Posted on by Chase Wilhelm

FONTANA, Calif. — NASCAR Senior Vice President of Competition Scott Miller addressed the media Friday afternoon after all 12 drivers failed to make it back to the start/finish line to post a time in the final round of Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series qualifying at Auto Club Speedway.

He didn’t mince words, either.

“I saw what our fans don’t want,” Miller said. “Having the last 12 cars wait until they couldn’t get a time posted on the board and kind of making a mockery out of the qualifying is not what we expect for our fans. It’s a little bit on us in that we hoped things would go better than that.

RELATED: Dillon to start on pole | Full starting lineup

“It’s an exciting show when they’re out there on the race track, but obviously, we have a little work to do on our part to get a little bit better format so things like can’t happen,” he added. “We certainly want to provide our fans with what they deserve. We and the teams didn’t do a very good job of that today. We’re really disappointed.”

Miller noted that no decisions have been made regarding how the current qualifying procedure will be tweaked at this time, but single-car qualifying would be a last resort.

“I think we definitely make some tweaks to it,” Miller said.  “… We really don’t want to go back to single-car qualifying. There may not be another way, but we want to try to exhaust every possibility before we do that because it’s not as fun and not as intriguing of a show as the group situation. We’re going to try to figure out a way to adjust the group qualifying thing and not go back to single, but we’ve got some work to do on that.”

Miller expects no changes will be made prior to the race weekend at Martinsville Speedway, but rather NASCAR officials will shift their attention to enhancements in time for Texas Motor Speedway.

“We won’t see this sort of situation at Martinsville, so I would say by Texas we’re going to have to because it will be a little bit of the same scenario with wanting to go out there and run together and draft. I would say by Texas we will have something different in the queue.”

RELATED: Pit-road speeding to be enforced in qualifying

Miller also noted he was surprised by how drivers and teams were unable to begin a lap before time expired in the final round.

“It surprised me that they weren’t smart enough to go out and actually get back to the start/finish line in time to post a time,” Miller added. “Yeah, that surprised me.”

Posted on by Holly Cain

At this point, NASCAR history properly teed-up, Kyle Busch is simply ready to buckle up, fire up, and hopefully raise a 200th trophy up.

The 33-year old has combined to win 199 times in NASCAR’s three national series – Monster Energy NASCAR Cup, Xfinity and Gander Outdoors Truck Series. The historic mark could come at California’s Auto Club Speedway in Sunday’s Auto Club 400 (at 3:30 p.m. ET on FOX, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

Fans and historians are eager to see if and when he sets the mark. Busch figures he’s more ready than anyone to see where his fortunes take him. But then again, he stressed Friday, his desire to win races has little to do with historical numbers and everything to do with personal high expectations.

RELATED: Kyle Busch through the years | All Busch’s Monster Energy Series wins

“It doesn’t change anything,” Busch said of being on the verge of win No. 200 this weekend. “Just come out here and we’re entered in both races. We come out here and try to do the best we can to win.”

Certainly Busch’s record at the 2-mile Auto Club Speedway – located a little more than three hours from his Las Vegas hometown — should provide plenty of confidence and optimism.

Busch has three Monster Energy Series wins at the track – including his very first series win in 2005. He has a record six Xfinity Series wins, too – including three consecutive from 2010-11. And he is a perfect 2-for-2 in the Gander Outdoors Truck Series at the track too, even though the Trucks aren’t racing this weekend. Busch’s 11 combined national series victories at Auto Club Speedway make him the winningest driver at the facility and that’s not a bad stat to carry into a potentially sport-changing race.

RELATED: Drivers who have finished second to Busch

His 199 wins are as varied as his work at this particular track. He has 52 Monster Energy Series wins (11th-most all-time) and his 94 Xfinity wins and 53 Truck Series victories are most ever in those respective series. He won both the Xfinity and Cup race just last week in Phoenix. He swept the two series at Auto Club Speedway in 2013.

His competitors do not doubt that Busch may score win 200 this weekend. And at the young age of 33, with a multi-win pace established for the past 15 years, Busch will likely add many many more victories – and probably more championships — to his future NASCAR Hall of Fame trophy total.

“I hate to see Kyle Busch win as much as anybody does,” 2017 Auto Club Speedway winner Kyle Larson said with a laugh.

“It’s just amazing to see how good he is in all types of series and race cars and his win percentages are unbelievable even with all the restrictions that you have now with the amount of races you can run.

“He still wins just as much, if not more. For him to be as good as he is at every race track is pretty spectacular. You can look at most drivers and pinpoint their best race tracks, and I don’t know if you can really do that with Kyle Busch.

“Every race track is his best race track.”

