Weekend NASCAR Preview Feb. 21-23

After the roulette wheel of Daytona, NASCAR now heads to the casinos of Las Vegas to raise the stakes and kick off the West Coast Swing in the NASCAR season.

The Gander RV & Outdoors Truck Series started the year at Daytona with some historic finishes and a return to victory lane for Grant Enfinger. Drivers like Jordan Anderson, Codie Rohrbaugh, Derek Kraus, and Natalie Decker all look to build off their career-best finishes. Vegas is nothing like Daytona, however. As the first 1.5-mile track on the schedule, this race will be more of an indicator of how the rest of the season will look for these teams. The teams will all have to beat one man; Kyle Busch. The Las Vegas native has won two of his three previous Truck Series starts at Las Vegas and will be driving the #51 Kyle Busch Motorsports Toyota as the team continues to wait for Chandler Smith to turn 18 in June.

The 2019 winner of the Strat 200 was Kyle Busch.

The Strat 200 will be on Friday, February 21 at 9pm ET on FS1.

Noah Gragson won his first career NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Daytona when the caution flag flew on the final lap due to his JR Motorsports teammate Michael Annett in a bad accident on the backstretch. Gragson also has a new teammate in 2020 with Daniel Hemric running a majority of the Xfinity Series schedule in the #8 for JR Motorsports. He will run 21 races starting at Las Vegas this weekend.

The 66 team faced a major penalty at Daytona. Their crew chief Sebastian Laforge has been suspended for six events, starting at Daytona, and Timothy Goulet is slated to be the crew chief for Vegas. The team was also fined $50,000 and 75 owner points. Timmy Hill, who was driving the #66 at Daytona, was not penalized since he earns points in the Truck Series for 2020. Stephen Leicht, who drove full-time for JD Motorsports in 2019, will be in the 66 at Vegas.

The 2019 Boyd Gaming 300 winner was Kyle Busch, who is not entered in the event this year.

The Boyd Gaming 300 will be on Saturday, February 22 at 4pm ET on FS1.

Denny Hamlin won his 3rd Daytona 500 in the last 5 years when he beat Ryan Blaney by just 0.014 seconds, the 2nd closest Daytona 500 finish in its 62-year history. The closest? 0.010 seconds in 2016, also won by Denny Hamlin. Of course, as great of a story as that would create, the focus on Hamlin was minimal, at best. Ryan Newman suffered a horrific accident at the finish that put Newman in the hospital under ‘serious condition’ with ‘not life threatening’ injuries. In under 48 hours, Newman was walking out of the hospital holding the hands of his two young daughters. A miracle of a sight given the terrifying accident and the hours of uncertainty before his condition was announced.

There is no timeline for Newman to return to racing and Ross Chastain is filling in for him in the #6 for Roush Fenway Racing for the time being. The 2019 Truck Series runner-up is competing for a NASCAR Xfinity Series championship in 2020. Despite not running for Cup Series points, Chastain has run all but 3 races in the past two seasons. The Florida watermelon farmer competed in the Daytona 500 driving for Spire Motorsports in a partnership with Chip Ganassi Racing, who had to give him permission to sub for Newman, where he finished 25th following a crash.

The 2019 Pennzoil 400 winner was Joey Logano.

The Pennzoil 400 is on Sunday, February 23 at 3:30pm ET on FOX.