Christopher Bell will substitute for Stewart Friesen in Friday’s NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race at Watkins Glen International, Halmar Friesen Racing announced Saturday.
Friesen, driver of the team’s No. 52 Toyota, was seriously injured during a Super DIRTcar Series modified race Monday at Autodrome Drummond in Drummondville, Quebec, Canada, sustaining a fractured right leg in addition to an open-book pelvis fracture. The 42-year-old underwent successful surgery in a New York hospital Thursday night to address both injuries, his wife Jessica shared in a social media post, as Friesen recovers from the incident.
“I want to thank everyone for their outreach and support as I continue to recover,” Friesen said in a team press release. “I know Christopher will give our truck a great run. We will be watching and cheering the team on this Friday.”
Friesen is tentatively locked into the 2025 Truck Series Playoffs thanks to his June win at Michigan International Speedway. The team intends to compete each week moving forward so that it will remain eligible for the Truck Series owners’ championship this season, HFR said in the release. Driver announcements for future races will come at a later time, the team said.
Bell, the 2017 Truck Series champion, is a seven-time winner in truck competition but has made just four combined starts since his title campaign. His most recent appearance in the Truck Series came at Las Vegas Motor Speedway in March 2024, when he drove the No. 1 Tricon Garage Toyota to a fifth-place finish.
“I was honored to receive the call to run this truck for Stewart, a fellow dirt racer and Toyota teammate, in Watkins Glen,” Bell said in a statement. “I’ve spent time with the team these past few days and we are working hard to continue the great season Stewart has had and deliver a great finish for him and his partners.”
The Truck Series returns to action at 5 p.m. ET on Friday at Watkins Glen with live coverage on FS1, NRN Radio and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
The inaugural In-Season Challenge is over. The third of four crown-jewel races is complete. A highly anticipated summer stretch has concluded after showcasing NASCAR’s first exclusively streamed broadcasts and the Cup Series’ first international points since 1958.
Yet four races remain before the playoffs get cranked up with 16 drivers competing for the 2025 championship.
It might be tempting to suggest August is when NASCAR’s premier series enters a natural lull. A quiet period seems inevitable during a 36-race season stretched across 10 months and thousands of miles.
But consider what transpired over the final four races of the regular season last year.
After the Brickyard 400, Chris Buescher, Ross Chastain and Bubba Wallace were fiercely jostling for playoff spots. Each spent a significant amount of time above the elimination line in August. But when the dust settled after Darlington Raceway, none of the three was in the playoff field as the final two races of the regular season yielded new 2024 winners in Harrison Burton and Chase Briscoe.
The disruption would have been larger if Austin Dillon’s controversial victory at Richmond Raceway (where he wrecked Denny Hamlin and Joey Logano in the last two turns) had stood as playoff eligible and eliminated another winless driver from title contention.
Dillon’s desperation is a good reminder of the lengths that drivers will go to if a win offers the chance to save a disappointing season. In NASCAR, the dog days of summer tend to turn dog eat dog with playoff berths at stake.
In every year since the Next Gen’s 2022 inception, at least one driver has clinched a playoff spot by winning from below the elimination line in the last four races of the regular season.
And 2025 could present the greatest opportunity yet for upsetting the establishment.
Iowa Speedway and Watkins Glen International — a short track and a road course — are in the four-race push to the playoffs this year in place of Michigan and Darlington — two tracks known for more straightforward results.
As NASCAR on NBC picks up the rest of the schedule starting Sunday at Iowa Speedway, the fresh broadcaster provides a fitting delineation for the Cup season’s final 14 weeks.
Before the 10-race run to determine the champion, here are three things to watch in four pressure-packed races to set the field:
— A deceptively large bubble: Buescher currently is in the final playoff spot by 42 points over Roush Fenway Keselowski teammate Ryan Preece, the biggest gap for a driver on the elimination line this season. But it’s of little comfort to Buescher given the remaining track lineup, which easily could produce a first-time winner from below the line.
Iowa and Richmond are short tracks where underdogs can thrive. Watkins Glen’s winding circuit surely has road-course aces AJ Allmendinger and Michael McDowell salivating (if they can outrun Shane van Gisbergen). And the regular-season finale at Daytona International Speedway is guaranteed to be a wide-open affair.
