Jimmie Johnson leads 1-2 Hendrick sweep atop first Texas practice

Posted on March 29, 2019March 29, 2019 by Staff Report

Jimmie Johnson scooted to the top of the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series leaderboard Friday, leading a 1-2 sweep of opening practice for Hendrick Motorsports at Texas Motor Speedway.

Johnson’s No. 48 Chevrolet led the 50-minute session with a best lap of 189.747 mph on the 1.5-mile track. Johnson, a seven-time Texas winner, was just ahead of Hendrick teammate Alex Bowman, who secured second place with a 188.363 mph lap in the No. 88 Chevy.

RELATED: Practice 1 results

Defending series champ Joey Logano posted the third-fastest lap of the opening practice, clocking in at 188.180 mph in the Team Penske No. 22 Ford. William Byron, another Hendrick driver, was fourth-fastest, with Brad Keselowski completing the top five in the first on-track activity for the series ahead of Sunday’s O’Reilly Auto Parts 500 (3 p.m. ET, FOX, PRN, SiriusXM).

Kyle Busch, a three-time Texas winner who prevailed in this race last year, was just 31st-fastest in the Joe Gibbs Racing No. 18 Toyota.

The session was slowed by a caution period at the 13-minute mark to check the track for fluid.

Busch Pole Qualifying to set the starting lineup is scheduled for Friday at 7:40 p.m. ET (FS1, PRN, SiriusXM).

RELATED: Odds to win at Texas

Posted on March 29, 2019 by RJ Kraft

RJ Kraft breaks down the top plays, sleepers to watch and plays to avoid for this weekend’s race at Texas Motor Speedway, the O’Reilly Auto Parts 500.

Posted on March 28, 2019March 29, 2019 by Staff Report

Trackside Live is back! Put your cowboy hats on because this weekend we’re heading to Texas Motor Speedway with a new live show to get you excited for a Sunday afternoon showdown in The Lone Star State.

MORE: Full Texas schedule | Buy tickets

The first and only show of the weekend will be at 11:30 a.m. ET to 12:30 p.m. ET on Sun., March 31 before the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series O’Reilly Auto Parts 500 (3 p.m. ET on FOX, PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), so you don’t want to miss it.

Versatile and critically acclaimed actor Brendan Fraser, who will serve as the Honorary Pace Car Driver for the Cup Series race, will also make an appearance on Trackside Live.

Fraser’s current project, “Doom Patrol,” has been met with strong reviews and praise from the Television Critics Association. Fraser plays both a race car driver and Robotman in the program.

Expect to hear from drivers like Matt Tifft, William Byron, Chris Buescher and Michael McDowell. NASCAR Hall of Famer Rusty Wallace will make an appearance as well.

The Trackside Live hosts are coming prepared with games and giveaways so be sure to come out and watch the live show if you’re at Texas.

If you’re not able to be there in person, bookmark this page so you can catch the livestream on NASCAR.com.

Posted on March 28, 2019 by Holly Cain

After a two-week break, the series returns to action in Saturday’s My Bariatric Solutions 300 at Texas Motor Speedway (at 1 p.m. ET on FS1, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

Monster Energy Series regular Ryan Blaney is the defending winner of this spring race, however, perennial championship contender Cole Custer is the most recent winner – taking the checkered flag last November. In fact, Custer has quite the enviable record on the Fort Worth high banks.

He’s finished top-five in all four of his NASCAR Xfinity Series starts, including a fourth-place finish in this race last year capping the effort with a Playoff win in the fall. His average finish is a highly impressive 3.75. And he’s never started worse than 10th.

Custer currently trails reigning NASCAR Xfinity Series champion, current points leader Tyler Reddick by only seven points heading into Texas. Christopher Bell is ranked third, 14 points behind Reddick – those drivers making up three-fourths of last year’s championship field at the Homestead-Miami season finale.

Beyond the tight championship situation, the Texas race is the opening qualifier for the 2019 Dash 4 Cash program. The top four finishing Xfinity Series championship contenders in Saturday’s race will be qualified for the first Dash 4 Cash event April 6 at Bristol Motor Speedway. The highest finishing of those four drivers at Bristol will earn a $100,000 bonus.

