Stock Car Scoop: That’s a Wrap on Cup Series Right Turns for 2026

Stock Car Scoop: That’s a Wrap on Cup Series Right Turns for 2026 Frontstretch Podcast Network · Jun 29, 2026

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Person

Shane Van Gisbergen

A famous race car driver from New Zealand who shocked the NASCAR world by winning his very first race in 2023. He is exceptionally fast on twisty tracks with left and right turns.

Place

Sonoma Raceway

A famous, winding race track in California's wine country that features lots of hills and sharp turns instead of a traditional oval shape.

Person

Chase Briscoe

A professional NASCAR driver who started his career racing on dirt tracks and now competes at the highest level of stock car racing.

Term

stage break cautions

Planned pauses in a NASCAR race that divide it into three parts. They force all the cars to slow down, which some fans and drivers dislike because it ruins clever pit-stop strategies.

Term

A race car where almost all the parts are exactly the same for every team, bought from the same manufacturers. This makes the cars very equal so that driver skill and strategy matter more than who has the most money.

Term

undercut

A strategy where a driver makes a pit stop earlier than the cars in front of them. By getting fresh tires sooner, they can drive faster and pass those cars when they finally stop for tires later.

Person

Connor Zilisch

A young, rising star in racing who is considered an expert at driving on twisty road courses despite being very early in his professional career.

Term

cording

When a race car's tire gets worn down so much that the outer rubber wears away, showing the metal or fabric threads inside. It means the tire is completely worn out and dangerous.

Person

Christopher Bell

A top-tier NASCAR driver who got his start racing small, high-powered dirt cars and now drives for one of the sport's biggest teams.

Place

Chicagoland Speedway

A large, D-shaped oval race track near Chicago where NASCAR cars can race side-by-side at very high speeds.

LIVE

you

Two wins in 2026. Eight wins altogether. Once again, Shane Van Gisburgen scores a Cup

Series road course victory at the famous Sonoma Raceway. This is the stock car scoop

for Frontstretch.com. I am your host, Eric Schnecht. Here with, I'm going to say the

road course expert of Frontstretch.com, Mr. Michael Finley. Michael, what did you think

of today's running of the Toyota SaveMart 350 at Sonoma Raceway?

Well, even when SVG has a bad day, I mean, he still ends up winning in Leeds. I don't

know what his lead lap count was, but it was, I think he led almost the entire third stage.

Yeah. Yeah. He was, he was lights out there at the end. Now, give credit where credit was

due. Chase Prisco was chasing him down at the end, but still it was Shane Van Gisburgen head

and shoulders above the rest of the field today.

Yeah. Let me see if I can find out how many laps he did lead all together. I actually don't have

that stat handy myself.

Yeah. Timing and scowing doesn't want to put that up for some reason.

Yeah. Why would we have that information right as soon as the race is over? Thoughts on the

race overall today, it was fairly clean. I think only one caution due to incident and the rest

was just regular old stage break cautions. So thoughts on the race overall.

Yeah, it was a waste. I mean, Sonoma has really struggled because of the stage cautions, which

kind of puts everybody on one or two strategy plans. It used to be like back in the day, you

would have people on the pace lap saving fuel. Yeah. Because they were trying to stress it into a

two stop ways. We don't see that anymore. So it's very, it's a very form, formulaic win, if that

makes sense. Yeah, I was surprised that SVG didn't take points in either stage break.

Yeah, he did. He did flip both. I wonder if that was because now normally I listened into the

scanners. I could not do that today. I wonder if that was simply because I know last weekend at

San Diego, they were very much on, we are here to win this race mode. And then obviously the

incident happened with Austin Hill and Connors Illich. It wonders me if today was just win this

race no matter what, because this is the last row course of the season.

