 Chase Briscoe celebrates career win #1 at Phoenix 2022. Image Credit: Phoenix Raceway One of the biggest complaints from drivers and fans alike over the last year was without a doubt both the short track as well as the road course packages. NASCAR spent the off season looking to remedy that. With tests at Phoenix trying different spoiler and diffuser tweaks, NASCAR's new short track package will see the light of day at Phoenix this March. Per NASCAR, we will see a 30% drop in downforce on the cars, that brings us back to Pre-2000's levels. Tjis will come from making several changes to the car;
These aero changes will come alongside NASCAR's new "wet weather" package. By: Tom Luttermoser 
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This Friday's Craftsman Truck Series Victoria's Voice Foundation 200 presented by Westgate Resorts will have 4 major notable driver entries; Kaz Grala in the TRICON Garage #1 Tundra John Hunter Nemechek in the TRICON Garage #17 Tundra Ross Chastain in the Niece Motorsports #41 Silverado Kyle Busch in the Kyle Busch Motorsports #51 Silverado On Point Motorsports has withdrawn their #30 Tundra entry   Ross Chastain’s #1 at Auto Club. Image Credit: TrackHouse Racing Twitter Since the debut of the NEXT GEN car at Daytona last season, we have seen a sort of shift in the power house teams in the Cup Series. The Hendrick's & the Penske's are still out front, but the winds of change have started to make themselves known pretty clearly. Some of these new or even older teams are eating pretty heavily into the win tally for some of the legacy powerhouses. Here are the biggest upward movers team wise across the sport.
TrackHouse Racing - TrackHouse Racing took the NASCAR garage by storm. With 3 wins last season and a 2nd place title result last year, TrackHouse proved to the NASCAR world they are the real deal. Now coming into the 2023 season and Ross Chastain has won 3 Stages and led the most laps between the first 2 races of the year. Auto Club saw the Chastain/ Suarez duo score their first Top-5's of the season with Ross in 3rd and Daniel in 4th with both drivers showing serious speed. Richard Childress Racing - RCR hasn't had a season with multiple wins in the Cup Series since 2017 with Ryan Newman winning at Phoenix and Austin Dillon's win at the Coke 600 at Charlotte. In 2022, that changed. Tyler Reddick scored his first career win at Road America and then followed that up wit h2 more, plus he nearly won several other races for the #8 team throughout the '22 season. Austin Dillon also scored the win at Daytona to lock himself in for a playoff spot for a combined 4 wins on the season. With the acquisition of Kyle Busch for 2023, everyone expected Kyle to come in with a vengeance and that came in display perfectly with Busch nearly winning his first Daytona 500 after working very well with teammate Austin Dillon, then the following week, Busch won race #61 and his first with RCR at Auto Club with Dillon finishing 9th. This is not a team you will want to count out in 2023. Legacy Motor Club - It's no secret that Petty Motorsports was a hollow shell of what it once was. They fielded cars that produced next to nothing in terms of performance for several years, but when Maury Gallagher bought out the team for 2022 with the formation of Petty GMS, the results of the influx of funding and expertise was near immediate. With drivers Erik Jones & Ty Dillon along for the ride, the team scored 6 Top-10's in the first 15 races of the season and 14 in all. Jones also managed to score the teams first win and the first win for the legendary 43 car since 2014. For 2023 we haven't quite seen the magic as of yet for the newly rebranded Legacy Motor Club, but new co-owner Jimmie Johnson had a great performance at the Daytona 500.  NASCAR's NEXTGEN Cars 5-wide at Auto Club 2023. Image Credit: NASCAR If you want a race car to get loose and be harder to drive, you can do several things. You can add power which is a tried and true, yet expensive option. More power means you can kick out the rear end incidentally with just a hair too much throttle. You can also take away downforce, less air pushing the car down to "glue" it to the track does the exact same thing as adding power, this is less expensive but can change the way cars behind the lead car drive via aero dependence which could be a negative. OR We go the rumored route NASCAR is considering. You get the cars to make less contact with the track surface. On Denny Hamlin's Actions Detrimental Podcast today after Auto Club, Denny pointed out that NASCAR was considering a grooved tire like we have seen on Indy and F1 cars. Less tire surface touching the track means less grip. This is a very cost effective way for NASCAR to make the cars harder to drive.  Jenson Button at the Canadian Grand Prix. Notice the 4 grooves cut into the tires. Image Credit: Wiki Per Denny Hamlin on his podcast,
“I have heard rumors; however, that NASCAR is exploring grooved tires. That is a way, it’s actually pretty smart…it is a way to make us be a little more out of control…I think the wheels are starting to turn in motion to test grooved tires to take some of that contact patch off the road…it might be an alternative to get us back out of control.” By: Tom Luttermoser  Signature bow 61 from Kyle Busch. Image: NASCAR Twitter Kyle Busch started his long win streak right here one night at California Speedway way back in 2005. Kyle has backed that win up again and again in 2013, 2014, 2019 and finally one last time in 2023.
