Posted on by Reid Spencer

AVONDALE, Ariz. – Hendrick Motorsports is back. 

That was the brief consensus when Jimmie Johnson shot to the top of the speed chart in the first round of Friday’s knockout qualifying session at ISM Raceway.

But the seven-time champion’s stint at the front of the field was short-lived. In the second round, Johnson was 17th fastest and failed to advance to the final round.

RELATED: Starting lineup | Bowman has ‘really good notebook’ for Phoenix

Inexplicable? Hardly.

“I kind of look back to the amount of practice we had today. We only had 20 minutes practice because of the issues we had in Las Vegas, and I never had a chance to go out on scuffed tires to see what adjustments we had to make,” Johnson said.

Johnson’s car failed pre-race inspection three times at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, and the team lost 30 minutes of practice time in the one session before qualifying on Friday. That left no time for the No. 48 Chevrolet team to make any runs on scuffs.

“I had two runs on stickers in practice, and we clearly dialed that part of the car in, and it would have been nice just to have a scuff run to go out and understand what exactly to do. I’m very optimistic with the speed in the car in that first round and look forward to a full practice session or two (Saturday) and dial this Lowe’s for Pros Chevy in.” 

Johnson needs a reason for optimism. He enters Sunday’s TicketGuardian 500 (3:30 p.m. ET on FOX, MRN and SiriusXM) 29th in Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series points.

Posted on by Reid Spencer

AVONDALE, Ariz. — The good news about the composite body in the NASCAR Xfinity Series this year? As JR Motorsports driver Justin Allgaier put it, the transition from sheet metal bodies has been a smooth one.

Asked whether there were noticeable differences that accompanied the change, Allgaier said, “As far as the fundamentals go, no, not really.

MORE: Full weekend schedule at Phoenix | What did ISM Raceway upgrade?

 “We do the same things when we go to the race track. The inspection line is the same, albeit probably a little bit harder if you’re out of tolerance … it’s harder to put yourself back into tolerance, because the bodies are not as pliable.

“And the amount of bracing that we have is way different. We’re kind of stuck in a box with where the braces have to be at. It puts it on the guys at the shop a lot more to have everything where it needs to be.”

NASCAR’s new Optical Scanning Station has put the onus on the race teams to make sure the bodies conform to the rules before they’re unloaded at the race track. 

“I think everybody’s kind of going through that,” Allgaier said. “But, for us, the one thing that’s been nice is that the composite body has been pretty seamless, as far as just introducing it and rolling it out.

“It takes a lot of work to make it seamless, but all the teams have put the effort and the time into it, and it seems like it’s working out really well.”

Posted on by Reid Spencer

AVONDALE, Ariz. – Defending Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series champion Martin Truex Jr. finally found the extra speed he needed at ISM Raceway.

Saving his best lap for the final round of knockout qualifying on Friday at the one-mile track in the Sonoran Desert, Truex sped around the circuit in 26.288 seconds (136.945 mph) to win the pole position for Sunday’s TicketGuardian 500 (3:30 ET on FOX, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

Truex beat Kyle Larson (136.643 mph) by .058 seconds to earn his first pole of the season, his second at ISM Raceway and the 16th of his career. But Truex hadn’t claimed the top starting spot at ISM since he led the field to the green flag in the fall of 2009. Truex said a strong game plan and a variety of factors contributed to the pole-winning run for the No. 78 Furniture Row Racing Toyota.

RELATED: Full qualifying speeds | See the full field | Practice 1 results

“I think it was a little bit of everything,” Truex said. “I wouldn’t say I held back that much the first two runs. But we really worked on our car in practice to try to be best in that third run and to understand what we needed to do for balance-wise throughout those three runs. Honestly, sometimes you just hit it right, and today all the stars lined up, and here we are. 

“So many little things come in to play when you’re talking about how to pick up half of a tenth at the racetrack. Just a lot of little things and details that were done properly, and that’s what’s so fun about our team. We work together so well. They can tell me I’m not driving right, and I can tell them they’re not setting up the car right, and we can meet in the middle.”

Chase Elliott (136.126 mph) qualified third, followed by Alex Bowman (136.080 mph) and Joey Logano (135.947 mph).

Time trials took place two hours earlier than their traditional later afternoon time slot, and Larson thought he had a strong shot at his first Phoenix pole.

“Our Credit One Bank Chevy has been really good here the last few years and actually, I’m a little disappointed in second, because I always qualify good here,” Larson said. “I think I’ve been like in the top eight every single time I’ve qualified at Phoenix (except for a 12th-place start in 2015) and still don’t have a pole yet. 

“I thought today was going to be the day. I thought my first lap was okay, but Martin, obviously, their team hit it there for that final round. Sunday’s race will be fun. Like I said, we’ve been fast here the last few years, so it would be nice to close out the weekend with a win.”

