Texas Grand Prix - EchoPark | Circuit of The Americas | Full Race Replay | NASCAR Cup Series 2021

just outside of austin's lively scene lies a road course gem that has challenged drivers across all of motorsports this time it's our cup series elite who will tackle the sport's first ever running on the iconic circuit of the americas in a season that's been full of surprises this track should be no exception even the best will sure be tested as they battle through tough turns and fly down steep hills so buckle up we're in for a wild ride hold the brake hold the brakes as the same goes everything is bigger and better in texas all right all right all right y'all and it's next on fs1 you've never seen this just south of the city of austin welcome to circuit of the americas welcome back to fox sports coverage of the echo park texas grand prix first time for nascar at this 3.6 mile road race course built for formula one and it's played host to a variety of road race groups since it was constructed but never nascar not until this weekend let's take a bird's-eye view of this track and show you the 20 turns and some of the elevation change and how you go around here this place can be diabolical the paper clip turn one the s's which keep going and going and going and get tighter and tighter then that turn nine exit launch off 10 down to this hairpin very important turn 11 because it leads on to the longest straightaway and the only fourth gear portion of this course rhythm section here a four apex corner to bring you around to 19 you can go way wide there to set up for turn 20 to come back up the front straight away and climb the 131 vertical feet to turn number one my son and i walked through the garage this morning austin dillon i don't know what's going to happen ross chastain i don't know justin haley i don't know ever joey legato i don't know every driver we talk to and nobody knows what's going gonna happen next and that's why jeff we so love being here at this racetrack we do and it is unpredictable and when you have unpredictable circumstances like this you better have good car control and these guys these are the elites they have some of the best look at the in the ring slide through turn 10. the rain really started to fall we saw chase ellie go around here's joey logano locking up a tire austin dillon goes sideways so you just never know when this track goes from dry to wet what the next corner is going to be like so i can't wait to see these guys show you what they can do behind the wheel clint in the dry or in the wet what's job number one for these drivers get into the corner we're talking massive braking zones at this race track extreme speeds down that back straightaway let's go into turn one i like turn one up this massive hill huge bang flattens out at the top big dive bomb passing opportunity you get on down there to turn 11. i'm talking straight u-turn down a hill again brings up a lot of wheel hop and things like that as you're trying to dive bomb and make a pass on somebody massive straightaway 187 mile an hour down to a 47 mile an hour turn 12 extreme passing zones the last one turned 20. i said turn 20. i have never seen a racetrack has 20 turns that turned 20 leads to the last corner obviously in the start finish line to win this race so cool racetrack indeed a fantastic racecourse and a huge crowd as the 40 car field has rolled out for their first pay slap now they're going to come down pit road to check pit road speed and then something different will happen they'll come back around again and come down pit road with the option to change to slick tires tell you something different i want to talk to tyler redick let's dilate him up hasn't happened since 1996 and dale's senior bringing a poll on a road course to richard childers racing tyler reddick boy you're up in the booth you got us yeah buddy i got you man i just said it listen to this you just brought rcr racing its first pole on a road course since 1996 and the man himself dale senior congratulations on your poll and better yet how are you going to keep these cats behind you all day long i don't know but if it starts raining here it's going to be pretty hard to see so as you probably could tell i got some pringles on the windshield but it ain't the track is not wet yet so i don't know man just really pumped about this the shutter stretch kitchen chevrolet was really really good this weekend got the names of over 40 team members on the side of this car that are veterans just happy to represent them and glad to get a ball here for rcr for cheddars and i'm just excited about today and the opportunity in front of us well i can promise you the one that could see the best is the one out front that's where you're at you keep them guys behind you good luck and we'll be watching when dale earnhardt won that poll tyler reddick was seven months old all right they come down pit road for the first time and this is to check pit road speed the second time by they will have the opportunity and the option to change to dry tires if they choose and if they do that they will get their starting spot back now nascar declared it a wet weather race to start so everyone must roll off the grid on rain tires which you can tell because they have white lettered sidewalls the yellow goodyear eagle lettering is on the slick tires the dry weather tires [Music] hey i want to dial up a guy that we're not used to seeing up front but he's starting third austin cedric hey austin cendrick this jeff up in the fox sports booth you got me copy what do you got for a read their mouth just getting to speeds give a little information back to the team hey austin sydney jeff from the fox sports booth you got us yes sir how are you i'm doing well not as good as you qualifying third you're at a road course which you excel at and it's about to rain so that might even fall more into your hands tell us about what's going on in your mind right now and how you're going to approach this race today it's the furthest stuff i've been in one of these cup races that they told us so definitely uh definitely lots to learn from me so excited to have a protect ford mustang this far up front uh track position will be important especially if it rains in practice visibility was pretty poor down the back straight away so do we can and uh have some fun today all right well we're looking forward to certainly going to be a lot of fun from up here and i'm sure you guys are going to be having fun down there good luck thank you that is a team penske car for austin cedric the defending xfinity series champion here is your echo park starting grid for today's race 40 cars we talked about and two tyler redick kyle larson gets his sixth front row start on a road course on all chevy front row in row two austin cendrick a four-time road course winner in xfinity and kyle bush who won yesterday's xfinity race and in row three william byer trying to keep that top ten streak alive hey three last four road course has been the top ten alongside him watkins glenn winner 2015 and run up in the last two road courses joey logano guys row four i like this row i think the win could come from this throw a.j almandinger 2004 watkins glenn winner running right up there in row four chase elliott a five-time row course winner look for that nine to impress today go five ryan blaney the 2018 winner on the charlotte rovel and christopher bell won on the daytona road course this february from kevin harvick alex bowman on back you'll see the ticker roll across the bottom of the screen 40 car starting field and a lot of cars nine of them going to the back for pre-race adjustments speaking of adjustments and racing in the rain and racing in the dry and racing around 20 corners larry mack you've got your hands full mike it's days like today when you see a retired crew chief they're either gray or they're either bald it's also days like today i'm glad i became a broadcast analyst 21 years ago for fox because yeah there was a lot of decisions that had to be made before they put these cars through inspection are we going to be racing in wet are we going to be racing in dry and when we do go to the wet weather tires they have to make adjustments to the race car to make the car grip but there are some things that's decided for you if we go to wet weather tires nascar mandates uh several things on the race car so let's go to our nap car performance ford cutaway car and i'll show you you see that's a fan right there that is a defogger that's to keep the inside of the windshield pretty much clear also you have the windshield wiper there it has to be a functional windshield wiper that's owned when the the weather is wet now the last thing is a blinking running light in the upper left hand corner of the back window that's not a brake light it has to blink any time that we are in wet weather conditions thank the good lord mike that's some things that nascar makes the decision for us thanks larry well now it's decision time there are a lot of slicks stacked up on the pit wall because while it is spitting some rain drops and a lot of the fans have their ponchos on already and they're oh there's the weather radar mike i'm telling you i thought this rain was going to be here 20 minutes ago it has continued to skirt around this racetrack it kind of broke up a little bit but i'm telling you it's coming it the rain is going to fall it's going to fall heavy when it gets here tough decision very tough decision all right experts you want slicks or wets right now i want slicks and i think they're going to put slicks on they're going to come right back down i think he's right yeah that's a good point because the rubber on the race tires is much much softer uh than on the slick tire so you can chew him up running rain tires on a lot of driving i think that's very important to understand these rain tires do not like drive pavement they will chew them up just like you heard that crew chief say won't last very long at all and not only will they not last very long and you're going to have to come down pit road but the time we've seen where slick tires can be four five six seconds a lot faster than those wet tires now it's going to be a free change because nascar is going to realign the field in the original starting lineup order whether you change tires or not now there are a lot of cars going to the rear for uh adjustments of one sword or another suarez hamlin almarola briscoe buscher jones davison ware and alfredo will all start from the rear going to be a busy day on pit road wet or dry uh guys it's getting a little bit wetter up here at the top of this hill but the track surface is still dry jamie little i would not want to be paul wolfe i'm literally watching him up on the box he's watching every drop that falls here he made the call to put slicks on for joey logano and joey is like cool it's not that wet on the track we can go with it now joey when it comes to racing in new places it does not get better than him attitude is everything he has been in such a good mood remember he won the bristol dirt race earlier this season he's been fast today he's been out in the garage all morning talking to fans and sponsors if his car is as good as his attitude here today it could be joey logano's day reagan smith well jamie the exact same call was made down here in the 20 car christopher bell's pit box adam stevens opting to go with the slick tires we do have some rain starting to fall right now we're right on the edge of this weather so a very difficult decision for all of these crew chiefs christopher bell of course the winner last time we were at a road course he told me getting into that race car because of that win he has a ton of added confidence coming in today but he's got to be careful he doesn't want to let that confidence draw him into making any mistakes which is why he was so good at daytona earlier this year when he got that win no mistakes means a good day all right uh ryan blaney when he came in and changed tires which is all they were allowed to do on that stop pre-race apparently they either removed some tape from the front of the car and that's an unapproved adjustment he's gonna have to drop to the back oh man it's now being explained that uh the pre-race stop was tire change only now if you change tires from here on out that's on you and you lose your whatever time on track yep mike i love that report by jamie little talking about how difficult of a position these crew chiefs are in but i'm gonna tell you what it's not easy being a driver in this situation either because now you're on slicks it's starting to rain heavier and you do not want to be on these slick tires and hit one of those wet sections the car would just be like it's on yeah it's not a penalty it'll end your day you're gonna be in the wall and destroy your race car did you know that a ford engineer in the 1950s invented the intermittent windshield wiper that we all take for granted today now that's not one of our ford performance track facts this is ford's won 16 races in texas tied with chevy for the most all time texas motor speedway don't forget texas world speedway in college station that's cool lone star state's been good and regan why is brad keselowski going to the rear well brad keselowski as well as ryan blaney two penske teammates both going to the rear because they adjusted the tape which though is not allowed before the race started unfortunately for them though mike they had the tape on there planning for rain when the rain didn't come they had to get the tape off for dry weather conditions so they didn't have a choice but to make that change now it is raining the fans are getting wet however there is still some heat in the asphalt there was a race earlier today a lamborghini tropheo race and we have not lost the racetrack to a wet condition so slick tires should work fine here for these opening laps well and we learned yesterday during the practice that we had that 50 minute practice this is a very porous race track that water runs off this track excellent so it's going to take a lot for that track to get very wet so larry who is still running the tires with the white lettered sidewalls the rain tires yeah we've got three cars mike michael mcdowell in the 34 car and in both of the jtd lottery cars 37 orion priest 47 ricky stenhouse jr they elected the stay on the wet weather tires what a great gamble for those guys and they needed to that's a perfect opportunity to capitalize on a lot of track position that could lay right in your lap right here if these guys have to pit here's the credit one race analysis 68 laps is the race 15 17 36 are the segments the stages 40 miles an hour on pit road you can go 20 to 22 laps on fuel we're going to find out if they got enough grip or not right here right now here's the all new toyota camry trd leading the field you can tell it's the pace car because it has two wipers and there's that big light bar on the roof and no numbers like that yeah the cheetah showed up huh fastest man nfl right there boys and look at that rain falling i'm telling you this track they're going to lose this track in a hurry pace car is in so we have a dry mostly dry track condition for now what'll it be when they get up the hill to turn one [Music] [Music] you can see how wide that corner is how about austin centric here going for the lead they were five wide in the back cinderick byron here comes albany here that's that road course experience in knowing grip levels and what they can get away with and more importantly what they cannot get away with yeah look at them starting to slide around telling you that rain is coming down austin centric a little wide now to me if you're michael mcdowell some of those that stay down those wet tires boy you got to take care of them right now be very very careful because it's not going to be long i believe these drivers are going to be on pit road to get those wet tires through turn 10 and coming down the hill to 11 and the first of those airpin turns down to first gear will it break will it stick will it turn so far so good mike i'm shocked jeff i think everybody is surprised right now at how much grip these slicks have on a damp track that is not just fully covered with water i think we're okay for now hey that track is shiny yes it is especially down this long back straight away but like i said this track is abrasive it's poor so it does it doesn't get as slick as some of the racetracks that i've been to when just a little bit of rain or this this amount of rain is on it i see these guys being ultra safe very smart right here with their driving listened it on william byron a couple of cars there and back on jeff you've been doing this a lot longer than i have but i have never started a race with such a gamble on your hands like that what did it just again this whole weekend has been that way it's literally worst case scenario for these guys and trying to figure out what the right call is to do from the word go from the time we got here i've been going back and forth all weekend and especially today on who who i wouldn't rather be or who i'd rather be or not rather be crew chief right now or a driver all right i'm gonna tell you what it's a toss-up byron and logano are ins for tires so is chase elliott and alex bowman regan jamie that experiment didn't last too long two laps they wanted new tires joey logano gets the wets everybody else following him down pit road right now 33 wants to come in as well right there martin trex jr he won't be in because he stayed on wet weather tires mark tricks junior reagan larry you heard the radio just a second ago from william byron saying he needed tires the team asked him if he could go one more lap it would be better he said i can't do it i'm coming this time bye to the pits to get the rain tires i'll tell you what guys this is a racetrack where these guys have for the first time that i know of three different spotters around this racetrack those three spotters are very crucial right now and telling them what's ahead and what that track condition looks like william byron first one in and out of the pits in that cycle he is back at 25th austin centric's just having himself a sunday drive is he on slicks it looks like he's on wet tires and the only other guy with this kind of experience is a.j omendinger and guess what right on his tail [Music] well i gotta tell you that weather forecast is just teasing these guys because it looks like it's right on top of us it should be a downpour right now but it's not it just it just is that that amount of rain you don't know what to do next yep just a little bit of mist but looking at the pavement in front of us pit road and the racetrack you can still see a lot of tooth in it and that means there's a good bit of grip i tell you right there you see his windshield wiper and austin syndrick they have something figured out from their road course background what you see right there in aj omendinger from all of my experience you do not want to run that wiper at all jeff because it sticks and then it smears and i didn't like that whatever they got figured out on that 33 card it is working [Music] all right guys go ahead pull off in front of me because i got wet tires on being on this brink like this where it's just kind of he's using a lot of tire up as well you got to keep that in mind now out there in that corner that's bonus pavement and that's legal to go out there it's okay and on a dry track it'll give you a good launch and austin syndrick stays out so does kyle busch but allmendinger is in well that tells me a lot jamie yeah they just told aj almanger be careful baby it into that pit box because it's very slick see that red stripe pit crews are all being aware that when that gets wet it is super slick for these guys trying to pit the car they're going to put those tires on for aj almonder who by the way told me he is very confident racing in the rain tyler reddick our poles that are in as well as they put four tires on it for him austin cendrick started out in legends cars at charlotte motor speedway and in the winter they would run the infield portion of the rovel course some of those races were running freezing temperatures and a good number of them were run in the rain so that's where he first got his chops for rain racing jamie mike this is coming down to who's the bravest to be out there on slicks austin cendrick just told his team it's too soon to pit he's sliding all around but he's confident this man is raced all over the world on road courses in all different types of vehicles so he's still confident out there and keep in mind he has been under the weather he's been in the medical center getting ivs for fluids he had food poisoning earlier this week but it doesn't show right now hey mike we talked about austin cinder because this battle is heating up here with mark church junior and see kyle larson on those slick tires really having a tough time but we talk about the lack of experience at austin cinder cass in the cup series right now that rain experience he has is paying off big now you're starting