Darrell Wallace Jr. eager to enjoy NASCAR racing at the top level

Posted on January 25, 2018January 26, 2018 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.”

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 January 24, 2018January 24, 2018 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.

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 January 24, 2018January 24, 2018 by Reid Spencer

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.”

Posted on January 24, 2018January 24, 2018 by Zack Albert

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — When NASCAR made an announcement shortly after last season’s Homestead-Miami finale about standardized rosters for teams’ at-track personnel, the only given was that nothing would be standard about how pit stops would be conducted in the future.

Competition officials reduced the number of over-the-wall crew members from six to five, in a move designed to enhance safety with fewer crew on pit road, and to shave costs for high-priced athletes providing pit service. The resulting onus for teams was to dream up new techniques under those constraints.

According to drivers attending this week’s NASCAR Media Tour hosted by Charlotte Motor Speedway, those pit-stop techniques are still in development.

“We’ve had very specific roles to fill and athletes that come in with fast feet, fast hands, a certain weight and size to operate the jack, get the car up off the ground,” said Hendrick Motorsports’ Jimmie Johnson. “To have this change now, essentially somebody has to do two roles; the systems all these teams have built into place are all changing. We’ve been scrambling like a lot of the other teams.”

For the past seven seasons, teams conducted pit stops with six crew members going over the wall: a jack man, a fueler, two tire carriers and two tire changers. With that number shrinking, one crew member will need to perform double duty.

Several drivers, when asked, said that they haven’t seen a final product for what the pit-service choreography will entail. The expectation is that several teams will be taking notes on what other teams are doing once competition begins in the Advance Auto Parts Clash exhibition on Feb. 11, ahead of the Daytona 500 season-opener scheduled Feb. 18.

“Now, they’ve got more responsibility and they seem to enjoy it,” Ricky Stenhouse Jr. said of early discussions with his Roush Fenway Racing crew. “I told them I thought it would be interesting after the Clash if other people are doing different scenarios with their five guys, how many will end up changing before the 500 — like if we’re all doing different stuff.”

One byproduct of the rules change will be longer pit stops across the board. Team Penske’s Brad Keselowski said he expected the time of what’s considered a fast pit stop to jump from the 10-second range to 12 seconds and change. That led Chris Buescher, driver of JTG Daugherty’s No. 37 Chevrolet, to quip about how such a shift might affect the drivers’ role.

“We’ve been joking that we’re going to have time to get out and help carry a tire or whatever, but obviously it’s not the case,” Buescher said. “It’s a couple seconds. It’s a few. At the end of the day, it’s probably not going to make that big a difference.”

Stewart-Haas Racing’s Kevin Harvick agreed, noting that his national series career began more than 20 years ago when competitive four-tire pit stops took almost twice as long to complete. Advances in technology and training techniques have trimmed those precious seconds, so teams will merely have to adjust to a different time frame.

“I think it will evolve like everything else,” Harvick said. “I think there will be some teams that do some things that other teams didn’t think about, and by the time we get halfway through the year it will be the new norm. Everybody at our place was up in arms about how heavy the pit gun was and taking the guys away on pit road and I was like, ‘Who cares?’ It is going to be the new normal eventually.

“Pretty soon you don’t talk about it anymore because it isn’t even a story. So just start practicing.”

With cars hitting Daytona International Speedway’s high banks in just more than two weeks, those preparations are already in full swing.

“It’s been an interesting challenge,” Johnson said. “It’s been hard because it’s changing our systems dramatically. At the same time, we’re kind of through that now and there’s a lot of optimism in mastering this.”

Posted on January 24, 2018 by Staff Report

A total of 50 cars and a star-studded lineup of drivers that includes champions and race winners from NASCAR, Formula 1, open-wheel, and international sports car competition will take to the track for the 56th running of the Rolex 24 At Daytona on Jan. 27-28.

Prior to the event, all cars were lined up on pit road for the classic pre-race shot, seen above.

The opening race of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship and the Tequila Patrón North American Endurance Cup begins on FOX at 2 p.m. ET on Saturday, Jan. 27 and includes complete domestic streaming throughout the 24 hours on FOX Sports GO. International, flag-to-flag coverage is available on IMSA.com and a variety of international television outlets (including Eurosport), as well as IMSA Radio commentary on RadioLeMans.com and SiriusXM Radio.

Get the full Rolex 24 TV schedule here.

Drivers representing every continent except Antarctica — and a total of 25 countries in all — have been entered to drive one of the 50 cars on this year’s Rolex 24 entry list. That includes JTG Daughtery Racing’s AJ Allmendinger, who won the event in 2012.

