Early last year without so much as a whisper of rumor or comment, Ford and Stewart Haas Racing dropped a bombshell announcing they were partnering together for the 2017 season. This left most race fans and those within the NASCAR community wondering what kind of impact that was going to have on their sport. The first seven races of the season have shown positive signs of moving ahead in the right direction. Continue reading →
Joey Logano, driver of the #22 Shell Pennzoil Ford, poses with the Coors Light Pole Award after qualifying in the pole position for the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Camping World 500 at Phoenix International Raceway on March 17, 2017 in Avondale, Arizona. Photo – Chris Trotman/Getty Images
Apparently unfazed by last week’s controversy at Las Vegas, Joey Logano put his No. 22 Team Penske Ford on the pole for Sunday’s Camping World 500 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race at Phoenix International raceway at 3:30 pm ET on FOX.
In winning his first Coors Light Pole Award of the season, his first at Phoenix and the 18th of his career, Logano saved his best lap for the third and decisive round, streaking around the one-mile track in the Sonoran Desert in 26.216 seconds (137.321 mph). Continue reading →
If there truly is strength in numbers, then Ford’s presence in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series has grown in magnitude with the addition of Stewart-Haas Racing’s four-car organization.
The benefit was immediately obvious. Stewart-Haas’ Kevin Harvick, driving a Ford in the heat of battle for the first time, helped former nemesis Joey Logano and Brad Keselowski break up a four-car Toyota train at the front of the field in last Saturday’s Advance Auto Parts Clash at Daytona, the season-opening exhibition race in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series. Continue reading →
HOMESTEAD, FL – NOVEMBER 17: Jimmie Johnson (C), driver of the #48 Lowe’s/Kobalt Tools Chevrolet, poses with team owner Rick Hendrick (L) and crew chief Chad Knaus (R) in Champions Victory Lane with their six trophies after the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Ford EcoBoost 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway on November 17, 2013 in Homestead, Florida. Photo – Robert Laberge/Getty Images
It’s said reaching the top is the easy part; staying there is more difficult.
For Rick Hendrick, the climb up the mountain required a decade of hard work culminating in Hendrick Motorsports capturing its first NASCAR premier series championship in 1995.
Two decades later, Hendrick’s Chevrolet team remains stock car racing’s platinum standard: a record 12 NASCAR premier series titles – including Jimmie Johnson’s record-matching seventh crown in 2016 – and 245 victories with 16 different drivers.
“It just seems like yesterday we didn’t think we’d even make it through our first year (1984) and now we’ve won 12 of these things, and it’s hard to do,” said Hendrick following Johnson’s title-winning victory last November at Homestead-Miami Speedway in south Florida.
The 67-year-old Hendrick will reach yet another career milestone on Friday when he’s inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame (8 p.m. ET on NBCSN). The Class of 2017 includes fellow team owner Richard Childress, former Hendrick Motorsports drivers Mark Martin and Benny Parsons and pioneer car owner Raymond Parks. Continue reading →