Posted on by RJ Kraft

DAVIDSON, N.C. — One races cars for a living. One plays basketball. Both have their rookie stripes. 

That shared first-year experience as Darrell Wallace Jr. and Malik Monk rise up the ranks helped bring the pair together for a unique opportunity this week.

Monk visited the Richard Petty Motorsports shop Tuesday with Wallace as his tour guide as the new No. 43 Chevrolet driver gets ready for his freshman season in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series. Thursday night at Davidson Day School, Wallace participated in a workout with the Charlotte Hornets’ first round (No. 11 overall) 2017 NBA draft pick.

RELATED: Wallace through the years | Bubba eager to enjoy racing at top level

“It was cool to cross paths and give him a little taste of our world,” Wallace told NASCAR.com after the basketball workout wrapped up Thursday night.

Since NASCAR is in its offseason, Wallace is looking forward to getting Monk out to the track to “enjoy a race and see what goes on.” The pair hopes that will work out for one of the three race weekends that Charlotte Motor Speedway hosts in 2018. Wallace will see Monk’s Hornets take on the Atlanta Hawks on Friday night.

Monk, who grew up in Arkansas and is a NASCAR fan, did get some simulator time against Bubba and gave the driver of the famed No. 43 a run for his money on a fast lap at Daytona.

“I thought for sure I’d beat his lap on the first lap but it took me two laps to get him,” Wallace quipped. “So once the momentum got built up I had him but only by a tenth.”

Upon walking through the shop, Monk was able to draw a parallel from the hoops world to NASCAR.

“Just seeing how the cars get put together. How the whole team works together and they all know what pieces they are working on. It’s just like basketball,” Monk told NASCAR.com. “The whole team has to be together if they want to make something perfect.”

The biggest lesson for Monk was in how Wallace carried himself around the shop.

“He is very comfortable,” Monk said. “Not letting anything get overwhelmed. Just keeping his head on straight and just being humble. I think I can take a lot from that.”

The basketball workout saw Monk’s trainer, Nathan Conley of Court XIV, work the duo through a series of drills over the course of about an hour that focused mainly on ball handling and shooting. A five-year veteran of the Denny Hamlin-formed Hoop Group, Wallace was able to hold his own, while the 19-year-old NBA freshman showcased his long-range shooting ability. At the tail end of the workout, Wallace got to wear a pair of strobe glasses to help train the connections between one’s eyes, mind and body. This sort of training helps to slow the game down and allow a player to perceive greater detail.

Darrell Wallace Jr. Malik Monk
RJ Kraft/NASCAR Digital Media

“To see how quick he is with his feet and hands and not looking down, looking up the whole time, that’s impressive,” Wallace said of Monk. “He’s only 19 so I’m pretty sure he picked up a ball pretty much whenever he first could. That’s the same thing for me with racing. So once we get into our sports we know it like that back of our hands. We can do great things with the equipment that we have right in front of us so it’s impressive to see him ball.”

Being rookies in their sports allows for some similar experiences that each can draw on.

“We actually talked about that on Tuesday,” Monk said. “You got to prepare mentally. You got to be mentally tough to go around the track for 500 miles. Coming into a rookie season you don’t know what to expect.”

Monk’s rookie campaign has had some peaks and valleys through the first half of the NBA season and Wallace said he could certainly relate to that as he matriculated up NASCAR’s national series ladder.

“You got to trust the process and your big break is going to come through. My big break came through this year,” Wallace said, “so we’re excited to see what we can do this year. It’s just a step. It’s one hurdle you got to get over and after that, it’s not going to be a smooth sail but you can set sail from there.”

Posted on by Brad Norman

The youth movement in NASCAR is in full swing, and Kyle Larson believes fans are in for quite a treat over the next few years … or decades.

