Posted on by Staff Report

Earlier this week, NASCAR.com spent the day at Chip Ganassi Racing in Concord, North Carolina. During the visit, our team got to know theirs a little better. Stay tuned this week as NASCAR.com features unique, all-access content.

Championship vibes are strong within walls of Chip Ganassi Racing

 

Chip Ganassi Racing crew driven by family-like bond

 

VIDEO: Go inside a pit crew practice at Chip Ganassi Racing

VIDEO: The rise of Chip Ganassi Racing

Posted on by Staff Report

RELATED: Photos of Danica Patrick through the years

Stewart-Haas Racing co-owner Tony Stewart knows he won’t have Danica Patrick on his roster of drivers next year, but he thinks Patrick will be in NASCAR in 2018.

Stewart spent part of his morning Tuesday on “The Dan Patrick Show,” where he addressed a variety of topics — including Danica’s future. Patrick announced earlier in September that she would not return to SHR in 2018.

“Good question,” Stewart replied when the host asked him about Patrick’s future. “I don’t know. I don’t know what she has planned. She has so much stuff going on. She reminds me a lot of me. She’s got wineries, she’s got her yoga stuff, she’s got a clothing line she’s working on. But I don’t see her leaving the sport. She’s that driven and that competitive. She still wants to win.”

MORE ‘SMOKE’: Historic photos | Photos from every win

Other topics addressed on the show include:

• Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s post-race Periscope live-stream on Twitter: “Every Sunday after the race, I watch it to see what he’s going to say about the day. I just like how he engages with people. To be Dale Jr. and to get people to run up and literally just bump into you to try to get an autograph or a picture, I couldn’t deal with it like he does. … He’s just a great man and a great personality.”

• On if he’s getting married: “No. Who told you that? I’ve made it 46 years!”

• On his most prized possession: “If I had to leave my house, I’ve got to grab the last championship trophy I have in NASCAR (2011) because that was the hardest one to win for sure.”

Posted on by Steve Luvender

It’s time for the playoffs! Or, you know, the time things get awfully intense — even off the track. Chicagoland gave us plenty of story lines … and slime.

Thumbs Up: Playoffs Green

There’s something special about seeing those 16 playoff cars with Monster Energy green trim.

 

 

Thumbs up for the start of the 2017 NASCAR Playoffs and that fast-looking green trim that says to the other 24 competitors, “Hey, I’m faster than you!”

 

Thumbs Down: Pit crew swap woes

Heading into Chicagoland, Joe Gibbs Racing elected to swap pit crews for their No. 18 and No. 19 teams. Kyle Busch, of course, made the playoffs, while teammate rookie Daniel Suarez came up short in his first season. Apparently, Suarez’s No. 19 crew was the safer bet — that was the assumption, at least — prompting a swap of the teams before the start of the playoffs.

Apparently, after numerous pit road penalties and mishaps for the No. 18 team, the swap didn’t quite go as planned. Busch led the most laps, but ended up finishing 15th. Not ideal when every point matters.

It remains to be seen whether or not Kyle Busch will be reunited with the pit crew that helped him reach the playoffs, but surely the team competition meeting on Monday totally wasn’t awkward at all.

Thumbs down for a rocky start.

 

Thumbs Up: Matt DiBenedetto’s “photo finish’

Why isn’t anybody talking about the photo finish at Chicagoland?!

 

Matt DiBenedetto crossed the finish line side-by-side with race winner Martin Truex Jr — a dead heat — or so it appeared.

No, the No. 32 Go Fas Racing Ford didn’t battle for the win, but it’ll sort of look that way in every photo of Truex crossing the finish line at Chicagoland Sunday. DiBenedetto’s lapped car finished six laps behind Truex in 31st place — but, hey, maybe he could fool somebody in a sponsor pitch deck.

Thumbs up to DiBurrito for almost winning, from the looks of it, at least.

 

Thumbs Down: Pit road penalties for Playoff drivers

Pish! Piles of playoff participants procured plentiful pit road penalties.

Playoffs produced plenty of pressure, piling prevalent penalties for particular playoff partakers: Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Martin Truex Jr., Austin Dillon, Kyle Busch, Jamie McMurray, and Kurt Busch were the proscribing parties participating in the Playoffs pained by pit road penalties.

Truex positively parried his pit penalty, per contra, prevailing powerfully and passing to the postliminary playoffs period.


Thumbs down for playoff participators performing pass-through pit road penalties, per prescribed protocol.

 

Biggest Thumbs Up of the Week: Slime on the furniture

Did you have grandparents who kept the plastic covers on their furniture? Man, it seems like you couldn’t enjoy the furniture at the intended level of comfort and visual appeal — all in the name of keeping dirt and slime off the furniture.

