The NBC Sports Power Rankings typically don’t get too excited about the All-Star Race as it might relate to a driver’s positioning in the top 10, but it’s impossible to ignore Kyle Larson’s spectacular drive to victory Sunday night at North Wilkesboro Speedway.
In a move almost as meaningful as his acceptance of a $1 million check Sunday, Larson jumps a spot in the rankings to No. 1, replacing William Byron, who finished two laps behind Larson at North Wilkesboro.
Riding into this weekend’s 600-mile marathon at Charlotte Motor Speedway, Tyler Reddick rejoins the rankings after a third-place run in the All-Star Race.
1. Kyle Larson (second last week) — Few All-Star Race winners have produced the dominant run Larson had in winning Sunday. He led 145 of the race’s 200 laps and was 4.5 seconds in front at the checkered flag.
2. William Byron (first last week) — Byron drops out of the top spot after a dismal night in North Wilkesboro. He finished two laps behind Larson.
3. Chase Elliott (third last week) — Although no one threatened Kyle Larson over the closing laps Sunday night, Elliott was at least in position to see Larson. Elliott finished fifth.
4. Ross Chastain (fifth last week) — Only half of the field — 12 drivers — finished on the lead lap in the All-Star Race. Chastain came home 11th and, for a change, avoided controversy.
5. Martin Truex Jr. (fourth last week) — Truex finished a lap down at North Wilkesboro, one of many drivers who couldn’t keep up with the Larson Express.
6. Denny Hamlin (sixth last week) — Hamlin was 13th in the All-Star Race. He was the leading driver among those who were a lap down, though, so there’s that.
7. Christopher Bell (eighth last week) — Bell finished 12th at North Wilkesboro on a night when two other Toyota drivers (Bubba Wallace and Tyler Reddick) were in the top three.
8. Kyle Busch (seventh last week) — Busch failed to make any noise on All-Star night, finishing 22nd, two laps down.
9. Joey Logano (ninth last week) — Logano rallied late to manage a top-10 run at North Wilkesboro.
10. Tyler Reddick (unranked last week) — Reddick returns to the rankings after a third-place run in the All-Star Race.
Dropped out: Kevin Harvick (10th last week).
The Xfinity Series is scheduled to race for only the second time in May with a 300-mile race Saturday afternoon at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
Cup Series driver Kyle Larson won the May 13 Xfinity race at Darlington Raceway. Cup regulars Kyle Busch and Ty Gibbs are scheduled to compete in Saturday’s race.
A look at the Saturday Xfinity schedule:
START: The command to start engines will be given at 12:08 p.m. … The green flag is scheduled to be waved at 12:19 p.m.
PRERACE: Xfinity garage opens at 9 a.m. … Driver introductions begin at 11:40 a.m. … The invocation will be given by U.S. Air Force retired master sergeant Monty Self at 12 p.m. … The national anthem will be performed by recording artist Cash Crawford at 12:01 p.m.
DISTANCE: The race is 200 laps (300 miles) on the 1.5-mile track.
STAGES: Stage 1 ends at Lap 45. Stage 2 ends at Lap 90.
STARTING LINEUP: Qualifying is scheduled to begin at 4:05 p.m. Friday.
TV/RADIO: FS1 will broadcast the race at 1 p.m.. ... NASCAR RaceDay airs at 12:30 p.m. on FS1. … Performance Racing Network coverage begins at 1 p.m. and can be heard on goprn.com. … SiriusXM NASCAR Radio will carry the PRN broadcast.
STREAMING: Foxsports.com
FORECAST: Weather Underground — The forecast calls for a high of 57 degrees and an 73% chance of rain at start of Xfinity race.
LAST TIME: Josh Berry won last May’s Xfinity race. Ty Gibbs was second and Sam Mayer third.
Charlotte Motor Speedway has a busy schedule Friday. Xfinity Series, Craftsman Truck Series and ARCA Menards Series drivers are scheduled to be on track Friday at the 1.5-mile speedway.
MORE: The nights the lights went on in Charlotte
A look at the Friday schedule:
Friday: Cloudy during the day. Forecast calls for a high of 64 degrees and a 1% chance of rain at the start of the Truck race.
Garage open
Track activity
Trading pit crew members? A formalized free agency period for tire changers, tire carriers, jackmen and fuelers? Sponsor agreements for pit crew members similar to what college athletes receive with NIL deals?
They are ideas — some radical for NASCAR — that Brian Haaland, a pit crew coach for Joe Gibbs Racing, advocates.
