Get ready for 400 laps around Charlotte Motor Speedway to finish off a full day of racing on this Memorial Day weekend.
As tests of racing endurance go, none are more grueling in NASCAR than the Coca-Cola 600. A full 100 miles longer than the next longest races on the Cup Series slate can test drivers, cars and crews in any number of ways.
For that reason, the annual Memorial Day weekend race at Charlotte Motor Speedway always carries its share of intrigue. Yet in the Chase/playoff era, that’s even more true, since the 600 sits almost exactly at the midway point of the Cup Series regular season.
That’s deep enough into the season to establish some trends yet with enough time to go that a lot can still happen. There’s plenty of time for surprisingly winless drivers like Kevin Harvick, who starts on the pole in Charlotte, and Kyle Busch, who enters with whatever momentum a NASCAR All-Star Race provides, to get a victory.
But it sure would be nice to get it out of the way tonight.
The first five or six rows will be filled by the usual 2017 suspects, with the exception of rookie Erik Jones, who starts fifth. Jimmie Johnson is a little further back starting 14th, while Dale Earnhardt Jr. will roll off 19th. Cup Series points leader Kyle Larson and his team never even got the 42 through inspection to make a qualifying run and he will have to start 39th.
Still, if there was ever a race to try to come from the rear of the field, the Coca-Cola 600 is it. Pit stop and fuel strategies, mechanical failures and just about anything you can think of are on the table as factors in Charlotte. It’s a unique challenge and could be uniquely entertaining as well.
Next: Coca-Cola 600 grid, starting lineup
Forecast
Mother Nature could definitely throw the teams a curveball for this particular Coca-Cola 600, at least at the start. Weather.com is calling for a chance of thunderstorms today in the Charlotte area, with the greatest chances right before the race is scheduled to start. It looks fine after that, so the race should be able to be run as expected, but the possibility of a green track adds just another headache to the many that crew chiefs already have for this race.
Four things to watch
In honor of the longer race, we’ll go with an extra thing to watch at Charlotte.
- Extra motivated Harvick: Not that Harvick ever needs any of it, but you have to imagine that getting beaten out by Ryan Blaney in the late stages of the XFINITY Series race did not sit well with him. His No. 4 has been fast and was good enough to claim the pole, but he still hasn’t won in 2017. This could be the night.
- Late race drama: Even after nearly 200 laps on Saturday, the XFINITY Series race ended with multiple late restarts. It’s something to keep in mind for Sunday night. The longest race on the schedule could still very well come down to a restart and short run speed in the closing moments.
- Four stages, not three: NASCAR made an interesting tweak to the Coca-Cola 600, adding an extra stage. Not only does that mean more points are up for grabs, but all of the stages are the exact same length, a first for this season. Don’t be surprised if that influences some strategies and pit calls.
- Potential young gun breakthrough: A 600-miler wouldn’t normally be the place you’d expect a young driver to win their first race, but the current crop of rookies and youngsters is especially deep. Chase Elliott has been fast all year. Blaney has to be confident after winning Saturday. Jones appears to grow in confidence on a weekly basis. Charlotte could be the place one of them visits Victory Lane, and it wouldn’t be a shock.
Prediction
Larson has been superb on intermediate tracks this season, but coming from 39th could be too much even for him. Harvick should be a factor, though it’s hard to pick him until he gets that first ‘W’ of the season. So while acknowledging the trickiness of picking a winner at all in a race this long, we’re willing to cast our lot with Martin Truex Jr.
Like Larson, Truex has been fast on every intermediate stop, and he knows how to win the Coca-Cola 600 having done do last year. He’s even better in 2017, and honest to goodness championship contender. Barring mechanical gremlins, it would be a big surprise if he wasn’t contending for the win.
For our dark horse pick, we’ll go with someone who’s only a dark horse only because he isn’t winning, not because he’s not doing well. Jamie McMurray has been consistently good but has no wins this season, but one imagines his late race aggressiveness could serve him well if there’s a shootout for the checkered flag in the closing laps.