Posted on by Chase Wilhelm

LAS VEGAS — Thursday night was record-setting for Hailie Deegan at the Las Vegas Dirt Track as she became the first woman in NASCAR history to win a pole for a K&N Pro Series West race.

At race’s end, Deegan finished second to ARCA Racing Series regular Sheldon Creed — but it was a hard-fought runner-up result. And it was one she was not content with.

Deegan led 13 laps early in the Star Nursery 100, but her No. 19 Bill McAnally Racing Toyota quickly developed a problem, routinely popping out of gear after mis-shifting at the start. The issue plagued her the rest of the night and added to the race drama.

“I just got antsy on the start,” Deegan told NASCAR.com Friday afternoon at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. “I started in second (gear) and went to third and that was good, but as soon as I got back to fourth … I didn’t blip the throttle enough and ended up getting stuck in neutral and grinded the gear. I could never really get it into fourth, but when I did, every other lap or so it would pop out.”

The issue meant she tried to drive the demanding dirt with one hand while the other remained on the shifter, and persisted even after the mid-race break when the team attached a bungee cord in an effort to keep the car in fourth gear. Even then her car wouldn’t stay in gear.

“I would say every three to five laps it would pop out of gear,” Deegan said. “After I got the hang of it, what it was doing and I got the rhythm down, I expected it to pop out and I was ready for it.”

Despite the historic night under difficult circumstances, the 17-year-old NASCAR Next driver wasn’t satisfied with her runner-up result.

“Everyone was like, ‘Good job, top five!’ And I’m like, ‘Top five?’ ” Deegan said. “‘No, that was horrible, what are you talking about?’ And even with second, everyone is like ‘Yeah, you got second, that’s still the highest-finishing place for a girl.’ I’m like, ‘No, I qualified on pole and fell back a position. This is not OK.’”

That demanding demeanor is what she was taught from her father, freestyle motocross rider Brian Deegan. It has never mattered that she is a woman trying to succeed in the male-dominated racing world.

“It’s always been, ‘You want to be the best driver, hands down,’ ” said Deegan. “He’s trained me to figure out what I’m doing wrong. That’s with everything in life. You figure out what you’re doing wrong and fix it so we can be better next race.”

Her lineage and her gender have made Deegan a driver whom other competitors want to beat, a fact she has used to motivate her even more in her first year transitioning to stock cars from off-road racing.

“As soon as you get on the track, they expect you to be the best person, plain and simple,” Deegan said. “No one will treat you differently as soon as you get on the track. No one will drive differently, even though sometimes they drive me a little harder because I’m a girl and they don’t want a 17-year-old girl beating them.”

She has her own standards to live up to.

“I don’t want to be the best girl, I want to be the best driver,” she said. “Whatever series I’m racing, I will never be OK with being the best girl. I want to be the best driver no matter what. That was just my mentality growing up. I was trained like that.”

Posted on by Staff Report

Kevin Harvick, Kyle Busch and Martin Truex Jr. have earned some separation from the rest of the Monster Energy Series field entering the NASCAR Playoffs. Their regular-season performances — winning 17 of the 26 races — make the three drivers favorites to compete for the championship in the Homestead-Miami finale Nov. 18.

With three rounds of eliminations and a juggled 10-race slate for the postseason, there are no guarantees that the Harvick-Busch-Truex triple threat stays solvent. Or are there?

With nine races to go before the Championship 4 field is set, NASCAR.com’s writers in place for the Las Vegas Motor Speedway opener debate the question: Will the Big 3 stay intact all the way to Homestead?

RELATED: Breaking down the playoff field | NASCAR Playoffs 101 | Which driver will surprise?

