Posted on by Staff Report

The Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series and NASCAR Xfinity Series head to Talladega Superspeedway, while the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series is off. Check out the tentative full schedule below, subject to change.

Note: All times are ET

Sunday, April 29
RACE-DAY SCHEDULE
12:00 p.m.: MENCS Driver/Crew Chief Meeting (Drivers Meeting Room)
1:20 p.m.: MENCS Drivers Introductions (NASCAR Special Awards Presented Backstage before Driver Introductions)
1:59:15 p.m.:  Pledge of Allegiance: Boy Scout Troop 97 – Magnolia Springs, AL led by Senior Patrol Officer Fisher Bryant
2:00:20: Moment of Silence  (on-air, following presentation of colors)
2:00:50 p.m.: Invocation by: Mark Stokes, Alabama Raceway Ministries
2:01:15 p.m.:  Intro Presentation of Colors by: Alabama National Guard
2:01:30 p.m.: National Anthem: 313th United States Army Band, from Birmingham Alabama
2:02:45 p.m.: Flyover By: (3) F-18s from US Navy, Ragin’ Bulls (Turn 4 to Turn 1)
2:07:45 p.m.: “Driver’s, Start Your Engines” by: Gus Malzahn, Head Football Coach of the Auburn Tigers
2:19:45 p.m.: Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series GEICO 500 (188 laps, 500.8 miles), FOX (Canada: TSN 1, 3, 5) (Results)

Press Pass (Watch live)
5:30 p.m.: Post-Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race

Saturday, April 28
11 a.m.: NASCAR Xfinity Series qualifying, FS1 (Canada: TSN GO) (Results)
1:05 p.m.: Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Busch Pole Qualifying, FOX (Canada: TSN 5) (Results)
3 p.m.: NASCAR Xfinity Sparks Energy 300 (113 laps, 300.58 miles), FOX (Canada: TSN 1, 3, 5) (Results)

Press Pass (Watch live)
12:15 p.m.: Jeffrey Earnhardt
12:30 p.m.: Matt DiBenedetto and Mason St. Hilaire
2:15 p.m.: Post-Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series qualifying
5:15 p.m.: Post-NASCAR Xfinity Series race

Friday, April 27
11:35 a.m.-12:25 p.m.: NASCAR Xfinity Series first practice, FS1 (Canada: TSN GO) (Results)
12:35-1:25 p.m.: Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series first practice, FS1 (Canada: TSN 3) (Results)
1:35-2:25 p.m.: NASCAR Xfinity Series final practice, FS1 (Canada: TSN GO) (Results)
2:35-3:25 p.m.: Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series final practice, FS1 (Canada: TSN 3) (Results)

Press Pass (Watch live)
10:45 a.m.: Darrell Wallace Jr.
11 a.m.: Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
11:20 a.m.: NASCAR announcement
11:45 a.m.: Alex Bowman
2 p.m.: Kyle Busch
3:30 p.m.: Christopher Bell, Austin Cindric, Elliott Sadler, Matt Tifft
3:45 p.m.: Austin Dillon
4:30 p.m.: Brad Keselowski

 

 

Posted on by Zack Albert

RICHMOND, Va. — It was hard for TV cameras to miss teenagers Isabella Smith and Sam Wheeler at Richmond Raceway on Friday afternoon. They were the ones dressed in formal wear, holding a sign that said, “We skipped senior prom for NASCAR.”

RELATED: At-track photos from Richmond

The letters in the word “senior” included the No. 18 in their sign, showing support for Kyle Busch. The two young fans also had in their possession a life-size cardboard cut-out of the Joe Gibbs Racing driver. The right people saw it, calls were made, and before Saturday night’s Toyota Owners 400, Busch was personally greeting the couple to tell them they made the right choice.

“You guys are the smart ones,” Busch said. “Everybody else is talking about it.”

Wheeler, 17, and Smith, 18, made the trip up from Rocky Mount, North Carolina, where they attend Nash Central High School. Smith said they improvised with their own version of prom Friday night at the track, stringing up lights on the awning of their RV and dancing until the campground’s quiet time.

“We knew that it would be better, we’d have way more fun, we’d have a whole weekend of events instead of just one night,” Smith said. “Prom’s overrated.”

Posted on by Zack Albert

RICHMOND, Va. — If there’s such a thing as a six-figure consolation prize, Elliott Sadler found it at Richmond Raceway.

Sadler took third place in Friday night’s ToyotaCare 250, collecting the NASCAR Xfinity Series’ Dash 4 Cash $100,000 bonus as the top eligible finisher. He outdistanced Justin Allgaier (14th), Spencer Gallagher (17th) and Daniel Hemric (29th) in the second of four races this season for the lucrative incentive program.

