All posts by Matt Weaver

There is more work to be done but NASCAR is back at its oldest venue after a 27 year hiatus.Read More

By Matt Weaver, Special Contributor NORTH WILKESBORO, N.C. — It’s been a long time since the NASCAR Cup Series has raced on a surface this old. “Never,” says Corey Lajoie. Yeah, that’s probably true, but certainly true from a modern standpoint where the highest levels generally compete on the most pristine surfaces and still state-of-the-art facilities. With all due credit to Marcus Smith and Steve Swift, North Wilkesboro Speedway looks incredible all things considered, but this place is neither state-of-the-art nor pristine. That’s generally a good thing in advance of theRead More

By Matt Weaver, Special Contributor What a difference a week makes. Literally seven days ago, Hendrick Motorsports was still reeling from the biggest single day penalty to any organization in NASCAR Cup Series history and it was Tyler Reddick of 23XI Racing who fended off William Byron to provide a glimmer of hope for the rest of the garage. Due to the 100 championship and 10 playoff point penalty and the injury to Chase Elliott, all four Hendrick Motorsports drivers faced long odds to reach the Championship Race in November. AndRead More

By Matt Weaver, Special Contributor Jeff Gordon believes Hendrick Motorsports has reaped the benefits of a Cup Series caliber backup in Josh Berry over the past month. Sure, it’s easy to say that now given that Berry finished second to teammate Kyle Larson in the Cup Series race at Richmond on Sunday but it would have been easy to pump the brakes on that narrative in the middle of the race when he got spun in traffic due to contact from Ryan Blaney. Berry, the current Xfinity Series championship contender andRead More

By Matt Weaver, Special Contributor For all the accolades and success Kyle Larson has enjoyed over the past several seasons, even someone considered to be a generational racing talent occasionally watches himself on YouTube just to remember happier times. “I was watching just flipping through old YouTube videos this week of my 2021 season so I could remind myself that I used to be good,” Larson said in a familiar self-deprecating way in the media center following his victory on Sunday in the Toyota Owners 400 at Richmond Raceway. … butRead More

By Matt Weaver, Special Contributor The NASCAR industry is an especially reactive one. For ways both good and bad, it knee jerks to everything from safety matters (generally good) to the (mixed results) endless competition related conversations across the ether on a weekly basis. This season alone has seen the last-minute knee-jerk to a lower downforce configuration for short tracks and road courses, following a winter banning the ‘Hail Melon’ and incorporating a universal choose rule. No motorsports sanctioning body in the world is as reactive to its competitors and audienceRead More

By Matt Weaver, Special Contributor The official box score will show that Tyler Reddick earned one victory on Sunday in the EchoPark Grand Prix at Circuit of the Americas, but the case can be made that he earned three victories and a runner-up by the end of the day. First, the obvious reference. In surviving three overtime finishes, Reddick was made to have defended a race he had already effectively won, having outdueled William Byron in a spirited old-school classic by the end of regulation. Then came 45 minutes of repeatedRead More

By Matt Weaver, Special Contributor The EchoPark Grand Prix at Circuit of the Americas was billed as something akin to a showcase for just how far NASCAR has come from a global standpoint. And for three hours, it largely delivered on that expectation until it suddenly couldn’t. And for nearly 45 minutes, spanning three different overtimes, arguably the greatest international motorsports starting lineup ever assembled for a single Cup Series race just could not stop crashing each other. Involved in one of the overtime crashes, Ryan Preece referred to the fieldRead More

By Matt Weaver, Special Contributor That was certainly a race weekend, wasn’t it? Atlanta Motor SpeedwayAtlantadegaAtlanta Superduperspeedway Whatever you want to call it nowadays, the Ambetter Health 400 weekend certainly produced no shortage of topics: The Joey Logano, Brad Keselowski superspeedway duelThe racing product prior to the final green flag runThe crashing product on Saturday during a Trucks, Xfinity doubleheaderThe Josh Williams situation That is to say nothing of the lingering effects in the aftermath of the historic penalties doled out to Hendrick Motorsports and Kaulig Racing PLUS the Denny HamlinRead More

By Matt Weaver, Special Contributor There was a moment with about five laps to go in the Ambetter Health 400 that Joey Logano thought ‘I screwed up’ with the most dominant car of the race. Logano had led 139 laps of the 255 completed to that point and was able to drive it through the field anytime circumstances separated him from clean air. To that point, he had done it again on the final run and had pulled himself side-by-side with leader Brad Keselowski but couldn’t bring himself to clear hisRead More