Posted on by Staff Report

Editor’s note: The renderings in this article are preliminary in nature.

Chevrolet announced Friday at Texas Motor Speedway that it will have an updated Camaro SS Coupe in the NASCAR Xfinity Series in 2019, and a new Silverado in the NASCAR Gander Outdoors Truck Series.

It will be the third time the Camaro SS has been updated since its competition debut in 2013, and the first time since 2014 the Silverado has been redesigned for the Truck Series.

This year also marked the first of Chevrolet running the Camaro in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series.

“We always want to align our racing vehicles with what is available in the showroom,” Chevrolet Vice President of Performance Vehicles and Motorsports Jim Campbell said in a press release. “The Camaro SS was updated for the 2019 model year, and Silverado RST is all new. We can’t wait to see the Camaro SS and the Silverado RST on the track next February at Daytona.”

2019 xfinity camaro renderingThe most notable changes to both the Xfinity Series 2019 Chevrolet Camaro SS and Gander Outdoors Series Chevrolet Silverado are the upper front fascia, fenders, hood and tail regions, which reflect the look of the all-new production models.

Camaro SS, which made its on-track debut with a win at Daytona International Speedway in February 2013, has visited Victory Lane 67 times, ranking it third among Chevy nameplates that have competed in the Xfinity Series.

Additionally, Camaro SS has earned three Bill France Performance Cup manufacturer championships and three drivers’ championships (Austin Dillon, Chase Elliott and William Byron). With three races remaining in the 2019 season, Chevrolet leads the manufacturer points and has the top three drivers in the standings.

2019 gander outdoor silverado renderingSilverado is the only nameplate Chevrolet has campaigned in the Truck series since the inaugural race 23 years ago. Since then, Silverado has delivered 231 race wins, eight Manufacturers’ Championships and 12 Drivers’ Championships, making it the most successful truck to compete in the series.

With three races remaining in the 2018 season, Silverado drivers have collected 10 wins and Chevrolet leads both the Manufacturer Standings and Johnny Sauter leads the Driver Standings.

Posted on by Staff Report

Following an exchange of text messages after their run-in at Martinsville Speedway, Team Penske driver Joey Logano said Friday at Texas Motor Speedway that he and Martin Truex Jr. “know where we stand.”

The Furniture Row Racing driver appears to agree.

It was Logano who put the bumper to Truex Jr.’s No. 78 Furniture Row Racing Toyota last week, moving Truex Jr. out of the way on the final lap and powering his way to the start/finish line to win the Round of 8 opener.

The move set off a week-long debate about short-track etiquette, how one driver races another and how a driver who feels he has been wronged should react — both on the track and off. The lasting implications are evident: Joey Logano is in the Championship 4 in Miami, and Martin Truex Jr. is peeved — and not.

RELATED: Will MTJ retaliate? | Full Texas schedule

“I can’t say I was surprised that he texted,” Logano said. “I was kind of glad he did. I was planning on waiting a couple days to let things settle. We both know where we stand. We know where it’s at. It is what it is, and we move on.”

The reason for the outreach was simple.

“I didn’t expect to hear from him, so I wanted to tell him how I felt,” Truex Jr. said hours after Logano’s initial interview at Texas.

Logano, who qualified for his third career Championship 4 appearance by virtue of the win, harkened back to a previous era when pressed about the move, referencing perhaps the best-ever to put the bumper to somebody: Dale Earnhardt.

“I know it is something that I’ve seen plenty of times by a lot of greats in our sport,” Logano said of the last-lap contact. “I’m not trying to compare myself to Dale Earnhardt. I’ll never be Dale Earnhardt. I want to be the best Joey Logano I can be, not the best Earnhardt or the best Gordon. I’m trying to be the best of myself.

“Does it solidify the move any? I don’t know, maybe. But it is something I grew up watching, plenty, on TV as a kid.”

Truex Jr. gave a fiery post-race interview Sunday in which he said Logano “ain’t winning the damn war.”

The reigning 2017 series champion emphasized his comments on Thursday at a visit with Toyota employees, saying, “it’s time to stop getting run into and start running into.”

Going forward, Truex added that he’d stay true to his sportsmanlike driving style, even with a chance at a second Monster Energy Series crown on the line. But he also said his gauge for how aggressive to be would depend on the situation and his competition at that moment.

