{"id":50364,"date":"2025-03-15T15:40:24","date_gmt":"2025-03-15T20:40:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/?p=50364"},"modified":"2025-03-15T20:11:38","modified_gmt":"2025-03-16T01:11:38","slug":"nascar-las-vegas-motor-speedway-weekend-notebook-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/2025\/03\/15\/nascar-las-vegas-motor-speedway-weekend-notebook-2\/","title":{"rendered":"NASCAR: Las Vegas Motor Speedway Weekend Notebook"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service<\/em><\/p>\n

Michael McDowell wins pole for Sunday\u2019s NASCAR Cup race at Las Vegas<\/b><\/p>\n

LAS VEGAS\u2014A change of scene did nothing to diminish Michael McDowell\u2019s qualifying prowess.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Michael McDowell, driver of the #71 Group 1001 Chevrolet, poses for photos after winning the pole award during qualifying for the NASCAR Cup Series Pennzoil 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on March 15, 2025 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Jonathan Bachman\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

After winning the first six pole positions of his NASCAR Cup Series career with Front Row Motorsports last season, McDowell moved to Spire Motorsports in 2025 and apparently retained the speed he found last year.<\/p>\n

Turning a lap at 1.5-mile Las Vegas Motor Speedway in 28.883 seconds (186.961 mph) in Saturday\u2019s time trials, McDowell claimed the top starting spot for Sunday\u2019s Pennzoil 400\u2014his first Busch Light Pole Award at Las Vegas, his first of the season and the seventh of his career.<\/p>\n

Turns 3 and 4 were the key to McDowell\u2019s blistering lap. When his No. 71 Chevrolet stuck firmly in the first two corners, McDowell took full advantage during the balance of the run.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Michael McDowell, driver of the #71 Group 1001 Chevrolet, signs the Busch Light Pole Award backdrop after winning the pole awar during qualifying for the NASCAR Cup Series Pennzoil 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on March 15, 2025 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Jonathan Bachman\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cWhen my car went through (Turns) 1 and 2 and had a lot of grip, I didn\u2019t think I had used it all up,\u201d said McDowell, who beat reigning series champion Joey Logano (186.864 mph) for the pole by 0.015 seconds. \u201cI knew that I had an opportunity to potentially do that (run the final two corners) without scrubbing speed and without putting myself in a bad spot.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s the chance you take, right? You put wheel into it, get loose, and you start tracking up. The car had a lot of speed, obviously, and a lot of grip, and just from studying and seeing how (Christopher) Bell was able to do that last year in Round 2 … I felt like that was the right move to make.<\/p>\n

In Saturday\u2019s session, which featured a single lap from each car, Austin Cindric qualified third at 186.793 mph, followed by Kyle Busch (186.638 mph) and Erik Jones (186.632 mph).<\/p>\n

Alex Bowman, Josh Berry, William Byron, Zane Smith and Kyle Larson claimed positions six through 10 on the starting grid, respectively.<\/p>\n

Christopher Bell, seeking a fourth straight Cup Series victory, claimed the 13th starting spot.<\/p>\n

Interview: Michael McDowell<\/strong><\/p>\n

Breakthrough win can\u2019t come soon enough for Kyle Larson<\/b><\/p>\n

To borrow a phrase from philosopher Rene Descartes, \u201cthe future is now\u201d where Kyle Larson is concerned.<\/p>\n

Never mind that Larson will race on two of his best tracks after Sunday\u2019s Pennzoil 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.<\/p>\n

Larson isn\u2019t concentrating on Homestead-Miami Speedway (Mar. 23), where he loves to run the wall, or Martinsville Speedway (Mar. 30), statistically one of his best tracks in the Next Gen era.<\/p>\n

He doesn\u2019t plan to wait for a breakthrough moment until the NASCAR Cup Series has moved on from Sin City.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m hoping to break through this week,\u201d Larson said emphatically.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not an unrealistic ambition for a driver who has won three of the last eight races\u2014and two of the last three\u2014at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. With Hendrick Motorsports teammates Alex Bowman and William Bowman also claiming victories in that eight-race span, HMS has established itself as the dominant organization at the 1.5-mile track.<\/p>\n

Standing in Larson\u2019s way, however, is his dirt-track rival, Christopher Bell, who brings a three-race winning streak to the Nevada desert.<\/p>\n

Larson doesn\u2019t resent Bell\u2019s success\u2014yet.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had a great season in 2021 and was able to win three points-paying races in a row twice that year\u2014four in a row once with the All-Star Race in there,\u201d Larson said. \u201cSo I think having lived through it on my own, I can respect it a lot more, and it doesn\u2019t bother me when I see somebody else having success like that.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf he wins this weekend, maybe it\u2019s like \u2018All right, this is getting annoying.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Interview: Kyle Larson<\/strong><\/p>\nhttp:\/\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/LVMSNCSKyleLarson031525.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n

Kyle Busch sees concrete improvement in the quality of his RCR cars<\/b><\/p>\n

Last year, for the first full season in his career, Kyle Busch failed to win a NASCAR Cup Series race, ending a record 19-year streak of at least one victory per season.<\/p>\n

With his last win having come at World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway on June 4, 2023, Busch\u2019s drought has now reached a career-long 61 races.<\/p>\n

On the occasions when he has a car with the potential to win, Busch has to resist the urge to push too hard.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I was winning a lot, you were doing it quite often,\u201d Busch said. \u201cYou were in position quite often. And so you could harness those emotions and those feelings, be able to go out there and just do your job and kind of let it come to you.\u201d<\/p>\n

That wasn\u2019t the case last year. On Sept. 29 at Kansas Speedway, Busch felt his car was capable of winning. He led 26 laps at the 1.5-mile speedway, but late in the race, he tried to drive through an opening next to the wall, only to have the hole close quickly and pinch him into the barrier.<\/p>\n

\u201cKansas last fall, I felt rushed,\u201d said Busch, who finished 19th. \u201cI felt hurried. I felt like I needed to get through the traffic as fast as I could, and I put myself in a bad spot; we hit the wall and lost the race.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, you know, those things are certainly on your mind as you come to them, especially with as close as the competition is today.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fortunately, Busch\u2019s Richard Childress Racing cars have proven to be more consistently competitive this season. He led a race-high 42 laps at Circuit of the Americas and was out front when a late caution cost him a chance to win.<\/p>\n

Busch has scored top-10 finishes in his last three races this season and is seventh in the Cup standings, tied with reigning champion Joey Logano and perennial contender Denny Hamlin.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo far so good,\u201d Busch said. \u201cI mean, from last year to this year … just, you know, Legos being the same, apparently they’re not because we’re doing something different, and the cars are driving much better.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just appreciate the efforts and values of everyone at RCR putting all that in. And so, you know, there’s not a team out there that will outwork us, that’s for sure.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service Michael McDowell wins pole for Sunday\u2019s NASCAR Cup race at Las Vegas LAS VEGAS\u2014A change of scene did nothing to diminish Michael McDowell\u2019s qualifying prowess. After winning the first six pole positions of his NASCAR Cup Series career with Front Row Motorsports last season, McDowell moved to Spire Motorsports […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":676,"featured_media":50381,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_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}},"categories":[11],"tags":[67,16],"class_list":["post-50364","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\/2025\/03\/GettyImages-2205264954-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1707&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7hzTZ-d6k","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/676"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50364"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50364\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50383,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50364\/revisions\/50383"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}