Posted on by @nascarcasm

Yes, that’s right – we’re gonna follow along with each episode of Renovation Realities: Dale Jr. & Amy on the DIY Network — the network that makes home renovation projects look really easy on TV and then you try them at home and wind up cutting your own thumb off.

They’re renovating a really old house in Key West, Florida, which is a wonderful place to visit despite being just an “a” and an “n” from being “Kanye West” but let’s not get sidetracked here. Why are we blogging a TV show? Because that’s what the Internet does. There are like 800 people out there who live-blog “The Bachelorette” and if that many people are interested in this poor woman having to pick her next ex-fiancé from this Curve cologne-scented dork pageant, then HOT DAMN we’re gonna blog this.

First off, let’s hope that with Amy’s interior-decorating skills, this fixer-upper goes way better than Dale Jr.’s previous attempt at a fixer-upper.

2018 June 3 Dale Car

I’m hoping her input trumps Dale’s. There, I said it. Because she’s a professional interior decorator, and he is … not that. She’ll be trying to find a tasteful fabric for the curtains, while he’s filling the koi pond with mayonnaise and fighting with the Key West town council that forbids him throwing wrecked race cars into the ocean as artificial reefs.

Second, why not “Dale & Amy: RENOV88TION”? I mean I’m probably gonna enjoy the show but this golden opportunity at branding is now gone. Whatever. I’m over it.

OK, let’s get watching. Very excited to be at home on a Saturday night watching a home renovation show because it features Dale and Amy, and not for the usual reason, because I’m 40 now and this is sadly what I’ve become.

SHOW INTRO

  • Good little montage introducing Dale and Amy. She’s clearly way better at this than he is. This is gonna be like shifting at Pocono Raceway for him. Oh no.

FIRST SEGMENT

  • Good introduction of Key West. It truly is a cool place to visit. I’ve been there several times and apparently I had a great time. I also got married there, no joke. Looks like they’re buying an old, run-down, beat-up, dilapidated, cat and termite-infested home there. Which in Key West means it was probably $20 million, as-is.
The dilapidated house that Dale Jr. and Amy Earnhardt renovated.
Courtesy DIY Network / Rocky Gonet (AP Images)
  • Looks like Dale had to go in front of the town council or something to approve the project. That’s like the Key West version of getting called to the hauler. 
  • OH thank God, there’s someone helping them. Sort of like a crew chief. Oh Lord please, people, let’s appreciate this guy and not run him out of town like Lance McGrew.
  • Apparently there’s a lot of cat pee everywhere. I don’t own a cat so I am not familiar with the aroma but Dale used to go in his fire suit on a weekly basis so, hey, go easy on the cats, OK? 
  • Oh man, there are bees. Be gentle. Those things, like my tweets, are dying at an alarming rate. 
  • Oooo they’re gonna put in a lanai, sweet. (Googles ‘lanai.’) 
  • Dale tries to operate a skid steer and almost backs it into a truck. We literally almost had a caution in a home renovation show. Holy s—. This is gold. 
  • So they have to stabilize the foundation by placing jacks underneath the house. They rock-paper-scissors and Dale wins which means he sends his pregnant wife to belly crawl through the vermin and garbage under the house because, you know, chivalry. Generally one wouldn’t tell his pregnant wife, “Hey, I know you’re with child and all, but could you Army crawl through maybe snakes and insects underneath this house?” but the rules of rock-paper-scissors are ironclad.

SECOND SEGMENT

  • Dale just tried to take a sledgehammer to one of the home’s old concrete footings. Let’s just say the footing made it through unharmed. They gave him a jackhammer instead.
Dale Jr. and Amy Earnhardt work on a house in Key West.
Courtesy DIY Network / Emilee Ramsier
  • Amy and Dale seem to really be working well as a team on this project. Usually any sort of home-improvement project is one-sided at my house. My wife and I say we’re gonna work together but shocker, only one of us winds up doing the sawing, the sanding, the nail pounding, etc. But rest assured, I thank her for it. 
  • OH huge beehive. Honey dripping everywhere. Shocked Dale didn’t conjure up his next weird sandwich. Honey-and-sawdust, or something. 
  • “Putting up all the siding is uh, pretty ex … citing,” says Dale. Working on the dad jokes before he’s actually a dad. Always work ahead.


