2022 NASCAR Cup Series Race Fourteen Charlotte

The Monaco Grand Prix is complete. Sergio Perez won a rain shortened race. The rain began to fall shortly before the scheduled start time.

The Indianapolis 500 was an entertaining race with wrecks and pit road penalties changing the complexion of the event. Marcus Ericsson was in the lead when Jimmie Johnson crashed with five laps remaining. IndyCar red flagged the race. The field restarted with two laps to go. Ericsson held off Pato O’Ward to win the race under caution following a wreck by Sage Karam as Ericsson entered turn four.

The final race of the Memorial Day weekend, the Coke 600, has a lot to live up to. The IndyCar race was a very enjoyable ‘watch’. I’m just hoping it will be better than Monaco which put me to sleep during one of the pauses due to weather.

Caution on lap 18 of 400 for an incident involving Ryan Preece (15), Noah Gragson (16), and Chris Buescher (17).

Caution on lap 32 of 400 for a crash by Josh Bilicki (77).

Caution on lap 45 of 400 for a spin by Kyle Busch (18).

Caution on lap 61 of 400 for a spin by Corey LaJoie (7).

Chase Elliott (9) wins stage one.

Caution on lap 126 of 400 for a spin by Darrell ‘Bubba’ Wallace (23)

Caution on lap 146 of 400 for a spin by Austin Cindric (2).

Caution on lap 164 of 400 for a spin by Kyle Larson (5).

Caution on lap 187 of 400 for a spin by Chase Elliott (9).

Caution on lap 191 of 400 for an spin by Ryan Blaney (12) at the front of the field and he collected a bunch of other cars including Kurt Busch (45), Brad ‘It’ Keselowski (6), Darrell ‘Bubba’ Wallace (23), Martin ‘MTJ’ Truex Jr (19), Harrison Burton (21), ‘Desperate’ Denny Hamlin (11), 38, William Byron (24), Todd Gilliland (38), Michael McDowell (34), Noah Gragson (16), and Kevin ‘KHarv/Happy’ Harvick (4).

Crash clock ran out on Chase Elliot and he’s taken the car to the garage.

Daniel Suarez (99) wins stage two.

The Moment of Rememberance happens and finishes.

Caution on lap 219 of 400 for Kevin Harvick (4) getting into the wall.

Caution on 253 of 400 for a spin by Noah Gragson (16).

Ross Chastain (1) wins stage 3.

Boring boring boring boring boring boring boring.

The event was okay before the last big wreck, but since then, it’s been pretty boring.

Caution on lap 340 of 400 for a flat for Tyler Reddick (8).

On lap 344 of 400 PRN is reporting Justin Haley’s 31 car just went up in smoke.

Caution on lap 346 of 400 as Daniel Suarez and Chris Buescher are involved in an incident and Buescher goes flipping down the track. PRN reports Todd Gilliland turns Daniel Suarez and Chris Buescher just got caught up in the incident. Chris put the window net down before the AMR safety officials reached the car.

Red flag is out.

PRN says it looks like where the artificial turf meets the edge of the 1/4 mile track the car caught and that caused the it to begin flipping.

So far FOX is showing the wreckers working to flip Chris Buescher’s car over and get Daniel Suarez’s car on a tow truck. They haven’t shown a replay of the wreck. When I looked up Chris’ 17 car was rolling down the infield.

Chris climbs out under his own power once they get the car right-side-up.

The replay is from a blimp shot, so you can’t really see anything.

Suarez (99) came up in front of Chase Briscoe (14) and spun in front of the field, Todd Gilliland (38) hits the 99 and sends it spinning in front of Chris Buescher (17) who slid into Suarez and Buescher went flipping through the turf after the A frame broke and the right front wheel gets under the car, it digs into the turf and starts the car to flipping.

The caution is out.

PRN reports there will only be 26 cars remaining in the race when it restarts.

Chris Buescher (17) said he’s been upside-down before, but ‘Talladega didn’t hurt like that one’.

Chase Briscoe (14) has caught up to leader Kyle Larson with 15 laps to go.

Christopher Bell (20) is having some issue and down on the apron wiggling toward the pits with 12 laps to go.

PRN reports the 16 car of Noah Gragson was smoking as it came by them on lap 389 of 400.

Fox is subjecting us to a split screen of a driver driving and a view out the windscreen. BORING!

Aric ‘Afterburner’ Almirola (10) tags the wall on lap 391 of 400 and keeps rolling.

Chase Briscoe (14) is door-to door with Larson on lap 396 of 400. He wiggles and got back behind Larson.

After a lack of racing for hours, they’ve started back racing. The broadcast can’t stop showing the stupid in-car shots and ruining the viewer’s opportunity to see and get engaged with the racing action.

Chase Briscoe brings out the caution on lap 398 of 400 as he spins after attempting to make the pass.

The restart will occur in overtime with 14 cars on the lead lap and 24 cars on the track.

