THE LEFT TURN

NASCAR visits Pocono Raceway for a doubleheader this weekend

Double the fun this weekend! Photo via Wiki Commons.

The NASCAR Cup Series heads to the Tricky Triangle this week for a doubleheader. The rules of last season will apply to this season as well as there will be two races, one on Saturday afternoon and one on Sunday afternoon. Also the inversion rule will apply as well as the first place car on Saturday will swap places with the twentieth place car starting on the pole for Sunday's race. This will be the first time that Pocono has hosted fans since 2019, so it will certainly be a delight to have a full house back at the races.

Last week, Kyle Larson continued his hot streak by winning his third race in a row at Nashville. It seems like there is no one that can stop him as he has not only won but led the most laps in all three of his wins. He continues to send a message that he is the class of the field.

While Larson was in his own zip code, there were a few drivers that were not so lucky, some of those drivers being the Penske teammates of Brad Keselowski and Ryan Blaney. Overall while Blaney showed speed early, a brake issue put him in the wall ending his day. Keselowski on the other hand was just slow all throughout the day. While Joey Logano was able to salvage a decent tenth place finish, it was a forgettable day for the Penske Fords. It seems like they have been off the pace lately, while yes no one has had anything for Larson and the Hendrick cars, it seems like they are a step behind. While all three are locked into the playoffs, they will definitely need to pick up the pace.

The big headline this week was the addition of Kaulig Racing for 2022. Their current Xfinity drivers, Justin Haley and AJ Allmendinger will be promoted with Haley running full-time and Allmendinger running select races. This is certainly another great sign for the sport as it continues to grow. The team will purchase both their charters from Spire Motorsports. With this acquisition, newly formed Trackhouse racing will lose their charter and become an open team. Even though not much will change on the surface for this team, there will be a big discrepancy in revenue. Team owner Justin Marks stated that nothing will change next season and they will continue to run full time. It will be interesting to see how this all plays out over the course of the next few weeks.

As I mentioned earlier, Kyle Larson is in the midst of one of the most dominant stretches that we have seen in quite some time. He will be heavily favored this week, but he will have his work cut out for him if he wants to win four in a row as this track has been one where he hasn't had the best results. In his past three races here, he has finished outside of the top twenty twice. There is a silver lining though, in his last start here two seasons ago he was able to score a solid fifth place finish, and a runner-up finish one year earlier. Look for him to be in contention to win one if not both races this weekend.

The drivers that I have winning this weekend are Kevin Harvick and Kyle Busch. Both of these drivers have a winning pedigree here, as they both have a combined four victories. They also have the advantage of a good track position on Saturday, as they both start third and fifth. Both drivers have a lot of good momentum going into this week. Busch has been the only guy who can keep with Larson, and Harvick is coming off a top five last week. Look for both drivers to be fast this weekend.

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The Houston Texans approach to the offseason has caused quite a bit of controversy among Texans fans and media. Some really like what the team is doing in free agency, while others are underwhelmed.

But the argument that keeps getting thrown around is whether the Texans are ready to win this season, or if the team will have to suffer through another disappointing season. Most would agree the Texans roster has a number of holes, but how will that roster look after the NFL Draft and hopefully a new franchise QB is taking snaps for the team?

The great thing about the NFL is how fast teams can turn things around and start winning. When we looked at the teams coming off a bad season and drafting around the Texans in 2021, many of them showed a huge improvement the following season.

The Lions were 3-13-1 in 2021, last year? 9-8. The Jaguars went 3-14 in 2021. Last year they won the AFC South and notched a playoff win over the Chargers. Look at the New York Giants, they went 4-13 in 2021. They improved to 9-7-1 and also won a playoff game just one year later. And don't get us started on the Jets. They went 4-13 in 2021, improved to 7-10 with bad QB play, and now Aaron Rodgers wants to play there.

The point being, most of these teams hired new coaches in the last couple of years, added some talent through the draft and free agency and started winning. Why are Texans fans and media so convinced they're in for another season of losing? Why can't the Texans be the team that turns things around and competes for a division title? Especially if they land a franchise QB as expected.

The AFC South isn't a very tough division. In fact, the Texans beat the Jags, Colts, and Titans just this year. Shouldn't we expect them to take a step forward with better players and DeMeco Ryans leading the way?

Be sure to check out the video above as we break it all down!

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