Bubba Wallace Tag

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service TALLADEGA, Ala. – Stewart-Haas Racing’s Aric Almirola claimed the pole position for Sunday’s YellaWood 500 (2 p.m. ET, NBC, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) with a fast lap of 181.656 mph in the No. 10 SHR Ford; the 39-year old Tampa native just bettering the speed of fellow Ford driver and reigning NASCAR Cup Series champion Joey Logano Saturday afternoon by .004-thousandths of a second. Almirola’s SHR teammate Chase Briscoe was third fastest and will start on the second row alongside Hendrick Motorsports’ Kyle Larson,Read More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor TALLADEGA, Ala. – The second round of the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs enters the gauntlet. Following the opening race of the Round of 12 last weekend at Texas that saw William Byron lock himself into the next round, the remaining 11 contenders head to Talladega Superspeedway for Sunday’s running of the Yellawood 500. Since opening its doors in 1969, the 2.66-mile track just off Interstate 20 in Alabama has been a wild card on the schedule with the unpredictable nature of superspeedway racing on full displayRead More

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service FORT WORTH, Texas – Hendrick Motorsports driver William Byron took the lead on a restart with six laps remaining and held off the field to claim Sunday’s AutoTrader EchoPark Automotive 400 victory on a steamy-hot highly-dramatic afternoon of NASCAR Cup Series Playoff action at Texas Motor Speedway. It marks a historic 300th victory for the championship Hendrick Motorsports organization – the most in NASCAR history for a NASCAR Cup Series team – and is the series-best, personal-high single-season sixth victory of the year forRead More

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service FORT WORTH, Texas – Bubba Wallace turned in a dramatic final lap of NASCAR Cup Series qualifying at Texas Motor Speedway on Saturday to claim the pole position for Sunday’s AutoTrader EchoPark Automotive 400 (3:30 p.m. ET, USA Network, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Wallace’s qualifying lap of 188.337 mph in the No. 23 23XI Racing Toyota around the 1.5-mile Fort Worth high banks just edged the hometown favorite, Texas-native Chris Buescher’s No. 17 Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing Ford by a slight .039-second. It’s Wallace’sRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service BRISTOL, Tenn. – For Christopher Bell, Friday’s NASCAR Cup Series qualifying session brought an unprecedented accomplishment.  For Martin Truex Jr., Bell’s teammate at Joe Gibbs Racing, it brought a sense of relief—if that’s possible for a driver trying to climb above the cut line in the series Playoffs.  In the final round of time trials at the 0.533-mile short track, Bell turned a lap in 15.109 seconds (126.997 mph), edging another teammate, Denny Hamlin, by 0.008 seconds (126.930 mph) for the top starting spotRead More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor Martin Truex, Jr. entered the 2023 NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs riding high on the regular season championship, but after a dismal start to the postseason, his hopes of staying alive in his chase for a second title come down to next week’s elimination race at Bristol. After entering the Playoffs with a surplus of 36 playoff points, Truex and his No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing team stumbled out of the gate at Darlington with an 18th place finish, which dropped him to sixth in the standingsRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service KANSAS CITY, Kan. – Christopher Bell earned a second chance on Saturday. For the second straight NASCAR Cup Series Playoff race, Bell will start from the pole position after a blistering lap at 180.276 mph (29.954 seconds) in the final round of qualifying for Sunday’s Hollywood Casino 400 at Kansas Speedway (3 p.m. ET on USA, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Bell beat last Sunday’s Darlington winner Kyle Larson (179.826 mph) by 0.075 seconds to win his fourth Busch Light Pole Award of theRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service KANSAS CITY, Kan. – Denny Hamlin’s commitment to drive for Joe Gibbs Racing featured a lot more moving parts than a run-of-the-mill driver contract. First, Hamlin had to renew the agreement of 23XI Racing, the team he owns with former NBA superstar Michael Jordan, with Toyota. Hamlin also had to cement the deal with JGR as a supplier for 23XI. As of NASCAR Cup Series Playoff media day in Charlotte—four days before the Playoff opener at Darlington Raceway—Hamlin had not signed his deal withRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service DARLINGTON, S.C. — Welcome back, Kyle Larson.  The 2021 NASCAR Cup Series champion held off a desperate charge from fellow Playoff driver Tyler Reddick at sold-out Darlington Raceway to claim victory in Sunday night’s Cook Out Southern 500 and earn an automatic berth in the Round of 12.  Larson entered the Playoff opener with an undistinguished average finish of 17.5 in his previous six races, but he weathered a transmission momentary stuck in neutral and a disconcerting brush with the wall to register hisRead More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Bubba Wallace came to Daytona holding on to the final spot available in the 2023 edition of the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs and for him to be able to walk out of the World Center of Racing with that still in his possession, he would need one of two things to happen. Either he would need to park his No. 23 23XI Racing Toyota in Victory Lane at the end of the night and firmly secure the last Playoff berth, or heRead More