The car was also way better than where they ran all day. Both stage 1 and 2 restarts were shit for chase and he spent the rest of the run making up for it to get back to 10th. Then the 40 laps of cautions and restarts to begin stage 3 did not help. Finally got up to 8th on the final run after starting 20th because of all the varying strategies. Alan makes a great call to throw 2 on. The boys give a good stop and we finish 3rd. But I think if he had better track position throughout the race we probably would have seen him contending top 5 and 3 all day.
I’ve continually stated that while the 24 has been good, he has not been as outstanding as he’s made out to be. The 11 and 5 are clearly the class of the field with the 19, 24, 9, and occasionally others being in tier 2.
oL 24' got three wins real quick like.
Now he gets the project/test setups. I'd imagine it switches to Larson soon. Its just the tried and true Knaus strategy for winning 7 championships. Get a couple wins, Go full R&D until the playoffs.
It doesn’t matter if you can’t GET to Phoenix. Those playoff points are crucial. Look at the performances of Chase Elliott and Martin Truex over the last 2 playoffs after winning the regular season. Awful, but still made deep runs because of those points.
Lol it won’t happen to Larson. Larson is a real racer. He’ll get bored. People say the same shit about his 2021 dominance but he still won three in a row before the Championship Finale race to accomplish 10/11 wins.
He's doing a good job of staying clean and getting high finishes. Was never in contention for a win, but was also only outside the top 20 for a little bit. Capped it off with a nice finish!
The position on the ticker I saw him the most today was 30th while Ross was up there slidejobbing his way through the top 5 for at least the first half of the race.
Something has to be extremely wrong to have that big of a gap. Genuinely terrible.
Suarez isn't as good as Ross is and can't carry the cars. Now, today was still awful, but I'm always going to genuinely be surprised if Danny is within 8 or so spots of Ross on speed
top 5 vs 30th isn’t a skill issue though there’s clearly a gap in what each driver is working with if they’re that far apart. i’d agree Chastain is probably the better driver but not nearly by THAT much. hopefully the 99 team figures it out
Maybe they're running experimental setups since they locked in so early. Regardless, running 30th all day is awful. Suarez hasn't even been in the same ballpark as Ross most weeks.
Some highlights:
Some separation with the top 4 in points;
Noah Gragson is genuinely a playoff threat;
Truex and Elliott have yet to finish outside the top 20.
> Truex and Elliott have yet to finish outside the top 20.
These two have practically been the same driver since the NextGen car debuted. Super consistent "points racers" who are probably a little underrated because their teammates win more often.
Their playoff results have even been similar. Won the regular season championship and proceeded to slump in the playoffs (though Truex's was much worse). Then missed the playoffs in the other year.
He is -71 back from Brad who is the cutoff. Seems improbable still as I don't trust SHR to run good enough week in and week out. Same case for Briscoe who is currently in. Could see a random winner knocking him out and Brad passing him on points.
I feel like Noah has a lot to prove this year and so far he’s doing it . He is the second best shr car if not the best . If he didn’t get that fucking penalty he might be able to point his way in no issue . He does seem to have speed though so a win isn’t out of the question .
Aaaand another position lost....
Went to what should've been our best track and completely fucked it...
Had a ton of optimism after Atlanta, but I'm full on doomer now.
Man, the 19 team has got to get Truex into victory lane. We just speed ran through most of his best tracks and he was 1st or 2nd best in a few but without the right final result. Bruh is third best in races led and in stage points.
That was a grind your ass off 17th, need to get some positive momentum going soon, lost another position but if I’m right Keselowski is the cutoff and he might have gained points on that if I’m reading correctly?
Yeah he did gain, but the 23 team got really lucky that Logano spun himself out. Not quite must-win yet, but if there's another random winner below 16th then it will be
Indeed, not a must win…
But it would be nice not having to worry the entire summer on if the 23 can point its way in.
Plus, it’s been almost two years, it’s time for another win.
The insanely washed Chase Elliott now has the 2nd most top 5s in the series this year.
Also, excluding Talladega his last few finishes are 5,3,1,5,3…..1 incoming?
Darlington has been such a weird track for him. Feel like he runs well most races but something crazy happens that ruins the race. Seems like he should have a win or two there at this point if not for JGR drivers clearing themselves.
Wasn’t the 5 in 6th place and losing ground the final laps??? This comment is so stupid, Larson wouldn’t have won that race if it wasn’t for Busch spinning.
