The final cutoff race of the season is now upon us this weekend at ISM Raceway, what used to be called Phoenix International Raceway, and wow is it shaping up to be a doozie of a race.

There is still only one driver locked into the championship in Joey Logano after Kevin Harvick had his win taken away from him last week for a penalty that was discovered at the R&D center and now Harvick is just three points ahead of the cut line. Couple that with the fact that a win and points can still help seven of the eight drivers clinch one of the last three spots at Miami and you have the start of an exciting race. Plus there was a redesign done on the track since the last race here in March with the main difference being that the start/finish line was moved down into the middle of what used to be the stretch between Turn 2 and the dogleg but now Turn 2 becomes Turn 4 and the previous turns 3 & 4 become turns 1 & 2 now.

The dogleg will be a pivotal part of the track, as it usually is, but now the restarts will be incredible places to really make moves and jump up a ton of spots in the starting grid when drivers take it three and four-wide. Overall the track is a 1-mile layout that is relatively flat at 10-11 degrees in turns 1 & 2 and 8-9 degrees in turns 3 & 4 and the only banked straightaway is the slight straight between turn 4 and the dogleg.

In the last six races there has been one driver to lead 100+ laps and the rest of the drivers have split the other 212 or fewer laps remaining. The last time the pole sitter won the race was back in 2015 in March of that year and prior to that it didn’t happen until you look back to November of 2010 so winning from the pole here is a rare occurrence of late but that could change this week.

The race is a short one at 312 laps on the 1-mile layout which gives you 312 miles of race time, so in case you’re wondering the 500 in the race name is kilometers since 312 miles is 500 kilometers. Even though it is a short and generally quick race, there are long runs in the race of 40-60 laps between cautions and pit stops so having long run speed is once again pretty important.

Stacks

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