MORE: History of NASCAR drivers in Rolex 24

Posted on January 24, 2018January 24, 2018 by RJ Kraft

MORE: Steve Phelps explains NASCAR’s marketing strategy

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Ryan Blaney wasted no time responding to Kyle Busch’s critical comments on the emphasis of NASCAR marketing its young stars, firing back Wednesday during the NASCAR Media Tour Presented by Charlotte Motor Speedway.

“I feel like if some drivers were more willing to do these things, they’d get asked more to do it,” Blaney said. “And the reason why I get asked to do it a lot is because I say yes a lot, because I think it’s good for the sport and myself. I can tell you personally, (Busch) doesn’t like doing a lot of stuff, so they don’t ask him.

“So that kind of made me upset, how he bashed that part of it. But, to each his own. If he doesn’t want to do anything, so be it.”

Blaney’s comments are in response to Busch, the 2015 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series champion, saying in part Tuesday that “pushing these younger drivers is, I wouldn’t say, all that fair.”

Steve Phelps, NASCAR’s executive vice president and chief global sales and marketing officer, called into to SiriusXM NASCAR Radio’s “SiriusXM Speedway” program Wednesday afternoon to discuss the sanctioning body’s marketing efforts.

“It’s about our drivers, our crew chiefs and our crews and everyone that makes this sport go,” Phelps said. “The drivers really start with our veteran drivers, Hall of Fame drivers like Jimmie Johnson, Kevin Harvick, Kyle Busch, Martin Truex Jr., Brad Keselowski and Joey Logano. All these guys are such an important part of everything that we do and should be. But we are also need to expose these young drivers so our fans understand who they are, they’re authentic, they want to win on the race track and they’re just fantastic drivers. It’s a mix of veterans and young guys.”

Blaney has been known to do unique things to reach fans and build a following as a young driver, first with Wood Brothers Racing in the No. 21 Ford and now with Team Penske in the No. 12 Ford.

The 24-year-old hosted the “Glass Case of Emotion” podcast on NASCAR.com and interacts regularly with fans on social media. He has appeared on Bravo’s “Watch What Happens Live” and an upcoming episode of NBC’s “Taken,” as well as providing a voice to a character in “Cars 3.” He also hosted a pizza party at Texas Motor Speedway during a break in the January testing session. Blaney said he is looking to have more spontaneous interaction with fans as the year progresses.

“I’ve been really fortunate to get a lot of great chances from NASCAR, and … I’ve always been very open to do a lot of things they want,” Blaney said. ” … I think it is really important to have not only young drivers, but all NASCAR drivers try to be pushing to get to new demographics of the world to get into in the sport. I think everybody should be a little more open to helping the sport out.”

RELATED: Blaney gives young fan his checkered flag

One example: Following a win in the September Xfinity Series race at Dover International Speedway, Blaney gave the checkered flag to a young fan, who later came down to Victory Lane at the “Monster Mile.”

“I feel like those little things that you can do to get face-to-face with young fans and making a moment and give them something and just make a memory that lasts a lifetime,” Blaney said.

Having interaction with fans was something ingrained in Blaney as a child from watching his father and fellow racer, Dave Blaney.

“My dad was always very open to fans and I appreciated that about him,” Blaney said. “He was always very welcoming to fans.

“NASCAR doesn’t exist without fans, people who are interested in it. Anything we can do to show appreciation I feel like is part of our job to do it. Whatever we can do to show them a good time or an experience unlike what they expected is something that really sticks with people for life.”

RELATED: Ryan Blaney through the years

Dale Earnhardt Jr., a 15-time NMPA Most Popular Driver Award winner, has frequently cited and praised Blaney for his creative approach to helping the sport grow.

“I’d rather make other people happy than myself,” Blaney said of saying “yes” to numerous appearances. “And if I have to sacrifice time, it’s just time. It really doesn’t mean much to me personally. I’d rather go do something meaningful to the sport than just sit on my couch because then I just don’t feel like I’m doing anything.

“There’s always more you can do. You are never maxed out on your potential to make somebody’s day.”

Posted on January 24, 2018January 24, 2018 by Brad Norman

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — “Sorry if I’m not looking at you, I’m putting my shirts up online.”

That’s how Ryan Truex began his interview at Wednesday’s NASCAR Media Tour Presented by Charlotte Motor Speedway.

A new ride in a new series called for a new shirt (Dale Jr. has already confirmed he ordered it), but he didn’t have much time to pull the design together. Up until a few weeks ago, Truex wasn’t even sure he would be driving in 2018. At least not until he inked a deal with Kaulig Racing in the Xfinity Series.

“In December, I honestly didn’t have anything,” Truex said. “There were a lot of talks and a lot of things going on, but nothing set in stone. Nothing I could talk about. So … it’s come along really quick. Honesty, I’m really, really excited about it.”