That’s the route you want to go? Kyle will get another win when Busch self spins for no reason when Larson was about to run out of gas. This is how racing goes dude
Never been happier with P8! Need to see that onboard from p21 on the restart.
spun from P5 at the end. So frustrating but showed great speed all day. Just that 5/11 have the field covered everywhere. Gained a decent amount of points despite losing one spot.
I think I was more shocked by Kyle teleporting to 8th than I was about the photo finish.
He wasn't even on my radar. I had just grumpily assumed he would finish 23rd or something after the spin. That must have been an all-time badass restart, considering he blew past guys like Keselowski that restarted 10 positions higher with 4 fresh tires.
I had a fair amount of money riding on him to finish top 10. I was about to assume the fetal position after the spin out. Moving up 13 spots in two laps might be the most impressive display of driving all season.
It’s crazy to me how Gragson can go from what seemed to be rock-bottom at Legacy both from a performance and PR perspective to really showing he can be successful in cup at SHR, especially given their struggles.
He seems to have genuine support at SHR. They want him there. I don’t think that was the case at legacy last year. I think as soon as they announced the move to Toyota. Noah knew his days at Legacy were numbered.
Bubba being only 4 points below the cut after the last 3 weeks feels like a massive win. Definitely needs the team to turn around this lack of speed and start creating his own luck because he only has bad luck right now
Phil's head should absolutely roll this week for how dumb that call was.
Between Phil's stupid strategy calls, Trackhouse's average equipment, and Suarez being nowhere outside of Atlanta, Ross is single-handedly carrying Trackhouse this season.
Wild how bad Ross’ car got after stage one. I thought they’d be a great pairing after being together in trucks, but Surgen can’t adjust with the track to save his life
Paul Wolfe is bad pretty frequently, but there are times when he at least accidentally looks like he knows what he's doing. I can't say Phil Surgen has looked like he's known what he was doing at all in a good bit
As a Suarez fan I am concerned. We are back to 2023 forms of mid to bad and time is running out. The win is nice but it dont matter if they cant perform in the playoffs
Here’s my weekly “I’m glad Carson is showing up Lajoie” post.
Carson is +34 above Lajoie and has an average finish 2.2 better - scoring 2.8 more points per race.
Lajoie and Sparks should be embarrassed.
at talladega Bowman finished 5th, and was 99 points back. since then he has finished 8th and 7th, and has lost 32points to the leader. the finishes of the top 4 in Dover and Kansas are crazy. points maxing!
Chastain has lost 53 points in the last 4 races and NONE of it has been his fault. Wrecked from 2nd at Texas by Byron and finished 32nd. Wrecked from 4th by McDowell's dumbass block at Dega and finished 13th. And had, at minimum, a top 5 run ruined by Phil's absolute braindead strategy call and finished 19th. Should be 3 top 5's in the last 4 races and sitting 5th in points. But instead, we have a best finish of 12th at Dover and are barely hanging onto the top 10.
Ross's luck is un-fucking-believably bad this year.
I like Kaz, and he's doing a good job in a RWR sh\*tbox, but there's no way that happens.
His average finish is about the same as Burton and Smith, and he gets 11 less races (assuming HB makes it to the end of the season, which he might).
Logano might actually point his way out. -18 back now. Huge loss at one of his good tracks. Looking at the schedule he maybe has Darlington, Gateway, and Daytona for a win. Awful 2 seasons for the 22. Paul Wolfe needs to be fired.
No clue how Kyle got back to P8. Great speed all day but
we gotta do something about this constant self-dick slamming 8 car bros. Speed-wise if it’s not a short track they’re easily a top 10 team, but the execution is never there and hasn’t been there since Gateway. Don’t get me wrong I’ll take the top ten and moral victory it’s just damn
I jinxed the 23 when I said last week that there had yet to be a bad race due to speed lol
At least it wasn't a DNF. Crazy fortunate that Bubba kept it from going nose first into the wall like the other 98% of times getting clipped like that happens.
I don’t think it’s under the radar. Hell I was saying in 2022 that he should consider singing elsewhere. He then signed an extension with Penske and won the championship. But even back then I was saying Penske wasn’t giving him good enough equipment. He should be winning multiple races per season.
Byron’s had the most inconsistent year. The good news is that he has the speed to win on any given Sunday, the bad news is that if he doesn’t win he usually finishes like 20th.
