Shane van Gisbergen Dominates First Two Stages But Fades In Third Stage

Shane van Gisbergen led five times for 23 laps at the Circuit of the Americas, first passing pole-sitter Tyler Reddick on Lap 9 and then exchanging the lead several times with Kyle Busch during the second stage. He seemed to be poised for victory after pitting from the lead in Stage 2 to flip the […]

A.J. Allmendinger Runs Well At Austin Until Late-Race Collapse

A.J. Allmendinger's first road=course race as a full-time NASCAR Cup Series driver since his win at the Charlotte Roval in 2023 was going quite swimmingly indeed as he started 12th and ran in the top 10 for the first 90 laps of the race, including leading two laps -- once on a pit-stop exchange on […]

Alex Bowman Recovers From COTA Penalty To Finish Ninth

Alex Bowman consistently ran between ninth and 12th in the first half of Sunday's race at Austin but was penalized on Lap 51 for cutting the course at Turn 5. After his pit stop, he fell to 34th but he steadily worked his way through the field during Stage 3 before eventually finishing ninth, exactly […]

William Byron Not The Favorite But Expect Him To Contend

After winning back-to-back poles at Austin, William Byron qualified a disappointing 15th for Sunday's Echopark Automotive Grand Prix. But don't expect him to stay there for long, as he fought a scrappy race-long battle with Sunday's's polesitter Tyler Reddick in 2023 before pretty much controlling the race last year. Although he was slow in the […]

Denny Hamlin Weirdly Mediocre At Austin Qualifying

Denny Hamlin, the driver of the No. 11 Toyota, fittingly qualified 11th at Circuit of the Americas, but curiously, the Joe Gibbs Racing car he drives has not seemed to be as fast on road courses (especially here) as the 23XI Racing cars he owns. While both of his drivers locked out the front row […]

Kyle Busch Should Have A Strong Run

Since switching to Richard Childress Racing, Kyle Busch has almost entirely lost any semblance of the surefire consistency he used to have. However, road courses seem to have been an exception as he had four top fives on road and street courses in 2023 and he still had two top tens on those tracks last […]

Michael McDowell Might Be A Good DFS Play

For all the hype Michael McDowell gets as a road-racing pro, Carson Hocevar really showed him up in Austin qualifying on Saturday as Hocevar qualified fourth to McDowell's 16th. Admittedly, that is the best McDowell has ever qualified here and he did finish better than he started in all his previous races except last year, […]

Joey Logano Might Have More Speed On Sunday

After having potentially race-winning speed in both drafting track races, Joey Logano starts the meat-and-potatoes portion of the NASCAR Cup Series season with a 23rd-place qualifying run at Austin. That sounds rather bad in a vacuum, but the Fords were absolutely miserable in qualifying as only Todd Gilliland qualified in the top 15 and Logano […]

Lack Of Road-Course Prowess And Justin Alexander Likely To Doom Austin Dillon

Road courses have always been Austin Dillon's worst track type as he only has two top-10 finishes in 37 starts and an average finish of 22.6, while he's been more competitive everywhere else. One of those top-10 finishes did come at the road course where the NASCAR Cup Series will be racing on Sunday in […]

Justin Haley An Overrated Road Racer

Justin Haley has a reputation as a strong road racer because of a couple genuinely strong runs at Chicago in 2023 and the Charlotte roval in 2022 that don't seem to be representative of his usual performance. His average finish at Austin is only 28.3. He did have a mechanical DNF in one of those […]

Road Courses Are Ricky Stenhouse Jr.'s Worst Track Type

Although Ricky Stenhouse Jr. is a genuinely good driver on drafting tracks and he's had moments on all other track types, road courses are clearly Stenhouse's Achilles heel as he has only a single top-10 finish in 40 road-course starts. It did come here at Austin in 2023 when he finished seventh, but that was […]

Don't Expect Josh Berry To Duplicate Atlanta Run At Austin

Josh Berry had possibly the best drive of his career at Atlanta last week where he led 56 laps, but that means nothing in terms of predicting how he'll do at Austin. Berry has only made four Cup Series starts on road courses to date but so far they seem to be his worst track […]

John Hunter Nemechek's Team Should Return To Earth After Hot Start

After a miserable 2024, John Hunter Nemechek is improbably one of only two drivers to earn top-10 finishes in the first two races this season, but those both came on drafting tracks that have little to do with the rest of the schedule, so his performance in previous years is probably more important when forecasting […]

Ryan Preece May Need Help From Chris Buescher's Setup

Ryan Preece starts 28th at Austin on Sunday. He is not particularly known as a road racer, having only posted two top-10 finishes in 21 road-course starts, but he did have one of his all-time best moments at the inaugural race in 2021 in Austin when he passed Ross Chastain for the lead in the […]

Riley Herbst Makes Road-Course Debut

Riley Herbst is making his NASCAR Cup Series debut on a road course in Sunday's race at Circuit of the Americas. Although he actually led Saturday's Xfinity Series race for a while, don't expect him to repeat that feat on Sunday, as it generally takes time for any new driver to learn the Next Gen […]

Despite Road-Racing Background, Cody Ware Unlikely To Contend

Although Cody Ware has a surprising amount of road course experience and he even won an Amateur class championship in the Asian Le Mans Series in 2019-20, he has never really factored in his NASCAR Cup Series road course starts to date as he has an average finish of 31.8 on all road courses and […]

