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  • Truex dominates for third Cup victory of 2023 at New Hampshire

    Truex dominates for third Cup victory of 2023 at New Hampshire

    In his 30th start at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, Martin Truex Jr. is no longer winless at the track dubbed the Magic Mile after capping off a dominant performance to win the rain-postponed Crayon 301 on Monday, July 17.

    The 2017 NASCAR Cup Series champion from Mayetta, New Jersey, led five times for a race-high 254 of 301-scheduled laps, including the final 24, in an event where he swept both stages and dominated after assuming the lead from teammate and pole-sitter Christopher Bell on the second lap. Amid mixed strategy and a late call for two fresh tires during a late caution period, Truex reassumed the lead from Kevin Harvick with 24 laps remaining and had appeared to cruise to the victory before two late caution periods for two separate incident under the final 22 laps stalled his progress. Then during a nine-lap dash to the finish, Truex was not to be denied after he rocketed away from the field and held off a late charge from Joey Logano to capture his first elusive checkered flag at the Magic Mile and his third of the 2023 Cup season.

    With on-track qualifying that determined the starting lineup occurring on Saturday, July 15, Christopher Bell notched his first Cup pole of the 2023 season after posting a pole-winning lap at 124.781 mph in 30.524 seconds. Joining him on the front row was teammate Martin Truex Jr., who posted the second-best qualifying lap at 124.752 mph in 30.531 seconds.

    Prior to the event, Kyle Busch dropped to the rear of the field due to repairs after wrecking his primary car during Saturday’s qualifying session.

    When the green flag waved and the race commenced on Monday after Sunday’s scheduled start was postponed due to precipitation, Bell jumped ahead while starting on the outside lane and fended off teammate Truex and Joey Logano to retain the lead through the first two turns and entering the backstretch. As the field behind battled within two lanes before fanning out through Turns 3 and 4, Bell managed to lead the first lap ahead of Truex.

    On the second lap and as the field continued to fan out and jostle for early positions, Truex gained a run on Bell through the backstretch and made his move beneath his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate to assume the lead in his No. 19 Reser’s Fine Foods Toyota TRD Camry entering Turns 3 and 4. Bell, however, fought back as both dueled for the lead through the frontstretch before Truex managed to rocket ahead on the outside lane and clear Bell through the first two turns. As Logano tried to close in on Bell for the runner-up spot, Truex continued to lead at the fifth lap mark.

    Through the first 10 scheduled laps, Truex was leading by nine-tenths of a second over teammate Bell followed by Logano, Aric Almirola and Ryan Blaney while Tyler Reddick, Bubba Wallace, William Byron, Daniel Suarez and Brad Keselowski were running in the top 10. Behind, AJ Allmendinger was in 11th ahead of Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Chase Elliott, Michael McDowell and Denny Hamlin while Austin Dillon, Austin Cindric, Chris Buescher, Kevin Harvick and Kyle Larson were in the top 20. Meanwhile, Alex Bowman was in 26th ahead of rookie Ty Gibbs, Ross Chastain was mired in 29th behind Erik Jones, Chase Briscoe was strapped in 30th, Kyle Busch was back in 32nd and Ryan Newman was in 35th.

    Ten laps later, Truex stabilized his advantage to more than a second over teammate Bell while third-place Logano trailed by more than three seconds. With Almirola and Blaney continuing to run in the top five, Reddick, Byron, Wallace, Suarez and Keselowski continued to run in the top 10. By then, Hamlin moved up from 15th to 12th while Elliott lost a spot from 14th to 15th. In addition, Harvick moved up from 19th to 18th and Kyle Busch moved up from 32nd to 31st.

    Then on Lap 27, the first caution of the event flew when Allmendinger, who was running just outside the top 10, spun in Turn 2 after getting loose on his own, though he managed to proceed without sustaining any damage to his No. 16 Nutrien Ag Solutions Chevrolet Camaro ZL1. Allmendinger’s spin served as the scheduled competition caution planned on Lap 30, with Truex still leading ahead of teammate Bell, Logano, Almirola and Blaney.

    During the competition caution period, nearly the entire field led by Truex pitted for service while Stenhouse remained on the track to assume the lead. Following the pit stops, Byron exited first after only opting for two fresh tires followed by Hamlin while Truex, the first competitor who changed for four fresh tires, exited third ahead of McDowell, Almirola, Suarez and Reddick amid mixed strategies ensuing. Amid the pit stops, Austin Dillon and Corey LaJoie were both penalized for speeding on pit road.

    When the race resumed under green flag conditions on Lap 33, the field fanned out through the first two turns as Truex tried to overtake both Byron and Stenhouse for the lead. With Truex briefly getting loose, Byron managed to cycle his No. 24 RAPTOR Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 into the lead followed by Truex. As the field continued to fan out and jostle amid competitors on mixed strategies, Almirola and Reddick moved up to third and fourth while Stenhouse was being intimidated by Hamlin and Suarez for fifth. With Bell, who endured a slow service during the competition caution, also trying to move back up to the front as he was mired in the top 10, Byron, running on two fresh tires, was still leading by half a second over Truex and his four fresh tires.

    Just past the Lap 40 mark, the battle for the lead started to intensify as Truex closed in and tried to gain a run to overtake Byron for the top spot. Then on Lap 43, Truex overtook and cleared Byron for the lead through Turns 3 and 4. With Truex back out in front, Reddick started to gain ground on the two leaders while Almirola and Hamlin were in the top five. Meanwhile, Stenhouse had drifted back to 25th in his No. 47 Kroger Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 while on four worn tires while Blaney, Bell, Suarez, McDowell and Logano were running in the top 10.

    At the Lap 50 mark, Truex was leading by more than a second over Byron followed by Reddick, Almirola and Hamlin while Blaney, Bell, Suarez, Logano and McDowell were in the top 10. Behind, Brad Keselowski was in 11th ahead of Larson, Bowman, Ty Gibbs and Buescher while Harvick, Wallace, Elliott, Ryan Preece and Cole Custer were mired in the top 20. Meanwhile, Chastain was in 21st ahead of Justin Haley, Briscoe was in 23rd ahead of Harrison Burton and Cindric, Allmendinger was mired back in 26th in front of Kyle Busch and Stenhouse had dropped back to 34th behind Austin Dillon and rookie Noah Gragson.

    Ten laps later, Truex extended his advantage to more than three seconds over Byron while third-place Reddick trailed by more than four seconds. Behind, Almirola, Blaney, Bell, Hamlin, Suarez, Logano and McDowell remained in the top 10 while Larson moved up to 11th ahead of Keselowski. In addition, Harvick cracked the top 15 in 14th, Elliott retained 18th and Kyle Busch only moved up to 26th behind Allmendinger.

    When the first stage concluded on Lap 70, Truex captured his second stage victory of the 2023 Cup season. Byron fended off Reddick to settle in second while Almirola, Blaney, Bell, Hamlin, Suarez, Logano and McDowell were scored in the top 10. At the stage’s conclusion, Kyle Busch’s No. 8 Lenovo Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 emerged with smoke after the two-time Cup Series champion made contact with the outside wall in Turn 1 and damaged the right side of his car, an incident that would end Busch’s long start in the garage. Behind Busch, Corey LaJoie also suffered the same fate as his car went dead straight towards the wall.

    Under the stage break, the field led by Truex returned to pit road for service. Following the pit stops, Truex retained the lead after exiting first followed by Byron, Bell, Almirola, Blaney, Hamlin and Reddick. Amid the pit stops, Reddick and BJ McLeod were penalized for speeding while exiting pit road. Soon after, more pit issues struck for Bell, who pitted for a second time due to a loose wheel to his No. 20 Rheem Toyota TRD Camry as he was mired back in the field.

    The second stage started on Lap 77 as Truex and Byron occupied the front row. At the start, the field fanned out to three lanes entering the first two turns as Truex rocketed away with the lead. Behind, Almirola challenged Byron for second while Hamlin and Blaney also dueled for fourth. During the following lap and amid more on-track battles within the middle of the pack, Logano was in sixth ahead of a battle between Larson and Keselowski while Suarez and Wallace were in the top 10 ahead of McDowell, Harvick, Buescher, Ty Gibbs and Briscoe with Bowman, Chastain, Allmendinger, Haley and Elliott mired in the top 20.

    By Lap 90, Truex was leading by more than a second over Almirola while Hamlin cycled his No. 11 Mavis Tires & Brakes Toyota TRD Camry into third place followed by Blaney while Byron had fallen back to fifth. Behind, Larson moved his No. 5 Valvoline Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 up to sixth in front of Logano while Keselowski, McDowell and Suarez were in the top 10.

    At the Lap 100 mark, Truex extended his advantage by more than four seconds over Almirola while Hamlin, Blaney and Larson were running in the top five. By then, Byron had dropped to ninth as Logano, Keselowski and McDowell overtook him while Suarez retained 10th in front of Wallace, Harvick, Bell, Gibbs and Buescher. Meanwhile, Chastain was in 19th behind Allmendinger, Reddick was mired back in 21st and Elliott had fallen back to 24th.

    Twenty-five laps later, Truex continued to lead by more than three seconds over Almirola while third-place Hamlin trailed by more than five seconds. With Blaney and Larson still running in the top five, Bell returned to the top 10 as he was 10th while trying to close in on a two-car battle between McDowell and Harvick while Byron and Suarez had fallen to 11th and 12th.

    Another three laps later, green flag pit stops ensued as Reddick pitted his No. 45 Draft Kings Network Toyota TRD Camry. Bell would follow suit to pit along with Byron and Haley, both of whom made contact as Byron was trying to exit his pit stall while Haley was trying to enter his. Soon after, a bevy of names that included Wallace, Todd Gilliland, Cindric, Larson, Keselowski, McDowell, Bowman, Buescher, Briscoe, Almendinger, Chastain, Logano, Harvick, Ty Gibbs, Harrison Burton, Larson, Cole Custer, Hamlin and Blaney pitted. Truex would then pit from the lead on Lap 132 followed by Almirola and Suarez. At the conclusion of his pit stops, Truex, who exited pit road ahead of Almirola, quickly cycled back to the lead after Elliott, who cycled into a brief lead, pitted under green.

    At the halfway mark between Laps 150 and 151, Truex was leading by more than four seconds over Almirola followed by Hamlin, Blaney and Larson while Logano, Bell, Keselowski, Harvick and Austin Dillon were running in the top 10. By then, 19 of 36 starters were scored on the lead lap while names that included Briscoe, Noah Gragson, Harrison Burton, Elliott, Erik Jones, Cindric and Chastain were pinned a lap down.

    Then on Lap 161, the caution flew when Erik Jones, who was a lap down, spun his No. 43 Allegiant Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 in Turn 4. At the moment of caution, Wallace, who was mired in 18th, had managed to remain ahead of the leader Truex, who was leading by more than four seconds over Almirola, while Briscoe, who was in 19th, had managed to emerge as the first competitor a lap down over Harrison Burton and receive the free pass to cycle back on the lead lap.

    During the caution period, the lead lap field led by Truex pitted. Following the pit stops and amid mixed strategy, Almirola cycled into the lead after only opting for two fresh tires along with Larson, Logano and Harvick, all of whom also opted for two fresh tires, while Truex, Hamlin and Blaney followed suit on four fresh tires.

    With 17 laps remaining in the second stage, the race restarted under green. At the start, however, trouble struck for Almirola, who veered sideways through Turns 1 and 2 before smacking the outside wall after the right-rear wheel on Almirola’s No. 10 Smithfield Ford Mustang was loose and preparing to come off of the car. The issue stemmed from Almirola’s two-tire pit service during the previous caution period, where the rear tire changer was unable to properly tighten the right-rear tire prior to Almirola leaving the pit box. With the caution quickly returning, Larson cycled into the lead followed by Logano, Truex, Hamlin and Harvick.

    During the ensuing restart with 11 laps remaining in the second stage, the field fanned out through the first two turns and the backstretch as Larson tried to fend off Truex for the lead. Truex, however, led the following lap before Larson attempted to fight back through the frontstretch before conceding to Truex, who was running on four fresh tires. With Truex back out in front, Larson retained second ahead of Logano, Harvick and Hamlin while Blaney, Wallace and Bowman pursued. Behind, contact was made between Keselowski and Reddick, though both continued to run within the top 10.

    With less than five laps remaining in the second stage, Blaney and Hamlin cracked the top five on the track while Harvick fell back to sixth. In addition, Keselowski battled 23XI Racing’s Reddick and Wallace for eighth while Truex extended his advantage to more than a second over Larson.

    When the second stage concluded on Lap 185, Truex captured his third stage victory of the 2023 Cup season and second of the day after retaining the lead by eight-tenths of a second. Behind, Larson settled in second while Logano, Blaney, Hamlin, Harvick, Bowman, Keselowski, Reddick and Bell were scored in the top 10.

    Under the stage break, a majority of the field led by Larson pitted while the rest that included the leader Truex, Logano, Blaney, Hamlin, Keselowski, Harrison Burton, Briscoe, Elliott, Austin Dillon and Todd Gilliland remained on the track.

    With 110 laps remaining, the final stage started as Truex and Blaney occupied the front row. At the start, Truex rocketed away with the lead as the field fanned out and jostled for spots through the backstretch. With the field still fanning out and battling for spots for a full lap, Blaney retained second over teammate Logano while Keselowski and Hamlin were in the top five.

    Down to the final 100 laps of the event, Truex was leading by six-tenths of a second over Blaney followed by Logano, Keselowski and Larson while Hamlin, Austin Dillon, Briscoe, Burton and Wallace were in the top 10. A lap later, Bell moved up to ninth followed by Burton while Wallace fell back to 11th in front of Harvick, Elliott, Buescher and Ryan Preece while Chastain, McDowell, Bowman, Reddick and Ty Gibbs were mired in the top 20.

    Fifteen laps later, Truex stabilized his advantage to less than three-tenths of a second over Blaney, who also started to close in on Truex for the top spot, while third-place Logano trailed by more than two seconds. With Keselowski and Larson both trailed by more than three seconds within the top five, Bell was up to sixth while teammate Hamlin fell back to seventh. In addition, Wallace moved back up into eighth as he was running in between Briscoe and Harvick while Elliott was in 13th behind Austin Dillon and Burton.

    With less than 75 laps later, Truex slightly stretched his advantage to seven-tenths of a second over Blaney followed by third-place Logano, who trailed by more than three seconds, as Keselowski and Larson remained in the top five.

    Then with 66 laps remaining, green flag pit stops commenced as Blaney pitted his No. 12 Menards Ford Mustang from the runner-up spot. The following lap, Truex surrendered the lead to pit followed by Larson as McDowell, Bowman, Hamlin, Reddick, Elliott, Chastain, Gilliland, Stenhouse, also pitted. By the time Truex completed his pit service, he managed to blend back on the track and remain ahead of Blaney on the track. Meanwhile, more pit stops ensued as Keselowski, Wallace, Briscoe, Burton, Buescher, Ty Gibbs, Allmendinger, Bell, Haley and Logano, who briefly led, also pitted under green.

    With nearly the entire field having made a pit stop, with Harvick and Byron being the last two, Austin Dillon, who assumed the lead on Lap 245 and is faced in a “must-win” situation to make the Playoffs, was leading by more than seven seconds over Truex with 50 laps remaining. Dillon, however, was placed in a position where he still has to make a pit stop to finish the race. Once Dillon pitted his No. 3 Bass Pro Shops Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 under green with 44 laps remaining, Truex cycled back into the lead while Blaney and Larson followed suit in the top three.

    With 35 laps remaining, Truex, who was mired within lapped traffic, was leading by more than two seconds over both Blaney and Larson, both of whom were trying to gain ground on Truex late in the event, while Logano and Bell both trailed by more than five seconds in the top five. By then, Hamlin was in sixth while Keselowski, Wallace, Briscoe and Reddick were in the top 10.

    Three laps later, however, the caution flew when Noah Gragson blew a right-front tire and went dead straight into the Turn 1 outside wall after the Las Vegas, Nevada, native reported a potential brake rotor issue to his No. 42 Sunseeker Resort Chevrolet Camaro ZL1. At the moment of caution, Larson had overtaken Blaney for the runner-up spot as both were trailing the leader Truex by more than three seconds.

    During the caution period, nearly the entire field led by Truex pitted while Harvick and Austin Dillon, both of whom pitted later than the majority of the lead lap field during the latest green flag pit stop cycle, remained on the track. Following the pit stops, Truex exited first followed by Larson, Blaney, Logano, Hamlin and Briscoe, all of whom were among some who opted for two fresh tires while the rest opted for four fresh tires. Amid the pit stops, Blaney was penalized and sent to the rear of the field for running over his air hose while exiting his pit stall.

    When the race restarted with 24 laps remaining, Harvick jumped ahead with the lead followed by Truex as Austin Dillon struggled to launch. Truex then quickly reassumed the lead from Harvick entering the backstretch as Logano made his way up to the runner-up spot. With the field behind fanning out and jostling for late positions, Larson and Harvick battled for third during the following lap while Austin Dillon and Reddick battled for fifth.

    Then amid the battles, the caution returned with 22 laps remaining when Ty Gibbs sent Alex Bowman sideways entering the backstretch before Bowman was able to straighten his No. 48 Ally Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 after getting hit by Erik Jones while the rest of the competitors running within the midfield scattered to avoid the carnage.

    During the proceeding restart with 16 laps remaining, Truex pulled away from Logano to retain the lead as Harvick tried to battle and overtake Logano for the runner-up spot. As Chastain went wide through Turns 3 and 4 amid the field fanning out, Truex retained the lead by two-tenths of a second over Logano while Larson overtook Harvick for third with 15 laps remaining. The caution, however, quickly returned with 14 laps remaining when Bell, who was looking to cap off his roller coaster afternoon within the top 10 as he was running in eighth, got loose entering Turns 3 and 4 and smacked the outside wall as he damaged the right rear of his pole-winning car.

    With the race restarting with nine laps remaining, Truex retained the lead after another strong start on the inside lane while Logano, who opted to restart behind Truex on the inside lane instead of alongside Logano on the outside lane, battled and overtook Larson for the runner-up spot. With the field fanning out to multiple lanes, Harvick and Reddick battled for fourth as Keselowski tried to join the battle.

    Down to the final five laps of the event, Truex was leading by eight-tenths of a second over Logano while Larson, Harvick and Keselowski were in the top five amid a series of late on-track battles ensuing behind.

    When the white flag waved and the final lap started, Truex remained as the leader by six-tenths of a second over a hard-charging Logano. With Logano gaining more ground in his No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Ford Mustang around the New Hampshire circuit for a final time, he ran out of time as Truex managed to cycle his Toyota back to the frontstretch and beat Logano by less than four-tenths of a second to capture his third checkered flag of the 2023 Cup season.

    With his third victory of the 2023 season and his first ever at New Hampshire, Truex notched his 34th career win in NASCAR’s premier series and his 15th while driving the No. 19 Toyota for Joe Gibbs Racing. The New Hampshire victory also marked his second of the season occurring on a Monday after he also won at Dover Motor Speedway in April on Monday due to precipitation postponing the event from its original start time on Sunday.

    “What we’ve been able to do here over the years is pretty remarkable and to not win was really getting frustrating,” Truex said on USA Network. “[Crew chief] James [Small] and I talked about it many times. We thought about it all weekend, talked about it with [teammate] Christopher [Bell] before the race. He was like, ‘Man, you’ve led more laps here than I have been racing Cup’. Just really awesome by everybody. What a race car we had today. Just proud of the whole team. Pit stops were flawless, race car was unbelievable. We had some challenges at times throughout the race and it was a handful at times, but we kept our heads down, kept digging. Man, this is feeling really, really good to do what we did today and finally cap it off with a lobster.”

