 Sunday Night's Busch light Clash in LA seems to have gotten far more love that last years. A lack of parts shortages and a better understanding of the GEN 7 race encouraged far more beating and banging. It also encouraged a little more aggression on track as seen with Allmendinger in practice and far more through the Heats, LCQs and Main event.
Here are the key moments that stuck out to me from Sunday's Clash at the LA Coliseum. The Good Toyotas The Toyotas came to LA to play, that's for sure. Out of 150 laps, the TRD bunch led nearly 2/3s of the event with a combined 91 laps led between Hamlin, Wallace and winner Martin Truex Jr. Each of these cars seemed to be able to drive right up through traffic with relative ease with Hamlin being the poster child. Could we see the return of TRD performance at short tracks in 2023? This would lead me to believe so. Ryan Preece Ryan Preece made his first full-time return appearance to the Cup Series Sunday in Stewart-Haas's #41 Mustang. Leading a race high 43 laps, Preece stood behind his New England short track prowess and likely could have had a shot to win the event if it were not for a fuel pump issue costing him spots. He finished P7 after a very impressive run. Bubba Wallace Wallace led the second most laps of any driver in the event at 40 after bumping car owner and TRD teammate Denny Hamlin early in the race. Wallace truly showed just how good he is becoming on short tracks with his smooth handling of the wheel and the ease he was able to maneuver lapped traffic in the 1/4 Coliseum. He was dumped by Austin Dillon in the second half and his 22nd place finish was in no way representative of the performance. THE BAD RFK Racing For practice as well as qualifying, RFK just never showed up. Last year's Bristol Night Race winning team that dominated with over 270 laps led never even made an appearance in LA. Keselowski spun several times in his Heat and LCQ and we only ever really saw Buescher in the background. For a team that improved as much as they did last year, this could be a fluke... or it could a not very good sign. FIRES We, yet again, had another heat related fire in a car during practice. Ty Gibbs #54 Camry got very smokey and eventually the door impact absorbing foam caught fire inside the car. Now this comes after NASCAR made substantial changes to the cars to prevent this, so, what happened? Turns out it was faulty installation on the part of the Joe Gibbs Racing 54 team and nothing to do with the car itself. Still not a good look. Chase Elliott 2020 Cup Series Champion Chase Elliott has proven to be a fairly competent short track racer. But that was not the case for the Clash in LA. Chase Failed to appear during practice and fell back to a Last Chance Qualifier. But buried in the pack Elliott was essentially taken out early on and finished 21st with front end damage.
0 Comments
 Image & Article By: Tom Luttermoser
When Gene Haas brought Tony Stewart on as co-owner of the newly rebranded Stewart-Haas Racing in 2009, they saw instant success with 4 wins in their first season. Including teammate Ryan Newman they would go on for a total of 13 victories in the first 3 years alone PLUS the teams first championship in 2011. 2014 brought in former Cup champion Kurt Busch and Kevin Harvick from RCR. Together the duo would score 6 victories and the team's second title with Kevin Harvick. Since then the team has gone on to be a major success scoring 69 Cup victories to date. Harvick has been a constant threat to win nearly every single week for several years with Kurt Busch winning in each of his seasons with the team and solid runs from Almirola as well. But over the last 2 years we have seen the team sort of... fall off. Harvick fresh off a 9 win 2020 season went winless in 2021. '21 saw a single win for the team that otherwise has been a terrifying opponent. Aero changes for the Mustang in 2021 and the NEXT Gen car in 2022 seemed to be challenges that took the team a while to overcome finally scoring 3 victories this season. Added to that, early in the 2022 season Aric Almirola announced that he would retire after the end of the season even though it was announced that he signed a new contract later into the year. With him likely would have gone longtime Almirola sponsor Smithfield Foods who came with Aric from Richard Petty Motorsports. Also going into 2023 we know that Kevin Harvick's contract is up, if he retires (which seems very likely), SHR's veteran backbone driver is gone. Possibly major sponsorship as well if he was to go. Technical alliances are also a big deal to major teams like SHR. This postseason we have seen SHR lose 2 alliances, Rick Ware Racing was first. RWR made the announcement a couple weeks ago that they would leave their technical alliance with SHR and move over to Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing for 2023. Then, just last week, Live Fast Motorsports made the change over from Ford to Chevrolet. A technical alliance is where 2 or more teams join resources to share data, parts, knowhow and sometimes shop space, for a cost of course. So that means SHR just lost 2 streams of income. This is just another issue that the team has not publicly addressed nor have I seen any of my fellow Media members look into. (Edit): As of this past week SHR and AM Racing announced an Xfinity Series technical alliance for the 2023 season. Is this a sign that something is off internally at SHR? Maybe the team just needs a bit of a refresh, you've got 2 young and hungry drivers in Chase Briscoe and now Ryan Preece. We all know Stewart hasn't been happy with the sanctioning body lately. Plus with focus going on NHRA and SRX, Stewart seems to maybe have his focus a bit more on the other 2 ventures rather than NASCAR. We reached out to the team and will share any answers or responses we get. |