In The Know – MICHIGAN
We head to the Great Lake State this week to take on 400 miles on the 2-mile oval of Michigan International Speedway. Get up-to-speed on race info, driver stats, our weekly wraps and more.
The Details
NASCAR Cup Series Overview
● Event: FireKeepers Casino 400 (Round 23 of 36)
● Time/Date: 3 p.m. EDT on Sunday, Aug. 7
● Location: Michigan International Speedway in Brooklyn
● Layout: 2-mile oval
● Laps/Miles: 200 laps/400 miles
● Stage Lengths: Stage 1: 45 laps / Stage 2: 75 laps / Final Stage: 80 laps
● TV/Radio: USA Network / MRN / SiriusXM NASCAR Radio
BROADCAST
SHR FAST FACTS
Kevin Harvick:
The FireKeepers Casino 400 will mark Harvick’s 42nd career NASCAR Cup Series start at Michigan, the most among active drivers. Since making his first start at the track on June 10, 2001, Harvick has scored five wins, 15 top-five and 21 top-10 finishes while leading 699 laps, all of which are series bests. Harvick’s five wins are two more than Kurt Busch, Kyle Larson and Joey Logano, all of whom are tied with three wins apiece. Harvick’s 15 top-fives are five more than next best Denny Hamlin and Martin Truex Jr. (10 top-fives apiece). Harvick’s 21 top-10s are four more than nearest pursuers Busch and Logano (17 top-10s each), as are his 699 laps led, which is 109 more laps than Logano (590 laps led).
Harvick’s first NASCAR Cup Series win at Michigan came on Aug. 15, 2010. Fifteen races passed before Harvick’s second win on Aug. 12, 2018, but in that span he finished second six times, including a run of four straight runner-up finishes (2013-2014).
The victory on Aug. 12, 2018 might have been one of the most satisfying of Harvick’s career. Upon climbing from his car on the start/finish line, Harvick waved his son, Keelan, over to grab the checkered flag. Then after Harvick completed his TV interview, a then 6-year-old Keelan rode with his dad around the racetrack and on to victory lane. It was a tradition that continued a year later when Harvick successfully defended his win at Michigan. This time, Keelan joined his dad on pit road and rode in the car en route to the frontstretch, riding shotgun as Harvick performed an epic burnout on the way to the start/finish line to pick up another checkered flag.
Aric Almirola:
In 18 NASCAR Cup series starts at Michigan International Speedway in Brooklyn, Almirola has two top-10 finishes and 13 laps led. He has three NASCAR Xfinity series starts there with a best finish of eighth, and has one win in the NASCAR Camping World Truck series in only two starts, the win coming in June 2010.
Almirola and the No. 10 Smithfield Ford team have proven they can find speed at 2-mile ovals. In just their second points-paying start in the NextGen car Feb. 27 at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, California, they finished sixth.
Chase Briscoe:
In the 2021 edition of the FireKeepers 400, Briscoe’s Cup Series debut at Michigan, he started 21st and was riding comfortably inside the top-10 with just three laps to go before contact with Kurt Busch caused damage to the nose of the No. 14 Ford Mustang. While the injured car became a handful for Briscoe in the closing laps, he held on for an 11th-place finish.
Prior to last year, Briscoe never finished outside of the top-10 in his three previous starts there, each in a different series. In his lone NASCAR Xfinity Series start in 2019, he started 14th and finished seventh. He finished ninth in his only NASCAR Camping World Truck Series start there in 2017, and second in the 2016 ARCA Menards Racing Series event.
With 22 races complete and four remaining before the playoff field is set, Briscoe sits 15th in the driver standings with one win, earned in March at Phoenix Raceway. The win earned Briscoe a chance to make the Cup Series playoffs for the first time, provided there are no more than 16 different race winners following the Aug. 27 regular season finale at Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway.
Cole Custer:
After equaling his season-best finish of ninth during last Sunday on the road course at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Cole Custer and his No. 41 HaasTooling.com Ford Mustang team for Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR) head to the Irish Hills for Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series FireKeepers Casino 400 at Michigan International Speedway in Brooklyn.
