Posted on by Staff Report

NASCAR announced this offseason 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 Auto Club Speedway (3:30 p.m. ET, FOX, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) were unveiled.

Simply click the “print” icon above, next to the headline and social media icons, to get the full list.

RELATED: Overview of 2018 rules updates

Posted on by Staff Report

The 24 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series teams that passed pre-qualifying inspection and made a qualifying lap Friday at Auto Club Speedway will have the option to purchase a new set of sticker tires for the start of the race, series Managing Director Richard Buck announced late Friday night.

Teams normally start the race with the same tires on which they qualified. The change for Auto Club comes after 13 teams failed to pass pre-qualifying inspection at the 2-mile track. Those teams are not eligible to purchase a new set.

RELATED: Full starting lineup

Teams who purchase a new set of tires must return their respective qualifying sets of tires to Goodyear.

The total race-tire allotment remains unchanged — the starting set of four plus 10 race sets, per Buck.

PHOTOS: Every car, every paint scheme

Posted on by Pat DeCola

FONTANA, Calif. — In the immortal words of Major League II‘s Lou Brown, “We won a game yesterday. If we win one today, that’s two in a row. If we win one tomorrow that’s called a winning streak. It … has … happened … before.”

Kevin Harvick is on some kind of winning streak.

The Stewart-Haas Racing driver has won the past three Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series races, in a 2018 season that is but four races deep. That’s … insane? Ridiculous? Unprecedented?

All of the above.

In NASCAR history, eight drivers have strung together four consecutive victories against the best competition stock car auto racing has to offer — five of them went on to win that year’s title — but never this early in the season. Harvick’s No. 4 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford team can join the club this weekend in Sunday’s Auto Club 400 (3:30 p.m. ET, FOX, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), joining the likes of Cale Yarborough and Darrell Waltrip all the way to Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson.

RELATED: Drivers with four consecutive wins in NASCAR history

“I’m just happy to win one, let alone two in a row, three in a row,” Harvick said Friday at Auto Club Speedway. “And this most likely probably will be the only opportunity that you’ll ever have to do it because it’s hard to string together just putting a whole day together, and the odds of putting three weeks together …

“Anytime you can put your name next to a group of guys on a list (like that) is something that’s pretty special and just shows the magnitude of where our race team is at right now and how good it’s actually functioning.”

“Magnitude” is a good word for it — Harvick hasn’t exactly been sneaking his way into Victory Lane.

The 42-year-old has led a whopping 433 laps in his Atlanta-Las Vegas-Phoenix run, which is 39 percent of all the laps run this season and more than double the amount the next-highest driver has through four races (Kyle Busch, 147).

Keys to what Harvick and Co. have been doing?

Mental fortitude. Focus. Confidence. And it runs team-wide.

In other words, it’s all the things that matter in the NASCAR Playoffs and what most teams and drivers typically aren’t even sniffing in mid-March, with 22 races to go before the postseason even begins.

“I think everybody is extremely confident. I think that confidence just builds and every moment you just become more and more confident in the things that you can and can’t do,” Harvick said.

ANALYSIS: Taking a deep drive on Harvick’s historic production

” … We’ve talked about this in the past, but how do you race every week like you do in playoff mentality and that’s really what it’s felt like the first four weeks that we’ve been on the race track. That part, to me, is fun because I feel like that’s really what Jimmie and Chad (Knaus, No. 48 crew chief) did for so many years was they raced with a playoff mentality every week and were able to accomplish that in the shop, and if you can accomplish that in the shop that’s unique just because it’s so mentally draining and takes so much work to stay up with everything as you look at all the details and things that come with that.”

Credit, also, the work everyone at SHR had to put in pre-2017 as the organization shifted from a Hendrick Motorsports-aligned Chevrolet backing to a Ford program. The 2014 champion said it took a lot of work to get to this point of winning races after the swap, and everyone at the shop “carried that same workload over (to this past offseason), but all the work it took to switch manufacturers was already done so it’s like you already put everything in position.”

