NASCAR Category

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service Rookie Chandler Smith earned his first career NASCAR Xfinity Series victory Saturday afternoon at Richmond (Va.) Raceway holding off John Hunter Nemechek on a final race restart with six laps remaining to hoist the ToyotaCare 250 trophy. Smith’s No. 16 Kaulig Racing Chevrolet led a race best 83 of the 250 laps – the bulk of that early in the race. But the 20-year year old Georgia native was able to run among the top five for most of the day and ultimately driveRead More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor Following a marathon Sunday at the Circuit of the Americas last weekend, the NASCAR Cup Series heads back to the short tracks starting with Sunday’s Toyota Owners 400 at Richmond Raceway. Often described as the perfectly designed race track by drivers, the 0.75-mile track lends itself to not only short track characteristics of beating and banging, but also the characteristics of a larger track with the side-by-side racing that will take place throughout the event. Though the track has lost some of its luster in recentRead More

By Matt Weaver, Special Contributor The NASCAR industry is an especially reactive one. For ways both good and bad, it knee jerks to everything from safety matters (generally good) to the (mixed results) endless competition related conversations across the ether on a weekly basis. This season alone has seen the last-minute knee-jerk to a lower downforce configuration for short tracks and road courses, following a winter banning the ‘Hail Melon’ and incorporating a universal choose rule. No motorsports sanctioning body in the world is as reactive to its competitors and audienceRead More

By Matt Weaver, Special Contributor The official box score will show that Tyler Reddick earned one victory on Sunday in the EchoPark Grand Prix at Circuit of the Americas, but the case can be made that he earned three victories and a runner-up by the end of the day. First, the obvious reference. In surviving three overtime finishes, Reddick was made to have defended a race he had already effectively won, having outdueled William Byron in a spirited old-school classic by the end of regulation. Then came 45 minutes of repeatedRead More

By Matt Weaver, Special Contributor The EchoPark Grand Prix at Circuit of the Americas was billed as something akin to a showcase for just how far NASCAR has come from a global standpoint. And for three hours, it largely delivered on that expectation until it suddenly couldn’t. And for nearly 45 minutes, spanning three different overtimes, arguably the greatest international motorsports starting lineup ever assembled for a single Cup Series race just could not stop crashing each other. Involved in one of the overtime crashes, Ryan Preece referred to the fieldRead More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor AUSTIN, Texas – Welcome to NASCAR, gentlemen. Needless to say Sunday’s marathon EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix at Circuit of the Americas was an eye-opening experience for the road course ringers that came to play in the NASCAR Cup Series this weekend in Austin. Jenson Button and Jordan Taylor, champions in Formula 1 and IMSA, respectively, were making their first start in the Cup Series and were joined by another former F1 world champion in Kimi Raikkonen making just his second Cup start. By the time theRead More

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service AUSTIN, Texas – Tyler Reddick prevailed in three overtime re-starts to claim his first trophy of the year – and first with his new team, 23XI Racing, with a 1.411-second victory over two-time series champion Kyle Busch in the EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix – the NASCAR Cup Series’ first road course race of the season. It was a field of international champions and NASCAR’s very best at the famed Circuit of The Americas course but for most of the race the outcome looked toRead More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor Stage breaks or no stage breaks? That is the question. Since the dawn of stage racing in the NASCAR Cup Series, road course racing has been void of strategy thanks to the pre-planned cautions built into the race. But thanks to a rule change by the higher ups, Sunday’s EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix at Circuit of the Americas will be the first race since 2017 that will play out like a normal race with no pre-determined yellow flags. How the new rules for the road coursesRead More

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service AUSTIN, Texas – A.J. Allmendinger started on pole position and won the NASCAR Xfinity Series’ Pit Boss 250 presented by USA Today on Saturday afternoon on the world-renowned Circuit of The Americas road course. The 46 laps in between the green and checkered flags, however, were dramatic and full of emotional highs and lows for the veteran Allmendinger, who led 14 laps to start the race and the final 14 laps to close it out. The series’ all-time road course winner earned his 11thRead More

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service AUSTIN, Texas – Zane Smith became the first repeat NASCAR winner at the famed Circuit of The Americas road course, the reigning series champion holding off veteran Kyle Busch to claim his second straight victory in Saturday’s XPEL 225 NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series race. The 23-year-old Californian’s No. 38 Front Row Motorsports Ford led the final 15 laps – a race best 16 of the 42 laps in all – and crossed the finish line an impressive 5.451-seconds ahead of the two-time NASCAR CupRead More