Cup Category

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor With his tenure at Hendrick Motorsports coming to a close at the end of the season, Kasey Kahne had to look for a new home for the 2018 season and beyond and on Tuesday, it was announced that Kahne will move over to Leavine Family Racing and their No. 95 Chevrolet next year. “I want to thank Leavine Family Racing for this opportunity and will work as hard as possible to help them continue improving,” said Kahne. “I am ready for this challenge and lookRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor After a dismal 21st place finish at Chicagoland Speedway to kick off the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs, there will be a bit of a shake-up on top of the pit box for Kasey Kahne and his No. 5 team for the remainder of the season. Darian Grubb, who served as the crew chief for Tony Stewart during his 2011 championship season and is the current director of competition systems for Hendrick Motorsports, will assume the crew chief role for Kahne’s team starting nextRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor Each week NASCAR Editor David Morgan will break down the top storylines from the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series. This week, we break down the Tales of the Turtles 400 at Chicagoland Speedway. Truex Shreds the Competition Martin Truex, Jr. entered the playoff opener at Chicago with four wins in his pocket, the regular season championship, and a boatload of playoff points at his disposal. Things couldn’t possibly get any better for the driver of the No. 78 Toyota, right? Well, it did. For theRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service JOLIET, Ill. – Remember all those playoff points that were supposed to carry regular-season champion Martin Truex Jr. through the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs? He didn’t need them—not after what turned out to be a dominating victory in Sunday’s Tales of the Turtles 400, the Playoff opener at Chicagoland Speedway. Truex’s fifth victory of the season, his second straight at Chicagoland and the 12th of his career was hardly a cakewalk, even though the driver of the No. 78 Furniture Row Racing ToyotaRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor Prior to Sunday’s Tales of the Turtles 400 at Chicagoland Speedway, the first race of the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series playoffs, Joe Gibbs Racing elected to swap the pit crews between the No. 18 and No. 19 cars, giving Kyle Busch the crew that had been working with Daniel Suarez and vice versa for the crew that was working with Busch, as they moved over to service Suarez’s car for the playoffs. The swap was supposed to help Busch in his efforts to beRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor For the second year in a row, the opening race of the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series playoffs at Chicagoland Speedway has been just what the doctor ordered for Chase Elliott and his No. 24 team. Heading into Chicago, just one point separated Elliott from the bottom four in the playoff standings, but when all was said and done in Sunday’s Tales of the Turtles 400, the 21-year old would be in a much more comfortable spot, scoring a runner-up finish when the checkered flagRead More

It’s that time of the year again. After the 16 driver field for the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series playoffs was set last weekend at Richmond, the intensity of the season is about to ramp up over the final 10 weeks of the season as we’ll whittle the championship field down to four at Homestead to see which driver will walk away with the title at season’s end. As a refresher, there will be three rounds of eliminations before the Championship Four is set. The Round of 16 will includeRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor As the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series heads to Chicagoland Speedway for this weekend’s opening round of the playoffs, it’s time again for another edition of “Throwback Thursday Theater”. Since Chicago has only been on the schedule since 2001, there are few races that really stick out in the track’s history, but one in particular sticks out above the rest. That race is the 2010 Lifelock.com 400, which saw a multi-time champion get bested by an underdog. Jimmie Johnson started on the outside of theRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor After 26 regular season races to set the 16-driver field, the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series heads to Chicagoland Speedway for the opening salvo of the playoffs and Sunday’s 17th annual running of the Tales of the Turtles 400. As one of the newer tracks on the circuit, having joined in 2001, the 1.5-mile Chicagoland Speedway finds itself front and center as the playoffs begin. The track, which only hosts the Cup Series once each season, boasts banking of 18 degrees as well as aRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor With Silly Season in full force, another domino fell on Tuesday as Danica Patrick announced that she will not be returning to the driver’s seat of the No. 10 Ford and Stewart-Haas Racing in 2018. Patrick’s contract with SHR went through 2018, but was contingent on her having sponsorship to be able to continue with the team. As the weeks and months have gone along, it became more and more likely that sponsorship opportunities were not lining up for Patrick and her future with SHRRead More