Posted on by Holly Cain

For the first time in his seven-year full-time career, Aric Almirola is on his way to advancing in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs. He’s not just making an appearance on the big stage, he’s ready to contend. 

The 34-year old Tampa, Florida, native is in his first season driving the No. 10 Ford for the championship-winning Stewart-Haas Racing team. And there is a smile on his face and confidence in his heart as he prepares for Sunday’s Bank of America Roval 400 at the Charlotte Motor Speedway road course (at 2 p.m. ET on NBC, PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

Almirola is ranked sixth among the 16 playoff drivers with a 23-point cushion on the cut line – only two points behind fifth-place Joey Logano and six points over seventh-place Kyle Larson. 

RELATED: Playoff standings

He didn’t luck his way into contention and he hasn’t coasted on the first-year accomplishment with his team.

“I think we (home) in on what we do and we show up and put our head down and go to work, and some weekends it’s good enough to run up front and win, and some weekends it’s not,” Almirola said. “But our goal is to go and maximize every week and these last couple weeks we’ve showed up to the race track with speed and run up front — and we’ve been kind of riding that high and riding the momentum.” 

With eight races remaining in the 2018 season, Almirola already has almost twice as many top-10 finishes (12) as his next best full season effort (seven in 2014). His 116 laps led this year is almost equal to his total (118) of the previous six full seasons combined.

This is the first Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs he has qualified for since his lone premier series victory in 2014 in Daytona. And having this most legitimate and promising opportunity to contend at the highest level is clearly something Almirola could get used to. 

He has two top-10 finishes — sixth at Las Vegas and fifth at Richmond – in the two opening playoff races, and earned a healthy points cushion as the series debuts on the 2.28-mile, 17-turn Charlotte road course this weekend.

“We’ve been kind of riding that high and that momentum from showing up at all sorts of different race tracks with speed, and our team is coming together,” Almirola explained.

“Our team is jelling. (Crew chief) Johnny (Klausmeier) and myself are getting on the same page. We’re a young team. Most of our guys on our team are in their late 20s and early 30s. It’s Johnny’s first year of being a crew chief at anything. … And this is my first year with the organization, so we’ve kind of gone through some growing pains and continue to go through some. But building together and working together has been so much fun and I feel like we’ve had a lot of success and we’ve run really good, and our ceiling for potential is so high.”

Almirola conceded that the elimination race this weekend will be a good test for himself and the team. He’s never won on a road course. His best showing on either of the Monster Energy Series’ longtime road courses — in Sonoma or Watkins Glen – is an eighth-place finish at Sonoma just this summer.

In fact, Almirola noted that in preparation for this job with SHR, he had made it a personal priority to raise his road-course skills.

“Going into this year, I would say on a scale of 1-10 (I was) about a two,” Almirola said, laughing. “Slightly above novice, but I have put so much work and so much effort into it this year, knowing that I would be the weak link, knowing that the cars were gonna be good, and knowing that I was gonna have the tools and resources at my disposal to get better, and to have teammates that are really good at it to lean on.

“That’s the first time in my career that I’ve had the car, the tools, the people, the teammates and so I’ve put a full-out effort on getting better at road-course racing because I knew that has been my weakest link on all the tracks that we go to, and I feel like I’m probably a seven now.

“I don’t think I’m even close to being good enough to challenge to win on the road courses that we go to, but I think that I’m very competitive.”

This weekend, Almirola doesn’t necessarily have to win to sustain what’s been a career-best season. He’s proven every bit up for the new job at Stewart-Haas Racing, which has all four Fords qualified for the playoffs: fourth-place Kevin Harvick (seven wins), eighth-place Kurt Busch (one win) and 13th-place Clint Bowyer (two wins), who sits only four points shy of that transfer position. They are the only team in the Monster Energy Series with all four cars in the postseason. 

“I think we’ve proven that the last couple weeks with the runs that we’ve had, and then kind of riding that high and that momentum — and then this week announcing we’ve got a new partnership with Valley Technical Academy — it just feels right,” Almirola said. “Like everything is going right. And you see that in sports and especially in racing, where when things get on a roll they just kind of continue to go. And I feel like we’re right there.

“I feel like we’re on the brink of just continuing to keep this momentum going.”

 

Posted on by Zack Albert

CONCORD, N.C. — NASCAR’s frenetic season of rumor mill movement and personnel changes continues in full swing, including two more moves announced Friday at Charlotte Motor Speedway. Chris Buescher, for one, is glad his name isn’t in play.

