Denny Hamlin is 25/1 to win at Watkins Glen

Denny Hamlin / No. 11 Sport Clips Toyota Camry TRD Preview

NASCAR Cup Series at Watkins Glen International

 

No. 11 Sport Clips Toyota Camry TRD News and Notes

• HAMLIN AT WATKINS GLEN: Denny Hamlin is a former NASCAR Cup Series winner at Watkins Glen International after visiting victory lane in 2016. That day, Hamlin led the final 10 laps to secure his only road course victory at the Cup Series level. He has recorded four top-five finishes in his past five Watkins Glen starts, including a fifth-place result last August.
• RICHMOND RECAP: Hamlin finished fourth in last Sunday’s race at Richmond Raceway after a solid overall performance for the No. 11 team. He finished second and third, respectively, in the opening two stages and appeared poised to challenge for the win after an aggressive pit call from crew chief Chris Gabehart during the final stage. Unfortunately for Hamlin, a miscue during the team’s final green-flag pit stop put him too far behind to make up the deficit to eventual winner Kevin Harvick.
• TRENDING UPWARD: After posting back-to-back top-five finishes, Hamlin has vaulted to a season-best 12th in the overall points standings. His 131 points over the last three races are 12 more than the next best (Joey Logano, 119 points) and 32 points better than third-best (Bubba Wallace, 99 points).
• SPORT CLIPS: Sport Clips will be featured as the primary sponsor of Hamlin’s No. 11 Camry for Sunday’s race at Watkins Glen International. The sports-themed haircutting franchise based in Georgetown, Texas is a longtime supporter of Joe Gibbs Racing dating back to 2009 and has more than 1,850 stores in the United States and Canada.
• JGR AT WATKINS GLEN: Joe Gibbs Racing has earned seven NASCAR Cup Series wins at Watkins Glen International. In 73 combined starts at the track, the organization has racked up 29 top-five finishes, 45 top-10s, four pole awards, and 555 laps led. While the team has not won at the track since Hamlin’s victory in 2016, in the past four trips to the New York road course, JGR drivers have claimed 12 top-five finishes, 14 top-10s and a 5.0-average finishing position in 16 combined starts. Kyle Busch and Tony Stewart join Hamlin on the list of drivers who have taken JGR to victory lane at Watkins Glen.
• TUNE IN: Coverage of this weekend’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Watkins Glen International begins Sunday, August 21, at 3 p.m. ET on USA Network, MRN Radio, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.

 

Denny Hamlin, Driver of the No. 11 Sport Clips Toyota Camry TRD

What do you expect this weekend at Watkins Glen based on other road course races this season?

“We’re definitely still working on our road course program. It is not where it needs to be, and we know that as a team and as a manufacturer. It has been pretty frustrating this season because it’s not from a lack of effort. Everyone at Joe Gibbs Racing and TRD are doing everything they possibly can to find those improvements to get us back up front on the road courses. We’re making progress, but realistically, if we can run inside the top 10 and avoid mistakes this weekend, that would be a good day for us to continue learning and improving as we look ahead to the ROVAL in the playoffs.”

 

Hamlin NASCAR Cup Series Stats at Watkins Glen International

Starts	Wins	Top 5	Top 10	Poles	Laps Led	Avg. Start	Avg. Finish
15	1	5	8	1	18	12.3	15.5

 

Hamlin 2022 NASCAR Cup Series Season Stats

Starts	Wins	Top 5	Top 10	Poles	Laps Led	Avg. Start	Avg. Finish
24	2	5	7	3	371	11.6	18.7

 

Hamlin NASCAR Cup Series Career Stats

Starts	Wins	Top 5	Top 10	Poles	Laps Led	Avg. Start	Avg. Finish
602	48	203	312	36	13,101	11.9	13.3

 

About Sport Clips Haircuts

Sport Clips Haircuts is the nation's leading men's and boys' hair care franchise with more than 1,850 locations open in the U.S. and Canada. Fully-equipped for the sports enthusiast, Sport Clips surrounds its clients with televisions tuned to sports and sports-themed decor. Stylists enjoy a fun work environment with a guaranteed base-pay plus service commission, retail commission and tips. Sport Clips also supports the growth of their team members through continuing education, exciting contests, and award recognition. Sport Clips was given an A+ rating and was recognized in 2021 as “Best Company for Women” and “Best Company Culture” by Comparably. Through the Eric Gozur-Wayne McGlone Memorial Relief Fund, Sport Clips provides assistance to employees facing emergent financial situations. Sport Clips also provides “Haircuts with Heart” through its annual Help A Hero fundraiser that has donated $10 million to the VFW; national partnership with St. Baldrick’s Foundation, the largest private funder of childhood cancer research grants; and other national and local philanthropic outreach. To learn more about Sport Clips and career opportunities, visit sportclipscareers.com.

