A typical Easter Sunday involves jellybeans, the Easter Bunny, chocolate bunnies, and searching tirelessly for hidden pastel eggs.
But, at night, the mechanical beasts come alive under the lights at the storied Richmond Raceway.
This .750-mile short track makes its first appearance of 2024 as the seventh race on the NASCAR Cup Series calendar, returning to the eastern time zone this week after stampeding through the winding roads of Circuit of the Americas last Sunday
Seeing no natural cautions the entire day, William Byron held the lead for a majority of the race before Christopher Bell began appearing larger in his rearview mirror in the closing laps.
Bell’s path to the front slowed his progress significantly, running over Byron’s teammate, Kyle Larson, in stage two in the hairpin of turn 11 before following that up with another collision in stage three involving former teammate, Kyle Busch.
Such incidents no doubt kept the Joe Gibbs Racing driver behind the 8-ball all day; that’ll happen when you use your car like a cue ball. Bell would finish the race just .7sec behind Byron, one lap and a dollar short.
From one capital to another, the stars of the NASCAR Cup Series look toward the fairgrounds in Richmond, VA for the 72nd running of the Toyota Owners 400.
Richmond Raceway’s first winner was three-time Cup champ Lee Petty, and for the first 25 years of its existence, it was a half-mile dirt oval until it was paved in 1968.
Only 20 years later, the track was reconfigured and extended from its original half-mile form to its current three-quarters-of-a-mile D-shaped layout. Drivers hit the start-finish line and saw on the wheel to keep the car turning before diving into turn 1.
Drivers spend a lot (and I mean, a lot!) of time off the throttle in the moderately banked 14° turns, rolling from the exit of pit road all the way to the exit of turn 2 to preserve the life of their tires. The field spreads out throughout the event, running a plethora of lines to maximize their speed.
The backstretch is the only break the drivers get from turning, driving 860 feet in a straight line before cranking the wheel into the sharp entry of turn 3.
Unlike turns 1 & 2, drivers mash the brakes harder on the entry to turn 3, gradually pick up the throttle as their car rotates through turn 4, and accelerate back onto the 8° front stretch in the short run up to the finish line.
The all-time wins leader at Richmond Raceway is the King Richard Petty with 13 wins, but to the surprise of no one, two-time Cup champion Kyle Busch owns a historic fifth-place average finish for his Cup Series career at Strawberry Hill.
Now that we know about the track the drivers will face, let’s look at the weather that’ll face them Sunday night.
The Weather & Fast Facts
As usual, I take the weather data collected over the last 10 years to formulate an average high, an average low, and the chance of rain, all to give you a picture of what the last Sunday in March or first Sunday of April normally looks like before comparing it to the projected forecast.
The average high since 2014 is 67°F and is coupled with an average low of 42°F. In that same time period, this weekend has only featured rain once, concluding before 1PM.
The forecasted high for Sunday rests at 74°F, peaking at 2pm ET. This weather would be welcomed at most race weekends, but since this race starts after 6pm, we must turn our attention to the evening forecast.
It brings me no joy to let you know that rain could play a factor in this event. Thanks to Bob Pockrass, we know that Goodyear brought an intermediate treaded tire to race through damp conditions before the weather is supposed to dry up completely around 8PM.
By that point, the weather will drop to 65° and steadily decrease through the night. If NASCAR is unable to get the race going before 8:30PM ET, they run the risk of their first rain-shortened Cup race this season as moisture is projected to return around 11PM.
It is possible that NASCAR is unable to hold the race to the halfway point on Sunday, which would mark the race as official if it were to halt the race. The teams would load up their cars and fire them up again on Monday.
The Toyota Owners 400 sustained a high of 11 cautions for 75 laps in 2013, though the averages over the last 10 spring events are closer to seven cautions for 48 laps.
The average lead changes for this race stands at 16 while the average green-flag passes sits at 2162. If the race begins at its scheduled 6PM start time, the average race at Richmond takes a tad over three hours, so if you’re heading to the track, you should expect to leave a little after 9PM.
The Odds
Disclaimer: This is not intended to encourage you, the reader, to make a wager on this race. If you feel you have a gambling problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER for support.
With tire management being paramount to winning performance at Richmond Raceway, it’s fitting that many of the series veterans find themselves at the top of the pile. Here are some of the lines from the oddsmakers at BetMGM for us to analyze.
Chief among them is Denny Hamlin (+500). The Chesterfield, VA native pays his 35th trip to the Action Track, a place the 19-year veteran holds many fond memories.
