Visiting Germany

Posted on September 26, 2018September 26, 2018 by @KESELOWSKI

Editor’s note: The following article was written by Team Penske driver Brad Keselowski.
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Every summer, NASCAR has an off-week that gives drivers and their families the opportunity to do something really special. This year, I chose to travel out of the country to Germany with my wife, Paige.

It turned out to be a great call. For one thing, it gave me an opportunity to take a break from racing and recharge my batteries. (And based on the results that immediately followed our vacation — I won three straight Cup races and an Xfinity race, too — it seems like it helped.)

But even more than that, it was an amazing trip, and a big one for me because it was the first time I’d ever traveled outside of North America. I want to share some of my observations with you because there were some incredible, striking differences between Germany and the United States, and they got me thinking.

GETTING THERE

First off, the trip there was a 10-hour flight, and I’ve never experienced jet lag like that. It was brutal. That whole day, I could barely stand up. I hadn’t flown commercial in about 10 years, and that was something different. But outside of the time the trip took, traveling was pretty great. The airport experience was actually pretty good. We flew on Lufthansa, and there was WiFi service and all that on the way out, and it was a lifesaver. (On the way back, though, it didn’t work, and that wasn’t fun.)

Like I said, I’d never been outside of North America before, so just going was kind of exciting. We went during holiday month and what we discovered when we got there was that everyone was gone because they were taking a month off. That was flabbergasting. I couldn’t imagine taking a month-long holiday. I really can’t. It sounds awesome. I just can’t imagine doing it.

Can you imagine if the United States shut down for a month?

DACHAU

There are some things on my bucket list that I’ve wanted to do forever, and one is that I’ve always wanted to see a concentration camp. The history of World War II and the camps have always interested me, and being there and seeing one firsthand was important to me.

So we went to Dachau Concentration Camp, and it was powerful. I can’t say there were any surprises there in terms of what we saw. I’ve done a lot of reading about the Holocaust to try to understand it. The most striking thing to me about going to Dachau was that the camp isn’t in the middle of farmland. It’s right outside the city. It’s surprising. It’s obviously not hidden from sight, so that tells you that there were a lot of collaborators in terms of the camp beyond members of the Nazi party. So that was really striking.

But the most striking thing to me, which is kind of burned in my brain right now — and I’m imagining that it’s going to be burned into my brain for a very long time — is that there was a brand new subdivision built right up against the wall of the camp. During World War II, the camp wall had a moat, and when the Allies arrived, the moat was filled with thousands and thousands of corpses.

I just can’t imagine building a brand new house right next to this site, just backed up against the wall. And when I say backed up against the wall, what I mean is that the wall was about six feet tall, and right there were the backyards. I’m about six feet, so I was able to peer over the wall and see the houses.

The striking image in my brain is the following. There was a house that had young children living in it. They had a little backyard playground set, the plastic type you might get for little kids at a Walmart. Nothing super fancy, but one that you might put in your own backyard. The kids were playing there right up against the wall. The concentration camp side of the wall still had these roped off crosses up. They looked like they’d been roped off for a reason, like the type of crosses that you might hang someone from, or where you’d tie them up in order to beat them to death.

So there’s a wall separating these kids from that, but they’re maybe six feet away.

One of the kids was playing with a ball, one of those cheap plastic balls you’d get at a supermarket or something. And as they were playing with this ball, it went over the wall, and it landed right next to the crosses. It was like a scene out of something like “The Sandlot.” Like don’t go over the wall and get this ball — it’s lost forever. The plastic ball happened to be a Disney ball with a picture of Elsa from “Frozen” on it.

Something about the whole scene really turned my stomach. It reminded me of “Schindler’s List,” of that scene where everything turned from black and white to color with the little girl’s coat, the red coat. It was just like that, just that vivid. I’m not sure how to describe it. Watching little kids live and play right next to an area where hundreds of thousands of people were murdered was just striking. I don’t know how you could ever build a house there, let alone live in it with kids. It feels like a piece of land that should just be off limits.

To see that was just stunning. And having a daughter made it even more so.

DISNEYLAND INSPIRATION

Paige and I are Disney fans, so we went on a tour of a bunch of castles, including the famous Neuschwanstein Castle. That was a lot of fun. They were beautiful. Neuschwanstein Castle, which was Walt Disney’s inspiration for Sleeping Beauty’s Castle at Disneyland, reminded me of the Biltmore Estate in North Carolina. They were very similar. They were both incredibly over indulgent. They both had very tragic stories. The Biltmore was the work of the Vanderbilts, and whichever Vanderbilt constructed it only lived in it a few years, and died unexpectedly.

It was a similar story with Neuschwanstein Castle. It was built for close to a billion dollars in today’s money, and was never finished because the king who was building it died. Afterward, the government decided it was wasteful to spend so much money on a castle. It was turned into a tourist attraction, and has probably made what it cost to build and then some in the nearly 150 years since it was built.

