Throughout the 2000s, Tony Stewart cultivated a reputation as one of the most naturally talented drivers in the world. He won three NASCAR titles, an IndyCar title, and a USAC triple crown over the course of his illustrious career, one that continues as the co-owner of both Stewart-Haas Racing and the all-star touring late model series SRX.

With so much of that success coming at the very height of NASCAR’s popularity, he made quite the name for himself. So much of a name, apparently, that he could build a house that checked every box he could possibly want.

That house, a 19,714 square foot estate in Columbus, Indiana, is now for sale. It is even more strange than you expect.

The central living area looks like an upscale outdoor warehouse store. Huge indoor stones, rustic wooden furniture, and a massive central chandelier made out of antlers are the highlights, but the room also features a massive fish tank for good measure.

Another cavernous room features a full bar and a few pieces of memorabilia from Stewart’s racing career. One of those pieces is an entire IndyCar, mounted sideways on a wall over a yard of bricks. Most are helmets, part of a collection of about 300, that has long since outgrown the elegant display cases built for them. Six rows of helmets are simply on display on the ground below the car.

The Zillow ad, which calls the house “the finest property ever offered for sale in the state of Indiana,” says the estate is named Hidden Hollow Ranch. In addition to the massive central house, it also features a 415-acre licensed hunting preserve, a nine-acre lake, a guest house, and a workshop.

All of this comes out to a list price of $30,000,000, or $29,500,000 more than the nearest house on Zillow. If you have a McLaren F1 worth of money to spend on a house and have been wanting to live on acreage an hour outside of Indianapolis your whole life, it’s the moment you’ve been waiting for.

Via Jalopnik.

From: Road & Track

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Kyle Larson put an authoritative stamp on one of the most remarkable seasons in NASCAR history Sunday, taking charge late in the championship finale to win the 2021 Cup Series championship at Phoenix Raceway.

Larson, who endured a career crisis last year when he was suspended by NASCAR for using a racial slur, closed the season with his 10th victory, becoming the first driver since seven-time champion Jimmie Johnson in 2007 to score double-digit wins in a season.

The championship is Larson’s first but likely won’t be his last. He was the series’ dominant driver during the season’s second half, winning races in August and September and three straight in October.

Larson beat Martin Truex Jr. to the finish by .398 of a second. Denny Hamlin was third, and defending series champion Chase Elliott, the other championship contender, finished fifth. Ryan Blaney was fourth.

The critical part of the race occurred with 30 laps to go when a caution flag wiped out Truex Jr.’s lead and sent the four championship contenders to pit road for the final time. Larson, in fourth place, trailed Truex by three seconds at that point, but his Hendrick Motorsports team turned in a fast pit stop to return him to the track first. Ultimately, that was the difference.

Larson kept the lead from the final green flag to the finish, leading 28 straight laps and outrunning Truex to win the race and the title.

On the cooldown lap, tears filled Larson’s eyes as he wrote the final chapter to a year few drivers have matched.

“Pit crew, this is all on you guys,” Larson said over the team radio. “You guys are the best.”

The No. 5 team’s final pit stop was timed as the team’s second-best of the season.

“I cannot believe it,” Larson said. “To win a championship is crazy. There were so many parts in this race when I did not think we were going to win. Without my pit crew on that last stop, I would not be standing here.”

In April 2020, there were questions whether Larson could ever return to NASCAR, much less contend for a championship. He uttered the N-word during an online racing event and was soon fired by team owner Chip Ganassi. NASCAR suspended him indefinitely. Sponsors ended relationships with Larson.

Larson, whose racing prowess extends across a wide spectrum of cars, returned to sprint-car racing, his first and continuing love, and began a long rehabilitation process off the track to win reinstatement from NASCAR Jan. 1 this year. Hendrick Motorsports team owner Rick Hendrick, convinced that Larson had turned the corner from his troubles in the spring, hired him to drive the No. 5 car for 2021.

Larson, a native of Elk Grove, Calif., won in March at Las Vegas and put together two streaks of three wins each as he became the series’ leading driver. He still had to fight through the playoffs, however, and beat the other three title contenders to the finish Sunday at Phoenix, a track where he had never won.

“We’ve always known he’s a wheelman,” Hendrick said after watching Larson win the team’s record 14th Cup title. “He worked so hard off the track. He deserves this. What a year.”

Larson, 29, described himself as “the luckiest human being on the planet. So many people were able to give me a second chance.”

Hamlin, frustrated again in his efforts to win a first Cup title, congratulated Larson and his team.

“Any time you can win 10 races in a year, you’re absolutely a deserving champion,” Hamlin said. “They did a great job on the last pit stop and got him out there, and it was just set sail after that.”

