Posted on by Pat DeCola

AVONDALE, Ariz. – Clown. Two-faced. Head up his rear end.

That’s just a small sampling of terms tossed out there over the years from both parties of one of NASCAR’s longest-running feuds – Kevin Harvick vs. Kyle Busch.

These days? No name calling here. Just nothing but mutual respect.

Arguably NASCAR’s two most talented drivers over the course of their decade and a half of racing against each other, Busch and Harvick have somehow gone from Harvick’s arm extended through Busch’s driver-side window – you know, for punching purposes – at Darlington in 2011, to being wrapped around Busch’s shoulder in the garage area, sharing a laugh just last year.

Kyle Kevin

At some point, Harvick says, that animosity toward each other turned to true appreciation for each other’s talents and skill on the race track.

“As rough as our relationship was to start things off, there’s a mutual respect that we have found over the past several years that have created a healthy competitiveness instead of an unhealthy competitiveness,” Harvick told NASCAR.com Friday at ISM Raceway, site of Sunday’s TicketGuardian 500 (3:30 p.m. ET, FOX, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

“Look, Kyle’s a great race car driver. Kyle and I have really not much in common off the race track, but I have an extreme amount of respect for what he does in the race car and the things that happen on the race track. There isn’t a guy in the garage that I want to beat more than Kyle just because of the fact that if you’ve beat him on the race track, you’ve had a really good day. Racing with him head-to-head is something that I enjoy. Definitely, he wants to beat me, I want to beat him, but I feel like I have a good relationship with Kyle.”

Even last year, the two raced hard for the win at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, culminating in Harvick bumping Busch out of the way in the closing laps en route to the win.

Surely, Busch would be furious after the race, having his shot at holding a giant lobster in Victory Lane clawed away from him by his fiercest rival, right?

“That’s fine; (if) that’s how (he) wants to race, that’s how I’ll race back,” Busch said at the time – an extremely measured response given their history.

MORE: Busch on Harvick’s race-winning move: ‘How you race is how you get raced’

Perhaps it can be attributed to the fact that they’ve each matured, become dads and champions, all in the last six years. Regardless, it’s fascinating to see two of the sport’s top competitors – probably each other’s biggest competitor – go from spewing vitriol at each other in post-race interviews to sparking a healthy relationship solely based on mutual respect on the race track.

“There was certainly a time where Harvick and I both would agree that if neither of us showed up at the race track anymore that we would totally be OK with that,” Busch said Friday. “Now it’s kind of resurfaced a little bit differently where I feel as though we feel like when we get to the race track we know we would much rather be able to beat each other and we’ve done it way more respectfully over the course of the last … I don’t know, 2014, since then. I don’t know if that was just his move to SHR and the relationship that I had with Tony (Stewart) and Tony kind of telling Kevin, ‘Hey, give him some slack,’ or whatever, but it’s definitely come more from his side than my side as far as the friendliness I guess you could say.

“It’s nice to be able to have that relationship with guys in the garage area. You don’t have to be friends with them, but you do have to know that you have to respect them and you do have to know that you have to have an opportunity to go out there and race door handle to door handle or bumper to bumper and know that you’re not going to get wrecked. Kevin and I have that going right now and hopefully we can keep that going that way and there are some others out there that could certainly learn a few things.”

RELATED: Busch vs. Harvick: Anything you can do, I can do better

As fate would have it, given their dominance and success at Phoenix — they combined to sweep the track last year — Busch and Harvick enter the weekend with the best odds to win Sunday’s Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race at an identical 7-2 apiece.

It wouldn’t be surprising for the checkered flag to fall with either the No. 4 of Harvick or No. 18 of Busch leading the way, but don’t expect any fireworks in the desert between them if the racing is hard down to the wire — perhaps just a respectful tip of the helmet and an, “I’ll get you next week.”