    “I sat in Turn 1 with my mom [when I was eight years old],” Truex added. “This is the first big track I ever came to with my dad and watched, and first time I’d ever seen Cup cars in person and [Xfinity] cars in person. It’s been a special place for [my family] and being able to win K&N [Series], being able to win in the [Xfinity] Series, this one’s been eluding me for a long, long time. Just really, really happy. Really thankful. [I] Can’t say enough about my team. Man, they’re incredible. I’m the lucky guy to drive these things. This one’s sweet.”

    While Truex celebrated in Victory Lane, Logano ended up in the runner-up spot for the third time this season while Larson came home in third place for his ninth top-five result of the season.

    “Man, I thought I would have something [for Truex],” Logano said. “Right before that caution came out, two cautions to the end when we had tires on it, it seemed like [Truex] took a few laps to get going. I was running him down. I was like, ‘Man, I got a chance here’. That caution came out right when I was thinking I could make a move on the outside into [Turn] 3 and then, it seemed like the cycles helped him get his pressures up to where he can fire and be pretty quick the last couple of restarts. Dang it. [New Hampshire]’s a home track. There’s no place you want to win more than that. It stings a lot to not get the Shell/Pennzoil Ford into Victory Lane, but gosh, second just sucks sometimes. It stings the most when you’re that close, feeling like you had a shot at it, but still a good day for us.”

    “We had a shot [when I] lined up on the front row at the end of one of these Cup races, so that’s a great day,” Larson said. “It was a fun, hot race. [I] Came away with a top three [finish] at a track that doesn’t really suit me or Hendrick Motorsports.”

    Meanwhile, Kevin Harvick executed his late gamble to remain on the track on worn tires to perfection as he finished fourth for his fifth top-five result of the season and in his 40th and final Cup career start at New Hampshire.

    “We were fortunate that we had pitted late and were able to stay out and kind of salvage something there at the end,” Harvick said. “[The team] did a good job. We were just a little bit too loose to start the race and it took us a couple of laps to get going on the restarts. We definitely didn’t dot all the i’s and cross all the t’s, but we did a pretty good job all weekend. Just a couple of little things.”

    Keselowski posted his fourth top-five result of the season by finishing fifth while Reddick, Hamlin, Bubba Wallace, Austin Dillon and Chase Briscoe finished in the top 10.

    Notably, Elliott finished 12th in between Erik Jones and Michael McDowell, Bowman rallied to finish 14th, Suarez ended up 16th, Blaney settled in 22nd in front of Chastain after never recovering from his late pit road penalty, Byron ended up 24th, Ty Gibbs fell back to 27th after hitting the wall prior to the final lap and Bell settled in 29th. In addition, Ryan Newman finished 30th in his second Cup Series start of the season while driving for Rick Ware Racing.

    There were 13 lead changes for nine different leaders. The race featured eight cautions for 41 laps. In addition, 27 of 36 starters finished on the lead lap.

    With six regular-season events remaining of this year’s Cup Series schedule, Martin Truex Jr. leads the regular-season standings by 17 points over William Byron, 62 over Christopher Bell, 66 over Denny Hamlin, 74 over Kyle Busch and 78 over Ross Chastain.

    William Byron, Martin Truex Jr., Kyle Busch, Kyle Larson, Ross Chastain, Denny Hamlin, Ryan Blaney, Tyler Reddick, Christopher Bell, Joey Logano and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. are currently guaranteed spots for the 2023 Cup Series Playoffs based on winning at least once throughout the regular-season stretch. Kevin Harvick, Brad Keselowski, Chris Buescher, Bubba Wallace and Michael McDowell currently occupy the remaining vacant spots in the Playoffs based on points, with McDowell occupying the 16th and final vacant spot by a single point over Daniel Suarez, 20 over AJ Allmendinger, 41 over rookie Ty Gibbs, 42 over Alex Bowman, 46 over Justin Haley, 51 over Austin Cindric and 60 over Chase Elliott.

    Results.

    1. Martin Truex Jr., 254 laps led, Stage 1 & 2 winner

    2. Joey Logano, two laps led

    3. Kyle Larson, six laps led

    4. Kevin Harvick, 10 laps led

    5. Brad Keselowski

    6. Tyler Reddick

    7. Denny Hamlin

    8. Bubba Wallace

    9. Austin Dillon, 12 laps led

    10. Chase Briscoe

    11. Erik Jones

    12. Chase Elliott

    13. Michael McDowell

    14. Alex Bowman

    15. Chris Buescher

    16. Daniel Suarez

    17. Justin Haley

    18. Ricky Stenhouse Jr., three laps led

    19. AJ Allmendinger

    20. Harrison Burton

    21. Todd Gilliland

    22. Ryan Blaney

    23. Ross Chastain

    24. William Byron, nine laps led

    25. Austin Cindric

    26. Ty Dillon

    27. Ty Gibbs

    28. Ryan Preece, one lap down

    29. Christopher Bell, two laps down, one lap led

    30. Ryan Newman, two laps down

    31. BJ McLeod, six laps down

    32. Noah Gragson – OUT, Accident

    33. Corey LaJoie, 125 laps down

    34. Aric Almirola – OUT, Accident, four laps led

    35. Cole Custer – OUT, Accident

    36. Kyle Busch – OUT, Accident

    Next on the 2023 NASCAR Cup Series schedule is the series’ lone event of this season to Pocono Raceway in Long Pond, Pennsylvania. The event is scheduled to occur next Sunday, July 23, at 2:30 p.m. ET on USA Network.

  • Christopher Bell tops qualifying to claim pole for Cup Series race at New Hampshire

    Christopher Bell tops qualifying to claim pole for Cup Series race at New Hampshire

    Christopher Bell won the Busch Light Pole Award at New Hampshire Motor Speedway with a fast lap of 124.781 mph during qualifying Saturday afternoon. He will lead the field to green in the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota for Sunday’s Cup Series Crayon 301.

    It is his first pole this season and the fifth of his Cup Series career. Bell is also the defending race winner at the 1.058-mile track.

    Bell described his qualifying run, saying, “It’s crazy how much difference the temperature can change the cars. These things are really sliding around. You’re on the edge here for sure.”

    His JGR teammate, Martin Truex Jr. will join Bell on the front row in his No. 19 Toyota after a 124.781 mph lap.  

    “It’s really difficult to get the balance the way you want it,” Truex said. “Overall, we were fast. We’re excited to be here in New Hampshire. We’ve been after a win here for a while.”

    Stewart-Haas Racing’s Aric Almirola will start third in the No. 10 Ford with Team Penske Ford drivers, Joey Logano and Ryan Blaney, rounding out the top five starters.

    Tyler Reddick, William Byron, Bubba Wallace, Brad Keselowski and Kyle Busch will complete the top 10.

    Notably, Busch had damage after hitting the wall during practice but his No. 8 Chevrolet was repaired by the team before qualifying. But his troubles continued when, at the end of his qualifying lap, he spun and made contact with the outside wall. He was however credited by NASCAR for the 10th fastest lap.  

    Inspection was held before practice Saturday and Noah Gragson’s No. 42 Legacy Motor Club Chevrolet failed twice. NASCAR ejected engineer Phillip Bell and the team will lose pit-stall selection for Sunday’s race.

    You can tune into Sunday’s Cup Series Crayon 301 at 3 p.m. ET on USA, the NBC Sports App, PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.

    Starting Lineup:

    1. Christopher Bell
    2. Martin Truex Jr.
    3. Aric Almirola
    4. Joey Logano
    5. Ryan Blaney
    6. Tyler Reddick
    7. William Byron
    8. Bubba Wallace
    9. Brad Keselowski
    10. Kyle Busch
    11. Austin Dillon
    12. Daniel Suarez
    13. Kevin Harvick
    14. AJ Allmendinger
    15. Kyle Larson
    16. Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
    17. Michael McDowell
    18. Chase Elliott
    19. Justin Haley
    20. Denny Hamlin
    21. Ryan Preece
    22. Austin Cindric
    23. Todd Gilliland
    24. Corey LaJoie
    25. Alex Bowman
    26. Chris Buescher
    27. Chase Briscoe
    28. Harrison Burton
    29. Noah Gragson (R)
    30. Erik Jones
    31. Ross Chastain
    32. B.J. McLeod
    33. Ryan Newman
    34. Cole Custer
    35. Ty Dillon
    36. Ty Gibbs (R)
  • Shane Van Gisbergen wins in NASCAR debut in inaugural Chicago Street Course event

    Shane Van Gisbergen wins in NASCAR debut in inaugural Chicago Street Course event

    History was made in the NASCAR Cup Series’ inaugural running of the Grant Park 220 at the Chicago Street Course on Sunday, July 2, as Shane Van Gisbergen succeeded against the stars of NASCAR’s premier series by scoring his first NASCAR victory in his series debut.

    Van Gisbergen, a three-time Supercars champion from Auckland, New Zealand, led nine of 78 over-scheduled laps, including the final eight, in a weekend where he made his inaugural presence in NASCAR as he was serving as the second-ever competitor to pilot Trackhouse Racing’s Project 91 entry. Qualifying in third place, he finished in the top five and scored stage points during both stage periods while remaining within sight of the front-runners in an event that was delayed by 90+ minutes due to heavy precipitation that ultimately shortened the event to 25 laps of its scheduled distance.

    After keeping pace with the front-runners, Van Gisbergen, who nearly overtook Justin Haley for the lead with eight laps remaining amid a late caution period, fended off a late challenge from Haley during a restart with five laps remaining to assume the lead. He then appeared to be cruising to victory before the caution returned with two laps remaining for another on-track incident and the event was sent into overtime. During the event’s lone overtime period, however, Van Gisbergen was not to be denied as he rocketed away from the field and held off the competition through a two-lap shootout to win in his NASCAR debut.

    With on-track qualifying that determined the starting lineup occurring on Saturday, July 1, Denny Hamlin claimed his third Cup pole of the season after posting a pole-winning lap at 89.557 mph in 88.435 seconds. Joining him on the front row was his 23XI Racing driver Tyler Reddick, who posted the second-best qualifying lap at 89.513 mph in 88.479 seconds.

    Prior to the event, the following names that included Chase Elliott, Kevin Harvick and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. dropped to the rear of the field as all started the event in backup cars. William Byron, Austin Cindric, Todd Gilliland and Justin Haley also dropped to the rear of the field due to unapproved adjustments made to their respective cars.

    Once the engines fired and the competitors rolled off of pit road amid a delay of more than 90 minutes due to heavy precipitation that nearly flooded the course, the competitors filed in a single file line under a cautious pace and behind the pace car for several laps, with the second lap featuring the competitors rolling through pit road.

    When the green flag waved and the race commenced amid a single file start, Hamlin received an early challenge from Reddick entering the first left-hand turn. With Hamlin slipping the turn, Reddick would maintain his early challenge on Hamlin through E. Balbo Dr. and entering the second, right-hand turn. Both would duel for the top spot through Turns 3 to 5 until Reddick pulled ahead with the lead entering S. Columbus Dr. in between Turns 5 and 6. Reddick continued to maintain the top spot through Turn 6 while behind, Aric Almirola spun his No. 10 Smithfield Ford Mustang just past Turn 5.

    Then ahead of Almirola’s incident, more early trouble ignited in Turn 6 when Erik Jones made contact with Brad Keselowski while trying to brake his No. 43 Draiver Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 amid the slick circuit entering Turn 6 as both competitors along with rookie Noah Gragson made light contact against the tire barriers with little damage to their respective entries. Amid the chaos, the race remained under green as all competitors continued. With the leaders returning to the frontstretch, Reddick proceeded to lead the first lap in his No. 45 Monster Energy Toyota TRD Camry ahead of Hamlin.

    During the second lap and with the field still navigating its way through the 12-turn circuit under competitive, slick conditions, early trouble struck for the pole-sitter Hamlin, who slipped and made contact against the Turn 2 tire barriers. With Hamlin falling back to 14th and the race remaining under green, Reddick continued to lead by more than a second over Christopher Bell while third-place Shane Van Gisbergen, a three-time Supercars champion who qualified an impressive third place in his NASCAR debut while piloting Trackhouse Racing’s No. 91 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1, was in third. Behind, Daniel Suarez was in fourth ahead of Michael McDowell while Joey Logano, Kyle Larson, Martin Truex Jr., Jenson Button and rookie Ty Gibbs were in the top 10.

    Then on the third lap, the first caution of the event flew when Kyle Busch, who was running in 16th, went dead straight into the Turn 6 tire barriers amid the slick conditions as the front nose and windshield of Busch’s No. 8 3CHI Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 was wedged underneath the tire barriers. In spite of the incident, Busch received assistance from a wrecker to have his car towed out of the barriers as he proceeded under a cautious pace.

    When the race restarted under green on the fifth lap, Reddick maintained the lead ahead of Bell, Van Gisbergen, Suarez and McDowell while the field behind remained in a long single file line before fanning out through the first five turns. With Reddick leading by more than a second over Bell, McDowell commenced his early charge to the front during the following lap by battling Suarez for fifth as Logano tried to close in to join the battle.

    On the eighth lap, Reddick slipped through Turns 6 and 7, which allowed Bell to capitalize and cycle his No. 20 Craftsman Toyota TRD Camry into the lead. By then, Van Gisbergen maintained third while McDowell and Truex were running in the top five ahead of Suarez and Kyle Larson.

    Through the first 10 scheduled laps, Bell was leading by more than two seconds over Reddick followed by Van Gisbergen, McDowell and Truex while Suarez, Larson, Jenson Button, AJ Allmendinger and Ty Gibbs were running in the top 10. Behind, Logano had fallen back to 11th ahead of Hamlin, Chris Buescher, Corey LaJoie and Alex Bowman while Chase Briscoe, Ryan Preece, Bubba Wallace, Austin Dillon and Josh Bilicki were running in the top 20. Meanwhile, Ryan Blaney was back in 21st ahead of Ross Chastain, Andy Lally, William Byron and Chase Elliott while Ty Dillon, Austin Cindric, Harrison Burton, Kevin Harvick and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. were mired in the top 30. By then, Brad Keselowski was strapped back in 35th and Kyle Busch was running in 37th, dead last.

    Two laps later and amid a series of jostles and on-track battles ensuing around the 12-turn circuit, the second caution of the event flew when Noah Gragson wrecked his No. 42 Wendy’s Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 against the Turn 6 tire barriers as he smoked his rear tires while unsuccessfully trying to reverse his car out of the barriers. Like Busch’s incident, Gragson received assistance from the wrecker to have his car towed out from the barriers before he proceeded under caution.

    During the second caution period, select names that included Ryan Blaney, Bubba Wallace, Harvick and Gragson pitted while the rest led by Bell remained on the track.

    During the following restart on Lap 15, Bell launched ahead with a strong start as he maintained the lead through the first turn with Reddick in pursuit. With the field maintaining a long single file line through the first five turns, Bell started to stretch his advantage to seven-tenths of a second over Reddick and more than a second over Van Gisbergen while Truex was in fourth ahead of McDowell, Suarez and Larson. In the midst of the on-track battles, Bowman and LaJoie, both of whom bumped and battled fiercely on the track earlier, battled hard for 14th through Turns 8 to 12 while Stewart-Haas Racing’s Chase Briscoe and Ryan Preece battled behind for 16th.

    At the conclusion of the first stage period on Lap 20, Bell captured his first stage victory of the 2023 Cup season. Reddick trailed in the runner-up spot by more than a second while Van Gisbergen, Truex, McDowell, Suarez, Larson, Allmendinger, Ty Gibbs and Jenson Button were scored in the top 10. Shortly after, select names that included Bowman, LaJoie and Briscoe pitted under green for slick tires. By then, Blaney, who slapped the Turn 6 concrete barriers, had plummeted to the bottom of the leaderboard as he continued without drawing a caution.

    With the event proceeding under green to start the second stage on Lap 21, Bell continued to extend his advantage to more than two seconds over Reddick while third-place Van Gisbergen also trailed by more than two seconds. During the Lap 22 mark, Logano wrecked against the Turn 6 tire barriers, but he managed to reverse his No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Ford Mustang and proceed without drawing a caution. Shortly after, more trouble ensued as Jenson Button, who was trying to turn right and enter pit road under green in Turn 12, came across the path of Buescher as he was hit and spun backward towards the pit road entrance. Then as Button tried to loop his No. 15 Mobil 1 Ford Mustang around, he was nearly hit by Logano, who was also trying to pit, but both proceeded under a cautious pace for service.

    During the proceeding laps, a bevy of names that included McDowell, Buescher, Byron, Ty Dillon, Almirola, Todd Gilliland, Truex, Larson, Elliott, Andy Lally, Austin Dillon, Keselowski, Hamlin, Cindric, Erik Jones and Kyle Busch pitted under green for slick tires. The leader Bell would then pit under green along with Reddick, Ross Chastain, Suarez and Stenhouse at the Lap 25 mark while Van Gisbergen cycled into the lead followed by Ty Gibbs and Preece. By then, Elliott, who had collided against the tire barriers in Turn 2 moments after pitting, proceeded without drawing a caution.

    Once Van Gisbergen and Ty Gibbs pitted for slick tires through Laps 25 and 26, Bell cycled back into the lead. Van Gisbergen would manage to exit pit road and run in second ahead of Reddick, Truex and Suarez.

    On Lap 29, the event’s third caution period flew when Gragson wrecked and got his car stuck against the Turn 6 tire barriers for a second time, with the Las Vegas native unable to reverse his car and proceed without assistance.

    As the event restarted under green on Lap 33, Bell retained the lead while Reddick battled and overtook Van Gisbergen for second as Truex and Suarez battled for fourth. As the field made its way through the first five turns, Larson dive-bombed his No. 5 HendrickCars.com Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 up to fourth over Truex and Suarez as Bell navigated his way through Turns 6 to 12 while extending his advantage to more than a second.

    Two laps later and at the Lap 35 mark, Larson continued his charge to the front as he overtook Van Gisbergen for third. Suarez, Van Gisbergen’s teammate at Trackhouse Racing, would follow suit while Bell stabilized his advantage to more than a second over Reddick. Behind, Truex fell back to sixth while McDowell, Allmendinger, Ty Gibbs and Buescher were in the top 10.

    By Lap 40, Bell was leading by more than three seconds over the new runner-up competitor, Larson, as Reddick fell back to third. By then, Suarez and Van Gisbergen remained in the top five ahead of McDowell and Ty Gibbs while Truex, who was battling for a top-five spot a few laps earlier, slipped back to eighth in front of Allmendinger and Buescher. Shortly after, the fourth caution period flew when Alex Bowman, who was running in 11th, was hit by Hamlin as he spun his No. 48 Ally Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 in Turn 11 and was mired with oncoming traffic while trying to straighten his car.

    With the event restarting under green with two laps remaining in the second stage, Bell retained the lead ahead of a hard-charging Larson through the first two turns as the field fanned out and jostled for positions. With the field still battling as Bowman parked his car near S. Columbus Dr. between Turns 5 and 6 due to a mechanical issue, Bell maintained the lead by over half a second over Larson while Reddick maintained third ahead of Van Gisbergen, McDowell, Ty Gibbs and Suarez, who hit the wall in Turn 1. With Bowman’s car starting to smoke amid the terminal mechanical issue, which affected his hopes of vying for a spot in the 2023 Cup Series Playoffs, the caution returned.

    The caution period for Bowman’s issue was enough for the second stage period scheduled to conclude on Lap 45 to finish under caution as Bell captured his second consecutive stage victory. Larson settled in second ahead of Reddick, Van Gisbergen and McDowell while Ty Gibbs, Suarez, Truex, Allmendinger and Chase Briscoe were scored in the top 10.

    During the caution and stage break, a majority of the field led by Bell pitted while 11 competitors led by Justin Haley and Austin Dillon remained on the track. Following the pit stops, Bell exited first followed by Larson, Reddick, Ty Gibbs, McDowell, Suarez and Van Gisbergen. By then, NASCAR shortened its scheduled distance of the event from 100 to 75 due to the upcoming sunset and stemming from the early rain delay.