I loved seeing the architecture. I loved German architecture in general. It’s just different. I’ve always been a fan of architecture and engineering in general. I liked the Gilded Age stuff a lot. It’s fascinating. You don’t see that a lot in the States outside of New York, Chicago and Detroit.

After that, Paige and I joined up with some friends we’d planned on meeting, and did some hiking in the German Alps. We’ve just started getting into hiking, and hiking in the Alps was really neat. I’d never done anything like that. We saw a hollowed-out glacier there that was extremely cool.

AMAZING INFRASTRUCTURE

Germany is very, very clean. You barely see any litter or trash. I don’t know if I ever saw a dilapidated house or building. I saw a place being refurbished, but every house we came across was freshly painted and well taken care of. That was cool.

The country as a whole has incredible infrastructure. I learned that a big reason why is that Germany doesn’t have to spend resources on military spending — the U.S. essentially provides it for them. Because of that, the government has a tremendous budget to work with to afford things we don’t have in the United States. College over there isn’t free, but it’s basically free by American standards. I was told it works out to roughly $5,000 a year, I think, which is crazy when you think of what it is here.

AMERICA ON THE MIND

One of the things on the mind of every German we met was Donald Trump. Pretty much everyone wanted to ask, “How did you elect him?” I must have heard that a hundred times.

Beyond the president, Germans seemed completely fascinated with our way of life. I don’t think Americans think a lot about Germany, but you could not go anywhere in Germany without hearing about America. They know everything about America, sometimes more than I think we know about ourselves. I found that baffling at first. If you asked the average American about Germany, they couldn’t tell you that Angela Merkel is running the country, and 99.9 percent of Americans couldn’t tell you the name of any other German government official.

You turn on the TV in Germany, it’s all American news. I found that absolutely fascinating.

After being there nearly a week, I understood at least in part why that was. They’re almost completely reliant on us for defense, and there are a lot of American military bases there. Almost everywhere you went, you’d find some remnants or active United States military there, securing the area. They really think of us as a key part of their system, which we clearly are.

On a related note, I thought it was interesting that a lot of people there speak English. I thought maybe they’d be a little upset that I didn’t speak German, but they were actually pretty kind. When people would walk up to me and start speaking German, and I would give them that “I don’t know what you’re saying” look and say hello, they’d automatically transfer to English to speak to me. On the flip side, I also felt like a complete idiot not being able to speak their language. And it made me think about how important it is globally for us all to be able to speak the same language.

I started to ask the Germans I met why it was so important that they spoke English. The answer I got from multiple people was because of the American military there, and because of their lifestyle, they had to learn English to communicate with them.

OTHER OBSERVATIONS

Some additional takeaways I had:

• Aside from Donald Trump, the other thing everybody in Germany was talking about were the Syrian immigrants. That was a very hot topic there. When we walked through Munich, there were a lot of Syrian immigrants. Opinions on the topic varied from person to person. Some people thought it was a disaster. Some people though it was a noble cause. But it was pretty controversial.

• I was really excited to drive on the autobahn, but because it was holiday season, we didn’t really get to let loose the way I’d imagined we would. There was a huge amount of traffic and construction. That was a bummer because I’d really wanted to open things up so badly. The few areas where we were allowed to stretch it out a bit (and there were a few) were fun. In the rest of Germany, the speed limits are actually slower than in the rest of the United States, something like 20 to 40 kilometers per hour (like 15 to 35 miles per hour).

• In all the hotels, the showers are weird. We stayed in four different hotels, and the shower in every one of them was quirky in a strange way. One was open on three sides. Water went everywhere. In another one, you couldn’t turn the shower on because the shower head sprayed out the door. Another shower was so low you couldn’t use it. It was kind of funny by the end of the trip.

• They really like pavers. Everywhere you go, there are pavers instead of asphalt — which looks pretty cool, incidentally.

• World War II is a taboo subject in Germany. The people there talk about it begrudgingly, and almost everybody there was ashamed of it, and conveyed that. Along those lines, all kids in school there have to go to a concentration camp, just to see it. I was fascinated by that.

• With all the modern German architecture, the buildings have an outer layer of aluminum or steel, almost like an exoskeleton. It looks pretty cool. Unfortunately, it creates this effect where your cell phone doesn’t work in most buildings. It’s like being in an elevator. I can’t tell if that’s intentional or not.

• They have old, beautiful churches everywhere, but funny enough, none of the people I met actually went to those churches. For the most part, these amazing buildings were empty and unused a lot of the time. It’s especially interesting if you live in the South like I do. We have modern architecture churches with a lot of people in them. In comparison, it seemed like their churches were almost more landmarks than functional.

