kyle larson Tag

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service  MARTINSVILLE, Va. – Ryan Blaney did what Denny Hamlin couldn’t do in Sunday’s Xfinity 500 at Martinsville Speedway. As a result, Blaney will race for the NASCAR Cup Series championship next Sunday at Phoenix Raceway, and Hamlin exits the Playoffs after a hard-luck Round of 8. During a 168-lap green-flag run to the finish, Blaney tracked down Aric Almirola and passed him for the lead on Lap 478 of 500. Twenty-two laps later, Blaney took the checkered flag 0.899 seconds ahead of Almirola toRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service  MARTINSVILLE, Va. – Likely needing a victory in Sunday’s Xfinity 500 to qualify for the NASCAR Cup Series Championship 4, Martin Truex Jr. took the first step in the right direction on Saturday, winning the pole position for the Round of 8 elimination race (2 p.m. ET on NBC, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).  Truex turned a lap in 20.112 seconds (94.153 mph) in the final round of time trials to edge Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Ty Gibbs (94.115 mph) for the top startingRead More

By Luis Torres, Staff Writer The often treacherous pit entry at Homestead-Miami Speedway proved to be the turning point of Sunday’s 4EVER 400 presented by Mobil 1. Both Ryan Blaney and Kyle Larson, who were the main front runners all day, were entering pit road to make their final scheduled pit stops where things went haywire. As Blaney slowly blended down to pit entry, Larson was still going fast and on the verge of colliding into him. It lead to a mistimed accordion effect where Larson had to slow down, lockRead More

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service LAS VEGAS — Kyle Larson earned this trophy the old-fashioned way. The driver of the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet led the most laps and swept both stage wins but still had to hold off a hard-charging, equally motivated Christopher Bell at the finish line to claim a dramatic victory in Sunday’s South Point 400 NASCAR Cup Series Playoff race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. The 31-year-old Larson blocked the final charge by fellow Playoff driver Bell’s No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota asRead More

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service LAS VEGAS – Joe Gibbs Racing driver Christopher Bell got back in his pole-qualifying good mojo mode Saturday morning at Las Vegas Motor Speedway – claiming the pole position for Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series South Point 400 – his series-best sixth of the year and fourth in just the last eight races. His No. 20 JGR Toyota turned a lap of 186.335 mph around the 1.5-mile Las Vegas high banks securing the sixth pole for Toyota in the season’s seven NASCAR Cup Series PlayoffRead More

By INDYCAR INDIANAPOLIS – Another important step down, more to come in Kyle Larson’s Indianapolis 500 journey. NASCAR Cup Series star Larson completed the Indianapolis 500 Rookie Orientation Program (ROP) on Thursday at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, a significant milestone as he attempts to become just the fifth driver to compete in the Indianapolis 500 presented by Gainbridge and NASCAR’s Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway on the same day. Larson’s “Hendrick 1100” – the moniker given to this “double” initiative – will take place Sunday, May 26, 2024. “It was fun,”Read More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor CONCORD, N.C. – Tyler Reddick will start Sunday’s Bank of America ROVAL 400 at Charlotte Motor Speedway as he looks to race his way into the next round of the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs. Entering the weekend nine points below the cut-off to advance, the driver of the No. 45 23XI Racing Toyota showed off his road course prowess on Saturday by putting up the second-fastest time in practice and going one better in qualifying with a lap of one minute, 21.214 seconds at 102.839 mphRead More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor CONCORD, N.C. – There are numerous adjectives that can be used to describe this weekend’s race on the Charlotte Motor Speedway road course: unpredictable, volatile, treacherous, chaotic, etc. One thing is for sure, Sunday’s Bank of America ROVAL 400 is going to be a hell of a ride, with four drivers getting cut from the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs when the checkered flag waves. In an effort to spice things up back in 2018, Charlotte officials elected to switch from running another race on the 1.5-mileRead More

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service TALLADEGA, Ala. – Stewart-Haas Racing’s Aric Almirola claimed the pole position for Sunday’s YellaWood 500 (2 p.m. ET, NBC, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) with a fast lap of 181.656 mph in the No. 10 SHR Ford; the 39-year old Tampa native just bettering the speed of fellow Ford driver and reigning NASCAR Cup Series champion Joey Logano Saturday afternoon by .004-thousandths of a second. Almirola’s SHR teammate Chase Briscoe was third fastest and will start on the second row alongside Hendrick Motorsports’ Kyle Larson,Read More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor TALLADEGA, Ala. – The second round of the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs enters the gauntlet. Following the opening race of the Round of 12 last weekend at Texas that saw William Byron lock himself into the next round, the remaining 11 contenders head to Talladega Superspeedway for Sunday’s running of the Yellawood 500. Since opening its doors in 1969, the 2.66-mile track just off Interstate 20 in Alabama has been a wild card on the schedule with the unpredictable nature of superspeedway racing on full displayRead More