1. What Was So Wrong About Sunday’s Last-Lap Finish?
An honest question: What was so bad about how Sunday (Sept. 28) at Kansas Speedway ended?
OK, if you’re a Bubba Wallace fan, Denny Hamlin is probably not getting a Christmas card from you.
But other than that, what’s not to like about how things ended?
To be clear, this is not to say that Hamlin decided to door the driver of the team he owns. It’s just how things turned out.
Time after time, fans will deride the element of “team orders” in racing, or secret agreements that they assume exist among drivers as they agree not to race one another hard for the win. It goes beyond teams. It’s also entangled with manufacturers, too. Wallace said as much among his post-race frustrations on Sunday.
Be honest with yourself: How many times do you watch the end of an Indianapolis 500 or Daytona 500 and see two teammates running nose-to-tail and assume that since it’s two teammates or closely aligned drivers, there will be no challenge for the lead?
Sunday flew in the face of that. Do you realize how much of a middle finger (no post-race pun intended) it would have been from 23XI Racing to NASCAR to say that one of its drivers was bound for the Round of 8?
Drivers should be going for the win, regardless of circumstances.
2. Did Sunday Torpedo 23XI Racing For The Long Haul?
What will eventually become of 23XI Racing? Will it continue to be a factor for years to come? Or will it become a lot like the oh-so-many teams that were pretty good for a window of time before fate or other circumstances made them a footnote?
Nobody knows for sure. But if legal litigations end up leading to this organization’s demise, this past Sunday could be the start of the end.
Wallace, Hamlin and Tyler Reddick can put up the deflector blockers all they want with public comments, but it cannot be easy to race into the postseason knowing that there is a chance that their livelihood, as well as others, could be hanging in the balance.
Do you know what can take your mind off anything off-track? Having things go very well on the track. This team was one lap away from that on Sunday, until it wasn’t. Now, instead of having one driver locked into the next round, it has both possibly not advancing past the second round.
Perhaps more than any other team in the NASCAR Cup Series garage, 23XI badly needed a win on Sunday. Think about how much that changes the dynamics with everything going on off the track.
Now, that is not the case, and depending on what happens at the ROVAL, it could end up being the first step of things going south on multiple fronts for this organization.
3. Let’s Give A Call To The No. 9 Spotter, Trey Poole
Change is never easy, especially when it involves someone highly visible. That was absolutely true for the No. 9 team going into the 2024 season when one of the most renowned spotters in the NASCAR garage, Eddie D’Hondt, was departing after guiding Chase Elliott from atop the spotter’s stand since he began as a NASCAR Cup Series rookie.
For a driver as visible as Elliott, the smallest thing can draw the pointing of fingers when results are not there, and the No. 9 not winning until June of this year — while Hendrick Motorsports teammates William Byron and Kyle Larson snagged wins — did not sit well with Elliott fans, most likely as Trey Poole took over as spotter. Poole was hardly a newcomer, having been Elliott’s secondary spotter previously. But there’s a big difference between that and being in the primary role.
Any concerns with Elliott’s “eyes in the sky” should now be gone after Sunday. His two wins this season at EchoPark Speedway and Kansas have one big thing in common: that Elliott was able to knife his way through in the closing laps to win. That does not happen with a driver alone; it also takes a spotter being well on top of things.
In case you didn’t know, Poole is more than up for this job, and Sunday proved it. Give the man his flowers.
4. Sunday May Have Been Denny Hamlin’s Best Drive of the Season
Think of Hamlin after this race at Kansas, and the first thing that probably is thought of is the last-lap actions … and the results thereof. That’s a shame, because before things shook out the way that they did, Hamlin was on track for arguably one of his best drives of the season.
Some “old school” fans may scoff at this, but when you are on a track that’s sensitive to downforce like Kansas, having issues with power steering is not ideal. It’s not so much that a driver has to do without power steering, it’s that nobody else has that disadvantage. Somehow, some way, Hamlin was able to dominate the first two stages on Sunday. That’s a credit to not just Hamlin, but the No. 11 team keeping its head in things and focused.
No, Sunday was not anything for Hamlin to celebrate as far as a win goes. But if there is solace, it’s that in the heat of the postseason, the No. 11 faced a punch of adversity and just winked back, smiled back and kept going.
5. Tyler Reddick’s Mental Focus Is Remarkable
Few people are as glad as Reddick for where NASCAR is racing this weekend. No, this has nothing to do with the Charlotte Motor Speedway ROVAL and any desires for the track to run both events on the quad-oval. That’s an ask for another time.
This has everything to do with the fact that when the well-being of your family comes to the forefront, home is where you want to be. Over the weekend, an Instagram post revealed that Reddick and his wife Alexa’s child, Rookie, was in the Cardiovascular Intensive Care Unit at Levine Children’s Hospital, very close to where Reddick and many others in the NASCAR community reside.
It’s an incredible credit to Reddick that in the midst of all that, he was able to battle through mentally on Sunday and finish seventh. As a parent, there’s nothing more heart-stopping than being a bit away from home, knowing that your child is on the way to a children’s hospital’s ER or ICU. It’s a mental weight I would not wish on anyone.
Honestly, I don’t know how Reddick was able to lock in on Sunday, and it’s an immense credit to his mental toughness that he was able to do so.
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.