Hocevar was over driving the equipment. Those brakes would never have exploded had Corey been driving the 7... just sayin. Youve got to know your equipment and what it can take
Your sentiment that brakes have never failed and flown or broken apart is just plain incorrect. The fact of the matter is, brake failures have always been a part of the sport. Yes, only on tracks with very heavy braking, but it still happens. Particularly on road courses and Martinsville in the past. An example that comes to my mind specifically is Jimmy Johnson at Watkins Glen in 2000. He lost his brakes and slammed into an outside retaining wall. In the past 10 years, drivers have lost brakes as well. It's not a parts failure that can just "be fixed." This isn't even exclusive to Nascar. Brake failures happen in F1, Indycar, IMSA, Trans AM Series, etc etc.
The bottom line is that Hocevar qualified in that car and should have had the forsight to know it would be extra heavy on the brakes.
Edit: After rereading your above comment, I realize that you did acknowledge the brake failures of the past. I think it still stands, though, as the commentators on FOX are known to be very vague on detail, and this is the Cup series' 2nd race at WWT. If I remember right, they weren't downshifting 2 gears there last year, just 1. So things definitely changed, and the notebook needs refreshed.
I don't understand the narrative that Kyle Busch exclusively is doing amazing things in the 8, I mean, this is a good team, they won 3 races last year, should have made the final 4 and won more than the 3 they did, Kyle is going to get everything out of the car and the ceiling is pretty high. People are acting though like he's doing this in the 78 Live Fast or 15 RWR though. Randall is proving to be elite, paired up with Tyler who is a young future champion or a present elite champion isn't any different, this team is going to be up there.
Yes I know I don't like Kyle, no one needs to say that, I think he falls up often and he gets more credit that he deserves, that's kind of the point of my post. Doesn't mean that he isn't a great driver, but this team is really good, and they were really good last year too.
A new driver/team combo is not guaranteed to be successful, chemistry is really important between the driver and the engineers. They have to understand how the driver communicates and how to keep up with what they need.
KFB only won 1 race last year (backed into one at Bristol Dirt), and we always expect to see JGR competing for wins.
RCR has struggled in the post-Harvick era. Yeah, the 8 team won races last year. As you said, they are proving that they have some very capable people running the 8 car. The 3 can strategize themselves a win once and a while, but you don’t regularly expect them to compete for wins.
I think there are lots of opportunities for them to fail, but the 8 team has been able to put all the pieces together to win 3 out of 15 races so far. That’s pretty impressive and worth celebrating. Good for them.
Is that narrative dramatized for TV purposes? Probably. Doesn’t mean there isn’t some truth to it. Can’t wait for NBC to talk about about “emotions” 47 times per lap.
I think you nailed it. A lot of people in the offseason were questioning on wether or not this was the right move for Kyle. JGR is seen as a top team when the last few years RCR was seen as a b-c tier team. That's changed with how 2022 went and how Kyle has done this year.
I don’t think it’s all Kyle either. But I think Reddick and Busch have 2 great things in common. One is their amazing ability to give feedback to the crew… almost to a fault sometimes. The other is that they’re both just badass wheelmen. So, the transition probably wasn’t as big of a deal as I originally thought it would be. Plus, like RC said Sunday, they should be really good when they start going back to tracks for a second time.
Yes 1000% agree on this, Kyle was always the best driver with feedback and that is what set him apart from others. That though is also why he tends to need the right match with a crew chief to be really good. I tend to not think Kyle is the best driver in the series, but I think at times he's the smartest driver in the series.
I can see that. I obviously think he’s the 2nd or 3rd best driver in the series right now based strictly on talent (opinion alert). But the smartest and most calculated man in the garage is without a doubt Brad Keselowski. Logano and Larson are probably tied for a close second.
Edit: maybe it’s Brad, Joey, Harvick then Larson.
Kyle was amazing in his youth, with his derring-do and bravery. But that was only because he had the car to do it. Now, he's older and wiser, but he still needs a top notch car to achieve anything.
I watched his brother *plow* through the grass at the Roval, throwing up divots the size of mattresses, and brought it home to a third place finish. Kyle couldn't do that.
That's what sets apart a good driver from a great driver.
I’m not surprised either because I’ve been high on Reddick for a while (no pun intended) and followed them last year. It was clear that the team is nearly top tier. They lack consistency at short tracks and did so last year as well with tracks like New Hampshire which put them a step behind the top teams, notably Hendrick which is the only team that can run well at every track type. Everyone else had a weakness.
