Bristol One of Justin Haley's Few Recent Bright Spots

Bristol is one of the few tracks where Justin Haley tends to look decent. In this spring's race, Haley finished only 13th but ran in the top five quite a bit in the first stage and had the ninth best driver rating of 97.1. The Spire Motorsports cars tend to be consistently fast here as […]

Ryan Preece Seems Slower on Concrete Than on Asphalt

Ryan Preece is possibly having the best season he ever will have in the Cup Series. If he has a specialty, it is probably short track racing because of his vast Modified Series experience. Preece has shown bursts of dominance in the past, like when he led 135 laps from the pole at Martinsville in […]

Legacy Motor Club's Short-Track Speed Will Likely Hold John H. Nemechek Back

John Hunter Nemechek had one strong run at Bristol, where he started 26th and finished sixth in the chaotic 2024 spring event, but that race was unlike any other Bristol race in history and can't reasonably be used to predict anything on Saturday. In the two significantly more boring Bristol races that followed (which are […]

Erik Jones Definitely Faster This Year, but Short Tracks Still a Liability

Erik Jones used to be known for his Bristol prowess in his early years driving for Furniture Row Racing and Joe Gibbs Racing, where he scored four top fives in his first eight races before Gibbs fired him. However, in his years in the No. 43 car particularly with the Next Gen car, he has […]

Despite Poor Qualifying Run, Daniel Suarez Might Not Be a Great Choice

Lame-duck Trackhouse Racing driver Daniel Suárez starts a miserable 35th at Bristol on Saturday, and since he costs only $6,000 on DraftKings DFS, he theoretically could be a cheap option to score a lot of place-differential points, but his consistent lack of speed in qualifying here has also typically been reflected in the race. Although […]

Noah Gragson Unlikely to Be Fast at Bristol but Still Might Be Worth Considering for DFS

Noah Gragson had his only decent run at Bristol in last year's night race when he finished 12th and had an average running position of 14th, but that was when he drove for Stewart Haas Racing, a team which tended to have a lot more short track speed than his new team Front Row Motorsports. […]

Chase Elliott Gets Lucky but Still Has Best Run at Gateway

Chase Elliott typically didn't run very well at Gateway but stumbled into a third-place finish, making him the only Chevrolet driver to finish in the top 10, even though his teammates William Byron and Kyle Larson had outrun him all race. Elliott only ran in the top 10 for a single lap of Stage 1, […]

Bubba Wallace Wins Stage 2, but Was Let Down by Strategy

Like all the Toyotas, Bubba Wallace was very fast at Gateway. Although he started only 14th, he finished seventh in Stage 1 and emerged as a threat in Stage 2 when he took the lead after Kyle Larson pitted (after having pitted himself on the previous caution). He led almost the rest of the stage […]

Despite Bad Luck, Tyler Reddick Does What he Needed to Do

Tyler Reddick made the best of a bad situation on Sunday at Gateway, where he had two botched pit stops and a loss of third gear but still finished 16th to maintain a strong 37-point lead over his former teammate Austin Dillon for the final transfer spot in the Round of 12, which he may […]

Chase Briscoe Recovers from Incident with Daniel Suarez to Finish Second

Chase Briscoe had a topsy-turvy day at Gateway, where he started third and finish second but as usual struggled a lot more than his finishing result implies. When leader Kyle Larson pitted on the first caution, that allowed Briscoe's teammate Denny Hamlin to take the lead with Briscoe moving into second. In a replay of […]

Late Caution Foils William Byron's Shot at Gateway Victory

William Byron started sixth, finished 11th, and never led at Gateway on Sunday, but he still ran pretty well. After finishing fourth in Stage 1, he ran as high as second in Stage 2 before a pit stop early in that stage relegated him to 24th. He struggled to move through the field for the […]

Southern 500 Near-Miss Makes Tyler Reddick a Stronger Option for Gateway

After a summer where Tyler Reddick looked sloppy and slower than his cars, he resurfaced last week in his near-miss at the Southern 500, which is likely a good sign for Sunday's race at Gateway, the other egg-shaped oval. After the Toyotas overwhelmingly dominated last week, one can expect that they might again at this […]

Bubba Wallace a Likely Gateway Contender

After his string of crashes earlier this season, Bubba Wallace has recovered as he has shown consistency in terms of both his finishing results and his speed in recent weeks, and he could really do something at Gateway on Sunday. Although his past record is mediocre -- his best Gateway finish was 21st last year […]

Alex Bowman a Long Shot to Advance in Playoffs

Hendrick Motorsports has typically lacked speed at Gateway in general, and Alex Bowman has been the most obvious example of that as he has never finished better than 13th here and he finished 26th and 28th the last two years. His 25th-place qualifying run matches his worst from 2022, although that was admittedly the year […]

Richard Childress Racing Looks Slower at Gateway, Which Will Hurt Austin Dillon

Even though Austin Dillon generally ran terribly throughout 2024 aside from his win at Richmond, Gateway was a rare exception as he finished sixth, had an average running position of 14th, and earned his second-highest driver rating that year. Maybe that shouldn't have come as a huge surprise since Richard Childress Racing's cars were fast […]

