Cup

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service LOUDON, N.H. – Joe Gibbs Racing driver Christopher Bell will start Sunday’s Crayon 301 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway exactly where he finished his last start at the 1.058-mile New England track: in position No. 1. Bell, 28, won Saturday’s pole qualifying session for the Crayon 301 (2:30 p.m. ET, USA Network, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) with a lap of 124.781 mph in the No. 20 JGR Toyota – just a tick faster – .007-seconds – than his teammate, Martin Truex Jr., who willRead More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor New England here we come. A week removed from a thrilling rain-shortened event in Atlanta, the NASCAR Cup Series heads back to a flat oval this weekend for Sunday’s running of the Crayon 301, as the march to the end of the regular season continues on. 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 the flat nature of the track makes trackRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service HAMPTON, Ga. – Neither an early spin nor damage to his No. 24 Chevrolet could prevent William Byron from winning Sunday night’s rain-shortened Quaker State 400 Available at Walmart at Atlanta Motor Speedway.   With a storm approaching the 1.54-mile track, Byron surged past AJ Allmendinger into the lead on Lap 167 and remained out from until an accident in Turn 3 involving Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Ryan Preece and Bubba Wallace caused the seventh caution of the evening on Lap 178.  With Byron outRead More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor CHICAGO – SVG. Three letters that say it all. Shane Van Gisbergen, a three-time V8 Supercars champion from New Zealand rolled into Chicago for his first NASCAR Cup Series start and took the field to school, capping off a strong weekend by capturing the victory in the inaugural Grant Park 220 on the Chicago Street Course. “You always dream of it,” Van Gisbergen said of the possibility of winning coming into the weekend. “Thank you so much to the Trackhouse team, Enhance Health, Project91. What anRead More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor CHICAGO – Denny Hamlin will lead the field to green for the inaugural NASCAR Cup Series street race on Sunday after snagging the pole for the Grant Park 220. Noting that the first day on the 2.2-mile, 12-turn course in downtown Chicago was “my single best day at the race track in all of my career”, the driver of the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota took the top spot in the waning moments of qualifying with a lap of one minute, 28.435 seconds. Tyler Reddick,Read More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor CHICAGO – Ross Chastain and his Trackhouse Racing team might have partied hard after winning last weekend in Nashville, but it’s back to business heading into the unknown of a first-ever street course race this weekend in Chicago. With the momentum of his first win of the season and his first victory in more than a year, the driver of the No. 1 Chevrolet noted that his team is not changing tactics mid-season and will be keeping their foot on the gas as the summer stretchRead More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor CHICAGO – NASCAR. Fourth of July weekend. A first ever street course race. Expect fireworks. Former Formula 1 world champion Jenson Button has been able to experience street course racing in other forms of motorsports throughout his career, but even he is unsure of what will happen when the green flag drops for the inaugural NASCAR Cup Series Grant Park 220 on the Chicago Street Course. “It’s so cool – racing within a city,” Button said. “There aren’t many racing drivers that get that opportunity. I’veRead More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor CHICAGO — The NASCAR Cup Series is heading into the unknown this weekend in Chicago. While other racing series have had street course races in their lineup for years, NASCAR is taking its first crack at racing on a non-purpose-built course on Sunday with the running of the Grant Park 220 on the streets of Chicago, Illinois. The 2.2-mile, 12-turn course will wind its way around Grant Park on the shores of Lake Michigan as the series hopes to capture the imagination of a whole newRead More

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service LEBANON, Tenn. – Ross Chastain capped off a “perfect” race weekend, hitting all the right notes in Music City to earn the winner’s guitar trophy in Sunday’s Ally 400 at Nashville Superspeedway – his first NASCAR Cup Series race victory of the season, a day after claiming his first career pole position. But before hoisting his new guitar, the 30-year old Chastain had a watermelon to smash – his trademark victory celebration – a nod to his family’s multi-generation watermelon farm in rural Alva,Read More