All posts by David Morgan

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor CONCORD, N.C. – The 2018 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series season started with so much promise for Austin Dillon after winning the Daytona 500, but his hopes of contending for a championship to go along with that triumph came to a screeching halt Sunday on the new Charlotte Motor Speedway road course. Entering the Bank of America ROVAL 400, Dillon had a 10-point advantage over the cut line and just needed a clean weekend to be able to advance on to the second round of theRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor CONCORD, N.C. – Daniel Hemric has been at or near the top of the leaderboard all weekend long at Charlotte Motor Speedway and Saturday’s Drive for the Cure 200 looked to be the day he’d finally break through for his elusive first win. If not for a late-race mistake that saw him miss the frontstretch chicane, Hemric very well could have been sitting in Victory Lane at the end of the day. Despite the issues, Hemric still showed that he had a car capable of runningRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor CONCORD, N.C. – Final practice seemed to be going exactly as planned for 2012 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series champion Brad Keselowski, but things went awry for him just minutes after blazing around Charlotte Motor Speedway with the fastest lap of the session. Keselowski toured around the Charlotte road course with a lap of 1 minute, 17.730 seconds at 105.596 mph, but as the session neared its final moments, the frontstretch chicane became the bane of his existence. The lap looked to be going just fineRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor CONCORD, N.C. – Day two at the new Charlotte Motor Speedway Road Course has been just as eventful as the first, with Jimmie Johnson putting up the fastest time on the board, while others found themselves ensnared by the 17-turn, 2.28-mile layout. Daniel Hemric led the way for the majority of the session before Johnson took over the No. 1 spot with a lap of 1 minute, 18.043 seconds at 105.173 mph. Hemric finished the session in second place, followed by Martin Truex, Jr., Brad Keselowski,Read More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor CONCORD, N.C. – Denny Hamlin already had his work cut out for him heading into the inaugural Bank of America ROVAL 400 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, but after the first day on the 2.28-mile, 17-turn road course, he and the No. 11 team have a challenging road ahead if they are to transfer on to the next round of the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs. After two poor performances in the first two races of the postseason, Hamlin enters Charlotte with a 28-point deficit toRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor CONCORD, N.C. – Following two optional test sessions on Thursday, the NASCAR Xfinity Series got their first official crack at the new Charlotte Motor Speedway road course with a pair of practices on Friday afternoon. The results from Friday closely mirrored those from Thursday as Austin Cindric was fast again, putting up the quickest lap time in the first practice session with a lap of 1 minute, 18.443 seconds at 104.636 mph. He was followed by Daniel Hemric, Alex Labbe, Ryan Preece, and Justin Allgaier toRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor CONCORD, N.C. – After making his presence known every step up the NASCAR ladder, Daniel Hemric is finally getting his shot at the big time as Richard Childress Racing officially announced him as the new driver of the No. 31 Chevrolet starting in 2019. “So many people want to have this opportunity and they work their whole lives for it,” said Hemric. “Going through this process, everybody who’s followed my career from racing the Bojangles’ Summer Shootout at Charlotte to super late models, whatever it was,Read More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor CONCORD, N.C. – After turning heads in the Xfinity Series over the last couple of years, Ryan Preece’s bet on himself has paid off as he will be headed to a full-time ride in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series in 2019. Less than a week after JTG Daugherty Racing announced that they would be releasing AJ Allmendinger from his contract at season’s end, the team made it official on Friday that Preece would be taking over the seat of the No. 47 Chevrolet starting nextRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor There are numerous adjectives that can be used to describe this weekend’s race on the new Charlotte Motor Speedway road course: unpredictable, volatile, treacherous, chaotic, etc. Once thing is for sure as the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series ventures into the unknown, it’s going to be a hell of a ride. In an effort to spice things up this season, Charlotte officials elected to switch from running another race on the 1.5-mile oval to creating what they are calling the ROVAL, incorporating both the high banksRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor After five years with JTG Daugherty Racing, AJ Allmendinger will be leaving the seat of the No. 47 car at the end of the 2018 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series season. Though Allmendinger inked a five-year contract extension back in 2015 that would have kept him behind the wheel through 2020, the team announced Tuesday that they would be releasing him from his contract. “AJ Allmendinger has been a valuable asset to the growth of our company, and we are grateful for his professionalism with ourRead More