Posted on by Staff Report

One of the biggest unresolved personnel moves ahead of the 2021 NASCAR Cup Series season remains: Who will replace seven-time champion Jimmie Johnson in Hendrick Motorsports’ No. 48 Chevrolet?

RELATED: Silly Season’s key figures | Candidates for the No. 48

The question for Johnson in a Friday teleconference with reporters was whether he had any say in the matter. Johnson’s answer: Some.

“I’ve been involved a little bit,” Johnson said. “It’s a big decision for the company and for our sponsor, Ally, so the weight really lies in their hands and the direction they want to take things. So I’ve had a little interaction, but nothing too in-depth, but I fully believe in Hendrick Motorsports and the decision they make, who they decide to put in the car and of course, Ally goes along with that as well.”

The question has lingered ever since Johnson formally announced last November that his full-time racing career would end after the 2020 campaign. Back then, team owner Rick Hendrick demurred, joking that Jeff Gordon would come out of retirement as Johnson’s successor.

Johnson’s immediate goal is to qualify for the NASCAR Playoffs and a shot at a record eighth series championship in Saturday’s Coke Zero Sugar 400 (7:30 p.m. ET on NBC/NBC Sports App, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) at Daytona International Speedway.

Posted on by PJ Walsh

The Action Network specializes in providing sports betting insights/analytics and is a content partner with NASCAR. Check out more NASCAR betting analysis here.

Superspeedway racing is already unpredictable. Now throw in the added significance of Saturday night’s Coke Zero Sugar 400 (7:30 p.m. ET, NBC/NBC Sports App, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) being the final race before the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs and we have all the makings of a wild night in Daytona.

This should lead to exciting racing under the lights, but what does it mean for NASCAR bettors?

The combination of pack racing and drivers risking it all to earn a playoff berth should lead to plenty of dicey moments and potentially wrecks taking out large portions of the field.

This, in turn, leads to unpredictability which often results in longshots finishing higher than they normally do each week.

As bettors, we can take advantage by pinpointing which of these sleepers are poised for overperformance and grabbing them at juicy numbers for top-10 finishes.

With this in mind, here is the driver I’m betting to finish in the top 10 at Daytona.

NASCAR at Daytona Odds, Betting Picks

Odds as of Friday at 7:30 a.m. ET

Corey LaJoie (+550) for a Top-10 Finish

In the two Cup Series races run at Daytona since NASCAR got rid of restrictor plates, here are the number of drivers who have better average finishes than LaJoie … [crickets].

That’s right, LaJoie is tied with Ryan Newman and Justin Haley (who won the summer race last year by staying out during a rain caution while the rest of the field pitted) with a series-best 7.0 average finish in those two events.

If we expand the sample size to five superspeedway races without restrictor plates by including three events at Talladega, LaJoie still has the fourth-best average finish in the series.

The No. 32 Go Fas Ford doesn’t necessarily run up front all race, but LaJoie is very adept at biding his time, avoiding the “Big One” and inevitably finding himself toward the front of the field as the laps wind down.

There are no guarantees in NASCAR and betting, especially at superspeedways, but +550 is a fine price to take a crack at LaJoie scoring another top 10 at Daytona.

[Bet now at FanDuel and get a $500 risk-free bet.]

Posted on by Holly Cain

Only three races remain to set the 2020 NASCAR Gander RV & Outdoors Truck Series 10-driver Playoff field, and as the standings sit now, there are three drivers contending for just two spots on points. Of course, a new winner in Sunday’s CarShield 200 Presented by CK Power at Worldwide Technology Raceway at Gateway (12 p.m. ET on FS1, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) could change things dramatically.

And drama has been a consistent theme this season — with first-time winners, potential new championship challengers and a hearty mix of veteran winners as well. 

