NASCAR Category

By Toby Christie, NASCAR Editor Jamie McMurray is a veteran driver who has been in NASCAR long enough to see every Chase for the Sprint Cup take place in every varied format that it has had over the years. But up until last season, McMurray — winner of seven Cup Series races in his career — had never made it into NASCAR’s championship playoff series. Now a year later, McMurray is experiencing the fruits of making it into the Chase in consecutive seasons. McMurray was fast all week long atRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Contributor On Saturday night at Richmond International Raceway, none of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series rookies had a stellar night, but for two of them, they were able to survive the chaos to race their way into the 16 driver Chase for the Sprint Cup field when the checkered flag flew. The two rookies that were able to move on to the postseason were Chase Elliott and Chris Buescher, both of whom had a rough go of it during the 400 lap race, but were ableRead More

By Toby Christie, NASCAR Editor When Tony Stewart announced his retirement before the 2016 season, he said that he didn’t want a parade of retirement gifts. He could go about accomplishing that feat a different way than he has over the last two races. At the pace he’s currently going, there will not be many drivers that are going to be missing Stewart when he retires at the end of the year. Last week in Darlington, Stewart was summoned to the NASCAR hauler after he wiped out Brian Scott while driving downRead More

By Toby Christie, NASCAR Editor After qualifying a dismal 34th on Friday, Chase Elliott set sail on chasing his first-ever Chase berth in the Federated Auto Parts 400 at Richmond International Raceway on Saturday night. By lap 90, Elliott had worked his way inside the top-15 when an anxious moment ensued. While Elliott was running three-wide with Ryan Newman and Jeff Gordon, Newman made contact with Gordon. The contact sent Gordon into Elliott, which then caused Elliott’s tire to cut down. Elliott would slam into the wall on lap 95,Read More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Contributor Heading into Saturday night’s Federated Auto Parts 400 at Richmond, Ryan Blaney and the Wood Brothers Racing team had one final chance to try and win a race to move into the Chase, but for the No. 21 team, a place in the postseason was not to be after an early race crash that ended their hopes of competing for the championship. Blaney entered the night 69 points behind Jamie McMurray for the 16th and final Chase spot on points, so the only way thatRead More

By Seth Eggert, NASCAR Writer Friday night’s Virginia 529 College Savings 250 at Richmond International Raceway did not start well for Brennan Poole. In the only practice session before the race, Poole was 22nd fastest in his No. 48 DC Solar Chervolet Camaro. Qualifying was not any better for Poole. Poole was unable to advance out of the first round, and managed to only place his Chip Ganassi Racing car 31st on the starting grid. The race started off fast as Poole quickly began to work his way up throughRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service RICHMOND, Va. – With one ferociously fast pit stop, Kyle Busch erased a lackluster qualifying effort and cruised to victory in Friday night’s Virginia529 College Savings 250 at Richmond International Raceway. A master at getting on and off pit road in minimal time, Busch entered the pits in fourth place under the first caution of the race after a tap from J.J. Yeley sent Justin Marks spinning into the frontstretch grass on Lap 48. Busch was first off pit road—decisively—and at that point itRead More

By Toby Christie, NASCAR Editor It had been a sub-par past five races by Erik Jones’ standards. In the five Xfinity Series events heading into Friday night’s Virginia529 College Savings 250 at Richmond, Jones had recorded just two top-10 finishes and he had also finished outside the top-20 twice during that span. After three wins earlier in the season, many wondered if perhaps things were beginning to come unraveled for Jones and his No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing team. After an impressive second place finish at the 3/4-mile track in Virginia, allRead More

By Toby Christie, NASCAR Editor It all comes down to this weekend for NASCAR Sprint Cup Series rookie, Chris Buescher. Buescher, who won at Pocono a month ago after the race was shortened by fog, is looking to make his way into the Chase for the Sprint Cup in his first season of trying. If Buescher does indeed make it into the championship field after 400 laps of racing Saturday night in Richmond, he will likely have to perform a little better than he did in Friday’s qualifying session. Buescher wasn’tRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service RICHMOND, Va. – Don’t tell Denny Hamlin his first pole of the season isn’t significant. In the money round of Friday’s knockout qualifying session, the driver of the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota toured .75-mile Richmond International Raceway in 22.069 seconds (122.344 mph) to earn the top starting spot for Saturday night’s Federated Auto Parts 400 (7:30 p.m. ET on NBCSN), the final race in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series regular season. “I thought for sure we had too many laps on ourRead More