Sunday’s 200-lap race will be Custer’s 98th career Cup Series start and his fourth on the 2-mile Michigan oval. In a Saturday-Sunday doubleheader weekend during his 2020 Rookie of the Year season, he posted finishes of 34th and 25th, respectively. Custer bettered those results during last year’s return to the Irish Hills with a 23rd-place finish.
In three NASCAR Xfinity Series appearances at Michigan from 2017 through 2019, all in the No. 00 SHR Ford, Custer never finished outside the top-12 or qualified worse than seventh. His best outing was a third-place finish from the fourth starting position in 2018. He finished 10th from seventh on the grid in 2017, and finished 12th from sixth on the grid in 2019.
OUR WEEKLY WRAPS
Check out the schemes we’re bringing to Michigan this week.
What Our Drivers are Saying:
Kevin Harvick, Driver of the No. 4 Busch Light Apple #BuschelOfBusch Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing:
You’ve enjoyed a lot of success at Michigan. Does that experience have any bearing when you return there with the NextGen car?
“Maybe. You can have a baseline interpretation, but it seems to have migrated in a number of different directions at different racetracks and different scenarios this year just because of the different characteristics that come with the car. Places that we haven’t been, you just don’t really know where it’s going to go. You go to some of these places, I think Darlington is a good example, where California, Darlington, places that have been super rough, have been really difficult to navigate in traffic, and even by yourself sometimes, because of the way that the cars bounce around.”
Aric Almirola, Driver of the No. 10 Smithfield for Stewart-Haas Racing:
Do you feel confident heading to Michigan?
“Michigan is always a weird place for me because, in my mind, I feel like I run well there. I won a Truck race there years ago and, from that point forward, I just always loved going to Michigan. My wife’s family is from Michigan, so I go to Michigan with such a great attitude. We have had a few top-five cars at Michigan and didn’t execute and things didn’t go our way with the restarts and I didn’t get the result, so I’m confident this 10 team can bring us a fast car. I’m excited about going back. Going to Michigan, there’s always a lot of pride for the manufacturers. I’d love to go there and keep the trophy in Ford’s backyard.”
Chase Briscoe, Driver of the No. 14 Rush Truck Centers/Cummins Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing:
In the last four races, you’ve raced on the 1.5-mile Atlanta superspeedway oval, the flat, 1-mile New Hampshire oval, the Pocono triangle, and the Indianapolis road course. Does the diversity of the 2022 schedule make it tough for teams to find a rhythm?
“It’s definitely tough. You go to a road course and then you have a short track and then you’re racing in a pack and drafting. The consistency just isn’t there. I feel like, my first year, there were a lot of mile-and-a-half tracks in a row, and it was kind of easy to get in a rhythm. We haven’t had a true mile-and-a-half since the Coca-Cola 600 in May. I don’t think you can really put Atlanta in that category now, which really changes things. So, that part makes it a little tougher because the schedule is so back and forth, a lot of different racetracks. But to be fair, it should be hard to get into a rhythm. The diverse schedule makes it interesting. We’re supposed to be some of the best drivers in the world. I like how tough the schedule is but, yes, it is hard to get in a rhythm.”
Cole Custer, Driver of the No. 41 HaasTooling.com Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing:
With the regular season winding down, what can you look back on as some of the positives so far this year?
“We’ve shown speed at times. We went to Bristol and sat on the pole. That was really cool for my first Cup pole. I’m not a dirt guy, so it was pretty surprising to me. But it was cool to have that. It was fun to go to Fontana and win the Xfinity race. And also the road courses, we’ve been pretty fast, ran top-10 at all of them but just didn’t have the finishes. Martinsville, we were good. It’s just a matter of having it all come together.”
MENTOR & MENTEE: Highs & lows
The boss Tony Stewart has some advice for Chase Briscoe on the highs and lows of our sport: racers keep diggin’ no matter what. Hear all of the boss’ advice to Chase on episode 3 of our Mentor & Mentee series presented by Mahindra Tractors.
