Testing SpeedwayMedia.com

Category: NASCAR Cup News

NASCAR Cup Series News

  • Christopher Bell claims Busch Light Pole at Michigan

    Christopher Bell claims Busch Light Pole at Michigan

    Christopher Bell captured the NASCAR Cup Series Busch Light Pole Award at Michigan International Speedway during the final round of qualifying Saturday afternoon, earning the top spot for Sunday’s FireKeepers Casino 400.

    His lap time of 37.232 seconds at 193.382 mph in the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota earned Bell his second pole of the season and his sixth career pole. Bell is looking forward to the upcoming race and is hoping to capitalize on his front-row start.

    “I feel excellent about what I have for sure,” he said after qualifying. “It has been a pretty smooth Saturday. In practice, it was very good off the truck and fast and balanced. That is what it is all about at Michigan – having the car comfortable and balanced so you can drive as hard as you need to; to create speed as you need to here in Michigan.”

    Trackhouse Racing’s Ross Chastain will join Bell on the front row after a qualifying lap of 193.242 mph in his No. 1 Chevrolet. Ty Gibbs (193.024 mph) will start third followed by Chris Buescher (192.921 mph) in fourth.

    Martin Truex Jr., who recently announced a one-year extension through 2024 with Joe Gibbs Racing, qualified with a 192.658 mph lap to round out the top five.    

    Joey Logano, William Byron, Kyle Busch, Ryan Blaney and Chase Elliott completed the top 10 fastest drivers in qualifying.

    Josh Berry, filling in for the suspended Noah Gragson, qualified 35th in the Legacy Motor Club No. 42 Chevrolet entry.

    The NASCAR Cup Series FireKeepers Casino 400 is set for Sunday at 2:30 p.m. ET on USA with radio coverage provided by MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.

    Starting Lineup:

  • William Byron wins Cup Series pole, Kyle Larson second, for all-Hendrick front row at Kansas

    William Byron wins Cup Series pole, Kyle Larson second, for all-Hendrick front row at Kansas

    William Byron topped qualifying at Kansas Speedway with a 179.206 mph lap in the No. 24 Chevrolet to claim his second pole of the season and his 10th career NASCAR Cup Series pole. The Hendrick Motorsports driver will be joined on the front row by teammate, Kyle Larson, who came up a little short with a 179.17 mph lap.

    “Yeah, it feels great,” Byron said. “It feels really good to get a pole. Kansas (Speedway) is where I got my first truck win and that was really exciting, and I’ve never won here again (laughs). Hopefully, tomorrow can be a little bit better.

    “We’ve been kind of inching up on it in the Cup Series at this race track. We had good runs here last year – leading the race in the spring and got a flat tire, and then finished I think sixth in the fall race. So we’ve been pretty good here, it’s just a matter of putting it all together and hopefully, tomorrow is the day.”

    Larson was disappointed that he could not find enough speed to claim the pole but said, “Cool to be there on the front row with William. Wish I could have went just a little bit better. I need to look at the data to see where I gave up a little bit of time to him. Overall, I felt good about my lap and happy to be on the front row.”

    He also indicated that there was still work to be done on the Hendrick cars before the race.

    “Stil feel like we got to work on our cars quite a bit for race trim. I thought the Toyotas were much better.”

    Chevrolet and Toyota each claimed four of the top 10 starting positions with Ford earning two.

    Trackhouse Racing’s Ross Chastain was third fastest in his No. 1 Chevrolet with Toyota drivers Martin Truex Jr. and Tyler Reddick completing the top-five. Joey Logano (Ford), Ty Gibbs (Toyota), Denny Hamlin (Toyota), Daniel Suárez (Chevrolet) and Ryan Blaney (Ford) rounded out the top 10.

    The AdventHealth 400 at Kansas Speedway is set for Sunday at 3 p.m. ET and will be televised on FS1 with radio coverage provided by MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.

    Starting Lineup:

  • Cup race postponed to Monday

    Cup race postponed to Monday

    If you have a personal day, use it.