Kyle Busch is 20/1 to win at Watkins Glen

 

KYLE BUSCH Hungry for a Road-Course Win   HUNTERSVILLE, North Carolina (Aug. 17, 2022) – As the NASCAR Cup Series heads to Watkins Glen (N.Y.) International for Sunday’s Go Bowling at The Glen, road-course races have evolved from rare occasions to a vital part of the schedule for NASCAR Cup Series competitors in recent seasons.   That’s because Sunday’s race on the 2.45-mile, seven-turn Watkins Glen circuit will be the fifth of six road-course events on the schedule in 2022. For Kyle Busch, driver of the No. 18 SNICKERS Toyota Camry for Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR), the Las Vegas native always looked at the two traditional road courses at Sonoma (Calif.) Raceway and Watkins Glen as a racing vacation for NASCAR’s top series, providing the chance to turn left and right for a couple of weekends each year. Now, with six of 36 races run on road courses, turning left and right is as important as short-track racing, which occupies six races on the schedule with two apiece at Richmond (Va.) Raceway, Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway, and Martinsville (Va.) Speedway each year.   For Busch, the two-time Cup Series champion, Watkins Glen is one of his favorite road courses on the schedule. He’s brought home two victories, seven top-five finishes, and 13 top-10s in 16 starts there.   After his inaugural Cup Series victory at The Glen in 2008, he nearly won for the second time in his 2011 and 2012 visits before finally breaking through again in 2013. A third career victory Sunday in New York’s scenic Finger Lakes Region would continue to solidify Busch and the SNICKERS team as a contender each time the series comes to town.   As far as overall road-course proficiency, Busch is tied with David Pearson and Mark Martin with four Cup Series road-course wins apiece. That’s some pretty good company, already. A fifth road-course win would tie him with Darrell Waltrip, Tim Richmond and Dan Gurney on the road-course wins list. The top three in all-time road-course wins in the Cup Series includes Chase Elliott and Jeff Gordon with seven apiece, while Tony Stewart is the all-time leader with nine wins.   So as Busch heads to Upstate New York for another round of road racing this weekend, he would like nothing more than to bring home a third win there, which would be a timely victory with only two regular-season races remaining before the 2022 Cup Series playoffs begin on Labor Day weekend. And Busch is certainly “hungry” for a win with his SNICKERS Camry as he looks for some momentum with the playoffs looming.

KYLE BUSCH, Driver of the No. 18 SNICKERS Toyota Camry for Joe Gibbs Racing:

You’ve had some success at Watkins Glen. What makes it challenging and different than some other road courses you race at?   “I like going to Watkins Glen. It’s a road course, but it’s kind of a high-speed road course. The difference in the road courses at The Glen and Sonoma, you think of Sonoma as a Martinsville-type road course and you would think of Watkins Glen like a 2-mile oval, like a Fontana- or Michigan-type road course. Watkins Glen has some speed and has some wide-open spaces a little bit, but there is still a lot of great racing that happens there since you are able to out-brake people getting into the corners, or having a better run through the Bus Stop, or maybe getting by someone in the Carousel. It’s a fun place to race. We’ve struggled as a company on the road courses, but we’ve gained some ground lately and thought we had a top-10 going at Indy before getting spun in the late going. So I’m hoping we can get even better at Watkins Glen and stay out of the chaos that has happened at the end of a lot of these road-course races. I really like Watkins Glen and I hope we can have another solid run there with our SNICKERS Camry.”   What is the most fun part of a lap at Watkins Glen?   “To me, going through turn one and up through the esses is pretty cool and a lot of fun. It’s challenging, yet a lot of fun. As you come down the front straightaway, it’s a downhill braking zone, so you feel like you don’t have to brake as soon as you need to, but you need to in order to get slowed down for turn one. You try to stay out and get a good, hard cut to the right for turn one and accelerate out of there as quickly as you can to get set up for the esses. (You) stay wide on the left and then turn into the right-hander in (turn) two – smooth. You’re getting out of the gas but not using too much brake, just rolling off in there. As the car gets in there and loads, it actually takes a really big set because that’s when you start going back uphill. So the car will load up and that’s when you get back in the gas really wide open. And then you have to turn back to the left and be able to roll back out of it just enough to make the car bend. And then you’re back wide open again to the right-side guardrail and just keeping it tight through the right-hander that we call turn five.”   What is the most challenging part of a lap at Watkins Glen?   “I’d say the most challenging thing is the culmination of the Inner Loop and the Carousel. All of that together is a lot harder to figure out how to make speed through there than just going through there traditionally. That’s an area of the racetrack a lot of guys really try to abuse. They’ll get off on the right side, get off on the left side and throw dirt up on the racetrack and then it just makes for a real mess.”   What does it take to be successful at Watkins Glen?   “At Watkins Glen, the biggest thing is pit strategy. Obviously, you’ve got to pick and choose when you’re going to pit and stick to your plan. Whether or not we can still do it on two stops, I’m unsure of. You definitely have to be good at being able to carry speed there, obviously, through the esses and down the long backstretch. That seems to be the key part of the racetrack.”

