Las Vegas 101: story lines, track info and more

By
Zach Sturniolo For NASCAR.com March 3, 2022 at 10:15 AMThe NASCAR Cup Series heads to its first 1.5-mile track of the season this weekend with a trip to Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Las Vegas also marks the first track teams will see that also makes an appearance in the playoffs, meaning plenty of notes will be taken on how the Next Gen car behaves in the desert.

Check out everything you need to know before Sunday’s Pennzoil 400 (3:30 p.m. ET, FOX, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

TRACK TIME IS KEY

NASCAR is adjusting its procedures for its revamped practice and qualifying this weekend at Las Vegas.

All teams will now be able to participate in Saturday’s 35-minute practice session (1:30 p.m. ET, FS2). After the session, teams will be broken into two groups (Group A and Group B) based on odd/even finishing order from last week’s race at Auto Club Speedway for single-car, single-lap qualifying (2:15 p.m. ET, FS1). The top five drivers from each group will then advance to the second round of qualifying to fight for the Busch Light Pole Award in another single-car, single-lap run.

RELATED: Las Vegas schedule | Cup Series standings

LAS VEGAS HISTORY

— Construction of Las Vegas Motor Speedway was completed in June 1996 on a 1,600-acre site near Nellis Air Force Base that holds rich racing history, dating back to a drag strip built in 1958. The site currently houses the 1.5-mile speedway, an industrial park, a drag strip, a 1/2-mile dirt track, a 3/8-mile paved oval and two road courses.

— The track’s original layout featured 12-degree banking in the corners, 3 degrees of banking on the backstretch and 9 degrees on the frontstretch. But a reconfiguration in 2006 changed the racing significantly, the result of 20-degree banking in the corners and 9-degree banking on each of the straightaways.

— Sunday marks the 29th race at Las Vegas.

— Las Vegas is the first of nine races held on 1.5-mile track this year.

Source: Racing Insights

GOODYEAR TIRES

Las Vegas has historically been a low-wear track for tires since the track was resurfaced. However, due in part to the Next Gen car’s wider tires and less downforce, Goodyear will issue the same right-side tire compound used at Auto Club as well as nine sets to use throughout the race.

“We have actually seen tire wear increase a little over the last couple races at Las Vegas,” said Greg Stucker, Goodyear’s director of racing. “It is certainly not in the category of a Darlington or a Fontana that we saw last week, but all track surfaces will naturally degrade over time and wear will increase. To go along with that, these cars will run a package that has higher horsepower (670) and lower downforce (4-inch spoiler) than in recent Vegas races, and that will add to the wear as cars are less ‘in the track’ and have more lateral slip.”

RELATED: Complete list of horsepower/downforce track combinations

 

Kyle Busch makes something from nothing in Vegas

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emailBy Kelly Crandall | March 6, 2022 10:47 PM ET

The deck was stacked against Kyle Busch at Las Vegas Motor Speedway and somehow, he wound up with a car capable of – and nearly – winning the Pennzoil 400.

Busch led 49 laps and finished fourth with a car that did not start the weekend Cup Series race-ready. It was a parts car available to the four Joe Gibbs Racing teams should they need to pull anything from it during the weekend. But when Busch completed nine laps in practice and crashed in Turn 3, destroying his primary No. 18 Toyota, the parts car became a backup car.

“Fortunately, we had a chassis that we could assemble and put together and go race today,” said Busch.

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“Just a great effort by everybody at Toyota and Joe Gibbs Racing for all the hard work and my guys on the 18 team and also the 11, 19 and 20. They just did a really good job of getting us here today. We had no choice, we had to be here, but they worked really hard all night long and put in a lot of hours, so that was good, and to have the opportunity to go out and race for a win that was really good too. We tried to make the most of it there, but luck just wasn’t on our side.”

It was far from an easy day.

Due to his car being a backup, Busch started last on the grid. It took him until the competition caution on lap 30 to crack the top 20 as he came down pit road in 18th place. But Busch lost his track position because of an extended pit stop to address a shifter issue – it was only going forward and not backward.