ZACK ALBERT

Yes: Perhaps there’s not a long-odds bonanza with this pick, but there’s something to be said for betting the chalk and staying with the favorites. The three fastest cars are part of that mix. Three experienced drivers — champions, all — competing at their highest level is in that equation, too. Top that with a sustaining bounty of playoff points — 50 each for Busch and Harvick, and 35 for Truex — and there’s reason to believe in conventional wisdom. The road to Homestead won’t be a waltz for the front-running trio, but almost all postseason indicators suggest three familiar faces on the final stage.

CHASE WILHELM

No: Nine races and three rounds of elimination races to set the Championship 4 contenders means ample opportunity for the Big 3 to either achieve more success or make huge mistakes. With that said, let’s pump the brakes on giving Busch, Harvick and Truex three of those four coveted spots right away. All three drivers experienced their fair share of DNFs during the regular season (Busch: 2, Harvick: 3, Truex: 5). Although they have plenty of playoff points to use as a bandage if something catastrophic occurs, it’s still not enough insurance to have more than one bad race. It’s the playoffs and too much can happen, which is why at least one of the Big 3 drivers will find themselves out of the championship battle in Homestead.

Posted on by Staff Report

Trackside Live is heading back to Las Vegas Motor Speedway with a stacked guest lineup. The show will be on Sunday, Sept. 16 at 11:30 a.m. ET (8:30 a.m. PT).

WATCH: Trackside Live | MORE: Full schedule for Vegas | Buy your tickets

Don’t miss your chance to meet your favorite drivers including Kyle Larson, Bubba Wallace and Joey Logano ahead of the first race of the 2018 NASCAR Playoffs — Enjoy!

Posted on by Reid Spencer

LAS VEGAS – It took three overtimes for Grant Enfinger to get his first victory of the season, with a win that represented a giant leap in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series Playoffs.

In the second race of the postseason, Enfinger went from eighth in the playoff standings to a guaranteed berth in the second round when he held off charging Johnny Sauter in the third overtime to win the World of Westgate 200 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway by .142 seconds.

RELATED: Full race results

Brett Moffitt led the field to the green flag in all three overtimes, coming within 200 feet of winning in the second extra period before a multicar wreck caused the 11th caution and forced NASCAR to red-flag the race on Lap 138.

WATCH: ‘Big One’ sets up triple overtime

When Moffit came to the final restart, his No. 16 Toyota failed to pick up fuel, and Enfinger, who restarted second, surged into the lead. Having to work his way around Moffitt’s sputtering truck, Sauter fell back and ran out of time in a race that went 10 laps beyond its scheduled distance of 134 laps.

The second straight playoff race produced a first-time winner this season, with Justin Haley having triumphed Aug. 26 at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park. With berths in the second round secure, Enfinger and Haley can race stress-free in the Oct. 13 cutoff at Talladega Superspeedway, Enfinger’s home track.

“There’s only two of us comfortable going into Talladega, and I’m one of those two,” said Enfinger, who knew he had a strong No. 98 ThorSport Racing Ford entering the race. “It’s kind of the culmination of the whole year.

“We’ve put together the pieces needed to win a race individually but not as a whole as a group. The truck was great – we had the best truck out there.”

Sauter might take issue with assertion. His No. 21 GMS Racing Chevrolet improved throughout the event, but Sauter’s Achilles heel was the restarts.

“My restarts absolutely sucked tonight — just awful,” Sauter said. From first to second gear, it was terrible. The 16 (Moffitt) ran out of gas, and I had to snake around that, and we just lost a little bit of momentum.

“We’ve just got a little work to do. Obviously, we had the fastest truck the last half of the race.”

Sauter, at least, goes into Talladega with the series lead, 17 points ahead of pole winner Noah Gragson, who overcame a cut tire and a commitment line violation to finish 18th. With the playoff field set to be trimmed from eight drivers to six after Talladega, Ben Rhodes (fourth Friday) and Stewart Friesen (17th after three spins) are the two drivers on the outside, but both are within close range of fifth-place finisher Matt Crafton, who is fifth in the standings.

