Charlotte Roval Review, Las Vegas Preview, and More | Chasing The Cup S1:E32

In this episode of Chasing a Cup, the host Will England reviews the races from the Charlotte Roval and previews the upcoming races at Las Vegas. Christopher Bell wins the Charlotte Roval race, while AJ Allmendinger wins the Xfinity race. The playoffs standings for both Cup and Xfinity are discussed, with drivers on the bubble and the possibility of major changes. The episode also covers news such as Tyler Reddick's contract being bought out, discussions about Dodge reentering NASCAR, and NASCAR's meetings with drivers. The weather forecast for the upcoming Las Vegas races is also mentioned, along with the host's predictions for the winners. Hello everyone, welcome back to another episode of Chasing a Cup. I'm your host Will England and in this episode I'm going to be reviewing the races from the Charlotte Roval. I'll also go over the news and I'm going to preview this weekend's races at Las Vegas. But first, let's take a look at the results from the Charlotte Roval. Christopher Bell in clutch gets his second win of the season and wins to advance into a round of 8, followed by Kevin Harvick in second. Kyle Busch finishes third. AJ Allmendinger finishes fourth. Justin Haley finishes fifth. Chris Buescher finishes sixth. Bubba Wallace finishes seventh. Tyler Reddick finishes eighth. Chase Briscoe finishes ninth. And Austin Dillon rounds out the top ten. And so, I have to say that this race was very underwhelming for the most part. It got way too spread out. There was still some action going on, but it got too spread out. And it looked like Chase Elliott was going to win until that caution came out. With only a handful of laps to go, they had a restart with I believe three laps to go. And then chaos ensued. And so it got pretty messy toward the end. And after the chaotic final restart at the Roval, here is how the playoffs stand. Chase Elliott is still the number one seed with 31 points above the cut line. Joey Logano is in second with 11 points above. Dennis Chastain with 6 points above. And then Bell is the last one above the cut line with 3 points above. Ryan Blaney is 3 points below. And he's tied with Byron 3 points below. Blaney, I believe, has a tiebreaker. Danny Hamlin is 5 points below. And Chase Briscoe is 9 points below. So all drivers are within the margin of error. If they don't have any collapses, it's going to be close. So according to how these next few weeks go, we could see the playoffs standings get shaken up. Especially if someone below the cut line like a Ryan Blaney, a William Byron, or a Danny Hamlin, or a Chase Briscoe win. And with that, the four drivers that were limited were Kyle Larson after he had some issues after smacking the wall. And then Chase Briscoe was able to charge in the closing laps and make up the time. Daniel Suarez struggled all day after losing his power steering, so he had to try to manhandle that car. And also, it doesn't help when you're getting into it with a lapper. Austin Sendrick also comes up short after getting turned in those final restarts. And Tyler Rettig was a no-show. And so overall, this race was very, like, luster throughout the majority of the race. And the closing laps almost saved it if it wasn't too chaotic. Because they were just driving like clowns. Because they were trying to get all the positions they needed. Next up for the Xfinity race, AJ Amundinger wins from the pole and gets his fourth straight Grovel win, followed by Ty Gibbs in second. Noah Gregson comes up from 37th to finish third. James Stevenson finishes fourth. Justin Allgaier finishes fifth. Alex Labay finishes sixth. Randon Jones finishes seventh. Josh Perry finishes eighth. Ryan Seig finishes ninth. And Landon Kessel rounds out the top ten. And unlike Cup Race, this race was pretty good. There was plenty of action going on throughout the race. It wasn't as spread out as Cup was. And Xfinity put on a good show. It was a great race. And, eh, what was it? Better than a Cup? Yeah. And I want to give a shout out to Stephan Parsons. He was up there competing for a top five until he got turned. But man, he was faster in that race. That's probably the best we've seen a Parsons run in years. Whatever he and that 45 team have found, they have done really well with it. Because they've had some good finishes in the past few weeks. And it almost led to even more success at the Charlotte Roku until he got turned by Landon Kessel. And after the Charlotte Roku race, here's how the Xfinity playoffs stand. Noah Gregson is 34 points above the cut line. He is the number one seed. A.G. Umdinger is second with 22 points above the cut line. Ty Gibbs is 16 above. Allgaier is 11 above. Barry is 11 points below. Hill is 15 points below. Jones is 22 points below. And Mayer is 28 points below. So a lot of the drivers below the cut line are pretty distant from pointing their way in. So some of them may have to win to get in. And so overall, an up and down weekend for the Charlotte Roku. The Xfinity race was pretty good, but the next day it dropped down. For Cup, we're having a lackluster race and then a wreck bus toward the end. And so with that out of the way, let's get to the news. And starting off, I have some news that broke today and has been reported that Tyler Reddick has been released early from his contract, according to Lee Spencer. So it is believed that 23-11 