    When the final stage commenced under green with 27 laps remaining, Haley maintained a steady advantage over Austin Dillon and Chase Elliott while Logano, who restarted fourth, slipped in Turn 1, which allowed Byron to move up to fourth. With Bell strapped back in 11th, Haley maintained the lead through the first six turns before entering Turns 7 to 11 through S. Michigan Ave.

    Shortly after, the caution returned when Byron, who was running in the top five, collided into the Turn 11 tire barriers after overdriving his No. 24 Valvoline Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 through the corner. Byron’s incident ignited a massive stack-up as Harvick, who was trying to avoid hitting Byron, slipped sideways and spun his No. 4 Gearwrench Ford Mustang just past Turn 11 along with LaJoie, who got hit by Almirola as a host of competitors running within the top 15 towards the bottom of the leaderboard, had to jam on the brakes as the turn was blocked. Among the competitors stuck in the stack-up and the sideway competitors of Harvick and LaJoie included Bell, Larson and Truex while Reddick, Gibbs, Suarez, Van Gisbergen, Allmendinger and Buescher managed to escape the carnage.

    During the proceeding restart with 23 laps remaining, Haley rocketed away from the field following a strong restart as Austin Dillon tried to keep pace with Haley. With Elliott trailing in third place and more than a second behind, Logano was in fourth followed by Kyle Busch and Cindric while Reddick was still scored in seventh ahead of Ty Gibbs. With Truex spinning in Turn 5, the race remained under green flag conditions as Haley retained the lead by nearly half a second. Soon after, Wallace missed the corner in Turn 11 as he had to loop his No. 23 McDonald’s Toyota TRD Camry around to proceed and blend back onto the racetrack without drawing a caution.

    With 20 laps remaining, Haley was leading by seven-tenths of a second over Austin Dillon, Elliott, Logano and Kyle Busch while Reddick, Cindric, Gibbs, Almirola and Larson were in the top 10. By then, Bell was mired back in 11th ahead of Byron, Van Gisbergen, McDowell and LaJoie while Harvick, Allmendinger, Buescher, Hamlin and Suarez were running in the top 20. Soon after, more on-track drama continued as Chastain and Gilliland made contact in Turn 1 while Gragson spun and hit the wall in Turn 6 again. Not long after, Bell’s run that started off on a strong note and soon went to bad became worse as he spun in Turn 1, though he managed to continue without drawing a caution.

    Then with 18 laps remaining, the caution flew when Reddick, who was trying to charge his way back to the front and running in fourth, collided into the Turn 6 barriers, with the Californian unsuccessful in reversing his car out of the barriers as he smoked the rear tires off of his No. 45 Toyota.

    Down to the final 15 laps of the event, the race restarted under green. At the start, Haley maintained the lead over Austin Dillon and Elliott as the field remained in a long single-file line while jostling for late positions. Through the 12-turn circuit and back to the frontstretch, Haley would continue to lead in his No. 31 Benesch Law Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 by half a second over Austin Dillon with Elliott’s No. 9 Hooters Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 in close pursuit.

    Then during the following lap, Austin Dillon, who tried to set a move on Haley for the lead, bounced off the wall entering Turn 12, which caused his No. 3 Get Bioethanol Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 to shoot back across the track and wreck against the tire barriers. Despite sustaining significant right-front damage to his car, Dillon proceeded without drawing a caution and would wait for the entire field to overtake him before he reversed his car onto pit road and to his pit box. This allowed Elliott to move up to second followed by Kyle Busch, Logano and Cindric while Haley retained the lead.

    Down to the final 10 laps of the event, Haley was leading by more than a second over Elliott followed by a hard-charging Van Gisbergen, Kyle Busch and Larson while Logano, Cindric, McDowell, Ty Gibbs and Almirola were in the top 10. By then, more on-track issues ignited as Truex slid into Harvick entering Turn 1 as both spun and wrecked with Harrison Burton also wrecking into the tire barriers while trying to avoid the carnage.

    Two laps later, the caution flew when Truex wrecked again, this time against the tire barriers in Turn 1. At the time of caution, Haley was scored the leader by over Van Gisbergen, who had overtaken Elliott a few turns earlier and had nearly overtaken Haley for the lead in between Turns 6 and 7.

    With the race restarting under green with five laps remaining, Haley maintained the lead entering the first turn ahead of Van Gisbergen. Then in Turn 2, Van Gisbergen made his move beneath Haley and overtook him for the lead. Haley, however, returned the favor through Turns 3 and 4 and briefly reassumed the top spot before Van Gisbergen crossed over in his No. 91 Enhance Health Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 over Haley’s Camaro and overtook him again in Turn 5 and through S. Columbus Dr. in between Turns 5 and 6. Van Gisbergen then began to extend his advantage to nearly a second over Haley as the field behind jostled for positions with four laps remaining.

    With two laps remaining, Van Gisbergen was still leading by more than a second over Haley while third-place Elliott trailed by more than two seconds along with Larson and Kyle Busch. Then not long after and with Van Gisbergen having full control of the event, the caution flew and the event was sent into overtime when Bubba Wallace slid and sent Ricky Stenhouse Jr. into the Turn 1 barriers.

    At the start of the first overtime attempt, Van Gisbergen muscled away from Haley, Elliott and the field through Turns 1 and 2 before making his way through Turns 3 to 5 in clean air. Van Gisbergen started to place a reasonable gap between himself and Haley through S. Columbus Dr. before making his way through Turns 6 to 12 with the top spot.

    When the white flag waved and the final lap started, Van Gisbergen remained as the leader by less than four-tenths of a second over Haley. With both Haley and Elliott unable to mount a late charge nor close back towards Van Gisbergen, the New Zealander was able to execute a flawless final lap out in clean air and through the 12-turn circuit in Downtown Chicago before he cycled back to the frontstretch and win in his NASCAR debut by more than a second over Haley.

    With the victory in the inaugural Chicago Street Course, Shane Van Gisbergen became the 204th different competitor to achieve a win in the NASCAR Cup Series and the first competitor in the modern era of NASCAR, seventh overall and the first since Johnny Rutherford won at Daytona in 1963 to win in a premier series debut.

    In addition to recording the fifth overall victory for Trackhouse Racing and the second in recent weeks after the team won at Nashville Superspeedway with Ross Chastain last week, the 33-year-old Van Gisbergen, who has notched three Supercars titles and holds 78 victories in the division, also recorded the first win for Trackhouse’s Project No. 91 entry led by former championship-winning crew chief Darian Grubb, who notched his 24th career victory and first since winning with Carl Edwards at Darlington Raceway in September 2015. The win was also the first for the number 91 in the Cup Series since 1953 made by Tim Flock.

    Shane Van Gisbergen, driver of the #91 Enhance Health Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet Camaro ZL1, races to victory Sunday, July 2, 2023, during the first-ever NASCAR Cup Series street race, the Grant Park 220, through the streets of Chicago, Illinois. This is the first NASCAR CUP victory for the New Zealander in his first ever NASCAR Cup race. He is a three time Supercars champion. (Photo by Jim Fluharty/HHP for Chevy Racing).

    “No, of course not, but you always dream of it,” Van Gisbergen, who was asked on the possibility of winning, said on NBC. “Thank you so much to the Trackhouse team and the Enhance Health Project 91 [team]. Man, what an experience and the crowd out here. This was so cool. It’s what you dream of. Hopefully, I can come and do more. The racing was really good. Everyone was respectful and it was tough, but a lot of fun.”

    “Anything is possible,” Van Gisbergen, who evoked a message to his hometown fans in New Zealand, added. “The fans in Australia and New Zealand, the response and the support I’ve got from everyone, even over here, how welcoming everyone is, I can’t believe it. A dream come true. I’m doing one more year in [Australia] and then, I’d love to come over here [to NASCAR full time].”

    Haley, who led 23 laps compared to Van Gisbergen’s nine, ended up in the runner-up spot for his fifth top-five career result in the Cup circuit while Elliott, Larson and Kyle Busch finished in the top five.

    “It was tough,” Haley said. “It sucks, obviously, where we are right now. We aren’t in position to win every week, so coming that close, obviously, is not what you want, but [I’m] just really proud of everyone at Kaulig Racing. What an awesome event. [I] Can’t wait to come back next year…What is there to be disappointed about? We’ll go to Atlanta next week, try our best.”

    Austin Cindric came home in sixth place while McDowell, Logano, Ty Gibbs and Buescher finished in the top 10. Notably, Hamlin ended up in 11th, Bell salvaged an 18th-place result after leading a race-high 37 laps, Jenson Button settled in 21st in his second NASCAR career start, Gragson finished 25th following numerous incidents in Turn 6, Suarez and Reddick fell back to 27th and 28th, respectively, Harvick ended up 29th and Truex settled in 32nd, a lap down.

    There were seven lead changes for five different leaders. The inaugural Cup Series event at the Chicago Street Course featured nine cautions for 21 laps. In total, 31 of 37 starters finished on the lead lap.

    With eight Cup regular-season events remaining on the schedule, Martin Truex Jr. continues to lead the regular-season standings by nine points over William Byron, 18 over Ross Chastain, 21 over Christopher Bell and 31 over Kyle Busch.

    Martin Truex Jr., William Byron, Kyle Busch, Kyle Larson, Ross Chastain, Christopher Bell, Denny Hamlin, Ryan Blaney, Joey Logano, Tyler Reddick and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. are currently guaranteed spots for the 2023 Cup Series Playoffs based on winning at least once throughout the regular-season stretch. Kevin Harvick, Chris Buescher, Brad Keselowski, Bubba Wallace and rookie Ty Gibbs currently occupy the remaining vacant spots in the Playoffs based on points, with Gibbs occupying the 16th and final vacant spot by six points over Daniel Suarez, 10 over Michael McDowell, 24 over AJ Allmendinger, 26 over Alex Bowman, 45 over both Justin Haley and Austin Cindric, 47 over Corey LaJoie and 55 over Chase Elliott.

    Results.

    1. Shane Van Gisbergen, nine laps led

    2. Justin Haley, 23 laps led

    3. Chase Elliot

    4. Kyle Larson

    5. Kyle Busch

    6. Austin Cindric

    7. Michael McDowell

    8. Joey Logano

    9. Ty Gibbs, one lap led

    10. Chris Buescher

    11. Denny Hamlin

    12. Aric Almirola

    13. William Byron

    14. Corey LaJoie

    15. Ryan Preece

    16. Erik Jones

    17. AJ Allmendinger

    18. Christopher Bell, 37 laps led, Stage 1 & 2 winner

    19. Todd Gilliland

    20. Chase Briscoe

    21. Jenson Button

    22. Ross Chastain

    23. Josh Bilicki

    24. Brad Keselowski

    25. Noah Gragson

    26. Andy Lally

    27. Daniel Suarez

    28. Tyler Reddick, eight laps led

    29. Kevin Harvick

    30. Harrison Burton

    31. Bubba Wallace

    32. Martin Truex Jr., one lap down

    33. Ryan Blaney, one lap down

    34. Ricky Stenhouse Jr., one lap down

    35. Ty Dillon – OUT, Suspension

    36. Austin Dillon – OUT, Accident

    37. Alex Bowman – OUT, Accident

    Next on the 2023 NASCAR Cup Series schedule is the second and final trip of the season to Atlanta Motor Speedway. The event is scheduled to occur next Sunday, July 9, at 7 p.m. ET on USA Network.

  • NASCAR Top-10 Power Rankings: Nashville

    NASCAR Top-10 Power Rankings: Nashville

    Note: The quotes in this article are fictional.

    1. Martin Truex Jr.: Truex led 50 laps at Nashville, but couldn’t match the speed of Ross Chastain in the final stage and settled for the runner-up spot.

    “Ross just had too much,” Chastain said. “You could say he ‘destroyed the field.’ If you add up all the cars of competitors he’s wrecked over the course of his career, you could also say he’s ‘destroyed the field.’”

    2. Kyle Busch: Busch suffered damage on Lap 147 when he tagged Ryan Blaney after cars in front checked up on a restart. Busch, however, recovered and salvaged a ninth-place finish.

    “‘It was an accident,’” Busch said, “is what I said after the race, and also this one time at an airport in Mexico.”

    3. William Byron: Byron finished sixth at Nashville.

    “As per usual,” Byron said, “my car was primarily sponsored by Liberty University. Liberty U. is even advertising during NASCAR races to attract students. Who wouldn’t want to attend Liberty? It’s the academic intersection of education, religion, and voyeurism.”

    4. Denny Hamlin: Hamlin won Stage 2 and finished third in the Ally 400.

    “There’s losing,” Hamlin said, “and then there’s losing to Ross Chastain. I hate all of those things.”

    5. Ross Chastain: Chastain started on the pole at Nashville and came on strong in the final stage to win the Ally 400 at Nashville Superspeedway.

    “It’s really cool being rewarded with a guitar for winning a race, ” Chastain said. “Let my ability to strum a tune remind everyone of my desire to win the Cup championship, because ‘I ain’t playing.’”

    6. Christopher Bell: Bell came home seventh at Nashville, posting his tenth top 10 of the year.

    “We’re headed to Chicago next week for the first NASCAR race on a street circuit,” Bell said. “Fans in the Windy City are in for a real treat. For once, something other than bullets are going to be whizzing through downtown Chicago.”

    7. Kevin Harvick: Harvick finished 24th in the Ally 400 at Nashville.

    “My No. 4 Ford sported the Busch Light Peach paint scheme,” Harvick said. “I’m not sure who this flavor of beer would appeal to, but they should have the taste slapped out of their mouths.”

    8. Joey Logano: Logano struggled to crack the top 10 at Nashville and scored a disappointing 19th in the Ally 400.

    “I was barely able to stay on the lead lap,” Logano said. “So, at least for a day, ‘Sliced Bread’ felt like the ‘End Piece.’”

    9. Ryan Blaney: Blaney crashed out at Nashville on Lap 147 when a restart stacked up the field, resulting in Kyle Busch rear-ending Blaney and sending him into the inside wall. Blaney finished last in 36th.

    “I don’t know who was leading the field to green on that restart,” Blaney said, “but I’d like to introduce them to a gas pedal, and also my fist.”

    10. Kyle Larson: Larson finished fifth at Nashville, recording his seventh top 5 of the season.

    “Ross Chastain looks like a real championship contender,” Larson said. “Now, he’s in the head of every other championship contender. You could say, like a real watermelon farmer, he ‘planted a seed.’”

  • Chastain fends off Truex for first Cup victory of 2023 at Nashville

    Chastain fends off Truex for first Cup victory of 2023 at Nashville

    In a season that has been characterized by an up-and-down journey through his share of run-ins and challenges, all while remaining competitive, Ross Chastain capped off a historic weekend that commenced by winning his first NASCAR Cup Series career pole to capturing his first Cup Series victory of the season in the third annual running of the Ally 400 at Nashville Superspeedway on Sunday, June 25.

    The 30-year-old Chastain from Alva, Florida, led five times for a race-high 99 of 300-scheduled laps in a weekend where he led the field to the green flag for the first time ever from pole position. After leading early before spending the majority of the event keeping pace with the front-runners, Chastain commenced his late charge to victory by overtaking Denny Hamlin for the lead with 70 laps remaining. Following a series of green flag pit stops, he then cycled back into the lead with 34 laps remaining and fended off a late charge from Martin Truex Jr. to capture the first checkered flag of the 2023 Cup season for himself and Trackhouse Racing.

    With on-track qualifying that determined the starting lineup occurring on Saturday, June 24, Ross Chastain notched his first Cup Series pole position of his career after posting a pole-winning lap at 160.687 mph in 29.797 seconds. Joining him on the front row was Tyler Reddick, who posted the second-best qualifying lap at 159.573 mph in 30.005 seconds.

    Prior to the event, Daniel Suarez started at the rear of the field in a backup car after wrecking his primary car during Saturday’s qualifying session. Corey LaJoie, who also had an incident during his qualifying run, also started at the rear of the field due to unapproved adjustments and repairs made to his Spire Motorsports entry.

    When the green flag waved and the race commenced, Chastain fended off an early challenge from Reddick to assume the lead through the first two turns. As the field fanned out and jostled early for on-track positions, Chastain proceeded to lead the first lap ahead of Reddick while Joey Logano moved up to third. Behind, Justin Haley, who qualified third, settled in fourth in front of Martin Truex Jr. and William Byron. In addition, Bubba Wallace and Denny Hamlin battled for seventh as the event surpassed the second-lap mark.

    The battles around the circuit would continue through the third lap as Truex and Byron moved into the top five while Haley fell back to sixth in front of Wallace, all while Chastain remained as the leader by a steady margin over Reddick. Chastain would proceed to retain the lead as the event reached its fifth lap mark.

    Through the first 10 scheduled laps, Chastain was leading by two-tenths of a second over Reddick followed by Logano, Truex and Byron while Haley, Denny Hamlin, Chase Elliott, Wallace and Kyle Busch were in the top 10. Behind, Chris Buescher was in 11th ahead of Ryan Blaney, Kyle Larson, Alex Bowman and rookie Ty Gibbs while AJ Allmendinger, Kevin Harvick, Brad Keselowski, Christopher Bell and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. occupied the top 20.

    Just past the Lap 15 mark, Kyle Busch, who was running within the top 10, made an unscheduled pit stop under green due to a flat right-front tire on his No. 8 Cheddar’s Scratch Kitchen Chevrolet Camaro ZL1. With Busch plummeting below the leaderboard and losing a lap, Chastain maintained the lead by within two-tenths of a second over Reddick. By then, Truex and Byron moved up to third and fourth while Logano was in fifth.

    At the Lap 25 mark, Chastain retained the lead by a tenth of a second over Reddick followed by Truex and Byron while Hamlin moved his No. 11 FedEx Toyota TRD Camry into fifth place. With Logano falling back to sixth, Haley was scored in seventh ahead of Elliott, Wallace and Buescher. Behind, Larson was situated in 12th in between Blaney and Bowman, Harvick was in 17th behind Christopher Bell and Keselowski was in 18th. In addition, rookie Noah Gragson, who received medical clearance to return to racing after missing Sonoma Raceway due to concussion-like symptoms, was mired in 26th in between Corey LaJoie and Daniel Suarez, Austin Cindric was in 28th and Chase Briscoe was back in 31st.

    Ten laps later, Chastain slightly stretched his advantage to half a second over Reddick while Truex, Byron and Hamlin remained in the top five. By then, Haley and Elliott moved up to sixth and seventh in front of Logano while Blaney carved his way into the top 10 in 10th place. Behind, Bowman moved up to 11th ahead of teammate Larson while Wallace fell back to 15th.

    Then just past the Lap 40 mark, green flag pit stops commenced as Ryan Preece pitted followed by Wallace, Harvick, Michael McDowell, Larson, Aric Almirola, Truex, Ty Gibbs, Hamlin, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Reddick and others. Chastain would then surrender the lead on Lap 42 to pit under green followed by more competitors as Byron proceeded to lead a lap for himself before he pitted during Lap 43 as Chase Elliott assumed a brief lead. Once Elliott pitted on Lap 45, teammate Alex Bowman cycled into the lead for a lap before he surrendered the lead to Suarez, who would pit after leading a lap for himself on Lap 46. By then, Ty Dillon, who had yet to pit, cycled into the lead while Michael McDowell, who pitted earlier, was assessed a pass-through penalty for a commitment line violation.

    By the time Ty Dillon pitted just past the Lap 50 mark, which completed the first cycle of green flag pit stops, Chastain cycled back into the lead ahead of Reddick. Behind, Byron moved up to third ahead of Truex and Hamlin while Kyle Busch, Elliott, Logano, Larson and Buescher were running in the top 10.