DEBATE: No more Mr. Nice Guy?

“I wouldn’t just wreck somebody to win a championship, just like I wouldn’t wreck somebody to win a race,” Truex told ESPN.com. “It might be cool for a couple of hours. In 20 years, you are going to look back and say, ‘Did I really win that race or was that cheap?’ Some people might be OK with that.”

Truex Jr. re-emphasized that stance on Friday.

“At the end of the day, when I beat a guy, I know it’s because I outdrove him,” he said. “Not because I took a cheap shot. That’s just the way I was taught to race. I can say that every single win I’ve ever had, I earned it.”

Posted on by Staff Report

NASCAR champion Jimmie Johnson and Formula 1 champion Fernando Alonso have teased a joint announcement for weeks on social media, using a deft touch of humor in their messages to each other.

The payoff took an additional step forward Friday in hilarious fashion with Johnson and Alonso talking on the phone in a message the seven-time Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series champion posted on Twitter. The clip ends with each driver asking the other at the same time: “Will you let me drive your car?”

RELATED: New sponsor for Johnson in 2019-20 | All of his wins | Top career moments

The end screen had the pertinent details of the apparent ride swap: Nov. 26, 2018 at Bahrain International Circuit. That 3.363-mile circuit is home to the F1 season finale Nov. 25.

Two champions. Two cars. One track.

We can’t wait.

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Posted on by Jordan Bianchi

Ahead of Sunday’s AAA Texas 500 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series playoff race at Texas Motor Speedway, the second race in the Round of 8, we’ll analyze the four drivers who find themselves below the cutline. Next up is Kurt Busch, who sits fifth in the standings.

BELOW THE BUBBLE: Chase Elliott | Clint Bowyer | Aric Almirola

Points below cutoff: 25

Reason for optimism at Texas: From the first time he turned a lap at Texas, Kurt Busch quickly acclimated recording seven top-10 finishes in his first 10 starts. More recently in April, he had one of the better cars during the spring race as he started on the pole, led 40 laps, placed third and second in the first two stages and finished seventh overall.

Reason for pessimism at Texas: Although he’s turned in several strong runs as of late at Texas, Busch has still not finished in the top five since a fourth in the 2010 spring event, a 16-race span. And his lone win here occurred nine years ago.

RELATED: Full schedule for Texas | Updated playoff standings

Reason for optimism at Phoenix: He led 219 of 312 possible laps during the 2005 spring race en route to his lone win at the desert track. And he recently had a five-race stretch (fall 2014 to fall 2016) where he finished no worse than seventh.

Reason for pessimism at Phoenix: If Busch needs a win to advance can he handle the pressure and avoid the kind of mistake that led to his Playoff ouster in 2015? That year he came into Phoenix needing a win and got his weekend started right by qualifying second, only to be penalized for jumping the start of the race. He never fully regained the lost track position and finished seventh.

Outlook: The Round of 8 is a favorable bracket for Busch, who’s previously won at Texas and Phoenix. This past success combined with being one of the most consistent drivers this season — he has the fourth-most top 10 finishes — presents him a prime opportunity to close the points gap and, if all goes right, maybe even claim a win. But he and the No. 41 Stewart-Haas Racing team must find that last little bit of speed if they are to beat the teams above in the standings and earn a berth in the Championship 4.

Posted on by Staff Report

It’s official. John Gianninoto, fueler for the No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports team of Chase Elliott, is now the fastest fueler in the world.

With help from Sunoco, the official fuel of NASCAR, Gianninoto set a new Guinness World Record for the most cars fueled in an hour by a single person. A Guinness World Record official was on-hand to witness Gianninoto fuel 148 cars to set the new record in Queens, New York prior to the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race weekend at Martinsville Speedway.

Gianninoto has fueled three trips to Victory Lane for Elliott and the No. 9 team this season, including Elliott’s first career triumph at Watkins Glen and a pair of victories in the NASCAR Playoffs Round of 12 at Dover and Kansas.

Watch Gianninoto become the world’s fastest fueler below.

Posted on by Zack Albert

The thought that the three Monster Energy Series drivers who won 17 of 26 regular-season races would drift easily into the Championship 4 field was a sensible conclusion before the NASCAR Playoffs began. With three of four berths seemingly predestined, the remaining contenders would battle among themselves for the fourth slot.

