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Author: Tucker White

  • Edwards Grabs the Sprint Cup Pole at The Glen

    Edwards Grabs the Sprint Cup Pole at The Glen

    Carl Edwards will lead the field to the green flag for tomorrow’s race at The Glen.

    The driver of the No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota scored the pole for the Cheez-It 355 at The Glen at Watkins Glen International after posting a time of 1:09.689 and a speed of 126.562 mph. It’s his 20th career pole in 431 career Sprint Cup Series starts, fourth of 2016 and second at Watkins Glen International.

    Kyle Larson will start second in his No. 42 Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet after posting a time of 1:09.871 and a speed of 126.233 mph. Tony Stewart will start third in his No. 14 Stewart-Haas Racing Chevrolet after posting a time of 1:09.902 and a speed of 126.177 mph. Matt Kenseth will start fourth in his No. 20 JGR Toyota after posting a time of 1:09.942 and a speed of 126.104 mph. Kyle Busch will round out the top-five in his No. 18 JGR Toyota after posting a time of 1:09.945 and a speed of 126.099 mph.

    Denny Hamlin will start sixth in his No. 11 JGR Toyota. Joey Logano will start seventh in his No. 22 Team Penske Ford. Ryan Newman will start eighth in his No. 31 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet. AJ Allmendinger will start ninth in his No. 47 JTG Daugherty Racing Chevrolet. Jamie McMurray will round out the top-10 in his No. 42 CGR Chevrolet.

    Michael McDowell will start 11th in his No. 95 Circle Sport-Leavine Family Racing Chevrolet. Brad Keselowski will round out the top-10 in his No. 2 Penske Ford.

    Landon Cassill didn’t post a time due to fuel pump issues and will start 40th.

    With 40 cars entered, no one was sent home.

    Twenty-one Chevrolet’s, 11 Ford’s and eight Toyota’s will comprise the 40-car field for tomorrow’s race.

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  • Buescher: ‘It is always big to be able to pull off a win’

    Buescher: ‘It is always big to be able to pull off a win’

    Asked what winning does for his confidence, Chris Buescher said it’s “always big to be able to pull off a win.”

    Speaking before the NASCAR media corp during his media availability, the driver of the No. 34 Front Row Motorsports Ford – coming off his first career Sprint Cup Series victory just four days earlier in the Pennsylvania 400 at Pocono Raceway – talked about what winning the race does for him and his team.

    “I remember on the XFINITY side winning at Mid-Ohio. I am not a road course racer by trade, that isn’t how I grew up, but it brought in a new confidence for every racetrack we went to going forward,” Buescher said. “We still had a lot to learn on the ovals then and we actually didn’t get our first oval win in 2014, we had to wait until the next year. It is just a matter of getting the team jacked up and everybody on the same idea going forward that this is for real, a big moment.”

    He discussed how much more of an impact winning a race in a series with a Chase format has versus winning a race in a series with a season-long points format as he did last season in the XFINITY Series when he won the series title.

    “This win with the Chase being the way it is and the point system different from last year in XFINITY, a win basically turns our whole season around,” he said. “It changes everything. It is no longer one win and you move up a spot or two in points. It is one win and you potentially have a spot in the playoffs of our sport. We are not there yet because we have to get into that top-30 but with that win, it gets everybody excited to get to that point.”

    The victory will clinch a spot in the Chase for Buescher provided he’s 30th or higher in points by the time the checkered flag flies at Richmond on September 10.

    Buscher currently resides 31st in points, six points behind 30th place driver David Ragan. With both having a 27.8 average finish, he will have to finish each of the next five races at least one or two spots better than Ragan to out-point him. Both are evenly matched as they’ve both finished eight times in a position above their season to date finishing average. Ragan, however, has completed more laps than Buescher and had one less DNF.