There has yet to be a regular season with more than 16 winners, so the points bubble likely will come into play in creating the championship field. But it seems foolish to focus on the elimination line until the final 40 laps at Daytona — where the capricious draft could turn that into a futile exercise anyway.
— Timely breakthroughs: Ty Gibbs and Carson Hocevar have little hope of cracking the playoff field on points, but there also is little doubt that the pair of 22-year-olds eventually will be Cup winners.
Hocevar has been agonizingly close multiple times this year, and Gibbs is even more overdue while also carrying the million-dollar momentum of winning the In-Season Challenge.
It would come as no surprise if either — or both — are locked in a playoff berth with an inaugural win in Cup this month.
— Hendrick high heat: The regular-season championship is worth 15 playoff points and seems destined to be won by Hendrick Motorsports, which has led the standings for 20 consecutive races.
Chase Elliott currently leads by thin margins over teammates William Byron (by four points) and Kyle Larson (by 15 points). Denny Hamlin (despite missing Mexico City) lurks only 20 points behind, marking the tightest separation of the top four through 22 races since 2012.
Much of the focus in August rightfully will be on the elimination line. But the top four’s results over the next four races will determine how 42 playoff points are divvied up, and that could have a pivotal impact on who makes the championship round in Phoenix.
On one hand, the Cup Series playoff picture is pretty set in stone.
Playoff Probabilities provided by Racing Insights (entering Iowa)
Chris Buescher holds the 16th and final spot for the postseason by 42 points over RFK Racing teammate Ryan Preece. That’s nearly a race in hand while Tyler Reddick (plus-138) and Alex Bowman (plus-63) are sitting pretty as the current field is.
However, the other hand says the final four races of the regular season could all produce unique winners with just three spots up for grabs.
Preece is an Xfinity Series winner at Iowa. Michael McDowell and AJ Allmendinger will be in the mix of competitors who could win at Watkins Glen. Austin Dillon won at Richmond in controversial fashion, but was on his way to Victory Lane without it becoming encumbered if there wasn’t a caution in the closing laps. The regular-season finale at Daytona can produce a winner from anybody in the field, so while a long shot, there’s a realistic chance for huge surprises before the postseason begins at Darlington.
Let’s take a look at the latest playoff probabilities provided by Racing Insights and which drivers are in a good or compromising spot for Iowa Speedway on Sunday (3:30 p.m. ET, USA Network, HBO Max, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App).
Preece (6.33% playoff probability) is coming off a top-five run in the Brickyard 400 and will enter a track he’s won at with plenty of momentum to finally break through for his first Cup triumph. On paper, a 42-point gap to make up wouldn’t be considered a “great spot,” but Iowa is certainly a track that the No. 60 team has circled to perform at its best.
Alex Bowman (74.88% playoff probability) should continue to increase his cushion on Sunday. He’s finished top 10 in four of the last five races and put together an eighth-place run last year at Iowa amid an event where three of the Hendrick cars finished inside the top 10, while Kyle Larson wrecked out early after leading 80 laps and grabbing a stage win.
YELLOW FLAG [Who’s on the fringe for Iowa]
This is going to Tyler Reddick, who should still be considered a playoff lock with a 97.89% probability to make the 16-driver field. The No. 45’s playoff hopes simply come down to no one outside of the bubble stealing a win. Reddick would love to win before the postseason begins, but sitting sixth overall in points is nothing to scoff at. The sour note for Reddick entering Iowa is that smaller tracks are a vulnerable spot for the California native. 23XI Racing did not show great speed in last year’s inaugural event in The Hawkeye State as Reddick finished 22nd and Bubba Wallace tallied a 17th-place result.
RED FLAG [Who I’m concerned about heading to Iowa]
This spot goes to Buescher simply for where he’s positioned in the playoff picture. It’s the ultimate conundrum for RFK as two of its cars sit 16th and 17th while co-owner Brad Keselowski lurks to possibly knock both out of the top 16. Buescher was also not fast at Iowa last year as he placed 18th.
While NASCAR is racing in corn country this weekend at Iowa Speedway, Bristol Motor Speedway is on deck to host a Field of Dreams-caliber event of its own.