Harvick’s win last week at Phoenix was particularly impressive. While he didn’t quite dominate like he had the previous two weeks — and just about every Phoenix race prior to that, it seems — he won the race with a statement, landing in Victory Lane without the aid of his car chief.

The No. 4 team had been penalized earlier in the week, one of the stipulations being that Robert “Cheddar” Smith was suspended for a pair of races.

MORE: Harvick says penalty ‘just motivates us’

The team took that penalty, used it to fire up the group and prevailed.

“We all have so much confidence in each other and then you add everything that happened with the penalty in the middle of all that and it just really added fuel to the fire.”  

Playoff mode. Playoff mentality.

“… If you can get your team to that point of being able to be in that playoff race mindset every week, that’s something that most teams can’t do,” Harvick said.

And there’s little doubt what mode Harvick and the No. 4 team will be come Vegas in September, when the playoffs officially begin.

Posted on by Reid Spencer

FONTANA, Calif. – With the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series qualifying field thinned significantly by inspection issues, Martin Truex Jr. won his second straight pole of the season in Friday’s knockout qualifying session at Auto Club Speedway.

Avoiding the trouble from the seams between lanes that tripped up first- and second-round leader Kevin Harvick in the final round, Truex covered the two-mile distance in 38.592 seconds (186.567 mph) in the No. 78 Furniture Row Racing Toyota, edging fellow Camry driver Kyle Busch (186.437 mph) by .027 seconds for the top starting spot in Sunday’s Auto Club 400 (3:30 p.m. ET on FOX, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

RELATED: Qualifying results | See every car in the field

During time trials that saw only 24 of the 37 cars entered pass inspection and make qualifying attempts, Truex won the first Busch Pole Award of the season under sponsorship announced this week. The pole was Truex’s second of the season, following last week’s at Phoenix, and the 17th of his career.

“I felt really good about our chances after practice,” Truex said. “We opted to stay on one set of tires the whole practice and ran our fastest lap on scuffs… I felt like that was a big advantage for us. We ran the fastest lap of anyone on scuffed tires and felt like that would bode well for us in qualifying.

“We really just had to put it all together.”

Harvick, who will try for his fourth consecutive victory on Sunday, posted the fastest lap of the day in the first round, running 188.744 mph (38.147 seconds), eclipsing Denny Hamlin’s track-record 188.511 mph (38.194 seconds) set in March 2016. But the handling of Harvick’s No. 4 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford deteriorated, and he fell to 10th in the final round. 

“We were just tight as we went through every round,” Harvick said. “We had the same thing in practice, where the second round was just so much tighter than the first round. We tried to adjust on it and we made it better entering the corner and through the middle of the corner. 

“But as we got to the exit, right at that three-quarter mark, I just kept getting tighter and tighter, and then I got up the race track and got hung on the seam and got loose and kind of screwed it up.”

RELATED: Harvick ‘extremely confident’ No. 4 team has shot at history

Kyle Larson qualified third, followed by Erik Jones, giving Toyota’s three of the top four starting spots. Austin Dillon earned the fifth position on the grid, followed by Joey Logano, Kurt Busch and Ryan Blaney. 

None of the four Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolets made it through inspection in time to make a qualifying attempt. Two of Harvick’s teammates — Clint Bowyer and Aric Almirola — were sidelined for the session by inspection failures after posting top-five speeds in Friday’s opening practice. 

The silver lining for the cars that will start 25th on back on owner points, led by Denny Hamlin in 25th, is a tire advantage. Cars that took laps in qualifying will start on their scuffed qualifying tires. Those who didn’t take times will start on new tires, and Truex considers that a significant advantage. 

“It’s a huge advantage on that first run, especially if it goes long,” Truex said. “In my mind, if you’re not probably in the top four, you’re better off being 25th. It’s going to be a big deal. For us, hopefully we can get out front and get a big lead early in clean air and kind of get separated… 

“I know in Atlanta we started on stickers, and it was like a video game those first five laps, because you had so much more grip than everybody else.”

