Erik Jones Tag

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service Daytona 500 winner Austin Cindric stays on top with Fontana pole In a qualifying session that should have merited hazard pay for the 10 final-round drivers, Daytona 500 winner Austin Cindric backed up his victory in the Great American Race with a pole-winning run on Saturday at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, Calif. Cindric will start where he finished the 500 in Sunday’s Wise Power 400 NASCAR Cup Series event at the 2-mile track (3:30 p.m. ET on FOX, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).Read More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor For the first time in two years, NASCAR is back at Auto Club Speedway. After missing out on racing in 2021 due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, Sunday’s Wise Power 400 marks the Cup Series return to the two-mile D-shaped oval and the kick-off to NASCAR’s West Coast swing. Built on the site of an old steel mill featured in the movie “Terminator”, the two-mile oval has been a part of the NASCAR schedule since opening in 1997. During its 20+ years on theRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service LOS ANGELES — At the end of a transformative NASCAR experience that took the City of Angels by storm, Joey Logano held off hard-charging pole winner Kyle Busch to triumph in Sunday’s Busch Light Clash at the Coliseum. Logano got the lead on Lap 116, moments before Kyle Larson retaliated against Justin Haley for earlier contact that was not of Haley’s doing. Larson steered toward the bottom of the track, knocking Haley’s Chevrolet into the concrete Jersey barrier on the frontstretch. In the competitiveRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service MARTINSVILLE, Va. – Denny Hamlin provided the perfect capstone to a day of banged-up stock cars, hurt feelings and crushed dreams. Alex Bowman took the checkered flag in Sunday’s Xfinity 500 at Martinsville Speedway after sliding up into Hamlin’s race-leading Toyota on Lap 494 of 501 and knocking Hamlin’s car up the track and into the outside wall. As Bowman tried to start a burnout to celebrate his fourth NASCAR Cup Series victory of the season and his first at the .526-mile short track,Read More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor The Lone Star State comes calling this weekend when the NASCAR Cup Series rolls into Texas Motor Speedway to kick off the penultimate round of the Playoffs with Sunday’s running of the Autotrader EchoPark Automotive 500 Texas first joined the circuit in 1997, but back in 2017 went through a reconfiguration, dropping the banking in Turns 1 and 2 from 24 degrees to 20 degrees, as well as widening the racing surface from 60 feet to 80 feet. Meanwhile, Turns 3 and 4 remain banked atRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service An opportune caution and a sudden rain shower helped make Bubba Wallace the second African-American driver ever to win a NASCAR Cup Series race. Wallace held the lead in Monday’s rain-delayed YellaWood 500 at Talladega Superspeedway when Ryan Preece turned into the outside wall off the bumper of Chris Buescher’s Ford to cause the fifth caution of the event. As the cars circled under the yellow, rain drenched the 2.66-mile race track. NASCAR brought the cars to pit road on Lap 118 of aRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service BRISTOL, Tenn. – Kyle Larson celebrated victory in Saturday’s Bass Pro Shops Night Race with a burnout on the frontstretch at Bristol Motor Speedway, as tempers flared between Kevin Harvick and Chase Elliott on pit road. With an assist from Elliott, who took Harvick’s line at the .533-mile concrete track and slowed his progress, Larson made the winning pass on Lap 397 of 400 and sealed his sixth NASCAR Cup Series victory of the season. At the other end of the spectrum, Aric Almirola,Read More

By Luis Torres, Staff Writer Sunday’s opening stage of the Cook Out Southern 500 had chaotic moments involving NASCAR playoff drivers. One negatively impacted by the madness was Michael McDowell, the first to have a mulligan in the Round of 16. Entering the backstretch on Lap 31, McDowell went from gaining track position to losing everything in front of the competition. Consequently, his No. 34 Love’s Travel Stops Ford Mustang slammed the Turn 2 wall. It was already game over for the Daytona 500 champion as he’ll leave Darlington RacewayRead More

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service INDIANAPOLIS – The first NASCAR Cup Series road course race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway was full of drama – for A.J. Allmendinger, who led only the last two laps of overtime to secure his second career NASCAR Cup Series victory Sunday, and for those who fell short of the cherished trophy in an action-packed final few laps. Denny Hamlin was leading the race on the final restart with two laps to go before being hit from behind by rookie Chase Briscoe in Turn 10,Read More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor After a two week break while the Olympics played out half a world away, the NASCAR Cup Series is back in action this weekend with Sunday’s running of the Go Bowling at The Glen, marking a return to the Upstate New York track for the first time since 2019. The Cup Series raced at Watkins Glen in 1957, 1964, and 1965 before returning to the track full-time in 1986, utilizing the “short course” layout initially, but after a series of violent crashes at the end ofRead More