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NASCAR On Fox Analyst and former Coca-Cola 600 winning Crew Chief Larry McReynolds joined Evan Ludwig on the Memorial Day Special Edition of Into The Smoke to recap a wild Coke 600, and what we can expect from a new race on the schedule.
Larry started by reacting to Denny Hamlin winning his first Coke 600 with a short-handed crew stemming from a loose wheel at Dover Larry said this was big for Denny because this was the only Crown Jewel Race he hadn’t won and him winning was a testament to the depths of the crew rosters each team has. Larry also pointed out to Evan that this win is a huge sigh of relief for Denny as with 2 wins there is no doubt of him missing the playoffs in case we get more than 16 winners before the end of the regular season.
When it came to the on-track product last night, Larry said the resin applied to the 2nd and 3rd grooves really made a difference in the racing as it just wasn’t “follow the leader” on the bottom of the track which made for some fun side-by-side racing and he thinks while the race was long, it was one of the best races we have seen on the Charlotte oval in a long-long time.
2 drivers who came oh so close to winning their first last night were the Chevy drivers of Tyler Reddick and Daniel Suarez Larry knows how hard it is for those 2 drivers to not have that elusive first win, but he noted that you don’t drive this good for this long and not get at least 1 win as he told Evan if by the end of the year both guys still don’t have that first win he would be shocked.
The conversation with Larry concluded with a preview of a new track for the Cup Series in World Wide Technology Raceway (Formerly Gateway) as Larry pointed to the similarities the track resembles Phoenix and is a more flat version of Darlington as Larry loved what he has seen in the past with the Xfinity Series, and the Truck series, so he is expecting a good debut race for the Cup Series.
