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BUY TICKETS: See the races at Texas

FORT WORTH, Texas (April 6, 2017) — Before a rousing crowd of nearly 500 elementary school students at B.B. Owen in The Colony, Darrell Wallace Jr. made a visit to surprise fourth-grader Xavier Gooden with a Lionel Racing 1:24 scale die-cast bearing his winning design.



The school welcomed Wallace in grand fashion with a police escort; The Colony High School drum line, cheerleaders and Top Cats performing at the entrance; welcome signs; and a balloon-shaped Victory Lane on the school stage for his special appearance on behalf of Texas Motor Speedway’s Speeding To Read program.


After the school’s top readers were acknowledged, Gooden was announced as the overall winner of the competition among the 5,000 students and 10 DFW schools competing in Speeding To Read this school year.



Gooden’s design, which was pink, blue and green, was themed "Cure Cancer 2017" and had blue ribbons for colon cancer awareness. The paint scheme was dedicated to his two grandmothers with colon cancer, one of which he lost recently and the other — Clara Simmons — that was on hand for the presentation with several family members.



The students presented Wallace, the driver of the No. 6 Leidos Ford Mustang, with a "good luck" banner for Saturday’s My Bariatric Solutions 300 NASCAR XFINITY Series race at Texas Motor Speedway as well as a B.B. Owen Elementary T-shirt as the honored guest.

He also participated with students in a NASCAR quiz game; signed autographs and took photos with numerous students; toured the school including the hallway of die-cast designs; and finished with a photo in the "selfie" No. 6 car the students created for him and then signed the classroom door that featured his car number and sponsor.  


The assembly became emotional when Gooden explained to the audience that his paint scheme was a tribute to his two grandmothers, one who recently passed away and the other who was on hand for the presentation along with his parents and several other family members. She came on stage in tears to give her grandson a big embrace for his tribute. Wallace also teared up from the tribute, thinking of his Granny Jan who passed away this past fall in Knoxville, Tennessee, and provided a warm embrace to Gooden’s grandmother when she came on stage.


What They Are Saying
"I just don’t know what to say. I am just speechless." – Xavier Gooden on stage after he was presented his paint scheme on a 1:24 scale Lionel Racing NASCAR Authentics die-cast.



"It (paint scheme) was for my grandmas because they both had colon cancer, but one sadly didn’t survive. But the grandma on my dad’s side, she is still around. It was really cool to have my grandma here. I didn’t know everyone (from my family) was going to come and they did." — Gooden on his paint scheme that was a tribute to his two grandmothers.



"That was special — touching. It’s still something that is really sensitive to me. I didn’t expect the waterworks to come out, but it definitely happened." — Bubba Wallace on losing his Granny Jan in November and getting tearful when hearing of Gooden’s paint scheme tribute.



"That was huge. We kind of played a little joke on them with our travel disaster we had today. We were able to make it here a little bit late, but brought the kids a face they wanted to see. It was a good time. A lot of cheers, screams. Not even a couple boos like I get at the track; it was all positive and that was a lot of fun walking out and getting to spend some time with the kids at B.B. Owen." — Wallace on the rousing reception of nearly 500 students, parents and special guests at the full-school assembly.



"It was cool having Xavier’s family here. He is such a bright, young kid. He’s got a lot going for him. He’s exciting, he loves living life to the fullest each and every day. You can see that on his face. He is taking it all in. He understands everything that is going on around him. Keeping his family close. That’s something I strive for the same thing." — Wallace on Gooden after meeting him and his family at the assembly.   


"This is our third year doing this and it’s been really great. It is something that Lionel Racing looks forward to every year. This is the first year we’ve ever put a car in our NASCAR Authentics line. Just to watch the kids get so excited about reading — it’s something really cool that Texas Motor Speedway does — it is something I would hope other tracks would eventually take on and do as well." — Lionel Racing Director of e-Commerce and Marketing Thomas DeBoyace.


"Just being here you get the goosebumps and you see the emotions — even with Bubba just losing a family member as well. All the cars were great but this one specifically being a child that was attached to cancer and had been affected by it — it was really good how he did it on the car in honor of his family member. It was phenomenal. It was like a no-brainer to pick this one as our winner for the year." — DeBoyace on the winning design and presentation of the die-cast to Gooden.



"It is truly special to see the impact that Lionel Racing, Bubba and Texas Motor Speedway can make with our elementary school visits to acknowledge the die-cast winners and the top readers," Texas Motor Speedway Vice President of Media Relations Mike Zizzo. "Having our industry inspire kids to read more frequently, find their artistic talents and dream big is an honor for all of us involved."