Posted on by Zack Albert

FONTANA, Calif. — Hours before he turned his first official laps around Auto Club Speedway, John Hunter Nemechek was getting an early Friday tutorial from one heck of a mentor: fellow Chip Ganassi Racing driver Kyle Larson.

Larson, who swept the weekend doubleheader at the 2-mile track last season, was behind the wheel of the pace car with Nemechek in the passenger’s seat before the track opened for practice. The two discussed proper turn-in points and other nuances of the well-worn pavement ahead of Saturday’s Roseanne 300 (5 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

RELATED: Full schedule for Auto Club

Though the 300-miler will mark only Nemechek’s second career start in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, he’s already finding comfort in his first season with the Ganassi team, where he’s pulling part-time duty in the operation’s stout No. 42 Chevrolet.

“They’ve given me every tool that I’ve been able to ask for, especially from being able to go and be ‘open notes’ with Jamie (McMurray) and Kyle and looking at all their stuff from years past and going over race data from years past,” Nemechek told NASCAR.com after Friday’s opening Xfinity practice. “… Those guys have definitely been a huge help, but I think in general, the whole Chip Ganassi Racing team, their motto is, ‘One team, one goal,’ so it’s all open book. Anything I need to see from going and looking at Cup data to talking to the crew chiefs and engineers to try and fill my brain with their knowledge and experience at different race tracks, it’s definitely a huge help.”

So far Larson says he likes what he sees out of the 20-year-old rookie, who is getting his first taste of Xfinity competition after scoring five wins in the Camping World Truck Series.

“I think any time when you’re young and you’re getting your first opportunity in Trucks or Xfinity, you’re really excited and you want to take full advantage of that,” Larson said. “John Hunter, he’s been great to get to work with. I mean, he’s in the gym every day, constantly watching video and learning and asking questions. So he’s very self-motivated, which is nice to see and he’s a very aggressive and fast race car driver. It’s cool to get to work with him a little bit and try to help out in any way I can.”

RELATED: Nemechek battles back for top-five finish in Xfinity debut

So far, Nemechek has been a fast study. He placed fourth in his Xfinity Series debut last month at Atlanta Motor Speedway, rallying from a one-lap deficit after suffering a cut tire in the race’s first stage. He said the experience taught him the power of patience when facing adversity, and his resilience was rewarded with a top-five result.

Nemechek has spent the last four seasons multi-tasking with his family’s truck operation, extracting maximum performance from a plucky underdog team with an employee count in the single digits. He’s still keeping his hand in the family-owned effort this year, racing in two of the Truck Series’ three events thus far.

The Xfinity Series duty, however, has helped Nemechek sharpen his focus, with the depth and assets of the Chip Ganassi-owned organization allowing him to direct his full attention to driving.

“I don’t necessarily want to say ‘luxury’ because you still have to work at it each and every day, but just being able to utilize all the resources they have,” Nemechek said. “Our truck team definitely was good. It helped me learn a lot throughout the year on how to manage your equipment, how to make the most out of your vehicle.

“So now, being able to switch over here, talk with all the guys and utilize them, just being able to go through the day-to-day routine over at the shop, going through different meetings and talking about what we’re focusing on each weekend, I definitely think that helps as a driver, just being able to focus on the driver instead of having to work on everything and focus on driving. I definitely think that’s all going to help.”

RELATED: Nemechek details decision to join Chip Ganassi Racing

Posted on by Reid Spencer

FONTANA, Calif. — NASCAR drivers who stayed out West during the #NASCARGoesWest swing found a variety of ways to spend their time between races. 

Brad Keselowski went off the grid to climb mountains and marvel at the majesty of California’s giant sequoias. Keselowski’s Team Penske teammate, Ryan Blaney, did something altogether different.

RELATED: Live from LA: The ‘Glass Case of Emotion’ podcast

A Star Wars and adventure fiction enthusiast as well as a comic book collector, Blaney visited the offices of DC Comics in Burbank, California, where he got a rare treat.

“I got to go in their archives and see some Superman No. 1’s, No. 2’s, things like that,” Blaney told NASCAR Wire Service during an announcement of NASCAR’s expanded partnership with Twitter at the sanctioning body’s offices in Century City. “That was so cool to me. Those archives  — there are three people that have keys to that thing. 