Yeah. Well, and ultimately too, it's like winning just means so much from point system

perspective now, right? Because you figure second gets 35 and false gets 55. That's a huge swing

in favor of the winner. So you can get away with that as long as you actually win the race. If he

hadn't, then he would be in 12 points now. SVG officially above the cutoff line as well. And

actually a fairly big day for points overall, not only is SVG above the cut line. Now we'll see

if he can stay there. Denny Hamlin is officially the points leader over Tyler Redick. Thoughts on

Denny finally, I don't say finally taking the points lead over, over Redick, but it feels like

Redick's hot streak at the beginning of the season is so far removed from where we're at today.

Thoughts on Denny finally taking over the points lead. Anyone is forced to our matchup.

Yes. That came down to literally the closing laps.

I mean, it's not good news for the field because Denny's problem and he'll admit it is,

you know, he can't tone white. Now there's no more white tones in the schedule. And I mean,

there's got to be a little bit of, I wouldn't say if Denny doesn't win it this year, he's got no

chance next year. Right. But he has a golden opportunity because next year you have Watkins

Glen in the chase. So this year you don't. This was in theory Denny's last major hurdle to have

to overcome. And it was still Sonoma where he's raced, well, albeit not the greatest,

he has been there how many times before this wasn't like a first time coronado situation. So

at least he, you know, has lapsed at the place. I do think part of why we see guys like, because

Denny did almost win here 10 years ago. Tony bumped him, but, uh, and then you look at him and you

look at Brad and it's like, why do all these veterans who used to be pretty decent locals

anymore? And I think a big part of that is that this college has gone so much differently,

even on load courses compared to the old call. And it's just a combination of old dogs can't

learn new tricks. And a lot of the lessons they learn coming up to race world courses back then

were, let me put that down so I can actually accept this. I'll start talking.

You know, you learn bad lessons in that the lessons you learned back then are going to

be counterproductive to how you drive these world courses now. It's hard to believe that

at one stage of the NASCAR Cup series, uh, ether that Brad Keselowski was considered one of the

better road course racers on the circuit and, uh, has one of the more famous road course finishes

in NASCAR Cup series history with him versus Bush versus, uh, good old Marcus Ambrose at

Walkinsland. That seems so, so, so many years ago compared to where we're at now. Um, as you

mentioned, final road course of the season, it feels kind of early for that. It's, it's only

June. We got all of our road courses in for this for the year. Um, I, I do, uh, DraftKings content

for another website. And personally, I'm happy from the DraftKings aspect of it, that we could

just go back to good old left hand turns. Uh, but it does feel a little bit weird that we're done

with them already at the end of June. So your thoughts on the road courses as a whole this

season in, uh, in the Cup series. We had the debut of, uh, Naval Base Coronado, but just last week

we had, of course, the Glenn and, uh, Sonoma this week. Um, Lord, I'm missing one, uh, circuit of

the Americas so many moons ago. And I, is there one more? What's the, what's the, yeah. So thoughts on

road courses as a whole in 2026 for the NASCAR Cup series.

I'm just going to reiterate my point, which is that I think stage is just stage breaks are just

not good for road course racing. And I mean, today's race was fine. The other road course races have

been fine. Like San Diego was interesting mainly because SVG was taken out. Right. And, you know,

that kind of opened the door to the Wettig and Heim battle we had,

but you just don't see the strategy variations. And part of the problem is now that we've got a spec

call, the biggest difference you can make on it is tire offsets. And because we have a situation

now where you might see only one chance of that happening now, which is at going the last stage,

you just don't see a whole lot of passing. And we didn't see a whole lot of passing today until

this last stage. You could even see it where I think Zillitz did an undercut.

And TV didn't really sell it, but Zillitz was at least falling down the field a whole lot

at the end of the race because of the tire offsets. I just wish we could go

these road courses and Pocono really do not need these stage courses.

I agree. love and I do think it's something to help. And obviously, we don't

like stage cautions, period. Right. I think if it was up to you, me, we just want to move them

all together. But really at the road courses, I would like like a day like today where there were

really hardly any natural cautions, just that one near the very end. It was great seeing all the

different pitch strategies play out, fuel strategies play out. You know, someone gets off into the

kitty litter, but they're able to get back out and just all the different things that would

happen throughout the road course. And now it's just, you know, and, and, and the, yeah, I agree.

