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May 29, 2025
By Holly Cain
NASCAR Wire Service
Photo Getty Images
NASCAR hits halfway point with high stakes at Nashville Superspeedway
With only four previous NASCAR Cup Series races at the 1.33-mile Nashville Superspeedway, Sunday night’s primetime Cracker Barrel 400 (7 p.m. ET on Amazon Prime, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) presents a lot of unknowns and a lot of opportunity.
Last year’s Nashville race featured the most overtime finishes in series history – an extra 31 laps – with Team Penske’s Joey Logano coming out on top after a fifth overtime period. It marked the first race win of the season for Logano, who would go on to claim his third NASCAR Cup Series championship.
The 2025 regular season officially reached the half-way mark at Charlotte last week, where Trackhouse Racing’s Ross Chastain claimed his – and the team’s – first trophy of the season in a historic run from last place on the starting grid. The 32-year-old Floridian is also a former winner at Nashville (2023) and has top-five finishes in three of his four starts at the track, which bodes well for Chastain, personally, and the team, generally.
“The track is very unique,” said Chastain, who pilots the No. 1 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet. “It feels like it’s a mile-and-a-half [track] but it’s not, so it takes me some time to get acclimated. But I’ve had fast cars there to be honest. If my cars aren’t good, I can’t go fast. We’ll look to build off of things we’ve learned more recently about these cars and try to keep moving the needle.”
Although Chastain was runner-up at Texas three weeks ago, consistency has been something the Trackhouse Racing team is still procuring as a perennial NASCAR Cup Series championship-level organization. And a good showing in the team’s Nashville headquarters this weekend would go a long way.
The first Trackhouse hire, veteran Daniel Suarez earned two of his 2025 season’s three top-10 finishes in the last five races but has suffered through adversity (often not of his own doing) with three other finishes of 33rd or worse in that stretch. His lone top-10 in four Nashville races came in 2021.
Shane Van Gisbergen, who is competing in his first full NASCAR Cup Series season in the No. 88 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet, has a single top-10 – at the Circuit of The Americas road course. The former Australian Supercars champion is, however, coming off his best finish (14th at Charlotte) in the 10 races since COTA. He finished 15th at Nashville in last year’s NASCAR Xfinity Series race there.
Of note, Hendrick Motorsports’ Kyle Larson is the only driver with top-10 finishes in all four Nashville races, with a win in 2021 and an average finish of 4.5 at the track.
Conversely, in the four previous Nashville races, the powerhouse Joe Gibbs Racing team only has two top-five finishes combined among its four drivers. Last year, the team led 203 of the 331 laps but did not come away with a single top-10.
This season, the race winner has led 10 laps or less seven times – including four of the last six races heading to Nashville.
Championship leader, Hendrick Motorsports’ William Byron has two top-10 finishes in four Nashville races and two others of 19th or worse. He’s led a total of five laps (all in 2023) and finished 19th last year.
Practice is set for 4:30 p.m. ET on Saturday, followed by Busch Light Pole Qualifying at 5:40 p.m. ET – both sessions airing on Amazon Prime, PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
JGR’s Denny Hamlin won the pole position in 2024. Chastain is the only driver to win (2023) at Nashville from pole.
Turn up the music for Saturday night’s Xfinity showdown in Nashville
It’s been three races since a NASCAR Xfinity Series full-timer celebrated in Victory Lane this season so there’s plenty of motivation on the grid for Saturday night’s Tennessee Lottery 250 at Nashville Superspeedway (7:30 p.m. ET on CW Network, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Richard Childress Racing’s Austin Hill was the last of the championship-eligible drivers to win a race, doing so April 26 at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway. And he is the only Xfinity Series regular to score top-10 finishes in the last four Nashville races.
Historically-speaking, Nashville has been a challenge for the series’ championship contenders. Seven different drivers have won the last seven races. Reigning series champ, JR Motorsports’ Justin Allgaier is the only fulltime driver with an Xfinity Series win at the 1.33-mile track, claiming the trophy in 2022 after leading 134 of the 188 laps and beating Trevor Bayne by an impressive 4.513-seconds.
