By Roy J. Akers-www.skyviewsports.net
Texas Motor Speedway is the first of back-to-back races at 1.5 mile tracks and drivers and teams believe the first ten races of the season has either given them confidence or exposed them to what the rest of the season is like. The Texas winner is a three-time NASCAR Champion that has made a career running out front, but won the race like a vulture waiting for other drivers to crash and then scooping in to clean up yet another Cup victory.
First Stage Top 7 Stage One
Carson Hocevar, last years ROY won his first career pole and takes the field to the green flag. He had the fast lap every lap early on, and Noah Gragson gets sideways and has a long slide in Turn 2 from 20th position while attempting to pass Daniel Suarez. This incident brings out the caution flag. Most cars pit including Hocevar, and Austin Cindric takes two tires and takes over the race lead.
Fords take the top-three spots and then its Chevy for the next five. Cindric keeps the lead but nearly clips the wall and Berry and Buescher close the gap. Erik Jones is the big surprise running his #43 to 10th place late in S1. Cindric is losing momentum taking only two tires and Reddick is in the #2’s mirror. Denny Hamlin’s machine blows up with six to go and the second caution of the race is thrown. Hamlin is out of the race. Cars finish the Stage under yellow.
Second Stage
Berry, Kyle Larson, and Cindric are your top 3. Hocevar is 6th to start S2. The flag is dropped and Chase Briscoe goes up the track and spins out and the third competitive caution is thrown, fourth overall.
The caution lasts from lap 86 to 94, and the side drafting has begun. Drivers are jostling on the track racing largely two-wide up front and solo behind the lead pack. Its Berry, Larson, and Reddick on lap 100. Berry continues to lead the race until he goes up the third groove and his #21 goes around and brings out a caution while leading the race. The restart finds Berry out of the race and Larson takes the lead with Reddick in hot pursuit. Larson has spent 155 laps in the top five and 157 in the top ten. Buescher, who is running third, blows a tire and the tire carcass finds its way to the track and a caution is thrown. The end of Stage two arrives. Reddick has 18 Stage points in the race.
Final Stage
The Stage that cannot get started had two hiccups with Buescher losing his tire and Bubba Wallace spinning out and collecting several cars. Larson continues to lead with Ty Gibbs and Ryan Blaney right behind. Quite a few drivers have had trouble with a few uneven bumps in the track and the car bottoms out and ruins the undercarriage. Blaney goes around Gibbs with 71 to go. Byron lead at the start of the Stage but slides to tenth. Erik Jones received a speeding penalty but has cruised through the field to 12th.
With 60 laps to go, Larson leads Blaney, Reddick, Gibbs and Hocevar. Final pit stops happen with 50 to go. Hocevar and Gibbs pit. Jesse Love spins out with 48 to go bringing a caution. Kyle Larson kept several leaders one lap down and unable to pit to give him insurance for his 3rd win in 2025. The green flag is dropped with 42 laps to go. The two rookies (Hocevar and Gibbs) had bad racing luck when the caution was thrown when they were in the pits. Kyle Busch takes a top ten run and hits the wall after getting loose. The race officials ran 9 laps under caution and Larson pulls away from McDowell and Blaney on the restart. A total of 29 drivers are on the lead lap. Joey Logano is now in fourth place and once again, with 31 to go, there is another crash. Several machines are totalled. Preece and Hocevar suffer heavy damage.
Race officials allow another 11 caution laps to tick off and there are 23 to go. McDowell has the lead and Blaney and Larson are right behind. Just two laps later, a four car pileup take out Keselowski and Cindric.
With 15 to go, Blaney and McDowell trade the lead on the restart lap, and Reddick spins out. McDowell is scored as the race leader. Blaney, Logano, Larson, and Chastain are 2-5. The flag is dropped with ten to go, and McDowell, Logano, and Blaney are your top 3. The final five laps find Logano closing on turns 1 and two. Logano goes around McDowell with four to go. McDowell then crashes in turn two and his day is done.
The flag is dropped for the final time and this time, Joey Logano, goes by Ross Chastain and Ryan Blaney for the win. Its the third win for a Ford this season. Its Logano’s only win in 2025.
Checkered Flags- Joey Logano
Joey Logano led only seven laps of the Wurth 400 and earned his first victory of the season. Logano got better as the race went on and took advantage of race attrition of drivers who crashed in the top ten. For the season, Logano entered the race 13th in Cup points and now has a win, a second top-ten and two DNF’s. Logano is in the playoffs. The sport changes so quickly. It’s crazy how you can just ride these roller coasters and just proud of the team. Finally get AAA Insurance into victory lane. They’ve been a partner of mine since I’ve been to Penske, so 13, 14 years. I’ve yet to win with them. It was awesome to get that done here.”
They Said It…
Denny Hamlin on his car expiring. Did you think your issue was terminal before the flames started coming out of the car? “It was blowing up for about a lap or so before it really detonated. I tried to keep it off to keep it from full detonating, that was they can diagnose exactly what happened to it. It’s tough to say exactly what it is, but they’ll go back and look at it and we’ll find out in a few weeks.”
Erik Jones
No. 43 AdventHealth Toyota Camry XSE, LEGACY MOTOR CLUB-Finishing Position: 5th
You kept gaining track position late in the race. What was this run like for you?
“It was a sloppy day in a lot of ways. We had two pit road penalties, but just happy to come back from it and get a top-five. It would have been pretty disappointing to have a car this good, kind of our first car this year that’s been pretty strong to throw it away. I thought we were headed that way, but it turned out well. Thankful for Advent Health, LEGACY MOTOR CLUB, and Toyota to get a good run and hopefully we can get rolling. I would love this to be the start of our summer stretch and just keep it going”
Final Leaderboard – Complete Standings
Fantasy Team… Is my team better than your team
Due to the same drivers being the best fits for nearly every track, (Larson, Hamlin, Bell, and so on) most fantasy players have been overusing their roster, and I am included. My team finished with 135 points on Sunday including ten bonus points for Chastain beating out Brad Keselowski. My poorest showing in sometime.
Manufacturer Bragging rights
Coming into the race, Toyota has five victories, Chevy has three and Ford two. With Logano’s victory, Ford now has three victories. Ford only placed two drivers in the Top Ten. Chevy had five drivers finish in the Top Ten.
What’s Next?
NASCAR moves to Kansas next week for race 12 of the regular season. FS1 will have the action.
Roy J. Akers covers NASCAR for www.skyviewsports.net