Hamlin, Elliott and Truex all pointed to the final pit stops as the big difference in the race. Asked about Larson’s ideal pit stall near the pit exit, Truex said, “In our case, it wasn’t a pit stall. We just had a slow stop.”

“Same for us,” Elliott said.

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A billion to one. Maybe a trillion to one. Or how about as Disney’s Buzz Lightyear is known for saying, “To infinity and beyond”!

Those types of odds would seemingly be appropriate to use as a benchmark when it comes to the last seven NASCAR Cup champions.

As NASCAR prepares this Sunday at Phoenix Raceway for its eighth consecutive season-ending championship under the elimination-style playoff system that went into effect in 2014, EVERY eventual Cup champ from 2014 through 2020 has had to do the same exact thing: win the season-ending race to also capture the Cup title as well.

That’s right: when Kevin Harvick (pictured above) won the championship in 2014, he had to win the final race of the season at Homestead-Miami Speedway. And that has been a routine that has continued every year since then, including Chase Elliott winning last year’s season finale at Phoenix to also earn his first career Cup championship.

NASCAR Cup Championship 4 Era

(Championship 4 race winners/season champion)

So, will we see what some are calling “eight for eight” on Sunday?

Or, finally, will those seemingly infinitesimal odds of the season champ must first win the season end game to also take the championship, finally come to an end?

Given the uncertainty with how every NASCAR race has the propensity of playing out, it’s uncannily befuddling how the top finishing Championship 4 driver in the first seven championship-deciding races has consistently avoided calamity, crashes, flat tires or even untimely mechanical failure to take both the race and championship top spot.

But the numbers are nonetheless the numbers.

Even more odd, the Cup Series is the only one of NASCAR’s three premier series that can boast such an odds oddity.

In the Xfinity Series, the season-ending race winner has taken the championship just four times in the seven-year history: Daniel Suarez (2016), Tyler Reddick (2018 and 2019) and Austin Cindric (2020).

It’s even more sparse in the Truck Series. The season-ending race winner took the championship just twice in that seven-year stretch: Brett Moffitt in 2018 and Sheldon Creed in 2020.

Yet the Cup Series is batting 1.000. The season-ending race winner has also wound up being the season champ each time: Kevin Harvick (2014), Kyle Busch (2015), Jimmie Johnson (2016), Martin Truex Jr. (2017), Joey Logano (2018), Kyle Busch (2019) and Chase Elliott (2020).

So, will that 7-for-7 streak stretch to 8-for-8 Sunday? Is it still a must-win situation, or will we finally see someone win the championship yet perhaps finish, say, fifth in the race?

Or maybe as low as 30th, perhaps, if there’s a big wreck and all four Championship 4 drivers take each other out? Will the championship ultimately be decided by the guy who slides forward the furthest on the track after impact with his other three title rivals?

What the Championship 4 Are Saying

Each of the 2021 Championship 4 drivers was asked if they feel Sunday at Phoenix will once again be a must-win situation in the race if they’re to also win the championship?

• Will KYLE LARSON need to win his series-high 10th win of the season to also claim his first career Cup championship? Heck, he doesn’t know. He initially disagreed with the must-win premise, then promptly reversed gears.

• Will defending Cup champ CHASE ELLIOTT, who won at Phoenix in last year’s championship-deciding race, make it two season-ending race wins and two season titles in a row?

* Will DENNY HAMLIN ultimately need to win the season finale and FINALLY take home his first career Cup crown as an encore?

* Or will MARTIN TRUEX JR. have to do the same thing he did in 2017: winning the final race to also win the resulting championship?

Now, how you win it is a whole other matter, indeed. What about wrecking a fellow Championship 4 contender—maybe even on the final lap of the race—so that you could win yourself?

Only Elliott and Hamlin dared to tread into that kind of deep water, so to speak.

Said Elliott: “I mean, I would prefer just to be fast enough where you’re not behind them in the first place.”

But Hamlin may have had the most thoughtful and poignant answer of all when asked whether he’d wreck a fellow contender if it meant the difference to win the championship.

“I certainly wouldn’t try to wreck them by any means,” Hamlin said. “Move someone out of the way, shove them up a lane, maybe. I don’t know. I feel like I’m just more of a purist than most.

“Again, that’s what fires me up so much about stuff like last week or even Indy. It’s like, Man, we didn’t even have a chance to, like, battle. Let’s go toe-to-toe, two drivers, battle for a race win.

“In today’s world people will just accept getting knocked out of the way. People accept it now. We used to show highlights of the bump-n-run with Rusty (Wallace) and Jeff Gordon. Now no one gives a (crap). It’s just part of normal everyday racing.