to see roost off the back of those cars those guys still have slicks on in my opinion they better be getting them off this lap clint i think you're right i think this time or next time you better beat a pit road there's michael mcdowell coming on those wet tires great call by he and that team you saw bubba wallace in that 23 car they elected to stay on the wet weather that's right five that's that started the race on wet weather tires that we know of yeah probably i think just past x well if the surface has any moisture at all it will help from using up those rain tires in the opening lap or two and now absolutely that's wet that's that's shiny right there this is a rain race it just goes to show you how when a goodyear tire gets heat in it how well it still will grip a track that's this wet i am really uh surprised that cendrick elected to stay out one more lap right there i'm looking at him coming off a turn four right here in front of us and it is downright reigning regan well a number of guys in my area the pits have all agreed with you clint they think they need these tires right now the 18 a kyle bush hits pit road he wants the rain tires the five of kyle larson also cliff daniels told me earlier today he said i would embrace the rain coming because of the strategy plays that we would have in this race i don't think he anticipated this much strategy played this early on though certainly not but i love this strategy for austin syndrick and it's a whole lot easier when you're the leader and you don't have to worry about seeing in front of you to master that car and the grip level and maintain a lead of what's now 10 seconds what will austin centric do you're going to see it all as we go fox side by side slip sliding away that is young austin cendrick the xfinity series champion who is still on slicks and had built a nine and a half second lead can you see the water coming off that thing how is this kid making this lap time and not completely going off course right now on these slick tires is beyond me because he has this experience on road courses in the rain as long as the track shows some tooth where you can see the aggregate of the asphalt those slicks have much more grip than you would think now you get the least little bit of standing water they'll hydroplane in a hundredth of a second you know what else has this grip he's got you know what else has teeth the wall when you slip off the racetrack and hit it it's gonna bite you look how wet it is look at the roost coming off those rear tires and austin centric's car but he's still got an eight-second lead we listened in give me some lifetime comparison losing a half a second to the car behind him cody given a half a second to the wet i think he's got to get in this time i i would not stay look at how wet it is down this back straight away but look at that it's like steam from how hot the rubber is on the tires and and the surface temperature of the track well i mean you can see the water running off the quarter panel that at the end of the day give credit where it's due he is the only one on this racetrack that is capable of doing that and keeping that car underneath of him in these conditions jamie how's mark miles stanley is his crew chief and austin just keeps talking to him they said we're leaving it in your hands you make the call to pin he just said it's not that bad out here but if you guys think it's going to get worse then maybe we should come i love it well that's just it i mean is it going to get worse that you know if you can it's not going to get better i can tell you that but i mean the radar is you're and and i think in my opinion that crew chief's got to make this call is it going to rain harder what are you going to see there it just keeps breaking up is that the vortex oh don't you do it don't you dare go there i'm reminded of larry's story about the green on the radar of course so he comes in with a six and a half second lead i don't know what his odds were but i'm telling you he's my new speaker he's about 25 to 1 i believe [Music] now don't forget about drivers like martin truex our new leader who started on rain tires babied them a bit for the first couple of laps until the track got really wet and now he's in really good shape he is in good shape and i do wonder how much did he take off with those wet tires running in the conditions that we were in jeff i'd say not much because the track did the track was wet when we started if we had started and the asphalt was completely dry he would have chewed up a lot of those tires but i don't think he hurt him too much did he now another road course ringer michael mcdowell came out of road racing to nascar this year's daytona 500 winner and you always have to put a check mark next to his name when we go to a road course i think michael mcdowell was a little disappointed in it not raining for qualifying earlier today i think he was really looking forward to this track getting wet and now we're starting to see how that pays off in the race bubba wallace doing a nice job great choice for them to stay on wet tires also yes all the top five including both of tadka shechter and brad doherty's cars ricky stenhouse and ryan priest you know the good thing guys even if they killed off a little bit of those tires remember this stage ends at lap 15 i would say they'll be coming at lap 13 before pit road closes to end that stage to get more tires but for sure fill up with fuel you see joey logano go offline there just so he could see instead of following right in the tire tracks of william byron hey austin cendrick has not stopped his uh savviness in the wet even on the wet tires look at him going after william byron and his teammate basically here in joey logano [Music] kyle busch in sixth after yesterday's xfinity win which was all in the dry it rained for much of the truck race the xfinity race was dry and kyle won handily and he was very good yesterday in the wet conditions here yesterday in practice of course it was a lot there's a lot more water in the racetrack yesterday than there is right now [Music] jamie what did austin centric's tires look like after that stop yeah you guys were talking about him look at this they almost look like there's a lap or two maybe you can still see the seams they're in such great condition right now so no problems out there a little bit melted on the inside of the front tires but they look pretty good overall he is now in eighth place and truex the leader remember the first five started on the goodyear wet weather tires the ones with the deep sipes and the sharp edged tread blocks to help evacuate that water from under the tire and get maximum grip when we see mark george jr here leading this race right now i mean he was one of the favorites coming into this day so that strategy that james small and he pulled off this is only just put it more in their hands to have control of this race right now just good heads up gracie michael mcdowell a second back from the wallace three back and then a gap to stenhouse and priests the top five you're looking at william byron from the windshield of chase elliot i don't think cedric they could have planned it any better by staying out on slicks i know the only thing they could have done better was gone to west but i think by staying out on slicks it couldn't have worked out much better they're only they only fell back to seventh spot by coming down pit road halfway through stage one at circuit of the america head to mobile1000.com for a chance to win 1 000 or more whenever a mobile one powered car reaches victory lane welcome back that's the rear bumper cam on daniel suarez number 99. he is getting pushed back to the pits they i believe they changed transmissions in his car this morning or last night oh wheel hot getting into that braking zone bunch of them that's just locking up those rear tires as he's trying there's another one now the front tires are locked up now here's the one that brings out the caution it's not running yeah i was going to say you know i believe that wheel hop oh now you can see it's locked in gear locked in between gears see him trying to pull on it make sure you're not like push down like make sure it's pulled up try to move that linkage around all you can well i've seen transmissions get locked in gear i've never seen one get locked in neutral yeah it might take me back to that wheel hop you know that's really hard on the driveline transmissions part of that driveline and maybe shook a gear out of it the other thing is just like he said it could be stuck that thing didn't move much it wasn't moving one way or the other but won't they i believe they'll be able to jack the car up on one side and probably get in there and and tweak with some of those linkages and get it out of neutral no days of thunderline just give me high gear or that so pit road is open now larry well mike especially if i'm one of those that just came in and got the wet weather tires i'm hitting pit road right here and filling up with fuel because this will actually get you to the end of stage two so regardless tires or not fill it up with fuel right here well larry mack you got about half of them liking your strategy and the other half staying out on track rigging martin shrek junior made the decision to go ahead and pit right now get another set of tires on his race car he is struggling through the sections of the racetrack that have older surface said he's really sliding around way too much kyle busch one of the cars everybody's looking at everybody's saying kyle's very fast right now mark truex on and off pit road along with several of the leaders we're under the first caution of the day when daniel suarez's car fails to take a gear and stops on course how wet does this pit road look at martin truex spinning and sliding and laying rubber down spinning and not going anywhere that's those cold wet tires getting ready to come green mcdowell and wallace and stenhouse stayed out cinderick logano byron larson bush lejoy and divine detto let's see if austin center continues to be aggressive going into turn one like the start of this race where he got the lead and i think you can be jeff because these tires are these rain tires you can be more aggressive in a straight line under braking and things like that you can be laterally they want to get sideways so let's go four wide into turn one that's why that didn't surprise me hold on micah mcdowell runs away from the field cannot believe they got through turn one without a problem i can't either they're four wide going in there i'll tell you what bubba wallace showed a lot of patience as those guys kind of pushed him wide and there's austin centric right up in third behind joey logano behind michael mcdowell [Music] i can tell you that 34 car now whoever engineered the best windshield wiper is a happy camper right there you can see those penske cars running second and third their windshield wipers are really good mcdowell in the lead however it was that sticky it like we were talking about see that 21 card pinsky see that thing sticking [Music] everybody's had a rental car that does that over the time that i oh gambling off course no traction in that paint at all and you gotta be real careful going over the curbs too in these conditions that's a great point this is that was coming out of the s's eight to nine to then ten down the hill hamlet is 38. logano puts the car out in clean air as william byron ricky stenhouse getting into this corner bush is right there let's ride with him [Music] you can hear this tire spinning going to the throttle [Music] [Music] this windshield wiper it's kind of coming halfway down in front of the driver but but not really cleaning the area that he needs now when i look at this again i keep bringing this up because i noticed it yesterday in practice these pinsky cars there's a lot of history a lot of a lot of race time and strategy around those guys having all these these road racing uh cars all over the place those they got their stuff together on those penske cars look how much better it works than everybody else you heard denny i think visibility from my experience jeff i ran the rovo last year on rain tires it was a ton of fun the tires surprised me how much grip they had visibility not so much definitely a problem i still note a number of drivers like kyle busch and chase elliott who are electing not to turn the wipers on and just let that water hit the windshield and coating maybe with rain here's the spot up it goes rain x three sponsor plug you got to have a lot of rain x on that windshield versus kyle and and if you're going to put a lot of rain x on that windshield then you do not want to use that windshield wiper until you absolutely have to as we go for battle for the lead here joey logano i mentioned it in our grid he's been a runner-up with the last two or three rope course races so he knows how to get around these tracks and by the way remember he won on the dirt track at bristol i talked to him on the grid and he said i don't know what to expect but i'm going to have fun with it no matter what it's going to be the same for everybody he says i prefer it be dry but if it's wet we're just going to go out there and have all the fun we can and then he gave that big joey legato laugh and he walked off to driver intros chase briscoe right there has having a good day having a good day now he's three wide down as soon this they said that three wide in the middle for the lead see right there that sort of drew michael mcdowell in to try to get into that breakings a little bit heavier slight lock up it went wide allowed joey logano to take the lead it's so funny watching these guys in the rain completely out of that normal driving line you know running the outside staying out of where that rubber was put down on the racetrack as they've practiced well you got two problems with running the dry line in the rain one is the rubber that's down the other thing is in all the years of this racetrack being run that asphalt on the dry line gets polished so it's fairly slick you need to go offline find some asphalt have some tooth in it and maybe the car will stick i've learned something new today jeff the tractor's got some tooth in it enter clint's fox bed super six stage two contest for your chance to win your share of ten thousand dollars of clint boyer's money just download the app pick six race outcomes about stage two for your shot to win free to play don't miss out so while you're watching it rain in austin play now while there's still time left i think you're gonna have to you're gonna earn your money today and it's gonna have to have a little bit of luck man it's all over the place anybody's game today a little issue losing some momentum turned 20 he tried to make a pass justin haley there with teammate corey lejoy and there's kyle everybody stacked up there on the inside [Music] you can see yeah but he uh he and his teammate christopher bell made a little bit of contact before all that happened you said it you got right he had to check up for christopher bell moved down got his left on that paint just like you said jeff very very slick four to go in stage one larry how about some pnc race strategy for us yeah it's gonna get interesting mike of course you never know when a caution may fall it fell a while ago for daniel suarez but right now you if you if you want to try to win this race you need to pit before they close pit road before the end of stage one which would be in a lap or two here before stage two when we get into the final stage in my book in these wet conditions go ahead and pit when the fuel window opens to get you to the end of the race the fuel window's a little greater when we're in wet conditions because the pace is slower probably closer to about 24 laps yeah larry talked about the pace when these cars qualified they were in the 2 minute 12 2 minute 13 uh uh area right now in the wet last lap by was a 238 for a leader a lot of guys in the 240s see the 53 here of uh garrett smithy going around this has been the alternate ultimate equalizers let's watch this replay oh just yeah he just got in there hot went wide had to go through some of the gravel out there oh inks turning around got really lucky right there didn't eat you yeah a lot of times every time i've ever been in a gravel that's exactly where i stayed till the wrecker stop [Music] and those eyes are not blinking because you got to be on top of your toes in these kind of conditions i love how this rain you know i said it ultimate equalizer you see teams michael mcdowell these guys running up front that we just didn't see in qualifying different speed sets different uh experience levels well yeah you know the driver plays such a more important role in these kinds of conditions i talked about car control and michael mcdowell has it in the in the wet conditions bubba wallace ty dillon both come to pitt road with logano leading michael mcdowell by a second and a half we get a sneak peek into joey logano's kitchen here's fast cooking sponsored by coca-cola joey what in the world are you doing right now the kids are out there they're ready to get going you don't want a hangry kid do you we got to make some sandwiches before we head out to the track okay well blt boys are finally the age where they want to go to the racetrack i'm afraid i'm going to be hooked more than hudson because you know like that competitive vibe that's in you so i mean what's better right i mean we got dad sandwiches go to the racetrack with your coke it's like a tradition man this is this is the way to go we're good we're ready let's roll let's get the kids well joey is cooking on the racetrack his lead over michael mcdowell one second now austin centric five back william byron kurt busch top five three forwards two chevys on a very wet circuit of the americas jamie michael mcdowell just listening to his radio they're telling him drew blickenster for his crew chief on the radio telling him 11 and 12 is our worst part of the track really work on it there he told me this morning too they really look like this is a great opportunity racing on a road course he said if it rains though we will be able to compete with the best of them that's exactly what we've seen today another great run so far for michael mcdowell [Music] activity there upper right of your screen turn 11 to turn 12 going from right to left that long straight away in the dry you'd hit fourth gear there not so sure if you would in the wet or not well if you want to just keep the rpms down keep a little wheel spin out of it maybe you would go up to fourth gear but then you've got an extra downshift when you get to 12. so yeah i'm with you i wouldn't mind staying in third as long as i possibly could [Music] let's go back to austin centric who left four laps early on slick tires to many people's surprise how's he doing now in third place he does not understand if we're pitting this time or not we've got to relay these messages to be quicker so i have longer to talk to him [Music] so they wanted to give them some adjustments then corey lejoy which you talked about mike he spun and they said wait stay out stay out in case we get a caution and that's where the confusion was if you heard him say i want the front to turn better you know that's going to help his drive up off if you can get that thing turned drive off straight he cannot be on the throttle turning the wheel how about kirk bush right here in fourth place he missed the top 12 to run for the pole uh by a skosh started this race in 13th and he said i just want to win i just want to get up front well he's he's proven over the years being a really talented road racer and he's showing it right now and behind him how about william byron the job that he and this team have been doing over the last several weeks look kyle larson talking about the dive bomb there boyer oh no he hit him hard heavy damage to the left front and the right rear of william byron left front damage there onto benedetto well i just wonder if larson sort of drew him in right there he saw larson got him in the middle to try to make a pass here's another look uh he locked his wheels and you see the rear tire wheel hopping bump up up text foot that's what happened so easy in it especially wet condition man that's a lot of damage to both cars we're just talking about that top 10 streak on the 24 wheeling buyer and in these wet conditions that might not hurt him too bad but if it does dry up you're going to need that right rear quarter panel and the grip that that gives you aerodynamically now briar in the fifth place car as kurt busch moves it up to third place oh keselowski goes around this is the complex where you go from 14 to 15. this is the exit of 15 going into 16. [Music] using all the pavement and then so still trying to get some grip to those rear tires [Music] there it is oh flat the right retire is down william byron and he will drop out of the top ten with this stop with one to go in stage one but just as we saw on the trucks and makes finity strategy is everything just because that