Ricky Stenhouse Jr Tag

By David Morgan, Associate Editor TALLADEGA, Ala. – It has been a long wait for Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. to make his return to Victory Lane in a NASCAR Cup Series race, but he’ll have to wait no longer after Sunday’s YellaWood 500 at Talladega Superspeedway. Despite starting back in 32nd place, Stenhouse channeled his previous superspeedway luck in working his way forward, finishing the first stage in second-place and hanging around in the lead pack for much of the day until it came down to go time. After battling with AustinRead More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor TALLADEGA, Ala. – The second round of the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs enters the gauntlet. Following the opening race of the Round of 12 last weekend at Kansas that saw Ross Chastain play spoiler, keeping victory out of the hands of any of the championship contenders, Talladega looms large as the postseason hits the halfway mark with Sunday’s running of the Yellawood 500. Since opening its doors in 1969, the 2.66-mile track just off Interstate 20 in Alabama has been a wild card on the scheduleRead More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Michael McDowell has qualifying on superspeedways figured out this year. For the fourth time in 2024, the driver of the No. 34 Front Row Motorsports Ford will start at the front of the grid for Saturday night’s Coke Zero Sugar 400 after a lap of 49.136 seconds, 183.165 mph, setting a new Next Gen track record at Daytona. McDowell is one of several drivers not yet locked into the Playoffs and counts Daytona as an opportunity race for both he and hisRead More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – In any other year, a return to Daytona International Speedway in the late summer would mark the end of the regular season and cement the field for the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs. Not so much in 2024, as a quirk that comes with the Olympic break that was undertaken a few weeks back making Saturday night’s Coke Zero Sugar 400 the penultimate race of the regular season, setting things up for a final showdown at Darlington over Labor Day weekend. But thatRead More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor SPEEDWAY, Ind. – The Beast is most definitely Unleashed. For the second day in a row, Tyler Reddick and his No. 45 Beast Unleashed Toyota Camry has found its way to the top of the timing sheet, this time Reddick’s lap of 49.469 seconds, 181.932 mph was enough to earn him the pole for the Brickyard 400. “I was one of the last cars to go in Group B, so I watched a lot of drivers in Round one have issues in Turn 4 and a couple ofRead More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor CHICAGO – Bowman is back. It has been a long road for Alex Bowman since he last visited Victory Lane in the NASCAR Cup Series, but he’ll have to wait no more after winning Sunday’s NASCAR Chicago Street Race to break a winless streak dating back some 80 races. Since that win in March 2022 at Las Vegas, the driver of the No. 48 Chevrolet has been through a lot, including a concussion that sidelined him for a number of races that same year, as wellRead More

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service LOUDON, N.H. – Christopher Bell continued his dominance at New Hampshire Motor Speedway claiming a sweep of the NASCAR race weekend, but the Joe Gibbs Racing driver really had to earn that “broom” in Sunday’s weather-challenged USA Today 301. The 29-year-old Oklahoman beat Stewart-Haas Racing’s Chase Briscoe to the finish line by 1.104-second in overtime in a race that lasted six hours including a two-hour-plus rain delay and ultimately ended with the field on damp surface tires; only the second time in NASCAR historyRead More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor NEWTON, Iowa – To return to Iowa in the future or not to return, that is the question. Ask any of the drivers after Sunday’s inaugural NASCAR Cup Series race on the 0.875-mile oval, and the answer is an unequivocal “Yes.” Throughout the weekend the grandstands were packed despite the heat and even with the doom and gloom and the unknown of how the partially repaved surface would race, the event delivered an entertaining race. One that will leave Cup Series schedule makers with a bigRead More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor NEWTON, Iowa – Ryan Blaney had come so close to victory on so many occasions in 2024, only to fall short in the end. On Sunday at Iowa Speedway, it was finally Blaney’s time, scoring the win in Sunday’s Iowa Corn 350 ahead of the Hendrick Motorsports duo of William Byron and Chase Elliott. It was a dominant drive from the driver of the No. 12 Team Penske Ford, who led a race-high 201 laps, winning the first stage and finishing the second stage in theRead More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor NEWTON, Iowa – Build it and they will come…. eventually. After nearly two decades in existence, Iowa Speedway finally gets the call for a NASCAR Cup Series date this weekend, marking the latest track to host NASCAR’s premier series. The 0.875-mile oval in Central Iowa, a brainchild of NASCAR Hall of Famer Rusty Wallace, has hosted three of the lower-level NASCAR series – Xfinity, Trucks, and ARCA – over the years, which only amplified the calls for the Cup Series to visit and the fans inRead More