Defending Monster Energy Series champion Martin Truex Jr. was announced Wednesday as the winner of the Best Driver category at the annual ESPY Awards.

Truex was the top vote-getter in fan balloting conducted by ESPN. The other nominees were Brittany Force (NHRA), last year’s winner Lewis Hamilton (Formula 1) and Josef Newgarden (IndyCar).

MORE: All-time NASCAR ESPY winners

Truex’s win marked the third time in the last four years that a NASCAR driver has won the award. Kyle Busch (2016) and Kevin Harvick (2015) were each honored for their championship seasons the previous year.

“It’s an honor to receive the ESPY for Best Driver,” Truex Jr. said in a press release. “2017 was an amazing year, and I still have to pinch myself to believe it turned out the way it did. Congratulations to all the other nominees on their great seasons last year and thanks to all the fans who voted for me.”

NASCAR drivers have prevailed in the category 17 times in the 26 years since the ESPYs debuted. Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson top the list of all-time winners with four Best Driver awards each.

Former NASCAR driver Danica Patrick hosted the event. Patrick, a regular attendee in previous editions of the sports gala, became the first woman to host the ESPYs since it began in 1993. She retired from motorsports after participating in the Daytona 500 and Indianapolis 500 this season.

All four Stewart-Haas racing pit crew rosters will see changes for Sunday’s Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Foxwoods Resort Casino 301 (2 p.m. ET, NBCSN, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), a team spokesperson confirmed for NASCAR.com.

During last weekend’s Monster Energy Series race at Kentucky Speedway, Clint Bowyer had a strong No. 14 Ford but expressed frustration over the team’s radio that they couldn’t hold position during pit stops. He finished 12th in the Quaker State 400 presented by Walmart.

Bowyer and teammate Kevin Harvick have qualified for the 2018 NASCAR Playoffs win wins. Kurt Busch is 9th in the playoffs standings and Aric Almirola sits 13th entering New Hampshire.

The changes, as first reported by NBC Sports’ Dustin Long:

— Shayne Pipala to No. 4 front tire changer, replacing Eric Maycroft. Maycroft moves to Michael McDowell’s No. 34 team.

–Ira Jo Hussey to No. 14 front tire changer, replacing Daniel Coffey.

–Matt Holzbauer to No. 14 tire carrier, replacing Josh Sobecki.

–Coffey to No. 10 front tire changer, replacing Ryan Mulder.

–Mulder to No. 41 front tire changer, replacing Pipala.

Stewart-Haas Racing provides the pit crew for the No. 34 Front Row Motorsports team. Holzbauer comes over to the No. 14 team from the No. 34 team.

Alex Bowman unveiled a special paint scheme featuring Nationwide Children’s Hospital on Wednesday via “NASCAR America” from the Hendrick Motorsports campus in Concord, North Carolina.

Hendrick Nationwide scheme
Photo credit: Hendrick Motorsports

The 25-year-old driver will run the scheme at Watkins Glen International on Aug. 5. Nationwide, a longtime partner of Hendrick Motorsports, donated the scheme to the hospital, using its signature butterflies in the design. The goal behind the scheme was to drive awareness, bring recognition and raise funds for the hospital, which Nationwide has supported for 60 years.  Nationwide’s sports platforms have raised more than $27 million for the children’s facility since 2011.

Ashzyia Jackson, a patient at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, was on hand for the unveiling with Bowman. Fellow Patient Champion Bicen Thall will attend the race at Watkins Glen, and his name will be featured above the door of the special No. 88 Chevrolet.

Bowman Ashyzia
Jackson with Bowman (Photo credit: Hendrick Motorsports)

While this marks his first year piloting the No. 88 full time, Bowman was the first driver to pilot a Nationwide Children’s Hospital scheme as it adorned his No. 99 Xfinity Series ride at Mid-Ohio in 2013. He has since visited the hospital twice and is expected to go again before the scheme’s debut at The Glen.

The No. 88 team has a longstanding relationship with the hospital, extending back to Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s tenure behind the wheel. Earnhardt made several visits to the hospital over the years, and piloted special schemes honoring the hospital throughout the final years of his racing career. The Dale & Amy Earnhardt room was dedicated to the driver and his wife in 2016, and the couple established the Dale and Amy Earnhardt Fund a year later as a way for Earnhardt to continue his work with the hospital after his retirement.

