Daytona 500 Weekend Review, Final Original Auto Club Preview, and More | Chasing The Cup S2:E4

In this episode of Chasing the Cup, the host reviews the races from the Daytona 500 weekend. Ricky Sinhaus Jr. wins the Daytona 500, followed by Joey Logano in second place. The Xfinity Series race was won by Austin Hill. Zane Smith wins the truck race. The races had some commercial interruptions. The host previews the upcoming races at Auto Club Speedway and gives their picks for the winners. There is also news about sponsorships, a new program at a university, and changes to NBM Motorsports. The host concludes by discussing the end of Auto Club's two-mile configuration and the need for a repave. Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of Chasing the Cup. I'm your host William Lincoln and in this episode, I'm going to be revealing the races from the Daytona 500 weekend. I'll also go over the news and I'm going to preview the final races at the Autoclub Speedway's two-mile configuration. But first, let's take a look at the results from Daytona. The last three Daytona 500s were won by a long shot. In 2021, it was Michael McDowell. In 2022, it was Austin Sendrick. And this year, Ricky Sinhaus Jr. pulls off the upset to get JTG Doherty's first win since 2016 and Ricky's first win since 2017 by winning the Daytona 500. And he's followed by Joey Logano, who comes just short in second. Christopher Bell finishes third. Chris Buescher finishes fourth. Alex Bowman finishes fifth. AJ Almendinger finishes sixth. Daniel Suarez finishes seventh. Ryan Blaney finishes eighth. Ross Chastain finishes ninth. And Riley Herbst rounds out the top ten in his first Cup start. As well, just outside the top ten and eleventh is Travis Pastrana. Pretty good run for him. And so, in my opinion, this was a pretty good Daytona 500. You had some side-by-side racing, you had the classic big ones, and the racing was pretty good. And the broadcast was definitely an improvement over the Clash. The booth was more on it and there was less graphical glitches, but although they took those steps forward, they also took a step backwards for one reason. And that's because all of those commercials. I don't know what Fox was doing. I'm not sure if they oversold the Daytona 500, but man, it was just commercial after commercial after commercial. And in the closing laps of stage two, the first break of the day happens, and it happens right as Fox goes side-by-side, and they didn't even cut back to it. I don't know what was going on with all these commercials, but this model of advertisement is quite outdated. And I hope NASCAR figures something out with this new deal with advertisements. And this is not just a Fox issue. NBC's had their issues in the past with advertisements, especially some of the same things that happened yesterday in the 500. So you can't really judge them by that, but it's clear that they oversold the 500. But overall, I think it was a very solid 500. There was that classic super speedway racing, all the wrecks, the pack racing, the runs, the passes, having you on the edge of your seat, it's just classic Daytona. This next gen package is not as good as the gen 6 package, but it's pretty good. Next up for the Xfinity race, Austin Hill goes back-to-back in the spring Daytona race, and he's followed by John Hunter Nemechek, who comes just up short in second. Justin Allgaier finishes third. Parker Retzlaff in his first start with Jordan Anderson Racing gets a top five and fourth. Myatt Snyder finishes fifth. Riley Herbst finishes sixth. Joe Graff Jr. has a good run and finishes seventh. Ryan Sieg finishes eighth. Colt Custer finishes ninth. And Justin Healy rounds out the top ten. And in my opinion, this was probably the best race of the weekend. The Xfinity series always puts on a good show with its super speedway package. Besides Atlanta, where they have a modified package, where they have restricted engines, but they have a smaller blade, and it's not really that good to watch. But with their big spoiler, they really can put on a good show. But some people were definitely making mistakes out there, including Parker Kligerman, who squeezes Jeffrey Earnhardt into the wall. And then Jeffrey Earnhardt has to come into the pits to change tires. And afterward, Jeffrey was not happy. They had a heated conversation in the garage area. And to be honest, Jeffrey has the reason to be upset. He was squeezed into the wall because I don't know what the heck Parker Kligerman was thinking he was doing there. He just squeezed the guy in the wall. And finally, for the truck race, Zane Smith goes back to back at Daytona. He's followed by Tanner Gray and gets Tricot Garage their first top five. Christian Eckes finishes third. Colby Howard finishes fourth. Grant Infinger finishes fifth. Ty Majewski finishes sixth. Tyler Rankin finishes seventh. Corey Heim finishes eighth. Matt Crafton finishes ninth. And Chase Elliott rounds out the top ten. And when this race wasn't being delayed by rain, it was pretty good. But the thing that really drove it down was all those rains and all the stopping and going for cautions. So just stage cautions and wrecks. Especially early in the race, when it would not stop raining in the first 11 laps. And then this race ends up getting rain shortened. After NASCAR waited a long time to get the track dry during the final stage. But then as they started making some pace laps, some heavy mist came in. And it wasn't even being detected on the radar. Because I was keeping up with the radar during the race because of the chance of rain. And to be honest, there was no way that they were going to get the track dried. Because they didn't even know when the mist was going to end. And so that was probably the best decision to call it there. And so overall, a solid Daytona weekend. The Truck Series was a bit of an outlier because of all the rain. But the Xfinity and Cup Series both put on pretty good shows. And so with that out of the way, let's get to the news. Lucas Oil will be sponsoring Kyle Busch for this weekend's race at Auto Club. Discount Tire has extended their sponsorship with Team Penske. NASCAR will be launching a new campus lab program at Bethune-Cookman University. And some sad news for you NBM Motorsports fans. They'll be scaling back to only one full-time Xfinity team in 2023. And they currently have no plans for running Cup races this year. NBC Sports has announced that they will broadcast Arca Menard Series East and West Series. As well as other grassroots racing series on CNBC. But they will be tape delayed. Garage 56's livery has been unveiled at Daytona. And there's a lot of things you notice on the car that is different from the Cup car. Such as the bigger splitter, as well as those headlights. And finally, Russ Chastain has signed a multi-year extension with Trek House Racing. And so that's it for this week's news. Now it's time to preview the final races at Auto Club Speedway's two-mile configuration. The Trek Series has the week off. So we're going to start with the Xfinity Series with the Protection Alliance Group 300. The race will be 150 laps and 300 miles. And the race will be on February 25th at 5 p.m. Eastern Time. And so for my pick for the Xfinity race, I'm going to go with Cole Custer. Cole Custer won this race last year with SS Greenlight Racing. And in my opinion, he's going to go back-to-back on the final Xfinity race on that two-mile configuration by winning at Auto Club. And finally, for the Cup race, we have the Palo Casino 400. The race will be 200 laps and 400 miles. And the race will be on February 26th at 3 p.m. Eastern Time. And so for my pick for the final Cup race on Auto Club's two-mile configuration, I'm going to go with Kyle Larson. Kyle Larson won this race last year. And he's always been fast on these two-mile tracks. I think he's going to go back-to-back and win the final race on the two-mile configuration by winning at Auto Club. And so that's going to be it for this week's episode. If you enjoyed it, please like and subscribe for more. And if you're going out to Auto Club this weekend, I hope you have a good time. And if you're not, have a good time wherever you are. It's sad to see the end of Auto Club's two-mile configuration. It's been part of NASCAR since the mid-1990s. And it's been very iconic because it's been featured in many films and commercials. So it's going to be sad to see it go. But in my opinion, it's time for a repave because it's getting way too bumpy and way too treacherous. And I think this is probably the better option because the last time that it was paved, it took decades for it to become a fan favorite. And so that's it for now. And I'll see you next week.