“The craft of actually being good at technique and passing and working someone over, that craft has kind of just gone away. It’s not for good or bad.”

Follow Autoweek contributor Jerry Bonkowski on Twitter @JerryBonkowski

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Martin Truex Jr. can be forgiven for possibly thinking the hard part is over.

Truex entered last Sunday’s final race in the NASCAR Cup Playoffs Round of 8 as if his car was teetering on a precipice. To reach the Championship 4 this week at Phoenix, he needed to win at Martinsville or advance through points from behind the cutline.

It was a close call. Truex finished fourth and took the fourth championship round spot by only three points over Kyle Busch, his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate.

“Last weekend at Martinsville, it’s a good example that we had a great day going (then) we get run into once or twice, and we’re out,” Truex said. “We go from a nice, smooth day where we’re plus five, six, seven, whatever (points), scoring good stage points, minding our own business, then we get pushed up into the marbles one time, and the next thing you know we’re out and in a bad spot. We’ve got damage, and we’re getting hit and we’ve got to pass cars.

“Somehow we ended up fourth. I mean, it’s racing. Things get crazy, and sometimes things happen you can’t control.”

Truex, 41, gets another chance to add a second Cup championship to his resume, an accomplishment that would make him only the second active driver (joining Kyle Busch) to win multiple titles. A title Sunday also would make Truex only the seventh driver in Cup history to win championships with more than one team. His 2017 title came with the now-defunct Furniture Row Racing team.

“Two (championships) would certainly be amazing,” Truex said. “We’ve been close. Couple heartbreaking years in ’18 and ’19 we’d like to make up for.”

Truex had a consistent 2021, but his best runs came in the first part of the season. He won two (Phoenix and Martinsville) of the first eight races then added a win at always-tough Darlington to claim victories in three of the first 12 races.

His fourth—and final—win came in the first round of the playoffs at Richmond, automatically advancing him to the next round. He raced well there, finishing fourth at Las Vegas and 12th at Talladega before a 29th at the Charlotte Roval—good enough to move into the Round of 8. A 25th-place finish at Texas in the next round led to his racing with negative numbers at Martinsville, but he finished with enough points to slide into the finale.

The only races Truex failed to finish this year were in Texas. He crashed at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin and also wrecked at Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth.

Truex hasn’t been a superstar at Phoenix, but he won there earlier this year and has 13 top-10 runs at the track.

“Winning here in the spring really makes us feel good about this weekend,” he said. “Hopefully, we can do what it takes, and hopefully we’ve got what it takes when we show up for practice.

“This one I feel a little bit better and a little bit more relaxed. I think the more you do this, the more relaxed you feel about it and the more you understand the situation and how to worry about what you can control and not the other outside noise.”

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Kyle Busch is in a bit of hot water and has been sentenced by NASCAR to a little time in sensitivity training.

According to a published report on NASCAR.com, Busch, a two-time Cup Series champion, “used a term that disparages those with intellectual disabilities’ when blasting rival driver Brad Kewslowski for a on-track incident on the final lap of Sunday’s Xfinity 500.

The same report said that Busch will be required to complete sensitivity training before the start of the 2022 season.

Busch has apologized on Twitter.

In one of my post-race interviews I used a word I should never use and I want to apologize for it.

Busch blasted Keselowski for actions during this past week’s Playoff race at Martinsville. Busch just missed qualifying, by eight points, for the Cup Series Championship 4.

“I raced Brad fantastic all day,” Busch was quoted by NASCAR.com. “I mean, I held him up more than any other driver out there the entire race. I was on the outside, my car was better on the outside today, and he couldn’t make it by me and he ran me relatively clean. Once he got enough alongside of me, he kind of washed out and moved me up a little bit, which is fine—I get it. Then coming to the checkered, just that dumb (expletive). That right there is going to make me race him differently, even though he had all the coins in the bucket the whole day, just emptied it out right there at the end.”

Busch was running second to Alex Bowman. Busch felt that Keselowski’s bump kept Busch from making a final push for the win. The win would have qualified Busch for the Championship 4.

RETWEET to congratulate @Alex_Bowman on his WIN at @MartinsvilleSwy! #NASCAR pic.twitter.com/qNd6DVbKpO

#NASCAR … Kyle Busch says of Brad Keselowski … “I should beat the 💩out of him” pic.twitter.com/aX2CiCkjkH

Busch was asked to grade his season after the heartache of Martinsville.

“Anytime you go into a season with Toyota, Joe Gibbs Racing, this 18, M&M’s team, myself, you expect to be Championship 4, in contention, eligible,” Busch said. “Anything other than that is a failure. Guess you get an F.”

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This is not the sort of first-win victory lane most drivers have in their dreams.

