clint bowyer Tag

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service MARTINSVILLE, Va. – The sun went down, the new lights came on, and all hell broke loose at Martinsville Speedway. In a wild overtime finish that took Sunday’s First Data 500 to 505 laps at the .526-mile short track, Kyle Busch beat Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series leader Martin Truex Jr. to the stripe by .141 seconds to take the checkered flag and earn a spot in the Nov. 19 Championship 4 race at Homestead-Miami Speedway. As Busch crossed the finish line, a multi-car wreckRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor After a trip out to America’s Heartland, the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series heads back east this weekend and straight to the final short track race of the season, with Sunday’s running of the First Data 500 at Martinsville Speedway. A mainstay on the schedule since 1949, the historic half-mile, which is also the smallest on the circuit, will test both man and machine over 500 grueling laps. Sunday’s race will mark the start of the three-race playoff semi-finals that will trim the eight driverRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor In his final start at Talladega Superspeedway, Dale Earnhardt, Jr. will start exactly where he intends on finishing Sunday’s race – in first. Talladega has served as Earnhardt’s most successful track, with six wins, but in all of the accolades he has gotten over the years at Talladega, he had never won a pole on the 2.66-mile track, but that all changed on Friday afternoon. With wild applause from the fans in the stands, Earnhardt was the fastest in the first round of qualifying andRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service DOVER, Del. – Call him the Grinch. Halloween may be the next holiday on the calendar, but Kyle Busch stole Christmas morning from Chase Elliott late on Sunday afternoon at Dover International Speedway. Running Elliott down from more than four seconds back in the last 40 laps of the Apache Warrior 400 at the Monster Mile, Busch powered his No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota around the outside of Elliott’s No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet and cleared him off Turn 4 as the carsRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor Heading into Saturday night’s regular season finale at Richmond, it was win or go home for the drivers sitting outside of the top-16 prior to the Federated Auto Parts 400. Ultimately, none of those drivers on the outside looking in were able to capitalize by the time the checkered flag flew and will head home without a shot at the 2017 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series championship and wondering what they could have done over the first 26 races to change their fortunes. Among theRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor After 500 miles around the historic Darlington Raceway last Sunday, the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series heads to Richmond Raceway for the final regular season race that will set the 16 driver field for the playoffs with Saturday night’s running of the Federated Auto Parts 400. Often described as the perfectly designed race track by drivers, the 0.75 mile track lends itself to not only short track characteristics of beating and banging, but also the characteristics of a larger track with the side by sideRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor This weekend, the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series heads to Richmond Raceway for the regular season finale to cement which 16 drivers will head into the playoffs with a chance at the championship, but four years ago, this race and NASCAR as a whole was rocked by a race manipulation scheme dubbed as “Spingate.” Entering the race in September 2013, there were 10 drivers vying for the final five Chase spots, four of which would go to the drivers in the top-10 in points andRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor Each week NASCAR Editor David Morgan will break down the top storylines from the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series. This week, we break down the Bojangles’ Southern 500 from Darlington Raceway. Comeback of the Year? After winning Saturday’s NASCAR XFINITY Series race at Darlington with a last lap pass on Joey Logano, Denny Hamlin headed into Sunday night’s main event looking for the weekend sweep, but despite having one of the fastest cars on track, he almost gave the win away. Hamlin would lead 121Read More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor Before Furniture Row Racing became the juggernaut it is in 2017, the Colorado based team had to scratch and claw for everything single position on the track, especially in their early years. The team which just started a full-time Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series schedule back in 2008 brought Regan Smith on board starting in 2009 for a part-time schedule before moving back to full-time the next season. Smith came onto the Cup Series scene with Bobby Ginn and Dale Earnhardt, Inc. in 2007, butRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor Week in and week out, Erik Jones has impressed throughout his rookie season in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series and on Friday evening at Bristol Motor Speedway, Jones took another step forward by scoring his first career pole. With the clock winding down, Jones’ lap of 14.981 seconds, 128.062 mph, propelled him to the top of the board and into position to clinch the pole. Though a few other drivers took a shot at Jones’ fast lap, they weren’t quite quick enough to bestRead More