Sin City Becomes Spin City as Alex Bowman wins at Las Vegas

The NASCAR Cup Series held its third race of the 2022 Season at Las Vegas Motor Speedway for the Pennzoil 400 and the first race on a 1.5-mile track for the NextGen car. Christopher Bell scored the pole for the race the led the field to the green flag along with last year’s winner, Kyle Larson. After a competition caution, the first real caution comes out on lap 38 with a spin from Cole Custer. He wouldn’t be the only driver to have issues with controlling and bottoming out. Right after the next restart on lap 43, Austin Dillon went up into Justin Haley and got loose as well as Kyle Busch, but both drivers were able to save the car from turning completely around. Then Justin Haley went into a full spin to bring the caution right back out. As the lead swapped around between Denny Hamlin, Ryan Blaney, and Kyle Larson, the next caution came out on lap 64 when Tyler Reddick spun across the infield grass on the front stretch. Alex Bowman would go on to collect his first stage win of 2022 to end off the first stage. William Byron finished second and Ross Chastain in third. At the end of the stage, there was tension between Chase Briscoe and Kyle Busch as Busch came up to Briscoe’s rear end at the end of the stage.

Drivers adapting to the NextGen car continued as just 12 laps into Stage Two, Michael McDowell slid up the track in front of Chase Briscoe, causing Briscoe to get loose and made an evasive move that caused him to get into Daniel Suarez, sending him straight towards the front straightaway wall. A rough end to Suarez’s race after nearly winning last week at California. Brad Keselowski went for a spin on lap 103 coming off turn four and Ryan Blaney suffered damage from Keselowski’s spin as well. Austin Cindric then went for a spin on lap 135, tagging Harrison Burton as he went back up on the track. Burton has now been an unfortunate victim of wrecks for the first three races of the season. Chase Briscoe also went spinning, giving him major front-end damage. Christopher Bell also went for a spin on lap 142 after getting loose on the bottom as Burton went for a spin as well. Ross Chastain was the breakout driver of the race as he led a good chunk of the race and went on to win Stage Two, giving Trackhouse Racing their first stage win. Trackhouse continues to impress as they nearly came to a win last week and one of their drivers picked up a stage win.

Chastain continued to dominate the race and it wasn’t until green flag pit stops with 47 to go that a caution came out for Denny Hamlin as he spun on the apron after a downshifting issue. Keeping in mind with the NextGen car, one of its new features is the five-gear sequential gearbox. Getting near the end of the race, teammates battling for the win so far seems to be the trend in 2022. As with 13 laps to go, Kyle Busch was trying to hold off his teammate Martin Truex Jr to get his first win at his home track since 2009. For Busch, he wrecked in practice and had to go to a backup car that was originally Denny Hamlin’s and had to be rebuilt. With three laps to go, everything changed as Erik Jones, who was running eighth, got loose coming off of turn four and slammed the wall. He couldn’t keep control of the car due to the wheel locking up and spun back up on the track past the start-finish line, in which Bubba Wallace had to quick evade Jones’ #43, causing Wallace to spin into the inside tire wall in turn one. Alex Bowman and Kyle Larson got out with two tires on final pit stops and lead to the field to a NASCAR Overtime restart. Both drivers remained side-by-side like it was a drag race to the finish. On the final lap and coming off turn four, Alex Bowman was able to pull away and score the victory at Las Vegas.

Final Thoughts: I thought this was a really good race and so far after three races, the NextGen car has delivered. There’s been a lot of parody and we’ve seen other drivers and teams shine in the spotlight just like last week, such as a third-place finish and stage win from Ross Chastain. You saw drivers again struggle with the way the new car and new package handle with the cars bottoming out in the turns, depending on what certain bumps you may hit. The racing was pretty good too, in which I know a lot of fans have wondered how these cars would run on a 1.5-mile track. I think the racing overall was great. We didn’t see as many green flag runs, as there were also a fair amount of tire issues in the race too, considering that the NextGen car now has the 18-inch wheel. In terms of certain moments throughout the race, Kyle Busch came up short in what was a great turnaround after his crew had to rebuild the backup car from putting in the seat, engine, and even having to wrap the car with the right sponsor for it. Chase Briscoe’s incident with Daniel Suarez to me was a racing deal, as in Briscoe had to let up as McDowell got a bit loose with worn tires and came up on the track. Briscoe let off, got loose, and got into Suarez. Suarez was simply an innocent bystander that probably helped Briscoe from turning into the infield grass. As for Brad Keselowski and the issues he’s had, he has moved to a team that hasn’t seen victory lane much in recent years and it’ll take time for Brad to help improve this team. I think RFK Racing will get better over time, but I can’t help but wonder if Brad is trying to push the car too much to compete with the big teams of NASCAR, like his former team, Team Penske. It’ll be interesting to see how he performs in the next handful of races. Overall, for this 1.5-mile track, the NextGen did very well on it.