Sunday’s finish at Martinsville Speedway snapped that fourth opening right up, with Joey Logano pouncing in the Round of 8 opener and clinching his place in the Homestead-Miami finale Nov. 18. That leaves three spots remaining, with Kevin Harvick (seven wins this season), Kyle Busch (seven wins) and Martin Truex Jr. (four wins) hoping to fill them with a victory or on the basis of points.

RELATED: Full schedule for Texas

That quest continues with a snugger margin of error this weekend at Texas Motor Speedway, site of Sunday’s AAA Texas 500 (3 p.m. ET, NBCSN/NBC Sports App, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). A win by either Busch, Harvick or Truex would allow the ballyhooed “Big 3” to hold serve in the postseason, but a Victory Lane visit from another playoff contender below the cutline would upset that order.

Kurt Busch, Chase Elliott, Clint Bowyer and Aric Almirola are the remaining postseason hopefuls aiming to spoil that season-long trifecta. A win by any of those four at Texas would eliminate one of the Big 3 from the Homestead title picture.

MORE: Playoff standings

A positive note for the top-ranked trio: Busch, Truex and Harvick rank 1-3-4 among postseason competitors in career driver ratings for Texas Motor Speedway; Elliott ranks second but has just five starts at the track. Busch has won there three times since 2013. Truex had strung together six straight top-10 finishes before crashing out in the spring. Harvick has a streak of eight consecutive top 10s with six top-five finishes in that stretch at the Fort Worth venue, including a triumph in this race last season.

“I think next week is our best bet as we go into the next two races I look at Texas as our best race track,” Harvick said post-Martinsville. “We ran really well there in the spring and won the race there last year and our mile-and-a-half stuff has been really good.”

This particular intermediate-sized track has developed character and a new look in recent years. Sunday’s 334-lap event will be the fourth Monster Energy Series race contested on the Texas track’s fresh pavement and reconfigured Turns 1 and 2. Track officials reduced the banking from 24 to 20 degrees in that section, while widening the racing surface from 60 to 80 feet.

In hopes of artificially aging the asphalt, track officials have been dragging tires for two weeks to apply rubber and Goodyear Racing is bringing a tire designed to promote wear. While some of the ‘new’ about the Texas layout may have worn off, it’s expected to produce a unique test for the playoff field.

RELATED: Goodyear brings new tire combo to Texas

“The race track since the repave is not so much fun but it is a challenge,” Bowyer says. “Within those challenges you have to be open-minded and excited about that challenge and ready to attack it. You definitely have to attack it. It is a track that the grip level is through the roof until it’s not. It is very tricky to get ahold of.”

Posted on by Staff Report

Defending Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series champ Martin Truex Jr. told an annual gathering of Toyota employees Thursday that he’s ready for a more aggressive approach depending on who he’s racing, saying, “it’s time to stop getting run into and start running into.”

His remarks come four days after Joey Logano’s last-lap bumper nudge denied Truex a victory at Martinsville Speedway, and with it, a title berth in the championship race Nov. 18 at Homestead-Miami Speedway. The comments from Toyota’s Plano, Texas, headquarters were first reported by Bob Pockrass of ESPN.

RELATED: Playoff standings | Dale Jr.’s advice to Truex

In earlier comments, Truex said he’d exchanged text messages with Logano, reporting that his rival’s response was defensive in nature. Going forward, Truex added that he’d stay true to his sportsmanlike driving style, even with a chance at a second Monster Energy Series crown on the line. But he also said his gauge for how aggressive to be would depend on the situation and his competition at that moment.

“I wouldn’t just wreck somebody to win a championship, just like I wouldn’t wreck somebody to win a race,” Truex told ESPN. “It might be cool for a couple of hours. In 20 years, you are going to look back and say, ‘Did I really win that race or was that cheap?’ Some people might be OK with that.”

DEBATE: No more Mr. Nice Guy?

Truex joined roughly 50 drivers from all forms of racing for Toyota’s Motorsports Day in Texas. The event is a prelude to Sunday’s AAA Texas 500 (3 p.m. ET, NBCSN, PRN, SiriusXM), the eighth of 10 races in the NASCAR Playoffs.

