NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Tag

By Joey Barnes, Editor-in-Chief FORT WORTH, Texas – After running in the top 10 for a majority of the race in the Duck Commander 500 on Saturday night at Texas Motor Speedway, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. saw his great run dashed in a late accident on lap 294. The 28-year-old ran a clean race and kept his No. 6 Zest Ford Fusion out of trouble, running as high as fifth at the 1.5-mile oval. On the exit of Turn 2 Jimmie Johnson made contact with an already loose Austin Dillon, sendingRead More

By Joey Barnes, Editor-in-Chief FORT WORTH, Texas – Fate did not play in the hands of Trevor Bayne on Saturday night at Texas Motor Speedway. Bayne refused to pit during a sequence of green flag stops, inheriting the lead on lap 260 and throwing a strategic wrench in an otherwise uneventful race to that point. The Roush Fenway Racing driver led 12 laps before the relinquishing the lead to a race-dominant Martin Truex Jr. Tire wear was at a premium at the 1.5-mile oval, with many teams electing to pitRead More

By Joey Barnes, Editor-in-Chief FORT WORTH, Texas – For many years, Kyle Busch hasn’t endeared himself to the NASCAR community, but the defending Sprint Cup Series champion now believes the tide has turned. Busch has been showered with boos ever since becoming a regular contender over the past decade. Unquestionably talented, the Nevada native showed promise, but his attitude and on-track persona never resonated well with fans. That is, until February 21, 2015. It was on that day Busch sustained injuries in an XFINITY Series race at Daytona International SpeedwayRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service FORT WORTH, Tex. – It was a chipper Tony Stewart who lingered after Thursday night’s Texas Motorsports Hall of Fame dinner, answering questions from reporters and posing for selfies with a succession of admirers. Unabashedly eager to return to his No. 14 Stewart-Haas Racing Chevrolet for his final season in NASCAR Sprint Cup Series racing, Stewart is at the mercy of his doctors, who will run scans on the injured driver at the end of April. “I feel great,” said Stewart, who suffered aRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service FORT WORTH, Tex. – Carl Edwards didn’t run a perfect lap in Friday’s final round of knockout qualifying, but he had plenty of car to compensate. “I made a little mistake, and I thought that was going to cost us,” said Edwards, who earned the top starting spot for Saturday night’s Duck Commander 500 (on FOX at 7:30 p.m. ET) at Texas Motor Speedway with a lap at 194.609 mph. “Fortunately, our car is very fast. “It’s a huge deal for us to getRead More

By Joey Barnes, Editor-in-Chief FORT WORTH, Texas – With intense on-track battles taking place over the past few seasons, six-time Sprint Cup Series champion Jimmie Johnson admitted at Texas Motor Speedway on Thursday that Kevin Harvick is on his radar. Johnson, 40, has finished ahead of Harvick eight times since the 2014 season, the year Harvick moved to Stewart-Haas Racing and teamed with crew chief Rodney Childers. Although Harvick has scored nine wins and 53 top 10’s in 78 appearances with SHR, the 2014 Sprint Cup champion has had aRead More

By NASCAR Wire Service At first glance, it’s easy to perceive Matt Kenseth’s start to the 2016 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season as “slow.” The No. 20 Toyota driver only has one top-10 finish in the first six races, one year after amassing five victories and 19 top-10 showings. “The results have been disappointing, but we’ve ran pretty well,” said Kenseth, who ranks 14th in the series points standings. “We’ve been in contention in a couple races. Neither of them worked out. We had fast enough cars, if all ofRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Writer With the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series heading to the Lone Star State this weekend, it is time for another edition of Throwback Thursday Theater, and in this week’s edition we’ll take a look back at the race that started it all at Texas Motor Speedway, the 1997 Interstate Batteries 500 that took place on April 6, 1997. Before the race even started, there were issues with the opening of the track. For the track to find its way onto the NASCAR Cup schedule, another trackRead More

By Joey Barnes, Editor-in-Chief An eventful STP 500 from Martinsville Speedway has been settled and Kyle Busch is the man that grabbed the traditional grandfather clock after holding off AJ Allmendinger in the closing stages. Here are the key topics coming from Sunday’s race at NASCAR’s oldest track. 1) Impatience from start to finish The common theme is patience early and then to take everything late. That certainly wasn’t the case on Sunday, from the drop of the green flag bumpers found each other with drivers more than willing toRead More

By Joey Barnes, Editor-in-Chief Richard Childress Racing had a phenomenal effort in the STP 500 at Martinsville Speedway on Sunday, with their trio of drivers all securing top 10 finishes, led by Austin Dillon in fourth. The weekend began with Paul Menard qualifying fourth, Ryan Newman fifth and Dillon 29th. At the start, Menard pushed his No. 27 Libman/Menard’s Chevrolet SS to the front early, leading 10 laps and looking like a contender for the win. Newman also hung among the leaders, but as the race went on the No.Read More