It was part of a crazy weekend in 1959 for Jarrett, who had won NASCAR’s Late Model Sportsman national championship in 1957 and 1958 and was looking to stake his claim in stock car racing’s top series with a victory. To make that jump, Jarrett realized he needed a top-flight car. “I knew I could do it if I could get in the right car,” Jarrett said.

The “right car” became available in the summer of 1959. Junior Johnson had scored a series of Cup wins in a 1957 Ford for car owner Paul Spaulding. Spaulding worked out a deal to build a new Dodge for Johnson, making the Ford suddenly available. But there was a problem. The sale price was $2,000.

“Dad didn’t have $20, much less $2,000,” said Glenn Jarrett, Ned’s son.

What Jarrett did have was confidence. With back-to-back races coming up on the first two days of August at Myrtle Beach (S.C.) Speedway and Charlotte Fairgrounds Speedway, he saw his opportunity. Jarrett bought the car on Saturday with a $2,000 check with the knowledge that the check wouldn’t hit his account until Monday.

“I didn’t have any money,” Jarrett said. “I figured I’d go to Myrtle Beach Saturday night and win that race and do the same thing the next afternoon at Charlotte. I knew winning both would earn about $2,000, and I could make up whatever difference there was by borrowing the money and get in to the bank by Monday to cover the check.”

And that’s exactly what happened. Jarrett won Saturday night at Myrtle Beach, finishing a lap ahead of Jim Paschal for his first Cup victory. He and crew chief Bud Allman worked overnight to refine the car for Sunday’s race at Charlotte. Jarrett, with relief driving from Junior Johnson and Joe Weatherly, won that race, with Paschal again finishing second.

Jarrett’s weekend winnings totaled about $1,800, and he was able to quickly borrow the rest to cover the check. It was a gamble that worked marvelously, a kind of business plan that unfolded perfectly. But the story is about much more than Jarrett’s bold venture.

It’s also about blood, and likely sweat and tears. But especially blood.

Because Jarrett bought his new car on race-day Saturday and he and Allman, a widely respected mechanic of the day, had to rush to coastal South Carolina for the night race, there wasn’t time to cover all the bases in preparing the car. Among the areas that wasn’t addressed was the steering wheel, which was stock equipment in those days. To make gripping the hard wheel over bumpy dirt tracks more comfortable, it was typical to put a ring of foam rubber around the wheel and then wrap it with electrical tape.

“Whoever had put the tape on wrapped it the wrong way,” Jarrett said. “When they cut it, it left edges of the tape sticking up, and it cut into my hand (he didn’t wear gloves) every time I turned the car. The track was rough, and I could feel it cutting the meat to the bone, and I could feel the blood coming out. But I had a job to do.”

Jarrett had raced Myrtle Beach in Sportsman cars, so he had a course of attack. “The track always got rough when they put those heavy cars on it,” he said. “I had to dodge the holes that would come in the track. I worked for a while to get a groove built. I ran higher than the other drivers. They were in the regular groove. I worked to build a groove higher on the track. It took about a hundred laps, and I got lapped while I was doing it, but when it got worked out I set sail, unlapped myself and then lapped the field.”

Jarrett concentrated so much on building his own groove – “an inch at a time,” as he put it – that he didn’t realize the extent to which his hands were being damaged. “I could sort of feel it,” he said, “but I didn’t realize they were as bad as they were.”

Jarrett toughed it out through 200 laps and took the first checkered flag of his Cup career. He stopped the car at the start-finish line for the trophy ceremony, which couldn’t proceed until someone wrapped a tourniquet around his hand to slow the blood flow.

“It wasn’t your typical victory lane,” Jarrett understated.

Jarrett and Allman left the track with their winning car and Jarrett’s first Cup trophy. Jarrett’s hand was still throbbing with pain and was bleeding. They stopped at a hospital in nearby Conway.

Common sense called for Jarrett to take time off for his wounds to heal. The emergency room doctor also called for that. But Jarrett had a check to cover.

“At the hospital, they wrapped it up and put antiseptic of some kind on it,” Jarrett said. “The doctor said I needed to let it heal, that I couldn’t drive for at least two weeks. I told him what the situation was and what I had to do and that I had to race—and win—on Sunday in Charlotte. He didn’t think that was too smart.”

They drove on to Jarrett’s Charlotte shop and worked on the car much of the night before heading to the fairgrounds track for the afternoon race.

Jarrett deemed himself ready to race, but just barely. “I was a total physical wreck,” he said. “But I was able to start the race even though I was still hurting.”

“I was a total physical wreck.”