Restarting with Kyle Larson (5) and Ross Chastain (1) on the front row followed by Joey Logano (22), Ricky Stenhouse Jr (47), Denny Hamlin (11), Austin Dillon (3), Kyle Busch (18), Cole Custer (41), Kevin Harvick (4) and Ty Dillon (42).

Logano gives Larson a push to the lead.

Austin Dillon (3) goes to the front, takes them two wide – then Chastain and Hamlin takes them three-wide and Dillon spins in front of the field off the front of Larson’s bumper setting off a big wreck as they come to the line for the white flag and collects Kyle Larson (5), Ross Chastain (1), Custer (41), Martin ‘MTJ’ Truex Jr (19), Ricky Stenhouse Jr (47), and Joey Logano (22).

Joey Logano seems a bit winded as he gets out of the car.

FOX reports there are 17 cars on the lead lap and 2 cars two laps down, Chase Briscoe (14) and Cody Ware (51).

‘Desperate’ Denny Hamlin (11) inherits the lead.

At least they started racing with less than ten laps left in the event.

Restarting again in overtime with Hamlin (11) and Chastain (1) on the front row followed by Kevin Harvick (4), Kyle Busch (18), Martin Truex Jr (19), Ricky Stenhouse Jr (47), Chase Briscoe (14), Michael McDowell (34), Ty Dillon (31) and Tyler Reddick (8).

Hamlin gets the early lead then Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Kyle ‘KyBu’ Busch (18) catches him and they’re racing door-to-door.

KyBu (18) leads at the white flag by a nose.

Hamlin takes the lead in turn two.

Hamlin holds KyBu off after Kyle gets loose in the battle.

A disappointing finish to a mostly boring race. There were a dozen good laps or so at the end. There were 413 total laps run. They started out racing a bit, and they raced the last 10 or so. So basically I would say it was an okay race with moments of genuine excitement. I’m not sure if I would call it good or okay. I’m leaning toward okay, because the last half

This was the longest NASCAR race ever at five hours and sixteen minutes with 18 caution flags for 90 laps and a total of 413 laps making it the Coca-Cola 620 according to PRN’s Doug Rice and Mark Garrow.

Congrats to Michael McDowell (34) on an eighth place finish.

I will say I felt like watching the race was a waste of time until the last dozen laps. There was action earlier in the race, but at a certain point I realized that I would’ve considered the race a so-so race in the late 2000s. For a current Cup race it was more than okay, but for a good race, like those around 2007-09, it was just decent. So I’m again leaning toward ‘just okay’ instead of good, though I enjoyed the times when they bothered to race and actually had competition.

Motorsport News:

1. 1. 1. 1. Monaco GP starts after hour rain delay.
         2. Schumacher car splits in two in crash at Monaco.
         3. Haas considering way ‘forward’ with Schumacher.
         4. Power outage contributed to delayed Monaco start.
         5. Leclerc brands Monaco GP a ‘freaking disaster’.
         6. Perez keeps Monaco win despite Ferrari protest.
         7. Sweden’s Ericsson secures victory at Indy 500.
         8. Pit Road Penalty Extends Indy 500 Bad Luck Streak for Scott Dixon.
         9. MotoGP: Francesco Bagnaia wins Italian Grand Prix for first time.
         10. Indianapolis 500: Marcus Ericsson becomes second Swede to win race.
         11. James Garner: Great man, car nut, 3-time Indy 500 pace car driver.
         12. Indy 500 dominator Dixon “just messed up” in pit speeding incident.
         13. Ty Dillon Updates 2023 Contract Status.
         14. Racing, NASCAR worlds wish Jimmie Johnson good luck in first Indy 500: ‘You know what to do’.
         15. Crew members for Nos. 31, 50 teams ejected in pre-qualifying inspection; six cars sent to rear.
         16. 2022 could be Kanaan’s last at Indy 500.
         17. Chris Buescher Unhurt After Flipping at Charlotte.
         18. Joey Logano Addresses Potential Broadcast Future.
         19. Bubba Wallace’s Team Commits All-Time Mistake During Coca-Cola 600.
         20. Kanaan wants one more Indy shot, Chip Ganassi sounds willing.
         21. Chip Ganassi Racing’s Bad Luck Permeates Through Good Luck at Indianapolis.
         22. Conor Daly Finishes a Strong 6th at Indianapolis 500.
         23. Marcus Ericsson goes from 0-for-F1 to Indy immortality.
         24. Bubba Wallace’s radio hijacked twice by outsider during Coca-Cola 600.
         25. Suárez’s strong Coca-Cola 600 run ends in collision with Chris Buescher; Buescher OK after car flips.
         26. Denny Hamlin captures first career Coca-Cola 600 victory at Charlotte, prevailing in double overtime.
         27. Drive-for-five continues for Castroneves.
         28. Rossi’s rise an outlier on quiet day for Andretti, Penske, RLL.
         29. Mercedes wants to cut one of its F1 customers.

Next Race: St. Louis

GO 48 & 9!!!!