COTA Review, Richmond and Texas Preview, and More | Chasing The Cup S2:E8

Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of Chasing the Cup. I'm your host Wayland Linden and in this episode I'm going to be reviewing the races from Circuit of the Americas. I'll also go over the news and I'm going to preview this weekend's races at Richmond and Texas. But first, let's take a look at the results from COTA. Tyler Reddick gets 23-11 racing their first road course win, and he's followed by Kyle Bush, the new driver of the 8th and 2nd, Alex Bowman in 3rd, Ross Chastain in 4th, William Byron, the other dominant car of the day, brings it home in 5th, Austin Sendrick finishes 6th, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. finishes 7th, Chris Buescher finishes 8th, Ty Gibbs finishes 9th, and Todd Gilliland rounds out the top 10. And besides the last bit of the race, that race was great. There was plenty of passing going on and we had some great battles for the lead between Tyler Reddick and William Byron, as well as plenty of other action going on throughout the field. It was pretty awesome to watch. In my opinion, I do prefer the no-stage cautions because it really helped put on a good show, but we gotta talk about the end of that race. After Brad Keselowski brought out the caution with like 12 laps to go, it seemed like everyone forgot what level of stock car racing they were at, and they devolved into ARCA drivers, and they started pile-driving into everyone, and it led to 3 overtime restarts because they could not race clean in those closing laps during overtime. And I have to agree with Kyle Busch after what he said last week, because he said there was no respect, and after this race, I agree with him. These drivers have no respect on the racetrack for each other when it comes to road courses. You can't really tell at most racetracks, but at road courses, these drivers have no respect for each other, because you saw it at the Indy road course, not only with the Gen 7 car, but with the Gen 6 car. You saw it at this race, and you saw it at the Roval, so I don't know what is going on with the end of these road course races during overtimes, but there is no give. It's all take, take, take, and everyone is raking each other on the restarts in the closing laps. So these drivers need to clean up their etiquette. And the Fox Sports booth was really good. It was a solid booth. Kurt and Clint had good chemistry, Mike Joy was better this time around, and Chase Elliott provided some good insight, although he provided his own insight remotely from Kyle Alvarado. Fox did a good job setting that up, but I think there are a couple problems with the broadcast. First is Chris Myers. Chris Myers is a little bit of a stuttery mess during specific periods, like right after the National Anthem, and he's about to go to a commercial break, and he's like trying to get the words, and he's stuttering and all that. And also, Fox brought in one of the big characters from F1's Drivers Survive, which is the team manager for Haas F1. And besides some things, he didn't really provide much feedback. He stayed mostly silent throughout the race, besides some stuff here and there, probably because he doesn't know anything about NASCAR, besides some things like when he used to work for Red Bull, and as well as the stuff with Haas. But besides that, I don't think he really knows that much. His focus is on F1. It kind of feels like how Frankie Nunes was during the All-Star Open last year, except the feedback that Guter provided was better. And overall, I think this race was really good. Whilst the race was really great, it was awesome, but then, the thing that brought it down was these drivers not having the respect for each other. They needed to clean that up. Next for the Xfinity race, AJ Ommeninger once again shows his dominance by returning to the Xfinity series and winning in Circuit of the Americas, and he's followed by William Byron in second in the 17 for Hendrick, Ty Gibbs in the 19 for Joe Gibbs finishes third, Sammy Smith, the highest finishing Xfinity regular finishes fourth, Justin Allgaier finishes fifth, Daniel Hamrick finishes sixth, Sam Mayer finishes seventh, Josh Berry finishes eighth, Sheldon Creed finishes ninth, and Riley Herbst rounds out the top ten. And this race, in my opinion, was my favorite of the weekend. There was plenty of side-by-side action going on, and because there was no breakfast at the end, it really felt great. Brad and Joey have good chemistry in the booth, and Adam Alexander is a great play-by-play guy, and there was an awesome battle for the win in the closing laps between AJ and Byron, but Byron comes up short after missing the corner in the S's, but if he didn't miss that corner, it would have been a nail-biter right to the start-finish line. But overall, it was still a great race, a solid one for the Xfinity series. And finally, we have the truck race, and Zane Smith goes back-to-back at Circuit of the Americas and Front Row Motorsports, gets their third Kona win in a row, and he's followed by Kyle Busch in second, Ty Majewski in third, Tyler Ingram in