MORE: Race recap | Race results

The finish, however, had a slight bittersweet tinge for the Virginia native, who came up just shy of his first victory at a track he calls home.

“All I could think about when we were up front and taking the lead and winning the stage would be how great would it finally be to pull one off here,” said Sadler, who led twice for 30 of the 250 laps. “We just got a little bit too tight there at the end.”

The loss of handling left Sadler with a finishing position behind the Joe Gibbs Racing entries of race winner Christopher Bell and rookie Noah Gragson, a runner-up in his Xfinity debut. It also left Sadler 0-for-30 at a facility that he’s been coming to — both as a fan and a driver — since childhood.

“We’ve had family season tickets here for over 40 years; I’m 42 years old. I would definitely trade in a lot of trophies for a win at this race track,” Sadler said. “It felt good to run as well as we did during the middle of the race. … I would definitely trade in this tomorrow — not that it’s a light thing, $100,000 — but a memory in Victory Lane is something that lasts a lifetime and something I’ve been dreaming about since I was a kid at this track.”

Posted on by Reid Spencer

RICHMOND, Va. – In a long green-flag run fraught with spellbinding tension, Christopher Bell held off Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Noah Gragson to win Friday night’s ToyotaCare 250 at Richmond Raceway.

Bell spoiled Gragson’s prospects for a victory in his NASCAR Xfinity Series debut, passing his teammate for the lead on Lap 172 of 250 and staying in front — if only just barely — the rest of the way.

RELATED: Race results | Sadler receives Dash 4 Cash check

Bell crossed the finish line .423 seconds ahead of Gragson, after the driver of the No. 18 Toyota got to the bumper of Bell’s No. 20 in the closing laps.

Virginia native Elliott Sadler ran third and claimed a $100,000 Xfinity Dash 4 Cash bonus, though he remained winless and frustrated at his home track. It was Sadler’s fourth career win under the Dash 4 Cash program.

“I had to work for it,” Bell said of his second career victory, his first of the season and his first at Richmond. “My teammate was really good. I knew throughout both practices that both of our cars were going to be really strong.

“Joe Gibbs Racing has been producing really, really fast Camrys for the last couple weeks, and it’s really shown … All in all, it was enough to stay in front of him at the end.”

During the final 79-lap run, Gragson fell behind by as much as 1.5 seconds, but when Bell hit traffic, Gragson closed in, trimming his deficit to a half-second with 20 laps left. At the 18-to-go mark, Gragson turned up the pressure and closed up to Bell’s rear bumper in the final laps but couldn’t get in position to make a clean winning move.

RELATED: Allgaier spins during Dash 4 Cash run | Gragson ‘stays disciplined’ in first Xfinity start

“It’s tough,” Gragson said of his first Xfinity start. “I found a little something in the track, a little speed there at the end of the second stage on old tires, and I kept it in my memory banks till the end, and I told my team, ‘I’ve got something when it’s time to go — just tell me when.’

“And about 18 to go, I told them, ‘I can’t wait any longer; I don’t have any more patience.’ And I ran Christopher down about two or three car lengths.”

Matt Tifft ran fourth in the No. 2 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet, followed by Austin Cindric with a career-best fifth. Bell, Sadler, Tifft and Cindric earned eligibility for the Dash 4 Cash bonus next Saturday at Talladega.

Sadler won the second stage, got the bonus and retained the series lead by 29 points over Bell but said he would trade the cash for a win at Richmond.

“I had a real strong run in that second stage,” Sadler said. “I was just a little bit tighter (handling) than I wanted to be at the end of the race. We can’t hang our heads. We won the Dash 4 Cash, and we’re part of the Dash 4 Cash going to Talladega next week, too.

“But we always want to win at this race track, and it’s a shame to come up short tonight.”

Pole winner Cole Custer ran sixth, followed by Ryan Truex, Jeremy Clements, Ryan Reed and Brandon Jones.

Posted on by RJ Kraft

Martin Truex Jr. won the Busch Pole Qualifying Award and will start in the top position in Saturday night’s Toyota Owners 400 (6:30 p.m. ET on FOX, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) at Richmond Raceway. After two practice sessions for this race, 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 ninth Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race of 2018.

