Ep. 63 - NASCAR (Kansas) + IndyCar (Long Beach) 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, I preview NASCAR Cup, O'Reilly's and ARCA Series action from Kansas Speedway plus I also look at the Kyle Kirkwood versus Alex Palou battle that is set to come to a head this weekend in Long Beach; listen, watch, and download episodes on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Transcript

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Hey y'all, welcome to today's episode of the Thor All Floor Podcast. I'm your host, Will Ernest, here today with uh just myself. We got a uh uh dripping, soaking, wet preview episode. So uh let's get into it. Uh rain, rain, anyways. Um, but I want to start with some other things. First, uh, Chris Gabehardt, uh, he violated his temporary restraining order in the Joe Gibbs Racing Spire Motor Sports lawsuit by bringing uh uh Bristol Motors Play this past weekend. The temporary restraining order, it allows Gabeart to essentially work at Spire, but he can't do anything that overlaps with his previous job, which is of course uh the uh competition director at JGR, so clearly he messed up big time, so we'll wait for more developments on that. I'm sure knowing our luck, it's gonna be either like waiting for a settlement or uh knowing how NASCAR's been lately. Uh we're gonna end up waiting and dragging this out till like November or December and having a trial over this separate lawsuit, but who knows, we'll see. Um also IndyCar has announced that the Firestone Fast 6, uh the final qualifying round, if you will, it'll be single-car qualifying runs at the four remaining street course races this year, starting with this weekend at Long Beach, and then also Detroit. Uh Markham, which is the new street course that's like just outside of Toronto. It replaces the one in downtown Toronto and then uh Washington, DC. We saw this change. It took place in Arlington last month. It seemed to work well then, so good change there. Um some NASCAR news, some more NASCAR news. NASCAR President Steve O'Donnell uh he spoke about the Nashville Fairground Speedway on the Door Bumper Clear podcast and how it's definitely gonna be an uphill battle for NASCAR to return there. The Cup series hasn't been there since 1984, and I mean they have an Arca East race there, but that's kind of about it, aside from the Cars Tour race this past weekend, and then of course, you know, other uh weekly events that they have and the All-American 400 um in November. But I mean I'll say this the amount of support for the cars tour event last weekend at the fairgrounds. I mean, I was there, it was pretty amazing, but I mean there's still plenty of issues to hammer out before the fairgrounds can even consider putting a NASCAR race back on there. But say we do clear all those hurdles somehow. I mean, could the fairgrounds take away Bristol's spring date? As for one, it's had dwindling attendance, for two, it's had dwindling TV numbers. For three, I mean, they've struggled to even just get eyeballs on it and keep attention for it. I mean, they ran uh they ran the spring Bristol race as a dirt race for three years. That was kind of a I don't I don't want to say a failed experiment, but it kind of was. Um, but yeah, and they also uh when Nashville Fairgrounds, like when this whole kind of revamp slash renovation talk kind of got started uh back in 2021, it was because uh the fairgrounds and Bristol Motors Peace signed a letter of intent. So just kind of just kind of a thought there, but um uh some also some other breaking news that came out this week. Rockstar energy is back in NASCAR now. They will sponsor Tyler Reddick, which is very, very interesting. I mean, 2311, I mean you've got you've got Riley Herbst, who still has his deal with Monster Energy. You have Tyler Redick with Rockstar, and then uh 2411 reserve driver Corey Heim has his own drink deal with Celsius. I mean, not even to mention like uh Connor Zilichin SVG with Red Bull and stuff, but clearly the NASCAR uh drink wars are in full effect now. I mean, you got NHRA tool wars, and now you got NASCAR drink wars, energy drink wars, so something crazy there. But Redic's first uh rock star primary will be at Talladega on April 26th, so uh coming up here. Um and also, real quick, shout out to the uh Imsa Sports Cars is they're also at Long Beach uh this weekend with IndyCar, which speaking of them, IndyCar Long Beach. The big storyline this weekend is between Kyle Kirkwood and Alex Pillow. For one, uh they're currently first and second in the series standings by just four points, Kirkwood leading Pelow. Um they also finished first and second at Long Beach last year, Kirkwood beating Pillow, and they've been the only two to win three races so far this year. Uh Pillow won at St. Petersburg and then Kirkwood won at Arlington where he made a late race pass on Pillow for that victory. However, Pillow was able to respond. Pillow was able to respond back with a win uh at IndyCar's most recent event at Barber Motorsports Park back on March 29th. So we'll we'll kind of see. They've kind of been going back and forth in opening practice today. Kirkwood and Pillow again were right next to each other. They were third and fourth behind Will