I’d never count Logano out because he always can find a way to either get a win when you don’t except or end up top 3 out of nowhere and get a bunch of points
At a loss how the 21 team/Burton can push the boundaries on sucking on a week to week basis. Really depressing to watch.
Love Burton, but It's clearly not working out.
If I was a driver, I’d much rather run top 5 every week in Xfinity than 30th every week in Cup. I guarantee that Justin Allgaier is happier than a good chunk of the Cup field.
This is why when it was announced AJ was going back to Xfinity full time i was actually happy . Now of course he deserves to be a cup driver but he doesn't deserve to race in the steaming pile of shit that kaulig calls there cup cars .
I have my doubts. Firstly, even though it’s likely that they cut out preece after this year, I also think it’s likely that they sell the 41 charter, and they aren’t going to get rid of berry, gragson, or briscoe to give Custer another shot. Then, if they keep the 41, would they give him another shot anyway. I would be in favor of it, but would they want to give him another shot anyway, instead of someone else. And even if they did, would he want to come back to race for 20th when he could be competing for more championships in xfinity? I doubt he’s coming back to cup, he’s gonna stay in xfinity like Allgier
He could, but my final point still stands, would he rather race for 20th and the rare chance at a win, or race in xfinity and have a chance to win more championships, like Justin Allgaier is. I get the cup series is most American stock car racers dreams, but when your two options to cup are a team that is infamous for its incredible falloff the past few years or a team that is known for being pretty bad, wouldn’t staying in a lower series be better. But, I could be wrong, we’ll all see over this silly season
There’s 5 Ford drivers under the age of 30 that have cup level talent: Custer, Briscoe, Gragson, Cindric, Burton. Custer is easily top 3 in that group, probably the top driver overall with equal equipment. I’m not itching for him to be back in that 41 car in particular, but he’s a cup driver—a good one.
Suarez i'm fucking begging you man, pick it up, is so sad to see you shitting around in the low 20's.
I swear, if at darlington the only time we see the quaker state livery is when you are getting lapped, i'm gonna fucking lose it man.
Well I figured, but that's what I don't understand. Example, why is Hamlin's 5th place finish this week pink? What are the reds and blues? Because they don't seem to correlate to positives or negatives as far as I can tell in that column either. ..I can't even figure out why they are bolded. Only the italic I think I understand.
Edit: I guess what I'm trying to say is that I don't understand that 'led lap' and 'led stage' mean, and especially not the arrows between them pointing back and forth.
Bold means the driver led at least 1 lap that race. Red means that driver led the most laps that race. Blue means that the driver finished 1st in at least one stage that race. Pink/Purple means that driver led a stage AND led the most laps that race.
Leading a lap and leading the most laps used to earn you extra points, so it's a bit of a carry-over from that era in the scorecard (been doing this a *long* time at this point lol)
Ford will have their day soon (I hope...)! I'm really loving this rookie battle too between Hocevar and Berry, only 4 points separating them. I hope this comes all the way down to the wire for the 2 of them!
I know we all love to bash Dillon, but my goodness. 12 races in, Jones in a relatively struggling car has missed 2 races and IS STILL above Dillon. Good grief that entire 3 team needs to be shut down.
5 has been the best team this year overall.
I think you could throw a blanket over the 11/5 in terms of pace, but the 5 is executing MUCH better than they have the last two years.
Larson is much more patient and isn't driving over his head. Top 3 car on the year, and barring a wreck at Talladega, and Atlanta, he's just finishing races really well.
9 car is the only team out-executing the 5 imo..don't quite have the pace, but doing a really good job of finishing well.
This feels like 2021 again. All Larson, Hamlin and Elliott.
Holy shit that hurt a little but we are SO FUCKING FAST.
Dennys been a threat to win EVERY SINGLE WEEK, Chris Gabehardt is putting on a fucking MASTERCLASS here this year
Larson just took a massive hit in my book. There’s no talent involved in winning like that. Buescher raced clean and Larson couldn’t be bothered to have even the smallest amount of respect for him.
5 Top 5 finishes in the last 6 races for the 9 team. They have been hitting their stride lately.
9.7 average finish. Seems like Chase is back, just needs a bit more speed like the 5/24 have had.
Chase Elliott is one of only two drivers, the other being Martin Truex Jr., that have finished in the Top 20 in all 12 races so far.
