{"id":48700,"date":"2024-10-19T18:10:23","date_gmt":"2024-10-19T23:10:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/?p=48700"},"modified":"2024-10-21T15:33:22","modified_gmt":"2024-10-21T20:33:22","slug":"nascar-saturday-las-vegas-notebook-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/2024\/10\/19\/nascar-saturday-las-vegas-notebook-4\/","title":{"rendered":"NASCAR: Saturday Las Vegas Notebook"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service<\/em><\/p>\n

LAS VEGAS, Nev. \u2013 As the NASCAR Cup Series Playoff Round of 8 begins with Sunday\u2019s South Point 400 (2 p.m. ET, NBC, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, drivers insist there is still no absolute championship \u201cfavorite.\u201d However, one driver that no one would be surprised to see advance to the Championship 4 for a shot at the big trophy is Joe Gibbs Racing\u2019s Christopher Bell \u2013 the only driver who has advanced to the title round the last three seasons.<\/p>\n

\u201cI got asked the question last week, like who\u2019s the guy, and I mentioned four or five people without mentioning Christopher (Bell), and like, he\u2019s so good; sneaky., like very sneaky, quiet, good. I mean that\u2019s his personality, too. Just quiet,\u2019\u2019 championship leader, Hendrick Motorsports\u2019 Kyle Larson said. \u201cHe\u2019s not out talking about how good he\u2019s doing; he\u2019s just doing it. Him and his team are super strong. Yeah, I think they\u2019ve been doing a great job over the last three years, or whatever it\u2019s been.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Christopher Bell, driver of the #20 Rheem Toyota, reacts after winning the pole award during qualifying for the NASCAR Cup Series South Point 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on October 19, 2024 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Meg Oliphant\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve raced with Christopher for so long, so I know how good he is. He is just a quiet, just a smooth, person. smooth racer. Yeah, for whatever reason, he\u2019s flown under the radar his whole NASCAR career, I feel like.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bell said he genuinely doesn\u2019t care how much people are talking about him or even if they regard him as a favorite. The 29-year old Oklahoman remains confident and optimistic about his chances to hoist his first NASCAR Cup Series championship trophy. And he’s scored top-10 finishes in the last four Playoff races entering the weekend \u2013 his last win coming at the Charlotte oval, New Hampshire and \u2026. Phoenix Raceway, where the championship will be decided on Nov. 10.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve won three races and 10 stages, so I feel we are every bit as capable as anyone,\u2019\u2019 said Bell, driver of the Joe Gibbs Racing No. 20 Toyota, adding, \u201cI love our chances.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just think the way these Playoffs have gone, and the points position we\u2019re in, we\u2019ve been in a conservative mode of just collecting the points that have been given us and moving on. But looking at the regular season, we accumulated the second-most bonus points and put ourselves in a really good spot and Phoenix is probably our best track on the schedule. So if we can make it there, I feel really confident that we\u2019ll have a good shot at it, at least.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hamlin Goals<\/b><\/p>\n

Bell\u2019s JGR teammate Denny Hamlin conceded Friday that he has a lot going on as both a veteran driver for JGR and the 23XI Racing team owner. But Hamlin says he\u2019s just fine with all the balls in the air. The driver of the No. 11 JGR Toyota has three wins on the season but that last trophy came 22 races ago (at Dover, Del).<\/p>\n

He enters this round of the Playoffs, ranked sixth (eight points out of the fourth-place transfer position) among the eight Playoff drivers. He\u2019s earned three top-10s in the first six Playoff races \u2013 a best showing of fourth at Bristol, where he won this Spring.<\/p>\n

He has a 12.5 average finish at Las Vegas and is one of four Playoff drivers (also Larson, Joey Logano and William Byron) to have won at all four remaining tracks.<\/p>\n

But as busy as Hamlin is managing a busy life, he says he prefers and thrives in that pace.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know if I do better, but it is just what I choose, right? \u201c said Hamlin, a 54-time winner in the series. \u201cI\u2019m a work-acholic in every way, shape and form. It is just what I like to do. I like to set goals and then figure out how the process to achieve those goals, so it is self-inflicted in some instances, but in others, things pile on and you have this going on and that going on, what have you, you just put it in the tackle box, and it is stored away in its own little section, when I have to address it, I go back in there and open up that section of the tackle box and I work on that problem.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d like to think my tackle box is pretty deep, and certainly, got a lot of storage in there. At my age, it is still something that I love to do, there is not a lot that I would like to eliminate from my daily life. As time goes on there is always going to be things that pop up that you just don\u2019t plan for, but it is how do you react in those situations, and how do you manage them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Under the Radar<\/b><\/p>\n

