NASCAR Tag

By Seth Eggert, NASCAR Writer After three races into the 2016 Camping World Truck Series Season, several drivers have already risen to the top as contenders for the championship. With Kyle Busch’s return to the series and win at Martinsville Speedway, and plans to run more races throughout the year, the window is slowly closing. With 13 races left in the regular season, there is still plenty of time for drivers to make it into the first ever Chase for the Camping World Truck Series Championship. A few changes haveRead 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

By Toby Christie, NASCAR Editor Brian Vickers did an incredible job substituting for the injured Tony Stewart Sunday at Martinsville, and recorded the best finish for the No. 14 team so far this year. Vickers not only recorded the best finish of 2016 for the team, but his seventh place finish Sunday is actually the best finish for this race team since Stewart finished sixth at Bristol 35 races ago. Vickers is happy with the outcome, but he yearns for more. “I was pleased but not satisfied. We had suchRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service MARTINSVILLE, Va. – Kyle Busch came to Martinsville Speedway this weekend with no grandfather clock trophies from the shortest and tightest of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series short tracks. He left with two clocks after completing an unprecedented Martinsville sweep in Sunday’s STP 500, and, appropriately, the first question he radioed to his crew after his celebratory burnouts dealt with telling time. “What time is it?” crowed the reigning series champion, who a day earlier had won the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series raceRead More

By Toby Christie, NASCAR Editor Going into Sunday’s STP 500 at Martinsville, it looked like Kyle Larson was in the middle of a lost season. Through the first five races of the season, Larson had just one top-10 finish and sat 24th in the championship standings. There wasn’t much reason for optimism heading into this week’s race either, as Larson had struggled through four previous starts at the half-mile paper clip track. His best finish at the shortest and oldest track in NASCAR was 19th in the fall of 2015.Read More

By Joey Barnes, Editor-in-Chief Denny Hamlin headed into Martinsville Speedway with high hopes to overcome mistakes from recent visits at the half-mile oval, but Sunday’s STP 500 proved no different for the defending Daytona 500 champion. Hamlin, 35, had five wins in 20 previous races at Martinsville, including 16 top 10 finishes, but he acknowledged earlier in the week that recent mistakes have hurt his chances to secure wins. Sunday proved to be no different. From the start of the race Hamlin was a man on the move, but itRead More

By Frank Santoroski, Staff Writer The Verizon IndyCar Series ran their second event on the schedule, and the first oval event of the year last night. Target Chip Ganassi driver, Scott Dixon, won the race in a dominating fashion leading the final 155 laps at Phoenix International Raceway. Allow me to share some observations of what we witnessed on Saturday Night. 1 ) The Aero Package isn’t quite right    As a few drivers and team owners predicted, the racing became largely processional with the cars becoming strung out. DriversRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service MARTINSVILLE, Va. – Kyle Busch, come get your clock. Leading a race-high 123 of 255 laps, Kyle Busch pulled off an overtime victory in Saturday’s Alpha Energy Solutions 250 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race at Martinsville Speedway and filled a major hole in his resume by securing the coveted grandfather clock that goes to the victor. “I’ve got a couple owners’ ones, but never one of my own,” said Busch, who got an excellent launch on the final restart and won the two-lapRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service Who provides Denny Hamlin his most formidable competition at Martinsville? No, it’s not Jimmie Johnson, who has won eight times at the fabled short track. And it’s not Joey Logano, who has won the last three poles at Martinsville. Denny Hamlin’s stiffest competition at the .526-mile speedway is Denny Hamlin, because, all too often, the driver of the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota has beaten himself. “I don’t know how many pit road penalties I’ve had here at this race track, or whyRead More