This week marks the grand finale of the popular Triple Truck Challenge — a three-race midseason incentive for full-time competitors. Sheldon Creed won a $50,000 bonus for taking the victory on the Daytona International Speedway Road Course on Aug. 16 and Zane Smith got a $50,000 check for winning last week at Dover — the first two events for the challenge.

RELATED: Learn more about the Triple Truck Challenge | Weekend schedule for Gateway

Should either Creed or Smith win Sunday’s race at World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway, they would score an extra $50,000 — a total of $150,000 for winning two of the three races. A new winner this weekend earns an extra $50,000.

That money will be important, but so will the winner’s trophy that could represent an automatic ticket into the 2020 Playoffs.

Young drivers Tyler Ankrum, 19, Todd Gilliland, 20, and 18-year-old Derek Kraus are currently vying for the last two playoff positions. Ankrum, driver of the No. 26 GMS Racing Chevrolet, is in ninth place with a nine-point edge on 11th place Derek Kraus. Gilliland, who drives the No. 38 Front Row Motorsports Ford, trails Ankrum by five points and is four points ahead of Kraus, driver of the No. 19 McAnally-Hilgemann Racing Toyota.

Gilliland and Kraus bring an impressive statistical resume to the track — good not only for their playoff hopes, but also notable in general. Gilliland has finished runner-up in two of his three Gateway starts (2018 and 2019). Kraus will be making his first Truck start there this weekend, but he’s celebrated in Victory Lane already, with a 2018 win in the NASCAR K&N Pro Series West race there and a runner-up in it last year.

Ankrum’s only NASCAR Gander RV & Outdoor Truck Series start there was a 30th-place finish last year driving for a different team.

“I’m really looking forward to it,” Kraus said. “I’ve had really good runs there in the past. So, I’m very comfortable there. I know everyone at MHR is working really hard. So I’m really excited to get to the track.”

This highly motivated trio can expect the field to keep them all honest, however. Last week’s Dover winner Zane Smith, 21, who has won two of the last three races, has only one start at Gateway, finishing fifth. Championship points leader Austin Hill, 26, has posted a series best 11 top-10 finishes in the 2020 season’s 13 races, but he’s never finished in the top 10 at Gateway. His best is 11th place in both 2018 and 2019. Christian Eckes, 19, who is solidly in the playoff field on points, led the most laps (57) in last year’s Gateway race but finished 14th.

They all face a legitimately tough challenge from veterans such as Johnny Sauter and Stewart Friesen, who are typically odds-on playoff contenders. This year, however, both sit well behind the close points battle and most likely will need a victory to earn their shot at the season trophy.

Sauter, the 2016 series champion and driver of the No. 13 ThorSport Racing Ford, is ranked 13th, 71 points behind 10th-place Gilliland. Sauter has top-five finishes in all seven of his starts at the Gateway track, however, scoring a runner-up finish in 2009 and third-place finishes in his last two starts there in 2017 and 2018. He served a one-race suspension last year and did not compete at Gateway. 

Friesen, 37, a first-time Championship 4 qualifier last year with 16 top-10 and 12 top-five finishes in 2019, has only a single top five this season and is ranked 15th — 97 points behind 10th place Gilliland. He finished third at Gateway last year, however, leading 20 laps.

Posted on by RJ Kraft

The 2020 NASCAR Cup Series regular season comes to a close Saturday night with the Coke Zero Sugar 400 (7:30 p.m. ET on NBC/NBC Sports App, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) at Daytona International Speedway.

Thirteen playoff spots have officially been locked up, and Clint Bowyer needs three points (in the event of a new winner) to lock himself into the field. Matt DiBenedetto, William Byron and Jimmie Johnson are separated by nine points with two of the three likely to make the postseason if a previous 2020 winner makes his way to Victory Lane at the 2.5-mile superspeedway. Past Daytona winners, such as Erik Jones, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Ryan Newman and Matt Kenseth, are in win-or-go-home mode.