In a matchup where baseball meets motorsports, the Atlanta Braves and Cincinnati Reds will clash inside the confines of the “Last Great Colosseum” this Saturday, Aug. 2, in the MLB Speedway Classic presented by BuildSubmarines.com (7:15 p.m. ET, FOX), the first MLB game ever played in the state of Tennessee.
“We love hosting the races that we host, but it’s always fun to showcase our facility in a different light, and we’ve done that with football, and now we’re thrilled to be able to do that with Major League Baseball,” Jerry Caldwell, president of Bristol, told NASCAR.com. “They’ve been great to work with. We’re blessed with a world-class team within Speedway Motorsports and at Bristol Motor Speedway. And then you couple that team with the team that Major League Baseball has assembled, and it’s really putting together something special, and I can’t wait for folks to get here and see it and just be wowed.”
With the event, Bristol continues to expand its non-racing resume. In addition to hosting a National Football League exhibition between Philadelphia and Washington in 1961, the “World’s Fastest Half-Mile” laid the gridiron for the University of Tennessee and Virginia Tech during the “Battle at Bristol” in 2016, which drew 156,990 spectators, an NCAA football record.
Bristol’s attendance muscle will again be flexed this weekend, with MLB announcing that more than 85,000 tickets have been sold for the event, surpassing the previous record of 84,587 set on Sept. 12, 1954, when Cleveland Stadium hosted the New York Yankees.
Any collaboration of this magnitude requires plenty of planning, and the MLB Speedway Classic is no exception. Soft demolition of several walls and buildings began May 27, with the property being turned over to MLB and associated partners and vendors June 23. Roughly 100-150 workers were involved in the demolition process, while a crew of approximately 400 was responsible for building the baseball infield.
Plenty of material went into the effort, too, including 340 tons of infield clay, 450 wall pads (based on MLB’s London Series build), 17,500 tons of rock, 80,000 square feet of backstop netting, 124,000 square feet of Diamond Series AstroTurf (the same turf type utilized by Rogers Centre, home of the Toronto Blue Jays) and much more. The final product? A Bristol diamond with dimensions spanning from 330 feet down both foul lines to 400 feet dead center.
“It’s kind of dreaming up this concept and saying, what if?” Caldwell said regarding the event, which has been years in the making. “Then we get computer renderings of what it could look like, and then now we’re showing pictures of what it really is like, and you’re seeing all that stuff come together. It’s a great sense of accomplishment and fun for me to see and for our team just because our teams work so hard on it, getting everyone to see this kind of work of art, almost, that they’ve created.”
Photo courtesy of Speedway Motorsports
Baseball players have taken notice, with “Talladega Nights”-inspired catching gear, racing-centric uniforms and simulator attempts all the rage. While NASCAR drivers continue their regular-season push at Iowa, they, too, recognize just how significant an event like this can be in getting more eyeballs on Bristol and NASCAR as a whole.
“A lot of baseball fans are going to go to Bristol and be like, man, this is wild. I can’t imagine they race on the banking and stuff like this. And hopefully, they come back for a race,” Joe Gibbs Racing’s Chase Briscoe said. “And even for the players, I know that I was able to do some stuff with the Reds. And even Elly De La Cruz (Reds’ shortstop), right? He was racing around the track, and he was so intrigued by it. So hopefully, we can get some more of those guys to the race track. I think the more we can do that kind of stuff just helps you know push all this in the right direction.”
“Any time you can introduce yourself and expose yourself to new fans and create new opportunities, great, and I think we’ve done a good job of doing that with a lot of different opportunities, whether (Clash at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum), whether it’s street races, whether it’s going to cities, going to different places, engaging in other sports and engaging with other athletes,” Spire Motorsports’ Michael McDowell said. “I feel like that’s a big part of just overall growing our brand as a NASCAR brand.”
The MLB Speedway Classic isn’t the only major event on Bristol’s docket. After all, the 0.533-mile short track will host all three of NASCAR’s national series in September, headlined by the Bass Pro Shops Night Race as the Round of 16 elimination race in the Cup Series Playoffs (Sept. 13, 7:30 p.m. ET, USA Network, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App). According to Caldwell, the process to transition the facility back to a race track is already in motion. Approximately 200 crew members from MLB, along with 90-100 from Bristol, will aid in the dismantling process of the baseball field.
