Top 5, Richmond: Maybe the track isnt so bad, blaming Ross Chastain and an appeals panel overhaul

Five thoughts after this weekend’s NASCAR race at Richmond Raceway …

1. Big Takeaway

So … maybe the racetracks aren’t the problem.

Here at the Top 5, we’ve been pretty harsh on Richmond and Texas Motor Speedway in recent years. After all, they have consistently been two of the worst tracks for NASCAR racing.

But then Sunday showed us why blaming the tracks themselves may at times be a mistake.

Without changing a thing about the track itself, Richmond had one of its better races in years on Sunday. The race saw its most green-flag passes since the inception of loop data in 2005, had the most lead changes since 2016 and the most cautions since 2017.

What happened? Well, the tire was the same one as last year. The surface didn’t suddenly age more in a matter of months. And the Next Gen already ran twice at Richmond before Sunday. So it seems the bulk of the credit for an improved race goes to NASCAR’s revised short track/road course package — the one with the tiny spoiler that makes less downforce.

It still wasn’t the “Action Track” of old, but Richmond was much better this time around and served as a reminder why the track itself shouldn’t shoulder all the criticism for a bad race.

The same can apparently be said for Texas, which on Sunday hosted one of the best IndyCar races in years. It was a truly exceptional race, a thrillfest of breathtaking action and compelling wheel-to-wheel racing that seemed on the verge of disaster at any moment.

As IndyCar president Jay Frye noted, there were more than 1,000 on-track passes in the Texas race — or 600 more than the 2022 race had. And the race’s 26 lead changes were the most at Texas since 2001.

Why was it so much better than previous years? We still think Texas screwed up its reconfiguration, but the traction compound left over from NASCAR’s PJ1 experiment apparently has started to fade and IndyCar’s tweaks to the aero package (by adding more downforce) seemed to create the perfect balance of epic racing.

Of course, as NBC’s Nate Ryan noted in a column, that doesn’t mean NASCAR will have a good show at Texas this fall. And if not, the track could be in line for another reconfiguration — which would then ruin IndyCar’s best track.

But you can at least see the track’s potential when IndyCar is able to produce such a good race, and that brings us back to the original point.

This all might sound obvious, but we need to put it in writing to remind ourselves: Bad races don’t necessarily indicate a bad racetrack. The cars, rules packages, tires and drivers themselves also have a lot to do with the entertainment value of a race, even if that’s easy to overlook at times.

GO DEEPER

Hendrick Motorsports just can't lose right now, on the track or off

2. Main Character: Kyle Larson

It wasn’t all that long ago when the entire racing world seemed to revolve around Kyle Larson, the generational talent who could win in any type of car — and often did.

But then the Next Gen car arrived, with its same-for-everybody parts and parity-inducing model. For a driver like Larson, it suddenly became harder to dominate.

During last year’s chaotic season with a record-tying amount of different winners, Larson saw his win total go from 10 to three. His laps led plummeted from a modern record (2,581) in 2021 to just 635, which ranked No. 6 in the series. His average finish dipped by five spots, and Larson made some very un-Larson-like mistakes along the way.

Racing is a confidence game, so even drivers like the 2021 Cup Series champion can use a refresher from time to time.

“I was flipping through old YouTube videos this week of my 2021 season so I could remind myself I used to be good,” Larson said after winning Richmond.

He’s half-kidding, of course. But there’s some truth in there, especially when Larson added he was curious to watch his postrace interviews from 2021 and get a sense of where his morale was compared to this season.

“Since we’ve gone to the Next Gen car, it’s hard to get your confidence up,” he said. “I just really wanted to look at old tape of myself and see where my mindset was and see my confidence.”

This season could have already had a far different look for Larson. At Las Vegas, he was cruising to the victory until a late caution came out; William Byron’s pit crew then had a better stop before overtime, and that was that. The next week at Phoenix, Larson led a race-high 201 laps and dominated — but ended up losing that race to Byron as well.

Had a couple cautions fallen differently, we could be talking about Larson as a three-time winner already this season. And if Larson had won either of those West Coast Swing races, he wouldn’t have needed a YouTube refresher on how good he is.

