Cup Category

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service CONCORD, N.C. – Martin Truex Jr. crashed a Ford party on Thursday night, winning the pole for Sunday’s Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway (6 p.m. ET on FOX). With his team making adjustments to the No. 78 Furniture Row Racing Toyota throughout the qualifying session, Truex saved his best lap for the round that counted, covering the 1.5-mile distance in 28.077 seconds (192.328 mph) to edge Team Penske Ford driver Joey Logano (192.007 mph) by .047 seconds for the top starting spot inRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Contributor The greatest day in auto racing is upon us once more with three premier events (F1 at Monaco, the Indianapolis 500, and the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte) all taking place throughout the day on Sunday. With the 57th running of the Coca-Cola 600 set for Sunday afternoon into the night, we’ll take a step back to one of the most memorable races at Charlotte in recent memory, the 2005 Coca-Cola 600 and the amazing finish between Jimmie Johnson and Bobby Labonte. Ryan Newman and JeffRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Writer After an impressive start to All-Star weekend on Saturday morning with the rain-delayed Sprint Showdown, all eyes were on the new NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race format to see if it could equal the excitement from the preliminary race, but the new format fell well short of expectations as the Showdown overshadowed the main event. The Sprint Showdown started off with a photo finish between Trevor Bayne and Chase Elliott in the first segment of the All-Star preliminaries as Bayne made a daring three-wide pass forRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service CONCORD, N.C. – At the end of a wild and crazy Saturday night at Charlotte Motor Speedway, Joey Logano got the upper hand in an intense battle with last-chance qualifier Kyle Larson and took home the million-dollar prize as the winner of the NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race. Trying to block the stronger car of Logano in the closing 13-lap final segment of the race, Larson buried his car into Turn 1 as Logano edged ahead. Larson’s No. 42 Chevrolet got loose and sailed upRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service Clearly, Ryan Blaney had one of the strongest cars in Saturday’s Sprint Showdown, but a restart violation with one lap left in the race’s first 20-lap segment squelched his hopes of advancing to the Sprint All-Star Race. Blaney was in hot pursuit of leader Chase Elliott when NASCAR called a caution on Lap 15 because of Michael McDowell’s spin through the infield grass. To begin Lap 20, the one that would decide the first transfer position, Blaney and Elliott entered the restart zone side-by-side.Read More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service CONCORD, N.C. – Different week. Different circumstances. Same driver. Last Sunday at Dover International Speedway, Kyle Larson was chasing Matt Kenseth for the win in the AAA 400 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race. Larson treated Kenseth, the 2003 series champion, with the utmost respect, taking great pains to run the veteran driver as cleanly as possibly. Kenseth won, with Larson trailing him in second place by a fraction of a second. But that was not the case on Saturday morning at Charlotte Motor Speedway,Read More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service CONCORD, N.C. – With Chase Elliott’s Chevrolet bouncing off the outside wall, and Kyle Larson’s Chevy bouncing off Elliott’s car coming to the finish line, Larson won a wild drag race to claim the last of three available spots in Saturday night’s NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race at Charlotte Motor Speedway (9 p.m. ET on FS1). At the end of the final 10-lap dash in the Sprint Showdown, Larson pinched Elliott into the outside wall entering the dogleg at the 1.5-mile track and banged intoRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service CONCORD, N.C. – Persistent rain wiped out all track activity on Friday at Charlotte Motor Speedway, setting up a full day of racing on Saturday at the 1.5-mile track. Both the Sprint Showdown, which will determine three qualifiers for the NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race, and the North Carolina Education Lottery 200 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race have been rescheduled for Saturday. Practice for the all-star race will open Saturday activity at 9:30 a.m., followed by the Sprint Showdown at 11 a.m. and theRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service This year’s unique NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race format, which requires the first nine, 10 or 11 drivers to start the final 13-lap segment on old tires (with the specific number determined by lot) with cars on new tires behind them, already has drivers thinking about hypothetical scenarios. Drivers in 12th place or worse entering the final segment, where only green-flag laps count, will be guaranteed fresh rubber, and that number is crucial to a lot of calculations. “We have to see how the tiresRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service CONCORD, N.C. – After announcing a multiyear extension to drive for Stewart-Haas Racing, 2014 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion Kevin Harvick used much of his media session on Friday at Charlotte Motor Speedway to set the record straight about rumors that had run amok since the announcement earlier this season that SHR would switch from Chevrolet to Ford in 2017. Harvick said there wasn’t a shred of truth to reports he had been contacted by Hendrick Motorsports to replace Kasey Kahne in the No.Read More