Chicagoland Speedway Tag

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor After 16 races, the final spot in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series Playoffs would come down to a tiebreaker, with the best finish of the season determining who moved on and who would be left on the outside looking in. Coming into Friday night’s race at Chicagoland Speedway, that final spot was down to two drivers, Ben Rhodes and Ryan Truex, with just seven points separating the two when the green flag flew. Though Truex had a better night overall, it was Rhodes thatRead More

It’s that time of the year again. After the 16 driver field for the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series playoffs was set last weekend at Richmond, the intensity of the season is about to ramp up over the final 10 weeks of the season as we’ll whittle the championship field down to four at Homestead to see which driver will walk away with the title at season’s end. As a refresher, there will be three rounds of eliminations before the Championship Four is set. The Round of 16 will includeRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor As the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series heads to Chicagoland Speedway for this weekend’s opening round of the playoffs, it’s time again for another edition of “Throwback Thursday Theater”. Since Chicago has only been on the schedule since 2001, there are few races that really stick out in the track’s history, but one in particular sticks out above the rest. That race is the 2010 Lifelock.com 400, which saw a multi-time champion get bested by an underdog. Jimmie Johnson started on the outside of theRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor After 26 regular season races to set the 16-driver field, the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series heads to Chicagoland Speedway for the opening salvo of the playoffs and Sunday’s 17th annual running of the Tales of the Turtles 400. As one of the newer tracks on the circuit, having joined in 2001, the 1.5-mile Chicagoland Speedway finds itself front and center as the playoffs begin. The track, which only hosts the Cup Series once each season, boasts banking of 18 degrees as well as aRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor In an effort to drive new life into the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series schedule, NASCAR announced a huge realignment to the 2018 schedule on Tuesday, with several key races undergoing changes for next year’s campaign. The new changes to the 2018 schedule start right off the bat with the Daytona 500 moving back to President’s Day weekend, with the race running on February 18, 2018. Jump ahead to April and Richmond’s spring date, which had been run on Sunday afternoon over the last fewRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor After enduring a tumultuous first season in the NASCAR Xfinity Series back in 2014, Martins Motorsports and driver Tommy Joe Martins took an absence from NASCAR’s second tier series over the past two seasons, but on Friday, the team announced that they would be making a return beginning with the April 22nd event at Bristol Motor Speedway. “The timing was right,” team owner Craig Martins said. “We had a tremendous opportunity to make this move, and we took it. A return to Xfinity was aRead More

By Brian Eberly, Contributing Writer A new entitlement sponsor for the Cup Series, competition enhancements and the return of Dale Earnhardt Jr. to the track are just a few of the major story lines heading into the Daytona 500. Motorsports Tribune spoke with Chicagoland Speedway President Scott Paddock to discuss his thoughts heading into Sunday’s Great American Race. New Entitlement Sponsor In January, Monster Energy became just the third company to serve as the entitlement sponsor in NASCAR premier series history, replacing Sprint. “I think it’s exciting for the industryRead More

By Brian Eberly, Contributing Writer FOX Sports Media Group and ARCA Racing Series officials announced the broadcast schedule for the 2017 season which once again includes 10 of the races on the 20-race schedule. FOX Sports coverage will kick-off with the season-opener at Daytona in February and conclude with the season finale at Kansas in October. The complete broadcast schedule for FOX Sports: Daytona International Speedway – February 18 Talladega Superspeedway – May 5 Toledo Speedway – May 21 Pocono Raceway – June 9 Michigan International Speedway – June 16Read More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service JOLIET, Ill. – You could see it coming from a mile-and-a-half away. On new tires, Martin Truex Jr. rocketed around the outside lane after a restart in overtime at Chicagoland Speedway and pulled away to win Sunday’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 400, the opening race in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup. With the victory—his first at the 1.5-mile track, his third of the season and the sixth of his career—Truex also rocketed into the Chase’s Round of 12. But Truex wasn’t satisfiedRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Contributor Entering the first race of the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup, the two rookies in the 16 driver playoffs were hoping for a solid finish to be able to propel themselves into the second round in two weeks time, while the others were hoping to play spoiler. On Sunday afternoon, both scenarios nearly came true for the rookie class. Chase Elliott, who was making his first start at Chicago and his first appearance in the Chase, showed that he was ready to be inRead More