phoenix raceway Tag

By Luis Torres, Staff Writer ISM Raceway isn’t just Alex Bowman’s home track, but the site where his racing career positively changed after capturing his first Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series pole at Phoenix in November 2016. Bowman returned to the site of his career-defining weekend on Friday and looks to improve from his career-best sixth-place finish in Sunday’s TicketGuardian 500. In his last Cup trip to the “Valley of the Sun,” Bowman was a substitute driver for Dale Earnhardt, Jr., who sat out the final 18 races of theRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor Now that the 2017 NASCAR season is complete and the year is drawing to a close, we’ll take this opportunity to take a look back at the year that was. Up on the docket today, we finish off the 10 most memorable moments of the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series season. Jimmie Johnson Ties Cale Yarbrough Despite his late season struggles, Jimmie Johnson was on fire in the first half of the year, capturing three wins early on. His third win of the year cameRead More

By Seth Eggert, NASCAR Writer Sometimes, it’s better to be lucky than it is to be good. For Team Penske’s Brad Keselowski, he found out just how lucky he can be as his rivals faltered. Now, Keselowski will advance into the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Championship Four at Homestead-Miami Speedway. Keselowski bounced from being inside the Championship Four to being outside throughout the Can-Am 500 at Phoenix Raceway. His No. 2 Miller Lite Ford Fusion never competed for the victory, but stayed the course as other Playoff drivers experiencedRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor An eighth Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series championship will have to wait until 2018 for Jimmie Johnson and the No. 48 team. Entering the day in a must-win situation to be able to claim the final spot in the Championship 4 and advance on to Homestead, Johnson qualified 12th and was holding steady just outside the top-10 on lap 149 when he blew a tire entering Turn 3, sending his Chevrolet hard into the outside wall. The damage was enough to send him to theRead More

By Seth Eggert, NASCAR Writer Four points were all that separated Cole Custer from a 2017 NASCAR Xfinity Series Championship bid. Custer fought hard throughout the Ticket Galaxy 200 at Phoenix Raceway to move into the Championship Four. He was never far from his championship rival, Daniel Hemric. In the final run to the finish, Custer and Hemric fought tooth and nail, desperately fighting for every position. At one point, it looked as if Custer’s No. 00 Haas Automation Ford Mustang had the upper hand, pulling away from Hemric. However,Read More

By Seth Eggert, NASCAR Writer The final race before the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series Championship race resembled a ‘no holds barred’ wrestling match. Austin Cindric emerged from the Lucas Oil 150 at Phoenix Raceway with the final spot in the Championship Four. However, it came because of a late-race incident. A restart with 20 laps to go put Cindric’s No. 19 Draw-Tite / Reese Brands Ford F-150 directly behind one of his championship rivals, Ben Rhodes. Cindric dove low, and Rhodes reacted to block. In a wreck that mirroredRead More

By Seth Eggert, NASCAR Writer 31 races into the NASCAR Xfinity Series season, only four of the NASCAR Xfinity Series regulars (Jeremy Clements, Ryan Reed, Justin Allgaier twice, and William Byron three times) have scored victories during the 2017 season. This weekend the NASCAR Xfinity Series travels to Phoenix Raceway for the Ticket Galaxy 200, the 32nd race of the season. After the events at Texas Motor Speedway, Elliott Sadler leads the points standings with his JR Motorsports teammate Byron five-points behind in second. The last time the Xfinity SeriesRead More

By Seth Eggert, NASCAR Writer 21 races into the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series season eight series regulars have scored a victory (Christopher Bell five times, Johnny Sauter three times, John Hunter Nemechek twice, Austin Cindric, Ben Rhodes, Noah Gragson, Matt Crafton, and Kaz Grala once). Bell has a three-point lead over Sauter heading into the 22nd race of the season. This weekend marks the third and final race for the Round of Six, and sixth race of the 2017 Playoffs for the Truck Series competitors. The last time theRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor The Round of Eight all comes down to this. After last week’s race at Texas, the stage is set for the final race of the round in Phoenix to determine which drivers will move onto Homestead and which drivers will see their championship hopes vanish in the Arizona desert. Phoenix has resided on the Cup Series schedule since 1988, but the track looks completely different than it did 29 years ago, having undergone a reconfiguration back in 2011. The reconfiguration added progressive banking to theRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor It takes a lot to get Jeff Gordon riled up, but when the Cup Series visited Phoenix in November 2012, the four-time series champion had decided he’d had enough. Gordon and Clint Bowyer had been embroiled in a feud stemming from contact at Martinsville earlier in the year and with the season winding to a close, contact between the two at Phoenix just sent the Hendrick Motorsports driver over the edge. As the two were battling for a spot in the top-five with less thanRead More