• Everything outside of restaurants and entertainment places in the cities — grocery stores, gas stations and so forth — closes early, by six or seven o’clock at night. If you don’t have gas and groceries by then, you’re basically screwed. It made me wonder about anyone who worked a late shift, but when I brought that up, people basically just responded, “Too bad.”

• Another thing that stood out is the food they eat there. They love sausage, and I can tell you, the gluten free craze has not hit there yet. In the States, we’ve gotten away from bread. Everywhere you go there, there’s loaves of bread, and I don’t mean your grocery store white or wheat bread. I’m talking fresh out of the oven, and all kinds of different breads. Every meal there’s bread, bread, bread, bread, bread. And it’s really good bread. They’ve got a ton of pizza places, too. (Apparently, loving pizza might be a universal thing.)

• The nudity and violence standards there were completed flipped. In the United States, if you turn on the TV, and see someone naked, it’s like, “Oh my God, it’s the end of the world.” Over there, it’s no big deal. You could go to the park, and there’d be people nude in the park. (Not that I wanted to see that, because I didn’t. It’s never what you hope it’s going to be.) But they’re just completely fine with that. On the flip side, violence is completely taboo over there. You don’t see it anywhere. You don’t see violent movies or TV shows. So that was interesting.

• Another thing: We videoed a lot of our trip, and people there get really upset when you film them. Really upset. A few people actually came up to us and said, “Are you videoing? Turn that off, we don’t want to be on your video.” Except on government buildings, you barely ever see cameras.

• Most of the buildings there don’t have air conditioning. They just leave a window open. I’m not a fan of air conditioning. I hate air conditioning, so I thought that was great. I asked them why they were against it, and there’s a strong sentiment in Germany that air conditioning is bad for you, invites bad bacteria, and so forth. That’s something I agree with. That’s not to say they didn’t have air conditioning. But even in the places they had it, they didn’t like to use it.

• Finally, on a red light, it flashes yellow before it goes green to give you a warning. I love that. It’s way more efficient. Everybody moves immediately after a green light because they have a warning. You know before a green light, nobody moves for a few seconds. That doesn’t happen in Germany because of the yellow light. Everybody’s ready to go.

THE NEXT JOURNEY

I was definitely happy to get back home, and I’d never want to live everywhere besides the United States. Still, I learned a lot from our trip.

For me, if we could adopt a similar culture of keeping our world cleaner, that would be great. You drive through the States, it doesn’t take long to find places that aren’t well kept. In Germany, you’d have to look for them. And I’m definitely all in on getting rid of air conditioning, and implementing their street light structure of yellow, green, red.

All in all, going to Germany was really fun and eye-opening, and I enjoyed seeing people living a different way of life. It definitely has me thinking about where I’d like to go next, and excited about all there is to learn from other places Paige and I might visit.

Any recommendations?

Posted on September 26, 2018 by Staff Report

NASCAR cited the No. 18 team in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series for a lug-nut violation on Wednesday. The Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota was found to have one lug nut not safe/secure in post-race inspection following Kyle Busch’s victory at Richmond Raceway in the NASCAR Playoffs.

As a result of the violation of sections 10.9.10.4 of the NASCAR Rule Book, crew chief Adam Stevens was fined $10,000.

In the Xfinity Series, the No. 20 team of race-winner Christopher Bell was also cited with a lug-nut violation. The Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota was found to have one lug nut not safe/secure in post-race inspection. Crew chief Jason Ratcliff was fined $5,000.

Posted on September 26, 2018September 26, 2018 by Jason Lofing

Matt Bussa punched his ticket to the championship round of the NASCAR PEAK Antifreeze iRacing Series Tuesday night after holding off a late charge from Michael Conti at Atlanta Motor Speedway. Conti, who started from the pole and dominated before falling victim to an untimely caution, carved his way back through the field and was within striking distance of Bussa with 30 laps to go.

For the next 30 circuits Conti tried everything he could to pass Bussa but was unsuccessful. Multiple times Conti was able to draw alongside and even ahead of Bussa in Turn 3, but Bussa kept his momentum by using the high groove and fended off each attack. With laps winding down, Conti looked to make one final challenge, closing to Bussa’s bumper as the two took the white flag. However, Conti got loose off Turn 2, breaking his run and handing Bussa his first NASCAR PEAK Antifreeze iRacing Series victory.

RELATED: Full iRacing schedule/results

Conti, already qualified for the championship round thanks to his victory at Darlington, finished just over three-tenths of a second behind. Nick Ottinger followed in third with Ray Alfalla in fourth. The series’ most recent winner at Indianapolis, Logan Clampitt, completed the top five.

Conti led from the pole and stretched out a comfortable margin over Brian Schoenburg early. Then on Lap 65, still with a healthy lead, Conti chose to pit for routine service under green. The early pit stop would allow him to stretch his lead, but if a caution flew before others had pitted he would lose track positions or be stuck on older tires.

