Who… should you be talking about after the race?
Ryan Blaney got the strong drive to the finish that he needed on Sunday night (June 1) at Nashville Superspeedway, leading five times for 139 laps on the way to his first victory of the season.
Blaney was on point in the race’s final stage, pacing the field on the way to the win. Blaney benefitted with a rather calm conclusion. After four cautions in the second stage, the last 102 laps of the night were run under green. And with a multiple-second lead for Blaney’s No. 12 Ford, all of that added up to him joining Team Penske teammates Austin Cindric and Joey Logano in victory lane this season in the NASCAR Cup Series.
On the other hand…
Conventional wisdom says that when the NASCAR Cup Series is at an intermediate track, Josh Berry should run well. After all, he won earlier this year at Las Vegas Motor Speedway and has qualified within the top ten at three intermediate tracks in 2025.
Berry’s night in Nashville, who grew up not far away, didn’t quite get a good hometown run, languishing to a 30th-place finish, one lap down.
Berry and company have shown an ability to run well on bigger tracks. The good news? A two-mile track awaits next week in Michigan International Speedway.
What… does this mean for the points standings?
First and foremost, Sunday locks Blaney into the postseason. Given the overall organizational crisis at Team Penske in recent weeks from the NTT IndyCar Series side of things, having all three of your NASCAR Cup Series drivers locked into the playoffs by June 1 is a rather big deal.
Sunday night was a big one for Bubba Wallace as well. His sixth-place finish likely felt like a win with how the past few weeks have gone as three DNFs in a row dropped him outside the top ten in points.
But Nashville may as well have been an urgent care clinic for the No. 23 team. Unrattled by an early pit road speeding penalty, Wallace rallied to finish sixth, his best finish since back-to-back third-place showings at Homestead-Miami Speedway and Martinsville Speedway.
More importantly? Wallace is up to tenth in points, buying himself a bit of a buffer away from the playoff bubble.
Where… did he come from?
When will the time come for Carson Hocevar‘s first win? Sunday night showed that it’s getting closer and closer.
As Blaney took the checkered flag, Hocevar was in sight of the lead, albeit a few seconds back. Remember, this also comes a week after Hocevar ran among the leaders in the Coca-Cola 600 before he, as the late, great Ken Squier would say, “hand-grenaded an engine.”
Who knows what happens on Sunday if a late caution comes out and Hocevar has a chance at his first win?
And given that Michigan is next for Hocevar, he has to feel good about racing in his home state next weekend.
When… was the moment of truth?
There are times when a dominant car does not win thanks to a late caution (or three), giving someone else a chance to surge late and into victory lane.
But a long green-flag run on Sunday night, 102 laps of it to be exact, ended up being just the ticket for Blaney to close out the win.
Due to various reasons, a long run to the finish is a rarity, making how things wrapped up in Nashville a welcome surprise.
Why… should you be paying attention this week?
Similar to Ross Chastain a few years ago, Hocevar seems to be the lightning rod for an on-track incident. It does not matter who is at fault or if it is a “racing deal.”
If one occurs, Hocevar, like others before him who have come into the sport seeking the role of aggressor, will likely take on the blame, the latest being an early run-in with Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
Will Hocevar keep up his current tactic, or will someone else in the garage exact payback soon? Only time will tell.
How… did this race stack up?
Helped by multiple overtime restarts, last year’s race at Nashville set a record for NASCAR Cup Series races there with 15 cautions, adding up to nearly a fourth of the race being run under yellow.
Sunday night was a whole other story. Outside a second stage in which the caution was displayed four times, affairs were level-headed with the yellow flag flying just once in the final stage, five times overall.
Last year’s caution-filled race was not exactly the sport’s finest moment, but drivers seemed to make up for it on Sunday night.
Brad joined Frontstretch.com in 2020 and contributes to the site's 5 Points To Ponder column and other roles as needed. A graduate of the University of Georgia's Henry W. Grady School of Journalism and Mass Communication, he has covered sports in some capacity for more than 20 years with coverage including local high school sports, college athletics and minor league hockey. Brad has received multiple awards for his work from the Georgia Press Association.