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Author: Tucker White

  • Erik Jones takes the XFINITY pole at Charlotte

    Erik Jones takes the XFINITY pole at Charlotte

    CONCORD, N.C. — Erik Jones will lead the field to the green flag for this afternoon’s XFINITY Series race in the Queen City.

    The driver of the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota scored the pole for the Hisense 300 at Charlotte Motor Speedway with a time of 29.261 and a speed of 184.546 mph. It’s his seventh career pole in the series and fourth of the 2016 season.

    Teammate Daniel Suárez will start second in his No. 19 JGR Toyota after posting a time of 29.273 and a speed of 184.470 mph. Denny Hamlin will start third in his No. 18 JGR Toyota after posting a time of 29.473 and a speed of 183.219 mph. Austin Dillon will start fourth in his No. 2 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet after posting a time of 29.567 and a speed of 182.636 mph. Kyle Larson will round out the top-five in his No. 42 Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet after posting a time of 29.597 and a speed of 182.451 mph.

    Elliott Sadler will start sixth in his No. 1 JR Motorsports Chevrolet. Joey Logano will start seventh in his No. 22 Team Penske Ford. Justin Allgaier will start eighth in his No. 7 JRM Chevrolet. Darrell Wallace Jr. will start ninth in his No. 6 Roush Fenway Racing Ford. Ty Dillon will round out the top-10 in his No. 3 RCR Chevrolet.

    Cole Custer will start 11th in his No. 88 JRM Chevrolet. Brandon Jones will round out the 12 drivers that made the final round of qualifying.

    TJ Bell and Morgan Shepherd were the two drivers that failed to make the race.

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  • Ty Dillon Fastest in Final XFINITY Practice at Charlotte

    Ty Dillon Fastest in Final XFINITY Practice at Charlotte

    CONCORD, N.C. — In case you missed it, Ty Dillon topped the chart in final XFINITY Series practice at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

    The driver of the No. 3 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet was the fastest in the final practice session with a time of 29.778 and a speed of 181.342 mph. Daniel Suárez was second in his No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota with a time of 29.825 and a speed of 181.056 mph. Erik Jones was third in his No. 20 JGR Toyota with a time of 29.937 and a speed of 180.379 mph. Austin Dillon was fourth in his No. 2 RCR Chevrolet with a time of 29.965 and a speed of 180.210 mph. Brennan Poole rounded out the top-five in his No. 48 Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet with a time of 30.007 and a speed of 179.958 mph.

    Brendan Jones was sixth in his No. 33 RCR Chevrolet. Denny Hamlin was seventh in his No. 18 JGR Toyota. Elliott Sadler was eighth in his No. 1 JR Motorsports Chevrolet. Jeb Burton was ninth in his No. 43 Richard Petty Motorsports Ford. Kyle Larson rounded out the top-10 in his No. 42 CGR Chevrolet.

    Suárez posted the fastest 10 consecutive lap average at a speed of 178.085 mph. Hamlin was second at an average speed of 177.253 mph. Austin Dillon was third at an average speed of 176.652 mph.

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  • Erik Jones Fastest in First XFINITY Practice at Charlotte

    Erik Jones Fastest in First XFINITY Practice at Charlotte

    CONCORD, N.C. — In case you missed it, Erik Jones topped the chart in first XFINITY Series practice at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

    The driver of the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota was the fastest in the first practice session with a time of 29.808 and a speed of 181.159 mph. Denny Hamlin was second in his No. 18 JGR Toyota with a time of 29.903 and a speed of 180.584 mph. Ryan Blaney was third in his No. 12 Team Penske Ford with a time of 30.021 and a speed of 179.874 mph. Daniel Suárez was fourth in his No. 19 JGR Toyota with a time of 30.029 and a speed of 179.826 mph. Ty Dillon rounded out the top-five in his No. 3 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet with a time of 30.089 and a speed of 179.468 mph.

    Austin Dillon was sixth in his No. 2 RCR Chevrolet. Cole Custer was seventh in his No. 88 JR Motorsports Chevrolet. Kyle Larson was eighth in his No. 42 Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet. Brennan Poole was ninth in his No. 48 CGR Chevrolet. Brandon Jones rounded out the top-10 in his No. 33 RCR Chevrolet.

