For over a decade, Fort Worth’s Texas Motor Speedway was the only circuit in Texas capable of hosting NASCAR races, giving the greater Dallas area a leg up over Austin, the capital city.
On October 21, 2012, that changed with the grand opening of Circuit of the Americas, a 3.426-mile facility constituting 20 turns that was ready for the grandeur of Formula 1.
Nearly a decade later, NASCAR made their debut at the gargantuan course in a deluge, and after four years, the sport and the track felt it was time for a change.
The stars of the NASCAR Cup Series will tackle a new 2.4-mile configuration that cuts out the uphill section and turn 11 hairpin in favor of a new hairpin at the end of the Esses.
The new-look Circuit of the Americas added 27 more laps to its race distance that will test the drivers’ skill and, more importantly, their patience.
Entering the Cup Series field for the first time is Connor Zilisch, the 18-year-old wunderkind piloting the No. 87 Red Bull car for Justin Marks’ Trackhouse Racing. The North Carolina native took the victory in yesterday’s Xfinity Series race where he fought his way through the field to score his second career victory.
Will Zilisch mirror his Xfinity Series debut from last season where he claimed victory, or will one of the stars of the NASCAR Cup Series prove why this is one of the toughest racing series on Earth?
Whoever wins, they’ll have to hit their marks 17 times over 95 laps to notch a win even bigger than the state of Texas itself.
Last Week in Atlanta
Pole sitter Ryan Blaney led the field down to the green flag with teammate Austin Cindric by his side, and for much of the day, Team Penske was the talk of the town.
Between Joey Logano, Blaney, Cindric, and new Wood Brothers Racing driver Josh Berry, the Penske cars led 187 of the race’s 266 laps, good for over 70% of the race distance.
Speaking of Berry, the 34-year-old racer snagged his first stage win of 2025 in stage 1 while Kyle Larson shot out to the lead just in time to snare a stage 2 victory.
Multi-car crashes marred the opening of the final stage where contact between Ty Gibbs and Daniel Suárez sent the defending winner of this even sliding into oncoming traffic, ending the No. 99’s day while collecting a number of other cars.
In a mistake eerily similar to the one that took him out of last year’s race, Chase Briscoe attempted to go four-wide in turn 4, but his error only ruined Chris Buescher’s and Alex Bowman’s day instead, sending the No. 17 sliding into the front end of the No. 48.
Approaching 25 laps to go, Carson Hocevar gave an ill-advised push to Ryan Blaney on the entry to turn 1, sending the 2023 series champion spinning onto the apron. Blaney recovered to finish fourth.
From there, it would be a battle between Cindric and the field at the front, and the field would prevail in robust fashion. Larson forced Cindric’s Menards Mustang Dark Horse into the fence on the exit of turn 2 where he was met by Byron’s Camaro, sending both cars colliding into the inside wall to trigger Overtime.
In the one attempt at Overtime, Christopher Bell shot to the outside of Larson to begin the final lap while Hocevar and Blaney rallied behind them. On the backstretch, Berry made contact with Denny Hamlin that set off a multi-car melee that brought out the caution while the leaders were in the middle of turns 3 & 4.
When the dust settled, Christopher Bell soaked in his first superspeedway victory with Hocevar taking the silver and Larson the bronze. The three cars were fanned out just like the year before, poised for a strong finish that was ultimately foiled by NASCAR’s confounding officiating decisions.
If you’d like a more detailed breakdown of last week’s race, our distinguished writer Jey Allen wrote a compelling review of it.
This Week in NASCAR
The Craftsman Truck Series took the week off while the Xfinity Series continued their journey to find its 2025 champion with the Focused Health 250.
Connor Zilisch put his car on pole and looked poised to have the car to beat in the first stage before a caution for a stalled Baltazar Leguizamón on the home straight saw NASCAR levee a pit road penalty to Zilisch.
The teenaged phenom spent much of the second stage picking his way through the field while Riley Herbst and Jesse Love duked it out for the top spot. Later in the stage, Love’s tires began to wear, leading to many fierce battles on the race track; this included a particular run-in with Sheldon Creed, the former pilot of the No. 2.
The contact led to a barb from each driver on social media:
Love brought his No. 2 Whelen Camaro to the finish in 6th while Creed ended the day 12th.
In the final stage, Zilisch’s path to victory was muddied by a mistake he made in the stadium section. Right after the restart, the JR Motorsports driver made an inspired move to the inside of Sam Hunt Racing driver Corey Heim. Zilisch’s No. 88 slid on the brakes, spinning Heim’s No. 24 and knocking him out of contention.
Despite major damage to the right-front fender of his WeatherTech Camaro, Zilisch pressed on, passing Austin Hill before setting his sights on teammate and fellow rookie, Carson Kvapil.
The JRM running mates traded paint numerous times, even prompting the CW booth to mention that third-place runner William Byron was beginning to close in on the top-2, but the battle between Kvapil and Zilisch ended when Kvapil’s No. 1 Bass Pro Shops Chevy suffered a flat right-front tire in the closing laps.
In the end, it would be Zilisch to claim his second career Xfinity Series win with Byron finishing second and Sam Mayer in third. Kvapil only rebounded for a 23rd-place finish after an inspiring performance.
Writer’s Pick
I’ll be skipping this week’s piece on “The Race” because the Cup Series has never raced on this configuration, rendering any past statistics completely useless.
If you’re looking for where to watch the race, it’ll be on FOX today at 3:30pm Eastern time with Mike Joy, Kevin Harvick, and Clint Bowyer in the booth. Today’s race will be 95 laps in length with stage breaks coming at the following laps: 20-45-95.
Moving on to the writer’s pick, I’ll be selecting none other than New Zealand’s Shane van Gisbergen.
The rapid Kiwi logged a sixth-place qualifying effort, second-fastest of the four Trackhouse cars (Suárez 5th, Chastain 9th, Zilisch 14th); where he was really strong was in practice, though. Here is a full breakdown of today’s starting lineup.
SVG lit up the second practice, running a 98.846-second lap. For comparison, second-place racer William Bryon submitted a 99.434-second lap, a .588-second difference between van Gisbergen and the race’s defending winner.
The multi-time Australian Supercars champion owns a better understanding of this course, having run a similar version of it all the way back in a Supercar when they visited the States and COTA in 2013 where he finished fifth and third in a pair of races.
Shane van Gisbergen is the overwhelming betting favorite for the race, but don’t count out pole sitter Tyler Reddick as well as Alex Bowman and even Carson Hocevar after setting great laps in practice and qualifying.
(Top Photo Credit: AP Photo)
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