Texas Motor Speedway Tag

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service FORT WORTH, Tex. – A driver without a signed contract for 2018 won the pole position for Sunday’s AAA Texas 500 at Texas Motor Speedway (2 p.m. ET on NBCSN) with a record lap — giving a timely birthday present to his crew chief. In the final round of Friday’s knockout qualifying session, Kurt Busch covered the 1.5-mile distance in 26.877 seconds (200.915 mph) to top the previous record lap of 200.111 mph posted by Tony Stewart in 2014. In a third round thatRead More

By Joey Barnes, Editor-in-Chief The new universal aero kit is looking promising in the buildup to the 2018 Verizon IndyCar Series season. Honda completed their latest round of manufacturer testing recently with the focus primarily on their superspeedway package. James Hinchcliffe (Schmidt Peterson Motorsports entry) and four-time series champion Scott Dixon (Chip Ganassi Racing entry) were selected for the trials at both Texas Motor Speedway (Monday) and Indianapolis Motor Speedway (Thursday), with representatives from every Honda-powered team on hand as well. Admittedly eye candy for every person that has hadRead More

By Joey Barnes, Editor-in-Chief FORT WORTH, Texas – Chase Elliott admitted that he is still upset with Denny Hamlin following last week’s late race incident at Martinsville. With two laps remaining in the First Data 500, Elliott was en route to his first Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series victory until Hamlin put an aggressive hit to his rear bumper and sending Elliott’s No. 24 NAPA Auto Parts Chevrolet into the wall and with a 27th-place finish. The outcome led to a heated exchange on pit road. During Friday media availabilityRead More

By Joey Barnes, Editor-in-Chief FORT WORTH, Texas – Erik Jones is hungry for that elusive first victory in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series. A rookie this season while driving for Furniture Row Racing, Jones is poised to move to Joe Gibbs Racing as he replaces Matt Kenseth in the No. 20 Toyota Camry in 2018. While teammate Martin Truex Jr. has enjoyed a banner season with seven wins en route to the overall points lead with three rounds to go, Jones has put together a roller coaster campaign ofRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor After a barn burner of a finish at Martinsville last weekend, the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series heads to the Lone Star State and Texas Motor Speedway for Sunday’s running of the AAA Texas 500 and the second race of the playoff semi-finals. First joining the circuit in 1997, the 1.5 mile Texas track has provided some great racing over the years as the surface wore down as each season passed. For the second time the season, drivers will get a crack at the trackRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor As the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup and Xfinity Series drivers get back to work this weekend at Texas Motor Speedway, it’s time once again for “Throwback Thursday Theater”. In this week’s edition and in honor of his final trip to the Lone Star State, we look back at the first wins for Dale Earnhardt, Jr. in both series, which both came at Texas in 1998 and 2000. Through the first six races of Earnhardt’s rookie season in the Xfinity Series in 1998, Earnhardt had reboundedRead More

It’s that time of the year again. After the 16 driver field for the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series playoffs was set last weekend at Richmond, the intensity of the season is about to ramp up over the final 10 weeks of the season as we’ll whittle the championship field down to four at Homestead to see which driver will walk away with the title at season’s end. As a refresher, there will be three rounds of eliminations before the Championship Four is set. The Round of 16 will includeRead More

By Christopher DeHarde, IndyCar & Road to Indy Writer After a challenging practice and qualifying day for the Rainguard Water Sealers 600, Conor Daly was able to earn his best finish of the 2017 Verizon IndyCar Series season with a seventh place finish. He was last in the first practice session, last in the final session and posted the slowest time of the cars that took a time in the session, but keeping his nose clean gave him A.J. Foyt Racing’s best result at Texas Motor Speedway since Airton Dare’s thirdRead More

By Adam Tate, Associate Editor Fernando Alonso phoned in from Montreal to the on air television broadcast of the Rainguard Water Sealers 600 at Texas Motor Speedway last night to talk with the NBCSN hosts and give some more of his thoughts on IndyCar. Today’s Canadian Grand Prix marks his return to F1 after his electrifying Indy 500 debut two weeks ago, and the broadcast team wanted to get his opinion on the oval racing at TMS. He hailed the Texas race, then in its early stages as “spectacular” and saidRead More

By Christopher DeHarde, IndyCar & Road to Indy Writer Will Power did it all Saturday night at the Rainguard Water Sealers 600 at Texas Motor Speedway. He started ninth, fell back to 12th at the start, led 180 of 248 laps and scored his first oval victory since last year’s ABC Supply 500 at Pocono, but it was all down to placing his car properly. Power’s start wasn’t ideal, but the Australian was able to adjust his car to make it work for him. “I made some in-cockpit adjustments, but my carRead More