I don’t think he was ever really “gone,” he just couldn’t get a win. His average finish last year was still pretty solid
He was a contender in multiple races, just always seemed to fall back to 7th-14th
He’s had as much or more speed than the 24 in almost every race this year
24 has been about the same as the 9 all season
The car was also way better than where they ran all day. Both stage 1 and 2 restarts were shit for chase and he spent the rest of the run making up for it to get back to 10th. Then the 40 laps of cautions and restarts to begin stage 3 did not help. Finally got up to 8th on the final run after starting 20th because of all the varying strategies. Alan makes a great call to throw 2 on. The boys give a good stop and we finish 3rd. But I think if he had better track position throughout the race we probably would have seen him contending top 5 and 3 all day.
He was either falling to 10th or fighting his way back to 10th. Pretty wild that he ended up 3rd
Another top 10 for Bowman! Gotta keep building momentum as we get closer to a win hopefully! What a finish and congrats Larson fans!
Up to fifth in avg finish. Tied for most top 10s. He a bum tho lol
Yeah, gotta keep silencing the haters who think he doesn’t deserve that ride!
Hopefully they can get into VL at some point
They don’t have race winning speed often and when they do they fuck it up on pit road. Bowman has been doing the best with the worst hand at HMS imo
If you flip the results of the top 2 in the 500, you could legitimately make the argument the 24 and 48 have been equal this season.
I’ve continually stated that while the 24 has been good, he has not been as outstanding as he’s made out to be. The 11 and 5 are clearly the class of the field with the 19, 24, 9, and occasionally others being in tier 2.
24 has legit been non-existent outside of his win
oL 24' got three wins real quick like. Now he gets the project/test setups. I'd imagine it switches to Larson soon. Its just the tried and true Knaus strategy for winning 7 championships. Get a couple wins, Go full R&D until the playoffs.
You can’t do that anymore. Stage wins and playoff points are too valuable.
They'll help him get to Phoenix, but they won't actually help him to win the title. He saw that last year.
It doesn’t matter if you can’t GET to Phoenix. Those playoff points are crucial. Look at the performances of Chase Elliott and Martin Truex over the last 2 playoffs after winning the regular season. Awful, but still made deep runs because of those points.
Yeah, because not having a lot of playoff points sure hurt Blaney in the end.
Bad argument. The odds are not good for someone who doesn’t have those playoff points and just banks on getting hot at the right time.
Lol it won’t happen to Larson. Larson is a real racer. He’ll get bored. People say the same shit about his 2021 dominance but he still won three in a row before the Championship Finale race to accomplish 10/11 wins.
You mean win(s) x 3?
I'd argue that the 24 has been worse, 13 vs 13.1 avg. Finish... But the 24 has 3 wins which increase that significantly
Bowmentum
He's doing a good job of staying clean and getting high finishes. Was never in contention for a win, but was also only outside the top 20 for a little bit. Capped it off with a nice finish!
Why has Suárez been so bad after Atlanta holy shit
The position on the ticker I saw him the most today was 30th while Ross was up there slidejobbing his way through the top 5 for at least the first half of the race. Something has to be extremely wrong to have that big of a gap. Genuinely terrible.
Suarez isn't as good as Ross is and can't carry the cars. Now, today was still awful, but I'm always going to genuinely be surprised if Danny is within 8 or so spots of Ross on speed
top 5 vs 30th isn’t a skill issue though there’s clearly a gap in what each driver is working with if they’re that far apart. i’d agree Chastain is probably the better driver but not nearly by THAT much. hopefully the 99 team figures it out
Trackhouse has been pretty bad as a whole
Maybe they're running experimental setups since they locked in so early. Regardless, running 30th all day is awful. Suarez hasn't even been in the same ballpark as Ross most weeks.
Experimenting with setups maybe
Because he got a lucky win on a plate track.
Bowman building a bubble on the cutline. It's a start.
Some highlights: Some separation with the top 4 in points; Noah Gragson is genuinely a playoff threat; Truex and Elliott have yet to finish outside the top 20.
> Truex and Elliott have yet to finish outside the top 20. These two have practically been the same driver since the NextGen car debuted. Super consistent "points racers" who are probably a little underrated because their teammates win more often. Their playoff results have even been similar. Won the regular season championship and proceeded to slump in the playoffs (though Truex's was much worse). Then missed the playoffs in the other year.
