by Patrick Zier | Apr 19, 2025 |
All things being equal, and in NASCAR now all things are equal, tires will tell the tale. Especially on short tracks. Get your tire pressure just right, maybe a little bit on the soft side so they grip better at the start, get the right balance, where the weight of the car on the left front and right rear equals the weight of the car on the right front and left rear, get out front early and you’re off to the races.
Because nobody will be able to pass you unless they can beat you in the pits. Since all the teams get their parts and pieces from single source suppliers, and since NASCAR does not allow you to modify those parts and pieces the least little bit, all the cars come to the track pretty much the same. So getting near perfect tire pressure and near perfect balance is about the only thing that gets you any separation.
And if you get out front and can set the pace, keep your car running smoothly in the same lane around the bottom of the track at say 80 percent of maximum speed, those behind you will use up their tires trying to catch up and you can pretty much lead the way the whole day.
That’s what Kyle Larson did at Bristol last Sunday, leading an astounding 411 of 500 laps. That’s what William Byron did the week before at Darlington, leading 243 of 297 laps but losing the race and finishing second to Denny Hamlin after he got behind on a green flag pit stop.
Darlington, by the way, is not a short track. It’s generally thought of as an intermediate track but it’s really kind of an outlier, too long to really be a short track and not quite a mile-and-a-half that defines the lower end of NASCAR’s intermediate ovals.
The week before he snuck across the finish line to beat Bryon at Darlington, Hamlin himself had a dominant car at Martinsville, where he led 274 of 400 laps.
So this is not your father’s short track racing. Used to be there was more separation between the cars, and if you came up on a slower car you’d put the bumper to him and send him up the track and sometimes into the fence which led to a lot of beatin’ and bangin’ after he got straightened out and came around looking for you.
In fact Bristol was the scene of perhaps the most iconic spin-out in NASCAR history. It happened at the night race in 1999 and featured two of the sport’s all-time greats, Dale Earnhardt and Terry Labonte.
As the two came to the white flag, Labonte edged in front and looked like he was on his way to a hard fought win. But Earnhardt would have none of that, and as they went into the first turn he clipped Labonte and sent him into the wall.
Earnhardt never denied he hit Labonte intentionally, he said he just intended to move him out of the way and never meant to wreck him. Earnhardt may have been the most popular driver in NASCAR history, but when he got out of his car to be acknowledged by the crowd, instead of the raucous roar that usually accompanied his wins he was greeted by a thunderous cascade of boos. It was probably the only time in his illustrious career that the fans in the stands turned on him.
Now, it’s get your guy out front and let everybody else try to catch him. And even if you do catch him you’re probably not going to get by him, at least not on the track.
“We were just trying to set ourselves up for the best opportunity for longevity, for pace, for Kyle to be able to manage the runs with the tire degradation in mind,” Cliff Daniels, Larson’s crew chief, said after the race.
In Earnhardt’s day, it was much simpler. See car in front. Hit car in front. Knock car in front out of the way. Worked for him.
NASCAR NOTES: No race this week.
OGS Bristol picks: 1-Denny Hamlin, 2-Christopher Bell, 3-Kyle Larson. Bristol winner: Larson. OGS season record: 4-3.
OGS Competition Index top 10: 1-Hamlin 218 points, 2-Bell 187, 3-Larson 179, 4-William Byron 139, 5-Josh Berry 77, 6-Bubba Wallace 73, 7-Tyler Reddick 67, 8-Alex Bowman 52, 9-Ryan Blaney 47, 10-Chase Elliott 45.
OGS Competition Index top 10 on short tracks: 1-Hamlin 155, 2-Larson 115, 3-Bell 103, 4-Wallace, Ty Gibbs 30, 6-Elliott 25, 7-Berry 24, 8-Chase Briscoe 20, 9-Blaney 15, 10-Joey Logano 12.
by Patrick Zier | Apr 16, 2025 |
South Florida may not have had the worst defense in the country last year, but it was close to it. Some numbers: The Bulls ranked 118th out of 133 teams in total defense. They were 100th out of 133 teams in scoring defense, 127th out of 133 in pass defense and 81st out of 133 in rushing defense.
If the Bulls are going to get where they want to go this year, which ideally would be the College Football Playoffs or, more realistically, their first ever AAC championship, then the defense has to make major improvement.
The question is whether or not it will be able to do that. Going into the new season, there are a lot of returning pieces and some new additions from the transfer portal as well, and Todd Orlando, the team’s defensive coordinator, is counting on being able to blend them all together to make a more formidable unit.
When you look at USF’s defense and break it down, a number of things stand out. The secondary is experienced. Tavon Ward made 13 starts at one safety spot. DeShawn Rucker had 11 starts at cornerback and Brent Austin started all 13 games at the other.