Event Overview:

● Event: Go Bowling! At the Glen (Round 25 of 36) ● Time/Date: 3 p.m. EDT on Sunday, Aug. 21 ● Location: Watkins Glen (N.Y.) International ● Layout: 2.45-mile, seven-turn road course ● Laps/Miles: 90 laps, 220.5 miles ● Format: Stage 1: 20 laps / Stage 2: 20 laps / Final Stage: 50 laps ● TV/Radio: USA / MRN / SiriusXM NASCAR Radio

Chase Briscoe is 18/1 to win at Watkins Glen

 

CHASE BRISCOE Watkins Glen Advance No. 14 Ford Performance Racing School Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing

Event Overview

●  Event:  Go Bowling at the Glen (Round 25 of 36) ●  Time/Date:  3 p.m. EDT on Sunday, Aug. 21 ●  Location:  Watkins Glen (N.Y.) International ●  Layout:  Seven-turn, 2.45-mile road course ●  Laps/Miles:  90 laps / 220.5 miles ●  Stage Lengths:  Stage 1: 20 laps / Stage 2: 20 laps / Final Stage: 50 laps ●  TV/Radio:  USA / MRN / SiriusXM NASCAR Radio

Notes of Interest

● Chase Briscoe and the No. 14 Ford Performance Racing School team for Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR) are set to compete in the fifth of six road course events of the 2022 season this Sunday at Watkins Glen (N.Y.) International. This year’s Go Bowling at the Glen marks Briscoe’s second NASCAR Cup Series start on the seven-turn, 2.45-mile circuit. In 2021, he started 27th and finished ninth.   ● In his lone Xfinity Series start at Watkins Glen in 2019, Briscoe started and finished sixth.   ● The 27-year-old racer from Mitchell, Indiana, has picked up two Xfinity Series wins on road courses. His first career Xfinity Series victory was in the series’ inaugural race on the Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway Roval in 2018. He also fulfilled his childhood dream of kissing the historic Yard of Bricks when he scored his fifth win of the 2020 season on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course.   ● Briscoe finished among the top-10 in all but three of the 10 road-course races in which he competed in the Xfinity Series. And in his lone NASCAR Camping World Truck Series start on a road course – the 2017 race at Canadian Tire Motorsports Park in Bowmanville, Ontario – Briscoe finished seventh in a Ford F-150.   ● This weekend’s race is the next-to-last event of the regular season. This year’s 16-driver playoff field will be set after the regular-season finale Aug. 27 at Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway. Briscoe sits 17th in the driver standings but is currently poised to make the Cup Series playoffs for the first time by virtue of his March 13 victory at Phoenix Raceway, provided there are no new first-time winners for this season at Watkins Glen or Daytona.