Jarrett lasted about half of the race over the rough half-mile dirt track. He realized he couldn’t finish the race, so he pitted and turned the car over to driver Joe Weatherly, who was at the track but wasn’t competing. Weatherly drove the car for a while before Junior Johnson, whose car blew an engine, climbed in to finish the race in first place. Because he had won in the Ford repeatedly before it was sold to Jarrett, he was very familiar with the car and its particular strengths.

As the driver who started the race in the winning car, Jarrett got credit for the victory – and the first-place check.

“Neither Joe nor Junior would take any money for driving,” Jarrett said. “They knew I needed it. Word had gotten around that I had given a bad check.”

Before the weekend, Jarrett was broke and had no Cup wins. After the weekend, he had two Cup victories and was off to the races.

“I think it opened some doors, and I proved to myself that I could do it,” Jarrett said. “I was cocky enough to believe that I could do it. The car had proven that it could win races. It was a big step for me in getting in the right car at the right time.”

Jarrett went on to win the Cup championship in 1961 and 1965, scoring 50 race victories along the way. He retired in 1966 and later had a successful career in race broadcasting. He was elected to the NASCAR Hall of Fame as a member of the 2011 class.

The trophy Jarrett won on that remarkable night in Myrtle Beach remains on display in the recreation room at his North Carolina home, alongside other sports trophies won by his sons Dale and Glenn.

But Wait … There’s More

• Ned Jarrett won his first race car in a poker game.

• Jarrett owns the NASCAR record for largest margin of victory. He won the 1965 Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway by 14 laps. Buck Baker was a woeful second.

• Jarrett’s back was broken in a crash at Greenville-Pickens Speedway in South Carolina in 1965, his second championship season. Jarrett didn’t miss a race, but the injury was a health issue for the veteran driver for many years afterward.

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It’s been 14 years since anyone reached double-figures in Cup Series victories in a season. The most recent was seven-time champion Jimmie Johnson, who won 10 times for Hendrick Motorsports in 2007. With two more chances this year, Kyle Larson is poised to reach that figure.

Larson’s not-unexpected victory in Sunday afternoon’s Hollywood Casino 400 at Kansas Speedway was his ninth this year, his third consecutive (after Charlotte and Fort Worth), and 15th of his still-developing NASCAR career. He started on pole and led nine times for 130 of the 267 laps, including the final 39. He won by an unimaginably easy 3.62 seconds over Hendrick/Chevrolet teammate Chase Elliott, the defending series champion. Well behind those two were former champions Kevin Harvick in a Ford and Kurt Busch in another Chevrolet, then fifth-place Denny Hamlin in a Toyota.

Sunday marked the second time this year Larson and crew chief Cliff Daniels have cobbled together a three-race winning streak. The last time anyone did that twice in a season was 1987, when the late, seven-time champion Dale Earnhardt did it with Childress Racing. Sunday also was the 17th anniversary of the tragic Hendrick Motorsports aviation accident in Virginia on October 24, 2004. The team plane crashed in the mountains near Martinsville, killing 10 people, including several family members and team personnel.

The second race in Round 3 of the four-round Championship Playoff Series brought mixed results for the remaining eight Cup title hopefuls. By virtue of winning at Texas last weekend, Larson had already advanced to the championship playoff race in two weeks near Phoenix. After Kansas, Elliott sits 33 points above the cut line with only next week’s 500-lapper at Martinsville Speedway between him and being among the final four again.

Hamlin, is third-ranked, 31 points above the cut line. Two-time champion Kyle Busch struggled to an issue-filled 28th-place finish, but remains above the cutline… by one point. Ryan Blaney was a DNF 37th, but is still only one point below the cut line. Former champion Martin Truex Jr. is two below after finishing seventh, and former champion Brad Keselowski is three points below after his 17th-place finish.

The only driver facing something of a “must win” situation going into Martinsville’s rough-and-tumble half-mile is former champion Joey Logano. He finished a credible ninth on Sunday, but remains 20 points below the cut line to advance. He did well enough in the first race in Round 3, finishing seventh on the Charlotte roval. But an engine-related DNF 30th last weekend at Fort Worth left him floundering to stay in the championship hunt.

“We have one more shot to do it at Martinsville,” Logano said afterward. (He has one victory, eight top-5 finishes, and 13 top-10s in 25 starts there). “It’s crazy watching this (Playoff) thing; it seems like they’re trying to give it away. I’ve never seen so many issues in this round. Survival has been the key in this round.”

As for his chances of staying eligible for a second NASCAR championship run.” It’s still pretty far out,” he admitted. “It’s not just the 20-something points out, but I’m still eighth with three or four cars I have to get in front of. It’s still pretty much a must-win situation. It would be far-fetched for it to happen (on points), but look at today. Maybe it could happen.”