Denny Hamlin, Kyle Busch, Jamie McMurray, Erik Jones and Kevin Harvick completed spots six through 10 on the grid. Harvick is a record eight-time winner at ISM and is on a two-race winning streak this season entering Sunday’s event.

After laying down the fastest lap in Round 1, Jimmie Johnson failed to make it into the final 12-car round as he’ll start 17th in the No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet on Sunday.

Brad Keselowski was the biggest shocker of the day after failing to advance to the second knockout round. He’ll start 25th in the No. 2 Team Penske Ford.

The red flag was briefly displayed after Jeffrey Earnhardt hit the wall during the first round of group qualifying, locking up the brakes on his No. 00 Chevrolet going into Turn 3. He will start last in the 37-car field.

Posted on by Staff Report

Kevin Harvick said Friday that the psyche of the Stewart-Haas Racing No. 4 team is undaunted, explaining that a midweek penalty after last Sunday’s win at Las Vegas Motor Speedway “just motivates us.”

Harvick’s response may be reason enough for the rest of the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series field to be worried at ISM Raceway at Phoenix, easily one of the veteran driver’s best tracks.

“It says a lot about our team,” Harvick said Friday before opening practice for the series’ fourth race of the year. “A lot of us didn’t know where we were going to stand as far as performance. As a whole, Stewart-Haas Racing, we were within a half a lap of winning every race so far. You can’t knock anything that we have done and everybody has done a great job.

“We have a lot of momentum and these things tend to make you closer, stronger and better.”

MORE: Harvick says no decision yet on appeal

On Wednesday, NASCAR announced the No. 4 team was found in violation of Sections 20.4.8.1 (dealing with rear window support) and 20.4.18 (rocker panel extensions) in the 2018 NASCAR Rule Book. A brace meant to support the rear window was found to have failed, and the rocker panels (side skirts) were not made of aluminum.

In addition to the loss of seven playoff points, the team lost 20 points from the overall championship standings and crew chief Rodney Childers was fined $50,000 for the L1-level penalty. Car chief Robert “Cheddar” Smith is set to serve the first race of a two-event suspension this weekend.

Childers noted that it has been a bit tough without Smith and agreed that the penalty is motivational.

“(Harvick has) actually talked about the last 24 hours how badly he wants to come out here and win and just kind of put everything to bed,” Childers told NASCAR.com after Harvick qualified 10th. “In all honesty we haven’t been as good here lately as what we should have been or what we were in our early years here at Phoenix. We did better last fall; we had a top-five car most of the race. Normally qualifying in the top 12 is a good thing for us here. To qualify top 10 is pretty good. …

“The car’s been driving good, we really haven’t had to make many adjustments and I haven’t had to work on it a whole lot,” he continued. “It’s always a deal where he needs to kind of get in a rhythm – that’s the reason he’s good here, he kind of gets in a rhythm and gets stuff figured out and today just doing qualifying runs it was hard to get in a rhythm and get sorted out.”

Childers added later, “The best way is just to go out there and run good and prove a point. So that’s what we’re going to try to do.”

Sunday’s TicketGuardian 500 (3:30 p.m. ET, FOX, MRN, SiriusXM) marks the second event in the three-race NASCAR Goes West swing for the sport’s top series. Harvick is aiming to become the series’ first driver since Joey Logano in 2015 to win three consecutive races.

Harvick tops the 1-mile track’s all-time win list with eight Phoenix victories in his career, but he hasn’t won here since March 2016. That triumph capped an especially successful stretch of six wins in an eight-race span in the Arizona desert.

RELATED: Drivers to win three straight races | No. 4 team penalized

Contributing: Jessica Ruffin

Posted on by Holly Cain

AVONDALE, Ariz. — This weekend’s arrival in his home state for Sunday’s TicketGuardian 500 (3:30 ET on FOX, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) at ISM Raceway in Phoenix is a sentimental first for Hendrick Motorsports driver Alex Bowman. 

It isn’t his first start in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series on the 1-mile oval and it’s not even his first drive in the iconic No. 88 Hendrick Chevrolet Camaro. But it is the first time Bowman, 25, has driven this car as his own, set to take the green flag in a competitive opportunity at his home track.

 “It’s always fun to come home,’’ the Tucson, Ariz. native said Friday morning before opening practice in Phoenix.

“Don’t really get to spend a lot of time out here. It’s definitely an enjoyable trip. I really enjoy this racetrack, too. Pretty successful here, wish we could close races a little better here.

“We have run really well here in the Xfinity Series and in the Cup Series. Just never been able to close one off. Hopefully, that all changes this weekend.” 

