MARTINSVILLE, Va.– In case you missed it, Cole Custer topped the chart in final Camping World Truck Series practice at Martinsville Speedway.
The driver of the No. 00 JR Motorsports Chevrolet was the fastest in the final practice session with a time of 19.788 and a speed of 95.694 mph followed by John Hunter Nemechek in second in his No. 8 NEMCO Motorsports Chevrolet with a time of 19.826 and a speed of 95.511 mph. Ben Rhodes, who topped the speed charts in the second practice, was third in the final session in his No. 41 ThorSport Racing Toyota with a time of 19.837 and a speed of 95.456 mph. Kyle Busch was fourth in his No. 18 Kyle Busch Motorsports Toyota with a time of 19.863 and a speed of 95.333 mph while Spencer Gallagher rounded out the top-five in his No. 23 GMS Racing Chevrolet with a time of 19.881 and a speed of 95.247 mph.
Daniel Suárez was sixth in his No. 51 KBM Toyota while Kaz Grala was seventh in his No. 33 GMSR Chevrolet. William Byron (fastest in the first practice) was eighth in his No. 9 KBM Toyota. Kyle Larson was ninth in his No. 24 GMSR Chevrolet and Johnny Sauter rounded out the top-10 in his No. 21 GMSR Chevrolet.
Busch ran the fastest 10 consecutive lap average at a speed of 93.793 mph. Larson was second at a speed of 93.416 mph. Nemechek was third at a speed of 93.394 mph.
The Truck Series is back on track this morning at 11:15 for qualifying.
MARTINSVILLE, Va.– Ben Rhodes topped the chart in the second Camping World Truck Series practice at Martinsville Speedway Friday.
The driver of the No. 41 ThorSport Racing Toyota was the fastest in the second practice session with a time of 19.839 and a speed of 95.448 mph. William Byron was second in his No. 9 Kyle Busch Motorsports Toyota with a time of 19.856 and a speed of 95.367 mph followed by Cole Custer in third in his No. 00 JR Motorsports Chevrolet with a time of 19.901 and a speed of 95.151 mph. Tyler Reddick was fourth in his No. 29 Brad Keselowski Racing Ford with a time of 19.905 and a speed of 95.132 mph as Spencer Gallagher rounded out the top-five in his No. 23 GMS Racing Chevrolet with a time of 19.915 and a speed of 95.084 mph.
Kaz Grala was sixth in his No. 33 GMSR Chevrolet, Matt Crafton was seventh in his No. 88 TSR Toyota and Timothy Peters was eighth in his No. 17 Red Horse Racing Toyota. Daniel Hemric was ninth in his No. 19 BKR Ford while Daniel Suárez rounded out the top-10 in his No. 51 KBM Toyota.
Custer posted the fastest 10 consecutive lap average at a speed of 93.570 mph. Ben Kennedy, who was 11th in his No. 11 RHR Toyota, posted the second best average at a speed of 93.286 mph.
The Truck Series is back on track for final practice at 3:00 p.m.
NCWTS Complete Practice 2 Results – Martinsville Speedway
MARTINSVILLE, Va.– William Byron headed the field in first Camping World Truck Series practice at Martinsville Speedway.
The driver of the No. 9 Kyle Busch Motorsports Toyota was the fastest in the first practice session with a time of 19.868 and a speed of 95.309 mph. Timothy Peters was second in his No. 17 Red Horse Racing Toyota with a time of 19.995 and a speed of 94.704 mph followed by Kyle Busch who was third in his No. 18 KBM Toyota with a time of 20.104 and a speed of 94.190 mph. Johnny Sauter was fourth in his No. 31 GMS Racing Chevrolet with a time of 20.106 and a speed of 94.181 mph as Cole Custer rounded out the top-five in his No. 00 JR Motorsports Chevrolet with a time of 20.107 and a speed of 94.176 mph.
Tyler Young was sixth in his No. 02 Young’s Motorsports Chevrolet. Matt Crafton was seventh in his No. 88 ThorSport Racing Toyota. Daniel Hemric was eighth in his No. 19 Brad Keselowski Racing Ford. Ben Rhodes was ninth in his No. 41 TSR Toyota and Kyle Larson rounded out the top-10 in the No. 24 GMSR Chevrolet.
Christopher Bell, who was 17th in his No. 4 KBM Toyota, posted the fastest 10 consecutive lap average at a speed of 92.676 mph.
The next Truck practice will start at 12:30 p.m.
