Las Vegas Review, Is Alex Bowman a Hack?, Phoenix Preview, and More | Chasing The Cup S1:E6

In this episode of "Chasing the Cup," the host reviews the races at Las Vegas. Alex Bowman wins the Cup race and there are discussions about his wins and whether he is a hack. The Xfinity race was more spread out and had some tempers flaring. Chandler Smith wins the Truck race. The TV ratings for the Cup race were up and SRX announces some NASCAR drivers. Other news includes sponsorships, practice sessions, and Matt Crafton's 500th career start. The Xfinity and Cup races at Phoenix are previewed, with Noah Gregson predicted to win the Xfinity race and Chase Elliott predicted to win the Cup race. Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of Chasing the Cup. I am your host, Will Anglin, and in this episode, I'm going to be reviewing the races from this past weekend at Las Vegas. I'll also talk about one of the winners of one of the races. I'll also go over the news, and I'm going to preview this weekend's races at Phoenix. But first, let's review the races at Las Vegas. For Cup, Alex Bowman is your winner, who battled it out with Kyle Larson, who finishes second. Ross Chastain, who had a good run this week, finished third. Kyle Busch, who came from the back with a backup car, finishes fourth. William Byron finishes fifth. Eric Amarola finishes sixth. Tyler Reddick finishes seventh. Martin Truex Jr. finishes eighth. Chase Elliott finishes ninth. And Christopher Bell rounds out the top ten. And the streak of good races with this new car continues, which really shows how this car has been successful of turning these racetracks that were primarily known for being boring and spread out, and turning them into some of the best races. We saw it at Auto Club, and now we saw it at Las Vegas. It really shows that it isn't the track's fault for being boring, it was the package's fault, at least for these mile and a half and two milers. But say also, the racing was good probably because the teams still haven't dialed in the car yet. So if the teams do find some sort of big advantage that NASCAR doesn't find, or get the car dialed in correctly, then the racing may become more spread out. But so far, it's been great. Definitely one of the best mile and a half races so far. Next for the Xfinity race, Ty Gibbs is your winner, followed by Noah Gregson, in third Daniel Hemrick, Josh Berry, fourth, Justin Allgaier, fifth, Landon Cassel, sixth, Sheldon Creed, seventh, Brent Moffett, eighth, AJ Almendinger, ninth, and Brandon Jones rounds out the top ten. Now the Xfinity race was pretty spread out, probably because of the problems with the dirty air on the Xfinity cars, because they are using hand-me-down chassis from Hendrick, and all the big teams. And I'd say they also probably have the same issues that the cup cars had, and so that made racing a lot more spread out. But we did have some tempers flaring, because of an incident with Ty Gibbs and Ryan Seig. Ty Gibbs got into the back of Ryan Seig. I'm not sure if it was intentional or not, I don't know, but then we had the red flag for the snow, in Las Vegas, in all places, and Ryan Seig confronted Ty Gibbs, and clearly they didn't resolve anything, because when we went back to green, Ryan Seig decided that he wanted to try to get payback on Gibbs, and instead of wrecking Gibbs, he wrecks himself, and a couple of other guys, and then after he was checked and released, he was called to the NASCAR hauler. And so the Xfinity race was overwhelming, but it had its big moment with Gibbs and Seig, and I want to see if this rivalry between the so-called spoon-fed Ty Gibbs versus the owner-driver Ryan Seig. And then in the final race is the tracks. Chandler Smith wins and gets his third career victory. His boss Kyle Busch followed close behind in second. Stork Friesen finished third. Ryan Preece finished fourth. Tanner Gray finished fifth. Matt Domenedetto finished sixth. Matt Crapton finished seventh. Brett Holmes finished eighth. Austin Wayne Self finished ninth. And rounding out the top ten is Ty Majewski. And this race was very chaotic and very competitive, probably the best race of the weekend. There was some doubt that the trucks would be more aero-dependent, but that didn't seem to be the case, because we had some three and four wide action, aggressive moves, and the field was closely packed together. I'd like to give a shout out to DGR, who had three of four trucks finish in the top five, unofficially, until, due to a failure in post-race inspection, Zane Smith was DMD'd. And then the fourth driver, Haley Deegan, DNF'd early on, but she had the speed and probably would have finished in the top ten, maybe even the top five, if she didn't wreck out. From what I've heard from her vlog, it was her fault, because she panicked and her brakes locked up and she was trying to turn left, but it wouldn't turn and she went straight into the wreck, and that pretty much put her in the garage. So Haley Deegan fans, don't panic. I think she'll be able to crawl out of this hole as long as she doesn't have more panicking moments like this. It ain't the end of the world just yet, because we've had winners of the title wreck at Las Vegas before, so it ain't the end of the world. So this is by far the best race of the weekend, but one thing I want to notice is that Chevrolet seems to be the manufacturer behind. Last year it was Ford, but now Chevy seems to be really behind. So it looks like Ford and DGR have really stepped up, and I'm excited to see what DGR and Ford accomplish, because