NASCAR Heads For Las Vegas This Week

The Stars of the NASCAR Cup Series head for Sin City this week for the Pennzoil 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. This track is a half-mile oval with 18 degrees of banking in the corners—the track levels off into 9 degrees of banking in the straightaways. We will see a lot of similar types of racing to what we saw last week in California but with this track being much more narrow, it will be difficult for drivers to stay side by side for too long. Usually, we see a lot of pit-road speeding penalties during this because of how difficult it is to get slowed down because of how narrow the pit-road entrance is. There will be plenty of close racing come Sunday which could lead to many cautions. Last year, we saw eight cautions for accidents in the spring.

Chase Elliott Injured in Snowboarding accident: The biggest story in NASCAR right now is the absence of its biggest star Chase Elliott. The 2020 Champion was snowboarding in Colorado and injured his leg. He will require surgery and will at least miss this week's race. It's such a shame to see this considering how well he ran last week at Auto Club and appeared to be getting his season back on track after an abysmal Daytona 500. Hopefully, this won't set him back to far but it certainly isn't looking good.

Josh Berry Gets The Call-Up: While Elliott is out with injury, Josh Berry will fill in for the time being. This is a huge opportunity for the Xfinity Series driver. He has worked extremely hard throughout the years as a driver coach, in fact, Berry has been instrumental in the success of William Byron and Noah Gragson two drivers he will be competing against. I look forward to seeing him prove himself in perhaps the best car on the track.

The Favorite: What a start to the season it's been for Kyle Busch. Many people wondered how he would fare on a new team and he has come out of the gate flying. It shouldn't be too much of a surprise considering how good that car was when Tyler Reddick drove it and now Busch is elevating RCR into championship favorites. Las Vegas has also been a great track for the two-time champion, he has the highest average finish of anyone here since 2020 (5.7). He will be the one to beat come Sunday.

My Pick To Win: The driver I am taking to win this weekend is Ross Chastain. It seems like we are seeing a different version of the driver we saw last year. He has matured a lot from what I have seen in these past two races and it seems to be paying off as he has opened up the season with back-to-back top tens including a second place last week at Auto Club. Overall, Las Vegas has been good to Ross as he finished 3rd and 2nd in both races here back in 2022. I believe that if he can put a whole race together, Chastain will capture his first of many wins this year.