It took 17 years but against all odds the NASCAR Cup Series finally raced at Iowa Speedway and delivered when given the chance.
Between the new pavement, but only in the corners on the bottom, and a Cup Series that doesn’t race particularly well on one groove race track, the Iowa Corn 350 was not supposed to be an entertaining race.
It was and it was a successful race, too.
“The stands being packed tells the story,” said race winner Ryan Blaney afterwards. “From my side, that’s a cool atmosphere. Makes it seem like we’re doing something right coming to these tracks and putting on good shows for fans. They’re dedicated. That vibe I really like.”
Much to the surprise of some, at least based on the past week of discourse, there was a tremendous amount of passing.
For example, when a dominant Kyle Larson pitted for what he mistakenly thought was a flat right rear tire, he simply drove back through the top-30 and did it within the span of a single green flag run. There was a degree of tire conservation taking place and that created movement throughout the field.
With just the bottom half of both corners receiving the repave, the battles to stay on the fresh pavement created a lot of action, and the occasional crashes too.
There was a bit of advocacy throughout the final top-10 of wanting the entire track repaved before a race next season under the argument that it would make the track even wider.
That was best articulated by fifth-place finisher Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
“I thought the track raced really well for new pavement,” Stenhouse said. “Hopefully we can get more new pavement from all the way to the top and we can maybe start running all over this place like they were when we were last coming here.
“I think they did a great job. We were all questioning it and whether you could pass. The tires gave up a little speed every now and then. Late in the run, early in the run. There’s always things that could be better, but they did a pretty good job.”
Joey Logano finished sixth and echoed that sentiment.
“I think it would be better if they repaved the rest of it,” Logano said. “Because at no point does the track have more than two-and-a-half, three lanes, like it’ll never be wider like it is. Ever. Ever. Probably just do the rest. You don’t have to do the whole race track. You can keep the straightaways like it is, that’s fine. I would probably just bring it to where it all ends at the same point.
“I don’t know. It looks like they ran out of money. I don’t know the story of what happened, but what’s two more lanes?”
Devil’s advocacy: Two more lanes would prevent the kind of racing that saw Larson force a three-wide on Daniel Suarez and Denny Hamlin, causing a crash that eliminated the two points leaders as a result. Naturally, the drivers want more space to race but having them fight for real estate was half the fun watching from the outside.
The compromise might be waiting two or three more years and then pave the top because that would create the most grip right up against the wall but the bottom still has close to the same amount of grip and is still the shortest way around the track.
That could be really dynamic and interesting.
Either way, over 25,000 fans attended this inaugural race and the Xfinity Series race on Saturday was sold out too making this a holistic success no matter how the racing was viewed.
“I hope they have a Cup race here next year,” Blaney said. “I hope it comes back for a long time. I think the atmosphere around here this weekend was awesome. When was the last time Xfinity and Trucks ran here? ’19.
“To have NASCAR back in general, let alone a Cup race, people were psyched about that here in the Midwest who might not get to go to other races throughout the year. Maybe when we left, they couldn’t travel to go to a race. It’s nice to bring that back.”
Back on track
Blaney was never really at risk of missing the playoffs but the past two months were teetering in a way that had the potential to entirely spiral out of control if unchecked.
For example, even while still learning to maximize their new Ford Mustang Dark Horse body style, Blaney still showed consistency enough to have him fourth in the championship standings. The next nine races saw five finishes 20th or worse.
One of those came at Gateway where the Penske No. 12 was leading on the final lap and ran out of fuel. That was a spiral.
Suddenly, a team that was well over 100 points above the playoff cutline was just 74 up entering the weekend.
“I mean, I don’t look at it every day,” Blaney said. “I look at it Sunday night when it comes out, when y’all put it out. Okay, there it is. I don’t really pay attention to it the rest of the week but it was concerning when we had that stretch of bad races — Darlington, wrecking early at Charlotte, not finishing well at Gateway.
“I was like, ‘Man, we’re getting a little close to the cut line.’
Now, with his first victory of the season, Blaney is now guaranteed a playoff spot in the pursuit of chasing a second straight championship.
“It’s nice that you don’t have to look at it any more in that regard,” Blaney said. “You just look to where you are in Playoff Points.”
Danger zone
Kyle Busch is at serious risk of missing the playoffs.
That’s only happened once in his career, 2009, under a drastically tighter format but here we are, with nine races left in the regular season and the two-time champion may have to win a race to advance into the Round of 16.
The problem there is that his current 38 race winless streak is the longest of his career and he’s never not won a regular season race since 2004.
This time, a series of mechanical failures denied him a top-10 and at least a top half of the grid finish.
“NextGen parts and pieces broke,” Busch said. “Something in the left-rear suspension. I don’t know if it was a toe link or what it was, but it changed the skew of the back of the car and it was just undrivable doing that. We came in and fixed it. Rolling back out, we broke the belt. I have no idea, but frustrating, for sure.”
He’s not even the only two-time champion currently on the outside looking in as Logano is still six points provisionally behind Bubba Wallace for the last spot even after his top-10 finish.
Logano won the All Star Race last month but that was an exhibition race and doesn’t count towards the playoffs.
Complicating matters for both is that a new winner from outside the top-20 would make it even more likely that both will need to win their way into the Round of 16.
What if Michael McDowell wins at Chicago, Watkins Glen or Daytona? He very well could.
What about a Stewart-Haas Racing driver over the next nine? Josh Berry led late at Iowa.
The current cutline wouldn’t even be the cutline that Busch and Logano are chasing if someone really surprising wins.
Regular season points shake-up
The regular season championship got considerably more interesting after Sunday too.
Chase Elliott took the championship lead, a testament to his quietly successful campaign thus far, with just one win but a single finish worse than 20th. He was aided by the simultaneous misfortune to Larson and Denny Hamlin, who crashed out together in the aforementioned three-wide attempt on Lap 220.
“I haven’t seen a replay yet but I guess I could have been more patient and not gone three-wide up the middle, knowing who I was around,” Larson said. “I wanted to get as many cars as I could at the beginning of that run and it probably just ended up biting me.”
…
“I’m not sure if Suarez got loose under me or what happened but he got into my left rear and got me out of control.”
Regardless, Elliott now leads Larson by eight in the regular season championship battle with Hamlin falling to third and 38 points back. This matters because playoff points are what determine seeding at the start of each round.
Each driver has their points reset to a base total and then have that number increased by their number of playoff points, which are awarded for wins (5 each) and stage wins (1 each). Additionally, 15 playoff points are awarded to the regular season champion, 10 to the second driver in regular season points, seven to third and so forth through the top-10 in points with the 10th ranked driver getting a single playoff point.
In other words, this points battle has real stakes given how often advancing through the rounds come down to single digit points.
- Chase Elliott
- Kyle Larson -8
- Denny Hamlin -38
- William Byron -54
- Martin Truex -61
- Tyler Reddick -64
- Ryan Blaney -90
- Christopher Bell -93
- Brad Keselowski -93
- Ross Chastain -112
- Ty Gibbs -113
- Alex Bowman -117
- Chris Buescher -156
- Bubba Wallace -177
- Joey Logano -183
Matt Weaver is a Motorsports Insider for Sportsnaut. Follow him on Twitter.