But now that Larson has won, there’s no reason to think he won’t continue to do so more often. It wasn’t like he was running poorly in the first place, and it’s clear Hendrick Motorsports has championship-caliber speed this season.

If you give a great driver like Larson a fast car and add some confidence? Watch out.

“I knew we were going to have many opportunities to win,” Larson said. “We were able to do that today, and I know we’re going to have more opportunities going forward.”

3. Question of the Week

What else can we blame Ross Chastain for?

Christopher Bell made a mistake and wrecked Byron on a restart at Richmond but then blamed Chastain afterward — despite Chastain making no contact with anyone. Bell called Chastain a “wrecking ball,” though he later backtracked on Twitter.

One week earlier, Chastain’s own teammate, Daniel Suarez, was furious for Chastain’s role in a spin at Circuit of the Americas — even though Chastain was two rows behind him and pretty much showing the same aggressiveness on restarts as half the field.

A week before that, Chastain was accused of wrecking Kevin Harvick at Atlanta — even though replays showed they never touched and it was the air that sent Harvick for a spin.

And the race prior to Atlanta? That was Phoenix, when Chastain got walled by Denny Hamlin in apparent retaliation for a pile of incidents last year (though he didn’t do anything in the Phoenix race itself).

Look, Chastain is far from innocent. His hard-nosed, physical style of racing is not well-received by competitors — and he is largely unapologetic about it. Given how Chastain races, there will certainly be times in the future when he crosses the line and deserves scrutiny for causing a crash.

But to keep pointing the finger at Chastain for every incident now is practically cliche, especially when other drivers do the same things that get Chastain criticized.

My 4-year-old daughter has recently taken to blaming a “bad guy” for every transgression, whether that’s making a complete mess of her room or dumping food in the car. Even if we witnessed her do it, she’ll immediately point and say, “A bad guy did that. It was a bad guy.”

She might as well just blame Chastain, since he’s already at fault for everything else.

“Hi. Not everything’s my fault.” (Jared C. Tilton / Getty Images)

4. Trash and Treasure

Trash: The appeals process in its current form.

The news released regarding the outcome of the Hendrick Motorsports penalty appeal decision said this:

“Upon hearing the testimony, the decisions of the National Motorsports Appeals Panel are:

1. That the Appellants violated the Rule(s) set forth in the Penalty Notice.”

In other words, the three-member appeals panel agreed Hendrick did what NASCAR accused the team of doing — illegally modifying a single-source supplier part. Without seeing the evidence and hearing the arguments, everyone would have to accept the decision either way.

But then there was another bullet point.

“2. That the Panel amends the original Penalty assessed by NASCAR …”

That was the moment the panel stripped away the only meaningful part of the penalty and restored the points and playoff points assessed to the Hendrick drivers. And that portion might and should trigger an overhaul of the entire process.

It would be one thing if the panel overturned the appeal entirely, throwing out the NASCAR ruling. Again, we’d just assume they were presented with evidence and made a ruling on it. Fine.

But to agree a team broke the rules and then tell NASCAR it can’t penalize a team in a significant way for doing so? That’s a huge miss by the panel.

The Athletic’s Jordan Bianchi spoke to crew chiefs and competition directors at Richmond, and it seems this decision by the panel could have wide-ranging implications in how the garage area does its business.

The direction of competition shouldn’t be dictated by an appeals panel; NASCAR should get to decide how to police its own series. While the appeals panel is great to have when teams view a NASCAR decision to be unfair, it shouldn’t have such power with the actual penalty outcomes.

Going forward, perhaps NASCAR can overhaul the appeals process to where the panel simply decides if a team broke the rules or not. If the rules were broken, then NASCAR’s listed penalties remain in place, untouched. If the team didn’t break the rules, then the whole thing is overturned.

Otherwise, we’ll continue to see situations like with Hendrick — which ended up with a completely different penalty than the teams found to have committed the same infractions last season.

Treasure: Limited sets of tires.

While unfortunate for Martin Truex Jr., it was refreshing to see teams manage tire strategy and have it actually play an outcome in the race. Truex had a chance to win Sunday’s race until a late caution, when everyone pitted for their last set of fresh tires — except for the No. 19 car, which had to put on a set of old, scuffed tires. Once the race went green, there was no chance Truex could hang on the restart, and he tumbled out of the top 10.