RELATED: Dale Jr. finds, gives comfort at NCHDale, Amy establish hospital fund

To learn more about the hospital, please visit: www.nationwidechildrens.org.

Eldora is unique in both racing surface and format, especially when it comes to setting the starting lineup.

Single truck qualifying determines the official pole winner, but it doesn’t determine the rest of the starting order for the race. It simply sets the lineups of the ensuing five qualifying races. The finishing order from those events plus a Last Chance Qualifying Race and entries that get in on owner points sets the final order for the 32-truck field that races at 9 p.m. ET (FS1, MRN, SiriusXM).

RELATED: Memorable race moments | Explaining the format

Follow along with us here. We’ll continually update results from the qualifying results and update the starting lineup, found at the bottom of this article.

RELATED: Qualifying results 

QUALIFYING RACE 1: RESULTS

POSITION TRUCK NO. DRIVER
1  41  Ben Rhodes
2  99  Sheldon Creed
3  22  Austin Self
4  80  Justin Shipley
5  02  Austin Hill
6  8  John Hunter Nemechek
7  33  Braden Mitchell
8  0  Ray Ciccarelli

QUALIFYING RACE 2: RESULTS

POSITION TRUCK NO. DRIVER
1  4  Todd Gilliland
2  51  Logan Seavey
3  16  Brett Moffitt
4  38  Max McLaughlin
5  12  Ty Dillon
6  97  Ray Otto Jr.
7  25  Dalton Sargeant
8  20  Tanner Thorson

QUALIFYING RACE 3: RESULTS

POSITION TRUCK NO. DRIVER
1  27  Chase Briscoe
2  54  Chris Windom
3  17  Tyler Dippel
4  6  Norm Benning
5  63  Kyle Strickler
6  18  Noah Gragson
7  49  Wendell Chavous
8  10  Jennifer Jo Cobb

QUALIFYING RACE 4: RESULTS

POSITION TRUCK NO. DRIVER
1  88  Matt Crafton
2  98  Grant Enfinger
3  83  Nick Hoffman
4  24  Justin Haley
5  2  Cody Coughlin
6  21  Johnny Sauter
7  50  Mike Harmon
8  74  Trevor Collins

QUALIFYING RACE 5: RESULTS

POSITION TRUCK NO. DRIVER
1  52  Stewart Friesen
2  3  Ryan Newman
3  13  Myatt Snider
4  15  JR Heffner
5  34  Jeffrey Abbey
6  45  Justin Fontaine
7  03  John Provenzano

LAST CHANCE QUALIFYING RACE: RESULTS

POSITION TRUCK NO.
DRIVER ADVANCE TO RACE?
1  8  John Hunter Nemechek  Yes
2  18  Noah Gragson  Yes
3  20  Tanner Thorson  Yes (owner points)
4  21  Johnny Sauter  Yes (owner points)
5  45  Justin Fontaine  Yes (owner points)
6  49  Wendell Chavous  Yes (owner points)
7  25  Dalton Sargeant  Yes (owner points)
8  33  Braden Mitchell  No
9  10  Jennifer Jo Cobb  No
10  74  Trevor Collins  No
11  97  Ray Otto Jr.  No
12  0  Ray Ciccarelli  No
13  50  Mike Harmon  No
14  03  John Provenzano  No