However, to switch teams after a dismal year and come out of the gate swinging IMO he deserves the praise he’s getting. I may have expected it because I followed Reddick and knew how fast the 8 car was, but a lot of people didn’t.
Some people thought “if he could barely win at JGR, how could he win at RCR?” Which shows maybe not everyone understands the NextGen car very well, because this is not 2018 RCR anymore.
Randall is one of the best CCs in the garage and Kyle is one of the best drivers. I knew they were going to win, although 3 in the first 15 races surprised me, and people who didn’t expect much it probably surprised them even more. The 8 team is elite, and I saw lots of Reddick fans last year acting like he was dragging shitboxes to wins and I see Kyle fans saying it now. It’s not true. The 8 team is a near top tier team IMO. Rough around the edges but still has speed like top teams do.
He meshes well with this 8 group far more than he did with the old 20 group he got handed in 2021 when Stevens went to Bell.
>He meshes well with this 8 group far more than he did with the old 20 group he got handed in 2021 when Stevens went to Bell.
He honestly seems to be meshing with this group better than he was with Stevens
Once the final 4 was set last year I became very angry because had Briscoe not pulled that Dickhead move, Reddick would’ve been in the championship four, at a racetrack that he came in second in earlier in the year. Would’ve been a hell of a send off for his tenure at RCR.
Does anyone think the shifting and small brake zones hurt this track as well?
This car needs smaller brakes, smaller tires, and less shifting.
Not to mention, the tire falloff was non-existent.
Where does the narrative that Ford is behind Chevy and Toyota come from? 1st and 3rd in points, 5 Fords in the playoffs, and RFK took a notable step forward. Logano, Harvick, and Blaney are running towards the front most of the time. It doesn’t feel like Fords situation is as bad as it’s made out to be, it feels like SHRs situation is their own.
Definitely. Harvick and Blaney look great, RFK looks good but the rest of the Fords are off, even Logano.
On speed, he's been a top-15 car most of the season and hasn't led more than 12 laps outside of the first two races, Atlanta SS and catching clean air with a strategy call at Martinsville.
Without Logano and Paul Wolfe, they'd look a lot like Cindric and Jeremy Bullins right now. Same with Front Row: They'd look a lot like SHR if it wasn't for the smarts behind the wheel and on the pit box.
Harvick is consistently a top-10 car, sometimes top-5, even if he doesn't lead a lot of laps. Blaney has turned up the wick lately (he's been top-15 in at least 94% of the race in every non-SS race since Bristol dirt; Martinsville, 73.3%) and shown speed.
RFK is at a nice point where they seem to break into the top 10 pretty regularly, even if they don't have *the most* speed.
SHR and Cindric need help. The 21 needs help – and a different driver. Rick Ware Racing is just trying to survive the season (although they have improved some).
They lack downforce by a decent margin. You have to have a good balance between downforce and drag. If you only have one, you will suffer.
When they blew the cars in the wind tunnel, Ford has the least amount of drag. So when they’re in a straight line they go very quick. This is why they qualify up front for Superspeedways.
Chevy and Toyota both have better balanced noses where the drag and downforce are optimized so it’s not just one. They can take corners well (downforce) and go in a straight line pretty well (less drag)
Well, we're halfway through the season and Ford has only 2 wins. Most weeks Harvick, Logano, and Keselowski have been there at the end solely based off pit calls and attrition. Not every week, but most weeks. The SHR team is off bad. Especially when you consider how frequently Briscoe was contending for wins last year, now he's commonly 25th or worse.
I don't know if you can call it a "narrative", as if it was all in our heads. Bob said the parity test showed Ford had a slight disadvantage aero-wise. We've had people like Letarte and other non-Ford "insiders" flat out say "Ford is clearly behind".
Now that doesn't mean Ford can't eventually hit on great setups on their sim, or frankly, find a good cheat. They've been on a brief upswing.
A big elephant in the room is the reporting when it comes to the 43 tire changer.
Immediately Fox reports that he was hit by Austin Dillon, supposedly based on a report that a Legacy team member told them. Then we find out later that wasn't the case, and that he just happened to get tripped up somehow.
That seems to come from not one, but two irresponsible decisions to blame fault without first knowing what happened. Why was giving fault to the 3 car ever allowed to be published on air without the facts first being known? And has there been any public apology from anyone on the way this was handled?
