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If you saw the championship race the two previous years, then you could pretty much predict what would happen this time. Three championships in a row for Team Penske, and Joey Logano wins his third Cup Series championship, making him only the tenth driver to ever win at least that many championships.

I’m not going to bother saying anything about how immensely divided the fanbase has become as a result of this particular championship and how many so-called fans are questioning the legitimacy of the playoff system. I’m just not interested in discussing such complications.

In fact, I’d rather not continue spending time trying to provide summaries of these races in my own words, so once the next season begins, I’ll either just post a link to a highlights video or simply not bother posting at all anymore.

And further penalties have indeed been given out for race manipulation. The 1 car (Ross Chastain), the 3 car (Austin Dillon), and the 23 car (Bubba Wallace) have each been fined $100,000 and penalized 50 points, along with having their respective crew chiefs, spotters, and team executives suspended for this weekend’s championship race.

This is unquestionably the biggest race manipulation scandal since the infamous “Spingate” at Richmond in 2013, and it’s lead to a lot of fans arguing that the playoff system has become too easy to manipulate and NASCAR should go back to the old season-long points format.

I had a feeling something significant might happen at Martinsville, and we sure got something alright…

Starting with the obvious, the race was actually pretty good, thanks to a much softer tire being used, and with how lackluster these new cars had been at this particular track, I’d call that a huge step in the right direction. With several cautions from spins resulting in a variety of pit strategies, in the end, it was Ryan Blaney who was able to make a late charge to the front to win the race and lock himself into the championship four along with previous winners Joey Logano and Tyler Reddick.

So who was the fourth driver to advance on points? Well, between William Byron and Christopher Bell, things on the last few laps got quite convoluted, to put it mildly. A couple Chevrolet cars blocked to prevent Byron from losing positions, a Toyota fell back to allow Bell to gain one more position, and to top it all off was Bell sliding up into the final turn and riding along it in a desperate effort to not lose the position he had just gained. After everyone waited anxiously for nearly half an hour, the decision was made that Bell had illegally rode the wall and was thus penalized a few positions to end up not making the championship four. That was the immediate decision, but there’s a lot more potential controversy that is currently under further review, so there might be additional penalties given out over the next few days.

Next up is the final championship race, so it’ll be interesting to see which of the four finalists will win the 2024 Cup Series Championship.

That was arguably one of the best races ever seen at Homestead-Miami. All of the playoff drivers (except Logano) ran up front for much of the race. A few cautions here and there but nothing ridiculous. In the later part of the final stage, Tyler Reddick tried to use pit strategy to get better tires for a faster run, and was able to take advantage of that thanks to a well-timed caution by Kyle Larson pushing his car just a little too much once again. In the last handful of laps, it was an awesome battle for the lead between Ryan Blaney, Denny Hamlin, and Tyler Reddick, with Reddick making that incredible pass on the outside of the final turns to take the win.

Joey Logano and Tyler Reddick are now confirmed as two of the championship four drivers. The two remaining spots will be determined at next week’s race at Martinsville. Some drivers are so far behind that they must win, while others are very close on points. Anything could happen, so we’ll just have to wait and see how things will turn out.

@Background Pony #4792
It was a grate race I’m so glade Joey won and am going for his 3ed title btw this isn’t a guy who used to go buy racefanx now is it?…..I ask because I had a friend who went by that name years ago

Just when we thought Las Vegas would provide a rather straightforward race, all kinds of crazy moments occurred. Kyle Larson had a ridiculously slow pit stop midway through the race and had to recover from two laps down for much of the remainder of the race. Denny Hamlin had several poor pit stops and struggled to recover much from any of them. Tyler Reddick managed to win the first stage, only to then get caught in a wreck with Chase Elliott and Ryan Blaney which caused Reddick to actually roll over on the front infield grass. Of the three other playoff drivers, Christopher Bell dominated much of the race with William Byron consistently close behind, but it was Joey Logano (who made it in only because of Alex Bowman’s disqualification last week) who proved once more to be a master of fuel strategy to win the race and lock himself in as one of the championship four contenders.

Next race is at Homestead-Miami, and with the huge gap in the points along the cutoff line between the playoff contenders not yet locked in, I feel like it’ll take something very significant to see anyone cross over that cutoff line one way or the other (essentially it’ll take checkers or wreckers to make something really happen), and considering which drivers are good at a track like that, I don’t have high hopes for such a dramatic change in championship contenders.

