Posted on by Staff Report

MORE: Final practice results | Best 10-lap averages

Polesitter Kyle Busch logged the fastest lap in Saturday’s final Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series practice session at Pocono Raceway, whirling his No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota around the track at 175.421 mph.

Busch, who on Friday evening won the Coors Light Pole Award for Sunday’s Axalta presents the Pocono 400, also brushed the wall in Turn 3 with about seven minutes left in the practice session but his No. 18 did not appear to sustain any damage.

Brad Keselowski was next fastest, urging his No. 2 Team Penske Ford around the track at 175.285 mph. Kyle Larson, Chase Elliott and Kevin Harvick rounded out the top five.

Larson spun about 15 minutes into the practice session, sliding through Turn 2 when he appeared to get loose. The No. 42 Chevrolet did not make contact with anything, though the red flag came out briefly while NASCAR officials checked for fluid or debris on the track.

RELATED: Watch Larson spin

There were four practice holds for final practice at the 2.5-mile track. Derrike Cope (No. 55) and Erik Jones (No. 77) were assessed 15-minute practice holds due to their cars being late to pre-qualifying inspection, while Daniel Suarez (No. 19) and Kurt Busch (No. 41) were assessed 15-minute practice holds for failing pre-qualifying inspection twice.

This was the final Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series practice before Sunday’s Axalta presents the Pocono 400 at 3 p.m. ET (FS1, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

Posted on by Pat DeCola

RELATED: Gragson learns the hard way what happens when @DaleJr retweets you

Friday night was a pretty good night for Noah Gragson.

The Camping World Truck Series rookie picked up his first career 21 Means 21 Pole Award for the winstaronlinegaming.com 400 at Texas Motor Speedway en route to a seventh-place finish — the second-best result of his young career.

That alone constitutes a solid evening, but the 18-year-old Gragson also received his high school diploma from track president Eddie Gossage — a la Erik Jones — during driver intros. Pretty cool!

But Gragson wasn’t done.

Moments after receiving his diploma, the Kyle Busch Motorsports driver decided to pull from the Michael “Squints” Palladorous book of tricks and Wendy Peffercorn (verb) a couple of unsuspecting Texas Motor Speedway girls, who were shocked at first but laughed and took it in stride.

 

Bold move, young man.

(Hey — it worked for Squints. As you may recall, he and Peffercorn wound up getting married in “The Sandlot.”)

We’re not entirely sure who Gragson’s favorite musician is, but there’s a pretty solid chance it’s Ben Harper.

Posted on by Pat DeCola

RELATED: See all of Jimmie’s wins

A week after tying one of his NASCAR heroes in career Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series wins, Jimmie Johnson has his sights set on tying a new set of legends in the sport at Pocono Raceway.

For Sunday’s Axalta presents the Pocono 400 (3 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), Johnson will have the chance to tie another set of Hall of Famers in Darrell Waltrip and Bobby Allison, who each scored 84 career wins.

The Hendrick Motorsports driver’s win at Dover International Speedway last Sunday — his 83rd — matched him with NASCAR Hall of Famer Cale Yarborough.

Johnson carried the three-time series champion along with him on his helmet en route to his 11th “Monster Mile” win to tie Yarborough for sixth-most victories all-time.

MORE: Johnson honors Cale Yarborough with helmet

The seven-time champion will have Waltrip and Allison along for Sunday’s ride, as well.

 

Posted on by Holly Cain

RELATED: Starting lineup | Full schedule for Pocono | Why Junior will start from the rear

At a Glance

What: Axalta Presents the Pocono 400; Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Race No. 14
Where: Pocono Raceway, 2.5-mile tri-oval in Long Pond, Pennsylvania
Green flag: 3:18:30 p.m. ET
TV/Radio: FS1, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio
Forecast: Mostly sunny with high of 87 and morning winds 5-10 mph out of the West. Chance of precipitation is 10 percent. — Weather.com
National anthem: Lauren Hart
Grand Marshal: Joe McDougall, Senior Vice President & Chief Human Resources Officer at Axalta Coating Systems
Race distance: 160 laps, 400 miles
Pit road speed: 55 mph
Caution car speed: 70 mph
Stage lengths: Stage 1 ends on Lap 50; Stage 2 ends on Lap 100; Final stage ends on Lap 160

 

Posted on by Staff Report

RELATED: Race recap | See the finish as it unfolded

NASCAR Executive Vice President and Chief Racing Development Officer Steve O’Donnell took to Twitter after Friday’s NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race at Texas Motor Speedway to explain the finish, which was completed under caution, and provide proof of victory.

