Posted on by Staff Report

LOUDON, N.H. — Early bird Kurt Busch ran his best lap of the day in the final round of Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series knockout qualifying at New Hampshire Motor Speedway to earn the top starting spot for Sunday’s Foxwoods 301 (1 p.m. ET on NBCSN/NBC Sports App, PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

The first driver on the track for decisive Round 3, Busch covered the one-mile distance in 28.511 seconds (133.591 mph) to edge reigning series champion Martin Turex Jr. by .019 seconds. Truex will start from the front row for the seventh time this season.

RELATED: Qualifying results | Weekend schedule

“I don’t want to second-guess anything, so when the crew chief (Billy Scott) says ‘Go,’ you just go,” said Busch, who won his first Busch Pole Award in 35 races at the Magic Mile, his third of the season and the 25th of his career. “I like the way we made the right changes through each of the rounds, and we stuck to a game plan.

“That’s exactly what you hope to have each time you go to qualifying, where you don’t have to deviate away from the plan you set in place.”

In fact, the three rounds of qualifying for Busch followed a script that had been written before the first round began.

“We discussed it, and the call was made back at the hauler before the qualifying session started,” Busch said. “It was almost like a non-discussion. It was, ‘This is what’s going to happen in Round 1, this is what’s going to happen in Round 2, and here’s what’s going to happen in Round 3’—and we stuck to our plan.”

Truex felt he lost what could have been a pole-winning run in the first corner.

“I just missed Turn 1 just slightly there in that last run on the first lap, but overall it was a solid day,” Truex said. “We had a decent practice – a short practice, you know, because we waited a little bit for the VHT (traction compound) to kind of get run in, and we went out there and ran and were probably a little bit off further on balance more than we needed to be at the end of practice.

“So made some changes for qualifying, and the guys did a good job of getting it right and we were close. So couple thousandths, a few inches here or there in a different spot on the race track and might have been able to make it up, but a solid effort for us, and we can go get them on Sunday from second.”

Led by his brother, Kyle Busch, Toyota drivers occupied the top five positions in Round 2, but Kurt Busch broke the monopoly in the round that counted in his No. 41 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford. Kyle Busch ended up third, followed by Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Denny Hamlin, as Camry drivers claimed positions two through four on the grid.

Hendrick Motorsports driver Alex Bowman earned the eighth starting position in the fastest Chevrolet.

“To come here and qualify a solid top 10 means the car is probably a whole lot better than that, which is a good thing for me come Sunday,” said Bowman, who entered this race weekend with an average starting position at Loudon of 30.8 and previous best qualifying effort of 18th.

With Erik Jones earning the seventh position and Daniel Suarez qualifying ninth, JGR drivers placed all four cars in the top 10. Surprisingly, Busch was the only Stewart Haas driver to make the cut for the 12-driver final round.

The Team Penske Fords of Ryan Blaney and Brad Keselowski will start fifth and sixth, respectively, on Sunday.

 

 

Posted on by Holly Cain

Defending New Hampshire Motor Speedway race winner Denny Hamlin is hoping that the good vibes and his excellent record at the track will translate into a positive season turnaround this weekend.

The perennial Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series championship player is smarting from a rough month of competition – multiple races starting from the rear of the grid and misses at the checkered flag. Disappointing for this No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota team that is far more accustomed to hoisting trophies and challenging in the playoffs than overcoming the kind of early season start he’s had this season.

“The last month has probably been one of the toughest in my years (at the Cup level),’’ Hamlin, 37, said Friday afternoon. “It’s just been really bad results. Not that we’ve necessarily run bad or had bad speed, just terrible results. … We need to start winning right now, running the top five, leading more laps and get to work on this season and try to make sure that we put ourselves in contention at the end.’’

RELATED: Hamlin a part of most memorable moments at Loudon

His confidence – in himself and veteran team – still remains high, no matter the frustrating summer showings. He’s started 36th or worse in two of the last four races – and racing from the rear of the field automatically creates a daunting challenge. Yet his talent and the team’s effort has kept him solidly among the playoff field. He’s ranked ninth heading into Sunday’s race.

