Kyle Larson kept polesitter Joey Logano at bay after a restart with four laps left in Saturday’s Service King 300 NASCAR XFINITY Series race at Auto Club Speedway and held on to win by 0.127 seconds.
Larson and Logano had swapped the lead on three successive laps before Brandon Jones plowed into the outside wall on lap 142 to bring out the seventh and final caution of the afternoon. Continue reading
His car damaged in a wreck on the backstretch and held together with tape, Kurt Busch grabbed the lead on the final lap of the 59th Daytona 500 on Sunday and took the checkered flag in the Great American Race as a capstone to a checkered career that has trended upward since Busch joined Stewart-Haas Racing in 2014.
In a race that featured the first test of a new three-stage race format in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series—and featured enough twisted sheet metal to keep fabricators busy for a month—Busch surged to the front with a run around the outside when more than half the vehicles in an 11-car lead draft sputtered and ran short on fuel.
Having pushed other drivers to victory in the 500 on three previous occasions, Busch took the prize himself this time, finishing 0.228 seconds ahead of Ryan Blaney, who came from the rear of the lead pack on the final two laps. Continue reading
Jimmie Johnson, driver of the #48 Lowe’s Chevrolet, practices for the 59th Annual DAYTONA 500 at Daytona International Speedway on February 24, 2017 in Daytona Beach, Florida. Photo – Jared C Tilton/Getty Images
With their primary cars damaged in Thursday night’s Can-Am Duel 150-mile qualifying races, Jimmie Johnson, Paul Menard and Ryan Blaney will start the Daytona 500 from the rear of the field in backup race cars.
They’ll be joined at the rear by three cars that failed to meet the minimum ride height requirement during inspection after the Duels. The two cars of JTG/Daugherty Racing—the No. 37 of Chris Buescher and the No. 47 of AJ Allmendinger—were demoted to the back of the field in their respective Duels, as was the No. 78 Furniture Row Racing Toyota of Martin Truex Jr.
Allmendinger lost the seven points he would have scored for his fourth-place finish in the second Duel, and Truex lost the four points he would have earned for finishing seventh in the first Duel. Continue reading
Daytona 500 pole winner Chase Elliott put an exclamation on his qualifying effort with a victory in Thursday night’s first Can-Am Duel at Daytona International Speedway.
Elliott passed second-place starter Brad Keselowski for the lead on lap 37 and held it the rest of the way—through a wreck that altered the positions of the two Open Team drivers trying to race their way into the field for the 59th running of the Great American Race.
In the second Duel, defending Daytona 500 winner Denny Hamlin got a huge push from Austin Dillon and passed Dale Earnhardt Jr. on the next-to-last lap to win the race by 0.214 seconds over Clint Bowyer, who was competing for the first time in the No. 14 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford. Continue reading
Photo – Getty Images
In a late-season move in early November, Richard Childress Racing hired veteran Matt Borland as crew chief of the No. 27 Chevrolet driven by Paul Menard.
Though Borland had worked extensively with Menard’s teammate, Ryan Newman, dating to Newman’s days at Team Penske, Menard and Borland didn’t know each other, but that’s a situation both driver and crew chief have been working hard to correct. Continue reading