Unfortunately for Conti the caution flew on Lap 71 when Brad Davies crashed off Turn 2 and collected a few others. Conti had unlapped himself but decided to pit with the rest of the field to be on equal tires. He would restart 22nd with 91 laps to go.

On the restart, Clampitt jumped out front and would go on to lead 46 laps. Clampitt’s biggest challenger for the lead? None other than Conti who passed 20 cars and ran down Clampitt 40 laps after the restart. Before he could take the lead, though, Conti pitted for a final time for tires and fuel.

The race-winning pass ended up occurring during the round of pit stops as Bussa stopped a lap before Conti and used the fresh tires to his advantage. While Conti looked to have the quicker car and one lap fresher tires, Bussa found a line that was both fast and prevented Conti from clearing him for the lead.

With only one race left in the first round of the playoffs, time is running out for the four drivers on the outside looking in. Bussa and Conti are locked in with wins while Ryan Luza and Alfalla are currently in on points. With a 36-point gap to fifth, Luza looks safe to transfer. Alfalla is in a more precarious position as Ottinger is only 12 points behind in fifth. Keegan Leahy, Bobby Zalenski, and Nickolas Shelton are 24, 27, and 28 points behind, respectively. A win would most likely be required if any of them hope to transfer.

Dover International Speedway plays host to the penultimate race of the 2018 season, and with two transfer spots to the finale still up for grabs, look for strategy and daring moves from the drivers currently fifth through eighth. Who will join Bussa and Conti in Homestead to compete for the championship? Find out when the NASCAR PEAK Antifreeze iRacing Series hits the Dover high banks in two weeks.

Posted on September 25, 2018 by Team Release

STATESVILLE, N.C. (September 25, 2018) – Nearly clinching the 2018 ARCA Racing Series championship with two races remaining in the season, Sheldon Creed will climb behind the wheel of the No. 28 Chevrolet Silverado for four races of the 2018 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series (NCWTS) season with GMS Racing, starting at Martinsville Speedway.

Hailing from Alpine, California, the 20-year-old Creed has a diverse racing resume which includes two championships in Stadium Super Trucks (SST) in the 2015 and 2016 seasons, as well as winning a gold medal in the 2015 X-Games in Austin, Texas. From there Creed transitioned to stock car racing and continued his success on track in the K&N Pro Series West and East, ARCA and the NCWTS, as well as a few TransAm Series races, all while still competing in the SST through 2017.

With an extensive background on dirt, Creed has three previous NCWTS starts to date under his belt, all coming at Eldora Speedway, with the most recent start coming earlier this season. Aside from his NCWTS start this year, Creed’s 2018 racing season has included a full-season in ARCA, collecting three wins, four pole awards, 14 top-five and 16 top-10 finishes in 18 races en route to all but capturing the championship with two races to left to run. Creed also joined the NASCAR K&N Pro Series West at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway dirt track a couple weeks ago, where Creed qualified sixth and battled his way to the win.

“I’m super excited for this new opportunity at GMS Racing,” said Creed. “I know I have a lot to learn so I’m going in to this with an open mindset. I want to try to gain as much knowledge as I possibly can in these four races.”

The No. 28 is special to Creed and he’s hoping to continue the success he’s had with it, including his run to this year’s ARCA championship, when he transitions to the NCWTS. Looking to help with the rookie’s move up the racing ladder, crew chief Doug Randolph and his team will use their experience to aid in Creed’s learning curve as much as possible.

“I’m excited to see what these final four races will hold for our No. 28 team,” said Randolph. “Sheldon (Creed) has proven himself on the race track in every level of racing he has been in. Stepping up to trucks for these final races will take some patience and learning for us all, but I’m sure he will get adjusted quickly and will be competitive. I’ve always enjoyed working with younger drivers and I’m looking forward to getting started with Sheldon.”

Additional information for Creed and the No. 28 GMS Racing team will be announced at a later date.

Posted on September 25, 2018September 28, 2018 by Staff Report

AJ Allmendinger, who delivered JTG Daugherty’s first team win in a Watkins Glen thriller back in 2014, will not return to the No. 47 Chevrolet next year, the team has announced.

Allmendinger has driven the No. 47 for the Tad Geschickter-owned team since late in the 2013 season. His masterful win at The Glen was the highlight, with the dramatic victory qualifying the team for the postseason.

RELATED: Key players in Silly Season

“AJ Allmendinger has been a valuable asset to the growth of our company, and we are grateful for his professionalism with our brands and the passion he has shown for this race team over the years,” team owner Tad Geschickter said in a team release. “As hard as it may be, we’re moving in a different direction for the 2019 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series season and will be parting ways at the end of this season. It’s not an easy decision and change is never easy. We wish him the very best in his endeavors and he will always be family to us.”