Haley took advantage of the late restarts to finish third ahead of Rhodes and Crafton. Moffitt came home 11th after his truck finally picked up fuel on the next-to-last lap.

Enfinger’s win came after crew chief Jeff Hensley opted for a no-tire call following Enfinger’s victory in the second stage. An opportune caution on Lap 100 gave Enfinger a chance to gain a tire advantage, and he used the fresh rubber to charge through the field.

Enfinger’s spotter, ThorSport general manager David Pepper, picked up the victory in his 500th race.  

Posted on by Reid Spencer

LAS VEGAS – Before Friday’s Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series knockout qualifying session at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Erik Jones considered himself a sleeper entering the first race of the playoffs.

That was before the driver of the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota announced his presence by winning the pole for Sunday’s opening postseason race, the South Point 400.

Jones toured the 1.5-mile intermediate speedway in 28.705 seconds (188.121 mph) to earn his first Busch Pole Award of the season and the second of his career by .003 seconds over Team Penske driver Joey Logano (188.101 mph).

RELATED: Full starting lineup | Breaking down the playoff field 

“I knew we had a good car in practice, but I didn’t know if we’d get the pole,” Jones said. “The track kind of came to us, and I thought I knew what we needed to do adjustment-wise. We got the (car) where it needed to be and put together a really good lap.

“You can’t start them off any better than that. We have a long ways to go this weekend but we got the speed to do it. … I feel like we’ve been kind of under the radar. We’ve been running really well, and we’ve just got to put it together for one really good race. I think we can do that. We’re one to watch.”

Jones’ JGR teammate, Denny Hamlin, qualified third at 187.624 mph, followed by Kyle Busch (187.402 mph) and Kevin Harvick (187.396 mph), as Playoff drivers claimed the top 11 starting positions. The only interloper to make the final round was Jamie McMurray, who ended up 12th after hard contact with the outside wall on his money lap.

RELATED: Who could surprise in the playoffs?

With playoff driver Brad Keselowski having won the last two races and Logano showing excellent speed in all three qualifying rounds, Logano said he was encouraged by his performance in time trials.

“I feel like the field’s pretty close, and I feel comfortable about my car,” Logano said. “I think the Penske cars are all fairly quick, and we’ll work on it some more (in Saturday’s practice).”

Penske teammate Ryan Blaney was sixth fastest in the final round. Keselowski will start 13th after failing to advance to the final round by .001 seconds. In addition to Keselowski, Playoff drivers who will start outside the top 12 are: Clint Bowyer (15th), Aric Almirola (16th), Jimmie Johnson (17th) and Austin Dillon (18th).

Playoff drivers Chase Elliott, Kurt Busch, Alex Bowman, Martin Truex Jr. and Kyle Larson occupy the seventh through 11th positions on the starting grid, respectively. Truex and Kyle Busch each had to make two runs in Round 2 to bump their way into the final 12.

Posted on by Holly Cain

LAS VEGAS – Kyle Larson’s No. 42 DC Solar Chevrolet will carry a special paint scheme honoring the victims of the 2017 Las Vegas concert tragedy. Several DC Solar company employees attended the music festival last October and were in the crowd during the shooting.

The company has provided donations to the charities that help the victims. One of those charities, “58 Strong” will be on the Larson’s car this weekend.  The www.58strong.org organization was established to help support children who lost a parent in the tragedy.

Posted on by Staff Report

Sure, “Big 3” drivers Kyle Busch, Kevin Harvick and Martin Truex Jr. are all the talk, but who has the potential to spoil the party in this year’s Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs?

Anything can happen in three rounds of eliminations over the course of 10 races, which opens up the possibility for a driver or two to really shake things up.

NASCAR.com’s Zack Albert and Chase Wilhelm make their predictions on who’s lurking under the radar to potentially beat the postseason odds.

