LEXINGTON, N.C. — In the midst of off-season expansion, Kaulig Racing announced today that Ryan Truex will drive the No. 11 Chevrolet for the full 2018 NASCAR Xfinity Series (NXS) season. Truex is coming off a ninth-place finish in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series (NCWTS) driver standings. The younger brother of current Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series (MENCS) champion Martin Truex Jr. also has two back-to-back NASCAR K&N East Series Championships as well as multiple years of experience in NASCAR’s premiere series.
“I’m extremely excited to be making the move back into the Xfinity Series,” said Truex. “In just two years Kaulig Racing has proved to be a highly competitive team each race and it should be a great fit. Last season I saw a lot of improvements in my racing and hopefully this year I can continue the success Kaulig Racing has built and compete for the championship at the end of the year.”
Two years after breaking into the NXS, team owner Matt Kaulig is excited about his team’s fast-paced growth in the sport. With back-to-back playoff runs as well as two stage wins and one pole award in the team’s short history, Kaulig sees promising opportunities for this season with Truex behind the wheel.
“When we started this team two years ago I knew we had the potential to be one of the strongest teams in the Xfinity Series and I think we’re within reach of that goal,” Matt Kaulig said. “Ryan is going to be a great addition to the team and I have some high hopes for this season. Each year we keep improving as a team and I think this season we’ll be able to get some wins and make another run in the playoffs. Everyone at Kaulig Racing is excited to have Ryan on board and it should be a great, fun year.”
Truex will make his debut for Kaulig Racing at Daytona International Speedway on Saturday February 17th, 2018. A sponsor announcement regarding Truex will be made shortly.
MOORESVILLE, N.C. — Kyle Busch Motorsports (KBM) announced Monday that Harrison Burton will return to the organization in 2018 with an expanded NASCAR Camping World Truck Series (NCWTS) schedule. Burton will drive the No. 51 Tundra in nine NCWTS races this season, beginning March 24 at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway.
Burton, the son of former NASCAR driver Jeff Burton, made his Truck Series debut with KBM at Martinsville in October of 2016 and enters 2018 with seven NCWTS starts under his belt. In six NCWTS starts in 2017, he recorded an average finish of 12.3 and earned a career-best fourth-place finish at Martinsville last October in his final start of the season.
Last year was a breakout year for the second-generation driver as he gained valuable experience while competing in a variety of series. He captured the 2017 NASCAR K&N Pro Series East championship after registering a series-high five wins, two poles, 142 laps led, 12 top-five and 14 top-10 finishes and an average finish of 3.3 across the series’ 14 events. Burton also visited Victory Lane in his lone ARCA Racing Series start at Toledo (Ohio) Speedway.
In Super Late Models, he visited victory lane twice en route to the championship in 51st Annual World Series of Asphalt at New Smyrna (Fla.) Speedway, outdueled Cup Series driver Erik Jones for the victory in the prestigious ARCA/CRA Super Late Model SpeedFest at Crisp Motorsports Park in Cordele, Ga., and won his lone CARS Super Late Model Tour start at Concord (N.C.) Speedway.
“Harrison made great strides as a driver in 2017 and we look forward to being a part of his continued development by expanding his schedule at KBM in 2018,” Kyle Busch said. “He proved capable of winning races in a variety of series last year and with each Truck Series start you could see his confidence grow and his performance improve. We’re confident that his first Truck Series win is just around the corner.”
“Returning to KBM and knowing that they had the confidence in me to add races to my schedule for this year is a huge honor,” Burton said. “KBM has a developed a culture of winning races and I’m confident that everything I learned throughout my six-race schedule last year has helped me be prepared to carry on the winning tradition this year.”
The NASCAR Next product’s nine-race NCWTS schedule in 2018 will include both races at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway as well as Dover (Del.) International Speedway, Iowa Speedway in Newton, Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway, Canadian Tire Motorsport Park in Bowmanville, Ont., the November race at Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth, ISM Raceway in Phoenix and the season finale at Homestead-Miami (Fla.) Speedway.
