Las Vegas Race Review and Analysis

 



Racing in Sin city! The Nascar Cup Series visited Las Vegas Motor Speedway for the "Pennzoil 400". Located a little bit outside of downtown Las Vegas, Nevada, this race put on quite a show. In a wild and eventful way, Alex Bowman takes home the checkered flag. This is Bowman’s 7th career win and first of the 2022 season. Bowman now joins Austin Cindric and Kyle Larson as the only drivers currently locked into the playoffs. 


(Alex Bowman headlining post Las Vegas)


During today’s race, a lot of things happened. New teams were upfront, tire issues, pit road strategies, and a wild overtime finish. To start this run down, Trackhouse Racing showed great flashes today. Ross Chastain had a career day by leading 83 laps out of the 267 total. Chastain was a force to be wreckin' with all afternoon as he consistently battled for the lead. The number 1 team held its own against top powerhouse organizations like Joe Gibbs Racing and Hendrick Motorsports. It’s great to see new faces upfront in the new and developing season. Guys like Ross Chastain, Erik Jones, Chase Briscoe, Daniel Suarez and Ricky Stenhouse jr. all have had good showings so far. Another key factor in today’s race were tire issues. Earlier this week after Auto Club last weekend, Nascar released an updated rulebook for drivers and teams regarding tires. If a car were to spin out, the best option for them was to try and keep the car going, therefore it wouldn’t stall out. With this next-gen car, if a car spun out and couldn’t keep going, they were basically trapped. The way this next gen car is designed, when you flat spot your tires after a spin, it’s extremely hard to get going again. Nascar’s plan flawed during the race as 10 cautions were recorded. There weren’t any major issues surrounding stalled cars after spins at all today. As a result of today's finish, pit road strategies determined today’s winner. Alex Bowman and Kyle Larson both decided to take two tires when they came down pit road. This put them ahead of the three dominate cars in Busch, Truex jr., and Chastain. With this race off of pit road, this set up for today’s wild finish. 


(Alex Bowman burns it down post race)




What set up today’s overtime finish was an almost scary crash from Erik Jones. Coming off of turn 4 Erik Jones got into the wall hard sending him spinning through the trioval. In a corresponding move, Bubba Wallace tried his best to stay off of Jones when the caution flag came out. Wallace crashed hard into the tire barrier ultimately spoiling his day. Both drivers were having solid top 15 runs until this incident. With this taking place, this set up the turning point in the race. All teams elected to go down pit road and take tires and fuel.  The restart came with Bowman and Larson leading the field to green. Both drivers battled it out to the checkered flag with Bowman taking it home in the end. After all, a late-race gamble can pay off when it counts most. This is Alex Bowman’s first career win at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. 

(Alex Bowman taking the checkered flag)


In my opinion, today was good. The next-gen car looked great on track once again, which is proving this car has been a success. Pit strategies, restarts, and different drivers upfront all made today successful. Luck, strategy, and circumstances all favored Alex Bowman when it was all said and done. My only takeaway is that today’s pre-race show wasn’t good. To be honest, it just wasn’t it, the jokes were falling flat, and too much attention was put on the pre-race show. It makes it even worse when it wasn’t close to good. Personally, I feel like Fox should direct some attention to the post-race show. After post-race interviews, the telecast goes off and regular TV scheduling takes place. It feels rushed and unorganized to be on Fox’s main network. Besides the TV wows, today’s action was good, I would score today’s action a 9 out of 10. 



( Alex Bowman in Victory Lane)



To close out Nascar’s west coast swing, Phoenix Raceway is up next. Located in Avondale, Arizona, this weekend should be fun. Nascar returns to where it finished its 2021 season in November for race number 4 of the 2022 season. Practice and Qualifying will take place for both the Cup and Xfinity Series on Saturday, along with the Xfinity Series race that afternoon. As Nascar heads out to the desert this weekend, tune in Sunday at 3:30pm only on FOX for the “Ruoff Mortgage 500”.



( All images credited to https://www.foxsports.com/nascar/cup-series.)


For next week's race information please view the link down below:


https://www.phoenixraceway.com/





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