“There’s a lot of good drivers, a lot of young drivers,” Larson told NASCAR.com after announcing an expanded partnership with DC Solar. “It’s been really, really cool to see opportunities open up for a lot of young people. You know, I’m 25 and I’m kind of like the middle-age group. This is my fifth year in Cup which is crazy to think. It’s awesome to see.”

MORE: Blaney calls out Kyle Busch | Larson, McMurray talk Rolex 24 

Among the up-and-comers is 2017 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series champion Christopher Bell, a driver Larson knows very well thanks to their shared passion for dirt racing.

Larson and the 23-year-old Bell are considered two of the best dirt drivers in NASCAR. Bell most recently bested Larson for his second consecutive Chili Bowl championship, but had help from an unfortunate blown engine from the California native’s car with less than 15 laps to go.

“We both have a lot of respect for each other” Larson said. “We race hard against each other. But we realize, I think, I’m not bragging about myself, but how talented … equally talented we both are as drivers. He definitely pushes me to be a better driver, and I think push him to do better.”

Larson doesn’t see any reason why he won’t continue to duel with Bell as he rises up through the NASCAR circuits. The two will compete against each other in a handful of Xfinity races in the 2018 season, with Bell as a full-time driver for Joe Gibbs Racing.

But Larson believes he will be revving up his engine next to Bell on Sundays sooner rather than later.

“I don’t see why he wouldn’t at least make the (Championship 4) at Homestead for the next two years,” Larson said. “And probably win a championship or two in those two years. Then he’ll be in the Cup at some point I’m sure in the near future. NASCAR fans are getting ready to be spoiled.”

The 2018 season also will bring a fresh start for the No. 42 team, which had four wins last year but fell on bad luck at the end of the season and into the playoffs. Four consecutive DNFs (Kansas, Martinsville, Texas, Phoenix) took Larson out of championship contention.

However, he feels confident that the momentum they earned from multiple trips to Victory Lane is what will carry over as the team gears up for the Daytona 500 — not the miscues.

“Last year, I didn’t know we were going to be that good,” he said. “Then we started off the year really good, and I was like ‘Wow we have a really good shot at a championship’ early on. We maintained that consistency and competitiveness. I hope that we can do that again.

“I feel like when you get close like we were last year, it pushes everybody to be as good or better than what we were. I expect that we will be contenders again.”

Posted on by Staff Report

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — One of the perks to winning the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series championship comes in May, when the voting panel convenes to deliberate on the next NASCAR Hall of Fame class. The previous season’s champion is among the few privileged who cast an official ballot.

That may not be Martin Truex Jr.’s last brush with the Hall of Fame, either.

The 2017 champion, Truex Jr. joined an absurdly elite group of NASCAR drivers to win a premier series championship — just 32 drivers own that distinction, and it’s the ultimate trump card when Truex Jr.’s name eventually appears on the ballot.

“That’s insane,” said Truex Jr., who presented NASCAR’s first champion Red Byron into the Hall of Fame earlier this month. “Yeah, I can’t believe that. Just to think ‑‑ yeah, that’s just crazy. Blows my mind.”

RELATED: Members of the Hall of Fame

Strengthening Truex Jr.’s eventual case are his back-to-back NASCAR Xfinity Series titles in 2004-05, making him one of just five drivers to win titles in each of NASCAR’s top two series.

He enters 2018 primed to build on his career total of 15 wins following a prolific eight-win campaign.

“I never thought about it until Winston Kelley (Executive Director, NASCAR Hall of Fame) actually said it to me,” Truex Jr. said. “Before Christmas every year, our foundation, we go to Levine’s and walk around and hand out toys to all the kids, and I put my Santa hat on. Winston Kelley always goes there and helps, and he’s like, just out of the blue, we’re standing there talking and getting ready to go hand out toys, and he’s like, ‘You know, you’re pretty much a lock to get in here now.’

“He told me that, and I was like, ‘Well, I hadn’t even thought of that.'”

Another season like 2017 and Truex Jr. won’t need to think twice.

