Cup Category

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor If there’s one constant four races into the 2018 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series season, it is that Chase Elliott has been the standard bearer for Hendrick Motorsports. On Sunday at ISM Raceway in Phoenix, Elliott led the way for the organization once more, bringing home a third-place finish, the best of the season for both Elliott and HMS as a whole. “We had a good car,” said Elliott. “It was solid, you know? Alan (Gustafson, crew chief) made a good call there at theRead More

By Seth Eggert, Staff Writer Late-race gambles are never a guarantee, and for Ryan Newman, a late-race strategy left him 11th when the checkered flag waved in the Ticket Guardian 500. Newman and his crew chief Luke Lambert elected to stay on track, waiting for a caution that never came. For over 30 laps, Newman stayed on the racetrack while many of his Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series competitors hit pit road at ISM Raceway. He assumed the lead when Brad Keselowski hit pit road, leading for a total ofRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service AVONDALE, Ariz. – Defending Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series champion Martin Truex Jr. finally found the extra speed he needed at ISM Raceway. Saving his best lap for the final round of knockout qualifying on Friday at the one-mile track in the Sonoran Desert, Truex sped around the circuit in 26.288 seconds (136.945 mph) to win the pole position for Sunday’s TicketGuardian 500 (3:30 ET on FOX, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Truex beat Kyle Larson (136.643 mph) by .058 seconds to earn his firstRead More

By Luis Torres, Staff Writer ISM Raceway isn’t just Alex Bowman’s home track, but the site where his racing career positively changed after capturing his first Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series pole at Phoenix in November 2016. Bowman returned to the site of his career-defining weekend on Friday and looks to improve from his career-best sixth-place finish in Sunday’s TicketGuardian 500. In his last Cup trip to the “Valley of the Sun,” Bowman was a substitute driver for Dale Earnhardt, Jr., who sat out the final 18 races of theRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor New name, still the same old Phoenix. For now. After the kickoff to the West Coast swing last weekend in Las Vegas culminated in a second straight domination by Kevin Harvick, the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series heads to Phoenix this weekend to take on the TicketGuardian 500 at ISM Raceway. Phoenix has resided on the Cup Series schedule since 1988, but the track looks completely different than it did 30 years ago, having undergone a reconfiguration back in 2011. The reconfiguration added progressive bankingRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor This weekend, the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series heads into Phoenix for the second race of the West Coast swing. In this week’s edition of “Throwback Thursday Theater”, we take a look back to the race that started it all in the Valley of the Sun, the 1988 Checker 500. As the series headed into Phoenix in November of 1988, Bill Elliott and Rusty Wallace were locked in a championship battle that had seen Wallace gaining on Elliott’s lead over the last quarter of theRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor The NASCAR penalty hammer has dropped on Kevin Harvick and his No. 4 team at Stewart-Haas Racing after the team’s dominating win at Las Vegas Motor Speedway last Sunday. The team was found to be in violation of Sections 20.4.8.1 (Rear Window Support and Structure) and 20.4.18 (Rocker Panel Extensions) in post-race teardown at the NASCAR R&D Center. A rear window support brace was found to have failed and did not meet NASCAR specifications for keeping the rear window glass rigid at all times. Also,Read More

By Luis Torres, Staff Writer When NASCAR fans think of who’s the greatest crew chief of all-time, more often than not, you’ll hear the names of Hall of Famers Ray Evernham and Dale Inman. How about the 1980s? Tim Brewer, Jeff Hammond and Gary Nelson pop into fans heads, but one that’s been ignored lately is Kirk Shelmerdine. The NASCAR Hall of Fame announced its latest nominees for the Class of 2019 on Tuesday and Shelmerdine, alongside Harry Gant, Jeff Gordon, John Holman and Ralph Moody are the newest nominees.Read More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor Go Fas Racing and Matt DiBenedetto have found themselves in sponsorship trouble heading into Sunday’s race at ISM Raceway, but the NASCAR community has banded together to make sure they will make it to the grid for the TicketGuardian 500. Starting with a tweet from DiBenedetto on Tuesday morning, alerting the world of their predicament, the effort started picking up steam, with fellow drivers and others in the sport pitching in to help out the small team make it to the track. Though Go FasRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor For all of those who participate in NASCAR, from drivers to car owners, crew chiefs, and media members, the upper echelon of the sport is earning a place in the NASCAR Hall of Fame. On Tuesday, the nominating committee for the Hall of Fame announced the 20 names of those who will get their chance to be enshrined among the legends of the sport. Fifteen of the nominees are those who were carried over from last season, but there were also five new nominees lookingRead More