“I think there are so many things we can do to change the game,” Haaland told NBC Sports. “Everybody’s got contracts, and you have option years on them. I think there should be a free agency. Really. How cool would that be?
“I think there should be trades. Why not? … Why not allow me to negotiate with whatever organization if they have somebody that I want, and I’m willing to give them one of our guys — or at least talk about a trade. How fun would that be? It would another fun game within the sport.”
While other professional team sports have trades, NASCAR does not. But what if it did? Haaland said he’s proposed a trade to another team but nothing happened.
“Absolutely, I’ve tried to do it, but that’s between pit coach to pit coach,” he said. “We could work it out. It just has to be, obviously, people that are above me and above other pit coaches to sign off on it, but it could absolutely happen.
“It could happen tomorrow. If we agreed to release somebody and (another team) agreed to release somebody, and we just took their guy. It could happen.”
Imagine a trade deadline during the Cup season similar to what happens in the NFL, NBA, Major League Baseball and NHL.
Put NASCAR’s trade deadline in June, possibly around a weekend off. By that time, teams would have had more than half the regular season to assess their crew members. A trade at that point of the season also would give crew members who are moved a chance to acclimate to their new surroundings before the playoffs.
With track position critical, what happens on pit road can make the difference between a good or bad race for each team.
Lose positions on pit road and a driver will restart deeper in the field. That makes it more difficult to reach the front and increases the likelihood of being collected in an incident.
That’s why pit road has become so important. Yet, there are limited ways of gaining time. Pit guns are standardized. Joe Gibbs Racing abandoned its pit stop choreography, which was faster than the traditional way but slower when there were missteps. That leaves only pit crews as a way to have faster stops.
So teams seek college athletes to join their pit crews. They want people with athletic skills to service a car and the mindset to handle the pressure.
With the focus on pit crews, maybe a trade could prove beneficial to all involved. Haaland said he thinks trading pit crew members could be possible because “everybody kind of knows and understands each other’s needs.
“Especially in an injury case. We will reach out to (other pit crew coaches) and say, ‘Hey, I’ve got this guy that could help you … and we could loan them to you.’ (Or) it might be a guy that just isn’t working out for us, and we could release them, things like that have happened.
“There’s been other times where I’m like, ‘Really could use one of their top guys,’ and offer up three guys, half-joking, but just to kind of throw it out there to see if anybody will bite on it.”
They haven’t. Yet.
As for free agency, it does take place after the end of the season in November when contracts end and pit crew members are free to change teams. Should NASCAR’s season end earlier — perhaps October — that would mean more time without cars on track. A free agency period for pit crew members could provide something for fans.
Just as key could be any other financial benefits for pit crew members. The NIL deals some college athletes receive are changing how they view their athletic options.
Haaland saw it when he talked to members of the Ohio State hockey team about a career as a NASCAR pit crew member.
“I started talking about, ‘Hey, there could be an opportunity after you’re done playing here’ and … I threw out some numbers about what they could make and they all just kind of looked at me,” he said. “Then I realized that (with) the NIL (deals), they’re probably making more than that now.”
Deals with pit crews are likely a few years away. The focus for teams is a new economic model so teams are not as reliant on sponsorship to survive. Also key will be the new media rights deal, which will begin in 2025 and is expected to provide teams with more money.
As for the notion of trading pit crew members, it is an intriguing idea to some teams but many questions remain before it happens. Maybe one day Haaland will be able to make a trade or see the concept of a formalized free agency period take place in the sport.
The Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway marks the third race on a 1.5-mile track this season without the speedway package used at Atlanta — site of Ford’s only win this year with Joey Logano.
In the previous two races on 1.5-mile tracks (Las Vegas and Kansas), no Ford finished no better than sixth. Austin Cindric was sixth at Las Vegas. Logano was sixth at Kansas.
Fords led 14 of 271 laps (5.1%) at Las Vegas and led nine of 267 laps (3.4%) at Kansas.
Add Fontana, California, (2-mile speedway) and Darlington Raceway (1.366-mile speedway) and Ford’s struggles remain evident.
Ford’s top car at Fontana was Kevin Harvick, who finished fifth. Fords lead 48 of 200 laps (24%) there.
Harvick led Ford with a runner-up finish at Darlington, but that came after incidents eliminated some of the leaders in the final laps. Ford placed three cars in the top six at Darlington: Harvick in second, Brad Keselowski in fourth and Harrison Burton in sixth. Fords, though, led nine of 295 laps (3.1%) in that race.
