Just how good can Kyle Larson’s season be?

Seven weeks ago it could have been said that Kyle Larson was having a good 2021 season. At that point, the driver of the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet had one win to go along with four top-5 and six top-10 finishes. At that time, the 28-year-old driver was 9th in NASCAR Cup Series points and was trailing leader Denny Hamlin by 144 markers. However, these last seven weeks have brought about a drastic change for the Elk Grove, CA native and his team. Larson went on a streak of three consecutive second-place results which was then followed up by…

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New Track + Long Weekend = Advantages for Power Teams

The Nashville Super Speedway isn’t necessarily a new track for NASCAR. The D-shaped oval was first used by the sport’s top sanctioning body in 2001 when it began hosting events for the Xfinity Series and the Camping World Truck Series. However, the facility located just outside the capital city of Tennessee last staged events for those two tours back in 2011. Nashville Super Speedway has never held a place on the NASCAR Cup Series schedule. All of that will change this weekend when each of the three of three top divisions will take to the high-banked 1.33-mile concrete layout for…

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Four contract year drivers who needed a big All-Star weekend … but didn’t get it

In the grand scheme of things, the NASCAR All-Star Race doesn’t mean very much … unless you happen to be the driver who wins it and collects the $1 million first prize. Beyond that, the other drivers are like those contestants on a game show who don’t win anything and only receive a year’s supply of ‘Rice-A-Roni, the San Francisco Treat’ as a consolation prize. But there could be an exception to the opening paragraph of this piece. A driver who has had a lackluster campaign throughout the first half of the NASCAR Cup Series season could perhaps use the…

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Has Stewart-Haas really declined that much?

There is little question that Hendrick Motorsports has been the top team in the NASCAR Cup Series over the last several weeks. At the same time, Joe Gibbs Racing and Team Penske have proven to be respectable adversaries when the entire season is taken into consideration. But one organization that is notably missing from list of worthy contenders at the top level of the sport is that of Stewart-Haas Racing. It seems as if there has been a significant drop off for the team owned by former NASCAR champion Tony Stewart and businessman and Formula 1 team owner Gene Haas….

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Road courses offer playoff outsiders a puncher’s chance

A hard punching boxer can sometimes get completely outclassed by a quicker and more nimble opponent for round after round of a match. The ringside judges may have the more adept fighter well ahead on their scorecards as the fight nears its conclusion. But then, the puncher who has trailed all throughout the bout may connect with his opponent’s jaw after throwing a wild right hook and send his seemingly more skilled rival to the canvas. The most skilled of the two fighters does not always win as one well placed punch can change the entire outcome of a match….

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Slower traffic increases passing opportunities with the 550 package

Looking back at the Coca-Cola 600 this past weekend, it seems like there wasn’t a lot of on-track passing that occurred during the course of the race. The 550 horsepower/high downforce package used in the NASCAR Cup Series at tracks such as the Charlotte Motor Speedway and those with similar layouts lends itself to great action in the first couple of laps following a restart but then causes cars to be locked into position once things sort out. Unless the driver ahead has a significant bobble or the handling of a leading car goes away, it doesn’t seem as if…

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NASCAR holding practice and qualifying just feels right

Former NBA star Allen Iverson once went on a rather long rant during a press conference in which he admonished the assembled media for “talking about practice”. But the fact of the matter is that in sports practice is a very important aspect in a team or individual’s performance at game time. As a former high school basketball and cross country coach, I can also attest that practice can be somewhat tedious and monotonous. While practice is in fact important in all forms of sports, perhaps no other form of competition pays as much attention to it as auto racing…

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Should this race remain at its 600 mile distance?

The topic of race distances on the NASCAR Cup Series schedule is one that comes up from time to time in the media and just in general conversations. One thing that is often asked is whether or not the races are too long. And those are meaningful conversations for the current status and the future of this sport. Many of the race distances were established years or even decades ago during the early history of auto racing. Perhaps because of the Indianapolis 500, many North American events employed the number 500 whether it be for NASCAR or other sanctioning bodies….

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Racing in the Rain: Let’s not do that again

I have never understood why, since the time NASCAR first threw out the possibility that its top-three series would employ windshield wipers and rain tires on road courses, so many have openly rooted for a NASCAR Cup Series event to be contested in wet conditions. Seemingly some members of the media have been the leaders in the desire to see the top stars in the sport slip and slide in bad weather. The attraction has supposedly been because doing so would be different and more interesting. NASCAR itself has helped to promote the hype by even going so far as…

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“Low Downforce” is on the wrong end of the car if more passing is to occur

There have been examples over the past couple of weeks of “experts” telling us that those who didn’t like the NASCAR Cup Series races at Darlington and Dover just don’t understand true racing. Despite the fact that both of those races featured one driver getting out front and staying there most of the way due to the fact that passing the leader has become more than a little challenging at the sport’s top level. Those two races exemplified an issue that is proving to be all too frequent. In both cases, the package that allows for cars to have 750…

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