 By: Tom Luttermoser Image Via: howiedisavinio.com I had my very first sit down interview with 21 year old Virginia native Howie DiSavino III on Wednesday. For those of you who don't know that name off the top of your heads, Howie split the Alpha Prime Racing 44/45 Chevrolet Camaros in the Xfinity Series with a few others in the organization. He has run part time schedules in ARCA, Trucks and now Xfinity since 2019 running for teams such as Alpha Prime and Jordan Anderson Racing with an eye on going full time as soon as possible. I was blown away by how humble and down to earth Howie is. Growing up in the same place as future NASCAR Hall of Famer Denny Hamlin in Chesterfield, VA. Howie and his family moved when he was 4 years old to a 90 acre farm and grew up farming pretty much his whole life driving tractors and ATVs. Around age 8, he fell in love with racing and wanted to try it out, "After 4 years of begging my parents to get into a race car, I finally got into a race car." Calling himself a good ol' country boy from Virginia. In his own words, Howie took the same steps into racing as Denny growing up, he did not get started in go-karts like many others. Howie started late when he was 13 in Arena Racing and moved straight to late models. Asking about the drivers he looks up to, he immediately name dropped Denny Hamlin as the duo are from Chesterfield... and with 48 Cup wins to his name, that's not a bad influence to have. Howie's first entry into a NASCAR National Series was the 2021 Richmond race in the #3 Jordan Anderson Racing Chevrolet Silverado where he finished P.34. Fielding the #3 for 5 races in '21 Howie had a best finish of 22nd at Pocono. in 2022 he partnered up with Alpha Prime Racing in the Xfinity Series where he DNQ'd at Richmond but moved on to Martinsville, he qualified P.22 out qualifying Hall of Fame driver Dale Earnhardt Jr. Howie even sat P.1 in qualifying for quite some time locking himself into the show, but a broken driveshaft on lap 37 took them out early on. A few weeks later at New Hampshire Howie held on to a career best top-20 finish at 19th, but with 2 disqualifications ahead of him, the 44 team slid up the pilon to 17th. One of the topics I asked Howie about was his sponsor for both Talladega and this weekend's Martinsville race, The Travis Mills Foundation. Per their mission statement, "The Travis Mills Foundation supports recalibrated veterans and their families through various programs that help these heroic men and women overcome physical and emotional obstacles, strengthen their families, and provide well-deserved rest and relaxation." As a lifelong supporter of our vets, I have always tried to support foundations like this and the Travis Mills Foundation will be no different. So if you have the time or means to do so, go check them out at travismillsfoundation.org/ I want to thank once again Taylor Kitchen for setting up this interview between myself and Howie. Howie, it was great chatting with you and I wish you luck this weekend at the Dead on Tools 250 at Martinsville. Here is the full interview.
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 By Tom Luttermoser
3x NASCAR Champion and Legend of motorsports Tony Stewart is looking to add to his resume this weekend in Las Vegas. Tony will field a Top Alcohol Dragster for McPhillips Racing after a handful of test runs over the last 2 years plus a couple sessions at Frank Hawley's Drag Racing School. The real thing is next for Smoke. Tony currently Co-Owns Tony Stewart Racing fielding Top Fuel dragsters & Funny Cars in the NHRA Camping World Drag Racing Series with his wife Leah Pruett and Matt Hagen, so drag racing is something Tony is very familiar with. “I’m excited and nervous at the same time,” said Tony. “It’s definitely going to be a big learning curve, and to do it at a national event right out of the gate adds to the challenge. But it’s something I’ve really been wanting to do and I’ve been working toward this moment. I’m not taking it lightly. It’s a serious business and I’m going to be as prepared as possible when I get to Las Vegas.” He will compete in this weekends NHRA Nevada Nationals going on Oct. 28-30. These Top Alcohol dragsters are capable of 270+ MPH.  By: Tom Luttermoser Image: NASCAR on FOX Twitter
Not many expected the regular season champion to have to rely on his playoff points to get him from round to round in the Playoffs. Luckily for Chase Elliott fans, he really hasn't had to. What he has done however is slide through the Round of 16 bleeding just few enough points, pulled a last second win at Talladega to get to the Round of 8 and then bleed points so far in this round. Elliott even bled points in the Round of 12 but the win locked him in, so we didn't really care. Race 1 of the Round of 8 at Vegas and Elliott doesn't even show up, never really progressing passed P20. He did however make an appearance at Homestead. But Elliott came into the Round of 8 +31 over the cut line, Came out of Vegas +17 and left Homestead only +11. That means without winning the regular season title, Elliott would be below the cutline. Without his Regular season dominance, he would be well below that line. Elliott only scored 16 points at Las Vegas, but nearly doubled that at Homestead with 31, 8 of which were those ever important stage points. taking a look all the way back to Darlington and the start of the Playoffs, Chase Elliott went from points leader to only collecting 213 points since, that's only 43 more than Harvick in last. His