NASCAR Category

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service LOUDON, N.H. – Carl Edwards never had the reputation as a spectacular qualifier – until this year. On Friday at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, Edwards ran 135.453 mph (28.119 seconds) in the money round of knockout qualifying to earn the top start spot in Sunday’s Bad Boy Off Road 300 (2 p.m. ET on NBCSN), the second race in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup. The Coors Light Pole Award was Edwards sixth of the year, doubling his previous single-season best. It wasRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service LOUDON, N.H. – A wreck in practice at New Hampshire Motor Speedway was the last thing Austin Dillon needed. After a 14th-place finish last Sunday at Chicagoland Speedway in the first race of the 2016 Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup, Dillon needs a strong run at New Hampshire to escape the bottom four in the standings. But with the Round of 16 elimination race looming Oct. 1 at Dover, Dillon had his weekend start catastrophically at the Magic Mile, site of Sunday’s BadRead More

By Seth Eggert, NASCAR Writer The last time the NASCAR Xfinity Series visited Kentucky Speedway, Kyle Busch took home the victory in dominant fashion. Busch led 185 of the 200 laps and beat fellow NASCAR Sprint Cup Series regular Austin Dillon by 0.455 seconds. Daniel Suarez was the highest finishing NASCAR Xfinity Series regular in third. The last time a NASCAR Xfinity Series Championship contender won at Kentucky was Brendan Gaughan in 2014. Ryan Blaney won at Kentucky in 2015, but was not competing full-time in the NASCAR Xfinity SeriesRead More

By Seth Eggert, NASCAR Writer The last time the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series visited New Hampshire Motor Speedway, Austin Dillon took home the victory, beating Matt Crafton by just over a second. The last time a contender for the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series regular won at New Hampshire was Ron Hornaday Jr. in 2008. Cole Custer is the only past winner in the field for Saturday’s race. Truck Series Chase With the regular season complete, the 2016 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series Chase field has been set. WilliamRead More

By Aaron Bearden, Contributing Writer The first race of the 2016 Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup has come and gone, and with it a plethora of storylines have unfolded in the paddock. Teams that laid dormant throughout the summer have suddenly come to life, while drivers that entered as favorites to hoist the Sprint Cup at the end of the season have suddenly found themselves in a hole after facing unexpected issues. Martin Truex, Jr., stamped his name into the second round of the Chase with a victory inRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Contributor After taking on Chicagoland Speedway to kick off the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup, NASCAR’s premier division heads to New England for the second time in 2016 to take on the flat one mile oval that is the New Hampshire Motor Speedway in this weekend’s Bad Boy Off Road 300. First joining the Cup Series circuit in 1993, the 1.058 mile oval that has progressively banked turns from two to seven degrees is one of the more difficult tracks on the schedule as theRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Contributor With NASCAR invading New England for the second race of the Chase for the Sprint Cup at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, another edition of “Throwback Thursday Theater” is upon us. As we look back at races from New Hampshire’s past, this week’s focus is on the 2001 New Hampshire 300, a race that featured a great battle for the win between two Gordons, Jeff Gordon and Robby Gordon, leaving one ecstatic with the win and the other fuming at what might have been. The raceRead More

By Aaron Bearden, Contributing Writer “This one is on us.” It’s rare to hear that level of candor from the sanctioning body of any sport, but those were the exact words to come from Scott Miller, NASCAR senior vice president of competition, during a Wednesday teleconference announcing a change to the sanctioning body’s penalty system for post-race laser inspection system (LIS) failures. The old rules — and I say “old” loosely, as they were just implemented last week — provided a gray area with P2 and P3 level penalties for teams thatRead More

By Aaron Bearden, Contributing Writer Race-winner Martin Truex, Jr., and Jimmie Johnson won’t be stripped of points or fined after failing post-race LIS inspection at Chicagoland Speedway. Instead, in the interest of fairness, NASCAR has elected take the blame and make changes to post-race procedures moving forward. Both Truex and Johnson appeared due for penalties after being caught with minor infractions following Sunday’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 400, but the repercussions were stripped when NASCAR observed a clear issue with their penalty system relevant to Chase benefits. NASCAR confirmed Wednesday that both TruexRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service JOLIET, Ill. – You could see it coming from a mile-and-a-half away. On new tires, Martin Truex Jr. rocketed around the outside lane after a restart in overtime at Chicagoland Speedway and pulled away to win Sunday’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 400, the opening race in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup. With the victory—his first at the 1.5-mile track, his third of the season and the sixth of his career—Truex also rocketed into the Chase’s Round of 12. But Truex wasn’t satisfiedRead More