We had a great battle for the lead there at the end, too, even though we had like,

was it a 50 left green flag one of them? So it's like, it's not like you need restocks to have

right. It's, you just have to let the racing happen. You have to let the tires fall off. You

have to let, you know, SVG drive the ever loving hell out of it to, to finally, you don't break

through the tire wear. You need to let the crew chiefs be able to have time in long runs to actually

establish what is wrong with their car to fix it over the long run, et cetera, et cetera. It's,

back in the lamp, so to speak, but Lord, I wish we could. I mean, it's why we've got guys like

Jimmy and Junior and Steve LaTolde a couple of years ago, like doing these crew chief cameos,

because it's like, they just need to be warm bodies essentially. Exactly. I just listened to what

the command center tells them to do. Speaking of being a warm body for the first time this season,

Connor Zilich had some life to him. Yes, he was a living, breathing driver last week in a Coronado

Springs until I did it again at Naval Base Coronado, Disney on the mind until Austin Hill

and him got into that incident, finished seventh today. Finally, a good run for Zilich. Your thoughts

on his, only his road course performances this season, because he would be considered a road

course expert. Your thoughts on his road course performances this season, and if you thought he

would be further along in those road course performances in the Cup Series this year.

Well, he finally found some luck today. Well, at least he didn't have a whole lot of luck today,

but I mean, he didn't have bad luck today. I mean, he was, he's been fast. He just had bad luck. I

mean, I think Kota, he was the, didn't he lead laps at Kota? I think so. And I think too, at the end

of the way, he was like just the fastest going track and was like trying to gain spots and then

he's, he's, he's ran fastest laps. I believe every road course this year, but he's just never had a

finish to show it off. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, he needed this today more than anything. Yeah. I mean,

and still like it's a seventh and, and, and, and where he is as far as like road course talent wise

go, like you would think like a top three would be what he would need, but really after the awful

season he has had the seventh place is probably a, a huge, huge relief for him. And now he can only

focus on left hand turns for the rest of the season. Anywho, let's go ahead and head track

side to Sonoma where we are joined by front stretch.com associates Danny and Thomas,

where they will be giving their thoughts on today's race. Boys, take it away.

What? Maybe it was just as simple as SVG. Shane Van Gisburgen, after starting outside the top five

and you think of, Oh my God, is it over? Is it finally going to happen? Nope. Not even close.

Not even close. Once Shane Van Gisburgen got the lead, he never relinquished it,

flipped the first stage, got the track position, never really never lost the lead within the sense

of having a being of consequence and went out and dominated for a second straight to save

Mark 350 win. That's Danny Peters. I'm Thomas Dunn and Danny, I mean, it's just more the same

from Shane Van Gisburgen. Not only does he execute on the high level, but track house

racing is number 97 team. They execute on a high level on these pit stops and ultimately when

they need it, even though Shane said it wasn't necessarily a good card that they brought to

the table today. Yeah. I mean, I think we normally say it's as easy as 123 but maybe it's

as easy as SVG here at Sonoma Raceway, two wins in a row for Shane on the weekend. And yeah,

I mean, they execute flawlessly, as you said. But it was an interesting day, I thought, because

it wasn't the dominant performance that perhaps we've seen in the past with Chase Briscoe giving

him something to think about at the end. And you spoke to Chase Briscoe on pit road afterwards.

Well, Michael Jordan is an owner in the NASCAR Cup series, but apparently he was

reincarnated to Shane Van Gisburgen, according to Chase Briscoe. It said, it felt like you were

playing Michael Jordan one-on-one when you're trying to joust against SVG here on a road course.