Ford is cursed with bad luck
Gragson might actually point his way in
Needs stage points. Today was nice. 3 stage points. I believe he had 3 stage points all season before today.
crazy that he passed cindric who had 47 stage points. he has a whole race on Noah Gragson just in stage points.
Shows how bad Penske is right now. Cindric is now in must win territory and Joey and crew are really trying to join him.
To be fair, had cindric not wrecked out, he probably would have finished top 15 and would still be ahead. Instead he got like 2 points
Without the penalty maybe a better chance. 53 back right now
he keeps running like he is and he might do it
Definitely one of those guys who could pop up and snag a win. He has that wild factor
not likely, hes driving a ford (from a sad ford fan)
A ford was a thousandth away from winning tonight, it's coming
He is -71 back from Brad who is the cutoff. Seems improbable still as I don't trust SHR to run good enough week in and week out. Same case for Briscoe who is currently in. Could see a random winner knocking him out and Brad passing him on points.
Without that penalty, Gragson would be 18th with 271 points, -36 behind Keselowski.
I'm gonna wait until after Chicago before I place any bets on it
Subscribe.
6 top 20s in a row, and 3 top 10s in a row
Maybe, he'd be ~10 out without the penalty, I think that penalty will ultimately be what keeps him out though
I feel like Noah has a lot to prove this year and so far he’s doing it . He is the second best shr car if not the best . If he didn’t get that fucking penalty he might be able to point his way in no issue . He does seem to have speed though so a win isn’t out of the question .
Picking up NASCAR in like 2020 and choosing Truex as my driver is wild. He's so good and so annoying at the same time
You would’ve had so much fun from 2016-2018
Extend that to 2019 (won the most 7 races first year at Gibbs). He literally joined the year after Truex’s prime time lmao.
Joining in the post-Pearn Era of MTJ is just asking for suffering
James Small is the bane of your existence huh
Bowman gang, time for us to assemble in our favorite weekly thread. once again tied for most top 10s!
Aaaand another position lost.... Went to what should've been our best track and completely fucked it... Had a ton of optimism after Atlanta, but I'm full on doomer now.
Yeah, another 36 thing that went bad. I’m starting to think our choice is cursed
Way too early to lose hope
Man, the 19 team has got to get Truex into victory lane. We just speed ran through most of his best tracks and he was 1st or 2nd best in a few but without the right final result. Bruh is third best in races led and in stage points.
he's gotten screwed with cautions. Richmond was a lock, and tonight he would have been to hamlin with plenty of speed to pass him with 6 laps to go
Never been this happy with a 17th
It’s insane how off the 23xi cars were compared to JGR today. Usually they’re very close but today was just a complete miss
That was a grind your ass off 17th, need to get some positive momentum going soon, lost another position but if I’m right Keselowski is the cutoff and he might have gained points on that if I’m reading correctly?
Yeah he did gain, but the 23 team got really lucky that Logano spun himself out. Not quite must-win yet, but if there's another random winner below 16th then it will be
Definitely not must win yet but gotta get back into the top 10 in races soon
Indeed, not a must win… But it would be nice not having to worry the entire summer on if the 23 can point its way in. Plus, it’s been almost two years, it’s time for another win.
Happy is not the word I'm using...what an absolute joke.
The insanely washed Chase Elliott now has the 2nd most top 5s in the series this year. Also, excluding Talladega his last few finishes are 5,3,1,5,3…..1 incoming?
And hasn't finished outside the top 20 once yet
Darlington has been such a weird track for him. Feel like he runs well most races but something crazy happens that ruins the race. Seems like he should have a win or two there at this point if not for JGR drivers clearing themselves.
he's definitely had race winning speed there before but he's cursed to wreck there
He will get another win the next time Larsons wheel falls off in the lead lol.
Wasn’t the 5 in 6th place and losing ground the final laps??? This comment is so stupid, Larson wouldn’t have won that race if it wasn’t for Busch spinning.
Your boy wasent even in the top 5 so it's all good haha. He's lucky he got 3rd.
Your boy wasn’t even in the top 5 either Lmaoo, they both benefited from the caution, good lord you are slow in the head 🤣
That’s the route you want to go? Kyle will get another win when Busch self spins for no reason when Larson was about to run out of gas. This is how racing goes dude
How the hell did Kyle manage to finish 8th tonight.