JTG Daugherty Racing co-owner Tad Geschickter indicated Friday that Buescher would return for a third season in the team’s No. 37 Chevrolet, continuing a multiyear deal already in place. The official word came during a Friday morning news conference where the organization tapped Ryan Preece to its No. 47 Chevy in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series in 2019.

RELATED: Silly Season moves

“There’s a mess this season with everything going on,” Buescher said after Friday’s opening practice for Sunday’s Bank of America Roval 400 (2 p.m. ET, NBC, PRN, SiriusXM). “It is nice to be able to have some continuity, being able to know I’m coming back to the same team to be able to build on what we’ve been able to do the last few years. Honestly, I haven’t run more than two years with a single team since my ARCA days. It seems like it’s always been so much switching around and moving that it’s so hard to build any momentum that way. We’ve been able to find some success in doing it, but it’s really hard.

“To be able to know that we don’t have to go through that process again, that we have a group over here that we know and understand each other and we can work on that for next year, it makes it that much simpler going through the off-season.”

Buescher will have a new teammate in Preece, 27 and two years his elder. The Connecticut native will replace AJ Allmendinger at season’s end, advancing to his first full Monster Energy Series campaign next year.

RELATED: Preece moves up in 2019 | Full schedule for Charlotte

Though he doesn’t know his new JTG Daugherty stablemate that well yet, Buescher says he’s liked what he’s seen from Preece so far in Whelen Modified Tour and Xfinity Series competition. He also says he appreciates his can-do spirit.

“I think he’ll bring something to the table that reminds me a little bit of myself,” Buescher said. “He works on his stuff, he knows (cars) in and out. It’s not one of those deals where he’s just bringing this big sponsor in and that’s how everything happened. It’s somebody that has talent and can go out there and get the job done.”

Another news nugget dropped by Geschickter in Friday’s media session is that the team will switch to Hendrick Motorsports engines next season. It’s a technology connection that Buescher hopes will help lift the two-car team from its current rank of 23rd and 24th in the team owner standings.

“That’s something that has been the works for a long time and really glad that everybody was able to make that happen,” Buescher said. “Everybody at JTG and HMS, to get that deal in place so that we can go into next year and feel like we can have the most horsepower we can possibly get. … I think that’ll be really good for us going forward to have that alliance. At the same time, we’re trying to do a lot ourselves and trying to be as independent as we can be, but being smart about it.”

Posted on by Holly Cain

Only four points separate 12th-place Ryan Blaney and 13th-place Clint Bowyer heading into the season’s first Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Playoff elimination race, however neither driver seemed overly concerned or palpably troubled about the high stakes playoff implications of Sunday’s Bank of America ROVAL 400 (at 2 p.m. ET on NBC, PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

Only the top 12 drivers following the race will continue on in the playoffs, championship eligible. But the fact is — no one truly knows what to expect for Sunday’s debut of the 17-turn, 2.28-mile track at Charlotte Motor Speedway that includes a brand-new, infield road course as well as portions of the traditional 1.5-mile speedway.

RELATED: Playoff standings

It’s a big weekend for racers and race track.

The veteran Bowyer is making his first playoff appearance since 2015 and carries a pair of 2018 trophies (at Martinsville and Michigan) in his quest. He had been ranked among the top 10 of the standings all year before suffering some tough playoff luck in the last two weeks’ opening pair of championship races.

He finished 23rd at the Las Vegas Playoff opener and 10th at Richmond last week. However, far from being panicked, the always-affable Bowyer insisted Friday morning before opening practice at the Charlotte road course that he was in a good place competitively and ready to make up that point gap. 

“I think any time you have something new like this, you have to look at it like an opportunity and I need an opportunity,” said Bowyer, driver of the No. 14 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford who spent 10 weeks as one of only four drivers with multiple wins this season. 

“Four points out of the playoffs and you need a good opportunity and that’s exactly what this track is. We had a good test here and I made a lot of laps that were relatively comfortable and I enjoyed it. 

“I’m going to enjoy this weekend. The opportunity is there and we’ve got to go out there and take it.

In the morning trackside news conferences, both drivers were asked more questions about the new playoff road course than about their particular precarious position in the standings. 

Alex Bowman sits only one more point to the good than Blaney, the first-year Hendrick Motorsports driver holding a five-point edge on the playoff cutoff position. His veteran Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jimmie Johnson is ranked 14th, only six points behind Blaney and seven behind Bowman.

Both Bowyer and Johnson – two veterans — have won a Cup road course race in their careers; neither Blaney nor Bowman have. Bowyer won at Sonoma in 2012. The seven-time Cup champion Johnson won there in 2010. Blaney’s best road course finish in three full-time seasons of Cup competition was an eighth-place finish at Watkins Glen in 2017. Bowman’s best showing in his three full-time seasons was a ninth at Sonoma this summer. 

