chase elliott Tag

By Joey Barnes, Editor-in-Chief After starting on pole for the Daytona 500, rookie Chase Elliott saw his hopes of a good finish evaporate early. The 20-year-old from Dawsonville, Georgia led the opening few laps, but began to quickly slide backwards. The heralded replacement for retired four-time Sprint Cup champion Jeff Gordon lost control on the exit of Turn 4 on lap 18, damaging the nose as the No. 24 NAPA Auto Parts Chevrolet hit the infield grass. “I’m not sure, just got turned around there off of four,” said Elliott.Read More

By Joey Barnes, Editor-in-Chief After sensational rookie campaigns in last season, second-year drivers Daniel Suarez and Darrell ‘Bubba’ Wallace Jr. impressed in the Saturday’s season-opening NASCAR XFINITY Series race at Daytona International Speedway. The day began very differently for each of the respected drivers. Suarez, 24, started the Powershares QQQ 300 on the outside of the front row in his No. 19 Toyota and remained among the top 10 for the first half of the race. At the complete opposite end of the spectrum, Wallace, 22, started the race atRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – The finish of Saturday’s Powershares QQQ 300 NASCAR XFINITY Series race at Daytona International Speedway left winner Chase Elliott out of gas on the cool-down lap and runner-up Joey Logano pounding his steering wheel in frustration. But it was the high-speed chess game seconds before the first and second-place cars crossed the finish line that made all the difference. Fearing he wouldn’t get help from Kasey Kahne, Elliott’s JR Motorsports teammate, Logano pushed Elliott clear of the pack on theRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Writer After placing both of their cars in the top-five in points in 2015, JR Motorsports headed into the 2016 season with a retooled driver lineup and after Saturday’s NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Daytona, the team is showing the entire garage that they will be a force to be reckoned with throughout the season. Though the four cars that JR Motorsports had entered in Saturday’s Powershares QQQ 300 didn’t show the type of speed the team would have wanted in qualifying, starting 10th, 15th, 16th, andRead More

By Toby Christie, NASCAR Editor 17 years ago Dale Earnhardt Jr. was a talented, young up-and-coming driver, fresh off of a championship in the NASCAR XFINITY (then Busch) Series, who had a very famous last name which helped push expectations to an unreasonable level. Sound familiar? If so, it’s probably because it’s nearly the exact same scenario that Chase Elliott finds himself in as he heads into his maiden voyage in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. On Tuesday at Daytona 500 Media Day, Earnhardt hit the topic of his newRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Writer Ahead of next Sunday’s Daytona 500, the 44 hopeful entrants into the Great American Race took to Daytona’s high banks to set the front row and the lineups for Thursday’s CanAm Duel qualifying races. After last season’s attempt at group qualifying, which turned into an unmitigated disaster, NASCAR made the decision to move back to single car runs for qualifying on Sunday. The new format would consist of two rounds in which all 44 cars would post a time in the first round and then theRead More

By Toby Christie, NASCAR Editor Chase Elliott is entering his rookie campaign in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series this season, and he will do it with tons of sponsorship backing. We already knew that NAPA Auto Parts would be on board the No. 24 Chevrolet SS for 24 races. Additionally Elliott had deals in place with 3M, Kelley Blue Book and Mountain Dew, but there were still four races that the No. 24 team needed to fill sponsorship-wise for this season. Wednesday we found out through a Hendrick Motorsports teamRead More

By Toby Christie, NASCAR Editor We are less than 20 days away from the official start of the 2016 NASCAR season. For the next ten months battles will be waged on short tracks, big tracks and tracks that have right handed turns mixed in. Around every turn a storyline will develop, and a new headline will be etched into everyone’s mind. But we’re still days away from the spawning of the 2016 season. Right now my job is to predict exactly what will happen in the 2016 season. Chances are I willRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service Can Hendrick Motorsports really be better without Jeff Gordon? From a global perspective, to suggest such a thing would be pure heresy. But from a year-over-year performance perspective, it’s well within the realm of possibility that the 2016 version of Hendrick Motorsports could outshine the 2015 edition, even with rookie Chase Elliott taking Gordon’s place behind the wheel of the No. 24 Chevrolet. In fact, team owner Rick Hendrick said as much. Even though Gordon advanced to the Championship Round of the Chase andRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service To say 2016 will be a year of enormous change in NASCAR Sprint Cup Series racing is to understate the issue. NASCAR is rolling out a new competition package in its foremost division, one that features lower downforce. The aim is to make the Sprint Cup cars more difficult to drive, which in turn will put more control in the hands of the drivers. You’ll see dramatic changes on the track. Chase Elliott, a 20-year-old rookie, succeeds icon Jeff Gordon behind the wheel ofRead More