Up to Speed Tag

By David Morgan, Associate Editor After a thrilling race in Southern California last weekend, the NASCAR Cup Series will make the trip up Interstate 15 to Las Vegas Motor Speedway this week, with Sunday’s Pennzoil 400 marking the second leg of the West Coast swing. Las Vegas began its life on the NASCAR circuit as a 1.5-mile oval with 12 degrees of banking in 1998, but following the 2006 running of the race, the track underwent a massive reconfiguration that saw progressive banking put in place with the new banking rangingRead More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor For the first time in two years, NASCAR is back at Auto Club Speedway. After missing out on racing in 2021 due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, Sunday’s Wise Power 400 marks the Cup Series return to the two-mile D-shaped oval and the kick-off to NASCAR’s West Coast swing. Built on the site of an old steel mill featured in the movie “Terminator”, the two-mile oval has been a part of the NASCAR schedule since opening in 1997. During its 20+ years on theRead More

By Luis Torres, Staff Writer For the first time since 2004, the NTT IndyCar Series kicks off its season in February. Like in 2004, the championship trail began in Florida, but rather than Homestead-Miami Speedway, it’s at the St. Petersburg street circuit. Entering the first round of a 17-round odyssey, the field is arguably one of the more stronger ones in recent memory. This Sunday, 26 drivers are eager of getting the campaign going with aspirations of delivering a strong result. Some drivers like Will Power and Alexander Rossi aren’t hesitantRead More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – When the green flag flies on Sunday to kick off the 2022 Daytona 500, the NASCAR Cup Series will be venturing into unknown territory. For more than six decades, the sport has been making the pilgrimage to the Daytona high banks to win the sport’s most prestigious race and write themselves into the record book as Daytona 500 champion, but this year it’s a whole new ballgame. With the introduction of the Next Gen car for the 2022 season, drivers and teamsRead More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor Seven drivers enter Martinsville Speedway with a shot at moving on to next week’s NASCAR Cup Series championship race, but only three will leave Sunday’s Xfinity 500 with those title hopes still intact. The Round of 8 in the Cup Series Playoffs all comes down to the half-mile bullring in southern Virginia, where bent sheet metal and hurt feelings are all but inevitable. A mainstay on the schedule since 1949, the historic track, which is also the smallest on the circuit, will test both man andRead More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor The Lone Star State comes calling this weekend when the NASCAR Cup Series rolls into Texas Motor Speedway to kick off the penultimate round of the Playoffs with Sunday’s running of the Autotrader EchoPark Automotive 500 Texas first joined the circuit in 1997, but back in 2017 went through a reconfiguration, dropping the banking in Turns 1 and 2 from 24 degrees to 20 degrees, as well as widening the racing surface from 60 feet to 80 feet. Meanwhile, Turns 3 and 4 remain banked atRead More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor There are numerous adjectives that can be used to describe this weekend’s race on the Charlotte Motor Speedway road course: unpredictable, volatile, treacherous, chaotic, etc. One thing is for sure, Sunday’s Bank of America ROVAL 400 is going to be a hell of a ride, with four drivers getting cut from the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs when the checkered flag waves. In an effort to spice things up back in 2018, Charlotte officials elected to switch from running another race on the 1.5-mile oval to creatingRead More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor The final two races that make up the second round of the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs will be a gauntlet for the drivers still in championship contention with races at Talladega Superspeedway and the Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval set to wreak havoc on the Playoff field. Sunday’s Yellawood 500 at Talladega is the first wild card race that will have to be dealt with, as the unpredictable nature of superspeedway racing will likely throw a wrench into even the best laid plans and leave some ofRead More

By Luis Torres, Staff Writer LONG BEACH, Calif. – After 15 rounds of hard fought racing, the 2021 NTT IndyCar Series championship trail will end this Sunday. Destination? Long Beach – the site of the finale and the sports’ most prestigious street race. A tremendous amount of storylines will be settled. One of the major headlines is indeed who’ll be hoisting the Astor Cup after Sunday’s finale. One man who controls his destiny is championship leader Alex Palou. The Chip Ganassi Racing competitor who entered the sport last year as aRead More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor After running on the dirt at Bristol earlier this year, the NASCAR Cup Series returns to the track we all know and love this weekend for Saturday night’s running of the Bass Pro Shops NRA Night Race and the first elimination race of the Playoffs. Racing at Bristol is always intense, but when the lights go down for the night race, the intensity gets cranked to 11. The aggressiveness that the drivers will show on the high-banked bullring that is called “The Last Great Colosseum” toRead More