“It was super cool. And then to let us go in and look at it first-hand. Every single comic they’ve ever had is in this archive. They had a Richard Petty comic in there — it was pretty old. That was super cool to see.”

Posted on by Holly Cain

Since a spectacular and celebrated runner-up finish in his season-opening Daytona 500 debut, Darrell “Bubba” Wallace Jr. says he’s found a necessary balance between huge optimism and a big dose of confidence that comes with such a fantastic season start and the harsher reality of a steep, not unexpected rookie learning curve thereafter.

Since his historic run at Daytona International Speedway last month, Wallace has had finishes of 32nd (at Atlanta), 21st (at Las Vegas) and 28th (at Phoenix) in the three Monster Energy NASCAR Cup races afterward. He’s ranked 18th in the standings and still holds a nine-point lead over fellow high-profile rookie, William Byron entering Sunday’s Auto Club 400 at California’s Auto Club Speedway (at 3:30 p.m. ET on FOX, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

Earlier this week, Wallace broke up the three-week #NASCARGoesWest swing with a “field trip” of sorts with his team owner, NASCAR Hall of Famer Richard Petty. He rode snowmobiles and bonded with “The King” in Wyoming. The Alabama native had never visited the state before and he figures the timing and the time spent with Petty presented a good reset for the early season.

“It’s been actually really good,” Wallace said Friday, addressing reporters before opening practice in California.
“Ever since Daytona all the way up to that was just crazy madness and now I’ve been able to kind of relax and stay focused on what we need to do without any extra cameras or attention or anything.”

Of his season to date?

“Personal grade? I don’t know,” Wallace said. “It’s a learning curve, that is what I’m going to label it as. We are trying to figure everything out. I’m laying my head down at night not leaving a stone unturned, so in that regard I give myself an A+.

“But, we are just not hitting on all cylinders right now as a team. We are still figuring everything out from the switch, so it’s going to take us a couple of races. We are going to have some really good races, we are going to have some bad races, but we are going to keep our heads up and keep digging.”

It’s a positive outlook that has served him well over the years. And it will likely come in handy this week at the 2-mile Auto Club Speedway as Wallace makes his Cup debut on the track.

Wallace said he feels comfortable at the track despite the fact his No. 43 Richard Petty Motorsports Camaro is a Chevrolet and his previous starts were in a Ford. He said he still remained particularly encouraged and optimistic about the weekend considering he finished third there in the 2016 NASCAR Xfinity Series race and sixth in last year’s Xfinity race.

“We have had a lot of success here, a lot of good runs here in the Xfinity stuff,” Wallace said. “Just trying to utilize some of that and take that into today and learn throughout this weekend.

“This place is so wide, so many grooves and the biggest thing is tire fall-off. Once that happens, start moving up to the fence. Just got to manage it the best we can and take care of it all day.”

Wallace smiled about Auto Club Speedway scheduling only an hour of opening practice at a time he feels he needs the most time on track, “It goes by quick,” he allowed.

RELATED: See all the photos from Auto Club

It’s possible that Wallace’s time away from the track with the great champion Petty this week will compensate some for the high technical learning curve. The two spent time bonding outdoors and inside, even playing board games. The conversations and lessons learned were more “real life” than racing oriented.

“He might be the boss, but I’m still competitive,” Wallace said smiling and noting he beat Petty in a game of Rummikub.

“But, just seeing that and being able to have those in-depth conversations about racing, about life and what not, is really special.

Most important thing Petty has taught Wallace in their time together thus far?

“You can overcome a lot of things if you put your mind to it and you have the will to do it, but you can never overcome fate,” Wallace said. “That is the biggest thing that has stuck out to me. If it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be. If it’s not then, move on.”

Posted on by Staff Report

Kevin Harvick, winner of the last three Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series races, continued his speedy ways at Auto Club Speedway as he raced his No. 4 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford to the fastest time in Friday’s practice session, recording a lap at 189.066 mph.