As reverent as Busch has been regarding his win total and where it places him historically in the sport, he is quick to remind that he just wants to win. Period. The headlines, record books and buzz about the accomplishment — none of that is what has motivated him. He did, though, concede trackside Friday afternoon, it will be special.

“Certainly, I have had a few of my friends and stuff send me some links of things they saw this week of some articles and things,” Busch said. “I read what [200 Cup race winner] Richard [Petty] said the other day, which was cool. He talked about how if I was thrown back in their era with [David] Pearson and Petty, I could compete with those guys.

“That’s very respectful and I appreciate that. I am honored he said that. I feel I’d like to think the same way, that I could do it. It doesn’t matter. It’s a different time and place. Overall, excited to just continue on and keep winning.”

Posted on by Holly Cain

It’s not as if Kyle Larson needs any extra motivation.

One of NASCAR’s most popular recent breakout stars, Larson has enjoyed a good six-year run in the big leagues. Approaching the fifth Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race of the 2019 season, he’d like to regain form and regain his footing as a perennial can’t-miss player in the championship.

What better place to restore winning ways than his home state’s Auto Club Speedway – about a seven-hour drive south from the small Elk Grove community where he grew up and began his career. Two years ago, he won the Auto Club 400 (Sunday, 3:30 p.m. ET on FOX, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) from the pole position – one of the most popular victories in the track’s history.

RELATED: Why Larson is known as ‘2-mile Kyle’ 

He’d love to repeat that this weekend to get back in the win column for the first time in two seasons and regain that title form. He figures there’s no better place. He has two runner-up finishes (2014 and 2018) and a victory (2017) in five starts at California.

“We won here a couple years ago and ran second here last year, got my first Xfinity win here and I have a [Cup] pole,” Larson said. “It’s been a good track for me, it’s Southern California and I’m from Northern California – about six hours away. I still have a lot of Central and Southern California sprint car fans that are here walking the garage and taking pictures and I sign a lot of autographs of sprint cars I ran in the past.

“It’s cool to have support anywhere you go, but your home state is nice. I guess it gives me a little bit of extra motivation maybe to go out there and win for all the California people out there.”

After earning Rookie of the Year honors in 2014 with 17 top-10 runs in 36 races. He claimed his first Monster Energy Series trophy two years later (at Michigan) and put an exclamation point on the showing with a four-win 2017 season, when he swept both Michigan races and had a win from the pole position at this week’s Auto Club Speedway venue.

He was championship bound – a title favorite – in 2017 only to have four consecutive DNFs in the 10-race playoff portion of the schedule from Kansas to Phoenix.

Last year was a challenge for Larson’s No. 42 Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet team. He had a healthy total of top-fives (12) and top-10s (19) but winless for the first time in three years and ended up ninth in the Playoff run.

RELATED: What are Larson’s odds entering the weekend?

This season Larson has stealthily been a big time player. He’s been ranked seventh or better all year in the championship with top-10s in the Daytona 500 (seventh) and last week at Phoenix (sixth). In fact, for the first time in team history Larson and his new teammate Kurt Busch (ninth) have both been ranked among the top-10 in the standings all season long.

Larson led a race high 142 laps at Atlanta – and won the first stage – only to finish 12th after receiving a heart-breaking pit road speeding penalty late in the race.

Only championship leader Kyle Busch (227) and Ryan Blaney (148) have led more laps than Larson’s 142 this season.

He’s been a legitimate contender in every race and wonders what the outcome might be if not for little missteps along the way. The encouraging thing is how far up in the standings he is – even with the extra work of overcoming miscues.

“We haven’t had the greatest last three weeks when it comes to execution,” Larson said. “We just try to learn from it, talk about it and figure out how not to make it again.

“I think I had only one speeding penalty all last year then I sped at Atlanta (three weeks ago).

“This series is so tough you have to be perfect all weekend long,” he continued. “From Friday to Sunday you can’t make any mistakes. You’ve got to make all the right decisions just to maximize your potential of winning. Putting us back and starting 31st last week hurt us. We could have a lot more points right now and be top-three or four in points, but didn’t do a great job. Just have to clean that stuff up. And I’m confident our team can do that.”

Posted on by Staff Report

With St. Patrick’s Day right around the corner, it’s only right to highlight what we consider to be the top 10 luckiest moments in NASCAR history.

They say it’s the luck of the Irish, right? Well, what about the luck of the guy in front of you running out of gas on the final lap or the race being called for fog while you’re in the lead? How lucky would it be if the car in front of you cut a tire with one to go?