    “We really shouldn’t have been out of it,” Buescher said. “It has just been some circumstances that have gotten us a little off track and from my standpoint, I was trying to add it up and my stock car racing career starting at 16 when I started racing ARCA, I have had three cars that we have had to throw away or at least front clip. That is a rather small number and we have gone through four this year alone. In that circumstance, we have just had really bad luck on superspeedways this season.”

  • Allmendinger Fastest in Final Cup Practice

    Allmendinger Fastest in Final Cup Practice

    AJ Allmendinger topped the chart in final Sprint Cup Series practice at Watkins Glen International.

    The driver of the No. 47 JTG Daugherty Racing Chevrolet was the fastest in the final practice session with a time of 1:09.149 and a speed of 127.551 mph. Martin Truex Jr. was second in his No. 78 Furniture Row Racing Toyota with a time of 1:09.187 and a speed of 127.481 mph. Ricky Stenhouse Jr. was third in his No. 17 Roush Fenway Racing Ford with a time of 1:09.222 and a speed of 127.416 mph. Kyle Busch was fourth in his No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota with a time of 1:09.241 and a speed of 127.381 mph. Matt Kenseth rounded out the top-five in his No. 20 JGR Toyota with a time of 1:09.296 and a speed of 127.280 mph.

    Brad Keselowski was sixth in his No. 2 Team Penske Ford. Michael McDowell was seventh in his No. 95 Circle Sport-Leavine Family Racing Chevrolet. Chase Elliott was eighth in his No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet. Jeff Gordon was ninth in his No. 88 HMS Chevrolet and Carl Edwards rounded out the top-10 in his No. 19 JGR Toyota.

    Busch posted the fastest 10 consecutive lap average at a speed of 124.854 mph. Hamlin was second at an average speed of 124.353 mph followed by Keselowski was third at an average speed of 124.348 mph.

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  • Truex Fastest at Watkins Glen in First Sprint Cup Practice

    Truex Fastest at Watkins Glen in First Sprint Cup Practice

    Martin Truex Jr. topped the chart in first Sprint Cup Series practice at Watkins Glen International.

    The driver of the No. 78 Furniture Row Racing Toyota was the fastest in the first practice session with a time of 1:09.513 and a speed of 126.883 mph. Denny Hamlin was second in his No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota with a time of 1:09.810 and a speed of 126.343 mph. Casey Mears was third in his No. 13 Germain Racing Chevrolet with a time of 1:10.058 and a speed of 125.896 mph. Carl Edwards was fourth in his No. 19 JGR Toyota with a time of 1:10.193 and a speed of 125.654 mph. Kyle Busch rounded out the top-five in his No. 18 JGR Toyota with a time of 1:10.199 and a speed of 125.643 mph.

    Joey Logano was sixth in his No. 22 Team Penske Ford. Brad Keselowski was seventh in his No. 2 Penske Ford. AJ Allmendinger was eighth in his No. 47 JTG Daugherty Racing Chevrolet. Kurt Busch was ninth in his No. 41 Stewart-Haas Racing Chevrolet. Kyle Larson rounded out the top-10 in his No. 42 Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet.

    Keselowski posted the fastest 10 consecutive lap average at a speed of 124.223 mph. Edwards was second at an average speed of 124.194 mph. Ryan Blaney, whose fastest single lap was 25th fastest, was third at an average speed of 123.401 mph.

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  • Bad Day for Truex at Pocono

    Bad Day for Truex at Pocono

    What started as a strong weekend for Martin Truex Jr. ended in disaster pretty fast.

    After scoring the pole and posting the fastest time in final practice, the driver of the No. 78 Furniture Row Racing Toyota had high hopes going into Pocono Raceway. He started off strong by leading the first 16 laps.

    But when the race restarted on lap 20, his day went downhill. He suffered a right-front tire blowout and slammed the wall in Turn 2.

