Aric Almirola Tag

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service Benefiting from a two-tire pit stop with 36 laps left, Kevin Harvick held off charging Denny Hamlin over the final green-flag run to win for the first time at Pocono Raceway. Harvick crossed the finish line in Saturday’s Pocono Organics 325 .761 seconds ahead of Hamlin to post his third victory of the season – tying Hamlin for the NASCAR Cup Series lead – and the 52nd of his career, 12th most all-time. “We weren’t where we needed to be to start the raceRead More

By Luis Torres, Staff Writer Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. was just 0.007 seconds shy of capturing his first NASCAR Cup Series win since 2017 while Aric Almirola took a wild slide to cross the line in third during Monday’s GEICO 500 at Talladega Superspeedway. Both drivers played a pivotal role on the overtime finish, but ultimately ended up tangling each other while fighting for the win. Not only that, but also trying to save fuel. It took a backseat once the field took the white flag, as the new word became charge. KevinRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service An event that began with a massive show of support for Bubba Wallace ended with one of Wallace’s best friends, Ryan Blaney, celebrating in Victory Lane for the second straight race at Talladega Superspeedway. In a frenetic overtime dash, Blaney won Monday’s GEICO 500 by .007 seconds over Ricky Stenhouse Jr. as crashing cars bounced of each other and the outside wall behind the top two finishers. The victory was Blaney’s first of the season, second straight at the 2.66-mile track and the fourthRead More

By Luis Torres, Staff Writer “Hallelujah! A clean day!” That was the immediate thought by Aric Almirola’s No. 10 pit crew as a clean yet frantic ending to their Dixie Vodka 400 resulted in a fifth-place finish at Homestead-Miami Speedway. “Finally, woo! Thank you boys! Just a nice clean day. I appreciate that,” Almirola replied over the radio. The sigh of relief was a direct result of Almirola saving his tires, but trying to dodge lapped traffic and avoid letting the Joe Gibbs Racing duo of Kyle Busch and Erik JonesRead More

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service The race statistics will show that Denny Hamlin led a dominating 138 of the 267-laps in Sunday’s Dixie Vodka 400 but the truth is he had to earn every fraction of a second that he paced the field. It was a thrilling chase for the checkered flag, lap-after-lap among the front-running cars. Hamlin ultimately took the lead for good – passing Chase Elliott with 29 laps remaining after a series of green flag pit stops swapped the two cars’ positions in front of theRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service FONTANA, Calif. – Alex Bowman had a new nose for the finish line Sunday at Auto Club Speedway. Driving the No. 88 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet—a sleeker version of the Camaro with a new front fascia—Bowman ran away with the final stage of the Auto Club 400 at the two-mile track in the Inland Empire. In picking up his second career victory and his first at Fontana, Bowman led five times for 110 of the 200 laps in the third NASCAR Cup event of theRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Rain stopped the Daytona 500 after 20 laps of a scheduled 200 Sunday afternoon, forcing postponement of the Great American Race until Monday afternoon at 4 p.m. ET on FOX, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. President Donald J. Trump and First Lady Melania Trump were the centerpiece of pre-race festivities. After addressing the crowd, President Trump gave the command to start engines and paced the field for a lap before returning to the Daytona 500 Club. Jimmie Johnson, starting hisRead More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor Editor’s note: Motorsports Tribune will be previewing the 2020 NASCAR Cup Series season for the full-time drivers in the series leading into February’s running of the Daytona 500. Age: 32 Years in Cup: 13th overall, ninth full time season Career Wins: Two After a career year in 2018, Aric Almirola and Stewart-Haas Racing regressed a bit last season. Despite Almirola and two of his teammates making it into the Playoffs, things didn’t turn out as they would have hoped. The Tampa, Florida native was able to score threeRead More

By Luis Torres, Staff Writer FORT WORTH, Texas — Stewart-Haas Racing made Texas Motor Speedway their own playground after the four-car stable led 245 of 334 laps and had a 1-2-3 finish in Sunday’s AAA Texas 500. Among the top-three finishers was Daniel Suarez, who backed up his third-place result from the spring race with yet another third as his No. 41 Walmart Family Mobile Ford Mustang wowed his fan club “Daniel’s Amigos” by leading 25 laps. Having people Suarez cares about support him at the 1.5-mile circuit and with theRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service FORT WORTH, Tex. – For Kevin Harvick, Texas is the new Phoenix. Overcoming a pit road penalty for a tire placed in his pit box too early, Harvick took control of the AAA Texas 500 as the sun set on Texas Motor Speedway and won his third straight Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Playoff race at the 1.5-mile track in Cowtown. Locked into the Championship 4 race two weeks hence at Homestead-Miami Speedway, Harvick can now breathe easy heading into the final Round ofRead More