While Larson is coming off a win at the ROVAL last weekend and scored a dominating victory at the Bristol, Tenn. Playoff race four weeks ago (leading 462 of 500 laps), his Hendrick Motorsports teammate \u2013 and fellow former series champion \u2013 Chase Elliott likes his chances for a second title too.<\/p>\n

The 2020 season champion has wins at both Martinsville and Phoenix and a career-best runner-up showing at Las Vegas in 2021 \u2013 his last top-10 here.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, I think we have a great opportunity for sure and I also feel that if you get to the Round of 8, I truly believe it\u2019s anyone\u2019s game at that point in time. All it takes, is just getting in a good little groove,\u2019\u2019 said Elliott, who is ranked seventh of the eight Playoff drivers \u2013 a slim nine-points behind his teammate William Byron in the fourth position entering this three-race round.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s only four races left, so if you get in a good groove this time of year you\u2019re fortunate enough to still be around and have a shot, I think anyone\u2019s whose left could be dangerous.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel we\u2019re in a good spot. I feel good about it and excited about the opportunity.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

Hometown Favorite<\/b><\/p>\n

Richard Childress Racing driver Kyle Busch did not qualify for this year\u2019s Playoffs, but he is still highly motivated as the season closes out \u2013 and especially so at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, his hometown track.<\/p>\n

The 39-year old two-time series champion currently boasts a series-best 19-year victory streak. But the driver of the No. 8 RCR Chevrolet hasn\u2019t wo since June 4 of last season (at Gateway, Ill.) \u2013 53 races ago. This season his best work is back-to-back runner-up showings this summer at Daytona Beach and Darlington, S.C. He\u2019s had only a single top-10 (at Atlanta) during this six-race Playoff portion of the schedule.<\/p>\n

He is a past winner at his hometown 1.5-miler \u2013 winning from pole position in 2009 and scoring six top-10 finishes in the last eight races at the track. Among the four remaining venues \u2013 also Homestead-Miami, Martinsville, Va. and Phoenix \u2013 Busch said he was optimistic about his chances to visit Victory Lane again.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know, you kind of come down towards the closing stages of the regular season, and we had some pretty good runs, we\u2019ve had a couple second-place finishes; some close opportunities and some missed chances there, which really hurt being able to get into the playoffs, for one,\u2019\u2019 Busch said. \u201cBut two, to just scratch-off the 20 year question mark. And so here we are again – the last few weeks of the season and trying to get that victory.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll you can do is try each week and go through the best you can; execute and put yourself in the right spot to have that shot to win. If it doesn\u2019t happen, then you were beaten by others that were better than you. So it\u2019s just all you can do.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"

Alex Bowman, driver of the #48 Ally Chevrolet, enters his car during qualifying for the NASCAR Cup Series South Point 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on October 19, 2024 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Meg Oliphant\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

Playoff Disappointment for Bowman<\/b><\/p>\n

Hendrick Motorsports’ Alex Bowman finished 18th<\/sup> at the Charlotte ROVAL last week thinking he had advanced to the Playoffs’ Round of 8 – only to find out hours later that his No. 48 Chevrolet did not pass post-race inspection. The resulting penalty – last place points – was enough to drop Bowman out of the Playoff mix and move the ROVAL’s eighth place finisher \u2013 Team Penske’s Joey Logano \u2013 into the championship mix.<\/p>\n

Bowman brought a good attitude about the disappointment with him to Las Vegas this weekend, frustrated he’s no longer racing for a title, but holding onto perspective.<\/p>\n

“[Crew chief] Blake [Harris] called me and wasn’t sure about things and then the next thing I got was [a] tweet and I proceeded to throw my phone in the pool and my phone proceeded to call 911 and tell them I was in a car crash,” Bowman said, managing a smile. “So my Sunday night was not too good.<\/p>\n

“Part of life and just moving on and going to do my best this weekend,” he added. “Honestly, it’s just part of the deal. We win and lose as a team. We worked really hard and have done a lot of things right and unfortunately, that situation we did something wrong and really no way around that. Really all we can do is run well the rest of the year and continue doing what we’ve been doing and I think this is a good place for us to go try to win and hopefully, we’ll have a shot at it.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service LAS VEGAS, Nev. \u2013 As the NASCAR Cup Series Playoff Round of 8 begins with Sunday\u2019s South Point 400 (2 p.m. ET, NBC, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, drivers insist there is still no absolute championship \u201cfavorite.\u201d However, one driver that no one would be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":676,"featured_media":48716,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[11],"tags":[67,16],"class_list":["post-48700","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nascar","tag-las-vegas-motor-speedway","tag-nascar"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/GettyImages-2179645178-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1706","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7hzTZ-cFu","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48700","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/676"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48700"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48700\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48736,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48700\/revisions\/48736"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48716"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48700"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48700"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}