AAA Texas 500 Tag

By Joey Barnes, Editor-in-Chief FORT WORTH, Texas – Brad Keselowski kept his championship hopes alive after salvaging a fifth-place finish in Sunday’s AAA Texas 500 at Texas Motor Speedway. The 33-year-old Michigan native nearly saw his chances evaporate moments after the drop of the green when Kyle Busch’s No. 18 M&M’s Caramel Toyota Camry washed up the track going into Turn 1 and cut the left rear tire of Keselowski’s No. 2 Wurth Ford Fusion. The incident hurt both drivers as they came down pit road and fell behind theRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service FORT WORTH, Tex. – Martin Truex Jr. isn’t invincible after all. Kevin Harvick put a serious dent in Truex’s sense of invulnerability on Sunday afternoon, passing Truex with nine laps left in the AAA Texas 500 at Texas Motor Speedway and pulling away to win by 1.580 seconds. In beating this year’s unrivaled master of the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series’ 1.5-mile intermediate speedways, Harvick earned a spot in the Nov. 19 Championship 4 race at Homestead-Miami Speedway, which Harvick won the first titleRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service FORT WORTH, Tex. – A driver without a signed contract for 2018 won the pole position for Sunday’s AAA Texas 500 at Texas Motor Speedway (2 p.m. ET on NBCSN) with a record lap — giving a timely birthday present to his crew chief. In the final round of Friday’s knockout qualifying session, Kurt Busch covered the 1.5-mile distance in 26.877 seconds (200.915 mph) to top the previous record lap of 200.111 mph posted by Tony Stewart in 2014. In a third round thatRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service With full-time driver Darrell “Bubba” Wallace Jr. behind the wheel, Richard Petty Motorsports will have a new sponsor on the vaunted No. 43 car in the 2018 Daytona 500 and at least two other events next year. Click n’ Close, a division of Texas-based Mid America Mortgage has entered a partnership agreement with RPM as well as signing on as the “Official Mortgage Provider of NASCAR.” “I’m excited to run in my first Daytona 500,” Wallace said. “And I think most of you guysRead More

By Joey Barnes, Editor-in-Chief FORT WORTH, Texas – Chase Elliott admitted that he is still upset with Denny Hamlin following last week’s late race incident at Martinsville. With two laps remaining in the First Data 500, Elliott was en route to his first Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series victory until Hamlin put an aggressive hit to his rear bumper and sending Elliott’s No. 24 NAPA Auto Parts Chevrolet into the wall and with a 27th-place finish. The outcome led to a heated exchange on pit road. During Friday media availabilityRead More

By Joey Barnes, Editor-in-Chief FORT WORTH, Texas – Erik Jones is hungry for that elusive first victory in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series. A rookie this season while driving for Furniture Row Racing, Jones is poised to move to Joe Gibbs Racing as he replaces Matt Kenseth in the No. 20 Toyota Camry in 2018. While teammate Martin Truex Jr. has enjoyed a banner season with seven wins en route to the overall points lead with three rounds to go, Jones has put together a roller coaster campaign ofRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor After a barn burner of a finish at Martinsville last weekend, the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series heads to the Lone Star State and Texas Motor Speedway for Sunday’s running of the AAA Texas 500 and the second race of the playoff semi-finals. First joining the circuit in 1997, the 1.5 mile Texas track has provided some great racing over the years as the surface wore down as each season passed. For the second time the season, drivers will get a crack at the trackRead More

By Adam Tate, Associate Editor Rainguard Water Sealers will be the official sponsor for the upcoming Verizon IndyCar Series event at Texas Motor Speedway, which will now be known as the Rainguard Water Sealers 600. The water sealant and coating company has signed a three year contract with TMS President Eddie Gossage to sponsor the early June night race that has been a staple of the Verizon IndyCar Series schedule since 1997, which has made it the second longest continued event in modern day IndyCar behind only the Indy 500. “We’reRead More

By Joey Barnes, Editor-in-Chief The Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup recently endured one of its most trying days last Sunday in the AAA Texas 500 at Texas Motor Speedway. The event, delayed by rain, was also ended prematurely due to the same. However, that isn’t where the problem sits. Not entirely. You see, there is a massive amount of buildup for Chase races and perhaps no place more so than the 1.5-mile oval track – the site where many fans have witnessed raw emotion from drivers and teams asRead More

By Seth Eggert, NASCAR Writer Entering the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series AAA 500 at Texas Motor Speedway, Jimmie Johnson was the only driver locked into the Championship Round at Homestead-Miami Speedway. One driver that was hoping to earn his own guaranteed shot at a Championship was Denny Hamlin. As the cars were unloaded at the beginning of the race weekend, Hamlin had just a six-point gap over the Chase cut-off. In the first practice, Hamlin was 15th fastest. He was then mired back on the speed charts in the secondRead More