Maybe sofa-plastic grandparents were afraid of people like Martin Truex Jr.

The Furniture Row Racing driver and his team were greeted in Victory Lane by a heaping helping of Slime.

As we noted, there was a little more green on Truex’s car this week coinciding with the start of the playoffs, so it was only fitting that Truex himself sported some more bright green of his own when he claimed the victory in the Tales of the Turtles 400 (with race partner Nickelodeon).

Surely, crew chief/engineer/genius Cole Pearn’s already working up a use for the Slime.

 

A giant thumbs up for sliming the furniture race winner. Let’s do this again.

Posted on by Nascar

RELATED: XFINITY Series Playoff standings | Analyzing the 12-driver field

Daniel Hemric is 26 and that makes the Richard Childress Racing driver the old man among the Sunoco rookies in this year’s NASCAR XFINITY Series Playoff field.

Older than JR Motorsports phenom William Byron (19).

Older than Stewart-Haas speedster Cole Custer (19).

And older than Joe Gibbs Racing’s lone representative, Matt Tifft (21).

The four make up one-third of the 12-driver field and they’ll get down to business Saturday night at Kentucky Speedway where race No. 1 in the Round of 12 is scheduled (8 p.m. ET, NBCSN).

Byron, winner of three races, goes in as the No. 1 seed, ahead of JRM teammates Justin Allgaier (second) and Elliott Sadler (third).

Brennan Poole (Chip Ganassi Racing), Ryan Reed (Roush Fenway Racing), Jeremy Clements (Jeremy Clements Racing), Blake Koch (Kaulig Racing), Brendan Gaughan (RCR) and Michael Annett (JRM) round out the 12-team field.

Hemric joined RCR this season after two full seasons of Camping World Truck Series competition for team owner Brad Keselowski. His No. 21 team is a hodgepodge of talented folks who have experience but not a lot of time working together.

But they’ve managed to learn and grow and improve enough throughout the season to make Hemric more than a passable candidate to advance to Homestead and the championship-determining race.

RELATED: Playoff-bound drivers ready for Kentucky

“Danny (Stockman, crew chief) is a good leader and he’s put groups together in the past and made them work,” Hemric told NASCAR.com recently. “I think that’s what helped it thrive early and often.

“It all starts at the top with Stockman and myself just trying to be leaders for our group. At end of day, the majority of (the crew) are all racers so that makes it easier. That makes it a common goal on which direction on the rope they’re pulling, makes it all go the same direction and that’s what it’s all about.”

Hemric managed 12 top-10 finishes during the regular season, including a runner-up finish at Mid-Ohio. There have been rookie mistakes here and there, but not enough to sidetrack a team that’s had the playoffs in its sights since February.

Others have been faster, but Hemric and his group have improved throughout the year and look strong heading into the postseason.

“I don’t think we unload and are one of the ones people are automatically pointing at as a dominant car,” he said. “But … with the strength of our team and knowing we can contend and run inside the top 10, top five throughout the majority of the events, even with the Cup guys in there; take them out and we’re a solid top-five car, top-six car no matter where we’ve been.

“We had to take that step; that’s not exactly where we’ve been all year. That’s a testament to how much we’ve grown as a group and how much better our equipment has gotten, how much better Stockman and I are working together. Maximizing our days, that’s what’s going to be the deciding factor of if we can become one of those that people point at as one of the ones to beat.”

Hemric made it one round last year in Truck Series postseason and finished sixth overall. The year before, he was seventh at season’s end. While he is a rookie in the XFINITY series, he admitted he’s not a fan of the moniker.

“I like to think that everything I went through growing up and getting to this point, you don’t want to be classified as a rookie,” he said. “But you look back now and there are things and decisions I wish I had made differently … but it’s been a year of learning. …

“Knowing the magnitude of how one OK day has to benefit you versus pushing too much and having a bad day and how that affects your playoff chances.

“I think I’m better for it, I think the team is better for it; we’ve made a huge step in growing together.”

Posted on by Zack Albert

RELATED: At the shop with Joe Gibbs Racing

Amid a voluminous space of roughly 4,000 square feet with plenty of state-of-the-art machines, one of the most noticeable features in Joe Gibbs Racing’s indoor training facilities is something that barely qualifies as equipment at all.

Centrally mounted from the ceiling is a disco ball. As JGR Senior Athletic Advisor Michael Lepp explains, the room doesn’t function as a dance hall after normal operating hours. It’s there to lighten the mood if need be, but also serves as a nod to team owner Joe Gibbs’ time as a Hall of Fame coach for the NFL’s Washington Redskins.