“We’ve got to make sure we’re keeping our eye on the ball, and we can do that,” Caldwell said. “There are lots of major facilities that host huge events weeks apart, and we’re going to be able to do that, but it takes a tremendous amount of planning, a tremendous amount of cooperation, and that’s what we’ve done. … From the partners with Major League Baseball, understanding that we have to get ready for the race, and then partners that we’re going to bring in that are from the construction space that will help us execute as we head towards the playoff race, and we’ll be ready, but it’s really just a tremendous amount of planning and making sure we’re all on the same page.”
At a venue with plenty of history, “Thunder Valley” will have another vaulted chapter written in its annals, and whether as a regular or first-timer, the MLB Speedway Classic will be a wonder under the lights for all in attendance.
Batter up.
“It’s one of those places you have to see to believe it,” Caldwell said about Bristol. “It’s a football stadium or baseball stadium on steroids, if you will. But you really want to get in and just take in the magnitude of the place. Enjoy every aspect of it. Walk around the facility. Make sure you see it from different angles. It’s in a beautiful part of the country, but it’s also just an amazing facility to think that this is built in Bristol, Tennessee, and is one of the largest spectator facilities in the country and in the world.”
It would be difficult to imagine a performance more dominant than the one JR Motorsports driver Connor Zilisch has fashioned over the last nine races since returning from a back injury he sustained at Talladega.
In that span, Zilisch won four races, including the last three in a row. He also finished second three times, along with two more top-five finishes, to post an average finish of 2.1 since Charlotte.
With his win last Saturday at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, he notched the 100th victory for JR Motorsports. At 19 years, 4 days, he’s now the youngest driver to win three straight races in Xfinity Series history and to reach six career victories in the series, dethroning Joey Logano.
All six of Zilisch’s Xfinity wins have come in his series debuts at the respective tracks, a streak he’ll attempt to maintain in Saturday’s HyVee Perks 250 at Iowa Speedway (4:30 p.m. ET, The CW, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Only two drivers in series history have won four straight races: Sam Ard in 1983 and Noah Gragson in 2022.
Though Zilisch has never raced an Xfinity Series car at Iowa Speedway, two facts argue in his favor: he won last year’s ARCA Menards Series race at the 0.875-mile short track, and Sam Mayer won last year’s race with Zilisch’s current crew chief, Mardy Lindley, calling the shots from Mayer’s pit box.
“I was fortunate enough to win the ARCA race at Iowa last year, so I’m looking forward to using what I learned in that race with a new challenge in the Xfinity car,” Zilisch said. “My crew chief, Mardy Lindley, won the race there with Sam Mayer last year, so I know we’ll have a really good KOA Chevrolet when we get to the track this weekend.
“We’ve been on a roll lately with top-five finishes and trips to Victory Lane, so I’m ready to get to the track and continue that.”
The HyVee Perks 250 is the third of five short-track races on the Xfinity Series schedule this year, but neither of the winners of the first two such races will compete on Saturday.
NASCAR suspended Martinsville winner Austin Hill for one race for intentionally wrecking Aric Almirola last Saturday at Indianapolis, and Bristol winner Kyle Larson is not doing double duty this weekend.
Full-time Cup Series driver Austin Dillon will take Hill’s place in the No. 21 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet at Iowa.
With five races left in the Xfinity Series regular season, there are five berths left in the playoffs. Cousins Jeb Burton and Harrison Burton are on opposite sides of the eligibility bubble, with Jeb Burton holding a 10-point edge for the final spot in the playoffs.
Kaulig Racing announced on Wednesday it was parting ways with driver Josh Williams after more than a year and a half together. Both sides felt it was for the best.
After a 22nd-place finish at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, discussions began internally about the immediate future of the No. 11 car. Williams is 19th in the regular-season championship standings and needed a Hail Mary to make the NASCAR Xfinity Series Playoffs, so there was no sense in delaying the inevitable.
