Dover Review, Darlington Throwback Preview, and More | Chasing The Cup S1:E14

In this episode of Chasing the Cup, the host reviews the races at Dover, where Chase Elliott snapped a 26-race winless streak and had a good race with dirty air and tire wear being factors. The Xfinity race was slightly better and had similar conditions. The host predicts that Dover will continue to be a mainstay in NASCAR. In other news, William Byron signed a contract extension, the NASCAR Hall of Fame Class of 2023 was announced, and there were updates on TV ratings and sponsorships. The host previews the upcoming races at Darlington and makes predictions for the winners. Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of Chasing the Cup. I'm your host Bill England and in this episode I'm going to be reviewing the races from this past weekend at Dover. I'll also go over the news and I'm going to preview this weekend's throwback races at Darlington. But first, let's take a look at the results from Dover. Chase Elliott snaps a 26 race winless streak and gets his first oval race win since his championship winning race in 2020 at Phoenix. Second was Ricky Stenhouse Jr. who had a great run. Ross Chastain finished third. Christopher Bell finished fourth. Alex Bowman finished fifth. Kyle Larson finished sixth. Kyle Busch finished seventh. Chris Buescher finished eighth. Kevin Harvick finished ninth. And Eric Jones rounds out the top ten. In my opinion, this was a pretty good race, especially with dirty air from the lap traffic that allows other cars to close in and make the pass. We saw that all weekend with both series. And you also saw some comers and goers. And one was dominating throughout stage one and for the rest of the race, he finished big pack in 21st, primarily because of Cody Ware, who backed into him. And plus tire wear was a big factor in this race. As you saw, tires were courting and that allowed the field to be jostled up because what good years new tires, they had no idea how long the green flag run would be. And so they just waited until the tires started to court or blow out. And that's when crew chief decided to start paying their drivers. So overall, this was a good race, pretty good to the Dover standard and a lot better than it was with the Gen six. But was it the best race of the year? No, but the attendance was great. Although the TV ratings weren't good because one it was on cable and two, it was postponed to Monday. I'd say it was overall a good success. Apparently that's good enough of a success for us to say after the uncertainty and all the rumors flowing around throughout the week for them to say Dover will not be going away anytime soon. So Dover fans in the Northeast doesn't look like your track is going, but in the Southeast, I'd say Nashville is probably not the track that's looking good. So now let's take a look at the Xfinity results. Josh Perry gets his first win since Las Vegas of last year, which he was serving for Michael Annette, who was recovering from an injury. Second was Justin Allgaier. Third was Ty Gibbs. Fourth was Noah Grixen. Fifth was Sam Merrier. AJ Almendinger finished sixth. Brandon Jones finished seventh. Sheldon Creed finished eighth. Riley Hurts finished ninth. And Ryan Sieg runs out the top 10. So I'd say the Xfinity race was slightly better, but you saw basically the same thing as the Cup race. Comers and goers, and when guys got to that dirty area, the lapped traffic, that allowed guys to close in and make passes. So overall, a good weekend for racing at Dover. I'd say Dover will still be a mainstay for years to come, because why would SMI get rid of one of their most iconic tracks? Besides what they did for North Wilkesboro back in the 90s, but they're bringing that back. So why would they get rid of another iconic track, because you got Miles the Monster, and it's the Monster Mile. So I don't know why people thought it in the first place, but I guess there was a legit reason because the Nashville Fairgrounds, but I think probably the Super Speedway at Nashville will probably be the one that goes. So overall, good racing, but Dover's going to stay for a while. So now let's take a look at the news. William Byron has signed a three-year contract extension with Hendrick Motorsports, which will now last through the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series season. I'd say that's probably a good business decision that Rick Hendrick has made because William Byron has basically having a breakout season. Two wins already and more to come this season. So far, the most dominant car besides his consistent teammate, Chase Elliott. The NASCAR Hall of Fame Class of 2023 has been announced. First with a landmark award for outstanding contributions to NASCAR is former NASCAR President Mike Kelton. And then for the inductees, first for the Pioneer Ballot is Herschel McGriff. And then for the two Modern Era Ballots, it's Matt Kenseth, the 2003 Cup Series Champion, and Kirk Shillatine, four-time Winston Cup Championship winning crew chief for Dale Earnhardt. Next is Dover TV ratings. Fox got 944,000 viewers for Monday's postponed race, which is probably considerably down from last year. I don't know how it was in 2021. It's up compared to 2019, which only got 798,000 viewers. But overall, ratings were way down because of the ring delay and also being on cable did not help either. Because last year, the third race was postponed to Monday and still got around 3 million viewers. And that was because both it was on network TV and it was at a later start time at 3 p.m. while this race on FS1 started at noon when most people were still working. Tyler Reddick will be driving for Big Machine Racing for both Darlington this weekend and at Texas. Andy's Frozen Custard and Colleg Racing have renewed their partnership for the 2022 season for both Cup and Xfinity, beginning with the All-Star Race in a few weeks. Richard Petty will be the honorary starter for the Goodyear 400. L.W. Wright, the infamous DB Cooper NASCAR, has finally broken the silence after being found by the Seam Vault podcast host Rick Houston. Ray Everham will be auctioning off 30 of his personal cars from his personal collection and will be scheduled to cross the block in May of 2022, which includes a diverse mix of vintage race cars and a handful of street-legal classics. And all of them will be offered with no reserve. Kyle Busch, Daniel Suarez, and Eric Almirola will be running at a Goodyear tire test, which has been postponed due to inclement weather. Richard Petty, Bobby Labonte, and Bill Elliott will be joining the Fox booth for this weekend's broadcast of the Goodyear 400. Danny Hanlon has attended sensitivity training after reposting a meme on Twitter of a family guy meme making fun of Kyle Larson. And although Kyle Larson got the joke, a bunch of other people did not, and that pretty much forced NASCAR to give him sensitivity training. And finally, Steelhouse has expanded its partnership with Same Hut Racing and will sponsor John Hunter Nemechik for three more races. And so that's it for the news this week. Let's now preview this weekend's races at Darlington. First for the truck series, it's the Dead-On Tools 200. The race will be 147 laps and 200.8 miles. And the race will be at May 6th at 7.30pm Eastern Time. So for my pick, I'm gonna go a little different. I'm gonna go with Carson Hosafar. Hosafar has run really well at Darlington with a few finishes in the top ten. I think he'll finally break through and get his first career win at Darlington. Next for Xfinity Series is Mahindra Roxxar 200. The race will be 147 laps and 200.1 miles. And so for my pick, I'm gonna go with Noah Gregson. Noah Gregson has run well at Darlington and it really suits his style. So I'm gonna go with Noah Gregson and he'll win at Darlington. And finally for the cup race, we have the Goodyear 400, which will be 293 laps and 400.2 miles. And the race will be at May 8th at 3.30pm Eastern Time. Let's take a look at the weather on Sunday. Sunshine and clouds mixed with a high of 72 degrees Fahrenheit. Winds north at 10 to 15 miles per hour with a 6% chance of rain. So there'll be a mix of sunshine and clouds and it'll also be a little breezy. And so for my pick, I'm gonna go with Kyle Larson. Kyle Larson finished second two times in a row, once to Martin Trux Jr. in the spring and Danny Hamlin in the fall after wall riding to catch up to him. So I think this time he won't need to do that and I think he'll just be out front and he'll win this weekend at Darlington. So that's it for this week's episode. If you enjoyed, please like and subscribe for more. If you're going out to Darlington this weekend, I hope you have a good time. If you're not, have a good time wherever you are and I'll see you next week.