Atlanta Recap: Denny Hamlin finished fourth in Sunday’s 500-mile Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race at Atlanta Motor Speedway, claiming his second top-five of the season in the #11 FedEx Ground Toyota as a result of a calculated pit strategy championed by Crew Chief Mike Wheeler. The top-five competitors visited pit road on lap 213 for their first green-flag pit stops of Stage 3, while Hamlin stayed out and assumed the race lead.
Stenhouse has five-career Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series (MENCS) starts at Las Vegas with an average starting position of 17.8 and average finishing position of 23.8.
Paul Menard, driver of the No. 21 Motorcraft Ford Fusion, talks about the upcoming Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race this weekend at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. The Wood Brothers Racing driver currently sits ninth in MENSC Driver Points heading into the three-race West Coast swing.
Trevor Bayne will make his eighth career Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series (MENCS) start at Las Vegas Motor Speedway this weekend. In seven previous starts at the 1.5-mile oval, Bayne has recorded one top-10 finish, a ninth-place result in 2012.
Ryan Reed has four starts at Las Vegas Motor Speedway (LVMS) in the NASCAR Xfinity Series (NXS), finishing 15th in both 2014 and 2015, 13th in 2016 and his best finish of ninth came in 2017.
After a 20th-place finish at Atlanta Motor Speedway, Coughlin is tied for 13th in the NCWTS driver point standings, 61 points behind GMS Racing teammate Johnny Sauter.
Ford heads into NASCAR’s western swing on a high note after Kevin Harvick’s two wins last weekend, highlighted by Sunday’s dominating performance in which he led 181-of-325 laps. As all three series prepare to race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Ford Performance looks at how its teams have fared at the 1.5-mile track.
COMPARING ATLANTA MOTOR SPEEDWAY TO LAS VEGAS MOTOR SPEEDWAY: "Heading to Las Vegas Motor Speedway this weekend, there are some things we can take from Atlanta Motor Speedway and some things we can't," Allmendinger said. "If you go to Atlanta and your car has speed in it, you kind of feel like you’re going to go to Las Vegas (another 1.5-mile track) and have speed in it there as well. The setup is a bit different for sure. Our teammate ran the test at Las Vegas in January, and we got some good notes from that in terms of how this new Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 will handle once we race there. We’ll definitely use the test notes more than we’ll use the Atlanta notes going to Vegas."
DGR-CROSLEY announced today the addition of Justin Marks to the team's NASCAR Camping World Truck Series program. Marks, coming off a 12th-place finish in the Daytona 500, will get behind the wheel of the No. 54 Crosley Toyota Tundra this weekend at Las Vegas (Nev.) Motor Speedway.
Ryan Preece, driver of the No. 60 RFK Racing Ford Mustang Dark Horse, is currently in a battle to qualify for the NASCAR Cup Series Chase, which will begin at Darlington Raceway on Sept. 6.
It was just three years ago that one of the sport’s most iconic venues, North Wilkesboro Speedway, was revived to welcome NASCAR back to its hallowed grounds.
