The long NASCAR Sprint Cup schedule includes 34 races that pay drivers with points. Points they need to make the Chase. But for Saturday night's All-Star Race, it's just about winning.
When it comes to "Old school, NASCAR racing" it doesn't get any better than the Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway. Saturday night's renewal of this classic contest was historic for many reasons as Hendrick Motorsports finally reached a milestone moment in what was just the third green, white, checkered flag finish in Darlington's history.
TALLADEGA, Ala. -- Five things we learned from the Aaron's 499 at Talladega Superspeedway.
Cautions are down and fans are griping. Their many submissions to my inbox say they want drama. They want action. They want fits of aggression played out with 3,400-pound cars bumping and banging into each other. What they want is NASCAR as a Michael Bay production.
ROCKINGHAM, N.C. (AP) -- Kasey Kahne celebrated NASCAR's return to Rockingham Speedway with a win Sunday in the Truck Series race.
Stung by a season in which his teams failed to finish in the top five in points for the first time in more than a decade, car owner Rick Hendrick challenged his organization in front of dozens of cameras and approximately 200 reporters in late January.
After a spectacular start to the season at the Daytona 500, the real racing began Sunday as NASCAR made its first trip to a more traditional race course. That meant putting away the restrictor plates until Talladega and making the season's first trip to the one-mile oval at Phoenix International Raceway for the Subway Fresh Fit 500.
The hype, the pageantry -- and yes, the blazing fire -- that are the Daytona 500 are now behind us, and with all due respect to the Great American Race, now it's time to ditch the restrictor plates and get the Sprint Cup season underway.
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- Danica Patrick's coming out party in Sprint Cup racing's biggest ball of all -- the 54th Daytona 500 -- was pretty much over before it ever really began.
updated: Tue Feb 28 2012 04:15:00
GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney attends the 54th annual Daytona 500.
For a sport where speed is king, NASCAR's Daytona 500 this year was one long waiting game.
It's easy to find Danica Patrick at Daytona International Speedway. Just look for the pack of photographers, the whirring of their cameras capturing the every move of NASCAR's newest star.
A few years ago, NASCAR touted its new vehicle design as the Car of Tomorrow. Now that car is finally being updated with technology that is, oh, about three decades old.
Think back to when you faced a key decision. Maybe it didn't seem as big then. Maybe the choice seemed easy. Then again, maybe it didn't.
Fireworks brightened the South Florida sky last November, signaling an end but also a beginning. NASCAR crowned its Sprint Cup champion that night, but it also toasted a season of competition featuring the closest race for the championship in NASCAR history.
It was the weekend of his 30th birthday and A.J. Allmendinger was spending it in "The Biggest Little City in the World." But the driver wasn't just there to celebrate; he was there to work. Ordained as a minister this fall through an online service, he was in Reno to perform his first wedding, that of a friend he calls "the closest thing I have to a sister."
The message was the same from every race team during the Sprint Cup media tour: The guys in the shop have been working really, really hard. Our cars will be faster. Our engines will be stronger. We honestly believe we'll win the championship this year.
Aric Almirola has bounced around from team to team in Sprint Cup, never staying long in stints with Joe Gibbs Racing, Ginn Racing, Dale Earnhardt Inc., Earnhardt Ganassi Racing and Richard Petty Motorsports. He's had one top-five finish and two top-10s in 35 starts, journeyman numbers.
CONCORD, N.C. -- With Danica Patrick at Stewart-Haas Racing, three-time NASCAR Sprint Cup champion Tony Stewart knows he'll have to share the spotlight this season.
MOORESVILLE, N.C. -- Come September when NASCAR's title Chase begins, you should see the difference in Kyle Busch and his performance.
The race took place two months ago, a riveting three hours that played out on a 1.5-mile circle of asphalt in South Florida. Now that we've had time to digest and analyze and rehash all that took place in the 2011 season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway -- how Carl Edwards held the points lead heading into the race over Tony Stewart; how Stewart dropped to the back of the field after sustaining damage to his No. 14 Chevy under caution; how Stewart charged back; how Stewart passed Edwards and won the championship based on a tiebreaker -- let's officially call that race what it was: the greatest of the Chase era.
To NASCAR fans desperate for the way it used to be, the vision was as breathtaking as seeing water in the desert.
Maybe his actions on the football field fascinate you. Maybe you find his personality charming. Either way, you have probably heard of Denver Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow.
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- Being dethroned as Sprint Cup champion forced Jimmie Johnson to re-evaluate, reinvent this offseason.
Casey Mears drove in 252 consecutive races after making his Sprint Cup debut with Ganassi Racing in 2003. Those seven solid years included two with Hendrick Motorsports and one with Richard Childress Racing. He was 14th in the points in 2006, his final season with Ganassi, and 15th with a win in the 600-mile race at Charlotte in 2007 with Hendrick.
