Texas Motor Speedway Tag

By Joey Barnes, Editor-in-Chief FORT WORTH, Texas – With intense on-track battles taking place over the past few seasons, six-time Sprint Cup Series champion Jimmie Johnson admitted at Texas Motor Speedway on Thursday that Kevin Harvick is on his radar. Johnson, 40, has finished ahead of Harvick eight times since the 2014 season, the year Harvick moved to Stewart-Haas Racing and teamed with crew chief Rodney Childers. Although Harvick has scored nine wins and 53 top 10’s in 78 appearances with SHR, the 2014 Sprint Cup champion has had aRead More

By NASCAR Wire Service Don’t expect Daniel Suárez to concede his spot atop the NASCAR XFINITY Series standings any time soon. Through his first five races, the Joe Gibbs Racing driver boasts a higher average finish (4.8) than the last five NXS driver champions through the first five contests in their respective championship-winning seasons: Ricky Stenhouse Jr., 6.2 (2012); Chris Buescher, 7.8 (2015); Stenhouse, 8.2 (2011); Chase Elliott, 8.8 (2014) and Austin Dillon, 9.8 (2013). In addition, Suárez’s 112.8 driver rating was only outpaced by Stenhouse in his 2012 title-winningRead More

By NASCAR Wire Service At first glance, it’s easy to perceive Matt Kenseth’s start to the 2016 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season as “slow.” The No. 20 Toyota driver only has one top-10 finish in the first six races, one year after amassing five victories and 19 top-10 showings. “The results have been disappointing, but we’ve ran pretty well,” said Kenseth, who ranks 14th in the series points standings. “We’ve been in contention in a couple races. Neither of them worked out. We had fast enough cars, if all ofRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Writer With the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series heading to the Lone Star State this weekend, it is time for another edition of Throwback Thursday Theater, and in this week’s edition we’ll take a look back at the race that started it all at Texas Motor Speedway, the 1997 Interstate Batteries 500 that took place on April 6, 1997. Before the race even started, there were issues with the opening of the track. For the track to find its way onto the NASCAR Cup schedule, another trackRead More

INDIANAPOLIS (March 10, 2016) – ABC’s enhanced coverage of the epic 100th Running of the Indianapolis 500 Mile Race presented by PennGrade Motor Oil and increased programming on NBCSN, including 10 hours of live practice telecasts, highlight the Verizon IndyCar Series television programming schedule for 2016. Total on-air programming from INDYCAR’s network partners is more than 110 hours, up from 2015. It includes live coverage of all 16 races on the Verizon IndyCar Series schedule, qualifying shows for all NBCSN events and Indianapolis 500 time trials on ABC, practice sessionsRead More

Seven-Race Chase Formats to be Implemented in 2016 DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (January 19, 2016) – Using the overwhelming success of the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup format introduced in 2014 as a guidepost, NASCAR Chairman and CEO Brian France announced today the implementation of a playoff system in both the NASCAR XFINITY Series and NASCAR Camping World Truck Series. On the heels of a 2015 Chase that saw the highest season-finale viewership in nearly a decade, record-breaking page views on NASCAR.com and unparalleled volume on social media, the NASCARRead More

By Owen A. Kearns, NASCAR Wire Service There’s a possibility, albeit remote, that O. Bruton Smith could be entering the NASCAR Hall of Fame as a race car driver instead of a race promoter extraordinaire. Smith, at age 17, bought a race car and decided to be a professional driver. “One time, I actually beat (NASCAR Hall of Famers) Buck Baker and Joe Weatherly,” Smith said in a May 7, 2005 interview with Motorsport.com. “So I knew when I beat them I could be a contender, right?” Smith’s mother, however,Read More

By Joey Barnes, Editor-in-Chief After being announced as the replacement driver for a suspended Matt Kenseth, rookie Erik Jones finished 12th at Texas, but eyes the ultimate upset with a win in the desert as the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series heads to Phoenix. Jones, currently the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series championship leader, has sat on the front row in both NCWTS starts (second in 2013, pole in 2014) and grabbed victory in each. Phoenix was the site of his first Truck Series victory and it came in just hisRead More

By Joey Barnes, Editor-in-Chief FORT WORTH, Texas – Kyle Busch has continued to overcome the long odds this season and following a fourth-place finish at Texas Motor Speedway, is just one race away from qualifying for the Championship Four in Homestead. The 30-year-old missed the first 11 races of the year following a horrific crash at Daytona International Speedway during an XFINITY Series race in February.  When Busch returned NASCAR required he win a race and be among the top 30 in points in order to qualify for the Chase.Read More

Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service FORT WORTH, Texas—For Jimmie Johnson, it was business as usual in Cowtown. On Sunday, the six-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion completed a sweep of this year’s Texas Motor Speedway races, powering past hapless Brad Keselowski with three laps left to win the AAA Texas 500 for the fourth straight year. Johnson kept his record perfect, winning a race in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup for the 12th consecutive season. His fifth victory of the year was also his record sixth at Texas—includingRead More