COTA Review, Richmond Preview, and More | Chasing The Cup S1:E9

The host, Will Anglin, reviews the races from Circuit of the Americas (COTA) and previews the upcoming races at Richmond. Ross Chastain wins his first career race at COTA, while AJ Allmendinger wins the Xfinity race and Zane Smith wins the Truck race. The races were exciting with thrilling finishes. The COTA race is considered one of the best road course races in NASCAR history. The news includes updates on upcoming races, TV ratings for COTA, and penalties for RFK. The host predicts Noah Gregson will win the Xfinity race at Richmond, and Martin Truex Jr. will win the Cup race. The weather for the Cup race is partly cloudy with a slight chance of rain. The host expects the Richmond race to be less exciting than previous races. Hello everyone, welcome back to another episode of Chasing the Cup. I'm your host, Will Anglin, and in this episode, I'm going to be reviewing the races from Kota from this past weekend. I'll also go over the news, and I'm going to preview this weekend's races at Richmond. But first, let's take a look at the results from Circuit of the Americas. Ross Chastain gets his first career win in a thriller over Alex Bowman, who finishes second. Christopher Bell finishes third. Chase Elliott finishes fourth. Tyler Riddick finishes fifth. Ryan Blaney finishes sixth. Martin Truex Jr. finishes seventh. Austin Sendrick finishes eighth. Eric Jones finishes ninth, and Austin Dillon rounds out the top ten. And I'll tell you what, that was an awesome race. Good side-by-side racing all day, plenty of passing, and a thrilling finish to end the race between Chastain, Bowman, and AJ Almendinger, who sadly finishes 33rd after getting stuck in the gravel pit. And I'll tell you what, this was an amazing race. It'll probably go down as one of the best road course races in NASCAR history. Up there with the 2012 Watkins Glen Race between Kisielowski and Ambrose, the 2016 Sonoma Race between Hamlin and Stewart, and now a three-way battle for the win in a thriller between Ross Chastain, Alex Bowman, and AJ Almendinger, with Ross Chastain getting the win over those two. And after the rain race that we had last year, this race will probably help Kota be a mainstay on the NASCAR schedule. Next we have the Xfinity Race. AJ Almendinger gets his first win of the season, followed by Austin Hill in second, Cole Custer in third, Noah Gregson in fourth, Sam Mayer in fifth, Mayotte Snyder in sixth, Brett Moffett in seventh, Jay Yufford in eighth, Miguel Peluto in ninth, and Sheldon Creed rounds out the top ten. And that race was good too, it was not as good as the cup race or the truck race, which I'll discuss in a minute, but it was a pretty good race overall. And now for trucks, Zane Smith sneaks in to get his second victory of the season, followed by John Hunter Demachink in second. Kyle Busch comes home in third after being involved in a three-way incident in the second to last lap, Ben Rhodes finishes fourth, Chandler Smith finishes fifth, Christian Enckes finishes sixth, Tyler Ankrum finishes seventh, Carson Husafar finishes eighth, Stewart Friesen, who was also involved in that three-way incident, finishes ninth, and Grant Enfinger finishes tenth, Alex Bowman, who was also involved in that three-way incident, comes home in twenty-fifth. And the truck series was also really good, almost as good as the cup race, and was way better than the Xfinity race, having as well a thrilling finish when three of the trucks got into each other, and that allowed Zane Smith to sneak through and get the win. But probably one of the messes on the track was Chris Wright, who finished fifteenth. I don't know how many wrecks he was involved, but he was involved in a ton of them. He was constantly spinning out every like ten laps or so, or getting stuck in the gravel or something. Ten years ago we had Vickernism, now we have Chris Wrightism. How about that, eh? And sadly, after two straight weeks of fours finishing in the top ten, that streak ended this week, with only Zane Smith, the winner, finishing in the top ten. Tara Gray ended up in seventeenth, Taylor Gray spun out, coming to the white flag, and ends up twenty-sixth, and Hayley Deegan once again DNFs because of someone else's accident, because Jack Wood basically didn't hold the brake and backed into her. But she was not the only competitive driver to have a DNF. Sheldon Kreet, the pole sitter, finishes last, after breaking the drive train, and Matt DiBenedetto breaks the rear gear and finishes thirty-first. So we had some big competitors who would probably finish in the top ten. They all had problems that took them out of the event. And that's it for the Koda Review. Let's take a look at the news. Jessica Friesen will