The $100,000 Dash 4 Cash continues April 12 at Richmond, April 27 at Talladega and May 4 at Dover with the top four Xfinity regulars eligible the following week. Last year, Ryan Preece (at Bristol), Elliott Sadler (at Richmond and Talladega) and Justin Allgaier (Dover) won the big money from Xfinity.

Posted on March 28, 2019 by Holly Cain

Kyle Busch may be looking to score his fourth-straight NASCAR Gander Outdoors Truck Series win of the season in Friday’s Vankor 350 at Texas Motor Speedway (at 9 p.m. ET on FS1, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) but history indicates he will have a substantial challenge in two-time series champ Johnny Sauter.

Sauter has won three of the last five Gander Truck races at the Texas high-banks and is defending winner of Friday night’s race. His five career victories are most among active drivers at the track and only Todd Bodine has ever scored more (six). Twice Sauter has won back-to-back races (swept 2012, 2017-18).

The driver of the No. 13 ThorSport Ford F-150, Sauter has scored top 10s in the previous three races of the 2019 season, including a runner-up finish at Atlanta. He sits fourth in the championship standings – nine points behind leader Stewart Friesen, who took the points lead for the first time in his three-year career following last week’s Martinsville race.

The Canadian Stewart Friesen holds a slim four-point edge over previous championship leader Grant Enfinger and is five points up on defending series champ Brett Moffitt. Only 11 points separate the top-six drivers in the standings.

Sauter and Matt Crafton (2014) are the only two drivers ranked among the top 10 in the championship with previous wins at Texas.

Harrison Burton is ranked fifth (nine points behind Friesen) and continues to lead the Sunoco Rookie of the Year standings. The 18-year old has three finishes of 11th or better in the opening four races. The Texas track has been important and historic in his family. It’s where his father Jeff Burton scored his first Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series victory in April 1997.

Posted on March 28, 2019 by Staff Report

Greg Biffle has not made a NASCAR national series start since the end of the 2016 season, but the 49-year-old driver is returning for a NASCAR Gander Outdoors Truck Series practice Thursday at Texas Motor Speedway, and then for a race when the Gander Trucks returns to the Lone Star State in June.

Biffle revealed via Twitter on Thursday night he will shake down the Kyle Busch Motorsports No. 51 Toyota during Thursday’s practice sessions in order to get some laps before his full-blown return for the June race.

So it’s been a few years and everyone’s been asking when… Tomorrow I will return to the track @TXMotorSpeedway for some practice in the @KBMteam 51 truck… pic.twitter.com/S5NguNzfcp

— Greg Biffle (@gbiffle) March 28, 2019

“I’ve always said that I would return to NASCAR in the right situation and when Kyle and I started talking about that KBM needed a driver for the June Texas race, I felt like this was the right opportunity to return to the track. I’m thankful for the opportunity to be able to drive such good equipment,” Biffle said in a team release. “I started my career in the Truck Series and it was one of the greatest times of my life, so it’s going to be a lot of fun to get back behind the wheel of a truck.”

Team owner Kyle Busch also will practice Thursday, and he still will drive the No. 51 this weekend in Friday night’s Vankor 350 (9 p.m. ET on FS1, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Busch has won all three of his starts in the Gander Trucks this season.

Biffle is no stranger to the Gander Outdoors Truck Series, either. He scored 16 of his 55 NASCAR national series victories in the series and won the 2000 championship.

“As we were putting the finishing touches on our driver lineup for this year, we found ourselves looking for someone to drive the No. 51 Tundra in the June race and we are fortunate to be putting a driver of Greg’s caliber behind the wheel,” Busch said in a team release. “I’ve been friends with Greg for a long time and we’ve always joked about how it would be cool for him to drive trucks again. When this opportunity came about the talks got serious and we both decided it was smart decision. Not only is he capable of stepping right in and getting another win for the No. 51 team as we work towards the Owner’s Championship, he will also be an experienced teammate for Harrison (Burton) and Todd (Gilliland) to lean on that weekend as they try to secure a spot in the playoffs and pursue another Truck Series Driver’s Championship for our organization.”

Posted on March 28, 2019April 1, 2021 by Staff Report

Though they are just six races in, the combination between Jimmy Blewett and Gershow Motorsports seems to be paying dividends for both sides.

