Author Archives: NASCAR

NASCAR Camping World Truck Series, Rattlesnake 400 at Texas Preview

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Rattlesnake400June2015

NASCAR Camping World Truck Series teams will race 250.5 miles over 167 laps in the Rattlesnake 400 on Friday, June 10th at Texas Motor Speedway with television coverage on FOX Sports 1 starting at 8:30 pm ET and a green flag around 9 pm ET.  Radio coverage is on MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, channel 90.

Three-Peat: Crafton Goes for Third Straight June Texas Victory

Matt Crafton, who’s won the last two NASCAR Camping World Truck Series races this season and the past two June contests at Texas Motor Speedway, will go for his third consecutive win in Friday’s Rattlesnake 400 at the 1.5-mile track.

In 30 career starts at Texas, Crafton owns two wins, 11 top-fives, 19 top-tens and a 9.7 average finish. He has placed in the top-ten in his last nine starts there. The ThorSport Racing driver also has three runner-up showings at Texas. Continue reading →

Restarts Foil Matt Kenseth’s Winning Chances at Pocono

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Photo - Brian Lawdermilk/Getty Images

Photo – Brian Lawdermilk/Getty Images

Matt Kenseth’s No. 20 Toyota was fast enough to lead 31 laps in Sunday’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, Axalta ‘We Paint Winners’ 400 at Pocono Raceway.

The problem was that Kenseth couldn’t keep the lead when the race restarted. Given that the race featured ten cautions for 40 laps, restarts became a major issue for the Joe Gibbs Racing driver. Continue reading →

Dale Earnhardt Jr. Overachieves for Runner-Up Finish at Pocono

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Photo - Matt Hazlett/Getty Images

Approximately halfway through the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series final green-flag run on Monday at Pocono Raceway, crew chief Greg Ives radioed to driver Dale Earnhardt Jr.

“The 41 (leader Kurt Busch) needs to save (fuel) to make it. We do not. Go get him!”

But over the closing laps, the handling of Earnhardt’s car tightened up, and he was unable to track down Busch, even though the eventual race winner was in fuel-conservation mode.

Earnhardt thought he could have been more effective in keeping Busch behind him after the final restart. Continue reading →

Saving Fuel Gets Kurt Busch a Sprint Cup Win at Pocono

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Working with a substitute crew chief, and saving enough fuel to get to the finish line and complete a celebratory burnout, Kurt Busch won Monday’s rain-delayed Axalta ‘We Paint Winners’ 400 at Pocono Raceway.

Busch won for the first time this year in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series and for the third time at Pocono, a 2.5-mile speedway featuring three widely different corners. And Busch claimed his 28th victory in NASCAR’s premier series with race engineer John Klausmeier leading the team in place of crew chief Tony Gibson, who was serving a one-race suspension for a lug nut violation last week at Charlotte.

Told he was two laps short at the start of the last 33-lap green-flag run, Busch saved enough fuel to get to the finish while keeping race runner-up Dale Earnhardt Jr. behind him. Continue reading →

Larson Wins Rain-Shortened NASCAR XFINITY Debut Race at Pocono

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The maiden voyage of the NASCAR XFINITY Series at Pocono Raceway was shorter than planned, but race winner Kyle Larson wasn’t complaining.

NASCAR awarded the checkered flag in the Pocono Green 250 to Larson when the race was red-flagged after 53 of 100 scheduled laps and then called because of persistent rain.

The victory was Larson’s first of the season and fourth in the series, but it was a source of frustration to runner-up Erik Jones, who arguably had the fastest car and was closing rapidly on Larson when a rain shower blew in from the west and stopped the action. Continue reading →