Harvick’s lap was faster than the official track record of 188.511 mph set by Denny Hamlin in the 2016 qualifying session.

RELATED: Practice results

Two of Harvick’s Stewart-Haas Racing teammates — Clint Bowyer and Aric Almirola — also were among the top five as Bowyer was second-fastest in his No. 14 Ford at 188.211 mph while Almirola was third-fastest in his No. 10 Ford at 187.936 mph.

Ryan Newman was fourth in his No. 31 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet at 187.798 mph while defending Auto Club Speedway winner Kyle Larson rounded out the top five in his No. 42 Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet at 187.744 mph.

Daniel Suarez’s No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota sustained heavy damage to the right side about midway through the session when his car appeared to get loose and slammed into the outside wall.

WATCH: Suarez hits wall

Suarez’s No. 19 team raced to ready his backup car for qualifying, which begins at 7:15 p.m. ET on FS1.

One car served a practice hold — the No. 55 of Reed Sorenson sat for 15 minutes at the end of the session.

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FONTANA, Calif. — Jimmie Johnson ain’t going anywhere, folks.

The Hendrick Motorsports mainstay said he viewed news that longtime sponsor Lowe’s will depart sponsorship of his No. 48 Chevrolet in 2019 as “an opportunity” to find a new sponsor who will support a proven, seven-time NASCAR champion, and reiterated that retirement isn’t anywhere on his 42-year-old horizon.

 RELATED: Jimmie to have new sponsor

“Oh, the desire to keep racing is absolutely there,” Johnson said Friday at Auto Club Speedway. “Races, championships, and being a part of this great sport of ours; I’m going to be around for a while. I’m excited about that. … This is really a unique opportunity. It’s a great learning and growing opportunity for myself. When I started at age 25 and Lowe’s came on board, it was an entirely different environment.” 

Johnson has partnered with Lowe’s for 18 years. He thanked his longtime sponsor for its support and said he has already been “heavily involved” in the search for a new partner. 

“First of all, what a run to have an 18-year relationship with such an amazing company,” he said. “The friendships, the relationships, the way we’ve been able to deliver to their marketing efforts, the history we’ve made in our own sport, the chance I had to even drive a Cup car because of them. There are so many levels to it that I am very, very thankful for and proud of. Of course, I wish we could finish it out together, but that’s not the circumstance. But then, to look forward, I’m very optimistic about the future and myself and our race team.”

RELATED: Johnson’s career stats

The news is a shakeup to one of the most consistent dynamics in stock car racing over the past decade and a half-plus — in sports, it’s always jarring to see a long-tenured athlete don a new uniform/fire suit, a la Joe Montana in a Kansas City Chiefs jersey or Willie Mays in blue and orange New York Mets garb — but Johnson made sure to point out that he sees the future prospects of stock car racing to be in a good spot. 

“I see our sport growing,” he said. “I see many new sponsors coming into Hendrick Motorsports. I see a returning sponsor coming to NASCAR. I’ve seen full grandstands. It’s been an exciting start to the season. I really don’t feel it has a reflection on the sport. It’s a business decision that Lowe’s needed to make and that stuff happens. … There’s great optimism that we’ll land a sponsor and really be able to provide for whoever that might be.”

 MORE: See photos from ‘Seven-Time’s’ wins

And as for why the Johnson, the oldest full-time Monster Energy Series driver, doesn’t view this as an opening to announce this might be his final year of competition?

“I’m not done, man,” Johnson laughed. “Do you want me to go away? 

“I guess maybe it’s the eternal optimist that I am. I have more to do and I enjoy the process and Hendrick is home and retirement hasn’t been on my mind. I want to win. I want to win an eighth championship. … I’m the elder statesman in a company with three young guys. If I was to have this be the end, put Hendrick Motorsports in a very awkward position and I don’t know. There are just a lot of different ways I could look at it and say that it’s the absolute wrong time.

“But I guess at the end of the day it’s really my desire to compete and to compete at a high level. I’m not done yet.” 

The race to eight continues, no matter what fire suit he’ll be wearing.