Posted on by Staff Report

Martin Truex Jr.’s No. 78 Furniture Row Racing Toyota took significant damage when it hit the outside wall in Turn 4 on Lap 80 in Stage 1 of Sunday’s O’Reilly Auto Parts 500.

Truex, who has never won at Texas Motor Speedway but came in as a pre-race favorite, took his car to the garage and was done for the day — last in the 37-car field.

The defending series champion was running in second place when the problem with the right-front tire knocked him out of the event.

RELATED: Harvick, Kyle Busch split stage wins

Truex indicated the problem was with a tire going down, but he wasn’t sure what caused the issue.

“I don’t know if I ran something over,” Truex said after being released from the infield care center. “Speeds are really fast here today with the cool temperatures and I don’t know if that had something to do with it or not. We’ll just have to go back and evaluate that, but all in all we were going to be in for a good day.

“We were making the car better and still had room to go. We were as fast as anybody. At least that’s a positive and we’ll go on to next week and see what we can do.”

Posted on by Staff Report

Kevin Harvick won the first stage of Sunday’s Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race at Texas Motor Speedway, leading 73 of the 85 laps.

Harvick’s Stewart-Haas Racing No. 4 Ford started second in the O’Reilly Auto Parts 500 (FS1, PRN, SiriusXM), then took advantage of teammate and pole winner Kurt Busch’s first-lap bobble. The stage victory was his fourth through seven races this season.

RELATED: Stage 1 results

Harvick, a winner at the 1.5-mile track for the first time last fall, lost the lead only during the mid-stage exchange of green-flag pit stops. Denny Hamlin took over for 12 laps on an alternate strategy, but lost ground with a pit-road speeding penalty.

Kyle Busch finished second in the opening stage in the Joe Gibbs Racing No. 18 Toyota. Kurt Busch and Joey Logano completed the top four. Kyle Larson rallied from the rear of the field to finish fifth in the first stage. His Chip Ganassi Racing No. 42 Chevrolet failed pre-race technical inspection three times, requiring him to drop to the tail end of the pack during pace laps.

Defending series champion Martin Truex Jr. was poised to finish well in the points at the end of Stage 1, but crunched the outside retaining wall while running second on Lap 80. His Furniture Row Racing No. 78 Toyota was done for the day and the stage ended under the yellow flag.

A Lap 2 incident off Turn 4 damaged the hopes of Alex Bowman, Austin Dillon, Daniel Suarez and Paul Menard. All four continued, but were scored laps down in the running order.

Finish Driver Team Race points
1 Kevin Harvick Stewart-Haas Racing 10
2 Kyle Busch Joe Gibbs Racing 9
3 Kurt Busch Stewart-Haas Racing 8
4 Joey Logano Team Penske 7
5 Kyle Larson Chip Ganassi Racing 6
6 Clint Bowyer Stewart-Haas Racing 5
7 Jamie McMurray Chip Ganassi Racing 4
8 Brad Keselowski Team Penske 3
9 Chase Elliott Hendrick Motorsports 2
10 Erik Jones Joe Gibbs Racing 1

Stage 2

Kyle Busch prevailed in a topsy-turvy second stage of Sunday’s Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race at Texas Motor Speedway.

Busch jumped to the lead late in the segment, passing his brother, Kurt, with four laps left in Stage 2. The driver of the Joe Gibbs Racing No. 18 Toyota wrapped up his second stage win of the season.

RELATED: Stage 2 results

Kurt Busch, the pole-starter, was second at the end of the stage. Joey Logano, Erik Jones and Clint Bowyer completed the top five.

Stage 1 winner Kevin Harvick lost ground with a sluggish pit stop when the Stewart-Haas Racing No. 4 team’s jack jammed after a stray lug nut that stuck in the mechanism. That incident dropped him from the lead to ninth place, and he fell further back with an unscheduled pit stop to remedy a loose wheel.

Harvick, who won last November at Texas for the first time, ended the stage in 15th place.

The race was scheduled for a 334-lap full distance.

Finish Driver Team Race points
1 Kyle Busch Joe Gibbs Racing 10
2 Kurt Busch Stewart-Haas Racing 9
3 Joey Logano Team Penske 8
4 Erik Jones Joe Gibbs Racing 7
5 Clint Bowyer Stewart-Haas Racing 6
6 Chase Elliott Hendrick Motorsports 5
7 Brad Keselowski Team Penske 4
8 Ricky Stenhouse Jr. Roush Fenway Racing 3
9 Denny Hamlin Joe Gibbs Racing 2
10 Aric Almirola Stewart-Haas Racing 1

 

Posted on by Staff Report

Kyle Larson will start at the rear of the field for Sunday’s O’Reilly Auto Parts 500 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race at Texas Motor Speedway (2 p.m. ET on FS1, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) after his Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet failed pre-race inspection three times.