Chase Briscoe, Driver of the No. 14 Ford Performance Racing School Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing:

What makes Watkins Glen so different from other road courses? “It’s not as technical as some of the others. You have to focus a lot on the balance of the car to be able to get around it. It’s a very high-speed track and there isn’t really a slow corner that you can use to set up a pass if you get behind. We’ve seen with the new car it’s been tough to pass, and guys have been really aggressive on the road courses, so I think we’ll for sure see some guys making moves that might not work.”   There are two races left in the regular season and you’re getting closer to being locked into the playoffs. Do you feel comfortable with where you are in the standings? “I guess. It’s tough because we had a decent run at Michigan. It didn’t really hurt us in points and we came out feeling like we were going to be OK. Then at Richmond, we were running top-five for a little and in the top-10, and then the car caught on fire. That was really disappointing because we’ve been so strong on the short tracks and I felt like it was where we could put ourselves in a good place for the last two races. I still think we’re OK, but it really comes down to when Kurt (Busch) comes back and how these next two races go.”

Cole Custer is 150/1 to win at Watkins Glen

 

COLE CUSTER Watkins Glen Advance No. 41 HaasTooling.com Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing

Event Overview

● Event: Go Bowling at the Glen (Round 25 of 36) ● Time/Date: 3 p.m. EDT on Sunday, Aug. 21 ● Location: Watkins Glen (N.Y.) International ● Layout: Seven-turn, 2.45-mile road course ● Laps/Miles: 90 laps / 220.5 miles ● Stage Lengths: Stage 1: 20 laps / Stage 2: 20 laps / Final Stage: 50 laps ● TV/Radio: USA / MRN / SiriusXM NASCAR Radio

Notes of Interest

● Cole Custer will make his milestone 100th career NASCAR Cup Series start when he and his No. 41 HaasTooling.com Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR) head to Watkins Glen (N.Y.) International for the penultimate road-course race of the season, Sunday’s Go Bowling at The Glen.   ● Sunday’s 90-lap race will be Custer’s second on the seven-turn, 2.45-mile Watkins Glen circuit and his 14th Cup Series start on a road course. Custer equaled his career-best Cup Series road-course finish of ninth in the July 31 event on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway circuit. He also finished ninth in the October 2020 race on the Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway Roval.   ● The 24-year-old from Ladera Ranch, California, started 19th and finished 18th in his Cup Series debut at The Glen last year, while the annual August event during his Rookie of the Year campaign in 2020 was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Custer also has raced at The Glen three times each in NASCAR’s Xfinity Series and K&N Pro Series East.   ● In his three Watkins Glen starts in the Xfinity Series from 2017 through 2019, all in the No. 00 SHR Ford, Custer finished in the top-12 in all three, his best resulting in a sixth-place finish in 2018. He debuted with a 12th-place finish in 2017 and added a seventh-place finish in 2019.   ● Custer’s three NASCAR K&N Pro Series East races at The Glen included finishes of fifth from the pole and third from the inside-second-row starting spot in his two most recent visits in 2015 and 2016, respectively. He led 17 laps in the 2015 event.   ● Prior to his ninth-place finish at Indianapolis four weekends ago, Custer qualified 10th and finished 15th in the July 3 race at Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin. He posted stout qualifying efforts in the season’s first two road-course races – third for the March 27 event at Circuit of the Americas (COTA) in Austin, Texas, and sixth for the June 12 race at Sonoma (Calif.) Raceway – but late-race, multicar chaos foiled his bids for finishes deep inside the top-10 at both events.   ● In NASCAR Camping World Truck Series competition, Custer has top-10s in all three of his road-course outings, all at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park in Bowmanville, Ontario. His best was his most recent, a second-place run from the pole with a race-high 39 laps led in the No. 00 JR Motorsports entry in 2016.   ● Riding along with Custer and his SHR Mustang is team co-owner Gene Haas’ newest holding, Haas Tooling, which was launched as a way for CNC machinists to purchase high-quality cutting tools at great prices. Haas cutting tools are sold exclusively online at HaasTooling.com and shipped directly to end users. HaasTooling.com products became available nationally in July 2020. Haas Automation, founded by Haas in 1983, is America’s leading builder of CNC machine tools. The company manufactures a complete line of vertical and horizontal machining centers, turning centers and rotary tables and indexers. All Haas products are constructed in the company’s 1.1-million-square-foot manufacturing facility in Oxnard, California, and distributed through a worldwide network of Haas Factory Outlets.