Power and Scott McLaughlin. Power led Andretti Autosport to having all three of its cars in the top six in opening practice. You had Willpower, uh top of the charts, Kirkwood third, like we mentioned, and then Marcus Erickson in sixth. McLaughlin, meanwhile, it was weird. He was the outlier for Team Penske, as even though he was second in opening practice, teammates Joseph Newgarden and David Malucas were down in 15th and 16th place, respectively. So Penske has some work to do for sure, but you kind of also gotta throw in Christian Lingard into the picture as well. He's currently third in points, he finished third at Long Beach last year, so funny correlation there out of the top three uh currently in points right now coming into Long Beach, finished one, two, three in that same order um last year, so kind of funny there. But um Lingard is also coming off of a second place run at Barber behind Pillow, however, he's still looking for career win number two after his breakout win at Toronto back in 2023. So we'll we'll see there. It's been a while, but he's looking for win number two. But picks-wise, um, I'm picking Kyle Kirkwood. It's just so hard to go against Andretti in general, but specifically Kyle Kirkwood on the street courses and Long Beach. I mean, if the if there's one track that it's like basically the most impossible to go against Kyle Kirkwood, uh it's Long Beach. I mean two of his two of his wins have come at Long Beach. He won in 2023, he won last year. Um, just it's so hard to go against Kyle Kirkwin when uh Long Beach is coming up and really win any street course races coming up too. So yeah, uh Evan with uh Power Award, Haley with Joseph Newgarn, Stacy uh with Will Power who led practice, opening practice, I should say. Uh Bernardo with Santi and Ferrucci and Noah with Louie Foster. So we'll we'll see how IndyCar turns out. We got you know second practice tomorrow and then uh qualifying tomorrow as well. Remember the Firestone Fast Six will be single car qualifying runs um with the other four street course races this year. So that'll be fun to watch. Kansas, Kansas, Kansas, Kansas. We talked about top of the show how it's a dripping wet, soaking wet preview episode. Uh, this is why Kansas got absolutely soaked in rain. So did uh here back in Iowa here at the studio. But um Arca will be very interesting as they will wake up to a completely green and washed-out racetrack tomorrow morning thanks to the rain that hit all throughout the Midwest, but also uh down at Kansas Speedway. It wiped out ARCA qualifying. Uh Cletus McFarlane and LS George back racing in ARCA in the 30 car and the zero car uh this weekend. They ran okay in practice before, of course, qualifying was rained out. And George and Garrett, they'll start 24th and 25th tomorrow morning. So yeah, of course, George uh he's trying to get approved to run with Cletus at uh Talladega in the Arca car um the following week. So we'll see if he's able to do that. Also, Daniel Dye makes his return to racing this time in the Arca series in the 24 car after uh he got he got reinstated by NASCAR after making uh homogenic comments towards IndyCar driver Dave Melucas on a uh card unboxing stream, but he will start 19th. Um, Jack Wood claims the poll in the Pinnacle Racing Group 28 car, it's the same car that reigning ARCA champion and current NASCAR Ram truck series driver Brendan Butterbean Queen drove last year to the win in both Kansas races. Kansas is very unique for Arca for one. Arca doesn't run that much on big tracks, you know. I mean, yeah, you got Daytona and Talladega in there, but um, you know, Kansas is one of the only big tracks that they get to go to, and out of all the Arca series events, Kansas is the only time that they run twice. Not Daytona, not Taladega, no nothing. It's Kansas, so it's one of the most important tracks on the schedule. To get right, it's only the third Arca series race of the year, so um, we'll see who can take advantage. Um, in O'Reilly's, there's even more rain. I mean, at least Arca was able to get a practice session. And O'Reilly's will be really behind the eight ball tomorrow, as they had both practice and qualifying canceled due to weather. So the first laps that the series will get will be for the race tomorrow. Carson Quappel uh trying to outdo uh uh Caden Quappel after his win in the car's tour race last Saturday night. Um, Carson Quappel receives the poll for the race. Not quite the way, not quite the way he was expecting to get his first career O'Reilly series poll, but he'll take it. Uh William Byron will start second in the number 88 junior motorsports was seeing Justin Algayer, Sheldon Creed, and rookie Brent Cruz round out the top five. This is the first time that the O'Reilly series has ran here at Kansas in the springtime. They normally only run here in the fall. Uh last fall it was Brandon Jones who picked up the win uh the last time that the O'Reilly series was here, and I'm banking on another win there as I picked Brandon Jones for this race. He only starts 14th though, due to qualifying getting rained out and having a poor metric, so he's gonna have to come through the field. Um Evan with uh Sam Mayer, Haley with Jesse Love, Stacy going with Justin Olgayer, uh