Hamlin’s 2226 laps led pace all active drivers, and his 18 top-fives and 23 top-10s both rank second in the series. The #11 team holds a treasure trove of stage points at Strawberry Hill, winning a series-high six stages and accruing 121 stage points since stage racing was introduced in 2017.
Rolling off the grid 11th, Hamlin narrowly missed out on the second round of qualifying, but he knows as well as anyone that it isn’t about where you start at Richmond, rather where you finish. The Mavis Tires & Brakes team want to cement themselves in the title conversation early by getting their second win of 2024.
Starting four spots ahead in seventh is Hamlin’s teammate, Martin Truex Jr (+500). The 2017 champion tiptoes into this weekend on a quiet hot streak of four straight top-10 finishes, including a second to Hamlin in Bristol.
Truex has shown his prowess in the state for lovers, especially since he went back to Toyota in 2016. In his last 15 Richmond starts, Truex settled for three finishes outside the top-10 while placing in the top-five eight times.
With three wins at this storied facility under his belt, the driver of the #19 Auto Owners Toyota Camry eyes his first win of 2024, putting a third Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota in the Playoffs.
RFK owner-driver Brad Keselowski (+1200) has often found solace in Virginia’s capital. The 2012 champ led an absurd 383 laps at the Virginia State Fairgrounds in his 2014 fall win and claimed a second win in fall 2020.
Shifting over from Penske driver to his current roles at RFK Racing, the transition saw its ups and downs for Keselowski but not so severely at this track where he’s failed to finish worse than 15th in the #6 car.
Beginning the race a distant 23rd in the field, Bad Brad still knows how to save his tires and move through the field at these rugged short tracks, so if this race goes green for a long while, the BuildSubmarines.com Ford Mustang Dark Horse might rise up to the top of the scoring pylon.
The active wins leader at Richmond Raceway is none other than Kyle Busch (+2000). The Richard Childress Racing driver makes his 37th start at America’s Premier Short Track seeking his seventh Cup win at the circuit.
A short-track phenom, Busch hauled the mail in Richmond on a number of occasions, scoring 19 top-fives and an astounding 28 top-10s in his career. He holds a NASCAR record at Richmond Raceway, maintaining a 5.0 average finish and leading not just the current crop of drivers but all drivers in NASCAR history.
Notching just his second top-10 of the year at COTA last week, Busch hopes to ride that momentum for a second straight week, wheeling his #8 Rebel Bourban Chevy Camaro to his first win of 2024 and extending his years with a win record to 20. His journey starts from the 15th starting spot.
Last but not least there’s Joey Logano (+1400). The two-time champion flexed his qualifying muscle again this weekend, locking his #22 Pennzoil Ford Mustang Dark Horse into 10th on Sunday.
The Team Penske frontrunner found victory lane here twice before, but his 2024 season hasn’t gotten off to the hottest of starts, earning just two results of 11th or better. Sitting a lowly 22nd in points, Logano heads into Richmond with a great opportunity to earn stage points since he has only missed out on stage points once.
Ford’s speed this season has been suspect to say the least, but at a track that prioritizes tire management, Logano is liable to thrive. Crew chief Paul Wolfe has mastered adjusting the car throughout a race, and with patience, Logano should rise through the field as the tires and race wear on.
Other notable lines are: Hendrick teammates Chase Elliott and William Byron (both at +1200); JGR standouts Christopher Bell (+600) and Ty Gibbs (+900); 23XI’s Tyler Reddick (+1400) and Bubba Wallace (+1800); sixth-place starter Todd Gilliland (+35000); and defending series champion Ryan Blaney (+1800).
Writer’s Pick
Picking drivers like Kyle Busch or Denny Hamlin feels too easy, especially when there is a particular young racer that knows how to close the deal in the Old Dominion.
Prosper, TX native Chris Buescher (+1000) starts 14th on Sunday in his #17 Nexletol Ford Mustang Dark Horse as the most recent winner at the track, scoring his third career victory and kicking off a late run before the Playoffs where he scored three wins in the final five regular-season races.
The three previous races this season have been kind to Buescher, placing second at Phoenix after a late-race tire gamble before scoring two more top-10s at Bristol and COTA. The COTA result was particularly significant with Buescher being the only Ford inside the top-10 when he finished eighth.
Buescher’s career stats at Richmond leave a lot to be desired. In spite of that, he is my pick for Easter by saving his tires Sunday night on his way to being the first Ford driver to punch their ticket to the 2024 postseason.
(Top Photo Credit: Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images)
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