    “A lug nut bounced off the ground, fell in behind the wheel behind a pit stop,” Truex said. “It’s just bad luck honestly. I knew something wasn’t right in (turn) one and two and I got real tight off of two on that restart and went down the back and was like, ‘Ah, it feels okay.’ And, as I got closer to the tunnel turn I felt it start to go down and by the time I let off and tried to slow down it was just going straight for the fence.”

    This would be a recurring trend for the rest of his day as he cut his left-front and made an unscheduled stop on lap 41 and cut another tire down around lap 100. He retired from the race and finished 38th.

    He leaves Long Pond, Pennsylvania eighth in points trailing Kevin Harvick by 132.

  • Chris Buescher Gambles to Score First Career Win at Pocono

    Chris Buescher Gambles to Score First Career Win at Pocono

    Eight days after earning a career-best finish at the Brickyard, Chris Buescher opted to play the weather card in the closing stages to win Monday’s weather-shortened Sprint Cup race at Pocono Raceway.

    After coming off a career-best 14th place finish at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the driver of the No. 34 Front Row Motorsports Ford stayed out hoping for a late caution. He got his wish and scored the victory in the Pennsylvania 400.

    “That’s pretty awesome,” Buescher said in victory lane. “Wild circumstances here at Pocono. This is gonna change our whole year right here, so this puts us in a good situation where we had a good day. It was a lot of fun. The guys really toughed it out. We got a flat tire, but we’re headed in the right direction now, so that will help in points. We got a win here, so we’ll take it any way we can get it.

    “Yes, we’ve been definitely headed in the right direction,” he added on his team’s performance. “The last six or seven weeks have been really good for us. Kentucky was gonna be excellent for us, but is just didn’t play out. It’s pretty awesome to be here right now. I don’t know what to do right now. We don’t have any of the team here right now. The car is out on pit road. This is a little different way to celebrate.”

    It’s his first career win in 27 Sprint Cup Series starts, first top-10 finish both of the season and at Pocono Raceway. He’s the first non-Penske Ford driver to win a race since Aric Almirola at Daytona in July of 2014, the first reigning NASCAR XFINITY Series champion to win a race in the Sprint Cup Series since Brad Keselowski in 2011, the first ARCA Series champion to win in the Sprint Cup Series since Benny Parsons and the first Sunoco Rookie of the Year contender to win a race since Joey Logano at New Hampshire in 2009.

    He’s also the 80th different driver to win a race for Ford.

    Keselowski led eight laps on his way to a runner-up finish in his No. 2 Team Penske Ford.

    “Probably five more laps and I think we would have been in great shape, but that’s the way it goes,” Keselowski said. “We had really good speed on the green flag pit stop cycle, which got us in a position to take over the lead and hopefully control the race, but there’s nothing you can do about the fog rolling in.

    “It’s been an interesting weekend here in Pocono. It’s been a lot of fun. I’m really proud of everybody on this Alliance Truck Parts Fusion team.”

    He also took time to congratulate the race winner.

    “I just told him (Chris Buescher) that if I couldn’t win it was cool to see him win,” he said in the media center. “I told him, ‘I can only imagine what’s going through your head right now.’ Just those kind of things. I think he was excited, but he’s kind of the humble, quiet, excited type of guy.”

    It’s his 13th top-10 finish of 2016 and seventh in 14 starts at Pocono.

    Regan Smith rounded out the podium in his No. 7 Tommy Baldwin Racing Chevrolet.

    “It’s been a strange weekend really weather wise,” Smith said of the race. “There were times yesterday I thought we were going to get to race and the track had like a pond underneath it apparently. I’m just proud of Tommy (Baldwin) and then the guys on the box for kind of realizing there was opportunity for a strategy play there. We have had a decent run today. We were a lot better than we were last time here.”

    It’s his second top-10 finish in 11 starts at Pocono.

    Kevin Harvick led seven laps on his way to a fourth-place finish in his No. 4 Stewart-Haas Racing Chevrolet.