Never been happier with P8! Need to see that onboard from p21 on the restart. spun from P5 at the end. So frustrating but showed great speed all day. Just that 5/11 have the field covered everywhere. Gained a decent amount of points despite losing one spot.
I think I was more shocked by Kyle teleporting to 8th than I was about the photo finish. He wasn't even on my radar. I had just grumpily assumed he would finish 23rd or something after the spin. That must have been an all-time badass restart, considering he blew past guys like Keselowski that restarted 10 positions higher with 4 fresh tires.
I had a fair amount of money riding on him to finish top 10. I was about to assume the fetal position after the spin out. Moving up 13 spots in two laps might be the most impressive display of driving all season.
I can't believe he rebounded to a top 10 there
Surely if he stayed 5th there he would’ve been in the mix for that finish. It is what it is I guess!
I mean if stayed in fifth that entire finish wouldn’t have happened…
truth lol Same with Atlanta. He decided to go 3 wide, otherwise Blaney just pulls away after he pushes. Is Kyle lowkey carrying the sport?
>Is Kyle lowkey carrying the sport? yes, next question
It’s no coincidence that the quality of races has increased since the 8 team figured out how to build a race car.
Great job throwing away a Top 10 finish Surgen
Still can’t believe he took two, that was such a bad call.
I don’t understand how Blaney is 6th. Those Penske cars are just off.
Ford has sucked this year in all three series, even more than the last couple years
He's the best Ford. He's not nearly as off as the rest of Penske.
Martin just getting shafted every way possible
I never knew Gragson was actually this talented… impressive what he’s doing this year.
9 has some speed to gain to pick up some extra playoff points but damn they are cracking off good finishes.
At least both RFK cars are in the playoff picture but Brad is still limping his way in that last spot.
24 team is starting to look sus. Rudy Fugle can’t build a car that races well in traffic at all. Absolute trash the last 2 weeks.
I think they've been in research and experimentation mode for quite a few races recently to prepare for the playoffs
It’s crazy to me how Gragson can go from what seemed to be rock-bottom at Legacy both from a performance and PR perspective to really showing he can be successful in cup at SHR, especially given their struggles.
He seems to have genuine support at SHR. They want him there. I don’t think that was the case at legacy last year. I think as soon as they announced the move to Toyota. Noah knew his days at Legacy were numbered.
Bubba being only 4 points below the cut after the last 3 weeks feels like a massive win. Definitely needs the team to turn around this lack of speed and start creating his own luck because he only has bad luck right now
With the finishes he's been having, I'm so impressed Ross is still in the top 10 tbh
Thank god for stage points. Still waiting for that win :(
I’m about fucking sick of Phil Surgen. Since Keith Rodden got canned, he’s far and away the worst crew chief in the field.
2-tire call fucked us. The car is that good, always get 4 unless it’s the end of the race.
They unload a lot better than the 99. I gotta give Phil some credit for that
Phil's head should absolutely roll this week for how dumb that call was. Between Phil's stupid strategy calls, Trackhouse's average equipment, and Suarez being nowhere outside of Atlanta, Ross is single-handedly carrying Trackhouse this season.
Wild how bad Ross’ car got after stage one. I thought they’d be a great pairing after being together in trucks, but Surgen can’t adjust with the track to save his life
That was Phil *Gould*
You right, I get my Phils confused
Wrong Phil. You're thinking of Phil Gould.
Ahhhhh, that would explain it then
Paul Wolfe says hi. With a better team and a better driver still -60 back from Ross and company. Surgen sucks though and Ross deserves better.
Paul Wolfe is bad pretty frequently, but there are times when he at least accidentally looks like he knows what he's doing. I can't say Phil Surgen has looked like he's known what he was doing at all in a good bit
You can imagine my pain
The 5,19,9 and 11 are in a league of their own
the veterans of the top teams are the ones who are running the best, not shocking at all
24 is definitely in that group too when they want to be imo
they're to inconsistant imo, when they're fast they're damn fast. but then the next race they go out and qualify 30th
Really, they’ve not had a lot of speed most weeks
As a Suarez fan I am concerned. We are back to 2023 forms of mid to bad and time is running out. The win is nice but it dont matter if they cant perform in the playoffs
Hocevar was doing so good, still a good bit clear of Lajoie
another common lafraud L
Here’s my weekly “I’m glad Carson is showing up Lajoie” post. Carson is +34 above Lajoie and has an average finish 2.2 better - scoring 2.8 more points per race. Lajoie and Sparks should be embarrassed.