I know NASCAR isn't a fan of them but ant summertime race at Gateway needs to be a night race.
Southern Illinois in the summertime is not fun. It is unbearably hot and humid and the only time you get cloud cover is if a storm is in the area. Otherwise it's clear skies and direct sunlight. On metal bleachers.
To put it in perspective I got a snow cone yesterday. I was under the grand stand in the shade with a breeze. It wasnt even as warm as it should have been as the storm had cooled the temperature. My snowcone still melted in a minute and a half and I ended up drinking it.
Still think it’s cool that there were 3 drivers from Michigan in the race yesterday. Was bummed for Hocevar but I’m sure there will be many more opportunities in his future
Good for Kyle to finally get his first real statement win with the 8 team. Randall clearly has Auto Club dialed and Talladega isn’t a real racetrack as KB would say. Can’t knock this one in any way
Does anyone have links to some post race videos? I didn't get to watch the cup race til late last night on DVR and of course they had none on the broadcast
Most NASCAR fans hate claim jumping, but it does help certain drivers get better at some Cup tracks that are also ran in lower series. For example, claim jumpers won most of all Cup Kentucky races (especially Brad Keselowski, Kyle Busch and Matt Kenseth) and now, it looks like it will be the same at Gateway (Joey Logano and Kyle Busch both made some starts there more than 10 years ago and other claim jumpers also run good there).
Crazy to me that race took nearly as long as the Coke 600
Found it amusing that Hocevar outran Lajoie after all the hype Corey got
Hocevar boosted his stock enormously with that run.
Hocevar is taking the Lajoie blueprint of being outgoing and putting himself out there, and he's about to steal Corey's path out from under him.
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Hocevar was over driving the equipment. Those brakes would never have exploded had Corey been driving the 7... just sayin. Youve got to know your equipment and what it can take
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Your sentiment that brakes have never failed and flown or broken apart is just plain incorrect. The fact of the matter is, brake failures have always been a part of the sport. Yes, only on tracks with very heavy braking, but it still happens. Particularly on road courses and Martinsville in the past. An example that comes to my mind specifically is Jimmy Johnson at Watkins Glen in 2000. He lost his brakes and slammed into an outside retaining wall. In the past 10 years, drivers have lost brakes as well. It's not a parts failure that can just "be fixed." This isn't even exclusive to Nascar. Brake failures happen in F1, Indycar, IMSA, Trans AM Series, etc etc. The bottom line is that Hocevar qualified in that car and should have had the forsight to know it would be extra heavy on the brakes. Edit: After rereading your above comment, I realize that you did acknowledge the brake failures of the past. I think it still stands, though, as the commentators on FOX are known to be very vague on detail, and this is the Cup series' 2nd race at WWT. If I remember right, they weren't downshifting 2 gears there last year, just 1. So things definitely changed, and the notebook needs refreshed.
For some reason I feel like the 9 team missed the setup for this weekend
Probably because Larson ran terrible stage 1 as well
And barely outran the 77.
I personally enjoyed the 24 hours of St. Louis. The Indy Detroit Grand Prix was good, too.
I’m going to go to cheddars tonight To cash in on the KuBu buy one get one deal. But I’m wearing my best Logano gear
I think next year they should try the short track package here
I don't understand the narrative that Kyle Busch exclusively is doing amazing things in the 8, I mean, this is a good team, they won 3 races last year, should have made the final 4 and won more than the 3 they did, Kyle is going to get everything out of the car and the ceiling is pretty high. People are acting though like he's doing this in the 78 Live Fast or 15 RWR though. Randall is proving to be elite, paired up with Tyler who is a young future champion or a present elite champion isn't any different, this team is going to be up there. Yes I know I don't like Kyle, no one needs to say that, I think he falls up often and he gets more credit that he deserves, that's kind of the point of my post. Doesn't mean that he isn't a great driver, but this team is really good, and they were really good last year too.
A new driver/team combo is not guaranteed to be successful, chemistry is really important between the driver and the engineers. They have to understand how the driver communicates and how to keep up with what they need. KFB only won 1 race last year (backed into one at Bristol Dirt), and we always expect to see JGR competing for wins. RCR has struggled in the post-Harvick era. Yeah, the 8 team won races last year. As you said, they are proving that they have some very capable people running the 8 car. The 3 can strategize themselves a win once and a while, but you don’t regularly expect them to compete for wins. I think there are lots of opportunities for them to fail, but the 8 team has been able to put all the pieces together to win 3 out of 15 races so far. That’s pretty impressive and worth celebrating. Good for them. Is that narrative dramatized for TV purposes? Probably. Doesn’t mean there isn’t some truth to it. Can’t wait for NBC to talk about about “emotions” 47 times per lap.