MOORESVILLE, N.C. -- Kurt and Kyle Busch have a combined 47 wins (24 for Kurt; 23 for Kyle) and 290 top-10s in NASCAR's premier division. Kurt also has a 2004 Sprint Cup title, and Kyle has an incredible 51 Nationwide Series and 30 Camping World Truck Series victories.
Brad Keselowski has always envisioned himself as the successful, tenured company man, the symbol of the franchise that sprays a celebratory beer over his teammates in Victory Lane on Sunday and woos the CEOs paying for it all in a boardroom on Monday.
MOORESVILLE, N.C. -- Each new season brings a new priority list of drivers to watch and 2012 is no different.
Take predictions for what they're worth. If you believe them, well, then some people say, according to the Mayan calendar, the world will end Dec. 21, 2012. Before that happens, though, SmartMoney advises investing in Google, AT&T and a Canadian maker of a fertilizer component. And just so you know, the Farmer's Almanac calls for above-normal temperatures this winter across most of the Southern and Eastern U.S.
1. Dan Wheldon is killed in an IndyCar crash at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. There is no shortage of sadness surrounding the death of Wheldon, at age 33, only 11 laps into the final race of the IndyCar season. A wife lost a husband, two small boys a father. A community lost a friend, a series lost one of its most charismatic and talented. But ultimately one of the most mournful aspects of Wheldon's death is it may never spark the type of safety evolution that followed the high-profile racing deaths of the likes of Ayrton Senna and Dale Earnhardt. Certainly, IndyCar has professed a desire to make one of the most dangerous forms of motor sports safer, and drivers have profusely supported the series' good intentions, but respected industry veteran and orthopedic surgeon Dr. Terry Trammell said the series missed an opportunity to make the new IndyCar vehicle as safe as possible.
MOORESVILLE, N.C. -- In a sport that has been dominated by major multi-car teams with big-time financial backing, Front Row Motorsports is proving that there is still room in NASCAR for the independent operation.
A.J. Allmendinger could have used a job with Team Penske when he was an aspiring -- and five-race-winning -- driver in the now-defunct Champ Car World Series in 2006. He had to wait six years and switch regimens to finally land a job with one of motor sports' most storied teams, but the 30-year-old unwrapped the last plum job opening remaining in Sprint Cup with just four days left until Christmas.
MOORESVILLE, N.C. -- Tony Stewart, the reigning Sprint Cup champion, isn't afraid to shake things up. Six weeks before he won his third title, Stewart told crew chief Darian Grubb that he would not return in 2012. At the end of the season, even after the duo won three of the five remaining races en route to the title, Stewart stuck by his decision.
When NASCAR's Drive for Diversity (D4D) program selected Paulie Harraka in the fall of 2006, he took the big step of moving up into late model racing from karting and legends cars.
MOORESVILLE, N.C. -- Add the reigning NASCAR Sprint Cup championship crew chief to the crew of the driver that nearly won the 2010 title and it could be the winning combination in 2012.
Benny Parsons, the 1973 Sprint Cup champion and 1975 Daytona 500 winner, explained the difference between a driver and a team: "Drivers win races, but teams win championships." It is a concise assessment that was true when the late Parsons said it many years ago and it remains accurate today.
Kurt Busch joked with Mike Helton last week that he had been born into the wrong era of racing. A quarter century ago, he told NASCAR's president, he would have flourished, both as a driver and as a personality.
We have entered the one month of the NASCAR season in which the engines are quiet and the high-speed circus that is Sprint Cup Series racing folds its tents. By January, testing will begin for the 2012 season, and in February the season starts up again with three dozen races and two non-points events stretching into November.
Uneasy lies the head that wears a ... headset.
Last week NASCAR fined Kurt Busch $50,000 for his poor behavior at the Sprint Cup finale at Homestead. Busch made an inappropriate hand gesture while driving his Dodge to the garage and verbally abused ESPN reporter Dr. Jerry Punch as they waited for a live interview following a transmission failure early in the race.
MOORESVILLE, N.C. -- When Carl Edwards joined Jack Roush's racing operation full-time as a rookie in 2005, he had Mark Martin as a mentor. Edwards and Martin were two of the five Roush Fenway Racing drivers who battled Tony Stewart for the series championship that year. Edwards finished third in the standings, 35 points behind Stewart, and Martin was fourth, 105 points out.
It evoked so much epic imagery from so many other clutch, classic performances as to inevitably be buried in mounds of gooey hyperbole. The shame is that Tony Stewart's unstoppable steamroll to his third Sprint Cup championship and defeat of Carl Edwards needs no more of the exaggeration and fawning that are sure to be attached. On its face and with deeper analysis, it should stand on its own as one of the great performances in NASCAR history.
