Thirty-eight cars are on the NASCAR Cup entry list for Sunday’s race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.
The race airs at 3 p.m. ET on NBCSN.
The entry list has JJ Yeley in the No. 27 for Rick Ware Racing. Joey Gase is in the No. 51 for RWR. James Davison will make his third start of the season but first for RWR. Garrett Smithley will drive the No. 77 for Spire Motorsports.
The Xfinity and the Gander RV & Outdoors Truck Series are both off this weekend.
A packed month of NASCAR racing continues this week with all three national series visiting Kansas Speedway.
The Cup Series will have its fourth event in in less than two weeks when it races Thursday night (7:30 pm ET on NBCSN and the NBC Sports app).
The Truck Series hold races Friday and Saturday and the Xfinity Series joins them at the 1.5-mile track on Saturday.
Forty cars are entered.
Reed Sorenson is entered in Tommy Baldwin Racing’s No. 7 Chevrolet.
JJ Yeley is entered in Rick Ware Racing’s No. 27 Ford.
Josh Bilicki is entered in Rick Ware Racing No. 51 Chevrolet.
Garrett Smithley is entered in Spire Motorsports’ No. 77 Chevrolet.
Last year’s races at Kansas were won by Brad Keselowski and Denny Hamlin.
Click here for the entry list.
Xfinity – Kansas Lottery 250 (5 p.m. ET Saturday on NBCSN)
Thirty-seven cars are entered.
Kaz Grala is entered in Richard Childress Racing’s No. 21 Chevrolet for his first start of the year.
Carson Ware is entered in SS Green Light Racing’s No. 07 Chevrolet.
Last year’s Xfinity race at Kansas was won by Brandon Jones over Tyler Reddick and Chase Briscoe.
Click here for the entry list.
Truck Series (7 p.m. ET Friday on FS1 and 1 p.m. ET Saturday on FS1)
Thirty-nine trucks are entered in both races. The are two differences in drivers for the doubleheader. For Hill Motorsports’ No. 56 Chevrolet, Timmy Hill is entered in Friday’s race and Tyler Hill is entered in Saturday’s race.
Kevin Donahue is listed for Reaume Brothers Racing’s No. 33 Toyota for Friday and Ryan Huff is entered in it for Saturday.
Ross Chastain won last year’s Kansas race over Ben Rhodes and Todd Gilliland.
Click here for race No. 1’s entry list.
Brad Keselowski says that NASCAR should consider a system where drivers are removed from Cup when they have repeated on-track issues.
Keselowski made his comments after Sunday’s race at Texas Motor Speedway when he was asked about rookie Quin Houff causing a caution on Lap 307 of the 334-lap race. Houff cut down from the middle lane in Turn 4 to head to pit road. He made contact with Christopher Bell and Matt DiBenedetto to bring out the caution.
Austin Dillon took two tires during that caution and restarted second to teammate Tyler Reddick, who took fuel only. Dillon took the lead and held the field off on two more restarts to win his first Cup race since the 2018 Daytona 500.
Asked about how a random incident such as Houff’s changed the race’s outcome, Keselowski said “there are two ways to look at it.”
Keselowski acknowledged the incident helped create “a more entertaining finish, so if you like chaos, then that was good.”
But Keselowski had another view of the matter.
“I think on the other side of that there’s the, ‘Hey, I’m a professional race car driver that’s worked my entire career to get here,’ ” he said. “Had to jump through a lot of hoops to make it and would like to think that those efforts have created a spot for me in this series to be joined with peers of similar talent levels.’
“I have nothing personal against anyone that has an issue like that because they do happen from time to time, but there are certainly a handful of drivers that kindly I wonder exactly how they got to this level. Part of it plays into all the rules. When you’ve got this rules package with cars that are super easy to drive by themselves, it’s very hard for NASCAR, I think, to be able to tell who’s got it and who doesn’t.
“So it kind of puts them in a box until you actually get in a race, but one thing I would like to see, and I think I’ve been pretty consistent with this, is I would like to see drivers be able to graduate into this level and equally I’d like to see them be able to be removed from this level when they have repeated issues.