    NASCAR postponed the Wurth 400 at Dover Motor Speedway to Monday, due to unyielding rain. The Cup Series’ annual trek to the Monster Mile will start at noon, ET. FOX Sports 1 will carry the TV broadcast and PRN/SiriusXM will carry the radio broadcast.

    After rain washed out practice and qualifying, Saturday, NASCAR used its competitive metric to set the field. As a result of his win at Talladega Superspeedway, Kyle Busch will lead the field to green.

    This is the second year in a row rain pushed a Cup Series race at Dover to Monday.

  • Ryan Preece sprints to first career Cup Series pole at Martinsville

    Ryan Preece sprints to first career Cup Series pole at Martinsville

    Ryan Preece won his first NASCAR Cup Series Busch Pole Award in 124 starts Saturday afternoon at Martinsville Speedway with an impressive lap of 19.979 seconds at 94.780 mph in his Stewart-Haas Racing No. 41 Ford.

    He was the only driver to post a speed under 20 seconds during the qualifying session.

    “I was fighting loose that first lap,” Preece said, “It’s a pole. Not a race. So I guess from a company standpoint, it makes us all very optimistic for tomorrow, and [we] can just be smart and we can have good days. It certainly shows that our short track program is really good, and I know our superspeedway program has been extremely good too, and we’ll keep working on that.”

    Trackhouse Racing’s Daniel Suárez was second fastest with a lap of 94.298 mph and will join Preece on the front row to lead the field to green Sunday afternoon.  

    Stewart-Haas Racing brought the speed with all four drivers starting in the top 10. Aric Almirola and Chase Briscoe will start third and fourth while Kevin Harvick starts in seventh.

    Joe Gibbs Racing’s Martin Truex Jr. qualified fifth to round out the top five.

    It was a disappointing day for Hendrick Motorsports. While William Byron qualified in eighth, Kyle Larson will start 19th and Alex Bowman will begin the race in 23rd.

    Chase Elliott, in his return to competition after missing six weeks due to a snowboarding incident, will also have work to do, after qualifying 24th.

    “I actually feel pretty good,” he said. “I had a dismal qualifying lap, but I can’t blame my leg on that one. I had a pretty good first lap and then I really messed up the exit of [turn] two there ]on the second lap. Judging off of practice, starting in the back is going to be a lot of fun, so looking forward to that in the No. 9 NAPA Chevy. We’ll try to go forward there tomorrow.”

    “Yeah, I felt fine in the car,” he continued. “Like I said, the entire practice run, I felt fine. Once you kind of get out there on the track and you start focusing on the little things that you need to be doing to hit your marks, I feel like some of that goes away, so that’s a good thing. Again, my qualifying lap wasn’t because of that, it was just a poor effort.” 

    The Cup Series NOCO 400 is scheduled for Sunday afternoon at 3 p.m. ET and will be televised on FS1 with radio coverage provided by MSN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.

    Starting Lineup:

  • NASCAR suspends Cody Ware, indefinitely, after arrest

    NASCAR suspends Cody Ware, indefinitely, after arrest

    NASCAR suspended Cody Ware, indefinitely, Monday, following his arrest on felony assault charges.

    Ware was arrested, Monday, in Iredell County, North Carolina, on charges of “assault by strangulation — inflict serious injury” and “assault on female.” Furthermore, he’s being held on a $3000 bond. At press time, no details were released on the incident(s) that led to his arrest, or if he posted bond.

    Ware sat out Sunday’s Cup Series race at Bristol Motor Speedway. Rick Ware Racing said, Saturday, he would miss the race, because he was “focusing on a personal matter.”

  • Joey Logano tops leaderboard to win Cup Series pole at Atlanta Motor Speedway

    Joey Logano tops leaderboard to win Cup Series pole at Atlanta Motor Speedway

    Team Penske driver, Joey Logano, was fastest in qualifying Saturday at Atlanta Motor Speedway and won the Busch Light Pole Award with a 177.374 mph lap in his No. 22 Ford. It is Logano’s second pole this season, his second at Atlanta and his 28th career pole.

    He described the importance of his qualifying run and the nostalgia it evoked.