Despite Rarely Factoring For The Lead, Bubba Wallace Has Great Points Day

Although Bubba Wallace outqualified all the other Toyota drivers for Sunday's Ambetter Health 400, he never led and rarely contended for the lead but he consistently ran well nonetheless and finished ninth. His ninth-place average running position and 100.8 driver rating were both better than any other Toyota drivers. It's possible that since his past […]

Ross Chastain's Chances For Victory End After A Bump From Carson Hocevar

Ross Chastain was a relative non-factor in the first half of Sunday's Atlanta race, as he rarely ran in the top 10 until he stayed out of the pits during the Stage 2 caution when the other leaders pitted. However, on the ensuing restart, Chastain immediately took the lead from Chase Briscoe with the help […]

Ricky Stenhouse Jr. Recovers From Causing Daytona Big One To Finish Fifth At Atlanta

After embarrassing himself by triggering the first Big One in the Daytona 500 a week ago, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. recovered to finish fifth at Atlanta despite qualifying a miserable 34th. He never led the race, and his average running position of 18th wasn't stellar, but he led the field with a pass differential of 59 […]

Carson Hocevar Earns Best Career Finish

Carson Hocevar earned his best career finish in the NASCAR Cup Series at Atlanta on Sunday when he finished second from a 26th-place starting spot. After choosing not to fight for the lead in previous drafting-track races in an attempt to avoid crashing, Hocevar adjusted his strategy and fought for the lead this time, but […]

Despite Bubba Wallace's Drafting Record, He's Been Surprisingly Mediocre At Atlanta

Bubba Wallace remains one of the best drafters in the Cup Series even though he tends to finish worse than he runs. Wallace qualified 14th for today's Ambetter Health 300 and was significantly faster than all other Toyota drivers in a qualifying session where Ford drivers claimed 10 of the top 11 spots. When considering […]

Chris Buescher Not Dominant Enough At Atlanta To Maximize DFS Value

Chris Buescher qualified eighth as the fastest of the three RFK Racing drivers for Sunday's Ambetter Health 300. He has a history of being a pretty good drafter, but not an elite one. Although his record at Daytona is much stronger than his record at Atlanta, he did lead 39 laps in the 2023 summer […]

Brad Keselowski Could Contend For Atlanta Win

Brad Keselowski has won twice previously at Atlanta, but that came in the era when he drove for Roger Penske and it was a traditional 1.5-mile track before it was turned into a drafting race. Nonetheless, Keselowski has a history of being one of the best drafters in the Cup Series. In the 2023 winter […]

Chase Briscoe Loses Considerable Speed After Daytona Penalty

Despite the speed the Toyotas frequently showed during speedweeks, they had a miserable showing in Saturday's Atlanta qualifying as this year's Daytona 500 polesitter only qualified 25th, although Chase Briscoe still outqualified all three of his Joe Gibbs Racing teammates. Despite mostly avoiding the last-lap Big One he caused in the Daytona 500 en route […]

Despite Strong Qualifying Run, Josh Berry Likely Won't Contend At Atlanta

Josh Berry qualified third for Sunday's Ambetter Health 400 at Atlanta in a lockout of the first two rows of qualifying for Team Penske and its Wood Brothers Racing satellite. Berry has not shown much on drafting tracks yet, as his average finish at Atlanta is only 25th, but admittedly his No. 4 Stewart-Haas Racing […]

After Daytona Flip, Ryan Preece Likely To Focus On Finishing At Atlanta

Although Ryan Preece has earned six of his 16 career top-10 finishes on drafting tracks, most of those came in the Gen-6 era of NASCAR, as he hasn't been as fast on these tracks since his return to the NASCAR Cup Series than he was with JTG Daugherty Racing. Atlanta was also his worst on […]

Erik Jones Looks Faster Than In 2024, So He Could Be A Valuable DFS Option

Erik Jones on paper doesn't look like a valuable option for Sunday's Atlanta race as he qualified 28th, and the Toyotas seem to have substantially less speed than they did in the Daytona 500. Nonetheless, Jones remains one of the strongest drafters in the series, and his near miss in the Duel race suggests he […]

Switch to Spire Motorsports Ends Michael McDowell's Speed On Superspeedways

When Michael McDowell left Front Row Motorsports to go to Spire Motorsports, it pretty much instantly ended his run of dominance in drafting track qualifying as Spire's Chevies are significantly slower than FRM's Fords were last year. In fact, Spire seemed to be arguably the slowest multi-car chartered team in the Daytona 500 as the […]

After Leading Most Laps In Last Year's Race, Todd Gilliland Looks To Finish The Job

Although Todd Gilliland performed slightly worse than expected in the Daytona 500, he now returns to the site of his greatest race last year where he led a career-best 58 laps before suffering minor damage in a crash late in the race, which relegated him to a 26th-place finish. It seems like his Front Row […]

Riley Herbst's Inexperience Makes Atlanta A Big Question Mark

Despite his relative inexperience, rookie Riley Herbst ran unexpectedly well in last weekend's Daytona 500 as he was battling for fourth until he spun out as he took the white flag. His spinout did enable him to miss the race-deciding wreck later that lap, but nonetheless relegated him to a 17th-place finish. However, the Toyotas […]