Harvick enters Sunday’s race at Charlotte third in the standings, 29 points behind series leader Ross Chastain. Harvick has four consecutive top 10s in the Coca-Cola 600, including a third-place finish in last year’s race.
Asked last weekend at North Wilkesboro about his chances of winning the regular season, Harvick said:
“I think for us our cars, I speak of the 4 team, our cars have run competitively and we’ve been in position and just haven’t knocked that door down yet,” he said. “But it’s like I keep telling them, ‘You keep knocking on that door and eventually somebody is gonna answer it.’
“We just have to keep dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s because that’s just where we are from an aerodynamic standpoint and everything that goes with our car currently.
“We just have to be able to do everything right. The cars have to be closer to perfect than the other two models currently, so we just have to keep doing the things that we’re doing.”
Goodyear plans to use a new tire that is intended to wear more at New Hampshire in July. The tire was tested in late April with Brad Keselowski, Chase Elliott and Christopher Bell.
Goodyear is moving in this direction after gaining experience with the Next Gen car, which runs its 50th Cup points race Sunday at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
“Our goal has been to provide as much grip as we think possible for individual racetracks and then let the teams and let the drivers manage that,” said Greg Stucker, Goodyear’s director of racing. “Sometimes we’re more conservative, sometimes we’re not.
“Now that we have a year and a half under our belt with this vehicle, with the Next Gen car, I think we have figured out that we can probably go further than maybe what we were able to do with the previous generation parts.”
That falls in line with what Denny Hamlin said after running the wet weather tires in a heat race last weekend at North Wilkesboro Speedway and noting how they wore.
“I’m just more encouraged that Goodyear can build a tire that is really fast to start and falls off,” he said. “We got the blueprint. We really should spend some time working on this for other short tracks.”
Said Stucker about Hamlin’s comments: “I think Denny is spot on.”
Stucker said the goal of the New Hampshire tire test was to get the tires to wear more.
“We’re going significantly softer on both sides,” Stucker said of the tires that will be used at New Hampshire. “All the drivers at the test felt like it was a big gain, felt like it was definitely in the right direction. So, that’s what we’re going to race. Is it enough? We’ll see. I think it’s a good step, and then we’ll continue to build on that.”
The New Hampshire tire also typically is run at Richmond and Phoenix, the site of the championship race, but Stucker said that might not be the case this year.
“We just felt like (New Hampshire) can require something softer,” he said.
Chase Elliott ranks fourth in Cup in points earned in the last five races — since his return from a leg injury suffered snowboarding.
Here’s a look at the top point scorers in Cup in the last five points races:
William Byron — 194 points
Denny Hamlin — 190
Ryan Blaney — 170
Chase Elliott — 163
Ross Chastain — 161
Martin Truex Jr. — 153
When Elliott made his return, he was 33rd in the season standings, 134 points out of what would be the final transfer spot to the playoffs. He’s climbed to 28th in the standings and is 63 points behind the final transfer spot to the playoffs with 13 races left in the regular season.
Kyle Larson will be preparing to run the Indianapolis 500 and Coca-Cola 600 at this time next year.
“It’s still so far away that it truly doesn’t seem real, I think, until I get in the car, on the ground and fire an engine up and then I think I’ll be scared,” he said with a smile. “Right now it doesn’t seem super real, but I’ve been trying to pay attention as much as possible.”
Larson spent a day earlier this month at Indianapolis Motor Speedway with the Arrow McLaren team that he’ll drive for next year. He has yet to test an IndyCar but has been fitted for a seat this month.
Next year will mark 10 years since the last driver ran in both the Indianapolis 500 and Coca-Cola 600 in the same day. Kurt Busch finished sixth at Indy to earn rookie of the year honors. A blown engine at Charlotte that night left him with a 40th-place result.
NASCAR has moved the start time of Saturday’s Xfinity Series race at Charlotte Motor Speedway to noon ET.
NASCAR moved the start time up an hour because of the forecast for rain. The Weather Underground forecast calls for a high of 58 degrees and an 80% chance of rain at start of Xfinity race.
FS1 will televise the race. Performance Racing Network will have the radio coverage. SiriusXM NASCAR Radio will carry the PRN broadcast.
The Xfinity garage will open at 9 a.m. ET Saturday. Grandstand gates open at 10 a.m. ET. The green flag is scheduled to wave at 12:19 p.m. ET to begin the race.
At this time, NASCAR Cup practice and qualifying for the Coca-Cola 600 remains at 7 p.m. ET Saturday, as originally scheduled.