Martin Truex, Jr. celebrates in victory lane after winning the NASCAR Cup Series race at Richmond Raceway on September 11, 2021. Photo: Sean Gardner/Getty Images
Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Richmond Raceway has typically lived up to its “Action Track” nickname and with the current Playoff intensity, the moniker is certainly well-deserved.
Denny Hamlin, a two-race winner already in 2022, won the Spring Richmond race. And his teammate Martin Truex, Jr. is the defending winner of the event – a good sign for the driver of the No. 19 Toyota, who dropped to 17th place in the standings with Kevin Harvick’s clutch win last week at Michigan International Speedway. Truex trails Ryan Blaney by 19 points for that 16th and last automatic Playoff transfer position.
Truex is one of seven multi-time winners at Richmond. He’s had top 10 finishes in three of the last four races leading into Richmond, tying a season-best fourth-place finish after leading 172 laps at New Hampshire four weeks ago. The three top-five finishes and 10 top-10 finishes through the first 23 races is well off the pace the sport has come to expect from Truex, however. He’s had at least 20 top 10 marks in the five previous seasons.
Prior to the season’s first green flag, most would have assumed both Truex and Blaney would have a victory by now. Blaney has nearly as many top five finishes (eight) this year as he did all of last year (10), but third-place is his best result – earning it at Nashville earlier this summer. Twice he’s led at least 100 laps in a race (at Phoenix and at Richmond) so maybe this return trip to Richmond will result in his first win at the track. His only two top-10 finishes in 12 starts there came in the last two races and his 128 laps led this spring are the only laps he’s ever led there.
Even if Truex doesn’t win the race, a good finish could possibly move him ahead of Blaney’s tenuous 19-point advantage only intensifying the dramatic run to Playoff eligibility.
Seven of the nine the active Richmond winners – Kyle Busch, who has a series-best six victories, Hamlin (4), Harvick (3), Truex (3), Brad Keselowski (2), Joey Logano (2), Kurt Busch (2), Alex Bowman (1) and reigning NASCAR Cup Series champion Kyle Larson (1) – have already secured Playoff positions with a win this season. Truex and Keselowski are the two still searching for their first victories of 2022.
Interestingly, nine of the 15 drivers still hoping to earn a Playoff position have wins at one of the three remaining tracks. Seven of the drivers currently ranked outside the top-10 in the series driver standings have hoisted a trophy at Daytona International Speedway, site of the regular season finale on August 27.
Of note, current NASCAR Cup Series championship leader Chase Elliott stands to officially clinch the NASCAR Cup Series regular season championship if he earns 58 points at Richmond. The 2020 series champion would become the fifth different driver to win the award since it was created in 2017.
Kyle Busch is the only driver to have earned it twice (2018 and 2019). Larson (2021), Busch (2019) and Truex (2017) are the only drivers to win both the regular season championship and go on to claim the season title in the same year.
Camping World Truck Series Playoffs Are In Full Swing
The green flag waves Saturday night for the second race in the 2022 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series Playoffs with the Worldwide at Richmond Raceway.
Veteran Grant Enfinger has already secured his second-round berth with a victory in the series’ Playoff opener at Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park on July 29. And he shows up in Richmond looking to make it two Playoff wins in a row at a venue where he’s proven to be especially capable. He hoisted at trophy at Richmond in 2020 and was eighth in the race last year.
Three-race winner Zane Smith won the regular season championship and now the driver of the No. 38 Ford is hoping his third championship run is the charm after finishing runner-up in both the 2020 and 2021 final standings.
The 23-year-old Californian will take a 14-point lead over defending series champion Ben Rhodes into the second race of the seven-race, elimination-style Playoff run. Rhodes, a one race winner this season, has been strong at the .75-mile Richmond oval with top 10 finishes in both previous races there – his average finish of 5.0 in those two starts is best among all the Playoff drivers except Enfinger.
Stewart Friesen sits only 22 points behind Smith in the standings. His best showing at Richmond is 10th in 2020.
John Hunter Nemechek and his Kyle Busch Motorsports teammate, two-race winner Chandler Smith, are tied – 26 points off Zane Smith’s pace. Nemechek is the defending Richmond race winner having led a dominant 114 of the 250 laps in last year’s victory over his team owner Kyle Busch.
Ty Majeski is in the midst of his Playoff debut – and goes into the race 31 points behind Zane Smith. He is the first of four winless drivers to complete the 10-driver Playoff lineup.
Also still vying for their first wins of the season are Carson Hocevar, who is 43 points behind Smith in the championship, followed by three-time series champion Matt Crafton and Christian Eckes – ThorSport Racing teammates who are tied a mere seven-points from the cutoff heading to Richmond.
Only eight of the 10 drivers advance into the second round of the Playoff races, so Crafton and Eckes will need to make a move in the standings at Richmond.
Crafton was runner-up to Enfinger in the 2020 race. Eckes is looking for his first top-10 finish at the track.
NASCAR Weekend Preview
NASCAR Cup Series
Next Race: Federated Auto Parts 400
The Place: Richmond Raceway – Richmond, VA
The Date: Sunday, August 14
The Time: 3 p.m. ET
The Purse: $7,144,995
TV: USA, 2 p.m. ET
Radio: MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio
Distance: 300 miles (400 laps); Stage 1 (Ends on Lap 70), Stage 2 (Ends on Lap 230), Final Stage (Ends on Lap 400)
NASCAR Camping World Truck Series
Next Race: Worldwide Express 250
The Place: Richmond Raceway – Richmond, VA
The Date: Saturday, August 13
The Time: 8 p.m. ET
The Purse: $744,951
TV: FS1, 7 p.m. ET
Radio: MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio
Distance: 187.5 miles (250 Laps); Stage 1 (Ends on Lap 70), Stage 2 (Ends on Lap 140), Final Stage (Ends on Lap 250)
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