All posts by David Morgan

By David Morgan, Associate Editor While all eyes were on the Playoff drivers on Sunday at Martinsville Speedway, William Byron was trying his best to crash the party and score his first career win in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series. At the same track that his team, Hendrick Motorsports, has experienced the highest of highs and the lowest of lows, the 21-year-old phenom, with veteran crew chief Chad Knaus at the helm, started the day in 11th and once he cracked the top-10, he would stay there for theRead More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor Denny Hamlin and Joey Logano have had their fair share of run-ins both on-track and off over the years and Sunday at Martinsville Speedway, the tension between the two flared back up. Both drivers had a decent day going with the two running in the top-10 as the laps were winding down in the first race of the Round of 8 in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs. Then as they were running side-by-side with about 50 laps to go, Hamlin ran wide offRead More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor The Round of 8 is on. Following a barn burner of a finish at Kansas last weekend, the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series heads to Martinsville Speedway for Sunday’s running of the First Data 500. A win by any of the eight drivers still in contention for the title and they punch their ticket to the championship race at Homestead. A mainstay on the schedule since 1949, the historic half-mile, which is also the smallest on the circuit, will test both man and machine overRead More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor Twelve drivers entered Sunday’s Hollywood Casino 400 at Kansas still in the running for the championship, but by the time the checkered flag flew, four of them were on the outside looking in as their hopes for a title were erased. Starting the day, Chase Elliott, Alex Bowman, William Byron, and Clint Bowyer were the four drivers in the danger zone, sitting 18 points or more below the cut-off line, with all of them in a virtual must-win situation. Among the four, only Elliott wasRead More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor With Christopher Bell moving to the Cup Series in 2020, Joe Gibbs Racing had a vacancy in their No. 20 entry in the NASCAR Xfinity Series. On Thursday, the team filled that vacancy by announcing Harrison Burton will take over the ride on a full-time basis next season and contend for Rookie of the Year honors. Burton made his Xfinity Series debut with JGR in April 2019 at Bristol and has driven in five additional races for the team this season, scoring one top-five andRead More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor Moments after his No. 62 Beard Oil Motorsports Chevrolet went flying through the air at the end of the backstretch in the waning laps at Talladega, Brendan Gaughan emerged from the Infield Care Center with his signature sense of humor and explained the crash as only he could. “Stuck the landing,” Gaughan joked. “The Russian judge docked me a little bit. I didn’t keep it straight” Running in one of the only four races he runs each year, Gaughan had placed himself in position toRead More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor Alex Bowman found himself on an island as he was the lone Chevrolet in the lead with an onslaught of Fords behind him heading down the backstretch on lap 106. With Joey Logano leading the Blue Oval brigade and closing in on the Hendrick Motorsports entry in a hurry, Bowman moved down the track to try and halt the momentum of Logano and the others, but the closing rate was too much to overcome. As soon as Logano made contact with Bowman’s rear bumper, itRead More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor TALLADEGA, Ala. – Johnny Sauter crossed the finish line first in Saturday’s NASCAR Gander Outdoors Truck Series race at Talladega Superspeedway, but the driver of the No. 13 Ford for ThorSport Racing would not finish there. Sauter and Riley Herbst were in the midst of a tense battle through the tri-oval, with Herbst winding up below the yellow line and NASCAR ruling that Sauter had forced the Kyle Busch Motorsports driver down there. As a result, Sauter was dropped to the last truck on theRead More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor TALLADEGA, Ala. – Halfway though Saturday’s Sugarlands Shine 250 at Talladega Superspeedway, Brett Moffitt and Stewart Friesen were sailing along at the front of the field when a ruling came down from the tower ordering the two drivers to pit road to serve a penalty. The call? Locking bumpers. While several drivers had been doing the same thing throughout the first half of the race, the sanctioning body made the call that Moffitt and Friesen had crossed the line and would be handed a passRead More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor TALLADEGA, Ala. – Back in the spring, Chase Elliott gave the fans at Talladega a thrill by scoring the victory. Nearly six months later, the Hendrick Motorsports driver is hoping to channel some of that same energy into another win on the 2.66-mile superspeedway to punch his ticket to the next round of the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs. This time around, a good performance is needed even more after retiring just six laps into the Round of 12 opener at Dover last weekend,Read More