Up to Speed Tag

By David Morgan, Associate Editor New England here we come. A week removed from a thrilling showing on the high banks at Atlanta, the NASCAR Cup Series heads back to a flat oval this weekend for Sunday’s running of the Ambetter 301, as the march to the end of the regular season continues on. First joining the Cup Series circuit in 1993, the 1.058-mile oval that has progressively banked turns from two to seven degrees is one of the more difficult tracks on the schedule as the flat nature of theRead More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor Half of the 2022 NASCAR Cup Series season is now complete as Atlanta Motor Speedway comes calling this weekend to kick off the second half with Sunday’s running of the Quaker State 400. Atlanta’s aging racing surface, which had been in place since 1997, held together as long as possible, but the 260 laps around the 1.5-mile track last July were the last on that particular surface as the track underwent a repave and reconfiguration for the 2022 season. The 24-degree banking in the turns wasRead More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor LEBANON, Tenn. — A year after debuting to a sold-out crowd, the NASCAR Cup Series returns to Nashville Superspeedway this weekend for the second running of the Ally 400 on Sunday. Prior to its Cup debut in 2021, the track located on the outskirts of Nashville in Lebanon, Tennessee, was 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. The Nashville tracks serves as an oddityRead More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor The second half of the NASCAR Cup Series regular season rolls on as the West Coast comes calling this weekend, with Sonoma Raceway playing host to Sunday’s running of the Toyota/Save Mart 350. A 12-turn technical road course situated about 30 miles north of San Francisco, Sonoma is one of six road courses on the 2022 schedule, with Sonoma first joining the circuit back in 1989. Over the years, the course at Sonoma Raceway has gone through a few configuration changes. When the track was firstRead More

By Luis Torres, Staff Writer When it comes to the Indianapolis 500, the pageantry, the drama and intensity is unrivaled. The field of 33 brave men will look to escape the madness and be the one who’ll earn the glory that comes with winning The Greatest Spectacle in Racing. Close to a full crowd for the first time since 2019, there’s a lot of anticipation and storylines that’ll take lengthy conversations to fully grasp what Indy means to the drivers, teams, personnel, media and fans alike. Among those are the blisteringRead More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor After a thrilling end to last weekend’s throwback race at Darlington, the 2022 NASCAR Cup Series season rolls on as Kansas Speedway and Sunday’s running of the AdventHealth 400 is next up on the docket. Kansas has come into its own in recent years, following a repave and reconfiguration back in 2012. The track first joined the circuit in 2001 as a relatively tame 1.5-mile track with 15-degree banking in the turns, but the reconfiguration transformed it into the track we know today with variable bankingRead More

By Luis Torres, Staff Writer The Month of May will officially begin this weekend with the running of the GMR Grand Prix at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Road Course. The grand prix circuit opened doors in 2000 when it was the site of Formula One’s United States Grand Prix, won by Michael Schumacher. F1 ran at Indy until 2007 as INDYCAR wouldn’t make its debut until an updated layout in 2014 was won by Simon Pagenaud. The GMR Grand Prix has been a staple in the sport ever since. AlthoughRead More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor Like Doc Brown and Marty McFly in Back to the Future, the NASCAR Cup Series is time traveling this week, making the jump from the future with the Darlington Raceway debut of the Next Gen car to celebrating the past with Throwback Weekend. A staple of the Cup Series since 1950, there are many elements to Darlington that make it a special track. From the egg-shape of the track that features one end narrower than the other as a result of building the track around theRead More

By Luis Torres, Staff Writer The popular Barber Motorsports Park is the fourth round of the 17-race championship trail which also starts the month of May. After having one race a month since February, the championship trail will kick into ultimate high gear with three races. So far, it’s been Team Penske’s trail with the organization winning all three races with Josef Newgarden scoring the last two victories. Newgarden hopes to put Penske 4-0 for the first time since 2012 when Will Power got it done in São Paulo. Ironically,Read More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor After a rare Easter race date playing in the dirt at Bristol, the NASCAR Cup Series packs up and heads to Talladega Superspeedway, where Sunday’s running of the GEICO 500 awaits. 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