Posted on by IMSA Wire Service

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – With everyone on pit road watching the scoring monitors from the edge of their seats, Wayne Taylor Racing’s Renger van der Zande stole the Rolex 24 At Daytona Motul Pole Award from Acura Team Penske and Helio Castroneves on the final lap of the 15-minute qualifying session Thursday at Daytona International Speedway.

Van der Zande’s lap of 1:36.083 (133.378 mph) edged Castroneves by 0.007 seconds as time expired. Van der Zande joins defending Prototype champion Jordan Taylor in the No. 10 Konica Minolta Cadillac DPi-V.R. this season and will be joined in the Rolex 24 by IndyCar star Ryan Hunter-Reay.

Ironically, Castroneves’ teammate this season is Jordan Taylor’s former co-driver and older brother Ricky Taylor.

MORE: Top 10 NASCAR moments in Rolex 24

“Stepping up to Prototype class and getting promoted to the championship team, these guys expect a lot from you,” van der Zande said. “I think that’s why these guys are champions. I can’t thank this whole team and crew enough. Being here feels incredible. I didn’t expect to grab this pole. They waited until I was in Turn 5 before they told me I was on the pole and I was over the moon. I thought it was a good lap. I thought I overshot on Turn 5, so I floored it and managed to get the car going, maybe that’s what did it, but I made it.”

Castroneves moves to the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Challenge full-time in 2018 following a sure fire Hall of Fame career in open-wheel competition. He’ll start from the second position in the team’s debut of the No. 7 Acura DPi.

“I did everything I could,” he said. “Unfortunately, just got beat by .007 seconds. Nothing you can do about that. It’s ok though. We looked strong. The guys are going to have to fix a couple of things on the car because I was pushing it really hard.

RELATED: History of NASCAR drivers in Rolex 24

“But we are starting on the front row, which is a pretty big deal. It’s a good start for our team. We have a lot of things to learn still, but really happy for Acura Team Penske and all of the guys. We’ve worked hard to get to this point and we have a few more practices to fine-tune it for Saturday.”

Two-time Formula One world champion Fernando Alonso, who is making his IMSA debut this weekend, qualified 13th in the No. 23 United Autosports Ligier LM P2. Despite the qualifying position, Alonso knows he and co-drivers Lando Norris and Phil Hanson have plenty of time to make it up.

“Normally I have 60 laps or 70 laps to recover what I may have done in qualifying, and on Saturday we have 24 hours,” he said. “The qualifying was not the key point of this weekend hopefully.”

The top 13 cars in the Prototype class were separated by less than one second.

Posted on by Reid Spencer

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — For a Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series rookie in 2017, Daniel Suarez did an admirable job of keeping the fenders of his No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota intact.

Suarez completed 10,084 of a possible 10,581 laps in his maiden Monster Energy Series campaign, a commendable 95.3 percent.

“At the end of the day, if you wreck in the first half of the race, you won’t have a lot to apply to the next time that you go to that track because you didn’t have a lot of race,” Suarez explained during the NASCAR Media Tour presented by Charlotte Motor Speedway on Wednesday. “So I think that’s always very, very important for me to finish races and to spend time with your team to improve your race cars — instead of fixing your race cars.”

RELATED: Suarez’s career stats | Best quotes from the media tour

Coming off his 2016 NASCAR Xfinity Series championship, Suarez was elevated to the No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota following the sudden decision by Carl Edwards to step away from the sport in January 2017. Suarez started the year with Dave Rogers atop the box, but after five races, Rogers took a leave from the team and Scott Graves took his place in guiding the now-26-year-old’s maiden Monster Energy Series voyage. The No. 19 team has changed its top two engineers and its car chief as well over the past year, Suarez revealed.

Suarez finished 20th in the season’s final standings with 12 top 10s — and eight of those came in the season’s final 18 races.