may have put him right you know in some track position situations right here yeah i was a little surprised we didn't see more come down pit road to try to play that strategy game of getting tires before this stage ends you're not getting not going to get these stage points right now but you might be set up for the stage two and more importantly stage three for the win so in this top ten to get stage points you've got chris busher chase briscoe ross chastain matt divanado [Music] well mike william byron's plan was to definitely stay out even after this stage got over he had been saving tires the entire time but we saw that contact cut the right rear tire down they had to pit because of that tire now they're trying to get the fenders all pulled away a lengthy pit stop for him right now here justin haley also on pit road along and daniel suarez still there with that transmission issue and now both of them are out of their cars we're told oh chastain had a big slide down in turn 11 or the exit to turn 11. i think that'll drop him to ninth benedetto gets that spot still out there with that heavy damage to the left front that's surprising too because you can see when he rolled up into turn one you know when we went back to that replay under breaking his left front tire was really locked up in the defender ross chastain right back at de benedetto and retakes eighth place yeah i don't think matt has much breaking potential sliding off the track everywhere right now [Music] logano your leader michael mcdowell three seconds back [Music] and william byron stays on the lead lap with that stop but he did stop uh when pin road was closed with less than two to go in the state two two or less to go in the stage well this is what's the benefit of a lap that takes two over two and a half seconds to get around this guy's had more time to fix that damage as joey logano is going to pick up that stage one win third stage win of the season for joey logano and his first ever on a road race course with mcdowell second kirkbush third kyle larson austin cendrick the top five there's chris busher again sixth place briscoe chastain kyle busch andy benedetto to get the last stage point takes me back to that decision and and we actually covered it with paul wolf and that decision to put on those rain tires at an early time beat him to the punch didn't he and joey logano is a nascar cup road course stage winner coca-cola and nascar together taste better you're watching nascar on fox that's austin dillon who is 25th everybody jeff is break dancing here in the booth let's just go dancing oh is that oh that's right not breakdancing we don't know this just place isn't big enough we don't have the cardboard none of that okay i get it just just go down those days are way behind all right larry you want to be fuelish what do you want to do here well i think it's going to be all about fuel and you see austin cendrick leading the group on there in that 33 car so they feel you know they can safely now make it to the end stage too but i think everybody that stayed out feels that same way mike jamie well there was no question about it this time austin cendrick was definitely going to pit they need an adjustment he feels better as they run but he needs better turn they wipe the grill four tires slight air pressure adjustment mike all right we'll have a look at the ram race off pit road well past start finish line and on the way up that uh 133 foot climb to turn number one chase briscoe picks up a spot austin centric drops one tyler reddick picked up three spots with his stop let's dial up her stage one winner hey joe logano is boyer up in the booth you got us what's happening man you're happening you and your crew chief great heads up call putting those ring tires on i can see paul wolf i know he's hearing me look at me right up here paul i see there you are man good call on that good stage one win holding it pretty well what's the conditions out there that's not bad the uh the range is just kind of steady and slows down for a little bit the track starts to dry off and then next thing you know it starts to rain again and this big it's raining in some areas and other areas it's almost dry so it's kind of confusing on what to do and how to do this you kind of gotta you know fly by to see your pants a little bit make some quick calls on the fly well you guys are certainly doing that good uh heads up call by both of you guys keep it up let's see something at the end buddy of course going better than my racing experience so far though believe that joey logano our stage one winner [Music] [Music] order up several helpings of rain tires to help you get through the day you're in the echo park texas grand prix a circuit of the americas 20 turns over 3.6 miles and a lot of braking and shifting here boy there certainly is 11 left 11 right hand turns up hills we go to turn one you see third gear all the way down to first gear that's red first gear turn one then carry second all the way through through these s's up to thirds you come down to 11 back down to first gear then all the way up through the gears to fourth gear the fastest sections going to 12 and then another one those real slow heavy braking zones carrying first gear all the way through 14 15 and then second gear to turn 20 when they come back down to first gear and then up to second up to third the start finish line and and what we're curious about we've been talking about is how has that changed with wet weather look how busy joey logano is inside this car with his hands car stepping out rear tires slipping comes to downshift [Music] look how sharp that corner is you see how his eyes went completely out the side of his race car to see that apex and he's going to go up through the gears third gear so that was all the way down to first gear that now up to fourth gear so probably the back straight away uh going into turn 12. look at the wind coming in the window as he got under the brakes and starts uh getting one of his uh that skirt around his helmet i'll tell you what that was is how it shows you how hard they're on the brakes when he slowed down that was the weight of that net move forward and brought it forward the biggest thing all right so you need to get to a wet condition under rain tires and stuff like this all those guys i asked them last night i said what was the biggest differences what was the challenge is it it was putting that throttle down short shifting your transmission don't ring that thing out way up an rpm and spike that rpm spin the tires same thing goes when you're getting into the corner they said do not downshift and bang through the gears because that upsets the the driveline and wants the thing to wheel hop um kyle larson is actually telling me last night he talked to james davidson we saw that he was really well at an experienced road course racer said that he ran it all the way off into the corner before he ever downshifted did all the breaking before downshift ready to start stage two let's take a look at where the coca-cola family of drivers are in the field beginning with joey logano who is our race leader ryan newman after starting deep in the field up tonight denny hamlin had been off track a bit 17th back on austinville and 18th and daniel suarez has his transmission repaired he is back in the race 10 laps back ready for the restart stage two logano and mcdowell [Music] talk about visibility it's gone if you're not joey logano kurt busch is there three wide behind him which row right i think that's on five like look at that back there here comes austin cedric austin cendrick's finding places to race nobody else will go [Music] hey hats off to oh there's all round goes one right there great save he'll get going he got loose on the inside of ross chastain these guys were battling for position it's just about to break on his teammate chris busher up in fourth position having a great year chris busher we talk we've been talking about him a lot just about every weekend getting some pressure from kyle bush but still you know just he's just showing what kind of driver he is in all kinds of conditions and consistently each and every week roush fenway racing putting a good race car underneath him there to kyle bush and now he's under pressure look at chest dane send it in by ross chastain i thought he was locking up going off sometimes he found some grip out there about cal bush going by michael mcdowell right there that's a power move third place well we saw kyle bush yesterday in the rain was very strong and he ran the xfinity race won that now he's coming to the front here in third position gonna oh ryan blaney with heavy damage right brew down now the sky is brightening and the rain is letting up this could change everything well that now this was going into turn 12. i i i wouldn't be surprised if this is similar to what we saw in mata benedetto who and that's probably where the damage came the 20th christopher bell full course caution here i wouldn't be surprised if somehow he locked up and got into the back of the 12 ryan blaney third caution of the day for christopher bell who is out of his joe gibbs toyota and so this could have been a three-car jam session all in the same place we've had heavy damage to harvick my goodness i mean he's got front and rear damage that car is torn down a long time since you've seen that four car tore up left rear is down he's just trying to hop back and get to pit road in one piece so let's start with what happened to harvard [Applause] down the back straight away sierra jones is inside no visibility here starting to slow down getting in the corner no absolutely wow now ryan blaney okay so blaney goes wide here goes off he was part of that i would be surprised if that that happened i'm going to tell you it's all connected some way i think kevin harvick lifted out of visibility and now that view was from our roof cam he probably had better visibility it's all torn up in texas the xfinity more than fast moment from dover had to be when alex bowman's pit crew got about ahead of the pack allowing him to lock in the win and proving it takes more than speed to succeed vote for this week's more than fast moment at xfinity racing on twitter xfinity proud premier partner of nascar here in austin texas 19 laps complete there's the damage to ryan blaney's car we believe christopher bell may have got into the back of blaney as blaney may have been slowing for a cut tire now somewhere in the mist there may have been contact between bubba wallace and kevin harvick harvick who has not had a dnf did not finish since bristol in august of 2019. and somehow you saw that four car kevin harvick pulled back off a pit road i thought that was over for sure well when he got hit that car went airborne in the rear of the car somebody went almost underneath him all right so we're going to listen to kevin harvick's team and then bubba wallace's team i just didn't i didn't know what was coming and then somebody just ran into the back of me now they were like two over fish sailing i could see the 20 up here on the left and i didn't he looked like he was gonna spin around he was all over the place so i didn't know what was it there's wrecks everywhere so harvick was trailing the 20 and 12 incident and backed off and got hit now we have some other audio and we're going to update pit stops and what happened there when we come back we are under caution and what a wild day in austin [Music] under caution in austin now because we don't have clear camera shots of those incidents what we do have is gps in each car and uh our fox csi technology to show you where each car was at which moment so here is ryan blaine he's slowing and we believe he's slowing because of poor visibility down that back straightaway before they got to the breaking zone and christopher bell gets into the back of him now trailing the play is kevin harvick in the midst of all this missed well i believe this spotter more than likely came on the radio told him an incident was ahead of him he starts to slow down also couldn't see it and bubba wallace no idea that kevin harvick's checking up runs right in the back of him bam that takes me right back to what we talked about with chase eliot before this race chase said i want to be out of the lane in front of me i don't want to be in the wake of that car i want to get to where i can see and that 43 was right beside kevin harvick he was up out of the the groove and obviously could see better than kevin could he took off never lifted and and got through it kevin harvick lifted got ran over all right christopher bell checked and released at the infield care center kevin harvick pushed to pit road he was told to shut the car down it was leaking some fluid it is running now uh regan what did martin sureks do well mike mark drew x actually pitted on this stop here they pitted for a different reason though he couldn't see because they had oil on the windshield not from that wreck but from earlier in the race somebody was leaking oil a number of these cars been having issues where their wiper won't work and they also can't turn it off and have the rain x that these teams put on the windshields work because they had oil on top of the windshield instead so a lot of different things causing visibility issues right now a number of the cars that did stay out strictly stayed out because they wanted track position for the restart even if they are within their window thanks regan there is kevin harvick headed for the garage jamie christopher bell has been checked and released and you and bubba wallace just walked out did you guys talk about anything and and what exactly happened from your perspective yeah i mean i don't exactly know what happened i don't know if they were wrecked up there or what but just going down the straightaway blind and um yeah they just ran in the back of somebody so very very disappointing day i was really looking forward to running our craftsman camry today and i had a lot of fun in practice yesterday but just when we get out there in the pack it's just so hard to see you're just racing blind thanks christopher remember he was the winner at the last road course in daytona 21 laps complete 47 to go we've just begun stage two and we're under the third caution flag of the day [Music] action of plenty at the circuit of the americas as two collisions put us under this third caution of the day next season the best season ever next sunday yeah it's this season hey it continues the cup series returns to charlotte for the coca-cola 600. stock car racing's longest night begins with race day on fs1 4 30 eastern then continues at 5 30 eastern on fox and on the fox sports app an event we always look forward to and breaking news nascar fox charlotte motor speedway pleased to announce our grand marshals for the coca-cola 600 jay leno and kevin eubanks uh jay will also he's he's america's number one car guy he'll have a big part in our pre-race show and they will both be starring in the new show you bet your life this fall very exciting stuff if anybody remembers groucho marx he was the originator and host of that quiz show i think artie kempner and i are the only ones here i'm getting a lot of blank looks from here but it was a great show and it'll be a lot of fun with jay leno and kevin eubanks this fall so we'll look forward to seeing them in charlotte for the coca-cola 600 next week well always great to have jay leno he loves racing i've seen him at several races over the years and loves cars man what a car collection he has out in california yeah what you got to do you ball hog jeff you got to go to jay leno's garage i got my deal with jay leno was something at the racetrack somewhere i've been you got to hang out with patrick mahomes i got to hang out with jay leno and cars and cars cool cars steam engines all right well let's get a little more insight into the bubble wallace kevin harvick part of the incident here's jamie obama's crew chief mike wheeler speaking with us now your driver's frustrated he didn't want to talk about what happened but wheels what did you see and hear from the pit box yeah a lot of guys complained about vibration early one of those things that you know once you got mid-pack you just couldn't see what was going on um earlier tried to coach him about breaking points into 12 but he's like you just can't see got back on clean track and you actually hit his breaking points well but once you were back in the teens to 20's uh you just have a good vision uh it looked like the 12 and the something the 12 and the 20 first i think the four card was coached to kind of check up when he was going 100 mile an hour we just ran it back him because we couldn't see more than five feet in front of us thanks for your time so of those cars bubba wallace and christopher bell are out of the race ryan blaney continuing under repair and kevin harvick has gone to the garage only 22 laps and already it's been a wild one in austin welcome back to circuit of the americas 24 laps complete this is such a winding track as you look at chase elliott in fourth it takes three spotters around the course turn one turn ten and uh near turn 15 and one of chase's spotters is bill elliot he's at the turn 15 location that leads us to our subway right combination hey larry yeah no question chase elliott has become the king of the road he has won five of the last 10 road course races at three different tracks he's won five and dominated the daytona in february until a couple of late race incidents and with those five road course wins chase is the winningest active driver on road courses could be the right subway combination to win the first cup race at coda and mike to become our 11th winner in 2021 and here they come to the front straightaway and the restart green flag joey logano and kyle bush yesterday's winner on the front row ross chastain with chase elliott ryan priests in fifth alex bowman sixth how about ross justine dive bomb into the inside of joey lagano going to take the lead talk to him on the grid so looking forward to today's race had a big smile a lot of confidence ready to go and what about ryan preece in a second you heard him talk about visibility track position is everything oh raj chastain made a mistake right there almost slid off the racetrack i'm going to tell you there's going to be a cedar 2 open in some of these top cars next year somebody ought to have their eye on ryan priest this kid's a winner he's been a modified champion he goes and still runs the modifieds on off nights because he wants a chance to win and here he wants a chance at the lead well he's proven that he can oh he gets he's right there that switch back to nine coming down to ten but he still got a big run it was actually what set him up for a crossover he got loose and kind of fell right in his lap about to have chastain right in his lap heavy breaking big hairpin here and a launch to the straightaway wow so fun to see these drivers see joey logano having some wheel spin issues getting off that last one what now look at chase elliot some of these drivers trying to find visibility coming all the way over to the left side of this racetrack down that back straightaway wow look at the rooster tails off of those cars tell you another guy that's on the move is austin cendrick oh we got another one set the 19 yeah right under him oh and into the wall nowhere to go there big fire he had a big impact luckily seeing him get out of the race car right now because that was a big impact to that inside barrier safety crew is there right away but he just submarined the 19 and martin truax there yeah i bet we're going to go back and see a very similar situation with mark tricks jr and the visibility down that back straightaway i think once the field gets strung out mike i think i think the visibility will improve but on these restarts when there's cars stacked around one another and that's a great point look how far that rear end is shoved forward uh by cole custer's car i thought that 19 of turex was going to go upside down there that's hard as he got hit by cole custer so already an issue i believe here or maybe not guys oh somebody i'll check 34 mcdowell checks up truex gets into him and he's slowing down and here comes cole custer through to the inside nowhere to go has no idea martin ferris jr's had damage now that right thank goodness there's a little bit of a safer bear or is that that's a foam barrier yes thank goodness that was there instead of just hitting that armco barrier for cole custer we're gonna ride with martin truax oh man that was truex into mcdonald's you can see how fast mcdowell came into the picture and i don't know if mcdowell had an issue or he same thing visibility and he's just trying to get checked up there were cars in front of mcdowell but none were slowed dramatically from what we could see there i feel like we could get the air titans out there and probably help these guys restart especially just on that straightaway it's the only troublesome spot i see on the whole track and it's not water standing it's just just like you