The Xfinity and Cup Series will travel back to Martinsville Raceway. There are two spots in the Championship Four available in the Xfinity Series since Noah Gragson and Josh Berry earned their spots with wins in the Round of 8. The Cup Series has three spots available in the Championship Four since Kyle Larson won last week at Homestead and he is no longer racing for the title. Joey Logano has his spot at Phoenix. Which three drivers will join him next week? The final race at Martinsville is always filled with excitement in the final laps. I expect the same Sunday.
MARTINSVILLE PREVIEW
Martinsville is a unique track. It is a .5-mile flat, paperclip-shaped track. There are other short tracks on the schedule, but they really do not compare to the tight corners at Martinsville. Some drivers are better at Martinsville than others and that is why the same drivers typically finish up front at Martinsville. The best way to handicap the Xfinity 500 is to look at what happened at Martinsville in April. Here is a link to the highlights from the spring race at Martinsville…
Martinsville Race Rewind (April 2022)
I gave the data from the first race at Martinsville double the weight in my model I use to comprise the Driver Rankings this week. I also used the data from the other four flat tracks (Phoenix, Richmond, New Hampshire and WWT Raceway). The drivers who have run up front on the flat tracks this year and had success in the first race at Martinsville will be at the top of the rankings this week.
Here are the Driver Rankings for the Xfinity 500 …
| Driver |
| 1. Chase Elliott |
| 2. Joey Logano |
| 3. William Byron |
| 4. Ryan Blaney |
| 5. Christopher Bell |
| 6. Kevin Harvick |
| 7. Ross Chastain |
| 8. Kyle Busch |
| 9. Aric Almirola |
| 10. Martin Truex Jr. |
| 11. Austin Cindric |
| 12. Kyle Larson |
| 13. Austin Dillon |
| 14. Chase Briscoe |
| 15. Denny Hamlin |
| 16. Bubba Wallace |
| 17. Chris Buescher |
| 18. Brad Keselowski |
| 19. Cole Custer |
| 20. Tyler Reddick |
| 21. AJ Allmendinger |
| 22. Erik Jones |
| 23. Daniel Suarez |
| 24. Noah Gragson |
| 25. Michael McDowell |
| 26. Justin Haley |
| 27. Harrison Burton |
| 28. Ricky Stenhouse Jr. |
| 29. Ty Gibbs |
| 30. Todd Gilliland |
| 31. Ty Dillon |
| 32. Corey LaJoie |
| 33. Landon Cassill |
| 34. J.J. Yeley |
| 35. Cody Ware |
| 36. B.J. McLoed |
* These rankings will be updated Saturday after qualifying
Good Luck Sunday!
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