NASCAR Tag

By Adam Tate, Associate Editor Now that we are now one week removed from racing’s biggest weekend of the year, I’d like to take a look back to just how historical, significant and amazing the trio of the Monaco Grand Prix, Indianapolis 500 and Coca Cola 600 were this year by looking at some of the incredible facts and statistics of the day. The Monaco Grand Prix had never before started under the safety car, until this year when rain caused the field to take the first 10 laps behind BerndRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service LONG POND, Pa. – The maiden voyage of the NASCAR XFINITY Series at Pocono Raceway was shorter than planned, but race winner Kyle Larson wasn’t complaining. NASCAR awarded the checkered flag in the Pocono Green 250 to Larson when the race was red-flagged after 53 of 100 scheduled laps and then called because of persistent rain. The victory was Larson’s first of the season and fourth in the series, but it was a source of frustration to runner-up Erik Jones, who arguably had theRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service Before last week’s Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, Martin Truex Jr.’s 2016 season could have been summed up with a lyric from the blues standard “Born Under a Bad Sign.” “If it wasn’t for bad luck, I wouldn’t have no luck at all,” could well have been Truex’s theme for the current campaign. He lost the Daytona 500 to Denny Hamlin by six inches. He led 141 laps at Texas and finished sixth. He won the pole and led 172 of 267 lapsRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service CONCORD, N.C. – Martin Truex Jr. crashed a Ford party on Thursday night, winning the pole for Sunday’s Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway (6 p.m. ET on FOX). With his team making adjustments to the No. 78 Furniture Row Racing Toyota throughout the qualifying session, Truex saved his best lap for the round that counted, covering the 1.5-mile distance in 28.077 seconds (192.328 mph) to edge Team Penske Ford driver Joey Logano (192.007 mph) by .047 seconds for the top starting spot inRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service CONCORD, N.C. – At the end of a wild and crazy Saturday night at Charlotte Motor Speedway, Joey Logano got the upper hand in an intense battle with last-chance qualifier Kyle Larson and took home the million-dollar prize as the winner of the NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race. Trying to block the stronger car of Logano in the closing 13-lap final segment of the race, Larson buried his car into Turn 1 as Logano edged ahead. Larson’s No. 42 Chevrolet got loose and sailed upRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service Clearly, Ryan Blaney had one of the strongest cars in Saturday’s Sprint Showdown, but a restart violation with one lap left in the race’s first 20-lap segment squelched his hopes of advancing to the Sprint All-Star Race. Blaney was in hot pursuit of leader Chase Elliott when NASCAR called a caution on Lap 15 because of Michael McDowell’s spin through the infield grass. To begin Lap 20, the one that would decide the first transfer position, Blaney and Elliott entered the restart zone side-by-side.Read More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service CONCORD, N.C. – Different week. Different circumstances. Same driver. Last Sunday at Dover International Speedway, Kyle Larson was chasing Matt Kenseth for the win in the AAA 400 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race. Larson treated Kenseth, the 2003 series champion, with the utmost respect, taking great pains to run the veteran driver as cleanly as possibly. Kenseth won, with Larson trailing him in second place by a fraction of a second. But that was not the case on Saturday morning at Charlotte Motor Speedway,Read More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service CONCORD, N.C. – Matt Crafton had a lot to overcome on Saturday—a 17th-place starting position and a difficult pit stall that cost him dearly in the early stages of Saturday’s North Carolina Education Lottery 200 at Charlotte Motor Speedway. But after 134 laps, Crafton was 5.748 seconds ahead of second-place Kyle Busch, winning the race and extending his series lead to 12 points over seventh-place finisher Timothy Peters. In fact, the two-time champion won consecutive races for the first time in his NASCAR CampingRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service CONCORD, N.C. – With Chase Elliott’s Chevrolet bouncing off the outside wall, and Kyle Larson’s Chevy bouncing off Elliott’s car coming to the finish line, Larson won a wild drag race to claim the last of three available spots in Saturday night’s NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race at Charlotte Motor Speedway (9 p.m. ET on FS1). At the end of the final 10-lap dash in the Sprint Showdown, Larson pinched Elliott into the outside wall entering the dogleg at the 1.5-mile track and banged intoRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service CONCORD, N.C. – Persistent rain wiped out all track activity on Friday at Charlotte Motor Speedway, setting up a full day of racing on Saturday at the 1.5-mile track. Both the Sprint Showdown, which will determine three qualifiers for the NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race, and the North Carolina Education Lottery 200 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race have been rescheduled for Saturday. Practice for the all-star race will open Saturday activity at 9:30 a.m., followed by the Sprint Showdown at 11 a.m. and theRead More