Blewett, a veteran of racing on the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour, teamed with the Gershow team over the offseason. Joe Bertuccio — another modified veteran that is well known in the garage area — is the owner of the team.

And after a rapid seven races in the first month and a half, the team is finding success at the front of the field and coming up just short of winning. It’s been what they had hoped the partnership would be.

“We are off to a great start,” Blewett said. “Everyone is getting along really well. We were going to take this one race at a time and if it worked out, it worked out. If it didn’t, we weren’t going to lose a friendship over it. At the rate we are going, I think we will be together as long as Joe wants to race together.”

They started their season in February, in Florida, before moving up the East Coast to South Carolina and North Carolina in March. Blewett competed in the 53rd annual World Series of Asphalt Stock Car Racing at New Smyrna Speedway for the entire tour type Modified slate and came away from the week finishing third in the championship standings.

Although they didn’t win, they built a notebook of adjustments and developed crucial chemistry they were able to carry with them into the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour opener.

Saturday, Blewett opened his tenure with the Gershow Motorsports team in Whelen Modified Tour action with a third-place effort in the Performance Plus 150 presented by Safety Kleen at Myrtle Beach Speedway in South Carolina. The team went to Caraway Speedway in North Carolina with Blewett’s family-owned car for another Modified event on Sunday, where Blewett was leading the race before a transmission failed.

RACING-REFERENCE: Jimmy Blewett Career Statistics

“We are going to go racing,” Blewett said of the plans. “You will probably see us at all of the races. Joe said let’s get through the first few races together. We said we were going to do Speedweeks and if we did well, we were going to go Tour racing, and we ran really well at New Smyrna. We jelled good.”

And even though the records show the success they are having on the track, and Blewett feels like they are hitting on nearly all cylinders, Saturday at Myrtle Beach almost didn’t develop into what it did. On Friday night, it was looking like Blewett wouldn’t have some of his team leaders in attendance at Myrtle Beach.

Blewett’s veteran crew chief, Stash Botoua, and some additional team members, were scheduled on a flight from New York to South Carolina late in the day, but the flight was delayed. Just a few hours later, the flight was completed canceled — which meant the group was boxed into a corner with limited options.

Skip the season opener, or wait until the early morning and hope a flight was able to take off?

Neither.

Grab a rental car and begin the drive south, which was approximately 10 hours.

“When their flight got cancelled, they left at 11:30 and drove through the night to get here,” Blewett said. “I ended up doing the tires myself this morning. My crew chief and my car chief were a little bit concerned that would bother me, but I have my own team and I’ve done everything on my own before. Those guys were there for me, and they were driving all through the night to get here. I’ll do anything for them.”

RACING-REFERENCE: Deeper Look at Blewett’s Career

Blewett’s Whelen Modified Tour history includes six victories, with the most recent of them coming while driving Bob Garbarino’s famed ‘Mystic Missile’ in 2016. Over the last two years, Blewett ran a partial schedule with his family-owned operation while he focused on running for weekly Modified championships at Wall Stadium in New Jersey.

Right now, it looks like he could be on pace to chase his first Tour title. At Myrtle Beach, in ‘Showtime’ fashion, Blewett blasted through the field on fresh rubber on a few different occasions — splitting drivers three-wide in hopes of making it to the front.

“This one wasn’t a win, but it was a win, because those guys had to run through the night to get here. My hats are off to them,” Blewett said Saturday. “The problem is, I felt you needed to get the spots while the tires were fresh, otherwise, when they aren’t fresh, you can’t make the moves. We put a right-rear tire on that was a little bit too big and it cost us a lot of track position, but, we were able to pit and put two tires on, then we put one more on at the end.”

Just a few minutes after the race the team found a wire loose on the alternator, which Blewett felt definitely hurt his chances. He was up to second just under 15 laps to go and was running lap times a tick faster than eventual winner Doug Coby, before he started losing power because of a dying battery.

“The car was awesome at the end. The dead battery, I feel like it killed my shot at doing anything with Doug,” Blewett said.

But, taking the third-place finish and putting together the battles they have been through so far, including the fight for his crew to even attend the race on Saturday driving through the night, Blewett can taste Victory Lane.

