AJ Allmendinger Tag

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service SPEEDWAY, Ind. — In semi-darkness, as the sun set behind the frontstretch grandstand at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Kasey Kahne did all he could to dispel the shadow overhanging his Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series season and his racing career. With a phenomenal restart in the second overtime of Sunday’s Brantley Gilbert Big Machine Brickyard 400, Kahne cleared race leader Brad Keselowski through the first two corners and crossed the overtime line on the backstretch before NASCAR called the record 14th caution of the race. ThatRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor Sunday’s Overton’s 301 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway was full of storylines as the regular season draws one race nearer to its conclusion, but what were the top storylines of the day? NASCAR Editor David Morgan is here to break it all down. Joe Gibbs Racing Finally Gets Their First Win of the Season If anyone would have said prior to the season that Joe Gibbs Racing wouldn’t have their first win of the year until mid-July, you would have called them crazy. Well, 19Read More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – The major story of Saturday night’s Coke Zero 400 Powered by Coca-Cola – Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s final run at his beloved Daytona International Speedway in the No. 88 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet – turned out to be a footnote to Ricky Stenhouse Jr.’s masterful victory in a war of attrition that produced a race-record 14 cautions. The driver of the No. 17 Roush Fenway Racing Ford, who got his first Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series victory in his 158th career start twoRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor As the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series heads into week 16 of the 2017 season, the series gets ready to make its first right hand turns of the year. This week, the series makes the trek out to California wine country to take on the 1.990 mile Sonoma Raceway, a 12-turn technical road course situated about 30 miles north of San Francisco. This week’s Toyota/Save Mart 350 consists of 110 laps, which calculates out to 218.9 miles, or 350 kilometers. Over the years, the courseRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service TALLADEGA, Ala. – There’s no longer a goose egg in the win column next to Ricky Stenhouse Jr.’s name. With a last-lap pass in Sunday’s GEICO 500 at Talladega Superspeedway, Stenhouse collected his first Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series victory in his 158th start and delivered the first win for Roush Fenway Racing since Carl Edwards triumphed at Sonoma in June 2014. “This is for all the guys at the shop–we’ve been terrible for a long time,” an exuberant Stenhouse said of the Roush renaissance.Read More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor “Talladega: World’s Fastest Junkyard,” quipped FOX Sports announcer Mike Joy after an 18-car crash broke out on the backstretch of the 2.66-mile superspeedway with 19 laps to go in Sunday’s GEICO 500. Couldn’t have summed it up any better. After a relatively quiet race by Talladega standards through the first 170 laps, the inevitable “Big One” was coming and when it came, it certainly was big. Coming off Turn 2, AJ Allmendinger, who was running third, made contact with the second-place driver, Chase Elliott, turningRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Contributor After stops in Las Vegas and Phoenix to kick off the Western swing, the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series wraps up their venture to the West Coast this weekend as they roll into Southern California to do battle on the two mile Auto Club Speedway in Sunday’s Auto Club 400. Built on the site of an old steel mill featured in the movie “Terminator”, the two mile oval has been a part of the NASCAR schedule since opening in 1997. The track has gone throughRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – His car damaged in a wreck on the backstretch and held together with tape, Kurt Busch grabbed the lead on the final lap of the 59th Daytona 500 on Sunday and took the checkered flag in the Great American Race as a capstone to a checkered career that has trended upward since Busch joined Stewart-Haas Racing in 2014. In a race that featured the first test of a new three-stage race format in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series—and featuredRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Contributor Close, but no cigar….again. After a stellar rookie season in 2016, Ryan Blaney and the Wood Brothers entered the 2017 season looking to improve on last season’s results as well as getting Blaney his first career win. In Sunday’s Daytona 500, the team nearly accomplished that feat, but fell just short as they had to settle for a runner-up finish instead. Although it wasn’t a win, the second-place finish for Blaney marks the best career finish for the 23-year old, besting his three fourth placeRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Contributor For much of the second Can-Am Duel at Daytona, it looked like it would be Dale Earnhardt, Jr following the lead of his Hendrick Motorsports teammate Chase Elliott to score the win after qualifying on the front row for the Daytona 500, but Denny Hamlin had other plans as he was able to execute a late race pass to take the lead and the win. “It was great. Great car. Got a great push there for Austin (Dillon). We worked really well together that entireRead More