Tire strategy is a relatively easy tweak for NASCAR to make because it can decide to further limit how many sets teams can buy. It introduces another element into the racing without having to change any major rules.

At high-wear tracks (and there aren’t many left these days), such strategy can make the entire race compelling. The problem is at the tracks with newer pavement, Goodyear remains in a difficult box of making tires last without having them pop. Everyone wants to see tire wear, but not tire failures. So at most tracks, NASCAR still can’t limit the available sets of tires much further without fear of seeing wrecked cars.

But heck, at places like Richmond or Darlington? Give them even fewer sets. Make drivers show their skill by truly managing their stuff during a green-flag run. and force teams to gamble on when they think a caution will come out. Tire strategy is somewhat of a lost art these days, but it sure is enjoyable when we see it.

5. Five at No. 5

• It’s extremely rare to see a fill-in driver contend for a victory, but Josh Berry did that on Sunday. Berry has taken time to get up to speed in the Next Gen car, but is far less experienced than his Hendrick teammates and shouldn’t be expected to run like Chase Elliott. And although his team used strategy to get Berry in position at Richmond, he still had to execute en route to posting a second-place finish. Those are the type of things a Cup Series driver does, and Berry’s short audition — which also includes a top-10 finish at Phoenix — is very respectable.

Said Larson: “He is a Cup Series-caliber driver. He has proven it just in the few races he has ran. He is very, very deserving of being in the Cup Series.”

• Speaking of drivers continuing to learn, rookie Ty Gibbs now has three straight top-10 finishes and an average finish of 16.9. Austin Cindric was Rookie of the Year last season with nine top-10s and a 16.3 average finish, and he had one of the better rookie seasons in recent years. So while Gibbs isn’t on pace to make the playoffs, he’s still having a very respectable season to this point. Perhaps even more important: Gibbs has no DNFs — one of only 10 Cup Series drivers who can make that claim after seven weeks. If he keeps finishing races and getting good results when he can, Gibbs can quietly lay a very nice foundation for his Cup career while continuing to improve outside of the spotlight.

• One week after his NASCAR broadcasting cameo at COTA, Guenther Steiner was back with Formula One at the Australian Grand Prix. While in Melbourne, he explained to F1 reporters (including our own Luke Smith) why it’s so difficult for F1 drivers to come over and post good results in NASCAR.

“The biggest difference is it’s a contact sport, NASCAR, and you never know when it’s coming,” Steiner said. “Obviously, the guys which do it on a weekly basis, they’ve got a lot of experience — and if you drive an F1 car, you’re not used to being pushed and shoved around.”

That certainly lines up with the postrace comments from Jenson Button and sports car racer Jordan Taylor, who elaborated on his NASCAR experience during an appearance on Conor Daly’s podcast.

• Conventional wisdom used to suggest the Truck Series had the best racing. Not anymore. These days, Truck Series races are some of the most cringe-worthy in terms of how the field races one another. Crashes seem inevitable and constant, and even Dale Earnhardt Jr. tweeted this week he no longer wanted to run a Truck race at Martinsville because “they run over each other like crazy.”

Can the Trucks even still be viewed as a good place for young drivers to learn? It’s interesting to see the cases of drivers like Hailie Deegan and Derek Kraus. In 51 career Truck starts, Deegan has only finished 13th or better eight times. But in her Xfinity Series debut last year — which remains her lone start in that series — she placed 13th. We saw something similar happen with Kraus this week; he made his Xfinity debut at Richmond and finished an impressive 10th, but only had a combined 11 top-10s during his last two Truck Series seasons. That’s a small sample size, but it’s concerning to see hot prospects fail to have success in Trucks but be able to show more talent in Xfinity. The style of racing would figure to play a big role in that.

• It’s my favorite time of the year: Bristol Dirt week. If for some reason you don’t hear from me during this amazing weekend of incredible racing, it’s not because I loathe the Bristol Dirt Race with every fiber of my being — no, not at all! It’s just because Ross Chastain came to my house and broke my TV, computer, cell phone and home internet. Don’t you hate when that happens?

(Photo: David Jensen / Getty Images)