“That ball actually came from the Redskins training facility where Coy Gibbs, Joe’s son, works up with their training,” Lepp said last week, on the eve of the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs. “They used to complain, ‘well, it’s not fun to be in the gym all the time,’ and so they bought a disco ball and put it up and turned the lights out, turned it on and said well, now you can have fun and have a disco as you work out.

“It’s a little bit that reminds us of our culture and history with Joe being a Super Bowl-winning coach. We kind of put that up as a reminder, but it’s kind of a fun thing.”

RELATED: Galloway learns new kind of speed in pit crew workout

The disco ball might be a sparkly throwback to the 1970s, but much of the room’s other contents are on the forefront of technology. Crewmembers keep track of their carefully curated workouts on flat-screen displays spread around the space. And more than three dozen pieces of equipment help Lepp and other trainers target strength drills specifically designed to assist each crewmember’s job.

The facilities don’t end there, with an outdoor athletic field for speed and agility training, plus a pit-stop practice area where the organization’s athletes can apply their skills. Plus there’s a new adjoining room where Jena Gatses, JGR’s full-time doctor of physical therapy and performance specialist, helps crewmembers recover from ailments old and new.

Gatses — who also treats athletes with JGR’s motocross operation — uses hot/cold tubs, cryotherapy methods and intramuscular stimulation in addition to her individually tailored workouts. In her nearly four-year affiliation with Joe Gibbs Racing, she’s seen a little bit of everything walk into her office after the hard knocks of a race weekend.

“You see over-use stuff, but you also see, ‘Hey, that guy just got hit by a car,’ “Gatses says. “Achilles’ tears, broken sternums, crushed heels … it’s crazy. To think that I’d be doing all of this is unreal, but I love every second of it. I can look at what they do during their jobs and modify that. I can modify the car, how Daniel (Suarez) shifts because his wrist was bothering him so we modified the car. It’s endless here.”

WATCH: JGR drivers talk about their team dynamic and personalities

NASCAR’s competition format shifts for the final 10 races as the postseason kicks in, and eliminations and pressure-packed races help determine a series champion. While Lepp says there’s no drastic change in the message he delivers to his crew, there’s a slight alteration to the training regimen — all in an effort to avoid tiring out athletes who have been tackling a brisk at-track routine since February.

“When you have a 36-week season, it’s one of the longest sports seasons there is in all of sports, you have to be careful because there’s that fine line of going too far and creating fatigue,” Lepp says. “What I’ve learned with the Playoff system in NASCAR is, it’s probably the most stressful 10 weeks you’re ever going to experience in a lot of sports. … Really, managing fatigue this time of year is critical.”

That willingness to adapt has drawn applause from the organization’s crew chiefs, who need their teams at their sharpest for the late-season push.

“The facility’s unbelievable and I think each year, we learn more and more,” says Jason Ratcliff, who oversees the JGR No. 20 Toyota for driver Matt Kenseth. “The seasons are so long, not just for the athletes or the pit crews that come out there and do their thing on Sunday. It’s for the whole group, really. Even guys that don’t travel, the hours are long, the seasons are long. So when you have a facility like that in the shop that you can go to any day, seven days a week, it’s right here and a huge help.”

Posted on by Staff Report

Hendrick Motorsports has named Darian Grubb crew chief for the No. 5 Chevrolet team and driver Kasey Kahne for the remaining nine Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs races in 2017 NASCAR Cup Series season, the team announced Monday afternoon in a press release. He will be atop the pit box for Sunday’s event at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.

NEWS: Kahne will move to No. 95 in 2018

Grubb, 41, led Tony Stewart to the 2011 championship and has posted 23 total victories in the series, which rank him third among active full-time crew chiefs, behind only teammate Chad Knaus (81 wins) and Todd Parrott (31 wins). He has recorded 18 pole positions, 72 top-five finishes and 130 top-10s in his career.

“Darian is an extremely talented and experienced crew chief,” said Hendrick Motorsports president Marshall Carlson. “Having been back with us for more than 20 months, he knows all of our people and processes. There’s no one more prepared to hit the ground running at this point in the year.”

RELATED: Kahne won’t return to HMS in 2018 | See Kahne’s special paint scheme

Grubb originally joined Hendrick Motorsports in January 2003. He served as the lead race engineer for the No. 48 Chevrolet and driver Jimmie Johnson from 2003-2006, including four races as interim crew chief during the team’s 2006 championship season. Grubb earned one win in 2007 as crew chief for Casey Mears before being named engineering manager for the Nos. 5 and 88 Hendrick Motorsports teams for 2008.

