What Happened?
A long, rain-delayed, caution-riddled race at Nashville Superspeedway came to a close with Joey Logano crossing the finish line in first place. With the win, Logano secured his spot in the NASCAR Playoffs, with all three Penske drivers locked in.
Behind Logano, Zane Smith and Tyler Reddick had a photo finish at the line with Smith nabbing the second spot.
What Really Happened?
This race turned into a fuel mileage race, but not in the traditional way. When Chase Elliott spun with around 80 laps to go in regulation, teams pitted just outside of their fuel windows. If the race ran green, drivers would have to save fuel to make it to the end.
A number of varying strategies mixed up the field in the final stage, and Ross Chastain found himself at the front of the field again. A couple of cautions put teams within their fuel window, however, and it looked like Denny Hamlin would triumph.
Then, everything changed.
With two laps left, Austin Cindric spun, bringing out the yellow and forcing overtime. Then, Kyle Larson made contact with Chastain and another yellow flew. On the third and fourth overtimes, drivers started running out of fuel, and the field stacked up and crashed again.
Apparently, fifth time is the charm, because that’s what it took to finally get the field to the checkered flag.
Despite the groans up and down pit road, the frustrated drivers who didn’t survive the chaos and the overall ugliness of the never-ending race, there’s no need to react with a rule change — at least not yet.
The overtime rule has gone through too much changing and shifting, and looking at another adjustment immediately after Nashville would be a bit of an overreaction.
While sitting in the middle of the extra caution laps, it does beg the question: Can’t we just end this? But all of the teams have to abide by the rules as written, and the extra laps pushed the boundaries of drivers’ abilities to save fuel and teams to choose the right strategy.
For example, Logano and Paul Wolfe did just enough to sputter, quite literally, to victory. At the same time, the No. 45 team’s decision to pit during the earlier overtimes paid dividends in the final overtime, and Reddick had a legitimate shot to win.
Sure, some fans may long for the days when a 300-lap race ended in 300 laps, green or yellow. But overtimes are exciting, challenging and chaotic.
In other words, overtimes are quintessential NASCAR. Besides, how many more times will we see a quintuple-overtime finish?
Who Stood Out?
What a finish for Smith. Through the chaos, the No. 71 driver and team survived and found themselves looking staring down a victory opportunity. When Logano and Reddick slid high in the final corners, Smith stayed low, but he couldn’t get back to the throttle quick enough to pull alongside the No. 22. He did beat Reddick back to the line, though, to earn a career-best finish.
Two spots back, Ryan Preece also survived through to an amazing fourth-place finish. Preece felt that “ultimately all those cautions is what saved our day,” but shared that the finish “felt good” after a tough two months. Preece earned his first top-five finish of the year and only the fourth top five in his Cup career.
Bubba Wallace (seventh) and Daniel Hemric (ninth) also wound up with great finishes, but Wallace now looks at a larger distance to the bubble after Logano secured his spot. Wallace needs to make up 51 points on Alex Bowman, who now sits on the cut line.
Who Fell Flat?
There’s a long list of disappointing runs from guys who crashed, ran out of fuel or did both. For starters, Richard Childress Racing has a severe summer case of Murphy’s Law. Austin Dillon had some solid speed but was collected in the Chastain mess in the first overtime.
On the second overtime restart, Larson ran out of gas and Kyle Busch got turned around. Unfortunately for Busch, Nashville will go down as another bad finish for what looked like a good run. Crew chief Randall Burnett made a great strategy call to put Busch inside the top five as the race wound down, but once again a DNF caused him to fall even further down the leaderboard.
A dominant day turned dismal for Christopher Bell when he spun out in the middle of stage three. Entering the weekend, Bell had five straight top-10 finishes, and he looked like the man to beat again this weekend. Instead, he wound up 36th.
Better Than Last Time?
The hot and humid Tennessee afternoon caused the drivers to slip and slide, and rubber went down on the track easily, widening the groove. The race produced some solid action during the green flag runs, and the strategy shake-ups led to a great battle between Chastain and Hamlin down the stretch.
However, the late-race mess muddled up a solid race, dragging it way past an acceptable limit. From start to finish, last year’s race was slightly better because it felt more natural, and it didn’t wind up in a chaotic collective of crashed cars.
Paint Scheme of the Race
This year, we saw a few more teams get in on the Nashville-themed schemes. Smith and Wallace featured two country singers on the hood of their car with Luke Bryan and Luke Combs.
Daniel Suarez also brought a new look with Tootsie’s, a local Nashville establishment, on board. But the best two schemes of the week belong to Bowman and Chastain.
Ally has brought a unique look to its namesake race in three of the four years, and this just might have been the best one yet. With a little help from Dale Earnhardt Jr., the No. 48 brought back some of the neon colors, mixed in with a musical design.
This year, however, Busch Light brought a Nashville look that rivaled the Ally scheme. The Busch Light Country car mixed music, mountains and ‘Merica to put together an amazing looking race car.
What’s Next?
The NASCAR Cup Series hopes for better weather as it makes its return to the Chicago street course. Barring any biblical rains, the Grant Park 165 starts Sunday, July 7 at 4:30 p.m. on NBC.
Caleb began sports writing in 2023 with The Liberty Champion, where he officially covered his first NASCAR race at Richmond in the spring. While there, Caleb met some of the guys from Frontstretch, and he joined the video editing team after graduating from Liberty University with degrees in Strategic Communications and Sports Journalism. Caleb currently work full-time as a Multi-Media Journalist with LEX 18 News in Lexington, Kentucky and contributes to Frontstretch with writing and video editing. He's also behind-the-scenes or on camera for the Happy Hour Podcast, live every Tuesday night at 7:30!