection.
Longtime Tour tech director Rick McCaughey announced his retirement at the end of the 2020 season. Moving into his spot will be Dave Farrell, who’s been working with Modifieds for over a decade.
A native of upstate New York, Farrell has been working racing tech for decades, from USAC to Legends cars. He jumped over to Modified racing in 2009. Now, he’s the Whelen Modified Tour tech director.
Dave Farrell
It’s a process that’s been in the works for a couple of years. The last two seasons, Farrell worked alongside McCaughey, preparing for the day that McCaughey would hand him the reins. It gave Farrell the opportunity to ask questions and learn from one of the best in McCaughey on how to effectively officiate the garage area.
“[McCaughey] is just a wealth of knowledge from years ago,” Farrell said. “If you have a question on, ‘how do you approach doing this,’ he’d give me ideas and I just run with them.
“I tried to take as much over the last couple of years off his shoulders and go with it.”
After years of prep work, the support system in place around Farrell gives him faith that his team will be able to do its job in the garage area.
“Am I confident? I am. Will there be challenges? Absolutely, and hopefully, it’ll be a good thing… Having (McCaughey), (Tour director) Jimmy Wilson, (Touring Series Tech Director) Tony Glover, the accessibility to everybody is a wonderful thing.”
Farrell has been in touch with McCaughey repeatedly this offseason, always on the lookout for pointers.
“He always stay friendly,” Farrell said. “He’s a very, very good man.”
Disagreements between teams and tech are all too common. But Farrell has always looked at the long game in terms of what a good tech official means to any touring series.
“I think in the long run, teams, owners, drivers appreciate the fact of our thoroughness,” Farrell said. “That’s where we try to be at our best. To keep it fair.”
When Farrell’s first race as director finally arrives, it won’t look like Tour races of the past. And even though the stands won’t be packed come the season-opener at Martinsville in April, Farrell is just thankful to be at the track doing what he loves. After all, it wasn’t long ago that there wasn’t any racing at all.
“Getting back to normal will be a great thing,” Farrell said. “But you know what? As of right now, hey, thank you very much for opening up the facilities and giving some people a chance to go. That’s the way you have to look at it right now.
“I consider myself very fortunate to be on my way someplace, to participate, to officiate, and to watch a race.”
Three NASCAR Cup Series champions are scheduled to participate in a Goodyear tire test Tuesday at Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas.
Set to tackle the 3.41-mile track are defending series champ Chase Elliott in the No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet, plus 2017 title winner Martin Truex Jr. in the No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota and 2012 champ Brad Keselowski in the No. 2 Team Penske Ford.
The test — which is closed to the public — will help NASCAR competition officials and Goodyear determine the final tire combination for NASCAR’s first weekend at the COTA track, scheduled May 21-23. All three national circuits will be in action, capped by the EchoPark Automotive Texas Grand Prix for the Cup Series on Sunday, May 23 (2:30 p.m. ET, FS1, PRN, SiriusXM).
The Tuesday session will mark the first time multiple NASCAR entries have lapped the Lone Star State road course, which opened in 2012. Three-time NASCAR champ Tony Stewart drove a No. 14 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford during an exhibition run at Circuit of the Americas in 2019.
Track officials determined last December that the 3.41-mile “long course” configuration would be used for every event during the NASCAR inaugural weekend.
Ryan “Rudy” Fugle reflects upon the last nine years of his racing career in a positive light, calling his long-held crew chief role at Kyle Busch Motorsports “an amazing job.” He says now that leaving the Camping World Truck Series and placing his career into transition mode would require the right scenario, an opportunity that checked the boxes for organization, owner, driver and team partners.
Fugle found that position when he signed with Hendrick Motorsports last October to work this season with driver William Byron, whom he once mentored at KBM. But there was another drawing card that enticed the 37-year-old crew chief.
“… I just wanted to prove that I could — to everyone, to myself, to everybody, that yeah, I could do it at this level,” said Fugle, in his first year atop the pit box in the NASCAR Cup Series. “So we want to do it a whole lot more.”
That call to rinse and repeat was part of Fugle’s ecstatic refrain over the team radio after recording his first Cup win with Rick Hendrick’s famed No. 24, watching Byron dominate the latter portions of Sunday’s Dixie Vodka 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway. Fugle praised the work of his driver and his crew on the cool-down lap, but he also signaled that more was in the offing. “That’s how we race!” Fugle exclaimed. “… Get used to winning, boys.”