Announcements on Burton’s sponsors and crew chief are forthcoming.
Darrell Wallace Jr.’s transition to full-time driver in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series won’t officially take effect until he hits the track in Daytona next month. But the reality of his place in NASCAR’s top series is starting to set in.
The newly tapped driver for Richard Petty Motorsports’ No. 43 Chevrolet had lunch with his crew last week, touring the shop at Richard Childress Racing, where RPM has forged an alliance for 2018. That’s when the 24-year-old rookie’s move to stock-car racing’s major leagues became even more palpable.
“Just walking through the RCR main shop there and seeing our cars kind of float around, it was really neat seeing my name on the back glass,” Wallace told SiriusXM NASCAR Radio on Monday. “I was like, ‘Damn, this is awesome.’ I’ve finally made it to the Cup Series and these are my cars. No more replacement, filling in for anybody — these are mine. Pretty cool to see that and see how far it’s coming along.”
Wallace’s remarks came in between media events at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, where he was making a promotional appearance for the track’s NASCAR tripleheader weekend March 2-4. In just a few weeks, he’ll be prepping for his first start in the season-opening Daytona 500 on Feb. 18.
Wallace’s visit was a reunion of sorts. The Alabama native made four starts for the Richard Petty-owned group on an interim basis as Aric Almirola recovered from injuries suffered in a May 13 crash at Kansas Speedway.
Wallace improved his finishing position — from 26th, 19th, 15th to 11th — in each of his starts, a trend he’s aiming to keep going in 2018. In the meantime, he’s enjoyed catching up with many of the same crewmembers that he worked with during his four-race stint last season.
“It really creates that close bond with the team,” Wallace told SiriusXM. “You get pumped up going to the race track and everybody from the shop is basically at the race track with you. How RPM operates is very family-oriented. … We’re all family there. From those four races last season, coming back this year, you didn’t have to start over new with anybody. Everybody was, ‘Hey, Bubba. Happy New Year. Welcome back,’ and the same to them. It was good to see some familiar faces there.”
The voice of Hendrick Motorsports crew chief Chad Knaus brimmed with some excitement Monday, stemming from the promise of both a new racing season and a rejuvenating approach adopted by his driver, seven-time NASCAR champion Jimmie Johnson.
Even the headiest New Year’s resolutions tend to fade by the time the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series begins its annual prep for the season-opening Daytona 500 next month. Knaus, for one, is betting Johnson’s self-improvement measures carry far into the season.
“He’s completely re-dedicated himself to this — and I’m not saying that he wasn’t dedicated last year, because the man was,” Knaus said Monday on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. “I think that anybody that goes out there and drives a race car for 40 weeks in a row basically has got to be dedicated to his craft. There’s just no ifs, ands or buts about that. But he’s got a new emphasis put on it. He wants to go out there and do well. He’s excited obviously. Last year we were able to get that contract extension with him and push that further forward, so there’s a lot of positives from that standpoint in his eyes. …
“You know Jimmie, man, he’s tenacious. And if he can get what he feels what he wants underneath him, I don’t think he can be beaten out there, so it’s good stuff forward.”
Johnson won three times last season, but the No. 48 Chevrolet team endured a sharp drop-off in performance over the latter half of the year. The organization underwent several changes ahead of the 2018 campaign, including new car chief Jesse Saunders taking the place of veteran Ron Malec with the No. 48, and a restructuring of the Hendrick race shops to better integrate their four-car effort. And Johnson indicated after the season-ending awards banquet that he’d be spending more time at the shop and dialing back some of his recreational travel in the offseason.
The group has also been hard at work sorting out the 2018 Camaro ZL1, Chevrolet’s new model for NASCAR’s premier series. Though Knaus said plenty of variables still remain before the car undergoes real-world testing, he indicated that initial tests in the wind tunnel and other simulations were encouraging.