“I can’t speak enough to the gentleman that had that issue today, but I have seen in the past where drivers that have had this issue multiple times somehow are still here, where I think they should effectively be placed in a lower series or asked to go back to a more minor league level to prove their salt. But that’s ultimately not my decision to make. It’s what I would like to see, but it’s not my decision to make and until it is, I guess I should probably just shut up, but I certainly think there’s some merit to it.”
Houff posted a video on social media taking blame for the incident with Bell and DiBenedetto.
“We were trying to get to pit road and I didn’t get called off in time and the guys that were committed underneath me were already there and that’s my fault,” Houff said. “I had a spotter mirror that we use in the window on the left side of the car and it had fallen off, so I couldn’t see out of that. Rookie mistake. It’s one of those really tough learning instances. It’s unfortunate because it was a new car for us. … Only way to go is up.”
Really tough one to swallow… Hate this for my team and those I got into trying to get to pit road too late. Will just learn from this and move forward. I can’t thank @StarcomRacing and @Permatex enough for all their hard work and support. Onto @kansasspeedway pic.twitter.com/HEIcMIwvFf
— Quin Houff (@P1_Houff) July 19, 2020
The incident was the third time Houff has caused a caution in the last nine Cup races. He had an incident in the first Pocono race where he spun while underneath another car and hit the inside SAFER barrier. The StarCom Racing Twitter account stated that Houff was alongside another car and the air sucked the car around. Houff tweeted that day “Embarrassing my @StarComRacing guys don’t deserve that. We will be back stronger tomorrow!” Houff also was listed on NASCAR’s race report as being in an incident at Martinsville in June.
Houff also has had better moments on the track this season. He finished a season-best 23rd at Indianapolis, a race that saw Ryan Newman, Erik Jones, Alex Bowman and Denny Hamlin crash because of right front tire issues.
The 22-year-old Houff has 35 career Cup starts. He ran 17 races last season and has run all 18 races this year for StarCom Racing. He had 10 Xfinity starts, no Truck starts and five ARCA starts before he moved to Cup in 2019.
Kyle Busch raised a similar concern about some drivers at Las Vegas in last year’s playoffs. Busch was upset after contact with Garrett Smithley. Busch said after the race: “We’re at the top echelon of motorsports, and we’ve got guys who have never won Late Model races running on the racetrack. It’s pathetic. They don’t know where to go. What else do you do?”
Michael McDowell will start on the pole for the NASCAR Open at Bristol Motor Speedway after a random draw. Aric Almirola joins him on the front row.
Click here for NASCAR Open starting lineup
The winners of each segment advance to the All-Star Race, along with the fan vote winner. Last year, Kyle Larson won a segment in the Open to advance to the All-Star Race and then won that event. Other segment winners last year were William Byron and Bubba Wallace. Alex Bowman advanced through the fan vote a year ago. Bowman has already qualified for this year’s All-Star Race.
NASCAR Open at Bristol
Race Time: 7 p.m. ET Wednesday
Track: Bristol Motor Speedway; Bristol, Tennessee (0.533-mile speedway)
Length: 85 laps over three segments, 45.3 miles
Segments: Segment 1 is 35 laps. Segment 2 is 35 laps. Segment 3 is 15 laps.
TV coverage: FS1
Radio: Performance Racing Network (also SiriusXM NASCAR Radio)
Streaming: Fox Sports app (subscription required); goprn.com and SiriusXM for audio (subscription required)
Next Xfinity race: Saturday at Texas (200 laps, 300 miles), 3 p.m. ET on NBCSN
Next Truck race: Saturday at Texas (167 laps, 250.5 miles) 8 p.m. ET on FS1
With 10 races left in the Cup regular season, the push for stage points is starting to play a key role in strategy and the results are showing in the standings.
Austin Dillon holds what would be the 16th and final playoff heading into Sunday’s race at Kentucky Speedway (2:30 p.m. ET on FS1). But as Matt Kenseth nearly showed last weekend at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, a victory by a driver outside the top 16 will take a playoff spot away from one hoping to make it by points.
Teams also are mindful that the regular season finale will be at Daytona International Speedway, which could lead to a surprise winner. Three of the last five Cup points races at Daytona saw a driver score either their first or second career Cup win: Dillon, Erik Jones and Justin Haley.
