NASCAR Monday Mash-Up: Historic and eye-opening weekend in Las Vegas
The third week of the NASCAR season has come and gone. It was a historic weekend and one that put the Cup Series on notice. There was a little bit of something to talk about in each race, and Toyota managed to snag a win away from Chevy.
In the first two weeks of the season, Chevy swept the NASCAR national series races. This week, they almost did it again, but came up just short. From Truck to Xfinity and Cup, every race had its own excitement and highlights.
Las Vegas gave us a good reprieve from the drafting tracks. Now, the Cup and Xfinity Series will head to Phoenix. Before we finally move on from Las Vegas, let’s recap the weekend.
Kyle Busch returned to the Truck Series
For the second straight week, Kyle Busch lined up in the Craftsman Truck Series. He won at Atlanta and gave all of the young truckers a lesson in how to race respectfully, but aggressively.
The weekend began with Rajah Caruth winning the Truck Series pole award. For the second straight week, we had a first-time pole winner. Daniel Dye earned his first in Atlanta. Caruth and his teammate Busch worked together early in this race.
Rajah Caruth makes history, wins Truck Series race
If you watch one Truck Series race all year, I hope that it is this Las Vegas race. It was fantastic from the start with drivers battling for the lead, long green flag runs, and even some very key pit stops at the end.
Rajah Caruth was fast all night but mostly trailed Ty Majeski. After a late pit road penalty took Majeski out of the race, Caruth raced his No. 71 HendrickCars.com Chevy to Victory Lane. He is just the third Black driver to win a NASCAR national series race, joining Wendell Scott and Bubba Wallace.
Chevy finally loses a race
For the most part, the Xfinity Series race was a little boring. Things just weren’t as exciting as in the Truck Series race on Friday night. Cole Custer started off on the pole.
Custer and his teammate Riley Herbst had speed, but it wasn’t nearly enough. John Hunter Nemechek, making another start in the series, played spoiler. The Cup driver won the race with ease and prevented a third straight Chevy sweep.
NASCAR shows off Joey Logano’s dirty laundry
To start the day on Saturday, NASCAR had a show-and-tell. They presented the glove that they took from Joey Logano at Atlanta. He won the pole award this weekend without it anyway.
The glove was webbed between each finger and, allegedly, gave Logano a slight advantage when he stuck it up to the window. More than anything, it was a safety violation for not meeting standards for safety equipment. Logano called the whole ordeal “embarrassing.”
Chris Buescher hits the wall, NASCAR brings out red flag
We did not have very many incidents in the Pennzoil 400. Early on we saw the Chevys and Toyotas flex their muscles. A few Fords had speed as well.
About 30 laps into the race, Chris Buescher lost his right front wheel and hit the wall hard. It was enough to require repairs on the wall and brought out a brief red flag early in the race.
Bubba Wallace gets a lug nut stuck
One of the more bizarre moments in the NASCAR Cup Series race had to be Bubba and his wheel. During pit stops, Wallace received three tires instead of a four-tire change because the lug nut on his fourth wheel was stuck.
Eventually, the team had to cut it off, but the damage was done. The 23 car went down 12 laps or so and more or less rode around until the end of the race.
William Byron gets garbage bagged midrace
This isn’t in the order it happened, but William Byron had the most hilarious moment of the Pennzoil 400. The NASCAR driver found a large garbage bag on the track and it stuck to the front of his Chevy Camaro.
Byron dropped from the lead pack and had to claw his way to a P10 finish on the day. Then, his crew found a beer can, a Coors Light Silver Bullet to be exact, in his air filter. Can’t make this up.
Kyle Larson gets first NASCAR win of the season
Just as everyone expected, once the race had long green flag runs, the field got strung out and the fastest cars made their way forward. Kyle Larson and Tyler Reddick were the two fastest cars on the day.
Larson and Reddick went on to finish 1-2 in Stage 1, 1-2 in Stage 2, and 1-2 at the checkered flag. Dominance by the NASCAR champion and just not enough laps for Reddick to complete the comeback.
NASCAR stays out West in Phoenix
Now, NASCAR is getting ready to complete the West Coast Swing for this year. It will just be stops in Vegas and Phoenix with Auto Club Speedway being defunct for the time being. This is another track Hendrick Motorsports has been dominant at in recent years.
Last season, William Byron won Vegas and Phoenix back-to-back – can Kyle Larson get it done this year? He was dominant, his car fast the best one on the track, and that’s just too much of an advantage for Larson to have. Do you think he will get his second win in two weeks?