RELATED: Starting lineup

NASCAR officials handed down the grid penalty after the No. 42 did not pass the Optical Scanning Station three times. Car chief David Bryant has also been ejected from the race as part of the penalty.

Larson initially was slated to start 10th.

Posted on by

With lightning shortening Friday’s Busch Pole Award Qualifying to one round, opening round leader Kurt Busch will start Sunday’s O’Reilly Auto Parts 500 (2 p.m. ET, FS1, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) from the pole position. After three practice sessions for this race were in the books, 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 seventh 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 Texas | Driver stats | Full lineup | 10-lap averages

Jessica Ruffin’s revised Fantasy Live lineup following practices and the lineup being set:
1: Kevin Harvick
2: Martin Truex Jr.
3: Kurt Busch
4: Erik Jones
5: Ryan Blaney
Garage: Kyle Larson

Analysis: Kevin Harvick was a must-pick for me heading into the weekend and he’s still at the top of my list after one shortened qualifying session and three practice sessions — the final practice cut short by rain, as well. Not only has he shown speed in all three practice sessions, he’s also starting second, which could result in additional bonus points for stage wins if he were to get out front. I’m also taking his teammate and pole-sitter Kurt Busch.

Truex was also a must-pick for Steve Letarte and I earlier this week and I’m standing my ground on that; while he’s never won at the Fort Worth track, his Texas consistency — both in past races and during practice — show me that he’s a solid play that could contend for the win on Sunday. Couple that with the fact that he’s the mile-and-a-half ace, and you’ve got a winner.

If you’re playing veterans like Truex and Harvick, I would pay special attention to your garage driver; burning a Truex or Harvick pick for a top-15 finish isn’t ideal when both of these drivers are win contenders on a consistent basis. That brings me to my new garage pick; Kyle Larson. He’s starting in the top 10 and his strong 10-lap averages lead me to believe that he’ll stay there. He’s also a good backup option if your must-starters have an issue. I substituted Larson for my original garage pick Chase Elliott because the No. 9 hasn’t been quite as fast as I would have liked this weekend at Texas.

Erik Jones and Ryan Blaney are both strong, under-the-radar picks for me. Jones nearly matched Harvick in 10-lap average speeds during the final practice. Even though he’s starting 21st, I think that speed that he’s shown all weekend will get him to the front quickly. Blaney, on the other hand, has a strong starting spot (fourth) to go with speed in his No. 12 Ford. He led 148 laps in this race last year and I see no reason why the No. 12 will have issues running up front come Sunday.


Posted on by Pat DeCola

FORT WORTH, Texas — Everything’s coming up Milhaas.

Following a season that saw a manufacturer change, three total victories among its four drivers and only one driver finishing higher than 14th in the standings, it’d be hard for “The Simpsons” themselves to script a better start to the 2018 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series season than what Stewart-Haas Racing has enjoyed thus far.

The organization already has landed in Victory Lane more times than last season, winning four of the season’s first six races. With a stacked front row of Kurt Busch and Kevin Harvick set to lead the field to green in Sunday’s O’Reilly Auto Parts 500 (2 p.m. ET, FS1, PRN, Sirius XM NASCAR Radio) — with Clint Bowyer close behind in third — five out of seven is looking a Larry Davidian pretty, pretty good.

MORE: Full Texas lineup | Busch lands Busch pole 

Things are just clicking at the moment, and SHR appears to be in the best position as an organization it’s ever been in – no small claim given it has a pair of championships in less than a decade of existence.

Much of the increase in performance can be credited to a certain man … who hasn’t seen a race track all year.

“It’s hard to pinpoint one single reason (for the resurgence), but my ex-crew chief, Tony Gibson … for him to come off the road and be as involved as he is in building the cars for all four teams; calling the races, pushing cars through tech, I think he found his perfect role at SHR,” Busch said Friday. “He’ll say it’s about ‘the process’ but he has found some good people, rearranged them in different positions and created continuity between the four cars.”

Whatever Gibson is doing, it’s working.

MORE: Gibson set for ‘new chapter’ at SHR

All four drivers – including new addition Aric Almirola, who came within half a lap of winning the 2018 Daytona 500 – are solidly in the top 11 in points, have paced the field and are competing for victories each week.