Anything can happen at “The World Center of Racing,” and with the back of the playoff picture far from settled, NASCAR.com’s Chase Wilhelm and RJ Kraft look at which driver outside the bubble is most likely to race his way into the playoffs when the checkered flag is waved at the high banks of Daytona.

RELATED: Schedule for Daytona | Odds, betting lines for Daytona 

Wilhelm: For Erik Jones, a win at Daytona on Saturday night would mean worlds more than just a postseason slot.

Jones will be a free agent at season’s end after it was announced Aug. 6 he would not return to Joe Gibbs Racing in 2021. The 24-year-old’s will to prove something under the lights at the 2.5-mile superspeedway is two-fold. One, he wants to show potential car owners he has what it takes to win and make the NASCAR Playoffs under a high-pressure situation. Two, it could serve as a little self-gratification to show Toyota and JGR what they’re going to miss out on now.

Aside from his drive to make something happen in his final 11 races in the No. 20 car, Jones’ first career NASCAR Cup Series victory also came in the second race at Daytona back in July 2018. Along with that success, Jones also nabbed the checkered flag in the Busch Clash at Daytona to begin the 2020 season, while also finishing fifth at Talladega Superspeedway in June.

If you’re looking for a driver outside the bubble to sneak up on everyone and win, Jones is your guy.

Kraft: Jones certainly has done it here before — both at Daytona and grabbing a win late in the regular season (at Darlington last year). Ricky Stenhouse Jr. feels like the obvious choice given his 2017 win in the summer here (“America, 1776, we are the champs“), but his propensity to be all or nothing at this track has me looking elsewhere.

I’m taking Chris Buescher. Why Buescher, you ask? The driver of the No. 17 Roush Fenway Racing Ford — Stenhouse’s former car — finished third in the 2020 Daytona 500 and is one of four drivers — Ryan Blaney, Denny Hamlin and Kevin Harvick are the others — to finish in the top 10 in both superspeedway races so far in 2020. His 4.5 average finish at superspeedways this year is third-best among full-time drivers. Daytona has seen some strong runs out of him in recent years with three top fives and four top 10s in his last six starts. To dive into the loop data, he had the sixth-best average running position at Daytona in February.

Taking Buescher also aligns me with the Fords who have mastered the strength in numbers approach needed to succeed in this type of racing. The Roush Fenway superspeedway program showed its strength with Stenhouse in 2017 and recent superspeedway runs by Buescher and Newman — who was running top three in the closing laps of the 2020 Daytona 500 before a last-lap wreck have continued that solid performance.

Posted on by Terrin Waack

The No. 24 and 48 Hendrick Motorsports teams are tied together in multiple ways.

There’s Jimmie Johnson, who has driven the historic No. 48 Chevrolet to seven NASCAR Cup Series championships in 19 years. His crew chief during those title runs was Chad Knaus, and Knaus now sits atop the No. 24 pit box and works with William Byron. The young driver actually idolized the elder champion growing up.

And now the two competitors straddle the NASCAR Playoffs cutline with one regular-season race remaining.

DAYTONA: Schedule | Lineup | Paint schemes | Clinching scenarios

“I was really a 48 fan through and through,” Byron said Thursday on a Zoom teleconference. “I’ve got a lot of 48 stuff at my parents’ house and a lot of different die-cast cars.

“I really don’t look at it as me versus him. I know that’s what the bubble is right now, but it really is an opportunity for both of us to get in. Trying to look at it as that. That’s ultimately the goal — to get us both in.”

Byron sits in the final provisional NASCAR Playoffs spot — four points above the cutline. Johnson is the first driver on the outside looking in — four points below the cutline.

Another player in the mix is Matt DiBenedetto. The No. 21 Wood Brothers Racing Ford pilot is safe by nine points. He’s the closest potential boot since Clint Bowyer is next but has a larger 57-point buffer (and could potentially lock himself into the playoffs by the end of Stage 1 on Saturday night).