Johnson has a series-high eight wins on the Charlotte 1.5-miler, Bowyer has one. Neither Blaney nor Bowman has won at the Cup level there. 

Yet as teams prepared for opening practice on Friday – with the threat of rain creating another variable — the great unknown of the venue dominated talk of who would advance to the next round of the playoffs. 

WATCH: First Roval practice incidents

“It is what it is,” said Blaney, the driver of the No. 12 Team Penske Ford. “It’s a race track and we have our job to do.  … You have to make the best of it and I don’t think you can judge it really at all right now. You just have to get on it, race it and overcome it. 

“If you have a bad outlook at it you’re already kinda behind the 8-ball. You have to be positive about it and just try to do the best job you can, especially when you’re in our position. We’ve got to have a really good day Sunday to try and advance to the next round.” 

Bowyer was also quick to bring up another element to this weekend’s competition: The fans. His Stewart-Haas Racing team held a big fan Open House this week since the race was in NASCAR’s Charlotte hub and he said the excitement for the venue was readily evident. And, he reminded, that would be a good thing to build upon. 

“You know this was a good gauge for me,” Bowyer said. “Yesterday we did a fan day at the shop at Stewart-Haas Racing and the turnout was phenomenal. It really took me back pre-2008 in the world and especially our world of NASCAR, the energy, the turnout, the crowd that’s the way I remember the height of this baby. 

“We finally have something new to sell to a fan and let me tell you, they’re excited to see it. That got me excited. I think (Charlotte Motor Speedway executive) Marcus (Smith) has done a good job of turning this into an “event,” not just another race. 

“I think we’re all going to be excited to see the crowd that shows up for this race. We’re all going to see something new and it’s exciting to be on the forefront of this. 

“We’re trying something new in our sport and I’m happy our sport is doing that.” 

Especially so, Bowyer said smiling, if the new venue results in his ticket to keep advancing in the playoffs.

Posted on by Staff Report

Richard Childress Racing stayed in-house to fill the vacancy on its No. 31 Chevrolet in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series, tabbing Daniel Hemric to man the seat beginning in 2019.

Hemric, a native of Kannapolis, North Carolina, is in his second year with RCR as a full-time driver in the NASCAR Xfinity Series. He qualified for the playoffs in both years in the No. 21 Chevrolet, advancing to the Championship 4 in 2017 as a rookie.

His promotion was announced Friday at Charlotte Motor Speedway, and Hemric couldn’t even complete his opening statement of the press conference before the emotions took over. His voice cracked and he wiped his eyes before composing himself.

“That’s what it’s all about, right?” he asked. “I always had faith it would work out. It’s incredibly humbling to know this is my family moving forward.

RELATED: Key Silly Season players

The 27-year-old will make his second career start in the Monster Energy Series this weekend at the Charlotte road course. He also drove the No. 8 Chevrolet for RCR in the spring at Richmond. He’ll join Austin Dillon (No. 3 Chevrolet) in the Childress Cup stable full time next year.

“Ever since I was a kid growing up in Kannapolis, I followed and rooted for RCR,” Hemric said in a team release. “I enjoyed competing against Austin (Dillon) and Ty (Dillon) years ago and we became close friends along the way. My dream has always been to race for championships in the NASCAR Cup Series. I have worked hard to get here and those who know me and have supported me, know I take nothing for granted. The time has come to take that next step, and I want to thank Richard for believing in me and providing such an amazing opportunity.”

In 60 Xfinity Series starts with Childress, Hemric has 20 top-five finishes and 33 top 20s. Three of those top fives are runner-up finishes.

The No. 31 Chevrolet is open with veteran Ryan Newman leaving the company at the end of the season to join Roush Fenway Racing following a five-year stint with Childress.

Hemric will become just the third driver to pilot the No. 31 since 2005, joining Newman and Jeff Burton during this stretch.

The team said it would announce sponsorship and other details at a later date.

Team owner Richard Childress compared Hemric’s ability to what he saw years prior in drivers like Austin Dillon, Clint Bowyer and Kevin Harvick, all of whom came up through the RCR ranks.

“I look at what (drivers) have in their heart,” Childress said in his selection of Hemric. “He has what it takes to become a winner. You have to have heart and you have to sacrifice. I know how much Daniel and his family have sacrificed.

“He will win races and will compete for championships.”

Posted on by Staff Report

Kyle Busch led an eventful first practice on the Charlotte road course Friday, speeding around a lap at 106.397 mph in the No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota.

