Dale Earnhardt Jr Tag

By Toby Christie, NASCAR Editor Over the course of his Sprint Cup Series career, Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s biggest Achilles Heal had been Sonoma Raceway. Through his first 14 starts at the track, Earnhardt had never recorded a top-10 finish. He even once threatened to blow the track up with dynamite to demonstrate his frustration with the weaving and winding track in the land of wine. However things began to take a turn for Earnhardt at Sonoma two seasons ago. That year he qualified a lackluster 17th, but when the raceRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Contributor As the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series gets back to work after taking Father’s Day weekend off, they head to the west coast for the first road course race of the season, the Toyota Save Mart 350 at Sonoma Raceway. The 1.990 mile Sonoma Raceway, a 12 turn technical road course situated about 30 miles north of San Francisco, has played host to the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series since 1989 and has gone through a series of changes since opening its doors 27 years ago. WhenRead More

By Toby Christie, NASCAR Editor It’s been an odd season for Dale Earnhardt Jr. Usually, if you’re an Earnhardt fan, you circle the restrictor plate races and Michigan on the schedule as places where the No. 88 is expected to contend for victory. At Daytona and Talladega earlier this year, Earnhardt just lost control of his car and crashed out of the events. Sunday on lap 60 at Michigan Earnhardt suffered a similar fate as he slammed into the outside retaining wall at the exit of turn two. This crashRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Contributor Since his runner-up finish at Bristol back in April, Dale Earnhardt, Jr. had been having a rough go of things in the five races that followed, failing to finish inside the top-10 in any of them, but on Monday at Pocono, Earnhardt returned to form at a track that he has had good luck at in the past. Starting eighth, Earnhardt struggled early in the race as it looked like Monday’s race might just be a continuation of their performance issues that they had beenRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service LONG POND, Pa. – Working with a substitute crew chief, and saving enough fuel to get to the finish line and complete a celebratory burnout, Kurt Busch won Monday’s rain-delayed Axalta “We Paint Winners” 400 at Pocono Raceway. Busch won for the first time this year in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series and for the third time at Pocono, a 2.5-mile speedway featuring three widely different corners. And Busch claimed his 28th victory in NASCAR’s premier series with race engineer John Klausmeier leading theRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Contributor The greatest day in auto racing is upon us once more with three premier events (F1 at Monaco, the Indianapolis 500, and the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte) all taking place throughout the day on Sunday. With the 57th running of the Coca-Cola 600 set for Sunday afternoon into the night, we’ll take a step back to one of the most memorable races at Charlotte in recent memory, the 2005 Coca-Cola 600 and the amazing finish between Jimmie Johnson and Bobby Labonte. Ryan Newman and JeffRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Writer After an impressive start to All-Star weekend on Saturday morning with the rain-delayed Sprint Showdown, all eyes were on the new NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race format to see if it could equal the excitement from the preliminary race, but the new format fell well short of expectations as the Showdown overshadowed the main event. The Sprint Showdown started off with a photo finish between Trevor Bayne and Chase Elliott in the first segment of the All-Star preliminaries as Bayne made a daring three-wide pass forRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service CONCORD, N.C. – At the end of a wild and crazy Saturday night at Charlotte Motor Speedway, Joey Logano got the upper hand in an intense battle with last-chance qualifier Kyle Larson and took home the million-dollar prize as the winner of the NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race. Trying to block the stronger car of Logano in the closing 13-lap final segment of the race, Larson buried his car into Turn 1 as Logano edged ahead. Larson’s No. 42 Chevrolet got loose and sailed upRead More

By Toby Christie, NASCAR Editor This is All-Star week, which means that we are in store for a $1-million winner take all slugfest, where points aren’t on the line. The race this year has a brand new format, which seems destined to produce some great moments, but when you look back at the history of this event you’ll see that it might not have needed the extra boost in excitement. Without further adieu, here are the ten greatest moments in All-Star race history according to me: 10. Newman blows upRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Writer As the NASCAR community descends upon Charlotte for the traditional Charlotte race weeks, which include the NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race and the Coca-Cola 600 that take place over the next two weekends at Charlotte Motor Speedway, all of the focus turns to the rough and tumble non-points event set for this Saturday night. With that in mind, this week’s edition of “Throwback Thursday Theater” takes a look back at one of the more memorable All-Star races in history, the 2000 running of “The Winston.” PriorRead More