Posted on by Reid Spencer

AVONDALE, Ariz. – Denny Hamlin hit a high draw with a 7 iron from 178 yards, and the ball never left the flag.

“The number was perfect, the distance was perfect, and I hit it perfect,” Hamlin said after Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series practice Friday at ISM Raceway. “That one was pure all the way.”

When the ball disappeared into the cup on the second hole at Whisper Rock Golf Club on Thursday, Hamlin had the second hole-in-one of his life.

“Yeah, it was awesome,” he said. “I hadn’t had one since I was a 25 handicap, and it was 15 years ago. The first one was just luck. I didn’t hit it very good. I just luckily hit the pin, but this one was true the whole way.”

“I remember us talking to it in the air, saying, ‘Wow, this is close.'”

RELATED: Phoenix starting lineup

You’d think Hamlin would have kept the scorecard to frame and display after the round. Instead, he tore it up. Hamlin was so giddy from the ace that the rest of the round was eminently forgettable. What he shot for 18 holes remains a secret.

“I refuse to give that information up, because I tore the card up as soon as it was over,” Hamlin said. “I had a ‘7’ after it, I’ll be honest. It was a par-5, and I was not focused one bit because of the hole-in-one that just happened.”

“I didn’t want to keep the card or frame it, because that was one of the worst rounds I had all week out here.”

Afterwards, Hamlin treated golfers in the clubhouse to drinks in true hole-in-one tradition. On Friday, he was hoping the ace was a good omen for Sunday’s TicketGuardian 500 at ISM Raceway (3:30 p.m. ET on FOX, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

PHOTOS: All-time winners at Phoenix 

“That’s the plan,” Hamlin said. “It’s hard to believe you can have a bad weekend after starting it off like that.”

Hamlin has a formidable record at Phoenix, with an average starting position of 11.0 and an average finish of 11.6. His only victory at the one-mile track in the Sonoran Desert came in 2012, but he has posted 11 top-fives and 15 top-10s in 27 starts.

He will start the race from the third place in the order.

“We’ve had good success here,” Hamlin said. “We won here in ’12. We continually run here pretty well. Definitely had a winning car just a few races ago here at this race track.

“Certainly, it’s a track I’ve got a good feel for, knowing what I need. It’s just a matter of knowing whether you can get it all done in such a short amount of time during practices.”

Posted on by Staff Report

Daniel Suarez and Michael McDowell got into a physical altercation following the first round of Friday’s Busch Pole qualifying session for the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series at ISM Raceway.

RELATED: Suarez: ‘Lack of respect’ | McDowell: ‘He tried to crash us’

Following the scuffle, drivers were quick to react on social media, including Chase Elliott, Ryan Blaney and Bubba Wallace. See their thoughts on what went down as things got heated in the Phoenix desert.

Posted on by Pat DeCola

AVONDALE, Ariz. – Temperatures were uncharacteristically in the mid-60s in the desert Friday afternoon, but things still heated up at ISM Raceway.

Daniel Suarez and Michael McDowell got physical during Busch Pole Qualifying, shoving each other on pit road with the Stewart-Haas Racing driver forcefully taking down his fellow Ford stablemate after McDowell initiated contact.

The disagreement spurned from an on-track dispute where Suarez was unable to get past the No.  34 of McDowell in the first round of qualifying. The SHR driver said he felt McDowell deliberately didn’t allow him to run a full, unimpeded lap — resulting in his worst starting spot (28th) of the season. McDowell will start right next to him in 27th.

RELATED: Drivers react to incident | Blaney wins pole position

Following the first round of qualifying, Suarez immediately walked over to confront McDowell, who was just exiting his car on pit road. The two talked briefly before McDowell shoved Suarez and the scuffle was underway.

“He was in my way in the corner of (Turns) 1 and 2 and I assumed he would get out of my way in Turn 3 and 4 and he didn’t,” Suarez told reporters following the fracas. “He was in my way for the entire second lap and he messed up my opening of the third lap. So, he pretty much messed up my whole qualifying. …

“I’m the kind of driver that I’m going to give a lot of respect to you, always, if you give me respect back. If you don’t give me respect, I’m going to go kick your ass.”

