Hendrick Motorsports Tag

By Frank Santoroski, Staff Writer After retiring from the cockpit in 2015, four-time series Champion Jeff Gordon will return to the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series for the next two events at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and Pocono Raceway. Gordon will be filling-in for his former teammate, Dale Earnhardt Jr., who is recovering from concussion-like symptoms that also caused him to sit out this past weekend at New Hampshire. “I know there’s probably a lot of speculation about what type of injury or symptoms I’m dealing with,” said Earnhardt on hisRead More

By Toby Christie, NASCAR Editor The pressure on the shoulders of Alex Bowman must have been immense all week long, but you wouldn’t have been able to tell as the young driver from Tucson, Arizona looked calm, cool and collected while driving in relief of NASCAR’s most popular driver — Dale Earnhardt Jr. Bowman got the call mid-week to run the Sprint Cup Series race for Hendrick Motorsports’ No. 88 team, after Earnhardt found out that what he believed to be a sinus infection was actually symptoms of a concussionRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Contributor In a shock to the NASCAR world, Hendrick Motorsports announced on Thursday that Dale Earnhardt, Jr. would miss Sunday’s race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway after suffering from concussion-like symptoms in the recent weeks. In a team release, Earnhardt noted that he not been feeling well leading into last weekend’s race at Kentucky and after visiting his physicians and being evaluated, he was not cleared to race. Earnhardt missed a handful of races back in 2012 after being diagnosed with a concussion following hard crashesRead More

By Frank Santoroski, Staff Writer Treacherous, perilous, dangerous, precarious, and tricky: these were some of the adjectives used to describe the new-look Kentucky Speedway following Saturday night’s Quaker State 400. The Speedway, located in Sparta, midway between the large population centers of Louisville and Cincinnati, recently completed a total replacement of the 16-year old asphalt. In addition to the repave, turns one and two were reconfigured adding 3° of banking, while turn four was narrowed to allow for a wider pit lane entrance. To say that the facility has raisedRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Contributor After two uncharacteristically poor finishes in the first two restrictor plate races of the 2016 season that resulted in the loss of his beloved car nicknamed “Amelia”, Dale Earnhardt, Jr. heads into Saturday night’s Coke Zero 400 hoping to make a return to Daytona’s famed victory lane. Heading into Daytona, Earnhardt has been close to victory lane throughout the season, but his first win in 2016 has eluded him thus far. Sitting 12th in points with 10 races remaining until the start of the Chase,Read More

By Toby Christie, NASCAR Editor Over the course of his Sprint Cup Series career, Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s biggest Achilles Heal had been Sonoma Raceway. Through his first 14 starts at the track, Earnhardt had never recorded a top-10 finish. He even once threatened to blow the track up with dynamite to demonstrate his frustration with the weaving and winding track in the land of wine. However things began to take a turn for Earnhardt at Sonoma two seasons ago. That year he qualified a lackluster 17th, but when the raceRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Contributor After leading a career-high 51 laps at Pocono last weekend en route to a fourth place finish, Chase Elliott came into Sunday’s race at Michigan looking to improve on that as he continued to be in the hunt for his first win. Elliott started the day in 10th and flexed his muscle early and often, working his way to the lead over Joey Logano on a restart at lap 117 and looked to be one of the cars to beat as the laps clicked off.Read More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Contributor A two-mile, high banked behemoth in the backyard of the big three American automakers, Michigan International Speedway has played host to NASCAR since 1969 and will do so again this weekend as the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series heads to the track for Sunday’s running of the Firekeepers Casino 400. Before we focus on the here and now, we’ll take a look back into the past in this week’s “Throwback Thursday Theater” and the 2001 Kmart 400, which saw the resurgence of a champion and aRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Contributor Since his runner-up finish at Bristol back in April, Dale Earnhardt, Jr. had been having a rough go of things in the five races that followed, failing to finish inside the top-10 in any of them, but on Monday at Pocono, Earnhardt returned to form at a track that he has had good luck at in the past. Starting eighth, Earnhardt struggled early in the race as it looked like Monday’s race might just be a continuation of their performance issues that they had beenRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Contributor Pocono’s tricky layout is notorious for giving rookies in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series a hard time, but for the stellar rookie class of 2016, Sunday’s Axalta “We Paint Winners” 400 at Pocono was a walk in the park. In this week’s “Rookie Report”, we’ll recap just how well the rookies did at the “Tricky Triangle”. Chase Elliott has been the class of the rookie field for much of 2016 and his first career trip to Pocono was one of his best showings of theRead More