“We have done some homework, and even if we keep the consistency that we have the last couple months of racing, I feel like we’re pretty competitive to make it,” Suarez said. “We want to be able to win races and to be competitive in the top five. … We have done some adjustments from last year to this year, and everyone seems to be really comfortable and seems to be going in the same direction, and I’m very happy to see that. I really can’t wait to get into the first few weeks of racing.”

Contributing: Staff report

 

Posted on by Track Release

FORT WORTH, Texas (Jan. 24, 2017) – JAG Metals LLC, a local metal supply company based in Weatherford with multiple locations that specializes in quality metal buildings, components, steel fabrication and roofing materials, has signed a multi-year renewal as the entitlement sponsor of the annual fall NASCAR Camping World Truck Series playoff race at Texas Motor Speedway.

JAG Metals entered into a one-year agreement this past September to become title sponsor of the Camping World Truck Series race that was held Nov. 3. The
company was extremely satisfied with the partnership, so it signed a renewal for
the JAG Metals 350.

JAG Metals is also a charter member of Texas Motor Speedway’s Business

The JAG Metals 350 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race will drop the green flag on Friday, Nov. 2.
Acceleration Club and the company is using both platforms to expand its brand and identify business-to-business
opportunities.

“Since our November race, they (Texas Motor Speedway Sales Department) have been working with us to close deals with other partners as well as ramp up with their B2B opportunities,” JAG Metals LLC co-owner Justin Bradley said. “It’s very exciting to engage our future with a team that has so much ability. JAG Metals has continued to turn corners with all of our partners and the forward progress we see from Texas Motor Speedway has helped fuel that.”

The JAG Metals 350 will be held Friday, Nov. 2, beginning at 7:30 p.m. CT. The Round of 6 playoff event, a 147-lap, 220.5-mile race, will be aired live on FOX Sports 1 as well as MRN Radio and locally on 95.9 FM The Ranch.

“This is a great example of a local company sticking their toe in the water and finding out that NASCAR sponsorship at Texas Motor Speedway works,” Texas Motor Speedway President Eddie Gossage said. “We’re glad to have them back with a multi-year agreement. Like I said before, JAG Metals 350 just sounds macho, tough and bad to the bone. What a great race name!”

For individual and season ticket information, please visit www.texasmotorspeedway.com or call the speedway ticket office at 817.215.8500. Children 12 and under are admitted free to the JAG Metals 350 when accompanied by an adult ticket purchaser.

Posted on by Reid Spencer

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Darrell “Bubba” Wallace has arrived — and he’s feeling it.

After years of starts and stops in a racing career that’s finally in gear, Wallace is set to compete in his first full-time season in Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series racing.

What’s more, he’ll be driving the vaunted No. 43 fielded by Richard Petty Motorsports in partnership with Richard Childress Racing.

MORE: Wallace Jr. sounds off | Which new Cup driver can breakout in ’18?

The significance is not lost on Wallace, who has finally taken the step that matters.

“I’m beyond excited,” said Wallace, the first African-American to drive full-time in NASCAR’s premier series in nearly 50 years. “I might not show it, but, man, this is it. We’re here. We’re at the Cup level. I’m one of the Cup guys walking around today on media day. 

“I’m not an Xfinity guy, like ‘Oh, where’s such‑and‑such, he’s in the Cup Series.’  I’m there now, so it’s good. I’m ready to go. We’ve got a lot of stuff that has obviously changed over the offseason, switching over to Chevrolet.

“The new Camaro ZL1 is awesome looking, looks great, especially with our colors on there, that Petty blue touch to it.  Moving up camp to RCR, being on campus with them, so I’m adjusting to it all, and it’s all coming together pretty good.”

RELATED: RCR, Petty align | Wallace Jr.’s career highlights

Wallace got his baptism in the Monster Energy Series last year, filling in at RPM for four races while Aric Almirola recovered from a back injury sustained in a ferocious crash at Kansas. Wallace was grateful for the opportunity, but it wasn’t his car—yet.