And I certainly get why you think of what he did last year in 2025 to make the playoffs. It was

absolutely punning down the field at all these road courses last year. And it's kind of executed

to a similar degree so far in certain respects. And I didn't get the result. He wanted that

naval-based Coronado, but backed up what he did last year at Sonoma with pure domination and today

executed what he needed to. But I will co-sign how impressed I am with Chase Briscoe, because

back in his days with Stewart Haas Racing, he was not a good road course racer. He wasn't in

the then Xfinity series, but in the Cup car, it was hit and miss. And Chase Briscoe today

ran down SVG on that last run, had a chance to get him. I thought he would get him for a quick

second with about two or three laps to go, then kind of lost the nose going into turn one,

had a chance on the final lap, couldn't get to his rear bumper, but I thought more than anything

had an admirable drive and admirable effort. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, a great day for Chase,

you know, another strong day. And I think SVG said in the press conference after this, and

correct me if I'm wrong, that maybe a couple more laps and Chase would have got him. And

I think SVG was nervous in those final laps. He said he was going to be, he was blanking his pants

seeing Chase Briscoe come down and almost had a chance to go win it there in the number 19 car

for Joe Gibbs racing. So I mean, when you think of his development overall, I mean, I talked to

James Small in the garage after, and he was also impressed just the way Briscoe continued,

continuously got better, continuously saved the tires more than anything. It was a high tire

degradation race, lots of courting in the first stage of lots of teams and guys who eventually

dropped anchor as the runs went on because there were a lot of long green flag runs today. So

I was impressed with Chase Briscoe. I think the 19 team kind of similar to the 24 at Hendrick,

we were just kind of waiting for them to just kind of get in gear, kind of just show what we

know you can do. And I thought today was a really good day for Chase Briscoe in that regard.

One of his teammates similarly so, because for Bell, wearing a cast said, I'm not getting out of

this car. And all he does is come home with a lot of stage points and a top five. So I was

impressed with Bell's effort, his toughness. And he said, Adam Stevens called a great race. You

talked to Adam Stevens post race. What do you have to say? I mean, I think Adam, Adam was really

pleased with the day. I think they made the focus on stage points. Bell ended up with 50

points overall, the third most on the day. And that's crucial for him in his push for the playoffs.

And Adam Stevens made the point how difficult it is with a locked wrist to downshift as you're

going up the hill to get around this place. And, you know, he talked about his driver never

complaining, you know, Bell's not one to complain. But I think Adam was really, really proud with

the day that the C-Bell had and really a very good day for him after two really, really tough

weeks. And he should be proud. I get we know that Chris Rebell should be a championship contender

year and year out, but circumstances and context matter. And when you think of the way Chris Rebell

would have to be turned and left and right, when Steve LaTurre on the TNT broadcast mentioned that,

you know, some of those herky, jerky movements, if you get caught in like a stack up in turns seven

and how that could affect C-Bell. And I thought all things considered, that's exactly the type

performance he won amidst these types of circumstances. He mentioned that. And I think you saw the

cosine and like the relationship, at least for today, with how good Bell and Stevens kind of

played off one another. So JGR are kind of a think of it like Grand Theft Auto, like a plus

respect for both the 19 and 20 team. One guy who absolutely needed a day. And yes, he's very good

at road courses and could have done better. But he just needed this his first career top 10 for

Connor Zillich. It has been a trying time for the number 88 in trackhouse racing. Coming into

Sonoma, four of his last five races finished 37th or worse. Now imagine trying to digest that now,

well, not only at the team level, but also at the fan level. I mean, that is just tough.

And even as you're covering, you're like, you got to give him grace because he's a rookie in

progress as in linear, like I mentioned yesterday, but it's like, we know how good you can be. So

just go out and do it. But what do you make of Connor Zillich's day? I think it was a really crucial

weekend for him with the second place yesterday, the seventh place, seventh place today. Yeah,

seventh place today. Just a really important weekend. I mean, I think he's, we talked about it

yesterday on PRC, you know, he has been snake bit this year. Everything that has gone wrong

could have gone wrong has gone wrong for him. And I think he just needed a really solid finish.

And, you know, a seventh place for a road course ace is not necessarily a great deal to write home

about. But I think in the context of his season so far, and now where he where he goes, I think

this is this might be a day that he looks back on a weekend that he looks back on the say,

you know, my luck started to turn at Sonoma Raceway, beautiful Northern California wine country.

