Charlotte Recap, Gateway and Portland Review, and Sonoma Preview | Chasing The Cup S2:E15

In this episode of Chasing the Cup, the host gives a recap of the races at Charlotte and reviews the races at Gateway and Portland. He discusses the incident between Chase Elliott and Denny Hamlin, as well as brake failures during the races. The host also mentions power outages at Gateway and gives a summary of the Xfinity and Truck races. He ends by previewing the upcoming races at Sonoma and making his picks for the winners. Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of Chasing the Cup, I'm your host Wayland and in this episode, I'll be doing a recap of Charlotte as well as reviewing the races from Gateway and Portland. I'll also go over the news that I'm going to preview this weekend's races at Sonoma. But first, let's do our quick recap of Charlotte. Ryan Blaney breaks his winless streak by winning the Coke 600, Justin Allgaier also breaks his winless streak in Junior Motorsports winless streak in the Xfinity Series, and Ben Rhodes also breaks his winless streak in the Truck Series race. And all three races were great to watch, especially the Coca-Cola 600, which is one of the best cup races on the schedule in my opinion. And before we move on, I'm going to talk about the Chase Elliott-Danny Hamlin incident. Basically what happened is that on one of the restarts, Danny and Chase were beating and banging off each other through turns one and two, and then Danny Hamlin, out of turn four, basically ran Chase Elliott into the wall. And Chase basically did a bubba and right-hooked Hamlin into the outside wall at one of the worst spots at the dog leg. Afterward, Danny was ticked and he immediately called for the suspension of Chase Elliott, which NASCAR would eventually do. They would suspend Chase for a week. That allowed Corey LaJoy to run at Gateway 400 Motorsports and gave Carson Josevar an opportunity to make his Cup Series debut. But I will talk about that more in just a second, but overall, an excellent weekend at Charlotte. And in my opinion, Charlotte is one of the best races on the NASCAR schedule right now. Next we move on to the full review of the races at Gateway and Portland. Starting off with the Cup Race, Kyle Busch gets his revenge from last year and dominates from the pole to win at Gateway. And he's followed by Denny Hamlin in second, Joey Logano in third, Kyle Larson in fourth, Martin Church Jr. in fifth, Ryan Blaney in sixth, Daniel Suarez in seventh, William Byron in eighth, Michael McDowell in ninth, and Kevin Harvick rounds out the top ten. In my opinion, this race was pretty good to watch. There was plenty of side-by-side racing action going on, as well as other action going on on the track. And although the racing wasn't the best, it's far from the worst this year. And before we move on, we gotta talk about the controversy of the week. Austin Dillon vs. Austin Sendrick. Austin Dillon claimed that Austin Sendrick right-hooked him like Chase Elliott did to Denny Hamlin and what Bubba did to Kyle Larson. But in my opinion, it looks like that was not the case. It looked like it was just one of those racing deals. Austin Sendrick moved down a little bit, but Dillon was coming up at the same time. So it was just one of those deals. But it looks like this might be a recurring theme at NASCAR races now. Anytime that a driver gets wrecked by a guy, they immediately start pointing the finger and saying that he did it on purpose and wanting a suspension. I think that's gonna be a common thing now, especially since the timing after Chase's suspension. So I think Bubba and Chase and NASCAR have opened a can of worms. But how far will it go? That's what we'll find out in the future. Another thing that happened throughout that race was constant brake failures. The first victim of these brake failures was Carson Hosavar making his Cup debut. He was running 16th and was clearly running better than his equipment was because he was in the Spire 7 and he was actually running pretty well. He definitely has a lot of talent and raw ability and I'd like to see him get another opportunity in Cup in the future. But basically what happened to Carson and a whole lot of others is that when coming into Turn 1, they hit the brake and the brake immediately falls apart and blows up. The drivers basically had to do a chastain, basically doing a wall ride to get slowed down. If the drivers tried to go into the corner normally, like no Gregson's ride, it would lead to a painful collision into the outside wall similar to Jimmie Johnson's collision. And the problem basically is that there's too much of a heating and cooling cycle with these brakes that are made of metal. Basically there's more stress on the brakes because of the constant repeating of cooling and heating. Because the brakes have enough time to cool while on the front stretch, but drivers have to get into the corner hard. So it heats those brakes up and it leads to this heating and cooling cycle that leads to brake failures because those metals can't handle that stress. And that led to a lot of braking failures. But Gateway is not the only track that suffers from this issue. I believe it also happened at Indianapolis and of course the most well-known, Pocono. However it happened most often before Gateway came onto the schedule. The most notable incident being Jimmie Johnson's crash in 2017, which pretty much put an end of Jimmie Johnson's competitive NASCAR career. And look what that has led to now driving in the 84. So NASCAR could switch to a carbon fiber brake, but this issue only seems to happen at certain tracks. So I'm not sure how NASCAR would handle this. And the last notable thing that happened was that the track lost power at the TV complex, which led to internet outages, as well as outages for the TV and radio broadcasts. This is not the first time that something like that has happened at that track, because back in 2021, the whole track lost power due to, I believe, a power line going down due to a crash outside of the racetrack. So although Gateway has made