David Ragan Tag

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor “Talladega: World’s Fastest Junkyard,” quipped FOX Sports announcer Mike Joy after an 18-car crash broke out on the backstretch of the 2.66-mile superspeedway with 19 laps to go in Sunday’s GEICO 500. Couldn’t have summed it up any better. After a relatively quiet race by Talladega standards through the first 170 laps, the inevitable “Big One” was coming and when it came, it certainly was big. Coming off Turn 2, AJ Allmendinger, who was running third, made contact with the second-place driver, Chase Elliott, turningRead More
By David Morgan, NASCAR Contributor After a successful first season behind the wheel for Front Row Motorsports in 2016, Landon Cassill will return to the team in 2017 to continue their work together, while his teammate for next season will be a familiar face in the FRM shop. Joining Cassill will be David Ragan, who drove for the team from 2012 through the 2015 Daytona 500 and earned the team’s first win at Talladega in May 2013. After Kyle Busch’s injury at the start of the 2015 season, Ragan movedRead More
By David Morgan, NASCAR Contributor After 500 miles around the historic Darlington Raceway last Sunday, the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series heads to Richmond for the final regular season race that will set the 16 driver field for the Chase 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 side racing thatRead More
By David Morgan, NASCAR Contributor With the only series racing this weekend being the NASCAR Xfinity Series at Mid-Ohio, it’s time again for another edition of “Throwback Thursday Theater,” but this week, we’ll take a bit of a detour and look back at a race at a track that is no longer on the Xfinity Series schedule, but delivered a special moment during the 2007 season at Memphis Motorsports Park in the Sam’s Town 250. As the majority of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series drivers were competing in Atlanta onRead More
By David Morgan, NASCAR Writer On Wednesday, NASCAR announced their penalties stemming from last weekend’s trip to Dover International Speedway. The most notable penalty was the P3 level penalty handed out to Kasey Kahne’s No. 5 team for Hendrick Motorsports. The team did not pass post-race inspection on the laser platform and was taken back to the NASCAR Research and Development Center for further inspection. After evaluating the car, NASCAR fined the team 15 driver and owner points, dropping Kahne out of the top-16 in points. Crew chief Keith RoddenRead More
By Joey Barnes, Editor-in-Chief After a spectacular afternoon at Richmond International Raceway, it was a Carl Edwards shove to move teammate Kyle Busch out of the way en route to claim his second consecutive victory of the season. Without any further delay, here are my takeaways from Sunday’s Sprint Cup Series race at the short track oval. 1) Back to Sunday’s a win for NASCAR For the first time in nearly two decades NASCAR returned to a daytime spring race (last year’s race was run on Sunday due to aRead More
By Joey Barnes, Editor-in-Chief Michael Waltrip announced on NASCAR Race Hub that he will be driving the No. 83 Maxwell House Toyota for BK Racing in this year’s Daytona 500. “It’s a great opportunity for us to expand our team and go racing,” Waltrip said on the FS1 program. The opportunity to drive with BK Racing has Waltrip teamed with Matt DiBenedetto and David Ragan, who raced for him at Michael Waltrip Racing last season. Waltrip also took to social media following the announcement. Looking much forward to reuniting w/ manyRead More

Posted On August 21, 2015By Motorsports TribuneIn Cup

JGR power surge continues with Denny Hamlin on Bristol pole

BRISTOL, Tenn. – If it’s pole day in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, Joe Gibbs Racing must be celebrating. Denny Hamlin powered his No. 11 Toyota around .533-mile Bristol Motor Speedway in 14.602 seconds (131.407 mph) on Friday to win the pole for Saturday’s Irwin Tools Night Race (on NBCSN at 7:30 p.m. ET). In breaking Kevin Harvick’s August 2014 track qualifying record by .005 seconds, Hamlin won his second Coors Light Pole Award of the season, his third at Bristol and the 22nd of his career. JGR swept theRead More
CORNELIUS, N.C. – Michael Waltrip Racing announced today that David Ragan will drive the No. 55 Aaron’s Dream Machine for the remainder of the 2015 NASCAR Sprint Cup season, beginning May 9 at Kansas Speedway. Brian Vickers had planned to race the Toyota fulltime in 2015, but heart surgery in December forced the Thomasville, N.C., native to miss the first two races of the season. Vickers returned at Las Vegas on March 7, but was sidelined two weeks later by recurring blood clots in his lungs. No timetable has beenRead More
RICHMOND, Va.—Sometimes it pays to go for broke—particularly when you have little to lose. That was the case for Joey Logano in Friday’s time trials for Saturday night’s Toyota Owners 400 at Richmond International Raceway (7 p.m. ET on FOX). Logano’s crew made significant adjustments to his No. 22 Team Penske Ford between the second and final rounds of knockout qualifying, and the changes paid off with Logano’s third Coors Light Pole Award and fifth front-row start of the season. Logano earned the top spot on the grid for SaturdayRead More