Cole Custer, Driver of the No. 41 HaasTooling.com Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing

You equaled your best career Cup Series road-course result of ninth at the previous road-course race at Indianapolis. What are your thoughts as you head to Watkins Glen this weekend? “Watkins Glen’s always been one of my favorite road courses just because there’s so much flow to the racetrack and how fast it is. It’s pretty much hammer down the whole time and it’s just one of those places where you can really feel the flow of the racetrack and how each corner connects with the next one.”   Do you have a favorite part of the track at Watkins Glen? “I think it’s the esses, going through there almost wide open with guardrails on either side. It’s almost a sketchy part of the track, but it’s fast and it’s fun. I think it’s definitely one of my favorite parts of the track where you can really get after it and carry a lot of speed.”   How would you evaluate the road-course program at SHR? “I would say, for us as an organization, we’ve been solid in the road-course races. You definitely always want to be better, but I feel like we’ve been in the mix more often than not, at least. I feel like we can run top-10 most of the time and, from there, it’s just a matter of one adjustment and one thing going right on pit road and you’re in the top-five and looking for a win. So I think it’s just a matter of fine-tuning it a little bit, but I’ve been pretty happy with our road-course cars. It’s just a matter of having the whole race play out right.”

Kyle Busch is 7/1 to win at Richmond seventh time

 

KYLE BUSCH Playing Favorites   HUNTERSVILLE, North Carolina (Aug. 10, 2022) – With nine wins at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway in NASCAR’s top series, including a win there this past spring on the dirt surface, Kyle Busch and many of his fans consider Bristol to be his best track.   While Busch’s stats are quite strong at Bristol, there’s one other track where his stats are even more impressive, the .75-mile oval at Richmond (Va.) Raceway, the site of Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series Federated Auto Parts 400.   Busch, driver of the No. 18 M&M’S Toyota Camry for Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR), has six career Cup Series victories at Richmond, most among active drivers. In addition to those six career wins, Busch’s Richmond stat sheet shows 18 top-five finishes and 26 top-10s in 33 career starts, making him the most consistent active driver at the track.   The Las Vegas native also leads all active drivers with his Richmond average finishing position of 6.9. Next best is Kevin Harvick at 9.9. Busch has completed all but one of the 13,229 laps available to him in his 33 Richmond starts.   The first four of Busch’s six career Richmond wins came in consecutive spring races from 2009 to 2012, besting Richard Petty’s previous record of three Richmond spring-race wins in a row from 1971 to 1973. Busch’s other two Richmond wins came in a sweep of the 2018 races there. With his impressive statistics and records to back him up, it’s little wonder that a visit to Richmond is one of Busch’s favorite stops on the NASCAR tour.   More recently, Busch has an active streak of nine consecutive top-10 finishes at Richmond, a streak which started in September 2017 and includes two of his six victories there. That streak is the longest current top-10 streak at the short track. Busch has finished outside the top-10 just twice at Richmond since the 2013 season.   So, as the series heads to the “Capital of the Commonwealth of Virginia,” one of Busch’s favorite two destinations on the schedule, he and the M&M’S team would like to add to his six victories there and get him closer to matching his incredible record at Bristol.

KYLE BUSCH, Driver of the No. 18 M&M'S Toyota Camry for Joe Gibbs Racing:

You had a strong run at Richmond in the spring, but you didn’t get the result you seemed to deserve because of a penalty for tape on the grille. What do you expect this weekend in the second race there with the NextGen car?   “Richmond has been great place for me over the years. I’m not sure exactly why, but it started off rough for me, not running well there in the Truck Series in 2001, but I got back there in an Xfinity car in 2003 and 2004 and everything went really well ever since then. We’ve had a lot of top-fives, a lot of top-two finishes and wins there, so excited about our prospects of going back there this weekend and running well again. I thought we had a legitimate shot of a top-three finish there in the spring and maybe a chance at a win, but would love to be able to better our result from the spring with our M&M’S Camry.”   What are your thoughts on the “win-and-you’re-in” format for the playoffs, especially with so many winners this year?   “I think it gives you a sense of urgency. Especially for the guys who don’t have one, they know they need a win to get in and to feel safely in the playoffs. There is that reward, but if there are 16 or 17 winners, should we open it up to anyone who won? I don’t think so, there still should be some sense of urgency with the race within the race. We already have that with stages, too, where there are actually three races within a race with stages. It’s just a matter of being in that top-16, we all know what the rules are and the results will speak for themselves.”   What does it take to get around Richmond?   “Richmond is getting a little trickier, it seems like, just with the asphalt kind of getting older and the way the cars are. The consensus at Richmond is, of course, just trying to get your car to turn, but also having really good forward bite. You have to be able to get off the corners at Richmond. All of it correlates. Everything you want as a racecar driver, you’ve got to have most all of it and, if you don’t, then you better hope you have more forward bite than the rest of them. That’s sort of the equation of Richmond. It’s a fun place to race. It’s really cool. As a driver, you wish it could widen out and give you more options of being able to run around in different grooves, but it hasn’t shown us that the last couple of years. We’re hoping to get our M&M’S Camry another win there.”   What is it about Richmond that suits your driving style?   “I don’t know, I started out really bad there. That first Truck Series race there was horrible. I think I ran into everything but the hot dog stand. The next time I went there was with Hendrick (Motorsports) in the Busch Series in 2004 when they first repaved the track, and I ran really well. We were able to win that race, and I led the most laps. From that point forward, I feel like I kind of learned or had a sense of what it takes to be fast there and what you need to be able to do to win there. As the years have gone on, the racetrack has definitely aged, it’s definitely gone through some transition, it has lost a lot of grip. There have been some changes in that respect, as well, just trying to figure out, ‘OK, what’s next? What’s the next thing that’s going to keep you on top of your game at Richmond?’ The new car is another challenge that we took there this year. It’s always been a good track for me, I enjoy going there. It’s a fun short track. It’s a very challenging short track that doesn’t lend itself to typical short tracks around the country.”

Event Overview:

● Event: Federated Auto Parts 400 (Round 24 of 36) ● Time/Date: 3 p.m. EDT on Sunday, Aug. 14 ● Location: Richmond (Va.) Raceway ● Layout: .75-mile oval ● Laps/Miles: 400 laps/300 miles ● Stage Lengths:  Stage 1: 70 laps / Stage 2: 160 laps / Final Stage: 170 laps ● TV/Radio: USA / MRN / SiriusXM NASCAR Radio

Kevin Harvick win at Michigan paid out at 30/1 odds

 

