Opinion Category

By Christopher DeHarde, IndyCar & Road to Indy Writer Enough, Racing Gods. Enough. Dale Coyne has clearly suffered through massive amounts of heartache. During Saturday’s Rainguard Water Sealers 600 at Texas Motor Speedway, the longtime Verizon IndyCar Series team owner had another night that would make any normal team owner question his involvement in the sport. With Tristan Vautier becoming the driver du jour in the No. 18 GEICO Honda replacing Sebastien Bourdais, the new Frenchman qualified fifth and was running in the upper end of the field. Meanwhile, teammate EdRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor Sunday’s Axalta presents the Pocono 400 at Pocono Raceway provided one of the more memorable races at the 2.5-mile triangle-shaped track in recent memory, with Ryan Blaney scoring his first Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series win for the legendary Wood Brothers. To go along with Blaney’s win, here are five of the top storylines leaving the Tricky Triangle. The Young Guns are Taking Over 2017 has been the year of the young gun. Though drivers like Jimmie Johnson, Brad Keselowski, and Martin Truex, Jr. haveRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor After Sunday’s AAA 400 at Dover International Speedway, the regular season of the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series is now halfway over. The 400-lap event on the one-mile concrete oval once again provided some of the best racing of the year, so without further ado, here are five of the top storylines leaving the Monster Mile. Jimmie Johnson Just Keeps Rewriting the Record Books Though Kyle Larson and Martin Truex, Jr. dominated the majority of the race at Dover, it was Johnson that came outRead More

By Adam Tate, Associate Editor Sebastian Vettel is in a class of his own in 2017. The Ferrari driver just picked up his third win and sixth podium of the season in spectacular fashion by overhauling team mate Kimi Raikkonen with a strategy that recalls memories of his friend and mentor Michael Schumacher. He is calm, he is confident, he is excited, and it shows. He is relishing the budding rivalry with Lewis Hamilton and the challenge of beating Mercedes, but he is already a step ahead of them. In anotherRead More

By Aaron Bearden, NASCAR Contributor Phew. The last few weeks sure have been fun, haven’t they? Ever since the conclusion of the West Coast Swing – another solid stretch of the schedule – NASCAR has gone on a tour of many tracks that fans and media alike seem to clamor for, often putting on thrilling races in the processes. The past five races have seen all three of the schedule’s short tracks, a superspeedway race and just a single 1.5-miler, which was itself interesting due to the wild-card nature ofRead More

By Aaron Bearden, NASCAR Contributor It took only one instance of a race-winner suffering an “encumbered” finish for this writer to reach a significant conclusion regarding the ruling: it, or at the minimum the name it’s been given, needs altered. One thing’s been confirmed with relative consistency regarding NASCAR’s latest buzzword – it doesn’t seem a good fit. Don’t believe me? Look no further than NASCAR’s most popular (and soon to be retired) driver. Never used the word “encumbered” to describe anything. Don’t plan on ever using it. Can weRead More

By Aaron Bearden, NASCAR Contributor Like many in the NASCAR world, I was left with a torrid mixture of happiness and sadness amid Dale Earnhardt, Jr.’s retirement release on Tuesday morning. There was shock to the suddenness of the announcement, one of the few news stories in recent years to not be leaked (looking at you, Stewart-Haas Racing to Ford announcement). But at the same time, Earnhardt’s retirement – coming in his 18th year in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series, and following a season marred by concussion-like symptoms – was expected sooner ratherRead More

By Aaron Bearden, NASCAR Contributor Andretti Autosport’s shocking announcement Wednesday of the addition of two-time Formula One World Champion Fernando Alonso to the team’s roster for the 101st Running of the Indianapolis 500 Presented by Penngrade Motor Oil in a joint venture with McLaren sent a shockwave that’s rippled through the motorsports world throughout the day. The repercussions of the announcement have yet to be seen, but the one immediate effect it’s had on fans is a thought of whom else they’d like to see participate in the Month of May. Every fanRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor After seven races have been completed in the 2017 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series, there are definitely some teams that have stepped up their performance from last season, while others have stumbled out of the gate thus far in the season. As the series takes their first off-weekend of the year before embarking on a marathon run into late August, we’ll take a look at performance of the top teams in NASCAR’s premier division up to this point and how they rank amongst their peersRead More

By Joey Barnes, Editor-in-Chief There are few races that draw the desire out of race drivers more than the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach. The same could be said for the journalists covering the sport. I’ve been privileged to cover several events across NASCAR, IndyCar and even Formula 1, but what was experienced this weekend was a one of a kind moment in my still relatively young career. Covering the 100th Indianapolis 500 last year, the enormous crowds and interest wasn’t all that surprising – especially considering the milestoneRead More