For the past three years we've watched Jimmie Johnson do something we had never seen before. On Sunday, Tony Stewart might accomplish something we thought we would never see again.
AVONDALE, Ariz. -- Kyle Busch has gotten in a lot of trouble this season, earning himself a reputation as NASCAR's biggest troublemaker. But if you take a long, hard look back at the history of this sport, you see that Busch has plenty of company in the trouble department.
Grading the performances for the penultimate Chase for the Championship race on Sunday at Phoenix:
Jack Roush is a man of science, gears, algorithms and verifiable outcomes. Emotions are such complicated things and very rarely fit well into a simulation model; they cannot be tested and analyzed and applied to his all-encompassing passion of winning races and championships as a NASCAR car owner for the last 24 years.
Grading out the performances of the Chase for the Championship race at Texas on Sunday.
Now it really is a title fight.
In the world of NASCAR, it constituted trash talk. "Carl Edwards better not sleep too long the next three weeks," Tony Stewart said last Sunday at Martinsville, an hour after celebrating in Victory Lane. "We've had one of those up-and-down years. I feel like our mindset these next three weeks is we've been nice all year to a lot of guys and given guys a lot of breaks. We're cashing tickets in these next three weeks."
A small plane carrying Hendrick Motorsports owner Rick Hendrick and three others crashed Monday evening after veering off a runway at Florida's Key West International Airport.
Grading the performances from Sunday's Sprint Cup race at Martinsville Speedway:
MARTINSVILLE, Va. -- It was a knock-down slugfest as NASCAR's Chase for the Championship made its only visit to a short track, and the only things shorter than the .542-mile Martinsville Speedway were the tempers of the drivers in Sunday's TUMS Fast Relief 500.
With four races left in the 2011 Sprint Cup season, all eyes will be on one driver at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway on Sunday afternoon, the one driver that has sped to the front of the pack, the one driver that is poised to end Jimmie Johnson's five-year reign as NASCAR's champion. Yes, forget the other 42 men in the field at Martinsville, because this race is all about Carl Edwards.
Brad Keselowski and Dave Blaney were Talladega's Odd Couple. Nothing seemed to fit. Keselowski drives a Dodge a for well-established and well-funded Penske Racing; Blaney a Chevrolet for Tommy Baldwin Racing, a three-year-old organization with one of the smallest budgets in Sprint Cup. Keselowski is racing in the Chase; Blaney hadn't finished in the top-10 all season.
Grading the performances from Sunday at Talladega Superspeedway.
There's a stench left from Sunday's race at Talladega Superspeedway and it has nothing to do with the trash yet to be hauled away.
TALLADEGA, Ala. -- There is one simple rule when it comes to racing at Talladega Superspeedway.
CONCORD, N.C. -- It was the moment this Chase had awaited. A moment of candor. A moment of swagger.
Anyone else and the eulogy would be begun in haste, or simply picked up again after a few weeks of inactivity.
Clint Bowyer approached Richard Childress in midsummer with a sponsor in hand (5-Hour Energy) to support him in the 2012 season. The Hall of Fame NASCAR team owner turned down the offer from a driver that he discovered in the minor leagues and brought to the Sprint Cup Series.
Breaking down the performances after the Chase for the Championship Sprint Cup race at Kansas on Sunday:
Rick Hendrick's attendance for the remainder of the Sprint Cup season figures to be perfect. There could be plenty to see.
When Kansas Speedway opened 10 years ago, Jeff Gordon was the most dominant figure in NASCAR. He won that inaugural race in 2001 -- the 58th victory of his still-young career -- on the way to his fourth Cup championship. He was 30 and speculation centered on whether he could match or even surpass the record-seven career championships shared by Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt.
Kyle Larson is the Next One. No doubt. His arrival -- be it in NASCAR or the Izod IndyCar Series -- could take a few years, though.
DOVER, Del. -- Tony Stewart exited his car Sunday at Dover and heaved a heavy sigh. Carl Edwards vowed to overcome his pit road mistake by winning this week's race at Kansas. Jimmie Johnson acknowledged he's making it easier for someone to take his championship.
Grading out the performances from the third race of the Chase for the Championship on Sunday at Dover.
It seems that Kurt Busch and Jimmie Johnson are destined to remain very much in each other's way for the remainder of the Sprint Cup season. That should be simultaneously irritating and stimulating for each of them, as Busch attempts to win a second championship seven years after his first and Johnson aims to capture a record sixth consecutive title.
Grading out the field following Tony Stewart's victory in the Sylvania 300 at New Hampshire on Sunday.
