Posted on by Staff Report

“The Mayor” of NASCAR.

Jeff Burton earned that nickname for his insightful perspectives on issues affecting the well-being and safety of the sport. But it was his on-track performance that fueled his 22-year Cup Series career.

The 1994 Cup Series Rookie of the Year spent the first half of his career at Roush Fenway Racing, where he experienced his most success. His first Cup win came at Texas Motor Speedway in 1997, the track’s first race. Over the next five years, Burton would win 17 times and finish in the top five in the standings four times.

In 1999, he won a career high six races, including two of the sport’s crown jewel events – the Coca Cola 600 and Southern 500.

Burton finished his career with 21 Cup wins and 27 Xfinity Series wins, one of 10 drivers to have at least 20 wins in each series.

Since 2015, Burton has served as an analyst for NBC Sports’ NASCAR coverage.

JEFF BURTON BIO

Born: June 29, 1967
Hometown: South Boston, Virginia

Cup Series Stats
Competed: 1993-2014
Starts: 695
Wins: 21
Poles: 6
Years on Ballot: 5

Posted on by Staff Report

Jake Elder may not have stayed in one place very long, but he left his mark every stop he made.

Known as “Suitcase Jake” for his propensity to switch organizations, Elder helped guide some of NASCAR’s biggest stars to Victory Lane.

After a stint as a welder for Petty Enterprises, Elder moved to Holman-Moody under the tutelage of Ralph Moody. He won the 1967 Daytona 500 as crew chief for Mario Andretti followed by consecutive championships with David Pearson.

While not formally educated, Elder knew more about building race cars than most of his peers. He had a unique style and preferred to do things his own way.

Beyond his mechanical genius, Elder had a penchant for working with aggressive, up-and-coming drivers. He helped Darrell Waltrip to his first two career victories and set him up for a Hall of Fame career. Four years later he sent Dale Earnhardt to his first Victory Lane. He led Earnhardt for the first 13 races of his 1980 championship season before, appropriately enough, packing up and moving on to his next opportunity.

JAKE ELDER BIO

Born: Nov. 22, 1936
Died: Feb. 24, 2010
Hometown: Statesville, North Carolina 

Championships (3)

Cup – 1968-69, ‘80 (crew chief)

Cup Series Crew Chief Stats

Competed: 1966-92
Wins: 43
Poles: 36
Years on Ballot: 4

Posted on by Staff Report

If you won a NASCAR Cup Series race in the 1970s or ’80s, odds are the car originated on a surface plate in Banjo Matthews’ shop.

Matthews was a master car builder who found his calling supplying cars to teams at all levels of NASCAR. His work transformed the sport, introducing custom chassis built for both speed and safety.

Matthews began his career racing and working on modifieds, driving to Victory Lane 50 times in 1954. In 1963, however, Matthews traded in his helmet, opting to focus on the mechanical side. He worked for Ford Motor Company before starting his own shop, Banjo’s Performance Center.

It was estimated that in the 70s Matthews built cars for at least half the Cup field. From 1974-85, cars built by Matthews won 262 of the 362 Cup races held (72%). In 1978, his cars won all 30 races of the season, including the third consecutive championship for a Matthews car.

It’s no wonder that Matthews was often referred to as the ‘Henry Ford of race cars.’

BANJO MATTHEWS BIO

Born: Feb. 14, 1932
Died: Oct. 2, 1996
Hometown: Akron, Ohio

Championships (3)
Cup – 1976-78 (car builder)

Year on Ballot: 5

Posted on by Zack Albert

The ballot for the NASCAR Hall of Fame’s Class of 2021 contains five new faces, three of whom should ring quite familiar for recent viewers. Two are fixtures on stock-car racing broadcasts; the third has largely disappeared from the public eye.

Jeff Burton, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Carl Edwards were announced Tuesday as first-year nominees for Hall of Fame induction, joining seven other returning names on the Modern Era portion of the 2021 ballot. Their debuts as Hall candidates coincide with the first-time nominations of mechanical geniuses Jake Elder and Banjo Matthews on the Pioneer Ballot.