McDowell, minutes after the fisticuffs, was back to his jovial self, grinning and saying there isn’t much to it all.

“It was kind of chaotic out there. I’d be upset, too. I messed up his lap but then he tried to crash us,” said the Front Row Motorsports driver. “I made a mistake, an honest mistake. Everybody makes mistakes. It’s just part of it. … It’s not how we wanted it to go. It hurt us as well.

“When you mess with somebody’s lap I understand they’re frustrated. But when you try to hurt somebody and damage hundreds of thousands of dollars of race cars, that takes it to a whole other level.”

Despite the fiery incident, there’s a bit of comedy to cap it off.

“We were at a hockey game last night,” McDowell said. “Don’t read too much into it. It’s emotions, man. Just the way it is.

“What happened on the race track wasn’t acceptable in my eyes. So, that’s it.”

Posted on by Reid Spencer

AVONDALE, Ariz. – Ryan Blaney ended the day the way he started it — with the fastest car at ISM Raceway.

After leading opening Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series practice with the quickest lap of the day (141.716 mph), Blaney put his No. 12 Team Penske Ford on the pole for Sunday’s TicketGuardian 500 at the one-mile track.

Blaney covered the distance in 25.480 seconds (141.287 mph) in the final round of knockout qualifying to outpace Chase Elliott (140.045 mph) by a comfortable .203 seconds.

The Busch Pole Award was Blaney’s first of the season, his second at Phoenix and the six of his career, putting Blaney in good position to follow teammates Brad Keselowski and Joey Logano to Victory Lane, after their respective wins at Atlanta (Feb. 24) and Las Vegas (Mar. 3).

RELATED: Starting lineup | Full weekend schedule for Phoenix

“We’ve just got to clean some stuff up,” said Blaney, who had a fast car at both Atlanta and Las Vegas, only to be done in by pit road snafus. “While it’s nice to have Penske winning, I’m selfish — I want to win. It’s good to have our cars really fast, and our finishes definitely don’t reflect how we’ve been running.

“We’ve been really fast at all three places so far. If you keep bringing fast cars to the race track, ultimately, it’ll work out for you one of these times. I want to be part of the winning club here in the Penske group. It’s nice to have the whole team really fast right now. We fired out of the box really good this year, so hopefully we can just keep it going.”

Daytona 500 winner Denny Hamlin qualified third at 140.007 mph, followed by Joe Gibbs racing teammate Kyle Busch (139.855 mph), Keselowski, Alex Bowman, William Byron, nine-time winner Kevin Harvick, Martin Truex Jr., Erik Jones, Daniel Hemric, and Logano.

Elliott had mixed feelings about his front-row starting position.

“I hate qualifying second,” Elliott said. “We’ve qualified second out here last fall and then this one. But I guess he (Blaney) isn’t a bad one to qualify second to. But I look forward to Sunday.”

“I think our Hooters Camaro at least has a good place to start, and we can have a good pit selection. That’s important. We have a long race ahead. But I’d really like to get a pole outside of a (super)speedway track. We’ll try again next week.”

The first round of qualifying ended with a fracas between Ford drivers Michael McDowell and Daniel Suárez, neither whom made the top 24. Suarez accused McDowell of holding up the No. 41 Stewart-Haas Racing Mustang on his crucial hot lap at the end of the session.

Suárez returned the favor by trying to wreck McDowell’s No. 34 Front Row Racing Ford after the fact.

After exiting his car, Suárez stepped over pit wall and advanced toward McDowell who made a preemptive strike and shoved Suárez. The two grappled, and Suárez body-slammed McDowell to the pavement before the two combatants were separated.