THIRD SEGMENT

  • OH MY GOD THEY’RE PREGNANT AGAI …wait, this was recorded some time ago. 
  • They’re putting Dale in the excavator – the most effective dirt-removing device aside from the splitter. Dale will love that joke.
Dalejrsaws
Courtesy DIY Network / Emilee Ramsier
  • He yanked the waterline out of the meter. Popped it right off like it was a steering wheel at Talladega. Oh sweet molasses. Other than that, he’s doing well. I dig it. HAAAAAAA OK, if he can make that crappy dad joke earlier than let’s not pretend I just ruined everything. 
  • Them brick pavers is dope. Like a miniature Brickyard. I also like how they’re using some of them on the wall in the restroom. Like, an actual brick wall. Dale can then talk to said wall. It’ll remind Dale of when he used to ride in the truck at driver intros with Paul Menard. 
  • That’s a lot of work they did. House looking pretty swell for just 30 minutes of work.
Posted on by Staff Report

Ruben Garcia Jr., a member of the Drive for Diversity Class of 2018 and a NASCAR Next alum, earned his first career NASCAR K&N Pro Series East win Saturday night in the Memphis 150.

The 2015 NASCAR PEAK Mexico Series champion drove the No. 6 Rev Racing Toyota to Victory Lane at Memphis International Raceway.

Garcia became the seventh different driver from the NASCAR Drive For Diversity Driver Development Program to win a NASCAR K&N Pro Series East race and gave Rev Racing, which has fielded the competition team for the program since 2010, its 18th win.

Garcia is in his third full season in the K&N Pro Series. After finishing 10th in points as a rookie 2016, the NASCAR Next alum improved to fifth last year. He finished second at Bristol Motor Speedway and led a race-high 79 laps in the finale at Dover International Speedway in 2017, but was still in search of that elusive breakthrough win.

He is the fourth Mexican-born driver to win in the series, following Ruben Pardo (2006), Rogelio Lopez (2007) and three-time series race winner Daniel Suarez (most recently 2014).

Garcia also led a Rev Racing contingent that also finished fourth (Chase Cabre) and seventh (Ryan Vargas).

Ronnie Bassett Jr. finished fifth, followed by his brother Dillon. After Vargas, Colin Garrett, Anthony Alfredo and Marcos Gomes rounded out the top 10.

Posted on by Staff Report

LONG POND, Pa. — The race-winning No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing NASCAR Xfinity Series Toyota failed post-race inspection height measurements following the Pocono Green 250 Recycled by J.P. Mascaro & Sons.

Kyle Busch drove the No. 18 car to his first Xfinity Series win of the season, leading 64 laps on the day en route to the victory. The win was the second for the No. 18 car in the Xfinity Series with Ryan Preece earning a win at Bristol in April.

The car was too high in the left front, according to a NASCAR spokesperson. Last week, the No. 20 JGR team of Christopher Bell was assessed a L1-level penalty for failing post-race height measurements that resulted in a one-race suspension for crew chief Jason Ratcliff, a $10,000 fine and a loss of 10 driver and owner points.

RELATED: Race results | Race recap

Any potential penalties will be announced next week by the sanctioning body.

 

Posted on by RJ Kraft

LONG POND, Pa. – In the NASCAR Xfinity Series, Cole Custer is quietly and unassumingly emerging as a championship contender. He may not have a race win yet in 2018, but the Stewart-Haas Racing driver is coming on strong following a fifth-place finish in the Pocono Green 250 Recycled by J.P. Mascaro & Sons. 

Custer started the day on the right note by earning his third pole position of the season and led the first two laps before Kyle Busch took over the lead on Lap 3. Busch would go on to win the race.

RELATED: Complete race results | Xfinity standings | Schedule

The No. 00 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford team made a strategy play at the end of Stage 1 that paid off in a big way. Custer pitted from fourth-place on Lap 22 to be up front at the start of Stage 2.

“We pitted early just trying to get some track position there,” crew chief Jeff Meendering told NASCAR.com after the race. “We knew we could make it to the end of the second stage really easy and then the last stage, we had to pit at that one so we could make it to the end of the race on fuel.”