There quite a lot that happened at the Roval of Charlotte. The new slightly modified course included a hairpin turn that presented a lot of passing opportunities as well as plenty of bumps and spinouts. One such incident nearly destroyed Tyler Reddick’s car, and if not for his pit crew doing everything to repair the damage throughout the race, he could’ve been eliminated from the playoffs. Up front, Shane van Gisbergen (currently part time in the Cup Series and going full time next season) got his first pole position and led some laps, but it was Kyle Larson who would later take the lead and dominate the rest of the race to get his sixth win this season. Eliminated from the playoffs at the end of the Round of 12 were Chase Briscoe, Daniel Suarez, Austin Cindric, and Joey Logano… until Alex Bowman unexpectedly ended up disqualified in post-race inspection for failing to reach minimum weight. Even more surprisingly is that Hendrick has chosen to not appeal the penalty, so now Alex Bowman is out and Joey Logano is back in.

(Such a pity, because I really would’ve liked to see all four Hendrick cars in the Round of 8, something that has been accomplished only twice before with two different teams.)

Next race is in Las Vegas for the start of the Round of 8. Let’s see who of the eight remaining playoff drivers could win their way into the championship final four.

Talladega does not disappoint once again. Stage 1 saw moments of up to four-wide racing across the entire pack. Stage 2 ended with Ryan Blaney crashing across the finish line. And in the last few laps we saw a 28-car pile-up, supposedly the biggest crash ever in the NASCAR Cup series! And with controversies regarding the “damaged vehicle policy” in recent weeks, it was inevitably brought to everyone’s attention with so many cars in various states of damage, from completely destroyed to simply stuck on flat tires. Needless to say, it’s gotten to the point where this rule as it is now needs to be reconsidered. Anyway, after that huge wreck, we had an overtime restart, and it was Ricky Stenhouse who got the win by a fraction of a second ahead of Brad Keselowski. Still no playoff drivers winning in this round of the playoffs, but at least William Byron earned enough points to lock himself into the next round.

Next race is the Charlotte Roval, in a new configuration in fact, so this could get very interesting.

Kansas continues to have no shortage of exciting moments, even right from the first lap. I won’t bother taking the time to talk about all the incidents and how widely different all the playoff drivers performed, but the big story was the late battle for the lead between non-playoff drivers Kyle Busch and Ross Chastain. Once again, Kyle Busch had a great car late in the race, only for some incident to take away yet another opportunity for him to win. Ross Chastain took the lead and held off William Byron to win the race, too late to matter in terms of going for the championship, but still nice to see someone finally get their first win of the season.

Next race is Talladega, and everyone knows to expect nothing less than total chaos at that wild racetrack.

Well, despite supposedly using the exact same type of tire used during the spring race, the night race at Bristol was practically the exact opposite with very little passing and almost no tire wear at all. Pretty much the only big moves came when Ty Gibbs and Martin Truex got pit road speeding penalties and were sent to the back of the field, where they struggled to regain their track position and ultimately failed to advance through to the next round of the playoffs. Also failing to advance were Harrison Burton who went several laps down due to power steering issues, and Brad Keselowski who qualified poorly and never really went anywhere. Daniel Suarez had perhaps one of the worst cars out there, but had just enough points from the previous two races to advance to the next round, and even put up a good effort to prevent Ty Gibbs from moving forward to stay in the playoffs. As for the winner of the race, it was total domination by Kyle Larson who led 462 laps, the most laps led by any Hendrick driver ever (beating a record set by Jeff Gordon at Martinsville in 1997) and was the most laps led by anyone at Bristol since Cale Yarborough in 1977.

Next up is Kansas for the first race in the second round of the playoffs. We all know that particular racetrack always seems to provide excellent races, so this could possibly be another good one.

I’m sure many of us expected having Watkins Glen as a playoff race would result in some crazy things, but I don’t think any of us thought it would get this crazy. Nearly all of the sixteen playoff drivers has issues in one form or another, such as getting caught up in wrecks or receiving penalties on pit road. In fact, this was the first ever playoff race since the introduction of this format where none of the playoff drivers finished within the top five. There was also apparently some hype prior to this race for a new softer tire being used to make the race more competitive, but it ended up making very little difference. As for the drivers not eligible for the championship who happened to dominate this race, we saw much of this race led by Ross Chastain and Shane van Gisbergen, but it was on the last few laps were we got to see an impressive battle for the lead between Shane van Gisbergen and Chris Buescher (which kind of reminded us of the famous battle for the win between Marcus Ambrose and Brad Keselowski back in 2012 at this same track) with Buescher making a last lap bump-and-run pass for the lead to win the race. As for the playoff drivers, it’s kind of strange that guys like Austin Cindric and Daniel Suarez are doing very well, while Martin Truex and even Denny Hamlin are now at risk of being eliminated by the end of the very first round.