    “I probably put a little bit more weight on the team on this one, but, either way, it’s still cool to get a pole. I’ve never been on the front row of a superspeedway, forget a pole, and I don’t think I’ve ever done it in Xfinity or anything, so this is kind of cool, and doing it here in Atlanta is special for me.

    “There are so many memories here. I lived up in one of those condos for five years and raced Legends cars out here for six years and just the memories of walking into Victory Lane a minute ago to get the Pole Award and thinking about driving my Legend’s car in there with my dad and how cool that was and always dreaming about being on the big track when I was running the quarter-mile all the time and how neat it is just to be on the big track. I guess I try to keep those thoughts up front in my mind.”

    Ford dominated during qualifying to secure the top eight spots. Team Penske drivers Austin Cindric and Ryan Blaney qualified second and third, respectively, with Brad Keselowski, Aric Almirola, Kevin Harvick, Chris Buescher and Chase Briscoe rounding out the top eight.

    “Congrats to everyone at Ford Performance and the Roush Yates Engine shop, everybody including Team Penske bringing lot of speed.,” Cindric said after qualifying. “I’m proud of that. Hopefully, it translates for tomorrow. I think this is as much of a handling race as it is anything else. You’ve got to have speed to keep the lead, so we’ll see what we have tomorrow to be able to race through the field, but obviously, we have the speed to stay up front.”

    Kyle Larson will start ninth in the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet and Joe Gibbs Racing’s Christopher Bell will start the race 10th in his No. 20 Toyota.

    Sunday’s Cup Series Ambetter Health 400 is scheduled for 3 p.m. ET  on FOX with radio coverage by PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.

    Starting Lineup:

  • NASCAR issues major penalties report from Phoenix Cup weekend

    NASCAR issues major penalties report from Phoenix Cup weekend

    NASCAR released its penalty report that nails two organizations and a veteran competitor with major penalties following this past weekend’s Cup Series event at Phoenix Raceway.

    For the penalties involving two organizations, Hendrick Motorsports and Kaulig Racing were sanctioned L2-level penalties for unapproved modifications pertaining to violating Sections 14.5.4.2.A, which highlights the assembly of radiator duct, from the NASCAR Rule Book. The issue first occurred as NASCAR confiscated the hood louvers from all four Hendrick cars (No. 5 driven by Kyle Larson, No. 9 driven by Josh Berry, No. 24 driven by William Byron and No. 48 driven by Alex Bowman) and one Kaulig entry (No. 31 driven by Justin Haley) at the conclusion of last Friday’s practice session at Phoenix and prior to Sunday’s main event.

    As a result, all five entries between Hendrick and Kaulig were assessed a 100-point dock towards the driver’s and owner’s standings along with the loss of 10 Playoff points. In addition, each crew chief from each entry (Cliff Daniels, Alan Gustafson, Rudy Fugle, Blake Harris and Trent Owens) were fined $100,000 and issued a four-race suspension.

    The penalties for the Hendrick organization come after William Byron piloted the No. 24 entry to his second consecutive Cup victory of this season at Phoenix. Amid the penalties, Byron along with teammates Kyle Larson and Alex Bowman, who initially assumed the lead in the regular-season points standings, have dropped to being outside of the top 20 in the standings. As a result, Kevin Harvick assumes the lead in the regular-season standings by three points over Ross Chastain and 14 over Christopher Bell.

    In terms of the penalty involving the veteran competitor, Denny Hamlin was fined $50,000 and docked 25 points following his on-track actions at Phoenix, where he made contact with Ross Chastain during the overtime attempt, a move he admitted to being intentional and deemed a violation of Sections 4.4 in the NASCAR Member Code of Conduct. The contact occurred after Hamlin drifted up the track entering Turns 1 and 2 and squeezed Chastain against the wall, which stalled their progress towards the front. Hamlin then proceeded in bumping Chastain’s rear bumper three times through the backstretch and entering Turn 3 before overtaking him. As a result, Hamlin and Chastain, both of whom were battling for potential top-five spots, fell back to 23rd and 24th in the final running order.