You know, another guy who may have potentially had his luck turn around and eliminating the

number one overall seed from the end season challenge, Alex Bowman. You talked to Bowman

briefly after the race and 48 team also kind of just in need of something good to happen. And

ultimately I would say did so. Yeah, absolutely. I think a good day for him. I think he was,

he was pleased with his effort and moves on in the end season tournament. And, you know,

while we're talking about the end season tournament, we do say that we do have to say that

Denny Hamlin knocked out the king that is Ty Dillon, you know, a shocking upset of a result,

Hamlin getting, getting past it, past Dylan. I'm joking, obviously. But, you know, I think there's

a lot, there's a lot of fun with the end season challenge. I think some of the drivers were,

were kind of making fun about it and playing often. And I think it's something that, you know,

as that end season challenge goes on in the next few weeks, we'll hear a little bit more about as

well. For the record, Denny Peters is never joking. But I think honestly, Ty Dillon had

Denny Hamlin beat. And the reason why he did was Denny Hamlin kind of got caught in one of those

turn seven kind of stack ups, so to speak. Brad Kizilowski gets into Carson Hosevar, who gets

into Denny Hamlin. Hamlin was not too pleased post-race, but he said, was pretty consistent

in saying, I just need to review what happened. He did not want to give a reaction to the media

on pit lane. And it was very abundantly clear with the way he was responding to that. But,

you know, it's not, it's not Hosevar's fault, but he just again happens to find himself in

these types of situations. And at some point you're, you're someone's going to react regardless

of fault or not, just because of circumstances. So I mean, that's Denny Hamlin somehow, some way,

thanks to Ty Dillon losing power steering, advances in the end season challenge.

Going to release the points, right? That is true because Tyler Redick finished last.

Not a good day for Tyler Redick. We mentioned power steering with the number 10 team.

Same thing for the 45 team. Early in stage two, just lost it and had to come down pit road,

sit there for several laps. And I, at least until today, I wasn't necessarily classifying

Redick as having like a swoon, so to speak. I thought it was just Hamlin being elite while

Redick was just being good or okay. But today it's where it's like, okay, now, now you have to

worry about the bottom falling out. I don't think we have to worry about the bottom falling out.

I think, you know, if you look at this body of work across the whole year, he's having a really

great season. It's just Hamlin has had, you know, a really great season as well. And I think, you

know, has maximized what could have been two really whole weekends for him. He's not a road

course racer. I mean, he would admit that himself. And I think he will be delighted to get out of here

and go to Chicago Land, a track that he knows he's run out before. I think a track that he will

expect to run well at next, next Sunday. And it'll be interesting to see this is the first

race at Chicago Land since 2019, a race won by Alex Bowman. There you go. So it'll be interesting,

I think, to see. But yeah, I mean, look, I think that that race will go right down to the wire.

You know, I really do. I think it will go right down to the last weeks. And, you know, Redick is

still by one point the second best driver in the series after what 18 races, 19 races. It's still

pretty good place to be. It's been a good year for Tyler Redick. So as we kind of look ahead and

close out here from Sonoma Raceway, Danny, just some final thoughts on overall this weekend and kind

of, you know, at least for us, this is our technical home race. So your overall thoughts here in one

country. I mean, I always love coming here. This is my 10th year, 9th or 10th year covering this

race. And, you know, I'm getting to walk around this track and take pictures. One thing I really

noticed is there's a great atmosphere amongst the fans. The fans, they all want to come up and talk

to you. They all want to ask you stuff. They just really enjoy being here. I think they're

knowledgeable fans who love to be here. I saw so many families, so many families with young

kids. And that's great because that's the next generation of fans coming through. It's like

a little baby Thomas Dunn once sat in the stands here at Sonoma Raceway. What about 20 minutes

ago? You're that young, right? But, you know, that's important to see. And it just, you know,

first class organization from the track team, from the team that we work with in the media,

said a great atmosphere. The weather wasn't too hot. It can sometimes be really hot here. And