    At the Lap 60 mark, Chastain, who was trying to lap Noah Gragson, continued to lead by a tenth of a second over a hard-charging Reddick and by more than a second over third-place Byron while Truex and Hamlin remained in the top five. With Gragson refusing to relent to the leaders during the proceeding lap, Reddick gained a strong run on Chastain through the first two turns before he drew himself alongside Chastain’s No. 1 Worldwide Express Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 and assumed the lead, thus becoming the second leader of the event.

    Fifteen laps later, Reddick, who nearly lost the lead amid a side-by-side battle with Chastain six laps earlier, was leading by half a second over Chastain, who continued to keep Reddick within his sights. Meanwhile, third-place Byron trailed by more than two seconds ahead of Truex and Hamlin while Elliott, winner of last year’s Cup event at Nashville, carved his way up to sixth in front of Kyle Busch and Larson. In addition, Bell was up in ninth ahead of AJ Allmendinger, winner of Saturday’s Xfinity event at Nashville.

    When the first stage concluded on Lap 90, Reddick, sporting The Big 615 radio station on Tuneln captured his third stage victory of the 2023 Cup season after fending off Chastain by four-tenths of a second. Byron and Truex followed suit in third and fourth along with Hamlin while Elliott, Kyle Busch, Larson, Bell and Allmendinger were scored in the top 10. By then, 25 of 36 competitors were scored on the lead lap.

    Under the stage break, the lead lap field led by Reddick pitted for service. Following the pit stops, the No. 24 Liberty University Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 piloted by Byron managed to exit pit road first with the lead ahead of Chastain, Reddick, Truex, Hamlin and Larson. Amid the pit stops, Kyle Busch and Harvick were both penalized for speeding on pit road.

    The second stage started on Lap 97 as Byron and Chastain occupied the front row. At the start, Truex launched a three-wide challenge on Chastain and Byron through the first two turns and the backstretch. All three continued to battle tightly amid three tight lanes for a full lap and they would all continue to battle tightly by the Lap 100 mark. Then during the following lap, Truex managed to launch ahead in his No. 19 Bass Pro Shops Toyota TRD Camry and assume the lead with a clear racetrack around him while Byron and Chastain battled for second in front of Reddick and Bell.  

    By Lap 110, Truex was leading by nearly a second over Byron and Chastain while Reddick and Bell remained in the top five. Behind, Hamlin was in sixth ahead of Elliott, Blaney, Larson and Buescher while Bowman, Allmendinger, Ty Gibbs, Aric Almirola and Erik Jones were running in the top 15.

    Fifteen laps later, Truex stabilized his advantage to more than a second over Byron followed by Reddick, Chastain and Bell while Hamlin, Elliott, Larson, Blaney and Buescher were running in the top 10. By then, Allmendinger and Bowman continued to duel fiercely for 11th while Kyle Busch had carved his way up to 16th. In addition, Harvick was up in 20th while Logano had fallen to 19th.

    Nearly 10 laps later, the event’s second round of green flag pit stops commenced as Austin Dillon and Haley pitted. They were soon followed by Ty Gibbs and Kyle Busch as Reddick, Byron, Chastain, Bell, Larson, Blaney, Bowman, Almirola, Buescher, Bowman and Erik Jones pitted. Then on Lap 138, Truex surrendered the lead to pit as teammate Hamlin cycled into the lead.

    Then on Lap 138, the caution flew when Reddick, who had just pitted and was trying to cycle his way back onto pit road, spun towards the pit road entrance as a result of a loose right-rear wheel, which the wheel popped out of the car and rolled down towards the pit road wall as Reddick spun backward on pit road. During the caution period, Hamlin, Keselowski and Wallace, all three of whom had yet to pit, pitted, but all three were able to gain a bevy of spots from second through fourth as Truex cycled back into the lead. As a result of spinning and losing the wheel on pit road, Reddick was assessed a tail end of the line penalty as he lost two laps in the process.

    Just as the field restarted under green on Lap 146, the caution quickly returned amid a stacked restart as Keselowski struggled to launch forward when Blaney, who restarted within the top 20, got hit in the rear by Kyle Busch. While Busch briefly spun in front of Bowman, Blaney slid his No. 12 Menards/Pennzoil Ford Mustang all the way toward the bottom of the track and past the pit road exit before making head-on contact with the inside wall as his event came to an end just shy of the halfway mark.

    During the proceeding restart on Lap 152, the field fanned out entering the first turn as teammates Truex and Hamlin battled for the lead in front of Bubba Wallace. With Byron launching his attack on Wallace for third during the following lap, teammates Truex and Hamlin continued to duel for the lead. Despite pulling away from third-place Byron by seven-tenths of a second, Truex and Hamlin continued to battle dead even for the lead until Hamlin managed to rocket ahead with a clear racetrack and the lead on Lap 157.

    At the Lap 165 mark, Hamlin was leading by four-tenths of a second over a lurking Truex while Byron, Chastain and Wallace were scored in the top five. Behind, Bell was in sixth ahead of Elliott, Allmendinger, Larson and Erik Jones while Keselowski, Harvick, Ty Gibbs, Buescher and Daniel Suarez were in the top 15.

    Ten laps later, Hamlin retained the lead by four-tenths of a second over teammate Truex while Chastain moved up to third ahead of Byron and Wallace.

    When the second stage concluded on Lap 185, Hamlin captured his fourth stage victory of the 2023 Cup season. Teammate Truex settled in second ahead of Chastain, Byron and Bell while Wallace, Elliott, Allmendinger, Harvick and Erik Jones were scored in the top 10.

    During the stage break, the leaders led by Hamlin pitted for service. Following the pit stops, Hamlin retained the lead after exiting first ahead of teammate Truex, Byron, Chastain, Bell, Elliott and Harvick. Amid the pit stops, Wallace, who pitted from sixth, exited pit road just outside the top 15 after enduring a slow pit service from his pit crew while Austin Cindric was penalized for speeding on pit road.

    With 108 laps remaining, the final stage started as teammates Hamlin and Truex occupied the front row. At the start and with the field fanning out, Hamlin retained the lead ahead of Truex and Chastain while the field behind jostled for positions.

    With 100 laps remaining, Hamlin was leading by four-tenths of a second over teammate Truex while Chastain, Bell and Byron were in the top five. Behind, Kevin Harvick carved his way up to sixth while Elliott, Suarez, Ty Gibbs and Logano occupied the top 10. Meanwhile, Erik Jones was in 11th while Keselowski, Buescher, Wallace, Larson, Allmendinger, Austin Dillon, Kyle Busch, Stenhouse and Harrison Burton were mired in the top 20, with 30 of 36 starters running on the lead lap.

    Ten laps later, Hamlin stabilized his advantage to within two-tenths of a second over a hard-charging Truex while third-place Chastain trailed by more than a second. Hamlin would continue to lead teammate Truex by a tenth of a second another 10 laps later while Harvick carved his No. 4 Busch Light Peach Ford Mustang up to fourth as he trailed the lead by more than three seconds. Soon after with 74 laps remaining, Chastain battled and overtook Truex for second as he tried to launch his charge on Hamlin for the lead.

    Then with 70 laps remaining, Chastain gained a strong run on Hamlin exiting the frontstretch as he returned to the lead over Hamlin while Truex trailed in third by seven-tenths of a second. By then, Harvick retained fourth as he trailed by more than a second while Chase Elliott was in fifth and trailing by more than five seconds.

    With 61 laps remaining, late trouble struck for Harvick, who was starting to challenge Truex for third, as he fell off the pace and pitted under green to address a flat right-rear tire to his No. 4 entry. Not long after, another cycle of green flag pit stops slowly commenced as Elliott pitted followed by Truex, Corey LaJoie and Cindric. The leader Chastain would then pit with 58 laps remaining followed by Hamlin and after the pit stops, Chastain managed to blend back on the track ahead of Truex and Hamlin while more competitors pitted under green.

    With 45 laps remaining and with most of the field having made a pit stop under green, Kyle Busch was leading by more than seven seconds over Bowman, but both were in need of another pit stop to make it to the event’s scheduled distance. Meanwhile, third-place Chastain, the first competitor on four fresh tires and a full tank of fuel, was trailing by more than 14 seconds while Truex and Hamlin were in the top five.

    Then with nearly 40 laps remaining, Kyle Busch surrendered the lead to pit under green. Busch’s move gave Bowman the lead while Chastain cut the deficit to trail by more than four seconds. Once Bowman pitted his No. 48 Ally Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 under green with 34 laps remaining, Chastain, who started to approach lapped traffic, reassumed the lead ahead of a hard-charging Truex, who kept Chastain close within his sights.

    Down to the final 25 laps of the event, Chastain was leading by a tenth of a second over Truex, who was trying to gain more ground on Chastain for the lead through every turn and straightaway, while third-place Hamlin trailed by more than three seconds.

    Ten laps later, Chastain, who started to experiment with different racing lanes to place a reasonable gap between himself and Truex, started to stretch his advantage to eight-tenths of a second over Truex while third-place Hamlin trailed by more than four seconds.

    Down to the final 10 laps of the event, Chastain continued to lead by six-tenths of a second over Truex as third-place Hamlin trailed by more than four seconds. Behind, Elliott and Byron were in the top five while Larson, Bell, Erik Jones, Allmendinger and Keselowski occupied the top 10.

    With five laps remaining, Chastain extended his advantage to eight-tenths of a second over Truex, who was slowly losing ground on Chastain in his bid for a second consecutive victory in recent weeks.

    When the white flag waved and the final lap started, Chastain remained as the leader by seven-tenths of a second over Truex. With Truex unable to gain ground to mount a final lap charge, Chastain was able to navigate his way around Nashville for a final time and cycle back to the finish line to capture his first elusive checkered flag of the 2023 Cup season.

    With the victory, Chastain, the championship runner-up finisher from last season, became the 11th different competitor to win through the first 17 regular-season events and place himself in prime contention to make the 2023 Cup Series Playoffs. He also notched his third Cup career victory, his first in 42 races and since winning at Talladega Superspeedway in April 2022. The Floridian also achieved his first oval-shaped victory and the first win for Trackhouse Racing since teammate Daniel Suarez won at Sonoma Raceway in June 2022.

    Ironically, Chastain extended Chevrolet’s winning streak at Nashville to three consecutive seasons in the three seasons the Cup Series has competed at Music City.

    “[The] Only thing sweeter [than winning] is this Georgia watermelon, I gotta tell you!” Chastain, who smashed a watermelon on the frontstretch, exclaimed on NBC. “This is incredible. This is why every little kid out there, anywhere in the world, when you get criticized and you’re going to if you’re competitive, they will try to tear you down. You will start believing them [that] you can’t do it. You have to go to your people, trust in the process, read your books, trust the big man’s plan upstairs and just keep getting up and going to work. I gotta tell you, a lot of self-reflection through all of this, but I had a group that believed in me and they didn’t let me get down. They bring rocket ships and I just try to point them into Victory Lane…It’s absolutely incredible the fight that we have.”

    “[The fun]’s just a desire to win,” Chastain added. “It’s just so hard at this level and it’s the best of the best. It’s where I’ve wanted to be since I was 18 years old. It’s a Cup win. I don’t care what happened the last month or by the rest of my life. It’s a freaking Cup win!”

    Truex, the winner of the previous Cup scheduled event at Sonoma, ended up in second place after leading 50 laps, though he maintained the lead in the regular-season standings, while teammate Hamlin rallied from wrecking late at Sonoma to settle in third at Nashville after leading 81 laps.

    “[I] Just needed to get the lead,” Truex said. “Once we lost it, I probably made a bad move, taking the bottom [lane] on the restart. Just too loose on the long runs. I could hang with whoever was leading. Just could never get off the corner good enough to make a move. Just lacking soundbite and then overall, just burning the rear tires off too much. Just really loose at the end of the race there as well. Just needed a little bit. Got lots of speed. Just could never get the balance where it needed it to be. Without having clean air, it was difficult. Overall, a good night for our Bass Pro/Tracker Toyota Camry. The guys are doing a great job. Just that close again. If we can keep doing this, we’ll be in good shape.”

    “I just think we had a third-place car the entire race,” Hamlin said. “I thought [Truex] was a little better. [Chastain], obviously, came on strong there at the end. That’s all we had with our FedEx Ground Toyota. It’s an optimized day. It’s a day with no mistakes and we gave ourselves a chance. Just didn’t have quite a fast enough car to go up and contend.”

    Meanwhile, Elliott notched his fourth top-five result of the season by finishing fourth, where he still trails the top-16 cutline to make the Playoffs by 64 points, while teammate Larson rallied to finish fifth.

    Byron, Bell, Erik Jones, Kyle Busch and AJ Allmendinger finished in the top 10. Notably, Suarez, who crashed into Chase Briscoe at the event’s conclusion while trying to congratulate teammate Chastain on the track, ended up 12th after starting the event at the rear of the field. In addition, rookie Ty Gibbs settled in 14th in front of Bubba Wallace, Bowman ended up 17th, Logano fell back to 19th, Harvick finished 24th after never recovering from his late tire issue and Reddick could only work his way up to 30th following his early spin and tire issue.

    There were 21 lead changes for 12 different leaders. The race featured four cautions for 24 laps. In total, 21 of 36 starters finished on the lead lap.

    With nine regular-season events remaining of this year’s Cup Series schedule, Martin Truex Jr. continues to lead the regular-season standings by 18 points over both William Byron and Ross Chastain while Christopher Bell trails by 45 points and Kyle Busch trails by 48.

    William Byron, Kyle Busch, Kyle Larson, Martin Truex Jr., Ross Chastain, Denny Hamlin, Tyler Reddick, Ryan Blaney, Joey Logano, Christopher Bell and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. are currently guaranteed spots for the 2023 Cup Series Playoffs based on winning at least once throughout the regular-season stretch. Kevin Harvick, Brad Keselowski, Chris Buescher, Bubba Wallace and Daniel Suarez currently occupy the remaining vacant spots to the Playoffs based on points, with Suarez occupying the 16th and final vacant spot by two points over Alex Bowman, 10 over rookie Ty Gibbs, 24 over AJ Allmendinger, 27 over Michael McDowell, 45 over Corey LaJoie, 51 over Austin Cindric and 55 over Justin Haley.

    Results.

    1. Ross Chastain, 99 laps led

    2. Martin Truex Jr., 50 laps led

    3. Denny Hamlin, 81 laps led, Stage 2 winner

    4. Chase Elliott, one lap led

    5. Kyle Larson

    6. William Byron, five laps led

    7. Christopher Bell, three laps led

    8. Erik Jones

    9. Kyle Busch, 12 laps led

    10. AJ Allmendinger

    11. Brad Keselowski, two laps led

    12. Daniel Suarez, one lap led

    13. Austin Dillon

    14. Ty Gibbs

    15. Bubba Wallace

    16. Ryan Preece

    17. Alex Bowman, nine laps led

    18. Chris Buescher

    19. Joey Logano

    20. Corey LaJoie

    21. Harrison Burton

    22. Ricky Stenhouse Jr., one lap down

    23. Justin Haley, one lap down

    24. Kevin Harvick, one lap down

    25.  Aric Almirola, one lap down

    26. Noah Gragson, one lap down

    27. Austin Cindric, one lap down

    28. Michael McDowell, one lap down

    29. JJ Yeley, two laps down

    30. Tyler Reddick, two laps down, 33 laps led, Stage 1 winner

    31. Chase Briscoe, two laps down

    32. Ty Dillon, two laps down, four laps led

    33. Brennan Poole, three laps down

    34. Josh Bilicki, three laps down

    35. Todd Gilliand, four laps down

    36. Ryan Blaney – OUT, Accident

    Next on the 2023 NASCAR Cup Series schedule is the series’ inaugural event at the Chicago Street Course in Downtown Chicago, Illinois. The event is scheduled to occur next Sunday, July 2, at 5:30 p.m. ET on NBC.

  • NASCAR Top-10 Power Rankings: Sonoma

    NASCAR Top-10 Power Rankings: Sonoma

    Note: The quotes in this article are fictional.

    1. Kyle Busch: Busch won Stage 2 at Sonoma but couldn’t catch Martin Truex Jr. late and settled for the runner-up spot.

    “I thought I could catch Martin,” Busch said. “I gave it my best shot. There’s nothing like a charge in ‘Wine Country,’ except for maybe a ‘charge’ in ‘Tequila Country.’”

    2. Martin Truex Jr.: Truex held off former teammate Kyle Busch to win the Toyota/Save Mart 350 at Sonoma.

    “Nothing beats sipping wine in Victory Circle at Sonoma,” Truex said. “Except shotgunning a beer anywhere but Victory Circle at Sonoma.”

    3. William Byron: Byron started 26th and finished 14th in the Toyota/Save Mart 350.

    “My Hendrick teammate Chase Elliott chatted with Denny Hamlin about their incident at WWT Raceway,” Byron said. “I don’t know the details of their talk, but I’m pretty sure they put the ‘cuss’ in ‘discussion.’”

    4. Kevin Harvick: Harvick finished 11th at Sonoma.

    “That was my 806th Cup series start,” Harvick said. “That put me ahead of Jeff Gordon for the most all-time. I may have more starts than Jeff, but I’ll never have more championships or marriages.”

    5. Joey Logano: Logano finished third at Sonoma, his second consecutive third-place finish.

    “Good things come in threes,” Logano said, “unless you’re Austin Dillon.”

    6. Ryan Blaney: Blaney struggled at Sonoma and finished 31st.

    “Road course racing is not my cup of tea,” Blaney said, “and here in Sonoma, it’s not my glass of wine.”

    7. Christopher Bell: Bell finished ninth at Sonoma, his first top-10 finish since Dover in April.

    “This race was a typical Sonoma race,” Bell said. “Long, boring, and lacking entertainment. Here in Wine Country, the race packed all the drama of a wine tasting.”

    8. Denny Hamlin: Hamlin started on the pole, but wrecked with under 20 laps to go and finished last at Sonoma.

    “I’ve got no one to blame but myself,” Hamlin said. “But by the time my latest podcast goes live, I’ll have someone else to blame.”

    9. Ross Chastain: Chastain finished 10th at Sonoma, posting his seventh top 10 of the year.

    “It’s always fun to see Denny Hamlin wreck,” Chastain said. “And it’s about time he did something without my help.”

    10. Kyle Larson: Larson came home eighth in the Toyota/Save Mart 350.

    “It was a good day for Hendrick Motorsports,” Larson said. “But only because all four regular drivers participated.”

  • NASCAR Top-10 Power Rankings: Charlotte

    NASCAR Top-10 Power Rankings: Charlotte

    Note: The quotes in this article are fictional.

    1. William Byron: Byron started from the pole at Charlotte and was strong throughout, but was one-upped by Ryan Blaney for the win and settled for the runner-up spot.

    “Congratulations to Blaney,” Byron said. “He deserved this win, not only because he broke a long winless streak, but also because he clearly had the best car, as you can see by the fact that he led 163 laps. Ryan towered over the competition, just like Fox’s Jamie Little towers over any driver she interviews.”

    2. Ryan Blaney: Blaney outdueled pole sitter William Byron late and pulled away to win the Coca-Cola 600, snapping a 59-race winless streak.

    “What’s the best thing about ending a winless streak?” Blaney said. “Starting another one.”

    3. Kyle Busch: Busch finished sixth at Charlotte, posting his seventh top 10 of the season.

    “I spun on Lap 176 and dropped way down the order,” Busch said. “But I made my way back to the front. If you saw the aftermath of my spin, you could say I ‘reversed’ my fortunes.”

    4. Martin Truex Jr.: Truex came home third in the Coca-Cola 600.

    “It was great to see Jimmie Johnson race in the 600 for his team, Legacy Motor Club,” Truex said. “Unfortunately, Jimmie finished dead last. This is a prime example of Jimmie destroying his legacy.”

