The Cup Series heats up tonight with the 2025 Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway. The longest race of the season by mileage (600 miles), and the longest time- wise (last three Coca-Cola 600’s to go the full distance averaged four hours and 43 minutes in length), the Coca-Cola 600 serves as one of the most prestigious races of the season, as well as one of the sport’s four Crown Jewel races. With the race falling on Memorial Day weekend every season, this races also serves as a salute to our nation’s active-duty military, and more importantly, in memory of those who gave their lives serving and defending our country.
Charlotte Motor Speedway is a one and a half mile paved track featuring five degrees of banking on the straights and 24 degrees of banking in the turns, hosting the sport each year since it opened in 1960. The biggest key to success tonight is patience. 400 laps is a long time, so there will be plenty of comers and goers all night long. Just staying in the moment and taking what your car and the track gives you is going to go a long way, especially as the pressure ramps up later in the race. Intermediate tracks often produce long runs in the middle of the race, so having a car tuned in for that long run will definitely give certain drivers an advantage. Finally, avoid the strategy. As we saw at the end of the Xfinity Series race yesterday, four fresh tires always wins the day. Two tires may work on a short five lap sprint to the end, but four fresh Goodyears is just what the doctor ordered. Will a veteran step up and drive away with a win in one of the bigger races of the season? Or will a young, up-and-comer make their presence known?
The Coca-Cola 600 has been a fixture on the NASCAR schedule since 1960, with the best of the best finding victory lane through the years. Darrell Waltrip has won this race the most times, winning it five times in his career. Jimmie Johnson won this race four times, while Bobby Allison, Buddy Baker, Dale Earnhardt Sr., Jeff Gordon, Kasey Kahne and David Pearson all serve as three-time winners of the 600. Neil Bonnett, Jeff Burton, Kevin Harvick, Fred Lorenzen, Jim Paschal, Richard Petty and Martin Truex Jr. also won this race multiple times in their careers.
Last year’s race was won by Christopher Bell, who led 90 laps on the day and won Stages 2 and 3 on the way to the race win, which was shortened to 249 laps due to inclement weather. Brad Keselowski led one lap on the way to a runner-up finish, William Byron finished in third, winning Stage 1 and leading 49 laps on the day, while Tyler Reddick and Denny Hamlin rounded out the top five. Ty Gibbs started on the Pole and finished in 6th place after leading 74 laps, Chase Elliott led two laps on the way to a 7th place finish, Ross Chastain led 10 laps on the way to an 8th place finish, Josh Berry led seven laps on the way to a 10th place finish, Martin Truex Jr. led eight laps on the way to a 12th place finish, Michael McDowell led six laps on the way to a 16th place finish and Shane van Gisbergen led two laps on the way to a 28th place finish.
Coverage of the Coca-Cola 600 can be seen on Amazon Prime (don’t forget about your FREE 30 day subscription to watch all five of the Prime races, you bitter fucking cucks), with pre-race coverage beginning at 5 PM EST and green flag coverage beginning at 6 PM EST.
For the second straight season, Carson Hocevar continues to exceed expectations in the #77 Chevrolet for Spire Motorsports, posting one top five, two top 10’s and four top 15’s, good enough to slot into 19th position in the Point Standings. Hocevar comes into the week fresh off of an 11th place at the All-Star Race, courtesy of his victory in the All-Star Open. Hocevar is in line for a long weekend in Charlotte, though. Hocevar did post the fastest lap of Practice and showed great pace on 5, 10, 15 and 20 Lap Averages. However, Hocevar went for a spin during his qualifying lap and will start in 39th position tonight. Yes, Hocevar has pace. But he’s shown pace on other intermediate tracks this season and hasn’t had any quality results. He did finish a career-best second at Atlanta, but Atlanta is a drafting/intermediate hybrid. On the true intermediates, Hocevar posted a best finish of 24th at Texas. Hocevar finished 21st here last season, and I predict he will finish outside the top 20 again tonight.
John Hunter Nemechek has arguably been the surprise of the 2025 season so far, posting one top five, four top 10’s and five top 15’s on the way to an 18th place position in the Point Standings while driving the #42 Toyota for Legacy Motor Club. Like Hocevar above, Nemechek also transferred into the All-Star Race, finishing second in the All-Star Open before finishing 19h in the All-Star Race. Nemechek didn’t show much pace in Practice, but that’s doesn’t really seem to matter, as Nemechek qualified in 6th position for tonight’s race. Frankly, Nemechek didn’t show much pace in Practice for either of the last two intermediate races, but he managed to finish in the top 10 in both of them, finishing 8th at Texas and 10th at Kansas. Nemechek posted 13th and 16th place finishes at both Charlotte races in 2020, but logged a 30th place finish here last season. The #42 team seems to have found something on the intermediates, so I’m going to predict that they keep up the momentum at Charlotte, with Nemechek locking in his first ever top 12 finish in the 600.
Kyle Larson is doing Kyle Larson things so far in 2025, with three wins, eight top 5’s and nine top 10’s in the first 12 races. Larson tried his best to complete The Double today, but it was not meant to be, wrecking out near the halfway point of the Indianapolis 500 and finishing 27th. With the pressure of achieving history off the table, Larson can put his full focus towards the other race on his schedule today, the Coca Cola 600. Larson has been the man to beat on intermediate tracks this season, winning at both Homestead-Miami and Kansas, as well as posting strong performances at Las Vegas and Kansas. Larson was okay in Practice, getting better as the runs went on, but he showed up when it mattered, putting his #5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet on the front row, rolling out from 2nd position tonight. Despite Larson’s intermediate dominance, Charlotte has proven to be more elusive, posting just one win (2021), two top 5’s and 6 top 10’s in 14 career starts. Not bad for most drivers, but feels underwhelming for a drive of Larson’s caliber. With Larson’s attempts at The Double in the wind and social media ripping him a new one just because toxic people live to tear other people down, you better believe Larson is going to come out swinging. Expect Larson to lead some laps early on his way to a fifth straight top 10 finish on the campaign.
2025 has been an up and down season for Tyler Reddick, posting three top 5’s and four top 10’s, but also posting eight finishes of 14th or worse along the way. Reddick has never won at Charlotte, but has raced well there, posting two top 5’s and five top 10’s in six trips to the track, including top six finishes each of the last three years. Reddick has had speed on intermediate tracks this season, but the results just simply haven’t been there so far, with his best finish of 8th at Homestead-Miami being his only top 15 performance. Reddick has once again shown promise early on this weekend, posting the fifth fastest lap of Practice on the way to a 12th place starting position for the #45 Toyota for 23XI Racing. In NASCAR’s longest race of the season, I predict that Reddick will take home his first victory of the season, and his first Crown Jewel victory, with a win in the Coca-Cola 600!
Happy Memorial Day everyone! 🇺🇸
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