After a tame tango in Talladega last week, the stars of the NASCAR Cup Series storm ahead toward the next high-speed dancefloor in Fort Worth, Texas, the home of the Texas Two-Step and the Texas Motor Speedway.
All 38 drivers must strap themselves in for 400 miles around this rough-and-tumble 1.5-mile race track that’s sure to test the tempers and patience of even the most tenacious of competitors.
When your car loses grip in Texas, there’s nowhere to hide. If you don’t find the wall, the wall will find you.
With 267 laps on the docket for today, a hot afternoon in the Lone Star State should create the perfect environment for hard racing.
Who will come home with the trophy? The series’ fastest outlaw.
Last Week at Talladega…
If you can believe it, the NASCAR Cup Series went through an entire Talladega race without tearing up a bunch of cars. Just two cautions for cause waved last Sunday, and they all came before the end of the first stage.
A clean stage 2 led to an even cleaner stage 3 where Austin Cindric’s pit crew put him out front for the final 15 laps where he was able to fend off challenges from Ryan Preece and Hendrick teammates William Byron and Kyle Larson to notch his third career Cup Series victory and put himself into the Playoffs.
For a more detailed summary of events, take a peek at my colleague Audrey’s recap from last weekend.
This Week in NASCAR
Shortly after last Sunday’s race at Talladega, two top-5 finishers saw their hard work ripped away from them. NASCAR disqualified the results of runner-up Ryan Preece and fifth-place racer Joey Logano after finding different issues with each car’s spoiler.
In the ongoing Legacy Motor Club vs. Rick Ware Racing legal dispute, the judge in the case denied LMC’s preliminary injunction, a move that would’ve prevented RWR from selling the charter to someone else while the lawsuit is active.
Connor Zilisch’s hard crash at the end of last week’s Xfinity Series race at Talladega included some lingering effects as the 18-year-old wunderkind sat out the Texas race weekend with a back injury. Kyle Larson filled in for Zilisch, taking the reins of the No. 88 JRM Chevrolet.
With Xfinity set to go on a two-week hiatus, Zilisch should be healed by the time the series returns in Charlotte on May 24. NASCAR quickly approved Zilisch’s Playoff waiver application.
A light news week led us into the Craftsman Truck Series race at Texas this weekend where Corey Heim put on a clinic, leading 96 of the race’s 174 laps en route to his third win of 2025 in the series’ first eight races.
Heim had to fight off a hard-charging Rajah Caruth and a hungry Ben Rhodes on Overtime restarts to maintain his advantage, eventually executing a three-wide pass through the middle of Rhodes and Hemric on the final lap to hold onto victory.
In the NASCAR Xfinity Series, it was all JR Motorsports at the front. Justin Allgaier paced the field for 99 of the first 150 laps prior to getting tangled up with the lapped car of Kris Wright during the final green-flag pit cycle, ultimately ending the day for the defending champion.
From there, it was mostly Kyle Larson’s race to lose, but multiple Overtime periods made the 2021 Cup Series champion earn it, whipping around Sam Mayer and Austin Hill on the final restart to claim his second Xfinity Series win of the season after a terrible event for the series.
In Cup Series qualifying, a young driver nabbed his first career pole position for today’s Würth 400. Carson Hocevar rode the ‘Dente to the top of the charts on Saturday. His Chili’s Chevrolet will take the front row for today’s race with Daytona 500 winner William Byron joining him. For the starting lineup, click here.
Before today’s race, Jey and I released our most recent installment of our NASCAR Cup Series power rankings after Talladega if you’re looking for a short read before the green flag flies.
The Race
Today’s Würth 400 presented by LIQUI-MOLY will be broadcast on Fox Sports 1 with play-by-play by Mike Joy alongside color commentators Clint Bowyer and Kevin Harvick.
The 400 in the event title stands for the amount of miles to be run in today’s 267-mile race around Texas’ 1.5-mile configuration, which will be split into three stages ending on the following laps: 80-165-267.
As for the average Texas spring race, it looks something like this: 10 cautions for 51 caution laps, 22 lead changes, 2,643 green-flag passes (or 12.2 per lap), and just one instance of Overtime in the last decade. Unfortunately, that instance came in last year’s event.
As for the average duration of these races, a normal Texas race can be a bit of a slog with the average over the last decade going for 3 hours and 36 minutes with the lap of final caution falling around lap 341 or with 27 laps to go.
Writer’s Pick
Last week, my writer’s pick went to Legacy Motor Club’s Erik Jones, but a poorly-timed block from Ross Chastain during the final round of green-flag pit stops stymied any efforts for a Toyota victory, ultimately saddling Jones with an 18th-place result.
Hopefully, this week’s pick will fare better since he’s starting on the pole. I’m ridin’ the ‘Dente this week by selecting sophomore racer Carson Hocevar.
The Michigander impressed in Atlanta earlier this season and flexed his superspeedway prowess last weekend as well when he ran in the top-10 all race.
Spire Motorsports clearly brought that same confidence to Texas this weekend by putting their car in the catbird seat for today’s race, and with Hocevar getting some much-needed laps in during the Truck race on Friday night, his enhanced track feel should benefit him this afternoon, leading to his first Cup victory.
(Top Photo Credit: Randy Holt/AP Photo)
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