Aric Almirola Tag

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 After scoring his third NASCAR Xfinity Series win at Talladega on Saturday afternoon, Aric Almirola parlayed the momentum from the day before into Sunday’s GEICO 500 as Almirola tied his best finish of the season with a fourth-place run, matching his finish from the season opening Daytona 500. “I thought I was right where I wanted to be,” said Almirola.  “My car was really good through the middle of the pack and I didn’t want to get shuffled to the bottom.  I was adamant aboutRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service   TALLADEGA, Ala. – Aric Almirola charged into the lead with four laps left in Saturday’s Sparks Energy 300 at Talladega Superspeedway and held off Elliott Sadler at the finish to win the third NASCAR XFINITY Series race of his career.   With the Ford of Darrell Wallace Jr. plowing into the inside backstretch wall behind him on the final lap, Almirola held the top spot to the finish, beating Sadler, the series leader, to the finish line by .142 seconds.   The win wasRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor Entering Talladega, the NASCAR Xfinity Series points leader, Elliott Sadler, was one of the favorites to be able to score back-to-back wins at the 2.66-mile superspeedway, but after sustaining some damage early in the race, Sadler had his work cut out for him to be able to come back finish as a runner-up in the Sparks Energy 300. “That’s a good finish for us,” said Sadler. “I made a huge mistake there coming to the white. Me and my spotter were so focused on whereRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor As is the case anytime NASCAR visits the restrictor plate tracks of Daytona and Talladega, the chance of a multi-car crash is high and in Saturday’s Sparks Energy 300 at Talladega, the first multi-car crash of the day struck early, sweeping several contenders up in the melee. Heading down the backstretch on lap 20, last year’s runner-up at Talladega, Brennan Poole, who had already sustained some front-end damage earlier in the race, tried to move into the outside lane, but there was no room toRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service RICHMOND, Va. – It took Joey Logano all afternoon to drive from the back of the field to the front in Sunday’s Toyota Owners 400 at Richmond International Raceway. Logano started from the rear after a post-qualifying transmission change, but when the checkered flag waved after Lap 400, the driver of the No. 22 Team Penske Ford was at the head of the field, having held off a banzai charge from teammate Brad Keselowski during a 19-lap green-flag run. Logano took the lead for theRead More

By Seth Eggert, NASCAR Writer After finishing fourth in the 2017 Daytona 500, the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series season has been leaving a lot to desire for Aric Almirola. Since Daytona, Almirola has had only one Top 15 finish as the series entered Richmond International Raceway for the Toyota Owners 400. In the first practice, Almirola placed his No. 43 Smithfield Ford Fusion a disappointing 27th on the charts. Qualifying was not much better as Almirola missed moving on to round two, ending up 25th on the grid. InRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Contributor Chase Elliott kicked off Speedweeks last Sunday by scoring his second consecutive Daytona 500 pole and the sophomore Hendrick Motorsports driver continued his hot streak on Thursday night by winning the first of the two Can-Am Duel races. “We had such a fast NAPA Chevy tonight. I didn’t think anyone was going to help us there at the first part of the race and I had a couple of good pushes to get us out front. Eddie did a great job on top of theRead More

By Seth Eggert, NASCAR Writer The last time the NASCAR Xfinity Series visited Daytona International Speedway, Aric Almirola took home the victory in controversial and dramatic fashion. A multi-car accident on the backstretch forced NASCAR officials to throw the caution as Almirola and Xfinity Series regular Justin Allgaier battled side-by-side for the lead. After several minutes, it was determined that Almirola was in front of Allgaier at the time of the caution. The last time a NASCAR Xfinity Series regular won at Daytona was in the 2015 season opener whenRead More

By Toby Christie, NASCAR Editor After Sunday’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 400, the cars of race-winner Martin Truex Jr. and 12th-place finisher Jimmie Johnson failed post-race LIS (laser inspection station). But according to NASCAR, the infraction will not result in the loss of Chase advancement for Truex. The penalty for both drivers should be of the P2 variety, which should result in a minimum of 10 points and a $15,000 fine. With Truex’s Chase advancement not in question, the penalty definitely will hurt Johnson much more. A 10-point deduction wouldRead More