As NASCAR on Prime Sports geared up for their third race of the year, the NASCAR Cup Series stormed into Motor City to display their skills on NASCAR’s fastest track, Michigan International Speedway. The green flag of the race came just off of the heels of the huge announcement that Dodge was returning to NASCAR in the form of the RAM Hemi in 2026 in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series. You can read all about that announcement in the article below.
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But there were other storylines to keep an eye on as well. For starters, Ryan Blaney finally broke through and scored a win last week in Nashville. That 12 car has shown speed all year long but has had 5 DNFs this year, hindering him in the overall points standings. He was hoping to continue his momentum and score yet another victory for Ford in the Motor City. Meanwhile, Blaney’s buddy Chase Elliott has had a consistent, albeit off, year. He’s shown far from race-winning speed this year and many fans have been discussing whether or not he should be considered the dreaded “fourth Hendrick car”. Surely, he wanted to silence his doubters this weekend. Hey, NASCAR’s Most Popular Driver has snapped long winless streaks in the Irish Hills in the past. His teammate, meanwhile, was coming off a miserable couple of weeks. It has been said that Kyle Larson has the shortest memory in sports. Did that remain true today in Michigan?
Let’s break all of that down and more! Here are the 3 biggest takeaways from the FireKeepers Casino 400 from Michigan International Speedway!
The closing laps of this stage was a cat and mouse game of fuel saving. William Byron had been the stronger car all race long. Meanwhile, his teammate Kyle Larson looked to still be suffering from The Memorial Day Weekend Double hangover. He made uncharacteristic mistakes on pit road, putting him deep in traffic, and had a run-in with Ty Dillon. All that said, he found himself in third in the closing laps of this race, chasing his teammate, William Byron, and race leader Carson Hocevar. Behind them was third-year driver, Ty Gibbs, who seems to have turned it around after an abysmal start to the year. All four of these drivers were said to be very tight on fuel and were running the closing laps saving as much fuel as they could.
Meanwhile, Denny Hamlin in 5th was said to be good on fuel. In Dale Earnhardt’s heartbreaking Daytona 500 fashion, Carson Hocevar, while leading the race, blew a left rear tire. He would not capture his first win at his home track. Byron retook the lead with Larson, Gibbs, and Hamlin chasing him. With 15 laps to go, Hamlin pounced on Gibbs and made easy work of Larson. The 11 was through to 2nd with his eyes on the 24 of William Byron. Behind them, Gibbs got by Larson for third.
The race was on. The time to save fuel was over. It was time to go hard! All-in, all-out! With 5 laps to go, Hamlin made his move. He got beside of Byron and the two started battling hard for the lead. This allowed Ty Gibbs and Chris Buescher to draw closer. Hamlin took the lead and cleared Byron with 3 laps to go. Coming to the white flag, Byron ran out of fuel. Hamlin was able to nurse it home to score his 3rd win of the season. Buescher finished second, Gibbs in third. Bubba Wallace 4th and Kyle Larson 5th. This win scored Denny Hamlin 51 points. Today, he became the 10th driver to win with more than 700 starts. Hamlin proved today that he is still elite.
Throughout the first two stages of today’s race, no one driver showed outright dominance. Polesitter Chase Briscoe led the first eleven laps of the stage before falling to William Byron. Byron then led the most laps of the stage at 24 to match his car number. As the stage wore on, though, the Fords of Chris Buescher and Josh Berry worked their way into the top 5. Buescher took the lead from Byron and led the remaining 11 of the stage to win it. The stage win earned him 1 playoff point and 10 points toward the overall standings. That’s a big deal because, as of now, Buescher sits 14th in points, near the cutline.
The top 5 finishers in the opening stage were Buescher, Byron, Hamlin, Briscoe, Berry, Blaney, Larson, Wallace, Busch, and Hocevar.
It was a similar story in the second stage. NASCAR’s Most Popular Driver, Chase Elliott, entered the picture and took the lead away from Blaney. He held the lead for 19 laps before pitting under caution in order to make it to the end of the stage on fuel. Other drivers also played this strategy, including Josh Berry and defending Cup Series champion, Joey Logano. This handed the lead over to Christopher Bell, who then quickly lost it to William Byron.
The field pitted once more with 10 laps to go after Ryan Blaney spun while trying to get onto pit road. This incident triggered a caution. Austin Cindric stayed out to inherit the lead with Hamlin and Preece behind him. Chase Elliott and Josh Berry both once again found themselves in the top 10.
By the time the second stage was done, we had 10 different leaders. The lap leaders were Byron (57), Elliott (19), Chris Buescher (13), Chase Briscoe (11), Austin Cindric (9), Ryan Blaney (7), Christopher Bell (2), Denny Hamlin (1), and Cody Ware (1). As the stage came to a close, the real contenders started to separate themselves from the pretenders. Byron, Hocevar, and Reddick all had really fast hot rods and were looking to capitalize on the momentum they built over the first two stages.
Byron ultimately won the second stage.
Today at Michigan International Speedway, Alex Bowman took one of the scariest hits we’ve seen in this NextGen era. It was towards the beginning of the second stage, shortly after a restart. This stinger of a crash, a hit that Bowman said afterwords was the hardest of his career, happened when the 2 of Austin Cindric clipped the apron in turns 1 and 2 and snapped loose. In a chain reaction response, the 2 car got into the 41 of Cole Custer, who then collected Daniel Suarez and Alex Bowman.
As you can see in the video clip provided by NASCAR’s X page, Bowman’s 48 Ally Chevy snapped dead right and hit the wall head-on at roughly 180 miles per hour. The impact was brutal. Bowman hit so hard that the wall contracted and the force lifted the Hendrick Chevy into the air briefly. The caution came out immediately and the 48 car came to rest. Shortly thereafter, we were put under red flag conditions as the safety crews made it over to Bowman in a hurry. Bowman let down the window net to indicate that he was oaky but sat there a moment to catch his breath. Then, miraculously, Bowman climbed from the 48 machine under his own power and walked into the ambulance.
Thankfully, Alex Bowmen was checked and released from the in-field care center. He had this to say about the crash.
Here are the mangled remains of the 48 Ally Chevy.
Carson Hocevar has been turning heads as of late. For the third week in a row, the 77 Spire Chevy was wicked fast all weekend long and appeared to be in race-winning contention. He rode around the top 10 and top 5 all race long and, when the race restarted to kick off the final stage, he rocketed by William Byron and Kyle Larson to snatch the race lead away from the HMS duo. As Hocevar took the lead, the Michigan crowd roared to life, cheering on their hometown kid.
Despite clearly not having the best car, he was able to hold off Byron for a number of laps, despite being low on fuel. This is a team that we’re not used to seeing run up front. But clearly, Hocevar has enough talent behind the wheel to take a typically mid-pack race team and put them in contention for regular top 5s and 10s. If he continues to run like this, it’s only a matter of time before he breaks through and wins one of these races. Yes, it does appear that Carson Hocevar is the real deal. He just needs to smooth out some of his rough edges.
The lone race at Michigan International Speedway is officially in the books, Daily Downforce readers! And it ends with Denny Hamlin standing tall. Over 700 starts, a new dad, 3rd win of the season. Denny Hamlin is still competing at the highest level. What did you think of that race, NASCAR fans? Are you happy for Denny? Did he beat your favorite driver? How’d your favorite driver do today? Let us know what you think by commenting on all of our social media platforms.
Be sure to tune back in here at DailyDownforce.com all week long as we get ready for the NASCAR Cup Series debut in Mexico City!
