Dale Earnhardt Jr Tag

By David Morgan, NASCAR Contributor After the kickoff to the West Coast swing last weekend in Las Vegas culminated in a victory by Martin Truex, Jr. to mark the third different winner in the first three races of the season and also featured a post-race pit road brawl, the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series heads to the Valley of the Sun this weekend to take on the Camping World 500 at Phoenix International Raceway. Phoenix has resided on the Cup Series schedule since 1988, but the track looks completely differentRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Contributor Viva Las Vegas! After spending the first two weekends of the 2017 season on the East Coast, the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series packs up and heads west for the first leg of “NASCAR Goes West” at Las Vegas Motor Speedway with Sunday’s running of the Kobalt 400. Las Vegas began its life on the NASCAR circuit as a 1.5 mile oval with 12 degrees of banking in 1998, but following the 2006 running of the race, the track underwent a massive reconfiguration that sawRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Contributor After last Sunday’s barn burner of a finish in the Daytona 500, the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series packs up and heads to Georgia for this weekend’s running of the Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway. With Atlanta being the first non-restrictor plate track on the 2017 schedule, the track will be the first to employ the new lower downforce rules package, which includes a few reductions from last season’s low downforce package, namely with a smaller rear spoiler, front splitter, asRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Contributor Throughout the season-opening race weekend at Daytona, the winners of the earlier stages have failed to finish their respective events. It happened to Johnny Sauter in Friday night’s NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race and it happened to Elliott Sadler in Saturday’s NASCAR Xfinity Series race, and in Sunday’s Daytona 500, it happened yet again. Kyle Busch, who was still seeking his first Daytona 500 win, was able to drive his No. 18 Toyota to the front of the field at lap 42, taking overRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Contributor For the second day in a row, the winner of the first two stages of a race has failed to finish the event after getting caught up in a wreck in the closing laps. After Johnny Sauter won the first two stages in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race on Friday night only to get wrecked on the final lap, the winner of the first two stages in Saturday’s NASCAR Xfinity Series race, Elliott Sadler, would suffer the same fate. Sadler started the eventRead 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 David Morgan, NASCAR Contributor For much of the second Can-Am Duel at Daytona, it looked like it would be Dale Earnhardt, Jr following the lead of his Hendrick Motorsports teammate Chase Elliott to score the win after qualifying on the front row for the Daytona 500, but Denny Hamlin had other plans as he was able to execute a late race pass to take the lead and the win. “It was great. Great car. Got a great push there for Austin (Dillon). We worked really well together that entireRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Contributor Back in August of 2016, Hendrick Motorsports signed William Byron to a multi-year agreement, which would bring him to the NASCAR Xfinity Series with JR Motorsports for the 2017 season. At the time of the announcement, no other details were made available about Byron’s move to JRM, but on Monday, the team shed some light on that information. Liberty University, which sponsored Byron during his time with JR Motorsports’ late model team in 2014 and 2015, as well as his time in the NASCAR CampingRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Contributor As 2016 comes to a close in just a few days, we’ll take this opportunity to look back at some of the best moments of the NASCAR season. This week, the NASCAR Xfinity Series is on the docket, so without further ado, here are the top five moments that stole the headlines in 2016. Daniel Suarez Captures Xfinity Series Championship at Homestead In the first year of the Chase in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, the Championship Four came down to a battle between Joe GibbsRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Contributor The news that the NASCAR community has been waiting for since the offseason began finally came down on Thursday as Dale Earnhardt, Jr. was medically cleared to resume his racing career after successfully completing an on-track test to finalize his recovery from a concussion. Earnhardt and his No. 88 team performed the test at Darlington Raceway on Wednesday, where he completed 185 laps during a test session that lasted nearly five hours. Earnhardt was joined at the test by his crew chief Greg Ives asRead More