“We are pretty darn close,” Blewett said of the team. “We are very, very close. My crew chief, car chief and I, it takes a team effort, but we are all on the same page when it comes down to making the adjustments. Their setup is completely different than anything I have ever run, but, the route that I tell them that I feel like we need to go and what they are going to go, it’s the same route I have been thinking in my mind. When you have that, it’s special. They’ve had fast cars, but haven’t been able to seal the deal and finish it off like we are now. We need to just keep the momentum up and keep working on it. I feel this is the team I need to be with to win races.”

Posted on March 28, 2019April 1, 2021 by Staff Report

Evergreen Speedway has been holding races since 1954. In those six decades, families have passed down a love of racing at NASCAR’s only sanctioned track in Washington from generation to generation.

Tyler Tanner knows all about that.

Tanner’s maternal grandfather raced at the Monroe, Washington, facility, a 0.375 and 0.646-mile semi-banked oval asphalt track located in the Evergreen State Fairgrounds, as did his mom and her brothers. Tanner’s dad also raced there.

“They met there at that track and I’ve been going there my entire life,” Tanner said.

Tanner’s mom had already stopped racing by the time he was born, but his dad continued at Evergreen until Tanner was about 6.

Tanner began racing himself around that time, while also giving basketball, baseball and soccer a try. None of those other sports stuck like racing, though.

“I wasn’t very good at other sports. Whatever else I played, I just wasn’t very good at any of them,” he said. “Obviously being that my parents both raced it was introduced to me when I was pretty little, and I just didn’t enjoy much else as much as I did racing.”

Tyler Tanner Motorsports | Facebook | Twitter

The focus turned to solely racing for Tanner when he was about 8. He traveled across the country racing quarter-midgets before eventually turning to late models. Tanner also ran in 14 races in the NASCAR Gander Outdoors Truck Series from 2011-2015.

Just about everything he knows about the sport Tanner said he learned from his family. Being a third-generation driver, he said having that background has helped him progress in the sport and build relationships with others in it.

His parents owned a company that manufactured parts for the racing industry. From the cars to maneuvering on the track to the business side, all aspects of racing are in his family’s blood.

“I think most of everything I’ve learned has been from being surrounded by it my entire life,” he said. “Not just the racing aspect of it, but preparation in the shop and all that type of stuff… when I came home from school I was around the business side of racing and going to races every weekend. I always worked on my own equipment. So just all aspects of it.”

This year will be Tanner’s sixth season at Evergreen, where he’s the defending super late model champion. Part of what brought him back to his family’s track was the improvements made by Doug and Traci Hobbs, who took over the lease at Evergreen in 2011. Prior to the Hobbs, Tanner said the racetrack wasn’t high on his list of places to compete, but ever since the change in leadership it’s become a completely different track.

“Around the same time we started racing there Doug and Traci Hobbs took over the lease and completely turned the place around,” he said. “And they got a bunch of big events going there and built the series back up and everything, so that’s when we started going and racing there again.”

Evergreen Speedway | Facebook | Twitter

Tanner has a full-time job outside of racing, but he has made it a priority to make all the races at Evergreen this season.

“Just seeing the growth again. Since they took it over it continued to grow: the competition, the fan base and everything about Evergreen Speedway. It’s nice,” he said. “It’s been fun to be involved in it and be a part of it. Being a racer you don’t want to go to a race where there’s no competition or no fan base or anything like that. You want to race the best people you can, and I think that’s what draws so many of us to Evergreen.”

Evergreen Speedway will open it’s season on Saturday with super late models, street stocks, mini stocks, hornets, stingers and V8 extremes. Heat races begin at 4:20 p.m.

Evergreen Speedway schedule

It looks to be another tough summer at Evergreen, which is exactly what Tanner is hoping for. If his family hadn’t been the ones to help him fall in love with racing, the competition would have.

“I don’t know what it was about it that drew me to (racing) more than anything else. I just liked being able to go to different racetracks all the time. It was a challenge,” he said. “The higher you progress it just continually becomes more and more of a challenge. I’ve always enjoyed that about it.”

