Steve O’Donnell Tag

By David Morgan, Associate Editor Since the sports world went dark due to the COVID-19 pandemic in mid-March, it has been a waiting game to see which sport would be the first to make its return. As of Thursday afternoon, it appears NASCAR will be the first out of the gate to start competing again, as the sanctioning body announced races, without fans, are scheduled to begin on May 17 with a visit to Darlington Raceway for the NASCAR Cup Series. Over the next 11 days, all three NASCAR national seriesRead More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor When Phoenix was announced as the host of the 2020 championship race last year, the NASCAR Cup Series was in the midst of its first season with the new high downforce aero package that wasn’t producing the best results on the short tracks, so naturally there was a lot of stress around Phoenix delivering a race worthy of a championship finale. After Sunday’s FanShield 500 on the one-mile oval in the Arizona desert, everyone is breathing a sigh of relief. Utilizing a lower downforce package, whichRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service Another great start, another disappointing finish at Phoenix for Chase Elliott AVONDALE, Ariz. – At Phoenix Raceway on Sunday, Chase Elliott once again was the victim of Murphy’s law. In Friday’s time trials, Elliott won the pole for Sunday’s FanShield 500, marking the eighth straight top-10 start at Phoenix for the driver of the No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet. Finishing races at the one-mile track, however, has been a problem for Elliott, and that proved true once again in the fourth NASCAR Cup SeriesRead More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor The much maligned aerodynamic packages that were rolled out for the NASCAR Cup Series last year are getting a facelift heading into 2020 — at least on the short tracks and road courses. Last season, the aero packages were split between a 750 horsepower package that ran on oval tracks one-mile or shorter and road courses, along with a 550 horsepower package that ran the remainder of the schedule. The massive eight-inch spoiler and other aerodynamic devices had a negative effect on the racing atRead More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor In a move that has been a long time coming, NASCAR is making a major shift in the way it deals with post-race inspections and penalties across all three national series, announcing Monday that it will be tearing down vehicles after the checkered flag falls and if found illegal, penalties will be handed out then and there. Should those infractions be found in the winning car, the guilty party would be disqualified, resulting in a last-place finish and the loss of all benefits from the win/finish,Read More

By Seth Eggert, Staff Writer There were a lot of unknowns about the aero-package heading into the 2018 Monster Energy All-Star Race. NASCAR implemented a taller spoiler, aero ducts, and a restrictor plate for the exhibition race at Charlotte Motor Speedway. Post-race, drivers of the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series, including defending Champion Martin Truex, Jr., Joey Logano, and eventual race winner Kevin Harvick, called the package ‘different,’ ‘fun,’ and ‘racy.’ The race in total had 12 official lead changes, becoming just the third All-Star race to reach double-digit leadRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor NASCAR announced a handful of personnel moves among various leadership roles within the sport on Tuesday, with Ben Kennedy being named as the general manager of the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series highlighting the announcement. Kennedy, a fourth-generation member of the France family, is the great grandson of NASCAR founder Bill France, Jr. His mother, Lesa France Kennedy, is the CEO of International Speedway Corporation, while his uncle, Brian France, is the current CEO of NASCAR. Over the past four years, Kennedy has raced inRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor NASCAR will continue the trend of cost-cutting measures in 2018 as the sanctioning body announced roster limits to the number of pit crew and at-track crew members for each team on a given race weekend. Rosters will be broken down into three categories: Organizational, road crew, and pit crew. The organizational category is comprised of the competition director, technical director, team manager, IT specialists, etc. Starting next year, only three to four people in this category will be allowed at the track. For Monster EnergyRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor It’s safe to say the finish of Friday night’s WinstarOnlineGaming.com 400 at Texas will still be getting discussed at the water cooler on Monday morning. With Chase Briscoe and Christopher Bell running neck and neck over the closing laps, the caution would fly for a vicious crash between Timothy Peters and Austin Wayne Self that saw Peters wind up on his roof on the frontstretch after flipping through the grass. Though Bell led at the start/finish line to take the white flag, it appeared BriscoeRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor Through the first 11 weeks of the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series schedule, the trend has been for each race to feature three stages, with the first two stages making up about half of the race and then the final stage to the finish. But things will be a bit different when the series rolls into Charlotte for the Coca-Cola 600 as NASCAR announced on Monday that the longest race of the season will now feature four stages instead of the normal three. Instead ofRead More