Bernardo with Corey Day, and uh Noah with Austin Hill. I want to talk about Corey Day for a second. I'm I'm impressed with how Corey Day has had lots of momentum lately and yet has kept his car clean. And I mean, I remember the like the last mile and a half that we ran was Las Vegas last month, and Corey Day was up front and had a shot at the win there. He I mean he led his first O'Reilly's laps then um and contended in the top five late until um he couldn't pull out the win. It was uh Larson in the 88 car, also with Hendrick Carr's sponsorship. So yeah, I'm very I'm very interested to see how Corey Day will do um in another mile and a half start. We'll see. But speaking of Hendrick Cars.com, or more specifically Hendrick Motorsports, um getting in the cup. I mean, Hendrick, they've been very hit or miss to start the year. Chase Elliott has the team's one win at Martinsville a couple weeks ago, but that win was sandwiched around a 15th at Darlington and a 22nd at Bristol. And honestly, Bristol's just a great explanation of Hendrick Motorsports season, how it's gone so far. Kyle Larson finished third after leading 284 laps. That was the most laps, and he swept the stages. Elliott finished 22nd, like we mentioned. He spun out twice, including on the on the last lap. William Byron finished five laps down in 30th just on actual race pace. The car was just absolutely garbage. And Alex Bowman, he made his return to the car, which by the way, shout out there. Uh, it's great to see Bowman back in the car. Um missed four races due to vertico symptoms, but sadly finished last in 37th due to getting caught up in a wreck. However, to his credit, it wasn't his fault, it was SVG's fault. But Hendrick has been all over the place. But luckily, they come to Kansas where they've won three of the last four races here, including a sweep last year with Larson in May and Elliott in September. Larson specifically has won the last two Kansas spring races and three of the last 11 races here. He's the only repeat winner in that 11 race stretch, and he's won three races compared to everybody else who's just won won, you know, eight other different winners besides Larson's wins. But at the same time, the last time Larson even won a cup race was Kansas last May. So double-edged sword there. So pretty interesting there. But Kansas in recent years, when you think of Kansas, you think of it as Toyota's playground. I mean, and with the way this season has started off, that's bad news for the field. Toyota. Um Toyota after um Ty Gibbs' breakthrough win at Bristol. Toyota's won six of the first eight races to start the season. Tyler Reddick has four wins. Denny Hamlin and Ty Gibbs each have a win at peace. Reddick has a win here at Kansas in the fall 23. Uh 23-11 racing just by itself is three wins here with three different drivers all in the 45 car from the spring of 22 to the fall of 23. In between there, 23-11 co-owner Denny Hamlin has added to that with a win at Kansas in the spring of 23. Hamlin's the all-time Kansas wins leader with four victories here. And the only other mile and a half race that we've ran this year, which was Las Vegas last month, Hamlin won that too. So yeah. Toyota is also looking pretty strong if Hendrick is not able to capitalize. So we'll see. On the opposite side of the spectrum, the complete opposite side of the spectrum. We just got done uh a couple weeks ago talking about Ford struggles in O'Reilly's. Well, now we're talking about Ford struggles at Kansas. I mean, Ford has not won at Kansas in the Cup Series since Joey Logano in October of 2020. So it's been a long time. Ford in the last 10 years only has three wins here at Kansas, and none of them in the next gen era. So uh rough deal there. Um, kind of like my coughing, but um our picks uh I'm panking on Kyle Larson to finally win again. Uh break his almost year-long winless streak. Uh Evan on the flip side of the coin is going with Denny Hamlin, trying to capitalize on uh more Toyota's raw speed. Same with Haley with uh Chase Briscoe. Uh Stacy uh is going against going against the spread here with Ryan Blaney, uh Bernardo with uh surprise Austin Dylan pick and uh Noah with uh Chase Elliott. Elliot has the best average finish all time here at Kansas, and he won last fall. Granted, that win last fall was under crazy circumstances, but hey, a win's a win. So um yeah, we'll see. But we got Kansas action for NASCAR this weekend. It's gonna be very interesting, especially on the lower series, how they can handle the completely green racetrack thanks to the rain that came in. Also, IndyCar at Long Beach this weekend, and I mean we're only one practice session in, but Andretti is still definitely the team to beat, at least right now. But we'll recap it all on Monday, and uh that's all we got for today's episode of the Throttle Floor Podcast. Make sure you tune in and listen and download on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, check out the chill photography, which by the way, those photos from the Nashville Fairgrounds will be uploaded very soon. Um, and the Throttle Floor podcast, the Instagrams, and the TikToks. And uh, yeah, that's all we got for today's episode, and we'll see y'all with the recap on Monday.