NASCAR Category

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service FORT WORTH, Tex. – Opportunistic Kyle Busch sped away from the rest of the field after a restart with 33 laps left in Saturday night’s Duck Commander 500 at Texas Motor Speedway and collected his second straight NASCAR Sprint Cup Series victory. What’s more, Busch won his fourth straight NASCAR national series race, having swept last week’s NASCAR Camping World Truck Series and NASCAR Sprint Cup events at Martinsville and having won Friday night’s NASCAR XFINITY Series race at Texas. Quite simply, the prodigiousRead More

By Toby Christie, NASCAR Editor FORT WORTH, Texas — From the rough start that was a 36th-place finish in the season-opening Daytona 500, Dale Earnhardt Jr. has turned around his season in a big way. That 180-degree spin from February’s ultimate let-down continued Saturday night at Texas Motor Speedway. Earnhardt rolled off from the 14th spot, thanks to a transmission change that sent Chase Elliott to the rear of the field, and early on his No. 88 Nationwide Chevrolet was quite tight. Once Earnhardt began to tune on it fromRead More

By Joey Barnes, Editor-in-Chief FORT WORTH, Texas – After running in the top 10 for a majority of the race in the Duck Commander 500 on Saturday night at Texas Motor Speedway, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. saw his great run dashed in a late accident on lap 294. The 28-year-old ran a clean race and kept his No. 6 Zest Ford Fusion out of trouble, running as high as fifth at the 1.5-mile oval. On the exit of Turn 2 Jimmie Johnson made contact with an already loose Austin Dillon, sendingRead More

By Josh Farmer, IndyCar Reporter & NASCAR Contributor Rookie Chase Elliott overcame starting in the rear of the field to claim his first career top-five finish in Saturday’s Duck Commander 500. From the drop of the green flag, Elliott wasted no time hanging out in the back as he blasted through the field and made it up to 28th when the competition caution flew on lap 28. Following the round of pitstops, Elliott picked up where he left off and cracked the top-20 on lap 46 and eventually cracked the top-15 asRead More

By Toby Christie, NASCAR Editor FORT WORTH, Texas — If overcoming adversity is what judges if a team is championship material, then go ahead and award Jimmie Johnson and Chad Knaus their seventh Sprint Cup after their effort in Saturday night’s Duck Commander 500. Johnson started 11th and finished fourth, but its everything that happened in between that made the night really special. On a pit stop during the competition caution at lap 31, Johnson made contact with the rear of eventual race winner Kyle Busch’s car. This caused severe damageRead More

By Joey Barnes, Editor-in-Chief FORT WORTH, Texas – Fate did not play in the hands of Trevor Bayne on Saturday night at Texas Motor Speedway. Bayne refused to pit during a sequence of green flag stops, inheriting the lead on lap 260 and throwing a strategic wrench in an otherwise uneventful race to that point. The Roush Fenway Racing driver led 12 laps before the relinquishing the lead to a race-dominant Martin Truex Jr. Tire wear was at a premium at the 1.5-mile oval, with many teams electing to pitRead More

By Toby Christie, NASCAR Editor FORT WORTH, Texas — For crew chief Cole Pearn, Saturday night’s Duck Commander 500 at Texas Motor Speedway couldn’t have ended any worse. His No. 78 Toyota, piloted by Martin Truex Jr. led a race-high 141 laps, but ultimately what appeared like a failed pit call by Pearn snuffed out what looked to be a runaway win. On a lap 289 caution, Pearn elected to keep his driver on the track, but then changed his mind last second, however it was too little, too late. “Our plan wasRead More

By Josh Farmer, IndyCar Reporter & NASCAR Contributor A frustrating night went from bad to worse in Brian Vickers’ prospective final start of the season for Stewart Haas Racing. Vickers started in 13th place and moved up to eighth place until the competition caution flew on lap 28. A quick pitstop by his pitcrew briefly lifted Vickers up to fourth place. It ended up being almost all for naught as he spun his tires and lost a handful of positions almost immediately.He eventually fell back to 14th place over the course of theRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service FORT WORTH, Tex. – With Friday night’s NASCAR XFINITY Series race already in the books as another Kyle Busch victory, series director Wayne Auton already is turning his full attention toward next Saturday’s race at Bristol and its inaugural heat race format. Though the XFINITY Dash 4 Cash remains an integral part of the series, the conduct of the competition is brand new, and as Auton explained, many of the ideas for the new format came from the garage itself, particularly when it comesRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service FORT WORTH, Tex. – Kyle Busch broke his NASCAR XFINITY Series “losing streak” on Friday night and in the process moved into rarefied air in the Lone Star State. With a dominating victory from the pole in the O’Reilly Auto Parts 300 at Texas Motor Speedway, Busch won for the fourth time in five XFINITY starts this year. His only loss in that stretch was a second-place run after a late blown tire robbed him of victory in his last outing at Auto ClubRead More