Bristol Dirt Recap & Martinsville Review, Talladega Preview, and More | Chasing The Cup S2:E10

In this episode of Chase Things What's Up, the host gives a recap of the Bristol Dirt Races and a review of the Martinsville Weekend. Christopher Bell and Joey Logano won the cup and truck races at Bristol Dirt. The cup race was exciting with lots of action. The Martinsville race was okay, but the new car has made it harder to pass. The XFINITY race was great with close racing. The truck race was messy due to rain delays. Cody Ware has been arrested and suspended from NASCAR. There is news about sponsorships and penalties. The TV ratings for the Bristol Dirt race were slightly down from last year. The upcoming races at Talladega are previewed, with Austin Hill and Kyle Busch picked as potential winners. Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of Chase Things What's Up. I'm your host Will Engleton and in this episode I'm going to be doing a recap of the Bristol Dirt Races as well as a full review of the Martinsville Weekend. I'll also go over the news that I'm going to preview this week is races at Talladega. But first let's do our quick recap of Bristol Dirt. Christopher Bell won the cup race and Joey Logano won the truck race on Bristol Dirt. And both races were solid, especially the cup race, which was really great. There was guys going 3 and 4 wide all the time. There were dive bombs, slide jobs, it was just fun to watch in person. I'm not sure how much Fox showed during that weekend, but there was plenty of matching going on at Bristol Dirt, more so in the cup series. The truck series was also pretty good, but Joey Logano stunked up that show. But overall the weekend was excellent. Next up is the Martinsville review, starting off with the cup series. Kyle Larson is able to pass Joey Logano with around 24 laps to go on two fresh tires to get his first win at Martinsville. And he's followed by Joey Logano, who was on older tires, in 2nd. Martin Truix Jr. finishes 3rd on fresh tires. Denny Hamlin finishes 4th. Chase Briscoe has a solid outing at 5th. Eric Almirola is well in 6th. Ryan Blaney finishes 7th. Ricky Stenhouse Jr. finishes 8th, good run for him. Bubba Wallace finishes 9th. And Chase Elliott, in his return, rounds out the top 10. In my opinion, this race was okay. It wasn't as bad as last spring. I'd say it was around the same level as the fall race minus the wall ride. There was still some action going on, but in my opinion, Martinsville has become the new Richmond, thanks to this new car. Richmond before earlier this year, and after its peak in the 2000s, became more of a pit strategy based track. You can make up spots with pit strategy, but it was so hard to pass under green at Richmond, probably thanks to the aerodynamics of the Gen 6. But that all changed with the new next-gen package this year. Phoenix didn't really see any improvement, but that's just Phoenix. But Martinsville, there was no improvement from last year, and the racing was better with the Gen 6. So right now, Martinsville, it seems to be the biggest dud of the Gen 7 era so far. Dirty air seemed to be more of an issue here at Martinsville than it was at Richmond, where the racing was actually pretty close, and there's actually more beating and mating going on at Richmond than Martinsville, which is surprising. So NASCAR really needs to fix the problem with this car at this track. They fixed Richmond, but they still need to do a lot of fixing to Martinsville. I'm not sure if it's the shifting, I'd say tire wear maybe, but Goodyear brought in a better tire, and hopefully they bring a better tire for Bristol too. But there seems to be something else with the aerodynamics of the car, as well as maybe some of the things under the hood that don't seem to be meshing well with this racetrack. So NASCAR needs to get to work on a fix, because this was one of the best tracks on the schedule, besides the Super Speedways and Bristol. But now, it's become as boring as Richmond was, and Richmond actually became more exciting. So NASCAR, you gotta fix the problem with the Gen 7 at this racetrack, or else Martinsville's attendance is gonna drop off big time. First up for the XFINITY race, John Hunter Niemicek gets his second win of the season, and he's followed by his teammate Sammy Smith in second. Cole Custer finishes third, Josh Berry finishes fourth, Brandon Jones finishes fifth, Justin Allgaier finishes sixth, Daniel Henrich finishes seventh, Derek Kraus gets his best finish in the XFINITY series so far in eighth, Brett Moffat finishes ninth, and Taylor Smith rounds out the top ten. And this race was way better than the Cup Series race. There was a lot more action going on, the racing was pretty close until the end, when John Hunter Niemicek pulled away, but after he pulled away, there was still action going on for second, when Sammy Smith moved Cole Custer out of the way to get second, and he also had some tempers flare, like with Sam Mayer and Ryan Truix getting to each other, and then Sam Mayer flipping the bird, as well as Joe Graff Jr. confronting Ryan Ellis after an incident on the track. So it isn't the track itself that's the problem, because the XFINITY race put on a great show, and probably the best race of the weekend. Yeah, I don't know why the XFINITY series stopped racing at Martinsville after 2006, but since it made its return in 2020, it's been a hit, in my opinion. And finally, for the truck race, Corey Haim gets his first win of the season, and gets the newly rebranded Tricon Garage their first win, and he's followed by Kyle Busch in second, Zane Smith in third, Ty Majewski in fourth, Tanner Gray in fifth, Ben Rhodes in sixth, Matt DiBenedetto in seventh, Taylor Gray in eighth, William Sulawich in his truck series debut finishes ninth, and Chase Purdy rounds out the top ten. In my opinion, this race was quite messy, because of how NASCAR dealt with the rain. We had a rain delay before the race, because of some heavy storms, but then after it cleared, and NASCAR did some track drawing, they decided to put on the wet weather tires, and run for 20 laps to get the track drawing finished. And then, sometime in stage two, there was another little shower, but instead