Mid-week mashup: 6 biggest storylines as NASCAR heads to Richmond International Raceway
We're heading to Richmond this weekend after an entertaining race at Bristol Motor Speedway, that saw seven of the top nine finishers have their best results of the year and two drivers -- fourth-place Chase Elliott and sixth-place Matt DiBenedetto -- post their respective best career finishes.
With that in mind, here are some final thoughts on Bristol and a look ahead to Richmond.
LOOSE WHEELS -- There's a lot of hand-wringing on social media about teams using only four and sometimes just three lugnuts on pit road and drivers having loose wheels as a result. I'm frankly surprised by folks being outraged about this.
A crew chief's job -- what he is paid to do -- is to push every conceivable boundary as far as he can. That's why tolerances on the race cars are measured in thousandths of an inch sometimes. Crew chiefs look to get an advantage any and every place they can. They're supposed to do just that. So if they think running fewer lugnuts will help them, that's what they'll do. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
LANE CHOICE -- At Martinsville and again at Bristol, if you were in the fast lane on the last restart, you finished well. If you weren't, you didn't. Kevin Harvick had what was one of, if not the, fastest cars at Bristol, but finished seventh because he kept getting stuck in the slow lane.
Which goes back to my first point about crew chiefs being willing to gamble or maybe just why they gamble. Late-race track position is arguably the most important factor in determining winners and losers, so the pressure to be up front at the end is enormous. And that pressure means you have to be willing to take risks.
IN THE GARAGE -- Kyle Busch ran into a woman in the garage after a second tire failure put him into the wall at Bristol. I don't mean to sound unsympathetic to her plight, but at a hot race track, the race cars and their drivers have the right of way, not the pedestrians. Let's be clear about this: Busch did absolutely nothing wrong.
For all the years I've been going to the track, I continue to marvel that these things don't happen more often. People in the garage need to pay attention at all times, period.
WINNERS -- Last year, there were six different winners in the first eight races. This year, we've had six different winners in the first eight races. Four teams -- Joe Gibbs Racing, Hendrick Motorsports, Stewart-Haas Racing and Team Penske -- have won all of the races this year. Last year, they combined to win 35 of 36 races.
There are a lot of new elements to NASCAR this year, including a different aero package that's produced exciting racing, smaller fields, the Charter system and others. But at the top, the balance of power has pretty much remained in place.
FIRST-TIME WINNERS IN '16 -- Given that the balance of power hasn't shifted much this year, I still think there will be first-time winners this year, most likely Chase Elliott, Ryan Blaney and Austin Dillon. All three of these drivers grew up in racing families, are well grounded and have consistently fast race cars.
Those are the building blocks you need in order to win races. It's been true since the first days of NASCAR and it's still true today: Run up front consistently, and eventually you'll win.
RICHMOND -- So far, the 2016 NASCAR season has produced two compelling short-track races and Richmond should add to that tally. Kudos, too, to the track for moving the date from Saturday to Sunday afternoon. I don't know whether changing from night to day will improve the racing or not. But there's no question that the low-downforce package has produced the best racing we've seen in years.
We'll see if this weekend it can also produce some of the same types of surprises we saw last weekend at Bristol. Let's hope so.