Race-winner Christopher Bell was declared the victor, picking up his second win of the year, by being ahead of runner-up Chase Briscoe at the time of the 10th and final caution.

The photo NASCAR officials used in making the decision:

 

In a Monday morning appearance on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio’s “The Morning Drive,” O’Donnell elaborated on how NASCAR ruled on the finish of that race.

“In terms of that race, any time we take the white flag or we end the race on a caution, we’ll use any and all means possible to determine the winner,” O’Donnell said. ” So first and foremost, we’ll go to video and we’ll match that up with the exact time of the caution and then how does that match up to the video frames.

“In this case, I think where some of the confusion came about was it was a challenge to get that over to our television partners. They had to get off the air fairly quickly, so I think if you had some more time, that photo would have gone out across the broadcast partners as well and would have saved some of the confusion.

“… We make sure that there is a time stamp and we sync all that up. There’s a number of people up in race control that confirm that. We had the dialogue with Chase and his team and they all agreed on Christopher Bell being the winner as well.”

Posted on by NASCAR Wire Service

RELATED: Race results | Series standings | Detailed breakdown

FORT WORTH, Texas – Christopher Bell, a self-described “dirt track kid” from Oklahoma, continued to show he’s pretty good on pavement Friday night at Texas Motor Speedway.

Bell edged Chase Briscoe after a side-by-side, closing-laps battle to win the 21st annual winstaronlinegaming.com 400 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race. Bell, who started 21st in the 28-truck field, won under caution after a white-flag wreck involving Timothy Peters, Austin Self and Johnny Sauter on TMS’ repaved and re-profiled 1.5-mile oval.

A 22-year-old native of Norman, Oklahoma, who calls TMS his home track, Bell earned his first win at TMS, second of 2017 and fourth of his 37-race NCWTS career.

“First off, I want to make sure everyone is OK,” said Bell, driver of the No. 4 JBL Toyota Tundra fielded by Kyle Busch Motorsports. “It’s kind of a sorrowful victory here in Victory Lane. That was a pretty bad flip and I’ve taken my fair share of flips and it hurts a lot worse whenever it’s in the grass like that one was, so I hope he’s (Peters) OK. That’s the most important part.

“But second of all, we’re in Victory Lane, so it’s just a dream come true to be able to win here in Texas – my hometown. All of the Tundras are built right here in Texas (San Antonio), so it’s a huge win for us, everybody at Toyota and Toyota Racing Development. Man, our JBL Tundra was super, super good.”

RELATED: Watch Bell’s Victory Lane interview

As Bell and Briscoe raced side-by-side for the win after a restart on Lap 166, Self’s No. 22 Toyota spun and initiated contact with Peters exiting the dogleg and heading down the track’s frontstretch. Peters’ No. 99 Chevrolet Silverado spun and caught the infield grass, sending it tumbling and bouncing on the pavement. The No. 99 wound up on its top, with track safety workers needing several minutes to extricate Peters once the wreckage was turned over.

Peters was evaluated at the track’s infield care center and released.

RELATED: Watch Peters’ truck flipped back over

Briscoe was seeking his first series win and first for Ford this season. It appeared he was going to accomplish both after he took the lead from Bell on a restart following the night’s eighth caution from Laps 155-159. NASCAR’s scoring system determined Briscoe was in the lead on Lap 160 of 167 and when the yellow again flew on Lap 161 for a three-truck incident in Turn 4. When the green flew on Lap 166, Bell was able to edge Briscoe for the lead by inches as the wreck unfolded behind them.

“I never saw the white flag,” said Bell, who led a race-high 92 laps. “I was concentrating on making him (Briscoe) slow down as much as I can. I didn’t think he had the lead whenever he got it and then I didn’t think I had the lead whenever I got it, so it’s just so tight, man. Me and Chase have known each other for a long time – we’re really good friends and met each other racing online whenever we were in our teens and now here we are racing in the Camping World Truck Series together.”

Briscoe didn’t question the scoring outcome involving his friendly rival.

“It was close, I enjoyed it,” said Briscoe, driver of the No. 29 Ford F-150. “I definitely wanted to get the win. But I was sleeping on couches two years ago and never imagined I’d be here.”

Grant Enfinger finished third, followed by Ryan Truex in fourth and fifth-place Ben Rhodes.

