NASCAR Category

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service TALLADEGA, Ala. – There’s no longer a goose egg in the win column next to Ricky Stenhouse Jr.’s name. With a last-lap pass in Sunday’s GEICO 500 at Talladega Superspeedway, Stenhouse collected his first Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series victory in his 158th start and delivered the first win for Roush Fenway Racing since Carl Edwards triumphed at Sonoma in June 2014. “This is for all the guys at the shop–we’ve been terrible for a long time,” an exuberant Stenhouse said of the Roush renaissance.Read More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor A front-row start at Talladega should have led to one of the best finishes of the season or even a win for Dale Earnhardt, Jr., who has won at the storied track six times in his career, right? Well, not so fast. Starting the day on the outside of the front row alongside eventual winner Ricky Stenhouse, Jr., Earnhardt was never able to power his way into the lead as he battled handling issues with his No. 88 Chevrolet throughout the day, noting on hisRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor “Talladega: World’s Fastest Junkyard,” quipped FOX Sports announcer Mike Joy after an 18-car crash broke out on the backstretch of the 2.66-mile superspeedway with 19 laps to go in Sunday’s GEICO 500. Couldn’t have summed it up any better. After a relatively quiet race by Talladega standards through the first 170 laps, the inevitable “Big One” was coming and when it came, it certainly was big. Coming off Turn 2, AJ Allmendinger, who was running third, made contact with the second-place driver, Chase Elliott, turningRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor After scoring his third NASCAR Xfinity Series win at Talladega on Saturday afternoon, Aric Almirola parlayed the momentum from the day before into Sunday’s GEICO 500 as Almirola tied his best finish of the season with a fourth-place run, matching his finish from the season opening Daytona 500. “I thought I was right where I wanted to be,” said Almirola.  “My car was really good through the middle of the pack and I didn’t want to get shuffled to the bottom.  I was adamant aboutRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor Anytime the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series visits the restrictor plate tracks of Talladega and Daytona, Jamie McMurray is always a threat and in Sunday’s GEICO 500, McMurray was once again a threat, but came up just short with a runner-up finish. Even though he didn’t get the win, McMurray’s second place run at Talladega marks his best finish of the season. Starting the day in 23rd, McMurray had his work cut out for him when the green flag flew, but as he has alwaysRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor For Sunday’s GEICO 500 at Talladega, two fan favorites will make up the front row, with Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. scoring his first pole since Atlanta in September 2013 by beating out Dale Earnhardt, Jr., who will join him on the front row. Stenhouse and Earnhardt set the fastest times in the first round of qualifying and when the final round began, Earnhardt went out and backed up his first round time to scores of cheers from the Talladega faithful. As the last car on track,Read More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service   TALLADEGA, Ala. – Aric Almirola charged into the lead with four laps left in Saturday’s Sparks Energy 300 at Talladega Superspeedway and held off Elliott Sadler at the finish to win the third NASCAR XFINITY Series race of his career.   With the Ford of Darrell Wallace Jr. plowing into the inside backstretch wall behind him on the final lap, Almirola held the top spot to the finish, beating Sadler, the series leader, to the finish line by .142 seconds.   The win wasRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor Ben Kennedy had been out of the cockpit of a race car for five long months, but as he made his first NASCAR Xfinity Series start of the season, the 25-year-old driver for Richard Childress Racing certainly didn’t show any rust as he drove his way to a fourth-place finish at Talladega. Making his first start in the Xfinity Series since Iowa last summer and first start at all since the end of the 2016 season, Kennedy started Saturday’s Sparks Energy 300 in fourth placeRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor Entering Talladega, the NASCAR Xfinity Series points leader, Elliott Sadler, was one of the favorites to be able to score back-to-back wins at the 2.66-mile superspeedway, but after sustaining some damage early in the race, Sadler had his work cut out for him to be able to come back finish as a runner-up in the Sparks Energy 300. “That’s a good finish for us,” said Sadler. “I made a huge mistake there coming to the white. Me and my spotter were so focused on whereRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor As is the case anytime NASCAR visits the restrictor plate tracks of Daytona and Talladega, the chance of a multi-car crash is high and in Saturday’s Sparks Energy 300 at Talladega, the first multi-car crash of the day struck early, sweeping several contenders up in the melee. Heading down the backstretch on lap 20, last year’s runner-up at Talladega, Brennan Poole, who had already sustained some front-end damage earlier in the race, tried to move into the outside lane, but there was no room toRead More