NCWTS Complete Practice 1 Results – Martinsville Speedway
It’s time to put a nice little bow on everything that happened this past weekend in Atlanta.
Under clear blue Georgia skies, Jimmie Johnson gambled on his fuel to put himself in position to win the race. On the final restart, he got the best restart and scored the victory in the Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway. It tied him with the late Dale Earnhardt for seventh on NASCAR’s all-time wins list.
“It’s such an honor,” Johnson said. “With the chaos at the end and the crash, wondering about overtime and how it worked these days, I kind of lost sight of that. I remembered on my victory lap coming down and I had to come by and throw a 3 out the window to pay respects to the man. There’s a huge void in my career that I never had a chance to race with him, but at least, I was able to tie his record there.”
The driver of the No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet is now hands down a legend of NASCAR beyond a shadow of a reasonable doubt. He’s a six-time series champion – five of which came in a row – and has amassed 76 wins. In 509 starts, he’s also accumulated 208 top-fives (40.86 percent) and 315 top-10’s (61.89 percent).
To suggest that he doesn’t deserve a spot in the NASCAR Hall of Fame is ludicrous.
Photo Credit: Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images
A dominant car wasn’t enough for the third straight year at Atlanta for Kevin Harvick. The driver of the No. 4 Stewart-Haas Racing Chevrolet led 131 of the 330 laps but had a bad pit stop with 40 laps to go and could only get within six seconds of Johnson before his tires were exhausted.
“We had issues about the last three runs,” Harvick said. “I had to start driving the car different. It just required a little bit different handling. And then we had a slow pit stop there. We got way behind and the No. 48 (Jimmie Johnson) was way out front and I had to drive the car really hard and got the right rear burned up. We just didn’t execute today but everybody on our Jimmy John’s/Busch Chevrolet hung in there all day and we’ll keep at it.”
He stumbled on the final restart, had to settle for a sixth-place finish and left Hampton, Georgia third in points. The West Coast Swing plays into Harvick’s wheelhouse as he won two of the three races and led the most laps in all three events.
Photo Credit: Noel Lanier
Kyle Busch scored his 77th victory in the XFINITY Series on Saturday afternoon.
I’ve always been on the fence on whether Cup drivers should be allowed in the lower divisions. While someone like Busch or Brad Keselowski occasionally win in the Truck Series, the drivers running for points in that series have now gotten to the point where they are winning the races more than the Cup drivers.
That’s not the case in the XFINITY Series.
I bring this up because of the new Chase format in the series where a win gets you in. Given this, I don’t understand why drivers like Busch continue racing in the lower divisions and take wins from drivers racing for points in the series.
While I would rather see somebody get something on merit rather than superficial circumstances, I think we’ve gotten long past the point when NASCAR should seriously consider limiting drivers to a few races a season in a series they’re not racing for points.
Photo Credit: Noel Lanier
John Hunter Nemechek survived late race melee to score his second career victory in the Camping World Truck Series.
The driver of the No. 8 NEMCO Motorsports Chevrolet inherited the lead after Christopher Bell suffered a right-front tire blowout and slammed the wall in Turn 4.
Fifteen laps earlier, Bell got into the corner of teammate Daniel Suárez, who then got into the corner of Matt Crafton and sent both of them into the wall.
Now let’s address the elephant in the room. This race saw the first official usage of the caution clock. I was in the media center for the Truck race and the caution for the clock expiring wasn’t very popular with a lot of the media people, especially Matt Weaver. Anybody who knows him knows that he’s not a fan of the caution clock and neither am I. I won’t tell you what Weaver said about it, but it would’ve been the reaction of the race had it not been for this tweet from Pete Pistone.
I just saw the earth split, fire come from the sky and locusts invade our neighborhood #cautionclock
I’ll end this by calling out the Atlanta sports fans that couldn’t be bothered to get their hindquarters to the track yesterday.
For an entire year, I heard the people in the Atlanta area bitch and moan about it being too cold. Yesterday, it was clear blue skies and T-shirt temps and that still didn’t pack the stands. In other words, you all lied about wanting better temps.
It’s no wonder Atlanta sports fans are a laughing stock in the sports world. I’m not joking when I say this isn’t limited to NASCAR. From 1991 to 2005, the Atlanta Braves won 14 straight division titles and rarely sold out playoff games. In the late 2000’s, the Atlanta Falcons were one of the best teams in the NFL and rarely sell out the Georgia Dome. In the 2014-2015 season, the Atlanta Hawks had the best record in the NBA, but the Philips Arena ranked 20th in attendance in a 30 team league. Atlanta also has the dubious distinction of being the first and only city in the modern era of the National Hockey League to have had two NHL teams relocate to another city (the Atlanta Flames (now the Calgary Flames) and the Atlanta Thrashers (now the Winnipeg Jets)). Both teams cited lackluster attendance as their reason for relocating.