FULL STARTING LINEUP

STARTING SPOT TRUCK NO. DRIVER HOW DETERMINED
1 41 Ben Rhodes Top finisher in Qualifying Race #1
2 4 Todd Gilliland Top finisher in Qualifying Race #2
3 27 Chase Briscoe Top finisher in Qualifying Race #3
4 88 Matt Crafton Top finisher in Qualifying Race #4
5 52 Stewart Friesen Top finisher in Qualifying Race #5
6 99 Sheldon Creed Second finisher in Qualifying Race #1
7 51 Logan Seavey Second finisher in Qualifying Race #2
8 54 Chris Windom Second finisher in Qualifying Race #3
9 98 Grant Enfinger Second finisher in Qualifying Race #4
10 3 Ryan Newman Second finisher in Qualifying Race #5
11 22 Austin Self Third finisher in Qualifying Race #1
12 16 Brett Moffitt Third finisher in Qualifying Race #2
13 17 Tyler Dippel Third finisher in Qualifying Race #3
14 83 Nick Hoffman Third finisher in Qualifying Race #4
15 13 Myatt Snider Third finisher in Qualifying Race #5
16 80 Justin Shipley Fourth finisher in Qualifying Race #1
17 38 Max McLaughlin Fourth finisher in Qualifying Race #2
18 6 Norm Benning Fourth finisher in Qualifying Race #3
19 24 Justin Haley Fourth finisher in Qualifying Race #4
20 15 JR Heffner Fourth finisher in Qualifying Race #5
21 02 Austin Hill Fifth finisher in Qualifying Race #1
22 12 Ty Dillon Fifth finisher in Qualifying Race #2
23 63 Kyle Strickler Fifth finisher in Qualifying Race #3
24 2 Cody Coughlin Fifth finisher in Qualifying Race #4
25 34 Jeffrey Abbey Fifth finisher in Qualifying Race #5
26 8 John Hunter Nemechek Top finisher in Last Chance
27 18 Noah Gragson Second finisher in Last Chance
28 20 Tanner Thorson Owner points
29 21 Johnny Sauter Owner points
30 45 Justin Fontaine Owner points
31 49 Wendell Chavous Owner points
32 25 Dalton Sargeant Owner points

 

A selection of Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series drivers took on testing Tuesday at the Charlotte Motor Speedway road course, gaining speed on the 2.28-mile circuit in the afternoon session.

RELATED: Scenes from Charlotte testing

Kyle Busch led the way overall with a best lap of 106.8 mph in the Joe Gibbs Racing No. 18 Toyota. Aric Almirola and Joey Logano tied for the top spot in the morning session, just ahead of Busch as the group prepared for the first Bank of America Roval 400 on Sept. 30.

Chris Buescher was among the 14 drivers participating in the second test date, driving the Chevrolet wheel-force car. His lap times (not listed) were significantly slower in the special vehicle, which was equipped with extra data collection devices.

MORNING SESSION

Pos. Car Driver Speed (mph)
t-1 10 Aric Almirola 105.4
t-1 22 Joey Logano 105.4
3 18 Kyle Busch 105.3
4 14 Clint Bowyer 105.1
5 47 AJ Allmendinger 105.0
6 6 Trevor Bayne 104.9
7 88 Alex Bowman 104.8
8 12 Ryan Blaney 104.6
9 24 William Byron 104.2
10 20 Erik Jones 104.1
11 1 Jamie McMurray 104.0
12 3 Austin Dillon 103.9
13 13 Ty Dillon 102.2

AFTERNOON SESSION

Pos. Car Driver Speed (mph)
1 18 Kyle Busch 106.8
2 22 Joey Logano 106.5
3 47 AJ Allmendinger 106.1
4 14 Clint Bowyer 106.0
4 12 Ryan Blaney 106.0
6 10 Aric Almirola 105.8
7 1 Jamie McMurray 105.7
8 24 William Byron 105.4
9 88 Alex Bowman 105.2
10 20 Erik Jones 105.0
11 13 Ty Dillon 104.9
12 3 Austin Dillon 104.8
13 6 Trevor Bayne 104.2

 

What is your favorite thing to do on Twitter?

You’re probably saying to yourself, “Correcting people’s grammar in order to give myself an air of superiority.” The correct answer should have been, “Searching for old, bizarre tweets from NASCAR drivers.”

Oh, there are some great ones.

You see, like you and I, drivers had to learn Twitter, and the learning process provided some really good, head-scratching tweets. That’s why we’ve decided to offer you a chance to sift through them yourself.

Introducing the NASCAR Twitter Advanced Search Scavenger Hunt. It’s very simple.

Access Twitter’s advanced search feature here -> https://twitter.com/search-advanced

Using the various search fields, see if you can track down the following tweets

Find a tweet that covers each of the following:

• A one-word tweet from any driver

• A tweet from a driver that did not age well

• A tweet from a young driver experiencing issues in the airplane restroom due to turbulence

• An old tweet from Landon Cassill where he sounds especially emo

• A tweet from a driver complaining about his wife’s snoring

• A tweet from a now part-time driver throwing vicious shade at a certain football team from Chicago

• A tweet with a picture taken from inside the race car that isn’t from Brad Keselowski

• A tweet from a young driver that screams “I AM A MILLENNIAL”

• A tweet from a driver that is badly ratio’d

• A tweet from a driver that literally makes no sense whatsoever

• A tweet that was obviously sent by their PR person but not marked with “-PR”

• Obvious pocket tweet that was never deleted

• A tweet where a driver is humblebragging about backstage passes or some other form of VIP treatment

• A tweet where the driver is desperately asking followers for some form of technical support

• A tweet from Dale Jr. that is more than one day old that has fewer than 500 likes.

