Time for the Meat & Potatoes

Two races down and 31 to go.

Austin Hill has swept the first two events in familiar fashion. He started hot last year and has a penchant for coming out of nowhere to win races. We thought he’d dominate at Atlanta. Instead, his rookie teammate, Jesse Love, was the dominant lap leader.

But the end, Hill made it two-for-two.

Daytona International Speedway is a huge weekend, and Atlanta Motor Speedway put on a hell of a show for the Cup Series. As a Xfinity Series truther, it’s rare to admit Cup had a much better race. But at Atlanta, it was clearly the case. Cup had 48 lead changes and a legendary finish while Xfinity had just 11 lead changes to go along with limited passing and predominantly single-file action throughout the event.

Whatever your thoughts on the first two events of the season, they can be compared to an appetizer of sorts. They’re fun, they’re an important part of a great dinner and they satisfy our appetite for racing, but they aren’t the main course.

Last season, Hill won two of the first three races and three of the first five. With the schedule tweaks during the offseason, we’re now heading to Las Vegas Motor Speedway — the site of Hill’s second victory last season — which was the third race on last year’s schedule.

After Las Vegas, Hill went 12 straight races without a top-three finish. He’s the king of the appetizer, but it remains to be seen whether he can conquer the meat and potatoes of the schedule. I never envisioned the driver known as ‘Big Country’ to be a salad bar aficionado, but who knows? Maybe it’s something heartier like mozzarella sticks or Crab Rangoon.

The next five races are Las Vegas, Phoenix Raceway, Circuit of the Americas, Richmond Raceway and Martinsville Speedway. That my friends are what the meat and potatoes taste like. When we get to Martinsville it’s a hot dog for sure, but I digress.

Are Hill and Richard Childress Racing right where they were last season? We’ll know pretty quickly whether they’ve taken another step forward or if they’ll continue to be a half-step behind JR Motorsports and Joe Gibbs Racing at most tracks.

Since the draft is such an equalizer, the first two events haven’t told us a ton about how these teams will run throughout the year. This week at Las Vegas, however, we’ll learn a lot.

We have 14 full-time drivers who are most likely to compete for the 12 playoff spots.

That includes four from JR…