ross chastain Tag

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service Joey Logano wins pole position for Charlotte ROVAL elimination race CONCORD, N.C. – Joey Logano wasn’t pleased with the way he negotiated the final chicane at the Charlotte Motor Speedway Road Course. The good news was that the final section of the 17-turn track—which is actually the opening chicane of the alternative qualifying configuration—didn’t hurt his effort significantly in Saturday’s NASCAR Cup Series time trials. Turning a lap in 120.755 seconds (103.424 mph), Logano secured the pole position for Sunday’s Round of 12 eliminationRead More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor CONCORD, N.C. – There are numerous adjectives that can be used to describe this weekend’s race on the Charlotte Motor Speedway road course: unpredictable, volatile, treacherous, chaotic, etc. One thing is for sure, Sunday’s Bank of America ROVAL 400 is going to be a hell of a ride, with four drivers getting cut from the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs when the checkered flag waves. In an effort to spice things up back in 2018, Charlotte officials elected to switch from running another race on the 1.5-mileRead More

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service TALLADEGA, Ala. – Always the unquestionable fan favorite at NASCAR’s famed Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway, Georgia-native Chase Elliott made a last-lap pass to claim the NASCAR Cup Series YellaWood 500 victory Sunday afternoon – having to better one of his best friends, Ryan Blaney, to earn the first automatic bid into the next round of the 2022 NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs. With a lap to go, Elliott pulled his No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet from the bottom lane to the top lane and got aRead More

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service TALLADEGA, Ala. – Christopher Bell won the Busch Light Pole for Sunday’s YellaWood 500 at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway (2 p.m. ET, NBC, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) with a lap of 180.591 mph around the 2.66-mile oval on Saturday – a mere .075-mph faster than Chevrolet’s Kyle Larson – putting the NASCAR Cup Series championship contenders out front in the fifth Playoff race, second of this round. It’s the series-best fourth pole of the season for Bell, 27, driver of the No. 20 Joe GibbsRead More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor TALLADEGA, Ala. – It appears the second round of the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs will be full of wild card races. Following a chaotic race at Texas last week, the gauntlet continues this weekend at Talladega Superspeedway 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 schedule with the unpredictable nature of superspeedway racing on full display over the past half-century, leading to some of theRead More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor FORT WORTH, Texas – The Lone Star State comes calling this weekend when the NASCAR Cup Series rolls into Texas Motor Speedway to kick off the second round of the Playoffs with Sunday’s running of the AutoTrader EchoPark Automotive 500. Texas first joined the circuit in 1997, but back in 2017 went through a reconfiguration, dropping the banking in Turns 1 and 2 from 24 degrees to 20 degrees, as well as widening the racing surface from 60 feet to 80 feet. Meanwhile, Turns 3 andRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service BRISTOL, Tenn. – With Chase Elliott pursuing him relentlessly for the final 50 laps, Chris Buescher held on to win Saturday’s Bass Pro Shops Night Race at Bristol Motors Speedway, becoming the 19th different NASCAR Cup Series winner this season. After the event that set the field for the Round of 12 in the series Playoffs—and eliminated superstars Kyle Busch and Kevin Harvick from the postseason—a dozen drivers were breathing sighs of relief and hoping fervently for a return to stock car sanity inRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service BRISTOL, Tenn.— A Ford driver hadn’t won a pole position at Bristol Motor Speedway in more than 10 years, but that changed radically on Friday afternoon when Aric Almirola snagged the top starting position for Saturday’s Bass Pro Shops Night Race (7:30 p.m. ET on USA, PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). In the final round of time trials, Almirola covered the .533-mile distance in 14.946 seconds (128.382 mph) to become the first NASCAR Cup Series pole winner at Thunder Valley since Greg Biffle claimedRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service KANSAS CITY, Kan. – Driving the same car number that carried teammate Kurt Busch to victory in the May race at Kansas Speedway, Bubba Wallace claimed a dramatic win at the same track in Sunday’s Hollywood Casino 400, the second event in the first round of the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs. Wallace regained the lead on Lap 225 after the final cycle of green-flag pit stops at the 1.5-mile track and stayed out front for the final 43 circuits as his car owner, DennyRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service KANSAS CITY, Kan. – In what is turning out to be a banner season for Noah Gragson, the driver of the No. 9 JR Motorsports Chevrolet scored his fifth NASCAR Xfinity Series victory of the year in Saturday’s rain-shortened Kansas Lottery 300 at Kansas Speedway. Gragson charged from sixth in the running order past cars on older tires—and past the dominant Toyota of Ty Gibbs—to grab the lead after a restart on Lap 76.   A light rain interrupted the proceedings on Lap 82, butRead More