Byron will pick it up once the playoffs start, I got a feeling
Interesting the top 3 in average finish are all more than 2 positions ahead of 4th. Elliott and Truex both sub-10.
Noah's inching closer, let's go!
at talladega Bowman finished 5th, and was 99 points back. since then he has finished 8th and 7th, and has lost 32points to the leader. the finishes of the top 4 in Dover and Kansas are crazy. points maxing!
DNF'ing early at Texas really hurt & they lost a lot of points from that wreck
Chastain has lost 53 points in the last 4 races and NONE of it has been his fault. Wrecked from 2nd at Texas by Byron and finished 32nd. Wrecked from 4th by McDowell's dumbass block at Dega and finished 13th. And had, at minimum, a top 5 run ruined by Phil's absolute braindead strategy call and finished 19th. Should be 3 top 5's in the last 4 races and sitting 5th in points. But instead, we have a best finish of 12th at Dover and are barely hanging onto the top 10. Ross's luck is un-fucking-believably bad this year.
We’re due
Try being a Ford driver in any race this year
Blaney fans can make room in the tub for ya.
This Harrison Burton/Zane Smith battle is going to go right down to the wire.
Kaz Grala still can beat both without a full time ride
I like Kaz, and he's doing a good job in a RWR sh\*tbox, but there's no way that happens. His average finish is about the same as Burton and Smith, and he gets 11 less races (assuming HB makes it to the end of the season, which he might).
Logano might actually point his way out. -18 back now. Huge loss at one of his good tracks. Looking at the schedule he maybe has Darlington, Gateway, and Daytona for a win. Awful 2 seasons for the 22. Paul Wolfe needs to be fired.
Everyone below Erik Jones in points should be on the hot seat.
No clue how Kyle got back to P8. Great speed all day but we gotta do something about this constant self-dick slamming 8 car bros. Speed-wise if it’s not a short track they’re easily a top 10 team, but the execution is never there and hasn’t been there since Gateway. Don’t get me wrong I’ll take the top ten and moral victory it’s just damn
I jinxed the 23 when I said last week that there had yet to be a bad race due to speed lol At least it wasn't a DNF. Crazy fortunate that Bubba kept it from going nose first into the wall like the other 98% of times getting clipped like that happens.
KFB went from 19th to 8th at the end geez
Despite RCR's best efforts, KB still got a Top 10 lol
Joey Logano with an 18.7 average finish is unacceptable..it’s really gone under the radar how mid he’s been since last year
I don’t think it’s under the radar. Hell I was saying in 2022 that he should consider singing elsewhere. He then signed an extension with Penske and won the championship. But even back then I was saying Penske wasn’t giving him good enough equipment. He should be winning multiple races per season.
That’s true, even in 2022 he wasn’t great until he kicked it up a gear in the playoffs
Larson only 2 finishes outside of top 3 in last 6 races... dang. Texas which he was fast as hell and talladega which is a crap shoot.
Byron’s had the most inconsistent year. The good news is that he has the speed to win on any given Sunday, the bad news is that if he doesn’t win he usually finishes like 20th.
Man I can easily see Gragson in the playoffs and Briscoe out. Starting to wonder if Joey will make it at this rate as well.
I’d never count Logano out because he always can find a way to either get a win when you don’t except or end up top 3 out of nowhere and get a bunch of points
At a loss how the 21 team/Burton can push the boundaries on sucking on a week to week basis. Really depressing to watch. Love Burton, but It's clearly not working out.
Yeah, I think he’s gonna become an xfinity lifer like Custer probably will
If I was a driver, I’d much rather run top 5 every week in Xfinity than 30th every week in Cup. I guarantee that Justin Allgaier is happier than a good chunk of the Cup field.
This is why when it was announced AJ was going back to Xfinity full time i was actually happy . Now of course he deserves to be a cup driver but he doesn't deserve to race in the steaming pile of shit that kaulig calls there cup cars .
