Denny Hamlin will lead the field to the green flag in today’s Cup race Nashville Superspeedway (3:30 p.m. ET on NBC).
Here are three things to watch in today’s race:
1. Is Denny Hamlin vs. Kyle Larson a rivalry?
Denny Hamlin and Kyle Larson have had their share of duels and contact on the track. Last week, both crew chief Cliff Daniels and spotter Tyler Monn talked to Larson on the radio about not letting Hamlin take advantage of him on the track. Larson responded to his spotter with a terse reply.
Hamlin was asked Saturday at Nashville why he has said he doesn’t view his duels with Larson as a rivalry.
“I just think there’s different ones, for sure,” Hamlin said. “I think that there’s rivalries that come from drivers that probably don’t respect each others and certainly they have a lot of speed but they don’t like each other. They deliberately run into each other.
“I don’t think anyone’s deliberately running into each other (between Hamlin and Larson). Although it does happen. I’ve certainly had my mistakes and he’s been on the bad end of those. But it comes from competition and wanting to beat him. He’s one of the guys that, it’s hard not to say the best, of our sport.
“I challenge myself more when I race with him and it happens often, it does happen towards the front more often than not. We know each other’s driving style, and we do things around each other that combat passing each other. And that usually means those tight quarters positions.
“The easy answer is if you’re faster than him, just go pass him. It’s just not that easy in the Next Gen car. If you really want to hold someone back, you can. It seems like we’re doing that to each other because it’s so hard to pass the other back, and we understand track position means everything.
“You know, when we try to pull a slider, the other person is going to drive in there deeper and make sure you don’t have the room to clear. It’s just the technique that’s used in dirt all the time, when they go up there and slide and force the car to lift. And if they don’t lift, they make contact. And that’s just something that’s evolved in Cup Series racing the past few years, really in the Next Gen era. It’s just two guys that don’t want to let the other past.”
2. A new winner?
There have been 10 different winners this season. That leaves six playoff spots via points at this time.
Last year, Ross Chastain won this race for his first of two vicariates that season.
Josh Berry starts next to Denny Hamlin on the front row and needs a win to make the playoffs. No Stewart-Haas Racing car is in a playoff spot entering today’s race.
“We’ve led laps at Iowa,” Berry said. “We were in contention on a late restart obviously at New Hampshire. I’m not saying that I feel like we’re expected to or should win, but I think we can.
“I think our cars are getting competitive enough. It might take the right sequence of events, I guess, but we keep finding ourselves in this position, sooner or later something is gonna happen.”
Among others who have yet to win this year are: Ty Gibbs (starting eighth), Chris Buescher (ninth), Austin Dillon (11th), Alex Bowman (12th), Michael McDowell (14th), Carson Hocevar (15th), Noah Gragson (16th) and Martin Truex Jr. (17th), Chase Briscoe (19th) and Chastain (20th).
3. Needing a bounce back
William Byron is among the drivers with a series-high three wins this year but has finished better than 15th only once in the last four races.
He starts seventh today and is looking to turn things around.
“I just look at the results as a bit frustrating because we’ve been all over the board,” Byron said Saturday at Nashville. “But Iowa (two weeks ago) was a really good race for us, finishing second. I feel like we just have to be able to show up week in and week out and put together those consistent weekends; communication-wise, effort-wise and limit the mistakes and just see where we are.
“We’re trying to climb the points ladder. That’s important this time of year. Try to get as many bonus points as we can for the playoffs because there is kind of that seeding through the regular season standings. So I just feel like if we can get that stage win, race win or advance up the ladder in the points, that’s really what the goals are right now.”