Throughout his tenure with JTG Daugherty, Allmendinger has notched one win, six top-five finishes and 26 top-10 finishes in nearly 200 starts. His best season-long finish in the standings was 13th in 2014, when he qualified for the postseason. In 2016, Allmendinger notched nine top-10 finishes.

The veteran also helped JTG usher in the two-car era in 2017, serving as a mentor to driver Chris Buescher.

Allmendinger has made more than 360 starts since 2007 driving for JTG Daugherty, Red Bull Racing, Richard Petty Motorsports and Team Penske.

Posted on September 25, 2018September 26, 2018 by RJ Kraft

CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Rappelling down a side of a building for charity? It was all in a day’s work for several NASCAR drivers and executives as the Charlotte-hosted “Over The Edge” event kicked off Tuesday afternoon.

The two-day spectacle, which continues Wednesday, is a rappelling challenge and fundraiser that sees participants go over the edge for a 10-story trip downward from the Embassy Suites Charlotte Uptown with the NASCAR Hall of Fame and NASCAR Plaza serving as the backdrop and kickoff location for the event.

International Speedway Corp. CEO Lesa France Kennedy and NASCAR Hall of Famer Rusty Wallace — both on the Board of Directors for The NASCAR Foundation — were the first to go. During the course of the afternoon, drivers Bubba Wallace, Ryan Blaney, Matt DiBenedetto and newly named NASCAR President Steve Phelps participated. This week’s “Glass Case of Emotion” podcast was also broadcast from the event with co-hosts Blaney, Kim Coon and Chuck Bush.

MORE: Phelps named NASCAR President

“A good time for a good cause,” Bubba Wallace said after his rappelling adventure was over. “I had a great day. Thanks to the Hall of Fame for throwing the invite out there. I jumped on it right away and it ended up being an awesome time.”

“Over The Edge” benefits area education and healthcare services for children. This particular program is the result of a joint effort between the Friends of the NASCAR Hall of Fame Foundation and The NASCAR Foundation.

PHOTOS: Rappelling in Charlotte for ‘Over The Edge’

The Charlotte event comes after the first NASCAR-related “Over the Edge” fundraiser that was held at the company’s corporate headquarters in Daytona Beach, Florida, last November. That event raised $200,000 for the Daytona community and its success led to expanding the fundraiser to Charlotte, the hub of the company’s digital operations and where the bulk of competing teams are based. Daytona will host its second “Over The Edge” event Nov. 2-3.

“It makes me feel real good knowing that we already have raised $170,000 (at Charlotte) and it’s climbing,” Rusty Wallace said. “This is our second rappelling event and we got one more to do this year in Daytona in November. My gosh, we’ve raised a ton of money for children. This was a hugely successful event.”

Posted on September 25, 2018September 25, 2018 by Zack Albert

JR Motorsports announced Tuesday that Noah Gragson will join its 2019 driver lineup in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, taking the wheel of the No. 1 Chevrolet full-time with a two-year deal.

Gragson, 20, replaces Elliott Sadler, who announced Aug. 15 that he would retire from full-time competition at the end of the season. Gragson’s jump to the next rung on the NASCAR ladder was revealed in the latest episode of the team’s JRM 360 video series.

“First off, I’m very thankful for the opportunity to get to race full-time in the Xfinity Series,” Gragson told NASCAR.com. “It’s a great privilege to be able to run full-time and then to do it with JR Motorsports, I’ve looked up to Dale (Earnhardt) Jr. ever since I started racing back in 2012 when I was 13 years old. When I started racing, I never would’ve thought that I’d be at this level, especially so quick. To have that opportunity is definitely a dream come true, so definitely have to work hard, stay focused and make the most of the opportunity.”

Gragson currently ranks second in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series standings, having qualified for that circuit’s eight-driver postseason field. But he’s also gotten a taste of Xfinity competition this year, placing second in his series debut at Richmond Raceway and sweeping to top-10 finishes in all three of his Xfinity starts.

The bigger transition, though, is a break with Toyota Racing, which backed Gragson in its development program for young drivers with Kyle Busch Motorsports in the Truck Series. The decision to shift his allegiances to the Chevrolet camp, he says, was “incredibly tough” but that he will leave the manufacturer on good terms, hoping to wrap up the truck championship as a farewell gift at season’s end.

“They have been so good to me and they really haven’t even been sponsors to me, they’ve been more mentors,” Gragson said. “They’ve been guys that I’ve really looked up to in this sport. I consider them friends of mine, and so it made it very difficult to shy away from the Toyota banner, but I talked to them last week and told them what the plan was, and they said that they understand, that racing is a business and I had to do what I had to do, but that I’m always welcome to come back to drive a Toyota in the future.