On lap 43, Busch was tagged by behind in Turn 2 as he slowed for the spinning Cole Custer in front of him. The contact sent Busch for a half spin, and in the process, went from the banking onto the apron and feared he’d sustained damage to the diffuser. It was an unfounded fear, and Busch returned to battle.

By lap 106, things had turned around and Busch led the field.

Busch would lead three different times, taking the top spot for the last time when pit stops cycled through on lap 227. Busch controlled the race until three laps to go, holding off repeated charges from teammate Martin Truex Jr., including when Truex cleared Busch off Turn 2 with 13 laps to go before Busch pulled a crossover move in Turn 4.

An Erik Jones crash led to the final caution that sent the field to pit road and split strategies. Busch was the first driver off pit road with four tires while the three drivers in front of him, all from Hendrick Motorsports, elected to go with two tires. It was the winning call as Busch, who lined up third through the chose rule, failed to challenge the top two and lost a spot to Ross Chastain coming to the finish.

“I did, yes, I did think I had a shot,” Busch said of the pit call by crew chief Ben Beshore. “I thought four would prevail, but obviously not.”

As for how the parts car compared to his primary car Busch said, “It was fine. They’re all the same. They’re bought at Walmart.”

 

Vegas brings a welcome change in form for Chastain

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emailBy Kelly Crandall | March 6, 2022 10:26 PM ET

Ross Chastain was the class of the field on Sunday at Las Vegas Motor Speedway when it came to the time spent out front in the Pennzoil 400.

Chastain led the most laps – 83 – and won the second stage. Those laps were not only the most Chastain’s led in a single NASCAR Cup Series race, but more than he’d led in his previous 117 starts combined.

In the end, Chastain and the No. 1 Trackhouse Racing team finished third but used the “dream come true” descriptor about the day.

“This is what all the work is for,” Chastain said. “This is why we train and try to build our whole lives and careers once we realize we can race at this level – to have race cars like that. I couldn’t be more proud of Trackhouse and thankful for Justin Marks and Chevrolet.

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“It took a lot of patience inside the car. It’s tough for me to not get too aggressive and a lot of neutral thinking. Josh Wise (trainer) and a book by Trevor Moawad really helped me today. That’s progress.”

Chastain started 18th and took the lead for the first time on lap 113, charging to the top spot after a restart. He became a consistent presence in the top five from there and led two more times to add to his total.

Chastain took four tires on his last pit stop, running third when the final caution flew with three laps to go. Alex Bowman, Kyle Larson, and William Byron of Hendrick Motorsports leapfrogged the field on the pit stops by taking two tires. He didn’t think two tires was going to work, “but when there’s three of them (HMS drivers), they just had all blocked. We couldn’t go anywhere.”

Chastain lined up fifth when deciding to take the inside lane and overtook Byron and Kyle Busch by the checkered flag.

And the singular performance at Las Vegas aside, it was a needed rebound for Chastain and his team after a tough start. Chastain finished last at Daytona and then had a difficult outing at Auto Club Speedway when a hard crash in practice sent Chastain to a backup car, and things didn’t improve in the race with a 29th place finish.

“It’s good,” Chastain said of Las Vegas. “We came back from last week where I completely destroyed a brand-new seventh-gen car and spun out in the race for no reason. Justin Marks took me to lunch this week and was like, dude, you’re fine, quit trying so hard. And that was a lot of the thoughts I had today, just neutral thinking.

“A car that fast makes it easy, but all the restarts and even at the end there once we lined up fifth, I knew it was going to be tough with only two laps, and I just never wanted to put my car in a position to wreck. Probably the closest we were was when Christopher [Bell] spun in front of me. Other than that, I don’t really feel like we made any mistakes. I’ll learn how to keep up with the track better, and we’ll learn.”

Chastain has four top-five finishes in his career, and the last two have been third-place efforts.