RELATED: Suarez, McDowell get physical on pit road

“I was just trying to get in his way like he did to me,” Suárez said. “I’m the kind of driver that I’m going to give a lot of respect to you always, if you give me respect back. If you don’t give me respect, I’m going to go kick your ass.”

McDowell said that, with most drivers waiting to post laps until time was running out on the first round, heavy traffic was inevitable.

“It was just miscommunication on the race track,” McDowell said. “We all kind of waited till the end, and then you just had a lot of traffic. Just unfortunate. He was upset that I held him up on his good lap, and then he tried to crash us. I just didn’t appreciate it.

“It’s heat of the moment stuff. Just racing. Shorter practice session. Shorter qualifying. Getting late going through tech. The intensity ramps up. It’s all a part of it.”

Coincidentally, McDowell (27th) and Suárez (28th) will start side-by-side from the 14th row on Sunday.

Posted on by Staff Report

NASCAR officials ejected a crewmember for the Team Penske No. 2 Ford team Friday after the car failed pre-qualifying inspection twice at ISM Raceway.

Engineer Brandon “Shaggy” Pope, part of the team’s 12-person road crew for driver Brad Keselowski, was removed from the team’s roster for the remainder of the race weekend at the 1-mile Phoenix oval. Pope is in his fourth season as a team engineer for Team Penske.

RELATED: Full Phoenix schedule

Keselowski was second-fastest in opening practice for Sunday’s TicketGuardian 500 (3:30 p.m. ET, FOX, MRN, SiriusXM), the fourth race of the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series season. His speed placed him just behind teammate Ryan Blaney, who topped the board in the No. 12 Ford.

Keselowski has already contributed to Team Penske’s quick start to the season with a victory at Atlanta Motor Speedway. He’s seeking his first win in 20 Phoenix starts in Sunday’s 312-lapper.

Posted on by Staff Report

Ryan Blaney soared atop the leaderboard in opening Monster Energy Series practice Friday at ISM Raceway at Phoenix, leading a 1-2 sweep by Team Penske drivers.

RELATED: Practice 1 results | Weekend schedule

Blaney pushed team owner Roger Penske’s No. 12 Ford to a best lap of 141.716 mph around the 1-mile track. He was just ahead of teammate Brad Keselowski, who was second-fastest in the 50-minute session at 140.680 mph in the No. 2 Ford. Team Penske has won two of the first three races this season.

Kyle Larson (140.406 mph), Chase Elliott (140.367) and Kyle Busch (140.329) completed the top five spots in the first prep time for Sunday’s TicketGuardian 500 (3:30 p.m. ET, FOX, MRN, SiriusXM), the fourth race of the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series season.

Defending series champ Joey Logano, who scored his first win of the season last weekend at Las Vegas, was 12th-fastest in the Team Penske No. 22 Ford. Kevin Harvick, the race’s defending winner and a nine-time victor at Phoenix for his career, was 15th-best in the Stewart-Haas Racing No. 4 Ford.

Busch Pole Qualifying for Sunday’s 312-lapper is scheduled for Friday at 6:10 p.m. ET (FS1, MRN, SiriusXM). Two more practices for the Monster Energy Series are scheduled for Saturday.

Posted on by Zack Albert

Dry spells in the desert are commonplace, even for an organization such as Team Penske, which enters Sunday’s race weekend at ISM Raceway in Phoenix with momentum pushing it along.

The Roger Penske-owned outfit charges into Sunday’s Ticket Guardian 500 (3:30 p.m. ET, FOX, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) having won eight of the last 15 races in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series, dating back to late last season. The most recent was defending series champ Joey Logano’s triumph last weekend at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, giving the Penske group two quick-hit wins in the first three races of 2019.