Hamlin has a healthy 10 top-10 finishes through the opening 19 races – a better than 50 percent yield. He has six top fives as well – including a season-best three third-place efforts (Daytona, Richmond and Charlotte). He’s had only two top 10s in the last six races, however.

“It doesn’t matter how many points those other guys accrue,’’ Hamlin said. “If we can win at Texas, Phoenix or Martinsville – we’re part of the Championship Four and could easily knock one of those guys out and all the hard work that they’ve put in through the entire year.’’

Sunday’s Foxwoods Casino 301 (1 p.m. ET, NBCSN/NBC Sports App, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) is prime opportunity. And Hamlin knows it.

He is in elite company as a three-time race winner (2017, 2012, 2007) at the “Magic Mile.” No active driver has won at the track more. He has three top-10 finishes in the last five races and hasn’t started worse than seventh since 2013.

But Hamlin comes into the race feeling understandably a bit behind on the season. Three drivers – Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Kyle Busch (five wins), Stewart-Haas Racing’s Kevin Harvick (five wins) and fellow Toyota driver Martin Truex Jr. (four wins) have won 14 of the 19 races thus far.

MORE: Is Hamlin a must in your Fantasy Live lineup for New Hampshire? 

Truex, in particular, has been brilliant at New Hampshire, but winless despite leading a series-best 513 laps in the last four races here. Hamlin knows he’s got to step up his game — and step it up now.

He admits he’s ready to have his name thrown into the championship favorite mix – the party crasher to the “Big Three” getting all the early season attention.

“I don’t think we’ve been at that level to even be talked about at this point,’’ he said. “I think we’ve got to get better in a lot of different aspects. It’s agitating knowing that we’re capable of doing that if we put everything together, but until we do it, they deserve all the press they’ve gotten.”

And this could be the week Hamlin inserts himself in the mix.

“Certainly when you come to these race tracks, for us personally, it feels like this is a track that we certainly can win at and I’ve got a great feel for it no matter where we’re running or what cars that we’re running,’’ Hamlin said. “Certainly from my aspect, there’s not an advantage, but there’s certainly a level of comfort.

“When you come here, you know exactly what you’re looking for.’’

Posted on by Reid Spencer

What Ryan Preece accomplished last year at New Hampshire Motor Speedway helped propel him to unqualified success in a limited run in the NASCAR Xfinity Series.

Preece didn’t win last year’s race, but his second-place finish opened eyes throughout the sport. And on his very next run, the modified ace won from the pole at Iowa to score his first series victory in his second trip in a Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota.

The victory was the payoff from an enormous gamble. Backed by a group of investors, Preece opted for a few races in top-of-the-line JGR equipment versus a full Xfinity schedule in lesser-quality machinery. In four 2017 races with Gibbs, Preece finished second, first, fourth and fifth.

Back in April, Preece scored his second victory, this time in a Dash 4 Cash race at Bristol. In eight Xfinity starts in the past two seasons, he has posted top 10s in all but one. The exception came in his last outing, in July at Daytona, where an overheating issue knocked him out of the race after 51 of 105 laps.

MORE: Ryan Preece’s career stats

Now Preece returns to New Hampshire for Saturday’s Lakes Region 200 (4 p.m. ET, NBCSN/NBC Sports App, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Originally, the race wasn’t on Preece’s schedule with JGR.

“A lot of the people that supported me last year to do those two races (New Hampshire and Iowa), they wanted to get involved and do it again,” Preece said on Friday at NHMS. “And so we put it together so we can come back and race here in New Hampshire in front of all their friends and family and my friends and family.

“It was a really big deal last year, so we ended up putting it together, and hopefully we can do one spot better.”

Though it hasn’t happened yet, Preece hopes continued success will lead to sponsorship money and a full-time stint in NASCAR racing.