“We had our differences a little bit. I don’t think they were happy, and I wasn’t happy,” Williams told NASCAR.com. “It seemed like it was the best thing to do for both of us that we can all move forward and work towards the future a little bit faster. It worked out for both of us.”
Chris Rice, team president for Kaulig Racing, agreed with Williams. The relationship just wasn’t working out for either party.
“Sometimes, chemistry just doesn’t work in marriages, life, anything,” Rice told NASCAR.com on Thursday morning. “When you look at our Xfinity program, there’s a lot of potential there, but we haven’t been putting it to work. Those decisions are tough. When you think about our M.O., we’re all about having fun and trying to win trophies. At the end of the day, it’s not about that — it’s about giving people opportunities to showcase their talent and making sure our stuff is up to par for everybody else.”
Williams earned six top-10 finishes in 54 starts in Kaulig’s flagship No. 11 Chevrolet, with a best effort of sixth in May at Charlotte Motor Speedway. Williams led 14 laps total in those starts.
Kaulig Racing is winless through 21 races in 2025, with Rice considering the season unacceptable. That is on the heels of a 2024 season where Shane van Gisbergen dominated three road-course races in Kaulig equipment and AJ Allmendinger ultimately made the Championship 4 by scoring an upset victory at Las Vegas Motor Speedway in the Round of 8.
“We all want to win, but we want to be in contention to win and have a better opportunity to win and run top 10, run top five and we haven’t even come close to that,” Rice added. “We’ve got to figure that out. I think over the next couple of weeks, before we get into the playoffs, we can judge our Xfinity program and see what needs to be changed and what we need to do for 2026.”
Rookie Christian Eckes is the only Kaulig driver to score a top-five finish in 2025, earning three so far this year. He leads Kaulig with eight top-10 finishes, while fellow rookie Daniel Dye has seven top 10s.
Williams wouldn’t go as far as saying he didn’t get a fair shot with Kaulig, but he said, “It wasn’t an ideal situation.”
“The past few years, as a whole organization, the performance wasn’t as good as it was a few years before I even got there,” Williams said. “Teams go through cycles. A lot of times, teams are really good and then they fade off a little bit and go back to being good. We were in that low part. I don’t think it’s anybody’s fault; it’s just the position that we were in.”
Since the news dropped on Wednesday, Williams’ phone hasn’t stopped buzzing. Countless people within the racing industry reached out, making the process easier to reconcile. Rice said the same with the No. 11 car being a key opening leading into the offseason. Currently, he’s unsure if Kaulig will operate two or three full-time Xfinity cars come 2026.
“I’ve had numerous Xfinity teams, numerous truck teams reach out to me,” Williams said. “A lot of team owners, other drivers, people very high up in NASCAR, Hall of Fame drivers — I’ve had a lot of people reach out to me today and they are all on my side and everyone is behind me.”
With a host of people checking in on Williams, he feels satisfied despite the circumstances. Every colleague working directly on the No. 11 Chevrolet reached out to him, aside from crew chief Eddie Pardue, Williams added.
“It goes to show you what type of person that I am,” he said. “I can’t walk down pit road without being late to the car because I’ve got to stop and talk to 100 people on the way. Everyone respects me and knows who I am as a person and how I treat people.
“I never burn a bridge because you don’t know what the future holds. Motorsports is the smallest community in the world. Everything is a circle, no pun intended. We’re all in this small circle and you never know when you’re going to need that person one day. I might need Kaulig Racing one day and they might need me one day. You’ve got to keep those doors open.”
Rice appreciated the opportunity of getting to work with Williams and alluded to being thankful for the partnership they had.
Williams isn’t done racing in 2025. Highlighted by primary partner Alloy Employer Services, Williams has a loyal sponsorship following that is committed to four more races this season. He couldn’t confirm yet which races he will participate in or with which team.
“I have the people who are important to further my career on my side and that means a lot,” Williams said.
Nailing down 2026 plans is top of mind for Williams. Separating from one of the series’ mainstays didn’t hurt too much, Williams said, because “I know where my future is going.”
“It’s still upsetting because I’m a racer; I want to go race,” he said. “I have a plan for the future, so I feel like that makes it easier. I feel like I’ve got more drive than ever.”