Yet when it comes to college football, you can barely find a soul in downtown Atlanta because they’re either at a Georgia Bulldogs or Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets game.
I would think that a city that’s lost one NASCAR race already would stop making excuses and go to their one remaining race before it’s too late. I even told Dave Moody this and this was his response.
@Nascarking3 Then again, if they were concerned with that, they'd still have the race and the NHL teams!
Before you say Atlanta is a big market where there’s always something going on, Eddie Gossage has never had trouble getting the people of the Dallas/Fort Worth area to all but pack the stands at Texas Motor Speedway.
Let me be clear on a few things. I love the city of Atlanta, I love the Atlanta Braves and I love Atlanta Motor Speedway. What’s not to love about it? It’s a fantastic track that’s put on great, historic races over the years. We crowned our champion at Atlanta for 14 years. Ed Clark and his staff do fantastic work making the track a go-to facility. So I don’t say all this to be mean. I say all this because I’m truly afraid that unless the Atlanta populace bucks up and starts packing the stands to the point that Bruton Smith puts the Turn 3 stands back up, Atlanta’s days are numbered.
Now Atlanta Motor Speedway is in no danger of going away for the next five years. But once that sanctioning agreement is up, I wouldn’t be surprised if Bruton Smith decides he’s not going to continue putting up with the lackluster attendance from the Atlanta market and move its one race to another track. When that day comes and if you weren’t among the 50,000 people who did show up, you have no right to complain about losing it.
That about sums up the events of the weekend. The next race for the Sprint Cup and XFINITY Series is in Viva Las Vegas. The Camping World Truck Series is off for the next five weeks and will return at Martinsville Speedway in April.
The opinions expressed in this piece are solely those of the author and may or may not represent the views of Speedway Media.
HAMPTON, Ga.– One final restart was all that was needed for John Hunter Nemechek to score the victory at Atlanta.
The driver of the No. 8 NEMCO Motorsports Chevrolet led just eight laps, but it was the final eight laps as he scored his second career victory in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series. He is the youngest winner in Atlanta Motor Speedway history.
Cameron Hayley was leading late in the race, but was passed by Nemechek with 13 laps to go and finished runner-up. Timothy Peters finished third in his No. 17 Red Horse Racing Toyota. Daniel Hemric finished fourth in his No. 19 Brad Keselowski Racing Ford with Grant Enfinger rounding out the top-five in his No. 33 GMS Racing Chevrolet.
Ben Rhodes finished sixth in his No. 41 ThorSport Racing Toyota, John Wes Townley finished seventh in his No. 05 Athenian Motorsports Chevrolet and Parker Kligerman finished eighth in his RBR Racing Ford. Caleb Holman finished ninth in his No. 75 Henderson Motorsports Toyota and Spencer Gallagher rounded out the top-10 in his No. 23 GMS Racing Chevrolet.
Matt Crafton was the dominant car of the race leading 76 of the 130 laps. With 15 laps to go, however, Christopher Bell tapped the left-rear corner panel of Daniel Suárez’s truck. He was sent into the right-rear corner of Crafton and both slammed into the wall on the backstretch. Crafton finished 30th and Suárez finished 31st.
Bell was leading the race with four laps to go before suffering a right-front tire blowout and slamming the wall in Turn 4. He finished 26th.
The race lasted one hour, 39 minutes and nine seconds at an average speed of 121.150 mph. The caution was waved five times for 25 laps – two times for the caution clock expiring – and one red flag for six minutes and 20 seconds. There were seven lead changes among four different drivers.
HAMPTON, Ga.– Matt Crafton wins the pole for this afternoon’s Camping World Truck Series race.
The driver of the No. 88 ThorSport Racing Toyota posted the fastest time in qualifying for the Great Clips 200 with a time of 30.836 and a speed of 179.790 mph.
John Wes Townley will start second in his No. 05 Athenian Motorsports Chevrolet after posting a time of 30.854 and a speed of 179.685 mph. Christopher Bell will start third in his No. 4 Kyle Busch Motorsports Toyota after posting a time of 30.858 and a speed of 179.662 mph. Grant Enfinger will start fourth in his No. 33 GMS Racing Chevrolet after posting a time of 30.908 and a speed of 179.371 mph. Cameron Hayley rounded out the top-five in his No. 13 TSR Toyota after posting a time of 31.014 and a speed of 178.758 mph.