    “Our Mobil 1 Chevy has been really fast,” Harvick said. “Obviously, we had one caution come out at the wrong time and the fog here at the end; I felt like we were in a pretty good spot running down to (Turn) 2 and here comes the fog. That’s kind of the way that things have gone this year. It seems like when we have a really fast car we just have some weird circumstances, and today would fall right into that category if they called it right now.”

    Tony Stewart rounded out the top-five in his No. 14 SHR Chevrolet.

    “Well, I’m pretty happy with it,” Stewart said. “I’m not sure. I think we can gain a couple of spots, but I’m not sure that we might not go back a couple spots. We might average out at the end. If we end up fifth I’m pretty happy with this today.”

    Kyle Larson led 37 laps on his way to a sixth-place finish in his No. 42 Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet. Denny Hamlin finished seventh in his No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota.

    “My car was pretty fast,” Hamlin said of his Camry. “It’s fast by itself for a few laps and then we lose a little bit of speed, but I think we had a top-three or four car.”

    Carl Edwards finished eighth in his No. 19 JGR Toyota. Kyle Busch led one lap on his way to a ninth-place finish in his No. 18 JGR Toyota. Kurt Busch, who dropped to the rear of the field at the start of the race for unapproved adjustments, rounded out the top-10 in his No. 41 SHR Chevrolet. He set a new NASCAR record of finishing all laps in the first 21 races of the season.

    “It’s nice to be in position to have completed all the laps,” Busch said of the record. “That is done with a lot of team work. It’s not just one person. It starts at the shop with the quality of cars and congratulations to everybody that has helped be part of this sequence. All-in-all we are finishing on the lead lap, we are finishing top 10 every week. We just know that we need to find a little bit more to be competitive once the Chase starts. All-in-all I can’t say thank you enough to everybody on the No. 41 SHR car.”

    Ryan Newman, who led one lap, finished 12th. Austin Dillon, who led three laps, finished 13th. AJ Allmendinger, who led one lap, finished 14th. Greg Biffle, who led 14 laps, finished 25th. Joey Logano, who led a race-high of 38 laps, finished 37th. Martin Truex Jr., who started on the pole and led 16 laps, was caught up in an early accident and eventually retired from the race in 38th.

    Twenty-eight cars finished the race on the lead lap and 37 were running at the finish.

    The race lasted two hours, 42 minutes and 15 seconds at an average speed of 127.581 mph. There were 19 lead changes among 11 different drivers and seven cautions for 31 laps.

    Harvick leaves with a 22-point lead over Keselowski in the drivers points standings. Race winner Buescher leaves trailing the 30th-place Chase cutoff by six points.

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  • Pennsylvania 400 Postponed to Monday

    Pennsylvania 400 Postponed to Monday

    It may seem like déjà vu, but we’re racing at Pocono on a Monday for a second time this season.

    NASCAR has postponed the Pennsylvania 400 to tomorrow at 11 a.m. due to rain showers. The track was about dry and track officials were dealing with weepers (water coming up out of the track surface) when the skies opened up.

    The amount of time it would have taken to dry the track again, forecasts for more rain and an 8 p.m. sunset forced NASCAR to push the start of tomorrow’s Sprint Cup Series race at Pocono Raceway to Monday.

    This is the 39th time a race has been pushed from its original date for rain, the second time a race has been pushed to Monday this season and the first time in NASCAR history that two races at the same track have been postponed by rain in the same season.

    Coverage of the race will resume tomorrow at 10:30 a.m. on NBCSN and at 10:45 on MRN Radio and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. The green flag is scheduled to drop at 11:07.

  • Hamilton puts on clinic at the Hockenheimring

    Hamilton puts on clinic at the Hockenheimring

    While pole sitter Nico Rosberg got a horrible start, teammate Lewis Hamilton got an excellent start and put on a dominating performance as he scored the victory at the Hockenheimring.

    “Well first, let me start with a big thank you to all the fans that have come out today in Germany,” Hamilton said on the podium. “To see so many people here is very sportsman from the people here. I got a lot of flags out here. I just appreciate you all coming here.