With Ford sporting the oldest body style of the three manufacturers (Chevrolet introduced the Camaro ZL1 for this season; Toyota debuted the new Camry last year), some thought the blue oval could slip behind the duo even further this season, the sixth for the Gen-6 Ford Fusion.

That couldn’t be further from the truth, as even Ford’s other flagship stable in Team Penske has seen a bump in performance over ’17.

“You had another manufacturer get another body in the off-season and I was a little nerved up about that, knowing that the Fords would be the last ones to that. It has been go-cat-go,” said Bowyer, who ended the longest losing streak of his career last week at Martinsville Speedway. “We have focused on everything we can control and worked hard in the offseason. Everybody has. Aero, chassis, we made gains in every area and that is what you have to do at this level of competition that we compete against week in and week out. You have to make gains almost weekly. Doug (Yates) and everybody over at (Roush) Yates (Engines) with that horsepower, those babies are screaming under the hood. It is a lot of fun to be in this equipment right now.”

Both Bowyer and Harvick lauded team owners Tony Stewart and Gene Haas on Friday, citing the support, financial backing and long-term commitment to winning that both offer.

RELATED: Harvick: ‘We’re better than Truex’ | Race-day rundown

The results are undeniable, and the lineup that SHR currently sports after a few years of driver shakeup and mixed-bag results should be one that can remain constant and continue to build for the rest of the decade, at least. Heck, they’ve even managed to ignite the career of a 34-year-old Almirola, who’d finished in the top 20 in points just three times and never higher than 16th. The veteran driver is now in the mix week-by-week at the front of the field.

The direction of the company is steadfastly on the shoulders of the co-owners, but it’s clear their vision trickles down to Gibson, to the drivers, to the shop employees – some of whom have been there since Stewart made the leap from Joe Gibbs Racing ahead of the 2009 season.

You can’t buy that kind of stability.

“I think (SHR is) probably more stable then when I walked in the door last year. I thought that last year, (too). You just don’t have turnover,” Bowyer said. “When you really think about that and look at the employees, they’re employees that wanted to go over there when it was established with Tony and they’re still there today. That speaks volumes of the ownership, leadership, management, all the way down to the drivers, partners on those cars. It really just feels like family.

“It’s easy to be an employee there. You want to be an employee there. When you go to the shop you enjoy the conversation. … A lot of the places I’ve been in, you talk to an engineer and they don’t know what the hell you’re talking about when you’re talking about a late dirt model. You talk about some equation and they might be interested. Even there, the engineers are like, ‘What are you running on the left rear? What are you running on the right front?’ It’s a bunch of racers all the way through from the engineering department to the engine shop. They’re racers.”

Racers that, right now, are setting the bar for the rest of the series — and clearing it handily.

Posted on by Reid Spencer

FORT WORTH, Texas – On a cold, cold day in Texas, Ryan Blaney continued the hot streak of the No. 22 Team Penske Ford, winning Saturday’s My Bariatric Solutions 300 NASCAR Xfinity Series race in thoroughly convincing fashion.

Blaney won the first stage in a runaway, led 132-of-200 laps and beat runner-up Christopher Bell to the finish line by 2.327 seconds. The victory was Blaney’s first of the season, his first at Texas Motor Speedway and the seventh of his career.

RELATED: Race results | Stage 1 results | Stage 2 results

Furthermore, Blaney was the third different driver to pilot the No. 22 Ford to victory in the third of three straight races, following teammates Brad Keselowski at ISM Raceway in Phoenix and Joey Logano at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, California.

Ten years had passed since three different drivers had won three consecutive races with the same car number. Kyle Busch, Tony Stewart and Denny Hamlin won at Mexico City, Talladega and Richmond in 2008, with Stewart adding another victory in the following event at Darlington.

Blaney definitely felt extra pressure entering the race, thanks to Keselowski and Logano.

“Brad and Joey, they definitely reminded me of that this week,” said Blaney, who has finished in the top three in five of his six Texas starts (and eighth in the other). “They told me that they won in that thing, that it has won two in a row and not to mess it up. That’s what you don’t want to do. They were definitely reminding me of that.

WATCH: Blaney felt pressure from teammates

“And it’s in the back of your mind. You never want to be the person that breaks a streak of wins, especially when the car has been so fast. That’s a huge feat to do, win three in a row with three different drivers at pretty much three different race tracks. That is amazing. It’s nice to be a part of. There was that reminder in the back of my head to try to get this one.”