Kyle Busch "qualified" P. 21 after practice and qualifying were rained out. Busch was caught speeding on pit road on lap 46 receiving a "tail end" penalty but ran back and finished P.11 in Stage 1 scoring 0 Stage Points but made up for that by finishing second in Stage 2 scoring 9 Stage Points. Kyle led 3 times for 27 total laps and beat 2020 Cup Series Champion Chase Elliott by 2.998 Seconds. Busch's 5 wins at Auto Club leave him just 1 behind all time winner Jimmie Johnson (6). This win also gives Kyle Busch the all time record for most consecutive seasons with a win in the NASCAR Cup Series at 19. Last season Kyle tied the King, Richard Petty at 18. Kyle now once again breaks the tie with Kevin Harvick at 60 wins as the current active series leader now at 61. This keeps Kyle at 9th all time in the Cup Series. By: Tom Luttermoser  Kyle Busch takes his signature bow at the final Auto Club Speedway Race. Credit: NBC Move over Richard Petty, King Kyle continues to break records. After getting the lead just before the final pit cycle over TrackHouse Racing's Ross Chastain and then getting that lead back coming out of pit road thanks to a fantastic stop from the 8 team, Kyle Busch held off both Ross and Chase Elliott to score his 61st career Cup Series victory and break another record.
At the scene of his first career win, Kyle broke the record he once shared with the King, Richard Petty with 18 straight seasons with a Cup victory. Kyle Busch now holds the record with 19 consecutive seasons with his signature bow, and he does it in only his second race with new team Richard Childress Racing. By: Tom Luttermoser  This weekend's Pala Casino 400 will mark the end of an era. the 2 mile race track in Southern California is going to be torn down over the next year or so and in its place, a 1/2 mile short track with a world class fan experience in its place.
Here are some of the cool facts from the 26 year history of California Speedway! A Southern California Track:
The New Track:
EVENTS:
Records
NASCAR Records:
By: Tom Luttermoser Image Credit: Brendan Littell  For a short period of time over the last couple of months, fans of the 2-mile fast track in Fontana had some hope. Plans were not "official" for the renovation despite knowing this has been coming for quite some time. Rumors swirled about a simple repave. Friday morning, The Sports Business Journal's Adam Stern broke the news, 433 of the approximately 522 acre site have been sold in a guesstimated "nine figure" sale price. Quick math, that's in the hundreds of millions.
The plan has been for a while now for NASCAR to build a 1/2 mile short track on the remainder of the property. The exact look of the track and layout is not yet official, but the image above seems to be the layout as of now. NASCAR plans to invest much of the proceeds of the real estate transaction into the fan experience at the new updated track. This could be huge as NASCAR has seen a major amount of success it has seen after it's 2 LA Coliseum events in 2022 & 2023. The fan experience is one of the major complaints from fans across the sport when it comes to current facilities. NASCAR has already made the fandom aware that they will not have Short Auto Club on their schedule for 2024. With today's political, financial and supply chain climates, we have to hope to see the track on track for a 2025 inaugural date. (Like what I did there?) 9-figures could create a world class racing facility in southern California. One that you would be hard pressed to find anywhere in the world with any motorsport. Here is to hoping they do this right. By: Tom Luttermoser  NASCAR's Sunoco Rookie of the year competition is between only 2 drivers in the Cup Series, 4 in the Xfinity Series and 5 in the Craftsman Truck Series here in 2023
Here are where they stack up after Daytona; Craftsman Truck Series:
Xfinity Series:
Cup Series:
By: Tom Luttermoser Image: Arrowhead Brass & Plumbing FB  This weekend's Pala Casino 400 at Auto Club is scheduled to be the final race on the 2-mile configuration of the track that dates back to June 22, 1997 where Jeff Gordon was the events inaugural winner in front of his hometown crowd.
Kyle Busch remains the only driver in the field with more than 1 Cup win at the track where he scored his first ever Cup Series victory in 2005 followed by 2013, 2014 & 2019. Saturday's Xfinity Series Production Alliance Group 300:
Sunday's Cup Series Pala Casino 400:
Other Key Notes:
BY: Tom Luttermoser Image: Twitter, original unknown |