Talladega Review, Dover Preview, and More | Chasing The Cup S2:E11

In this episode of Chasing the Cut, the host reviews the races from Talladega and previews the upcoming races at Dover. Kyle Busch wins the Talladega race, which was filled with aggressive driving and a big crash involving Ryan Preece and Kyle Larson. In the Xfinity race, Jeff Burton gets his second career win, but there were many crashes and flips. The host suggests that NASCAR needs to make some changes to improve safety and entertainment. The episode also includes news about upcoming races, including the All-Star Race and changes to the NASCAR impact platform. The Martinsville race had higher TV ratings compared to last year. The host previews the Xfinity and Cup races at Dover and predicts John Hunter Nemechek and Chase Elliott as potential winners. Hello everyone, welcome back to another episode of Chasing the Cut. I am your host, Wailing London, and in this episode I'm going to be reviewing the races from Talladega. I'll also go over the news, and I'm going to preview this weekend's races at Dover. But first, let's take a look at the results from Talladega. Kyle Busch gets his first Super Speedway win since 2008, and he's followed by Ryan Blaney, who once again comes up short in 2nd. Chris Buescher finishes 3rd, Chase Briscoe finishes 4th, Brad Kieslowski finishes 5th, Eric Jones finishes 6th, William Byron finishes 7th, Christopher Bell finishes 8th, Daniel Suarez finishes 9th, and Todd Gilliland rounds out the top 10. And in my opinion, this was a pretty good race for the most part. There was 2x2 racing throughout the pack, and unlike Daytona, there was actual 3x2 racing. The drivers were actually able to go 3x2 at Talladega, unlike Daytona. They were in kind of a gridlock during the first two stages, but in the third stage, all the drivers seemed to get more aggressive, and that led to a wreckfest toward the end of the race, which knocked out several of the cars that were in contention. And we gotta talk about that big crash between Ryan Preece and Kyle Larson. It started off with Chastain and Gregson. Noah Gregson was having a fantastic day, but during the first overtime attempt, Gregson was on the outside of the front row going into turn 1, and Chastain was behind him, and Chastain decided to squeeze his way into the middle. He and Gregson made contact, and that sent Gregson into the wall and Carnage behind him, and that led to the Preece and Larson crash. Preece was trying to make his way through the wreckage without getting wrecked, but then Kyle Larson crossed his path, and Preece slammed right into the side of the 5, likely not driver's side, and man, that looked gnarly. The camera was shaking, the driver was shaking in the car, man, that looked rough. It even knocked the camera out of place. That was a hard hit, and you could tell how hard it was because the door bars broke, and usually that does not happen, so it was a hard hit. Other than seemed to be okay, and on that final restart, Ty Gibbs ran out of fuel, and Little Wallace was blocking Ryan Blaney hard, and that led to Bubba getting turned and a massive pileup ensuing behind them, and Kyle Busch was able to seal the victory. So, a lot of drivers making some aggressive moves, and that led to Carnage on the racetrack. Typical Talladega, but it got a little too messy at the end, probably because, as Kyle Busch said, there's no respect in the garage area, and I think NASCAR needs to make some tweaks to the Gen 7 Super Speedway package, because it was not near as good as it was with the Gen 6, when they had the liquor bill, and a lot of drivers complained, but now that the racing isn't as good, the fans seem to be complaining, so NASCAR really needs to find that sweet spot where it is both safe and entertaining, but overall, it was still a pretty good Talladega race, in my opinion, and for the Xfinity race, Jeff Burton gets his second career Xfinity Series win, and he's followed by Sheldon Creed in second, Parker Klickerman in third, Colt Custer in fourth, Brandon Poole in fifth, Cesar Baccaralla in sixth, Parker Ritzloff in seventh, Greg Alding in eighth, Julie Gace in ninth, and Josh Williams rounds out the top ten about a month after the Atlanta deal, and man, what a crazy race that was. Stage one was very entertaining, but then it started going crazy in stage two, with Dexter Stacey's hard hit into the inside wall, and Blaine Perkins' flip, he flipped like six to seven times, it was violent, that was a violent wreck, luckily he ended up okay, and he was transported to the hospital for further evaluation, just to be safe, and he was released yesterday during the cup race, and then in the final stage, in the closing laps, there was a massive pileup, taking out nearly all the field, and Daniel Hemrick flipped