NASCAR Wire Service Tag

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service SONOMA, Calif. – The hometown hero Kyle Larson executed as he needed to, making a pass for the lead with eight laps remaining in the NASCAR Cup Series Toyota/Save Mart 350 to claim his second win at the Sonoma (Calif.) Raceway road course and third trophy of the season. It was a frantic start to the day on the newly-repaved 1.99-mile course through the rolling Northern Californian hills with seven caution flags falling before the 110-lap race’s halfway point – more yellow flags thanRead More

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service SONOMA, Calif. – New Zealander Shane van Gisbergen powered his way to the lead on a restart with 11 laps remaining in Saturday’s Zip Buy Now, Pay Later 250 on the Sonoma (Calif.) Raceway road course and bolted off to a 1.323-second victory – his second career NASCAR Xfinity Series win coming only a week after his first. The 35-year old Kiwi – who earned his first career pole position earlier Saturday at the 1.99-mile course and led a race best 32 laps –Read More

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service SONOMA, Calif. – Team Penske’s Joey Logano claimed his third pole position of the season Saturday afternoon at Sonoma (Calif.) Raceway – turning a fast lap of 97.771 mph in the No. 22 Team Penske Ford, bettering the previous record by more than a second on the newly-paved 1.99-mile road course in Northern California. The two-time NASCAR Cup Series champion will start Sunday’s Toyota/Save Mart 350 (3:30 p.m. ET on FOX, PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) alongside 23XI Racing’s Tyler Reddick, who was aRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service MADISON, Ill. – Surprise and elation were the watchwords for Team Penske driver Austin Cindric, who won Sunday’s Enjoy Illinois 300 at World Wide Technology Raceway at the expense of teammate Ryan Blaney. The race was Blaney’s to win—until the reigning NASCAR Cup Series champion ran out of fuel on the next-to-last lap and handed the lead to his teammate. Cindric charged past Blaney at the start/finish line and completed the checkered-flag lap as Blaney rolled agonizingly slowly to a 24th-place result. The victoryRead More

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service New Zealander Shane van Gisbergen claimed his first NASCAR Xfinity Series victory in Saturday’s Pacific Office Automation 147 at Portland International Raceway. The popular Kiwi celebrated the hard-earned win with a burnout all the way around the 1.967-mile road course and then climbing out of his Chevy and topping it off by kicking a soccer ball into the thrilled crowd. It was a popular win all-around for the 35-year-old three-time Australian Supercar champion, but he had to work for it. The series rookie –Read More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service MADISON, Ill. – The early bird got the victory on Saturday afternoon at World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway. In a long green-flag run to start the final stage of the Toyota 200 NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series race, Corey Heim brought his No. 11 TRICON Garage Tundra to pit road before any of the other top trucks made green-flag stops, and the move paid off with optimum track position. Heim held the top spot for a restart on Lap 138 of 160 and ledRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service MADISON, Ill. — It was with an obvious sense of pride that Michael McDowell reveled in his pole-winning run on Saturday at World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway. McDowell claimed his third Busch Light Pole Award of the season—and of his career—but this one came at a quirky flat track, not a superspeedway, where the driver of the No. 34 Front Row Motorsports Ford, a former DAYTONA 500 winner, is expected to excel. McDowell toured the 1.25-mile irregularly-shaped track in 32.468 seconds (138.598 mph)Read More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service What if?… That’s the question that will continue to haunt us after a long day of auto racing on Memorial Day weekend. What if Mother Nature hadn’t intervened, delaying the start of the Indianapolis 500 and shortening the Coca-Cola 600 on Sunday night? A weather system that battered the Midwest forced Hendrick Motorsports to change plans that had been in the works for a full year. Delayed from the planned 12:45 p.m. start, the green flag at the Indy 500 flew nearly four hoursRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service CONCORD, N.C. – A lightning delay that turned into a heavy rainstorm made a winner of Christopher Bell in Sunday’s Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway. Not that Bell didn’t deserve the victory in the rain-shortened race, which NASCAR was forced to call after 249 of 400 laps were complete. The driver of the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota started third, led a race-high 90 laps and won the second stage of the 14th NASCAR Cup Series race of the season. The decisiveRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service CONCORD, N.C. – Ty Gibbs saved the strongest performance of the day for the money lap in time trials for the Sunday’s Coca-Cola 600 (6 p.m. ET on FOX, PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Streaking around 1.5-mile Charlotte Motor Speedway in the final round of Saturday’s qualifying session for NASCAR’s longest race, Gibbs covered the distance in 29.355 seconds (183.955 mph) to claim the first Busch Light Pole Award of his career. Gibbs edged William Byron (183.580 mph) by 0.060 seconds to become theRead More