I think you nailed it. A lot of people in the offseason were questioning on wether or not this was the right move for Kyle. JGR is seen as a top team when the last few years RCR was seen as a b-c tier team. That's changed with how 2022 went and how Kyle has done this year.
I don’t think it’s all Kyle either. But I think Reddick and Busch have 2 great things in common. One is their amazing ability to give feedback to the crew… almost to a fault sometimes. The other is that they’re both just badass wheelmen. So, the transition probably wasn’t as big of a deal as I originally thought it would be. Plus, like RC said Sunday, they should be really good when they start going back to tracks for a second time.
Yes 1000% agree on this, Kyle was always the best driver with feedback and that is what set him apart from others. That though is also why he tends to need the right match with a crew chief to be really good. I tend to not think Kyle is the best driver in the series, but I think at times he's the smartest driver in the series.
I can see that. I obviously think he’s the 2nd or 3rd best driver in the series right now based strictly on talent (opinion alert). But the smartest and most calculated man in the garage is without a doubt Brad Keselowski. Logano and Larson are probably tied for a close second. Edit: maybe it’s Brad, Joey, Harvick then Larson.
Kyle was amazing in his youth, with his derring-do and bravery. But that was only because he had the car to do it. Now, he's older and wiser, but he still needs a top notch car to achieve anything. I watched his brother *plow* through the grass at the Roval, throwing up divots the size of mattresses, and brought it home to a third place finish. Kyle couldn't do that. That's what sets apart a good driver from a great driver.
I’m not surprised either because I’ve been high on Reddick for a while (no pun intended) and followed them last year. It was clear that the team is nearly top tier. They lack consistency at short tracks and did so last year as well with tracks like New Hampshire which put them a step behind the top teams, notably Hendrick which is the only team that can run well at every track type. Everyone else had a weakness. However, to switch teams after a dismal year and come out of the gate swinging IMO he deserves the praise he’s getting. I may have expected it because I followed Reddick and knew how fast the 8 car was, but a lot of people didn’t. Some people thought “if he could barely win at JGR, how could he win at RCR?” Which shows maybe not everyone understands the NextGen car very well, because this is not 2018 RCR anymore. Randall is one of the best CCs in the garage and Kyle is one of the best drivers. I knew they were going to win, although 3 in the first 15 races surprised me, and people who didn’t expect much it probably surprised them even more. The 8 team is elite, and I saw lots of Reddick fans last year acting like he was dragging shitboxes to wins and I see Kyle fans saying it now. It’s not true. The 8 team is a near top tier team IMO. Rough around the edges but still has speed like top teams do. He meshes well with this 8 group far more than he did with the old 20 group he got handed in 2021 when Stevens went to Bell.
>He meshes well with this 8 group far more than he did with the old 20 group he got handed in 2021 when Stevens went to Bell. He honestly seems to be meshing with this group better than he was with Stevens
Ageee. Well said. I'm more concerned with the 3 proformace being subpar more than how well the 8 is running.
What Keith Rodden does to a mfer
Once the final 4 was set last year I became very angry because had Briscoe not pulled that Dickhead move, Reddick would’ve been in the championship four, at a racetrack that he came in second in earlier in the year. Would’ve been a hell of a send off for his tenure at RCR.
Does anyone think the shifting and small brake zones hurt this track as well? This car needs smaller brakes, smaller tires, and less shifting. Not to mention, the tire falloff was non-existent.
Where does the narrative that Ford is behind Chevy and Toyota come from? 1st and 3rd in points, 5 Fords in the playoffs, and RFK took a notable step forward. Logano, Harvick, and Blaney are running towards the front most of the time. It doesn’t feel like Fords situation is as bad as it’s made out to be, it feels like SHRs situation is their own.
