Ally 400 at Nashville

Welcome to Music City, USA! Let’s go racing:

The Ally 400 started off under mostly sunny skies in beautiful Nashville, Tennessee, with a high temperature of 89 degrees and a felt like of 98, temps that got up to 109 inside the car at one point. 

The 11 of Denny Hamlin took us to the green flag to start the race, this was Hamlin’s 42nd career pole win. The starting lineup for the Ally 400 was Denny Hamlin (11), Josh Berry (4), Christopher Bell (20), Kyle Larson (5), Brad Keselowski (6), Tyler Reddick (45), William Byron (24), Ty Gibbs (54), Chris Buescher (17), and Austin Cindric (2). Out of these drivers, two of them needed a win to lock in a playoff spot in the fall. One of which, Josh Berry, was below the cut line in points by -73. 

The whole of Stage One went under green, with only three lead changes. On lap 17, Justin Haley (51) blocked Hamlin and this allowed Bell to take the lead. This also put the 51 a lap down. On lap 37, we began green flag pit stops with Alex Bowman (48) pitting first from position 13. The 54 of Ty Gibbs then pitted on lap 41, and Tyler Reddick took the lead. On lap 64, Joey Logano (22) pitted from second place, and Christopher Bell took that position. Lap 78 gave us Hamlin vs Bell for the Stage win (as well as those stage points towards the playoffs). Then, on lap 87, Haley, who was now two laps down passed Bell to get back one of his two laps. Stage One concluded on lap 90 with a Bell stage win, followed by Hamlin, Reddick, Larson, and Keselowski. 

The first caution flag of the day came on lap 92, for the restart for Stage Two. Drivers pitted for fuel and tires, and restarted on lap 98 with Hamlin on the inside, and Bell on the outside. On lap 116, John Hunter Nemechek (42) spun from turn 4 through the grass, and brought out a caution. Lead lap cars pitted and on lap 117, Ross Chastain (1) was penalized for interfering with equipment. Then, on lap 126, Ty Gibbs slid into the grass from turn 4 and brought out another caution. On lap 131, we restarted under green with a top-five of Bell, Reddick, Larson, Buescher, and Keselowski. However, green didn’t last very long because on lap 135, the caution came back out for rain and on lap 137, the red came out for lightning and the cars came down pit road to be parked. The top-10 at the red flag were Bell, Reddick, Larson, Keselowski, Chase Elliott (9), Hamlin, Buescher, Byron, Martin Truex Jr. (19), and rookie Carson Hocevar (77). The red lasted an hour and 21 minutes. 

The race restarted under yellow and the green came back out on lap 141 with Christopher Bell leading. Stage Two ended on lap 185, with Bell sweeping both stages, and he was followed by Reddick, Larson, Hamlin, and Keselowski. 

Ready for Stage 3? Buckle up. The caution came back out for the start of stage three on lap 187, and our top-five was Bell, Hamlin, Reddick, Keselowski, and Ryan Blaney (12). On lap 202, Riley Herbst (15) got into the wall after Corey LaJoie (7) made contact and hooked him in the left rear. The seventh caution of the day came on lap 218 after the 9 of Chase Elliott spun from sixth place and went through the grass. This caution brought a pit cycle, and most lead lap cars pitted for fuel and fresh tires. The race restarted under green on lap 226 with a top-10 of Blaney, AJ Allmendinger (16), LaJoie, Bubba Wallace (23), Nemechek, Chastain, Logano, Berry, Haley and Kyle Busch (8). Then on lap 228, the caution came back out again for the 20 of Bell, who spun after getting loose while checking up and he made hard contact with the wall, which unfortunately for Christopher, ended his day at Nashville. 

On lap 242, another caution came out for the 6 of Keselowski after Austin Dillon (3), made contact and sent him into the wall. On this same lap, the 77 hooked the rear of Harrison Burton (21) and spun him out on the backstretch during the already yellow flag. On Lap 269, the 12 of Blaney pitted under green for fuel and goes a lap down. Then again on lap 299, the 2 of Cindric made contact with Noah Gragson (10), and Cindric spins.

Now, to make a long story short, the Ally 400 at Nashville SuperSpeedway was only supposed to have been a 300 lap race. It ended up being a 331 lap race. There were five total overtime restarts, which is the most in Cup Series history. On the first restart, Kyle Larson pushed Denny Hamlin into Ross Chastain, and caused a stack up. Then, on the final restart Logano led and took the checkered flag, all while Chase Briscoe (14) ran out of fuel, Daniel Suárez (99) and the 19 of Truex Jr. made contact and hit the wall, and the 9 of Elliott spun out of turn 4 and went through the grass. 

Joey Logano won at Nashville and secured a playoff spot.

Photo Credits to @ NASCAR on X!