Updated Playoff Standings

*Qualified for Championship 4 based on wins.

Field will by cut to four following Oct. 31 race at Martinsville.

Xfinity Series Weekend Wrap-Up

NASCAR’s next big deal won Saturday afternoon’s Xfinity Series Kansas Lottery 300 at Kansas Speedway, stealing some of the thunder from the playoff battle. Ty Gibbs, grandson of NASCAR Hall of Famer team owner Joe Gibbs, got his fourth victory in this, his abbreviated rookie season of just 17 races. Because he is not running the full schedule, he is not among the eight drivers still in title contention

Driving a Toyota, the 18-year-old beat defending series champion Austin Cindric, A.J. Allmendinger, Justin Haley, and Ryan Sieg in the 200-lap, 300-mile race. Cindric dominated, leading seven times for 151 laps, but Gibbs was in front when it counted. He led only three times for 14 laps — including the last 11 – and won by 0.759 seconds.

Next weekend’s “Dead On Tools 250” at Martinsville Speedway will determine which four of the eight remaining championship contenders will race for the title in two weeks near Phoenix. The final eight include Cindric, Allmendinger, Justin Allgaier, Daniel Hemric, Justin Haley, Noah Gragson, Brandon Jones, and Harrison Burton.

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Kyle Larson greets this weekend’s NASCAR race near Kansas City with not a care in the world.

Oh, for sure he’d like to win Sunday afternoon’s Hollywood Casino 400 at Kansas Speedway. And he’d like to lead enough laps to set a record for laps led in a 36-race season. And he’d like to take another step toward a season with double-figure victories.

But if none of that happens in the 267-lap race … well, no big deal.

Larson, a good bet for NASCAR comeback driver of the year, is living large. By winning last weekend in Texas, the Hendrick Motorsports star is already assured of being in the Championship 4 for the November 7 championship-deciding Cup Series race at Phoenix Raceway.

He’s locked in, regardless of what happens Sunday in Kansas or October 31 at the half-mile Martinsville Speedway in Virginia. All this, remember, in his first season back after being expelled from NASCAR last spring for using a racially-explosive word during the broadcast of a video-game race. He lost his ride with Chip Ganassi Racing, was shunned by Chevrolet, and forfeited most of his personal-services contracts with sponsors.

But Larson took ownership of the mistake and worked hard to redeem himself. He successfully completed every NASCAR requirement to return and was signed last fall with Rick Hendrick, an owner who knows a bit about overcoming public scorn. He paired Larson with young crew chief Cliff Daniels, and they’ve formed an on- and off-track bond similar to the one enjoyed for years by Chad Knaus and former seven-time champion Jimmie Johnson.

Consider the Larson/Daniels resume through 33 points races this season:

They lead the series with eight victories, including the last two and three of the last five. That’s twice as many victories as former champion Martin Truex Jr. of Joe Gibbs Racing. And just for kicks they have six second-place finishes and won the non-points All-Star race;

They lead everyone with 18 top-5 finishes and 24 top-10 finishes, one top-5 and two top-10s better than JGR driver Denny Hamlin. They’re atop the series standings with 16 stage victories, six more than Hamlin. And they’ve led a series-high 2,267 laps led, an astonishing 868 more than second-place Hamlin in that category.

The 36-race record is 2,320 laps, set by Jeff Gordon in his fourth and final championship season of 2001. With Larson starting from the pole, it seems a cinch those 53 laps are within reach. If not Sunday, there’s always 500 laps at Martinsville and 312 at Phoenix just waiting.

Right now, Larson isn’t thinking about that. “My mind is on Kansas,” he said midweek. “I want to go there and win; I don’t want to change up what we’ve been doing. I want to take it week by week and do a great job every weekend and carry some momentum into Phoenix. It would be bad if we went to Kansas and Martinsville and had a couple of DNFs because we are ‘relaxed.’ Hopefully we can go through these next couple of weeks, have a few good runs and head into Phoenix with some good momentum.”

So, while the 29-year-old California native has no real worries this weekend, the same doesn’t go for the other seven championship hopefuls.

Three-time ’21 race winner Ryan Blaney for Team Penske is 17 points above the cut line to advance via points. Hamlin, a two-time winner, is nine above the line and former two-time champion, two-race winner this year and JGR teammate Kyle Busch is eight above the line.

Only one of the bottom four in points has serious concerns the next two weekends. Former champion and one-race ’21 winner Joey Logano for Team Penske is a daunting 43 points below the cutoff line. JGR driver Truex is 22 behind, Penske veteran Brad Keselowski is 15 below the cut line and reigning champion, two-race ’21 winner and Hendrick driver Chase Elliott trails by eight points.