Once you find them, take a screenshot and send them to us on Twitter.

Happy searching!

Numbers mean plenty when it comes to building out your Fantasy Live teams each week. NASCAR.com will examine the stats outlook for each track to help give you an edge as you go to set your lineups and bonus picks ahead of the race weekend.

Don’t forget to check back on NASCAR.com for additional insight from fantasy expert RJ Kraft as well as to watch Fantasy Fastlane with Jessica Ruffin and NBC Sports’ Steve Letarte.

RELATED: Set your Fantasy Live roster now | How the new Fantasy Live works | Driver stats

Top five average running position (per loop data from 2005 to the present):

Driver Average Running Position
Chase Elliott 9.946
Denny Hamlin 10.794
Brad Keselowski 11.064
Jimmie Johnson 11.091
Kevin Harvick 11.322

Top five in stage points earned at New Hampshire in 2017:

Driver Stage points Stage wins
Kyle Busch 34 2
Martin Truex Jr. 30 2
Matt Kenseth 27 0
Kyle Larson 25 0
Denny Hamlin 15 0

Top five in points earned in last two races at New Hampshire:

Driver Race points Race wins
Kyle Busch 99 1
Martin Truex Jr. 96 0
Kyle Larson 95 0
Matt Kenseth 94 0
Denny Hamlin 81 1

Most laps led in last two races at New Hampshire:

Driver Laps led
Kyle Busch 282
Martin Truex Jr. 249
Denny Hamlin 54

Average starting position for last 10 winners: 9.9; three of the last five winners have started outside the top 12

Active drivers to win pole: Ryan Newman (7), Brad Keselowski (3), Kyle Busch (3), Clint Bowyer (1), Kevin Harvick (1), Martin Truex Jr. (1) and Jimmie Johnson (1)

Active drivers to win at New Hampshire: Ryan Newman (3), Kyle Busch (3), Kurt Busch (3), Jimmie Johnson (3), Denny Hamlin (3), Matt Kenseth (3), Kevin Harvick (2), Joey Logano (2), Clint Bowyer (2), Kasey Kahne (1) and Brad Keselowski (1)

Most recent pole winner: Kyle Busch, September of 2017

Last time pole-sitter won here: Kyle Busch, September of 2017

Where stage winners started from: First (twice), fifth, seventh

Winning manufacturers of last 10 races: Toyota-7, Ford-2, Chevrolet-1

CONCORD, N.C. — A key finding for teams after two days of testing on Charlotte Motor Speedway’s road course configuration is how quickly trouble will find you. After an eventful Tuesday at the 2.28-mile circuit, two bends — Turns 1 and 3 — are in the early running for most treacherous.

Rookie William Byron’s hard hit early in the afternoon session was the biggest pitfall of the two-day test, held on consecutive Tuesdays on the combination oval and road course. The track time was the latest step in preparations for the Bank of America Roval 400, the first road-course event in NASCAR postseason history on Sept. 30.

RELATED: Photos from Charlotte testing

Byron’s Hendrick Motorsports No. 24 Chevrolet nosed into the tire barrier rounding Turn 1 after a brake failure. The hard left-hander that leads to the track’s infield portion also was the site of fellow rookie Bubba Wallace’s sizable crash last week.

“I think just going over the curbs and everything, we just snapped a brake line and the pedal went to the floor,” said Byron, who was evaluated and released from the infield care center, unhurt. “I’ve never had that happen, but it was not fun.”

Byron’s crack-up preceded a trio of morning excursions with varying damage in Turn 3, the off-camber corner that marks the first right-hander on the course. Ryan Blaney got the worst of those, with Alex Bowman and Erik Jones escaping with minor to no impact.

“It’s just a really awkward section through there where we’ve been free in throughout the day and tried to work on it, but just got in a little too hot,” Bowman said of his incident, which caused minimal damage to the front of his No. 88 Chevrolet. “It was (either) KO the tire barriers or spin it out. I spun it out and still got them a little bit, but just part of it.”