The move put Custer out front for 21 more laps and he was nearly able to grab his first stage win of 2018. However, Paul Menard got past him with two laps to go to deny Custer the playoff point. From there, Custer spent a good portion of the final stage running as high as second before ending the day in fifth.

“We just didn’t have really good long-run speed,” Custer said on pit road after the race. “That was our biggest problem. We just got too tight at the end of a run. It was interesting to run the package and try to learn it throughout the day. I just think we needed a little more there.”

The race saw the Xfinity Series use the same aero package that was used at Indianapolis Motor Speedway last season. The package featured a bigger splitter and spoiler, specially-designed aero ducts and restrictor plates. The package will be used again next weekend at Michigan International Speedway and in September at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

“We are getting better and better and we are starting to hit our stride now,” Custer said. “We’ve always had fast cars and now we are starting to get the finishes. We need just a little bit more and just the fine details, but I think we’re pretty close right now.”

RELATED: Race recap of Pocono Green 250 | Custer’s career stats

Custer and his team have found their rhythm with back-to-back top-five finishes. He also has nine top 10s in the past 10 races in 2018. Dating back to last August at Bristol, the California native has 19 top 10s in his last 24 races and a dominating victory in last season’s finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway. He now holds a one-point edge on second place in the standings over Daniel Hemric, with Tyler Reddick two points back of Custer in fourth place.

“We are set up pretty good to make the playoffs,” Meendering said of his driver and team. “But to win the championship, we need to keep stepping it up. Keep getting better every week and we’re heading in that direction.”

 

Posted on by Reid Spencer

LONG POND, Pa. — A new high-downforce, restrictor-plate competition package at Pocono Raceway brought a familiar result on Saturday — at least where the NASCAR Xfinity Series is concerned.

Overcoming a pit road speeding penalty that sent him to the back of the field for the start of the second 25-lap stage in the Pocono Green 250, Kyle Busch clawed his way through the field to win the 92nd race of his career.

RELATED: No. 18 car fails post-race inspection | Complete race results

What wasn’t familiar was Busch’s victory at Pocono. It was his first, in his second start at the 2.5-mile triangular track. And it was Busch’s first Xfinity victory of the season in his fourth start of the year.

Busch’s No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota was the clear class of the field. Only the penalty put the outcome in doubt. Busch grabbed the lead from pole winner Cole Custer on Lap 3 of 100 and held it through the end of Stage 1, winning that leg by 7.171 seconds over teammate Christopher Bell.

But both Busch and Bell were too fast on pit road during stops and Lap 28, and the teammates restarted 21st and 22nd on Lap 31. By the end of Stage 2, won by Paul Menard, Busch had climbed to sixth, and from there it was a matter of time before he returned to the top spot.

That happened when he stayed out under caution after Bell and Justin Allgaier, two of the top contenders, wrecked on the Long Pond straightaway on Lap 60 and exited the race. Busch held the lead from the restart on Lap 66 to the finish and crossed the stripe 2.521 seconds ahead of runner-up Chase Elliott, who was subbing for suspended Spencer Gallagher.

“The car was on rails this week,” Busch said. “It was last week, too (in an eighth-place finish at Charlotte), but we were just able to over the deficit we had this weekend (from the penalty) and bring it back to the front.”

WATCH: Allgaier, Lupton trigger wreck

Busch’s only worry was getting through heavy race traffic in his charge from the back to the front after the start of the second stage.

“You’re always worried about something crazy or an unpredictable situation happening,” Busch said. “We just kind of had to bide our time and be patient a little bit, kind of make moves when we could make moves…

“All in all, though, we knew we had speed in our race car, and it was really fast out front, once we got to those top five, top six cars.”

Daniel Hemric ran third, followed by Austin Cindric, Custer and series leader Elliott Sadler.

Busch got 48 laps out of his last tank of fuel. Elliott, who passed Hemric for second with one lap left, was hoping Busch’s Camry would sputter before he reached the finish line.

“We came in to top off (on Lap 58),” Elliott said. “We wanted to be on the good side of fuel, and I was hoping these guys would push it a little too close.  … But it was a lot of fun, and I’m looking forward to the next one.”