    NASCAR also issued two-race suspensions for two crew members (Sean Cotten and Ryan Mulder) for the No. 10 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford Mustang piloted by Aric Almirola for violating Sections 8.8.10.4 A&C from the NASCAR Rule Book that highlights a safety violation. This comes as a result of a wheel that came off of Almirola’s car in Turn 4 on Lap 137 of 317, where Almirola wrecked prior to losing the wheel. Following the on-track incident, Almirola was issued a two-lap penalty in his pit stall for the improper installed tire that came off on the track and ended up 33rd in the final running order.

    With this past weekend’s event at Phoenix Raceway capping off a three-race West Coast swing, the NASCAR Cup Series teams and competitors travel to Atlanta Motor Speedway for their next scheduled event and for their first of two visits to the 1.5-mile speedway venue in Hampton, Georgia. The main event is scheduled to occur this Sunday, March 19, at 3 p.m. ET on FOX.

  • News analysis: Hendrick penalties

    News analysis: Hendrick penalties

    None of you asked for it, but I’ll break down the news, its significance and un-answered questions of Hendrick Motorsports’ penalty.

    The news

    NASCAR handed HMS an L2-level penalty, Wednesday, for unapproved modifications to the body of its cars, last weekend, at Phoenix Raceway. Each car’s crew chief (Cliff Daniels, Rudy Fugle, Alan Gustafson and Blake Harris) was handed a four-race suspension and fined $100,000. Furthermore, NASCAR docked each team 100 owner/driver points and 10 playoff points. Excluding the No. 9 team, which Josh Berry (who earns points in the XFINITY Series) drove in place of the injured Chase Elliott.

    These penalties drop Alex Bowman from the points lead to 23rd, William Byron to 29th and Kyle Larson to 32nd. Aside from Byron, this reset Larson to zero playoff points. Byron, however, resets to three.

    HMS announced it plans to appeal the penalties, but won’t request deferrals of suspensions. So four substitute crew chiefs will sit on the war wagons, this weekend, at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

    Its significance

    On a scale of 1-10, this is a five.

    For most teams, this is a 10. With Hendrick, however, I doubt this holds them down. Considering that after NASCAR confiscated the parts, it still dominated Sunday’s race at Phoenix.

    SPOILER WARNING FOR SEASON 6 OF “MY HERO ACADEMIA”

    For NASCAR’s all-time winningest team, this isn’t Izuku Midoriya fighting Muscular during his forest lodge trip training. Rather, I suspect this will be Deku jobbing Muscular.

    I’ll go a step further and predict that by the halfway point of the season, Bowman, Byron and Larson make up the points they lost with this penalty.

    Un-answered questions

    I can’t really think of anything Wednesday’s penalty announcement left un-answered. This was pretty cut-n-dry and NASCAR confiscated the parts, before it let the Hendrick cars race, Sunday.

    That’s all, for now.

  • Kyle Larson tops Cup Series qualifying to win Busch Light Pole at Phoenix

    Kyle Larson tops Cup Series qualifying to win Busch Light Pole at Phoenix

    Kyle Larson was fasted in NASCAR Cup Series qualifying at Phoenix Raceway and claimed the Busch Light Pole Award for Sunday’s United Rentals Work United 500. He led the session in his No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet with a 130.237 mph lap, earning his second career pole at Phoenix and his 15th career pole.

    Larson also topped the practice session Friday and explained the significance of starting on the pole at the one-mile track.

    “It means a lot,” Larson said. “Qualifying is really important here. We got the pole in 2021 and that really helped us win the championship race. Joey (Logano) had an extremely fast car in the fall last year, but he got the pole as well and won. So I think that number one pit stall means a lot.

    “Happy to be quick this weekend,” he added, “quick in practice and have it translate to qualifying.”

    Joe Gibbs Racing’s Denny Hamlin was second fastest (129.931 mph) followed by Hendrick Motorsports driver William Byron (129.922 mph). Brad Keselowski will start fourth in the No. 6 RFK Racing Ford (129.762 mph) and JGR’s Christopher Bell rounded out the top five at in his JGR Toyota (129.580 mph).

