NASCAR 2023 Nashville Recap

NASCAR and Nashville were once again a great match as the weekend featured a great sold-out crowd for the Cup race and a great fan experience overall for one of the biggest party towns in America.

For the Truck Series, it was Carson Hocevar continuing his career year with his second win of the season. Hocevar took the lead with 40 laps to go in the Rackley Roofing 200 and never let anyone around him despite any challenge thrown at him that included a late restart with three laps to go. Hocevar in particular held off defending Truck Series Champion Zane Smith and a hard-charging Nick Sanchez to win the race. 

When Hocevar scored his first career win earlier this season at Texas, it also involved Zane Smith and Nick Sanchez when they wreck at the front of the field on the final lap that opened the door to Hocevar’s first win. This time, Hocevar showcased a strong truck and the will to win. Hocevar also picked up the final $50,000 bonus that is part of the Triple Truck Challenge, joining Ben Rhodes (Charlotte) and Grant Enfinger (St. Louis) as the winner of the program.

“I’m so excited I can finally put that other to rest,” Hocevar said of the circumstances of his first win, adding, “and hopefully I can win a lot more races for them (Niece Motorsports).”

Nick Sanchez had scored his third pole of the season and ran well all race long, despite still knocking on the door of his first career truck series victory. 

Corey Heim and Bayley Currey rounded out the top five on Friday, as Heim led the most laps with 57 of the 150, including a stage two win. Heim also continues to lead the points standings 16 points over Zane Smith. Chase Purdy, Matt DiBenedetto, Tyler Ankrum, Ben Rhodes, and Jake Garcia rounded out the top 10.

The Chevrolet-dominating weekend continued into the Xfinity Series with Kaulig Racing’s AJ Allmendinger scoring the victory in the No. 10 Chevrolet. It was a wild race that featured a record-tying 11 cautions and 17 lead changes among 11 different drivers. Allmendinger held on in the final 20 laps to score the win over Riley Herbst, who was going after his first career win. This marked Allmendinger’s second win of the 2023 season and his 17^th career Xfinity Series win.

“I love winning on ovals because I know a lot of people doubt me on an oval,” a smiling Allmendinger said after the race.
With the Tennessee Lottery 250 being a wild race, Ty Gibbs looked to be the one to beat early on as he scored the stage one win in the No. 19 Toyota for Joe Gibbs Racing. However, that went up in smoke at the start of stage two when Gibbs was battling for the lead with Austin Hill and hit the wall, suffering too much damage in the incident to stay in contention. Allmendinger received minor damage in the incident as well but wasn’t enough to affect the performance of his No. 10 Machine. 

Allmendinger’s teammate, Chandler Smith, scored a second-place finish after he and Allmendinger battled for the lead back and forth for a lot of the race’s second half. Sam Mayer finished third, Austin Hill was fourth, and Mayer’s teammate Josh Berry- who was recently announced to move up to Cup next season, replacing Kevin Harvick- finished fifth. John Hunter Nemechek was sixth, Zane Smith in the No. 28 Ford for RSS Racing finished seventh, Daniel Hemric eighth, Cole Custer ninth, and Parker Retzlaff in tenth.
“We got a little fortunate there when the accident happened, it didn’t really do anything too bad to the quarter panels and the guys did a good job of fixing it there,” Allmendinger said of the early damage from the incident between Gibbs and Hill.

“I will be honest, I was shocked on the initial start, I went down and made it three wide and thought nothing on it, didn’t even drive my car that hard and started wrecking, so that kind of raised my eyebrows, it’s a lot slicker than I expected,” Allmendinger said. “So, the next couple starts, just tried to chill and get into the rhythm of the race.”

In front of a sold-out crowd on a beautiful Sunday evening, the NASCAR Cup Series ran at Nashville Superspeedway for the third time with the running of the Ally 400. The race ended up being an action-packed one as the race ran clean and was the first win of the season for 30-year-old Ross Chastain of Trackhouse Racing. 
“This is incredible,” Chastain said after the race. “This is why every little kid out there, anyone in the world when you get criticized, and you’re going to if you’re a competitor, they will try to tear you down, and you’ll start believing it, and you can’t do that.”

“Go to your people. Trust in the process. Read your books and trust in the Big Man’s plan upstairs. And just keep getting up and going to work on it.”

“A lot of self-reflection through all this, but I had a group that believed in me, and they didn’t let me get down,” he said of his challenges in 2023.

In the closing laps, Truex was working hard to reel in Chastain for the win but was unable to catch the No. 1 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet. Lapped traffic made it difficult for Chastain but also made it difficult for Truex which ultimately led to a home track win for Trackhouse.
In the end, Chastain was able to hold off the Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota’s of Martin Truex Jr and Denny Hamlin and lead for 99 of the 300 laps, which included the final 34. Last year’s race winner Chase Elliott finished fourth, while his teammates Kyle Larson and William Byron were fifth and sixth. Christopher Bell, Erik Jones, Kyle Busch, and AJ Allmendinger, who won the Xfinity race on Saturday, rounded out the top ten.