STEWART-HAAS RACING FireKeepers Casino 400

Date:  Aug. 7, 2022 Event:  FireKeepers Casino 400 (Round 23 of 36) Series:  NASCAR Cup Series Location:  Michigan International Speedway in Brooklyn (2-mile oval) Format:  200 laps, broken into three stages (45 laps/75 laps/80 laps)   Race Winner:  Kevin Harvick of Stewart-Haas Racing (Ford) Stage 1 Winner:  Christopher Bell of Joe Gibbs Racing (Toyota) Stage 2 Winner:  Denny Hamlin of Joe Gibbs Racing (Toyota)   SHR Race Finish:             ●  Kevin Harvick (Started 16th, Finished 1st / Running, completed 200 of 200 laps) ●  Chase Briscoe (Started 23rd, Finished 20th / Running, completed 200 of 200 laps)   ●  Cole Custer (Started 17th, Finished 31st / Accident, completed 94 of 200 laps) ●  Aric Almirola (Started 18th, Finished 34th / Accident, completed 25 of 200 laps)   SHR Points: ●  Kevin Harvick (9th with 618 points, 229 out of first) ●  Chase Briscoe (15th with 533 points, 314 out of first) ●  Aric Almirola (18th with 518 points, 329 out of first) ●  Cole Custer (25th with 390 points, 457 out of first)   Victory Notes: ●  Harvick’s victory in the FireKeepers Casino 400 marked the 94th overall win for SHR. It was the organization’s 68th points-paying NASCAR Cup Series victory, its second of the season and its seventh at Michigan. SHR has now won six of the past eight NASCAR Cup Series races at Michigan. ●  SHR scored its maiden Michigan win via former driver Kurt Busch in June 2015, and former driver Clint Bowyer earned the team’s second win at the 2-mile oval in June 2018. Harvick’s first victory at the track came in August 2018 before he went on a run of three straight wins, returning to victory lane in August 2019 before sweeping the track’s doubleheader in 2020. ●  This was SHR’s 32nd NASCAR Cup Series victory with Ford. Busch won the 2017 Daytona 500 to deliver the organization’s first win with Ford. ●  Harvick’s win in the FireKeepers Casino 400 was his 59th career NASCAR Cup Series victory, his first of the season and his series-leading sixth at Michigan. His margin over second-place Bubba Wallace 2.903 seconds. ●  Harvick was the 15th different winner in the 23 NASCAR Cup Series races run this season. ●  Harvick has now won 24 NASCAR Cup Series races with Ford. He is one of only 13 drivers to win 20 or more races with the manufacturer. He is tied with Matt Kenseth for 10th all time. ●  This was Ford’s 716th all-time NASCAR Cup Series victory and its fifth of the season. ●  This was Ford’s series-leading 43rd win at Michigan, which is the most at any track currently on the NASCAR Cup Series schedule. Ford scored its first Michigan win with NASCAR Hall of Famer David Pearson on Aug. 17, 1969. ●  This was Ford’s eighth straight win at Michigan, a streak that started with Bowyer in June 2018. ●  This was Harvick’s 59th career NASCAR Cup Series victory, maintaining his 10th-place standing on the series’ all-time win list.   ●  This was Harvick’s 36th NASCAR Cup Series victory since joining SHR in 2014.   SHR Notes:         ●  Harvick now has 16 top-five and 22 top-10 finishes at Michigan, the most among active NASCAR Cup Series drivers at Michigan. ●  Harvick finished eighth in Stage 1 to earn three bonus points. ●  Harvick led once for 38 laps to increase his laps led total at Michigan to 737, the most among all active drivers. ●  Harvick has now led 11,407 laps since joining SHR in 2014. He has led 15,833 laps in his entire NASCAR Cup Series career. ●  Briscoe finished 10th in Stage 1 to earn a bonus point.   Race Notes:        ●  There were seven caution periods for a total of 36 laps. ●  Twenty-two of the 37 drivers in the FireKeepers Casino 400 finished on the lead lap. ●  Chase Elliott remains the championship leader after Michigan with a 119-point advantage over second-place Ryan Blaney.   Sound Bites:   “Just good timing for sure. We’ve had several good runs the last few weeks – Loudon and Pocono where the car ran good and just didn’t have everything work out. I’m just really proud of everybody on our Busch Light Apple Ford Mustang. They’ve been digging all year long trying to make these Mustangs run faster. Our guys have done a good job in trying to take what we have, maximize it and do the things that we need to do. I’m just really proud of everybody at Stewart-Haas Racing. Everybody who doubted us doesn’t know us. They obviously know we thrive in these types of situations and a lot of things went our way today, which we haven’t had all year long. There at the end, we pitted and didn’t go a lap down and then the caution came out and got control of the race. That’s the thing I struggled with most today was traffic and restarts and just having to make up ground, but once I got clear track, that baby was hunting.” – Kevin Harvick, driver of the No. 4 Busch Light Apple #BuschelOfBusch Ford Mustang   “Our Rush Truck Centers/Cummins Ford Mustang was really good to start the race. We were able to make some good gains but we were so tight. The guys did a great job working on it, but I got in the wall toward the end and didn’t help. We’re still in a good place, just got to get through the next few races and make sure we get to move on to the playoffs.” – Chase Briscoe, driver of the No. 14 Rush Truck Centers / Cummins Ford Mustang   “We don’t really know what started all of that. I mean, we blew three left-front tires in probably a matter of 20 laps, so I don’t know what happened and why they kept blowing. It just seems like that’s the way our year has gone. We can’t seem to catch a break in most of these races. I don’t know. It just sucks to have another day end short, but we’ll move on to the next one.”– Cole Custer, driver of the No. 41 HaasTooling.com Ford Mustang   “I got hit in the left rear and spun out and then we all crashed. We just can’t seem to catch a break. I think some of the guys that were slower cars stayed out and that kind of jumbled up the field and then everybody swarms them and they can’t get out of the way.” – Aric Almirola, driver of the No. 10 Smithfield Ford Mustang   Next Up: The next event on the NASCAR Cup Series schedule is the Federated Auto Parts 400 on Sunday, Aug. 14 at Richmond (Va.) Raceway. The race begins at 3 p.m. EDT with live coverage provided by USA and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.

