Ricky Stenhouse Jr Tag

By David Morgan, Associate Editor AUSTIN, Texas – Sunday’s EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix at Circuit of the Americas marks the road course debut of the NASCAR Cup Series Next Gen car. With limited track time ahead of the race, much of how the new car will race on the 20-turn, 3.41-mile road course remains a mystery. Despite the unknowns, a number of drivers explained how they think the car will race when the green flag drops on Sunday. Chase Briscoe – No. 14 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford “I think you’re going toRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service HAMPTON, Ga. – Saturday’s NASCAR Cup Series practice answered a lot of questions about the nature of racing at Atlanta Motor Speedway. With NASCAR’s superspeedway competition package in place for Sunday’s Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500 at the 1.54-mile track  (3 p.m. ET on FOX, PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio)., Cup drivers quickly gravitated toward drafting in large, organized packs. Ricky Stenhouse Jr. topped the speed chart with a lap at 186.616 mph, edging Kyle Busch (186.390 mph) and Christopher Bell (186.321 mph). “WhatRead More

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service LAS VEGAS — Joe Gibbs Racing driver Christopher Bell won his first career NASCAR Cup Series pole position on Saturday and will lead the field in Sunday’s Pennzoil 400 presented by Jiffy Lube (3 p.m. ET, FOX, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). The driver of the No. 20 JGR Toyota bested the 10 cars that advanced to second round qualifying at the 1.5-mile Las Vegas Motor Speedway with a lap of 182.673 mph. Defending race winner Kyle Larson put his No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports ChevroletRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service Reigning NASCAR Cup Series champion Kyle Larson waited until late in Sunday’s Wise Power 400 to flex his muscles. But in the end, the driver of the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet held off a charging Austin Dillon by .195 seconds at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, Calif., to notch his first victory of the season, his second at the 2-mile track and the 17th of his career. In a race that featured 12 cautions for 59 laps, Larson, who started from the rearRead More

By Reid Spencer and Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service New Next Gen race car means radically different approach to pit stops DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Pit stops in the Daytona 500 will be fundamentally different this year—just ask Ricky Stenhouse Jr. It’s not just because the new NASCAR Cup Series Next Gen cars have gone to a single center lug instead of five lug nuts to secure each tire. And it’s not just because the fuel cell capacity has increased roughly eight percent to 20 gallons, increasing the time necessaryRead More

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service Kyle Larson continued his streak of superiority Sunday afternoon winning the Ally 400 at Nashville Superspeedway – his third consecutive win, following three consecutive runner-up finishes. He hasn’t finished worse than second place in a NASCAR Cup Series race since May 2. It’s a high performance mark the series hasn’t seen in more than a decade when former Hendrick Motorsports driver Jimmie Johnson won four straight points-paying races in 2007. Larson’s win Sunday was his third straight points-paying victory but he also won theRead More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor Sitting dormant since 2011, Nashville Superspeedway will roar back to life this weekend when NASCAR returns for the first time in a decade and brings along the Cup Series to make its debut in Sunday’s running of the Ally 400. The 1.33-mile concrete track, located on the outskirts of Nashville in Lebanon, Tennessee, is no stranger to hosting NASCAR events with both the NASCAR Xfinity Series and NASCAR camping World Truck Series running there from 2001 to 2011 before the track was shuttered. A handful ofRead More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor When the NASCAR Cup Series goes superspeedway racing at Talladega, it’s not a matter of if someone is going to get turned and sent for a ride, it’s just a matter of when. In the closing laps of the first stage of Sunday’s GEICO 500, the inevitable crash broke out, with Joey Logano’s No. 22 Team Penske Ford getting the worst of it with an airborne tumble in Turn 3. Running in third place behind leader Matt DiBenedetto and teammate Ryan Blaney, Logano was biding hisRead More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor After a three-race stretch of short tracks, the second quarter of the 2021 NASCAR Cup Series schedule begins with a visit to Talladega Superspeedway for Sunday’s running of the GEICO 500. The first nine races of the season have embodied unpredictability, with eight different winners in the first quarter of the season. That trend is likely to continue this weekend as superspeedway racing, especially at Talladega, is all about unpredictability. Since opening its doors in 1969, the 2.66-mile track just off Interstate 20 in Eastern AlabamaRead More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor After a weekend away for the first break of the 2021 season, the NASCAR Cup Series gets back to business Saturday night with a trip to southern Virginia for the Blue-Emu Maximum Pain Relief 500 at Martinsville Speedway. A mainstay on the schedule since 1949, the historic half-mile, which is also the smallest on the circuit, will test both man and machine over 500 grueling laps. As has been the case for the last year and a half, no practice, no qualifying, just line up andRead More