Teams already are trying different strategies to get away from 16th in the standings or climb into a potential playoff spot.
Matt DiBenedetto entered the Pocono doubleheader weekend 15th in the standings. Focusing on stage results, he scored 17 stage points in the two races that weekend and added 11 stage points last weekend at Indy.
“Stage points can just make such a huge difference, especially this point in the year when the point stuff is really starting to settle out a little bit,” DiBenedetto said after the Pocono weekend. “People are settling in place, so you’ve got to take everything you can get because that makes a big difference as far as securing a solid spot in the playoffs.”
Those 28 stage points he’s earned the past three races helped DiBenedetto climb to 12th in the standings heading to Kentucky. He’s scored 26 more stage points than Clint Bowyer the past three races. That 26-point advantage helped put DiBenedetto three points ahead of Bowyer in standings.
William Byron won the first stage last weekend at Indy and collected 10 stage points (and one playoff point) after crew chief Chad Knaus had Byron stay on track under caution when most of the leaders did pit with eight laps left in the stage. Byron restarted in the lead and held that position for the final four laps of the stage under green.
Those 10 points helped Byron pass Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jimmie Johnson for 14th in the standings. Byron leads Johnson, who sat out Indy because he had tested positive for COVID-19, by two points. Johnson has since had two negative tests for the coronavirus and been reinstated for this weekend.
Another driver who has benefitted from a strategy focused on stage points is Dillon. He’s scored 18 stage points the past three races to nine stage points by Jones. Dillon holds what would be the final playoff spot by six points on Jones.
2. Will this be Kyle Busch’s weekend?
The reigning series champion has one win in the last 38 races but heads to a Kentucky Speedway that has been good to him, even though Kurt Busch nipped his younger brother for the win in last year’s race.
Kyle Busch has two wins in nine starts at Kentucky and leads all drivers in top-five finishes (seven), top-10 finishes (eight) and laps led (621) at the track.
Busch’s lone victory in the last 38 races came in last year’s championship race in Miami. In that same span, his Joe Gibbs Racing teammates have combined to win 14 races.
Also during that 38-race stretch, Denny Hamlin and Kevin Harvick have combined to win 16 races (42.1%). Each has eight wins in that time.
3. Speeding on pit road
Here’s a look at the number of pit road speeding penalties drivers have had in the first 16 races of the Cup season:
6 – Quin Houff
5 – Ryan Newman, Bubba Wallace
4 – Corey LaJoie, Garrett Smithley, Daniel Suarez
3 – Ty Dillon, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., JJ Yeley,
2 – Christopher Bell, Clint Bowyer, Kyle Busch, Matt DiBenedetto, Austin Dillon, Denny Hamlin, Timmy Hill, Brad Keselowski, Joey Logano, Michael McDowell, Brennan Poole, Ryan Preece.
1 – Chris Buescher, William Byron, Chase Elliott, Joey Gase, Erik Jones, Matt Kenseth, John Hunter Nemechek, Tyler Reddick,
0 – Aric Almirola, Ryan Blaney, Alex Bowman, Kurt Busch, Cole Custer, Kevin Harvick, Jimmie Johnson, Martin Truex Jr.
4. Streakin’
With Jimmie Johnson missing last weekend’s race at Indianapolis after testing positive for COVID-19, his consecutive starts streak ended at 663, ranking fifth on the all-time list. Johnson has since been cleared to race this weekend at Kentucky Speedway.
Kevin Harvick ranks sixth on the list of longest consecutive starts streak with 656 consecutive starts heading into Sunday’s race at Kentucky Speedway.
Here is the top 6 in longest consecutive streaks:
797 — Jeff Gordon
788 — Ricky Rudd
704 — Bobby Labonte
697 — Rusty Wallace
663 — Jimmie Johnson
656 — Kevin Harvick
5. More of the same for Chevy teams?
Chevrolet teams are winless in their last eight Cup races and the manufacturer has one win in nine races at Kentucky. That victory came last year with Kurt Busch beating Kyle Busch at the finish.
Since Chase Elliott won the second Charlotte race in late May, Chevy drivers have not won. Elliott finished second in Miami, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. was second at Talladega and Matt Kenseth was second at Indianapolis.