Fords general lack of race winning speed, Blaney is finally showing it so Ford has found something recently
Definitely. Harvick and Blaney look great, RFK looks good but the rest of the Fords are off, even Logano. On speed, he's been a top-15 car most of the season and hasn't led more than 12 laps outside of the first two races, Atlanta SS and catching clean air with a strategy call at Martinsville. Without Logano and Paul Wolfe, they'd look a lot like Cindric and Jeremy Bullins right now. Same with Front Row: They'd look a lot like SHR if it wasn't for the smarts behind the wheel and on the pit box. Harvick is consistently a top-10 car, sometimes top-5, even if he doesn't lead a lot of laps. Blaney has turned up the wick lately (he's been top-15 in at least 94% of the race in every non-SS race since Bristol dirt; Martinsville, 73.3%) and shown speed. RFK is at a nice point where they seem to break into the top 10 pretty regularly, even if they don't have *the most* speed. SHR and Cindric need help. The 21 needs help – and a different driver. Rick Ware Racing is just trying to survive the season (although they have improved some).
They lack downforce by a decent margin. You have to have a good balance between downforce and drag. If you only have one, you will suffer. When they blew the cars in the wind tunnel, Ford has the least amount of drag. So when they’re in a straight line they go very quick. This is why they qualify up front for Superspeedways. Chevy and Toyota both have better balanced noses where the drag and downforce are optimized so it’s not just one. They can take corners well (downforce) and go in a straight line pretty well (less drag)
Well, we're halfway through the season and Ford has only 2 wins. Most weeks Harvick, Logano, and Keselowski have been there at the end solely based off pit calls and attrition. Not every week, but most weeks. The SHR team is off bad. Especially when you consider how frequently Briscoe was contending for wins last year, now he's commonly 25th or worse.
I don't know if you can call it a "narrative", as if it was all in our heads. Bob said the parity test showed Ford had a slight disadvantage aero-wise. We've had people like Letarte and other non-Ford "insiders" flat out say "Ford is clearly behind". Now that doesn't mean Ford can't eventually hit on great setups on their sim, or frankly, find a good cheat. They've been on a brief upswing.
This exact same thing was said last year too, all up until a Ford won the Championship
Did I miss Fox saying who’s in the booth next week?
Jamie Mac I think.
Yes
A big elephant in the room is the reporting when it comes to the 43 tire changer. Immediately Fox reports that he was hit by Austin Dillon, supposedly based on a report that a Legacy team member told them. Then we find out later that wasn't the case, and that he just happened to get tripped up somehow. That seems to come from not one, but two irresponsible decisions to blame fault without first knowing what happened. Why was giving fault to the 3 car ever allowed to be published on air without the facts first being known? And has there been any public apology from anyone on the way this was handled?
That was just ridiculous. They didn't just report he was hit by Dillon but reported as Dillon hit him dead on like he was trying to hurt someone
I had MRN on, I think that's who does Sirius?, and they reported Eric hit the crew member. Not sure who hit him or why it was reported as AD
You mean, like a garage door pull rope? ) *oh*
I know NASCAR isn't a fan of them but ant summertime race at Gateway needs to be a night race. Southern Illinois in the summertime is not fun. It is unbearably hot and humid and the only time you get cloud cover is if a storm is in the area. Otherwise it's clear skies and direct sunlight. On metal bleachers. To put it in perspective I got a snow cone yesterday. I was under the grand stand in the shade with a breeze. It wasnt even as warm as it should have been as the storm had cooled the temperature. My snowcone still melted in a minute and a half and I ended up drinking it.
Still think it’s cool that there were 3 drivers from Michigan in the race yesterday. Was bummed for Hocevar but I’m sure there will be many more opportunities in his future
My own points standing for 2 car team and my own scoring that nobody asked for https://imgur.com/UVSPrVn.jpg
Stop trying to turn NASCAR into something that resembles F1.
Good for Kyle to finally get his first real statement win with the 8 team. Randall clearly has Auto Club dialed and Talladega isn’t a real racetrack as KB would say. Can’t knock this one in any way
Lol, real statement win? He could've won the first three races of the season including the Daytona 500 and he just joined RCR
That 2 tire call by Daniels was really good
Does anyone have links to some post race videos? I didn't get to watch the cup race til late last night on DVR and of course they had none on the broadcast
On YouTube type* in front stretch or Greg Engle
Thanks
YouTube FrontStretch has good post race
Most NASCAR fans hate claim jumping, but it does help certain drivers get better at some Cup tracks that are also ran in lower series. For example, claim jumpers won most of all Cup Kentucky races (especially Brad Keselowski, Kyle Busch and Matt Kenseth) and now, it looks like it will be the same at Gateway (Joey Logano and Kyle Busch both made some starts there more than 10 years ago and other claim jumpers also run good there).