Six of the final eight have won at the 1.5-mile track in Kansas, where Larson is favored by most gaming sites. (Ironically, neither Larson or Blaney has won there). Hamlin and Logano have three victories, Busch, Keselowski, and Truex Jr. twice, and Elliott once. Keselowski won this year’s spring race, Logano and Hamlin split the 2000 races, and Hamlin and Keselowski won in 2019.

NASCAR Cup Playoff Standings

*-Qualified for Championship 4 based on win last week at Texas Motor Speedway.

To recap: 16 drivers began the championship playoffs early in September. Four were eliminated after Round 1 at Darlington, Richmond, and Bristol, then four more were cut after Round 2 at Las Vegas, Talladega, and Charlotte. The Round 3 tracks are Texas, Kansas City, and Martinsville, with the four remaining hopefuls basically racing each other for the title at Phoenix in three weeks.

Xfinity Series Update

The Xfinity Series has its own Playoff drama this weekend in Kansas. AJ Allmendinger of Kaulig Racing goes into Saturday afternoon’s Kansas Lottery 300 a fairly comfortable 30 points above the cutline to reach the Nov. 6 Championship 4 at Phoenix. Second-starting Austin Cindric of Team Penske (the defending Xfinity champion) is almost as comfortable at 26 to the good. But teammates Justin Allgaier and Noah Gragson of JR Motorsports are just four and two points above the line.

Pole-starter Daniel Hemric of Joe Gibbs Racing is two below and Justin Haley of Kaulig is six behind. JGR teammates Harrison Burton and Brandon Jones are deeper below the cut line, Burton down by 21 points and Jones down by 32.

Perhaps surprisingly, Jones is the only Playoff driver with victories at the 1.5-mile track. He beat Tyler Reddick in 2019 and then beat Cindric in 2020. This weekend marks the Xfinity Series’ only race at Kansas Speedway this year.

NASCAR Xfinity Series Playoff Standings

Two races remain in Xfinity Series Round of 8 before Championship 4 race at Phoenix. No drivers yet locked in.

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NASCAR’s 2022 Cup schedule seems revolutionary. And it is, to a degree. The year will open on a quarter-mile, purpose-built track at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. There will be a new race at World Wide Technology Raceway in Madison, Ill. And the Bristol dirt race returns for an encore.

Big changes, for sure.

But the true revolution in NASCAR scheduling occurred 50 years ago. And it was a tectonic shift from the way stock car racing’s No. 1 series had designed its playlist for two decades.

Between the 1971 and 1972 seasons, NASCAR trimmed the Cup schedule from 48 races to 31. The R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., which had begun a long-running NASCAR sponsorship through its Winston cigarette brand, encouraged officials to emphasize bigger tracks and longer races with an eye toward eliminating 100-mile events on short tracks.

Almost overnight, 13 tracks, including some legendary venues, disappeared from the Cup schedule. Among the tracks left behind were Greenville-Pickens (S.C.) Speedway, Hickory (N.C.) Speedway, South Boston (Va.) Speedway and Bowman Gray (N.C.) Speedway, all NASCAR bedrock facilities.

The change eliminated some adventurous travel. In April 1971, Cup drivers raced at Columbia, S.C.; Greenville, S.C.; Maryville, Tenn. and North Wilkesboro, N.C. – all in an 11-day span and all typically in one race car.

“We kept running and running and running,” said Richard Childress, then a driver and now a team owner. “That was pretty much a strain. If you didn’t have the people and the backing, you were pretty much just racing and running around. Every now and then, you’d get a top 10.”

The massive 1971 schedule began Jan. 10 in Riverside, Calif. and ended Dec. 12 in College Station, Texas. Included along the way were 25 short-track races, 21 superspeedway races and two road course events.

Childress drove in three races in a swing to the Northeast in July 1971, driving at Malta, N.Y.; Islip, N.Y. and Trenton, N.J. in a five-day span.

“You’d race on dirt and then you’d go to Daytona,” Childress said. “It was a little bit strange.”

Moving to a streamlined schedule at more prominent tracks boosted the national profile of the series and generally made securing sponsors an easier task.

“Winston started advertising NASCAR all over the country, and that brought in bigger sponsors for the teams,” said Richard Petty. “That’s how we got STP (a sponsor identified with Petty’s red and blue colors for years).”

Left in the wake, however, as NASCAR moved on were some iconic tracks. Columbia Speedway in South Carolina had hosted 43 Cup races and was a proving ground for Cale Yarborough, Richard Petty and other future stars. At Greenville-Pickens in Upstate South Carolina, David Pearson and Ralph Earnhardt (Dale Earnhardt’s father) won track championships. Hickory Speedway in North Carolina hosted the Cup series 35 times from 1953 to 1971.

