NASCAR
Stratta’s Six: Who Will Win at Texas Motor Speedway?
One of NASCAR’s fastest, wildest, and most unpredictable tracks is the next challenge ahead. Sunday will see Cup cars take on the mysterious mile-and-a-half that is Texas Motor Speedway. After spending the last few years hosting the All-Star Race and a Playoff date, TMS now moves back into the spring. Here are a few drivers to watch out for in the AutoTrader EchoPark Automotive 400.
Kyle Larson
If Texas last fall were 20 laps shorter, Kyle Larson would have taken home a commanding win. After leading 99 laps, the No. 5 Chevrolet spun out battling for the lead with Bubba Wallace. The two-time Texas winner had to settle for a dismal 31st-place showing. Only a few weeks after another intermediate win at Las Vegas, Larson eyes another banner day in the Lone Star State. The Hendrickcars.com 5 enters Sunday as the prerace favorite once again.
“We’ve had a lot of good runs at Texas in the HendrickCars.com Chevrolet, including a couple of wins,” Larson said. “We had the win earlier this year on the mile-and-a-half Las Vegas track, so I hope we build on that and are in contention again this weekend.”
Larson is no stranger to being a dominant threat at Texas. Counting All-Star Races, he has 374 laps led in his last five tries at Texas, and two wins in this span. Had he not wrecked out of September’s race, his average finish would be significantly lower than 13.2. Coming off a huge weekend all around for Hendrick Motorsports, Larson wants his name atop headlines once again.
Denny Hamlin
Seemingly a threat at every intermediate track is the No. 11 Toyota of Denny Hamlin. The three time Texas winner went almost a decade between his last two wins here. Hamlin earned a Texas two step season sweep in 2010, and won this race in 2019. Knowing the importance of intermediates in the Playoffs, Hamlin sees Sunday as a big test ahead for his lights-out quick pit crew.
“Texas is typically pretty tough to pass on, so I feel like we will need to have a good qualifying spot and then just execute on pit road,” Hamlin said. “My guys have done an amazing job on pit road this season. So we’ll definitely lean on them a little bit to help gain or just maintain track position and then we’ll need to have the right strategy to be up front at the end.”
Joe Gibbs Racing and Toyota have both been shut out of Texas victory lane since 2020. Despite this, team 11’s confidence, momentum, and swagger all appear sky high. Every week looks like a winning chance for this crew. Even with Texas’ many unknowns, Hamlin should adapt fast enough to be up front by Sunday’s closing laps.
Ryan Blaney
While he may not have a points-paying Texas win, Ryan Blaney does boast an All-Star Race victory from two years ago. Last fall’s Playoff crash unfortunately ended a run of five straight TMS top-10s for the 12. This low point likewise kickstarted their championship run. Blaney knows that Texas is a very transition-heavy track, and is ready for the test.
“I think Texas has kind of just been a work in progress, I feel like, for the last few years or ever since it got repaved,” Blaney said. “It’s okay. How can we get it wider? How can we get the racing better there? So, that’s something we’ll see if it’s changed over the past year. I’m not sure if it has, but we’ll find out. I enjoy Texas. What makes Texas interesting is the commitment level that the driver has to have going to that place. Your commitment level through three and four is just huge. And that to me is always a pretty fun aspect of that racetrack”
Team Penske and Ford as a whole have both been noticeably behind eight weeks into the season. Blaney is coming off a strong recovery drive to fifth at Martinsville though. Are the new Mustang Dark Horses seemingly turning a corner? Texas will be a key indicator of their performance at a very high speed track.
William Byron
Can anyone stop the roll that William Byron’s been on to open 2024? Three wins through eight races on three different track types is a championship-caliber shot across the garage. Byron’s wins so far this year have come on a superspeedway, a road course, and now a short track. The lone track type he’s missing is an intermediate, with him being the defending Texas winner. Despite this victory, Byron knows Texas is somewhere his team needs to find a tick more in overall performance.
“It’s going to take adjusting to what the track is like,” Byron said. “We have a good idea already of where our setup needs to be from past experiences. All of the Hendrick Motorsports cars were fast in the fall at Texas, and we take what we learn from our teammates as well as our own experience to try to keep building. We obviously don’t know what the other teams and OEMs are doing. So we just need to see how competitive we are when we unload and make adjustments from there.”
While Byron did leave Texas the big winner last fall, the 24 only led the last six laps that day. Byron does enter Sunday with a streak of three straight Texas top-10s. Hendrick cars are a very common sight in Texas victory lane, with a record 11 wins. Expect Byron to be among the class of the field yet again on Sunday.
Bubba Wallace
Last fall’s standout performer at Texas was by far Bubba Wallace. The No. 23 Toyota that day started on pole and led a career-high 111 laps before fading late to third. Coming back to the site of his best run a year ago, Wallace has all the pieces needed to close this race out.
Aside from September, Wallace only has one other Texas top-10 in nine starts. Team 23 does head to the heartland with some momentum and mojo, being fourth a week ago at Martinsville. With a winless streak now at 51 starts, Wallace aims to erase this drought on Sunday.
Joey Logano
As shocking as it may be, Sunday will mark 10 years since Joey Logano’s lone Texas win. On that day a decade ago, the Penske No. 22 beat Jeff Gordon in overtime for the Lone Star victory. Moving back to 2024, Logano has shown improvement and some return to form in recent weeks. The 22 is now 14th in points, jumping up five positions last week alone. Logano also has a second and a sixth in the last two races, each with laps led as well. Logano may be a bit of a Texas long shot, but this team is inching towards front running contention again.
In a single word modern day Texas Motor Speedway can be categorized as unique. No other intermediate track in NASCAR has the character on both ends that TMS boasts, throwing all drivers for a loop and forcing great compromise. Whichever driver does conquer this beast of a track will have survived 400 miles of unpredictability and sacrifice. Sunday’s green flag will fly at 3:30 p.m. ET on FS1, PRN, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Channel 90.
Written by Peter Stratta
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Photo Credit to Johnathan Bachman/Getty Images