RELATED: Entire playoff field analyzed | Opening round preview–advanced stats style

Zack’s pick: Denny Hamlin

This might rank as a milder spoiler pick than most, but Hamlin enters the playoffs winless for the first time since 2013 — a year in which he missed the postseason in part due to injury. His streak of winning at least one race in each season of his career currently sits in jeopardy, but there’s reason to believe that he’ll fill that void over the course of the 10-race final stretch.

The prevailing logic includes the schedule itself. Excluding the all-new-for-everyone Charlotte road course, Hamlin has won at seven of the nine remaining tracks in the postseason mix. Hamlin maintains short-track strongholds at Richmond (three wins) and Martinsville (five wins), both venues that could hold the key to the No. 11 Toyota team avoiding elimination.

Hamlin’s speed has shown a recent surge with Busch Poles in three of the last five races to close out the regular season. When that same pace shows up in the results column, Hamlin’s path forward — potentially even to the Homestead finale — gets a steady dose of optimism.

Chase’s pick: Austin Dillon

After locking himself into the postseason by taking the No. 3 back to Victory Lane in the Daytona 500, Dillon only managed to score three other top-10 finishes during the regular season – Fontana (10th), Daytona-2 (9th) and Michigan (4th). So, why pick him to stir the pot?

Despite some lackluster results in the first 26 races, Dillon and Richard Childress Racing took a brand-new race car to Michigan and found some extra speed — speed they may be saving to break out over the next 10 races.

Although Dillon finished 13th or worse in the last three events of the regular season, the potential is there for him to go on an unexpected tear. Dillon has earned two career victories in crown-jewel events playing an underdog role, so success in high-pressure situations isn’t an issue. It’s actually right in his comfort zone.

My prediction: A win will be difficult, but look for Dillon to slide his way into the Round of 8 by racking up some consistent finishes.

RELATED: Dillon’s strong take on beating the Big 3

Posted on by Holly Cain

LAS VEGAS – Jimmie Johnson made a lot of eye contact with the reporters eager to gauge his postseason expectations Thursday afternoon at the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs Media Day. The sincerity in his voice and the passion of his words left no doubt. He is as motivated as he has ever been to end a first-of-its-kind, season-long winless streak. 

A championship run now would certainly change the narrative.

Johnson and Hendrick Motorsports teammate Alex Bowman have qualified for the 2018 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Playoffs that begin Sunday with the South Point Hotel and Casino 400 (3 p.m. ET on NBCSN, PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) taking the final two positions in the 16-driver Playoff grid. Their teammate Chase Elliott is also title eligible, securing his playoff bid with a career-first victory at the Watkins Glen road course in August.

First-year teammate William Byron didn’t qualify for the playoffs but is leading the Rookie of the Year championship race.

RELATED: Full playoff standings

It’s an unusual position for Johnson, a seven-time Cup champion, who typically has already earned a high profile, high title seed by the time the playoffs begin – with multiple race trophies already in hand.

“It would be a disappointing year if we didn’t win a race,’’ acknowledged Johnson, who is on the longest winless streak (49 races) of what is certain to be a NASCAR Hall of Fame career. “I’ve set a high bar to win since my rookie year, so winning a race seems like something we should be able to do. If that doesn’t happen, I’d certainly be disappointed. 

“I do know that we have not left anything on the table and poured everything we can into it. Not that it would be satisfying on every level but making sure we acknowledge the effort that went into it and not beat ourselves too hard on it. But I certainly hope that doesn’t happen.” 

It’s been an uncharacteristic season for Johnson in all statistical categories. His two top-five finishes and eight top-10 showings are the lowest total in his 17-year full-time Cup career. He’s led only 29 laps through the opening 26 races and his average finish is 17.0. 

But Johnson is quick to assure that progress has been made. His No. 48 Chevrolet is a new body style, and, to be fair – Elliott and Austin Dillon are the only Chevy drivers to win this season. Not to mention, Dillon’s victory came in the season-opening Daytona 500 came on a last lap pass.