In 2009, Grubb moved into a crew chief role at Stewart-Haas Racing, where in three seasons with driver Stewart he won 11 races and the 2011 Monster Energy Series title. He then joined Joe Gibbs Racing, recording nine total victories from 2012-2015 as crew chief for drivers Denny Hamlin and Carl Edwards. Grubb rejoined Hendrick Motorsports in January 2016 to oversee race car manufacturing as vehicle production director and was recently promoted to director of competition systems.

THROWBACK: Is Grubb Hendrick’s secret weapon?

“I’m looking forward to working with the team for the rest of the season,” said Grubb, a native of Floyd, Virginia, with a mechanical engineering degree from Virginia Tech. “I enjoy competing in a playoffs environment, and we have tremendous resources at Hendrick Motorsports to pull from. I’m ready to get started this weekend.”

Grubb replaces Keith Rodden, who was the team’s crew chief for 99 races. Rodden remains under contract to Hendrick Motorsports through the end of the 2017 season and will be assigned other responsibilities. The team’s crew chief for the 2018 season has not been determined.

PHOTOS: All of Kahne’s career wins

Posted on by Staff Report

Editor’s note: The “Made in Japan” documentary aired Sept. 20 on FS1’s “Race Hub” program. Watch here.

RELATED: See exclusive photos of trip to Japan

Cultures crossed in the mid-1990s when NASCAR held a series of races in Japan over a three-year stretch.

Rusty Wallace, Jeff Gordon, Dale Earnhardt, Dale Jarrett and others made the 7,000-mile trip across the Pacific Ocean to compete in NASCAR’s first major international race, an unprecedented event in competing against the best racers in Japan.

The setting? Japan’s world famous Suzuka Circuit.

“Made in Japan” explores all of the above, and more — the effort to launch the first race in 1996, the lasting impact on Japan, if NASCAR will ever return — in an all-access, behind-the-scenes documentary airing as part of “Race Hub” on FS1.

Posted on by Staff Report

NASCAR Executive Vice President and Chief Racing Development Officer Steve O’Donnell said he believes the sanctioning body provides a level playing field for all manufacturers, and that Twitter comments from Team Penske’s Brad Keselowski were “a little bit of posturing.”

Keselowski incited both a discussion and criticism on Friday when he tweeted about the speed of Toyotas compared to other manufacturers, leading to some back-and-forth with Joe Gibbs Racing’s Kyle Busch.

RELATED: Drivers trade Twitter barbs | Busch fires back at Kes

O’Donnell was asked about Keselowski’s commentary Monday morning on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.

“Certainly our job is to put a level playing field out there,” O’Donnell said. “We’ve got a process that each of the (manufacturers) goes through and kind of witnesses. We believe they are on a level playing field.

“I look at it as a little bit of posturing. Brad certainly ran well this weekend. At the end of the day, you’ve had that car all year long. It’s the playoffs, and you have to go out there and deliver.”

Sunday’s playoffs opener at Chicagoland Speedway saw four different drivers lead at least 40 laps, with all three manufacturers spending time out front — including the top-three finishers in Martin Truex Jr. (Toyota, 77 laps led), Chase Elliott (Chevrolet, 42 laps led) and Kevin Harvick (Ford, 59 laps led).

Posted on by @KESELOWSKI

RELATED: Field set for playoffs | Playoffs standings | Driver previews

JOLIET, Ill. — And then there were 12.

Saturday’s TheHouse.com 300 at Chicagoland Speedway set the stage for the 2017 XFINITY Series NASCAR Playoffs, solidifying the 12 drivers who will run for the series championship.

Leading that pack is JR Motorsports’ William Byron, who — despite a broken transmission that left him with a 33rd-place finish on Saturday — is seeded first with three wins in the regular season. All four JR Motorsports cars will compete for the title, with Elliott Sadler winning the regular season title and Justin Allgaier nabbing his second victory of the season at Chicago. Michael Annett squeezed into the playoffs on points as the final driver in the field.

The strength of the team as a whole bodes well for the six-race stretch leading up to the season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

“Our team has got a good amount of speed right now, so that’s encouraging,” Byron told NASCAR.com after the race. “Definitely in the races I think we keep getting better and get our cars faster. So, we’ll see what we can do with that. I think it’s going to be good for us toward the end of this year.”

“… Just have to make no mistakes the whole (Playoffs) and put ourselves in a good position.”