“Just very thankful for the relationship that I’ve built with those guys. They’ve invested into me and I’m very thankful for that. It’s been a great relationship, and they said they still want me to win. It’s cool that we’re both on the same page and they’re cool with everything. They’re just great people overall.”

Gragson indicated that his contract calls for a two-year term, providing an extra layer of job insurance as he makes the transition to Xfinity competition. The length of the partnership also should allow him time to grow in the next stage of his development.

THROWBACK: @nascarcasm interviews Gragson

“It’s definitely good to have that two-year relationship set in place and just have that security,” Gragson said. “That doesn’t mean that I can slack off because I’m running two years. To me, that makes me want to work even harder because I know that I’ll have two opportunities to do something and definitely try and learn the first year and then the main goal would be to win the championship the second year, if not the first year.”

It’s an intense leap from his days of winning on the NASCAR K&N Pro Series and landing a spot in the 2016 NASCAR Next class. Since then, he’s won twice in the Truck Series — as a rookie last season at Martinsville Speedway and earlier this year at Kansas Speedway.

That progress led to a three-race opportunity this year with Joe Gibbs Racing at the Xfinity level, where he impressed with finishes of second, fourth and seventh.

“I think that just shows that I belong with those guys,” Gragson said. “We had three great races with them and so I felt like I could do it and hopefully we can move up to that next level and actually exceed those expectations and get a few wins under our belt and learn and ultimately become a better driver.”

There’s more to Gragson’s career move, filed under the heading of off-track intangibles. JR Motorsports operates an established, popular media network for offbeat videos, candid audio podcasts and social media campaigns. The organization used those media platforms Tuesday for a humorous video vignette to announce Gragson’s arrival.

It’s a perfect match for a vibrant personality such as Gragson, who has photobombed other drivers in a shark disguise, openly flirted with Olympian Lindsey Vonn in TV interviews, and most recently proposed a multi-state Uber ride from Chicago to Charlotte after a flight cancellation.

Is the NASCAR world ready for a Noah Gragson podcast?

“I really want to do it,” he says. “I feel like I fit in great at JR Motorsports just simply because they love doing that JRM 360 and Dirty Mo Podcasts and all that kind of stuff, so I’m really excited for that part of the journey and the adventure. I watch those videos on Twitter and everything and they’re funny to watch, so that should be a fun deal, for sure.”

Posted on September 25, 2018September 25, 2018 by Staff Report

Chris Buescher landed the fastest speed Tuesday in the final day of a two-day Organizational Test for Monster Energy Series teams at Kansas Speedway.

Buescher drove the JTG Daugherty Racing No. 37 Chevrolet to a best speed of 185.989 mph on the 1.5-mile track, site of a NASCAR Playoff race on Oct. 21 ( 2 p.m. ET, NBC/NBC Sports App, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). His speed was slightly slower than the 186.477 mph lap posted by Chase Elliott on Monday, the first day of the session.

Kyle Busch, last weekend’s winner at Richmond Raceway, was the only driver among the top three on both days of the Organizational Test. He was third-fastest on the Monday speed chart and posted the second-best lap on the closing day.

Defending series champion Martin Truex Jr. was fourth-fastest on Day 1, but his Furniture Row Racing team did not participate in the second-day session.

A dozen teams participated in Kansas testing. Drew Herring, Justin Allgaier and David Ragan were also there on behalf of TRD, GM Racing and Ford, respectively, driving wheel-force cars for further data collection for the manufacturers.

DAY 1 SPEEDS

Rank	Driver	Team	Speed
1	Chase Elliott	Hendrick Motorsports	186.477 mph
2	Jamie McMurray	Chip Ganassi Racing	183.755 mph
3	Kyle Busch	Joe Gibbs Racing	183.374 mph
4	Martin Truex Jr.	Furniture Row Racing	183.076 mph
5	Joey Logano	Team Penske	182.939 mph
6	Paul Menard	Wood Brothers Racing	182.710 mph
7	Kurt Busch	Stewart-Haas Racing	182.192 mph
8	Matt Kenseth	Roush Fenway Racing	182.149 mph
9	Cole Custer	Rick Ware Racing	181.873 mph
10	Chris Buescher	JTG Daugherty Racing	181.513 mph
11	Ty Dillon	Germain Racing	181.184 mph
12	Austin Dillon	Richard Childress Racing	180.156 mph
13	Drew Herring	Toyota Wheel Force	179.563 mph
14	Justin Allgaier	Chevrolet Wheel Force	176.488 mph
15	David Ragan	Ford Wheel Force	175.793 mph