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

RJ Kraft’s revised Fantasy Live lineup following practices and the lineup being set:
1: Martin Truex Jr.
2: Denny Hamlin
3: Joey Logano
4: Kyle Larson
5: Chase Elliott
Garage: Kurt Busch

RELATED: Stats to know for Richmond

Analysis: My lineup for Richmond happens to include the top six qualifiers for the Toyota Owners 400. Track position is important at a short track and a race that moves pretty quickly. Logano, Larson, Hamlin and Kurt Busch were all part of my original lineup and I’m sticking with them. Larson, in particular, looks to be one of the strongest cars this weekend and I’ve hardly used him thus far in Fantasy Live.

The two big changes for me are adding Martin Truex Jr. and Chase Elliott while taking out Kyle Busch and Brad Keselowski. Truex won the pole and posted the third-best 10-lap average in both practices. On top of that, he has run well at Richmond in recent years — nearly winning the fall race (under the lights) the past two years. With his wreck at Texas, I have an extra usage with MTJ I wasn’t initially counting out, so I am going to plug him in here. However, I will be pretty vigilante regarding his running position. Barring an incident from another driver in my lineup, Truex only stays in my lineup if he’s in the top five as Stage 2 comes to a close. If he is running outside the top five as we close in on Lap 200, he goes to the garage.

Elliott entered the weekend as an avoid play for me as I wrote about earlier in the week. However, he is starting second and had the second-best 10-lap average in opening practice; seventh-best in final practice. The kicker with Elliott is I have hardly used him through nine races — he’s only been in my lineup once. So I like taking him here with the strong starting position and saving Kyle Busch and Keselowski for another day given their starting positions towards the back of the field.


Posted on by Holly Cain

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – It was certainly a rough start to his “return home” for Denny Hamlin Friday at Richmond Raceway, but the three-time winner at the track smiled and remained optimistic about his chances come Saturday night’s green flag.

The Joe Gibbs Racing team was hard at work on Hamlin’s No. 11 FedEx Toyota from Friday’s opening practice on at the three-quarter mile Richmond track, trying to get it properly prepped for Saturday’s Toyota Owners 400 (6:30 p.m. ET on FOX, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

By the time Hamlin faced the media Friday afternoon after practices and before qualifying he was disappointed in the day’s rough start, but remained absolutely hopeful about the race.

“Obviously, it’s super frustrating from my standpoint and it is for (my team), too,” Hamlin said. “They don’t want to have to completely rebuild a car while they are at a race track. We are trying to figure it out. We’re trying to get between some teammates. We can get there here with some of our teammates, but we can’t on other things. I don’t know.

“It could be a really good race for us, it can also be really bad. I’m really not sure how it’s all going to turn out. I’m not sure with qualifying if it will be indicative of anything we have going on, but we’ll see how it all pans out. We’ll try everything we can to make the right decisions for tomorrow.”

The good news is Hamlin has always been good at Richmond. His three wins at the track is second only to JGR teammate Kyle Busch and his 1,653 laps led is top among all his competition this weekend. And he hasn’t finished worse than sixth in the last five races here, including a win in September 2016 from the Busch Pole position.

The past success along with his local ties to the area — he grew up in nearby Chesterfield, Virginia — make Richmond a place Hamlin always looks forward to racing. And he is vastly popular in the area – holding a hugely successful short track event at the local Langley Speedway Thursday night to raise money for charities he supports.

MORE: Hamlin on getting cheers again in home state

“We’ve been more hit and miss,” Hamlin said. “We were competitive one race here last year and the other one, not so much. It’s really feast or famine for us here at this race track.”

Hamlin enters the race ranked eighth in the championship standings, but he hasn’t had a top 10 in the last three races. A crash at Texas Motor Speedway two weeks ago left him with a 34th-place finish and he was 14th at Bristol Motor Speedway in Monday’s rain-delayed race.

That follows an incredible season start when he scored top-six finishes in four of the first five races – including a third-place in the Daytona 500. Richmond presents exactly the kind of opportunity Hamlin wants and needs to put his season back on that title contention trajectory.

“I was really optimistic coming here that we were going to start pretty quick and the way our cars ran at Phoenix, everything is fairly similar with the cars,” Hamlin said, noting his fourth-place finish in Arizona.

“Like I said, here today was a struggle, where Phoenix was pretty easy for us. A disappointing start to our weekend, for sure, but it doesn’t hamper what we expect for tomorrow night. I’m hoping we get it all figured out and we’re competitive enough as we should be here.”

Asked about his success in the spring versus fall races at Richmond and Hamlin again smiled, acknowledging all his victories have come in the fall. He said he had no logical explanation for that, offering one suggestion.

“I think typically I’ve been a driver who has gotten stronger as the year goes on,” he said. “That hasn’t changed for 13 or 14 years I’ve been doing this and the stats will back this up.