some improvements, I think there's still some major improvements that Gateway still needs to make structurally to prevent power outages. Because this is the second time, as far as I know, that this has happened in the past few years. Next, we have the Xfinity race at Portland. Cole Custer finally breaks through for his first win of the year by nearly beating Justin Allgaier in second. Sam Mayer finishes third. Josh Berry finishes fourth. Austin Hill finishes fifth. Myatt Snyder finishes sixth. Sheldon Creed, the pole sitter, finishes seventh. Connor Mosack finishes eighth. Chandler Smith finishes ninth. And John Hunter Nemechek rounds out the top ten. And this race was pretty fun to watch, because the Xfinity road course package is pretty good, similar to what the Gen 6 had. There was plenty of action going on, and a lot of hurt feelings, such as what happened between Sheldon Creed and John Hunter Nemechek. Nemechek dumped Sheldon Creed, I believe, coming off the final quarter for the stage win for, I believe, stage one or stage two. But John Hunter Nemechek did not get that stage win, because the guy behind him ended up getting that by going to the inside. I believe that was, indeed, Cole Custer, and that led to Creed getting payback later on. And, of course, the most notable incident between Jeb Burton and Chandler Smith. Basically, what happened was that the 16 and the 27 got into each other in the first chicane, and that led to, also, Chandler Smith dumping Jeb Burton in, I believe, turn three or turn four. And that led to a fight afterward. Apparently, they did trade blows before they were separated. But all I could see on the Fox broadcast was one of Chandler Smith's crew members putting Jeb on the chokehold and telegracing President Chris Rice getting into Jeb Burton's face. So, that was definitely interesting to watch, and that led to more blows being traded on social media when Jeb Burton talked about it, and that led to Chandler Smith posting an epic video mocking Jeb Burton's statements, which was funny to watch. And, finally, for the truck race at Gateway, Grant Infinger gets his second win of the season, and he's followed by Christian Eckes in second, Stuart Friesen in third, Carson Hosemar in fourth, Chase Purdy in fifth, Matt Benedetto in sixth, Ben Rhodes in seventh, Nick Sanchez in eighth, JC Love in his truck series debut finishes ninth, and Jake Garcia rounds out the top ten. And this race, in my opinion, was better than the cup race. There's more action going on, a lot more passing, you know, it's pretty fun to watch, like most truck races at Gateway are. And the most notable incident from this race was an incident between Haley Deegan and Nick Sanchez. Haley Deegan stayed out, along with Nick Sanchez, during the closing laps, but on the restart, Nick Sanchez, on the backstretch, basically runs into the back of Deegan, sending Deegan around and hitting the wall hard. Afterward, Haley Deegan was quite upset about it, because I watched her vlog, and she was visibly upset after that. What were you doing, Nick? You gotta use your brake into the corner! You didn't even look like you lift! That's one of the reasons why that truck series has a bad reputation for just people driving over their heads. Because a lot of these ARCA guys think that they have ARCA brakes just running to the back of their competitors. These guys need to get their heads on straight, because it's just been constant, of this stuff going on for the past few years. This has to stop. But overall, it was still a solid weekend for Gateway, and a pretty good race for Portland. And so with that out of the way, let's get to the news. Starting off, we have some breaking news from Le Mans. The Garage 56 entry has won the Pit Stop Challenge at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Next, we have the Gateway TV ratings, FS1, got a 1.27 rating, and 2.160 million viewers for the race, which was down from 1.47 and 2.502 million viewers. And in my opinion, the reason why this was the case was because of the lightning delay as well as face-aliased suspension, and of course, people switching off from cable. Austin Sendrick will not be penalized for the contact loss to Dylan, that's a good call from NASCAR there, because I don't think there was enough data to prove that. Andy Lally will be making five road course starts with Rick Ware Racing in the number 15, starting this weekend at Sonoma. The pit crew member that was injured on Sunday has been released from the hospital. Luke Kempis RV has continued its exclusive motor coach sponsorship with Legacy Motor Club. Gabriel Glass will be sponsoring AJ Ommeninger in the Cup and Xfinity races at Sonoma. And finally, Richard Childress Racing has announced a multi-year partnership with Scenic Tools. And so that's it for this week's news, now it's time to preview this weekend's races at Sonoma. The Truck Series has a couple weeks off, so we're going to start off with the Xfinity Series race, which is the DoorDash 250. The race will be 80 laps and 159.95 miles. And the race will be on June 10th at 8 p.m. Eastern Time, and will be the last Xfinity race on FS1 for this season. And so for my pick, I'm going to go with AJ Ommeninger. He's been the favorite on the road courses in the Xfinity Series. He won at Kota earlier this year, and I think he'll go back-to-back by winning at Sonoma. And finally, for the Cup race, we have the Toyota Safemark 350. The race will be 110 laps and 218.9 miles. And the race will be on June 11th at 3.30 p.m. Eastern Time, and will be the last race of the year on Fox. And so for my pick, I'm going to go with Chase Elliott. Chase Elliott is one of the best road course racers in NASCAR, and he's run really well at Sonoma, although he has not won yet. But I think this is the perfect opportunity to come back from his suspension and finally get a chance to make it into the playoffs by winning at Sonoma. And so that's it for this week's episode. If you enjoyed it, please like and subscribe for more. Thanks for going out to Sonoma 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.