It’s that time of the week again. NASCAR’s sixth race weekend of the year has come and gone, and once again, we had a few monumental winners…but also several disappointing losers as a result. Let’s rack ’em and stack ’em. There are the biggest losers post-Darlington.
I know, I know. How can I possibly dunk 23XI Racing? They swept the front row. Tyler Reddick won from the pole. It was his fourth win in only six starts. How could they possibly be losers? Well, when it comes to Tyler Reddick, he did an admirable job rebounding. And that’s just it–they rebounded to win. The road to get to that victory was full of trials and tribulations when they were set up to have a dominant weekend. Reddick and Bubba paced the field early and it looked like Riley Herbst might actually get a top 15 finish. But none of that was in the cards.
The problems for 23XI Racing started early. So early, in fact, that Tyler Reddick was in the lead in the opening laps when things started to go south. Reddick radioed in with concerns of a battery issue. Then, to pile things on, he suffered a cool suit malfunction. While he battled back to win the race, it almost didn’t happen, as the team had to pit several times to correct the issue, handing control of the race over to RFK. And while I’ll give Reddick a pass because he ultimately won the race, both of his teammates were looking to have decent runs as well before it all went south.
Bubba Wallace was second behind Reddick early, and then a bad pit stop cost him and put him back in traffic. And you know how it goes–when you’re back in traffic, you’re more prone to get caught up in someone else’s mistakes. This time, it was the mistake of team co-owner Denny Hamlin. Hamin tagged Erik Jones from behind and turned him around. This caused a stack up, and who was there to run into him? None other than his 23XI driver, Bubba Wallace. This ruined his car, and he had to settle for a 34th-place finish after starting second. Riley Herbst didn’t leave Darlington unscathed either. He got spun out by Connor Zilisch while running 12th and never recovered. He finished right behind Bubba in 35th.
Ranked 33rd best pit crew in the series out of the active 36 teams was bound to catch up with the No. 12 pit crew of Ryan Blaney. They were a mess in Phoenix, having multiple issues on pit road that had Blaney fall behind and he had to dig himself out of the hole they dug. Luckily, he went on to win that race. He wasn’t so lucky here. Again, the No. 12 crew made multiple mistakes on pit road but the main one of note was when they didn’t get the lug tight on his left rear tire and Blaney had to make an additional stop in Austin Cindric’s pit box. Blaney’s comments after the incident summed it up: they’ve got to be better than that.
Luckily for them, Blaney again battled back to finish 3rd. But that was based on pure driver talent, not for any favors done on pit road. One of these days, their lackluster pit stops are going to cost the No. 12 team big, maybe even with championship implications.
After exchanging words with former teammate Daniel Suarez last week in Las Vegas, Ross Chastain had a fairly solid weekend for any other run-of-the-mill driver. The problem is that Ross Chastain isn’t a run-of-the-mill driver. He’s the Melon Man, and the Melon Man is expected to win in his Trackhouse equipment and contend for wins.
But I’m not placing him on this list for his mediocre 16th-place finish in today’s Cup race. No, he’s on this list for his mediocre run in Saturday’s O’Reilly Auto Parts Series race. This is the second year in a row that Chastain is running a partial schedule in the No. 9 entry for JR Motorsports. In equipment that good, he’s expected to win. SVG managed it (twice). Daniel Suarez won in the car last year in Mexico. And still, Ross Chastain has ZERO wins in the car, despite them being far and away the best team in the garage. After winning three races in a row, JRM was expected to keep the streak alive. And they did…with Justin Allgaier. Meanwhile, Ross Chastain was the ONLY JRM driver to finish outside the top 10 in that race. Go figure.
This is getting tiresome. What hurts the most isn’t that Kyle Busch finished 21st. It’s that he started in the 8th position, fell out of the top 15 early, and almost went a lap down even before Stage 1 finished. Darlington is a driver’s racetrack and very few drivers on the NASCAR circuit can wheel a car like Wild Thang Kyle Busch…or at least like he used to be able to. Now, though, he’s looking more and more like a withered shell of his former self.
This was a weekend that could have been huge for that organization. He had a good starting spot. But they couldn’t keep it there, and they simply couldn’t keep up with the rest of the pack. Mark this one down as another huge missed opportunity as Busch’s winless streak stretches to 99 races.
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