Fast Fact
Another significant reward of winning the Lionel Racing "Design A Die-Cast" competition is that Gooden’s design will be included in Lionel Racing’s commercial NASCAR Authentics die-cast line featuring all the cars of the sport’s stars that is expected out in December. Gooden’s car will be available in major retail outlets such as Wal-Mart, Toys ‘R Us and Target. Proceeds from his car sales will be donated by Lionel Racing and the NASCAR Foundation to a designated charity in Gooden’s name.


"First time ever they are going to be at Walmart, Target, Toys ‘R Us and our NASCAR Authentics line," DeBoyace said. "Our NASCAR enthusiasts will collect these cars and actually get them and put them as part of their collection now with a great story behind it, with money going to charity. Knowing that a kid that is so passionate about reading and getting things done and designing his own car, it was just really cool."

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Editor’s note: Every Friday during the season, "Tweets You Might Have Missed" presents eight of the best NASCAR-related tweets from the week. 



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BUY TICKETS: See the races in 2017

In most markets, FS2 is located on the same channel previously occupied by FuelTV. Events will also be televised on FOX Sports GO, an online and mobile streaming product that allows subscribers of most cable providers to watch live sports and shows on FOX, FS1, FS2 and FOX Deportes.

Below is a channel finder as well as channel numbers for national distributors.

DirecTV: 618
AT&T U-Verse: 651/1651 (HD)
Dish: 149
Verizon FiOS: 84

 

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Rankings below are based on a mixture of expected output and DraftKings’ NASCAR salaries for that day. The ordering is not based on highest projected fantasy totals, but rather by value of each driver.

 

(fppk = average fantasy points per $1,000 of salary. The typical median fppk for a 2016 race was in the 3s. Plate tracks tend to be lower and short tracks tend to run higher due to the amount of laps.)

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BUY TICKETS: See the races at Texas

It was never any surprise to Daniel Suarez that making his way through the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series ranks as a rookie would be tremendously challenging.

He’s finding out that is especially true when you have a crew chief change only five races into your first season. But Suarez said Friday before opening practice at Texas Motor Speedway that already he and new crew chief Scott Graves were feeling more comfortable together in this new situation.


"Everything is just more, you know? More competition, more aggressive, more media, more questions, more answers," Suarez said just prior to Cup practice on the newly paved Texas 1.5-miler.


"Everything is more, so it’s just more going on."


When you are driving for the race defending champion Joe Gibbs Racing team and have established yourself as an accomplished driver – as Suarez has — expectations are naturally high. But there are also lofty goals for the two-time XFINITY Series champion crew chief Graves, too.


RELATED: Suarez hopeful amid crew chief change


For Suarez it’s been a case of raising his game while also adapting to an unexpected and major change on his team. Graves replaced Dave Rogers as Suarez’s crew chief just last week – the JGR team announcing Rogers was taking an indefinite leave of absence. Graves moves into the position after running Gibbs’ highly successful No. 18 XFINITY Series team, where he helped Suarez to the 2016 XFINITY championship.


And while the sudden change atop the box naturally felt a bit disconcerting initially last week at the challenging Martinsville Speedway, Suarez is hopeful things have settled and the two can begin re-establishing their relationship and setting course again.


"Last week there was just a lot going on," Suarez said. "I wasn’t very excited to get to the racetrack to talk to you guys, to be honest. There was just a lot going on and I just wanted to get to the racetrack and drive the car and do what I love to do.


"But it was just a lot of stuff going on, a lot of adjustments, a lot of changes, and it was just going to be something different. When you change a key part of the team, it definitely changes something. Now for Texas, I feel like we have more time to adapt and to talk about things and to talk about the racetrack and to talk about the car, and just overall more confident of getting into Texas."


The 25-year old Mexican native Suarez reeled off back-to-back season-best, seventh-place finishes at Phoenix Raceway and Auto Club Speedway in the No. 19 Arris Toyota before the crew chief change — the first two top-10s of his young rookie season.


MORE: JGR announces Dave Rogers taking personal leave


But last week, in the days following his team’s restructure, he crashed during practice at the Martinsville short track and finished 32nd in the race — his worst showing of the year.


Suarez looked and sounded optimistic Friday about his team’s abilities going forward. He was happy to have the continuity this week with Graves and gently reminded that Graves guided him to the XFINITY Series title last year. In fact, Graves was also the crew chief for Chris Buescher when he won a title for Roush Racing in 2015.


Graves’ last Monster Energy Series job as crew chief was in 2013 with Ricky Stenhouse Jr. when they won a pole at Atlanta and posted a third-place finish in the fall Talladega race.


