Richmond International Raceway Tag

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service RICHMOND, Va. – Don’t tell Denny Hamlin his first pole of the season isn’t significant. In the money round of Friday’s knockout qualifying session, the driver of the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota toured .75-mile Richmond International Raceway in 22.069 seconds (122.344 mph) to earn the top starting spot for Saturday night’s Federated Auto Parts 400 (7:30 p.m. ET on NBCSN), the final race in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series regular season. “I thought for sure we had too many laps on ourRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Contributor After 500 miles around the historic Darlington Raceway last Sunday, the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series heads to Richmond for the final regular season race that will set the 16 driver field for the Chase with Saturday night’s running of the Federated Auto Parts 400. Often described as the perfectly designed race track by drivers, the 0.75 mile track lends itself to not only short track characteristics of beating and banging, but also the characteristics of a larger track with the side by side racing thatRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Contributor As the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series heads to Richmond International Raceway this weekend for the Federated Auto Parts 400, it’s time again to take a look back at a race from Richmond’s past in this week’s edition of “Throwback Thursday Theater”. With the focus of the weekend being who will be in and who will be out of the Chase for the Sprint Cup, the race that we will focus on is the 2004 Chevy Rock and Roll 400, a race that featured one driverRead 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 David Morgan, NASCAR Writer There must be something in the water in Virginia. Just like Martinsville three weeks ago, the five NASCAR Sprint Cup Series rookies all struggled at some point in Sunday’s Toyota Owners 400 at Richmond. With the spring Richmond race reverting to a day race for the first time since 1997, the bright sunshine beating down on the 0.75 mile short track created handling difficulties for all of those in the field, rookies and veterans alike. Falling a lap down early with an ill-handling car, ChaseRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service RICHMOND, Va. – After a massive late-race wreck scrambled the running order in Saturday’s ToyotaCare 250, Dale Earnhardt Jr. survived a two-lap dash in overtime to win his first NASCAR XFINITY Series race since 2010 and the first in his own JR Motorsports equipment. Earnhardt held off Ty Dillon by .266 seconds in a main event that ran nine laps past its scheduled distance of 140 laps, but Dillon collected the $100,000 Dash 4 Cash bonus available to the two highest finishes among XFINITYRead 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