Denny Hamlin Tag

By David Morgan, Associate Editor The second half of the NASCAR Cup Series regular season rolls on as the West Coast comes calling this weekend, with Sonoma Raceway playing host to Sunday’s running of the Toyota/Save Mart 350. A 12-turn technical road course situated about 30 miles north of San Francisco, Sonoma is one of six road courses on the 2022 schedule, with Sonoma first joining the circuit back in 1989. Over the years, the course at Sonoma Raceway has gone through a few configuration changes. When the track was firstRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service MADISON, Ill.—On a track similar to the one that gave him his first NASCAR Cup Series victory, Chase Briscoe achieved another career first—a Cup Series pole position.  In the final round of time trials on Saturday, Briscoe sped around 1.25-mile World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway in 32.544 seconds (138.274 mph) to earn the top starting position for Sunday’s inaugural Enjoy Illinois 300 (3:30 p.m. ET on FS1, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).  Even though he had a slight bobble on his money lap,Read More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service CONCORD, N.C. – Sunday night’s Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway started with Denny Hamlin out front and ended with Denny Hamlin out front. What happened in-between defied belief. And a driver who claims to thrive in chaos proved to be a man of his word. Hamlin won the longest race in NASCAR history—619.5 miles—in two overtimes, beating Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Kyle Busch to the finish line by .014 seconds. With the victory—the second this season and the 48th of his career—Hamlin nowRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service CONCORD, N.C. – By the slimmest of margins, Denny Hamlin beat a car he owns for the Busch Light pole position in Sunday’s Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway. In the final round of time trials of Saturday evening, Hamlin ran a lower line through Turns 3 and 4 than did his fellow competitors, and that paid off with a blistering lap of 29.399 seconds (183.680 mph)—just .003 seconds faster than that of Kurt Busch (183.661 mph) who drives the No. 45 23XI ToyotaRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service Kyle Busch has reason to be optimistic about Coca-Cola 600 Kyle Busch has shown consistent strength on 1.5-mile intermediate speedways this year, and that’s a source of confidence entering NASCAR’s Memorial Day weekend marathon at Charlotte Motor Speedway. Busch won the 2018 Coca-Cola 600 from the pole, and he’ll try for a repeat performance in the 63rd running of the event on Sunday evening (6 p.m. ET on FOX, PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Though Busch claimed his only victory of the season inRead More

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service FORT WORTH – Ryan Blaney won his first career NASCAR Cup Series All-Star Race Sunday night at Texas Motor Speedway earning a $1 million payday in the annual fan favorite non-points event. And he and his team celebrated twice. Blaney’s No. 12 Team Penske Ford ultimately beat Denny Hamlin in the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Toyota by .266-seconds in an overtime finish. But at one point, Blaney thought he may have taken the checkered flag twice – a caution flag flew the first timeRead More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor For the second year in a row, the NASCAR Cup Series heads to Texas Motor Speedway for the annual NASCAR All-Star Race, where a $1 million payday awaits the winner of Sunday night’s non-points exhibition race. A total of 24 drivers will compete in the four-round, 100 lap event, with eligible drivers including those who won a points-paying racing in 2021 or 2022, full-time drivers that have previously won an All-Star Race, and former Cup Series champions who still race full time. Drivers that met theRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service KANSAS CITY, Kan. – In an event fraught with pit road mistakes and mechanical issues, Kurt Busch ran an impeccable race. In an intensely competitive run to the finish of Sunday’s AdventHealth 400 at Kansas Speedway, Busch nosed past leader Kyle Larson at the finish line on Lap 259 of 267 and completed the pass two corners later off Turn 2, as Larson scraped the outside wall.  Seven laps later, Busch’s No. 45 23XI Racing Toyota crossed the finish line 1.413 seconds ahead ofRead More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor After a thrilling end to last weekend’s throwback race at Darlington, the 2022 NASCAR Cup Series season rolls on as Kansas Speedway and Sunday’s running of the AdventHealth 400 is next up on the docket. Kansas has come into its own in recent years, following a repave and reconfiguration back in 2012. The track first joined the circuit in 2001 as a relatively tame 1.5-mile track with 15-degree banking in the turns, but the reconfiguration transformed it into the track we know today with variable bankingRead More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor Like Doc Brown and Marty McFly in Back to the Future, the NASCAR Cup Series is time traveling this week, making the jump from the future with the Darlington Raceway debut of the Next Gen car to celebrating the past with Throwback Weekend. A staple of the Cup Series since 1950, there are many elements to Darlington that make it a special track. From the egg-shape of the track that features one end narrower than the other as a result of building the track around theRead More