said jeff these cars that are three and four wide on these restarts in particular massive hit right there it's cole custard man he almost got him on his lid that was a big hit unfortunate two big hits for cole custer first hitting mark truex jr then that inside wall thank god they had that foam wall right there we saw cole custer walk away and we're told martin truex is now climbing out of his car that is two destroyed race cars wow watch this impact for the 41 cole custer to the inside that's a big hit jeff i've seen you hit a wall exactly like that but when you hit it it didn't have that foam barrier when he goes back and watches his cole custer watches his replay he will thank whoever put that foam barrier in in the place of that wall right there that's why you have it there and then that big fire after that uh that impact i'm sure probably fuel or oil or combination of boat that caused that big fire and that's why colt custer wanted to jump out of that cockpit as fast as he could [Music] caution flag number four for this multi-car incident welcome back to the echo park automotive texas grand prix at circuit of the americas as they removed the cars of cole custer and martin truix michael mcdowell is able to continue despite damage from that as the cars are stopped under red we're going to go back to our aerial coverage as we try to sort out the beginnings of this and have a look there at michael mcdowell and martin truax yeah mark church junior's making a three wide pass here mcdowell is in the right lane but you saw eric jones ahead of him sort of came over to the left and i think that's what blinded michael mcdowell when that happened he started to check up and that's what caused the domino effect behind eric jones and the two of brad keselowski almost got together right there checked him up slowed all that up and it just accordions behind him with the low visibility and a debris field of parts going about halfway down that straightaway and goal custer is hot i doubt that mark drake's junior can see much more than what we're seeing right here he kind of checked up there for a second he could he he knew that he needed to start checking up maybe he thought the corners coming up i don't know if a spotter maybe sits up to him but man you can't anticipate that car slowing down that quickly in front of you just cannot see heavy damage to the race car right here i saw the aftermath of that big impact from both ends so at lap 18 bubba wallace into kevin harvick both those cars out of the race and christopher bell into ryan blaney blaney continues with damage bell is in the garage and here comes the nascar track drawing system out to the back straightaway now at lap 26 michael mcdowell impacted by martin truex who was then hit by cole custer ross chastain is the leader ryan preece is second all of you watching this show have driven in heavy rain like this some of you had the option of pulling over to the side of the road in the rain and others had to continue but again each driver has to make his own choices how fast and and what's in your mirror and what's coming but here we have a situation where a driver's his view is blocked he eases off the pedal and suddenly there's a great closing speed from cars behind that that are coming right into you well this is one of the most unique situations we love seeing racing in the rain but we want to see visibility be you know safe enough for these drivers to be able to go at those high rate of speeds down that long back straightaway and that's one of the things that makes it unique my only only experience anything like this i'd say is 2007 24 hours of daytona i was in a sports car and it started raining pretty heavily and we were on the banks of daytona down the back straightaway and as soon as one car got in front of me i couldn't see anything i had it was one of the scariest moments i've ever had in a race car and i immediately started checking up now at that point we were all spread out i just wonder double file restarts these cars getting all down to turn 11 to go down that long back straightaway they're still bunched up and and these cars create a huge wake of air and rain when the water's on the track yeah a couple of experiences for me montreal took me up there in the xfinity race it was the same way we were hydroplaning there was so much water it was down pouring i was looking out the side window of the driver's side to see the wall and i was gauging myself because i couldn't see out the windshield so that was certainly one of the moments but the rovel this was this a recent you know situation with this car this tire everything we could see well and i think you brought up a good point these restarts where you're three and four wide what i see right here is exactly what i was asking for after the first caution i said i think we should go out and air tighten that that straightaway alone i think it'll take care of the problem it'll take that that standing water off of it you'll still be able to use your rain tires it won't hurt those things i think this is the right uh call right here to give these guys a vision on that high-speed 180 mile an hour straightaway that we have here at coda well you have two choices in this situation you can either follow the rooster tail in which you have a little more grip because that water's up in the air and not right in front of your front tires or you can go look for where you can see but certainly the safer option if that's available because you have to see there's a heavy braking zone coming up not to mention if a car or an incident happens in front of you let's uh check in with jamie huge hit for cole custer first off cole are you okay yeah i'm all good it uh it didn't hurt as much as i thought it was gonna be but it was uh it wasn't it's just you can't see anything i mean it's it's pretty bad i mean you can't see a foot in front of your car and you know just rolling down the back stretch and i haven't seen a replay of it and but i had no idea that oh i didn't know he even got damaged at that point but yeah you can't see anything by the time i got to him yeah that just sucks i mean i'm just so frustrated about having our day end like this you know it just kills a car you know it's just really frustrating not fair to all our guys and everybody at housetooling.com and everybody at shr so it's just you can't see anything thanks cole we'll hear from martin trucks junior momentarily thanks jamie we're glad that cole is okay because that was a horrendous hit and twice first into truex and then into the barrier well i'm happy to hear him say because i think he knew he was going towards that inside barrier happy to hear him say the impact wasn't as big as he thought that goes to show you that that impact wall that they put in front of the armco barrier really did its job so an early exit for cole custer and for martin truex as we're under red flag conditions while uh track drying is uh being down here right away do you see how it's taken all of that standing water off of that i do believe that it'll do just what we're looking to do take that visibility right back into driver's hands yeah i think this is the right call certainly a huge hit we just heard from cole custer from your perspective i mean how do you describe the racing and just that moment for you martin oh well i mean the only way to describe it is you can't see anything so i mean it's um you're just mashing the gas and going through the gears on the back stretch praying that nobody's going to be there and all of a sudden i seen the tail light flash and it was already you know i was already in through him so i mean it's it happens that fast you know going that that fast and then my first thought was once i hit that guy just staying the gas trying to keep going because i knew they were coming from behind and literally next thing i know i get i get drilled so i mean there's just nothing you can do in those situations uh shame for best pro tracker all our guys and girls that work on these things so hard uh sorry we got we got behind there just uh we got oil on our windshield at some point there and um i literally couldn't see anything and i had to pit and we got off sequence we were in the back there and then it's you know it's really really hard to see back there so it's uh i don't know it's hard it's really hard to race like that if you're not in the top you know couple cars and i'm not sure how we can make it easier or better but um man it's dangerous and and you just go down the back stretch every lap praying there's nobody having an issue you know the prey there's not going to be a crash or a car stopped or whatever because i mean you're just wide open can't see anything so unfortunately like i said we just wrong place the wrong time thanks martin glad you're okay so martin truex joins cole custer kevin harvick christopher bell bubba wallace and justin haley out of the race we're under the red flag and while the drivers are sitting waiting to restart um let's check in with our stage one winner hey joey this is jeff from the booth you got a copy well uh you you lost the lead there going into turn one those guys really uh pushed it hard in there but you're in sixth position got a great race car doing a great job but you know we've seen where this visibility down the back straightaway uh has really gone away they're gonna send the dryers out there try to get some of that water off but how bad was how much different was it for you when you got back behind cars yeah it's uh quite a bit worse you know your braking zones and everything you're kind of guessing and all you see is this little red light flashing in the back glass of the car in front of you it's not enough that's for sure i can imagine if you get further back what that's like so uh at least they're trying to fix that a little bit these restarts are crazy it just seems like uh you know with that entry to turn one the gap behind you is just gonna go in further you bring they're just gonna break a little bit deeper uh you know as the door's just sitting there open so uh pretty challenging place to restart for sure some lessons learned there well so other than the back straightaway and i'm really anxious to see what uh changes with these titans out there that are that are really sucking this and blowing this water off that spin standing back there um i think the visibility is going to be much better but what about the rest of conditions of the racetrack have you enjoyed running in the rain here today so far other than that visibility [Music] and a whole different zip code down here yeah i was just wondering about the conditions of the rest of the track other than that back straight away how do you feel about everything else all right we might have lost joey that's what i have joined you got a three and a half mile race track and they're about two miles away from us right now we're gonna go back have another look uh there's your race leader ross chastain ready to restart now this is our fox extra motion on the roof of martin truex and there you see it now a word about these rain lights they are fia certified they're used in everything from formula one to indycar to imsa to world endurance racing to nascar these lights are certified and for a minimum level of brightness and light transmission and they are more than twice as bright as the brake lights on most automobile passenger automobiles so and this is why they're on there it's for use in the rain for maximum visibility from the car behind unfortunately we're at the minimum and there's a look at it they mount them high up in the rear window again for maximum vis but well when you can't fix it at the end of the day hey nascar's making the right uh provisions here to try to fix this for them we're going to see if it does and if it doesn't i'm sure that they're going to step in and do the right thing accordingly so track workers checking with each driver see if anybody wants a bottle of water uh there's daniel suarez's car back on track but nine laps down took a shot there's a hole in our camera lens there maybe that's where that transmission part went or a lug nut and about 200 miles an hour it looks to me like so you know i think there's a few different options here this is option a that i like i know clint you were on board with this about getting the titans out here to really pull that that that standing water up that's going to help a lot and it's really very light rain right now if even any rain at all so this is a great call i would say if they had to go one extra step further they could go to single file restarts that would just help spread the cars out a little bit more and not be double file all over one another but don't you think they're going to be doubled up by the time they get over there i think if they start it yeah that might work for turn one but by the time they get over there off of 11 i bet they're three and four wide again under the red flag michael mcdowell able to continue martin truex cole custer out of the race as nascar's finest slip and slide around the circuit of the americans 90 miles down the road in san antonio morgan's wonderland the world's first theme park designed with special needs individuals in mind embracing mobility for all toyota's been a proud partner of morgan's wonderland since its opening in 2010 while welcoming thousands of smiling faces each year what a great initiative now here at circuit of the americas they have been welcoming the world's motor sports fans for nearly a decade now to this very unique facility out in the texas hill country sketched on a cocktail napkin incorporating the greatest corners of formula one racing round the world mario andretti took the very first ceremonial lap here in his formula one championship winning lotus and then everything from formula one to world sports cars mc indy car they've all raced here and this weekend for the first time ever nascar the first all-new road course venue that nascar cup series has ventured to since sonoma back in the late 80s just prior to that watkins glen riverside california bridgehampton long island among the places where nascar has raced and turned right and left let's show you once again why we're under the red flag at 25 laps michael mcdowell right side of your screen his visibility somewhat compromised slows down that straight away here comes anon rushing martin truex collides with mcdowell and cole custer comes ripping up the inside and hits the damaged true truex car sending it up in the air and himself into the barrier the red flag shortly followed tremendous impact there and fortunately both drivers though out of the race are okay cole custer and martin truex now michael mcdowell uh the car that truex ran into is still on track let's see if we can raise him him uncle mcdowell it's boy you're up in the booth you got us man pretty unfortunate deal back there looks like they're making provisions to get you guys some better visibility um how's your your car right there obviously got some damage in the rear of it you guys think you're still in it you've been holding pretty wheeled out there how's things going yeah it's just real unfortunate what happened there it just you just couldn't see at all you didn't know if there's cars in front of you brake zone what was coming up it was just completely uh white out so unfortunate there but i think we're gonna be all right with our out west express ford mustang uh got hit in the back there pretty good but i think it's just cosmetics so you know biggest thing you just get some of this track position back here hopefully uh we can get rolling and pick some guys off our car's been really good in the rain here so uh we'll see what happens but just gotta stay out of the mess if we can i hear it man it's been a mess here lately but i'm sure you get it straightened out good news is i just looked at your car it doesn't look too bad so put on a show buddy good luck can you name two nascar drivers throughout history from glendale arizona anybody at home one anybody at all we just spoke to michael mcdowell and marty robbins oh yeah hey we've been talking about marty robbins a lot lately haven't they yeah yeah all right so nascar has restarted the cars under caution they will bring the field down pit road single file and three crewmen can come out to assist with the visor the windshield and the helmet that's all that will be allowed to be done the field will exit pit road they will come back around to pit road open for regular service so this is strictly to service the driver on this pass down pit road to improve visibility and then next time around you can choose to pit or not with then it'll be 27 laps complete so jamie what will they do on this little quick trip down pit road well it's interesting mike because some of the drivers joey logano included asked if they could replace the windshield wiper and he also asked if he could add some grip tape to the shifter i just saw jay fabian from nascar and he said absolutely not the only thing you can do wipe it off with the rag you wipe the windshield inside outside and you wipe the visor this is the magic potion right here this is the rain-x that you talk so much about it help keeps that water off the windshield so 43 pit crew of eric jones getting ready to go over the wall and service their car as soon as they come down you know you heard him say asking for grip tape i would say his gloves are getting wet inside that race car getting slick on that you know probably a carbon fiber some sort of a plastic or a metal gear shift so here's the nascar track drying system in the bed of each of those toyota tundra pickups is a small block v8 engine and it runs a tremendous fan that through those tubes blows highly compressed air to move that water off the track surface and i think it puts us right back to where we started when it was just sprinkling at the front side of this race you didn't have much mist off the back of those cars not that huge rooster tail like we just saw that led up to that wreck i think the problem is going to be solved here i really do so this time everyone must follow the pace car down pitt road anytime you see a condition a wild condition like we knew going into this weekend you start to see that forecast and and rare in its ugly face you knew something was going to happen that being said in the back of my mind going into this this race i would have been telling myself attrition attrition attrition you got to survive i'm not saying that those guys didn't do the right thing there they obviously couldn't see a thing but you know going into this thing that you're going to have to be able to get to the end somehow some way if you're going to have a shot at a good run here and you bring up a good point it's it's such a tough dilemma as a competitor right you're trying to make a pass you're trying to get your car to the front you want to go out there and race and it's so hard to pull yourself back and say you know what i'm going to let these guys go because this just doesn't look like a good situation to be in and you you you check up and you let others go to get to that section that's so hard to tell yourself to do that but we see it time and time again week in and week out on a super speedway type of racing how many times have you seen those guys three four wide in front of you be like i'm getting out of here so here come the crew men three per car uh crew chief alan gustafson with a big box of towels they are keeping the cars in running order position single file and we'll bring them to a stop rather than have them pull in their pit stalls and then have to reorder everybody so this maintains running order you're allowed to work on the windshield the visor the helmet squeegee for the inside of the windshield i've seen swiffers we've seen all sorts of things at work here and two different products one for the outside to repel water of the windshield a different one for the inside to prevent the windshield from fogging up that's that's a whole different product mike putting them out there it's easier to maintain law in order to a lot less chance of other things going on when they're out there in the middle of pit road versus in the pit box good point larry you don't want any unapproved adjustments to happen uh while those cars are lined up there i think what i would want right here i want you to clean my windshield and i want you to put as much rain x as possible on that thing you know when you heard mark truex say i got that oil on the windshield that's worst case scenario for a rain condition where visibility is marginal at best to begin with i once recall a 24 hours of daytona where the bolus and snopes racing team brought their mustang into the pits to wash it with an hour to go but i don't recall bringing everybody on to pit road wash and wipe the windshield hey at the end of the day we had some time here they need to make some some corrections to that racetrack right here why not give these guys a chance to fix their windshield pay him back a little bit hey we saw it we're gonna make sure that that track's ready for you