NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Tag

By David Morgan, NASCAR Writer Ahead of next Sunday’s Daytona 500, the 44 hopeful entrants into the Great American Race took to Daytona’s high banks to set the front row and the lineups for Thursday’s CanAm Duel qualifying races. After last season’s attempt at group qualifying, which turned into an unmitigated disaster, NASCAR made the decision to move back to single car runs for qualifying on Sunday. The new format would consist of two rounds in which all 44 cars would post a time in the first round and then theRead More

By Joey Barnes, Editor-in-Chief With the Sprint Unlimited now in the books and Denny Hamlin its victor, it is time to look at some key takeaways from Saturday night’s event. 1) NASCAR overtime rules prove insignificant The field was set after a late race caution with Hamlin leading Joey Logano, Paul Menard, and a charging Kyle Larson. They passed the overtime line on the backstretch of Daytona International Speedway, and after taking the white flag several cars ended up in the wall in Turn 2. NASCAR had a chance toRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Saturday’s Sprint Unlimited at Daytona International Speedway ended with a mere handful of cars undamaged—and race winner Denny Hamlin’s Toyota wasn’t one of them. But Hamlin got his wreck out of the way early in a two-car incident with Ricky Stenhouse Jr.’s Ford on Lap 13 and won the race in overtime with a large swatch of silver tape on the right side of his No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Camry. Hamlin triumphed in the season-opening non-points event for theRead More

By Joey Barnes, Editor-in-Chief With the 2016 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season looming, it’s time for a new star to be born and that star is Kyle Larson. The timing just seems right. The 2014 Sprint Cup Rookie of the Year is coming off of a strong performance in the season finale at Homestead last season. Larson was poised for his first win on NASCAR’s premier tour, but a late caution left the team’s strategy in shambles, losing the lead and falling to fifth at the finish. Larson fell victimRead More

By Joey Barnes, Editor-in-Chief Michael Waltrip announced on NASCAR Race Hub that he will be driving the No. 83 Maxwell House Toyota for BK Racing in this year’s Daytona 500. “It’s a great opportunity for us to expand our team and go racing,” Waltrip said on the FS1 program. The opportunity to drive with BK Racing has Waltrip teamed with Matt DiBenedetto and David Ragan, who raced for him at Michael Waltrip Racing last season. Waltrip also took to social media following the announcement. Looking much forward to reuniting w/ manyRead More

By Joey Barnes, Editor-in-Chief Following the unfortunate accident in an all-terrain vehicle on Tuesday that has left Tony Stewart hospitalized with a back injury, the NASCAR community continues to wait on the status of the three-time Sprint Cup champion. With no word on the severity of the injuries, many wonder what this could mean for Stewart, who declared 2016 would be his last in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. Stewart, 44, has missed a combined 18 races dating back to 2013, breaking bones in his right leg that season inRead More

By Joey Barnes, Editor-in-Chief The 2016 NASCAR season is upon us and that means a fresh start for the drivers and teams, hope for their fans, and a set of bold predictions on how it will all play out. With our new NASCAR guy, Toby Christie, putting out his bold picks for the new season, it only seemed right that I try to restore balance on what has been predicted. Daytona 500 champion: Jimmie Johnson Johnson has two wins (2006, ’13) in “The Great American Race” and has formed aRead More

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Barney Hall, who communicated the thrill of NASCAR stock car racing to millions of radio listeners during a more than 50-year broadcast career has died at the age of 83. A native of Elkin, North Carolina, Hall was one of the original members of the Motor Racing Network staff and was known as the “Voice of MRN.” He was inducted into the National Motorsports Hall of Fame in 2007 and in 2012 joined former MRN colleague Ken Squier as the initial recipients and namesakes of theRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service Four legendary drivers and one titan of a track owner are the latest additions to the NASCAR Hall of Fame. On Saturday afternoon at the NASCAR Hall of Fame in Charlotte, N.C., O. Bruton Smith, executive chairman of Speedway Motorsports Inc., entered the Hall with “Iceman” Terry Labonte, six-time NASCAR Modified champion Jerry Cook, 1970 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion Bobby Isaac and flamboyant Curtis Turner, who was instrumental in raising the profile of stock car racing during NASCAR’s early days. Introduced by currentRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service Can Hendrick Motorsports really be better without Jeff Gordon? From a global perspective, to suggest such a thing would be pure heresy. But from a year-over-year performance perspective, it’s well within the realm of possibility that the 2016 version of Hendrick Motorsports could outshine the 2015 edition, even with rookie Chase Elliott taking Gordon’s place behind the wheel of the No. 24 Chevrolet. In fact, team owner Rick Hendrick said as much. Even though Gordon advanced to the Championship Round of the Chase andRead More