Bell began the night 52 points behind Sauter in the championship standings. The reigning series champion, Sauter finished eighth and saw his lead over Bell trimmed to 40 points. Accompanied by crew chief Rudy Fugle and wearing the winner’s white cowboy hat, Bell exited Texas with a smile after his second win and sixth top-10 of 2017.

“This place has a special place in my heart,” Bell said of TMS. “We raced down here a lot with Micro Sprints at Devil’s Bowl Speedway (in Mesquite) and Kennedale (Raceway Park) but never at TMS. I was just a dirt track kid from Oklahoma, so to race here is a dream come true.”

The Camping World Truck Series races next at Gateway Motorsports Park on June 17 in the Gateway 200 (8:30 p.m. ET, FS1).

— John Sturbin, NASCAR Wire Service

Posted on by Reid Spencer

RELATED:  Race lineup | See every car | Full schedule for Pocono

LONG POND, Pa. — Running his fastest lap of the day in the final round of Friday’s knockout qualifying, Kyle Busch won the pole position for Sunday’s Axalta presents the Pocono 400 at Pocono Raceway (3 p.m. ET on FS1) by a comfortable margin.

The only driver to top 179 mph in three rounds of time trials, Busch covered the 2.5-mile distance at the triangular track in 50.237 seconds (179.151 mph) to earn his second Coors Light Pole Award of the season, his third at Pocono and the 21st of his career.

In the money round, Busch powered his No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota to a .171-second over fellow Camry driver Martin Truex Jr. (178.543 mph). As the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series regular season enters its second half, Busch and Truex, the series leader, will start 1-2 for their second straight race, having qualified first and second, respectively, at Dover.

Despite slipping slightly at the entrance to Turn 3, Busch gained substantial time through that corner.

“I thought I got through Turn 1 pretty good,” said Busch, whose crew chief, Adam Stevens, is serving a four-week suspension because the left rear tire on Busch’s car fell off (because of unattached lugs) during the team’s first pit stop last week at Dover. “I thought I got through Turn 2 just OK, and entering Turn 3, I felt I slipped a little too much, actually.

“As it stopped slipping, I was like, ‘Wow, it’s got great grip right now — go!’ I was able to get the gas down and stick really well off Turn 3. I did notice that I was able to shift early and felt like I got a really good exit there. I didn’t know how good a lap it was going to be. It took forever to pop up on my screen.

“And once they said it was a 50.20, I said ‘Well, that’s faster than the last round. Hopefully, that’s good enough.'”

Matt Kenseth qualified third, as Toyotas grabbed the top three spots on the grid. The three Fords of Ryan Blaney, Kurt Busch and Brad Keselowski followed in fourth through sixth. Kyle Larson, who ran the fastest lap in the first round (178.625 mph), was seventh in his No. 42 Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet.

“The first round was really good for us,” Larson said. “Our Target Chevy drove really nice. I didn’t even feel like I was driving hard. So, the second round, I tried to get a little more, and I just got loose into (Turn) 1 and screwed up my whole lap.

“And then the third round there, I backed my entry up into (Turn) 1 and still got loose in but was able to get to the bottom, and then I just got really tight off of (Turn) 1 and it killed my lap. Turns 2 and 3 are pretty good, but I just killed it there in Turn 1.”

Jamie McMurray, Joey Logano and Ryan Newman were eighth, ninth and 10th.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. will start at the rear of the field after over-revving his engine during Friday’s opening practice, necessitating a change of the power plant. Under NASCAR’s one-engine rule, that means a mandatory start at the back.

“I blew the engine up,” Earnhardt explained in a tweet. “Went into 2nd gear (aiming for fourth) and grenaded it. Will have to start last Sunday… Our rev limiter is 9500. It turned 12,615 before it gave up.”

Earnhardt ran one lap in the first round of qualifying and was 28th fastest, but he will drop to the rear for the green flag.

“If there’s a race track you’ve got to start in the back and not have a very good pit selection, this is the one to do that at,” Earnhardt said after his run. “Since we’re required to start on the tires we qualify on, we really just planned on making one lap. We went out there and we had our car set-up like we are going to try to start tomorrow (for practice) in race trim.

“We just went out there and made one single lap to really kind of get a directional idea of where we want to go tomorrow. It allowed us to take pictures of our car and know where the travels and everything is. That way we don’t put anymore laps on our tires that we have to start on Sunday.”

Posted on by Zack Albert

SHOP: ‘Cars 3’ NASCAR-related merchandise

Even though Daniel Suarez enjoys a degree of celebrity status as a driver in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series, he couldn’t help but be a little starstruck at the prospect of his silver-screen debut.