RELATED: Full Phoenix schedule | Every win in Penske history 

Penske cars have led a series-best 223 of the 799 laps contested this season, but the 1-mile Arizona oval that’s next up on the schedule historically has been a tricky venue for the three-car operation. Logano won there as recently as 2016, but Penske’s only other premier-series victory at Phoenix came well back in 1998 with NASCAR Hall of Famer Rusty Wallace. More recent struggles also abound, with Team Penske netting just one top-10 finish in the last three Phoenix races.

If there’s reason for Phoenix optimism besides the early season headway, it’s found in qualifying performance. All three Team Penske drivers have won pole positions at ISM Raceway, and Logano’s average starting spot of 5.9 ranks as the best in the series over the last 10 races.

Inspecting Team Penske’s average finish over the same span yields more ordinary results. Penske’s Brad Keselowski ranks fourth among active full-time Monster Energy Series drivers with a 10.3 average finish in the last 10 Phoenix races, but Logano sits 10th and Ryan Blaney, who joined Team Penske last season, in 15th.

The driver they’ll all be chasing is likely Kevin Harvick, a nine-time Phoenix winner who has dominated in recent trips to the Grand Canyon State. In the last 10 ISM Raceway events, Harvick has not finished outside the top 10, possesses a remarkable 2.7 average finish and has led more than twice as many laps as his closest competitor (1,105 vs. Kyle Busch’s 435 laps led).

RELATED: Odds for Phoenix | Harvick-Busch game of one-upps at Phoenix 

Logano clings to a slim lead through three races in the Monster Energy Series standings, holding a six-point edge over Daytona 500 winner Denny Hamlin. Busch and Harvick are tied for third, 12 points off the top. Keselowski is close by in fifth place, and Blaney sits 15th, aiming to get his season on track after finishes outside the top 20 in the first three starts of 2019.

Sunday’s 312-lap race is the culmination of a busy weekend for Team Penske. The operation will tackle Saturday’s Xfinity Series race (4 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN, SiriusXM), where its No. 22 team has an average finish of 3.4 in the last 10 Phoenix races. Also, Team Penske’s three-driver fleet of Josef Newgarden, Simon Pagenaud and Will Power will head to the Streets of St. Petersburg for Sunday’s NTT IndyCar Series opener.

Note: Just six drivers have finished on the lead lap in all three Monster Energy Series races this season. Race winners Denny Hamlin (Daytona) and Brad Keselowski (Atlanta) are among them, topping a list that also includes Alex Bowman, Kyle Busch, Erik Jones and Kyle Larson.

Posted on by Staff Report

When PJ Hernandez drives his late model onto the track at Irwindale Speedway in Southern California this season, the hood of his race car will sport two logos for A Million Thanks and Wounded Heroes Fund of Kern County, organizations that provide support for veteran and active duty military members and families.

But these two organizations don’t sponsor Hernandez or pay to put their logos on his car. In fact, he says it’s “quite the opposite.”

“I don’t take any money from them. I help raise money for them and try to help bring awareness to them so they can keep doing the great things they do for active duty military and their families and all the veterans and veterans families that have suffered losses, or anything of that nature,” Hernandez said.

PJ Hernandez Car

A Million Thanks and Wounded Heroes Fund are close to Hernandez’s heart because they helped him when he was making the transition out of the military and back into life as a civilian. Hernandez spent 10 years in the Navy, and it was towards the end of his time in active duty that he began his racing career.

This season will be his second driving full time a late model at Irwindale Speedway, a half-mile asphalt track located 20 miles from downtown Los Angeles.

Inwindale Speedway | Irwindale Speedway Facebook

Hernandez has always had a passion for motor sports, growing up racing dirt bikes, and drag racing and road racing when he got the opportunity. But his Navy career pushed back the true start to his career behind the wheel. Seven years ago, when he realized he needed something more for a competitive outlet, he found it in NASCAR.

“My dad used to race… And I was like ‘you know what, that’ll be a fun way for me and my dad to be able to do something together,’” he said.

