The NASCAR Cup Series will join the Truck Series at the World Wide Technology Raceway (Gateway) this week for another race on a flat track. The Gen-7 car has been terrific on the larger tracks, but it hasn’t created exciting racing on the intermediate, flat tracks. Gateway is the largest of the flat tracks (1.25-miles), so maybe we can get some good racing this week. It will really be up to Goodyear. They need to bring a tire to the track similar to what they had at Bristol in order to create passing this week. It will be interesting to see how it all plays out.
GATEWAY SCHEDULE
The Cup Series and Truck Series will race just outside of St. Louis this weekend, while the Xfinity Series makes a trip to Portland for some road course racing. The Truck Series will practice and qualify Friday and then race at Gateway Saturday afternoon. The Xfinity Series will practice and qualify Saturday morning and then race Saturday evening. The Cup Series will practice and qualify Saturday morning and then race Sunday afternoon. There is plenty of racing this weekend to keep you entertained.
Here is the schedule for the races at Gateway…
RACE RECAP AT GATEWAY
The 2023 race at Gateway was nearly a repeat of the first race at the track in 2022. Both races were “The Kyle Busch Show.” Busch won the pole, led 121 of the 243 laps, won Stage 1, finished 2nd in Stage 2 and won the race. Kyle Busch nearly has a perfect Driver Rating in the two races at Gateway. Joey Logano has been nearly as good as Busch at Gateway. Logano won the race in 2022 and the No. 22 car finished 3rd last year. Ryan Blaney and Denny Hamlin were the other two drivers who have been really good in both races at Gateway.
There were 14 cautions in the race last year. Many of the cautions had to do with brake rotor failures and aggressive driving. Hopefully the teams figure out a way to keep the brakes from exploding this year. I doubt the tempers will be any calmer, so the aggressive driving will likely continue Sunday.
The best drivers in the race were Kyle Busch, Ryan Blaney, Denny Hamlin, Joey Logano, William Byron, Kyle Larson, Martin Truex Jr. and Daniel Suarez
Stage 1 Results: 1. Kyle Busch, 2. Ryan Blaney, 3. Denny Hamlin, 4. Martin Truex Jr., 5. Joey Logano, 6. Kevin Harvick, 7. William Byron, 8. Ross Chastain, 9. Austin Cindric, 10. Daniel Suarez
Stage 2 Results: 1. Ryan Blaney, 2. Kyle Busch, 3. Denny Hamlin, 4. William Byron, 5. Daniel Suarez, 6. Ricky Stenhouse Jr., 7. Joey Logano, 8. Kevin Harvick, 9. Ross Chastain, 10. Kyle Larson
Click here for highlights of last year’s race: GATEWAY 2023 RACE REWIND
FANTASY PREVIEW FOR GATEWAY
The Enjoy Illinois 300 is one of the shorter races on the schedule. The race Sunday is only scheduled for 300-miles (240 laps). The first Stage is only 45 laps. This means track position is going to be everything Sunday. It is hard to pass with the Gen-7 car on the flat tracks and the drivers will not have much time to make their way through the field. We need to select the drivers who start up front for our lineups at Gateway.
The strategy for our DFS contests will be to select the two drivers we think can lead the most laps and build our lineups around them. Both races at Gateway have been two dominator races. One driver leads 120 laps and scores 66 fastest laps (59.7 dominator points) and another driver leads 88 laps and scores 34 fastest laps (37.3 dominator points). We will need the 97 dominator points that these two drivers are projected to score in our lineups Sunday.
FANTASY STATS FOR GATEWAY
This will be the third season that the Cup Series has raced at Gateway. The track is a 1.25-mile, flat track. The closest track in size and length to Gateway is Phoenix, but a lot has changed in the Cup Series since they raced in the desert. So what do we do this week? Do you focus our picks on the drivers who have run well in the two races at Gateway (small sample size) or focus on the drivers who ran well on the intermediate, flat tracks this year (Phoenix and Richmond). I am combining the data from the races at Gateway with the data from the two intermediate, flat track races this year. I am giving a little extra weight to the stats from the race at Richmond since it is the last race for the Cup Series on a short, flat track.
Here are the stats from the last two races at Gateway in the Gen-7 car and the races at Phoenix and Richmond this year, sorted by Driver Rating…
IOWA TEST THIS WEEK
Kyle Larson, Christopher Bell and Brad Keselowski headed up to Iowa Speedway to test this week. The tracks are not completely the same, but they are similar enough that the data these three teams should get some data that they can apply to their setups at Gateway. I gave Larson, Bell and Keselowski a bump in the rankings this week based on their test at Iowa.
EARLY WEEK PICKS FOR GATEWAY
ONE & DONE PICK: KYLE BUSCH
DRIVER GROUP GAME PICKS: KYLE LARSON, DENNY HAMLIN, JOEY LOGANO, CHRIS BUESCHER, BRAD KESELOWSKI, ALEX BOWMAN, NOAH GRAGSON, CHASE BRISCOE
FANTASY LIVE PICKS: DENNY HAMLIN, MARTIN TRUEX JR., KYLE LARSON, KYLE BUSCH, JOEY LOGANO GARAGE: BRAD KESELOWSKI
* I will update these picks this weekend.
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