Here’s what’s happening in NASCAR with the Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in the rearview and the Iowa Corn 350 Powered by Ethanol at Iowa Speedway (3:30 p.m. ET, USA Network, HBO Max, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App) up next.
1. Wallace’s Brickyard trophy comes with fresh mindset
A career-altering victory? Perhaps, and while it clearly ranks as Bubba Wallace’s most prestigious Cup Series win, what it’s done for his playoff perspective has a long reach as well.
Bubba Wallace emerged from Indianapolis with a fresh designation as a winner of one of the NASCAR Cup Series’ crown-jewel races. His outlook for the rest of the season is a fresh one, too.
Wallace had won before in NASCAR’s top division, prevailing at Talladega Superspeedway in 2021 and adding a victory at Kansas Speedway the next year. Both of those wins came during the pressure-packed stretch of 10 races in the postseason. The only issue in each instance: Wallace wasn’t playoff-eligible at the time.
Wallace’s Brickyard 400 triumph lifted his stature in multiple ways. The double-overtime win tucked a centerpiece prize into his trophy case, but it also guaranteed him a spot in the Cup Series Playoffs after years of dwelling on the bubble — the fringes of playoff eligibility. With four regular-season races remaining, the feat acts as uncharted waters for the No. 23 pilot.
“So we keep pushing. Winning now, before the playoffs start, never done that before,” Wallace said Sunday from Indy. “There’s a lot of new stuff for me, so I’m just taking it all in.”
Wallace made the postseason field for the first time in 2023, grabbing the last available berth by a 47-point margin. Last year, the 23XI Racing driver’s fortunes were reversed; Wallace joined fellow competitors Chris Buescher and Ross Chastain on the outs after all three spent time above the elimination line at this point of the season or later.
That’s not a concern now, and Wallace and his No. 23 Toyota team can be afforded the comfort of the playoff pressure valve’s release. With that future secured, how far can that group go, and who else will be joining them on the 16-driver grid?
Answering the second question first, 23XI Racing remains promisingly perched to land another slot with Tyler Reddick, who still holds a sizable 138-point edge over the elimination barrier. Two short tracks, a road course and the superspeedway challenge of Daytona International Speedway in the wild-card finale will settle it.
As far as Wallace’s postseason hopes, his improved versatility on multiple track types will be put to the ultimate test. Not many seasons ago, Wallace’s best chances to brush shoulders with Victory Lane were calendar-circled on superspeedway weekends. Gains on intermediate-sized tracks came next, validated by his Kansas win in 2022. While his road-course acumen might still be considered a development area, seeing his No. 23 higher on the scoring pylon at all sorts of venues carries far less surprise than it once did.
The Cup Series Playoffs field is already stacked with heavyweights, many of whom have shuffled their way into the postseason deck more than once. But as Wallace showed Sunday at Indianapolis, his ability to battle straight-up with one of motorsport’s best in Kyle Larson and come out ahead bodes well for the closing 10-race stanza.
Jonathan Bachman | Getty Images
2. Teammate tug-of-war with Buescher, Preece
RFK Racing’s bid for at least one of its three teams to make the Cup Series Playoffs has dwindled down to an intra-team showdown: Buescher in and Preece out — for now — with four races left to settle the score.
Bubba Wallace’s departure from the playoffs bubble into the coveted clique of Cup Series winners has placed a new twist on the annual jostle for one of the 16 postseason spots at the deadline. The two drivers who are now closest to the trench of who’s in and who’s not actually fly the same team banner.
Looking at the provisional playoff picture with four regular-season races left, RFK Racing’s Chris Buescher is currently the last driver in, clinging to a 42-point advantage above the elimination line. On the minus-42 side of that divider is teammate Ryan Preece, who joined the organization at the start of the 2025 campaign.
Like Wallace, Buescher has been in this sort of spot before. The Texas native enjoyed his most productive year in 2023, when he closed the regular season with three wins in five races to punch his playoff ticket with emphasis. There was less roar last year in a sometimes maddeningly winless regular season for the No. 17 Ford team, which left him scraping for points that weren’t enough to get him there.