Erik Jones was second in the No. 20 JGR Toyota, making his way around the Roval at 106.382 mph. Joey Logano (106.122 mph), Daniel Hemric (106.081 mph) and Clint Bowyer (106.012 mph) rounded out the top five.

RELATED: Full practice results | Scenes from the Charlotte road course

The first real look at the new Roval course brought a fair amount of incidents as drivers searched to figure out how to maneuver through turns, around walls and over bumpers. Trouble struck early, about 10 minutes after the green flag dropped, as Aric Almirola spun on Turn 3, sustaining some damage to his No. 10 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford.

Minutes later, Denny Hamlin suffered damage to the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota when he skipped over one of the blue, artificial bumpers on a turn.

MORE: Roval 101 | Turn-by-turn analysis of the course

Ricky Stenhouse Jr. drove his No. 17 Ford off the track at Turn 4 and hit the wall — necessitating a move to a backup car. The list of cars that spun or veered off track included Bubba Wallace (twice), Austin Dillon and Kyle Busch.

Dillon suffered damage to the left front of his No. 3 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet when he caught the wall jutting out from the backstretch chicane, and Ryan Blaney scraped his No. 12 Team Penske Ford in the same place on the track.

NBCSN reported that Ryan Newman and Chase Elliott also reported damage to their cars after making practice laps.

The Monster Energy Series returns to the track at 4:45 p.m. ET for Busch Pole Qualifying (NBCSN/NBC Sports App).

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 race at the Charlotte road course (2 p.m. ET on NBC/NBC Sports App, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) have been released. Click the print icon above, or the link below.

ROSTERS: Charlotte road course

RELATED: Overview of 2018 rules updates

Posted on by Zack Albert

Friday’s NASCAR practice sessions will go on as scheduled regardless of inclement weather at Charlotte Motor Speedway’s combination oval and road course.

Teams in both the Monster Energy Series and Xfinity Series have two sets of Goodyear wet-weather tires available for practice sessions leading up to their first races on the 17-turn, 2.28-mile track. Other road-course rules — including installation of wipers and rear lights — will apply.

RELATED: Roval 101 | Full schedule for Charlotte

A NASCAR spokesperson said that an assessment for potentially conducting Friday’s Busch Pole Qualifying (4:45 p.m. ET, NBCSN) in wet weather would be made closer to its scheduled start.

Monster Energy Series had its first practice at 12:05 p.m. ET ahead of Sunday’s Bank of America Roval 400 (2 p.m. ET, NBC, PRN, SiriusXM). Xfinity Series teams had two practices scheduled Friday ahead of Saturday’s Drive for the Cure 200 presented by Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina (3 p.m. ET, NBCSN).

The National Weather Service forecasts a 30 percent chance of scattered showers and thunderstorms Friday afternoon.

Posted on by Staff Report

JTG Daugherty Racing announced Friday that Ryan Preece will drive the team’s No. 47 Chevrolet next year in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series.

Preece, who made his mark as a decorated champion in the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour, will succeed AJ Allmendinger, the No. 47 team’s driver the last five seasons. Allmendinger scored a breakthrough premier series victory for himself and JTG Daugherty at Watkins Glen in 2014. The team announced Sept. 25 that Allmendinger would not return in 2019.

“To finally get to this level and earn it, it’s really a short-trackers’ dream,” Preece said. “To get here and to race for people with such class, it’s a family-owned team and that’s something I’ve always been a part of. Hopefully we can start out strong and compete for wins.”

RELATED: Key players in Silly Season

Preece, 27, has driven on a part-time basis for Joe Gibbs Racing in the NASCAR Xfinity Series the last two seasons. In that span, he’s collected two victories — last season at Iowa Speedway and earlier this year at Bristol Motor Speedway. He’s scheduled to run the majority of the races left in the season in JGR equipment.

It was that Bristol race where Preece first hopped onto the radar of team competition director Ernie Cope and team owner Tad Geschickter, who watched the underdog in good equipment give more experienced drivers all they could handle.

“I’m excited,” Cope said. “I started watching him at the end of the year at Homestead, and he drove hard. Watching that Bristol race and watching him go after it and I’m like, ‘This guy is something.’ Then you hear his backstory, and that’s the mold I’m looking for.

“Every time I’ve called him he’s in the shop.”

Preece made five career starts in NASCAR’s top division in 2015 for car owner Mike Curb. He followed that partial schedule with a full-season Xfinity Series slate for JD Motorsports in 2016.

Preece secured the Whelen Modified Tour championship in 2013. He also has four runner-up finishes in that series’ standings. Preece has competed in the majority of the Modified Tour’s races this season, locking up two wins (at Stafford and Langley) in eight starts.