    5. Tyler Reddick: Reddick led 28 laps and finished fifth in the Coca-Cola 600.

    “My 23XI Toyota sported the Air Jordan logo,” Reddick said, “and Carolina blue. We could have made it completely a Michael Jordan look had we added a golf club and an image of MJ paying his bookie.”

    6. Kevin Harvick: Harvick started second at Charlotte and fell back to last early, but took the lead early in Stage 3. But Harvick went high into Tyler Reddick on Lap 358 and spun, sending him back in the field. He finished 11th.

    “My car featured the Hunt Brothers Pizza cam,” Harvick said. “Usually, when you hear ‘Hunt Brothers Pizza’ and ‘camera’ mentioned in the same sentence, it’s often a doctor discussing your colonoscopy.”

    7. Denny Hamlin: Hamlin crashed out of the Coca-Cola 600 on Lap 186 when it appeared Elliott retaliated for contact moments earlier that caused Elliott to brush the wall. Hamlin finished 35th.

    “As I said after the incident,” Hamlin said, “Chase threw a ‘tantrum’ and wrecked me intentionally. He should be suspended. I’m sure he’ll profess his innocence, but, much like after his idiotic snowboarding accident, he won’t have a leg to stand on.”

    8. Ross Chastain: Chastain finished 22nd at Charlotte.

    “There was a shoving match,” Chastain said, “an incident with Denny Hamlin, and many other spins. None of that is unusual. What’s unusual was I wasn’t involved in any of it.”

    9. Kyle Larson: Larson struggled early but came on strong midway through Stage 3 with a charge to the front. But Larson’s No. 5 Chevy got loose on a restart with 25 laps to go and suffered extensive damage. Larson’s day was done and he finished 30th.

    “I’m planning on doing the Indianapolis 500-Coke 600 double next year,” Larson said. “I think I can do that in less time than it took to complete Stage 4 in Charlotte on Monday.”

    10. Christopher Bell: Bell got loose and spun into the infield on Lap 236 but luckily suffered little damage. He wasn’t so lucky on a restart with 25 laps to go when he was collected in a pileup triggered by Kyle Larson’s spin. Bell finished 24th.

    “The Coca-Cola 600 is a grueling, time-consuming, and energy-sapping race,” Bell said. “And that’s just for the fans.”

  • Ryan Blaney dominates for triumphant return to Victory Lane in the Coca-Cola 600

    Ryan Blaney dominates for triumphant return to Victory Lane in the Coca-Cola 600

    Ryan Blaney erased his winless drought spanning more than a season by emerging victorious in a wild, rain-postponed Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway on Monday, May 29.

    The 29-year-old Blaney, a third-generation racer from High Point, North Carolina, led seven times for a race-high 163 of 400-scheduled laps, including the final 26. The event was originally scheduled to occur on Sunday, May 28, before being postponed to Monday amid ongoing precipitation and an increase of steady rain. Even when the race was delayed again for half an hour in the early stages due to light precipitation, Blaney prevailed through 6 cautions, on-track chaos and seven side-by-side restart battles against pole-sitter William Byron, including the final one with 20 laps remaining, to fend off the competition and claim his first NASCAR Cup Series checkered flag in 59 races.

    With on-track qualifying that was scheduled to occur on Saturday, May 27, being canceled due to inclement weather, the starting lineup for the main event was determined through a metric formula per the NASCAR Rule Book. As a result, William Byron, winner of the previous Cup event at Darlington Raceway, was awarded pole position and was joined on the front row by Kevin Harvick.

    When the green flag waved and the race commenced, William Byron managed to pull ahead of Kevin Harvick and clear him to assume an early lead through the first two turns. As the field fanned out through the backstretch, Byron managed to retain the lead through Turns 3 and 4 and back to the frontstretch as he led the first lap while Brad Keselowski challenged Harvick for second place.

    During the second lap and with Byron leading, Harvick managed to pull ahead of Keselowski exiting the backstretch to retain the runner-up spot as Keselowski was then overtaken by Denny Hamlin and Ryan Blaney for top-five spots. Kyle Busch would then overtake Keselowski and drop him out of the top five on the track while Byron continued to lead.

    Then on Lap 13, Byron, who led the first 13 laps, was overtaken by the No. 11 Sport Clips Toyota TRD Camry piloted by reigning Coke 600 winner Hamlin. Hamlin would proceed to lead at the Laps 20 and 25 mark. By then, teammates Christopher Bell and Martin Truex Jr., who started 10th and 18th, respectively, carved their way into the top five while Harvick, who started on the front row, was clinging a spot within the top 20 as he continued to slip backward.

    When the scheduled competition caution flew on Lap 35, Christopher Bell, who assumed the lead from teammate Hamlin a lap earlier, was scored the leader in his No. 20 Interstate Batteries Toyota TRD Camry by nearly a second over Blaney, who just managed to overtake Hamlin for the runner-up spot. By then, Truex overtook Byron for fourth and Keselowski overtook Kyle Busch for sixth place while Tyler Reddick, Kyle Larson and Chris Buescher were running in the top 10.

    During the competition caution, the field led by Byron pitted. Following the pit stops, Byron reassumed the lead after exiting first followed by Blaney, Bell, Keselowski, Hamlin and Reddick while Truex dropped to seventh. Amid the pit stops, Joey Logano plummeted within the leaderboard after he slid through his pit box while running in the top 15.

    When the race resumed under green on Lap 41, Byron retained a narrow advantage until Blaney managed to muscle ahead on the outside lane in his No. 12 BodyArmor Cherry Lime Ford Mustang and assume the lead during the following lap. With Blaney leading Byron, Keselowski battled Bell for third while Hamlin and Buescher battled for fifth.

    Just past the Lap 50 mark and amid a series of early on-track battles, Blaney was leading by nearly a second over Byron followed by Bell, Keselowski and Hamlin while Kyle Busch, Truex, Reddick, Buescher and Larson were scored in the top 10. Behind, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. was in 11th ahead of Chase Elliott, rookie Ty Gibbs, Daniel Suarez and Erik Jones while Ross Chastain, Alex Bowman, Austin Cindric, Michael McDowell and Justin Haley were running in the top 20. Meanwhile, AJ Allmendinger was running in 21st ahead of Corey LaJoie, Bubba Wallace, Logano and Harrison Burton while Jimmie Johnson, Zane Smith, Austin Dillon, Ryan Preece and Harvick rounded out the top 30, with names that included Aric Almirola, rookie Noah Gragson and Chase Briscoe mired outside top 30.

    Thirteen laps later, Bell, who methodically carved his way back to the front, reassumed the lead from Blaney. By then, Byron was in third ahead of Keselowski and Hamlin while Reddick overtook Kyle Busch for sixth. Behind, Truex was mired in eighth ahead of Larson and Stenhouse while Bowman, who made his return from a four-race absence amid a fractured vertebra from a sprint car accident at Iowa in late April, was scored in 16th.

    On Lap 74, the second caution of the event flew when Jimmie Johnson spun his No. 84 Club Wyndham Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 off of Turn 2 and the outside wall. By then, Bell was scored the leader by more than a second over Blaney followed by Byron, Keselowski and Hamlin. During the caution period, the field led by Bell returned to pit road amid a stack-up. Following the pit stops, Byron reassumed the top spot after exiting pit road first from his first pit stall ahead of Blaney, Bell, Hamlin, Reddick and Kyle Busch while Keselowski, who pitted from fourth place, dropped to 10th due to a slow pit stop and hesitancy from the jackman. Amid the pit stops, Michael McDowell, who hit Bubba Wallace on pit road, was penalized for an equipment interference along with AJ Allmendinger. Austin Dillon would then pit for a second time for repairs to his front nose.

    When the race restarted on Lap 79, Byron and Blaney dueled for the lead through the first two turns until Byron managed to pull ahead on the outside lane through the backstretch. Bell would then follow suit in second over Blaney, where both would battle for the runner-up spot, while Reddick marched his way up to fourth ahead of Larson, Truex and Hamlin.

    At the Lap 90 mark, Byron retained the lead by two-tenths of a second over a hard-charging Blaney while third-place Bell trailed by nearly a second. Amid a series of on-track battles within the middle of the pack, Reddick retained fourth while Truex moved up to fifth ahead of teammate Hamlin. In addition, Kyle Busch was in seventh, Larson fell back to eighth and Keselowski was back in ninth over Stenhouse, Erik Jones, Suarez, Ty Gibbs, Chase Elliott and Buescher.

    When the first stage concluded on Lap 100, Byron fended off late charges from Bell and Blaney to claim his seventh stage victory of the 2023 season. Bell settled in second as Blaney dropped to third while Reddick, Truex, Hamlin, Kyle Busch, Keselowski, Larson and Stenhouse were scored in the top 10. By then, 33 of 37 starters were scored on the lead lap.

    Under the stage break, nearly the entire lead lap field led by Byron returned to pit road for service, except for McDowell as he assumed the lead. Following the pit stops, Byron exited pit road first for a third consecutive time following a fast pit service from the No. 24 pit crew ahead of Bell, Blaney, Reddick, Truex and Keselowski. Amid the pit stops, Austin Cindric was assessed a vehicle interference penalty while Legacy Motor Club’s Erik Jones and Noah Gragson took their respective cars to the garage due to mechanical issues as a result of running over the same debris on the track.

    The second stage started on Lap 107 as McDowell and Byron occupied the front row. At the start, Byron and McDowell dueled for the lead until Byron pulled ahead through the backstretch. With Byron back in the lead, Bell, Reddick and Blaney would overtake McDowell for positions as the field fanned out and jostled for positions. McDowell then began to fade and lose the track positions he gained while Byron was leading by a steady margin over Bell and Blaney.

    On Lap 117, Bell tracked down and overtook Byron for the lead. Reddick would soon follow suit in second while piloting the No. 45 Carolina Blue Jordan Brand Toyota TRD Camry along with Blaney and Keselowski while Byron dropped to fifth at the Lap 120 mark. Through the Lap 125 mark, Kyle Busch was in sixth followed by Hamlin, Truex, Suarez and Stenhouse while Buescher, Elliott, Harvick, Gibbs and Larson occupied the top 15. Behind, Logano was mired in 16th ahead of Wallace, Haley, Almirola and Preece while McDowell had fallen back to 25th behind Cindric, Bowman, Austin Dillon and Allmendinger. In addition, Chastain was mired in 26th, LaJoie was in 29th and Briscoe, who received the free pass to cycle back on the lead lap during the first stage break, was back in 32nd.

    By Lap 135, Bell continued to lead by a tenth of a second over Reddick while third-place Blaney trailed by more than a second. Bell would then manage to stretch his advantage to four-tenths of a second over Reddick at the Laps 140 and 145 mark. Meanwhile, Cindric made an unscheduled pit stop under green after scraping his No. 2 Menards Ford Mustang into the outside wall entering the backstretch. McDowell had also pitted under green, with both competitors falling out of the lead lap category.

    Within the Lap 145 mark, green flag pit stops slowly commenced as Hamlin pitted, though he stalled his car upon his service’s completion. Kyle Busch would then pit his No. 8 Alsco Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 under green followed by Keselowski, Truex, Reddick, Blaney, Chastain, Byron and a host of other competitors. Bell would then surrender the lead to pit by Lap 148 as Elliott, who had yet to pit, was leading. Upon his completed pit stop, which was slow, Bell was overtaken by Reddick, Keselowski and Blaney while trying to blend back onto the track. Amid the pit stops, Wallace was penalized for an equipment interference violation.

    Once the remaining competitors led by Elliott pitted, the No. 45 Carolina Blue scheme piloted by Reddick assumed command of the field on Lap 154 followed by Keselowski, Blaney, Truex and Bell. A lap later, however, the caution flew due to precipitation reported in Turns 3 and 4 as the field was brought down to pit road and placed in a red flag period on Lap 158.

    Half an hour later, the red flag lifted once the precipitation cleared and the track was dried as the field returned to the track under a cautious pace. During the caution period, some led by Byron and Keselowski pitted while the rest led by Reddick remained on the track. Following the pit stops, Larson had the hood of his No. 5 HendrickCars.com Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 raised up while Logano was penalized for an equipment interference.

    When the race resumed under green flag conditions on Lap 163, Reddick and Blaney dueled for the lead until Reddick pulled ahead through the backstretch as Truex made his move for second. Shortly after, the caution quickly returned when Johnson, who was multiple laps down, made contact with his driver Gragson against the Turn 2 outside wall, which resulted in Gragson scrubbing the wall and debris being scattered while Johnson spun.

    During the following restart on Lap 169, Reddick and Blaney dueled for the lead for a second time. They remained dead even during the following two laps until Reddick managed to muscle ahead of Blaney on the outside lane. With Reddick leading, Truex was in third followed by Elliott while Daniel Suarez battled Buescher, Keselowski and Byron for fifth.

    Then on Lap 175, the caution returned when Kyle Busch, who was battling within the top six, got loose entering Turns 1 and 2 and made contact with Keselowski, sending Keselowski scraping into the outside wall, before Busch spun from the top to the bottom lane of the backstretch while being barely hit by Suarez as the field scattered to avoid Busch. Following his spin, Busch reversed his car below the apron towards Turn 4 before spinning his car the right direction and pitting for repairs. During the caution period, names that included Keselowski, Ty Gibbs, Larson, Logano, Haley, Allmendinger, Bell, Cindric, Preece and Suarez pitted while the rest led by Reddick remained on the track. During the pit stops, Larson’s No. 5 pit crew popped the hood up on the car for a second time for adjustments.

    At the start of the following restart on Lap 181, Reddick and Blaney battled dead even for the lead entering Turn 1 until Blaney managed to pull ahead and assume the lead from the inside lane. As the field fanned out through the backstretch, Almirola, who had a brief shoving match with Wallace during the red flag period, got loose and hit the backstretch’s outside wall while running within the top 10 and began to plummet below the leaderboard while the race remained under green flag conditions.

    Then on Lap 185 and amid the on-track battles, the caution returned when Hamlin, who was battling Elliott within the top 10, slipped up and squeezed Elliott into the outside wall entering the frontstretch. With both managing to continue straight, Elliott then seemingly retaliated by darting back to the left and sending Hamlin’s No. 11 Toyota straight into the outside wall head-on, thus collecting Elliott in the process with both sustaining significant damage to their respective entries as Keselowski barely dodged the incident. Despite sustaining heavy front nose damage to his car, Hamlin emerged uninjured as Elliott nursed his damaged No. 9 NAPA Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 to the garage. The incident was one that prompted Hamlin to voice his displeasure towards Elliott while suggesting NASCAR to suspend Elliott for next weekend’s event at Gateway.

    During the caution period, some that included Byron and Chastain pitted while the rest led by Blaney remained on the track.

    When the race restarted on Lap 191, Buescher made his presence at the front known as he battled Blaney for the lead, which he succeeded during the following lap, while Reddick trailed in third. Behind, Harvick carved his way up to fourth followed by Logano and Keselowski while Truex was in seventh.

    A few laps later, Harvick moved his No. 4 Mobil 1 Ford Mustang up into second place as he battled Blaney and Keselowski to defend the spots while Reddick slipped to seventh behind Keselowski, Logano and Ty Gibbs. In the process, Buescher maintained the lead in his No. 17 Fastenal Ford Mustang.

    Then on the final lap of the second stage, the caution flew due to BJ McLeod spinning and stalling his car in Turn 4. The caution was enough for the second stage’s conclusion scheduled for Lap 200 to conclude under caution as Buescher captured his first stage victory of the 2023 season. Harvick settled in second while Keselowski, Logano, Blaney, Bell, Ty Gibbs, Byron, Chastain and Wallace were scored in the top 10. By then, 25 of 37 starters were scored on the lead lap.

    Under the stage break, nearly the entire lead lap field led by Buescher pitted while Stenhouse and Kyle Busch remained on the track. Following the pit stops, Harvick beat Buescher off of pit road first followed by Logano, Gibbs, Blaney, Byron and Keselowski, whose pit stall erupted in flames upon exiting his stall.

    The third stage started on Lap 207 as Stenhouse and Busch occupied the front row. At the start, Stenhouse peeked ahead with the lead on the outside lane while Harvick battled Busch for second. Harvick then made his move on the frontstretch during the following lap as he assumed the lead while Logano challenged Stenhouse for second. As Logano assumed second in his No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Ford Mustang, Blaney battled Busch and Stenhouse for third while Buescher was back to sixth in front of Keselowski.

    At the Lap 220 mark, Harvick was leading by eight-tenths of a second over Blaney followed by Logano, Busch and Byron while Bell, Truex, Buescher, Gibbs and Chastain were scored in the top 10. By then, Keselowski dropped out of the lead lap category after pitting a lap earlier under green amid concerns of a loose wheel to his No. 6 Castrol Edge Ford Mustang.

    Ten laps later, Blaney, who assumed the lead from Harvick four laps earlier, was leading by more than a second over Harvick while Busch maintained third ahead of Byron and Bell, who rallied from starting at the rear of the field during the race’s resumption after his No. 20 pit crew made an unapproved adjustment to his car during the red flag period. A lap later, however, Bell drew the caution after getting loose underneath Byron entering the frontstretch and spinning through the front-stretch’s grass. Bell, however, was able to prevent his car from hitting the wall as he slid through pit road before proceeding.

    During the caution period, the lead lap field led by Harvick pitted. Following the pit stops, Byron reassumed the lead after exiting pit road first from his first pit stall followed by Harvick, Blaney, Gibbs, Logano and Buescher. Amid the pit stops, Kyle Busch, Truex, Buescher and Chastain made contact on pit road after getting squeezed into one another, with Truex later being assessed an equipment interference penalty.

    With the race restarting on Lap 236, Byron and Blaney battled for the lead through the first two turns and the backstretch until Blaney peeked ahead and assumed command during the following lap. Behind, Harvick and Logano jostled for third as Larson drew himself into the picture. Reddick also carved his way up to sixth in front of Ty Gibbs while Kyle Busch was back in eighth ahead of Stenhouse and Chastain.

    By Lap 240, Larson carved his way into third followed by Reddick while Logano and Harvick dropped to fifth and sixth. Meanwhile, Blaney maintained the lead by half a second over Byron as Wallace cracked the top 10 by moving into 10th.

    Ten laps later, Blaney extended his advantage to more than a second over Byron as Reddick was in third followed by Larson and Harvick. By then, Busch was in sixth ahead of Gibbs, Logano, Stenhouse and Wallace while Bowman, Cindric, McDowell, Chastain, Truex, Preece, Haley, Bell, Zane Smith and Austin Dillon were scored in the top 20.

    Another 10 laps later, Blaney continued to lead by four-tenths of a second over Reddick while Larson, Byron and Harvick trailed in the top five.

    On Lap 274, the 10th caution of the event flew when Keselowski got loose and clipped the right rear of the No. 51 Rick Ware Racing Ford Mustang piloted by Todd Gilliland as both spun through the backstretch. During the caution period, the lead lap field led by Blaney pitted, but Byron reassumed the lead with the benefit of his first pit stall and another stellar pit stop from his No. 24 pit crew. With Byron exiting pit road first, Blaney followed suit along with Reddick, Harvick, Gibbs and Larson.

    During the following restart on Lap 280, Byron retained the lead as the field fanned out through the first two turns. Behind Byron, Blaney retained second while Reddick used the outside lane to battle and overtake Harvick for third. Two laps later, Blaney reassumed the lead after gaining a strong run beneath Byron’s No. 24 Liberty University Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 through Turns 2 and 3. Meanwhile, Harvick fell back to seventh as Larson, Truex and Gibbs occupied spots in front of him.

    By Lap 290, Blaney maintained the lead by three-tenths of a second over Reddick while Truex carved his way up to third while trailing by more than a second, all while Byron slipped to fourth in front of teammate Larson.

