Michael McDowell Tag

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service MADISON, Ill. — Kyle Busch collected his 63rd NASCAR Cup Series victory on Sunday at World Wide Technology Raceway, but the driver of the No. 8 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet had to work hard for the first-place money. Busch, the pole winner, survived five restarts in the last 40 laps of the Enjoy Illinois 300 and beat Denny Hamlin to the finish line by .517 seconds after Bubba Wallace’s broken brake rotor caused the 11th caution on Lap 236 and sent the race toRead More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor TALLADEGA, Ala. – It appears the days of just riding around at superspeedways and biding your time until the end of the race are over. In the Next Gen era, track position has become even more important at the majority of the tracks on the NASCAR Cup Series schedule, especially on superspeedways, where it now takes an aggressive, concerted team-based effort to move forward in the pack instead of a driver being able to take the race into his own hands and power to the frontRead More

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service With the benefit of a fast final pit stop, Kyle Larson was able to put his No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet out front at Richmond (Va.) Raceway and then hold off the field in the last 25 laps of Sunday’s Toyota Owners 400 to earn his first NASCAR Cup Series victory of the 2023 season. The 30-year old Californian had to out-duel his Hendrick Motorsports teammate Josh Berry on a pair of re-starts in the closing laps to secure the win at the firstRead More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor Stage breaks or no stage breaks? That is the question. Since the dawn of stage racing in the NASCAR Cup Series, road course racing has been void of strategy thanks to the pre-planned cautions built into the race. But thanks to a rule change by the higher ups, Sunday’s EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix at Circuit of the Americas will be the first race since 2017 that will play out like a normal race with no pre-determined yellow flags. How the new rules for the road coursesRead More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor AUSTIN, Texas – A constant threat on the road courses, Tyler Reddick was back to form Friday at Circuit of the Americas, topping the lone NASCAR Cup Series practice of the weekend ahead of Sunday’s EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix. Winner of two road course races last year, the driver of the No. 45 23XI Racing Toyota hasn’t missed a beat with his new team, jumping to the top of the board early on with teammate Bubba Wallace following closely behind. Though a number of other driversRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service  AVONDALE, Ariz. – Kyle Larson continued his dominance at Phoenix Raceway on Saturday with a pole-winning run for Sunday’s United Rentals Work United 500 (3:30 p.m. ET on FOX, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).  Larson topped the speed chart in Friday’s 50-minute NASCAR Cup Series practice session and posted the fastest lap of the weekend in the first round of time trials, covering the 1.0-mile distance in 27.324 seconds (131.752 mph).  In the final round of qualifying, Larson was the only driver to topRead More

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service TALLADEGA, Ala. – Always the unquestionable fan favorite at NASCAR’s famed Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway, Georgia-native Chase Elliott made a last-lap pass to claim the NASCAR Cup Series YellaWood 500 victory Sunday afternoon – having to better one of his best friends, Ryan Blaney, to earn the first automatic bid into the next round of the 2022 NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs. With a lap to go, Elliott pulled his No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet from the bottom lane to the top lane and got aRead More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor FORT WORTH, Texas – It’s been quite the week for RFK Racing. A week after Chris Buescher broke a six-year long winless streak by scoring the win at Bristol a week ago, team co-owner Brad Keselowski kept the party going as the NASCAR Cup Series rolled into Texas Motor Speedway, putting his No. 6 Ford on the pole for Sunday’s Autotrader EchoPark Automotive 500. Keselowski streaked around the 1.5-mile track with a lap of 28.573 seconds (188.990 mph) to take the top spot and then hadRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service DARLINGTON, S.C. – In a race that had more twists and turns than a Victorian melodrama, Erik Jones put the vaunted No. 43 Chevrolet back in Victory Lane for the first time since 2014.   In a remarkable run to the finish in the season’s first NASCAR Cup Series Playoff race, Jones held off Denny Hamlin in a 20-lap run to the finish to win the Cook Out Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway for the second time.   The Sunday night race took its toll onRead More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Mother Nature won the day at Daytona International Speedway as persistent rain eventually forced NASCAR’s hand to postpone Saturday night’s scheduled Coke Zero Sugar 400 to Sunday. Though NASCAR waited out the rain for Friday night’s Xfinity Series race, which did not reach its conclusion until the early morning hours on Saturday, the sanctioning body pulled the plug on the Cup Series race shortly after the scheduled start time on Saturday night, rolling the dice on better weather during the day onRead More