“Of course I do (want a full-time ride), but I think what needs to be said is sponsors need to come to the team and say we need Ryan Preece or something like that,” Preece said. “So I’m just going to keep doing my job, and that’s trying to win races, and hopefully the sponsors will come.”

Posted on by Pat DeCola

LOUDON, N.H. — Joey Logano isn’t a part of NASCAR’s current “Big Three” of Kyle Busch, Kevin Harvick and Martin Truex Jr. — but he may be close.

The Team Penske driver has rebounded rather buoyantly this season, a year removed from missing the 2017 Playoffs amid his worst season with the Ford-backed organization. Logano is on pace for the second-best average finish of his career (10.4) and is just three top-10 finishes short of matching his ’17 total of 17, with a win (Talladega), to boot.

That’s quite plentiful, given the aforementioned trio hasn’t allowed much room at the head of the table for its competitors. Fourteen of the season’s 19 races have been won by Busch, Harvick or defending series champ Truex, with track history pointing to one of them likely landing in Victory Lane again on Sunday in the Foxwoods Resort Casino 301 (1 p.m. ET, NBCSN/NBC Sports App, PRN, Sirius XM NASCAR Radio).

MORE: Full New Hampshire schedule | Practice 1 speeds

Logano’s one of a small handful of drivers who could find his way to hurriedly sitting down in that fourth seat in what’s shaping up to be a rather interesting game of musical chairs that will culminate in the season-ending finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

But it’s still going to take some time.

“We’re not quite at that point yet as a race team,” Logano said Friday at the ‘Magic Mile.’ “We’re not far from it. … We can run in the top 10 about anywhere right now. We can make some top-five finishes every now and again, but we have to have a perfect day to win a race at this point. We have to have the perfect strategy; a great car that’s maximized to the best handling we can possibly make it.

“There’s just no margin for error throughout the whole event for us right now. We just have to be on our game right now to be able to win races and I’m not saying we can’t, we just have to be perfect and it’s not easy — not that it’s ever easy to win a race, but the margin that we’re working with right now isn’t as big as what you see those top three cars at that are able to be consistently fast even if their car may not be quite perfect.”

That margin is something every championship hopeful team – not just Logano’s – will need to find, hastily, if they’re to compete with the “Big Three.” Each of those drivers has a championship and multiple Championship 4 appearances since the revamped playoff format debuted in 2014. Barring unforeseen circumstances, they’ll be there again.

RELATED: Playoffs standings | Logano’s career statistics

Busch, Harvick and Truex have been the gold standard at the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series level the whole season. With that territory, however, comes along the fact that teams are anxiously searching for ways to specifically beat them.

They’re still coming up short … for now.

“I’m surprised by it because we haven’t seen this in a long time to where three cars are that dominant and being able to win races,” Logano said. “There are other cars that can lead laps, but it doesn’t seem like the right ones. It seems like (the “Big Three”) always find a way to prevail at the end, whether it’s the speed in their car or their pit stops or restarts, whatever it may be they find themselves up front when it matters the most. Obviously, they can recover from mistakes pretty well because of their speed, so they’re just able to be there at the right times.”

Logano and the No. 22 crew are already provisionally locked into the 2018 NASCAR Playoffs, so the desperation the team faced at this point last year – in need of a win to qualify – is a distant memory.

With seven races left in the regular season it allows the 28-year-old and his longtime crew chief Todd Gordon to tinker with things and try to manufacture ways to close that margin and pick up the speed to compete with NASCAR’s elite on the grandest stage. It isn’t just about improving from last year and still being in contention come Las Vegas, the playoff opener.

He wants to take his talents to South Beach and make it count.

“The fact that we’re locked in the playoffs is great, but that’s only one part of it. That’s not what the goal is. The goal isn’t to make the playoffs. The goal is to win the championship,” Logano continued. ” … We’re not quite at that level yet to make that happen. We can make that happen this year, we’ve just got to make some gains here and we’ve got to make them pretty quick because the playoffs are right down the road from where we are right now.

