In a recent edition of the “Positive Regression” podcast, career analysis expert David Smith and presenter Alan Cavanna asked what was the Cup’s third-best team behind Kevin Harvick and Denny Hamlin.
It was an interesting discussion without a clear answer when examining the pros and cons of Martin Truex Jr., Ryan Blaney, Chase Elliott, Brad Keselowski, and Joey Logano.
He showed how up and down this season has been with teams struggling to find consistency at a time when there is no practice. You may see a rival driver, Hamlin and Harvick, for a couple of weeks and then be replaced by another before they fade out on the field.
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The Cup teams will again have no practice before competing on Thursday night (7:30 pm ET on NBCSN) at Kansas Speedway. NASCAR has no scheduled training for Cup teams in the coming month.
Logano won two of the first four races of the season, but then struggled after the series returned in May. His third place on Sunday in Texas was his best result since winning in Phoenix in March, the last pre-season Cup race was suspended for 10 weeks by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It’s harder to bounce back,” Logano said of when teams fall behind the best teams. “When I said lost puppy, that’s what we are, that’s what we were. You don’t have a chance to fix anything, do you? You finish the race, this, this and this, we have to improve at least in the race car. We’ll try this, this, and this next week, but it’s a different track. We will go running, we have no practice. Who knows if we are going to make it better or worse, right? How do you find direction for that?
“That’s where practice was so important. You could go out, run, make a change, go back out and say, ‘Was that better or worse? Now that we’re done with the race, we have things we want to fix. Let’s go to a track that is nothing like the one we went to and make some changes to our car and tell me if it’s better or not.
“You can not. You can’t. You can only tell by the overall finish compared to the field. That is something we work on. It seems that some progress has been made. “
Lack of practice is something Kyle Busch has mentioned why he doesn’t win in all 18 Cup races this year. He also has yet to win a stage this season and has no playoff points. Last year at this time, he had 25 playoff points, the highest in the series. At this time in 2018, he had 30 tiebreak points in the series.
Decline level of respect in Xfinity?
It’s been a question asked throughout this season as more incidents occur on the track. The Xfinity series returns to the track at 5 p.m. ET on Saturday at Kansas Speedway on NBCSN.
Last weekend in Texas, Noah Gragson, who has already struggled with Myatt Snider, Harrison Burton, and teammate Justin Allgaier this season, ran after Riley Herbst, making contact and causing Herbst to crash before the race completed six laps. Herbst later said that he “was absolutely caught” by Gragson.
“I don’t get it,” NASCAR NBC analyst Steve Letarte said in the broadcast after the incident. “I just don’t understand. Five laps why you have to be so aggressive on a polished race track with Riley in front of him. I know Noah didn’t drive there with the intention of destroying (Herbst) … but he definitely pushed the theme early. ”
NASCAR said of NBC analyst Dale Earnhardt Jr., who also owns Gragson’s car, on the broadcast: “For me, it looks like Noah got into the back of (Herbst) and didn’t give him a break. I just ran behind him. … I have to put that on Noah. Earlier in the race, Noah had a chance to cut those 18 a break. “
Kyle Busch says he has seen a huge change in the Xfinity series in the way pilots compete against each other.
“No one runs with respect anymore,” Busch said after last weekend’s race in Texas. “Everyone runs as hard as you can on every lap and when you run on ovals and things like that, you have to give room and sometimes you have to be polite.
“Yes, there will be times when you have to run hard, but other times when, like Anthony Alfredo had immediately blocked my back on the second restart or something like that.” What are we doing? It’s a long way from the end of the race and if you want a crashed car right now, I’ll give you one and you won’t even make it to the end of the race. I guess that’s what everyone else thinks too. “
Ross Chastain, who has built a reputation as someone hard to beat, says that losing any position can be too hard to beat in shorter races.
“Track position is key in any series now,” said Chastain. “I definitely think there are some things that I’ve had some confrontations with and we agree to disagree about everything. That’s just part of it. “
Busch said he understands that “you’re trying to make your competition as tough as you can,” but there are times to be smart about it.
“I learned from people like Matt Kenseth and Tony Stewart and Mark Martin and Jeff Gordon and back then,” Busch said. “Let’s call in the late 90’s, early 2000’s it seemed like respect was a big issue on the track and then you started having more and more calls kids coming here and hitting and hitting short tracks on late models and K&N and ARCA and things like that, and they keep going up to these levels.
“I don’t think they have great (much) respect for the team they are in sometimes because many of them have probably never worked on them before. They just pick up another trip and continue the next year and run those things and then continue and continue.
“It’s about trying to solve it and pick and choose your battles. That is typically what it boils down to. I certainly made bad decisions in the past and still do sometimes today. You have to be as smart as possible. “
Starting Lineup Draw on Wednesday
NASCAR will establish the starting lineup for the Cup race with a random draw on Wednesday.
Since replacing his Stewart-Haas Racing teammate Clint Bowyer in the top 12 in owner points, and eligible for starting positions 1-12 in the random draw, Almirola has started in the top five the four times he random drawing was used. Almirola started on pole last weekend in Texas.
Bowyer became eligible for starting positions 13-24 as he fell into that group in owner points. In all four races the random draw was used, Bowyer started 18, 22, 15 and 17.
“The way the draw is for the top 12 basically protects those guys and makes it virtually impossible for someone outside of that to capitalize on that first stage, which puts them in a very good position point-wise for the rest of the career, Bowyer said. “Also, it puts you in a situation where you have to try to bet either at the end of that first stage or during that second stage to try to take advantage of some points, either that second stage or prepare for the end.” of the career
“Every time you play, we all know that you can win or lose big. Nine times out of 10 the house wins from what I can see. So I’m a little frustrated in the sense that I feel like we’ve had much better races over the last month and a half than our stats. “
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