fourth, Ross Chastain in fifth, Corey Hine in sixth, Nick Sanchez in seventh, Tanner Gray in eighth, Kaz Grala in ninth, and Ben Rhodes rounds out the top ten. And this race was pretty good as well. The finish was kind of anti-climatic because Zane Smith just pulled away, but this race was really good. Lots of side-by-side racing going on, and a lot of interesting pit strategy. You see some different pit strategies going on. For instance, Kyle Busch held onto the lead for a while throughout stage two before the caution came out, and Haley Deegan was making her way through the top ten, climbing up to the fifth before that caution came out because of her pit strategy after her crew chief called her in pretty early for her first pit stop, but Haley Deegan turned two drivers, one of them being her teammate and the O4 of Kayden Honeycutt, who is a Ford driver, but she definitely battled hard for position throughout the race, and she was pretty aggressive, but she wasn't aggressive enough to claw her way back into the top ten, but she had a pretty good truck out there, as well as Roger Carruth, who was also in the top five during the pit stop cycles, and overall, in my opinion, this was a solid weekend for Circuit of the Americas. Three great races, and Circuit of the Americas is also a really good facility to visit, according to people that have gone there, and in my opinion, Dakota has really become a staple of the NASCAR schedule because it is a prestigious racetrack, and it also puts on excellent racing when it comes to road courses, even with the higher downforce package last year, and with this lower downforce package, it really put on an excellent show. And so, with that out of the way, let's get to the news. Hendrick Motorsports' appeal will be heard this Wednesday, March 29th. Lou Buffalo has joined JTG Daugherty Racing for two races this year. Kyle Weatherman will be the first driver to make a start with a brand new FR-S racing team for the Xfinity series, which was the former Brandon Bilt Motorsports. Stagefront VIP will be sponsoring Michael McDowell in four races this season. GM will be ending production of the Chevrolet Camaro, which means at the end of 2024, the current generation of the Camaro will no longer be produced. And according to Bob Pockriss, teams apparently can run the Camaro past 2024, but I betcha Chevrolet is gonna come up with something for 2025 and beyond. I'd say most of the big teams are going to switch to that, whatever it is. I'd say maybe some of the smaller teams will keep running the Camaro in 2025, but Chevy will probably have something for 2025. I don't know why they would keep the Camaro for 2025 and beyond if they're not going to even produce it. Kevin Harvick will be running a late model stock car for the Cars Tour race at North Wilkesboro in the 62. Last week, three teams from the Prep and Truck series did a Goodyear tire test for North Wilkesboro. After the Atlanta shenanigans, Josh Williams was suspended for one race. Blaine Perkins and SS Greenlight Racing have parted ways. Derek Krause will be making his Xfinity series debut at Richmond this weekend. And finally, we have the Atlanta TV ratings. Fox earned a 1.95 rating and 3.422 million viewers during last Sunday's race at Atlanta, which is down from last year from a 2.36 rating and 4.003 million viewers. Once again, the Chase Elliott effect shows itself for Atlanta, as well as probably, in my opinion, the novelty of the next-gen car has probably worn off, and a lot of the normies that watched last year are probably not watching again this year. And so that's it for this week's news, now it's time to preview this weekend's races at Richmond and Texas. This will be the first race weekend of the year, where the top three series will reset to different racetracks, with the trucks going to Texas for the SpeedyCash.com 250 for a doubleheader with IndyCar. The race will be 167 laps and 250 miles, and the race will be on April 1st at 4.30pm Eastern Time. And so for my pick, I'm gonna go with Zane Smith going back-to-back, because Kyle Busch is not here to sting up the show this weekend, I think Zane Smith will sting up the show by winning at Texas. Now going back to Richmond for the Xfinity series, we have the Toyota Care 250. The race will be 250 laps and 187.5 miles, and the race will be on April 1st at 1pm Eastern Time. And so for my pick, I'm gonna go with John Hunter Niemicek. John Hunter Niemicek finished second last year, in the number 18, after he was moved out of the way by his teammate, but I think this time, John Hunter Niemicek will win at Richmond. And finally, for the cup race, we have the Toyota Owners 400. The race will be 400 laps and 300 miles, and the race will be on April 2nd at 3.30pm Eastern Time. And so for my pick, I'm gonna go with Christopher Bell. Christopher Bell, I believe, finished second last year to Kevin Harvick, after Bell charged in the closing laps, but could not get there. But this time, I think Christopher Bell will win at Richmond. 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 Richmond or Texas 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.