    When the third stage concluded on Lap 300, Blaney fended off a late charge from both Reddick and Truex to capture his first stage victory of the 2023 season. Reddick settled in second followed by Truex while Byron, Gibbs, Larson, Kyle Busch, Harvick, Stenhouse and Alex Bowman were scored in the top 10. By then, 27 of 37 starters were scored on the lead lap.

    During the stage break, the lead lap field led by Blaney pitted. Following the pit stops, Byron retained the lead after exiting pit road first followed by Blaney, Larson, Ty Gibbs, Reddick, Kyle Busch and Harvick.

    With 93 laps remaining, the final stage started as Byron and Blaney occupied the front row. At the start, Byron and Blaney engaged in another tight battle for the lead before Blaney pulled ahead and motored away with the lead.

    Eighteen laps later, Blaney was leading by more than two seconds over Reddick followed by Kyle Busch, Byron and Larson while Gibbs, Stenhouse, Bowman, Wallace and Harvick were scored in the top 10. Behind, Truex was mired in 11th ahead of Haley, Zane Smith, Austin Dillon and Logano while Cindric, McDowell, Allmendinger, Chase Briscoe and Preece rounded out the top 20. Meanwhile, Buescher was mired back in 21st while Bell, Harrison Burton, Almirola, LaJoie, JJ Yeley and Chastain rounded out the 27-car field of competitors scored on the lead lap.

    With 60 laps remaining, Blaney maintained the lead by more than three seconds over Kyle Busch while Reddick was back in third ahead of Larson and Byron.

    Then with laps remaining, the caution flew when a right-front tire came off of the No. 34 Chicago Pneumatic Compressors Ford Mustang piloted by McDowell in Turn 2. During the caution period, the field led by Blaney peeled to pit road for service. Following the pit stops, Byron’s pit crew continued to deliver after enabling their driver to exit first and reassume the lead ahead of Reddick, Busch, Blaney, Larson, Harvick and Truex. During the pit stops, Wallace, who pitted within the top 10, dropped to 19th after getting blocked by Bowman while trying to exit his pit stall.

    With 51 laps remaining, the race proceeded under green. At the start, Byron and Reddick battled for the lead but Byron quickly retained the lead. Meanwhile, Reddick slipped up the track as Busch, Larson and Blaney overtook him. Truex also made his move into the top five during the following lap as Reddick fell back to sixth in front of Ty Gibbs and Harvick. Not long after, Larson battled Kyle Busch for second as Truex joined the battle with less than 50 laps remaining.

    With 43 laps remaining, however, the caution flew when Harvick, who was battling Gibbs and Reddick for spots in the top 10, made contact against Reddick’s Toyota entering the front stretch and sent spinning through the frontstretch grass, though he continued and directed himself to pit road. During the caution period, all but Zane Smith pitted as Byron was the first competitor to exit pit road first.

    Down to the final 38 laps of the event, the race proceeded under green. At the start, Byron assumed the lead from Zane Smith as the field fanned out, with Larson challenging Blaney for second. Nearly a lap later, however, the caution returned when Allmendinger received a nudge from Stenhouse, slipped sideways and spun towards the Turns 3 and 4 outside wall, barely clipping Logano in the process as Harrison Burton was also involved.

    With the race restarting with 31 laps remaining, Byron received a strong push from teammate Larson to retain the lead over Blaney. As the field made its way through the backstretch, trouble struck again as Cindric, who was running within the middle of the pack, got sideways and slapped the inside wall head-on as his long event came to a late end.

    During the following restart with 26 laps remaining, the calamity continued as Larson, who was running fourth, slipped sideways and ignited a multi-car wreck in Turn 2 that involved Gibbs, Bell, Logano and Almirola. At the moment of this recent caution, Blaney had managed to reassume the lead over Byron.

    With the race restarting with 20 laps remaining, Blaney used the outside lane to retain the lead over Truex and Byron. Through Turns 3 and 4, however, Blaney briefly lost his momentum, which allowed Byron to fight back on the inside lane while Truex had to also step out of the gas to avoid hitting Blaney. Byron, however, was unable to mount his charge as Blaney retained the lead while Byron and Truex battled for second. Shortly after, Reddick made his charge to the front as he overtook Truex for third. Behind, Wallace carved his way to fifth while Kyle Busch, who nearly got turned by Stenhouse, was mired in sixth.

    With less than 15 laps remaining, Blaney was leading by half a second over Byron and more than a second over Truex. Blaney continued to lead by six-tenths of a second with 10 laps remaining as 23XI Racing’s Wallace and Reddick were scored in fourth and fifth.

    Down to the final five laps of the event, Blaney retained the lead by more than a second over Byron and Truex while Wallace and Reddick trailed by more than two seconds.

    When the white flag waved and the final lap started, Blaney remained as the leader by nine-tenths of a second over Byron. Despite Byron mounting a final lap charge as he cut the deficit down to six-tenths of a second, he ran out of time as Blaney, who had a clear vision in front of him, was able to cycle his way back to the frontstretch and claim his first checkered flag in 59 races.

    With the victory, Blaney, who also achieved his first Coke 600 victory, notched his first Cup Series victory since winning at Daytona International Speedway in August 2021. He became the 10th different winner of the 2023 Cup season and the second Team Penske competitor alongside Joey Logano to win this season as he notched his eighth career win in NASCAR’s premier series.

    As an added bonus, Blaney’s Coke 600 victory capped off a memorable weekend for his team owner Roger Penske, who notched his 19th Indianapolis 500 victory a day ago with the help of two-time NTT IndyCar Series champion Josef Newgarden. Blaney also recorded the first Cup points-paying victory for crew chief Jonathan Hassler.

    Photo by John Knittel for SpeedwayMedia.com.

    “I might shed a tear,” Blaney said on FOX. “Man, this has been a cool weekend. Obviously, Memorial Day weekend, it means a lot. I’ve been growing up here, watching dad [Dave Blaney] run this race for a long time. It’s just so cool to be a part of it, let alone win it. I was able to get the lead on the restart. Our car was so good that I could kind of bide my time a little bit and we were able to drive off. I was hoping no caution just because you never know. I knew we had the car to do it, but restarts can be crazy. You start to get to feel like you can’t win anymore and when you don’t win [a race] in a while, it kind of gets hard. Just super thankful to the No. 12 guys for believing in me and thank you [fans] for sticking around.”

    Byron, the pole-sitter who led 91 laps and received superior service from his pit crew amid the long event and delay, settled in second place for his best result at his home track.

    “We just needed a little bit,” Byron said. “Just really happy for Ryan. He really deserves it. He’s a good dude. Cool to see him get a win. I felt like there were enough restarts for him to get back towards the front. I knew [Blaney] and [Reddick] were a little bit stronger than us, but just thanks to this Liberty University Chevrolet team. The car was great tonight. Just not quite good enough, but really proud of the effort. Pit crew was phenomenal on pit road. Those guys are just high energy and that [number one] pit stall helps, so just a credit to the few weeks before Darlington. Just proud of where our team is at. Just needed a little bit more.”

    Truex, a two-time Coke 600 winner, came home in third while Bubba Wallace and Tyler Reddick finished in the top five. Kyle Busch, Stenhouse, Buescher, Austin Dillon and Zane Smith completed the top 10 in the final running order. Notably, Harvick finished 11th in his final Coke 600 event while Alex Bowman finished 12th in his first event since returning from his fractured vertebrae injury.

    There were 31 lead changes for 13 different leaders. The race featured 16 cautions for 83 laps. In total, 25 of 37 starters finished on the lead lap.

    With 12 regular-season events remaining of this year’s Cup Series schedule, Ross Chastain leads the regular-season standings by a single point over Ryan Blaney, four over William Byron, eight over Kevin Harvick and 13 over Martin Truex Jr.

    William Byron, Kyle Busch, Kyle Larson, Ryan Blaney, Martin Truex Jr., Christopher Bell, Tyler Reddick, Denny Hamlin, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Joey Logano are currently guaranteed spots for the 2023 Cup Series Playoffs based on winning at least once throughout the regular-season stretch. Ross Chastain, Kevin Harvick, Brad Keselowski, Chris Buescher, Bubba Wallace and Alex Bowman occupy the remaining vacant spots to the Playoffs based on points, with Bowman occupying the 16th and final vacant spot by four points over Chase Briscoe, 15 over rookie Ty Gibbs, 20 over Daniel Suarez, 38 over Corey LaJoie and 42 over Austin Cindric.

    Results.

    1. Ryan Blaney, 163 laps led, Stage 3 winner

    2. William Byron, 91 laps led, Stage 1 winner

    3. Martin Truex Jr.

    4. Bubba Wallace

    5. Tyler Reddick, 28 laps led

    6. Kyle Busch, one lap led

    7. Ricky Stenhouse Jr., four laps led

    8. Chris Buescher, 12 laps led, Stage 2 winner

    9. Austin Dillon

    10. Zane Smith, three laps led

    11. Kevin Harvick, 19 laps led

    12. Alex Bowman

    13. Ryan Preece

    14. AJ Allmendinger

    15. Justin Haley

    16. JJ Yeley

    17. Corey LaJoie

    18. Harrison Burton

    19. Brad Keselowski

    20. Chase Briscoe

    21. Joey Logano

    22. Ross Chastain

    23. Daniel Suarez

    24. Christopher Bell, 48 laps led

    25. Aric Almirola

    26. Ty Gibbs, two laps down

    27. Ty Dillon, three laps down

    28. Michael McDowell, four laps down, four laps led

    29. BJ McLeod, eight laps down

    30. Kyle Larson – OUT, one lap led

    31. Austin Cindric – OUT, Accident

    32. Erik Jones, 59 laps down

    33.  Todd Gilliland – OUT, Accident

    34. Chase Elliott – OUT, Accident, six laps led

    35. Denny Hamlin – OUT, Accident, 20 laps led

    36. Noah Gragson – OUT, Engine

    37. Jimmie Johnson – OUT, Accident

    Next on the 2023 NASCAR Cup Series schedule is the series’ second annual event at Gateway’s World Wide Technology Raceway in Madison, Illinois. The event is scheduled to occur next Sunday, June 4, at 3:30 p.m. ET on FS1.

  • Hamlin clips Larson for thrilling last lap Cup victory at Kansas

    Hamlin clips Larson for thrilling last lap Cup victory at Kansas

    Denny Hamlin executed a thrilling finish for the ages by stalking and making the slightest contact on Kyle Larson that sent Larson into the backstretch wall on the final lap to win the AdventHealth 400 at Kansas Speedway on Sunday, May 7.

    The 42-year-old Hamlin from Chesterfield, Virginia, led eight times for 34 of 267-scheduled laps in a Heartland event that generated competitive racing and various lead changes from start to finish. At the event’s conclusion, Hamlin, who spent the final 26 laps trailing and cutting Larson’s steady advantage while trying himself to overtake him, seized an opportunity at the start of the final lap when he got to Larson’s rear bumper and tried to overtake him through the first two turns. Then as Larson gained the momentum to pull ahead entering the backstretch, both competitors’ cars came together as Hamlin slipped up and resulted with Larson getting sideways and wrecking against the outside wall. This allowed Hamlin to sneak by with the lead as he cruised to his first NASCAR Cup Series victory of the 2023 season by more than a second.

    With on-track qualifying that determined the starting lineup occurring on Saturday, William Byron notched his second Cup pole of the season and the 10th of his career after posting a pole-winning lap at 179.206 mph in 30.133 seconds. Joining him on the front row was teammate Kyle Larson, who posted the second-best qualifying lap at 179.170 mph in 30.139 seconds.

    Prior to the event, the following names that included Josh Bilicki, Corey LaJoie and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. dropped to the rear of the field due to unapproved adjustments made to their respective entries.

    When the green flag waved and the race commenced, Byron took off with the lead on the inside lane and assumed control of the field that fanned out through the first two turns and the backstretch. As the field continued to jostle for positions, Byron led the first lap while teammate Larson and Ross Chastain battled for second. Behind, Tyler Reddick was in fourth while Martin Truex Jr. retained fifth ahead of Joey Logano.

    During the third lap, however, Byron briefly fell off the pace and dipped his No. 24 Liberty University Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 below the apron after getting loose entering the backstretch, which allowed Larson and Chastain to rocket past him as they battled for the lead followed by a hard-charging Reddick. A tight three-car battle for the lead then ensued between Larson, Chastain and Reddick, with neither letting off the throttle nor giving an inch as they fanned out and slid up the track to stall the momentum.

    Then prior to the fifth lap, the three-car battle for the lead between Larson, Reddick and Chastain went south as Reddick, who was sliding up the track and attempting to file in behind Larson and in front of Chastain entering the frontstretch, made contact with Larson as he sent Larson’s No. 5 HendrickCars.com Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 spinning across the frontstretch. Larson, however, managed to keep his car spinning below the apron without getting hit from the oncoming field and proceed without sustaining any damage as the event’s first caution flew.

    During the first caution, names that included Larson, Brad Keselowski, Chase Briscoe, Josh Bilicki, Todd Gilliland, Harrison Burton, Ryan Preece, Justin Haley and JJ Yeley pitted while the rest led by the new leader Reddick remained on the track.

    When the race restarted on the ninth lap, Reddick retained the lead on the inside lane as the field fanned out through the first two turns and the backstretch. Behind, Chastain and Byron were in second and third while rookie Ty Gibbs used the outside lane to move his No. 54 Monster Energy Toyota TRD Camry into the top five as he battled teammate Martin Truex Jr. for more. Denny Hamlin also launched his bid for a spot in the top five against Gibbs followed by Logano, Christopher Bell, Bubba Wallace and Daniel Suarez.

    Through the first 15 scheduled laps, Reddick was leading by half a second over Chastain followed by Truex, Hamlin and Byron while Bell, Ty Gibbs, Wallace, Suarez and Logano were in the top 10. Michael McDowell was in 11th followed by Chris Buescher, Kevin Harvick, Ryan Blaney and Kyle Busch while rookie Noah Gragson, Austin Cindric, AJ Allmendinger, Austin Dillon and Ty Dillon were running in the top 20. Meanwhile, Larson, who was trying to carve his way back to the front following his early spin, was mired outside the top 25 on the track.

    Thirteen laps later, Truex, winner of last week’s Cup event at Dover Motor Speedway, moved his No. 19 Reser’s Fine Foods Toyota TRD Camry into the lead after gaining momentum and seizing an opportunity for the top spot through the backstretch and Turns 3 and 4. Teammate Hamlin followed suit in second in his No. 11 FedEx Toyota TRD Camry as Reddick fell back to third.

    By Lap 37, Byron, who fell back to ninth, pitted under green, but was assessed a penalty for speeding on pit road, which dropped him to last place in the running order and out of the lead lap category. By then, Aric Almirola pitted as Austin Cindric, Suarez and Kyle Busch pitted their respective entries. The first cycle of green flag pit stops proceeded as Wallace and Chastain pitted along with Hamlin, Reddick, Harvick, Wallace and Logano.

    By Lap 40, Truex surrendered the lead to pit along with Josh Berry, AJ Allmendinger, Chase Elliott, Ty Gibbs and others. Truex’s pit stop, however, occurred a lap later than planned due to a miscommunication with his team. This allowed teammate Hamlin to overtake him for position on the backstretch with nearly the entire field having made a pit stop.

    Just past the Lap 45 mark, Corey LaJoie, who had yet to pit, was leading followed by Keselowski while Hamlin, the first competitor who pitted, cycled to third ahead of Truex and JJ Yeley. Then once LaJoie pitted on Lap 47, Hamlin cycled as the new leader by three-tenths of a second over teammate Truex. Truex, however, managed to narrow the deficit and reassume the lead from Hamlin on Lap 49 while Keselowski, who had yet to pit, retained third followed by Reddick and Ty Gibbs.

    On Lap 56, trouble ignited for Chase Briscoe, who exited his pit stall after completing a pit stop under green when the left-front wheel came off of Briscoe’s No. 14 Rush Truck Centers Ford Mustang and rolled down pit road. The tire, however, managed to roll behind the wall and Briscoe was able to reverse his car back to his pit stall without drawing a caution. He, however, was penalized for an uncontrolled tire violation as Truex continued to lead ahead of teammate Hamlin, Reddick, Gibbs and Suarez.

    By Lap 65, Truex retained the lead ahead of teammate Hamlin and more than nine seconds over third-place Reddick while Gibbs and Suarez remained in the top five. Behind, Wallace was in sixth ahead of Bell while Blaney, Chastain and Kyle Busch were in the top 10. Two laps later, Keselowski, who was trying to stretch his fuel tank after pitting on the seventh lap, pitted under green after slipping out of the top-10 running order while Larson and Harvick battled for 11th.

    On Lap 71, the battle for the lead between teammates Truex and Hamlin reignited as Hamlin, who gained ground on Truex through the backstretch a lap prior, managed to carve his way past Truex amid lapped traffic to reassume the lead. By then, Byron’s rocky day went from bad to worse as he pitted under green after scrubbing the outside wall through Turns 1 and 2.

    When the first stage concluded on Lap 80, Hamlin captured his second stage victory of the 2023 season. Teammate Truex settled in second followed by teammate Ty Gibbs while Reddick, Suarez, Bell, Wallace, Blaney, Chastain and Larson were scored in the top 10. By then, 19 of 36 starters were scored on the lead lap.

    Under the stage break, the lead lap field led by Hamlin pitted for service. Following the pit stops, Hamlin retained the lead after exiting first followed by Truex, Gibbs, Suarez, Wallace and Blaney. During the pit stops, Reddick lost five spots on pit road due to a slow pit service involving the jack while Kyle Busch, who backed his car on pit road to tighten a lug nut, was penalized for speeding on pit road.

    The second stage started on Lap 88 as teammates Hamlin and Truex occupied the front row. At the start, teammates Hamlin and Truex dueled for the lead as the field fanned out and battled in close-quarters racing through the first two turns and the backstretch. In the midst of the battle for the lead, Suarez, who restarted third, was nearly turned in the backstretch as he fell within the top 10.

    As the field returned to the frontstretch, both Truex and Hamlin refused to give an inch nor let off the throttle as they continued to battle dead even for the lead while Chastain overtook Gibbs and Reddick for third. Behind, Elliott muscled his way to the front as he overtook Larson, Blaney and Wallace to move up to seventh.

    On Lap 94, Hamlin attempted to side-draft teammate Truex for the lead through the frontstretch, but Truex gained the momentum on the outside lane through the first two turns as he retained the lead. Their battles were among many occurring around the speedway as Chastain was starting to be pressured by Wallace for third while Blaney and Bell battled for seventh.

    At the Lap 100 mark, Hamlin, who pulled a slide job to reassume the lead from Truex, was leading by half a second over teammate Truex, with both continuing to pressure one another for the lead as third-place Wallace trailed by two seconds. Chastain and Gibbs were in the top five while Bell, Elliott, Larson, Josh Berry and Blaney were scored in the top 10. Behind, Suarez was back in 11th followed by Aric Almirola, Kevin Harvick, Reddick and Buescher while Kyle Busch was in 16th.

    Seven laps later, the caution flew when Austin Cindric, who was running 19th, blew a right-front tire and slapped the outside wall exiting the frontstretch and through the first two turns. Cindric’s incident was one that broke the wheel in half and fell off his No. 2 Freightliner Ford Mustang as he pitted. During the caution period, the lead lap field led by Hamlin returned to pit road for service. Following the pit stops, Wallace emerged as the new leader after exiting pit road first followed by Chastain, Truex, Gibbs, Larson and Hamlin. During the pit stops, Elliott backed his No. 9 UniFirst Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 back to his pit stall to have a left-side lug nut tightened as he lost a bevy of spots on pit road.

    When the race restarted under green on Lap 113, Chastain jumped ahead with the lead on the inside lane, but Wallace quickly fought back on the outside lane with drafting help from Truex as he reassumed the top spot and held the lead amid a series of battles. With Wallace leading, Chastain and Truex battled for second as Hamlin was in fourth ahead of Larson, Gibbs and Almirola. Meanwhile, Reddick was back in eighth along with Kyle Busch, Josh Berry, Harvick and Bell while Blaney was back in 13th.