“I’m not saying this is easy,” Preece said of his ascension to the Monster Energy Series. “It’s not. There were a lot of nights where I didn’t know what was going to happen. I was going to try though. I was going to try like hell.”

The team release also stated that JTG would remain a two-car operation next year. Chris Buescher currently drives the organization’s No. 37 Chevrolet, and Geschickter confirmed he would return.

Geschickter added that the team would move to engines provided by Hendrick.

“We’re really looking forward to having Ryan join our team for the 2019 season,” team owner Tad Geschickter said in a release. “Ryan has an impressive list of accomplishments in the NASCAR Xfinity Series and the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour Series and is now being given a great opportunity to compete at NASCAR’s highest level full-time. We really believe in him and think he’s a great addition to the team.”

Posted on by NASCAR Official Release

Zack Novak claimed the first-ever eNASCAR Ignite Series Championship Thursday night along with a $10,000 racing scholarship.

The eNASCAR Ignite Series, the first ever youth esports series on iRacing featuring drivers between the ages of 13-16 years old, hosted its Final Championship event last night. In a winner-take-all format at the virtual Martinsville Speedway, Novak bested the top 30 drivers that advanced throughout the four-race playoff format over the past 12 weeks.

“It’s surreal, I don’t even know what to say,” offered Connecticut native Novak. “Everything I have worked for over the past five or six years – this championship means the most to me. Really happy I could close this one out!”

Novak, already a regular contender in the NASCAR PEAK Antifreeze iRacing series (NASCAR’s highest-level eSports series), has proven to be a multi-dimensional driver by winning on the biggest eNASCAR stages in both Legends cars and Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series cars as well.

During last night’s Championship event, the top four finishers from each heat race, as well as the last chance qualifier (LCQ) would earn starting positions in the 30-lap final.

Heat No. 1 saw pole sitter Dylan Ault find trouble early and drop out of contention, opening the door for Zack Novak and several others to move to the front. Top seed Garrett Lowe worked his way to a transfer spot before finding trouble on a last-lap pass for the win, and ultimately finishing fifth, just one spot out of an automatic transfer to the final. At the end of the 10-lap race Zack Novak, Daniel Silvestri, Spencer Tart and Aaron Mulrooney Jr. had secured starting spots in the final. Everyone else had one last chance in the LCQ.

Heat No. 2 was a much calmer race with the top three qualifiers holding course and easily transferring to the final. Fifth-place qualifier Mike Neal was able to get the final transfer spot after Niclas Laubisch dropped back to seventh. The transfer drivers from heat No. 2 were: Austin Edwards, Briar, LaPradd, Andy Trupiano and Mikey Serra.

Aggressive driving in Heat No. 3 lead to several incidents on track, ultimately taking out second-, third- and fourth-place qualifiers. This opened the door for the rest of the field to earn the transfer spots to the final. Pole sitter Dave Walsh easily won the race with Jake Matheson, Ryan H. Papasian and Dillion Hodge rounding out the top four and earning transfer spots to the final as well.

The last chance qualifier gave those who didn’t transfer directly from the heat races one last opportunity to earn a starting spot on the grid for the final. Several drivers were able to redeem themselves from disappointing performances in their respective heat races, including series favorite Garrett Lowe and Heat 1 pole sitter Dylan Ault. Devein Serra and Ryan Matthews also earned transfer spots to the final by finishing in the top four.

The 30-lap final race would feature the 16 drivers who transferred with Novak starting on pole. Walsh, Edwards and Silvestri would fill in the rest of the front two rows as the green flag dropped. Novak and Walsh started well  and pulled ahead of  the field. Novak would ultimately lead all the way to the checkered flag. Walsh tried to put some pressure on the leader, but Novak was simply too fast and too consistent to get close enough to even attempt a pass.

The top three finishers, Novak, Walsh and Edwards, showcase the diverse and broad appeal of eNASCAR racing on iRacing. Novak is from Connecticut, Walsh is from Ireland and Edwards is a California native. Utilizing the iRacing eSports platform makes it easy to bring drivers from around the world together to compete on a level playing field.

Novak’s dominant victory in the final earned him the $10,000 racing scholarship as well as a slew of other prizes — a one-on-one driver instructional session with Max Papis (including one of his MPI steering wheels), an introduction to NASCAR racing development personnel, a SimSeat simulation cockpit and seat with monitor stands, a Martinsville Speedway VIP experience with Champion acknowledgement, NASCAR Racing Experience Voucher, and a VIP iRacing account.

To learn more visit www.iRacing.com/NASCARIgnite.