    Ross Chastain, Michael McDowell, Ryan Blaney, Kyle Busch and Erik Jones completed the top-10 in qualifying.

    The United Rentals Work United 500 is scheduled for Sunday at 3:30 p.m. ET on FOX with radio coverage by MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.

    Starting Lineup:

  • William Byron leads 1-2-3 Hendrick Motorsports sweep at Las Vegas

    William Byron leads 1-2-3 Hendrick Motorsports sweep at Las Vegas

    March 5, 2023
    By Reid Spencer
    NASCAR Wire Service

    LAS VEGAS—William Byron won the most important race of Sunday afternoon—by inches off pit road.

    Quick work by Byron’s pit crew enabled the driver of the No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet to beat teammate Kyle Larson off pit road for an overtime restart in the Pennzoil 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, and that was the decisive factor in Byron’s fifth career NASCAR Cup Series victory.

    When Aric Almirola spun into the Turn 4 wall with four laps left of a scheduled 267, the race turned upside down. Larson held a two-second lead at that point and appeared the almost certain winner.

    After NASCAR called the fourth and final caution, Martin Truex Jr. stayed on the track, with Byron, Larson and most of the other contenders pitting for two tires. Byron’s crew was a fraction of a second faster on the stop, and Byron claimed a front-row starting spot for the overtime to Truex’s outside.

    On the first overtime lap, Byron surged past Truex as the cars entered Turn 3 at the 1.5-mile track and pulled away to win by.622 seconds over Larson and by .766 seconds over teammate Alex Bowman. It was the third time Hendrick Motorsports had finished 1-2-3 in a Cup Series event.

    The drivers accomplished the feat with their fourth driver, Chase Elliott, watching from North Carolina with team owner Rick Hendrick. Elliott broke his left tibia in a snowboarding accident in Colorado on Friday and will miss multiple races as he recovers from surgery.

    Josh Berry, substituting for Elliott, finished 29th, two laps down, in his first race in NASCAR’s Next Gen car.

    “Yeah, just been really confident about the group of guys that I have on this 24 team,” said Byron, who led 176 of 271 laps, swept the first two stages and won for the first time at Las Vegas. “They work extremely hard, and we spent a lot of time in the offseason just going through running at the sim (simulator) with Chevy and running on iRacing and just trying to get better as a race car driver and as a team.

    “Thinking of Chase back home. Wish he was out here with us. He’s a great race car driver, great teammate. Wish he was out here.”

    For the overtime restart, Larson chose the inside lane behind Truex and was bottled up behind the No. 19 Toyota. But Larson acknowledged the race was lost on pit road.

    “Damn,” Larson said with a wry laugh. “It’s just part of Cup racing. It seems like kind of laps down, lap by lap, and then, sure enough, the yellow lights come on. You’ve just got to get over that and then try to execute a good pit stop, and I thought I did a really good job getting to my sign, and getting to the commitment line.

    “I had a gap to William behind me, and their pit crew must have just done a really good job and got out in front of us, and that gave up the front row. I knew I was in trouble with the 19 staying out. I felt like William was going to get by him.

    “Yeah, just a bummer that we didn’t end up the winner, but all in all, William probably had a little bit better car than I had today, and their pit crew executed when they needed to there at the end.”

    In the overtime scramble, Bubba Wallace finished fourth and Christopher Bell fifth, both in Toyotas. Austin Cindric, who had been lapped at one point, recovered to run sixth as the top-finishing Ford driver. Truex, Justin Haley, Kevin Harvick and Daniel Suarez completed the top 10.

    In a race that featured 13 lead changes among eight drivers, Larson took the top spot in Lap 196, after restarting third behind Denny Hamlin and Bowman on lap 190. The 2021 series champion extended his advantage to nearly five seconds over Byron during an exchange of green-flag pit stops before Almirola’s accident caused the fourth caution on Lap 263.

    Byron had cut Larson’s lead to two seconds before the accident forced overtime.

    The first caution for an on-track incident didn’t occur until Lap 183, nine laps after the final stage went green. Pole winner Joey Logano, Brad Keselowski and Kyle Busch were running three-wide through Turn 4 when disaster struck.

