Aric Almirola Tag

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service Team Penske driver Ryan Blaney earned his third career Phoenix Raceway pole position on Saturday afternoon and will line up alongside Joe Gibbs Racing’s Denny Hamlin to lead the field to green in Sunday’s Ruoff Mortgage 500 (3:30 p.m., FOX, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). It is the best race start of the season for both drivers, who are eager to rebound after uncharacteristic tough luck in the opening three races of 2022. Blaney, driver of the No. 12 Team Penske Ford has only aRead More

By Luis Torres, Staff Writer Aric Almirola is off to his best season start of his NASCAR Cup Series career following a sixth-place finish in Sunday’s Pennzoil 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. He’s the only driver to finish in the top-10 in all three races this year which puts him sixth in the championship standings. In the closing laps, Almirola was barely hanging onto 10th place until the race went into overtime after Erik Jones and Bubba Wallace crashed on the frontstretch. When the race boiled down to a two-lapRead More

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service LAS VEGAS — Alex Bowman won in a dramatic overtime ending in the Pennzoil 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway Sunday – gambling on a two-tire final pit stop for his No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet and holding off the field in a two-lap sprint to decide the NASCAR Cup Series race. Bowman and Hendrick Motorsports teammate Kyle Larson made up the front row on the restart – the pair along with teammate William Byron took two tires on the final pit stop whileRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service Reigning NASCAR Cup Series champion Kyle Larson waited until late in Sunday’s Wise Power 400 to flex his muscles. But in the end, the driver of the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet held off a charging Austin Dillon by .195 seconds at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, Calif., to notch his first victory of the season, his second at the 2-mile track and the 17th of his career. In a race that featured 12 cautions for 59 laps, Larson, who started from the rearRead More

By Luis Torres, Staff Writer The future is indeed now in the NASCAR Cup Series. Not because it’s the first-ever regular season race with the current car (known as NextGen), but it also saw another first-time winner in the Daytona 500. In just his eighth career Cup start, Austin Cindric brought Team Penske its third win in “The Great American Race.” While the No. 2 team celebrated, other drivers were either heartbroken or collected in wrecks that’ll prove costly to team’s due to the supply shortage of the current car. DespiteRead More

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Reigning NASCAR Cup Series champion Kyle Larson has started 2022 off the way he ended 2021 – out front. The 29-year-old Hendrick Motorsports driver won the pole position for Sunday’s Daytona 500 season-opener with a lap of 181.159 mph in the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet Wednesday night at Daytona International Speedway. And for a record fifth consecutive year, Larson’s Hendrick Motorsports teammate Alex Bowman has also earned a front row starting position in the DAYTONA 500. He’ll start theRead More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor A mainstay on the NASCAR Cup Series circuit for more than a decade, Aric Almirola announced Monday that the upcoming 2022 season will be his last behind the wheel, as he’ll be hanging up the helmet at season’s end to spend more time with his family. The 37-year old Tampa, Florida native first appeared on the Cup Series scene back in 2007, running part-time for a number of different teams before making the jump to full-time racing at NASCAR’s highest level with Richard Petty Motorsports andRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service MARTINSVILLE, Va. – Denny Hamlin provided the perfect capstone to a day of banged-up stock cars, hurt feelings and crushed dreams. Alex Bowman took the checkered flag in Sunday’s Xfinity 500 at Martinsville Speedway after sliding up into Hamlin’s race-leading Toyota on Lap 494 of 501 and knocking Hamlin’s car up the track and into the outside wall. As Bowman tried to start a burnout to celebrate his fourth NASCAR Cup Series victory of the season and his first at the .526-mile short track,Read More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor Bristol Motor Speedway hosted the first elimination race of the 2021 NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs on Saturday night, marking the end of the road for four drivers and their championship aspirations. Several drivers entered the night within striking distance of the top-12 in points, but when the checkered flag fell Aric Almirola, Tyler Reddick, Kurt Busch and Michael McDowell were the unlucky drivers to be on the outside looking in. Just two points separated Almirola and Reddick from being able to continue on in the Playoffs,Read More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor After running on the dirt at Bristol earlier this year, the NASCAR Cup Series returns to the track we all know and love this weekend for Saturday night’s running of the Bass Pro Shops NRA Night Race and the first elimination race of the Playoffs. Racing at Bristol is always intense, but when the lights go down for the night race, the intensity gets cranked to 11. The aggressiveness that the drivers will show on the high-banked bullring that is called “The Last Great Colosseum” toRead More