WATCH: Bowman explains what happened

Joey Logano, one of 14 drivers participating in Tuesday’s test, said he found out during a sponsorship shoot last week how tricky the corner is. In some spirited recreational driving in a classic Cobra, Logano said the car drifted out of the groove shortly after the downhill corner entry, prompting him to wonder whether the turn would have the same effect on Monster Energy Series cars.

“Pretty quickly I realized that we are going to fight that quite a bit,” Logano said. “The corner itself, you’re just turning to the right, there’s no banking and you’re going downhill and the car’s just super, super loose there. It’s a pretty sketchy corner. That’s probably one of the … there’s a few sketchy spots, but that’s probably one of the sketchiest if not the sketchiest.”

Competition officials made further adjustments to the course Tuesday morning by removing rumble strips at Turn 8, a transitional left-hand curve that funnels cars out of the infield section onto the oval track’s Turn 1 banking. Drivers had skirted the corner by bounding their cars over the strips, prompting officials to make the transition earlier.

That tweak followed last week’s more robust adjustment to add definition to the backstretch chicane.

WATCH: Take a lap around the course

Ahead of Wednesday’s Eldora Dirt Derby in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series, fans and drivers have been slinging virtual dirt in preparation.

iRacing hopped on board to sponsor Brett Moffitt’s truck for Wednesday night’s race. Naturally, Moffitt hosted a few iRacing races Tuesday afternoon to get the feel of racing the truck on dirt against fans and iRacers.

We’ll see if Moffitt’s preparation helps him Wednesday.

NASCAR Xfinity Series driver Matt Tifft showed fans how to get around Kentucky Speedway on the Richard Childress Racing sim rig.

Not sure if you’re using the famous around-the-rim Kyle Larson line correctly on iRacing? Why not get validation from the man himself?

Dale Earnhardt Jr., a sim-racing pioneer, opened up Monday night about his role in iRacing’s early development in a Twitter discussion with iRacing’s EVP Steve Myers.

When you race some of the rookie and short track cars on iRacing, there’s a good chance you’re racing a laser-scanned copy of one of Dale Jr.’s cars.

NASCAR PEAK ANTIFREEZE IRACING SERIES UPDATE

At Chicagoland Speedway on Tuesday, Zack Novak picked up his first victory of 2018, overcoming a botched green flag pit stop entry that sent his No. 15 spinning in the early stages of the race. While it appeared Ryan Luza had the car to beat most of the night, Novak benefited from the timing of a late-race caution following a restart that kept his car ahead of Luza’s.

Sonoma winner Bobby Zalenski unseated Slip Angle Motorsports teammate Ray Alfalla atop the points standings after Alfalla crashed out of the race late in the going Tuesday.

The NASCAR PEAK Antifreeze iRacing Series races next at New Hampshire Motor Speedway on July 24.

IRACING PAINT SCHEMES OF THE WEEK

Remember Mark Martin’s iconic 1998 race car? Justin Rowden updated it to 2018 standards on the iRacing version of the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Ford Fusion.

Speaking of 1998 throwbacks, Zac Campbell replicated Jeff Burton’s 1998 Exide Ford on today’s Ford Fusion.


DON’T TRY THIS AT HOME

When Brett Moffitt hosted a few unofficial iRacing test sessions at Eldora Speedway on Tuesday, I decided to hop in and (pathetically) log some laps.

I fell out of the test race pretty quickly (as I do), then decided to spend the last few laps, while running in last place, trying to improve my line — and maybe stop trying to drive Eldora like a traditional asphalt oval.

That’s when iRacing Race Control decided to use me as a training exercise. I mean, it made sense — this was an unofficial race with literally nothing on the line. I was seven laps down in a 30-lap race, and my truck looked like something they load onto the hauler after a brawl at Martinsville.

I received a 30-second black flag penalty, which seemed odd, but I figured I’d be a good sport and serve the penalty anyway.

Shortly after the race, the iRacing crew sent me video footage of the black flag incident from their end. I’ll admit, knowing this side of the story — and considering nothing was at stake, and this was always intended as a joke — it’s pretty funny.

https://twitter.com/steveluvender/status/1019218167644807168

Although, the “He’s already in last!” part stings a little.