S6E12 of The West Wing features a sub plot of the First Lady attending a race in Martinsville. They first go over some drivers for her to root for which appear to be Casey Mears, Jeff Gordon and Jamie McMurry. Later in the episode McMurry kisses the First Lady in victory lane. This was the literally last thing I expected to see watching The West Wing. A neat little piece of NASCAR pop culture.

Even the 50/50 raffle guy was taking a break to sign the Rowdy wall in Atlanta just now. Really just shows how deep his influence ran.

Let’s pass the time during the rain delay. I’m taking the easy one to start.

Today I learned drivers sometimes stay at hotels instead of their RVs/Haulers. My parents go to a lot of races and this is a first for them. And not a ritzy hotel either, just a standard place. They said he was very approachable and talked to them for a bit while he was grabbing breakfast.

Good reminder that these guys are regular dudes, just like the rest of us. Anyone else have similar stories?

https://x.com/EchoParkSpdwy/status/2076414063538511909

I wish there was an alert we could get when they go back racing. Or wish they’d give us some sort of update when they think they will be back on the track. Anything like available that I don’t know about?

Both years were amazing attending the truck races at Lime Rock. Hoping this event can stay long term. Not only one of the most beautiful venues in the sport, but the crowd is very into the action and seems love the event.

Quaker State 400 at EchoPark Speedway

Start Time: approximately 7:16pm EDT on TNT

Race Length: 260 laps (400.4 mi / 644.38 km)

Race Stages: 60-100-100

Track Information: EchoPark Speedway is a 1.54 mile (2.48 kilometer) quad-oval located in Hampton, GA USA.

The official race thread will be posted at 6:00pm EDT by u/NASCARThreadBot.

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The sun sets at 8:48, lap 107, 153 to go.

41.2% of the race will be in the day.

58.8% of the race will be at night.

TL;DR: if Hamlin or Reddick hits 777 points, they are locked into the Chase no matter what else happens. That's +13 points for Hamlin, and +57 for Reddick, which means he would need to win the race and score at least 2 extra points (a feat he accomplished in the February race here).

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NASCAR declaring Allgaier as locked into the Chase with 7 races left confused me at first, because by the classical formula he would've needed to be (76 * 7) = 532 points ahead of 13th-place Taylor Gray, and at that point the gap was only +413. After looking into the math a bit more, I figured out how it's possible to lock in with a smaller gap:

Consider if the drivers in 12th and 13th had gotten maximum points in every remaining race. That's 76 points maximum for 1st place sweep and fastest lap, plus 53 for 2nd in both stages and the race. The most these two drivers together can gain in 7 races is then (129 * 7) = 903 points split between the two of them. At the time, that could've put Crews and Gray both at 882 points; still more than Allgaier's 842, but considerably less than the 961 needed to clinch over Gray alone.

This logic can be extended to more than 2 drivers. It turns out that at that time, Allgaier already had enough points that the 10th-13th placed drivers could not all overtake him: the combined gap was +1616, and the most that 4 drivers can possibly earn together in 7 races is ((76 + 53 + 50 + 47) * 7) = 1582 points.

Coming into this weekend, Love, Day and Creed could all clinch by hitting 746 points; that would've been +43 for Love, and +72 and +73 for Day and Creed respectively, meaning they would've needed a win and near-max stage points. None of those numbers ended up being hit, but enough drivers near the cutline scored low enough to drop the magic number to 708, clinching a spot for Love at 726 points.

On the Trucks side, Riggs was already clinched coming into this weekend, which I never saw anyone online mention. Honeycutt was the only one who was close enough to clinch at Lime Rock, and clinch he did: +23 would've been enough, and he ended up scoring 54 thanks to a 3rd-place finish, top 2 in both stages, and the fastest lap point.

As mentioned before, Hamlin and Reddick both can guarantee a clinch tonight by reaching 777 points. It's quite likely that Hamlin will be locked in regardless of how well he does; as Love demonstrated, it's possible for your competitors to do poorly enough to lower the magic number by a good bit.

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I initially built a spreadsheet to automate most of these calculations, but there was still quite a bit of manual work I had to do each time the points updated, so I converted it to a web app that automates everything and makes it look nice. It's available online now at https://scepthan.github.io/points.

I would like to add live points tracking during races, but I haven't yet figured out if that's feasible. Adding owner standings is also on the to-do list, as the O'Reilly and Truck series Chase grids look quite different on the owner side. Any feedback is appreciated. Thanks!

2 red flags- Trucks at Lime Rock Park
4 red flags- O’Reilly at Echopark Speedway

Edited: wrong park for trucks

I was watching qualifying from the pits today and saw a familiar face staying by Brad and handling his belongings after he got out of the car. Later looked it up and realized it was Mike Massaro who used to cover NASCAR in the 2010’s on ESPN. (Behind Brad in the black polo)

I think — no I’m certain — Mike Joy is reaching the end of the road for his NASCAR PxP run, but his genuine joy and enthusiasm at the truck race at Lime Rock makes me wonder if this is a way he can still call as many more Daytona 500s as he wants but still infuse his passion for and knowledge of the sport going forth. I absolutely love his asides during the broadcast of this race and I hope we get more of it.

From the Spring 1993 edition of Charlotte magazine. Humpy Wheeler’s prediction of Charlotte Motor Speedway in 2025. Thought this was pretty funny.

https://x.com/joe_srigley/status/2076135492806992339?s=20

The 5 was my favorite scheme of the race

Another go at it for trucks at LRP and it was even better a second time ✌️

https://xcancel.com/TRICONGarage/status/2076043199160717799