GFT Facts & Stats Friday: NASCAR Cup Series Cook Out 400 at Richmond Raceway
9 August 2024
By Bob Francis, Managing Editor
Go Full Throttle Racing News
RICHMOND, VA — We are back! After a glorious and much-needed 2 week break for NBC to cover the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, NASCAR is back this weekend at Richmond Raceway for the Cook Out 400. this weekend marks the first time in a NASCAR Cup Series points-paying race that the drivers and teams will have multiple options on the type of tire they would like to compete with in Sunday’s Cook Out 400 (6 p.m. ET on USA, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
NASCAR Cup Series Cook Out 400 at Richmond Raceway
Track Length: 0.75 Mile Asphalt Oval
Sunday, August 11, 6 p.m. ET
The Purse: $7,925,121
TV: USA, 5:30 p.m. ET
Radio: MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio
Distance: 300 miles (400 laps)
-Stage 1 (Ends on Lap 70)
-Stage 2 (Ends on Lap 230)
-Final Stage (Ends on Lap 400)
This weekend’s NASCAR Cup Series race will feature two Goodyear tire options available to teams: a baseline “Prime” tire that has a harder rubber compound with potentially less grip but more longevity, and a new “Option” tire that has a softer rubber compound with more short-term grip and speed, but less longevity. The “Prime” tire will be marked with traditional yellow lettering on the sidewalls, while the “Option” tire will be designated with red lettering.
Teams will be allotted six sets of Prime tires and two sets of Option tires for the race, including one Prime set carried over from qualifying. For the race, NASCAR will not mandate when teams use their sets. However, all four tires must match at all times.
Driver Points and Playoff Standings after the Brickyard 400
Driver Ratings for the Cook Out 400 at Richmond Raceway
Final Four: Richmond Raceway the last of the short tracks in the regular season
Only four races remain in the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series regular season (Richmond, Michigan, Daytona and Darlington) to decide who will compete in the 16-driver Playoff field, and for the second-time this year the NASCAR Cup Series will roll into Richmond Raceway for some action-packed side-by-side short track racing in the Cook Out 400 on August 11 at 6 p.m. ET on the USA Network, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio — the last short track event of the regular season.
The next four tracks to round out the NASCAR Cup Series regular season are quite different from each other.
This weekend at Richmond Raceway, the Cup Series competitors will face 400 miles on the 0.75-mile short track. Earlier this season, Joe Gibbs Racing’s Denny Hamlin tamed the Virginia short track earning his fifth career Cup Series win at Richmond — second-most among active drivers.
Then next weekend the NASCAR Cup Series will head to Michigan International Speedway for another 400 miles on the high-speed, multi-groove, 2-mile track located in the Irish Hills. RFK Racing’s Chris Buescher claimed the win at Michigan last season and is looking for his first Cup victory of 2024.
The Cup Series will then head back to the 2.5-mile behemoth, Daytona International Speedway, for the annual summer 400-miler. Last season at Daytona, RFK Racing pulled-off a 1–2 finish; Chris Buescher took the win with car owner and teammate Brad Keselowski in tow.
The series will then wrap-up the 2024 regular season at the egg-shaped, 1.366-mile Darlington Raceway with the ‘Crown Jewel’ event — the Southern 500 — to decide this season’s Playoff field.
If there is any driver that is excited about these next four summer races its RFK Racing’s Chris Buescher. The Texas native, Buescher, won the summer races in 2023 at three of the next four tracks on the 2024 schedule — Richmond-2, Michigan and Daytona-2. The only race of the four he didn’t win, the Southern 500 at Darlington, he finished third.
GFT NASCAR Fantasy Live Rankings
After a season-high points day at Pocono, the GFT AI Race Prediction models took a hit at Inday with many of our picks short on fuel with the double overtime. The model only scored 145 points dropping GFT AI 1 to 791st place out of 4679 players or 16.90% vs all players.
Initial GFT NASCAR Fantasy Live Picks for Pocono Raceway
**NOTE** Be sure to follow us on X (aka Twitter) to see the updated GFT NASCAR Fantasy Live picks AFTER our AI models ingest the Practice and Qualifying data. For a Sunday race, this usually happens overnight Saturday and is published Sunday morning at least 2 hours before the green flag.
