All posts by David Morgan

By David Morgan, NASCAR Contributor In the midst of celebrating his first win in three years, Tony Stewart took a moment at Sonoma Raceway to look ahead to the future once he steps out of the driver’s seat for the final time when the checkered flag flies at Homestead in November. Stewart’s departure at season’s end marks the second top tier driver to step away from the cockpit in as many years with Jeff Gordon vacating the No. 24 car at the end of 2015. With both Stewart and GordonRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Contributor Heading into Sunday’s race at Sonoma Raceway, one driver at the top of everyone’s list of potential winners was AJ Allmendinger, who has run exceptionally well on the 12-turn California road course over the years only to have lost the race for one reason or another. With a second place start, Allmendinger looked to be in prime position to make the most of the race in an effort to score his first win at the track and moved into the lead over polesitter Carl EdwardsRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Contributor After an impressive start to the season for the 2016 rookie class, all eyes were on Sunday’s Toyota Save Mart 350 at Sonoma as it served as the first road course race of the season and would be a tough test for the rookies to continue their streak of strong finishes. As it has for rookies throughout the years, Sonoma was the source of many struggles for the 2016 rookie class on Sunday, with none of the four rookies finishing inside the top-20. Coming outRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Contributor After an off weekend for Father’s Day, the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series gets back to business this weekend as they get set to take on the first of two road course races on the 2016 schedule. Before the focus turns to Sunday’s Toyota Save Mart 350 at Sonoma Raceway, we’ll take a step back in the past for this week’s “Throwback Thursday Theater” to the 1995 Save Mart Supermarkets 300 and the lone road course win for a legend. Taking place on the track’s originalRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Contributor As the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series gets back to work after taking Father’s Day weekend off, they head to the west coast for the first road course race of the season, the Toyota Save Mart 350 at Sonoma Raceway. The 1.990 mile Sonoma Raceway, a 12 turn technical road course situated about 30 miles north of San Francisco, has played host to the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series since 1989 and has gone through a series of changes since opening its doors 27 years ago. WhenRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Contributor Last Monday, things looked bleak for ThorSport Racing and their four truck operation after a major fire broke out in their race shop and caused major damage to the building, but on Saturday night at Iowa Speedway, things began to look up for the team. Though the team had to deal with the fire, they were determined not to let it hold them back when they rolled into Iowa for Saturday night’s Speediatrics 200. Three of the four team trucks were able to qualify insideRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Contributor After leading a career-high 51 laps at Pocono last weekend en route to a fourth place finish, Chase Elliott came into Sunday’s race at Michigan looking to improve on that as he continued to be in the hunt for his first win. Elliott started the day in 10th and flexed his muscle early and often, working his way to the lead over Joey Logano on a restart at lap 117 and looked to be one of the cars to beat as the laps clicked off.Read More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Contributor After kicking off the first half of the season with three wins, Kyle Busch and his No. 18 team have been having a summer to forget, with finishes of 30th or worse in the three races prior to Sunday’s race at Michigan. Unfortunately for Busch, the summer slump would continue in the FireKeepers Casino 400. Starting ninth, Busch started having handling issues and made note that something was going on with his engine almost immediately. As Busch started dropping back just prior to lap 53,Read More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Contributor A two-mile, high banked behemoth in the backyard of the big three American automakers, Michigan International Speedway has played host to NASCAR since 1969 and will do so again this weekend as the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series heads to the track for Sunday’s running of the Firekeepers Casino 400. Before we focus on the here and now, we’ll take a look back into the past in this week’s “Throwback Thursday Theater” and the 2001 Kmart 400, which saw the resurgence of a champion and aRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Contributor Since his runner-up finish at Bristol back in April, Dale Earnhardt, Jr. had been having a rough go of things in the five races that followed, failing to finish inside the top-10 in any of them, but on Monday at Pocono, Earnhardt returned to form at a track that he has had good luck at in the past. Starting eighth, Earnhardt struggled early in the race as it looked like Monday’s race might just be a continuation of their performance issues that they had beenRead More