guys we're gonna be able to make sure that you can see it when it's ready that's a great point these are the best drivers in america give them the best opportunity to compete on this racetrack whether it's wet or dry well and if their biggest complaint is visibility do everything you possibly can to improve that visibility for them which is going to be first drawing that back straight away and second getting that windshield or that driver's visor the fog that builds up on the inside of the windshield get that taken care of tear-offs coming off and some of that rain-x water repellent going on some of these new adventures that we've been on this year you know going back to that dirt race we didn't have a visibility problem when they were just like you said you have single file and under normal racing conditions when we had to re-rack them a caution comes out re-rack them now they're two and three wide huge rooster tails off those cars and visibility was a massive problem i think once we get back underway and get this race established the visibility problems will go away as well well the weather's working for us right now also because uh when i look at the forecast and the radar it looks like uh we're in a little bit of a window here where the rain should be a little bit lighter hopefully it doesn't get too heavy before the end of this race and pick back up later i actually saw it shining on the windshields right there tells me that there's some sun shining somewhere in that sky believe it or not great run here for ryan priest finds himself in second behind ross chastain in front of kyle busch you know you brought up a great point we qualified earlier today ryan priest ran 16 laps of qualifying jeff he didn't bother worrying about busting a big lap off for qualifying he went out and perfected himself on this racetrack took advantage of that time not for qualifying but to go out there and put some laps of practice under his belt well and you know we did qualify in dry conditions practice yesterday in wet conditions but they were looking at that radar they knew what was coming and a lot of rain was coming and i just wondered did they do anything to tune up this car for these wet rain conditions ross chastain our race leader was in that race but broke an axle early and did not finish let's take you back to yesterday and show you kyle busch i believe his 98th win in what is now the nascar xfinity series driving the 54 for joe gibbs racing from the pole this toy took off led most of this race and hardly anybody inside on that front straightaway when he took the checkered flag from braxton wife samantha right there to give congratulations everybody happy that all the drivers that their families can be back at the track and [Music] help to enjoy it all today kyle finds himself in third started fourth and he is the first toyota in the field with hamlin 8th and ty dillon 12th mike i just think how cool that is you're kyle busch your son is racing now and and now he comes to the racetrack and gets to see you go to victory lane and uh now he's gonna go try to do the same thing the next heat time he gets behind the wheel of whatever he's racing that's pretty cool very much so let's get a little update this year on our pit crew rankings our top pit that's they're playing car wash on the pa system jeff how can you believe it yes i can through 13 races kevin harvick's team has been the best on fit road william byron who is also second in the point standings uh as the driver excuse me harvick number number one on pit road byron second chase elliott third christopher bell matthew benedetto and there the power rankings the driver and crew ratings combined harvick over chase elliott who's currently sixth in this race alex bowman who is 10th but guys rankings on driver ranking on pit crew whatever the case may be just remember the last trip to pit road at dover last week is what won alex bowman that race his pit crew beat the five pit crew on that final pit stop yeah the driver's got to do his part hold that maximum pit road speed with their rpms the light system that's on the dash but then you get into that box and it's all about this pit crew doing their job and this 48 car they did it they had one of the best stops they've had all year long to beat kyle larson not a bad stop before the five of kyle larson but not as good as his 48 allies stop of the season by the way and that was the first thing alex bowman said in victory lane he said this is all pit crew they got me out first was just up to me to keep it in first clean air victory lane it takes everyone no doubt it's a team effort there's going to be some days where that pit crew is going to rely on you to get it done on a restart there's going to be other days you're relying on them to get it done on pit road but man when you do it together there's nothing better total team effort all four hendrick chevrolets one two three four that's a team effort first time that any nascar team had ever put all the cars they brought to the finish line ahead of everybody else saturday on fox an nle showdown on baseball night in america the braves battle the bets or the giants face the dodgers or brewers nationals saturday 7 eastern on fox and on the fox sports app check local listings for the game in your area jamie well mike you just showed kyle busch winning his 98th xfinity series win and in his post-race interview with me he alluded to i was almost the 2015 kyle bush well i found out later that on monday he had been doing so much simulation for this race where he had to brake so hard he's a left foot breaker that he actually has a cartilage issue and that's a carry over from the injury when he broke his foot and leg in 2015 he was worried that he wouldn't be able to sustain two races this weekend well his team went to work and they made a carbon fiber insert for his shoe on the left side it made a huge difference yesterday but you know he's driving in pain today thanks jamie he is our toyota top performer in third place denny hamlin in eighth ty dillon uh for god brothers racing in twelfth place and martin trureck's junior bubba wallace out of race talk about kyle bush there and making that adjustment when you're pushing on the brake pedal that hard you want to adjust your the pad that's on that brake pedal to try to spread the load out you can do some things when you're shooting your foot like we heard uh jamie mentioned and also with your hand shifting of what you can do to wrap your hand up for that shifter knob to prevent blisters because there's a lot of load on that hand with all these shifts daniel suarez gets the free pass he uh currently nine will go to eight laps down pit road will be open this time by and nascar has made a procedural change for the balance of this race all restarts will be single file i think that's another good call you know i think what they did on the back straightaway is great and i think this is the next step i don't know if it's going to make a huge difference but it should help more than likely they're going to be three and four wide by the time they get back around to that straightaway anyway but hey it's all about the effort you got to do what you expect them to do is all they can do and i feel like they've done that right here with these two adjustments i don't see as much standing water on the racetrack now you don't see the the tires kicking up a wall of water or rooster tail there's a little standing water a little stream across the racetrack there that you'd want to avoid uh but honestly kind of just like i said a minute ago it really resembles right there at the first of the race to be honest with you it's just it's wet but it's not it's moist it's not wet yeah i don't i don't know that we're gonna get when i look at the radar i i don't know that we're gonna get to a dry track again but we're certainly uh you know it looks like we have conditions that are far better than that downpour that we had about ten laps into this race five laps into this race you could see it's lightening up right here as this breaks up a little bit and then there's a window coming actually yeah there's a chance for the vortex theory in there somewhere yeah twenty-two remember they had not pitted since about lap one and lap four they were forced to come to pit road right here but right now i'm almost forgetting about stages i'm gonna run this race completely backwards jamie and joey logano saying he needs more turn to go faster in these conditions and they'll make an air pressure adjustment in four tires and on the right side the 42 of ross chastain no adjustments planned and four tires mike and you heard larry mcreynolds talk about running this race backwards that's all about fuel mileage what's the earliest you can come in and put tires put a full load of fuel in and run to the end of this race without running out of fuel that's how you run it backwards and that's not unusual on a road course where the lap time is over two minutes long or you know it's a lap where you're not going to lose a lap by coming down pit road but minimize how many times you come down pit road the amount of time you lose because of it the question mark here jeff is most everything these nascar teams know about fuel burn on road courses is in dry conditions here in the wet your fuel burn could be 70 or so of what it would be in the dry but that's a very inexact science true but they these teams and their engine builders they have a lot of fuel flow numbers and and so they're seeing telemetry come from the car of how much percentage of throttle they're using they then go to a calculation that shows them the amount of fuel that's that's going through that fuel pump per minute by percentage of throttle and they can calculate that pretty close okay so it is a very exact science all right i'm with you we're back to yellow after a three-car incident that put us into red martin truex into michael mcdowell and here comes cole custer this was a big one but they walked away there's the nearly 300 foot observation tower from our goodyear aerial coverage drive always discovers possibility goodyear more driven very cool facility here you see that amphitheater behind the tower lay out of this track as we get ready to go back to green uphill let's see what happens single file into turn one this time and berlin connecticut's ryan preece will lead kyle busch austin centric chase elliott and austin dillon back to the green flag [Music] wow look at this kyle bush [Music] that could be a penalty shortcutting through the essence like that in my opinion he didn't lose he he didn't pass anybody it was a penalty yesterday in xfinity series racing it is going to be a pass through pendleton austin centric here giving kyle for the lead gets the inside lane it's going to push kyle bush wide i'm telling you what these are two aggressive drivers right here it'd be fun to watch this battle big slide to turn 11 and now on to the back straightaway tyler reddick right back there in the picture full center with chase elliott in tow and corey lejoy and three wide behind them these tires have been sitting there on pit road it's a little bit cold as you see not a lot of grip off that turn 11. okay here's what's better than visibility down this back straight way better still not great further back but a lot better than what we saw before and here's that battle still continues for the lead kyle bush taking it back [Music] concern i went out wide and here comes cendrick again on the inside bush with momentum though see kyle busch trying to run that wide lane that's out of the the area of the rubber that should have a little more grip and look how much better traction that he got up off of that corner than austin cinder did on the inside trying to cut it short see this corner she's just not able to run wide out of that groove that might have some some oils from the tires and the debris this is one of them turned 19 and kyle bush took it all the way to the outside and got a great launch to bring him to turn 20 and back to the front straightaway hey hey chad canals motorsports he's enjoying the view black flag for austin dillon boy is it pretty packed in the back two and three wide here's one of clint's stage two questions remember the stage two contest how many cautions have been at the end of the stage seriously how many red flags yeah well we've had four cautions total so far [Music] certainly been a wild stage too to say the least [Music] ryan newman into the gravel trap oh man look at all the the gravel coming from that splitter just pulling it up flinging it up on his windshield and hood and potentially shock and i get mad when i get one little piece of stone rash on my hood like that oh my gosh we have a lot of rocks and air cleaner that's something you probably don't see every day as an engine guy you tear down after the race that's that's not a reason i thought we were going to need a windshield wiper today chase elliot has climbed to third [Music] and kyle tilly who's in b.j mcleod's car i'll tell you what kyle bush is using up every inch of this racetrack including what's not on the racetrack and here comes austin cedric back too kyle bush doesn't have position though he's on the outside here preferred lanes the inside i would think for concrete crossover but i think kyle he's got it yeah and does he have the launch he'll have to do it again right here wow great race [Music] you know joey logano when we talked to him he said something that i think is playing out right now when you're the leader you're kyle bush and you're getting to that break zone it's so easy for that guy in second to just take whatever you're doing and just you know go in a little bit deeper in the corner i think that's where we're starting to see austin centric gain on kyle bush's in those breaking zones see right there i saw an adjustment by kyle bush he's been running wide on those corners and austin cynic was actually catching him because of it staying low and straight he made an adjustment there often turned 20. he just came in to serve his penalty you see him coming down pit road at the top of your screen and that's for sure slow down he's got a three wide dot right there dude that's something i'm seeing the way you have to adjust your downshifts in the wet conditions here on those heavy braking zones because you just have to do all the braking with your right or your you know left foot on the braking get that car slowed down do those downshifts get your blips right but do all those downshifts as late as possible once you get all the way to the corner maybe even the apex i heard you say it right there blips what that means is when you're downshifting you've heard it you know whether you're riding your old harley or your car or whatever it's so important to match those rpm revs when you downshift keeps it thing from wheel hop and coming out from underneath of you down yeah it just keeps those rear tires from from trying to slow down too much matching those rpms keeps the wheel speed going about the same speed and direction uh as it would have even though you're doing a downshift you can hear it right here watch him downshift and see how late that downshift was that very very very late trying to stay out of his teammate brad keselowski then the crossover by his teammate ryan bladey they just made the pass on [Music] this will be fourth gear it shows you how fast this straightaway is in the rain in the rain that's what i was going to say [Music] see you here but not enough but you also heard a little bit of wheel hopping both of those downshifts just chirp there's your tires just chirp just ever so slightly [Music] that is the razor's edge that we're talking about that these drivers are kicking i wouldn't even think of this first gear how long you run first feel through this section you'd even have to be careful jumping out of the throttle too quickly that could also get those rear tires skipping and wheel hopping [Music] quinn half around he and ricky stenhouse got together [Music] look at chase elliott moving right up on the back bumper austin syndry tyler reddick up for fourth our pull sitter and corey lejoy in the top five well one of the things that i've seen chase elliot do so well this car do when he's won these road course races is drive off the corner you saw right there that car launched to get to the outside of the 33 boston centric so that nine cars drive off coming back to him even in the wet here lots of speed lots of momentum out of that nine car right now final lap of stage two that's awesome about to get his first stage points of the season and ryan priest right behind him great stage points to the hendrick cars bowman and larson then hamlin and briscoe trying to hold off matty benedetto for the final stage point oh man what's up bowman clip that corner a little oh and now chase briscoe goes to the outside trying to get position near the breaking zone to the outside denny hamlin you can see him wheel hopping right there and did you see how he hugged that bottom low and straight put the power down had both of those rear tires down and digging and look at how he's just right in the tire tracks of chase briscoe no worries about running him down the track quite a bit pretty big block heavy braking here look at that three wide getting they're still three wide well i i want to complement nascar for bringing those titans out and making that a single file restart because those were far better conditions and we're seeing some great racing here to the end of this final uh lap of the stage two there's third place tyler reddick fighting back now ross and cendrick's car starting to fade on him and we heard him say i need front turn and that's what i see he can't turn near as good as some of these other cars right behind him though there was a storm brewing yeah brian priest spending those guys off i don't know if he's going to get it but he's going to have to have his elbows up so kyle busch will win the stage chase elliott will be second reddick comes off the corner for third sindrick fourth fifth to corey lejoy and then it's a scrum look at this for sixth on back larson's going to get it from priests he held one off or the rest of them i guess one guy what i meant to say i'm sorry so alma dinger briscoe and bowman get the final stage points in stage number two for only the second time in his career kyle busch has won a stage on a road course 32 laps complete in the echo park texas grand prix so texas motor speedway has had two races a year since the track was built two cup races this year they gave up one race so that speedway motorsports its parent company a part of sonic automotive that owns the echo park used car superstore chain could lease circuit of the americas to run a nascar cup race with the added emphasis this year on short tracks and road racing in return texas motor speedway gets the all-star race previously at charlotte motor speedway and we will be there in uh just three weeks awesome right there chef when we come back here next year hopefully if we do i'm gonna put you in that dj booth right there put them on their feet i like it mike the all-star own star state hey guys this is where i think logano chastain and drivers like mcdowell will get their track position back because you see a lot of them that have to pit some hadn't been on pit road since slap eight and 16. good point larry corey lejoy leads ryan preece and others onto pit road before caution flag stops at the end of stage two well mike there was a little bit of debate on the 11 radio between chris gabe hart and denny hamilton rather not to pit right here they do know that they're gonna have to stop again after this pit stop but decided to go ahead and pit to try and make the race car a little better he's been fighting a very tight race car right now as you see the adjustment going on in the rear window ricky's 10 hardly any damage from that little dust up toward the end of stage two and hamlin will win the ram race off pit road from priests kurt busch alex bowman corey lejoy and matty benedetto well is he are we looking at a weekend sweep something kyle busch has not done in a while no but he's all familiar with it let's uh check in with him hey cowboys this is jeff the guys at the fox sports booth you got us yes sir oh buddy man it's been a wild one and uh you're out front where you want to be you won yesterday you know trying to clean sweep you must have some extra motivation coming to this racetrack here at coda for the first time looking good what do you got uh not much just um yeah i got some practice in this week what do you know and uh things are going pretty good so far i mean yeah it's kind of an unknown still with weather and everything else and how much rain and where the rain's at and all that stuff but uh eminem's mixed camry's been fast so uh thanks to ben and the boys we've got a good piece here and uh i know a couple of those guys are going to start turning up the wick here once we uh we get back rolling again so we'll see what we got well man it's been some fun racing you and cedric got uh chase they're behind