STEWART-HAAS RACING
Straight Talk Wireless 400
Date: Oct. 27, 2024
Event: Straight Talk Wireless 400 (Round 34 of 36)
Series: NASCAR Cup Series
Location: Homestead-Miami Speedway (1.5-mile oval)
Format: 267 laps, broken into three stages (80 laps/85 laps/102 laps)
Race Winner: Tyler Reddick of 23XI Racing (Toyota)
Stage 1 Winner: Tyler Reddick of 23XI Racing (Toyota)
Stage 2 Winner: Denny Hamlin of Joe Gibbs Racing (Toyota)
SHR Finish:
● Ryan Preece (Started 35th, Finished 10th / Running, completed 267 of 267 laps)
● Josh Berry (Started 12th, Finished 11th / Running, completed 267 of 267 laps)
● Chase Briscoe (Started 13th, Finished 12th / Running, completed 267 of 267 laps)
● Noah Gragson (Started 16th, Finished 19th / Running, completed 267 of 267 laps)
SHR Points:
● Chase Briscoe (15th with 2,146 points)
● Noah Gragson (25th with 559 points)
● Ryan Preece (26th with 552 points)
● Josh Berry (27th with 545 points)
SHR Notes:
● Preece earned his fifth top-10 of the season and his first top-10 in six career NASCAR Cup Series start at Homestead.
● This was Preece’s third straight finish among the top-25. He finished 25th Oct. 13 at the Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway Roval and 22nd last Sunday at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
● Preece’s 10th-place finish bettered his previous best result at Homestead – 13th, earned last year.
● Preece finished ninth in Stage 2 to earn two bonus points.
● Berry earned his 10th top-15 of the season and it came in his first career NASCAR Cup Series start at Homestead.
● This was Berry’s third straight finish among the top-25. He finished 22nd at the Roval and 24th at Las Vegas.
● Briscoe earned his 15th top-15 of the season and his first top-15 in four career NASCAR Cup Series starts at Homestead.
● Briscoe’s 12th-place result bettered his previous best finish at Homestead – 17th, earned last year.
● Gragson earned his 21st top-20 of the season and his first top-20 in two career NASCAR Cup Series starts at Homestead.
● This was Gragson’s second straight top-20. He finished 18th at Las Vegas.
● Gragson’s 19th-place result bettered his previous best finish at Homestead – 25th, earned in 2022.
Race Notes:
● Tyler Reddick won the Straight Talk Wireless 400 to score his eighth career NASCAR Cup Series victory, his third of the season and his first at Homestead. His margin of victory over second-place Ryan Blaney was .241 of a second.
● There were six caution periods for a total of 30 laps.
● All but five of the 38 drivers in the race finished on the lead lap.
● This was the second race in the semifinal Round of 8 of the NASCAR Playoffs. Reddick secured his spot in the Championship 4 via his win and joined last week’s winner, Joey Logano. Christopher Bell and William Byron are the other two drivers above the top-four cutline while Kyle Larson, Denny Hamlin, Blaney and Chase Elliott are currently below the cutline with one race remaining before the final, winner-take-all Championship 4 Nov. 10 at Phoenix Raceway.
Sound Bites:
“We had a good car and got a top-10 out of it. That one bad restart in the final stage kind of messed things up for us, but we had a top-10 car and we finished where we should have. Just had to fight for it.” – Ryan Preece, driver of the No. 41 Bonanza Cabernet Ford Mustang Dark Horse
“It was fun. I thought we did really well on the restarts. Just didn’t quite have the long-run speed early in the race to allow us to hang up there. But, all in all, it was a fun day and everybody at Stewart-Haas brought some good cars, so it was a lot of fun racing with all of us up there.” – Josh Berry, driver of the No. 4 Panini Color Blast Ford Mustang Dark Horse
“This car was decent from a speed standpoint. Definitely not good enough to win, to be honest, just not very good on the short run. We were just horrendous on the short run. I could never get it to turn. It would take us 35 laps to get the car where it needed to be. And on the long run, we were really good. We just gave up 10 seconds on the short run and could never get it back.” – Chase Briscoe, driver of the No. 14 Zep Ford Mustang Dark Horse
Next Up:
The next event on the NASCAR Cup Series schedule is the XFINITY 500 on Sunday, Nov. 3 at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway. The penultimate race in the 10-race NASCAR Playoffs starts at 2 p.m. EST with live coverage provided by NBC and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