NASCAR Digital and NASCAR Productions take you back in time through some of the luckiest (and some, the unluckiest) wins in history, some dating back to a battle between Bill Elliott and the late Dale Earnhardt and others as recent as the 2018 Daytona 500.

Watch the video below, or head to our YouTube channel to check it out.

Do you agree with our choice for No. 1?

Posted on by Reid Spencer

FONTANA, Calif. – Austin Dillon didn’t make it to the start-finish line in time to turn a lap in the final session of knockout qualifying at Auto Club Speedway.

And yet the driver of the No. 3 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet won the pole for Sunday’s Auto Club 400 at the 2-mile track (3:30 p.m. ET on FOX, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) — because no one else made it to the stripe in the final round, either.

In a bizarre money round in Friday’s time trials, all 12 drivers waited too long on pit road before starting their runs, with none wanting to be first in the draft. The cars were exiting Turn 4 when time expired, and that meant a reversion to Round 2, which Dillon led.

Hence, Dillon won the fourth Busch Pole Award of his career, his first since 2016 and his second at Auto Club. In a sense, it was poetic justice that Dillon was the top qualifier for Sunday’s 200-lap race. He was the only driver in either round to break 40 seconds (39.982), and the only driver to top 180 mph (180.081) in either round.

RELATED: See every car in the field | Starting lineup

To post that lap in the second round, Dillon and crew chief Danny Stockman adjusted for a strong wind blowing across Turns 3 and 4. Then Dillon hit a perfect position in the draft.

“It was really pushing you in the corner in 3 and 4,” Dillon said. “In the middle of the corner, I had a tight balance most of my day. I couldn’t run wide open. I talked to Stockman through it, kind of telling him where that point was.

“I thought the wind changed going into practice (earlier in the day). I felt like it was coming from Turn 2 to 4. When I got out of the car after practice, it was really shooting right into the middle of 3 and 4. So I went and told him the reason we were tight had to be the wind. We freed up around that, and I changed a little bit of my driving style to accommodate the car … and we ended up on top.”

Kevin Harvick qualified second at 179.386 mph, based on his second-round speed. Aric Almirola (179.082 mph) claimed the third starting spot, followed by Kyle Busch (178.895 mph), who can earn his 200th NASCAR national series victory this weekend with a win in either Saturday’s Production Alliance Group 300 Xfinity Series race or in Sunday’s Cup event.

RELATED: Busch on the verge of history

As the seconds counted down in the final session, Dillon waited, knowing he had the pole if no one else moved in time. When the clock ticked below 47 seconds (the time it would have taken to get from the end of pit road back to the start-finish line), the pole was his.

“When the 18 (Kyle Busch) made a little bit of a move there, I just rode on his door, because I was going to follow him and just have one car to beat,” Dillon said. “I didn’t have to make it back around. And then the 12 (10th-place qualifier Ryan Blaney) came through the grass — I thought he demolished his car. It looked like he left the ground over there. I don’t know what he did, but it was pretty wild.

“At that point my spotter said, ‘It’s over. You can bring it around here,’ and I knew we had gotten the pole.”

Joey Logano qualified fifth, Denny Hamlin sixth and Ryan Newman seventh. Chase Elliott, Clint Bowyer, Blaney, Jimmie Johnson and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. completed the top 12, as Ford drivers accounted for seven of the final-round positions.

RELATED: No. 6 car chief ejected

 

Posted on by Staff Report

NASCAR officials ejected the car chief for the Roush Fenway Racing No. 6 Ford team Friday after the car failed pre-qualifying inspection twice at Auto Club Speedway.

Todd Brewer, car chief for driver Ryan Newman, was removed from the team’s roster for the remainder of the race weekend.

RELATED: Auto Club schedule

Previously, a car chief was not ejected unless a team failed inspection three times. Under NASCAR’s 2019 deterrence model, two failures lead to a car chief ejection.

Last month NASCAR introduced a system where race-winning teams found in violation of the rule book post-race would be disqualified. Additionally, post-race inspection is done at track following the event, with penalties — if any — handed out then instead of following a mid-week teardown at the NASCAR R&D Center in Concord, North Carolina.

Newman finished 18th in opening practice earlier in the day.

MORE: Full practice speeds

 

Posted on by Staff Report

Jimmie Johnson led three Chevrolets in the top five at the first Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series practice at Auto Club Speedway on Friday.

Johnson, a six-time winner at the 2-mile track in Fontana, California, recorded the fastest lap at 179.386 mph in his No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet in the first practice session in preparation for Sunday’s Auto Club 400 (3:30 p.m. ET, FOX, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

RELATED: Practice results

Austin Dillon was second-fastest in the No. 3 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet after logging a lap of 179.350 mph amid windy conditions at the Southern California facility. Chris Buescher in the No. 37 JTG Daugherty Racing Chevrolet (178.975 mph), Kyle Busch in the No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota (178.802 mph) and Denny Hamlin in the No. 11 JGR Toyota (178.767 mph) rounded out the top five.