Those changes are all part of what Knaus called “a different environment” at Hendrick Motorsports, with new faces Alex Bowman and William Byron joining the full-time driver roster alongside Johnson and the returning Chase Elliott.
“We’re in a pretty good spot, frankly. We did not have the season that we wanted last year. It’s not the season we wanted for our fans, it’s not the season we wanted for Lowe’s, for anybody at Hendrick Motorsports and especially for Jimmie and I. It’s something that we’ve worked hard on during the offseason to try to just turn around. I don’t want to say we’ve put it in the past and we’ve forgotten 2017 because I think if you don’t learn from what you’ve experienced in life, you can never improve upon it, but we are definitely eyes forward to 2018.”
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Four Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series teams will officially bring in the sport’s New Year during a two-day closed Goodyear tire test at Texas Motor Speedway this week.
Newly crowned Monster Energy Series champion Martin Truex Jr. (Toyota) joins Ryan Blaney (Ford), Chase Elliott (Chevrolet) and Aric Almirola (Ford) on the 1.5-mile Fort Worth high banks Tuesday and Wednesday.
For Elliott, this marks the debut of the No. 9 on the sides of his Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet, which formerly carried the No. 24. And for Almirola, this will be his first formal outing in the No. 10 Ford since joining Stewart-Haas Racing in the offseason after a six-year tenure with Richard Petty Motorsports.
The test session also marks the on-track debut of the Camaro ZL1, the new model Chevrolet will replace the Chevy SS in the 2018 Monster Energy Series.
“The new Camaro ZL1 is a great looking race car with a lot of heritage behind it, which will make it a big hit with fans,” Chevrolet’s seven-time champion Jimmie Johnson said at the car’s August unveiling. “And as someone who’s enjoyed the ZL1 on the street, I’m really looking forward to getting this new race car on the track.”
The next preseason test is for the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series test at Charlotte Motor Speedway on Jan. 17, its goal to help teams get accustomed to the new optional engine approved for use in 2018.
The Monster Energy Series will have an organizational test Jan. 31-Feb. 1 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway — with one car from each organization allowed laps at the 1.5-mile facility that will host its first ever Playoff race on Sept. 16.
NASCAR’s Daytona Speedweeks begins officially Feb. 11 with Daytona 500 pole qualifying followed by the Advance Auto Parts Clash. The 60th running of the “Great American Race,” the Daytona 500, is Feb. 18.
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The NASCAR national series season may not begin until February at Daytona International Speedway, but several stars are letting their racing passion fly in a different type of race this week: The Chili Bowl Midget Nationals.
Considered one of the top dirt races of the year, the Chili Bowl is an annual dirt midget race that has been held since 1987 and runs from Jan. 9-13 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. A handful of NASCAR drivers – including Kyle Larson, Kasey Kahne, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Justin Allgaier and Christopher Bell, who won the 2017 Chili Bowl – will compete in the event, which begins its practice on Jan. 8.
“I look at the Chili Bowl, the Snowball Derby. There’s some races on the schedule where the amount of time and effort you put in to run one race is incredible but it’s because everyone wants to go win it,” Allgaier said at the Camping World Truck and Xfinity Series banquet on Dec. 9. “I think Tony Stewart said it the best one time, he said, ‘I would give up all the race wins just to keep winning the Chili Bowl.’ And I think that says a lot for that (race).”
Stewart won the event twice, in 2002 and 2007. Allgaier has yet to win the prestigious event, which also has been won by current and former NASCAR drivers Bell, Rico Abreu and Dave Blaney in years past. He’ll look to change that this time.
“There are a select few races in my life that I’ve been close to winning and had opportunities to win and (the Chili Bowl is) one of them that you put it all out of the line,” Allgaier said. “The last couple of years I’ve made mistakes that probably more than anything have kept me from having a shot at it so it’s disappointing. Go there and try to change it and have some fun.”
For several NASCAR drivers, the Chili Bowl and dirt racing represent a return to their roots, the starting point that launched their respective racing careers. It’s also an opportunity to race before the NASCAR season begins, which is ideal for passionate racers like Kahne.