“Going into those four races last year, it was like, ‘OK, this isn’t my car, this isn’t my ride, no need to throw that extra little bit out there. Let’s just get through.’ And we ended up having some of the best races. We were on the cusp of fighting for a top 10 there at Kentucky. Just got edged out by my good friend (Ryan) Blaney there, so that was that

“It was good to learn in that whole process. I just wish there was that one more that year to see what we could have done at Loudon. Coming back into this year, it’s been so nice to walk into the shop and be like, ‘Hey, man, good to see you again.’ No restarting over. Maybe just learning names of the people that I didn’t meet from behind the scenes, front office people, parts room, stuff like that. 

“That’s a new process for me. It’s one of those deals like, OK, we’ve got a good thing going here, so I’m excited about that. We’re ready to get to Vegas for our first on‑track test coming up here in two weeks—and then Daytona.”  

Posted on by Zack Albert

MORE: Can anyone stop No. 78? | Best quotes from 2018 Media Tour

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Preseason stomach butterflies are a thing of the past for Martin Truex Jr. Winning a breakthrough Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series championship last season went a long way toward clearing up any anxiety.

“Complete opposite,” Truex said Wednesday, the closing day of the NASCAR Media Tour hosted by Charlotte Motor Speedway. “I feel zero pressure … at all. I feel nothing.”

The 2017 champ will open his title defense next month at Daytona International Speedway in the two-weekend build-up to the season-opening Daytona 500 (Feb. 18, 2:30 p.m. ET, FOX, MRN, SiriusXM).

Truex roared to his first series crown with a convincing victory in the Homestead-Miami Speedway finale last November, touching off a whirlwind offseason celebration full of appearances and commemorations. Those festivities capped off an eight-win season of dominance by the Furniture Row Racing No. 78 Toyota team.

RELATED: Martin Truex Jr. 2017 season recap

Such a performance will be tough to match in 2018, but Truex said he’s upbeat about the prospects.

“I’m so confident, honestly, I really feel like we can go and start the season right where we left off. Just pick up where we left off and continue as a team as we’ve done in the last couple years. We know what to work on, and we’re just going to keep going down that road and hopefully have more success, but you never know.

“So we’ll just have to see how it all goes, but I’m not feeling any pressure. I’m not anxious at all, and I’ll be ready when I get to Daytona.”

Posted on by Reid Spencer

RELATED: Bell’s new Xfinity ride | Bell, Preece team with Rheem for 2018

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Even though Christopher Bell’s body of work in the NASCAR Xfinity Series features a mere eight races, there’s ample reason to install the 23-year-old from Norman, Oklahoma, as the favorite to win the title as a rookie this year.

The reigning NASCAR Camping World Truck Series champion, Bell has a victory and five top-10 finishes in his eight Xfinity starts. Bell will be driving the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota, a car that has proven itself capable of winning whenever it takes to the pavement.

MORE: Bell’s career stats

In addition, Bell will benefit from the services of crew chief Jason Ratcliff, who has 36 career Xfinity victories (as well as 15 in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series) and helped Kyle Busch secure his NASCAR Xfinity Series championship in 2009.

Clearly, the potential is there. It’s simply a matter of realizing it, and of that Bell is acutely aware.

“I just have to live up to it now,” he said on Wednesday at the Charlotte Convention Center during the NASCAR Media Tour Presented by Charlotte Motor Speedway. “I’ve got the equipment to do it. I’ve got the crew chief to do it. So I just have to do it.

“To win a championship, especially with this (elimination) format — it’s so hard to do. So you have to be good at Homestead (for the Championship 4 race). If you’re not good at Homestead, you can write it off. That’s a very key part of winning a championship.

“But before that, you have to win races throughout the year to put yourself in that position. We’ve got a long road to go before we worry about winning a championship. We just need to focus on being competitive, qualifying good and capitalizing on the speed that we should have and trying to win races.”