upside down onto his lid, but luckily some of the cars were able to survive the carnage, but when there was no carnage going on, the racing was awesome, it was beginning to look like it was going to be one of the best super speedway races of all time, until it got super crazy, man, it got crazy fast, with all the flipping and all the crashes, and overall, a very chaotic weekend at Talladega, with all the flips in the Xfinity series race, and all the carnage in the final stage of the cup race, NASCAR needs to make some tweaks to the super speedway package for cup, but I think they got a perfect combination for the Xfinity series, except maybe making some changes to the package to make it safer, but besides that, the racing is near perfect for the Xfinity series, and so with that out of the way, let's get to the news. Greg Van Alst, the winner for the Arkham Menards series race at Daytona, will be making his Xfinity series debut at Atlanta in July for Alpha Prime Racing. The NASCAR All-Star Race fan vote is now open, and you can vote on NASCAR's website. Jeff Gordon and Ray Everham will join Richard Petty and Daryl Waltrip as dignitaries for the NASCAR All-Star Race. Jeff will be the pace car driver, and Ray Everham will wave the green flag as the honorary starter. Price Picks has become an official fantasy sports partner of NASCAR. Johnny Sauter will be replacing Caden Hunnicutt at Roper Racing. Fomarito Automotive Group will be sponsoring Eric Dunes at Worldwide Technology Raceway. Shaq will be headlining the Sonoma Pre-Race Concert under his alter ego, DJ Diesel. Austin Dillon has been penalized after the Martinsville race for vitilating sections 14.6.1A and B, which cover the underwing assembly mounting and underwing stay assembly hardware. Keith Rodden has been fined $75,000 and suspended from the next two Cup Series Championship points events. The team and driver have been assessed with a loss of 60 points and 5 playoff points. Garage 56 has completed its final test session at Singbring before heading to Levans. Ricky Craven and Kurt Busch have been named as the honorary starters for the Goodyear 400. Sam Hunt and brothers Osborne will be performing during the Portland Race Weekend. NASCAR is committing to net zero operating emissions by 2035 with the launch of a new impact platform. Some of the priorities as part of this will be the development of a new sustainable racing fuel, comprehensive recycling across tracks and offices, and EV charging station infrastructure at tracks. And a lot of people were thinking that this would have been the end of the V8 in NASCAR and them switching to electric. That does not seem to be the case because they are investing into a new fuel instead of going all electric. There are definitely some alternative fuel sources out there but I think NASCAR is looking to move away from fossil fuels for their racing fuel. And finally we have the Martinsville TV readings. FS1 got a 1.26 rating and 2.218 million viewers for this year's race which is an increase of 11% from last year which was ran on Saturday night. Which shows that although Saturday night racing is popular, they pale in comparison to Sunday races with the TV ratings. And I'd say with Chase Elliott back that also helped the ratings a little bit but in my opinion this was not a fair comparison because of the two different scheduled times. With last year being on Saturday night and this year being on Sunday in the day. The big test will probably be what the rating is after Talladega which I'll cover next week. And so that's it for this week's news. Now it's time to preview this weekend's races at Dover. Starting off with the XFINITY race we have the A-Game 200. The race will be 200 laps and 200 miles. And the race will be on April 29th at 1.30pm Eastern Time. And so for my pick I'm going to go with John Hunter Nemechek. He has been fast in that number 20 for Joe Gibbs Racing and I think he'll go back to back on tracks that are miles and less by winning at the Monster Mile. And finally for the Cup race we have the WRF 400. The race will be 400 laps and 400 miles. And the race will be on April 30th at 2pm Eastern Time. And so for my pick I'm going to go with Chase Elliott. Chase Elliott was the fastest car last year and was fast in all of the concrete tracks like Dover and Nashville and he was so close to winning at Bristol if it wasn't for Chris Buescher hanging on with older tires because there was no tire wear. But besides that race Chase Elliott was able to win both Dover and Nashville last year and I think this time I think he'll go back to back by winning at Dover. 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 out to Dover this weekend I hope you have a good time and if you're not have a good time wherever you are and I'll see you next week.