"I’m still a rookie. I’m still learning a lot every weekend," Suarez said. "But now, you know, having Scott calling the shots, I feel like he’s going to learn a lot, as well. Luckily we have very good teammates that we can lean on, and we can learn from these guys.


"This is nothing new for him, but in the last four years, five years, he hasn’t done anything in the Cup stuff, so he’s kind of like a little bit — he’s just not very used to everything that is going on in the rules and all these kind of things and to get used to everything.

"It takes time, and I have a lot of confidence that he’s going to do well, and we just have to work as a team and support one to the other and to try to be competitive. We did it in the past, and I know we can do it again."

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BUY TICKETS: See the races at Texas

RELATED: Busch is taking this laying down

 

The Joe Gibbs Racing No. 18 team of Kyle Busch is rushing to make repairs after an incident during the day’s opening practice session.

 

Busch dinged the outside wall with a little more than 40 minutes remaining in a nearly two-and-a-half hour session at the repaved and reconfigured 1.5-mile track, damaging the right-rear fender of his Toyota.

 

The team initially pulled out the backup car, but changed course and opted to try to fix the primary due to its impressive speed. A team spokesman said the team was far along with repairs to the No. 18 Toyota, improving initial forecasts that the team was doubtful to prep the car before Friday’s Coors Light Pole Qualifying (6:15 p.m. ET, FS1).

 

If Busch is unable to participate in pole qualifying, his No. 18 would start from the rear of the field in Sunday’s O’Reilly Auto Parts 500 (1:30 p.m. ET, FOX, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

 

This story will be updated.

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RELATED: Practice 1 results | See the races at Texas


Ryan Blaney soared to the top of the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series leaderboard Friday in the opening practice on Texas Motor Speedway’s newly redesigned and repaved layout.



Blaney hustled the Wood Brothers No. 21 Ford to a best lap of 194.182 mph on the 1.5-mile Fort Worth track. The speed was well under the series’ track record of 200.111 mph set by Tony Stewart during qualifying in October 2014.



Michael McDowell was second-fastest in the Texas-based Leavine Family Racing No. 95 Chevrolet, clocking in at 194.056 mph. Texas native Chris Buescher, rookie Erik Jones and AJ Allmendinger (Buescher’s JTG Daugherty Racing teammate) completed the top five in the opening of on-track activity before Sunday’s O’Reilly Auto Parts 500 (1:30 p.m. ET, FOX, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio)



The extended two-hour, 25-minute session was designed to provide teams and drivers with extra practice time on Texas’ new configuration. Besides new pavement and drainage systems, the layout features re-profiled banking in Turns 1 and 2, lowered from a 24-degree grade to 20 degrees.



Speeds built incrementally through the session, which was marked by a handful of incidents. The hardest hit among those was by Jones, who flattened the side of his Furniture Row Racing No. 77 Toyota on the exit of Turn 4 at the practice’s two-hour mark.



Two teammates at Joe Gibbs Racing, which shares a technical affiliation with Furniture Row, also encountered problems. Denny Hamlin was the first, spinning his No. 11 Toyota and avoiding contact through Turns 1 and 2, early in the session.



JGR teammate Kyle Busch spun his No. 18 Toyota out of the Turn 2 exit, brushing the wall with the right-rear fender with approximately 43 minutes left in opening practice. The No. 18 team initially opted to unload a backup car, but reversed course to fix the primary vehicle. 


MORE: No. 18 damaged | Elliott to backup car



With just under 13 minutes left in practice, Chase Elliott joined the unfortunate list, tapping the outside wall in Turn 2 before veering down to the inside retaining wall on the backstretch. His No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet sustained heavy damage, requiring a backup car for the balance of the weekend.



Six drivers were held out of the initial 15 minutes of practice because of penalties incurred last weekend at Martinsville Speedway. Matt DiBenedetto, Elliott, Jones and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. were docked practice time because their teams failed pre-race inspection twice. Ty Dillon and Dale Earnhardt Jr. were held for 15 minutes because they were late to pre-race inspection.



The practice was extended by two minutes after Elliott’s crash. Two more practices for the Monster Energy Series are scheduled for Saturday.

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BUY TICKETS: See the races at Texas
RELATED: Full practice results

 

It was definitely a different look and fresh feel as drivers took to the newly paved Texas Motor Speedway for Friday’s opening Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series practice — a pair of veterans (Kyle Busch and Denny Hamlin) and two newbies (Chase Elliott and Erik Jones) spun out on the new track surface, while some new names topped the speed chart.