Winning isn’t a new phenomenon for the Byron-Fugle combination, which produced a stellar seven-win campaign for KBM during their lone season together in 2016. Their reunion this year carried the not-so-veiled notion that their existing chemistry could be reformulated for Cup Series success.
Who knew the breaking-in period would be completed in such short order, especially with Fugle trying to learn his way around a new series with new cars, and a new organization with new colleagues just three races in. Credit goes at least in part to their seemingly effortless communication, both through Byron’s reliable feedback and Fugle’s decisions based on that input.
John K. Harrelson photo
“What helped us about the previous relationship was the fact that we’ve worked together before and I knew him,” Fugle says, “I knew how to push his buttons, I knew how to motivate him, and that helped buy me some time to learn these Cup cars that I don’t know yet, so I think that’s the biggest thing.”
Some of that encouragement in the closing laps was both familiar and comforting for the 23-year-old driver. With Byron nursing a lead that topped five seconds before eventual runner-up Tyler Reddick mounted a final charge, Fugle repeated “let it live” in his radio dispatches down the stretch, telling him not to press as he managed both lap-down traffic and the late-race challenge.
“That’s all it’s meaning, just not to push too hard,” Fugle said. “A lot of it comes from having such young drivers like I’ve been used to; they get the lead and they drive harder than they should. I don’t think William needed that, but it felt good to say it, so we kept going with it.”
Shades of 2016 all over again. “It’s helpful,” Byron said with a laugh.
Sunday’s win not only provided a measure of validation for the crew chief move, which dovetailed with predecessor Chad Knaus’ elevation to vice president of competition at Hendrick Motorsports, but it also gave the No. 24 group a virtual lock-in to the 16-driver postseason field and some early relief.
Byron’s first Cup Series win came in the clutch last year, a breakthrough victory in the regular-season finale at Daytona that sealed a long-teetering playoff berth. Win No. 2 pulled him from potential playoff limbo.
“I think I’ve spent kind of a lot of my Cup Series career kind of on the bubble of the playoffs and now I don’t have to worry about that,” Byron said. “It’s crazy; I’m going to take all that stuff in, and just got a great team, got an awesome crew chief. It’s going to be a fun year.”
Fugle indicated he has no intent of relaxing with the Homestead victory laurels in hand. With an early trend this year of unique Cup Series winners beating longer pre-race odds, Fugle says he’s striving for firmer footing in the remote possibility that the postseason field becomes crowded with one-race winners. He’s also making sure the No. 24 team has title-caliber cred once the 10-race playoffs arrive in the fall.
The pieces may already be in place. The rest is a matter of getting used to winning and letting it live.
“First of all, with the weird winners we’ve had so far — and I don’t think we’re weird, but it kind of is a little bit weird — you have to be careful that you’re not going to get too many one-wins, so you want to keep attacking for that reason,” Fugle says. “Two is we want to learn how to be a winning race team. In the playoffs to win a championship, you have to win a lot of races, so we have to learn how to do that now and get used to that to be able to contend for a championship.
“We’re not a championship team yet, but over the next 20-some weeks we’re going to become one, so that’s what we’re going to do.”
TUCSON, Ariz. – In a classic shootout to the finish, a driver that had gone winless in recent time did everything he needed to do in order to take home the eighth annual Chilly Willy 150 trophy and prize at Tucson Speedway Sunday afternoon.
Christian McGhee proved he had a fast car under him since the gates opened a few days before, winning a 50-lap feature on Friday night and then setting the No. 71 fielded by Garcia Racing on the outside front row for the 150-lap main event.
He had to contend with the only driver that out-qualified him throughout the entire distance, and it was not an easy task.
Tyler Tanner paced the field for a torrid initial pace of 50 laps completed without a yellow flag in less than 15 minutes.
The North Carolina resident, originally from Washington state, continued leading the way following a few cautions and a 10-minute halfway break where teams were permitted to change up to two tires, add fuel, and make any necessary adjustments.
As the second half of the race carried on, a change began to occur. McGhee got closer and closer to the No. 65 ride and at the completion of lap 126, by .007 seconds, the Californian led at the line.
It was still another few circuits of hard racing between the two before he cleared Tanner, but ultimately McGhee’s masterful job on a final green-white-checkered restart sealed the deal.
“I was crying on the frontstretch, and I don’t ever cry,” a relieved McGhee admitted. “It’s been a long time since I won, so it feels really good just to run a clean race and have everything perfect. I did everything exactly how I set out to do from the beginning. I was stressing and shaking before the race trying to figure out if my strategy was the right way to do it and it paid off.”