DAY 2 SPEEDS

Rank	Driver	Team	Speed
1	Chris Buescher	JTG Daugherty Racing	185.989 mph
2	Kyle Busch	Joe Gibbs Racing	184.055 mph
3 (tie)	Joey Logano	Team Penske	183.237 mph
3 (tie)	Kurt Busch	Stewart-Haas Racing	183.237 mph
5	Chase Elliott	Hendrick Motorsports	183.138 mph
6	Jamie McMurray	Chip Ganassi Racing	182.933 mph
7	Cole Custer	Rick Ware Racing	182.747 mph
8	Ty Dillon	Germain Racing	182.525 mph
9	Austin Dillon	Richard Childress Racing	181.702 mph
10	Paul Menard	Wood Brothers Racing	181.696 mph
11	Matt Kenseth	Roush Fenway Racing	180.880 mph
12	Drew Herring	Toyota Wheel Force	178.891 mph
13	Justin Allgaier	Chevrolet Wheel Force	177.731 mph
14	David Ragan	Ford Wheel Force	176.056 mph

Posted on September 24, 2018September 24, 2018 by Staff Report

Postseason eligibility is at stake in Sunday’s Bank of America Roval 400 (2 p.m. ET, NBC, PRN, SiriusXM), the final race in the opening round of the Monster Energy Series Playoffs. The postseason field will be whittled from 16 drivers to 12 after the debut event on Charlotte Motor Speedway’s combination oval/road course.

Only three drivers have clinched automatic berths in the Round of 12: Brad Keselowski and Kyle Busch, on the basis of their wins earlier in the round, and Martin Truex Jr., by virtue of his buffer in the series’ points standings.

With the remaining nine spots up for grabs, here’s what the still unclinched drivers have to do to avoid elimination and advance to the next round (drivers listed in order of their points ranking):

Kevin Harvick – Harvick will clinch by starting Sunday’s race.
Joey Logano – If there is a new winner, Logano will clinch with 33 points. If there is a repeat winner (or a win by Martin Truex Jr., Kevin Harvick, Aric Almirola, Kyle Larson, Kurt Busch, Chase Elliott, Austin Dillon or Alex Bowman), Logano would clinch with 30 points. If Ryan Blaney wins, Logano would clinch with 31 points.
Aric Almirola – If there is a new winner, Almirola would clinch with 35 points. If there is a repeat winner (or a win by Martin Truex Jr., Kevin Harvick, Joey Logano, Kyle Larson, Kurt Busch, Chase Elliott, Austin Dillon or Alex Bowman), they would clinch on points with 32 points. If Ryan Blaney wins, Almirola would clinch with 33 points.
Kyle Larson – If there is a new winner, Larson would clinch on points with 40 points. If there is a repeat winner (or a win by Martin Truex Jr., Kevin Harvick, Joey Logano, Aric Almirola, Kurt Busch, Chase Elliott, Austin Dillon or Alex Bowman), Larson would clinch with 37 points. If Ryan Blaney wins, Larson would clinch with 38 points.
Kurt Busch – If there is a new winner, Busch would clinch on points with 43 points. If there is a repeat winner (or a win by Martin Truex Jr., Kevin Harvick, Joey Logano, Aric Almirola, Kyle Larson, Chase Elliott, Austin Dillon or Alex Bowman), Busch would clinch with 40 points. If Ryan Blaney wins, Larson would clinch with 41 points.
Chase Elliott – If there is a new winner, Elliott would clinch with 48 points and a new winner. If there is a repeat winner (or a win by Martin Truex Jr., Kevin Harvick, Joey Logano, Aric Almirola, Kyle Larson, Kurt Busch, Austin Dillon or Alex Bowman), Elliott would clinch on points with 45 points. If Ryan Blaney wins, Elliott clinch with 46 points.
Austin Dillon – If there is a new winner, Dillon would clinch with 48 points. If there is a repeat winner (or a win by Martin Truex Jr., Kevin Harvick, Joey Logano, Aric Almirola, Kyle Larson, Kurt Busch, Chase Elliott or Alex Bowman), Dillon would clinch with 45 points. If Ryan Blaney wins, Dillon would clinch with 46 points.
Alex Bowman – If there is a new winner, Bowman would clinch with 53 points. If there is a repeat winner (or a win by Martin Truex Jr., Kevin Harvick, Joey Logano, Aric Almirola, Kyle Larson, Kurt Busch, Chase Elliott or Austin Dillon), Bowman would clinch on points with 50 points. If Ryan Blaney wins, Bowman would clinch with 51 points.
Ryan Blaney – If there is a new winner, Blaney would clinch with 54 points. If there is a repeat winner (or a win by Martin Truex Jr., Kevin Harvick, Joey Logano, Aric Almirola, Kyle Larson, Kurt Busch, Chase Elliott or Austin Dillon), Blaney would clinch with 51 points. If Alex Bowman wins, Blaney would clinch with 52 points.
Clint Bowyer – If there is a repeat winner (or a win by Martin Truex Jr., Kevin Harvick, Joey Logano, Aric Almirola, Kyle Larson, Kurt Busch, Chase Elliott or Austin Dillon), Bowyer would clinch with 55 points. With a win, Bowyer would clinch a next round spot. Bowyer could clinch on points with a new winner and help.
Jimmie Johnson – With a win, Johnson would clinch a next round spot. Johnson could clinch on points with a new winner and help.
Erik Jones – With a win, Jones would clinch a next round spot. Jones could clinch on points with a new winner and help.
Denny Hamlin – With a win, Hamlin would clinch a next round spot. Hamlin could clinch on points with a new winner and help.