Ryan Blaney led opening practice for Sunday’s O’Reilly Auto Parts 500 (1:30 p.m. ET, FOX, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR) followed by Michael McDowell and Texas native Chris Buescher. Jones actually posted the fourth-fastest lap before a mishap in the No. 77 5-Hour Energy Toyota late in practice. AJ Allmendinger rounded out the top five.

Elliott and Jones both had to go back-up cars for qualifying later Friday afternoon because of their crashes during practice. Elliott’s No. 24 NAPA Chevrolet made hard contact with the wall exiting Turn 2 with less than five minutes remaining in the opening practice session.

"Just made a mistake and got too high off (Turn) 2," Elliott said. "Got into the fence and ran out of room. With new repaves we have to have a tire that can withstand the speed and when that happens it just makes it real on edge and that is just part of it. Not an excuse, just made a mistake."

 

The new pavement was obviously "Topic A" leading into the weekend. There was no test here before the race. However, Goodyear assured it was confident with the tire it brought to the 1.5-mile Fort Worth high banks.

Second-fastest McDowell certainly seemed to become a fan after practice.

"Maybe we should repave all the tracks," McDowell said on Twitter following the opening session.

Others insisted the track will only get better as the weekend goes and more cars work in the surface. Not only was it newly surfaced, the banking in Turns 1 and 2 was lessened from 24 to 20 degrees and the track surface there widened from 60 feet to 80 feet. To compensate for the changes, NASCAR scheduled an extra hour of practice time.

"I thought that practice was enough," said Martin Truex Jr., who was 16th-fastest. "It’s going to get better."

Texas Motor Speedway President Eddie Gossage said earlier this week that he absolutely expected drivers would push the limits to get a fair idea of the new surface. And that some would find the limit the hard way. 

"It’s different than normal so we’ll see," Gossage said. "I think there’s a certain unknown to it all and that can be both really cool and not cool. You may find someone figures it out quickly." 

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RELATED: Qualifying results


Nine cars failed to make a lap during Friday’s Coors Light Pole three-round qualifying session at Texas Motor Speedway after they were not cleared in pre-qualifying inspection.

 

Dale Earnhardt Jr., Chase Elliott, Kyle Busch, Kasey Kahne, Kyle Larson, Erik Jones, Chris Buescher, Derrike Cope and Timmy Hill were the drivers whose cars did not pass inspection in time to make a qualifying attempt. They all will start from the back in Sunday’s O’Reilly Auto Parts 500 (1:30 p.m. ET, FOX, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

 

NASCAR officials passed rules ahead of the season that require vehicles to travel through all stations on each pass through technical inspection. Any issue mandates that teams must complete their inspection pass, then address any issues in their garage stall before beginning the process of cycling through each station again.

 

"We don’t feel good about anybody missing qualifying, but it is something that happens when teams are pushing the envelope," said Elton Sawyer, NASCAR Vice President, Officiating and Technical Inspection. "Teams know our expectations and every team was afforded the opportunity to go through inspection. Some needed multiple tries and some weren’t able to get their cars ready in time to qualify."

 

Earnhardt, scheduled to start 37th in the 40-car field, said he wasn’t overly concerned about how his starting spot would impact the No. 88 team’s efforts in Sunday’s race,

 

"I ain’t too worried about it," said Earnhardt, who is set to start 37th Sunday. "The races are pretty long. Pit selection bothers you a little bit because we won’t be able to get out there and get a better pit stall, but we’ll see where we end up on pit road. I don’t know what was wrong with our car going through tech, but if you don’t make it, you don’t get out there and I like that. I like the rules being the same for everybody so we’ll just — we’ll work on our car for tomorrow in practice. I’m anxious to get more track time. Certainly, the track’s going to be changing so freakin’ much. We didn’t really get a chance to see where it was going today."

 

Larson, a winner two weeks ago at Auto Club Speedway and the current series points leader, was slightly more concerned by his starting spot.

 

"I don’t know exactly what happened; we just didn’t make it through tech," said Larson, scheduled to start 32nd on Sunday. "Yeah, this is not the place you want to not make it through tech. It will be really hard to pass, I think, on Sunday. Wherever we end up starting is going to hurt us."

 

Reed Sorenson and Paul Menard were the last cars to make it through tech in time to make a lap.

Busch’s team worked feverishly to repair his No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota this afternoon, as Busch smacked the wall with approximately 40 minutes remaining in Friday’s opening practice.

 

"There’s an awful lot of cars coming through … if we get out there, we get out there; if we don’t, we don’t," Busch told FS1, standing in the garage during the opening round.

 

Adam Stevens, crew chief for Busch’s No. 18, attributed the car’s failure to make it to the pre-qualifying grid on pit road to a mistake made in the rush to make repairs to the team’s primary car. Busch is scheduled to start 34th in Sunday’s 500-miler.