McGhee, who has an assorted schedule of a few Spears SRL Southwest Tour races and other major shows mainly on the west coast but perhaps a handful further east planned with the team, described in detail the intense battle up front that saw some contact.
“I tried so many times to get by him and there was just no drive off on the bottom,” McGhee recalled. “I knew it was going to have to come to a bumper, but we were clean. He hit me a little harder than I hit him. We kind of slid into each other when I was on the inside, but I would have done the same thing if the roles were reversed.
“When there’s 10 grand on the line and 150 laps, that’s going to happen. Nobody is going to get around this place without a scratch on it for the win.”
The result provides significant momentum toward McGhee’s future endeavors, momentum that was slightly broken up in November when he was forced out of the seat during Turkey Shoot weekend due to feeling under the weather.
“We’re finally gelling,” McGhee remarked about his relationship with the Garcia team, which has numerous years of expertise behind them. “My crew chief Steve Teets and I, the crew and everybody are starting to work together really well. We have been so close so many times, to finally have it come together was really rewarding.”
On the other side of the coin, Tanner was somewhat subdued, but satisfied with their performance.
Considering upon arrival on Thursday the team, composed partly of his father Kelly Tanner who won at Tucson in 1997, was left thinking critically how to overcome some of the struggles they were encountering with the track and tire, a second-place finish was something to be proud about.
“Honestly we had the car to beat for the first segment, controlled the race and ran fast when I needed to and conserve tires the best I could,” Tanner noted. “We’ll have to evaluate things. I don’t know if the stagger on these right side tires opened up a little bit, but the thing just got real free on entry right off the bat that second stage. It gave him a couple opportunities and then I guess he got antsy enough and used us up pretty hard there getting into one, but both of us kept it going and ran a clean race.
“He had the better car the second segment, so he deserved to win, I guess.”
Coming home in third was the defending Turkey Shoot winner at Tucson Speedway, a 125-lap event on Thanksgiving weekend. Brett Yackey started further back, ran mid-pack early on, and even spun to avoid a multi-car wreck on a restart.
Then, out of seemingly nowhere, the No. 32 was battling within the top five.
At one point late in the going, he did see an opportunity to peek briefly for the lead when McGhee and Tanner made some of the aforementioned contact.
“At the beginning I dropped to like 12th and three quarters of the track behind coming from that far back was just hard on tires and equipment,” the Greeley, Colo., driver noted. “But once I got up there I kind of hung out there, got loose in the middle, got loose off, and fought it. Honestly the car wasn’t that good but made the most of it and can’t complain with a third place finish.”
The showing was a good baseline for the season to come. Yackey plans to leave a car down in Arizona and commute to compete for the track’s super late model title.
Multi-time track champion Brandon Farrington came across the line in fourth, but was disqualified for a rev limiter infraction. That moved veteran Bruce Yackey to fourth and track regular Vanessa Robinson to fifth in the official finishing order.
The Legends feature winners were an exact replica from Friday, with Minnesota’s Tristan Swanson earning the trophy in the 40-lap Semi-Pro/Young Lions race and New Mexico’s Jason Irwin taking the 50-lap Pro/Masters accolades.
The NASCAR Advance Auto Parts Weekly Series tentatively begins at Tucson Speedway on Saturday, March 13, including a 75-lap super late model feature.
Fans that missed all of the Chilly Willy weekend’s action can subscribe and watch on-demand at Low Budget TV, a member of the SPEED SPORT Network.
Chilly Willy 150
1. Christian McGhee, 2. Tyler Tanner, 3. Brett Yackey, 4. Bruce Yackey, 5. Vanessa Robinson, 6. Kody Vanderwal, 7. Bob Cramb, 8. Rudy Vanderwal, 9. Tanner Reif, 10. Joe Paladenic
11. Chris Eggleston, 12. Austin Thom, 13. Edward Vecchiarelli, 14. Dean Thompson, 15. Michael Scott, 16. Bryce Bezanson, 17. Scott Graf.
DQ: Brandon Farrington.
Christian McGhee (71) passes Tyler Tanner (65) en route to the Chilly Willy 150 win Sunday at Tucson Speedway. (Sal Sigala Jr.)
Say somebody told Michael McDowell that he would kick off the 2021 NASCAR Cup Series season with three consecutive top-10 finishes, all while knowing he had a career-high four last year over the course of the entire 36-race schedule.
