Just beyond the rolling Irish Hills lays a high-banked spectacle of speed: Michigan International Raceway.
This 2-mile wonder remains the only of its kind on the NASCAR calendar, generating speeds in excess of 200 miles per hour.
Making a pass is no easy task, and one bobble, one slip could send you and a score of others to the garage area.
This race track requires vigilance and raw speed to succeed over 400 miles. To make matters worse, the stars of the NASCAR Cup Series must worry about the durability of their tires and their equipment as pushing those speeds higher and higher can come at a price.
In today’s FireKeepers Casino 400, only the strong last long enough to see the finish.
Last Week at Nashville…
The NASCAR Cup Series headed to the Volunteer State for the Cracker Barrel 400 where Ryan Blaney zipped by Denny Hamlin and William Byron in one fell swoop in the middle of stage 2 en route to his first victory of the 2025 season and the 14th of his career.
For a more detailed account of events from Nashville Superspeedway, I’d recommend taking a look at my colleague Joe Sell’s recap of last week’s race.
This Week in NASCAR
Spire Motorsports added a familiar face to its Craftsman Truck Series driver lineup. Corey Lajoie picked up nine events in the team’s No. 07 Silverado, including this weekend at Michigan, Richmond, and the final seven races of the 2025 season.
In the business sector, Speedway Motorsports CEO Marcus Smith inked a deal to lease the naming rights to Atlanta Motor Speedway, which will now be referred to as EchoPark Speedway. The deal runs for seven years and is speculated to be a multimillion-dollar agreement.
NASCAR headed back to the courtroom for their first significant victory in months. The US Court of Appeals ruled that 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports had no precedent to justify the lower courts granting the teams a preliminary injunction.
Here is a response from the teams’ attorney. Jeffrey Kessler:
The teams have 14 days to petition for all appeals judges to look over the case, rather than the three-judge panel that came to Thursday’s decision.
During the week, Jey and I released our latest installment of Cup Series power rankings, which you can read here.
Dodge has a press conference scheduled for 1pm Eastern time today, likely to reveal the 2026 model of their new Ram-branded NASCAR Craftsman Truck.
After the longest Truck Series race in terms of mileage, series veteran Stewart Friesen broke a 72-race winless drought by claiming the win over Grant Enfinger in the DQS Solutions & Staffing 250 at Michigan International Speedway while the Xfinity Series took the week off prior to heading down to Mexico.
Cup Series qualifying concluded early on Saturday with Chase Briscoe earning his third-straight pole position. Kyle Busch will join him on the front row for Sunday’s race. For information about the starting grid, click here.
The Race
Today’s FireKeepers Casino 400 at Michigan International Speedway will be broadcast on Amazon Prime Video with commentators Adam Alexander, Dale Earnhardt Jr., and Steve Letarte on the call.
The 400 in the title refers to the number of miles, and it’ll take the drivers 200 laps around this high-banked 2-mile oval. Those 200 laps will be split up into three stages that end on the following laps: 45-120-200.
As for a typical Michigan race. it looks something like this: 7 cautions for 36 caution laps, 19 lead changes, and an average duration of exactly three hours.
When it comes to the end of the race, the last caution over the last 10 races at Michigan fell around lap 171 on average, or with 30 laps to go.
Writer’s Pick
Last week’s writer’s pick was
This week, I’m riding the wave and taking Ryan Blaney, something that should come to no surprise to anyone that reads this weekly newsletter.
The No. 4 driver on our Cup Series power rankings, Blaney notched his first victory of 2025 at Nashville in convincing fashion last week, and I suspect he’ll show no signs of slowing down heading into the home of his manufacturer, Ford.
On top of his great performances this year and recent triumph, Blaney duked it out with William Byron to win this event back in 2021, and he’ll be hungry for more trips to victory lane to improve his seeding in the playoffs.
(Top Photo Credit: Carlos Osorio/AP Photo)
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