    On Lap 118, Truex used the inside lane to his advantage as he overtook Wallace for the lead entering the frontstretch. Behind, Larson rocketed his way up to third while Hamlin was in fourth ahead of Chastain. As Gibbs occupied sixth, Reddick and Kyle Busch battled for seventh while Elliott was back in 12th in between Almirola and Harvick.

    At the halfway mark between Laps 133 and 134, Truex was leading by more than a second over Larson and more than two seconds over third-place Hamlin while Wallace and Chastain were back in the top five. Reddick, Gibbs, Kyle Busch, Bell and Berry were in the top 10 while Elliott Harvick, Almirola, Buescher, Blaney, Suarez, Gragson, Austin Dillon, Allmendinger and Logano were running in the top 20. Notably, Keselowski was in 21st, Erik Jones was mired in 25th behind Harrison Burton and Byron was in 32nd.

    On Lap 138, the caution flew when Almirola, who was running 13th, snapped sideways and spun towards the bottom of the track in the backstretch as he slowly limped his No. 10 Smithfield Ford Mustang back to pit road with multiple flat tires. During the caution period, the lead lap field led by Hamlin returned to pit road for service. Following the pit stops, Larson managed to edge Truex and Hamlin off of pit road first as he assumed the lead followed by Chastain, Wallace and Kyle Busch. During the pit stops, Ty Gibbs reversed his car back to his pit stall to tighten a loose wheel on his entry. In addition, Keselowski was penalized for speeding on pit road.

    During the following restart on Lap 143, Larson and Truex dueled for the lead as the field fanned out through the backstretch and returning to the frontstretch. During the following lap, Larson managed to clear Truex, who had to lift off the throttle in Turn 4, to retain the lead as Hamlin followed pursuit in third. Behind, Wallace and Chastain battled for fourth as Kyle Busch and Elliott battled for sixth. As a series of on-track battles ensued, including one at the front where Wallace overtook Truex and Hamlin for second while Kyle Busch and Chastain bumped and rubbed fenders, resulting with the former voicing his displeasure to the latter, the caution returned on Lap 148 when Erik Jones spun his No. 43 Allegiant Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 entering the backstretch. At the same time, Berry also spun after pinning Gibbs in between himself and Buescher, which resulted with Berry spinning his No. 48 Ally Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 below the backstretch.

    During the caution period, names that included Keselowski, Austin Dillon, Harrison Burton, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Ryan Preece and Ty Dillon pitted while the rest led by Truex remained on the track.

    With 12 laps remaining in the second stage, the race restarted under green. At the start, Larson and Wallace battled dead even for the lead for a lap, with neither managing to clear one another as Hamlin gained ground on both. During the following lap, both Larson and Wallace continued to duel with both Hamlin and Truex remaining within striking distance before Larson managed to pull a slide job and clear Wallace through Turns 1 and 2. Meanwhile, Kyle Busch moved up to fifth ahead of Blaney and Chastain.

    Then with eight laps remaining and just as Wallace reassumed the lead from Larson, the caution flew when Bell, who was running eighth, made contact against Chastain, spun his No. 20 SiriusXM Toyota TRD Camry off of the backstretch and pounded the outside wall as his strong run came to an end. During the caution period, some led by Logano remained on the track while the rest led by Wallace pitted.

    With three laps remaining in the second stage, the race restarted under green. At the start, the field scrambled and fanned out through the first two turns between competitors on old tires versus new tires as Logano and McDowell battled for the lead. Then through the backstretch, the caution returned when Kyle Busch, who was trying to carve his way back to the front amid the mixed strategy, slid across the nose of Ryan Preece and spun his No. 8 Cheddar’s Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 below the track as he slapped the inside wall and slid backwards on flat tires as his roller coaster day came to an end. The incident was one that ended Busch’s. Busch’s incident was enough for NASCAR to conclude the second stage scheduled for Lap 165 under caution as Logano captured his second stage victory of the 2023 season. McDowell settled in second while Gragson, Erik Jones, AJ Allmendinger, Buescher, Austin Dillon, Ty Dillon, Larson and Hamlin were scored in the top 10. By then, 28 of 36 starters were scored on the lead lap.

    Under the stage break, some led by Logano, including the ones that remained on the track during the previous caution period, pitted while the rest led by new leader Larson remained on the track.

    With 97 laps remaining, the final stage started under green as Larson and Hamlin occupied the front row. At the start, Larson retained the lead ahead of Hamlin following a push from teammate Elliott as a series of on-track battles ensued from the front to the back. With Larson leading, Wallace challenged his owner Hamlin for second with Elliott settling in fourth as Blaney, Truex and Reddick battled for fifth. Truex would then fall back to seventh as he was being pressured by teammate Ty Gibbs and Harvick for more.

    Then with 91 laps remaining and amid the continuous battles, the caution flew when Gibbs, who was battling teammate Truex and Harvick for seventh place, slid up the track entering the backstretch as he sent Truex up the track and towards the outside wall. While Truex proceeded, Gibbs then spun his No. 54 Monster Energy Toyota TRD Camry below the track as he made little contact against the inside wall while flat-spotting his tires. He then damaged his right-front fender as his right-front tire shredded while he attempted to enter pit road, which resulted with him getting stuck towards the frontstretch grass and ending his race with a wrecked race car.

    During the following restart with 84 laps remaining, Larson and Hamlin battled for the lead amid the field fanning out as Larson managed to clear Hamlin and retain the lead. Behind, Blaney carved his way up to fourth while battling Reddick for the spot while Elliott overtook Hamlin for second. Behind, Truex was trying to carve his way back to the front as he was in seventh behind Wallace as Elliott started to challenge teammate Larson for the lead. After gaining a strong run through the backstretch, Elliott, who is needing a victory to make the 2023 Cup Playoffs after missing six of the first eight scheduled events, moved into the lead with 81 laps remaining as Hamlin tried to battle Larson for second.

    With 77 laps remaining, the caution returned when Harrison Burton spun his No. 21 Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford Mustang off of Turn 2 while trying to avoid hitting Buescher. During the caution period, nearly the entire field led by Elliott pitted while the rest that included Truex, Austin Dillon, Logano, Gragson and Todd Gilliland remained on the track.

    At the start of the following restart with 72 laps remaining, Truex and Austin Dillon dueled for the lead as Larson, the first competitor restarting on fresh tires, fanned out while charging his way back to the front. With Truex retaining the lead, teammates Larson and Elliott pressured Austin Dillon for second with Suarez in fifth as Hamlin was back in sixth ahead of Byron and Logano. With 69 laps remaining, however, Hamlin capitalized exiting the backstretch to overtake both Suarez and Elliott for fourth place while Larson, who managed to overtake Austin Dillon for second, started to pressure Truex for the lead.

    Then with 64 laps remaining, Larson side-drafted and overtook Truex through the frontstretch to reassume the lead on four fresh tires. He then started to pull away as Hamlin, Austin Dillon and Byron occupied the top five. Behind, Suarez was in sixth followed by Blaney while Wallace battled Reddick, Harvick and Elliott for eighth. The caution, however, returned with 62 laps remaining when Gragson, who was battling hard against Chastain for a top-15 spot and scrubbed the outside wall on the frontstretch a few laps earlier, got sideways by himself entering the backstretch as he spun his No. 42 Sunseeker Resort Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 below the track.

    During the caution period, nearly the entire lead lap field led by Truex pitted while names that included Corey LaJoie, Preece and McDowell remained on the track. Following the pit stops, Larson exited first with the lead followed by teammate Byron, Hamlin, Suarez, Truex and Austin Dillon. Following the pit stops, however, Suarez was penalized for an uncontrolled tire violation after a wheel rolled out of his pit box.

    With the race restarting with 56 laps remaining, the field fanned out and scrambled as Preece and LaJoie dueled for the lead in front of Byron, Larson and Hamlin. During the following lap and with the field still scrambling, Byron, who was two laps down early in the event, cycled into the lead followed by teammate Larson, Hamlin and Truex. Larson then engaged in a battle with his Hendrick Motorsports teammate for the lead with both refusing to give an inch while Hamlin tried to close in while running third.

    It would not take long, however, for the caution to return with 53 laps remaining when Erik Jones got loose after touching Almirola as he battled him for position and spun below the apron in Turns 3 and 4. At the same time, Berry spun off of the two turns, with both proceeding to pit their respective entries. The caution period enabled McDowell and Preece to pit while the rest of the field led by Byron remained on the track.

    During the proceeding event with 47 laps remaining, Larson gained the momentum on the outside lane to assume the lead from teammate Byron with Hamlin in third as Wallace charged his way back to fourth along with Chastain. Truex, meanwhile, fell back to seventh after having issues gaining speed on the inside lane as Wallace and Chastain battled for fourth.

    With 35 laps remaining, Larson was leading by six-tenths of a second over teammate Byron followed by Hamlin, Chastain and Wallace while Logano, Elliott, Truex, Reddick and Austin Dillon were in the top 10. Behind, Harvick was in 11th ahead of Blaney, Stenhouse, Allmendinger and LaJoie while Keselowski, Almirola, Suarez, Buescher and Justin Haley occupied the top 20.

    Down to the final 25 laps of the event, Larson extended his advantage to more than a second over Hamlin, who overtook Byron for second a lap earlier, as Chastain and Wallace remained in the top five. Larson’s advantage, however, decreased to six-tenths of a second over a hard-charging Hamlin with less than 20 laps remaining while third-place Byron trailed by more than two seconds.

    With 10 laps remaining, Larson, who scrubbed the wall four laps earlier while trying to navigate his way through lapped traffic, retained the lead by only three-tenths of a second over Hamlin, who continued to close in for the lead and now had Larson close to his front windshield.

    During the proceeding laps, Hamlin, who was experimenting different lanes to gain the ground needed on Larson, cut the deficit to as little as a tenth of a second as he tried to navigate his way around Larson for the lead amid more lapped traffic. Larson, however, maintained his ground as he was forced to block and fend off Hamlin for the lead. With nearly five laps remaining, Hamlin gained a run beneath Larson and nearly took over the lead on the frontstretch, but Larson managed to maintain the lead by a tenth of a second as he gained the momentum through the first two turns. Larson then managed to stabilize his advantage by only as high as half a second, leaving Hamlin more work to try and regain the ground.

    When the white flag waved and the final lap started, Larson, who continued to block and fend off Hamlin’s charges through every turn and straightaway, remained as the leader by a tenth of a second over Hamlin. Through the first two turns, Hamlin tried once again to draw himself even with Larson for the lead, but Larson started to peek ahead entering the backstretch. It was there where the competitors’ cars touched as Hamlin slid up and barely clipped Larson left-rear quarter panel, which got Larson loose and into the outside wall on the backstretch. Despite hitting the wall, Larson managed to quickly straighten his car and proceed, but the damage was done as Hamlin escaped with the lead. After navigating his way through the final two corners without any pressure, Hamlin cycled back to the frontstretch and delivered with his first checkered flag of the 2023 season after winning by more than a second over Larson.

    With the victory, Hamlin, who won for the first time since winning the 2022 Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, notched his 49th NASCAR Cup Series career victory, which tied him with NASCAR Hall of Famer Tony Stewart on the all-time wins list, and his fourth victory at Kansas Speedway. He also became the ninth different competitor to win through the first 12-scheduled events and the third to do so while driving for Joe Gibbs Racing, which achieved career victory No. 400 in NASCAR.

    The 2023 season marks Hamlin’s 17th season with at least one victory in NASCAR’s premier series. Hamlin also produced the first last-lap pass for the victory at Kansas Speedway.

    “Yeah, so proud of this whole FedEx team,” Hamlin, who was met with mixed reviews from the crowd, said on FS1. “I got position on [Larson] there. I was trying to side-draft him, but clipped his left rear. Glad he was able to at least finish and proud of my FedEx team, though. [That’s] 400 wins now for Joe Gibbs Racing. Just such a great accomplishment for them.”

    Larson, who rallied from his early spin, settled in second place for a second consecutive time in the spring Kansas event as he also notched his second runner-up result of the 2023 season.

    “I was really loose,” Larson said. “I was trying to do what I could to manage it. [I was] Just really loose on that end. [Hamlin] was a little bit better than me at the end there. Obviously, he was side-drafting really aggressively like he would, but he was like touching me, it felt like, and it just had me kind of out of control.”

    Byron capped off his miraculous comeback from two laps down to finish third followed by Bubba Wallace, who notched his second top-five result of the season. Points leader Chastain came home in fifth while Logano, Elliott, Truex, Reddick and Austin Dillon finished in the top 10 on the track.

    Meanwhile, tempers flared on pit road between 29th-place finisher Noah Gragson and fifth-place finisher Ross Chastain, both of whom made contact on the frontstretch that scales back to less than 70 laps remaining when Chastain forced Gragson up and into the outside wall and resulted with Gragson stalling Chastain’s momentum. After the race, both competitors met to discuss their incident on pit road and the conversation went south as Gragson grabbed Chastain’s chest. With the conversation intensifying, Chastain then swung a punch towards Gragson before both were separated by NASCAR officials.

    There were a record-setting 37 lead changes for 12 different leaders. The race featured 11 cautions for 57 laps. In total, 22 of 36 starters finished on the lead lap.

    Following the 12th event of the 2023 Cup Series season, Ross Chastain continues to lead the regular-season standings by 31 points over Christopher Bell, 36 over Martin Truex Jr. and Denny Hamlin, 46 over Kevin Harvick and 50 over Tyler Reddick.

    Results.

    1. Denny Hamlin, 34 laps led, Stage 1 winner

    2. Kyle Larson, 85 laps led

    3. William Byron, 10 laps led

    4. Bubba Wallace, nine laps led

    5. Ross Chastain, three laps led

    6. Joey Logano, eight laps led, Stage 2 winner

    7. Chase Elliott, five laps led

    8. Martin Truex Jr., 79 laps led

    9. Tyler Reddick, 23 laps led

    10. Austin Dillon

    11. Kevin Harvick

    12. Ricky Stenhouse Jr.

    13. Aric Almirola

    14. AJ Allmendinger

    15. Daniel Suarez

    16. Ryan Blaney

    17. Chris Buescher

    18. Justin Haley

    19. Brad Keselowski

    20. Corey LaJoie, seven laps led

    21. Erik Jones

    22. Ty Dillon

    23. JJ Yeley, one lap down

    24. Todd Gilliland, one lap down

    25. Josh Berry, one lap down

    26. Michael McDowell, one lap down

    27. Ryan Preece, one lap down

    28. Brennan Poole, three laps down

    29. Noah Gragson, five laps down

    30. Harrison Burton, six laps down

    31. Austin Cindric, seven laps down

    32. Chase Briscoe, seven laps down

    33. Josh Bilicki, seven laps down

    34. Ty Gibbs – OUT, Accident

    35. Kyle Busch – OUT, Accident

    36. Christopher Bell – OUT, Accident, three laps led

    Next on the 2023 NASCAR Cup Series schedule is the series’ first of two scheduled visits this season to Darlington Raceway in Darlington, South Carolina, for the Goodyear 400 and the sport’s throwback weekend. The event is scheduled to occur next Sunday, May 14, during Mother’s Day weekend at 3 p.m. ET on FS1.

  • Martin Truex Jr. snaps winless drought; returns to Cup Series Victory Lane at Dover

    Martin Truex Jr. snaps winless drought; returns to Cup Series Victory Lane at Dover

    Martin Truex Jr.’s 54-race winless drought evaporated on a clear Monday afternoon following a seven-lap dash to the finish as he proceeded to win the rain-postponed Würth 400 at Dover Motor Speedway on Monday, May 1.

    The 2017 NASCAR Cup Series champion from Mayetta, New Jersey, led two times for 68 of 400-scheduled laps, including the final 11, as he spent the majority of the event clashing with crew chief James Small for better adjustments and pit stops to move up to the front. After gaining ground on the leaders at the start of the final stage, Truex capitalized during a green flag pit stop sequence that started with 76 laps remaining to cycle ahead of Ross Chastain and inherit the lead with 68 laps remaining.

    Then, while trying to fend off Chastain and navigate his way through lapped traffic, a late caution period with 14 laps remaining was called for Joey Logano who was wrecking. This enabled Small to roll the dice and opt for a two-tire pit strategy that kept Truex in the lead. When the field restarted with seven laps remaining, Truex fended off a side-by-side battle against Ryan Blaney before holding off Chastain, who was charging on four fresh tires, to claim his first elusive checkered flag of the 2023 Cup season at the Monster Mile on his home track, and claim his first points victory in over a year.

    With on-track qualifying that was scheduled to occur on Saturday, April 29, being canceled due to rain, the starting lineup was determined through a metric formula per the NASCAR Rule Book. As a result, Kyle Busch, winner of last weekend’s Cup event at Talladega Superspeedway, started on the pole position. Joining him on the front row was Christopher Bell. Prior to the event, Austin Dillon dropped to the rear of the field in a backup car after wrecking his primary car during Saturday’s practice session.

    Due to the inclement weather, the main event was postponed from Sunday, April 30, to Monday, May 1, with a noon ET start time. When the green flag waved and the race commenced on Monday, Kyle Busch muscled away from Bell on the outside lane as he assumed the lead through the first two turns and the backstretch. As the field behind fanned out and jostled for early positions, Busch proceeded to lead the first lap ahead of Bell as Brad Keselowski overtook Ryan Blaney for third. In addition, Chase Briscoe was in fifth ahead of William Byron as Chris Buescher pressured Byron for more.

    Through the first five scheduled laps, Busch maintained the lead ahead of Bell, Keselowski, Blaney and Briscoe while Buescher, Byron, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Tyler Reddick and Chase Elliott were in the top 10. Behind, Denny Hamlin was in 11th ahead of Kevin Harvick, Daniel Suarez, Erik Jones and Martin Truex Jr. while Ross Chastain, Kyle Larson, Josh Berry, Austin Cindric and Justin Haley occupied the top 20. With more on-track battles ensuing, Busch retained the lead at the Lap 10 mark.

    When a scheduled competition caution flew on Lap 20, Busch was scored the leader by three-tenths of a second over Bell while Keselowski, Blaney, Byron, Buescher, Stenhouse, Hamlin, Reddick and Harvick were scored in the top 10. By then, Elliott was in 13th behind Suarez and Truex, Larson was in 15th behind Chastain and Briscoe had fallen back to 20th. Meanwhile, Berry, who was filling in driving the No. 48 Ally Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 for the injured Alex Bowman, was in 17th.

    During the competition caution, the entire field led by Busch pitted as all took four tires, except for Berry and Todd Gilliland as both opted for two fresh tires. Following the pit stops, Busch exited first followed by Keselowski, Byron, Buescher, Hamlin and Berry. During the pit stops, teammates Byron and Berry made contact on pit road, when Berry exited his pit stall and ran into the side of Byron’s No. 24 Raptor Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 and Byron then made contact with the pit wall. In addition, Bell fell back to 14th after enduring a slow pit service while his crew was changing the right-front tire.

    Following the pit stops, however, Busch was sent to the rear of the field for speeding on pit road. Busch’s penalty allowed Keselowski and Byron to move up to the front row for the continuation of the event.

    When the race proceeded under green on Lap 27, Byron rocketed away from Keselowski with a strong start on the inside lane and with Hamlin pushing him as Byron assumed the lead. The caution, however, quickly returned when rookie Noah Gragson, who was running towards the rear, slapped the outside wall on the backstretch before spinning towards the bottom of the track and making light contact with the inside wall as he nursed his damaged No. 42 Sunseeker Resort Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 to pit road.