This year’s vote is the first under new procedures that will tap three legends for induction — two from a 10-person Modern Era Ballot for careers that began within the last 60 years and one from a Pioneer Ballot of five earlier standouts. The previous 11 NASCAR Hall of Fame classes enshrined five members each.

The returning nominees on the Modern Era side are Neil Bonnett, Harry Gant, Harry Hyde, Larry Phillips, Ricky Rudd, Kirk Shelmerdine and Mike Stefanik. Shelmerdine’s nominations are nonconsecutive (2019, 2021).

RELATED: NASCAR announces nominees for 2021 Hall of Fame Class | Photos of the nominees

The careers of the three new Modern Era nominees overlapped through years of competition in the 2000s and 2010s. Burton and Earnhardt are competitors turned colleagues as analysts in the NBC Sports booth. Edwards competed against both before his sudden retirement before the 2017 season, and it was Edwards who replaced Burton in Roush Fenway Racing’s No. 99 when the latter departed for Richard Childress Racing in 2004.

Edwards holds the most NASCAR Cup Series victories of the three newcomers to the Modern Era ballot — 28 to Earnhardt’s 26 and Burton’s 21 — but Earnhardt’s resume stacks up as potentially the strongest of the trio.

Earnhardt Jr. claimed two titles (1998-99) in what is now the NASCAR Xfinity Series, while Edwards has just one (2007) and Burton none. Earnhardt also possesses two Daytona 500 wins and was named NASCAR’s Most Popular Driver 15 times.

Burton’s crown-jewel wins include a pair of wins in the Coca-Cola 600 and one in the Southern 500. Edwards won those prestigious races one time each.

Earnhardt has remained a popular figure in retirement, joining the NBC Sports booth after his full-time driving days ended in 2017. He’s also remained involved as a thriving team owner in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, a podcast host in his company’s media productions arm and a celebrant of stock-car nostalgia on social media.

Burton has kept a similar ambassador’s role since joining NBC Sports for the 2014 season. His voice resonated as an unofficial mayor of the NASCAR garage throughout his career, and his family has maintained a racing presence with his 19-year-old son Harrison now a regular in the Xfinity Series.

Edwards drew fans with his trademark backflip celebration after victories, but also with his winsome personality and a tenacious demeanor behind the wheel. The Missouri native had multiple close brushes with the Cup Series championship, most notably in 2011 when he lost on a tiebreaker in a slugfest with Tony Stewart and in his lone Championship 4 appearance under the current playoff format in 2016.

Less than two months after his final title bid, Edwards announced his stunning departure from full-time driving while in his prime at age 37. Since that emotional news conference, Edwards has made few public appearances.

The inclusion of Elder and Matthews on the Class of 2021 ballot recognizes two figures behind the successes of star drivers with NASCAR Hall of Fame credentials. They join returning nominees Red Farmer, Hershel McGriff and Ralph Moody on the Pioneer Ballot.

Elder won championships as a crew chief with both David Pearson and Dale Earnhardt, but his transient nature when it came to employment gave him his nickname — “Suitcase Jake.” Matthews enjoyed a brief career as a driver in NASCAR’s infancy before moving to a successful career as a crew chief and team owner, but his stature only grew as the pre-eminent car builder of the 1970s and ’80s.

MORE: Photos of current Hall of Fame members

Posted on by Staff Report

For Doug Coby, the 2016 NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour season finale at Thompson Speedway Motorsports Park was a next step toward an historic legacy.

For Justin Bonsignore, it was a bittersweet victory.

Coby came home in third place, but it was more than enough to secure his third straight championship and fourth overall. The title also moved him into the conversation of potentially matching the title totals of Modified greats such as Jerry Cook, Mike Stefanik and Richie Evans.