I think it was a really good race weekend overall. How did you, sir? For the record,

Marty Smith yesterday did call me out for being born after the year 2000. So go watch that video

if you haven't already on the Front & Stretch YouTube channel. But, yeah, I mean, I've been

coming here my first race here with 2013. I was 11 years old and got to meet Michael Walterpoove,

my dad caddied for during the week in the lead-up to this tour. Actually, as I go to,

I think, technically, I'm something according to some sort of astronomy or whatever, whatever

they call it these days. But, yeah, I got to meet Michael Walterpoove. That's when Martin

Tricks Jr. had his first master class here at Sonoma. So I've been coming here now. This is my

seventh time overall here at the track and first for Front & Stretch and second overall in the

media space. And it's just, it's always cool to, you think, have a sport with southern roots that

you have a West Coast base. And you have fans, like you mentioned, that are loyal, that are

knowledgeable. I think a lot of the fans that come to Sonoma, they just have been coming here

for quite some time. And, you know, people don't necessarily equate the Bay Area as loving NASCAR,

but I think there's a healthy amount of fans who do come out here, even amidst some of the traffic

that you run into over getting into this track. And I obviously appreciate it. And I think

the garage appreciates it too, because a lot, at least half of them, spent the week out here

after Naval Base Coronado. And I think, look forward to this as kind of like a mini retarget.

How long the pit road is? Or the main pit road is?

I do remember that now. Yeah.

I do remember that. That was moons ago.

I do remember that.

Because we were joking about how Gil and Spunnet killed Kim Signing. But yeah.

Joey Logano. How did Joey Logano finish today? I didn't do too terrible in this thing.

Joey Logano was 24th versus Eric Jones. Eric Jones is going to be in the 30s, right?

No.

Have you seen, like, has anybody posted the brackets?

The finished brackets? I don't think so.

We do have the points, but not the brackets.

Not the brackets themselves.

Busher versus Neil. Busher had a terrible day today.

The points might also be a bit goofy, because Wettig had the fastest lap.

So they have to recalculate things, because lap calls can't get the fastest lap,

the next fastest lap gets it. So it's important because there's a one-point difference right now

in the points lead.

I lost C-bell versus Ross Chastain. I thought the wrist would be more of an impact on C-bell today.

He drove like he had no problems at all. So I lost that matchup.

Byron versus Stenhouse. I think I won that one.

Yep. Stenhouse is the 21st.

Larson versus Herbst. I kind of think I won that one.

Larson versus what?

Fourth, yeah.

Bankersburg and Blaney. Blaney and Barry, yeah.

Okay. So I didn't do too, too terrible. I feel like the ones I missed out on are probably the

fairly chalky picks.

House of Orbeez, Zane Smith. I picked Zane Smith.

Suarez versus Gilliland. I picked Suarez.

Okay. I'm sure like others did as well.

So yeah, yeah. And we did the four viewers that might not realize this.

The four drivers that were not in the tournament, who were full-time, obviously Kyle.

Yeah.

Zillich, Kusto, and Well, who, did you see everything with Well?

I did not. I saw on Twitter that he was really mad at Austin, Dylan, and Noah.

Well, yeah. So Noah said that he was,

that Well was beating the bad bumper off. We're not this bad. It's a joke.

SVG in the victory celebrations, I think, just for folder Well is like a sit box.

You know, where has had some decent road course runs throughout his day?

I mean, decent meaning like, you know, high attrition top 20. Today was not one of those days.

He's an ace in Le Mansu champion at LMP too. Like he should have an idea of what he's doing.

Yeah. Yeah. So, oh, Cody Ware. So anyway, as you can see, if you're watching this on YouTube,

I have Kyle Larson picked as my bracket winner, which is I think kind of a hot take.