Busch, who has Auto Club entries in both the Monster Energy Series and Xfinity Series this weekend, is seeking his 200th career NASCAR victory this weekend.

The Monster Energy Series returns to the track at 5:40 p.m. ET for Busch Pole Qualifying (TV: FS1).

MORE: Full weekend schedule

Posted on by Holly Cain

Auto Club Speedway traditionally has been a mighty test of horsepower and willpower for NASCAR Xfinity Series regulars, but this season, in particular, there is reason to believe that a 17-year string of Cup winners in the Xfinity race there may be stopped.

Full-time Xfinity drivers Michael Annett started the year with a victory at Daytona and Christopher Bell answered at Atlanta – the first time a season has opened with back-to-back Xfinity Series regulars winning since 2012 when James Buescher won the Daytona season-opener and Elliott Sadler won the next week at Phoenix.

RELATED: Full schedule for Auto Club

In particular – and with good timing – a pair of California drivers are leading the way in the series. Defending Xfinity Series champion Tyler Reddick, of Corning, California, leads the championship by four points over Christopher Bell heading into Saturday’s Production Alliance Group 300 (5 p.m. ET on FS1, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

Reddick has two top-five and three top-10 finishes in the opening four races and has led the second-most laps (75) among series regulars this season. A second championship would make him the first to earn back-to-back titles since Ricky Stenhouse Jr. in 2011-12.

Fellow Californian Cole Custer, of Ladera Ranch, finished runner-up to Reddick in the 2018 Xfinity Series Championship and trails his rival by only 11 points heading to their home track. As with the Richard Childress Racing driver Reddick, Custer has a pair of top-fives and three top-10s through the opening four races with a best effort of runner-up in Atlanta.

The Stewart-Haas Racing driver has the second best average finish this season (7.2) and a top-10 finish (sixth place in 2018) in two previous Xfinity starts at Auto Club Speedway.

The field will undoubtedly face a major challenge from Toyota driver Kyle Busch who begins the first of his two opportunities to score a historic 200th NASCAR national series win in this Saturday race. Busch leads all drivers with six previous wins in the Xfinity race at Auto Club Speedway.

Posted on by Holly Cain

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Martin Truex Jr. quickly erased any doubts that he would mightily pursue a defense of his 2017 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series trophy when he convincingly won from the Busch Pole position last March at this weekend’s venue, Auto Club Speedway.

Although Joey Logano ultimately won the 2018 series championship, Truex returns to California for Sunday’s Auto Club 400 (3:30 p.m. ET on FOX, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) as motivated as ever in his debut season driving for the Joe Gibbs Racing team.

MORE: Full Auto Club schedule

He’s already earned two runner-up finishes through the first four races of the 2019 season and that statement-making performance in California last year is on the minds of Truex and his competitors.

The New Jersey native will be inducted into the track’s Walk of Fame on Friday morning before opening practice — a nod to his triumphant past. And when opening practice begins hours later, the focus will shift to a triumphant present.

He and his longtime crew chief Cole Pearn – who also moved from Furniture Row Racing to lead the Joe Gibbs Racing No. 19 Toyota Camry effort – were optimistic following a preseason Goodyear tire test at the 2-mile California track back in January. Two of his teammates – Denny Hamlin in the season-opening Daytona 500 and Kyle Busch at ISM Raceway last week – have victories already and Truex is ready to join the trophy hoisting.

His win at California last year was the first of four victories in a season, where he strongly answered his 2017 title ultimately with a runner-up championship finish.

“Our team is really looking forward to getting to California this week,” Truex said. “It’s one of my favorite tracks and I felt good about the test back in January.

“Obviously, the weather is going to be different and there will be more than three cars like at the test, but we feel like we’ve learned a lot about the package since then. We need to go in there Friday and unload strong and carry that through the weekend.

“I’m excited to see if we can go back-to-back there because it’s really turned into one of the most fun tracks on the circuit.”

Truex has three top 10s – including the two runner-up showings at Atlanta and last week at Phoenix. The only mar on the season is a 35th-place finish in the Daytona 500 after his Toyota was collected in a multi-car wreck.

Truex has top-10 finishes in three of the last four races at Auto Club Speedway and led a total of 224 laps in that time. He led a dominating 125 of the 200 laps and won every stage last year. And his 11.7-second margin of victory over former race winner Kyle Larson was among the most dominating efforts of the season.