As part of his victory celebration, Blaney gave the checkered flag to a young fan – something that has become a signature aspect of his victories.

WATCH: Blaney gives checkered flag to young fan

“Whenever you can see them up close and personal and see how excited everyone is to be here, it’s just a bonus for us,” Blaney explained. “That makes us feel good. It makes us feel like we put on a really good show. I appreciate them sticking around.

“It was cold today for those watching, and they stayed out there the whole race. It was unbelievable how many kids were in the stands and at the fence and really cheering and pumped up. Hopefully they had a great time. My main thing is trying to make a memory that lasts a lifetime.”

Bell led a group of four qualifiers for next week’s NASCAR Xfinity Series Dash 4 Cash race at Bristol Motor Speedway. Eligible drivers include Daniel Hemric, Cole Custer and Ryan Preece, who ran third through fifth, respectively, in Saturday’s race.

RELATED: Dash 4 Cash 101

 

Posted on by Staff Report

Take a look at which drivers have the best 10-lap averages this weekend at Texas Motor Speedway in Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series.

PRACTICE 1: RESULTS

There were no drivers that completed 10-lap runs in opening practice.

PRACTICE 2: RESULTS

Pos Car Driver From Lap To Lap Avg Speed
1 31 Ryan Newman 25 34 195.483
2 42 Kyle Larson 2 11 195.197
3 18 Kyle Busch 17 26 194.996
4 20 Erik Jones 3 12 194.737
5 41 Kurt Busch 14 23 194.558
6 1 Jamie McMurray 15 24 194.239
7 19 Daniel Suarez 2 11 192.876
8 38 David Ragan 15 24 192.719
9 24 William Byron # 2 11 192.517
10 21 Paul Menard 1 10 191.591
11 34 Michael McDowell 4 13 190.973

PRACTICE 3: RESULTS

Pos Car Driver From Lap To Lap Avg Speed
1 4 Kevin Harvick 2 11 196.904
2 20 Erik Jones 1 10 196.439
3 14 Clint Bowyer 2 11 195.911
4 42 Kyle Larson 14 23 195.904
5 12 Ryan Blaney 17 26 195.747
6 18 Kyle Busch 2 11 195.561
7 10 Aric Almirola 10 19 195.192
8 22 Joey Logano 3 12 194.192
9 41 Kurt Busch 12 21 194.774
10 1 Jamie McMurray 5 14 194.312
11 21 Paul Menard 8 17 194.291
12 43 Darrell Wallace Jr. # 7 16 193.931
13 95 Kasey Kahne 2 11 193.541
14 9 Chase Elliott 10 19 191.863
Posted on by Staff Report

Daniel Suarez led all drivers in speeding around a chilly Texas Motor Speedway in Saturday’s early practice session, wheeling his No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota around the track at 198.998 mph.

Suarez’s JGR teammate Denny Hamlin was second-fastest in the No. 11 Toyota, driving 198.800 mph in preparation for Sunday’s O’Reilly Auto Parts 500 (2 p.m. ET, FS1, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

Practice 2 results

William Byron in the No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet was third-fastest at 198.741 mph. Jimmie Johnson in the No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet and Kevin Harvick in the No. 4 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford rounded out the top five.

Drivers battled newly cold conditions Saturday when the temperature hovered around 35 degrees during the first practice session, as the forecast in Fort Worth called for a high of 53 degrees.

Ricky Stenhouse Jr. scraped the right side of his No. 17 Roush Fenway Racing Ford when navigating Turn 4 with about 15 minutes remaining in the session. He will go to a backup car.

Harrison Rhodes in the No. 51 Chevrolet served at 15-minute hold at the end of the 55-minute practice session for being late to qualifying inspection.

Practice 3 results

Seven-time Texas winner Jimmie Johnson led a rain-shortened final practice Saturday afternoon when he wheeled his No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet around the track at 198.143 mph.

Kevin Harvick was second-fastest after speeding around Texas Motor Speedway at 197.984 mph in his No. 4 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford. Daniel Suarez in the No. 19 Toyota, Kurt Busch in the No. 41 Ford and Martin Truex Jr. in the No. 78 Toyota rounded out the top five.

Rain and track-drying efforts delayed the start of practice that was scheduled to begin at 1:30 p.m. ET by 37 minutes. What was originally scheduled to be a 50-minute practice session was shortened to 23 minutes.

Ryan Newman served a 15-minute practice hold for his No. 31 Chevrolet failing qualifying inspection twice.