They haven't had the speed this season, but I'm kind of hoping they hit their stride here in the

summer months. And now we're only focusing on left turns, like I said. So we will see what

happens with that. I know there's going to be some sort of punishment to the loser of the

worst bracket here at Fresh.com. So fingers crossed that that's not me. I'm not necessarily

sure. I don't think we've decided what that punishment is quite yet. So I'll just skip all

of my podcast. The week after Andy just yeah, I would just plain to say I've seen some some

potential ease of possibilities of what the punishment would be. And I don't want anything

to do with them. So hopefully my bracket comes through at the end and I'm not very last, but

we will see. Anywho, we're going to go ahead and wrap this baby up because like you said,

at the very beginning, you summed this race perfectly when you said it was a race. That's

what it was. It was Sonoma, SVG 1 from 6th. That's pretty much that.

And I will say too that just to close us out that the tournament just seemed way better this

year as far as like having it. If you're going to have 16 matchups in one race like they all,

it's way better here than having it at Atlanta. Well, yeah, like you could actually keep up with

it here. I do think there needs to be some kind of stakes for this tournament. What 16 seed?

You know what? Like you're not wrong. Like could you imagine how because we that's what

we would be talking about right now is Bowman, you know, he has Cendrit next week, he could be

in Cendrit. Like Bowman would have a pathway to the chase still. Right. It wouldn't. And I don't

even think I don't know if that would make people salty if that was the stake because it would be

multiple weeks and they would have to, it's a different hurdle every week. So I should mention

the proposal we're talking about is my proposal of the winners should be the 16 seed in the playoffs.

If they're not, if they do finish in the top 15 in the playoffs, they get an extra 10 points or

something. Yeah, something. Yeah. No, I agree. Because this does just seem like,

like it's cool that we have something to talk about. It's cool that, you know, we have something

for this mid-summer stretch. It just is nothing. I didn't even remember that,

that Ty Gibbs won the thing last year. I saw like a portion of like the pre-race show. They're like,

yeah, Ty Gibbs won this one. I was like, oh, no idea. Yeah. I mean, it would be way more,

you know, like, and the other thing is to, yeah, it's a gimmick, absolutely. But at the same point,

we have 16 people in the playoffs if you can't finish 16th. Right. But if you can't finish 15th

in the regular season, you shouldn't be in the playoffs anyway. And everybody that we've talked

to about the chase has said, you know, at least in the garage, they assume the top three or top four,

the only ones that have an actual chance at the championship. And everybody else is just kind of

yeah. So it doesn't matter anyway. Anywho, we will, I'll get, I know I lean on you as the

road course expert, but I will make sure to get you on at least one or two more times in these

left-hand turn times that we will be finding ourselves in for the rest of the season before

we wrap up. Good sir. Any plugs, anything you would like to mention before we close this show up?

I mean, we got Formula One. These were in the middle of the summer stretch. So,

you know, we have front stretch coverage of Formula One. We have my site at Grand Prix Focusses

Coverage on Blue Sky. That's really just about it. So as always, thank you. Thank you. Thank you

for joining. Next week, we are back with the return of Chicagoland. It will be a late episode

next week because it's a Sunday night race and we all know how great Sunday night races are.

It's also, oh yes, USA 250. Big weekend next weekend. Lord, I didn't even realize it was

functional last weekend. Yep. That's going to be a big weekend. I'm going to that's game. So,

ooh, it's going to be great. Then I'm going to get home because it's going to be 115 degrees.

Yeah. I'm supposed to go to a dirt track one day next weekend. I'm just not sure what day yet. So,

there is even a possibility there is a substitute host for the stock car scoop,

but that remains to be seen as of now. So anyway, once again, thank you all for tuning in.

Thank you to Mr. Michael Filney for joining us. Thank you for Danny and Thomas in the Sonoma.

And thank you to the fans for tuning in next week, Chicagoland. We'll see you then.

0:00

34:22

Shane Van Gisbergen

Sonoma Raceway

Chase Briscoe

stage break cautions

spec car

undercut

Connor Zilisch

cording

Christopher Bell

Chicagoland Speedway

About this episode

Original notes