Ep. 60 - NASCAR Rockingham Weekend Preview

About the Podcast: The Throttle to the Floor Podcast is a motorsports podcast where me (William Earnest) and Evan Sager co-host and sit down with guests each week to talk about what is happening in the world of NASCAR, IndyCar, and NHRA plus we take frequent looks at other racing under the motorsports umbrella.

About the Episode: On this episode of the Throttle to the Floor Podcast, me and my guest Noah Altman preview ARCA East, NASCAR Trucks, and NASCAR O'Reilly's Series action from Rockingham Speedway.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:24

Hey y'all, welcome to today's uh abbreviated uh preview episode of the Final Floor Podcast. I'm your host, Wilderness, here today with my guest, Noah Altman.

SPEAKER_00 0:33

What up?

SPEAKER_01 0:34

Um we'll kind of jump right into it. Uh there's one other thing I want to touch on uh real quick. CBS Sports is expected to merge with TNT Sports later this year, so maybe CBS could return to broadcasting uh NASCAR races next year for which would be the first time since 2000. Um the five races that TNT is currently scheduled uh for broadcasting are Sonoma, Chicagoland, Atlanta, North Wilkesboro, and Indianapolis um at the end of June and into July, but they will not be affected by this deal if it uh happens to go through. Just something to note. But getting into Rockingham, um, real quick, uh, we're gonna start with Arca East, Claudius McFarland and uh Squirrel McNutt, aka his cameraman. Yeah, there's there's some crazy names there. But they're racing together in the Arca East race. If they run good at Rockingham uh tomorrow, the Arca race being tomorrow morning, then they'll hopefully uh both run at Kansas in a couple weeks, and then if they run good there, they'll run Talladega the week after that. So just the amount of shaking and baking that'll happen if they pull that off. Um but Squirrels coming off of a 13th place finish in the Arc race at Hickory, which by the way netted 175,000 viewers, which is the most viewers of an Arca East East race in the last ten years. So uh more great exposure for all these different series. Cletus has run arca races, um he's he ran the truck race at Daytona, he's running his O'Reilly's um series debut race at Rockingham tomorrow, but we'll talk more about that later. Um yeah, speaking of Cletus, he's coming off of an 11th place finish in the Arca race at Daytona, which was a lot better than his truck racer. He got loose off of turn four and wrecked in the first six laps, finished thirty-seventh, and uh yeah, we'll talk more about Cletus's O'Reilly's debut um in a few minutes. But Brent Cruz is the defending winner of this Arca East race, but he now drives in the O'Reilly series full-time for Joe Gibbs racing in the 19 car uh officially after he turned 18 last Monday. So for one, he can legally now run tracks that are over one point two five miles in length, at least ovals anyways, because when you're under eighteen you can run O'Reilly's races. You just can only run them at short tracks and less than one point two five miles and road courses, but he can now run the full schedule, so he's officially officially full time.

SPEAKER_00 3:11

Woo!

SPEAKER_01 3:11

Yeah, and uh for two, that means I've realized now that Brent Cruz is younger than me. So I think I can say I'm old now.

SPEAKER_00 3:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:21

Yep. Um, but getting into uh trucks now, of course, truck race on tonight. Corey Haim back racing in the truck series. This time back in the one truck for Tricon. He finished eighth last year at Rockingham when he ran full time, and he was second in practice before he got cut short due to rain. But Caden Honeycut in Haim's old 11 truck, he's looking for revenge after his dominant uh run in Darlington got uh you know heartbreaking loss. He led practice uh over Heim by almost two-tenths of a second, and Honeycutt qualified third despite a really just wacky qualifying session. Four of our six picks qualified outside the top 15. So not really sure what happened there, but Tyler Angram is the defending winner of this race, also my pick. Um he snap he snapped a long winless streak last year for his second career truck series win dating back to 2019 Kentucky, but he only rolls off 13th in the truck series race. And uh, yeah, as we mentioned, Ankrum's my pick who qualified 13th. Evan uh picked Honeycutt, who qualified third. So he's he's looking for uh a bit of a get back after uh how Darlington ended. Haley picked uh Ben Rhodes, who qualified 25th, Stacy the points leader, Chandler Smith once again, but Chandler Smith 33rd, not sure what happened. Um, and then he also went to the rear of the field for uh unapproved adjustments, trying to make the truck better. I mean, you're already basically in the back of the field anyway, so yeah. Bernardo with uh Christian Eckis, who only qualified 22nd, and Noah once again with Justin Haley, qualified 17th, which seventeenth isn't all that great, but compared to when you stack it up with the rest of our picks, yeah, it's not bad.

SPEAKER_00 5:16

I mean, every other time I picked Justin Haley, it's been really alright. It hasn't been the best pick in the field, but it also hasn't been the worst.

SPEAKER_01 5:30

I mean, Ram is still getting their uh legs under them as a manufacturer. I mean, this is only the fifth race of the truck season.

SPEAKER_00 5:38

And I mean, with Ram as it is right now, um they're putting a good reputation out there for the Ram.

