LEBANON, Tenn.: Can anyone stop Chevrolet’s stranglehold on the Ally 400?
Since NASCAR returned to the Nashville Superspeedway in 2021, Team Hendrick’s Kyle Larson and Chase Elliott scored the first two wins at the 1.33-mile track. Last season, Ross Chastain left with the iconic Gibson Les Paul trophy awarded to Sunday’s victor.
Denny Hamlin scored his second pole position on Saturday. When he started from the point in 2022, Hamlin led a race-high 114 laps. Mire in traffic after a late pit stop for fresh tires, he couldn’t close the deal.
“I’m optimistic about Nashville,” said Hamlin, who scored a career-best third-place finish in 2023 after leading 81 laps. “I feel like we have had one of, if not the best cars there for the last few years with the Next Gen. It’s a track I have a lot of confidence we can run up front and get a good finish.
“We’re running really well, just different things the past few weeks have screwed us up the past few weeks. We need a mistake-free day, and I feel like we are more than capable of doing that in Nashville.”
Still, heat will take its toll on drivers Sunday. Seven drivers—Ty Gibbs, Tyler Reddick, Noah Gragson, AJ Allmendinger, John Hunter Nemechek, Riley Herbst and defending winner Ross Chastain—are performing double duty this weekend between the Xfinity Series and Cup.
“Fatigue will play a factor tomorrow,” said the 43-year-old Hamlin. “I do believe that. Certainly, everyone’s doing everything they can to hydrate themselves, but still, some people take heat better than others.
“I think any time that’s a factor, it has to weigh on you some way, shape or form. So, certainty, it’ll be a factor. How big of a factor, I’m not sure.”
Hamlin believes the heat will also affect the track. Last year the race ran at night. On Sunday, the scheduled start time is 2:30 p.m. local time—three-and-a-half hours earlier than last year.
“I think passing will be easier in these ridiculously hot conditions, because the cars will be sliding around and really accentuate good handling and drivers that have good techniques,” Hamlin added.
Could those conditions play into the hands of a dirt driver such as Christopher Bell? The 29-year-old Joe Gibbs Racing driver enters Nashville as the only non-Chevy driver to have scored three consecutive top 10s in Music City since the Cup Series debuted at Nashville Superspeedway in 2021.
“The package is really good for the JGR cars, and we run the intermediate package here,” Bell said. “While it’s smaller than a normal mile-and-a-half, it basically is a concrete mile-and-a-half.
“It’s like a Dover and (Las) Vegas, Kansas, Charlotte mixed together. Those were all good places for JGR, and our cars suit this race track.”
From the Ford camp, Josh Berry barely missed out on his first career Cup pole—although there must be some magic for the Tennessean at his home state tracks. His two second-place qualifying efforts have come at Nashville and Bristol Motor Speedway.
Although Berry has never raced a Cup car at the track that sits an hour south of where he grew up, the 33-year-old driver brings a lot of confidence into the Ally 400.
“We had a really solid practice,” Berry said. “The car felt really good and then I was little bit worried about the short run speed, but I felt like in practice I was just getting acclimated to everything. We made some really good adjustments for qualifying and had some really good execution there. To be on the front row for my home race, that’s pretty cool.”
In three Nashville Xfinity Series starts, Berry scored top-five results driving for JR Motorsports. Berry is accustomed to the blistering heat, having grown up in the hot Tennessee summers.
He believes the sweltering conditions enhance the racing.
Follow Lee Spencer on Twitter @CandiceSpencer or email her at: [email protected].