“The Chili Bowl’s always a cool event,” Kahne, who has raced in three of the last six Chili Bowl events, told NASCAR.com. “I didn’t do it last year, so took a year off. Looking forward to just racing again and being part of the Chili Bowl and then the NASCAR stuff is so close at this point. It will be here in no time.”
This upcoming NASCAR season marks Kahne’s first season with Leavine Family Racing, where he will pilot the No. 95 Chevrolet previously driven by Michael McDowell. The change comes after Kahne’s six-year stint in the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet.
The change, he said, allows him a bit more flexibility to race outside NASCAR and get back to the dirt.
“I’ve always enjoyed it and wanted to be part of it,” Kahne said. “But this season with my new Cup team, being part of LFR and just knowing that I can go race on the dirt and I can still do a great job for LFR and be part of that got me excited and is something that I want to do …
“(Leavine Family Racing is) OK with me racing and excited about (me) going to race those cars and be in a car more often than not. So, definitely more flexibility and not just that, but when you do it and know that you’re not making people mad or upsetting people, I think that feels better as well. Nobody’s upset at you for doing it, they understand why you are and are behind you, so that side of it too as much as anything.
“Rather than getting questioned for everything, you can just go race.”
Kahne emphasized that his first focus is the No. 95 Monster Energy Series car in 2018, but he does plan to run a sprint car during Florida Speedweeks for five nights at Volusia Speedway Park in February prior to the Daytona 500. He is also looking into potentially running “the World of Outlaw races, All-Star races and then some races in Pennsylvania, hopefully the Dirt Classic.”
“It’s really enjoyable for me to race those cars and to race on dirt and be part of all of that,” Kahne said. “I think that the big thing is, the more I can do it, the better I’ll get at it again. And that’s something I look forward to this year is racing on the dirt more often and try and get really competitive and win races again on dirt.
Though the 2017 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series season didn’t offer these drivers much to celebrate, the season on the horizon provides an opportunity to start anew. Fortunately, there is enough data to support their candidacy for bouncing back in a big way:
Clint Bowyer
Bowyer hasn’t parked his car in Victory Lane since 2012. His leap to Stewart-Haas Racing in 2017 was supposed to end his dry spell, but he tacked on another winless campaign.
He returns to Stewart-Haas with his team intact and a young crew chief in Mike Bugarewicz, who protected his running position on 70.73 percent of green-flag pit cycles. That was the fourth-highest rate among returning driver-crew chief pairings and gained him 20 positions. Bowyer’s No. 14 Ford ranked as the third-fastest car on 2-mile, non-drafting tracks, signaling the most likely track type on which to end the five-year win drought.
Improvement could come in Bowyer’s closing habits. He averaged a 0.4-position loss in the final one-tenth of races in 2017, though he crashed during that time frame on four separate occasions, the fourth-highest, late-race crash total in the series.
Jonathan Ferrey | Getty Images
Jimmie Johnson
Hendrick Motorsports armed its seven-time champion with the ninth-fastest car overall, per timing and scoring data supplied to NASCAR.com, and the 10th fastest during the playoffs. He won three times, more than the teams of Chase Elliott, Matt Kenseth and Erik Jones combined, all of whom ranked directly above him in the green-flag speed category. No driver with a slower car than Johnson’s won more often.
Still, there isn’t anything appealing about a 16.8-place finish, which Johnson, Chad Knaus and the legendary No. 48 team tallied in 2017, the worst full-season average in the team’s existence.
Johnson was partially responsible for the downturn. His Production in Equal Equipment Rating of 0.736 was the worst single-season mark of his illustrious career and, at age 41, it came on the downside of the average driver’s career arch. There is good news, though; despite his lackluster results, Johnson was still the best passer.
He ranked first in surplus passing value, which was good for 272 additional positions on the track beyond what was expected from a driver with his average running position. For comparison, the second biggest surplus pass differential was plus-184, belonging to Kyle Larson. Johnson, it seems, still has game but is in need of speed capable enough to turn a season into a serious championship bid.