Up next is the night race at Bristol. Not only does that short track usually provide some good races, but also they’ll be using the exact same kind of tire that was used during that especially exciting race earlier this season where drivers had unexpectedly found themselves needing to really be careful to avoid wearing them out too much. We’ll find out soon enough if we end up seeing a similar circumstance.

This Atlanta race was not quite as wild as the one earlier this season, but it still had some pretty significant moments. Just prior to the end of stage 1, Kyle Larson suddenly wrecks out with Chase Briscoe getting collected in that incident, taking both of them out of the race. The Penske cars dominated at the front for much of the race, especially Austin Cindric. Also with surprisingly good runs near the front were Daniel Suarez, Ty Gibbs, and Kyle Busch. Those with surprisingly poor performance included Denny Hamlin and Martin Truex. And just when it seemed we were likely to get another exciting three-wide finish, an advertising sign falls onto the racetrack and brings out the caution. With the overtime restart, Joey Logano is able to get a good enough push to the front and wins the race while several other cars wreck coming out of the final turn.

Next is the second race of the first round, the road course of Watkins Glen, which could really mix up the playoff field even more than what we’ve already seen.

MY BOI LES GOOOO

Final race of the regular season, and we had yet another surprise winner with Chase Briscoe winning the Southern 500 in a close battle with Kyle Busch. With fourteen different winners this season (well, technically fifteen, but Austin Dillon doesn’t count for his overly aggressive finish at Richmond), that left only two playoff openings on points, which went to Martin Truex (despite wrecking out just three laps into this race) and Ty Gibbs (despite getting caught up in a large wreck later in the race). That means guys like Bubba Wallace, Chris Buescher, Ross Chastain, and Kyle Busch have failed to make the playoffs this season.

Next up will be the first race of the first round of the playoffs, which will be in Atlanta. A superspeedway to start the playoffs should be quite exciting.

The complete schedule for 2025 has officially been revealed:
https://www.nascar.com/news-media/2024/08/29/nascar-reveals-2025-cup-series-schedule-complete-with-international-flair-in-season-tournament-sites-daytona-500-on-feb-16/

Some notable changes include the Clash at Bowman Gray Stadium (first time NASCAR will race there since the Pioneer era ended in 1971), added in is the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez track in Mexico City (the first points race outside the US since a couple short track races in Canada way back in the 1950s), the Xfinity and Truck series will both return to Rockingham (last raced in Cup and Xfinity in 2004, and last raced in Trucks in 2013), and the Truck series also has Lime Rock Park added it’s schedule (a road course in Connecticut that has never previously held any races in any of the top NASCAR series). Worth noting is that in addition to FOX at the beginning and NBC at the end, the new broadcast partners involve Amazon Prime (starting with the Coca Cola 600 at Charlotte, followed by Nashville, Michigan, Mexico City, and Pocono) and TNT/Max (Atlanta, Chicago street course, Sonoma, Dover, and finishing with the Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis), along with The CW for the entire Xfinity series. There’s also the “in-season tournament” in the Cup series (cash prize only, no affect on points), with the bracket being set by the last three races of Prime’s coverage and the tournament itself consisting of all five races covered by TNT/Max.

What do you guys think of next season’s schedule?

If you thought Michigan last week was crazy, Daytona turned out to be absolutely wild. Daniel Suarez’s car somehow caught on fire on pit road. Among several major crashes, Chase Elliot’s involvement ends his streak of no DNFs that went back to last season, Michael McDowell almost flipped over in one crash, and in a very late incident Josh Berry did flip over with a hard head-on crash into the wall while upside down. And to cap it all off, While Kyle Busch came so very close to finally getting that elusive win, it was Harrison Burton who ultimately got the win. This is huge because not only does that put him into the playoffs, it also happens to be the 100th career win for the legendary Wood Brothers race team, and we even saw his dad Jeff Burton leave the NBC broadcast booth to celebrate his son’s first ever cup series win, all this in spite of the fact that he will not be in that #21 car next season and does not yet know where he would race next year.

Next week, it’s the Southern 500 at Darlington, the final race of the regular season. It’ll be very interesting to see who will qualify for the last three remaining openings for the playoffs.

