There were plenty of numbers to come out of Austin Cindric’s victory last weekend at Talladega, but it was another Sunday when NASCAR felt it had to defend the quality of its superspeedway product.
NASCAR senior vice president of competition Elton Sawyer did so after the race concluded with Cindric recording his third career win, despite a radioed rant of harsh criticism of him by Team Penske teammate Joey Logano (who was later disqualified).
“You look at the stats after the race and you have 67 lead changes among 23 different drivers,” Sawyer said. “When we look at all of that, what are we trying to fix? What’s not going the way we would like it?”
For starters, real passing. Maybe that will be different this Sunday at Texas Motor Speedway when it hosts its 45th NASCAR Cup Series event, the Wurth 400.
Numbers at Talladega and sister track Daytona can be a little misleading when it comes to leaders and lead changes that take place in a two-wide pack, with one driver at the front leading one lap by 2 feet then sliding back 3 feet for a “lead change” to the driver beside him.
Sunday’s most frequent leader at Talladega was Anthony Alfredo, who led a race-high seven times for 19 laps for non-chartered, family-owned Beard Motorsports.
In a front-row tug-of-war of inches, Cindric topped the field five times for seven laps over the final 17 circuits, while fellow Row 1 occupant Ryan Preece (also later DQ’d) led four times for six laps.
However, it was all two-wide racing to the end after Cindric, running 25th, emerged with the lead due to a swift three-seconds-plus final pit stop.
The problem that the Next Gen car is experiencing at the two giant tracks may be the disparity in speed.
Zane Smith won his first career pole Saturday with a speed of 182.174 mph. During the race, though, Michael McDowell scored the Xfinity Fastest Lap Award — worth one Cup championship point — by blazing the track at 199.933 mph in the hottest lap ever by a Next Gen car.
Very few drivers are likely to step out of a 12-row-deep, two-wide lane into an open one just to hope someone comes along, else they could suffer a nearly 20 mph falloff in speed and head to the back of the pack.
So what’s ahead at Texas Motor Speedway?
In Saturday’s qualifying session, Carson Hocevar earned his first career Busch Light Pole Award by zipping around the 1.5-mile speedway in 28.175 seconds (191.659 mph) to edge William Byron’s No. 24 Chevrolet (191.564).
Starting behind Hocevar’s No. 77 Spire Motorsports Chevy will be Cindric and Kyle Larson, with Michael McDowell gridding fifth.
In last season’s lone stop in the Lone Star State on an oval, Hendrick Motorsports’ Chase Elliott won for the first time in 42 starts by prevailing in three late restarts to earn a double-overtime thriller over Brad Keselowski in a wildly popular race.
The racing was tight in Elliott’s first victory since Talladega in October 2022, when he hoisted the trophy in a playoff race win.
The scheduled 267-lap event — last year’s went 276 — featured a track-record 16 cautions, 13 different leaders (seven who logged double-digit lap leads) and took 3 1/2 hours to finish.
Fellow Hendrick driver Kyle Larson started from the pole for the third consecutive race and appeared to have the best car after leading a race-high 77 laps, but the right-rear tire on his No. 5 Chevrolet fell off during a caution period.
The only multiple-winning drivers at TMS are Kyle Busch (four wins) and Denny Hamlin (three).
In all, 24 different drivers have won a Cup event at Texas, with eight of those active this Sunday. The past eight races have featured eight different winners.
–Field Level Media