    Suárez posted the fastest 10 consecutive lap average at a speed of 175.708 mph. Austin Dillon was second at an average speed of 173.709 mph. Ryan Reed, who posted the 20th fastest single-lap time in his No. 16 Roush Fenway Racing Ford, was third at an average speed of 172.642 mph.

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  • Edwards: ‘I’m so excited about the things that are coming at Kentucky and Michigan’

    Edwards: ‘I’m so excited about the things that are coming at Kentucky and Michigan’

    CONCORD, N.C. — Asked about his thoughts on the changes to the aero package being tested in the coming weeks, Carl Edwards said he’s “excited about the things that are coming at Kentucky and Michigan.”

    Speaking in the media center during his weekly media availability, the driver of the No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota gave some thoughts on the direction toward lower downforce and the quality of the racing this season.

    “It’s all right there, the proof is there, all year we’ve had awesome racing and we have close finishes,” Edwards said in response to being asked about how excited he is about the changes to the aero package. “I mean, yeah things didn’t go exactly as planned at the All-Star event, but that was a new format and a lot of unforeseen things happened, but the racing on the track was good and it’s been good all year. I already sent Steve O’Donnell (NASCAR executive vice-president and chief racing development officer) a thank you text. I’m so excited about the things that are coming at Kentucky and Michigan. NASCAR is doing that it takes, the teams are doing what it takes to go out and figure out how to make this the best racing it can be. This is going to be a blast. These cars, I’m telling you, when you drive them sideways at 200 mph and you’re closing on people and you’re able to pressure them and race like that, that’s as good as it gets. I’m very excited about Michigan and Kentucky, it’s like Christmas for me.”

    During last week’s All-Star Race, NASCAR tested smaller changes to the aero package such as welding the truck arm mounts, which had been in place since Kansas, reducing the number of brake fans the cars can use and not allowing teams to skew the rear-end of the car. The end result was racing that fans, drivers and media said was “excellent.”

    After the race, Senior Vice-President of Competition Scott Miller said that the truck arm welding and brake fan reduction will remain in place for the remainder of the season, but that the rear-end skew rule won’t be implemented for the rest of the season.

    Friday, NASCAR announced that further reductions to downforce will be tested in the upcoming FireKeepers Casino 400 at Michigan International Speedway and the Quaker State 400 at Kentucky Speedway. The changes include a reduction of the spoiler from 3.5 to 2.5 inches, a two-inch reduction in the size of the splitter and resizing the deck fin.

    When asked how surprised at how far NASCAR has come in a short span of time in regards to the changes in downforce, he said he’s “really happy with the way things are going, but I think its NASCAR’s job to run this sport the best that they can and they’ve done a really good job over the last 50 or 60 years. They’ve made this into what it is so a healthy dose of skepticism when a bunch of drivers come and tell you what they want probably serves them well. Right now, literally, I can go to anyone at NASCAR – Mike Helton or Brian (France) or Steve O’Donnell whether it’s through the council, I can go talk to them and there’s a lot of communication back and forth. It doesn’t mean we don’t get just as many penalties or black flags or whatever, the competition is still the competition, but it’s pretty neat right now that everyone wants to make the racing the absolute best it can be and people are listening. That’s all you can hope for.”

    He was also asked if there were any negatives to the package.

    “There are absolutely no negatives,” Edwards said. “This sport, to me, and I can speak as a fan – until I got that call from Jack Roush, this was just something I dreamed of doing and watched on television and the things that I grew up watching drivers do with these race cars. Like that picture with cars sideways and hanging it out, stock car racing, NASCAR racing is built on that. I can’t applaud NASCAR enough for going that direction. I don’t see any negatives. I think we’re just going to have better and better racing.”

  • Martin Truex Jr. Claims the Sprint Cup Pole at Charlotte

    Martin Truex Jr. Claims the Sprint Cup Pole at Charlotte

  • Kurt Busch Fastest in First Practice at Charlotte

    Kurt Busch Fastest in First Practice at Charlotte

    CONCORD, N.C. — Kurt Busch topped the chart in the first Sprint Cup Series practice at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

    The driver of the No. 41 Stewart-Haas Racing Chevrolet was the fastest in the first practice session with a time of 28.002 and a speed of 192.843 mph followed by Jimmie Johnson who was second in his No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet with a time of 28.235 and a speed of 191.252 mph. Carl Edwards was third fastest in his No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota with a time of 28.266 and a speed of 191.042 mph. Kevin Harvick was fourth in his No. 4 SHR Chevrolet with a time of 28.306 and a speed of 190.772 mph while Kyle Larson rounded out the top-five in his No. 42 Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet with a time of 28.310 and a speed of 190.745 mph.