    When the race restarted under green on Lap 33, Byron rocketed away with another strong start on the outside lane as he maintained the lead ahead of Hamlin and Keselowski, both of whom battled for second in front of Blaney. With the field fanning out for nearly a lap, the caution quickly returned during the following lap when Suarez, who was running towards the top 10, snapped loose and slapped the outside wall entering the frontstretch as he then spun his No. 99 Pitbull/Freeway Insurance Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 towards the inside wall. With the field slamming on the brakes to avoid Suarez’s incident, more issues ensued as Kyle Busch ran into the rear of Ty Dillon as both he and BJ McLeod also wrecked with Dillon sustaining more damage as he backed his Spire Motorsports entry into the inside wall. The incident knocked Dillon and Suarez out of contention as McLeod and Busch, whose early pit road speeding penalty sent him to the rear of the field, pitted for repairs.

    During the following restart on Lap 41, Byron maintained the lead ahead of Hamlin as the field fanned out to three lanes entering the first two turns. Behind, Blaney overtook Keselowski for third while Ross Chastain used a three-wide move on the outside lane to move up to fifth. Shortly after, however, Truex battled his way into the top five as Keselowski fell back to sixth while Buescher, Berry, and Larson followed in pursuit.

    Through the first 50 scheduled laps, Byron was leading by half a second over Hamlin followed by Blaney, Chastain and Truex while Keselowski, Buescher, Berry, Larson and Stenhouse were running in the top 10. Behind, Elliott was in 11th ahead of Bell, Harvick, Reddick and Cindric while Justin Haley, Michael McDowell, AJ Allmendinger, Joey Logano and Todd Gilliland were in the top 20. By then, Bubba Wallace was in 22nd ahead of rookie Ty Gibbs and Erik Jones, Kyle Busch was mired in 25th, Briscoe had fallen back to 27th, Aric Almirola was in 30th and Austin Dillon was in 32nd after starting at the rear of the field.

    Ten laps later, Byron continued to lead by eight-tenths of a second over Hamlin as Blaney, Chastain and Truex remained in the top five. Byron proceeded to maintain his advantage by eight-tenths of a second over Hamlin and more than two seconds over third-place Blaney at the Lap 75 mark. By then, Larson cracked the top five in fifth while Truex fell back to seventh. In addition, Bell returned to the top 10 in 10th, Elliott was in 13th behind Berry and Reddick, Harvick was in 14th and Kyle Busch was in 17th behind McDowell.

    Then on Lap 80, the caution flew when Chastain, who was running fourth and getting pinned behind the lapped competitors of Brennan Poole and Austin Dillon, ran into Poole and sent Poole’s No. 15 Rick Ware Racing Ford Mustang sideways in Turn 1. Poole then came back across the track and collected Larson, who was running fifth, as both wrecked against the outside wall, with Larson spinning below the track and sustaining significant front-end damage to his No. 5 HendrickCars.com Chevrolet Camaro ZL1. The incident was one that left Larson voicing his displeasure to Chastain over the radio.

    During the caution period, nearly the entire field pitted, except for Kyle Busch as he remained on the track and inherited the lead in his damaged No. 8 Lenovo Chevrolet Camaro ZL1. Following the pit stops and amid mixed strategies, Chastain exited first after opting only for two tires followed by Reddick, who also opted for two tires, while Byron exited third and was the first competitor on four fresh tires. Blaney, Keselowski and Buescher followed suit from fourth to sixth.

    At the start of the following restart on Lap 89, Busch and Chastain battled dead even entering Turn 1 as Chastain then slid up the track towards Busch. This caused Busch to brake to avoid wrecking as Byron seized an opportunity on the inside lane to battle and overtake Chastain for the lead. With Byron leading Chastain, Hamlin and Keselowski battled for third followed by Blaney while Busch fell back to sixth in front of Reddick. Meanwhile, Harvick was in 10th behind Buescher and Bell while Truex was in 11th in front of Corey LaJoie. In addition, Logano was battling Stenhouse and Ty Gibbs for 13th.

    At the Lap 100 mark, Byron was leading by eight-tenths of a second over Chastain followed by Hamlin, Keselowski and Blaney while Reddick, Buescher, Bell, Harvick, Busch and Truex battled within the top 11. Not long after, Larson nursed his damaged No. 5 car to the garage for additional repairs.

    Just past the Lap 110 mark, Byron maintained the lead by four-tenths of a second over a hard-charging Hamlin with Chastain falling back to third on two fresh tires. Keselowski and Blaney remained in the top five while Buescher, Bell, Harvick, Truex and Reddick were in the top 10. Meanwhile, Busch was scored outside the top 20 while names that included Logano, AJ Allmendinger, Berry, Erik Jones, Elliott and Ryan Preece were running within the top 20.

    When the first stage concluded on Lap 120, Byron claimed his sixth stage victory of the 2023 Cup season after fending off a last-lap charge from Hamlin. Blaney settled in third while Keselowski, Chastain, Buescher, Bell, Harvick, Truex and Stenhouse. Meanwhile, Busch, who radioed a right rear tire issue to his car and was lapped by Byron a few laps prior to the conclusion of the stage, was overtaken and edged by teammate Austin Dillon at the stage’s conclusion for the free pass spot in 25th place.

    Under the stage break, the lead lap field led by Byron pitted. Following the pit stops, Byron retained the lead after exiting first followed by Keselowski, Blaney, Chastain, Bell and Harvick. During the pit stops, Hamlin exited ninth after enduring a slow pit stop after the jackman tripped over the pit hose. Teammate Truex also endured a slow stop after the jackman had issues jacking up the right side of Truex’s car during the pit service. In addition, Keselowski was penalized for an uncontrolled tire violation for knocking a tire out of his pit box and towards the infield.

    The second stage started on Lap 129 as Byron and Blaney occupied the front row. At the start, Byron rocketed away with the lead followed by Blaney and Chastain while Hamlin ignited his charge back to the front as he battled Harvick for fifth while Bell was in fourth. By then, Ty Gibbs cracked the top 10 in eighth ahead of Logano and Elliott.

    Through Lap 150, Byron was leading by more than a second over Blaney followed by Chastain, Hamlin and Harvick while Bell, Buescher, Gibbs, Elliott and Berry were in the top 10. Behind, Erik Jones was in 11th ahead of Logano, LaJoie, Stenhouse and McDowell while Reddick, Truex, Wallace, Allmendinger and Preece occupied the top 20. By then, Keselowski had fallen out of the top 20 in 22nd while Kyle Busch was mired in 26th.

    Twenty-five laps later, Byron stabilized his lead by six-tenths of a second over Blaney, who started to close in on Byron for the lead, while third-place Chastain trailed by eight-tenths of a second. Behind, fourth-place Hamlin was trailing by five seconds while fifth-place Harvick trailed by six seconds. By then, 21 of 36 starters were scored on the lead lap while Logano, who restarted ninth during the previous restart, was lapped and mired in 22nd place.

    Another 10 laps later, the battle for the lead began to slow brew between Byron and Chastain, with the latter, who overtook Blaney earlier, closing in on the former and was trailing within five and six-tenths of a second. Meanwhile, Blaney fell back to third and was trailing by more than two seconds followed by Hamlin and Harvick, Gibbs started to battle Buescher for sixth and Bell was clinging towards the edge of the top 10. Not long after, Bell and Logano, who was a lap down, pitted. Briscoe, who was also a lap down, pitted after making contact with the Turn 4 wall.

    Just past the Lap 190 mark, names that included Elliott, Buescher, Gibbs, Reddick, Harvick, Erik Jones, Hamlin and Stenhouse pitted under green as Byron continued to fend off Chastain for the lead. Then on Lap 194, Byron surrendered the lead to Chastain as he pitted under green. Chastain would pit during the following lap along with Blaney, Cindric, Truex, Preece, Berry and others.

    At the halfway mark on Lap 200 and with nearly the entire field having made a pit stop, Keselowski, who had yet to pit, was leading while Chastain, who was trailing by a long distance in second, managed to blend back on the track ahead of Byron and Blaney. Just then, Keselowski pitted his No. 6 Wyndham Rewards Ford Mustang under green as Chastain cycled into the lead. By then, Richard Childress Racing’s Austin Dillon and Kyle Busch, both of whom were in third and fifth, had yet to pit while Byron and Blaney were in second and fourth.

    Ten laps later, Chastain was leading by two-tenths of a second over Byron followed by Blaney while Harvick and Hamlin moved back up into the top five. Buescher was in sixth ahead of Austin Dillon and Elliott while Kyle Busch was in ninth ahead of Ty Gibbs. By then, Truex was back in 12th ahead of teammate Bell while Berry was running just outside the top 15.

    Another 15 laps later, Chastain continued to lead by three-tenths of a second over Byron and more than two seconds over Blaney while Harvick and Hamlin remained in the top five. By then, Buescher, Gibbs, Elliott, Reddick and Truex were in the top 10 while Bubba Wallace moved up to 11th followed by Bell, Corey LaJoie, Erik Jones and Josh Berry. Meanwhile, Keselowski was mired in 16th, the final competitor on the lead lap.

    Just past Lap 235, Chastain extended his advantage to more than a second over Byron and more than three seconds over Blaney as 15 of 36 starters were scored on the lead lap.

    When the second stage concluded on Lap 250, Chastain claimed his fourth stage victory of the 2023 Cup season. Byron settled in second followed by Blaney, Truex and Hamlin while Gibbs, Buescher, Reddick, Elliott and Bell were scored in the top 10. By then, only 12 of 36 starters were scored on the lead lap while Harvick, who was off the pace, had fallen back to 15th in his No. 4 Hunt Brothers Pizza/Realtree Ford Mustang.

    Under the stage break, the lead lap competitors led by Chastain pitted. Following the pit stops, Byron reassumed the lead after exiting pit road first ahead of Chastain while Blaney, Truex, Gibbs, Buescher and Hamlin followed suit.

    With 142 laps remaining, the final stage started as Byron and Chastain occupied the front row. At the start, Chastain received a strong push from Truex to challenge Byron for the lead, but Byron managed to use the outside lane to his advantage as he retained the lead while Truex overtook Blaney for third. As Byron continued to lead, Gibbs and Buescher were in fifth and sixth while Hamlin battled his driver Reddick for seventh.

    With 125 laps remaining, Byron stretched his advantage to seven-tenths of a second over Chastain while third-place Truex trailed by a second. Blaney and Gibbs were in the top five while Buescher, Hamlin, Reddick, Bell, Keselowski, Elliott, Berry and Wallace were scored in the lead lap category within the top 13. Meanwhile, LaJoie and Harvick battled for 14th place and to emerge as the highest competitor scored a lap down while Erik Jones, Stenhouse, McDowell, Harrison Burton and Allmendinger were scored in the top 20. Meanwhile, Kyle Busch was mired in 22nd and Logano was down to 28th.

    Then 11 laps later, Chastain, who had methodically narrowed his deficit from Byron while also trying to fend off Truex, overtook Byron, who was battling loose conditions, through Turns 3 and 4 as he returned as the leader. Truex then overtook Byron for the runner-up spot two laps later as he started to ignite his charge to the front.

    Down to the final 100 laps of the event, Chastain was leading by six-tenths of a second over Truex. Behind, Blaney moved up to third along with Gibbs while Byron fell back to fifth. Meanwhile, Hamlin was in sixth ahead of Bell, Reddick, Keselowski and Buescher while Berry, Elliott and Wallace were scored on the lead lap.

    Ten laps later, Chastain continued to lead by nine-tenths of a second over Truex. Chastain proceeded to stabilize his advantage to two-tenths of a second over Truex with 80 laps remaining. By then, Byron, who earlier reported an issue to his right-rear tire, was back in seventh as Blaney, Gibbs, Bell and Hamlin occupied the top six.

    Then with 76 laps remaining, pit stops under the green flag slowly commenced as Keselowski pitted. Reddick would pit a few laps later along with Truex, Buescher, Ty Gibbs, Byron and Wallace, who shredded a tire, as Harrison Burton spun after locking his front tires while trying to enter pit road behind Truex. With Burton managing to continue to pit road despite briefly blocking the entrance, the race remained under green flag conditions. Chastain would then pit with nearly 70 laps remaining along with Hamlin and others while McDowell was penalized for speeding on pit road.

    Back on the track and with the green flag pit stops continuing to ensue, Truex, who managed to cycle ahead of Chastain, assumed the lead in his No. 19 Bass Pro Shops Toyota TRD Camry over half a second over Chastain’s No. 1 Jockey Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 with 68 laps remaining.

    With 50 laps remaining, Truex was leading by seven-tenths of a second over Chastain while third-place Blaney trailed by more than five seconds. Behind, Ty Gibbs was in fourth ahead of teammates Hamlin and Bell, thus placing all four Joe Gibbs Racing competitors in the top six. Keselowski was up in seventh while Byron was back in eighth ahead of Buescher and Reddick.

    Then with nearly 40 laps remaining, the battle for the lead reignited as Chastain narrowed the deficit to less than three-tenths of a second over the leader Truex, who was getting mired in lapped traffic. By then, Ty Gibbs had fallen back to sixth place after being reported that he would be seven laps shy on his current tank of fuel.

    With 30 laps remaining, Truex, who was trying to lap Harvick, stabilized his advantage to four-tenths of a second over Chastain. Truex, however, would manage to lap Harvick a second time and navigate his way through lapped traffic smoothly as he extended his advantage to nearly a second over Chastain, who was blocked by Larson as Larson stalled Chastain’s progress to express his continuous displeasure from the Lap 81 incident between both, with 20 laps remaining.

    A few laps later, however, Truex encountered more heavy traffic, which enabled Chastain to close the deficit to within six-tenths and half a second. As Chastain started to encounter the traffic, among which included Reddick and Gibbs, he was trailing by within four-tenths of a second as Truex continued to lead.

    Then with 14 laps remaining, the caution flew when Logano’s long afternoon came to a crashing end after he lost a tire, spun and wrecked his No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Ford Mustang against the outside wall in Turn 4. By then, Truex had retained the lead over Chastain as both along with Blaney, Hamlin, Bell, Keselowski, Byron and Buescher were the only competitors scored on the lead lap.

    During the caution period, the remaining eight lead lap competitors led by Truex pitted. Following the pit stops, Truex retained the lead after exiting pit road first while only opting for two fresh right-side tires along with Blaney and Bell. Meanwhile, Chastain, who opted for four tires, exited fourth followed by Keselowski, Byron, Buescher and Hamlin.

    Down to the final seven laps of the event, the race restarted under green as Truex and Blaney occupied the front row in front of Bell and Chastain. At the start, Truex and Blaney, both of whom were racing on two fresh tires, battled dead even for the lead through the first two turns and the backstretch while Chastain was trying to overtake Bell for third. Blaney then sent his No. 12 Wabash Ford Mustang hard into Turns 3 and 4 to assume the lead, but Truex fought back on the outside lane entering the frontstretch. Then after their side-by-side battle for more than a lap, Truex pulled away from Blaney with the lead through the backstretch with six laps remaining. Chastain then overtook Blaney for second entering the frontstretch as he tried to catch Truex despite both time and laps winding down.

    When the white flag waved and the final lap started, Truex remained as the leader by nearly six-tenths of a second over Chastain. With Chastain unable to launch a final lap charge to get to Truex’s bumper on four fresh tires, Truex was able to cycle his way back to the frontstretch and claim his first checkered flag of the season and his first win in over a year.

    With the victory, Truex, who won the non-points Busch Light Clash at the Coliseum in February, notched his 32nd career victory in NASCAR’s premier series, his 13th driving for Joe Gibbs Racing, his sixth with crew chief James Small and his fourth at Dover (three of which, including today and also in 2007 and 2019, occurring on a Monday). The victory also snapped a 54-race winless drought for the former Cup Series champion, who last won at Richmond Raceway in September 2021, and placed him in a guaranteed spot to make the 2023 Cup Playoffs after missing it during the previous season. It was also a memorable weekend for the Truex family, with Martin’s younger brother, Ryan, notching his first Xfinity Series career victory at the Monster Mile on Saturday.

    “Man, it feels incredible,” Truex, who became the eighth different winner of 2023, said on FS1. “I felt like we’ve been close a bunch of times. We gave some [wins] away, that’s for sure. I thought today, ‘Oh man. Late caution. What’s gonna happen here?’ Just a great call by James [Small] to take two [tires] and was able to get a pretty good restart and get Blaney there. He raced me hard, but clean. Just thanks to everybody that stuck with us. We knew we could do this. We’ve showed it. We’ve led laps, we’ve dominated races and it just would never all come together, and I kept saying that we gotta just keep doing what we’re doing and not overthink it. Tough day today with a few pit stops early and then, obviously, the [pit] guys got it going at the end. Really psyched and happy for everybody. Thanks to everyone at [Joe Gibbs Racing] as well. Awesome job.”

    Chastain, who is seeking his first victory of the season and since winning at Talladega Superspeedway in April 2022, settled in second after leading 98 compared to Truex’s 68 laps led, but finishing behind Truex by half a second.

    “[I] Knew whoever got into the lead was gonna have a good shot at [winning],” Chastain, who accepted the responsibility for the incident involving Brennan Poole and Larson, said. “Gosh, so close again for our Jockey Chevy. It’s surreal to continue to do this and race against my heroes. I guess I told [Truex] a few too many of my secrets last year after we went fishing.”

    Blaney, who has not won a Cup event since Michigan International Speedway in August 2021, ended up third. Byron, who led a race-high 193 laps, came home in fourth while Hamlin finished fifth. Bell, Reddick, Keselowski, Buescher and Josh Berry finished in the top 10 followed by Chase Elliott and Bubba Wallace, all of whom finished on the lead lap.

    Notably, rookie Ty Gibbs ended up 13th, Kevin Harvick finished 19th in his final start at the Monster Mile, Kyle Busch settled in 21st, Logano retired in 31st and Larson finished in 32nd.

    There were 19 lead changes for eight different leaders. The race featured seven cautions for 46 laps.

    Following the 11th event of the 2023 Cup Series season, Ross Chastain leads the regular-season standings by three points over Christopher Bell, 38 over Kevin Harvick, 40 over Martin Truex Jr. and 44 over Ryan Blaney.

    Results.

    1. Martin Truex Jr., 68 laps led

    2. Ross Chastain, 98 laps led, Stage 2 winner

    3. Ryan Blaney

    4. William Byron, 193 laps led, Stage 1 winner

    5. Denny Hamlin

    6. Christopher Bell

    7. Tyler Reddick

    8. Brad Keselowski

    9. Chris Buescher

    10. Josh Berry, three laps led

    11. Chase Elliott

    12. Bubba Wallace

    13. Ty Gibbs, one lap down

    14. Corey LaLoie, one lap down

    15. Ricky Stenhouse Jr., one lap down

    16. Erik Jones, one lap down

    17. Ryan Preece, one lap down

    18. AJ Allmendinger, one lap down

    19. Kevin Harvick, one lap down

    20. Harrison Burton, two laps down

    21. Kyle Busch, three laps down, 25 laps led

    22. Michael McDowell, three laps down

    23. Justin Haley, three laps down

    24. Aric Almirola, three laps down

    25. Todd Gilliland, four laps down

    26. Austin Cindric, four laps down

    27. Austin Dillon, five laps down

    28. JJ Yeley, seven laps down

    29. BJ McLeod, 19 laps down

    30. Chase Briscoe, 22 laps down

    31. Joey Logano – OUT, Accident

    32. Kyle Larson, 41 laps down

    33. Brennan Poole – OUT, Accident

    34. Noah Gragson – OUT, DVP

    35. Daniel Suarez – OUT, Accident

    36. Ty Dillon – OUT, Accident

    Next on the 2023 NASCAR Cup Series schedule is the series’ first of two scheduled visits this season to Kansas Speedway in Kansas City, Kansas. The event is scheduled to occur next Sunday, May 7, at 3 p.m. ET on FS1.