Michael McDowell Tag

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

By David Morgan, Associate Editor DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Saturday night’s Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona will solidify the 16-driver NASCAR Cup Series Playoff field with varying strategies for those drivers that have yet to lock themselves in. Currently, Ryan Blaney holds the 15th place position in points and has a 25-point advantage over Martin Truex, Jr. in 16th. For these two, the strategy will be two-fold on Saturday as they will be giving their best effort to win the race, but also will be trying to accumulate as manyRead More

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service For the second-consecutive day Kyle Larson took his first lead of the race with five laps remaining and held off road course ace and fellow Californian A.J. Allmendinger for a trophy. Larson completed the rare weekend sweep at Watkins Glen (N.Y.) International Sunday afternoon with a clutch win in the NASCAR Cup Series’ Go Bowling at the Glen. Larson made a dramatic pass on his Hendrick Motorsports teammate Chase Elliott on a restart with five laps to go on the historic road course. As the race leader, Elliott gotRead More

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service NASCAR Cup Series championship leader Chase Elliott won the pole position for Sunday’s Go Bowling at the Glen at Wakins Glen (N.Y.) International (3 p.m. ET, USA Network, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) making a strong statement for his championship chases as the regular season winds down. Elliott turned a lap of 125.147 mph around the 3.377-mile road course in the No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet besting his teammate, reigning series champion Kyle Larson by a slight .015-seconds to claim his third pole position ofRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service SPEEDWAY, Ind. – The NASCAR Cup Series has a new road course conqueror. Tyler Reddick survived a wild overtime battle against Ross Chastain—who, as it turned out, was under penalty for finagling the first corner—to win Sunday’s Verizon 200 at the Brickyard.  Reddick’s NASCAR Cup Series victory at the 2.439-mile, 14-turn Indianapolis Motor Speedway Road Course was his second this month, the second of his career and his second at a road course. There was one fundamental difference between Reddick’s win at the BrickyardRead More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor INDIANAPOLIS – Tyler Reddick picked right up where he left off on the road courses, scoring the pole for Sunday’s Verizon 200 at The Brickyard. Reddick piloted his No. 8 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet around the 14-turn, 2.439-mile Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course with a lap of one minute, 28.354 seconds (99.378 mph) to jump to the top of the board in the final round of qualifying, holding off all comers to take his second career NASCAR Cup Series pole. “It actually didn’t,” Reddick said ofRead More

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service Chase Elliott has been declared the winner of Sunday’s M&M’s Fan Appreciation 400 at Pocono (Pa.) Raceway after first and second place finishers, Joe Gibbs Racing teammates Denny Hamlin and Kyle Busch were disqualified following post-race technical inspection. It’s a series-best fourth race victory for the driver of the No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet, who now leads the championship standings by 105-points over Ross Chastain and 111-points over Ryan Blaney. It is the first time this season a race winner has been disqualified. “Yeah,Read More