Kyle Busch is 6/1 co-favorite to win at Michigan

 

KYLE BUSCH Summer Road Trip   HUNTERSVILLE, North Carolina (August 2, 2022) – Many families across the United States use the summer months to take a road trip and make memories along the way. Kyle Busch, driver of the No. 18 Interstate Batteries Toyota Camry for Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR), his wife Samantha and 7-year-old son Brexton, and newborn daughter Lennix decided for the second year in a row to take a summer road trip of their own. This year, their summer tour yet again revolves around Brexton’s budding racing career as he competes at multiple tracks throughout the Midwest.   The summer road trip has included stops in Iowa, Illinois, and Wisconsin. After a week of seeing the sights while watching Brexton race, Busch will turn his focus back to NASCAR’s top series at Michigan International Speedway in Brooklyn, where he’ll compete in Sunday’s FireKeepers Casino 400 during the series’ annual summer visit to the Irish Hills.   With Interstate Batteries returning to the No. 18 Toyota this weekend, Busch is encouraging fans to stop by a local Interstate dealer to get their vehicle batteries checked before taking off on their late-summer vacation, much like he did before the family’s own Midwest tour. Hot weather has a far greater effect on batteries than the cold, so this weekend’s race at a popular summer tourist destination like the Great Lakes State is the perfect setting to remind fans to have their batteries checked.   The Michigan race signifies that summer is winding down, as well as the Cup Series regular season. In the Irish Hills of Michigan this weekend, Busch will look to keep running up front at a place where he initially struggled following the 2012 repave of the 2-mile oval. The Las Vegas native has certainly put those struggles behind him as he’s scored nine consecutive top-10s and has not finished outside the top-seven in his last seven starts there.   Busch’s lone career Cup Series win at Michigan came on Aug. 21, 2011, when he found himself outdueling seven-time champion Jimmie Johnson in a late-race shootout.   So, as Busch and the Interstate Batteries team head back to the Midwest this weekend with an “Outrageously Dependable” Interstate battery under the hood, Busch knows he’ll need to outduel several others in order to capture his second career Cup Series victory in the Irish Hills, which would be a perfect way to cap off an enjoyable family road trip around the Midwest.

KYLE BUSCH, Driver of the No. 18 Interstate Batteries Toyota Camry for Joe Gibbs Racing:

What are you expecting at Michigan this weekend?   “Michigan has been a hit-or-miss place for us. I remember winning there in the final race on the old pavement and that was super cool. Right after the repave, it was stuck up there in lane number two and where everyone wanted to run. But after a few years, we got to put on more side-by-side racing and I ended up stringing together some solid finishes. Looking forward to coming back there with a fast Interstate Batteries Camry. The Fords have been strong there in recent years, but you don’t know who is going to be this year with this new NextGen car.”   What is it about Michigan that separates it from other tracks?   “Michigan just being a 2-mile speedway, it’s not like a Daytona and Talladega, where it has the banking like those tracks do, but it is medium banking, so it’s all about speed. You just have to be fast and willing to go through the corner fast. The faster you can get through the corner, the better you are going to be down the straightaways. That’s just a product that we all understand. A couple of years ago, we tried to get better straightaway speed and it made us not as good in the corners, so we re-did our philosophy a bit for both getting off the corner and down the straightaway.”   What is the atmosphere like at Michigan as opposed to other tracks?   “The camping and the infield there always seem really full. They put on a good event weekend. They have concerts and they have some late-night fireworks, and hopefully they will be doing stuff for all the campers who will be there all weekend. We just want to put on a good show for the fans and hopefully get our Interstate Batteries Camry up front.”   How do you feel going into Michigan and what does that track mean for you on the schedule?   “We just try to figure out what we can continue to do to evolve and get better there. The setup there equates nothing to anything that we race throughout the playoffs, so really it’s just a track that we have to go to and do the best we can. But, beyond that, you never want to give away any opportunities to go out there and win a race, or to excel, or to take momentum away from what we’re doing with our Interstate Batteries Camry. We’ve put a focus on that track for the last several years and we’ve gained. We’ve certainly made improvements.”

Event Overview:

● Event: FireKeepers Casino 400 (Round 23 of 36) ● Time/Date: 3 p.m. EDT on Sunday, Aug. 7 ● Location: Michigan International Speedway in Brooklyn ● Layout: 2-mile oval ● Laps/Miles: 200 laps/400 miles ● Stage Lengths: Stage 1: 45 laps / Stage 2: 75 laps / Final Stage: 80 laps ● TV/Radio: USA Network / MRN / SiriusXM NASCAR Radio