Cole Custer will start sixth in his No. 00 JR Motorsports Chevrolet. Ben Rhodes will start seventh in his No. 41 TSR Toyota. Ryan Truex will start eighth in his No. 81 Hattori Racing Enterprises Toyota. Daniel Hemric will start ninth in his No. 19 Brad Keselowski Racing Ford. Ben Kennedy rounded out the top-10 in his No. 11 Red Horse Racing Toyota.
Spencer Gallagher will start 11th in his No. 23 GMS Racing Chevrolet. Timothy Peters rounded out the 12 drivers that made the final round of qualifying in his No. 17 RHR Toyota.
Jordan Anderson, Korbin Forrister, Norm Benning, Timothy Viens and Ryan Ellis were the five drivers that failed to qualify.
HAMPTON, Ga.– In case you missed it, Grant Enfinger topped the chart in final Camping World Truck Series practice.
The driver of the No. 33 GMS Racing Chevrolet was the fastest in the final practice session with a time of 31.011 and a speed of 178.775 mph. Matt Crafton was second in his No. 88 ThorSport Racing Toyota with a time of 31.146 and a speed of 178.000 mph. Christopher Bell was third in his No. 4 Kyle Busch Motorsports Toyota with a time of 31.157 and a speed of 177.938 mph. Spencer Gallagher was fourth in his No. 23 GMS Racing Chevrolet with a time of 31.202 and a speed of 177.681 mph. Cole Custer rounded out the top-five in his No. 00 JR Motorsports Chevrolet with a time of 31.210 and a speed of 177.635 mph.
Ben Kennedy was sixth in his No. 11 Red Horse Racing Toyota. Ben Rhodes was seventh in his No. 41 TSR Toyota. William Byron was eighth in his No. 9 KBM Toyota. Cameron Hayley was ninth in his No. 13 TSR Toyota. Ryan Truex rounded out the top-10 in his No. 81 Hattori Racing Enterprises Toyota.
Crafton posted the fastest 10 consecutive lap average at a speed of 176.163 mph. Daniel Suárez, who was 13th in his No. 51 KBM Toyota, posted a speed of 175.627 mph.
The Trucks will be back on track Saturday at 10 a.m. for qualifying.
NCWTS – Complete Final Practice Results:
Pos. Car # Driver Best Speed Best Time
1 33 Grant Enfinger 178.775 31.011
2 88 Matt Crafton 178 31.146
3 4 Christopher Bell 177.938 31.157
4 23 Spencer Gallagher 177.681 31.202
5 0 Cole Custer 177.635 31.21
6 11 Ben Kennedy 177.607 31.215
7 41 Ben Rhodes 177.596 31.217
8 9 William Byron 177.215 31.284
9 13 Cameron Hayley 177.142 31.297
10 81 Ryan Truex 176.961 31.329
11 20 Austin Hill 176.69 31.377
12 17 Timothy Peters 176.684 31.378
13 51 Daniel Suarez 176.639 31.386
14 19 Daniel Hemric 176.487 31.413
15 75 Caleb Holman 176.341 31.439
16 8 John Hunter Nemechek 176.308 31.445
17 92 Parker Kligerman 176.257 31.454
18 29 Tyler Reddick 175.805 31.535
19 5 John Wes Townley 175.799 31.536
20 22 Austin Wayne Self 174.57 31.758
21 98 Rico Abreu 174.455 31.779
22 32 Justin Marks 174.066 31.85
23 21 Johnny Sauter 173.478 31.958
24 86 Brandon Brown 172.958 32.054
25 2 Tyler Young 172.56 32.128
26 71 Carlos Contreras 171.843 32.262
27 66 Jordan Anderson 171.577 32.312
28 44 Tommy Joe Martins 170.969 32.427
29 1 Travis Kvapil 170.579 32.501
30 49 Timmy Hill 170.223 32.569
31 63 Garrett Smithley 169.205 32.765
32 59 Korbin Forrister 168.747 32.854
33 10 Jennifer Jo Cobb 166.832 33.231
34 50 Ryan Ellis 165.869 33.424
35 6 Norm Benning 164.174 33.769
36 74 Timothy Viens 159.76 34.702
HAMPTON, Ga.– John Wes Townley topped the chart in second Camping World Truck Series practice. The driver of the No. 05 GMS Racing Chevrolet was the fastest in the second practice session with a time of 31.107 and a speed of 178.224 mph.