“I think the mindset is always, ‘How can we be better? How can we work harder to find that advantage?’ That’s always a constant.”

From the sounds of it, Logano’s focus, headspace and determination are in order.

Now it all comes down to horsepower.

Posted on by Holly Cain

Less than 48 hours after being honored with the ESPY Award for Best Driver, Martin Truex Jr. was still smiling about the national recognition before Friday’s opening practice at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.

The reigning Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series champion won the award on a high-profile, super-achieving ballot that also included three other 2017 racing champions: Formula One’s Lewis Hamilton, IndyCar’s Josef Newgarden and NHRA’s Top Fuel champion Brittany Force.

RELATED: Truex wins Best Driver ESPY | Truex on contract extension 

It marked the third time in the last four years that a NASCAR champion has won the Best Driver category. Kyle Busch won in 2016 and Kevin Harvick in 2015. And it speaks volumes about the 2017 title chase and Truex’s own story of perseverance — a theme that has boosted him and the small Denver-based Furniture Row Racing team from underdog to championship caliber.

“It was a big surprise,’’ Truex said of the ESPY. “I didn’t have any expectations. I thought it was cool to be nominated and I really didn’t think about it much more after that. … I was definitely really surprised (to win) and it was pretty cool. Obviously, like I said, a great honor.

“A lot of great drivers on that list, so a lot of people I respect and enjoy watching and pretty cool to be able to win that.’’

Certainly Truex’s amazing 2017 title run made him fully deserving of the ESPN nod. He won a series best eight races — a single season record for himself. And he looked absolutely dominant doing so — ultimately winning the Homestead-Miami season finale to earn his shot to hoist NASCAR’s most sought-after hardware.

By all accounts, he’s followed up this year with a similar show of force. His win last weekend at Kentucky Speedway was his fourth of the year — elevating him to championship form again —  the third member of a season power trio that also includes five-time winners Harvick and Kyle Busch.

The New Jersey native arrives in New Hampshire for Sunday’s Foxwoods Casino 301 (1 p.m. ET, NBCSN/NBC Sports App, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) ready to make good on an especially personal pursuit: finally winning a Monster Energy Series race at the one-mile New England oval where he and his father have raced for decades.

Truex has led 513 laps in the last four Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series races here only to come up short of victory. He has three top-10 finishes in the last three years. In this race last year, he finished third after earning the pole position and leading a race best 137 of the 301 laps. He has 10 top-10 finishes in 21 Cup starts and scored two of his five top-five efforts in the last two races. That history at the track and his current string of success gives him and the team great hope for the weekend.

MORE: Ryan Truex on brother winning ESPY

“We’ve been so strong here the past few seasons,’’ Truex said. “It’s always been a really good track for me over the years and, you know, winning K&N races here, winning Xfinity in ’05 and I really want to get that Cup win because this is a special place for me.

“I’ve been coming here a long time since I was a teenager and this place was really a big springboard for my career, you know? Winning here in front of the Cup and Xfinity guys really was a big part of the reason I got an opportunity to drive cars for a living, so it’s a special place for me. I really love coming up here and really just trying to figure out how to get that Cup win.

“Led the most laps a few times in this race the last few seasons and it seems like the last 75 or so we’ve not been able to somehow be in the front, so try to figure that out this weekend hopefully. It’s time.”

A win on the challenging 1-mile New Hampshire Motor Speedway would only add to his diverse resume, putting him on equal standing with five-time winners Harvick and Busch. And it would be a big personal boost to score a trophy at a track especially dear to his heart.

“I don’t know that it’s crucial for our team or our season, but I think for me it’s such a big one,’’ Truex acknowledged. “It’s one I want so bad. Winning here would be for me like winning at Daytona. I mean, it truly is.

“I know the team’s fired up and ready to go and worked hard to be prepared to come here like they always do and they’re excited and optimistic, so that always makes me feel good and feel like we’ll have a shot at it and certainly we have a lot of momentum right now so hopefully we can take advantage of it.”