“I was still active duty at the time and that’s when I bought my first race car. I had a little bit of money, not much, but I had a little bit of money and that’s kind of what got me started in it was just buying my first hobby stock. And I remembered seeing the late model guys and I thought ‘man, someday I want to race one of those. But I don’t think I’ll ever have the opportunity or the money to do it.’ And each year I kept progressing. I would upgrade from the car I was racing and get to the next level.”

Being stationed closer to home his last three years in the military helped Hernandez seize the opportunity to get started racing. At the time he was driving an hour and a half to and from work everyday while also volunteering as a high school wrestling coach, leaving him little time to work on his car.

But Hernandez said he had a really good support system to help, and he’s always been the type of person to go full throttle into chasing his dreams, no matter how crazy they may seem.

“That was the end goal for me. I want to race these late model cars,” he said. “You’d see them all the time, their cars are so beautiful and nice and fancy and you look at them like ‘man, I want to race one of them,’ And they’re so much faster than a hobby stock car or a street stock. And I just kept working away at it. Kept working towards that goal of getting there. And I just finally when the opportunity presented itself I just kind of took every last cent that I had and borrowed a little bit of money and I purchased my first late model. A limited late model, a super stock… and that was kind of my stepping stone right there to my first late model class.

PJ Hernandez Late Model

“When I finally got there I looked at the car that I was able to rebuild and turn into the late model I have now, I looked at it one day and said ‘I made it. I made that dream happen.’ Basically now that I’m there racing late models, anything beyond that is a bonus.”

PJ Hernandez Facebook | PJ Hernandez Instagram

Now that he’s 32 years old, Hernandez said he realizes he’s older than most others chasing a racing dream, but he doesn’t want to stop at late models. His next goal is to eventually get into a K&N car.

“I’ll keep chasing the dream for as long as I can. I won’t quit at it,” he said. “I’ll probably be one of those guys that will never stop racing.”

And as long as Hernandez is racing, he’ll be racing for a cause. Not only is he chasing his own dreams, but he’s passionate about giving back to those who helped him get this far. His hope is that others will see him starting a racing career as an adult and see that if you’re passionate about something and put everything you have into it anything is possible.

As far as his own career, he’ll be ready to strap in every week this summer at Irwindale, with those who helped him get there along for the ride.

“Your race family is a special family and a special bond you all have together,” he said. “When a Saturday comes up and you all go racing together it’s a lot of fun. Yea, its a lot of work, but it’s a lot of fun. I’m looking forward to the fun and looking forward to representing the military charities that I try to help out and try to race awareness for them… Trying to help others like me through racing.”

Irwindale will open the NASCAR Whelen All-American Series season this Saturday with City of Irwindale Night, featuring late models, trucks, super stocks, INEX Legends, Enduro and jr. late models.

RELATED: Irwindale Speedway schedule

Irwindale is one of two tracks to kick off their schedule out west.

Nevada‘s Bullring at Las Vegas Motor Speedway will also get the season underway this Saturday. The Bullring, a .375-mile banked oval on the grounds of Las Vegas Motor Speedway, holds four classes of Whelen All-American Series racing, led by Super Late Models.

RELATED: Las Vegas Bullring | Bullring schedule

OTHER OPENINGS THIS WEEK:

Southern National Motorsports Park in Lucama, North Carolina, will also open its season this weekend with the CARS Tour Solid Rock 300, featuring late model and super late model 150 races on the .4-mile oval.

Southern National Motorsports Park | SNMP Schedule

Southern National‘s first NASCAR Whelen All-American Series event is the Easter Bunny 240 on April 20, which will be headlined by twin 40-lap Late Model Stock Car features.

Hickory Motor Speedway, a .363-mile semi-banked oval asphalt track located in Hickory, North Carolina, will also open the 2019 season on Saturday with Twin 40 lap late model races, limited late models, street stock, super trucks and renegades.

Hickory Motor Speedway schedule | HMS A Jumping Off Point for Young Late Model Drivers