Monster Energy Cup Category

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service TALLADEGA, Ala. – Numerologists doubtless will have a field day with the front row for Sunday’s GEICO 500 at Talladega Superspeedway (on FOX at 1 p.m. ET). Touring the 2.66-mile race track in 49.704 seconds (192.661 mph) during Saturday’s time trials, Chase Elliott put the No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet on the pole, making the 20-year-old rookie driver two-for-two at restrictor-plate superspeedways. In his first qualifying run as a full-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series driver, Elliott won the pole for the season-opening Daytona 500.Read More

By Toby Christie, NASCAR Editor On most weeks in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, only the super teams (such as Hendrick Motorsports, Team Penske, Joe Gibbs Racing and a few others) should really expect to end their day in victory lane. In order to win at intermediate 1.5-mile speedways it takes teams of engineers, and millions of dollars just to finish inside the top-10. Talladega though, is a different animal. Instead of gobs of resources, it just takes an unrelenting will to win and incredible intestinal fortitude to conquer the day atRead More

SHOW #408 – Guests: Kasey Kahne, Erik Jones – We recap the thrilling Richmond race, the Tony Stewart lug-nuts-gate saga continues, Kyle Petty Charity Ride kicks off, Amelia is back!, a full Talladega Superspeedway Blah! Preview. Hosted by Kerry Murphey and Toby Christie. ( Roughly 48:00 mins) DOWNLOAD HERE CREDITS: Hosts: Kerry Murphey & Toby Christie Executive Producer: Kerry Murphey Music: Russell Nash Audio Director Voice Over: Thomas Moog SUBSCRIBE FREE HERE RSS FEED RADIO STATIONS CLICK HERE SUBSCRIBE FROM iTUNES: Take us with you! Subscribe to our audio shows fromRead More

By NASCAR Wire Service Carl Edwards has long advocated for NASCAR implementing a lower downforce aerodynamics package for it race cars. Lowering the downforce on a car makes it harder to control, which causes more passing and emphasizes driver skill over engineering expertise. His wish was granted this year. Unsurprisingly, Edwards has excelled under NASCAR’s new lower downforce aerodynamics package. The No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota driver tops the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series standings on the strength of two wins, five top-five and eight top-10 finishes. He’s finished lowerRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Writer Ahead of Sunday’s trip to Talladega Superspeedway for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series GEICO 500, we’ll take a step back in time to the 1981 Talladega 500 for this week’s edition of “Throwback Thursday Theater” to showcase one of the most infamous finishes in Talladega history. For the first 13 years of the Talladega 500, no driver had ever repeated, paving the way for longshots and underdogs to make their way to victory lane. In the 1981 running of the race, that very thing wouldRead More

By Toby Christie, NASCAR Editor One of the least safe options that teams have been able to employ in the history of NASCAR is officially off the table.  Monday, NASCAR banned teams from sending their cars out onto the racetrack with less than five lug nuts per wheel, and every lug nut is now required to be tight. This comes on the heels of three-time Sprint Cup Series champion, Tony Stewart calling out the sanctioning body less than a week ago for their unsafe practice of allowing teams to skipRead More

By Joey Barnes, Editor-in-Chief After a spectacular afternoon at Richmond International Raceway, it was a Carl Edwards shove to move teammate Kyle Busch out of the way en route to claim his second consecutive victory of the season. Without any further delay, here are my takeaways from Sunday’s Sprint Cup Series race at the short track oval. 1) Back to Sunday’s a win for NASCAR For the first time in nearly two decades NASCAR returned to a daytime spring race (last year’s race was run on Sunday due to aRead More

By Seth Eggert, NASCAR Writer Kasey Kahne earned his first top five of the season at Richmond International Raceway. This was also Kahne’s first top five finish since the 2015 Kansas Chase race, 14 races ago. This is only the fourth top five for Kahne since he won at Atlanta Motor Speedway on Labor Day Weekend in 2014. In the weekend’s two practice sessions, Kahne was eighth and second fastest. The move from night to day, combined with the 2016 aero-package seemed to be a perfect match for the HendrickRead More

By Seth Eggert, NASCAR Writer For the fourth race in a row, and the fifth time in nine races this season in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR) has visited victory lane. This time, it was Carl Edwards who won the Toyota Owners 400 at Richmond International Raceway in a last lap, final corner, bump and run on teammate Kyle Busch. Edwards also won last weekend’s Food City 500 at Bristol. Fellow JGR drivers Denny Hamlin, who won the season opening Daytona 500, and Matt Kenseth, theRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service RICHMOND, Va. – The honeymoon at Joe Gibbs Racing may be over. Yes, on Sunday at Richmond International Raceway, Carl Edwards won his second straight NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race in the Toyota Owners 400 and the fourth in a row for JGR, but he did so with a last-lap bump-and-run on teammate Kyle Busch, who was seeking his third victory in four events. “We did everything right – be smart,” Busch was told on his radio, after Edwards moved the No. 18 ToyotaRead More