The Grandfather Clock: Martinsville Race Review and Analysis

 



The Nascar Cup Series NOCO 400 ended Sunday evening, after a weekend full of close quarter short track racing.  Ridgeway, Virginia is where Kyle Larson took home the checkered flag, for his 2nd win of the 2023 season, and the 21st of his career.  The 30-year old joins Hendrick Motorsports teammate William Byron, as the only two drivers with multiple wins in the ‘23 season. 


Today’s event provided more of the historic, and famed racing that Martinsville Speedway provides twice a year. Larson, after taking two tires on the final pit stop, was able to clip a victory to his performance at the paperclip track, after 400 laps. After running outside of the top-10 for majority of the race, one key pit stop late in the race leveraged Larson away from Joey Logano, Martin Truex Jr., and Denny Hamlin.

(Kyle Larson On-Track)


Leaving Virginia on a high note is Larson, collecting the prestigious grandfather clock for the first time in Martinsville.  Joey Logano finishes 2nd for Team Penske, along with Martin Truex Jr., in 3rd for Joe Gibbs Racing, with teammate Denny Hamlin slotting in 4th.  


Chase Briscoe for Stewart-Haas Racing led 109 laps, and crossed the line 5th, with teammate Aric Almirola in 6th.  Both finishes don't showcase the dominance performed by the organization as a group. Seventh is awarded to Ryan Blaney of Team Penske, as Ricky Stenhouse Jr., brings it home in 8th.  Ninth goes to Bubba Wallace for 23XI Racing, and in his first race back from injury, Chase Elliott crosses the line 10th for Hendrick Motorsports. 



Honorable mentions go to Alex Bowman of Hendrick Motorsports in 11th, Austin Dillon of Richard Childress Racing in 12th, alongside him is Ross Chastain in 13th for Team Trackhouse.  Chris Buescher for RFK Racing, falls in line 14th, as Ryan Preece in a career race led 135 laps, but due to a speeding penalty comes home 15th for Stewart-Haas Racing. 



(Kyle Larson in Victory Lane)

 Looking to rebound entering week 10 of the Nascar season, Team Penske’s Austin Cindric, Legacy Motor Club’s Noah Gragson, and Erik Jones.  Lastly, Brad Keselowski courtesy of RFK Racing enter Talladega looking for a better weekend on the high-banks.


Martinsville presented strategy, with the dominance of Stewart-Haas’ ford’s for majority of today, combining for 264 laps up front, winning the race off of pit road was the key to victory.   Unfortunately for the team, strategy by other teams buried the group in the top-10, with passing being the ultimate challenge. This is the 28th win for Hendrick Motorsports at Martinsville, with the first quarter of the Nascar season being in the books.  


Seven drivers are locked into the playoffs, as a wild card track of the 2.66 circuit in Lincoln, Alabama is up next.  



The Nascar national series will head to Talladega Superspeedway for the third restrictor-plate race of the season.  The Craftsman Truck Series will not make the trip down south, and will return at Kansas Speedway on May 6th.  In the meantime, the Xfinity Series will have qualifying at 5:35 pm ET on Friday, followed by the Ag-Pro 300 at 4 pm ET, Saturday on FS1.  The Cup Series will have qualifying get underway at 10:30 am ET, Saturday morning, later followed by the 53rd running of the Geico 500 starts at 3:00 pm ET only on FOX. 



  


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


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

Talladega Website

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

"Homestead Miami Race Review"

Image
  Justin Glenn  3/1/21 2:11pm Homestead Miami Race Review The “ Homestead Miami Speedway” Is where the Nascar Cup Series race ended yesterday ending in good fashion. Yesterday’s race resulted in a great win for William Byron, but also showed some new faces up front. Here is Yesterday's closing laps. William Byron took the checkered flag to record his second career win and first of this 2021 season. The Nascar Cup Series and also the Truck and Xfinity Series will be back in action six days from now at the For the Pennzoil 400 at 3:30 on FOX. My personal Opinion:  I thought this was a pretty solid race, it definitely didn’t show the balance in the field as people will be looking for next week. But all in all it was a pretty good race but as already known Sunday, Las Vegas is next as week 4 of this Nascar season rolls on heading in to the west coast swing. Additional resources: https://www.homesteadmiamispeedway.com/ https://www.lvms.com/
Read more

New Hampshire Race Review and Analysis

Image
  Racing in New Hampshire!  The Nascar Cup Series visited New Hampshire Motor Speedway, located in Loudon, New Hampshire, for the Ambetter 301.  In a ground-shaking way, Christopher Bell takes home the checkered flag.  This is Christopher Bell’s 2nd career win, and first of the 2022 season.  Bell is now the 14th different winner in 20 races.  Bell jumps the playoff standings and stamps his ticket to the 2022 Nascar playoffs. (Christopher Bell Burning it down Post-Race) Entering this afternoon in New Hampshire, only three spots were left for the playoffs.  Today, Christopher Bell, at arguably his best track, takes away one of those spots.  Christopher Bell entered this weekend with an up and down stretch after leaving Atlanta Motor Speedway.  Bell’s #20 Joe Gibbs Racing machine, showed up with speed, as that paid dividends this afternoon.  The 27-year-old raced hard today, as he took the lead from Chase Elliott which was eventually for the win.  He was one of the many Toyota drivers to
Read more

Homestead-Miami Race Review and Analysis

Image
  The long-awaited return to Homestead-Miami, Florida. After a year and a half, the Nascar Cup Series made its return to Homestead-Miami Speedway. Kyle Larson, in a dominant, and almost perfect afternoon, took home the checkered flag.  This is Larson's 3rd win of the 2022 season and the 19th of his career.  Larson swept both stages 1 and 2.  (Kyle Larson with the Homestead-Miami Trophy) Let’s go through today’s race, John Hunter Nemechek, after running 4th for most of stage 1, spun coming out of turn 1.  This derailed Nemechek’s promising weekend, as he finished 27th.  Chase Briscoe, who is now in a must-win situation, was done for the day by the end of stage 2. After contact with the outside wall, Briscoe’s afternoon was done. Tyler Reddick had a hard hit into the outside wall with 22 laps to go. Reddick, running the outside lane, got loose, and made heavy contact with the inside wall on the back straightaway, coming out of turn 2. Lastly, Kyle Larson spun Martin Truex Jr. on pit
Read more