The moment you’ve all been waiting for…@Ryan_Truex debuts his new shirt for the 2018 season. 🙌 pic.twitter.com/gUQRx8QBUs

— NASCAR (@NASCAR) January 24, 2018

Truex wasn’t convinced the deal would come through until the moment he signed the contract with Kaluig Racing the night before the announcement Jan. 9. Despite dubbing himself “pessimistic” when it comes to aspects of his career, he never doubted that if given the right opportunity, in the right equipment, he could make some noise.

“It’s because I love it,” he said. “This is what I want to do in life, it’s what I feel like I’m best at in life. I want to prove that to everyone who doesn’t think that. I know what I can do, I know what I’m capable of.”

Having a brother like Martin Truex Jr. — who also battled and clawed his way to a championship at the sport’s highest level — to lean on has helps ease Truex’s mind when hit with obstacles on and off the track. It gives him hope … and a different outlook on how to take the bad with the good.

“It’s made it a lot easier for me,” Truex said. “The stuff that I’ve dealt with is nothing compared to what (Martin) and Sherry (Pollex) and all those people (have) dealt with. It puts it in perspective. I can sit around and complain about not having sponsorship or getting overlooked for opportunities or whatever. Once you see him lose his Cup ride and not even know if he’d race anymore … to see Sherry battle through everything. That kind of put it all in perspective for me.”

Both brothers grew up around garages across the country, putting in long hours and working hard for every opportunity afforded to them. Even with a 12-year age gap between Ryan and Martin — Ryan turns 26 in March — the younger Truex always had eyes to follow in his big brother’s footsteps.

This season, Ryan Truex will pilot the No. 11 Chevrolet for Kaluig Racing as a full-time Xfinity driver, his first time competing at that level since 2015, when he had four Xfinity starts. The opportunity, he said, surprised him, despite his ninth-place finish in the 2017 Camping World Truck Series standings.

He has a plan for his approach to this season to minimize pressure and nerves: he’s just going to get behind the wheel and drive.

“… You never know. I know Martin says this a lot: ‘You never know when your last race or your last good opportunity is going to be,’ ” Truex said. “Before this past year, I thought mine was already gone. I thought it had come and gone. Now, I feel like it’s here again. … Honestly, I feel things are going in the right direction. … I guess it’ll work out or it’ll be my farewell tour.”

Posted on January 24, 2018January 24, 2018 by Team Release

WELCOME, N.C. — Richard Childress Racing announced its No. 3 Chevrolet Camaro SS entry for the 2018 NASCAR Xfinity Series will feature a talented multi-driver lineup. Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series drivers Austin Dillon and Ty Dillon, ARCA Racing Series competitor Shane Lee, second-generation racer Jeb Burton and two-time Xfinity Series winner Brendan Gaughan will all share time behind the wheel of the Camaro SS throughout the season.

Austin and Ty Dillon will be in the rotation of drivers for the No. 3 Chevrolet for the 2018 season. Austin Dillon is no stranger to the Xfinity Series, earning the series championship in 2013. The eldest Dillon brother has 17 career poles awards, eight wins, 62 top-five and 99 top-10 finishes in the Series throughout his racing career. Ty Dillon, also an Xfinity veteran, has collected four poles, 32 top-five and 86 top-10 finishes. He won at the famed Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 2014.

Shane Lee, a 24-year-old native of Newton, North Carolina, will share seat time as he makes his Xfinity Series debut this season. In 2017, Lee completed his first season of full-time competition in the ARCA Racing Series and placed third in the driver championship point standings. He also has three NASCAR Camping World Truck Series starts under his belt.

Jeb Burton, son of former Cup Series driver and Daytona 500 champion Ward Burton, will also climb into the Camaro SS for select races. Burton has a 2013 Camping World Truck Series win on his resume along with seven top-five and 19 top-10 finishes in the Xfinity Series. He is the nephew of former RCR driver Jeff Burton and has also logged laps in Monster Energy Series competition.

The 2018 season also will see the return of veteran driver Brendan Gaughan, marking his seventh year of competition with RCR. After scaling back from full-time competition at the end of 2017, Gaughan will return to race at two of his favorite race tracks, Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course on August 11th and Elkhart Lake’s Road America on August 25th. During his Xfinity career, Gaughan has earned two top-10 finishes at Mid-Ohio and has scored a win and four top-five finishes at Road America.

“Our goal with the multi-driver Chevrolet Camaro SS is to win races and put ourselves in a position to be in the NASCAR Playoffs at the end if the season to compete for the owner’s championship,” said Richard Childress, Chairman and CEO of RCR.

The multi-driver Chevrolet Camaro SS will compete in all 33 races of the series season. Veteran crew chief Nick Harrison will lead the team from atop the pit box.

