Las Vegas, NV—What a great day for Hendrick Motor Sports at Las Vegas Motor Speedway during the Pennzoil 400 presented by Jiffy Lube. Their driver, William Byron, car 24 won 176 laps and won the race today. He has had good luck at LVMS but today was a different feeling for him and the HMS team. Not only did Byron win the race, he also won stages 1 and 2. That’s really huge. This is the third time HMS has taken first, second, and third spots in a race.
Although the team represented well today, they was still missing an important part of their team. The driver of the No. 9 car, Chase Elliott missed the cup series race due to a leg injury he suffered from a snowboarding accident on Friday. He will be out for an undetermined amount of time as he recovers from surgery that he underwent on Friday night. Josh Berry, who is not familiar with the next gen car took on the feat to qualifier and raced the No. 9 in place of Elliott during the cup series race this Sunday. There is no word who will drive the car next week in Phoenix.
Many fans have voiced displeasure about Elliott snowboarding during race season as he is paid to drive. On the other hand, some race drivers, including No. 8 Kyle Busch feels differently. Busch stated in pre race interview “that the drivers are humans. We can’t be wrapped in bubble wrap”. Over the years, drivers such as Jimmy Johnson, Denny Hamlin, and Daniel Hemric have sustained injuries outside of the race car.
Joey Logano, car 22, was the pole winner after the qualifying race with a lap of 29.024 seconds and 186.053. This is his first pole in 2023 season, but unfortunately, it did not work well for Logano. He crashed his back end into the wall on lap 182 after car 6, Brad Keselowski and Logano made contact while fighting for position into the turn. He was able to drive the car to pit road, but was unable to fix the broken toe link within the allotted ten minutes given under the damaged vehicle policy.
Such a great race for car 23, Bubba Wallace. He not only finished the race but he finished 4th today. This week was a better look for 23XI Racing Team as both Wallace and Tyler Reddick 2023 season was looking dim. Neither driver finished the race in either Daytona Speedway or Auto Club Speedway. Wallace started out in the top 15 after the qualifying race on Saturday. He ran in the top 10 for most of the race hovering over position six. With the fourth caption and late race accident sent the race into a three lap overtime.
Wallace took a two-tire pit stop and pushed his way up to fourth position. He hasn’t had good luck in the past with a two-tire stop, but the decision from his crew chief Bootie Baker turned the tables for the tire decision. He was happy with todays win but feels they have a lot of stuff to work on.
Up next:
Phoenix Raceway, March 12th 3:30 PM EST