you some guys that came in got tires of fuel so it should be good to see what happens the rest of the way man good luck thank you thank you kyle busch's last xfinity and cup sweep weekend was in phoenix in 2019. pandemic on youth sports has been significant learn how you can help fox sports and good sports restore play for at-risk youth and the programs that serve them through donations of brand new sports equipment visit goodsports.org all these kids are having fun and these road race fans they are a hearty bunch they bring their suntan oil they bring their ponchos they are ready for whatever whatever weather comes to this track bring your dog take a nap but you're gonna have a go hey you're on tv but you're gonna have a good time road race fans are awesome yeah that's you honey that's awesome that's what i call tailgating right there tonight on fs1 a showcase of two of the newest franchises in major league soccer nashville putting their unbeaten record on the line against austin it all kicks off at 9pm eastern right here on fs1 and on the fox sports app what's up matthew mcconaughey's team let me bring this up to you guys tyler reddick our pole sitter has run in third for a long shot odd i think it was 100 to 1. that cat's in third place somebody is excited not just him so regan how about the fifth place card well mike i mentioned earlier in the race that the crew chief for kyle larson cliff daniels was hoping for rain so that we would have a big strategy race well he got his wish and then some take a listen to what he just told his driver a couple minutes so all ago will have to tip once for fuel we will be able to make it to our window safely two of those guys 18 and 9 up there ahead of us are short on all of it and again they're just banking on caution so was that the clip daniel saying they can make it one stop one stop and nobody else can and what you want to hear confidence well certainly the guys that came down pit road can but not those guys that he's racing around i guess with all these cautions jeff i i'm not so sure if we get to about lap uh 38 to 40 which is not that far away that'd be somewhere around 28 to 30 to go i think with the pace being what it is in wet conditions i think that window opens to get to the end so i'm not sure if you if you could make it on one more stop you would have pitted right there there's no question so 29 people went six for six playing fox bed super six and split ten thousand dollars of clint's money pending verification of eligibility all right man you knew it was going to be wild those are going to be some hard picks coming into a racetrack like this so many unpredictable moments in this race already 29 of them tells you our fans know what's up how about how unpredictable this next restart is going to be kyle busch chase elliott tyler reddick top three jamie how about tyler reddick you guys talked about him and he said it this morning he's a two-time xfinity series champion and every time we'd go road course racing he dreaded it it was his worst nightmare and that came straight from his crew chief but he said i don't want this to be our weakness he went to work in the off season he's lost a lot of weight he's training all the time he's focused on the tracks that have been their weaknesses got the pull today and right now he just told his team this car is good i don't need any changes i'm happy up here in third say you just said it happy i always like his attitude on everything if it's high wide and handsome yep i'm gonna be there on the wall but you need to be around the bottom yep i'm gonna be there always a very aggressive race car driver but better yet usually has a great attitude behind the wheel well and that's what the the dedicated best race car drivers do is they don't want to be the weakest link they go to work on you weren't the weirdest but sometimes i would have to disagree with your great attitude kyle bush is going to lead him back to green chase elliott's second toddler reddick austin cedric kyle larson 33 cars on the lead left plus daniel suarez well kyle busch did a great job being the leader up there in the turn one though nobody had him going backwards because austin cedric and tyler reddick as well as chase briscoe was eight but now here comes larson to the inside of chase elliott and we've heard these drivers all weekend long talk about you get behind in these s's and it's hard to get caught up back into rhythm you get door-to-door with somebody they take your line on one corner now you have it in the other but collectively you've both lost time to the cars in front of you there and legano now road racers would say you don't go double wide through these s's they've never seen a nascar race here for the same reason i just said yeah you can go through it double wide but you give up a lot of ground and put yourself around quick chase briscoe man that car almost stepped out on him as he jumped over that curb top five look at almond dinger look like he was wheel hopping a little bit i think he elected out of that situation oh he got in the paint went extra wide oh brad keselowski turned around everybody will get by as the spotters are up there at turn 10 this is 11 so the second group of spotters has a good view of that obviously had to re-fire there was contact between logano and well then uh alma dinger five car right there right see joey's pretty aggressive gets to the curb goes a little bit wide that pushes almonding around he goes over that paint get into the dirt a little bit that was a wild couple of corners and then almond dinger ran wide here and he gets in that pain look at the car just took off on him both times right there back to back corners got on that paint front end took off on him i actually kind of missed what turned keselowski around did somebody make contact with him not sure super impressed with kyle the six got into it brian newman jeff thank you very much larry and austin cendrick i hope they made some adjustments to get him some better turn we saw him on the front side of that last run very fast but the car fell off towards the end the last two or three laps look who else is back up in the top ten after uh dropping to the pits for a change ross chastain here he there's watermelon man in eighth place and he's coming chris busher right with him chastain led for two laps earlier we talk about these wet rain conditions being the equalizer and then some of these guys really shine whoa ross yesterday gets in there a little bit too far does a nice job cutting that outside lane and continuing on oh chase ellie get back around tyler reddick and here comes through larson kyle uh kyle busch well out ahead what are they thinking we're gonna pick on the switch we should have six or so laptop fuel uh the switch will get us at least one lap so as soon as you feel installed yeah so what that switch is these teams have two fuel pumps in that cell and they will run off of one fuel pump and what they do is they know when that one runs low it starts to skip then you go to the second pump to pick up that reserve uh amount of fuel there and that gives them an extra lap so they say as soon as he hits that switch it starts to lose a little bit of fuel pressure he's going to hit pit road larry yeah let's go to our ford performance car we can show you inside the fuel cell exactly what they were talking about right there if the thing starts to sputter then kyle bush knows to go to the secondary switch so you've got two fuel pumps this is the two fuel lines there that's the pump that's pulling the fuel out of the cell right now but inside that box right there they know exactly how much fuel is in that little box and that pump inside there that's what will get them back around the pit road so it's a reserve tank within a tank that's exactly what it is essentially cool and it works perfect as soon as that thing stumbles you'll run out of fuel price you look over in the dash fuel pressure will be bouncing all over the place flip that switch she takes right back off oh chase elliott and austin center getting together a little bit i think you're right clint those front tires are struggling on the 33 boston centric and he's holding up this group that's behind him allowing kyle bush kind of set sail with the four second lead right now now the first five cars have not been on pit road in a while [Music] see chase elliot he got knocked back a little bit on that restart with some of them dive bombs got side by side on those s curves but his car is waking up in a big way bad fast right now joey logano coming back toward the front jamie yeah i don't know how many laps it's been but austin cindrick has been saying the front grip is lacking they told him just hang on here for this run keep it clean that is our main goal to make it to our next pit stop we're just down to a crawl for joe logano tyler through turn one i think chase elliot's starting to get a little frustrated with austin cendrick because he cannot make this pass happen starting to use that front bumper a little bit austin's making his car very wide right here [Music] oh 22-5 are getting stacked up they're going to have to get around this austin cindrick or somebody's going to get turned around with an accordion [Music] double wide of the s's reddick [Music] yeah you see larson just trying to set up that pass every chance he get he goes wide on the entry tries to get that crossover move made slides it through turn 10. got to pick your your spot quick and wisely right here boy he drove in there really deep into turn 11. hard to pass your teammate in conditions like this try to give him room you try to be cordial if that wasn't his teammate he'd make quicker time with him very very difficult to pass your teammate but you got to get off the corner and when they went to abreast that stacked everybody else back up ready for the run and all that battle has allowed kyle busch to only stretch it out any further 47 to stand house around james davidson's off track but kyle bush out to a six second lead right now where was chastain it might have been in san antonio there corey lejoy was having a great race he's off track he's back home ricky stenhouse spun now remember earlier there was contact between stenhouse and quinn health oh look at this deja vu this is a product they're just taking turns trying to get around austin centric you can see chase couldn't get around him and then obviously larson couldn't get around and stack them back up and chase got him both [Music] so here's what happened back there oh that's probably a wheel hop situation no locking up for quinn half and makes contact with the 47 spins him around more payback or some more payback is going to be coming a little bit later from stenhouse all right see larson was able to get by his teammate chase saleh there really straight exits right there puts that power down from when i race that rovel in the rain like that man i can't tell you enough can't stress enough how important it was to have your turning done before you put that throttle down if you tried to with that wheel in it it would unload that inside tire and spin them now austin centric after he's given up that second place a little bit that clean air he's falling all the way back to seventh position here and he is still under fire as reddick continues to go after logano and he's got him this time and by the way guys this is what i love about rain racing in the rain is there's multiple groups you would never see them too wide like this through those s's if we were in dry conditions as long as we can keep the visibility where it is down that long back straightaway and we're going to see some awesome racing and sliding through these corners like you're seeing aj almonding at ross chass state austin cedric back to 93 wide right there contact priests and the 14. did not think that that was going to work and it just keeps falling off track for austin centric see if briscoe is mad at priests here when they get to the next corner oh look at legano now going to the inside of chase elliot tell me what legano's got a fast race car and jeff not that fresh tires with the wet weather tires means a ton but joey in the 22. he definitely has the freshest tires of anybody he's racing here yeah the only thing we we looked at these wet weather tires yesterday mike you were standing right there and pointed it out all those newer towers have is just a little bit sharper edge on all those grooves that are allowing the water to be dissipated out of these tires so there is a slight advantage but i would think that it would last for long i think joey logano not only has fresh towers but he's he's got a good race car and he's doing a great job the other thing i see right here is the horses that race have found the front right back again it's the way we've been watching these are the cars that we've been established all weekend long whether it was practice qualifying or this race the fastest cars have found the front and now they're battling it out oh i like the way he backed out of the way for oncoming traffic and now he's in the paint look how slick that paint is can't hardly get off of it here he comes he'll be honest positions lost there [Music] tyler our pole center goes all the way back to 24th position costly spin for our pole sitter tyler reddick there it is as we go side by side out of turn one down the hill and toward the s's kyle bush with about a three and a half second lead on kyle larson joey logano chase elliott and then aj almonding are locked in a battle with uh the ganassi cars of ross chastain and kurt bush and here they come down the hill they are single file for the moment they were double wide at turn one and uh chastain has been using that kyle busch line everywhere there's bonus pavement on the outside of the corner he's been out there trying to get himself a good launch off the corner [Music] boy nice drive off the corner there for her bush [Music] and there goes jess does that move every time it's fun to watch that worked enough but he's got a decision on his hands now well the thing is aj has the outside lane and that's going to be taking advantage of it not getting an inch don't get on that pain that's one thing i've noticed about ross chastain i'm gonna tell you what you can't push him around you cannot make your car wide that guy does not give you a single inch he's super aggressive and he sometimes gets pre-paid quite often because of that as well sometimes it works his favorite sometimes it doesn't [Music] chip ganassi having a a great great week up in indianapolis and here are his two drivers fighting for it as you see first and second kyle busch kyle larson joey legano chase elliot and then this battle that's teammates coming back in the picture remember he had damage earlier he was part of that lap 26 caution and red flag and there's right back oh yeah he got loose and then drove over drove it in there that tell you what almost put his teammate into the gravel right there yeah nothing intentional just real hard racing and mcdowell grabs two spots right there in the 34. the leader is in she must have stumbled right flip the switch get in the pits here comes the nine chase elliott as well freaking well both the 18 and the nine cars haven't been on pit road since lap eight of this race kyle busch right now happy with that race car it just fires off a little too slippery takes some time for the tires to come in for him four tires is the call for him chase elliott in the nine car that car is just a little bit too lazy through the left-hand corners for him right now a little tight overall as well larry might we be seeing the last tire stop of the day for these leaders absolutely this is what we talked about mike the window is open they know what the pace they're running in this wet weather condition they can make it to the end i would be willing to bet over the next two to three laps we're gonna see everybody come in because if you don't pit and the caution comes out you have to pin under the caution you're going to be behind everyone that made the green flag stop larry you heard that thing you heard him say card's a little bit lazy to one side not necessarily all the way like uh cendrick was talking about you can change that you can affect that and help him out right there can't you absolutely absolutely you can make some adjustments just like you would on an oval track with track bar or wedge yes sir here's aj almandinger's team for tires we need a few more laps hey just hang on do the best you can deep breaths here man you're doing a really good job stay patient for us you say hey it's wet conditions and wet weather tires but these wet weather tires building up air pressure and temperature and they are starting to go away a little bit i find it so interesting you know that it's all about front grip on this wet conditions you want that front grip to turn the car through these corners and it seems like that's where the speed's at once you lose that front grip man you just you just start fading back really fast so really what it comes down to is balance yeah you don't want one end or the other stepping out on you because you're pulling on the wheel you're you're abusing those tires you want a good balance on your race car austin centric you can see it that thing takes off to the front side of those runs soon as it gets a little bit aware the thing gets tight he starts losing momentum in the middle of the corner and next thing you know he's in the way [Music] does it surprise anybody that kyle larson a dirt tracker by trade is leading this race on a road course well i'm not surprised just because of daytona even though he spun late in the that race he was in a position and to try to go for the lead and potentially be in position to win that race so of course kyle larson i mean the guy never whatever he does doesn't really surprise you anymore because he can win on just about any kind of course every time i've ever seen him behind the wheel surprises me because i know kyle larson if you ever sat down and ate at dinner with kyle larson you would think no way this little kid is going to get in that car and be a grizzly bear the way he is behind the wheel well he laughed about it after qualifying uh as austin centric has come to pit road kyle larson said he says imagine that he says he says uh two dirt trackers yeah on the front row very cool from this race he and tyler i don't know i think it was jeff gluck posted a picture on twitter of him and tyler reddick back in their outlaw card days with jason aldean and jason aldean looked like a 16 year old that's how long ago that was cool picture [Music] shows you the speed that they have in their race cars right now it doesn't matter if it's a road course intermediate short track super speedway they've got fast hot rods i'm gonna tell you where's a fast hot rod is that one coming right behind joey logano ross chastain he just ran what about a second and a half faster than our leader larson michael mcdowell is the same way he is coming back to the front and there's chastain the third place car all right so regan on the timing of kyle busch's pit stop well ben b sure just came on to the radio for kyle bush and told him we are two laps short right now that's after this most recent pit stop so kyle's gonna definitely have to have some yellows or a little help that's a lot of laps to make up here yeah when ben bayshore came on the radio and predicted how many more laps he thought they could go before flipping that switch i think it was further than what happened there almost feel like they maybe should have flipped the switch and read an extra lap and then got to pit road well there was talk by that team during the red flag about how we're gonna need a caution or so to get to the window there was no caution they had to pit him now they find themselves two laps short well and mike two two laps short if we're at maybe a one mile track or even a two mile track we are at a three almost three and a half mile road course just pull over and let it go joey look at the speed of this 42 car jeff you said it you nailed it lights out for the 42 he has found something and some of it is the way he's carrying the speed on the exit he's going to say most of it's not on the racetrack this kid's having a career day but i wonder jeff on this 3.6 mile track he's driving about three point eight or nine miles to get there every lap and what might that be doing for his fuel consumption for this goes to show you he's driving aggressive he's being very aggressive in the brake zones he's being aggressive by driving off course and some of these scores i can tell you one thing he's not doing by the lap times he's running he's not saving any fuel he's got these guys he's not the only ganassi car doing it either looking at 22's mirror that's none other than his teammate kurt bush right there good day for ganassi well and no surprise right you think of ganassi i mean they've run pretty good on the road course in the past jamie mcmurray kurt busch as well as kyle larson when he was over at chip ganassi racing but they also have just like