Daniel Suarez Tag

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service Daniel Hemric may be out of the Playoffs and out of his ride at Richard Childress racing next year, but that didn’t stop the driver of the No. 8 RCR Chevrolet from winning the pole position for Sunday’s Hollywood Casino 400 at Kansas Speedway (2:30 p.m. ET on NBC, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). In Saturday’s time trials for the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Round of 12 elimination race, Hemric covered the 1.5-mile distance in 30.329 seconds (178.047 mph) to earn the topRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service TALLADEGA, Ala. – In a helter-skelter finish at the end of Lap 55, William Byron held the lead to win Stage 1 of Sunday’s 1000Bulbs.com 500 at Talladega Superspeedway to advance his cause in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs. The winner of Stage 2 and the race, however, won’t be decided until Monday. Rain arrived during the first stage break and sent fans in the frontstretch grandstands scurrying for cover. A subsequent break in the rain wasn’t long enough to dry theRead More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor CONCORD, N.C. – A year after coming agonizingly close to winning at the Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval, Jimmie Johnson got the Bank of America Roval 400 weekend started on the right foot Friday by posting the fastest time in first practice with a lap of 1 minute, 20.968 seconds. Kyle Larson was second on the leaderboard, followed by William Byron, Clint Bowyer, Matt DiBenedetto, Chase Elliott, Erik Jones, Daniel Suarez, Ryan Preece, and defending race winner Ryan Blaney. Outside of the top-10, Playoff drivers finishedRead More

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service LAS VEGAS – Clint Bowyer won the pole position for Sunday’s Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Playoff opener at Las Vegas Motor Speedway turning a fast lap of 178.926 mph in the No. 14 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford. It is only the third pole position he’s earned in 14 years of full-time Cup Series competition and the first, coincidentally, since this same date – Sept. 14– at New Hampshire Motor Speedway in 2007 – a race he won. There have been 431 races since hisRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service SPEEDWAY, Ind. – From the start of Sunday’s Big Machine Vodka 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Ryan Newman’s Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Playoff chances were in jeopardy. He entered the final Monster Energy Series regular-season race tied with Daniel Suarez for the final berth in the postseason, and qualifying didn’t go as well as Newman had hoped. He was 22nd fastest in time trials, giving up two spots to Suarez at the outset. But with astute pit calls by crew chief Scott GravesRead More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor The Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series regular season comes down to this. One final race to set the field for the Playoffs. By the end of Sunday’s Big Machine Vodka 400 at The Brickyard, the 16 drivers competing for the championship will be locked in and ready to battle it out over the final 10 weeks of the season. First joining the circuit in 1994, Indianapolis Motor Speedway has provided some classic moments and some that the powers that be would rather forget. The track’sRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service DARLINGTON, S.C. – In his sophomore season in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series—and his first with veteran crew chief Chad Knaus—William Byron continues to make history. On Saturday at Darlington Raceway, Byron covered the 1.366-mile distance at the egg-shaped track in 28.510 seconds (172.487 mph), winning the pole position for Sunday’s Bojangles’ Southern 500 (6 p.m. ET on NBCSN, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Not only did Byron claim his first Busch Pole Award at Darlington and his fourth of the season, butRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service BRISTOL, Tenn. – The first thing Denny Hamlin did after winning Saturday’s Bass Pro Shops NRA Night race at Bristol Motor Speedway was apologize to the man he beat to the finish line in the 24th Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race of the season. With 11 laps left in the grueling 500-lap event, Hamlin drove to the inside of Matt DiBenedetto and cleared him from the lead. Roughly three minutes later, Hamlin crossed the stripe .502 seconds ahead of the No. 95 LeavineRead More

By Luis Torres, Staff Writer Two drivers misfortunes became one man’s tremendous gain. That man was Daniel Suarez, who finished fifth in Sunday’s Consumers Energy 400 at Michigan International Speedway. After facing near disaster during Saturday’s final practice when a tire went down, Suarez’s quiet race day led to his third top-five this season and the first since the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series’ last visit at Michigan in June, where he scored a fourth. More importantly, Suarez cut down his deficit from 23 down to six markers with just threeRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service Recovering from a punctured right front tire that cost him track position early in the race, Kevin Harvick passed Joey Logano on Lap 183 of 200 and cruised to a 1.595-second victory in Sunday’s Consumers Energy 400 at Michigan International Speedway. During a closing 48-lap green-flag run that began with a restart on Lap 153, Harvick charged from seventh to first, recording his second Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series victory of the season, his third at the 2.0-mile track and the 47th of hisRead More