Fast start to the NASCAR season heads to Las Vegas

Highly motivated drivers and the debut of the Next Gen car have certainly helped the 2022 NASCAR Cup Series season off to a fast and furious start with no reason to believe that trend won’t continue this week in the Pennzoil 400 presented by Jiffy Lube (3:30 p.m. on FOX, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) as the new cars make their 1.5-mile debut at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Last week’s Auto Club Speedway winner — and reigning NASCAR Cup Series champion — Kyle Larson shows up in Vegas as the defending race winner. It marked his first victory as driver of the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet and was the first of 10 victories on the 2021 season. He led a race best 103 of the 267-laps and his 3.156-second win over championship rival Denny Hamlin was substantial, however, not necessarily indicative of the racy-nature of the Spring 400-miler.

There were 27 lead changes in the race — second most all-time at the track — one shy of the high mark (28) set in 2007. And the new car — introduced for the 2022 season — has already given reason to believe that kind of highly competitive circumstance will take place again this Sunday. There were 104 green flag passes for the lead in the season-opening Daytona 500 (fifth-most all-time for the event) and 32 lead changes last week at Auto Club Speedway — the third most in that track’s history.

There are eight former winners in Sunday’s field, led by three-time Vegas champion Brad Keselowski, who arrives at the track ranked 10th in the championship standings in his first year driving the No. 6 Ford for Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing team.

Three other drivers — Kevin Harvick (Stewart-Haas Racing), Martin Truex Jr. (Joe Gibbs Racing) and Joey Logano (Team Penske) — have won twice on the 1.5-mile high banks. Las Vegas natives Kyle and Kurt Busch each have a win as does Hamlin, who claimed last year’s Playoff victory.

Even before the introduction of the Next Gen car, Las Vegas featured tight racing. There have been at least 20 lead changes in six of the last seven races there. Although shut out of Victory Lane in 2021, Ford boasts five wins in the last 10 years at the track, while Toyota has three and Chevrolet has two.

Also an example of the series’ competitive parity, the top-10 drivers in the championship standings are now separated by a mere 21 points from the Sunoco Rookie of the Year candidate Austin Cindric — who won the Daytona 500 opener and holds an eight-point lead over Team Penske teammate Logano in the rankings — to 10th place Keselowski.

Of note, Las Vegas is statistically Logano’s best circuit on the schedule. He boasts an 8.8 average finish with 11 top-10 showings (including two wins) in 17 starts.

There are six Fords, three Toyotas and one Chevrolet driver (Erik Jones) currently in the top-10. This will be Cindric’s NASCAR Cup Series debut at Las Vegas.

Several racers find themselves among that driver standings top-10 for the first time this early in the season.

Stewart-Haas Racing’s Chase Briscoe — last year’s Sunoco Rookie of the Year and a two-time Xfinity Series winner at Vegas — is ranked fifth. Petty GMS Motorsports driver Erik Jones is ranked sixth, followed by another SHR driver, Aric Almirola, who is the only driver to earn top-10 finishes in both races so far this season. Daytona 500 runner-up Bubba Wallace is ranked ninth.

This week’s Next Gen debut on the 1.5-mile track will be important as that style of venue it is the bread-and-butter of the 36-race schedule. NASCAR has allowed additional time on track for the NASCAR Cup Series cars — a 35-minutes practice for all cars at once instead of splitting into groups in advance of Group Qualifying at 2:15 p.m. on Saturday.

“That win [at Las Vegas in 2021] was really special for us,” said Larson, who has won four of the last eight races on 1.5-milers dating back to last season.

“It was our first win as a team and meant a lot to a lot of people on this team — some visiting Victory Lane in the Cup Series for the first time. But I also know how much it meant to (team owners) Rick and Linda (Hendrick) because the paint scheme was similar to what [their late son] Ricky ran. It’s an honor to drive for them and to drive this car with this [paint] scheme that means so much to so many.”