penske that indycar and sports car road racing background man i love what i see though it's anybody it's joey loganos right there for the taking they all showing great speed great poise right here i think it's going to come down to who has a track position when the time is right ross chastain in the 42 and logano and the 22 remember they pitted lap 27 they actually can go quite away even though their window is open here in the next lap or two i think joey just pulled over and let him have that right there again talked about attrition still 25 laps to go race smart race your race you never know what's going to happen at the end of this thing the track position and everything else [Music] still being very careful with this downshifts right there chad you can't forget it's drying out a little bit but there's still water rooster tailing off the back of those cars you see curb bush slipping and sliding right there what i liked about what i heard on board with joe legano matching those ramps he had some really nice high rep grips being aggressive with that blip to help with that wheel spin or that they see the one of kurt buscher in that real low lane still doing that like he didn't qualify but but joey lagano did a great job to prevent wheel hop by matching those rpms on the downshifts it is amazing to me watching so i you know of course when you're out there and doing it you're following those guys and you realize the different lines people take and you try to learn from that being up there from this perspective watching these teams it blows me away that these drivers are still at this point in the race navigating this track drastically different from one another all right now if you're going to watch indy qualifying later here is a spoiler alert turn down your volume for about the next six seconds while i tell you that it's been a great day for chip ganassi racing at indy scott dixon is on the pole for the 500 driving for chip jamie a.j almandinger we heard him wanting tires so he patiently waited drove it around babied it to come in now and get these fresh tires just the seventh race ever for colic racing in the cup series doing another nice job for aj almandinger who ran yesterday as well tyler you saw him spin there and turn 11. that was the one spot on the track this team told him he was losing time just pushing it a little too much there and as you can tell everything is getting wet again as the ring continues to get matthew benedetto fuel only there when you you heard jamie little talk about it's starting to rain a lot heavier now so these are going to change the conditions slightly also kyle larson who led 47 laps in the inaugural nascar cup race at the charlotte rovel now out in front of a wide ride in ross chastain who is really putting on the show here by finding places to race that other people don't go well chastain i'm telling you he's putting some great laps second half faster than our leader but then i go back chase ellie and kyle bush who came in and got tires remember they were running up front kyle bush was our leader if this thing stays green don't be surprised if kyle bush comes out with a pretty good lead that's a great point you said chastain right there 236 38 last time by older tires right uh heck where'd he go chase elliott right there 235 89 second difference right there on those tires pretty big difference can he catch him remember kyle bush we're told we'll need another stop for fuel if we stay green the rest of the way and i think you can see that in his lap times it's almost as if he's not pushing it quite as hard when i look at this board again yeah but he was about a lap or two ago i saw kyle busch put up a laptop like chase haley i think he caught some traffic that was a lot before he said with two lap george well i'm gonna tell you what if he's gonna save seven miles of fuel he's gonna have to lift you're gonna need the clutch pedal maybe and i realized we're talking about two different organizations there's the five car remember his teammate chase elliot pitted the same time that kyle bush did ross chastain will take over the lead as kurt busch and joey logano join kyle larson on pitt road jamie kurt bush gives up third position on the racetrack just losing rear grip we haven't heard a whole lot of that today it's really been all about front grip but good day for kurt bush this one team needed a really solid run here today regan leader kyle larson has been very quiet on the radio just getting all kinds of detailed information from crew chief cliff daniels about what the lap times were what he was doing what other guys were doing and exactly what kind of tires they had finally last minute call them in to get out right now chase briscoe also in wholesale changes up and down the list we saw that left front tire changer chasing that last lug nut i hope he got all of them tight his windshield wiper really sticking right there struggling to keep going he's gonna need it right now you can see the tracks definitely it's gotten really dark outside and i don't think that's because we're running out of daylight it's because it's a heck of a cloud over us you know guys when you look at our top five right now top six there's there's a fairly big variance as far as who's got what tire zone but honestly as i said earlier i think it's now about getting to the fuel window get to the fuel window get in and get four tires and fill it up with fuel well that's the good news for uh kyle larson who just came in i think he's in that fuel window now ross chest ain't able to stretch it here a little bit before he comes in he'll be in the fuel window and look at that rooster tail there's a lot of water on the track now as you see the chastain was last on pit road at lap 27 and william byron trying to stretch that top 10 streak last on pit road at lap 26. i like what i'm seeing out of these guys in that final corner that corner 20 where they get the car slowed down make a real tight turn and then straighten it up or release off up this corner here but i see him doing it off of turn 20 also to straighten and lengthen that straight away to get the launch look at the closing distance how much better he was able to get into the corner right there than those three cars in front of him and you could just tell hey it could look 20 30 mile an hour faster so there's your leader ross chastain 18 complex coming to that left-hander 19 and then to that final corner turn 20. see right here he's not going as wide as he had been going but this is why i was trying to watch him get it slowed down make a late apex makes that sharp left way out wide and then launches on the bottom of the racetrack to get that straight away make it as long as possible i think a big reason you're not seeing as wide as it's raining a lot harder see the rooster tail coming off his car i think you've got way more water on the racetrack got to be careful being on that that paint very slick well he's searching for grip when he does that jeff and comes off that tight to the inside of the corner nobody runs down there so there's going to be some grip in that pavement when he's not alone because there's a lot of teams you saw that right there a lot of cars running that very low line down this front straight away pries and busher in the pit lane for service giving up top 10 spots to do so [Music] william byron's been out there a while tell you what i was worried about their top 10 effort it's still not there it's still alive thought they were down and out with all that damage significant damage on the right rear of the 24 card right here for william but hey still hanging tough i know they got a pit they can still get a top 10 out of this which would be huge for him [Music] kyle bush closing on hamlin in fourth and then place car ahead may have been an adventurous weekend here dakota for the 11th fedex toyota denny hamlin [Music] that's so tough too you know you got your teammate just wearing out the competition all weekend long practice qualifying heck uh xfinity race for whatever reason i talked to danny when we left uh practice and he said he was really having trouble under breaking uh wheel hopping and things like that that's something you do not want look at the nine car right here on the 18. it's gonna be interesting to be a race for the win [Music] your xfinity fastest last lap was chase elliott with joy and kyle bush i've actually seen some of these guys down the two-minute 35 bracket uh for for some of these uh when they get out on fresh tires get some heat but uh still 236 that's getting it done right there and it tells me they're getting more comfortable too getting some set uh or some adjustments made comfort on the racetrack no on the racetrack more getting comfortable under these conditions because it's definitely a lot wetter than it's been and still posting faster lap times here comes ross chastain to pit road he was last in at lap 27. jamie ross chastain love this story the underdog story showing what he's capable of why he was hired to drive this car such great speed today gave up the lead four tires here an air pressure adjustment see that windshield wiper working there they didn't call for any adjustments with a nice clean stop here for the 42 see how they can finish it out alex bowman will pick up the lead and william byron is in the pit lane for what should be his last stop regan it's been a great recovery today for william byron not only by him but by this team to get that car patched up good enough to at least go you see him slide into the box there a little out of control right now he just needs more rear grip with that race car they are quick to remind him though you don't have a right rear fender on it that's going to be some of your issues or tires for william so alex bowman who is off sequence with most of the other cars he and denny hamlin were last in the pits at lap 33 so was ricky stenhouse so strategy playing your cards in the rain in austin texas will go side by side alex bowman leading but he will need one more pit stop 20 laps to go time for the credit one bank ones to watch well mike i'm going to go with chase elliot chase elliott he won in the reign on the robot back in 2020 he's won for the last five road course races he's leading an active uh driver's road course how do you not pick me just past kyle busch once bowman comes in he's going to be our leader chase elliot gets the win well jeff kyle larson has 15 road course starts in the cup series and only four top tens a best finish of fourth right now he's cracked the top five i like his lap times he can make it to the end worst case he finishes second the 18 of kyle busch listen to this 12 weekend sweep to the xfinity in the cup series 12 of them i think 13 happens today who won the last time we went to a brand new racetrack in very different and difficult conditions joey logano who's led the most laps today joey logano keep your eye on the 22. he's going for the win yet again today three drivers have got their first cup win with chip ganassi racing including juan pablo montoya on the road course i'm having a lot of fun watching ross chastain today he is driving with abandon and those are your credit one bank ones to watch with 20 laps to go so bowman and hamlin at lap 33 and stenhouse along with austin dillon at lap 34. uh they will certainly need a stop but larry what about kyle bush short or gonna make it well you know there was two things that would work in his favor and that would be caution lapse or maybe rain that would be slower lap times i think with where the paces went kyle busch and ben bay shore they have nothing to worry about i think they'll be fine even with them feeling like they were two laps short before we started raining like it is again well that object in his mirror getting closer is kyle larson yeah it's going to say he might have one thing to worry about the one getting smaller and the other windshield the nine car now be curious to see what kind of adjustments alan gustafson was able to make on that nine card chase elliot you know he complained about some front turns to the left i believe he said and if they were able to make some adjustments inside that nine car fade a little bit in the longer run before the 18 be really strong and the five so um now with that lead that we're not the lead yet because bowman's still on track but elliot's been able to pull away from the 18 to kyle bush is he going to have the speed at the end of this race anthony alfredo just gave up a top 10 spot to make his stop on pit road 19 to go what a beautiful circuit scott and i walked most of the track yesterday we went up in the stands in turn one where the fans had a neat little ritual if there was one driver way back but still on the tail end of the of the lead lap when he went by by himself he would get a nice polite round of applause golf clap if you will here we go this is bowers second well what will be second place once alex bowman comes to pit road one thing i learned about turn one this morning with our pre-race show a lot of a lot of boyer fans up there so that tells you about that now is kyle busch backing off right now saving fuel just that you know he just looks to me like he's running really smooth consistent laps not over driving it at all right now this was last time around talk about a save oh you don't want to get the right sides off in that green or red paint and we talked about that with ross chastain and the 42 card making those adjustments when we saw this heavier rain and the in the more water that was on the racetrack they got off of that paint very slick teammates for the lead fresh tires old tires low on fuel in the 48 what is greg ives thinking here about and that's what he's thinking hey bring that car to pit road as alex bowman hits pit lane [Music] 19 to go and now chase elliott is out in front of kyle larson by six seconds jamie last week's winner at dover alex bowman pulls it in losing front turn just that grip had gone away so a four tire stop here no chassis adjustments as well as his teammate continues on the left side kenny hamlin is in as well you guys watching chase sailing up front here we talk about kyle bush and fuel savings well the nine of chase elliot came in on the same lap i wonder what kind of fuel situation chase elliot is in right now reagan benny hamill to make his final pit stop still having trouble seeing out of that race cars windshield's really been an issue all day long as many of these cars happen his goes away really quick for some reason that car is plowing tight right now they just had a difficult time getting the grip on this track chassis adjustment on the left rear and handlings how much fun is that to watch these guys come down turn 10. there's some tires now those just came off of alex bowman's car after a full run fuel run right there great point and that's pretty impressive hey barry just said my ear i put them babies on my car and i agree with you what a great job what a great tired a good goodyear brought for extreme circumstances with a lot of rain a lot of water on this this track pretty amazing if you really think about it that's not a lot of tread you know what i mean and that thing you're 180 mile an hour on a straight away down to 40 mile an hour into corners everything in between pretty incredible with those tires and i'll even go a step further clan if you watched the end of the xfinity race yesterday it was a drying track it actually was a dry line probably the last what 10 12 laps of that race and they were able to stay on the wet tires towards the end and they lasted they weren't even completely worn out when that checkered flag waved right jeff the last generation of rain tires would have been all chunked and would have been done we would have had a ton of flat tires but it didn't happen goodyear's done a great job we are hearing from the nine team they may be as much as two laps short well and that's what i was wondering we heard from kyle bush and ben bayshore well if chase elliot is running the lap times he's running which is out front he's not holding back at all are they banking on some cautions coming out i don't know how you make up those two laps with the speeds that he's running right now so hey that might put kyle larson in a pretty nice position here larson logano and briscoe and kurt busch stop at lap 45 they are likely safe so is chastain who stopped at lap 47. here's some kyle larson audio the nine is short on fuel i don't think they would hit unless they have to they're gonna be banking on caution so at this point just pace yourself off of him and we'll see how the race plays out [Music] can you trust your teammate was he telling us the truth i think at that point you're being as transparent as he could possibly be over the radio hey he knows his car's got the same engine in it the same fuel cell everything else he knows that what he's up against but i don't see nascar throwing a caution unless they absolutely have to i don't know if i'd bank on that regan mike crewchief alan gustafson just came on the radio told chase elliot go as hard as you can right here try and make as much of a gap as you can on some of the cars that are further back in the pack so when we do have to pit we can still get a decent finish kyle busch also on the radio asking if they should pit now get fresh tires and then possibly have a chance to make up a few spots as well well that goes back to what we were discussing you can't save seven miles of fuel on a road course it's just near impossible so i agree with this run as hard as you can and either hope the caution comes out or like kyle bush been based you're talking about hit now yeah jeff seven miles with the mileage they're getting that's like trying to save almost a gallon and a half of fuel ain't happening how heavy the rain is right now visibility has got to be pretty tough these guys say i wouldn't be so sure that there won't be a caution this is extreme i don't know that we've seen it this way their teammate william byron is back in 14th now he's going to pick up two spots when dylan and stenhouse pit but getting back to the top ten that may be tougher cody in the pit lane don't be surprised you see that 18 cal bush hip hit lane man you got to give luck a chance to operate don't you look at those rooster tails a lot of water on this racetrack now with 17 to go yeah this is 16-17 oh kurt busch goes wide so kyle bush is getting close to that pit entry here's kyle busch's team hydroplaning really bad down the back stretch no treads at this time and here he is [Music] kyle busch gives up third place he was last on pit road at lap 41 the same time as race leader chase elliott [Music] regan well mike the conversation prior to what we just heard was basically can we pit in three or four more laps and split it right down the middle of this segment of the race ultimately kyle said the tires are too bad i'm losing too much time on the racetrack as you heard right there pit to get the four tires now see what they can make up as this thing goes out now a rain tire isn't dependent on a deep tread these only have about 6 30 seconds to start but just like a razor blade the sharp edge on each of those tread blocks is what gets that water out of the way so as these tires wear and you lose that sharp corner on every tread block they're not as effective yeah around that edge it doesn't like it's like a dirt charge to be honest with you well i can tell you right now as hard as it's raining look at this view of these cars right now as chase silly comes up on a slower car to lap them they are dissipating a lot of water especially this back straightaway this is a high speed section fourth gear straight away where we have seen water puddle up and these cars hydroplaned in this section right here where chase eliot is navigating look at that car with on that straight away guys are earning their money today there's no question about it somebody that's been in these cars jeff you know as well as i do austin cedric has ready to stop and boy hats off to our fox cameramen who are all around this racetrack and as andy mitchell told me this morning depending on the way they're facing half of them are getting rain in the face and on the lens the other half have their shoes filling up with water and it's raining on the viewfinder uh this is a tough day talk about somebody else these fellas and arc our thanks to all of them for giving us these great pictures john's gonna say talk about somebody else is earning their money today though it's a dedicated crossover from reddick past both of those cars ninth place here all three of these cars locked up in this battle look at the rooster i think some of that was that 18 coming off hit road on cold wet tires takes a little while to get some heat in those tires [Music] there's your caution thread the needle and out of sight there we go did a great job of gassing it and getting to [Music] looks like a monster energy commercial to me oh look at the baby thread the needle great job by kurt busch right there come on incredible car control and heads up driving to get over there to the