They said the worse race to win – if there is such a thing, is the championship race, when you’re not the actual champion. That’s because all the attention gets focused on the big year-end trophy, overshadowing the events of the race.

In 2016, that was compounded for Bonsignore, as he won the Sunoco World Series 150 but came up 20 points short of dethroning Coby.

RACING-REFERENCE: Sunoco World Series 150 Race Results | 2016 Championship Standings

“It’s our fifth win at Thompson, but probably the worst one we’ve had considering the circumstances.

“This is a little depressing, I’m not going to lie.”

Broadcaster Ray Evernham, though, was prophetic, as Bonsignore climbed out of his car in Victory Lane.

Coby, who had a tour-high five wins in 2016, only recorded one in 2017. He had 10 top fives and 11 top 10s in 16 races, though, and edged Timmy Solomito for the championship by just six points.

Two years later, Coby added No. 6 and moved into the record books.

Bonsignore entered the 2017 finale mathematically in the hunt for the championship, but finished 10th and wound up third in points. He proved Evernham correct in 2018 with a dominating championship performance. He won eight of 16 races – including a season sweep of Thompson – to claim his first title.

Ryan Preece started last after missing qualifying to run in the NASCAR Xfinity Series race, and drove to second for car owner Ed Partridge. Preece would win five times in 2017 and twice more in 2018 before making the jump to the NASCAR Cup Series.

Jimmy Blewett finished third in the No. 4 “Mystic Missile” for longtime car owner Bob Garbarino, while Donny Lia was fifth.

After Blewett and Garbarino parted ways in the offseason, Garbarino elected to step away from the sport that he had been part of since the 1960s. Lia, who won Whelen Modifeid Tour titles for Garbarino in 2007 and ’09, ran five more times in 2018 for Tommy Baldwin Jr. before announcing his retirement.

Sunoco World Series of Racing presented by XtraMart at Thompson Speedway Motorsports Park. #SUNOCOWORLDSERIES

Posted on by Jonathan Merryman

It may be the most famous sentence Dale Earnhardt ever said: “I didn’t mean to really turn him around, I meant to rattle his cage though.”

That sentence was uttered in Victory Lane after the 1999 Bristol Night Race, a race that saw Terry Labonte spin off of the bumper of Earnhardt’s infamous black No. 3.

Labonte, who was known to be cool under pressure, earned the name “Iceman” and was yet again cool in his post-race interview, telling ESPN’s Bill Weber with a half grin on his face, “It just wasn’t my night.”

RELATED: Race results | Labonte recalls moment | More Classic Races

On the 20th anniversary of this race last year, Labonte told a different story. He said he was planning to wait on Earnhardt to come by him on the cool-down lap and that he was going to “T-Bone” him. His wrecked car had other plans. The crash had broken his reverse gear and his car was dead on the track.

The rest of the night played out like this: Earnhardt was virtually booed out of Victory Lane and legend has it the entire GM Goodwrench team changed uniforms before the walked out of track.

Whether you loved them or hated them, the moment created by “The Intimidator” and the “Iceman” is easily the most talked about moment in Bristol Motor Speedway’s history and we can relive that in this Classic NASCAR Full Race Replay.

Posted on by Jonathan Merryman

Editor’s Note: This story was first published on NASCAR.com on August 15, 2019. 

“I was going to T-bone him as he came down the back straightaway.”

That’s what was on Terry Labonte’s mind 20 years ago as his mangled No. 5 Kellogg’s Chevrolet sat on the backstretch at Bristol Motor Speedway during the cool-down lap. The ‘he’ Labonte referenced was none other than Dale Earnhardt, who spun Labonte on the final lap and went on to win one of Bristol’s most memorable races.

MORE: Richard Childress Racing coverage

“I thought I had it timed perfect,” Labonte said this summer at the NASCAR Hall of Fame. “I gave it gas and let the clutch out and the car moved about a half inch and tore reverse gear out of it. I was kind of like ‘Really! OK.’ I wasn’t as mad then after that.”