There are technically three spots remaining in the 16-driver field, so Byron and Johnson can both still qualify. That’s really what the two Hendrick Motorsports teams want, and they’re willing to work together to make it happen.

“We’ve got a shot at it, right?” Knaus said. “And that’s what we need to try to do. I’m hoping Jimmie makes it. I hope to hell the man goes out there and wins the championship, honestly. That would just be spectacular to see him be able to do that and knowing that I was a part of that would be really awesome, right? But we’ll just have to see how the cards fall.”

Johnson is retiring from full-time competition at the end of the 2020 season. He hasn’t won a race since June 2017.

PHOTOS: See every Jimmie Johnson Cup Series win

Last season marked the first time Johnson did not advance into the playoffs since the format’s inception in 2004. On the other hand, Byron made the postseason for the first time in his career. They finished 18th and 11th in the final standings, respectively.

“We don’t feel — I don’t feel and Jimmie does not feel — like everything about his career is just riding on this moment,” said Cliff Daniels, the No. 48 crew chief. “His career is already established. It’s already defined. His success already speaks for itself.”

This year, Johnson has four top fives and nine top-10 showings. He’s averaging a 15.3 finish. Byron has just one top five and eight top 10s. He’s averaging a 16.7 finish. The difference — and the real reason Byron has a postseason advantage — is Byron has two stage wins and 110 stage points. Johnson has one stage win and 92 stage points.

RELATED: Totaling up the 2020 stage points

It’s a tight battle. No doubt there. But at a track like Daytona International Speedway, collaboration is key. So, being teammates in this less-than-deal situation may actually help the Hendrick Motorsports garages.

“We are going to work with them all night Saturday night and put ourselves both in a good spot,” Daniels said. “I would love to be side by side, door to door with them, with points in the bag, coming to the finish line for the final checkered flag.”

Posted on by Team Release

STATESVILLE, N.C. (Aug. 27, 2020) — GMS Racing officials announced today that NASCAR champion and two-time Southern 500 winner, Greg Biffle, will pilot the No. 24 Chevrolet for the upcoming NASCAR Gander RV & Outdoors Truck Series race at Darlington Speedway.

Biffle has accumulated an impressive resume throughout his NASCAR career with two championships and 56 wins across all three national series. The 50-year-old has six years of experience in the Gander Trucks and has collected one championship, 17 wins, 43 top fives, 55 top 10s and 12 pole awards in the series.

“I’m excited to get back behind the wheel of a Gander Truck,” said Biffle. “GMS Racing produces competitive trucks week in and week out. So needless to say when I got the chance to drive one of their Chevrolets, at one of my favorite tracks, I couldn’t turn it down. I’m thankful for this opportunity and I can’t wait to get to Darlington with this GMS Racing team.”

Biffle will take to the track in The South Carolina Education Lottery 200 at 2 p.m. ET on Sept. 6 at Darlington Raceway (FS1, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Biffle’s sponsorship and paint scheme will be announced at a later date.

Posted on by Staff Report

Noah Gragson will return to JR Motorsports and the No. 9 Chevrolet in the NASCAR Xfinity Series for the 2021 season.

RELATED: Key players in Silly Season

The news was conveyed via a video on Twitter starring Gragson and team co-owner Kelley Earnhardt Miller.

https://twitter.com/NoahGragson/status/1299056191377747968

 

Gragson stirred social media into a frenzy with an Instagram Live last night and tweet involving a pen emoji that hinted at big news for the 22-year-old.

https://twitter.com/NoahGragson/status/1298839338604789761

The 2020 season marks Gragson second with JRM. He has already won two races this season to qualify for the playoffs and ranks third in the standings.