The race at Michigan completed only the first stage before rain postponed the rest of the race to Monday. Things got a little crazy throughout the entire race. By coincidence, three cars had tire failures on practically the same lap. Kyle Larson spins out and wrecks several other cars (including some who are battling for points to make the playoffs). Kyle Busch wins the second stage (his first stage win of the entire season) and actually manages to stay near the front for the rest of the race. Corey LaJoie barely spins and somehow his car just suddenly flips over (second time in the same season his car went upside down, which I’ve heard hasn’t happened to any driver since Rusty Wallace in 1993). Tyler Reddick takes the lead, but a late caution comes out for one car just bumping the wall. First attempt at overtime ends with Ross Chastain stuck in the grass, but the second attempt goes well and Reddick gets the win. With that win, Reddick is now leading in regular points, and with how consistently good he’s been lately, he could be a strong contender for the championship.

Next race is at Daytona, and we all know what usually happens at that type of track, so prepare for things to get really crazy on Saturday night.

Penalties have been announced!

While Austin Dillon will keep that win, his eligibility for the playoffs from that win has been revoked, in addition to losing 25 points (and with where he’s at in points, that means the only way he can make the playoffs now would be to get another win in one of the next three races). In addition, his spotter has been suspended for the next three races due to saying “wreck him” over the team radio just moments before the incident occurred. Also, Joey Logano has been fined $50,000 for doing a burnout in Austin Dillon’s pit box after the race (no doubt an expression of his anger over the incident), an obvious safety hazard when you consider how many people are coming over the wall to celebrate their team winning.

Now I’m really looking forward to see what happens at Michigan this weekend.

@Background Pony #BB48
As a big Joey Logano fan, I want to say I am 100% OK with what Austin did. Joey has a right to be mad that he lost the race but he knows damn well he had done the same thing and I wouldn’t blame either one of them in that situation.

The two week break is over, NASCAR is back, and boy did we see something at Richmond.

The softer so-called “option tires” with better speed and grip with less durability did proved to be effective for some (but not all) drivers, especially Daniel Suarez who put on the option tires while most of the others were on the prime tires, and as a result he just flew to the front and actually won the second stage, before everyone swapped to whatever tire they were not on and we saw the opposite happen, sending Suarez plummeting back to around where he started the race. We also saw yet another Toyota engine failure, this time taking out Martin Truex, so now he and teammate Ty Gibbs (who had an engine failure in the previous race) might not be confidently making it on points. Meanwhile, Bubba Wallace needed a strong run and finish, and he got exactly that, so now he has made up enough points to make it back into the playoffs, but only by a few points, so he’ll need to keep up this good momentum for the last few races of the regular season.

But by far the biggest story of this race was Austin Dillon, who’s been having one of the worst seasons of any full-time driver this year, somehow actually had a pretty fast car at this race, and even managed to legitimately pass Denny Hamlin for the lead. He would’ve won the race with a significant lead, but then who else but Ricky Stenhouse and Ryan Preece wreck each other with just two laps to go, so it’s on to an overtime restart. Dillon doesn’t get a good launch and Joey Logano easily passes him for the lead, but through the final turn on the final lap, Dillon just punts Logano around, and when Hamlin tried passing both of them for the win, Dillion punts him into the wall as well, and it’s Austin Dillon who gets the win and is now locked into the playoffs.

It really was a good race at Richmond (certainly much better than many of the more recent races there) thanks to the tire strategies, but unfortunately that finish alone is unquestionably one of the most controversial of this season. No word yet on possible penalties, but it’s definitely got a lot of people talking. Personally, I can see why some fans are comparing this to the driving style of the guy who made that #3 car famous, the late Dale Earnhardt, and if that guy had to race under today’s championship format, I could totally see him doing something like this.

Only three races left to go in the regular season, and next week’s race will be at Michigan.

Indianapolis races similar to Pococo, so it shouldn’t be too much of a surprise that just like last week, what made Indy interesting to watch was the wide variety of pit and fuel strategies. A few occasional wrecks, the first stage won by Denny Hamlin, the second stage won by Bubba Wallace, and in the later part of the race, while some cars took it easy to save fuel, others pitted later and began charging towards the front. Things began to get crazy with just a few laps to go when Kyle Busch once again wrecks out, Brad Keselowski tried to stay out on the lead, but a fuel shortage forced him to pit immediately before the restart, leading to some confusion (mostly by Ryan Blaney who was in second) and another wreck. Kyle Larson was able to take the lead, and after running out the overtime restart as long as possible after another spinout, he ultimately gets the win. It’s worth noting that Kyle Larson has previously won the Coca Cola 600 and the Southern 500, so now that he has also won the Brickyard 400, the only big race he has yet win is the Daytona 500, so I’m sure people will be talking about that once the next season begins.