The incident spawned the famous line from Earnhardt: “I didn’t mean to really turn him around, I meant to rattle his cage though.”

Twenty years after the incident, some choose to believe Earnhardt. Others refuse. One man who sides with the “Intimidator” is his car owner for that race, Richard Childress.

“He didn’t mean to wreck him. He and I had talked. I think really, Terry knows as well that he didn’t mean to wreck him,” Childress said.

Whether he did or didn’t intend to wreck Labonte did not mean much to the fans in attendance that night. Many of those involved say it’s the loudest they have ever heard fans a race track. The mix of cheers and boos still ring in the ears of Childress and Labonte, who were at the center of the action.

Labonte described the post-race atmosphere as “amazing.”

“(Earnhardt) had so many fans and he didn’t hardly ever get booed too much,” Labonte said. “You could tell there were a lot of people there that were not his fans, that were drowning out his fans. I don’t think I have ever been to a race and heard it get … as loud as that.”

“You could even hear the crowd over the engines when they were coming into the garage,” Childress added. “So, I knew it was a moment in history at Bristol.”

Posted on by Staff Report

Doug Coby was chasing another championship.

And Justin Bonsignore was right on his heels the entire season.

Heading into the 2016 NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour finale, Coby was already a three-time tour champion – beginning to inch his name into the conversations among the historic greats. A fourth would get him firmly entrenched in that discussion, tying him with Tony Hirschman Jr. and putting the then-37-year-old halfway to the likes of Jerry Cook, Mike Stefanik and Richie Evans.

But Bonsignore had other ideas. The Long Island driver had finished third in the championship hunt in 2014 before slipping back to 10th.

With with three wins to that point, Bonsignore was within 20 of Coby heading into the finale. He had been sitting second in points since the ninth race of the season.

RELATED: 2016 NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour Results

Starting with an August win at Thompson Speedway Motorsports Park, Bonsingore had those three wins to go with a second, a third and a fourth. The only blemish was a 22nd-place finish at Bristol Motor Speedway.

Likewise, Coby had two wins, a second, a third and a fifth. His mulligan was a 15th at Riverhead Raceway.

RACING-REFERENCE: Doby Coby’s 2016 Results | Justin Bonsignore’s 2016 Results

Heading to the historic Sunoco World Series 150, just 20 points separated Coby from Bonsignore.

Add to the mix Timmy Solomito and Ryan Preece, among others. Solomito already had four wins, including the opener at Thompson in April, and always a threat to win on the .625-mile oval. And Preece was running a limited schedule for car owner Ed Partridge.

Posted on by Staff Report

It’s not often you see a car like Terry Labonte’s No. 5 from the 1995 Bristol Night Race in Victory Lane. Often, you see it on the hook of a wrecker being towed off the track, incapable of running any longer.

On Aug. 26, 1995, however, Labonte celebrated alongside perhaps the most beat-up car to ever grace Victory Lane.

There wasn’t a favorite or fastest car under the lights that night. Six drivers led at least 50 laps of the 500-lap event, with Dale Jarrett (99), Jeff Gordon (86) and Dale Earnhardt (81) topping the field.

RELATED: Race recap | More Classic races

And it was Earnhardt, always a bull on the Bristol high banks, tracking down the leader Labonte late. But “Texas Terry” held his spot, Earnhardt initiated contact out of Turn 4 and Labonte was spun and wrecked across the start/finish line — crossing it first, ahead of the “Intimidator.”

That wouldn’t be the last Bristol incident between the two, either.

Rewatch the 1995 Bristol Night Race in its entirety on our YouTube channel, or from the embed below, and stay tuned for Part 2 on Tuesday.

Posted on by Staff Report

With classic race replays airing every weekday, drivers engaging on our Instagram channel for live interviews and an eNASCAR preview show, there is plenty of racing content for NASCAR fans to consume.

This week’s viewing guide for NASCAR.com and NASCAR social media platforms is below.

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