“I’m so glad we were able to get this deal done,” Gragson said in a Friday news release from JR Motorsports. “This year has been great as we have a couple wins and are sitting third in the championship standings with a few races left before the playoffs. The No. 9 team along with everyone at the shop prepares fast cars every week and I can’t wait to drive their cars again next year. I’m so thankful for Kelley, Dale and everyone else at JRM. They treat everyone like family and they have become an extended family of mine.”

Posted on by Staff Report

Jeffrey Earnhardt revealed a Darlington throwback scheme that will not only honor seven-time champion Dale Earnhardt but also pay homage to Kerry Earnhardt, Jeffrey Earnhardt’s father. The sharp, golden look will be on Jeffrey Earnhardt’s No. 0 JD Motorsports Chevrolet for the NASCAR Xfinity Series’ Sport Clips Haircuts VFW 200 on Sept. 5 at Darlington Raceway (12:30 p.m. ET, NBC, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

The scheme is a replica of a Bass Pro Shops look that both the ‘Intimidator’ and Kerry Earnhardt used at different times in the NASCAR Cup Series. First, here’s Jeffrey’s scheme for this season:

Jdm Jeffrey Earnhardt Darlington

And here are the cars of Dale and Kerry that Jeffrey’s car is emulating:

Jdm Dale Kerry Earnhardt Scheme

Posted on by Staff Report

There is one NASCAR Cup Series regular-season race remaining before the start of the NASCAR Playoffs. Entering Saturday’s race at Daytona International Speedway (7:30 p.m. ET, NBC/NBC Sports App, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), here’s who is locked into the field and who can clinch on points — and who must win their way into the postseason.

RELATED: Full weekend schedule

Already clinched

The following 13 drivers have clinched a spot in the 16-driver postseason field: Kevin Harvick, Denny Hamlin, Brad Keselowski, Martin Truex Jr., Joey Logano, Ryan Blaney, Chase Elliott, Aric Almirola, Kyle Busch, Kurt Busch, Alex Bowman, Austin Dillon and Cole Custer.

Can clinch via points

If there is a new winner, the following drivers could clinch by being ahead of the sixth winless driver in the standings.

• Clint Bowyer: Would clinch with 3 points (so he could clinch as early as the end of Stage 1)
• Matt DiBenedetto: Would clinch with 51 points
• William Byron: Could only clinch with help
• Jimmie Johnson: Could only clinch with help

If there is a repeat winner, the following drivers could clinch by being ahead of the seventh winless driver in the standings. They would also clinch if there was a new winner among (Aric Almirola, Kyle Busch, Kurt Busch, Clint Bowyer, Matt DiBenedetto or William Byron) and being ahead of the sixth winless driver in the standings.

• Clint Bowyer: Would clinch regardless of finish
• Matt DiBenedetto: Would clinch with 47 points
• William Byron: Would clinch with 52 points
• Jimmie Johnson: Could only clinch with help
• Erik Jones: Could only clinch with help

Can clinch via a win

The following drivers would clinch on their win alone: Clint Bowyer, Matt DiBenedetto, William Byron, Jimmie Johnson, Erik Jones, Tyler Reddick, Christopher Bell, Chris Buescher, Bubba Wallace, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Michael McDowell, Ryan Newman, John Hunter Nemechek, Ty Dillon, Matt Kenseth, Corey LaJoie, Ryan Preece.

The following driver could clinch with a win and some help clinching a Top 30 position: Daniel Suarez

Posted on by Staff Report

Martin Truex Jr. revealed a Darlington throwback paint scheme Wednesday that harkens back to Hank Parker Jr. and Bass Pro Shops’ first full primary sponsorship. Parker ran the scheme for Chance2 Motorsports at the NASCAR Xfinity Series race in 2003 at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

RELATED: Darlington throwback paint schemes

Truex, driving for Joe Gibbs Racing in the No. 19 Toyota, will sport the look for the NASCAR Cup Series playoff opener Sept. 6 at Darlington Raceway in the Cook Out Southern 500 (6 p.m. ET on NBCSN/NBC Sports App, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).