matt tifft Tag

By NASCAR Wire Service LEXINGTON, Ohio – Sam Hornish Jr. dominated Saturday’s NASCAR XFINITY Series Mid-Ohio Challenge, but his victory was anything but certain until the waning laps of a caution-filled race. Hornish, driving Team Penske’s No. 22 Ford Mustang, earlier had eclipsed his own qualifying record at the 13-turn, 2.258-mile Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, and edged series rookie Daniel Hemric by 1.335 seconds when the event ultimately went green for the final time with five circuits remaining in the 75-lap distance. The victory was the fifth in the series byRead More

By: Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service DOVER, Del. – Saturday’s One Main Financial 200 ended as it started – as a two-man show with polesitter Kyle Larson on top. Larson and Ryan Blaney were in a class by themselves at Dover International Speedway in the 11th NASCAR XFINITY Series race of the season. In winning for the third time in six starts this season, Larson led 137 of the 200 laps to Blaney’s 28. In fact, Larson now has three wins, a second and a third this season for an averageRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service   TALLADEGA, Ala. – Aric Almirola charged into the lead with four laps left in Saturday’s Sparks Energy 300 at Talladega Superspeedway and held off Elliott Sadler at the finish to win the third NASCAR XFINITY Series race of his career.   With the Ford of Darrell Wallace Jr. plowing into the inside backstretch wall behind him on the final lap, Almirola held the top spot to the finish, beating Sadler, the series leader, to the finish line by .142 seconds.   The win wasRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor As is the case anytime NASCAR visits the restrictor plate tracks of Daytona and Talladega, the chance of a multi-car crash is high and in Saturday’s Sparks Energy 300 at Talladega, the first multi-car crash of the day struck early, sweeping several contenders up in the melee. Heading down the backstretch on lap 20, last year’s runner-up at Talladega, Brennan Poole, who had already sustained some front-end damage earlier in the race, tried to move into the outside lane, but there was no room toRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – For Ryan Reed, there’s magic in the air at the Birthplace of Speed. Reed went to Victory Lane at Daytona International Speedway in February 2015 and hadn’t won since—until Saturday night, when he held off Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series veteran Kasey Kahne in overtime to claim victory in the Powershares QQQ 300 NASCAR XFINITY Series season opener. With the race going four laps past its scheduled distance of 120 laps, and with the series running NASCAR’s new three-stage eventRead More

By Brian Eberly, Contributing Writer Tom Hessert turned a lap at 186.943 mph to take the General Tire Pole Award for Saturday’s season-opening ARCA Racing Series event at Daytona International Speedway. Hessert, a 10-year veteran of the ARCA Series, dialed back his schedule for 2017 and will compete in only five of the 20 races on the schedule. The 30-year-old Cherry Hill, New Jersey native has six career victories, including a 2014 victory at Talladega, but would love to add a victory at Daytona to his resume. “Winning at aRead More

By Brian Eberly, Contributing Writer SPARTA, Ky. – Matt Tifft was originally scheduled to compete in over thirty races this season between the NASCAR Camping World Truck and XFINITY Series and the ARCA Racing Series. That planned changed in June when the 20-year-old driver went in for an MRI as a result of a back condition. Doctors discovered a low-grade glioma in his brain that would require surgery and keep Tifft out of competition as he recovered. After almost three months of rehabilitation, Tifft returned to competition last weekend atRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service After surgery to remove a slow-growing, non-malignant tumor from his brain, NASCAR XFINITY Series driver Matt Tifft has been cleared to return to the race track, a process he will begin with a late model stock test on Sunday at Hickory (N.C.) Motor Speedway. Tifft hasn’t competed in a NASCAR race since May 21, when he drove for Red Horse Racing in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series. All told, Tifft ran three races for Red Horse and six XFINITY events for Joe GibbsRead More

By Joey Barnes, Editor-in-Chief Brett Moffitt will pilot the No. 11 Toyota Tundra for Red Horse Racing in Thursday night’s Buckle Up In Your Truck 225 at Kentucky Speedway. The 23-year-old former NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Rookie of the Year is subbing for Matt Tifft, who recently underwent brain surgery. “Obviously, we’re thinking of Matt and can’t wait for him to return, so we’re sending him our best wishes and we hope to see him back at the track soon,” Moffitt said in a statement. “I hate that it’s underRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service CONCORD, N.C. – Matt Crafton had a lot to overcome on Saturday—a 17th-place starting position and a difficult pit stall that cost him dearly in the early stages of Saturday’s North Carolina Education Lottery 200 at Charlotte Motor Speedway. But after 134 laps, Crafton was 5.748 seconds ahead of second-place Kyle Busch, winning the race and extending his series lead to 12 points over seventh-place finisher Timothy Peters. In fact, the two-time champion won consecutive races for the first time in his NASCAR CampingRead More