Allgaier, a two-race winner already this season and the current championship leader by a healthy 72-points over three-race winner Hill, has seven top-five finishes in the opening nine races, but has suffered through some erratic finishes of late – a pair of top-10s alternating with finishes of 21st (Rockingham, N.C.) and 35th (Texas).
One driver to keep an eye on this weekend is Haas Factory Team’s Sam Mayer, the only championship contender among the top six in points without a trophy this season. He’s never finished worse than 10th at Nashville and has a pair of top-five showings in three races at the track.
The competition level in the series is so high right now, the past three races coming to Nashville have been decided by a pass in the final two laps.
Keep an eye out for rookie Connor Zilisch, whose runner-up effort last week in the No. 88 JR Motorsports Chevrolet moved him up six positions in the Xfinity Series championship standings to sixth place. This will be his Nashville Superspeedway debut.
“I’m really looking forward to going to Nashville for the first time,” said the 18-year-old Zilisch, who leads the series Rookie of the Year standings by six-points over his teammate Carson Kvapil. “It’s such a cool city and I’ve raced at the Fairgrounds before, but this will be my first time racing at the NASCAR track in Nashville.
“I have some laps on the simulator and it’s definitely a technical racetrack. I’m looking forward to figuring it out quickly and keeping the momentum up from Charlotte.”
Last week’s NASCAR Cup Series race winner, Ross Chastain, will be driving the No. 9 Chevrolet for JR Motorsports. Former NASCAR Cup Series regular Aric Almirola, who won at Phoenix earlier this year, will be back behind the wheel of the No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota. And Katherine Legge will be driving the No. 32 Jordan Anderson Racing Chevrolet.
Practice is set for 2:05 p.m. ET on Saturday followed by Kennametal Pole Qualifying at 3:10 p.m. ET – both sessions airing live on the CW APP. Ty Gibbs, who is not racing this weekend, started from pole position last year. Kyle Busch (2021) is the last polesitter to win the race.
Cory Heim leads CRAFTSMAN Truck Series to Nashville with dominant momentum
The NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series is on race five of a season-high stretch of six consecutive race weekends with Friday night’s stop at Nashville Superspeedway for the Rackley Roofing 200 (8 p.m. ET on FS1, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Championship frontrunner Cory Heim – who will be making his second NASCAR Cup Series start for 23XI Racing on Sunday night – collected his fourth truck series trophy of the season with a dominant performance at Charlotte Motor Speedway last weekend, extending his lead atop the standings to 100-points heading into Friday night’s race. The driver of the No. 11 TRICON Garage Toyota has twice as many wins (four), has led three times as many laps (754) as anyone else and only finished outside the top-10 twice in the 11 races to date this year – all series best statistics.
Heim, however, has never won at Nashville. He has two top-five finishes in three starts, crashing out in his Nashville debut in 2022. He was a career-best third place last year.
Take the huge frontrunner Heim out of it, and the standings are a lot closer among the other title contenders. Front Row Motorsports’ Chandler Smith, a two-race winner, is second to Heim but holds only a 10-point advantage over McAnally-Hilgemann Racing’s Daniel Hemric and a 19-point cushion over Hemric’s teammate Tyler Ankrum – the only other race winners among the full-time competitors in 2025.
No current fulltime drivers have ever won on the 1.33-mile Nashville oval.
Two-time NASCAR Cup Series champ Kyle Busch – who won both the 2010 and 2011 Nashville truck races from pole position – will be making one of his limited season starts Friday, driving the No. 07 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet.
Christian Eckes, who now races fulltime in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, led all 150 laps en route to the trophy last year in one of the most dominating showings in years.
Practice is at 4:05 p.m. ET Friday followed immediately by Kennametal Pole Qualifying at 5:10 p.m. ET – both sessions airing live on FS1. Stewart Friesen won pole position last year and finished 11th. It’s been three years since a polesitter also won the race – Ryan Preece last doing so in 2022.