    “What a race. What a great start. My engineers did a fantastic job. The balance was amazing and it was just about keeping it cool and looking after the engine. I’m just so happy I could up here for Mercedes-Benz, who I’ve been with since I was 13. So this is a very proud position for me to be in.”

    It’s his 49th career win in Formula 1, sixth of the season, third in the German Grand Prix, second at the Hockenheimring and 96th career podium finish.

    Daniel Ricciardo came home second in his No. 3 Red Bull Racing car.

    “It was a race of strategy at first,” Ricciardo said on the podium. “It was really close on the first corner with myself and Max (Verstappen). He had a good run on the outside. On the super soft’s (tires), I was much more comfortable and we had good pace for the last half of the race. We really capitalized on a good day. We had a good day. Obviously, we couldn’t win, but second and third isn’t too bad.”

    Daniel Ricciardo celebrates his podium finish by chugging champagne from his shoe. Photo: Mark Thompson/Getty Images
    Daniel Ricciardo celebrates his podium finish by chugging champagne from his shoe. Photo: Mark Thompson/Getty Images

    He decided to celebrate his runner-up finish by chugging champagne from his shoe during the podium celebration.

    Max Verstappen rounded out the podium in his No. 33 Red Bull.

    “We had a good start. From there on, I think the pace was pretty good. I was enjoying it. We chose to do two different strategies on the car, so I let Daniel by. From there on, we played really well as a team. To get a double-podium out of it was the main target and to score more points than Ferrari. That’s what we definitely did today.”

    It’s his fourth of the season and third in the last four races. This completed the first double-podium finish for Red Bull since the 2015 Hungarian Grand Prix.

    Rosberg brought his No. 6 Mercedes AMG Petronas car home to a fourth-place finish.

    “The start, yeah, we lost the race at the start definitely,” Rosberg said of his start following the race. “Just massive wheel-spin. I don’t understand it. It’s not something I foresaw.”

    Compounding his lousy start was a five-second time penalty he was handed halfway through the race after running Verstappen off the track limits at the hairpin.

    “Just a great battle and a great move I thought,” Rosberg said of the incident with Verstappen. “I was really happy about it and I didn’t expect a penalty at all. The penalty came through and that was very surprising.”

    He was asked if his move on Verstappen was “too much on the edge” like his run-in with teammate Hamilton in Austria.

    “Well, according to them (race stewards), yes. It was too much on the edge, but I don’t think so.”

    Sebastian Vettel rounded out the top-five in his No. 5 Scuderia Ferrari.

    Kimi Räikkönen finished sixth in his No. 7 Ferrari. Nico Hülkenberg’s No. 27 Sahara Force India Mercedes was the last car to finish on the lead lap in seventh. Jenson Button finished eighth in his No. 22 McLaren Honda. Valtteri Bottas finished ninth in his No. 77 Williams Martini Racing Mercedes. Sergio Pérez rounded out the top-10 in his No. 11 Force India Mercedes.

    The two Haas F1 drivers finished 11th (Esteban Gutiérrez) and 13th (Romain Grosjean).

    Felipe Massa and Felipe Nasr were the only retirements from the race.

    Hamilton leaves Germany with a 19-point lead over Rosberg in the drivers’ championship standings.

    Mercedes leaves with a 159-point lead over Red Bull in the constructors’ championship standings.

    Formula 1 goes on its annual summer holiday during the month of August. For the next two weeks, teams are forbidden from being in the shops and doing any work on the cars.

    “I won’t be going skydiving, but definitely relaxing,” Hamilton said of his plans for the summer holiday. “I’ll have my dogs with me and with family and friends. I think the whole team, everyone back at the factory and everyone here that works so hard this season, they all need a break. We all need a break. So I think I think it’s really well earned.”

    F1 returns to action on August 28th for the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps.

