A.J. Allmendinger Tag

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service Hendrick Motorsports driver William Byron turned in a steady and inspired drive to earn the NASCAR Cup Series victory from pole position in the EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix at Austin’s Circuit of The Americas road course Sunday, holding off the field by less than a second but dominating the field when he needed to. Answering his season-opening Daytona 500 win, the 26-year-old Charlotte native becomes the first driver to win multiple races this season. This is his 12th career NASCAR Cup Series victory and givesRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service LAS VEGAS — Chandler Smith won the battle. John Hunter Nemechek won the war.  The Joe Gibbs Racing teammates spent most of Saturday afternoon racing each other for the top spot in The LiUNA!, a 300-mile NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. It was Nemechek who proved superior in the long run.  After Smith won the first two stages of the race—the second with a deft last-lap pass of Nemechek’s No. 20 Toyota—Nemechek asserted his dominance.  By the time Nemechek crossedRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — While other NASCAR Xfinity Series drivers were competing, and crashing, in Monday night’s United Rentals 300 at Daytona International Speedway, Austin Hill was playing a different game — Monopoly. At the 2.5-mile superspeedway roughly two miles away from Atlantic Avenue, Hill beat former teammate Sheldon Creed to the finish line by 0.591 seconds to earn his third straight victory in the Xfinity season opener at the World Center of Racing. The third win came on Monday because of weekend-long rainRead More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor It had been a long wait for Hendrick Motorsports to return to Daytona 500 victory lane, but at the end of Monday’s rain-delayed running of the Great American Race, it was a 1-2 finish for one of the winningest organizations in NASCAR Cup Series history. Not since Dale Earnhardt Jr’s 2014 victory had a Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet captured a win in the season opening spectacle, but 26-year-old William Byron was the driver to get it done at the World Center of Racing – capturing his firstRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — The United Rentals 300 NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Daytona International Speedway has been postponed from Saturday to Monday because of rain. The Xfinity season opener has been rescheduled for 11 a.m. on Monday, February 19 and will be broadcast on FS1, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. During a break in the weather on Saturday afternoon, the Xfinity Series cars were able to qualify. Richard Childress Racing teammates Jesse Love (a Sunoco rookie) and Austin Hill ran 1-2 in timeRead More

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service HOMESTEAD, Fla. – In one of the most thrilling NASCAR Cup Series Playoff races of the season, Joe Gibbs Racing driver Christopher Bell rallied from a frustrating race start to lead the final 16 laps of Sunday’s 4EVER 400 presented by Mobil 1 at Homestead-Miami Speedway to earn a second straight appearance into the Championship 4. Bell, who only made his first appearance inside the top five on track with less than 50 laps remaining, got around a pair of the day’s front runnersRead More

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service Austin Cindric really earned the victory in Saturday’s Henry 180 NASCAR Xfinity Series race on the historic 4-mile Road America road course in Elkhart Lake, Wisc. – managing to hold off traffic on numerous restarts both early and late in an elongated afternoon of competition that included wet and dry conditions and 13 dramatic lead changes. Cindric, 21, took his No. 22 Team Penske Ford to the lead for good on a restart with three laps remaining having to hold off hard-charging veteran roadRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service CONCORD, N.C. – AJ Allmendinger stole the thunder from a series of intense battles among NASCAR Xfinity Series Playoff drivers to win Saturday’s Drive for the Cure 250 at the Charlotte Motor Speedway Road Course. Allmendinger muscled his way past series leader Christopher Bell as the cars climbed from the infield section onto the banking on Lap 48 of 67 and held the top spot through three subsequent restarts in the action-filled second race of the Xfinity Round of 12. The road course aceRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. – Opportunity knocked for Austin Cindric after a mechanical failure knocked Kyle Busch out of Saturday’s Zippo 200 at Watkins Glen International. And after Cindric and road course ace AJ Allmendinger traded knocks on the final two laps of the NASCAR Xfinity Series race, Cindric—on fresher tires—emerged the winner for the first time in his career. Following post-race inspection, Allmendinger’s No. 10 Kaulig Racing Chevrolet was disqualified for a rear height violation, dropping Allmendinger to last place in the running order.Read More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Kaulig Racing team owner Matt Kaulig issued an edict during the offseason that he wanted to go “trophy hunting” in 2019 and with three cars in the arsenal for Friday night’s Circle K Firecracker 250 at Daytona International Speedway, the hunt finally paid off as the team netted its first NASCAR Xfinity Series win. Ross Chastain ended the night in Victory Lane driving part-time for the team in its No. 16 entry, adding another win to his resume that has seenRead More