teammate, Kyle Larson, who didn't make it to the Round of 8 has scored 285 and his teammate Byron who has acquired the most points during the playoffs has scored 337 points. Chase has bled points nearly every single race, but there is some hope for Elliott nation going into the final cut race, Martinsville. Martinsville has been good to Elliott, he nearly scored his first career win there back when, before rebranding the team from 24 to 9. remember, this was the track that gifted him a win to get his 2020 title and 5 Top-5s in 14 races there. Chase has an average Martinsville finish of 12.7. If Elliott can score stage points and keep out of trouble, he can easily squeeze on out to the Final 4. But any issues at all with a little decent luck to his Round of 8 competition or a win by a driver like Bell or Briscoe and he fails to make it to what would otherwise be his 3rd Final 4 appearance.  By: Tom Luttermoser Image: Kaulig Racing Twitter
It was recently announced that AJ Allmendinger would once again step into a full-time roll in the Cup Series, this time running the #16 Kaulig Racing Chevrolet Camaro ZL1. AJ has shown the reason he was tasked with that seat next year, AJ has scored 8 Top-10s in his last 11 Cup starts in the 16. He has battled for the win in 3 races this season at COTA, the ROVAL and most recently Homestead-Miami, and all of this on top of being a potential title contender for the 2022 Xfinity Series. AJ has run 16 (coincidence? I think not!) Cup races so far this season and will finish the season in the car in place of Noah Gragson as he fills in for an injured Alex Bowman in the 48 car. Of those 16 races, 3 of them were Top-5s on top of the Top-10s. It's not just AJ coming alive late in the season, his Kaulig teammate Justin Haley has even run far better in the later stages of this season even scoring 2 Top-5s at Texas and the ROVAL. AJ Allmendinger battled hard with potential title contender Ross Chastain after the final restart at Homestead coming up just a bit short of second after getting a little loose in the closing laps. Had AJ made the pass cleanly over Ross, the speed of the 16 may have allowed him to close in on the 5 of race winner Kyle Larson, maybe not competing for the win at that point, but still a super strong outing for the driver once thought to only be any good at the road courses. Count this team and this driver into the Playoffs in 2023.  Image & Story By: Dylan Alarcon
Homestead, FL - Noah Gragson claimed a dominating victory at Homestead-Miami Speedway, winning every stage of the race and leading 127 of 200 laps en rout to his eighth victory of the season. Adding to the dominance, Noah won both stages as well. This win in the Xfinity playoffs Round of 8 guarantees him a spot in the Final Four to race for the Xfinity Series championship at Phoenix. His victory at the track comes over a year after his last visit where a heartbreaking crash with David Starr ended his chance for what was almost a certain victory when Starr lost a tire and went into the wall exiting turn 2 with only three laps to go, collecting Gragson who had built up a substantial lead. The Miami heat most definitely wore down on the driver who was appeared out of breath already during a pre-race interview. but that didn't stop the driver from making a dominating comeback en route to this 8th win of the season. This year marks Gragson's final full time season in the number 9 JR Motorsports Chevrolet and final chance for an Xfinity title as he moves up to full-time in the Cup series racing for Petty-GMS.  By: Tom Luttermoser Image: NASCAR Twitter
In a return to form from 2021, Kyle Larson put on a "ass kicking" at Homestead-Miami. Larson out of the playoffs after the ROVAL comes back to a track that he has had such great performance in the past... and wins. Larson credits a car "tough enough" for him to run the wall and still finish as one of the reasons he was able to go out and get the win on Sunday. Larson went out and led 199 out of 267 laps in rout to his 19th career victory. This was by far his most dominant display all season long in a season that saw the defending champion out of title contention in only the second round. After what most would agree was the most dominant season it at least a decade in 2021, it is no secret that Larson has not yet hit his stride in this new car. But Sunday's showing sure was a sigh of relief for the Larson faithful.  By: Tom Luttermoser Image: Toyota Racing
In 2 weeks we say goodbye to Camping World as the entitlement sponsor for the NASCAR Truck Series. Next season we see the return of Craftsman in their place. With his first career win at Bristol, Ty Majeski locked himself into the Championship 4 but solidified himself as a Championship favorite by scoring his second career win Saturday at Homestead-Miami. In post race interviews, teammate Ben Rhodes even said Ty is the one to beat. Zane Smith was the early season title favorite by winning early at Daytona and then again at COTA and Kansas. He has not fallen off all season long but hasn't scored a win since back at Kansas in the spring. Zane has finished runner up in the title at Phoenix for the last two seasons making sure that you know he should be one of your picks for sure. Ben Rhodes held up the trophy at the end of the 2021 season by making a late race pass over Zane Smith and this year he is going to try to go back to back. Ben made a late race pass over teammate Christian Eckes to break his tie with Stuart Friesen and holding off a hard charging