“I’m trying to do everything I can to perform earlier in the year, because we knew last year we didn’t collect as many bonus points for the Playoffs during the season as we needed. It’s on the radar for us.

“It’s not like we’re not trying, it’s just a tough go at it right now.”

Hamlin qualified fourth for Saturday night’s Toyota Owners 400.

Posted on by Reid Spencer

RICHMOND, Va. – After a dismal two weeks that saw the No. 78 Furniture Row Racing Toyota of reigning Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series champion Martin Truex Jr. crash out of races at Texas and Bristol, Truex found a welcome stroke of success on Friday at Richmond Raceway.

With a lap at 123.859 mph (21.799 seconds) in the final round of knockout qualifying, Truex claimed the Busch Pole Award for Saturday night’s Toyota Owners 400 (6:30 p.m. ET on FOX, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), edging Chase Elliott (123.621 mph) for the top starting spot by .042 seconds.

MORE: Full starting lineup | Best 10-lap averages at Richmond

The Busch Pole Award was the third of the season for Truex, who will make his 450th career start in the Cup series on Saturday. The pole is his first at the .75-mile short track and the 18th of his career.

Truex was happy for the rebound from the calamities of the two previous races.

“You can’t let those kinds of things get you down,” said Truex, who has turned pole wins into race wins in two of his last three attempts (October 2017 at Kansas and March 2018 at Fontana). “It was nothing we did. It was just circumstances. But I’m proud of the effort today. Everybody did a great job, we stayed focused on our plan, and it worked out.”

A standout on 1.5-mile intermediate speedways, where he has collected nine of his 16 career wins and seven of his last nine, Truex is still seeking his first victory on a short track.

“If we’re ever going to get that short-track win, I feel like this is the place to do it,” Truex said. “We’re excited about Saturday night, and starting out front definitely helps.”

Starting on the front row for the first time this season, Elliott placed more weight on one of the perks of an outstanding qualifying effort.

“I think more than the front row is the pit stall selection,” said Elliott, who will get second pick behind Truex. “Obviously, we know Martin will be good. He ran really well here both races last year. I would have loved to have had that first pit stall.

“We were just talking (about it being) so frustrating to be so close to something once again. Just trying to finish stuff off, and I think that obviously would have loved to have gotten the pole, but starting second is plenty good enough to run well in the race, so we will see.”

RELATED: Scenes from around Richmond

Joey Logano, whose last victory came at Richmond last spring (albeit later devalued by penalty), qualified third at 123.581 mph, just .007 seconds behind Elliott. After fighting severe handling problems throughout practice, Denny Hamlin nevertheless claimed the fourth spot on the grid.

Kyle Larson and Kurt Busch were fifth and sixth, respectively.

For a race that could extend his Cup winning streak to three events, Kyle Busch and his No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing team were overly conservative in the first round, posting the 32nd fastest speed and failing to advance.

“We didn’t make a mock-run in practice, and we thought the spread would be about three-tenths,” Busch said. ” … A bunch of those guys ran three laps, and obviously, we needed that third lap. It would have picked up. For some reason the tire here today, even in race trim, your fastest lap was the seventh lap. It takes a while for everything to come in, and we were trying to shortcut it a little bit and didn’t work out for us. So we’ll come from the way far back.”

Likewise Brad Keselowski, with a career-average starting spot of 9.8 at Richmond, failed to survive the first round. He’ll start 28th on Saturday night.

Posted on by

After winning Thursday’s Short Track Showdown at Langley Speedway, Denny Hamlin heard something he hadn’t heard in Virginia in a while.

Cheers.

“That was a welcome change,” Hamlin said Friday at Richmond Raceway.

RELATED: Hamlin connects on a night celebrating short-track roots

The Chesterfield, Virginia, native heard more boos than usual at the series’ second Virginia track Martinsville Speedway last October when he made contact with Chase Elliott, spinning out his Chevrolet.

Elliott’s strong fan base didn’t help Hamlin’s cause in that instance, as many cheered when Elliott spun Hamlin out two weeks later at Phoenix. But it’s nothing new; the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing driver cited another well-known racing incident that saw a similar scenario play out.

“I think fans live in the moment,” he said. “… I forgot the year Rusty wrecked Jeff Gordon off of Turn 2, but I remember sitting in my seat and the crowd went crazy because they hated Jeff so bad. A few years later, Jeff’s their favorite driver. Fans are fickle, and you can’t please them all the time. I found that out pretty quick.

“It doesn’t matter where you’re from, if you wreck someone they really like, they just don’t like you.”