  • Truex Fastest in Final Practice at Pocono

    Truex Fastest in Final Practice at Pocono

    Martin Truex Jr. topped the chart in final Sprint Cup Series practice at Pocono Raceway.

    The driver of the No. 78 Furniture Row Racing Toyota was the fastest in the final practice session with a time of 51.027 and a speed of 176.377 mph. Brad Keselowski was second in his No. 2 Team Penske Ford with a time of 51.097 and a speed of 176.136 mph. Kevin Harvick was third in his No. 4 Stewart-Haas Racing Chevrolet with a time of 51.133 and a speed of 176.012 mph. Kurt Busch was fourth in his No. 41 SHR Chevrolet with a time of 51.159 and a speed of 175.922 mph. Chase Elliott rounded out the top-five in his No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet with a time of 51.176 and a speed of 175.864 mph.

    Kyle Busch was sixth in his No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota. Kyle Larson was seventh in his No. 42 Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet. Paul Menard was eighth in his No. 27 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet. Carl Edwards was ninth in his No. 19 JGR Toyota. Jimmie Johnson rounded out the top-10 in his No. 48 HMS Chevrolet.

    Truex posted the fastest 10 consecutive lap average at a speed of 174.625 mph. Austin Dillon, who’s fastest single lap was 11th fastest, was second at an average speed of 174.442 mph.

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  • Almirola says he’s a proponent of a pit speed limiter for the cars

    Almirola says he’s a proponent of a pit speed limiter for the cars

    Aric Almirola says he’s in favor of a mechanism that forces cars to run no faster than pit road speed on pit road.

    During his media availability at Pocono Raceway earlier today, the driver of the No. 43 Richard Petty Motorsports Ford elaborated on how he’d like to see NASCAR implement a device on cars that forces the cars to run just pit road speed on pit road.

    “I’ve long been a proponent for some sort of mechanism that we can have in the car that just causes us to go pit road speed,” he said. “If they’re that worried about us getting an advantage between timing lines and things like that, why don’t they just make us all go pit road speed like every other form of racing has. I think it would be safer. I think it would give us the opportunity to actually look out of our windshields because, like I said, every driver coming down pit road – that’s why you see it a lot, if somebody checks up to get in their pit box you, you see cars stack up on pit road.”

    This discussion came about after NASCAR implemented more timing zones on pit road to prevent teams from accelerating into their pit stalls to take advantage of the time over distance formula used to calculate pit speed and to prevent cars from illegally passing one another on pit road. The extra timing zones were first used during last week’s XFINITY Series race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. There were 12 zones, roughly one for every 3.5 stalls, used during the race.

    For this weekend’s race at Pocono, 18 zones – up from 10 in June – will be utilized, nearly one for every two stalls. Almirola was also asked what effect the zones will have on the race tomorrow.

    “It forces us to be a lot more mindful of our tach,” he added. “You have to realize and something I think a lot of people don’t understand and don’t realize is that our dash is mounted low in the race cars, so when we’re going down pit road we have to look down at our dash to make sure that we’re keeping our pit road speed at an optimal speed. We want to go fast enough to make time on pit road. You don’t want to go too slow because then you give up time to your competitors, and if you go just 100 RPM too fast you’re speeding and then you get a penalty.”

    He addressed how drivers are now focusing more on the dash and less on what’s ahead.

    “So we’re really focused and concentrating on looking down at our dash and not really looking up at all until our spotters and crew chiefs tell us we’re five away or 10 away, and then you kind of look up but at the same time make sure you’re maintaining a pit road speed,” he said.

    “Before, with the timing lines being so far apart, you kind of had some leeway to where if you are supposed to be running one red light and you happen to flash two or three red lights, which would be speeding, you had an opportunity to kind of slow back down and slow back down to a few green lights and get the time between those segments back to where you wouldn’t be speeding. Now, with the timing lines closer together, if you just get a little bit greedy or you look up to see where your pit stall is at and you creep up your rpms a little bit, you’re gonna get a speeding penalty.”