Hendrick Motorsports Tag

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service HOMESTEAD, Fla. – I first saw Jeff Gordon race in November of 1992, but I barely noticed him. My eyes were glued to the television for the final race of the season, but my interest had nothing to do with Gordon’s debut in NASCAR’s premier series. No, the primary focus was the three-way battle for the championship between Bill Elliott, Davey Allison and privateer Alan Kulwicki. And, oh, yes, there was the small matter of King Richard Petty taking the green flag in aRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service HOMESTEAD, Fla.—Finishing off one of the most remarkable comebacks in NASCAR history—indeed, in the annals of sport—Kyle Busch won Sunday’s Ford EcoBoost 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway and, with it, his first NASCAR Sprint Cup Series championship. Absent from the first 11 races of the season because of a broken right leg and left foot sustained in the NASCAR XFINITY Series opener at Daytona in February, Busch pulled away from fellow Championship Round driver Kevin Harvick after a restart with seven laps left and crossedRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service HOMESTEAD, Fla.—Denny Hamlin stole the thunder from the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series’ four Championship Round drivers, winning the pole for Sunday’s Ford EcoBoost 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway (3 p.m. ET on NBC). Outrunning Joey Logano and championship-eligible teammate Kyle Busch for the top starting spot, Hamlin toured the 1.5-mile speedway in 30.568 seconds (176.655 mph) in the third and final round of Friday’s knockout time trials. Logano (176.263 mph) will start beside Hamlin in the season finale, followed by Busch, the highest qualifier amongRead More

By Seth Livingstone, NASCAR Wire Service Homestead, Fla. – When you’re a single-car team, competing for NASCAR’s biggest prize, you have to work smart and do things a bit differently. That’s where Furniture Row’s Cole Pearn comes in. The first Canadian NASCAR Sprint Cup Series crew chief graduated with a mechanical engineering degree from the University of Waterloo (Ontario). A former late model driver and three-time Canadian go-kart champion, his preferred participation sport is beer league hockey. It meshes perfectly with the Rocky Mountain lifestyle of his Denver-based race team.Read More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service HOLLYWOOD, Fla.—If the four men on the dais at the Diplomat Resort & Spa had been a vocal group, rather than the four Championship Round drivers in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, Jeff Gordon provided a ready name for the ensemble. “He’s the favorite,” Gordon said, pointing at reigning series champion Kevin Harvick. “We’re the sentimentals. That’s all there is.” The “we” in this case referred to Gordon, Kyle Busch and Martin Truex Jr., all of whom will be attempting to dethrone the championRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service AVONDALE, Ariz. – Jimmie Johnson played spoiler last Sunday at Texas, stealing a win from Brad Keselowski in the closing laps. On Friday afternoon at Phoenix International Raceway – though “spoiler” is not a role he relishes – the six-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion was at it again, winning the pole for Sunday’s Quicken Loans Race for Heroes 500 (2:30 p.m. ET on NBC) with a track-record lap at 143.158 mph (25.147 seconds). Johnson, who was bounced from the Chase for the NASCARRead More

MARTINSVILLE, Va. – Yes, Jeff Gordon celebrated his 93rd career victory in the Goody’s Headache Relief Shot 500 at Martinsville Speedway. Yes, Gordon will compete for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series championship in the season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway. Yes, there were tears of joy in Victory Lane for Gordon, who’s at the tail end of his final season in the No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet. But Sunday’s race at Martinsville had so much more — most notably, “Matt Kenseth’s Revenge.” Long before Gordon held off Jamie McMurray in aRead More

Four-time Sprint Cup Series champion Jeff Gordon is enjoying the race package at Darlington ahead of the Bojangles’ Southern 500. On a weekend when NASCAR is celebrating the days of old with retro-themed throwbacks to the 1970’s, Gordon is more focused on breaking into Victory Lane for his first win of the year and securing a spot in the Chase for the Championship. Gordon has seven wins at the historic ‘Lady in Black’ with the last one coming in 2007. Through much of the season (or the last several) GordonRead More

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Dale Earnhardt Jr. endured a weekend of rain, a three-hour-plus pre-race delay, and nine caution flags to win the Coke-Zero 400 at Daytona International Speedway early Monday morning. The race ended at 2:41 a.m. and concluded with a large crash featuring Austin Dillon’s No. 3 Chevrolet going airborne and smashing into the catch-fence near Turn 1 after he crossed the start-finish line. Dillon walked away from the wreck, the fourth major crash of the night. After being released from the infield care center, Dillon said heRead More

BROOKLYN, Mich. – Kevin Harvick had his sights set on a clean sweep of knockout qualifying at Michigan International Speedway—until Kasey Kahne had other ideas late in Friday’s final round. Kahne sped around the two-mile track in 35.645 seconds (201.992 mph) to knock Harvick off the pole for Sunday’s Quicken Loans 400 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race (1 p.m. ET on FOX Sports 1). Harvick, who posted a 201.613 mph lap in the final session, had topped the charts in the first two rounds, matching Kahne’s pole-winning time in theRead More