The Cup Series continues tonight with the 2025 Cracker Barrel 400 at Nashville Superspeedway. A 1.33 mile concrete tri-oval featuring 14 degrees of banking in the turns, nine degrees of banking on the frontstretch and six degrees of banking on the backstretch, Nashville Superspeedway first opened in 2001 and has hosted the Cup Series annually since 2021. Managing your tires is the biggest key to success tonight. Concrete tracks are notorious for excessive tire wear, and tonight will be no different. Drivers will want four, fresh Goodyears at every possible opportunity. Expect a heavy veteran presence on the leaderboard, especially those that are best at managing equipment. Patience will also be important, as this track has proven to be difficult to pass on in recent races. It can be done, but it will take that patience to do it effectively. Lastly, as qualifying showed, some cars are trimmed out for short run speed, while others qualified deeper, but with better long run pace. Which drivers have hit that right balance? Which strategy will prove most effective by the end of 300 laps?
The Cracker Barrel 400 is a relatively new race, joining the NASCAR schedule in 2021. The list of winners is short, but elite. Kyle Larson, Chase Elliott, Ross Chastain and Joey Logano. That’s it. That’s the entire list.
Last year’s race was won by Joey Logano, who led the final nine laps and survived the carnage of a record five overtime restarts to bring home the victory. Zane Smith earned a career-best second place finish, Tyler Reddick finished third after leading 16 laps, Ryan Preece finished fourth and Chris Buescher finished fifth. Ryan Blaney finished sixth after leading 26 laps, AJ Allmendinger led one lap on the way to an eleventh place finish, Denny Hamlin finished 12th after leading 70 laps, Ty Gibbs led two laps on the way to a 23rd place finish, Ross Chastain led 45 laps on the way to a 33rd place finish, Michael McDowell led 31 laps on the way to a 35th place finish and Christopher Bell finished 36th after leading a race-high 131 laps.
Coverage of the Cracker Barrel 400 can be seen on Amazon Prime, with pre-race coverage beginning at 6:30 PM EST and green flag coverage beginning at 7 PM EST.
Cody Ware is starting toward the back of the pack. I predict he’ll finish toward the back of the pack as well.
When you see the word “Superspeedway,” ole Ricky Stenhouse Jr. comes to mind. Something tells me a Top 20 finish is within his capabilities this weekend.
Chase Elliott has 7 top 10 finishes on the year. Elliott has an average finish of 7th place over the past 3 races at Nashville. While three 7s are the typical harbinger of good fortune, I’ll take two 7’s as being a pretty good sign this weekend.
A previous winner at Nashville, Kyle Larson should be poised to perform well this weekend. He’s one of the best drivers out there, weekend after weekend. No reason to pass on him this weekend.
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