There are two all-conference type linebackers in Mac Harris, who started all 13 games, and Jalen Shuler, who started 10 games and did not play in the other three. The linebackers are easily the strength of this defense.
But it’s what’s up front the counts, and frankly, the Bulls didn’t have much up front last year and don’t look like they’ll be a lot better this year. And if there isn’t drastic improvement at the line of scrimmage, the whole defense has a problem.
This is especially true for South Florida because the offense plays at such a fast pace. Last year, the Bulls ranked 46th in the country on offense and 33rd in scoring, averaging 32.2 points per game. That’s extremely impressive when you consider USF lost its starting quarterback, Byrum Brown, about halfway through the season.
Normally, when an offense plays that well it means the defense is not on the field very much and stays strong throughout the game. But that wasn’t true for USF. Because the offense averaged 74.8 plays per game, eighth highest in the country, South Florida’s defense was on the field almost constantly.
So, while the offense scored a lot of points, it didn’t take very long to do it and that meant that the defense barely had a chance to sit down before it was back on the field again. In fact, USF’s time of possession ranked an astounding 133rd out of 133 teams, the worst in college football.
This made it particularly hard on the defensive line. The offensive and defensive lines have the toughest job on the team. They are the only position groups that engage in strenuous physical activity on every play.
On defense, linebackers and defensive backs get a break but the linemen never do. And if they don’t overpower the guy in front of them, if they don’t disrupt the offense more than the offense contains them, then their team will likely lose.
Because line play is so physically demanding, good teams rotate players in and out frequently. And when you have a team that plays as fast as USF, that becomes increasingly important because the defense is on the field so much. And last year, USF wasn’t good enough to win with its starters up front let alone its backups, and that problem must be fixed this year or the Bulls will be in trouble again.
The defensive line lost an 11 game starter at end and a 10 game starter at nose although how much that will hurt is debatable. The top returning lineman is tackle Bernard Gooden, who made 11 starts last year.
Gooden had 10 tackles for a loss and two fumble recoveries among other things and is a solid player and the one known commodity up front. But he can’t do this by himself and Orlando knows he has a big job to bring this defense up to a truly competitive level.
To help Gooden and the other returnees, USF brought in three defensive linemen to plug the gaps, Winter Haven high grad Josh Celliscar came over from Texas A&M. He spent most of his career at UCF and got less playing time every year. He didn’t play at Texas A&M. Dre Butler (Charlotte) and Jacob Merrifield (Florid Atlantic) are the other two.
Butler was at Auburn, Liberty and Michigan State before winding up at Charlotte where he made six starts with five tackles for a loss. Merrifield never started at FAU and only played in seven games. What’s worse, Butler wasn’t good enough to be a regular on a Charlotte team that ranked 116th in the country and Merrifield couldn’t start for an FAU team that ranked 111th, so how much they’ll improve the defensive line is questionable.
But good or bad, they’re going to have to play. “You’ve got to roll those guys in because eventually guys are going to get tired,” Orlando said. “So, if you run 70 plays, even the backups will need to go for 30, 35 plays sometime.”
Still, Orlando thinks the newcomers are up to it. “We feel like we’ve got much more depth than we’ve ever had,” he said. “Especially up front.” We’ll see.
by Patrick Zier | Apr 12, 2025 |
It was 2004, and Joe Gibbs Racing was thinking about adding a developmental driver to its roster, someone who eventually might be able to move up and take over one of its Cup cars, and Denny Hamlin was under consideration.
Gibbs and his son J.D. had been observing Hamlin and they liked what they saw.
“I go all the way back to Denny when we first got him,” Gibbs recalled on NASCAR’s website after Hamlin won at Darlington last Sunday, his second straight victory this season.
“Our final test for him before we signed him; J.D., who found him, my son, said let’s put him in a car at Darlington,” Gibbs related. “He’d never been there. Let’s put him in an Xfinity car and see what he does” Hamlin started 27th and raced his way to a top 10 finish.
“He finished eighth,” Gibbs said. “J.D. told me, he said, I think we need to sign this guy. I said I agree.”
In late 2006, Hamlin replaced a struggling Jason Lefler at the Cup level and he hasn’t looked back. With wins at Darlington last week and Martinsville the week before, Hamlin has now won 56 races, more than any driver in the history of JGR.
Hamlin, who is closing in on 45 and is NASCAR’s oldest regularly competing Cup driver, has been through many changes over the years and his ability to adapt has kept him viable where many others would have long since retired.
The NextGen car, introduced in 2022 and very different from anything else NASCAR has ever raced, is the latest example. Hamlin has worked diligently to figure it out and his willingness to pay attention to detail, to be able to tell his crew exactly what he needs to be competitive, gives him an edge over the majority of drivers who rely more on pure physical skill.