Shane Van Gisbergen Starts 18th in Gateway Debut

Because the NASCAR Xfinity Series did not return to Gateway until this year, Shane van Gisbergen has never competed here because his Xfinity Series season came last year before the track was re-added to the schedule, so he is a big question mark for Sunday. While he's had an uptick in oval speed as the […]

Toyota Speed May Help Ty Gibbs at Gateway

Although Ty Gibbs won the last two ARCA races at Gateway in 2019 and 2020, his races in the NASCAR Cup Series have been fairly mediocre, as he finished 20th in 2023 and 11th in 2024. This year, he had his worst-ever qualifying result at the track, as he starts 21st for Sunday's race. But […]

Brad Keselowski Probably the Best DFS Place-Differential Option

DFS managers were burnt repeatedly by Brad Keselowski in the first half of the season where he seemed to have neither the expected speed nor the consistency one would have expected from him, probably in part because he replaced his crew chief Matt McCall with Jeremy Bullins, but the five crash DNFs in the first […]

Chris Buescher May Have Qualified Too Well to Start for DFS

Despite missing the playoffs, Chris Buescher remains a veritable top-10 machine, as his 14 top-10 finishes rank tied for second in the Cup Series, and he has the fifth-best average finish. Gateway has not been one of his better tracks, though, perhaps because he missed the inaugural race in 2022 due to testing positive for […]

If Kyle Busch Contends Anywhere, it Could be at Gateway

Despite finishing second in the inaugural Gateway race in 2022 and then winning the 2023 race from the pole, Kyle Busch has fallen on hard times since then as he hasn't won in over two years since. It's starting to look like he might never win again as he's never been as slow as he […]

John Hunter Nemechek Could Benefit From Toyota Speed Like he Did at Darlington

John Hunter Nemechek only started one race at Gateway last year in the NASCAR Cup Series where he started 33rd and finished 27th, but he and Legacy Motor Club have both been a lot faster this year and he qualified 20th this time. Nemechek has won here at the Craftsman Truck Series level way back […]

Slow Hendrick Setups Will Likely Slow Michael McDowell at Gateway

Although Michael McDowell unexpectedly won the pole for last year's Gateway race and has 74 laps here (more than at any other track since Talladega), don't expect him to significantly contend in Sunday's race. Despite leading 34 laps in the inaugural race here in 2022 and 40 laps last year, he took the lead in […]

Chase Elliott Under Playoff Pressure After 17th-Place Darlington Finish

Chase Elliott hasn't been very fast at Darlington with the Next Gen car, and his woes continued in Sunday night's Southern 500, where he finished 17th and frequently ran even worse than that as his average running position was 18th and he only earned the 19th-highest driver rating. Elliott spent much of the second half […]

Despite Hendrick Mediocrity, Kyle Larson Remains Pretty Safe in Playoffs

In a race where the Chevy teams were unexpectedly out to lunch, Hendrick Motorsports placed no cars in the top 15 for the first time on an unrestricted oval since the 2019 Southern 500, a shocking display for a team that had won 16 times there. That includes utterly dominating the last two races with […]

Opening-Lap Crash and Botched Pit Stop May Have Sunk Alex Bowman's Playoff Hopes

After making the playoffs by the skin of his teeth last weekend, Alex Bowman became something of a longshot to advance to the Round of 12 after a miserable Southern 500. Bowman's day effectively ended almost as soon as it started because he suffered damage while checking up to avoid the multi-car opening lap melee. […]

Darlington Master Erik Jones Comes Up Short but Still Finishes Third

Although Erik Jones has typically been an average driver over the general NASCAR Cup Series schedule, he has always been a Darlington master, especially in the Southern 500, which he won in 2019 and 2022, and Sunday night's Southern 500 was no exception. In a race where the Toyotas had dominant speed, Jones came to […]

A.J. Allmendinger Impresses at Southern 500

A.J. Allmendinger had one of the most low-key impressive races of his career in Sunday night's Southern 500, as he finished fifth in a race where Chevrolet and Ford both badly struggled. This marked the first time Allmendinger was the highest-finishing Chevy driver in a Cup Series race on an unrestricted oval since Martinsville in […]

Chase Elliott Likely Won't Factor for the Win at Darlington

Although Chase Elliott came close to winning the last two 2020 races at Darlington before two separate crashes with Joe Gibbs Racing drivers took him out of contention, he hasn't really factored for the lead at Darlington since. However, he's still been pretty consistent with top-12 finishes in all but two of the last nine […]

Joey Logano Might Focus More on Playoff Races

Joey Logano has almost been the polar opposite of Chris Buescher as he no longer seems to care about where he finishes in a race as long as he wins at the right moments and accumulates a lot of stage points. While purists prefer Buescher's consistent approach, there's no denying that Logano's approach is better-suited […]

Missing Playoffs Allows Chris Buescher to Potentially Go All Out at Darlington

Although some people see Chris Buescher as a major playoff snub, he was far less deserving this year than in 2024 when he was a genuine snub because this year, he hardly ever had anything resembling winning speed. He is typically too risk-averse to avoid mistakes, which gives him a higher floor than most other […]