of putting on another set of wet weather tires, NASCAR decides to fully dry the track up before restarting. But then, another little pop-up shower hits after stage two, during a caution, and that leads to NASCAR calling the race. In my opinion, NASCAR really needs to learn from this race, on deciding when to use these tires, because they see you can't really use them in the pouring rain, but the way that they judged it, made it more like a judgment call. They could have put on the tires when it was a little rainy, but it was not pouring the rain like it was at Kota, and in my opinion, NASCAR should have not called the race there. They should have put on those wet weather tires, and went to the end, because why would you buy three sets of wet weather tires when you're only going to use one? It just makes no sense at all, especially since these tires are very expensive, and if you're not getting your money's worth out of them, it's not a worthy investment to bring these tires to the racetrack, especially since a lot of these teams don't have the same funding as the cup guys. And before we continue to the news, we gotta talk about Carson Hoselor. One week after getting his first win, he decides to revert to his old self. He tried to right hook one guy in turn two one time, and then on the backstretch, he once again attempted to right hook another guy. That is just embarrassing. Why would you do that? That is just stupid. You ain't no rookie, Carson Hoselor. You are a veteran in the truck series. You've been doing this since 2021, full time, and you've been racing in this series since 2020 when you were in part time, and you have not learned a thing when it comes to anger management because you've spun out on purpose a couple times, and also you've wrecked guys as well on the track. So Carson, get your act together. You're not going to last in this for long if you're going to act like an immature moron on the racetrack. And so overall, I'd say this weekend at Martinsville was one to forget. And besides the Xfinity race, which was great, the Cup Series was okay, but not great. It was kind of like watching Richmond, while the truck race was just a mess. With all the rain and Carson Hoselor, it's just been one of those weekends. And so with that out of the way, let's get to the news. Starting off with the biggest news of last week, Cody Ware has been arrested twice. He was first arrested on April 10th in Iredell County, North Carolina, and he was charged for a felony assault by strangulation, as well as a misdemeanor assault on a woman. He probably got out on bond, but then on April 14th, he turned himself back in for additional charges, which include a misdemeanor assault, inflicting serious injury, and communicating threats. His bond for additional charges is now placed at $5,000. And currently, Cody Ware has been indefinitely suspended from NASCAR competition. Matt Crafton subbed in for the Bristol Dirt Race before it was announced on that Monday, and Zane Smith ran Martinsville. And at this time, I do not know who will be driving the 51 at Talladega. Jimmy Johnson will be inducted into the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America's 2024 class, Raisin Canes will be sponsoring Ryan Ellis this weekend at Talladega, First Bank of Alabama will be sponsoring Sam Mayer at Talladega this weekend, Tommy Baldwin has joined Rick Ware Racing as competition director, Champion Container will be sponsoring Daniel Dye in four races this year, Black's Tire will be sponsoring AJ Allmendinger at Darlington, Aero Bonte will be partnering with Spire Motorsports and Corey LeJoy for the Coca-Cola 600, Corey Heim will make his X-Finity Series debut later this month at Stouffer, Race Day Live with Kenny Wallace and John Roberts will be returning for six more races this year at SMI Racetracks. After the Richmond race, there was more penalties on Hendrick Motorsports, both the 24 and 48 teams were penalized for violating sections 14.1D, 14.1.2B, and 14.5.6.B which deal with the greenhouse. Ryan Campage and Greg Gunnis were fined $75,000 and were suspended from two NASCAR Cup Series Championship Points events which began after Bristol because they were announced late but in my opinion didn't really matter because the normal crew chiefs were back after the other penalties. The appeals panel has upheld Denny Hanlon's Phoenix penalty, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and SumDrop have once again teamed up for a multi-year partnership. Also with this announcement, Jr. will also compete in the Cars Tour event at North Wilkesboro on May 17th. The appeals panel has upheld Collegue Racing's penalty from Phoenix, and finally we have the Bristol Dirt TV readings. Fox got 3.5 million viewers for the Bristol Dirt race, which is down about 500,000 viewers from last year, which got 4 million viewers. So actually it's not that much of a decrease, which is good, but it was still a decrease. It was not as bad of a decrease, probably thanks to this race being a made for TV spectacle. And so that's it for this week's news. Now it's time to preview this weekend's races at Talladega. The truck series is going to be off for a couple of weeks, so we're going to start with the Xfinity race, which is the AC Pro 300. The race will be 113 laps and 300.58 miles. And the race will be on April 22nd at 4 p.m. Eastern Time. And so for my pick, I gotta go with the obvious answer, I'm going with Austin Hill. He's been a force to reckon with on the super speedways since the fall of Colleg Racing, and he's been fast so far this year, and I think he'll win this weekend at Talladega. And finally for the cup race, we have the Gecko 500. The race will be 188 laps and 500 miles. And the race will be on April 23rd at 3 p.m. Eastern Time. And so for my pick, I'm going to go with Kyle Busch. Kyle Busch was very fast during the Daytona 500, and he was so close to winning the Daytona 500. But I think this time, Kyle Busch will be fast at Talladega, like he was at Daytella, and I think he'll win at Talladega. And so that's it for this week's episode. If you enjoyed it, please like and subscribe for more. And if you're going at the Talladega 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.