Jared C. Tilton | Getty Images
Joey Logano
Logano’s green-flag speed ranking across the first nine races of 2017, which culminated with his win at Richmond, was 7.1. His speed ranking for the remainder of the season — following NASCAR’s decision to encumber that win, a penalty for altering the rear suspension — was 14.2.
In the three years prior to 2017, Logano ranked first, first and third in Production in Equal Equipment Rating among all Monster Energy Series drivers. His 9.2-place average finish in 2015 would’ve topped the series in 2016 and ’17. He was a minus passer overall this past year and an average restarter who performed mindbogglingly well in clutch situations, retaining his position 13 times on 13 late-race restart attempts from within the first seven rows.
Logano can make a fast car faster, but struggles to eek out results from a mediocre machine. Factor in the 96-position loss he and crew chief Todd Gordon amassed during green-flag pit cycles and it’s easy to find all the track position that eluded them in an aberration of a season.
Jared C. Tilton | Getty Images
Kurt Busch
Busch won the Daytona 500, but underachieved from that point forward, earning 18 top-15 finishes when his 62.8 percent of completed laps spent inside the top 15 suggested 23 such results. His 0.44-per-race crash frequency was the third highest among playoff qualifiers and his team’s 2.2 positions-per-race drop in the final one-tenth of races made him the second-worst closer among full-time Monster Energy Series drivers.
Positive regression is likely to occur as Busch, 38, is smack in the middle of his prime production years, remains a stone wall on restarts — his seven positions lost on 73 restarts from the non-preferred groove was the smallest positional drop among drivers with at least 10 attempts — and receives a new crew chief in Billy Scott, who was dutiful in his green-flag pitting habits on behalf of Danica Patrick in 2017, providing her 51 additional positions on non-restrictor plate ovals. That’d represent a 74-position increase over what Tony Gibson provided him.
Sarah Crabill | Getty Images
Kasey Kahne
Kahne’s 19.4-place average finish was his personal worst of the last 10 seasons, partly why his value as a driving commodity depreciated enough for Leavine Family Racing to swoop in and sign the fan-favorite driver.
Turning 38 in April, Kahne is in his prime, and as a passer he matters on 1.5-mile intermediates, NASCAR’s most prevalent track type. In 2017, his plus-2.99 percent surplus passing value on intermediates yielded 32 positions beyond the expectation of a driver with his average running position. While Leavine is in the process of growing its infrastructure, it isn’t quite the fluid machine Hendrick Motorsports is; Kahne will be asked — and in at least 11 races, be able — to supply his own track position and neutralize some of the team’s speed disadvantage.
Kahne is a long shot to make the 2018 playoffs, but it is possible he bests this past year’s average finish. For Leavine, Michael McDowell scored a 22.2-place result on average. Is Kahne three positions better than McDowell? The Leavine family must think so, which is why they invested in him.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. is a Chevrolet driver for life, through and through.
Except for that one time he wasn’t.
On the anniversary of Bobby Hamilton’s death, the former driver of the No. 88 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet told a story Sunday morning about how the 2004 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series champion helped him out in a dire situation at the race track one time. It was, as Earnhardt put it, “the only time I ever drove anything besides a Chevrolet in a race.”
The year was 1996, and Earnhardt was entered in a late model race at Fairgrounds Speedway (Nashville). He had the dominant car in practice and was having so much fun driving it, he wanted to make one last run around the 0.596-mile oval despite his crew chief telling him to bring it in.
Lo and behold, a wreck in front of him forced him down the backstretch where he was rear-ended by another car at full speed. Both cars burned to the ground.
While lamenting the loss of the stout entry with his crew chief at the hauler, a voice echoed from behind.
“Do you want to race?”
It was Hamilton.
“Of course I want to race,” said Earnhardt.
“Well, I’ve got a car you can drive.”