dirt and get out of the gravel wow how he did not collect one of those cars including his brother kyle bush oh jeez yikes but guys we're talking about hydroplane that's what that was he hydroplaned in the braking zone coming in to turn 12. then did a bunch of agricultural racing here we go he's pretty far back there how the heck did he miss austin dillon and kyle no idea completely locked up look at those tires locked up yep no control along for the ride yeah you can see it right there the fronts are locked up [Music] there ought to be a trophy for that no kidding i'm going to tell you what i'm as impressed with the fact that he was able to keep the car running and get back on track not bring out a caution matthew benedetto on pit road uh austin centric was in alapago and you see the gap from elliott to larson first to second with 15 to go we'll take you back side by side with 14 laps to go nascar has brought out the caution flag for an abundance of standing water on the course you saw kurt bush hydroplane off the track uh locking them up there going into the corner and after nascar reviewing conditions all the way around the racetrack they have brought out the caution uh not because it's raining we race in the rain but because of all the standing water on the racetrack and no grip yeah and you can see we're in a pretty big section of where this is only going to get heavier and i think mike to your point not only some standing water hydroplaning but visibility i think with kurt bush that was a combination of clint mentioned it during the break of visibility not being able to see off the roost that was coming off the three of austin dillon as well as the lockup from the hyperplaning [Music] this was the right call this was the most extreme situations we saw practice yesterday it was downpouring but i didn't see rooster tails and visibility like this cars hydroplaning this is definitely the worst we've seen and i'll be surprised if we go back i still don't know how kurt busch missed both austin dillon and kyle busch he's not going into the corner look at this again talk about the the highlight reel you can see him coming in pretty hard and i don't think he could see then he moved right there at the last minute and he moved at the right time because i'm telling you could have put a piece of paper in between both of those cars and then to be heads up enough with the experience that kurt bush has to go ahead and throttle it up he looked up and saw that grass over on the other side i gotta head to that pasture sure enough he did good job man i'm telling you that was heads up driving i think maybe he couldn't see anything i don't know you need somebody to drop that tractor zone especially in the wet conditions start way before to me it looked like it he started locking up did we talk about rooster tails look at that stream of water what a great job those goodyear tires are doing that right there that's what that was doing and in my opinion when you see cars doing that it's time to pull the plug and that's exactly what nascar did i didn't not meaning pull the plug on the race as of yet that's not my call but throwing the caution right here was the right play [Music] guys we don't know what's going to happen here but this definitely should fix the nine cars fuel issue and clint to your point kyle busch had not pitted probably would have rectified his issue on fuel being a little short yeah i know he was wanting tires but i could just tell by what i saw at the window right here it just kept running harder and harder and the rooster tails down the front straightaway were getting bigger and bigger i saw a caution in the future i really did austin syndrick had just spun he had just taken on tires but hadn't had a chance to put any heat in them it was on his out lap and i would think yeah you'll see it right here coming into the shot without heating these tires you are on ice and that's a prime example it's just on top of the race track right around she came even with all his road racing experience now one driver who really wants to see this race go back to green that is william byron trying to extend that top 10 streak of his taiwan spa he currently sits 11th one spot away and i want to see him get another top ten it's been incredible what he's been able to do young guy at his age the year he's having you don't want to see it in like there's an 11th spot so close so for him i hope that they go back racing let me tell you another team that wouldn't mind seeing this thing be over chase briscoe sixth place right now but look at william byrne look at that top ten streak he wants all different types of tracks to add a road course to that list a great streak might be safe here jeff the top ten streak might stay alive well hey he's got it for the youngest he's got that already that's all you're going to give me i just said i want him some good races chastain another guy that needs a good run you know if this thing is over right here and the weather just keeps pounding on us ross chastain with a good run aj almandinger in that 16 car that's a team that's talking about being in this sport for a long time in this cup series i think they're knocking on the door great run for them as well michael mcdowell in another top ten tyler radic needed a good run bringing the field down pit road and to a stop this will be a red flag for rain visibility and standing water with 14 laps to go you're in austin nhra houston will air following the race on fs1 and again a shout out to our entire fox technical crew and especially the cameramen that man these positions in all sorts of weather the mailmen have nothing on these guys great shots good job guys thank you well what does chase elliot have to say about the weather i bet i know we're terrible dangerous it's right just write it too hard i mean obviously i'm biased but i agree actually i don't see how you can do it right now that was actually bill elliott yes the first voice was his dad saying it's raining you got two elliots on the radio talking about the council give me that caddy competitive way too much rain hurricane so bill is one of chase's three spotters uh there's another it hasn't stopped this thing from swinging what a ride they've been on wow no just just know i tried to get jeff not in sun not doing it so ryan priests we ever come back here that might be another pre-race show brian had some fun got got to the front uh briefly led a little bit of this race larson out of his car daniel suarez sitting in eight laps down after transmission trouble early in the race kyle busch having a stroll you know pitting right there didn't hurt him as bad as i thought it was to be still within the top 10 right there it shows you how far they had stretched it out outside these other guys i would have thought that that was 15th to 20th eric jones looks like everybody's talking about slips sliding around this 3.6 mile circuit well and you know what else they're thinking and talking about is if we go back race and what would that back straightaway be like for visibility in these conditions i mean i i just don't see it happening no way i i don't see how they can i mean it's it's still pouring by the way looking at the the water coming down this isn't just a rain we had a drizzle all day long and i think we're capable of pulling this off we've proven with the tire with what we have in the sport we're capable of running in the rain but not a downpour if they were to take the jet dryers and the track drying system the air titans out to that back straightaway and make a few passes down that couldn't get back underway i agree with that and there they go i agree with single file restarts but we're in a cell right now dropping a lot of rain so the rain is going to have to dissipate as well as get that sitting water off the back straightaway all right regan is with the current runner-up kyle larson running in second place right now kyle it has been an absolutely wild day out there looked like you were in a good spot as the pit sequences started to happen but now this caution for the rain and excessive rain kind of not what you needed at this moment no i wanted to go green the whole way i think chase was short on fuel so we wanted him to well we wanted to keep going so he'd have to pit but um selfishly i'd like to keep going somehow but it's probably getting pretty late and it's raining hard it's gonna be hard to see and we've already had some pretty scary crashes today so like i said won't be surprised this is it but a good day for our hindu car chevrolet really really cool to run up on a road course get my first rain race in and and run up front and pass some good cars so had fun just yeah i thought it would be a little bit better there to catch chase and pass him i was better than him the run before i was able to pass him and get away but yeah he must found some speed there late thanks kyle and there is chase elliot who is our race leader under the red flag with 14 laps to go the hendrick chevy's running 1-2 last week in dover here's how they celebrated at hendrick motorsports when one wins we all win well when you finish one two three four and everybody finishes behind you it took five other organizations to fill the top ten now all time in cup history roush fenway racing pete depalo racing for ford they all entered five or more cars in each of those races where they had the top four spots last week at dover was the first time any nascar tough cup team had all their cars finished in front of the entire field but i mean look at that you go back to 1956 all through the history of nascar and the cup series how few times that has been done tells you and it's never been done at hendrick motorsports they've accomplished a lot shows you how hard that is to accomplish drivers crew chiefs and mr h at the front of the picture there with the miles the monster down at the bottom next to alex bowman's car also we you know we talked to chase elliott hendrick motorsports the drivers the crew chiefs all the engineers all those people you saw there almost 600 employees all pulling together in the same direction and that's why you see so many of these hendrick cars finishing in the top five running in the top ten one two right now chase elliott and kyle larson so we're on a hold for inclement weather difficult visibility and standing water have brought the cars to a halt in pit lane here's jamie well ryan blaney was involved in an incident earlier but you were able to continue we were just talking about the conditions there was a time that the rain was just right at which point did it turn on you yeah i don't know i it all sudden started getting harder to see and uh you were hydroplaning around a little bit more and it just started picking up there i don't know 20 minutes ago or something and just kind of making the best of it right you're trying to figure out what lane is okay and try to go down the back stretch and figure out where you're at try to be as smooth as you can so um it was a shame we got a couple accidents today in our body armor mustang um but i thought we were just kind of riding around there trying to keep it on the track and then they decided to bring us in so hopefully we get back going try to get some more spots but it's got to let up a little bit it's pretty a lot of puddles out there but yeah it's been pretty fun wish we were a little bit better but hopefully get back going we'll get that chance thanks ryan fans making their way around the track they don't mind the rain so hendrick motorsports running 1-2 right now should they win here or when they next win they will tie petty enterprises for the most cup wins all time joe gibbs racing 190 victories hendrick motorsports now with 267 petty enterprises 268 almost 200 of which were richard petty's actually 198 in the record book belong to the king 268 and when it happens the winning driver crew chief rick hendrick and richard petty will sign the door of the winning car and auction it off to benefit victory junction gang camp very cool initiative well i mean what petty motorsports has accomplished in this sport i mean the name richard petty you know i don't care where you go in the world people know who richard petty is because those 200 wins but also that organization with 268 wins so to be able to to tie that whenever that happens if that happens today or somewhere down the road it's just uh a huge accomplishment and i know how much it means to rick kindred but also know how much it means to want to pay tribute to petty motorsports and what they accomplished and being able to tie that record so we're under the red flag in austin the race has not been called there are 14 laps to go as nascar officials go out on track and the jet dryers and air titans are running to try to clear some of the standing water off the racetrack jamie and aj allmendinger in his second race of the year for college racing fifth right now aj i know you had never seen this place before but you wore out the simulator how does it compare to what you've been doing at home it's a lot wetter than when i was in the simulator so uh no i mean the the racetrack's accurate and you know even with these short practices that's that's what you have to go off of a lot to try to get your set up right so uh i think everybody at call grace has done a fantastic job to uh to be in the the second round of qualifying the quickest of the first round it was uh been really good and these these conditions are are treacherous but uh the hyper rice chevy's pretty good and and we'll see what happens here if we go back green i think we got a chance for the win and if not then it's been a solid day but uh just awesome for i wish the weather was better because the crowd here i don't know if tv shows it but it's been awesome so hopefully we uh we come back to austin and uh yeah we'll see what happens here you never know you never know if we're gonna go back green there's always uh there's always optimism let's put it that way there's always a chance i heard yesterday on the pa that usually they sell 500 550 camper spaces for the other events here at cota and a thousand camper spaces were sold for this weekend huge crowds in the grandstands some of them now making their way to the exits maybe they've been rained on enough for one day but uh we'll see what happens and what nascar decides like i said road race fans are a hearty lot they come to the track prepared for any kind of weather uh in the sun you're gonna see a good race and you're gonna get a little sunburn in the rain you're gonna see a great race with people all over the place so look they come prepared but i love what i saw here i saw road racing fans but i also saw your core nascar fans that have maybe never seen a road course try this out down here and i think they got their money's worth i certainly did i saw everything this weekend that i wanted to see i agree i mean hey some of those dedicated nascar and road racing fans they're still here they're going to weather this storm no matter what they want to see this thing go all the way to the end well done jamie chase briscoe the rookie sixth right now chase a little bit of here and there but this was a place you were looking forward to how was it yeah it was uh it's been crazy so far you know i was definitely one in the rain i felt like just from last year being able to run the robo in the rain would be you know good experience and i felt like i would have a little bit of an advantage just because i was one of the few guys that had done it and the grip level was similar to the rubble but the vision was a lot worse so it's been uh an interesting day to say the least but yeah a really good day for a high point for you know we've been able to continually kind of run up front it's the kind of run we need and i want to get going i feel like we're a little bit better than a couple of those guys in front of us but it's definitely uh sketchy well done thank you mike [Applause] there is chase elliott and he is the winner of the echo park texas grand prix due to inclement weather the race has been called with 14 to go bill elliott was right and chase elliott wins here's regan chase elliott certainly a unique celebration get to celebrate this one with your team right away chase doesn't seem to matter the conditions if it's a road course you're going to find your way up front your sixth road course win 12th career victory yeah man it couldn't be more excited i've never won a rain race before so it's kind of cool um and just super proud of of our team for just continuing to fight kind of started the day weren't very good and i just kept kept pushing myself kept making some good changes throughout the day and got to where i thought we were on pace with those guys there at the end so really proud of that um you know it's not the greatest thing ever to you know for it to rain to have a rain race win if it's your first one but i think you know it's okay if it's down the road so i'm pretty excited about that and looking forward to looking forward to next week and trying to keep it rolling i got to ask you about the end of the race you were a couple laps short on fuel allen told you to start pushing you picked up the pace incredibly at the end you were two seconds quicker than anybody in the field right there what'd you do different uh just i just kept pushing myself harder and harder there was some areas on track that were getting actually really treacherous i felt like you know the back straightaway was puddling up and you're starting to hydroplane and do some weird stuff so my only option was to just kind of send it through those spots and hope for the best so uh like i said just really proud of our team uh two in a row frantic motorsports i think this is win number 800 800 jim yeah 800th win for uh for chevrolet uh it couldn't be more proud of chevy jim campbell here thanks for being here and uh yeah 268 for for hms so just uh thanks for all the fans for hanging in there today uh great to have you first on the car this week get our first win together and i know everybody's used to seeing us in our napa colors but good to have them on board and like i said just proud of our team we've kind of had an up and down year to come here and to fight not the ideal way to win but we'll definitely take it and move on down the road chase elliott your inaugural winner at circuit of the americas sixth road course win for chase elliott in his 14th start on a road course in the cup series another great day for hendrick motorsports and chevrolet we'll be back to wrap things up after this [Music] defending nascar cup champion chase elliott breaks into the win column at circuit of the americas in austin texas in nascar's first appearance here winning the echo park texas grand prix he jumps to fifth in the overall point standings denny hamlin still at the top on points but look at that list of winners it's getting crowded at the top and only 16 spots available in the playoffs 12 of them are full if hamlin is the regular season champ without a win great day for chase elliott hendrick motorsports ties a record chevrolet sets a big mark with their 800th cup win and nascar makes what i would say is a very impactful and entertaining debut in austin texas yeah absolutely mike i mean we saw a little bit of everything wow this is this track just created some of the most difficult conditions in the wet conditions here at austin elevation changes left right 20 corners i tell you what i had it all and i i was a little surprised chase elliott hadn't won a race up to this point this season but no surprise he gets win number one and gets that 268th win at ty petty motorsports right here on a road course in austin well i guess i'll start right there with chase elliot i had him circled this racetrack here's where chase elliot's going to show up and he didn't prove us wrong there that being said we knew that these drivers are going to be tested when they came to this racetrack 20 turns elevation changes fast speeds tight corners fourth gear down to first gear this track throws everything at you then mother nature comes into the equation we saw it in practice dried out for qualifying this morning and then back to a monsoon afterwards learned everything we learned a lot obviously it got out of hand on that back straightaway you saw those cars with a vision hydroplaning everything this place showed these teams and tested them tough and the hendrick bunch they proved it once again that they're on top right now and then you look at drivers like ross chastain aj allmendinger chase briscoe all of whom had a great day we'll have more and break down other stories of this race as post race coverage continues from our race day studios in charlotte and nhra drag racing at the top of the hour from houston all right here on fs1

Channel: Duke Of Twist

Views: 12,828

Keywords: #DukeOfTwist, #ReadyToRace, #KTM790Duke, #KTM890DukeR, COTA, Texas GP, NASCAR 2021, NASCAR, Cup Series, Full Race Replay, EchoPark Texas Grand Prix, Circuit of The Americas

Id: dOGOO88Ounk

Length: 196min 0sec (11760 seconds)

Published: Tue May 25 2021