Truex smiled, acknowledging the frustration at New Hampshire, but insisting that would only make a win this weekend all the sweeter.

“Sometimes the biggest ones are the hardest ones and I guess for me this is a big one, so it’s been difficult, but look forward to the challenge this weekend of trying to finish the deal,” he said.

Posted on by Staff Report

Kyle Busch showed early speed in Friday’s opening practice at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, topping the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series leaderboard with a best lap of 134.292 mph.

Busch is a three-time winner at the 1.058-mile track. He is also the series’ most recent New Hampshire winner, prevailing from the pole in the Joe Gibbs Racing No. 18 Toyota.

RELATED: Practice 1 results | Weekend schedule

Kyle Larson was second-fastest at 133.788 mph in the Chip Ganassi Racing No. 42 Chevrolet. Denny Hamlin, the race’s defending winner, turned in the third-best lap in the Joe Gibbs Racing No. 11 Toyota with JGR teammate Erik Jones fourth on the leaderboard.

JGR completed a season sweep at New Hampshire last season, part of the organization’s recent run of five wins in the last six Loudon races.

Ryan Blaney rounded out the top five as the fastest Ford driver in the 50-minute session ahead of Sunday’s Foxwoods Resort Casino 301 (1 p.m. ET, NBCSN/NBC Sports App, PRN, SiriusXM).

Martin Truex Jr., last week’s winner at Kentucky Speedway, was ninth-fastest in the Furniture Row Racing No. 78 Toyota.

An incident involving the Front Row Motorsports No. 38 Ford of David Ragan caused the only stoppage in opening practice at the 32-minute mark. Ragan slid out of the racing groove entering Turn 3 and scraped the outside retaining wall.

VIDEO: Watch Ragan’s hit

Six teams had 15 minutes deducted from their practice time because of infractions during inspection last weekend at Kentucky Speedway. The affected teams:

• 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota of Daniel Suarez
• 23 BK Racing Toyota of Blake Jones
• 47 JTG Daugherty Chevrolet of AJ Allmendinger
• 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet of Jimmie Johnson
• 51 Rick Ware Racing Chevrolet of BJ McLeod
• 99 StarCom Racing Chevrolet of Kyle Weatherman

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 New Hampshire (2 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: New Hampshire

RELATED: Overview of 2018 rules updates

Posted on by Sponsored Content

DEARBORN, Mich. — The season-long quest to find Ford’s biggest NASCAR fan will continue with a new element this weekend at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.

Ford is recognizing Constantine Sealing of Glastonbury, Conn., as the Official Small Business of the Ford Hall of Fans. The company will have its name splashed across the hood of the No. 6 Fusion and driver Matt Kenseth’s uniform for Sunday’s Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Foxwoods Resort Casino 301.

“The response from individuals who have shown creativity and enthusiasm for Ford Hall of Fans has been great, but there are a lot of small businesses who display their loyalty to Ford and NASCAR as well and we wanted to recognize that,” said Jeannee Kirkaldy, motorsports marketing manager, Ford Performance. “Constantine Sealing is a family-owned business that has supported racing on a local level while also being great ambassadors for Ford. We feel they’re a worthy recipient of this title and look forward to seeing them get some well-deserved visibility this weekend.”

Constantine Sealing Service was started in 1979 by Bill Constantine Jr. when he was only 18 years old and has grown steadily. He and his three sons now head an operation that includes a variety of commercial and residential pavement maintenance in Connecticut and surrounding states, including paving, asphalt repairs, line striping, and seal coating. The family owns approximately 20 Ford vehicles of all shapes and sizes for both personal and professional use.

“I’ve been following racing for 42 years,” said Constantine, who used to sponsor street stock and pro stock cars at Stafford Speedway (Conn.), but also spent many nights at Riverside Park Speedway (Mass.) before it closed in 1999. “When they told me we were going to be on the hood of Matt Kenseth’s car, I could not believe it. I figured it was going to be a little sticker on a quarter panel or something like that, but then when they sent me the picture of the car I was in a state of shock. I didn’t know what to say or what to do.”