The next two weeks are off due to the Olympic Games, but after that, the next race will be at Richmond, where it’s already been confirmed that teams will be given “option tires” in addition to the regular tires, much like what we saw in the All-Star at North Wilksboro a few months ago, so hopefully that will add a degree of strategy to make the race at a short track a bit more interesting.

Okay, now that my internet access has been restored, I can finally talk about the most recent race at Pocono.

A lot of teams used a wide variety of strategies, so you saw many different drivers end up in the lead at several points throughout the race, not to mention all the fuel saving by many of them that has apparently become typical of Pocono. Some cars were taken out by hitting the wall on their own, others were taken out by mechanical failures, and Kyle Busch once again just can’t catch a break as he is wrecked by Corey LaJoie and results in a big crash that takes out several other cars. In the end, it was Ryan Blaney who was able to hold the lead after the final restart to win the race, first time in several years that a Penske car was able to get a decent finish at Pocono, let alone actually win the race.

Next, NASCAR will be on the oval track of Indianapolis for the return of the Brickyard 400. It’ll be interesting to see how these next-gen cars can handle such a unique racetrack.

While the rest of the weekend saw good weather, it was literally as soon as the Cup Series race was about to begin that it suddenly started raining. Thankfully, past experiences made it possible to get the race going, not only by letting the teams decide for themselves when to put on wet tires or slick tires, but also setting an absolute latest time to end the race due to evening darkness. There was a red flag period during stage two for a couple hours to clear away all the large puddles to improve visibility, but otherwise were able to get the race going. Shane van Gisbergen (winner of not only last year’s Cup Series race on this track, by also won this year’s Xifinity Series race the previous day) was the heavy favorite to win, and was so dominant in the first stage that one could argue the only way he could lose would be if he was taken out in a wreck… which is exactly what happened when Chase Briscoe spun out. After that, the next heavy favorite to win became Kyle Larson… until he locked his brakes and smashed the front of his car against a wall with hardly any tire barrier to soften the impact.

So with both of the heavy favorites finishing in last and second-to-last, now the race became a lot more interesting to see who would actually win. While many teams would later choose to pit to replace the wet tires with slicks for better speed, Alex Bowman was among the few who chose to not pit, forcing him to hold the lead on older wet tires. Once the timed deadline arrived, Tyler Reddick came very close, but Alex Bowman managed to stay up front to win the race, his first win in over two years (and his first win following his back injury last year and the concussion he got late in the previous season). And with that, all four Hendrick drivers and teams are now locked into the playoffs.

Next week’s race will be a Pocono. With twelve winners so far this season, it’ll be interesting to see if any of the other winless drivers can pull off an upset before the end of the regular season.

For much of this race, I had assumed the brief rain delay at around halfway would end up being the most significant part of it, but then someone spins out with only two laps to go. That leads to an overtime finish… followed by a wreck and another overtime attempt… then another one… and another one… and another one before they finally finished the race. To make things even more crazy, earlier cautions meant that most of the drivers leading were cutting it very close on fuel to reach the end of the scheduled race, but all those attempts at green-white-checkered forced many of them to either give up their position to pit for fuel or simply keep going until they finally ran out (and potentially causing another crash). When it was all finally over, the results were so mixed up that you’d think these results came from a track like Daytona or Talladega rather than Nashville. Ultimately, it was Joey Logano who not only finally got his first win of the season, but managed to do it with barely one more lap of fuel left in his car.

Next weekend, it’s the street course in downtown Chicago! I really hope we don’t see any rain this time like we did last year. I would very much like to see how a NASCAR race on a track like this would really be like under ideal conditions.

The race at New Hampshire started out fairly typical, but after a red flag period for rain, the last 82 laps became an excellent opportunity to see how well these Cup Series cars could race on the wet tires on one of the biggest and fastest oval tracks where they’re provided, and boy did we see some amazing racing (aside from a few cautions for wrecks and spin-outs). A lot of drivers had some rather interesting runs in this race, but I’ll limit myself here to perhaps the two most extreme results: Christopher Bell dominates and wins yet again at New Hampshire, while Kyle Busch just suffered through several incidents in what could arguably be the worst race he has ever had in his Cup Series career.

Next week’s race is Nashville. Let’s see how that one will go.