Matt Crafton in the process. Ben moves on with 1 win back on the dirt at Bristol and he does it by only 1 point. Chandler Smith is the only KBM driver to make it to the Championship 4 in 2022. Chandler moves on with 3 wins and 6 Stage wins which makes him the second highest performer of the season behind the other Smith, Zane. Chandler led 440 laps so far this season and he is still one of the stronger trucks in the field. We all know Chandler is moving to Xfinity with Kaulig, can he get Kyle Busch Motorsports their last title with TRD? Their last win? In 2 weeks we will find out. So who will hoist the final Camping World Truck Series Championship trophy? Who do you think it will be? And with that, we see the final 4 cuts for the final 4, combined they had 4 wins and 9 Stage wins. We tip our hats to John Hunter Nemechek, Grant Enfinger, Stewart Friesen and Christian Eckes. There's always 2023. By: Tom Luttermoser
After qualifying on Saturday, William Byron sits on the Pole for the first time this season with bottom seed Christopher Bell sitting outside Pole. We also saw a lot of speed from the Toyota camp with all 6 Toyotas in the Top-15 and 3 in the Top-10. Keeping with Toyota, for the first time in their short history, 23XI has both of their cars qualifying in the Top-10 (both with reserve drivers). With the story lines after qualifying, these are the 5 drivers/teams to keep an eye out for; 5.) Chase Elliott - After not showing up to race at Las Vegas, the 9 team showed a tremendous amount of speed running P.2 in practice and ending up P.3 in qualifying. Elliott only has 2 Top-5s at NASCAR's southernmost race track so he doesn't have a spectacular record there. But with the speed and the new race car, that could be broken Sunday. 4.) Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing - Talk about a comeback story. Brad Keselowski came to Roush to rebuild the team as a Co-Owner this season and they have done just that. Leading laps, contending for wins and even scoring their first win since 2017, BKR has come alive in the second half of this season. Here at Homestead, both Brad and Chris qualified in the Top-10... 8th and 9th. They have been fast later in the season, don't count either of them out. 3.) 23XI Racing - Even with 2 fill in drivers, both of the 23XI cars raced their way into the Top-10 in qualifying, Gibbs 6th and Nemechek 4th. This should be no surprise as both of their Full-time drivers found victory lane this season. Nemechek hasn't been in a Cup Series car since 2020 and this weekend's practice were his first time in the NEXT-GEN car. Keep an eye out on that 45 car. 2.) Christoher Bell - After being take out early last week at Las Vegas, Bell fell to 23 points behind the cut line. But this weekend in qualifying, Bell held the pole until the last moments when it was taken over by Byron. He isn't in a must win position, but why let yourself get there at all? Go win. 1.) William Byron - Byron is the most recent Homestead winner, but you have to go to an out of date car and a whole other season to get to that point. He comes into this race on the Pole and he took the pole from Christopher Bell by .049 seconds.  After Kyle Busch wrecked Ron Horniday. Texas 2012. Credit David Kent By: Tom Luttermoser Disclaimer: Most drivers and teams have a different contract agreement so these may not count for each situation. Elephant in the room all week.. The Bubba Wallace suspension... just 1 race and people are absolutely losing their sheeeeet. Fans seem to think that Wallace deserved a longer suspension than he received and they're not happy with 1 race, but most don't truly understand the penalty. Now this article is not going to dive into that situation, but what it will look into is quite simply why even just 1 lonesome little race weekend suspension can have far greater effect on a driver than a monetary fine and a few points. To understand the suspension penalty, you first must understand how it has been used throughout NASCAR history. If you take a look at the chart below (it's not mine, there is a small mistake with the Kenseth/Logano 2015 run-in) 24 intentional, on-track incidents ranging from 2002 until this past weekend's Las Vegas race. Of those 23 situations prior to Vegas, only 4 times has a driver ever been suspended, 3 for a single race or race weekend. In English, NASCAR does not just suspend drivers. They have to feel that the offense is so outrageous that it is necessary. The harshest suspension penalty in the history of the sport for intentionally spinning or wrecking an opponent was the 2015 Fall Martinsville race where Matt Kenseth intentionally waited down the leader and Championship contender Joey Logano and with an already ruined race car, ran him directly into the Turn 1 wall in what was clearly retaliation for an earlier incident at Kansas. Kenseth was suspended for the next 2 race weekends in what is still to this day, the only time a driver has ever been suspended for more than 1 event weekend.  Moving on, I've been seeing a lot of people out here saying that a 1 race suspension isn't a penalty... "it is nothing more than a day off." You couldn't be further from the truth. Most of these guys don't drive race cars for the money (I'm sure it doesn't hurt), they drive because they love what they do. So let's just say a driver continues getting paid in full for a suspended weekend.. (doubtful) They still have to sit back knowing that someone else is doing what they love and they are doing it in THEIR race car.