Darlington is a perfect example. Hamlin led just 10 of the 297 laps, but he protected his tires throughout the race, crucial at Darlington, which put him in position to win when the opportunity arose.
“We’re all just running so equal, I don’t know how else to say it, but we’re just so close,” Hamlin commented. “It makes it really, really difficult to pass.
“It was very similar to last week (Martinsville, where Hamlin had a dominating car and led 274 laps). We’re all kind of falling off at the same rate through the runs, right?
“We’ve got a two second drop off here, and that’s good, but we’re all dropping off at the same rate because the cars are all so similar,” Hamlin said.
“Once the tires wear out, we pit. That’s where you’ll typically see a huge disparity in speed between the cars,” Hamlin said. “It’s very similar to last week where right when you’re starting to see some comers and goers, everyone kind of pits to save themselves.”
So a driver who can manage his tires, who doesn’t burn them up trying to get the lead, will have an edge at the end of a run which puts him in position to get the best finish possible. And after Kyle Larson’s crash near the end of the race, that driver was Hamlin.
NASCAR NOTES
Three most likely winners at Bristol: 1-Denny Hamlin, 2-Christopher Bell, 3-Kyle Larson. Last year’s winners at Bristol: First race-Hamlin. Second race-Larson. Top five in first race last year: 1-Hamlin, 2-Martin Truex, 3-Brad Keselowski, 4-Alex Bowman, 5-Larson.
Last week’s OGS Darlington picks: 1-Larson, 2-Bubba Wallace, 3-William Byron. Darlington winner: Hamlin. OGS season record: 3-3.
OGS Competition Index top 10: 1-Bell 187 points, 2-Hamlin 180, 3-Byron 146, 4-Larson 104, 5-Josh Berry 77, 6-Wallace 73, 7-Tyler Reddick 67, 8-Bowman 48, 9-Chase Elliott 45, 10-Daniel Suarez 41.
OGS Competition Index top 10 on intermediate tracks: 1-Byron 95, 2-Larson 64,3-Hamlin 63, 4-Berry 53, 5-Bowman 48, 6-Suarez, Wallace 41, 8-Ryan Blaney, Reddick 32, 10-Bell, Ryan Preece 30.
by Patrick Zier | Apr 11, 2025 |
TAMPA – The intensity is still there, the burning desire to succeed. But it seems to be a bit more controlled now, perhaps because there has been some success, because the plan seems to be working.
Three years ago, Alex Golesh couldn’t be sure of that. He was a young guy who had never been a head coach before, who had his own ideas about how you needed to go about things, build a winning culture, and South Florida was going to give him the opportunity to prove his point.
From the start, Golesh’s intensity was obvious. He was driven. It often seemed he was trying to cram 25 hours into a 24 hour day. When it came to USF football, no detail was too small to escape Golesh’s attention.
Everything that impacted the program was important if this was going to work. And he would make it work. Nothing else seemed to matter.
Golesh stepped into a make-or-break situation at South Florida. His immediate predecessor, Jeff Scott, had seemed to be the perfect choice to lead USF out of the college football wilderness.
He was poised, articulate. He had mastered the nuances of coaching at Clemson, had the right pedigree. There was new energy at USF. And then Scott went 4-26, won just one conference game and was fired at midseason the year before Golesh arrived, and South Florida was back in the basement once again.
So Golesh had to turn this around, for himself and USF. If he failed, both he and football at South Florida would become irrelevant, and Golesh would not let that happen. His single mindedness in that regard could make people feel somewhat uneasy, uncomfortable, but Golesh forged ahead.
And he got results. His first year, Golish led the Bulls to a 7-6 record including a bowl win over San Jose State. It was USF’s first winning season since 2018 when Charlie Strong also went 7-6. A second 7-6 season followed in 2034 including another bowl win.
All this was critical to Golesh’s success, and the first year was crucial. While he had no doubt what he was doing would work, he had nothing substantial to prove it. If USF had floundered under Golesh that first year as it had under Scott, there would have been doubt. Another losing season would have created more apprehension, even if Golesh himself remained steadfast to his plan.
“Two springs ago it was like, and you’ve heard me say this before, but it was gloves off every day,” Golesh commented. “You’d get done and you’d get home and Lex (Alexis, his wife) would be like ‘Man, how was the day?’ And I’m literally, I felt like I was in a 12 round bout every day.
“It was a dog fight,” Golesh continued. “Now, we’re at a point where we’re constantly guarding the culture but like I said, the standard at which you do everything takes forever to establish.
“I think you’re constantly building the culture,” Golesh went on. I tell our staff all the time you come in every morning and you’re going to do everything you can to protect the culture you’re trying to build.”
