Cup Category

By David Morgan, NASCAR Contributor Heading into 2017, Richard Childress Racing is going all-in on their efforts for next season as they announced on Wednesday that they would be moving to eight full-time teams across the top two national NASCAR series for the first time since 2011. The organization will keep the same three driver lineup in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series next year with Austin Dillon, Paul Menard, and Ryan Newman returning to the No. 3, No. 27, and No. 31 teams respectively. Slugger Labbe will be backRead More

By NASCAR Wire Service Combining a history that stretches more than 65 years with a future infused with a new premier series entitlement sponsor and a next generation of stars, NASCAR unveiled a new brand identity Monday via its social and digital media platforms. In addition, NASCAR also unveiled the mark and name for its premier series, which will become the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series beginning in 2017. The new brand identity – which replaces the familiar bar mark that had been in place since 1976 – uses theRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Contributor After a successful first season behind the wheel for Front Row Motorsports in 2016, Landon Cassill will return to the team in 2017 to continue their work together, while his teammate for next season will be a familiar face in the FRM shop. Joining Cassill will be David Ragan, who drove for the team from 2012 through the 2015 Daytona 500 and earned the team’s first win at Talladega in May 2013. After Kyle Busch’s injury at the start of the 2015 season, Ragan movedRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Contributor The news that the NASCAR community has been waiting for since the offseason began finally came down on Thursday as Dale Earnhardt, Jr. was medically cleared to resume his racing career after successfully completing an on-track test to finalize his recovery from a concussion. Earnhardt and his No. 88 team performed the test at Darlington Raceway on Wednesday, where he completed 185 laps during a test session that lasted nearly five hours. Earnhardt was joined at the test by his crew chief Greg Ives asRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Contributor After months of rumblings about the future of HScott Motorsports at the conclusion of the 2016 season, official word came down on Monday that the team will indeed cease operations and will not field a team for the 2017 season. “Over the past several months I considered a number of options for moving forward with the team. Regrettably there are no viable sponsor/driver options immediately available to allow the team to participate in 2017,” said team owner Harry Scott, Jr. Both of the drivers thatRead More

By Josh Farmer, IndyCar Reporter Jeff Gordon will race in next month’s Rolex 24 at Daytona for Wayne Taylor Racing in their new Cadillac DPi-V.R. The four-time NASCAR Cup Series champion highlights the team’s high-caliber lineup of brothers Ricky and Jordan Taylor as well as Max Angelelli. Gordon helped guide  WTR to a podium finish in the 2007 Rolex 24 for WTR alongside Angelelli, Wayne Taylor and Jan Magnussen. That was Gordon’s lone sportscar racing start among his legendary career in NASCAR where he earned 90 career wins to go along withRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Contributor The season-opening exhibition race at Daytona International Speedway, which has had various name changes and format changes over the years, having recently been known as the Sprint Unlimited, will have a new name and format for the 2017 running of the event that is reminiscent of the early years of the race. On Wednesday, Daytona announced that the race, which began its life in 1979 as the Busch Clash, will be known as “The Clash” for next season. The race held the Busch Clash monikerRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Contributor With the announcement that Greg Biffle was leaving Roush Fenway Racing after the 2016 season, the inevitable has happened and the team announced on Tuesday that they would field only two cars for the 2017 season after fielding three for the past four seasons. Returning to the team next season will be Trevor Bayne and Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. to field the No. 6 and No. 17 cars, respectively. Bayne will once again have crew chief Matt Puccia at the helm, while Stenhouse will have aRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Contributor As the NASCAR offseason continues to roll along, another domino in NASCAR’s silly season has fallen with the announcement from Germain Racing on Monday that Ty Dillon will replace Casey Mears behind the wheel of the No. 13 Chevrolet in 2017. Dillon had spent the past five seasons in both the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series and NASCAR Xfinity Series, as well as making select Cup Series starts over the past three years. Those five seasons included three wins in the Truck Series in 2012Read More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Contributor After 19 seasons driving for Roush-Fenway Racing, the longest tenured driver for the organization, Greg Biffle, announced his departure from the team on Monday. Biffle, who finished the 2016 season ranked 23rd in points, drove in all three national NASCAR series for the team, starting in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series in 1998 before moving to the NASCAR Xfinity Series full-time in 2001 and finally climbing behind the wheel of the No. 16 car in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series in 2002, where heRead More