return to the Truck Series, once again at the Bristol Dirt Race and the Knoxville Race, driving for her husband and the number sixty-two. Stateway Motorsports expects KUP to return to Koda. The race had a crowd in the vicinity of fifty thousand. The original contract was for twenty-twenty-one, with an option of this year, which they did extend, and in my opinion, they should continue racing at Koda in the KUP Series. Next we have the TV ratings for Koda. Fox earned a two-point-one-eight rating for the race, with three-point-seven-three-one million viewers. Compared to the sixth race, the numbers are merely flat, as that race was at Atlanta and had three-point-seven-six-eight million viewers. So maybe slightly below, but it's pretty much flat. Former NFL player Chris Long has been named the honorary pace car driver at Richmond. NASCAR has given RFK substantial penalties for violations of Safety Sections 14.1 and 14.5, which are modifications to single-source supply parts. Crew Chief Matt McCall for the number six has been fined one hundred thousand dollars and has been suspended for the next four NASCAR KUP Series championship points events. The team has been assessed for the loss of a hundred owner points and a hundred driver points and ten playoff points. RFK announced later that they will appeal the L2 penalty. In my opinion, this shows the drastic measures NASCAR has taken to make sure that the next gen will not fail. And this has probably been the biggest penalty that NASCAR has assessed since probably Spingate in 2013, where Michael Autryp Racing was fined three hundred thousand dollars. But this is probably more substantial because of the one hundred point penalties, including the ten point playoff point deduction, which means that it's going to be hard work for Brad Keselowski to make his way into the playoffs, even if he wins to get his way in. If there's more than 16 drivers that make it in, then Keselowski will probably be the 17th man out. The Frozen Farmer, which is a shark tank back creamery, will be sponsoring JTG Doherty's number 47, Jeremiah Rikeston-House Jr. Joey Logano will be running the Bristol Dirt Race in the truck series for DGR. Planet Fitness will be on board on the truck. Kritiv A. Trotonis has been suspended once again as a result of violations of sections 4.3 and 4.4e. Section 4.3 relates to NASCAR member conduct, and section 4.4e is actions that could result in a fine or indefinite suspension or termination, which are actions that were detrimental to stock car racing or NASCAR, as well as plenty of other things. I believe it may be criminal charges, like the original suspension was. Rajah Karouf will make his Xfinity series debut at Richmond, driving for Alpha Prime Racing. And that's it for this week, so now let's preview this weekend's races at Richmond. First we have the Xfinity race, which is the Toyota Care 250. The race will be 250 laps and 187.5 miles. The race will be on April 2nd at 1.30pm on FS1 and MRN. And so my pick for Richmond, I'm going to go with Noah Gregson. Noah Gregson has been one of the most dominant cars this year, and he won the fall race last year at Richmond, so I'm going to go with Noah Gregson. And now for Cup, we have the Toyota Owners 400. The race will be 400 laps and 300 miles. The race will be on April 3rd at 3.30pm ET on Fox and MRN. Now let's take a look at the weather for the Cup race. There will be partly cloudy skies, with a 21% chance of rain, with a high of 63 degrees Fahrenheit, and winds will be west at 10-15 mph. So we have a slight chance of rain, maybe a chance of pop-ups, but it'll be kind of cooler compared to Austin, Texas. It'll be slightly windy, and there's also a slight chance of rain, but that's kind of expected on the east coast when you're out close to the ocean, although it's not super close to the ocean, but it's decently close. You won't need a coat for any cold weather, but you may need a little raincoat just in case if it rains, and there might be a delay. So for my pick for the Cup race, I'm gonna go with Martin Truix Jr. Truix won last year at Richmond in the fall race, and Richmond has been one of his best tracks, so I'm gonna go with Martin Truix Jr. for this race. Now something I'll say before I end the show is that this race may be like the Phoenix race, which was kind of a dud in my opinion, and Richmond in my opinion is very close to Phoenix, so I think this race will not be as good as the other races that we've seen so far. So I wouldn't be surprised if Richmond is kind of a dud like Phoenix was. And so that's it for this week. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a like and subscribe for more. And if you're going out to Richmond this week, 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.