RELATED: Practice results | Weekend schedule for Phoenix

Filling in for a then-injured Dale Earnhardt Jr. two seasons ago in the Phoenix Fall race, Bowman scored his first-ever Cup pole position and led an impressive 194 of the 324 laps on his way to a sixth-place finish – his first top-20 showing there. The pole position and the finish career bests, too.

It wasn’t just good for the heart, it was the ultimate chance to prove he could do big things with the right opportunity. And Hendrick Motorsports is the ultimate opportunity. After being named to take over the No. 88 when Earnhardt retired at the end of last season, Bowman’s career has taken a new avenue and the prospects are now in line with his expectation.

He won the pole and led 13 laps in the season-opening Daytona 500, but was sidelined after being caught up in an accident. He has added finishes of 20th (Atlanta) and 16th (Las Vegas) since and is actually the highest-ranked driver in the four-car Hendrick stable — 17th in the standings — coming to Phoenix.

“Well, Daytona went well,’’ Bowman said. “We had a really fast race car and contended all day and then got caught up in a wreck at the end. There is really nothing you can do there. But you know, other than that, we have not run how we expect and how we want to run.

“It hasn’t been a great start for us. I think we unloaded at Atlanta and quickly realized that we have a lot of work to do. We’ve got the best guys in the business back at the shop working hard. We made progress last week. We were definitely better last week. We didn’t get the finish that we would have hoped for, but we are making progress. 

“To start the year, we are behind what we expected to be, but like I said before, there is such a depth of really smart people at Hendrick Motorsports that I’m confident that we will be contending for race wins soon.” 

Interestingly, Bowman doesn’t necessarily consider his home track a particularly “best” shot for his first trip to Cup’s victory circle. His best NASCAR finish on it is a runner-up in a 2011 NASCAR K&N West Series race there when Bowman was only 18 years old. But the sixth place here two years ago gives him reason to smile. He remains optimistic about his chances this weekend. His last time behind the wheel of this car at Phoenix produced a career highlight reel. At last, he is in the ride of his life and there has never been a better time – or frankly, locale — to seize this opportunity.

“Absolutely, we have a notebook of what I liked here and a really good one at that,’’ Bowman said of making his first “return” trip to a track driving a Hendrick car.

“We were really fast here before,’’ he said. “I think it’s a positive. We’ve got some changes. The race car has changed, we have the new car in the Camaro ZL1.

“A lot has changed, but at the same time at least we have something to kind of look back on and look at what changes I liked and didn’t like throughout practice and where our car was strong and where we needed work. 

“I think it’s always good to have that notebook to lean on and especially here with as good of a notebook as we’ve had.”

Posted on by Staff Report

Kyle Larson surged atop Friday’s opening Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series practice from ISM Raceway, sealing a 1-2 leaderboard sweep by Chip Ganassi Racing.

Larson powered the CGR No. 42 Chevrolet to a 138.281-mph lap around the 1-mile Arizona track. His lap, recorded just as practice was ending, dropped teammate Jamie McMurray to the second spot.

RELATED: Practice 1 results | Full schedule for Phoenix

McMurray held on for the second-fastest lap at 137.762 mph in the Ganassi No. 1 Chevrolet. Kyle Busch, rookie William Byron and Chase Elliott completed the top five in the 50-minute session, the first prep for Sunday’s TicketGuardian 500 (3:30 p.m. ET, FOX, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Chevrolets occupied four of the top five spots

Kevin Harvick, an eight-time Phoenix winner aiming for his third victory in a row in the series, was 11th-fastest in the Stewart-Haas Racing No. 4 Ford. Ryan Newman, the defending race winner, turned in the 15th-best lap in the Richard Childress Racing No. 31 Chevrolet.

Ricky Stenhouse Jr. brought out a caution period when he scraped the Turn 3 wall with the right side of his No. 17 Ford before completing a lap. His Roush Fenway Racing crew unloaded a backup car, but he was unable to return to the track in first practice. Stenhouse later told FS1 that he sensed a braking issue with his car before the impact.

Three teams were docked time from opening practice because of inspection failures last weekend at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. The Hendrick Motorsports No. 48 (driver Jimmie Johnson) and Premium Motorsports No. 15 (Ross Chastain) served 30-minute penalties after failing pre-race inspection three times. The Go Fas Racing No. 32 team (Matt DiBenedetto) was docked 15 minutes for two failures in pre-race inspection.

Pole qualifying for Sunday’s 312-lap race is scheduled Friday at 5:15 p.m. ET (FS1).

Posted on by Brad Norman

RELATED: Full schedule for Phoenix | ISM Raceway renovations

“Christopher Bell was second.”

That’s how Kyle Larson’s two-year-old son Owen opened up his father’s NASCAR Xfinity Series post-victory press conference last weekend at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

And the budding on-track rivalry between the two young drivers is shaping up to be one fans can expect to enjoy for a very long time.