Bell and Allgaier were victims of the Lap 60 crash that started with Sadler pushing Allgaier up the straightaway between Turns 1 and 2 in close quarters with the No. 28 Ford of Dylan Lupton. Contact between the cars of Lupton and Allgaier turned Allgaier’s Chevrolet toward the wall, where he collected Bell’s Toyota in the process. Both cars were damaged too severely to continue.

“I just made a mistake there whenever I followed Kyle (Busch) to Pit Road at the end of the first stage, Bell said. “He was going really fast, and I thought I could, too. And I just ended up speeding.

“There was nothing I could have done there with Justin, for that matter. We were just victims of Pocono restarts. It just got really hairy. It was exciting. That’s why sometimes we love it and sometimes we hate it.”

Sadler retained the series lead by 62 points over Custer in second and 63 over Hemric in third.

Posted on by RJ Kraft

LONG POND, Pa. — Ryan Blaney won the Busch Pole Qualifying Award and will start in the top position in Sunday’s Pocono 400 (2 p.m. ET on FS1, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) at Pocono Raceway. After two practice sessions and qualifying, we’ve dissected the numbers and 10-lap averages to offer a suggested lineup worthy of your Fantasy Live consideration as you go to make roster decisions for the 14th Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race of 2018. Remember that the garage locks at the end of Stage 2.

RJ Kraft’s revised Fantasy Live lineup following practices and the lineup being set:
1: Ryan Blaney
2: Clint Bowyer
3: Kyle Larson
4: Chase Elliott
5: Alex Bowman
Garage: Brad Keselowski

PLAY NOW: Set your Fantasy Live lineup | How the new Fantasy Live works
MORE: Fantasy analysis for Pocono | Driver stats | Full lineup | 10-lap averages

Analysis: As much as I’d love to have Kevin Harvick, Kyle Busch and Martin Truex Jr. in my lineup, I am electing to save the uses for a little later. I think given the projected fuel window of around 33 laps and stage lengths of 50, 50 and 60, there is a strong likelihood we will see varying strategies on pit road, making stage points a little tricky to forecast. I am down to five uses for each of that threesome and I simply like how some other tracks set up a little better for them. It could elicit some short term pain for a long term gain with this plan, I am at peace with that. Planning to stack my bonus picks with Harvick since he looks to be the strongest of the three this weekend.

By and large, I’m sticking with my original lineup except for one change. Blaney scored the Busch Pole for Sunday’s race. Bowyer posted the third-best 10-lap average in final practice and second-best 15-lap time (h/t @mikejoy500 for sharing on Twitter). Larson was second on the 10-lap board in final practice and best 15-lap average. Elliott has a solid history at Pocono with three top 10s, has been solid this weekend and I have plenty of uses with him. He’s also Steve Letarte’s pick for the weekend, so he has that going for him as well.

Keselowski has been further down on the speed chart than I expected, but I like him as a garage pick for two reasons. One is his strong Pocono history (eight top fives with five in a row at the 2.5-mile track) and the second is this track often turns into one that pays big dividends for strategy. There is no better duo on the box at race strategy than Keselowski and crew chief Paul Wolfe. My last active starting spot came down to a decision between Kurt Busch and Alex Bowman. The young Hendrick driver has been fast in practice and this seems to be a good spot to plug him. While Busch has been solid here of late as well, he was 17th on the 10-lap board and the No. 88 was 10th, while also being a full 1.4 mph faster in the 10-lap averages. I like being able to save the 2004 champion for another race.  


Posted on by Reid Spencer

LONG POND, Pa. — Given the strong buzz about the higher-downforce, restrictor-plate competition package used for the Monster Energy NASCAR All-Star Race in May, it was almost a foregone conclusion that the configuration would get additional test time — sooner rather than later.

That happened Tuesday and Wednesday at Michigan International Speedway in a Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series manufacturers’ wheel-force test at the 2-mile track. David Ragan drove a Ford, Justin Allgaier a Chevrolet and Drew Herring a Toyota.