 

"Well, we were just behind the eight ball having to fix that car, so obviously we got in line really late and in our haste, we didn’t get our tech blocks set correctly," Stevens said. "So we passed templates, passed the grid, passed undercar, passed everything except when we got to the scales, which is the very last thing, and the wedge has to be within a certain number and we were below that number. That’s just for tech — it’s not for on the race track — so the car was all set to go and we didn’t get a chance to set our tech blocks because we were in such a hurry, so just an error on our part."

 

Jimmie Johnson’s spin during the opening round of qualifying brought out the red flag momentarily and allowed several cars more time to get through tech. It was the only on-track issue during the three rounds of qualifying on the repaved and revamped 1.5-mile track.

 

Kevin Harvick eventually won the pole position in the Stewart-Haas Racing No. 4 Ford, clocking a lap of 198.405 mph in the final round to notch his second pole of the season.

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BUY TICKETS: See the races at Texas

RELATED: Qualifying results

 

FORT WORTH, Tex. — Kevin Harvick needed a do-over in the second round of Friday’s knockout qualifying session at Texas Motor Speedway, but putting the extra lap on his tires proved well worth the effort.

 

Harvick led not only the second round but also the first and third in winning the pole for Sunday’s O’Reilly Auto Parts 500 at Texas Motor Speedway (1:30 p.m. ET on FOX).

 

"I just didn’t feel like I got through Turns 1 and 2 like I needed to," Harvick said of his first attempt in the second round. "The front took off, and I didn’t want to do what everyone was doing in practice and get out of the groove and drive it into the wall. It’s been a stressful day, coming in and breaking in a new (resurfaced) race track and going out there running as fast as we had to run for qualifying."

 

In the final round, Harvick secured his second Coors Light Pole Award of the season in the No. 4 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford, the 19th of his career with his fastest lap of the afternoon, covering the distance on the repaved and reconfigured speedway in 27.217 seconds (198.405 mph).

 

That was quick enough to edge Ryan Blaney (198.020 mph) for the top starting spot by .053 seconds. Blaney and Clint Bowyer ran identical times in the final round, with Blaney getting the nod for the second position on the basis of owner points.

 

"Man, I heard that they give you a shotgun when you win the pole here," Blaney said of the coveted qualifying trophy. "I saw my lap and thought that might do it, but Kevin just snuck by us.

 

"I think I have a really fast Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford Fusion. It was even good in race trim today. The track has come a long way in a few hours, and hopefully it will widen out even more for the XFINITY race (Saturday) and for our practices. Not a bad start to the weekend."

 

Ford drivers swept the top five starting spots, in part because several of the strongest Chevrolets were out of the equation, having failed to clear pre-qualifying inspection in time to make qualifying runs in the first round.

 

Among the Chevy drivers missing in action were Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series leader Kyle Larson and the Hendrick Motorsports trio of Dale Earnhardt Jr., Chase Elliott and Kasey Kahne.

 

Hendrick driver Jimmie Johnson had a different issue. Starting and then aborting a second lap in the first round, Johnson lost control through Turns 1 and 2 and spun, flat-spotting his tires. Since drivers must start the race on their qualifying tires, Johnson sat out the second and third rounds and will start 24th on Sunday.

 

"I think we used up all our good luck at Homestead last year," who won his record-tying seventh title at the South Florida track. "I took the stripe, and we were in position to run two (laps) and see what was going to happen. (Crew chief) Chad (Knaus) called me off when he saw the time.

 

"When I heard that, I dumped the throttle real hard to try and check-up and roll through the center so I could go through the corner slowly; and when I dumped out of the throttle it pitched the car sideways and I started chasing it going into the turn. I thought I had it saved and then I got into all those marbles and kept getting closer to the wall and spun."

 

In addition to Larson and the Hendrick drivers, Kyle Busch and Erik Jones did not advance through inspection in time to qualify. Both suffered accidents in Friday’s opening practice, with Jones going to a backup car and Busch’s crew attempting to repair the primary.

 

"We were just behind the eight ball, having to fix that car, so obviously we got in line really late and in our haste, we didn’t get our tech blocks set correctly, so we passed templates, passed the grid, passed undercar, passed everything except when we got to the scales, which is the very last thing," said Adam Stevens, Busch’s crew chief.

 

"The wedge has to be within a certain number, and we were below that number. That’s just for tech — it’s not for on the race track — so the car was all set to go, and we didn’t get a chance to set our tech blocks because we were in such a hurry, so just an error on our part."