SPEAKER_01 5:49

I mean, they're they're going through a lot because I mean, for one, it's it's bold for colleague racing to go from because they run, they had such a good O'Reilly's program, and they put that on pause, and they run Chevies in Cub, but to go out there and have five trucks and five Ram trucks to be the factory team, be the test team, if we can bring Ram and eventually dodge uh fully back to you know NASCAR in the Cup series, but I mean Rams already going through a lot, and then you have the whole Daniel Dye situation with uh him getting uh suspended, and then he got he did get reinstated by NASCAR, but uh, you know, they mutually agreed that he wouldn't drive for colleagues, and now Corey LaJoy is uh full-time in the in the 10 truck. Ty Dylan shifted to the 25 this week, and actually next week in that 25 free agent truck uh for Bristol, they put in uh uh the the runner-up in the race for the seat reality competition, uh Carson Ferguson. So interesting uh teammate battle being that the winner of that competition, Minnie Tyrell, is in one of those full-time trucks in the 14. So it'll be fun to watch them rip around Bristol. Um yeah, for sure. Just yeah, and then um, yeah, getting to O'Reilly's now. Uh big storyline that came out this week. Ford, down to just one car after the uh AM Racing 25 car withdrew. So uh not not a good deal there. Ford needs a lot of help, they need some manufacturer support. I mean, honestly, it it's been kind of a dwindling issue for a couple years now, ever since, especially when Tony Stewart got out of uh Stuart Haas Racing. Now it's Haas Factory team, you know, in the cup series. But I feel like ever since then, Ford's just been on just a downward spiral. I mean, cup, you still have, you know, Penskey and uh RFK and all that. I don't, you know, Ford's not doing terrible in the cup series, but like I mean, even the truck series, they're basically propped up by Thorsport and then the O'Reilly series, they didn't got nobody. I mean, they got one car, and then all it is is just that five car. Uh the head in your racing team that is brand new and they just throw in, you know, whoever can run. So but Ford really needs some help in the O'Reilly series, otherwise, give it a year or two, and they'll probably be completely out, which is just sad to see. But um, yeah, tough deal. Uh, practice-wise, Kyle Seag and Ryan Sieg, the Sieg brothers, they led 1-2 in practice over Austin Hill, Sheldon Creed and Jesse Love, and Corey Day gets his first O'Reilly series pull. Love will join him on the front row for tomorrow's race, and love, of course, he won this race last year before he got disqualified in post-race tech inspection, which handed the win to Sammy Smith. But Sammy Smith only starts 19th, so not a great qualifying run. I remember watching that qualifying run. He just could not get the car to turn and power through the corners, and that's what did him in. Uh Parker Retzlaf, another great qualifying run for Viking Motorsports, he'll start uh third and Cleaves McFarlane in his O'Reilly series debut. He said before his qualifying run, he went he went out first in his qualifying run, due to the metric. And he said that as long as he didn't tear the car up, he'd he'd be happy. And as long as he didn't qualify last, and he'd be happy. I mean, for one, he didn't he didn't tear the car up. For two, he didn't qualify last. And I mean, he said himself, like, I mean, and we heard it over his team radio communications, like, he was kind of hesitant in in the corners, and that's where he would probably lose a lot of his time, and that's where he lost his time. But I mean, he rolls out 35th in his O'Reilly series debut, so not not too bad. But our uh our picks for the O'Reilly's race, I picked Sammy Smith. I was really expecting him to qualify a lot better than 19th, but I mean, once I once I'd watched one and two on his qualifying lap, just not good. Not not good. Um so yeah, he's gonna he's gonna have the amount of charge um from mid-pack. Uh Evan with Corey Days, we mentioned, uh secured his first career O'Reilly series poll, qualified on the poll, so great run for him. He's been really fast lately, and luckily these last few weeks, he's also um managed to clean up his driving. He hasn't wrecked half the field, so that's good. Uh Haley with Austin Hill qualified in 11th. He was fast in practice, just not not quite as good of a translation to qualifying. But I mean, the track has gone through multiple different uh changes throughout the day. I mean, it was dry, then it was like some rain, but like not a crazy amount of rain, but some clouds. Just it just completely changed the track. I mean, I mean, like, you had the track, and then 20 minutes later it's completely different. So it was a tough deal there. Um, Stacy with Jesse Love qualified second. Looking to get redemption after winning this race last year, uh, hopefully doesn't get disqualified in post-race attack again. Uh Bernardo with Sam Mayer, qualified seventh, and Noah with Brandon Jones in eighth. Looking for a better result than after Martinsville last week. But then again, Martinsville is a parking lot towards the end of the race.

SPEAKER_00 11:23

Yeah, that that is true.

SPEAKER_01 11:25

Yeah, for sure. But Rockingham returning uh I guess, you know, tonight and then this weekend with uh the O'Reilly series and the truck series and Ark East Action Cup is off for Easter, so also uh happy Easter um to those who celebrate. Um, but the weather today, as we mentioned, it was on and off rain. It impacted practice of qualifying for both trucks and O'Reilly's, and it sounds like it's gonna be a similar deal tomorrow, which that could that could be an issue. But we'll recap all the action uh this Tuesday. But that's all we got for today's episode of the Throttle 4 podcast. Make sure you tune in and listen and download on Spotify, um, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, wherever you get your podcasts. Um check out the chill photography and throttle for podcasts, Instagrams and TikToks. But that's all we got for this uh abbreviated episode. Thank you to Noah um for showing up. Uh shout out, actually, dish shout out to Evan who didn't want to show up. It's like very vague. It's like, oh, I don't know, but whatever. But besides the point, um, we're gonna go watch the truck race. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:33

Come on, Justin Haley, pull it out.

SPEAKER_01 12:36

Yeah, we'll we'll see. But that's all we got for uh today's episode, and we'll see y'all on Tuesday.

SPEAKER_00 12:42

Good night.