RELATED: NASCAR taking ‘deep dive’ with learnings from All-Star rules package

“They’ve got a new tire for Michigan, so the manufacturers elected to use one of our wheel-force tests to go up, and we ran some laps with the current aero package, and we ran some laps with the new All-Star package,” Ragan said. “I felt like, with just three cars there, it’s really hard to get a really good read on what kind of draft you would have, what kind of ability you would have to pass cars.

“But I felt like it was similar to Charlotte. They cars drove really good. You could stay in the throttle. You felt like you were definitely going slower, but it did create a little bit of a draft, and it bunched everybody up. We only had three cars there, but we did run some together, and it was pretty easy to stay caught up with the person in front of you, and you could feel a pretty good draft going down the straightaway, and you could make up three or four car-lengths pretty easy.”

Steve O’Donnell, NASCAR executive vice president and chief racing development officer, said in an interview on FS1 Saturday morning that the package could be used in as many as three Cup points races this year to evaluate its possible viability for certain tracks in 2019.

“For us, it’s making sure everybody has had enough time to look at it, has enough time to evaluate it,” O’Donnell said. “If you look back at it, we really only ran it last year at Indy (Xfinity) and the All-Star Race, and this weekend is the first-time in Xfinity at Pocono.

“Taking all that data and evaluating if this is right direction to go is the first step.”

Ragan believes certain minor changes to the All-Star package could facilitate the ability to pass.

“I feel like they’ve got to tweak the package to allow a car that does get a run the ability to get out of line and continue with that run,” Ragan said. “Sometimes, at the All-Star race, a car in front of us would lift, and we would get a run, and you would pull out to pass, and you would still get stalled out.

“I think there are probably some different variations of spoiler height, maybe the front ducts or maybe a gear to tweak. The thought process behind the package would be ideal at some race tracks, but I don’t think it would work at every race track—at some race tracks, we don’t need anything different from what we have now.”

Posted on by Reid Spencer

LONG POND, Pa. — In 13 years with Richard Childress racing, Kevin Harvick won six poles.

When he moved to Stewart-Haas Racing in 2014, Harvick won eight poles in his first season with the team.

With SHR, Harvick is a threat to win the top starting spot wherever he races. He has five front-row starts this year, including two poles, and has qualified in the top 10 in all but two of 14 races. In those two events, Harvick never made a qualifying run — at Bristol after a wreck in practice forced him to a backup car, and at Charlotte when his No. 4 Ford failed to clear pre-qualifying inspection.

RELATED: Pocono starting lineup

To Harvick, the dramatic shift in results from time trials is primarily about priorities, both on his part and on the part of his organization.

“It is really just preparation,” Harvick said Friday after qualifying second for Sunday’s Pocono 400 (2 p.m. ET Sunday on FS1, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). “For me, in my previous life, it was about not worrying about qualifying and just get what you can get and go from there. The emphasis was different when I came to SHR, and the difference was that there was a lot of preparation and time spent in the differences of the setups and things you needed to do.

“The expectations were much different. When the expectations are different, it makes you think about things differently. There are two different processes. For me, I feel like I can do what I need to do on the race track for the race, but I prepare more for qualifying on a weekend more than I do a race, if that tells you the emphasis they put on it.”

Posted on by Staff Report

Kyle Busch led Saturday’s Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series final practice leading up to Sunday’s Pocono 400 (2 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR radio).

Busch, the series points leader, pushed his No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota to a top speed of 174.588 mph at the 2.5-mile Pocono Raceway. He also led the opening Pocono practice session Friday. Coming off a victory in the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte, Busch will start fifth on Sunday.

RELATED: Practice results | Starting lineup

Pole-sitter and defending race winner Ryan Blaney posted the seventh-fastest time in Saturday’s session, reaching 173.360 mph in the No. 12 Team Penske Ford at the “Tricky Triangle.”

Kevin Harvick, who shares the front row with Blaney in the Pocono 400, was second-fastest Saturday at 174.115 mph in the No. 4 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford.

Martin Truex Jr. was third on the practice leaderboard at 173.953 mph, followed by Alex Bowman (173.658 mph) and Aric Almirola (173.568 mph).

Ricky Stenhouse Jr. spun his No. 17 Ford about 17 minutes into the practice session but avoided the wall.