Daniel Hemric was second in his No. 19 Brad Keselowski Racing Ford with a time of 31.182 and a speed of 177.795 mph. William Byron was third in his No. 9 Kyle Busch Motorsports Toyota with a time of 31.257 and a speed of 177.368 mph. Cole Custer was fourth in his No. 00 JR Motorsports Chevrolet with a time of 31.294 and a speed of 177.159 mph. Matt Crafton rounded out the top-five in his No. 88 ThorSport Racing Toyota with a time of 31.343 and a speed of 176.882 mph.
Ben Kennedy was sixth in his No. 11 Red Horse Racing Toyota. Cameron Hayley was seventh in his No. 13 TSR Toyota. Tyler Reddick was eighth in his No. 29 BK Racing Ford. Ryan Truex was ninth in his No. 81 Hattori Racing Enterprises Toyota. Christopher Bell rounded out the top-10 in his No. 4 KB Motorsports Toyota.
Daniel Suárez, who was 12th in his No. 51 KB Motorsports Toyota, posted the fastest 10 consecutive lap average at a speed of 175.185 mph. Bell posted a speed of 175.097 mph. Rico Abreu, who was 18th in his No. 98 TSR Toyota, posted a speed of 172.447 mph. Tyler Young, who was 31st in his No. 02 Young’s Motorsports Chevrolet, posted a speed of 166.726 mph.
The Trucks will be back on track for their final practice session at 4:00 p.m.
HAMPTON, Ga.– Grant Enfinger topped the chart for first Camping World Truck Series practice. The driver of the No. 33 GMS Racing Chevrolet was the fastest in the first practice session with a time of 30.873 and a speed of 179.574 mph.
Christopher Bell was second in his No. 4 Kyle Busch Motorsports Toyota with a time of 31.004 and a speed of 178.816 mph. Matt Crafton was third in his ThorSport Racing Toyota with a time of 31.092 and a speed of 178.310 mph. Daniel Hemric was fourth in his No. 19 Brad Keselowski Racing Ford with a time of 31.171 and a speed of 177.858 mph. John Wes Townley rounded out the top-five in his No. 05 Athenian Motorsports Chevrolet with a time of 31.171 and a speed of 177.858 mph.
William Byron was sixth in his No. 9 KB Motorsports Toyota. Cole Custer was seventh in his No. 00 JR Motorsports Chevrolet. Parker Kligerman was eighth in his No. 92 RBR Enterprises Ford. Cameron Hayley was ninth in his No. 13 ThorSport Racing Toyota. Tyler Reddick rounded out the top-10 in his No. 29 BK Racing Ford.
Enfinger ran the fastest 10 consecutive lap average at an average speed of 174.852 mph. Rico Abreu, who finished 19th in his No. 98 ThorSport Racing Toyota, posted an average speed of 173,534 mph.
The trucks will be back on track at 1:30 p.m. for their second practice session.
As is typically the case at Daytona, hell broke loose in the last few laps.
As the field of trucks was hurdling down the backstretch at Daytona International Speedway with seven laps to go in the NextEra Energy Resources 250, Timothy Peters nudged Cameron Hayley out of place. This sent the No. 13 ThorSport Racing Toyota up the track into the side of John Hunter Nemechek. Just as he got his car straight, he was turned again down through the grass.
Matt Crafton, Grant Enfinger, Rico Abreu and Austin Theriault were among the 18 cars collected in the Big One.
Peters insisted he wasn’t to blame for the wreck.
“It ain’t all my fault,” he screamed over the radio.
Hayley said, “that’s Daytona.”
“It was hard racing,” Hayley said. “I guess we just caught bumpers the wrong way. (Timothy) Peters got into the back of me. It’s just tight racing. It’s so hard there at the end, everyone’s bumping into each other and trying to hold a pretty wheel. I guess that’s Daytona, but it sucks for my guys because they worked so hard.”
This wreck forced NASCAR to red-flag the race for 30-minutes. After the cleanup was complete, it set up the final restart leading to the multi-car wreck on the final lap in Turn 1.
Johnny Sauter was ahead of Ryan Truex when the caution flew and scored his 11th career victory in the Camping World Truck Series. It was also his first win since 2014 and the first ever win for Chevrolet in the Truck Series at Daytona.