    With Keselowski’s No. 6 Ford in the middle, Logano ran out of room to the outside, and after contact with Keselowski’s car, Logano’s No. 22 Ford bounced off the wall and spun into the infield grass.

    Logano brought his car to pit road, but his crew couldn’t repair the Ford before the seven-minute time limit ran out under NASCAR’s damaged vehicle policy.

    Asked whether Keselowski pinched him into the corner, Logano replied, “Yeah, he did. I’m sure he didn’t mean to do it. It is what it is. What are you going to do, right? We got fenced.”

    NASCAR Cup Series Race – Pennzoil 400 presented by Jiffy Lube
    Las Vegas Motor Speedway
    Las Vegas, Nevada
    Sunday, March 5, 2023
    (2) William Byron, Chevrolet, 271.
    (6) Kyle Larson, Chevrolet, 271.
    (11) Alex Bowman, Chevrolet, 271.
    (13) Bubba Wallace, Toyota, 271.
    (10) Christopher Bell, Toyota, 271.
    (9) Austin Cindric, Ford, 271.
    (15) Martin Truex Jr., Toyota, 271.
    (27) Justin Haley, Chevrolet, 271.
    (14) Kevin Harvick, Ford, 271.
    (24) Daniel Suarez, Chevrolet, 271.
    (12) Denny Hamlin, Toyota, 271.
    (8) Ross Chastain, Chevrolet, 271.
    (3) Ryan Blaney, Ford, 271.
    (5) Kyle Busch, Chevrolet, 271.
    (34) Tyler Reddick, Toyota, 271.
    (21) Aric Almirola, Ford, 271.
    (7) Brad Keselowski, Ford, 271.
    (23) AJ Allmendinger, Chevrolet, 271.
    (22) Erik Jones, Chevrolet, Accident, 270.
    (19) Corey LaJoie, Chevrolet, 270.
    (18) Chris Buescher, Ford, 270.
    (4) Ty Gibbs #, Toyota, 270.
    (31) Ryan Preece, Ford, 270.
    (16) Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Chevrolet, 270.
    (17) Michael McDowell, Ford, 270.
    (35) Harrison Burton, Ford, 269.
    (26) Austin Dillon, Chevrolet, 269.
    (20) Chase Briscoe, Ford, 269.
    (32) Josh Berry(i), Chevrolet, 269.
    (25) Noah Gragson #, Chevrolet, 269.
    (28) Todd Gilliland, Ford, 268.
    (36) BJ McLeod, Chevrolet, 266.
    (29) JJ Yeley, Ford, 265.
    (33) Ty Dillon, Chevrolet, 265.
    (30) Cody Ware, Ford, 259.
    (1) Joey Logano, Ford, DVP, 183.

    Average Speed of Race Winner: 142.98 mph.

    Time of Race: 2 Hrs, 50 Mins, 35 Secs. Margin of Victory: .622 Seconds.

    Caution Flags: 4 for 26 laps.

    Lead Changes: 13 among 8 drivers.

    Lap Leaders: J. Logano 1-9;W. Byron 10-36;B. Keselowski 37;T. Reddick 38-40;W. Byron 41-185;D. Hamlin 186-195;K. Larson 196-220;W. Byron 221;A. Bowman 222-223;B. Keselowski 224-227;K. Larson 228-265;W. Byron 266;M. Truex Jr. 267-269;W. Byron 270-271.

    Leaders Summary (Driver, Times Lead, Laps Led): William Byron 5 times for 176 laps; Kyle Larson 2 times for 63 laps; Denny Hamlin 1 time for 10 laps; Joey Logano 1 time for 9 laps; Brad Keselowski 2 times for 5 laps; Martin Truex Jr. 1 time for 3 laps; Tyler Reddick 1 time for 3 laps; Alex Bowman 1 time for 2 laps.

    Stage #1 Top Ten: 24,5,1,20,11,19,48,23,8,6

    Stage #2 Top Ten: 24,5,48,19,20,23,1,11,6,4