    Joey Logano was sixth quickest in his No. 22 Team Penske Ford. Martin Truex Jr. was seventh in his No. 78 Furniture Row Racing Toyota. Ricky Stenhouse Jr. was eighth in his No. 17 Roush Fenway Racing Ford. Jamie McMurray was ninth in his No. 1 CGR Chevrolet and Kyle Busch rounded out the top-10 in his No. 18 JGR Toyota.

    Kyle Busch also posted the fastest 10 consecutive lap average at a speed of 185.465 mph.

    The next time the Sprint Cup cars are on track will be tonight at 7:15 p.m. ET for three rounds of qualifying.

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  • Changes Coming to Aero Package for Michigan and Kentucky

    Changes Coming to Aero Package for Michigan and Kentucky

    CONCORD, N.C. — NASCAR will test changes for the 2017 aero package in two races this season in their continuing effort to remove downforce from the cars and improve competition.

    NASCAR announced Thursday that modifications to the aerodynamic package will be implemented for the FireKeepers Casino 400 at Michigan International Speedway and the Quaker State 400 at Kentucky Speedway. These are designed to further reduce the amount of downforce the cars generate and lead to more improvement in the on-track product across the board in the Sprint Cup Series.

    “I think we look at it as a never-ending journey; if we can improve we’re going to do that,” Steve O’Donnell, executive vice president and chief racing development officer, said of continuing to make adjustments. “We wanted to go the direction of low downforce, see how that worked, not kind of go all the way in and hope that we are directionally right. And we are seeing that play out. We’ve seen some great racing at the beginning of the year.

    “But we also knew that we had some more levers that we could pull if the direction kind of proved out, so we’ve tried some of those things. We’ve tested it and what we’ve also wanted to do is lower some of the corner speeds to allow for even more passing. That was one of the areas where we’ve seen minimal change, but there are some levers we can pull to really drive that down.”

    The changes include reducing the spoiler size from 3.5 to 2.5 inches, a two-inch reduction of the splitter and resizing the deck fin.

    These are in addition to the changes already implemented in the past few weeks such as welding the truck arm mounts and reducing the number of brake fans the cars can run.

    “We have worked collectively on some directions we want to go in, but to do that right we think the final step is to let that play out on one or two tracks,” O’Donnell said. “And these are the two — Kentucky and Michigan — that we’ve played out and let the teams concentrate really on what they’ve done to prepare for the year. We think that’s manageable and that’ll give us enough data to look at for 2017.”

    This follows a trend NASCAR started last year where they tested the lower-downforce package currently being used at Kentucky and Darlington Raceway. Both races received rave reviews from drivers, media and fans.

  • Logano: ‘I thought the racing was significantly better than last year’

    Logano: ‘I thought the racing was significantly better than last year’

    CONCORD, N.C. — Giving his thoughts on the impact of the changes to the aero package, Joey Logano said “the racing was significantly better than last year.”

    In his post-race media availability, the driver of the No. 22 Team Penske Ford was asked what impact the changes to the aero package had on his car and the race.

    “I thought the racing was significantly better than last year,” Logano said. “As a racer out there, I remember this race last year and I’d get trapped because all you can do is run the bottom. That was last year. On the bottom, on the bottom and it’s really hard to pass someone because you can’t get clean air. It was a lot of fun as a drivertonight to be able to move up the race track and find speed. That’s something here at Charlotte at night that is very rare. You don’t see that at night here at Charlotte very often, so I think taking the downforce off these cars, being able to move to the right side of a car and be able to continue forward progress was really nice. It was really fun to be a part of that.”

    In the past, the driver leading the race in the final segment would just drive off and the dirty air made it next to impossible to pass him. Not only was Logano able to run down Kyle Larson in the final segment, he was able to pass him as well.