Constantine counts Ford drivers Kevin Harvick, Kurt Busch, Joey Logano, Brad Keselowski and Kenseth among his current favorites, but recalls rooting for the likes of Cale Yarborough, Davey Allison, Ernie Irvan, Bill Elliott, Rusty Wallace and Mark Martin through the years.

“We used to go every year to the Daytona 500 from the early 1980s to the early 2000s. I didn’t miss a year,” said Constantine, who has also attended races at Talladega, Pocono, New Hampshire, and Atlanta among others. “I’m a Ford man. When I was growing up my dad always had Fords and bought them from Monaco Ford. I remember him telling me what good people they had working there and ever since he said that our whole family has bought nothing but Fords.”

Ford Hall of Fans launched earlier this year in an effort to recognize those people who make the sport tick — the fans. People can nominate themselves through a video or photo that demonstrates what makes them passionate about NASCAR.

Initial entries will be accepted until Aug. 19, 2018, and a select panel of judges will decide on 16 semi-finalists. The public then will vote for their favorite with six finalists selected to attend Ford Championship Weekend at Homestead-Miami Speedway Nov. 16-18. Two grand prize winners will emerge after a series of competitions and will receive a VIP trip to the NASCAR Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony in Charlotte and a new Ford vehicle of their choice.

Fans can enter the Ford Hall of Fans by going to www.NASCAR.com/Ford.

*No purchase necessary. Must be legal U.S. resident 21 or older. Promotion consists of sweepstakes and contest. Sweepstakes ends 11/5/18; contest ends 8/19/18. Contest finalists must attend Ford Championship Weekend, 11/18. For prize, entry, and eligibility details, see Official Rules for the Sweepstakes and Official Rules for the Contest.
Sponsor: Ford Motor Company. Not sponsored by NASCAR.
Posted on by Staff Report

The annual NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race at Eldora Speedway is nearly impossible to prepare for because it’s the lone race on dirt all year.

Note: Nearly.

RELATED: Full race results

There is a way drivers can ready themselves for the high-banked half-mile track in Ohio. That’s via iRacing. And those who logged lots of laps on the racing simulator the week leading into Eldora saw great success at Wednesday night’s Dirt Derby.

A diverse top 10 included first-timers, dirt experts and full-time drivers alike. All of them looked comfortable on the ever-changing dirt, and for good reason. Of the drivers who finished in the top 10, nine had recently logged time on iRacing to prep for the race, according to data provided to NASCAR.com.

Winner Chase Briscoe is known to boot up iRacing frequently and even competed in some of the virtual world championship events. Then there’s Brett Moffitt, who finished fifth in the No. 16 with iRacing as his primary sponsor and spent the lead-up to the race turning virtual laps with fans.

Logan Seavey stole the show, leading 53 laps and is the highest ranked iRacer among all drivers in the field … and a top-10 user on all of iRacing. He was cruising late before falling back on a couple of late restarts.

See below for the nine top-10 finishers and their iRating, which is iRacing’s ranking system that helps determine each racer’s skill level. The higher the better.

Note: Matt Crafton finished fourth at Eldora.

Finishing position Driver Oval iRating Dirt iRating
1 Chase Briscoe 4920 3485
2 Grant Enfinger 1250 1250
3 Stewart Friesen 1402 1528
5 Brett Moffitt 1250 1250
6 Noah Gragson 2124 1250
7 John Hunter Nemechek 1961 1350
8 Logan Seavey 8675 3346
9 Justin Haley 1550 1463
10 Nick Hoffman 1250 1250
Posted on by Staff Report

Trackside Live is heading up north for two action-packed shows at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. The first show will be on Saturday, July 21 at 7:45 p.m. ET, while the second show will be on Sunday, July 22 at 9:15 a.m. ET.

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

Don’t miss your chance to meet your favorite drivers as the regular season winds down and playoff battles heat up. Watch the video above and get excited for the lobster showdown! It’s going to be a good one.

Enjoy!