Up to Speed Tag

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

By David Morgan, Associate Editor For the second week in a row, the NASCAR Cup Series stays in the State of Virginia, as it heads down to Martinsville Speedway for Saturday night’s Blue-Emu Maximum Pain Relief 400. A mainstay on the schedule since 1949, the historic half-mile, which is also the smallest on the circuit, will test both man and machine over the course of the evening. Martinsville marks the smallest track the Next Gen car has raced on since the exhibition race at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum to kickRead More

By Luis Torres, Staff Writer The biggest street course race of the season will commence this weekend in Long Beach. It’s the site of the third race in a span of eight weeks as 26 drivers hope to leave Southern California victorious. For some racers, a performance that’ll get their season on the right track. Only this time, it’ll be back in its traditional spring date for the first time since 2019 as last year’s race was held last September. As for its future, Long Beach will take place atRead More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor Fresh off a thrilling race at the Circuit of the Americas and the road course debut of the Next Gen car, the NASCAR Cup Series heads back to the short tracks starting with Sunday’s Toyota Owners 400 at Richmond Raceway. Often described as the perfectly designed race track by drivers, the 0.75-mile track lends itself to not only short track characteristics of beating and banging, but also the characteristics of a larger track with the side-by-side racing that will take place throughout the event. Richmond kicksRead More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor AUSTIN, Texas – Serving as the United States home for Formula 1 since opening in 2012, the Circuit of The Americas plays host to some good ol’ American Muscle this weekend when the NASCAR Cup Series comes to town for the EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix. The 20-turn, 3.41-mile road course sitting just outside of Austin, Texas is the first of six road courses for the Cup Series to visit in 2022 and will be the next milestone test for the Next Gen car to undertake, withRead More

By Luis Torres, Staff Writer The NTT IndyCar Series will run its first of five oval races of the season this weekend at Texas Motor Speedway. Unlike last year, it’ll be a single race at the 1.5-mile oval as part of a two-day show. There’s a lot of anticipation for Sunday’s XPEL 375 with the sport being three weeks removed from Scott McLaughlin scoring his maiden series win at St. Petersburg. The new Penske INDYCAR winner will look to have another strong oval outing where it all began in TexasRead More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor When the NASCAR Cup Series takes the green flag in Sunday’s Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500 at Atlanta, it will also be taking a step off into the unknown. 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. Almost as soon as Kurt Busch crossed the line to takeRead More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor The start of the 2022 NASCAR Cup Series season has seen the Next Gen car put through its paces on a variety of tracks, now it heads to Phoenix Raceway and Sunday’s Ruoff Mortgage 500 for what could be its most important race yet. The one-mile oval in the Arizona desert played host to a two-day test in late January, but there is still a cloud of uncertainty about how the car will race come Sunday, making the very limited track time available like gold forRead More