“It’s always fun to race Bell,” Larson told the media following his victory in the Boyd Gaming 300. “He seems to beat me all the time in the dirt stuff, and he edged me out there in qualifying (at Las Vegas). We were pretty equal. … It’s hard to get past him because he doesn’t make any mistakes.”

With less than two years separating the rising stars, the maturity and respect between the 25-year-old Larson and the 23-year-old Bell might be even more impressive than their abilities behind the wheel.

“That first stage felt like we were dirt track racing,” Larson explained. “Swapping lanes and stuff. I was trying to take the air out of him, and he got by. But I was able to get the top going. … It was fun.”

In his first season as a full-time Xfinity driver, Bell has two poles and two top-five finishes through the first three races of the season. Not too bad of a start for a rookie.

“That first stage was some of the most fun I’ve had in a stock-car,” Bell described after the race.

The Joe Gibbs driver claimed his second Chili Bowl victory in January — and of course his fellow dirt-track pilot was right there with him despite a heartbreaking blown engine. However, now that Bell is finding his groove and moving up the rankings through the sport’s series, the battle at Las Vegas won’t be the last one-two finish fans see between the drivers.

“Kyle man, he races me hard,” said the 2017 Camping World Truck Series champion. “He’s always raced me hard. … That was our first pavement race head-to-head together. If I was going to run second to anyone I’m glad it was Kyle Larson. That was really cool.”

Posted on by Staff Report

Kevin Harvick said Friday that he is unsure whether his Stewart-Haas Racing No. 4 team would file an appeal for an L1-grade penalty assessed after last weekend’s victory at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

“That’s just way above my pay grade within the team,” Harvick said. “I try to take in what I can get from the team with where we stand on how we feel about the penalty and then we move on. That’s really the reason I’m here today is to address it all, move forward and from here on out, the team and NASCAR can handle all that.”

Harvick’s remarks came Friday morning before opening practice for the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series at ISM Raceway at Phoenix, where he has won a record eight times. NASCAR officials confirmed Friday that SHR has not filed an appeal ahead of the Monday deadline.

Harvick enters the fourth race of the season on a two-race win streak, having assembled dominant performances at Atlanta and Las Vegas on consecutive weekends. But the postseason benefits for his Vegas victory were revoked after two technical infractions were found on his No. 4 car in midweek inspection at NASCAR’s Research & Development Center.

RELATED: Every winner at ISM Raceway | Full schedule for ISM Raceway

The team was found in violation of Sections 20.4.8.1 (dealing with rear window support) and 20.4.18 (rocker panel extensions) in the 2018 NASCAR Rule Book. A brace meant to support the rear window was found to have failed, and the rocker panels (side skirts) were not made of aluminum.

In addition to the loss of seven playoff points, the team lost 20 points from the overall championship standings and crew chief Rodney Childers was fined $50,000 for the L1-level penalty. Car chief Robert “Cheddar” Smith is set to serve the first race of a two-event suspension this weekend.

RELATED: No. 4 team penalized

Posted on by Team Release

WELCOME, N.C. – Richard Petty Motorsports (RPM) is pleased to announce Farmer John as its newest primary partner. Farmer John will be the primary sponsor of Darrell “Bubba” Wallace Jr. and the No. 43 RPM team at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, Calif. during the Auto Club 400 race weekend.

Farmer John is the leading supplier of fine meat products throughout the West Coast. This will be Farmer John’s NASCAR debut and first partnership with RPM. Just for the Fontana race, the brand is allowing fans the opportunity to win a VIP race experience with them on race day. Fans are encouraged to go to the Farmer John Instagram page (@FarmerJohnLA) to enter for their chance to meet “The King” Richard Petty and rookie sensation, Darrell “Bubba” Wallace, Jr., on race day. The lucky winner will then experience the race in VIP style.

 “It’s just cool to see brands getting on board with fans on social media,” said Wallace Jr. “I really enjoy seeing Farmer John interacting with the fans on Instagram. That’s keeping things fresh for our fans and giving them a chance to win these unique experiences. I’m really happy they are supporting our race team, too. They are stepping up to support us and also getting the fans involved, that’s great for everyone.”

“Farmer John is proud to share our West Coast Original brand with NASCAR fans at the upcoming Fontana race. We love the passion of NASCAR fans, and know they host the best tailgates. We are excited to see you at the race!” said Emily Detwiler, director of Farmer John marketing.

The Auto Club 400 at the Auto Club Speedway is scheduled for Sunday, March 18. The race will be televised live on FOX at 3:30 p.m. ET and broadcast on Motor Racing Network and Sirius XM NASCAR radio.