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Las Vegas 400 Pre-Race Report

NASCAR CUP SERIES OVERVIEW

Event: Las Vegas 400 (Round 3 of 36)

Time/Date: 3:30 p.m. EST on Sunday, March 3

Location: Las Vegas Motor Speedway

Layout: 1.5-mile oval

Laps/Miles: 267 laps/400.5 miles

Stage Lengths: Stage 1: 80 laps / Stage 2: 85 laps / Final Stage: 102 laps

TV/Radio: FOX / PRN / SiriusXM NASCAR Radio

SHR FAST FACTS

Josh Berry:

Josh Berry heads west to the Nevada Desert to take on the first true intermediate track on the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series schedule for Sunday’s Las Vegas 400. The 33-year-old Cup Series rookie is no stranger to speed at the 1.5-mile oval, hitting the jackpot and visiting victory lane twice in his six NASCAR Xfinity Series starts there. In September 2021, Berry started 15th, led 38 circuits, and took the checkered flag 4.398 seconds ahead of runner-up Justin Algaier. Berry’s second victory came in October 2021, when he started 12th, led 65 laps and beat now-Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR) Cup Series teammate Noah Gragson by 1.125 seconds.

Noah Gragson: 

Noah Gragson is a Las Vegas native and the Las Vegas 400 NASCAR Cup Series race this Sunday at Las Vegas Motor Speedway serves as a homecoming for the 25-year-old racer. After beginning his 2024 campaign with a strong ninth-place finish in the season-opening Daytona 500, where he was the highest-finishing Ford driver, Gragson is seeking a rebound at Las Vegas. In the series’ prior race last Sunday at Atlanta Motor Speedway, Gragson was caught up in a 16-car accident on just the second lap of the 260-lap contest, leaving him with an undeserved 36th-place finish and dropping the Stewart-Haas Racing pilot from 15th in the championship standings to 27th.

Chase Briscoe:

After finishing 10th in the season-opening Daytona 500, Chase Briscoe had momentum rolling into the year’s second race at Atlanta Motor Speedway. The Stewart-Haas Racing driver was on the cusp of his second career NASCAR Cup Series win last Sunday at Atlanta, consistently running among the top-five, oftentimes running side-by-side for the lead. But Briscoe’s bid for victory came undone 21 laps short of the finish when a struggling racecar ahead of him bunched up the cars around Briscoe’s No. 14 Ford Mustang, sending Briscoe spinning into the outside retaining wall. After qualifying ninth and running strong throughout the race, Briscoe was left with just a 31st-place finish.

Ryan Preece:

Preece overcame an incident-filled race during last Sunday’s Ambetter Health 400 at Atlanta Motor Speedway to bring home a 16th-place finish, exceeding his previous best Atlanta finish of 24th achieved last July. In a display of resilience reminiscent of his performance in the season-opening Daytona 500, Preece confronted early adversity once again. He was collected in a multicar incident on just the second lap, emerging with significant damage to the nose of his racecar. Preece pitted for repairs and returned to the race and soldiered to the finish, avoiding numerous accidents along the way to score the best result for Stewart-Haas.

Our Weekly Wraps:

WHAT OUR DRIVERS ARE SAYING:

Josh Berry, Driver of the No. 4 Mobil1/Take 5 Ford Mustang

Since you’ve raced in the NextGen car and the Xfinity car at Las Vegas in the same weekend, can you talk about the difference in the level of competition between the two series?

“The Xfinity car just handles different than the NextGen Cup cars, and the competition is a lot tighter. You have the best of the best racing every weekend and that is something that is an adjustment. These guys are really good at what they do, and we all have a spot at NASCAR’s top series for a reason, so adjusting to that is also something that will take time to get used to.”

Noah Gragson, Driver of the No. 10 Fanttik Ford Mustang

What does it mean to race in your hometown of Las Vegas?

“It’s exciting to go back to Vegas. It feels different. For me, it’s always been special and I feel like it’s a different special because it’s home for me. I probably don’t get excited about the things that other people who aren’t from there get excited about just because it’s normal, but I get excited just because I get a ton of support from the hometown crowd and a lot of friends and family come out to the race. I try to go out there a couple of days ahead of time and spend time with my friends and family before it’s time to get to work. And I enjoy the Vegas track, regardless of it being in Vegas, and have always run well there, which is a good thing. I’m looking forward to the opportunity to get to our true test of where we’re at in speed on the kind of track that we’re going to race on the majority of the year.”

Chase Briscoe, Driver of the No. 14 Mahindra Tractors Ford Mustang

Will Las Vegas be the first true test as to where teams stack up in relation to one another?

“For sure. Vegas is going to be where you finally figure out, not only as a manufacturer but certainly as a race team, where you’re going to stack up for the next couple of months and where you’ve got to get better. I would say Vegas is certainly the racetrack where 90 percent of the garage has circled as the one they’re most looking forward to in order to see if what they did in the offseason will come to fruition.”

Ryan Preece, Driver of the No. 41 HaasTooling.com Ford Mustang

What does it take to have a good day at Las Vegas?

“Speed. You can’t drive a slow car fast. That’s something that I feel like we’ve all been working toward by communicating with the crew chiefs about what we need out of the car, and the crew chiefs communicating to the aero department on what we need in order to optimize everything to get the car to go faster on mile-and-a-half tracks. This is what the two-and-half months of work during the off-season has been building toward. When we left Phoenix last year and began working toward 2024, we circled all the mile-and-a-half tracks and said, ‘If we’re going to compete this year, we need to be better here.’”