two of the four Ford teams finished in the top five, and would have been three if Zane Smith didn't D&Q. So it's going to be a good year for Ford if this trend continues, but it's going to be a bad year for Chevrolet. And that's it for the Las Vegas review. So now let's talk about a hot topic from Vegas, and that is the winner of the cup race, a Alex Bowman. Kyle Busch came all the way from the back to leading in the closing laps at Las Vegas. If nothing happened, Kyle Busch would have won the race, until the caution came out, and that led to Alex Bowman and his team pulling off a two-tire strategy call to get the lead, and put Kyle Busch behind him and battle it out with Kyle Larson in the last couple of laps. And then after the checkered flag flew, Kyle Busch was not happy with Alex Bowman, saying that he looks into every race that he wins. This is not the first time that a JGR driver has been mad at Alex Bowman. I was there for the last time, which was between Bowman and Danny Hamlin. I remember vividly sitting in turn three, Alex Bowman was battling hard with Hamlin, and then as they entered three, Bowman got into the back of the 11, and that sent Hamlin around. After the race, Bowman went to the front stretch to celebrate, but then I saw Danny Hamlin go around everyone and stay on the track to go and confront him, blocking him from doing burnouts and giving him the double bird. And then in his post-race interview that everyone booed at him, he called him a hack. And so what I'm going to do is discuss whether Alex Bowman is a hack, and if he looks into every win he gets. A definition of a hack, according to the Urban Dictionary, probably not the place that you should look, is an individual that unintentionally makes life difficult for others. And according to that definition, I don't think Alex Bowman is that. Yes, he got into the back of Hamlin, and of course, he gambled with strategy to get out of ahead of Kyle Busch, but it doesn't make their life more difficult, it just means that they don't win the race. So that dismisses the hack thing. Now I'll tell you what, while I was at Martinsville, I saw Alex Bowman walk out from the bus lot into where I was standing with a bunch of other fans, and he was signing autographs, taking pictures, and then he walked further into a big swarm of fans. And I'll tell you what, if Alex Bowman is a hack, then he's a very popular one, he's definitely not making the fans' lives more difficult, and even Rick Hendrick said if he's a hack, he wants more guys like him. And so now, let's discuss about Bowman lucking into wins. Well let's first take a look at his first win in 2019 at Chicagoland. He led 88 laps and battled Kyle Larson, kind of like he did at Las Vegas this weekend, and Chicagoland at the time was known as a driver's track, despite being one of the mile and a halfs, and also using the 550 package, and he battled hard, and he conquered Kyle Larson. And although he was in a chip Ganassi car, I'm pretty sure Kyle Larson was overdriving the heck out of that thing, and probably would have lost the race anyway if he was in Hendrick equipment. His second win came at Auto Club, right before the pandemic hit, and he didn't luck into that, he was straight up the dominant car. And then near the end of that season, he went on a consistent tear with several consistent top 5 and top 10 finishes to round out the season. And then 2021 was kind of up in a sense, and then also down in a sense. At Dover, he also kind of gambled on a pitch strategy call. So you could say that he lucked into that. Also the same thing at Pocono, where he got his third win for that season. Kyle Larson cut a tire down, and he was there to pounce. So you could say he lucked into that, but he was in that position. He was also fast all day, so you could say he lucked into it, but he was there when it counted. And then you got Martinsville, where he wrecked Hamlin. It looked like Bowen probably had the better car, and Hamlin was trying to hang on, and he was battling hard with him. And if you're battling hard like that, something like that on a short track would happen. If you're battling really hard, and then you suddenly get taken out. So it's kind of like a luck win maybe? Maybe not, I don't know. And then we have Las Vegas, where he gambled with a pitch strategy call, got out front, battled with Larson, and win over Larson and Bush. And you could say that was kind of a luck win too. And so a lot of his wins are luck based, but there are times that he's been dominant in a race and win, or dominant and he doesn't win. And he's won races with probably one of the best teams right now. He had more wins last year than my guy Chase Elliott and William Byron combined. And look who hasn't had success at Hendrick at its peak. Look at Casey Mears, who even drove the 5 car. And that 5 car, you expect to be a championship contender. And Mears did not do that in 2008. Mears only had that one win with Hendrick in 07, but it was on fuel strategy. That seems to be more of a luck based win than any of Alex Bowen's wins. Because Mears was pretty much inconsistent for the rest of the year. Because he also had the dominant two of Jeff Gordon and Jimmy Johnson. And then a young and upcoming Kyle Busch in the 5. And so Alex Bowman in my opinion, although has a few lucky wins, he also has wins that aren't lucky. And they're wins that he straight up earned. In my opinion Alex Bowman is the driver that represents what NASCAR fans want. A popular guy that came from the bottom barrels of BK Racing. And