On the other side of that is what hurts a bit less in the heart and a lot more in the pocket book. As stated above, each situation is different so this may not be the case for one driver or another. A suspension could cost the driver their Salary plus any type of performance bonuses. Now todays drivers aren't raking in the dough like those in the age of 8 figure contracts like Gordon, Johnson and the Busch brothers, but it's not pennies either. The largest penalty for a like situation was on Jeff Gordon in 2012 of $100,000. The suspension of a weekend off could potentially cost a driver roughly the same if not more money focusing on just the salary and purse percentage. Next you have to factor in endorsements. These days, personal sponsorship endorsements can make up a very, very large percentage of their income in their careers with the shrinking of driver salaries. When spending millions of dollars in the sport, a sponsor expects to be on display as frequently as possible. So if a driver is not at the track or at an expected appearance for the sponsor, the sponsor could likely withdraw payment, or worse, cut ties with said driver. This could cost the obvious in sponsorship of the car and driver but also potentially even cost the driver a ride if that sponsor cannot be replaced. Not only could that sponsor pull the endorsement money due to absence of the driver, they could also look unfavorably on the fact a direct representative of their company... Their brand identity, has messed up in such a monumental way that it could have direct negative effects or thoughts toward their brand. Lastly, one of the biggest potential consequences of a suspension. For this, we go a bit back into the article and look at a fill-in driver. If the suspended driver has an average finish throughout the season of, I don't know, say 23rd and their fill-in driver takes their 1 off opportunity in their car and scores a finish of 17th. That could open up some eyeballs. If that fill-in out performs the original driver in their car, they could potentially open discussion within the race team to replace the suspended driver. So you may think that a 1 race suspension just isn't enough, and frankly, it may not be. But NASCAR does not just suspend drivers for intentional contact. They have reserved it only for situations they thought to be the most egregious situations in the sport. It may just be a single weekend, but it can have lasting effects on not only a drivers season... But their entire career.  By: Dylan Alarcon Image uncredited via Twitter
Despite a forgettable season rife with mechanical issues and unlucky situations, Kyle Busch has quietly managed to finish 3rd in his last 2 consecutive races. The first coming at the Charlotte ROVAL and now at Las Vegas. Busch did so after not only spinning early, but also losing a left front wheel and having to limp his car back to pit road. Charlotte marked his first top 5 finish since June at Gateway. The third of three consecutive top 5 finishes that was then followed by a streak of sub-20th place finishes. With Busch's departure from Joe Gibbs Racing approaching, the playoff races at Homestead, Martinsville and Phoenix finale will be his final opportunities to score a final win with that organization in the iconic #18 car. Busch will be piloting the #8 car for Richard Childress Racing at the start of the 2023 season, taking over for Tyler Reddick. Reddick previously announced his departure from RCR to 23XI Racing set for the 2024 season, but Kurt Busch's premature retirement as a result of ongoing concussion-related symptoms has left a spot open for the #45 car, allowing owner Richard Childress to release Reddick a year early. The 45 is currently being piloted by Bubba Wallace in the pursuit of an owner's championship for 23XI Racing, with Xfinity driver Ty Gibbs piloting Wallace's 23 car for the remainder of the season. |