    “I think it promoted a lot of side-by-side racing, a lot of passing. It took six or seven laps for the second lane to come in after the tires would wear a little bit, but the tires would definitely wear out, that’s for sure. There was definitely a lot of fall-off it felt like from inside the car and that’s what we want to see. That’s the reason for doing all this is to promote better racing, promote more tire fall-off. We saw that tonight. We saw a lot of side-by-side racing, saw a lot of fall-off. There was so much strategy that a lot of us didn’t know what was going on because there was so much strategy going on in this race, but that’s what it promoted. It promoted a lot of hard racing and I thought it was great.”

    Todd Gordon, Logano’s crew chief, was also asked about what impact he saw on the race.

    “I don’t know that I would say significant,” Gordon said. “I mean, Joey can answer from how they drive, but from a setup standpoint I thought it was something we could adapt to in 10 minutes or the 20 minutes of practice that we had. I think we’re all fairly smart to what’s going on. It was kind of an even loss for aerodynamic forces, so you didn’t have to make a huge balance shift in the car for it. It was something I think if guys had decent packages they at least had a foundation to build off of. I can’t speak for how they drive.”

    Logano was also asked about his thoughts on the format.

    “There was a point I came over the radio and said, ‘I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t really want to know what’s going on. Let me drive the car and you call the race’ because I was confused,” he said. “All I know is if there’s a car in front of me, we should pass them. That’s kind of where my head was. It doesn’t have to be as complicated as you think it is. It’s complicated for this man (Todd), but not so much for me.  Sometimes the simple life is a little easier inside your race car. I had my hands full with enough things, so I was able to focus in on my job and Todd was able to focus in on his job. The whole falling back and trying to position yourself to the front didn’t really play because there were only two or three cars – I think a lot of cars got trapped on pit stops when the caution came out and they got trapped down a lap. It didn’t really play out like a lot of us thought it would when there are only three cars on old tires in front of you, so we got through them in the first corner and then it was like, ‘Alright.’ It was Larson and I for this thing. I felt confident that we had a very good shot at racing for the win when we were restarting there at the end.”

  • Joey Logano Earns a $1Million in Charlotte

    Joey Logano Earns a $1Million in Charlotte

    CONCORD, N.C. — Joey Logano will return home tonight a $1 million richer after winning in the Queen City.

    The driver of the No. 22 Team Penske Ford out-dueled Kyle Larson in the final 13 laps to win the Sprint All-Star Race at Charlotte Motor Speedway. Teammate Brad Keselowski finished second in his No. 2 Penske Ford while Dale Earnhardt Jr. rounded out the podium in his No. 88 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet.

    “Awesome race. I thought it went great. What a great car,” Logano said post-race. “It says a lot about our race team to unload today with a completely new package, have 10 minutes of practice and unload and say, ‘The car is pretty good. I don’t have much to say. We really made only one change on our car. That was about the only amount of time we had in practice was to make one change. It was the same for everybody, but, overall, I felt like our car was competitive.”

    He also spoke about the final laps and battling with Larson for the lead.

    “I knew we were gonna race really hard. It’s for a million bucks,” he said, “and I was able to, around lap six, move up the race track and find some speed. Obviously, Kyle saw that and he moved up and then I knew I was gonna have to make the bottom work somehow. Once I had position on him going into the corner I had to make sure I kept him on the quarter panel and not to the door. I knew he was gonna drive in to try and suck me around from the outside, and I knew I had to drive in to make sure he didn’t do that, and it was just good, hard racing there at the end. It was a lot of fun. He’s a heck of a racer. He’s gonna win a lot of races, that’s for sure, and it’s fun to race against him and it’s fun to see the youth in this sport. For me, starting eight years ago now, to see guys that are close to my age now and I get to race them for wins is a lot of fun.”

    Runner-up Keselowski described his finish as, “a decent night, but not the great night we wanted with the Miller Lite Ford ending up second. I’m pretty happy for my teammate Joey Logano. He kind of did exactly what you would expect out of an All-Star Race format and made a pretty incredible pass to win the race. I’m happy for Team Penske as a whole, but, of course, I wish it was me in victory lane.”

    Third-place finisher, Earnhardt, used the race as an opportunity to learn.

    “Yeah, we tried to come here and learn as much as we could to get better as a team,” he said. “Ninety percent of the setup in this car we hadn’t run this year. This is the race to try those things. Heck, we kind of came close. We didn’t have the speed those guys did on that last run. Right before that at the end of the second segment, I really loved our car. We’ll see how it works next weekend when we actually get to practice, try some things and change some things. We’ve learned a lot We’re still not as good as the 22 and the 2 at the end of this race but it’s better a run than we’ve had in the last several weeks.”

