Cup Category

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service Ryan Blaney took the lead on a restart with eight laps remaining and skillfully held off a frantic field to earn the victory Sunday in the FireKeepers Casino 400 at Michigan International Speedway in the penultimate race of the NASCAR Cup Series regular season. Those eight laps out front were the only laps Blaney’s No. 12 Team Penske Ford led on the afternoon but it was good enough to give him his second victory of the season – by a modern-day track record marginRead More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor The end of the NASCAR Cup Series regular season is in sight with just two races remaining before the Playoff field is set. After a stretch of road course races, the series returns to an oval this weekend with Sunday’s running of the Firekeepers Casino 400 at Michigan International Speedway. With this race taking place near the home of two of the three manufacturers (Chevrolet and Ford), teams put extra emphasis on winning here for bragging rights. The two-mile speedway tends to favor the teams thatRead More

By Luis Torres, Staff Writer On a chaotic Sunday afternoon at Indianapolis, you’ll have an extremely hard time finding any driver but AJ Allmendinger smiling. Ryan Blaney was among those bummed after finishing second in the Verizon 200. Not because of the madness during the final hour, but simply getting the shortest straw. During the final restart, Blaney was fifth and one of the few competitors who weren’t snake bitten by the dreaded Turn 6 curbs. Suddenly, shenanigans happened in front of him as Denny Hamlin and Chase Briscoe eliminatedRead More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor INDIANAPOLIS – Winless on the season, Denny Hamlin looked to be on his way to his first victory of the season Sunday at Indianapolis Motor Speedway before a late race run-in with rookie Chase Briscoe derailed his day. After a debris caution with 10 laps to go brought pit strategy into play, Hamlin’s team elected to stay out instead of making the trek down pit road with the remainder of the leaders, boosting him into the lead, where he would stay through the two multi-car crashesRead More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor INDIANAPOLIS – Throughout Sunday’s Verizon 200 on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Road Course, the curbing in Turn 6 was a point of concern, but when a debris caution set up a late race restart, those concerns took a drastic turn for the worse. After taking a pounding from the heavy stock cars and undergoing repairs during every caution, it was only a matter of time before the compromised curbing caused a major issue and a restart with five laps remaining in regulation became the tipping point.Read More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor INDIANAPOLIS – Is it better to be lucky than good? For Kyle Larson, Sunday at Indianapolis was a bit of both. Coming into Sunday’s Verizon 200 on the IMS road course in a dead heat with Denny Hamlin for the regular season points lead, Larson looked to be on a leisurely drive around the 14-turn, 2.439-mile road course en route to yet another win before the late stages of the race took a weird turn toward chaos, seemingly taking him out of contention. However, when theRead More

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service INDIANAPOLIS – The first NASCAR Cup Series road course race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway was full of drama – for A.J. Allmendinger, who led only the last two laps of overtime to secure his second career NASCAR Cup Series victory Sunday, and for those who fell short of the cherished trophy in an action-packed final few laps. Denny Hamlin was leading the race on the final restart with two laps to go before being hit from behind by rookie Chase Briscoe in Turn 10,Read More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor INDIANAPOLIS – When the NASCAR Cup Series takes to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Road Course for the first time on Sunday afternoon, William Byron will be the driver that gets to lead them to the green after scoring the pole for the Verizon 200 at the Brickyard. After timing in fourth quickest during the first round of qualifying, Byron turned up the wick in the second round, charging around the 14-turn, 2.439-mile infield road course in 1 minute, 27.765 seconds to boost his No. 24 HendrickRead More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor INDIANAPOLIS – It’s not the typical oval weekend for the NASCAR Cup Series at Indianapolis Motor Speedway as the series takes on the track’s infield road course for the first time. After a mostly incident-free practice session Saturday morning, led by Martin Truex, Jr. with a lap of 1 minute, 29.577 seconds the question was posed to a number of drivers to see what they thought of racing on the 14-turn, 2.439-mile infield road course. Naturally, Truex had nothing but positive things to say about theRead More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor INDIANAPOLIS – The NASCAR Cup Series returns to Indianapolis Motor Speedway this weekend for its annual trip to the Racing Capital of the World, but this time there’s a twist. Instead of racing on the iconic 2.5-mile oval for Year No. 28 at the Brickyard, NASCAR’s best will join their counterparts from the NASCAR Xfinity Series and NTT IndyCar Series in running on the 14-turn, 2.439-mile infield road course in what will be an action-filled tripleheader weekend. It will be uncharted territory for the majority ofRead More