Posted on by Jordan Bianchi

Ahead of Sunday’s AAA Texas 500 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series playoff race at Texas Motor Speedway, the second race in the Round of 8, we’ll analyze the four drivers who find themselves below the cutline. Today we focus on Chase Elliott, who sits sixth in the standings.

BELOW THE BUBBLE: Clint Bowyer | Aric Almirola 

Points below cutoff: 31

Reason for optimism at Texas: Texas is where Chase Elliott became more than just the son of a popular former Cup Series champion but transformed into a star in his own right when he won the 2014 spring Xfinity Series race, his first-career victory in NASCAR’s No. 2 division. And on the Cup side, Elliott has never finished worse than 11th in five starts at the high-speed intermediate track.

Reason for pessimism at Texas: There haven’t been any Texas races Elliott would like to forget, it’s always been a place where he’s done well. If there is one area that gives pause it’s that he has not led many laps, totaling just nine circuits in five starts.

RELATED: Updated playoff standings

Reason for optimism at Phoenix: Elliott excels at Phoenix, having finished near the front in every Cup start he’s made there. Last year, he was leading the fall race when Matt Kenseth ran him down and passed him with 10 laps remaining.

Reason for pessimism at Phoenix: Sure, Elliott twice has come close to winning at Phoenix but he has not yet closed out and reached Victory Lane. And a runner-up finish for a second straight year will likely produce the same impact on Elliott’s title hopes as it did last season; another hard-to-stomach elimination.

Outlook: Although Hendrick Motorsports lacked competitiveness for much of the regular season, the No. 9 team has significantly elevated its performance in the Playoffs. Elliott is the only driver to record multiple wins during the postseason and has had the speed in his cars to run with the likes of Kyle Busch and Kevin Harvick most every week. Further aiding Elliott’s cause is throughout his career he’s never produced a bad result at either Texas or Phoenix. It is a realistic proposition he wins one of the next two races.

Posted on by Brad Norman

Four wins. 10 top-fives. 10 top-10s.

Brett Moffitt’s 2018 Camping World Truck Series campaign has catapulted the 26-year-old driver into title discussions, and the confidence oozing from the No. 16 team after a second-place finish at Martinsville only makes Moffitt hungry for more.

RESULTS: Practice 1 | Practice 2 

“It’s great for my career,” Moffitt said. “I’m a competitor. I’m not looking backwards, I’m looking forward. Unless we win the championship I’m going to consider this an incomplete season for myself and for our race team. We’re looking forward and hopefully good things come from it.”

Despite an uncertain future for Hattori Racing Enterprises during parts of the season, Moffitt has quietly positioned himself for a spot in the Championship 4 at Homestead-Miami Speedway. He currently sits in third place in the playoff standings, 15 points above the cutline heading to Friday night’s JAG Metals 350 (8:30 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN, SiriusXM).

However, it’s a position he believes he has earned through his on-track performances.

“We’ve been arguably the second-best truck all year,” he said. “So I wouldn’t say we’re a dark horse at all.”

The Iowa native isn’t the only “surprise” driver to emerge in the Camping World Truck Series this season. GMS Racing’s Justin Haley and ThorSport Racing’s Grant Enfinger are two Round of 6 drivers who are getting recognition from their competitors, too.

MORE: Full Truck Series standings | Entire Texas schedule

“I think there’s been a lot of teams stepping it up this year, or toward the end of the year,” Moffitt said. “Justin (Haley) is one of them. They got off to a rocky start and then started performing well. I think the No. 98 (Enfinger) is doing the same thing.”

Haley, a 19-year-old driver from Indiana, already has two victories in 2018, but is currently two points below the cutline. Looking ahead to Friday’s race in the Lone Star State, he has the opportunity to close that gap based on his experience — and he knows he has to take advantage.

“I don’t know what’s clicked at Texas,” Haley said. “It is my best track. … Texas has been good. We’ve never finished outside the top six there in the starts we’ve got. We’ve been rebuilding our mile-and-a-half truck, it’s been since Vegas since we’ve ran it. We’re really excited to go to Texas. It’s been our best track, we finished third there in the spring. Obviously, now that Johnny (Sauter) has a win we can focus a little more toward the No. 24 truck, I hope. Getting us to the Round of 4.”