Cook Out 400 Preview: Road Trip to Richmond

NASCAR’s incredible momentum through the summer swing continues. The trek to Pocono saw the Cup series deliver yet another banger of a race. Additionally, with several on-track and off-track incidents – tempers are high heading into the Cook Out 400 at Richmond.

A series of late-race cautions and restarts saw Denny Hamlin claim the victory after quite the shunt to Kyle Larson in Turn 1. Other than Hamlin and Larson, we also saw Austin Dillon and Tyler Reddick, as well as Ryan Preece and Corey LaJoie, get together in incidents that left drivers heated.

All of this should make for fun storylines heading into Richmond where yours truly will be in attendance. A huge shoutout to Pokatok Fest for coming through with the sponsorship that allows this road trip to Richmond to take place. I’ll be driving up to catch all of NASCAR’s best taking on the 0.75-mile oval at Richmond Raceway in short-track racing. You can find the Cook Out 400 entry list below.

Entry List

As mentioned above, the high number of on-track incidents at Pocono could very well lead to more on-track fireworks during Sunday’s race. Kyle Larson won the race at Richmond earlier in the Spring. William Byron had a fantastic car as well before getting caught up in an incident leading me to believe the Hendrick Motorsports cars will be a factor in the race. In fact, the #9 with Josh Berry subbing for Chase Elliott finished second – leading me to my dark horse pick of Chase Elliott for this weekend in Virginia.

However, a lot of things have changed since the Spring race. I think we might see some new faces near the front come Sunday. At the top of that list, I think Ryan Blaney in the #12 will have a good run at Richmond. His Penske Ford has looked good in spite of some bad luck. I think the run of bad luck ends in Virginia.

Check out the schedule below to make sure you don’t miss any on-track action. Also, make note that the Xfinity Series is in Wisconsin at Road America this weekend while the Cup and Trucks series are both at Richmond.

Friday 07/28

Untelevised NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Qualifying (Richmond) – 4:35 p.m. CT

NASCAR Xfinity Series Qualifying (Road America) – 5:00 p.m. CT on USA

Saturday 07/29

NASCAR Cup Series Qualifying (Richmond) – 12:20 p.m. CT on USA

Road America 180 (NASCAR Xfinity Series – Road America) – 2:00 p.m. CT on NBC

Worldwide Express 250 (NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series – Richmond) – 6:30 p.m. CT on FS1

Sunday 07/30

Cook Out 400 (NASCAR Cup Series – Richmond) – 2:00 p.m. CT on USA

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