Hamilton, a four-time Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series winner, started to tell Earnhardt about the car … a Ford.
He’d been trying to sell it because his driver at the time, Casey Atwood, wasn’t a fan of it and it needed some adjustments. Thus, it was just sitting on a trailer, ready to be raced.
“I’m thinking, ‘I can’t drive it, because it’s a Ford.’ But I want to race real bad. So I’m calling my dad trying to see if I can get a hold of him and try to ask him if I can drive this Ford. It’s a Petty blue, because Bobby at the time I think must have been driving for Richard in the Cup Series and it had No. 43 on it.
“I couldn’t get a hold of dad, but I got a hold of dad’s general manager. … He said, ‘Yeah, go ahead and drive it. Just don’t talk about it and try not to make too big of a deal about it.’ ”
Earnhardt said he and his team then took duct tape and covered up the ‘4’, leaving just the ‘3’ uncovered.
Around 150 laps into the race, Junior was stomping the field and had every driver but one a lap down. He appeared set to cruise to a win, until the transmission blew with 30 laps to go.
Still, given how fast it was — and perhaps the fact that the son of a seven-time champion wheeled a Ford for the first and only time — Hamilton sold the car on pit road after the race for “quite a bit of money.”
Hear Junior tell the whole story below in his Periscope.
Last month, Ford Performance announced a unique plan for four of its rising stars in the NASCAR ranks to enhance their road racing skills through participation in the IMSA Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge in 2018.
The same trio of drivers — Chase Briscoe, Austin Cindric and Ty Majeski — who will share the No. 60 Roush Fenway Ford Mustang in the 2018 NASCAR Xfinity Series, will be part of a rotating driver lineup in a Multimatic Motorsports-prepared Ford Mustang GT4 in the Continental Tire Challenge. Joining them will be Cole Custer, who will drive the Stewart-Haas Racing No. 14 Mustang in the 2018 Xfinity Series, and all will race under the watchful eye of Canadian road racing Hall of Famer and longtime Ford/Multimatic driver Scott Maxwell.
Cindric is no stranger to Mustangs in the Continental Tire Challenge, as he raced in the series in 2015 and earned his first series victory at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park. Custer also has a reasonable amount of road racing experience in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series. It’s a different story entirely, though, for Briscoe and especially Majeski.
“This is only my second time ever on a road course,” Majeski said. “The multi-class thing is a lot different, everything is just a lot different. It’s just a new experience for me. I’m leaning a lot on Scott Maxwell, my teammate, who’s had a ton of experience with this stuff. It’s been a big learning experience, but I think it’s gone pretty well so far. I’m looking forward to the next day and a half and sinking my teeth into it even more.”
With that in mind, what has been the biggest adjustment so far for Majeski?
“Turning right,” he laughs. “It’s something I’ve literally done none of in my entire life. It’s just a whole different set of instincts to get speed out of these cars. I’m just trying to learn as much as I can.”
Also learning as much as he can is Briscoe, although he does have somewhat more road course seat time. He and Majeski are expected to compete in several Continental Tire Challenge rounds this season — certainly more than Cindric and Custer – which is somewhat of a “pinch me” moment for Briscoe.
“I never thought in a million years that I would get to do what I’m doing on the NASCAR side, let alone get an opportunity to come to Daytona for a road course race,” Briscoe said. “Growing up being a sprint car guy, that’s probably the last thing you’d ever think would be a possibility.
“For Ford to decide that they would give me a chance to do it and not only run here, but I think I’m going to run six or seven other races, so it’s going to be really fun. I’m thankful to be in that position with Ford, where I get to do so many different things. As a driver, that’s all you can ask for is to get seat time in different cars and whatnot.”
“The new Camaro ZL1 is a great looking race car with a lot of heritage behind it, which will make it a big hit with fans,” Chevrolet’s seven-time champion Jimmie Johnson said at the car’s August unveiling. “And as someone who’s enjoyed the ZL1 on the street, I’m really looking forward to getting this new race car on the track.”