Economists have been saying lately that the United States has entered into a new normal. Frugality and conservation are essential. You have to take what you have and stretch it to the max. That's just the way things are these days, the experts say, and everybody needs to accept it.
The scene was oh-so precious. Here was Jimmie Johnson, the five-time defending Sprint Cup champion, carrying his 14-month-old daughter, Genevieve Marie, in his arms as he strolled through the garage at Chicagoland Speedway last Monday morning before the start of the first race of the Chase. Once dad and daughter reached the entrance to pit road, Johnson put his baby girl down. She promptly grabbed his left index finger and started to waddle, slowly and with a wide-eyed smile, toward the No. 48 Chevy that was parked about a football field away.
Kevin Harvick doesn't believe it. Neither does Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s crew chief Steve Letarte. Tony Stewart not a title contender? Yet, that's what Stewart stated just before NASCAR's title Chase began.
Among Tony Stewart's trusted bromides, when pressed for an opinion or an analysis in which he has no interest, is something like "if I knew that, I'd be a bookie in Vegas in a dark room with cocktail waitresses bringing us drinks" and so on and so forth.
That Jimmie Johnson. He's enough to make a guy envious.
MOORESVILLE, N.C. -- This weekend, the Chase for the Championship will open in one of America's great cities, Chicago. But will NASCAR's championship series be able to escape the large shadow cast by the mighty Chicago Bears?
RICHMOND, Va. -- The "Race to the Chase" started way back in February with Trevor Bayne's stunning upset victory in the Daytona 500 and finally concluded 26 races later with Kevin Harvick winning Saturday night's NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Richmond International Raceway.
As the Sprint Cup Series heads into its regular-season finale at Richmond on Saturday night, eight drivers have already clinched berths in the Chase: Jimmie Johnson, Kyle Busch, Carl Edwards, Matt Kenseth, Jeff Gordon, Kevin Harvick, Kurt Busch and Ryan Newman.
For some of the drivers who were expected to be major contenders in the Chase for the Championship, they will be nothing more than bit players once the 10-race playoff starts at Chicagoland Speedway on Sept. 18
Denny Hamlin will be in control of his destiny in Saturday's Make-The-Chase-Or-Bust 400 at Richmond. He's excelled at his hometown track, winning Sprint Cup's regular-season finale the past two years along with four more top-three finishes in 11 starts, and those performances provide a comfort zone of confidence. But Hamlin must also deal with a race that carries the most pressure of his career. It will be the supreme test of his mental toughness.
This all appears to be building up to something. Perhaps something grand.
He was a picture of contentment that day in May as he lounged on a couch in his office at Kevin Harvick Inc. in Kernersville, N.C. Kevin Harvick smiled and laughed as he recounted how he'd won races at Fontana and Martinsville earlier in the season, of how he'd developed a reputation for being the best closer in NASCAR by consistently turning his fastest laps at the end of races. Back then, Harvick had every reason to believe that 2011 would be the year he'd capture his first Sprint Cup championship.
Carl Edwards has already clinched a spot in the Chase for the Championship. He could ride around Atlanta on Sunday night and graze carefully for points, maybe even exploit one of his most fruitful tracks for three bonus points heading into the final week of the Sprint Cup regular season.
Tony Stewart began recruiting Danica Patrick in the fall of 2009, giving her tours of his race shop and a tutorial on Sprint Cup. As a former IndyCar driver and champion, Stewart could speak her language and outline what it takes to be successful in stock cars. Stewart believed in Patrick's ability to make the difficult transition before she'd run a stock car race at any level and that faith paid off last week with the announcement she'll join Stewart-Haas Racing for a partial schedule in Cup in 2012.
Brad Keselowski has been astonishingly successful in the last five races Sprint Cup races, advancing 10 spots to 11th in the driver standings with two wins, a second, third and ninth-place finish that began the burst at Indianapolis. He's shaped the drama of NASCAR's inaugural wild-card process and is in the process of reshaping the top 10 and its automatic Chase for the Championship qualifiers.
It is hard to argue with the decision-making of a man who has 14 championship banners hanging from the ceiling of his motor sports headquarters and nearly 200 Sprint Cup Series victories on his racing resume. A man who saw the potential in Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson when they were young, and also recognized the talent that remained in Terry Labonte and Mark Martin near the end of their careers.
Before this season, Danica Patrick had to decide if she wanted to again run the ARCA race at Daytona in February as a way to gain more experience in a stock car.
MOORESVILLE, N.C. -- History hasn't been kind to the last drivers to make the Chase field. Since the Chase expanded to 12 teams in 2007, no late clincher has finished better than sixth in the final standings and several of them have finished dead last. With the addition of the Chase wild card, several drivers are still vying for a spot in the playoff with only three races remaining. Do any of them have a shot at the title or will the race just to make the Chase ruin their chances?
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