Richard Childress Racing will also have a substantial showing in the ’17 NASCAR Playoffs, with two of its full-time cars — Daniel Hemric and Brendan Gaughan — in championship contention. Saturday’s event was especially important for Gaughan, who hadn’t reached Victory Lane to lock in a spot and was seeded a precarious 12th entering the final race of the regular season. After battling back from an equalized right-rear tire midway through the race, a 13th-place finish earned Gaughan a coveted playoff spot — and a hug from team owner Richard Childress on pit road after the race.

RELATED: Gaughan thrilled to be playoff-bound

“You keep digging and you don’t stop,” an always-enthusiastic Gaughan said. “That’s what (crew chief) Shane Wilson’s always been about and me and all my boys. I’m so proud of them for not stopping … nobody getting down, chasing down the problem, getting it fixed, getting the tire off, then just getting back in the race car and saying ‘OK we’re good now.’

“(I’m) excited now — now we can go back in race mode,” he continued later. “You saw what we can do at the end of the race when they finally take the handcuffs off. This SouthPoint Chevy’s fast — the handcuffs are back off now. We get to go play.”

While the Chevys of JR Motorsports and RCR will likely be strong and expected contenders, rookie Cole Custer could shake up the party; the No. 00 Stewart-Haas Racing driver battled hard with Monster Energy Series Playoffs driver Kyle Larson throughout Saturday’s 300-miler, putting together a seventh-place result even after contact with Ryan Blaney in the waning laps.

“That was probably the most fun I have ever had in a stock car, doing those crossover passes,” Custer said of his run with Larson. “I have respect for him racing me clean there. That was a lot of fun.”

“… I was happy with that today. That is the best speed we have had all year in the Haas Automation Mustang. It was really good. The four of us up front kind of gave it to the 7 car but that is how it is sometimes. I was happy with our run.

“I think we showed a lot of speed today.”

Ryan Reed, Jeremy Clements, Brennan Poole, Matt Tifft and Blake Koch also advanced to the 2017 XFINITY Series Playoffs. Dakota Armstrong missed the mark by 25 points.

MORE: Custer ready to run with the big boys

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RELATED: Race results | Playoff standings

JOLIET, Ill. – If it hadn’t been for Martin Truex Jr., Chase Elliott might have been hoisting his first Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series trophy into the air — and getting covered in green slime — following Sunday’s NASCAR Playoffs opener at Chicagoland Speedway.

But for the No. 24 driver, a runner-up finish, one that may have dampened his mood last year during his rookie season, does more than just earn race points.

Elliott called it a “huge step in the right direction.”

“Days like this are the days we’re going to have to have,” he said. “There’s no way around that. So, I thought we had a solid day overall … and frankly it’s a lot better than we’ve been doing and we’ve got to have days like this moving forward.”

Having led 42 laps in Sunday’s 400-miler was a feat in itself for the No. 24 driver, who hasn’t paced the field for more than 20 laps since Phoenix back in March. In fact, his 42-lap total today was more than his entire laps-led total since then.

Call it a much-needed shot in the arm.

“To me, I think we all needed it; we all needed the realization that if we do have the car driving right, if we do have the right pit stops on pit road, restarts go good, we can run with those guys,” Elliott said. “We didn’t have anything for (race winner) Martin (Truex Jr.) today by any means but I thought we made the most with what we had. I thought we were better than about everybody else.

“To me, I think that’s something to be proud of.”

RELATED: Analyzing the playoff field

Crew chief Alan Gustafson echoed that sentiment later in the garage.

“Any time you can lead laps and compete with the best of the best, it’s a big deal,” Gustafson said. “So, I think it’s good for his confidence. I have confidence in the team and what we can accomplish. … I think it’s good for him. Any time you perform like that, you know you can do it.

Winning Stage 2 — which earned Elliott a valuable playoff point and 10 race points — certainly didn’t hurt either.

“Those stage points we gained today – those were really significant, that was a goal of ours,” Gustafson said. “Starting the race, we wanted to get as many stage points as we could and that would help us close the gap on those guys who had a pretty big bonus point advantage. …

“The one stage point isn’t going to hurt – we’ll take it. I’d like to have five more — unfortunately the 78 didn’t cooperate,” he joked.

Team owner Rick Hendrick paid a visit to the No. 24 car after the race to congratulate his young driver’s strong performance, one that comes just in time for the remaining nine-race NASCAR Playoffs stretch.

“If you’re going to get hot or fix things or take a step in the right direction, now is certainly the time to do it,” Elliott said. “So, I’m glad we had the run we did today. Like I said, we needed that – we all needed that and we haven’t been running to our potential each week. It’s just always nice to show up and know that if things are driving right, if pit stops are good, then you can run with them.

“And I think we just kind of proved to ourselves and everybody else that we can.”