rose his way up over time to become a multiple time winner in the Cubs Series. And so in my opinion, he's not a hack and not all of his wins are luck based. And I think although he's inconsistent right now, I think once he learns to be consistent he will become a regular championship contender. And that's it for Alex Bowman. So let's talk about the news. First let's start with TV ratings. On Sunday Fox earned a 2.71 rating and 4.544 million viewers for Sunday's Cup Race at Vegas. Which is up from a 2.5 rating and 4.24 million viewers from last year's third points race at Homestead. And once again NASCAR is the most watched sporting event of the weekend. I'm not sure what they were up against, but it looks like that NASCAR is currently probably the best sport right now when it comes to ratings. And that really shows how promising NASCAR may be in the future. This past week the SRX has announced some of their NASCAR drivers for this year. Of course you got Tony Stark who will defend his title. Then you got the return of Vamu Labani and Michael Waltrip. And then you got Haley Deegan who has once again gone part time. But then you got also some big changes. Greg Biffle who competed part time last year is now full time. And Ryan Newman is now joining the SRX full time as well. And also Ryan Blaney along with his father Dave Blaney will be competing in the season finale at Sharon Speedway in a father vs son duel. Kind of like how Chase Elliott and Bill Elliott did last year. And it looks like that this may be a regular thing in SRX for a parent and a child to race against each other. I could see more of these events coming with other drivers families. One thing I could see right now which is probably the most likely would be Brian Deegan vs Haley Deegan which I think is possible. I'm not sure how Brian would like racing a stock car. I'd say he would like to have a chance to race against his daughter. I'd say that's a possibility. Hendrick Motorsports for the Las Vegas race pledged $2000 for every lap by any Hendrick driver to donate for the efforts in Ukraine for the war going on right now over there. The heavy metal band called Ghost along with a partnership of Eric Estep's Out of the Groove will be sponsoring JD Motorsports number 4 at Phoenix this weekend. This partnership is part of a promotional campaign to promote Ghost's new album and Para. It's probably a great opportunity for Eric Estep, someone who also is doing NASCAR stuff on YouTube. And it's probably a very big deal for him working with a band such as Ghost, putting his name and their name on a race car and bringing that band into the sport. A sport where a lot of fans like to listen to heavy metal. Jennifer Jo Cobb is scaling back to a part time effort. She said that she's scaling back because she can't find any sponsors to run full time. In my opinion, this shows that my prediction about Jennifer Jo Cobb on the verge of retirement becoming right. Because clearly her partnership with Bush hasn't really helped anything. With her team, it looks like although she has that funding from Bush, it doesn't seem to be helping. Kendra Roxor will sponsor the Spring Xfinity Race at Darlington. The official name of the race will be the Rockstar with Roxor 200 on Saturday, May 7th. Now I'm not sure if this is a permanent change or not, but this past weekend at Las Vegas, NASCAR moved to a single practice session for Las Vegas after how long it took for the different group practice sessions that we had at Auto Club. And so I'd say if this is permanent, this is probably the best way to go because it'll be kind of hard to have different practice sessions for different drivers and teams. And having one session with all teams is probably best. Matt Crafton hit 500 career starts at Las Vegas this past weekend. And that's it for the news, so let's preview this weekend's races at Phoenix. There's no truck races this weekend, so I'm going to start with the Xfinity Series, which is the United Rindles 200. The race will be 200 laps and is 200 miles. And it'll be on Saturday, March 12th at 4.30pm. And my pick for this race is Noah Gregson. Noah Gregson has shown that he's been very fast this year, having two second place finishes in a row, in my opinion, for Noah Gregson. The third time's going to be his charm. Phoenix seems to be one of his best tracks, so I think Noah Gregson is going to be probably a contender for the win at Phoenix. And finally, for Cup, we have the Ruoff Mortgage 500. The race will be 312 laps, which is 312 miles. The race will be broadcasted on Fox. It'll be on Sunday, March 13th at 3.30pm Eastern Time. So now let's take a look at the weather for Sunday. It's going to be a high of 77. And with the exception of a few afternoon clouds, it'll be mostly sunny, with winds light and variable. And the winds will be east at 6 miles per hour. So it won't be as chilly and breezy as it was in Las Vegas. And for my pick, I'm going to go with my favorite driver, Chase Elliott. Chase has shown that Phoenix is one of his best tracks. He won the championship at Phoenix in 2020. He's also shown that he has the speed to win at any reset Phoenix. So I think he will be a contender. And because I am one for nine, I'm going to double down on nines. I guess, because both nine cars seem to be very fast at Phoenix. And so that's it for this week. If you joined the podcast, please like and subscribe for more. If you're going out to the race this weekend, I hope you enjoy the race. And if you're not, have a good time wherever you are. And I'll see you next week.