What Golesh has been trying to do, and he seems to feel that this year, his team is making real progress in that regard, is instill his principles, his work ethic, his attention to detail in his players.
When the team starts believing that what they’re doing will help them win football games and Golesh no longer has to convince them of that, then the players hold themselves and their teammates to Golesh’s standard.
And once they’ve accepted the culture, they are able to use it as the foundation for building a winning program.
“It got better from year one to year two,” Golesh said of his ability to inculcate his message to the team. “But for two years the coaches are the ones holding players to the standard.
“This year, I feel like for the first time since I’ve been here the standard is being upheld in the locker room among the guys,” Golesh declared. “You’re seeing that with way less accountability issues off the field. You’re seeing that through the coaching on the sidelines.
“There’s 10 guys that have started a lot of games that are standing on the sidelines and they’re coaching harder than the coaches,” Golesh said. “Like you’re trying to grab a young guy to coach him and somebody else is already coaching him.
“They’re holding the standard within the locker room. “Does that equate to wins on the field? Man, in my history it has. I think it’s your best chance. I think when the standard is held within the locker room by the players it’s going to be harder for those guys to let each other down,” Golesh said.
And it’s a standard that is passed on from one group of players to the next. It’s not like signing a bunch of transfers hoping to get one good year.
“That’s why I’ve said so many times you’re either going to build a team or you’re going to build a program,” Golesh said. “We chose to build a program.”
by Patrick Zier | Apr 5, 2025 |
Denny Hamlin hasn’t lost his edge. He’s older now, 44, an age when most drivers are sputtering the the end of their careers or have already finished them.
But Hamlin, the oldest regular driver in NASCR’s Cup series, isn’t ready for the rocking chair just yet.
“No,” Hamlin said when asked if he ever thought about how much longer he could go. “I mean I’m probably the king of irrational confidence,” Hamlin continued as reported on NASCAR’s website. “I mean generally speaking, I know that when I’ve got the car to do it I can be the best, so…
“I haven’t felt like I’ve held back the car at any point,” he continued. “Certainly I’m not immune to understanding that Father Time is undefeated, but everything I need to be a good race car driver is still really sharp.
“It (the deterioration of his driving skills) hasn’t happened yet,” Hamlin said. “It will but not yet.”
Throughout his career, Hamlin has been amazingly consistent. He usually doesn’t win a bunch of races but he’ll get you two or three every season. There’ve been a few times when he’s won more than that and a few times when he’s struggled, but he’ll almost always get you two or three.
And that hasn’t changed as he’s entered his 40s, and it doesn’t look like it’s going to change this year.
That’s because Hamlin doesn’t just drive with his hands and feet, he uses his head as well. And because he continually studies his profession, Hamlin adapts to change better than most.
“As he’s gotten older, he’s had to ramp up the amount of work he’s done where he may have gotten by earlier without doing that,” new crew chief Chris Gayle commented after Hamlin won at Martinsville.
“I still think he has the drive and determination to win. I think it’s probably no secret,” Gayle continued. “You’ve seen the wins. He wants to get beyond 60 wins (Hamlin now has 55). There’s still goals left for him at this age.
“It’s one thing to say that you want to get there and talk about it, but I’m starting to see the amount of effort he puts in,” Gayle went on. “He’s with us in the simulator at least six or seven hours a week.
“He probably doesn’t have to, some of the other guys don’t. He does it to be part of the team, help grow the process competitively,” Gayle said. “I think that just speaks to where his head’s at at this age.”
NASCAR NOTES: Three most likely winners at Darlington: 1-Kyle Larson, 2-Bubba Wallace, 3-William Byron. Last year’s winners at Darlington: first race – Brad Keselowski. Second race – Chase Briscoe. Top five in first race last year: 1-Keselowski, 2-Ty Gibbs, 3-Josh Berry, 4-Denny Hamlin, 5-Briscoe.
Last week’s OGS Martinsville picks: 1-Larson, 2-Hamlin, 3-Byron. Martinsville winner: Hamlin. OGS season record: 3-2.
OGS Competition Index top 10: 1-Christopher Bell 157, 2-Hamlin 129, 3-Larson 104, 4-Berry 77, 5-Wallace 73, 6-Byron 72, 7-Alex Bowman 48, 8-Chase Elliott 45, 9-Daniel Suarez 41, 10-Tyler Reddick 40.
OGS Competition Index top 10 on short tracks: 1-Hamlin 117, 2-Bell 103, 3-Larson 40, 4-Wallace 30, 5-Elliott 25, 6-Joey Logano 12, 7-Byron 11, 8-Chris Buescher 10, 9-Ryan Preece 5, 10-Berry 4.
