DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Stewart-Haas Racing driver Kevin Harvick certainly earned one of the most dramatic victories of the season last weekend at Michigan International Speedway.
The 2014 NASCAR Cup Series champion’s win, his first in the last 65 races, catapulted him from 17th place in the standings into playoff contention with only three races remaining to set the 16-driver field.
The clutch performance certainly increases the drama expected for the rest of the month. The schedule features races at the Richmond (Va.) Raceway short track, the Watkins Glen (N.Y.) International road course and the regular-season finale at the always unpredictable Daytona International Speedway’s 2.5-mile superspeedway.
Sunday’s Federated Auto Parts 400 at Richmond Raceway (3 p.m. ET on USA, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) has typically lived up to its “Action Track” nickname, and with the current playoff intensity, the moniker is certainly well-deserved.
Joe Gibbs Racing driver Denny Hamlin, a two-race winner already in 2022, won the spring Richmond race. And his teammate Martin Truex Jr. is the defending winner of this summer/fall event – a good sign for the driver of the No. 19 JGR Toyota who dropped to 17th place in the standings with Harvick’s win last week.
He trails Team Penske’s Ryan Blaney by 19 points for that 16th and last automatic playoff transfer position.
Truex is one of seven multiple winners at Richmond, sweeping the 2019 season races and last hoisting a trophy in this race last year. He’s had top-10 finishes in three of the last four races leading into Richmond, tying a season-best fourth-place finish after leading 172 laps at New Hampshire four weeks ago.
The three top-five finishes and 10 top-10 finishes through the first 23 races is well off the Truex pace the sport has come to expect, however. He’s had at least 20 top-10 marks in the five previous seasons.
Prior to the season’s first green flag, most would have absolutely assumed both Truex and Blaney would have a victory by now.
Blaney has nearly as many top-five finishes (eight) this year as he did all of last year (10), but third place is his best result – earning it at Nashville earlier this summer. Twice he’s led at least 100 laps in a race (Phoenix and Richmond) so maybe this return trip to Richmond will result in his first win at the track. His only two top-10 finishes in 12 starts there came in the last two races and his 128 laps led this Spring are the only laps he’s ever led there.
Even if Truex doesn’t win the race, a good finish could possibly move him ahead of Blaney’s tenuous 19-point advantage only intensifying the dramatic run to Playoff eligibility.
Seven of the nine the active Richmond winners have already secured playoff positions with a win this season. Those drivers are Kyle Busch, who has a series-best six victories, Hamlin (4), Harvick (3), Truex (3), Brad Keselowski (2), Joey Logano (2), Kurt Busch (2), Alex Bowman (1) and reigning Cup champion Kyle Larson (1).
Truex and Keselowski are the two still searching for their first victory of 2022.
Interestingly, nine of the 15 drivers still hoping to earn a playoff position have wins at one of the three remaining tracks. Seven of the drivers currently ranked outside the top-10 in the series driver standings have hoisted a trophy at Daytona International Speedway, site of the regular season finale on Aug. 27.
Of note, current points leader Chase Elliott stands to officially clinch the Cup Series regular season championship if he earns 58 points at Richmond. The 2020 series champion would become the fifth different driver to win the award since it was created in 2017.
Kyle Busch is the only driver to have earned it twice (2018 and 2019). Larson (2021), Busch (2019) and Truex (2017) are the only drivers to win both the regular season championship and go on to claim the season title in the same year.
Practice and Busch Light Pole Qualifying will be aired on the USA Network this Saturday from 5-7 p.m. ET.
Camping World Truck Series playoffs in full swing
The green flag waves Saturday night for the second race in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series playoffs with the Worldwide Express 250 for Carrier Appreciation at Richmond (Va.) Raceway (8 p.m. ET on FS1, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Veteran Grant Enfinger has already secured his second-round berth with a victory in the series’ Playoff opener at Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park on July 29. And he shows up in Richmond looking to make it two playoff wins in a row at a venue where he’s proven to be especially capable. He hoisted at trophy at Richmond in 2020 and was eighth in the race last year.
Three-race winner Zane Smith won the regular season championship, and now the driver of the No. 38 Front Row Motorsports Ford is hoping his third championship run is the charm after finishing runner-up in both the 2020 and 2021 final standings.
The 23-year-old Californian will take a 14-point lead over defending series champion Ben Rhodes into the second race of the seven-race, elimination-style playoff run. Rhodes, a one-time winner this season in the No. 99 ThorSport Toyota, has been strong at the .75-mile Richmond oval with top-10 finishes in both previous races there – his average finish of 5.0 in those two starts is best among all the playoff drivers except Enfinger.
Stewart Friesen sits only 22 points behind Smith in the standings. His best showing at Richmond is 10th, in 2020.
Last year’s regular season champion John Hunter Nemechek and his Kyle Busch Motorsports teammate, two-race winner Chandler Smith, are tied – 26 points off Zane Smith’s pace. Nemechek, driver of the No. 4 Kyle Busch Motorsports Toyota, is the defending Richmond race winner having led a dominant 114 of the 250 laps in last year’s victory over his team owner Kyle Busch.
The driver of the No. 66 ThorSport Racing Toyota, Ty Majeski, is in the midst of his playoff debut and goes into the race 31 points behind Zane Smith. He is the first of four winless drivers to complete the 10-driver playoff lineup.
Also still vying for their first wins of the season are Carson Hocevar, who is 43 points behind Smith in the championship, followed by three-time series champion Matt Crafton and Christian Eckes – ThorSport Racing teammates who are tied a mere seven points from the cutoff heading to Richmond.
Only eight of the 10 drivers advance into the second round of the playoff races, so Crafton and Eckes will need to make a move in the standings at Richmond.
Crafton was runner-up to Enfinger in the 2020 race. Eckes is looking for his first top-10 finish at the track.
NASCAR Cup Series
Next Race: Federated Auto Parts 400
The Place: Richmond Raceway
The Date: Sunday, August 14
The Time: 3 p.m. ET
The Purse: $7,144,995
TV: USA, 2 p.m. ET
Radio: MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio
Distance: 300 miles (400 laps); Stage 1 (Ends on Lap 70),
Stage 2 (Ends on Lap 230), Final Stage (Ends on Lap 400)
NASCAR Camping World Truck Series
Next Race: Worldwide Express 250 for Carrier Appreciation
The Place: Richmond Raceway
The Date: Saturday, August 13
The Time: 8 p.m. ET
The Purse: $744,951
TV: FS1, 7 p.m. ET
Radio: MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio
Distance: 187.5 miles (250 Laps); Stage 1 (Ends on Lap 70),
Stage 2 (Ends on Lap 140), Final Stage (Ends on Lap 250)
–By NASCAR NewsWire, Special to Field Level Media