The NASCAR Cup Series will join the Truck Series at Richmond Raceway this weekend. Both series return after nearly a three-week break for the Olympics. This will be the second trip to Richmond Raceway for the Cup Series, but the first time for the truckers at the track in 2024. There are plenty of stats from short, flat tracks to work with this week, so hopefully the two races will be easy to predict this weekend.
RICHMOND SCHEDULE
NASCAR decided to return with a condensed schedule this weekend. The Truck Series will practice, qualify and race Saturday. The Cup Series will practice and qualify Saturday and then they are scheduled to race Sunday evening. The Cup Series is scheduled to have a 45-minute practice to test out a new softer tire (If Mother Nature Cooperates).
Here is the schedule for the races at Richmond…
RACE RECAP AT RICHMOND
There was a lot of controversy in the first race at Richmond this year. Kyle Larson won the pole and dominated the first two Stages. The No. 5 car lead 144-laps and used a one-stop pit strategy in Stage 2 to try and win the race. NASCAR screwed Kyle Larson, Bubba Wallace, Alex Bowman and Todd Gilliland who were on the same pit strategy and running up front. Kyle Busch barely scraped the wall in Stage 2 and NASCAR put out the caution flag. This caused everyone to pit and caused Larson, Wallace, Bowman and Gilliland to lose all of their track position. Martin Truex Jr. then took over the race. The No. 19 car led a race-high 228 laps and had the race won when another caution flag was waived. This time it was for Wallace “intentionally” spinning out Larson. This sent the race into overtime. Denny Hamlin clearly jumped the restart, but NASCAR looked the other way and gave the victory to Hamlin. Hopefully, NASCAR does a better job at officiating the race Sunday night.
The best drivers in the race included Kyle Larson, Martin Truex Jr., Joey Logano, Denny Hamlin, Bubba Wallace, Josh Berry, Chase Elliott and Christopher Bell
Stage 1 Results: 1. Kyle Larson, 2. Bubba Wallace, 3. Alex Bowman, 4. Martin Truex Jr., 5. Joey Logano, 6. Todd Gilliland, 7. Chase Elliott, 8. Ross Chastain, 9. Josh Berry, 10. Ryan Preece
Stage 2 Results: 1. Martin Truex Jr., 2. Josh Berry, 3. Joey Logano, 4. Kyle Larson, 5. Christopher Bell, 6. Chris Buescher, 8. Bubba Wallace, 9. William Byron, 10. Tyler Reddick
Click here for highlights of this year’s race: RICHMOND 2024 RACE REWIND
FANTASY STATS FOR RICHMOND
Typically the races are easy to predict when the Cup Series has already competed at the track. I expect the drivers who ran well at Richmond to run up front Sunday evening, but there could be some new drivers in the mix this weekend. The Cup Series teams have some smart engineers. Three weeks is plenty of time for these teams to find some speed. The early week rankings will be based upon what happened at Richmond in March and what happened at the other short, flat track this year (WWT Raceway, Iowa and New Hampshire). I would not be surprised if some drivers climb to the top of the rankings after practice Saturday.
Here are the stats from the races at Richmond, WWT Raceway, Iowa and New Hampshire earlier this season, sorted by Driver Rating…
EARLY WEEK PICKS FOR RICHMOND
ONE & DONE PICK: MARTIN TRUEX JR.
DRIVER GROUP GAME PICKS: DENNY HAMLIN, MARTIN TRUEX JR., JOEY LOGANO, BUBBA WALLACE, ALEX BOWMAN, JOSH BERRY, CHASE BRISCOE, TODD GILLILAND
FANTASY LIVE PICKS: KYLE LARSON, CHRISTOPHER BELL, MARTIN TRUEX JR., JOEY LOGANO, BUBBA WALLACE GARAGE: BRAD KESELOWSKI
* I will update these picks this weekend.
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