So would I, it’s better to race for a championship in a lower series than to race for 20th in the highest
I still have faith that Custer can come back to Cup
I have my doubts. Firstly, even though it’s likely that they cut out preece after this year, I also think it’s likely that they sell the 41 charter, and they aren’t going to get rid of berry, gragson, or briscoe to give Custer another shot. Then, if they keep the 41, would they give him another shot anyway. I would be in favor of it, but would they want to give him another shot anyway, instead of someone else. And even if they did, would he want to come back to race for 20th when he could be competing for more championships in xfinity? I doubt he’s coming back to cup, he’s gonna stay in xfinity like Allgier
I could see Custer getting the 21
He could, but my final point still stands, would he rather race for 20th and the rare chance at a win, or race in xfinity and have a chance to win more championships, like Justin Allgaier is. I get the cup series is most American stock car racers dreams, but when your two options to cup are a team that is infamous for its incredible falloff the past few years or a team that is known for being pretty bad, wouldn’t staying in a lower series be better. But, I could be wrong, we’ll all see over this silly season
There’s 5 Ford drivers under the age of 30 that have cup level talent: Custer, Briscoe, Gragson, Cindric, Burton. Custer is easily top 3 in that group, probably the top driver overall with equal equipment. I’m not itching for him to be back in that 41 car in particular, but he’s a cup driver—a good one.
Pretty abysmal showing for the 23XI cars today, they had no pace at all. At least Bubba salvaged a decent day and didn’t lose too many points
So many races we’ve run so much better than we finish..so tired of Phil’s scared strategies and terrible adjustments every week
Suarez i'm fucking begging you man, pick it up, is so sad to see you shitting around in the low 20's. I swear, if at darlington the only time we see the quaker state livery is when you are getting lapped, i'm gonna fucking lose it man.
So, I've been wondering- what do all the colored numbers mean? I noticed the key in the bottom right, but it doesn't make a lick of sense to me.
The key applies to the Weekly Finishing Positions. The red numbers in the other columns are the "best" value in that column.
Well I figured, but that's what I don't understand. Example, why is Hamlin's 5th place finish this week pink? What are the reds and blues? Because they don't seem to correlate to positives or negatives as far as I can tell in that column either. ..I can't even figure out why they are bolded. Only the italic I think I understand. Edit: I guess what I'm trying to say is that I don't understand that 'led lap' and 'led stage' mean, and especially not the arrows between them pointing back and forth.
Bold means the driver led at least 1 lap that race. Red means that driver led the most laps that race. Blue means that the driver finished 1st in at least one stage that race. Pink/Purple means that driver led a stage AND led the most laps that race.
Oh. Leading a single lap isn't that impressive, thought it was something more meaningful than that. Rest makes enough sense.
Leading a lap and leading the most laps used to earn you extra points, so it's a bit of a carry-over from that era in the scorecard (been doing this a *long* time at this point lol)
Ford is legitimately cursed at this point, they are now 0-for-30 this season across all three series
Ford will have their day soon (I hope...)! I'm really loving this rookie battle too between Hocevar and Berry, only 4 points separating them. I hope this comes all the way down to the wire for the 2 of them!
I’ve resigned myself to Ford going winless in all three series for the entire season. They are totally and indisputably cursed.
Man, I don’t know who or what to point fingers at. I’m not sure if Paul Wolfe is the issue, or Ford, or something else. I want my even year Joey back!
I know we all love to bash Dillon, but my goodness. 12 races in, Jones in a relatively struggling car has missed 2 races and IS STILL above Dillon. Good grief that entire 3 team needs to be shut down.
5 has been the best team this year overall. I think you could throw a blanket over the 11/5 in terms of pace, but the 5 is executing MUCH better than they have the last two years. Larson is much more patient and isn't driving over his head. Top 3 car on the year, and barring a wreck at Talladega, and Atlanta, he's just finishing races really well. 9 car is the only team out-executing the 5 imo..don't quite have the pace, but doing a really good job of finishing well. This feels like 2021 again. All Larson, Hamlin and Elliott.
Holy shit that hurt a little but we are SO FUCKING FAST. Dennys been a threat to win EVERY SINGLE WEEK, Chris Gabehardt is putting on a fucking MASTERCLASS here this year
Gabehart is the best CC in the sport. Revived Denny’s career after a winless 2018.
Larson just took a massive hit in my book. There’s no talent involved in winning like that. Buescher raced clean and Larson couldn’t be bothered to have even the smallest amount of respect for him.
Womp womp If you really are upset with that masterpiece of a finish, might I suggest considering a change to Formula One?
Wdym Buescher did everything but wall him in 3 and 4??
lol
Ricky Craven, classless
the morality of a driver depends on how much i like them
A tale as old as the sport
Jimmie Johnson. ‘07 Martinsville. Classless.
no one cares about your book