THE LEFT TURN
NASCAR at Richmond: Federated Auto Parts 400 preview, picks
Aug 12, 2022, 2:41 pm
Martin Truex Jr. is a driver to watch for. Photo via: Wiki Commons
As the regular season winds down, the NASCAR Cup Series makes its second trip to Richmond Raceway for the Federated Auto Parts 400. The race for the final two playoff spots is getting closer and closer and with 15 different winners, it’s truly anyone's guess as to who will fill out these last two spots. This track is a wide short track with 14 degrees of banking in the corners and flat on the front stretch. Richmond is one of the more tame short tracks on the schedule; we are accustomed to seeing lots of green-flag runs. The last race here, saw most of the action come after the restarts as we watched Denny Hamlin slice through the field to score his first victory of 2022. With the stakes being much higher, we should see drivers be more aggressive. Don’t be surprised if there is a bump and run at the end of the race.
Last week at Michigan, Kevin Harvick got back into the race for the championship after scoring his first win since 2020. It had been a difficult year and a half for the 2014 champion, his average finish has been way down under 10 and while he’s had good runs, the dominance we are used to seeing from him hasn’t been there. The biggest slight on Harvick’s record was in the win column. Because of this, Harvick entered the weekend outside the playoffs. The team was also coming off a DNF at Indianapolis. The chances of contending for the championship were bleak, some were even wondering if he’d continue racing after the season. But now it seems he and his crew chief Rodney Childers are completely rejuvenated going into the playoffs. They aren’t out of the woods yet as there is still a real possibility of more than 16 winners, but with Kurt Busch running into his struggles, it’s unlikely that Harvick will be the lowest point winner.
The troubles continue for Kurt Busch as it was announced that he would be out again this week at Richmond. Busch has missed this third consecutive race in a row, leading many to believe that he might not return this season. This would be a shame considering Kurt has advanced to the playoffs with a win. Fortunately, If he has to miss a race in the opening round, he will still be granted a waiver if he’s to win one of the next two races to advance. In the meantime, Ty Gibbs will continue to fill in. He’s been doing a great job at holding down the fort these past couple of weeks, with a top ten last week at Michigan. He appears to be ready to move up to the Cup in 2023.
Because of Ty Gibbs’s improvements, the rumors and speculation continue to run rampant as to who will drive the #18 car next season for Joe Gibbs racing. It appears that Kyle Busch and Joe Gibbs have reached a halt on their contract talks. According to the popular racing podcast, Door, Bumper, Clear, talks between the two-time champion and the team have completely stopped. It’s been implied by various insiders that his expected landing spot next season will be at Stewart-Haas racing.
The driver that I have winning this weekend is Busch's teammate Martin Truex Jr. I picked him to win last week at Michigan, and he definitely had a car that was capable of winning, but not quite as fast as Kevin Harvick or Bubba Wallace. Fortunately, this weekend at Richmond is probably his best racetrack. In the last four races, no one has a better finishing average than him (2.3). He’s won three of the last six races here and has led over 24 percent of the laps among all active drivers. It’s clear that he needs a clutch performance to move into the playoffs, as he’s now the first car below the cutline despite being fourth in points. This week, I think he’ll punch his ticket and contend for the title in the playoffs.
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There was a conversation Cleveland guard Donovan Mitchell had during training camp, the topic being all the teams that were generating the most preseason buzz in the Eastern Conference. Boston was coming off an NBA championship. New York got Karl-Anthony Towns. Philadelphia added Paul George.
The Cavs? Not a big topic in early October. And Mitchell fully understood why.
“What have we done?” Mitchell asked. “They don't talk about us. That's fine. We'll just hold ourselves to our standard.”
That approach seems to be working.
For the first time in 36 seasons — yes, even before the LeBron James eras in Cleveland — the Cavaliers are atop the NBA at the 25-game mark. They're 21-4, having come back to earth a bit following a 15-0 start but still better than anyone in the league at this point.
“We've kept our standards pretty high,” Cavaliers coach Kenny Atkinson said. “And we keep it going.”
The Cavs are just one of the surprise stories that have emerged as the season nears the one-third-done mark. Orlando — the only team still unbeaten at home — is off to its best start in 16 years at 17-9 and having done most of that without All-Star forward Paolo Banchero. And Houston is 16-8, behind only the Cavs, Boston, Oklahoma City and Memphis so far in the race for the league's best record.
Cleveland was a playoff team a year ago, as was Orlando. And the Rockets planted seeds for improvement last year as well; an 11-game winning streak late in the season fueled a push where they finished 41-41 in a major step forward after a few years of rebuilding.
“We kind of set that foundation last year to compete with everybody,” Rockets coach Ime Udoka said. “Obviously, we had some ups and downs with winning and losing streaks at times, but to finish the season the way we did, getting to .500, 11-game winning streak and some close losses against high-level playoff teams, I think we kind of proved that to ourselves last year that that's who we're going to be.”
A sign of the respect the Rockets are getting: Oddsmakers at BetMGM Scorebook have made them a favorite in 17 of 24 games so far this season, after favoring them only 30 times in 82 games last season.
“Based on coaches, players, GMs, people that we all know what they're saying, it seems like everybody else is taking notice as well,” Udoka said.
They're taking notice of Orlando as well. The Magic lost their best player and haven't skipped a beat.
Banchero's injury after five games figured to doom Orlando for a while, and the Magic went 0-4 immediately after he tore his oblique. Entering Tuesday, they're 14-3 since — and now have to regroup yet again. Franz Wagner stepped into the best-player-on-team role when Banchero got hurt, and now Wagner is going to miss several weeks with the exact same injury.
Ask Magic coach Jamahl Mosley how the team has persevered, and he'll quickly credit everyone but himself. Around the league, it's Mosley getting a ton of the credit — and rightly so — for what Orlando is doing.
“I think that has to do a lot with Mose. ... I have known him a long time,” Phoenix guard Bradley Beal said. “A huge fan of his and what he is doing. It is a testament to him and the way they’ve built this team.”
The Magic know better than most how good Cleveland is, and vice versa. The teams went seven games in an Eastern Conference first-round series last spring, the Cavs winning the finale at home to advance to Round 2.
Atkinson was brought in by Cleveland to try and turn good into great. The job isn't anywhere near finished — nobody is raising any banners for “best record after 25 games” — but Atkinson realized fairly early that this Cavs team has serious potential.
“We’re so caught up in like the process of improve, improve, improve each game, improve each practice," Atkinson said. “That’s kind of my philosophy. But then you hit 10-0, and obviously the media starts talking and all that, and you’re like, ‘Man, this could be something special brewing here.’”