4 Burning Questions: Does Nashville Carry Championship Importance?

Will Nashville give insight into the championship fight?

On the surface, it doesn’t seem like Nashville Superspeedway has very much in common with Phoenix Raceway.

Nashville is bigger, faster, has more banking, and a concrete surface, while Phoenix is shorter and flatter with asymmetrical corners on either end.

However, the race winners in each of the four Nashville Cup Series races have gone on to duplicate their summer success at Phoenix in the fall. It’s an fascinating stat to analyze.

Three of the four race winners at Nashville also went on to win at Phoenix. That includes inaugural Nashville winner Kyle Larson, who won at 10 different venues in his championship season in 2021.

Ross Chastain has had speed at Nashville each of the four years, but his lone win at the track came under the lights in 2023. While Chastain was eliminated from the championship fight before the series returned to Phoenix, the No. 1 became the first non-Championship 4 car to win the championship event since the playoffs started.

In the last race at Nashville in 2024, Joey Logano infamously won the event, lasting through five chaotic overtimes. The win at Nashville guaranteed Logano’s spot in the playoffs, and the No. 22 went on to win both the race and the championship.

The only driver to win at Nashville and not at Phoenix is Chase Elliott, who earned his guitar in 2022 but not the checkers at the closer. While Elliott did not win the race, he did make the Championship 4 after being one of the best throughout that season.

We still haven’t reached the halfway point in the 2025 season, but something about Nashville has translated to end-of-season speed when the fight for the championship matters the most at Phoenix.

A Nashville win isn’t a championship lock, but be on the lookout to see who gets the job done this weekend.

Can Carson Hocevar turn his luck around?

Week after week, Carson Hocevar finds his way into the conversation. In the past, it was because of some on-track antics, but this season, the speed has done just as much talking for the driver of the No. 77.

Hocevar consistently sits near the top of the charts in practice and qualifying, but one thing or another on Sundays ends what otherwise was looking to be a great run. 

The progression of the season has seen corresponding improvement from Hocevar, who is finding ways to hang around deeper and deeper into the races. Still, he just has not found the ability to finish in the general vicinity of where he was running in the race.

Nashville presents a great opportunity for that to finally happen.

For starters, Hocevar has a Truck Series win at Nashville back in 2023. He knows how to get it done to earn that guitar, and he was back at the track and in the stands to watch his Truck Series teammate get the job done yet again this weekend.

Hocevar also had some controversy in this race last year. If you remember, Nashville is when Hocevar got into it with Harrison Burton under caution. Hocevar made the decision to spin Burton while the yellow was out and was fined for it the following week.

The storyline has since moved away from that run-in because of the speed Hocevar has had on Sundays. One race where Hocevar did get a better finish was at Bristol Motor Speedway earlier this season.

Bristol has a few things in common with Nashville. Both tracks are in the state of Tennessee, and both have a concrete surface.

Concrete speed has carried over across each of the three concrete race tracks. Whoever is fast at Bristol also has speed at Nashville and Dover, and vice versa.

Denny Hamlin won at Bristol and Dover last season, and had possibly the best car before the chaos late at the last Nashville race. Larson has dominated the last two Bristol races, and he’s been consistently fast at Nashville as well.

Hocevar had top-five speed at Bristol before a slow pit stop derailed that day. Expect him to be fast this weekend again.

It may be a little much to put him in the conversation as a winner, but Hocevar’s biggest priority should be finishing where that car is capable of.

Is the Team Penske IndyCar controversy affecting its Cup product?

It’s a question that has been talked about in the week following a surprisingly disappointing effort from the Team Penske cars at Charlotte Motor Speedway. 

The team as a whole started off the season much better than in previous years. Both Logano and Austin Cindric have already picked up wins, and Ryan Blaney has dominated some races as well.

In fact, the three Penske cars were surprisingly fast across the board at both Texas and Kansas, but they disappeared from the top of the board at Charlotte.

The noticeable drop-off coincidentally came after the team ran into a major controversy on the IndyCar side during qualifying.

An illegal modification was found, and speculation is that the team had the same modification on its Indianapolis 500-winning car in 2024.

After dominating the headlines following Indy 500 qualifying, the team made some major personnel changes, including Tim Cindric leaving the team.

Of course, that shed some light on Austin Cindric, who did not perform great during the Coke 600. But the whole Penske organization was noticeably off the entire weekend, with Logano finishing the best for the team in 17th.

It’s unclear if there are any direct connections between the IndyCar controversy and the team playing it safe and taking a step back from the line on the Cup Series side of things.

While it could be a possibility that Penske just doesn’t want to make any more headlines, you do have to wonder if the personnel shakeup, albeit on the IndyCar side of things, had an impact on the overall organization as well.

The final possibility, simply, is that the team just had an off week, which is also a complete possibility. 

Keep an eye on the Team Penske cars as the season goes on, however, to see if their pace picks back up.

The step back in speed was surprising, but then again, the team really only cares about being the best when it counts in the playoffs.

Is the Truck Series field tightening up?

From the drop of the green flag in the 2025 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series season, Corey Heim has been the best driver in the field, racking up four wins and building a major points lead.

If you look at those four race wins, however, three of them took place at traditional 1.5-mile tracks, and the other one was given to the No. 11 team when Parker Kligerman was disqualified at Daytona.

With 13 races left in the season, there are still some high-speed tracks, but no more traditional 1.5-mile tracks left in the year. Still, Heim has dominated across multiple track types so far this season, albeit with difficulty closing races out.

Most of Heim’s biggest competition has come from Cup Series drivers dipping into the Truck Series, but in the last few weeks, a few other Truck regulars have given that No. 11 some tougher battles.

The Spire Motorsports trucks have won a trio of races with Cup drivers this year, but Rajah Caruth finally showed up with some consistent speed at Nashville. Heim was faster at the end of the race, but Caruth had enough speed and racecraft to hold off the No. 11 and claim his second career win and first of the season.

Caruth showed some pace in the second half of the 2024 season, and finding a summer victory can be a big momentum changer for the team and the organization, and it would not be too surprising to see him become a weekly threat.

Two other trucks to keep an eye on each week are the duo from the Front Row Motorsports stable. Chandler Smith, for starters, already has two wins on the season. After his time in the Xfinity Series, Smith has been consistently quick back in the Truck Series.

His teammate Layne Riggs had a bit of a slower start to the season, but the last handful of weeks, Riggs has been the biggest competitor to Heim. Just as you could argue that Heim would have more wins if not for some bad luck, Riggs very well could have a couple of victories of his own.

The problem with Riggs to this point in the season is that he’s pushed too hard past his limits at the end of some of these races, making some ill-advised moves. 

That being said, Riggs has had the most speed to go up and battle with Heim, and he’s done it in recent weeks at Nashville and North Wilkesboro. 

The next race at Michigan will mark the official midpoint in the Truck Series season, but don’t award the championship trophy to Heim and the No. 11 team just year. Keep an eye on the field, Riggs included, to continue closing that gap and making a run for the ultimate prize at the end of the season.