“You guys have no idea how happy I am to be side-by-side with this car right now,” Suarez said earlier this year, standing alongside a life-sized model of Lightning McQueen, the animated star of Disney-Pixar’s “Cars” franchise.

Suarez is one of a dozen figures in NASCAR getting the Hollywood treatment in the third installment of the automotive feature film franchise. The movie opens June 16 in theaters everywhere. It debuted May 23 in a special sneak preview for the NASCAR industry, with several drivers in attendance at the Gem Theater in Kannapolis, North Carolina.

While several familiar voices — including those of stock-car legends Darrell Waltrip, Jeff Gordon and Richard Petty — will return to the big screen for “Cars 3,” the film’s story line will feature a new crop of drivers vying for the fictional Piston Cup.

That’s where Suarez, along with Ryan Blaney, Darrell Wallace Jr. and Chase Elliott enter stage left. The four young drivers will get their own animated roles, transforming into Danny Swervez, Ryan “Inside” Laney, Bubba Wheelhouse and Chase Racelott.

RELATED: Exclusive look at the characters

“It’s amazing. I’m a huge fan of ‘Cars’ movies in general,” Suarez said. “When I was living in Mexico with my parents, it was natural to watch those movies and have all different kind of little cars, pillows, remote controls — I’m a big fan of it, and now to be a part of it, it’s a big deal for me.”

Trailers for the movie have been out for months, but a preseason announcement officially launched a collaboration between the Disney-Pixar team and the NASCAR industry. Actor Owen Wilson, who is the starring voice of McQueen in all three Cars movies, helped kick off the tie-in as the grand marshal of the season-opening Daytona 500.

MORE: NASCAR, Disney-Pixar promote a season-long ride

The initiative goes beyond merely lending voices to the sequel, but stretches to at-track appearances, merchandise and co-branded learning materials for elementary school students through the NASCAR Acceleration Nation youth program. But the movie’s story arc also draws parallels from NASCAR’s current trend, of a growing youth movement that’s making its mark in its regional and national series.

“It’s kind of just replicating what’s happening out on the track in real life,” said Wallace, who has had the movie’s logo as a sponsor for his NASCAR XFINITY Series rides the last two weeks. “It’s just really cool to be a part of ‘Cars 3.’ What’s special is I have my little nephew who’s 3. He’s still understanding everything, but I think right around the corner he’s going to be ready to watch ‘Cars.’ So I’ve got to sit him down and watch ‘Cars’ 1 and ‘Cars 2’ with him to get him hooked on it, and then bring him to the race track so he can start representing some Bubba Wheelhouse merchandise.

“But it’s really cool to be a part of this younger generation coming up in the movie, just like in real time.”

Note: An earlier version of this article was published Feb. 23.

Posted on by @nascarcasm

1.) Whatever Paul Menard has that renders him incapable of conveying emotion with his face is apparently contagious.

 

2.) Noah Gragson is doing it wrong. You have to set the number of RTs at a completely unreachable level.

 

3.) Because you know what happens? @DaleJr retweets it and the next thing you know your esophagus has a gaping hole in it and you make faces like that kid in the viral video from years back who was still hallucinating after a visit to the dentist because his father thought it would be fun to share his innocent child’s anguish with the world (NOTE: It was.)

 

4.) Landon Cassill’s meme/trend game is as strong as those walls at Dover.

 

5.) Know how if you’re driving down the highway and you see another car with a dog in it, you won’t pass the car but rather spend hours just riding alongside the car and look at the dog? THAT is how Dale Jr. will win this race. Dale will take the white flag in the lead and no one will pass him because they’ll be behind him, making funny faces and saying “AWWWW WHO’S A GOOD BOY?”

 

6.) It’s nice of a future NASCAR Hall-of-Famer to call a current Hall-of-Famer. And kudos to Jimmie for actually calling him, because no one calls each other anymore. We figure a younger driver would get Cale’s number, and then just text him. Poor Cale would be trying to figure out what a Bitmoji with the text “WE GUCCI” means.

 

7.) Gotta give it up to the Penske Games — a recurring series of wacky contests that pit them against each other. Here, Joey Logano hula-hoops much longer than any of his teammates. And interestingly, he hula-hoops counterclockwise. It’s like a Polish hula-hoop victory lap. Regardless, fine work by Joey. His hips don’t lie.

 

8.) We’d say so. Good luck in the No. 43, my good man.