“Hickory was where everybody ran,” said Rick Howard, son of Richard Howard, who built Charlotte Motor Speedway. “Everybody wanted to run there and wanted to win there. I went there as a kid. My mom would dress us up, and we’d come home filthy dirty with all that dirt flying. But we’d see a heck of an event.

“Those were really sad days when Hickory and the others closed. When the big show came to town, it made a difference for everything – restaurants, hotels, gas stations. Everybody got some benefit, and it was big to lose that. And sad.”

Some of the departing tracks were moved to NASCAR’s No. 2 series, and others raced on with weekly Late Model events. New Asheville (N.C.) Speedway, which hosted eight Cup races from 1962 to 1971, eventually was turned into a city park, where visitors can walk or ride bicycles on the old track surface.

“There were tracks people wanted to keep and tracks people were glad to see go,” Childress said. “But, in general, everybody kind of liked it because we weren’t racing three times a week.”

Although the 1972 schedule was significantly different, the results were quite similar to other seasons. The checkered flags went to familiar faces. Bobby Allison won 10 times, Petty won eight races and the championship, and David Pearson won six times.

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That’s Talladega for you.

Before upset winner Tate Fogleman could go to Victory Lane, he had to visit the infield care center after sliding sideways across the finish line in tandem with runner-up Tyler Hill and slamming into the inside wall.

Fogleman claimed the win in the Chevrolet Silverado 250 on Saturday afternoon after he turned then-race-leader John Hunter Nemechek sideways and passed him in the Talladega Superspeedway tri-oval as the trucks approached the stripe.

The victory was Fogleman’s first in 46 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series starts. The driver of the No. 12 Chevrolet scored his second top 10 in the series and his first on pavement, having run ninth on dirt at Knoxville Raceway.

Fogleman had never finished a superspeedway race before, but his luck turned on Saturday when he avoided two multicar wrecks earlier in the event.

“It was crazy,” said Fogleman, whose margin of victory was .052 seconds. “I missed that first big wreck, got through the second one, and it felt like things were finally starting to go right finally on a superspeedway. I’d never finished a superspeedway race before. I had a good feeling about it.

“We lined up third there (for the final restart in overtime), and I knew we just had to be aggressive… I got a push from behind, and we were able to do it.”

Todd Gilliland came home third, followed by Nemechek, who slid across the finish line in fourth. Nemechek was the only one of eight Playoff drivers to finish in the top 10 in an event that left several drivers in the postseason in must-win positions for the Oct. 30 Round of 8 elimination race at Martinsville Speedway.

“I had a run, got by the 38 (Gilliland) and was trying to keep the 12 (Fogleman) in the mirror,” Nemechek said of the final lap. “He had a huge run through the tri-oval. He faked high and I went to block high, and then the block was a little too late, I guess. I should have stayed up and probably still would have won the race.

“Solid points day for us—35 above the cut line (actually 36), I think, or something like that going into Martinsville. Just have to survive and advance to get to the final four.”

Nemechek leaves Talladega first in the Playoff standings, one point ahead of Ben Rhodes, who finished 13th on Saturday.

A gigantic wreck on Lap 58 had huge implications both for the race and for the Playoff. Chase Purdy shoved the Ford of Gilliland into the back of Austin Hill’s Toyota, and the resulting off-center contact shot Hill’s Tundra up the track, knocking Zane Smith’s Chevrolet into the outside wall.

(Editor’s note: Check out the wild last lap toward the end of the video, courtesy of the NASCAR YouTube channel.)

Smith was eliminated in 33rd place and likely must win Oct. 30 at Martinsville Speedway to advance to the Championship 4.

“The last thing I remember, the 16 (Hill) was about in my windshield,” Smith said after exiting the infield care center.

All told, 21 trucks—more than half the 40-truck field—were involved in the wreck. Among them was the No. 18 Toyota of Playoff driver Chandler Smith, who managed to continue in the race despite heavy damage to his Tundra. Smith came home 19th, seven laps down.

A subsequent multi-truck accident on Lap 76 brought an early end to the race for Playoff drivers Stewart Friesen and Carson Hocevar, as well as for former Talladega winner Grant Enfinger.

Enfinger steered from the bottom lane to the top, in front of a line of trucks led by reigning series champion Sheldon Creed. When Creed moved higher on the track, Enfinger attempted to block him, and contact between the trucks ignited the seven-truck incident.

Chase Purdy spun while leading after contact from with Gilliland’s truck to bring out the sixth and final caution of the race on Lap 93 and set up the overtime. Only 20 of the 40 trucks that started the race were running at the finish.

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