Posted on January 23, 2018January 24, 2018 by Reid Spencer

MORE: Best quotes from 2018 Media Tour

CHARLOTTE, N.C. – They call him “Grandpa” now.

That’s how Alex Bowman and William Byron referred to seven-time Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series champion Jimmie Johnson on Tuesday afternoon at the Charlotte Convention Center.

Chase Elliott, the third of Johnson’s 20-something Hendrick Motorsports teammates, let him slide with “Uncle Jimmie.”

“OK, that’s a little bit better,” Johnson laughed. “So I guess I’m going to have to put them in time-out or something, the way that’s going. We definitely have a lot of fun together. It’s so wild. I went from the young gun. … and every time I saw my name written, it was ‘rookie Jimmie Johnson.’

“And I swear, in the blink of an eye, now I’m ‘Grandpa.’ It’s gone fast.”

Johnson, who won his last championship in 2016, has three years left on his contract with Hendrick Motorsports. Crew chief Chad Knaus, who has been with his driver for all seven of his titles, is in the final year of a deal Johnson hopes he’ll extend.

But that doesn’t add urgency to Johnson’s desire to win an eighth title that would separate him from seven-time champions and NASCAR Hall of Famers Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt Sr.

The urgency has always been there.

“That doesn’t change anything,” Johnson said during the opening day of the NASCAR Media Tour hosted by Charlotte Motor Speedway. “My desire to be competitive, my desire to be a champion, my desire to win races has never wavered. That’s who I am. That’s what I am.

“I’m excited to have all this new stuff going on around us — from rules, internally at Hendrick, the new car (Chevrolet Camaro), my teammates. … I’m taking a notebook and pen everywhere I go, because everywhere I look, there’s something to learn, and that’s exciting.”

When Johnson won his fourth championship in 2009, veteran Hendrick teammates Mark Martin and Jeff Gordon finished right behind him in the final standings. They knew the car thoroughly, and their feedback was unfailingly reliable.

Elliott is the “veteran” of the neophytes with two years in a Hendrick car. Bowman has spent 10 races in a top-of-the-line Monster Energy Series car, all subbing for injured Dale Earnhardt Jr. in 2016, in addition to logging abundant hours in the simulator and wheel-force car.

Byron hasn’t raced a Monster Energy car yet, though he and crew chief Darian Grubb will get their first track time at a Las Vegas test Jan. 31-Feb. 1.

MORE: Johnson’s new No. 48 paint scheme; new looks for 2018

So much for experience — but Johnson is a glass-half-full kind of guy.

“I choose to see the positives that come with it,” Johnson said. “So, out of the gate, just knowing young guys and their raw desire to go fast, there’s a lot that we’ll be able to take away from there. And I think it’s going to be important for me to understand their language and how they describe things, and then understand how to put that into how I describe a car, the sensations I’m looking for.

“Their effort level is going to be really high, so we might get some inconsistent feedback getting started until they can dial in at 100 percent and identify with that. But I’m excited for a fresh perspective. I find myself going in a cycle of looking at what worked in different years, from a driver’s standpoint, and there’s only a few things we can do to really be prepared.

“In talking with William, just as an example, he thinks that driving an RC (radio-control) car and seeing it from a different perspective and working on your hand-eye coordination from that vantage point is helpful. I’ve never thought of that. I probably haven’t driven an RC car since I was his age.”

But that just goes to show it’s never too late for a Grandpa to learn new tricks — and perhaps to win a title along with it.

Posted on January 23, 2018January 24, 2018 by Reid Spencer

RELATED: ThorSport partners with Ford

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — In his early days in NASCAR racing, Matt Crafton was a Ford driver.

In 2000, Crafton won two races and the NASCAR Southwest Series championship driving the No. 46 Ford, the same make and car number his father, Danny Crafton, used in the series.

When he transitioned to the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series a year later, however, Matt Crafton found himself behind the wheel of Duke Thorson’s No. 88 Chevrolet—and he lost a fan.

“In my old Southwest Tour days in 1997, I started racing a Ford out west, and that’s all my dad has ever owned and raced,” Crafton said during NASCAR Media Tour Presented by Charlotte Motor Speedway. “He always said whenever I first started racing another manufacturer, ‘I don’t know if I can root for you, because I’ve only driven a Ford and you’ve only driven a Ford.’ ”

RELATED: Driver, team changes for 2018

In 2012, ThorSport Racing switched to Toyota, and Crafton followed with back-to-back championship seasons in 2013 and 2014.

But to this day, he has never driven a Ford in Truck Series competition — until this year. Crafton found out last week that ThorSport had struck a deal with Ford Performance to run F150s in the series this year.

“So now I’ve got a new fan in my dad,” Crafton quipped.