NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Tag

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service Running the fastest lap of the day when it counted most, Kyle Busch paced a Joe Gibbs Racing sweep of the top three starting spots for Sunday’s Good Sam 500 at Phoenix International Raceway (on FOX at 3:30 p.m. ET). Busch covered the one-mile distance in 26.014 seconds (138.387 mph) in Friday’s final round of knockout qualifying, a session interrupted by Jimmie Johnson’s hard wreck against the Turn 2 wall. The Coors Light Pole Award was Busch’s first of the season (after an inspectionRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Writer With one win under his belt in 2016 already, Jimmie Johnson heads into Sunday’s Good Sam 500 at Phoenix looking to break his winless streak at the desert mile since the track underwent a reconfiguration during the 2011 season. Johnson tops the board statistically among active drivers when looking at career wide numbers, but the six-time series champion has been absent from victory lane in Phoenix over the past six years. Overall, Johnson has four wins (2007, 2008 sweep, and 2009), as well as 15Read More

By Joey Barnes, Editor-in-Chief AVONDALE, Ariz. – With a race weekend at Phoenix International Raceway on the horizon, Kevin Harvick met with the media Friday morning ahead of this Sunday’s Good Sam 300. Harvick, 40, won last year’s event at Phoenix International Raceway. In fact, the California native has won four of the last five, dominating the 1-mile oval since the repave a few seasons ago. Harvick is in the midst of his third season with Stewart-Haas Racing, but recently the team announced that it is moving away from ChevroletRead More

By NASCAR Wire Service Mother Nature might be the only person who can stop Kevin Harvick from winning at Phoenix International Raceway. Last fall, the No. 4 Chevrolet driver appeared to be on his way to his fourth consecutive victory at the one-mile track, leading 143 of the 219 laps when rain brought out a caution as he was leaving pit road. Dale Earnhardt Jr., who was slightly ahead of second-place Harvick on the track, earned the win when NASCAR called the race due to the precipitation. Harvick will tryRead More

By Joey Barnes, Editor-in-Chief The third NASCAR round from Las Vegas Motor Speedway is over, and after a long hiatus from Victory Lane Brad Keselowski made his long awaited return in the Kobalt 400 on Sunday. 1) Weather Someone somewhere was throwing every odd obstacle at the NASCAR community on Sunday. First, there was rain. Then, there was intense gust of winds. Later, there was a sandstorm that hit so hard that the cameras from the FOX telecast were shaking, which made it where we were barely able to seeRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service LAS VEGAS – Overcoming a pit road speeding penalty with daring late-race strategy, Brad Keselowski broke a 33-race drought with a victory in Sunday’s Kobalt 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Keselowski passed Las Vegas native Kyle Busch with five laps left to win for the first time since the fifth race of 2015 at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, California. The 2012 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion beat Team Penske shopmate Joey Logano to the finish line by .675 seconds, as Busch lostRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service LAS VEGAS – Kyle Busch made the move of the race to get the lead in Sunday’s Kobalt 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, but a huge vibration in the right front of his No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota hurt his winning chances in the closing laps. From the sixth position on a restart on Lap 224 of 267, Busch took Jimmie Johnson and eventual race winner Brad Keselowski three-wide into Turn 1, climbed to third place off Turn 2 and roared pastRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Writer With one of the best rookie classes in recent memory in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series occurring during the 2016 season, each week we’ll take a look at the five rookies battling for Rookie of the Year and track their progress throughout the season. In this week’s edition of the “Rookie Report,” the Kobalt 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway is on deck and in true Las Vegas fashion, some of the rookies had a much better roll of the dice than the others. LeadingRead More

Josh Farmer, IndyCar reporter & NASCAR Contributor Austin Dillon may have been the second luckiest driver in Las Vegas on Sunday as he claimed his first top five of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season. Dillon put himself in a good position for the race on Friday as he qualified in sixth place and once the green flag flew, he proved that his Friday performance was no fluke. Dillon ran inside the top five for the entire opening stint before NASCAR threw a competition caution on lap 30. He continued runRead More

By Joey Barnes, Editor-in-Chief A contender for a possible win, misfortune struck Matt Kenseth at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Following a restart on lap 224 of Sunday’s Kobalt 400, heavy winds and aggressive racing took shape as the field jockeyed for position. Kenseth was running on the inside of Martin Truex Jr.’s when the backend of his No. 20 began to spin around in Turn 1. As a result, rookie Chase Elliott collided with Kenseth. Carl Edwards and Kurt Busch made contact as well, but the damage was too severeRead More