has bought out Reddick's contract. And I'm guessing this is probably because that Kurt Busch may have decided to retire. I think Kurt Busch might be done. I think that head injury may have been too much for him. Unless Kurt's planning to do a part-time gig. But it seems like that Kurt Busch might have retired and a Tyler Reddick's contract has been bought out to replace him. So that's going to be expensive for Denny and Michael. So I guess now who's going to take that third RCR car? Well, honestly, I think RCR might just scrub that plan if Reddick's not coming back. But who knows? SRS Distribution will be sponsoring AJ Allmendinger at Las Vegas. And there's an update on Dodge's talks to reenter NASCAR. Apparently, these talks have stalled according to Adam Stern and David Land. So it sounds like a fourth OEM may not be coming into NASCAR just yet. Because apparently Dodge said that they were focused on NHRA. Some people speculated that it was because they want to move to electric vehicles and hybrids. But NHRA is not that. The NHRA is not an electric series. They probably have the biggest internal combustion engines of any racing vehicle. So I have no idea why these talks have stalled besides Dodge saying that they want to focus on the NHRA. And it looks like if we're going to have an OEM, it looks like it will not be Dodge in the near future. But we'll see what happens in the future. Because they may reverse their decision and come back or maybe a fourth OEM will come in. There's plenty of options out there, but we'll have to see. NASCAR is going to look at the final lap incident with Cole Custer because apparently in those closing laps, Cole Custer backed off a little bit. And some people are speculating that he lost all of his positions so that Chase Briscoe could make an NL for Larson. So we'll see how this turns out. They'll probably announce it either later today or tomorrow. NASCAR will be meeting weekly with drivers after some backlash that came last week when it came to the CV rights negotiations. But we'll talk about that in a little bit. Andy Petrie has received the Smokey Yimick Award. Daniel Hemrick will be returning to College Racing in 2023. On Saturday, NASCAR met for 75 minutes on Saturday where apparently there was some heated conversations about the safety of the next-gen car as well as some talks about the next TV contract. And when NASCAR presented the results of a recent crash test, the drivers seemed to be pretty happy about it. And it sounds like NASCAR knows about these concerns and now that they've done another crash test, they're going to make some changes for the 2023 season. AM Racing will be fielding Xfinity and Trek teams in 2023. In an update on the William Byron penalty, the points penalty has been rescinded but the fine still stands and it has doubled as a replacement for the 25 points. HP will be joining Hendrick Motorsports as a corporate sponsor. And finally, DGR is expected to return to the Toyota Racing family to replace KBM as the lead Toyota team. This will be the first time since 2018 that DGR has fielded a Toyota entry. And when it comes to the lineup, it has been reported that Tanner Gray will stay, Taylor Gray will be moved at full time, Corey Hahn will go full time, and then they'll have a fourth entry for TRD Prospects as well as some Cup drivers. And that leaves out Haley Deegan. It's expected that she will not return to David Gilliland Racing next season with this so that means either Haley Deegan is going to run Xfinity full time next year or she may run for another four teams in trucks next year. Like say a front row opens up a second team for her. But we'll have to see how that goes. But right now Haley's still working on those contracts so we'll see. And so that's it for this week's news, now it's time to preview this weekend's races at Las Vegas. Starting off with the Xfinity race we have the Asco Uniform 302. The race will be 201 laps and 302 miles. And the race will be on October 15th at 3pm Eastern Time. And also a reminder that this will be Haley Deegan's first race in the Xfinity series. And so for my pick I'm going to go with Noah Gregson. Noah Gregson has been so dominant this year and this will be his hometown track so I think he'll have a hometown advantage and I think he will win at Las Vegas. And finally for the Cup race we have the South Point 400. The race will be 267 laps and 400.5 miles. And the race will be on October 16th at 2.30pm Eastern Time. So let's take a look at the weather for the Cup race. On Sunday it will be mostly sunny and very warm with a thunderstorm in spots in the afternoon. With a high of 92 degrees Fahrenheit. Winds will be east to northeast at around 7 miles per hour and a 40% chance of rain. And so it looks like there may be some rain in the afternoon possibly around race time. So expect possibly a delay and pray to God that NBC will not boot the race to cable. And so for my pick I'm going to go with Ross Chastain. Ross Chastain showed plenty of speed during the spring with that Darley Parton car and I think this time I think he will be even faster. Now that he's won two races I think he'll be the first driver to walk himself into the championship floor by winning at Las Vegas. And so that's it for this week's episode. If you enjoyed it please like and subscribe for more. If you're going out to Las Vegas 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.