Posted on September 24, 2018September 24, 2018 by Holly Cain

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — With the first 2018 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs cutoff race upon us, four of the biggest names in the sport are teetering on the brink of “we’ll get ’em next year” as the championship contender list is officially cut from 16 drivers to 12 following Sunday’s Bank of America Roval 400 on the Charlotte Motor Speedway road course (2 p.m. ET on NBC/NBC Sports App, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

The debut of the 2.28-mile circuit — road course with a touch of oval — is either highly anticipated or highly feared, depending on whom you speak with. A good attitude will be essential, however, for those drivers with championship hopes on the line. Their fate rides on this presently untested race venue — the first road course in the history of NASCAR’s Playoffs.

Three of the bottom four playoff drivers — 13th-ranked Clint Bowyer, 14th-ranked Jimmie Johnson and 16th-ranked Denny Hamlin — are experienced veterans who have won or challenged for championships. And the other, 15th-ranked Erik Jones, 22, was having the best season of his young career … up until the playoffs started.

“Bring on the Roval,” Johnson said on Twitter following his eighth-place finish Saturday night at Richmond Raceway — acknowledging his fate will now be determined at the new venue.

Ramping up the pressure is the fact that the wild-card feel to this week’s race will likely be repeated during other playoff elimination races. Charlotte’s Roval decides who moves on from the Round of 16. Talladega Superspeedway is the big unknown in the Round of 12 in three weeks and then the new-look ISM Raceway in Phoenix sets the Championship 4 — the track debuting its own newly renovated look with the start-finish line moving to what used to be the back straightaway.

But first, this group of preseason title favorites must navigate their way up through the bottom of the standings on a configuration that has never hosted a Monster Energy Series race before, much less served as a championship cutoff. The right attitude will likely be as important as horsepower and navigation skill for these drivers, in particular.

Bowyer, who sits four points outside of the cutoff entering the Charlotte race, has one victory (Fall, 2012) at Charlotte, but has only led four laps there since that win. His last top 10 at Charlotte was an eighth-place finish in 2013.

As for road-course racing, Bowyer does have a victory at Sonoma Raceway in 2012 and 10 top-10 finishes in 13 starts there. He was runner-up in 2017 and finished third this summer. He is winless, however, at the Monster Energy Series’ other road course, Watkins Glen. His best showing there is fourth place in 2012.

Johnson, 14th in the standings, sits just behind Bowyer. He trails 12th-place Ryan Blaney by only six points. And while this week’s trip to Charlotte features a new track dimension, Johnson has proven to be one of the very best at Charlotte Motor Speedway with eight wins — most among anyone in this weekend’s field. His last win was the fall 2016 race. And he has 21 top 10s in 34 career starts. His fifth place there this spring is one of only two top fives he’s had in 2018.

EXCLUSIVE: Take a lap around the Charlotte road course

Johnson’s only road-course win was in 2010 at Sonoma, although he’s had nine top 10s in 17 starts there. His showing at Watkins Glen has been a little less stellar. He has eight top 10s in 17 starts and was 30th last month.

“I think surviving is just the biggest thing,” Johnson said of the challenge in front of him this week. “We will just go there and give 100 percent and do what we can.

“It’s been one of those years, but we are going to go down swinging to the bitter end.”

Of the two drivers — Jones and Hamlin — essentially needing a victory to advance in the playoffs, Hamlin has proven himself a road-course favorite while Jones has definitely worked on his learning curve.

Jones, who is 21 points south of the cutoff line, finished 19th at Charlotte this spring. His seventh place in June at Sonoma is his best in two outings at that road course. He has two top 10s in two starts at Watkins Glen highlighted by a fifth place this year.

Hamlin, who is 29 points behind 12th-place Blaney, is winless on the Charlotte oval but finished among the top five in the last three races there — leading laps in the last four races. He won in 2016 at Watkins Glen and won the pole position there this summer. He is winless at Sonoma, but finished runner-up in 2016 and has led laps in the last three races there.

As for Blaney, the Team Penske driver’s best road-course finishes are ninth in 2017 at Sonoma and eighth at Watkins Glen that same year.

Hendrick Motorsports driver Alex Bowman has only a one-point edge on Blaney in the standings — five points ahead of 13th-place Bowyer. He was ninth at Charlotte earlier this season and ninth again at Sonoma — his career-best road-course showing.