Posted on March 28, 2019March 28, 2019 by Staff Report

Leavine Family Racing could expand from a one-car team to a two-vehicle operation as soon as the 2020 season, team owner Bob Leavine told SportsMap.com in Houston on Wednesday.

“Yes, we are working on expanding for 2020 right now,” Leavine said during a Q-and-A session. “It’s just a matter of sponsorship because we can put the people on it, and we have the organization and Toyota Racing Development will support that. So yes, we are working to expand.”

This is Leavine Family Racing’s first year under the Toyota umbrella and with a technical alliance with Joe Gibbs Racing.

Matt DiBenedetto joined the No. 95 operation in the offseason, replacing veteran Kasey Kahne in the seat. DiBenedetto led 49 laps in the season-opening Daytona 500, and Leavine indicated he’s pleased with the driver’s progress.

MORE: 2019 season stats

“We were going to run two cars for this year with Daniel Suarez and a driver we selected, but that didn’t work out,” Leavine said. “But overall, I am happy with how everything turned out. I am glad we got Matt DiBenedetto because he wanted to come here.”

Leavine announced in October 2018 that DiBenedetto was joining the organization with a two-year deal.

Posted on March 28, 2019 by Team Release

HUNTERSVILLE, N.C (March 28, 2019) – Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR) announced today that it has renewed its on-going partnership with Interstate Batteries in a multi-year agreement that will extend the relationship beyond 30 years. As one of the longest running sponsorships in professional sports, Interstate Batteries will continue to serve as the official battery of Joe Gibbs Racing and primary sponsor on the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series No. 18 Toyota Camry driven by Kyle Busch for six races.

“I tell people all the time that one of the great things about professional sports is the relationships you have a chance to develop over the years and I don’t know if there is a better example than what we have with Norm Miller and everyone there at Interstate Batteries,” said Joe Gibbs, owner of Joe Gibbs Racing.

Interstate Batteries was the founding sponsor for Joe Gibbs Racing, helping the organization launch the race team back in 1992. “We literally had nothing when we met with Norm and asked him to help us start this race team and now our new agreement will extend the partnership to more than 30 years. And what’s amazing is how it has continued through generations. Obviously, J.D. (Gibbs) played a big role in the relationship over the years and he developed a great friendship with Scott (Miller). And now, Coy (Gibbs) has become instrumental to our daily operations. When you reflect on all that has happened over the years and everyone that has been involved, I really think God had a role in bringing us together.”

Interstate Batteries has been a part of nearly every major moment in Joe Gibbs Racing history including the organization’s first win when driver Dale Jarrett won the Daytona 500 in 1993. Interstate Batteries was the primary sponsor on the No. 18 in 2000 when Bobby Labonte captured the organization’s first NASCAR Cup Series Championship and continued to play a key role when Kyle Busch won JGR’s most recent Championship in 2015. “I knew Kyle was something special when I first looked at his stats,” said Norm Miller, Chairman of Interstate Batteries. “And now after so many wins and a Championship, we are really proud to continue with Kyle in our car for the foreseeable future.”

Together, Interstate Batteries and Joe Gibbs Racing have visited Victory Lane 32 total times in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series, including twice with Hall of Fame driver Dale Jarrett, 21 times with Bobby Labonte and nine times with current driver Kyle Busch, including his most recent win to reach a career milestone of 200 wins. In addition, Interstate Batteries and JGR have combined to win three NASCAR Xfinity Series races.

“Our relationship with Joe Gibbs Racing and Kyle Busch has been such a blessing for all of us and we are so proud to extend this partnership to keep us together for what will be more than 30 years,” said Norm. “It is a partnership that has been successful on so many levels. We’ve certainly had our successes on the race track with championships and many celebrations in Victory Lane, but it also helped us achieve our goals on the business front. It doesn’t work if it’s not good for business and obviously this is a partnership that has worked for what will be three decades. It also has been a success on a personal level as well with the relationships we’ve both been able to develop over the years. It has been very special.”

“Rarely does a marketing opportunity come along that can change the trajectory of a company,” said Scott Miller, CEO, Interstate Batteries. “Almost 30 year later, our brand has become a household name, our battery sales continue to increase and Joe Gibbs Racing absolutely had a hand in that. It is helping us ignite our future and become first choice in sustainable battery solutions.”