Nashvegas, The Hot Chicken Capital, and Music City U.S.A. are all titles for the host city for the brand new race this weekend with the first trip to Nashville for the Cup series in more than a decade (hence the TBT cover pic). It’s not the track that everyone wanted in Nashville in the Fairgrounds but the Nashville Superspeedway is a starting point for this market.

Looking at track stats for this weekend, we can see that it’s a 1.33-mile, concrete track, with banking at 14 degrees for all four corners. That means we’re talking about an interesting grouping of tracks here as it’s the distance of Darlington with the track surface of Dover and the banking of some intermediates like Kansas and Kentucky and Las Vegas. The tire wear here should also be pretty decent given the concrete racing surface and the tire combo that Goodyear is bringing for all of the series this week. Also, because of the track distance being less than 1.5 miles, the Cup cars will have the 750-horsepower, low-downforce aero package on the cars which could also mean more slipping and sliding in the corners on the hot, concrete surface.

As mentioned above, the Cup drivers haven’t been here before so we don’t have track history to lean on at all this week. With that in mind, we’ll be looking at how they’ve done at the last several races at the similar tracks to Nashville whether it be similar because of distance or banking or aero package on the cars. Clearly, road courses won’t be included in the 750-horsepower track comps. The most similar tracks that we’re using as comps are Darlington, Kansas, Kentucky, Las Vegas, and Phoenix. Dover can be tossed in there too simply for the concrete surface though the distance is shorter and the banking is steeper. The tires that are on the cars this weekend have been used before at other tracks as well with the right sides being used at the last two Dover races and the left sides were used at Charlotte and Kansas this year.

The upside of it being a new track this week is that we get actual on-track practice on Saturday and then on-track qualifying on Sunday morning about 4.5 hours before the drop of the green flag. So we will actually see what these teams bring and then what adjustments they make over the course of practice and the weekend. That means that rankings and projections will be up on Saturday for a first run with an update on Sunday based on qualifying. The playbook will also be out on Saturday with possible updates on Sunday as well. The tables below show the last five similar races, the last 10 similar races, DFS scoring for the last five similar races as well as weekly category rankings over the last five and 10 similar races.

Facts To Know

  • Over the last five similar races, there are only four drivers with four or more top-10 finishes in the field this week.
  • However, there are seven drivers with driver ratings over 100 in that same span of similar tracks.
  • Hendrick Motorsports hasn’t lost a Cup race since May 9 which was the first Darlington race and won by Martin Truex Jr.

The table below shows the number of drivers to reach each stat-type over the last five races similar races with Race 1 being the most recent.

 RaceRaceRaceRaceRace 
 12345AVG
Positive Place Differential162119171818.2
Six+ Place Differential Spots7812888.6
Double-Digit Place Differential537244.2
Double-Digit Fast Laps898978.2
20+ Laps Led314453.4
50+ Laps Led212211.6
100+ Laps Led111111

For the tables below:
* The Category Rankings table: The numbers in the tables for each column represent that driver's rank amongst the other in the field for that particular stat. They are ranked with 1 being the best in each column.
* The DFS Scoring Table: Race 1 is the most recent race in the sample size with Race 5 being the earliest. For Nashville, we are using comparable races from this year's season as the five-race sample.