    Carl Edwards finished fourth in his No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota and will be featured on the cover of “NASCAR Heat Evolution” this September for being the highest finishing Toyota driver.

    “I put my guys in a box by missing pit road,” Edwards said. “I tried to come to pit road with the 2 (Brad Keselowski) and the 42 (Kyle Larson) and it just didn’t look right to me so I thought, I’m going to go by and then I put us in that box where my pit crew had to do a really fast pit stop and one lug nut just wasn’t pulled all the way up. Then as it stood we got back up to the fourth position and if we would have had a caution there at the end, I think we had a shot at it. We were the top-finishing Toyota and I had forgotten about the video game cover so the top-finishing Toyota gets the cover of NASCAR Heat Evolution, which is pretty cool. We got something out of the night and really I had fun on those restarts. That was wild. I don’t know what it looked like on television.”

    Kurt Busch rounded out the top-five in his No. 41 Stewart-Haas Racing Chevrolet.

    Chase Elliott finished sixth in his No. 24 HMS Chevrolet.

    “I was just very, very confused, I felt like, for the majority of the race,” Elliott said of his thoughts on the race. “We had a really good car until we got our damage there. We were trying to play the pit road game. You want to spend the least amount of time you can on pit road and that’s what everybody was doing. I was planning on pitting on that first lap after we got back going and it was just chaotic and if it was my fault and I didn’t do a good enough job getting out of the way, I’ll take the blame. I was just trying to get on pit road.”

    Trevor Bayne finished seventh in his No. 6 Roush Fenway Racing Ford and Greg Biffle finished eighth in his No. 16 RFR Ford. Denny Hamlin finished ninth in his No. 11 JGR Toyota while Kyle Busch rounded out the top-10 in his No. 18 JGR Toyota.

    Larson was understandingly disappointed after competing for the win, only to settle for a 16th place finish.

    “I hate that I keep letting my team down,” Larson said. “You know, they did everything right. They worked their tails off after I got all that damage in the Showdown and we had a really, really good Target Chevy and I was able to get to the front pretty quick there.

    “I was getting looser throughout the race. We were making adjustments  but I guess we just weren’t making big enough ones,  and just got loose and Joey caught me. He did a really good job side drafting me and tried to hang on to his quarter (panel) there  and I just got really loose as soon as I got down in the corner. We were going so fast I couldn’t correct it and drilled the wall. Really disappointed but congrats to Logano and their team.  I’m having fun, just, this will be hard to get over.”

    The race lasted one hour, 43 minutes and 40 seconds at an average speed of 98.103 mph. There were 13 lead changes among seven different drivers and four cautions for 18 laps.

  • Matt Crafton Has Winning Lottery Ticket in Charlotte

    Matt Crafton Has Winning Lottery Ticket in Charlotte

    CONCORD, N.C. — Being a day late didn’t stop Matt Crafton from finding the winning lottery ticket as he drove to victory in the Queen City.

    The driver of the No. 88 ThorSport Racing Toyota led 47 laps and outraced the caution clock in the closing stages to win the North Carolina Education Lottery 200. It’s his 13th career win, his second of the season, second at Charlotte Motor Speedway and the first time he’s won back to back races in his career.

    Kyle Busch led 27 laps on his way to a runner-up finish in his No. 18 Kyle Busch Motorsports Toyota. Johnny Sauter led one lap on his way to rounding out the podium in his No. 23 GMS Racing Chevrolet. Tyler Reddick finished fourth in his No. 29 Brad Keselowski Racing Ford and Matt Tifft rounded out the top-five in his No. 11 KBM Toyota.

    Spencer Gallagher finished sixth in his No. 23 GMSR Chevrolet. Timothy Peters led 11 laps on his way to a seventh-place finish in his No. 17 Red Horse Racing Toyota as Christopher Bell finished eighth in his No. 4 KBM Toyota. Daniel Hemric led 15 laps on his way to a ninth-place finish in his No. 19 BKR Ford followed by William Byron who led 25 laps on his way to rounding out the top-10 in his No. 9 KBM Toyota.

    The race lasted one hour, 25 minutes and one second at an average speed of 141.855 mph. There were 14 lead changes among nine drivers and three cautions for 14 laps.

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