Buescher has won races in each of the last three seasons, and three of the four tracks remaining on the Cup Series’ regular-season schedule (Watkins Glen, Richmond, Daytona) have been host to those victories.
On the other end of the postseason divide as the first driver out is Preece, who has stabilized his results after a fitful spring stretch of four consecutive finishes of 20th or worse. Any downsides that may have naturally come with RFK’s expansion to a third Cup Series team have been capably offset by Preece’s steady hand with the No. 60 Ford group.
Some extra oomph to that momentum came Sunday, when Preece overcame a 23rd-place starting position with restart skill and some savvy strategy to finish fourth — his first top-five result since mid-March. “That shows we have a really strong core,” said Preece, in his sixth full Cup Series season.
How the teammate power struggle plays out in the four races ahead will make for a fine focal point. Another new winner, though, could set the jostling in motion all over again.
Ryan Blaney gave the Midwest crowd something to cheer about last year, winning in front of a large gathering of friends and family in the first Cup Series event at Iowa Speedway. Relive the top moments from the tour’s 2024 trip to Iowa with our Race Rewind extended highlights.
4. RFK Racing rounding the corner in regular season
With the Cup Series regular season well into its second half, RFK Racing has found needed stride as the three-car operation gears up for a playoff push. Catch a deeper glimpse into the statistics from its earlier struggles to the organization’s recent performance gains. (Credit: Racing Insights)
First 14 races
Last 8 races
Starts
42
24
Poles
0
0
Wins
0
0
Runner-ups
0
2
Top fives
3
5
Top 10s
12
14
Laps led
59
123
DNFs
9
1
Average start
18.9
13.5
Average finish
20.24
11.67
Stage wins
1
2
5. Catch the pack — news and notes from around the garage
The National Motorsports Appeals Panel upheld the penalty against the No. 52 Halmar Friesen Racing team after last weekend’s NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race at Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park.
Stewart Friesen drove the truck to a third-place finish in Friday’s TSport 200, but in post-race inspection, it was discovered that his No. 52 Toyota didn’t meet the height requirement, measuring too low in the front and the rear.
As a result, instead of a third-place finish, Friesen was dropped to 35th place and credited with just two points. Friesen, a winner in June at Michigan International Speedway, led 20 of 200 laps in Friday night’s event.
In reaching Wednesday’s decision, the panel provided the following explanation: “The panel agrees that the team violated Rule 14.17.3.2.1.2.A. There was a part failure that is not known if it was intentional or unintentional, resulting in failure of front ride height.”
The Appeals Panel members for this hearing were Dixon Johnston, Bill Mullis and Tommy Wheeler.
Friesen was set to undergo surgery on Wednesday after he suffered fractures to his pelvis and right leg Monday in a Super DIRTcar Series race at Autodrome Drummond in Drummondville, Quebec, Canada. According to a social media post that his wife Jessica made on Tuesday, Friesen was in serious but stable condition.
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – The summer swelter brought hot tempers to Bowman Gray Stadium, and that’s expected to continue with more money on the line.
The Fans’ Challenge returns Saturday, Aug. 2 for the Brad’s Golf Cars Modified Series FOX 8 WGHP 100, and it’ll carry a $3,000 jackpot after Chris Fleming cashed in on the previous $9,000 prize on July 12.
Meanwhile, Mike Speeney was expected to pay back Burt Myers for contact in a Twin 25 race on July 19, and followed through in the first Twin 25 on July 26 – an incident that cost Myers and Speeney more ground to Brad’s Golf Cars Modified Series points leader Brandon Ward.
“This is one (Burt Myers) can’t talk his way out of,” Speeney said. “I told him we’d get him back, and he’s going to learn he can’t mess with me.”
Speeney considers the score settled, but also says any further contact will carry the feud on longer.
“This doesn’t just apply to Burt. It’s a statement that I’m not going to be pushed around for being the nice guy,” Speeney said.
Myers says he’s ready to move on.
“We’ve been strong in these 100-lappers, so we’re focused on winning another one,” Myers said.
Gates open at 6 p.m. Saturday night, with racing action to start at 8 p.m. Fans can get tickets online right now at www.bowmangrayracing.com. Tickets are $12 for adults and $2 for kids ages 6 to 11.