RELATED: The art of the last-lap pass

Johnson prefers to look ahead, not behind. And who could argue with someone who has 83 victories and a historic championship haul that ties him with Richard Petty and the late Dale Earnhardt.

“I’ve never been stats-driven,’’ Johnson said. “It’s really been about the experience. I love being around people and working with my team. I love driving that race car.

“So, for me, I had a lot of years when I wasn’t very successful in my ascension to my time at Hendrick Motorsports. I fell in love with racing for my own reasons and it wasn’t because of trophies or fame or money. It was because of the experience I had driving the car and I’m still very much in that space.

“I’m not expecting anybody to say, ‘Oh, poor Jimmie Johnson.’ But I would ask people not to think that I’ve had enough and am ready to throw in the towel or that I don’t care or don’t want it. That’s just unfair. Anybody who knows me knows that I’m the opposite.”

For his part, Johnson’s teammate Elliott remains cautiously optimistic about advancing through the playoffs. Boosted by his first career Cup victory, the 22-year old sees no reason not to feel good about his NASCAR Playoff chances, even though he acknowledges the organization has struggled at times this year.

“It’s been an up-and-down year,’’ said Elliott, who leads the Hendrick team with eight top-five and 14 top-10 finishes. “I feel like we started off kind of slow. But, to get a win and lock-in to the first round of the final 10 is nice, at least and see where it goes.”

Bowman, who drives the No. 88 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet, acknowledges it’s a challenging road ahead. However, he has earned some legitimate confidence, putting that car in the playoffs in his first full season driving it.

He has a career-best nine top-10 finishes and a pair of top-fives and has led 67 laps. Securing the final playoff bid is an achievement. Advancing out of the first round would be a high achievement.

“I think we have made pretty dramatic improvements from where we started the year,’’ Bowman said. “It’s too good of a company to keep down. We have too many good people and great resources. I think we will continue to improve and I think we can start off the playoffs with some good runs.’’

“I think we can do as good of a job as anybody. We obviously have a great team behind us at Hendrick Motorsports, one of the best in the business. We have a lot of people working really hard and our cars have been getting better each and every week. We are just going to continue that and take it from there.’’

Johnson, who is the all-time winningest driver (four victories) at this week’s Las Vegas Motor Speedway venue, conceded that even a champion like himself can glean inspiration when needed. He’s won at least two races every season of his career – all but one previous season (2011) he’s won at least three races.

He remains optimistic about his playoff chances and still smiles thinking of his last championship in 2016 when he won the Homestead-Miami finale despite having his car taken off the grid minutes before the race for inspection and still working his way back to win the event.

He knows how to rally.

Reminded of the valiant way NFL veteran Aaron Rodgers lead his Green Bay Packers to a victory after the quarterback was hurt in the season-opener Sunday night, Johnson smiled and agreed about the powerful intangibles of heart and desire.

“I watched the game,’’ Johnson said. “It is so inspirational to see that happen, and I’ve been able to live through and create a few of those moments on my own. It’s amazing to experience it and when you reflect back you’re like, ‘Wow, I really did that.’

“You want to believe you’re capable of it, but until you do it and see it, you just don’t know. I know what we’re capable of and I know we’ve done the unthinkable in the past. To win this eighth championship, we’re going to have to do something that’s never been done before, so I have optimism and belief that we’ll have another look at an eighth championship. 

“I don’t know if it’s this year, next, the year after, but we have everything stacked up around it to make it happen. I don’t expect it to come easy; no championship does.”

Posted on by Staff Report

NASCAR announced before the season that it will standardize at-track team rosters across all three national series in 2018, providing a structure for the number of personnel working on each vehicle during the course of a race weekend.

Official team rosters for Sunday’s Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series South Point 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway (3 p.m. ET on NBCSN/NBC Sports App, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) have been released. Click the print icon above, or the link below.

ROSTERS: Las Vegas

RELATED: Overview of 2018 rules updates