NASCAR Tag

By Joey Barnes, Editor-in-Chief After a spectacular afternoon at Richmond International Raceway, it was a Carl Edwards shove to move teammate Kyle Busch out of the way en route to claim his second consecutive victory of the season. Without any further delay, here are my takeaways from Sunday’s Sprint Cup Series race at the short track oval. 1) Back to Sunday’s a win for NASCAR For the first time in nearly two decades NASCAR returned to a daytime spring race (last year’s race was run on Sunday due to aRead More

By Seth Eggert, NASCAR Writer For the fourth race in a row, and the fifth time in nine races this season in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR) has visited victory lane. This time, it was Carl Edwards who won the Toyota Owners 400 at Richmond International Raceway in a last lap, final corner, bump and run on teammate Kyle Busch. Edwards also won last weekend’s Food City 500 at Bristol. Fellow JGR drivers Denny Hamlin, who won the season opening Daytona 500, and Matt Kenseth, theRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service RICHMOND, Va. – The honeymoon at Joe Gibbs Racing may be over. Yes, on Sunday at Richmond International Raceway, Carl Edwards won his second straight NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race in the Toyota Owners 400 and the fourth in a row for JGR, but he did so with a last-lap bump-and-run on teammate Kyle Busch, who was seeking his third victory in four events. “We did everything right – be smart,” Busch was told on his radio, after Edwards moved the No. 18 ToyotaRead More

By Toby Christie, NASCAR Editor Dale Earnhardt Jr. had a great race Sunday in the Toyota Owner’s 400 at Richmond International Raceway, unfortunately it won’t be remembered that way after he finished an unimpressive 13th. Earnhardt, who was looking for a weekend sweep after winning the Xfinity Series race on Saturday, started the day from the 16th position, and for the first half of the race he looked to have a 12th-place car. However, as the race got into the closing stages Earnhardt and his crew chief Greg Ives keptRead More

By Toby Christie, NASCAR Editor It had been a long time since Tony Stewart raced in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series — last November to be exact — but the three-time Sprint Cup Series champion competed admirably Sunday in his first start since suffering a burst fracture in his back during the offseason. Stewart started the Toyota Owner’s 400 at Richmond International Raceway with high hopes, as everything surrounding the conditions of the race seemed to be lining up in his favor. “This is exactly what — if I could scriptRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service Five days after the fact, Matt DiBenedetto was still basking in the afterglow of last Sunday’s sixth-place finish at Bristol Motor Speedway. For the record, DiBenedetto scored the best result in the five-year history of BK Racing. After the race, he celebrated with tears in his eyes. More important, however, was the effect the strong run could have on the long-term NASCAR Sprint Cup Series effort of the growing organization. “Obviously, that was special for the whole team,” DiBenedetto said on Friday before openingRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service RICHMOND, Va. – For the first time this season, the driver of the No. 14 Stewart-Haas Racing Chevrolet was the driver who was supposed to be behind the wheel. Returning sooner than expected from a burst fracture to his L1 vertebra suffered during an offseason all-terrain vehicle accident, Tony Stewart took to the track during opening NASCAR Sprint Cup Series practice on Friday at Richmond International Raceway, preparing for his first competition of the season in Sunday’s Toyota Owners 400 (1 p.m. ET onRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service RICHMOND, Va. – With rain threatening to fall at Richmond International Raceway, NASCAR Sprint Cup Series drivers put extra effort into Friday morning’s opening practice. The effort paid off for 2014 series champion Kevin Harvick, who was fastest in practice at 129.089 mph and consequently will start on the pole in Sunday’s Toyota Owners 400 at the .75-mile short track (1 p.m. ET on FOX). With the field ordered by practice speeds according to the Sprint Cup rule book, Joey Logano (128.694 mph) willRead More

By Joey Barnes, Editor-in-Chief No other driver has electrified NASCAR’s top-three touring series recently quite like Erik Jones. The 19-year-old has already conquered the Camping World Truck Series, winning the championship last season. Jones, a Joe Gibbs Racing development driver, also impressed last year in select races in relief of an injured Kyle Busch, most notably at Kansas Speedway, where he made his first career start and drove all the way up into the top-five before crashing out midway through. So, it only seems natural that Jones has been appointedRead More

By Joey Barnes, Editor-in-Chief One of the big topics heading into this weekend’s event at Richmond International Raceway is NASCAR’s lenient stance on lugnuts tightened during a pitstop, and Kurt Busch believes the time to change that stance is sooner rather than later. NASCAR has taken a ‘less policed’ approach recently, believing that the teams should have the freedom to decide on whether or not to tighten all five lugnuts during a pitstop, a decision far different than in years past when anything less than five would lead to aRead More