His response?
“That they’re crazy,” McDowell said.
Well, then, consider the hypothetical person crazy because McDowell did indeed just notch his third top 10 in as many races. His No. 34 Front Row Motorsports Ford placed sixth on Sunday in the Dixie Vodka 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway. That comes after his eighth-place result at the Daytona Road Course one week back and, oh right, his first-ever win in the Daytona 500 two weeks ago. All were personal bests on each layout.
“To make a big jump like we did, I wouldn’t say it’s a complete, like, unbelievable shock, but it’s pretty close to it,” McDowell said. “We have definitely outperformed where we thought we’d be, especially on the mile-and-a-half.”
He’s not alone. The 10 frontrunners were a mix of names and teams.
William Byron, driver of the No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet, won by a dominant 2.777 seconds over Tyler Reddick in the No. 8 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet. The victory marked only Byron’s second of his four-year career, while Reddick’s runner-up showing matched his career-best mark.
Martin Truex Jr. crossed third in his usually dominant No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota. Kyle Larson was fourth in Hendrick Motorsports’ new No. 5 Chevrolet after only competing in four races last season. And Kevin Harvick’s most-wins-in-2020 No. 4 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford ended up fifth.
McDowell, Ryan Newman (No. 6 Roush Fenway Racing Ford), Kurt Busch (No. 1 Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet), Alex Bowman (No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet; new number for Bowman) and Kyle Busch (No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota; two-time champion) completed the top 10.
“Definitely seeing a lot of guys running up front today that we don’t normally see,” Truex said. “But I think it’s just the box that we work in is so small and the longer we have the same rules package the closer everybody is going to get.”
There were 11 races on 1.5-mile tracks last season. There are nine scheduled for this year.
“I think one of the biggest things for us is there hasn’t been a tremendous amount of development — no new chassis, new parts, new pieces,” McDowell said. “We used to fall so far behind, but now I feel like we’re able to build on what we had in the past and make our cars a little bit better each time we come to the race track without changing all the fundamental pieces and kind of starting over and having to re-engineer everything. It’s kind of simplified the process for us a little bit just to keep building on what we have and try to make it better.”
Next up for the Cup Series is another 1.5-miler, too. The Pennzoil 400 presented by Jiffy Lube is set for Sunday at 3:30 p.m. ET (FOX, PRN, SiriusXM). Team Penske’s No. 22 Ford driver and 2018 champion, Joey Logano, is the defending race winner. He was 25th at Miami despite leading the field to green.
Two weeks later, it’s another intermediate oval at Atlanta Motor Speedway (technically 1.54 miles).
Miami was really just the start.
“It is a different race track and it is worn out, but you’re still going to maybe not compare it directly to Vegas, which is very fast and high grip, but you’re definitely going to be looking at Atlanta or some of these other mile-and-a-halfs that are getting a little rougher, getting a little more worn out,” said Chris Buescher, driver of the No. 17 Roush Fenway Racing Ford. “So, yeah, there’s definitely things that will apply. Not 100 percent of it, but at the end of the day, there’s a lot that you can learn from these track types, even though speeds are very different from beginning of a run to the end of a run.”
Buescher’s 19th-place outcome was not reflective of his Miami performance. Buescher led a second-best 57 laps compared to Byron’s 102. The two split the stage wins, with Buescher coming first in Stage 1 and sixth in Stage 2. Byron was fourth then first in each 80-lap segment, before ultimately taking the checkered flag 101 circuits later.
Though Byron was a repeat victor, this year’s first two winners were first-time Victory Lane visitors. Dating back to last season, there have been 10 different winners in the last 13 races.
“We’ll see if it continues,” Truex said. “I still think the strong teams will end up being the teams to beat when all is said and done.”
Maybe. And McDowell acknowledged that, too. There’s a reason the Joe Gibbs Racing, Hendrick Motorsports and Team Penske entries tend to be favored. They’ve proven to be consistently better.
Still, everybody loves an underdog story.
“The one thing about this 34 team is we race our guts out,” McDowell said. “And if we have a 25th-place car, we’re going to race our guts out and finish 23rd. And if we’ve got a 10th-place car, we’re going to race our guts out and finish eighth. We just come into it with an open mind and just do everything we can to get the most we can.
“Obviously, if we keep this streak going and 10 races from now we’re still running in the top 10, I’ll probably feel a little bit different about it. I’d tell you, yeah, we’re definitely going to do this every week. But right now, we’re going to take it one week at a time.”
