Chip Ganassi Racing announced Wednesday that Credit One Bank will return to the team in 2017 with an expanded role on the No. 42 Chevrolet driven by Kyle Larson.
Credit One, which began a multiyear partnership last season as the Official Credit Card of NASCAR, joined the Chip Ganassi-owned organization in 2016 with a preseason announcement of a three-race agreement for primary sponsorship of Jamie McMurray‘s No. 1 Chevy. That alliance grew to a five-race deal, with Credit One picking up additional events as the season progressed.
The announcement represents an even larger increase of the Las Vegas-based bank’s support, which primarily shifts to Larson’s team this year. Larson, speaking Jan. 5 during a break in an offseason photo shoot with the new blue-hued car, said he was encouraged by Credit One’s renewal and expanded reach.
"It’s always good to have sponsors committed to the sport and upping their commitment to the sport," Larson said. "I hope they get their full value out of the sponsorship with our race team and are a longtime sponsor of us and the sport. Looking forward to it and excited about 2017 and hoping for some good things."
The Credit One colors will kick off the new year of racing with Larson in the Feb. 18 Clash, an annual preseason invitational that primarily features the previous season’s pole winners. The financial institution returns for a doubleheader weekend at its home track of Las Vegas Motor Speedway, with sponsorship of Larson in the XFINITY Series event and McMurray in the Monster Energy Cup event.
The remaining races for Credit One are all with Larson’s No. 42 effort in the premier series: March 19 at Phoenix, April 9 at Texas, April 23 at Bristol, April 30 at Richmond, July 1 at Daytona, Sept. 3 at Darlington, and Nov. 5 at Texas.
MOORESVILLE, N.C. (Jan. 18, 2017) – Gaunt Brothers Racing, owned by Triad Racing Technologies president Marty Gaunt, will return to NASCAR competition in 2017. Participating in four restrictor plate races in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series, GBR’s select schedule begins with the 59th running of the Daytona 500, when D.J. Kennington will take the wheel of the team’s Toyota Camry.
"With the recent unveiling of the 2018 Toyota Camry, we feel that now is the right time to return to the racetrack," said Gaunt, whose Triad engines powered five championship-winning Toyota drivers and contributed to multiple manufacturer championships at the NASCAR national level.
"We’re going to provide a concentrated effort this season at tracks on which we can immediately adapt and compete."
Gaunt Brothers Racing previously competed in what is now the NASCAR Pinty’s Series in 2011. Prior to purchasing Triad and forming GBR, Gaunt served in leadership roles with Team Penske, Red Horse Racing and Red Bull Racing.
GBR is fielding the Toyota Camry in partnership with longtime Triad client RAB Racing, led by Robby Benton. RAB Racing will partner in supplying cars, shop space and technical support to the GBR effort.
"There are a lot of great things happening with the sport right now and we feel fortunate to continue our relationship with Marty, Triad and Toyota, starting with this attempt at the Daytona 500," said Benton.
"Our aspirations will be no small task, but we know what we need to do to position ourselves to make this a successful effort. We’ll transition over to the Daytona 500 after competing in the Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona with our sports car program later this month."
Kennington, hailing from St. Thomas, Ontario, is a two-time NASCAR Pinty’s Series champion and 19-time Pinty’s Series race winner. He has made 56 career starts in NASCAR’s three national divisions, including his Cup Series debut last fall at Phoenix International Raceway.
Kennington’s longtime partner, Castrol (Wakefield Canada) and British Columbia-based Lordco Auto Parts will co-sponsor the Toyota Camry in the season-opening Daytona 500 on Sunday, Feb. 26.
"As the Daytona 500 is called ‘The Great American Race,’ our team will be considered the ‘Great Canadian Invasion,’" joked Kennington. "I’m definitely ready to take this on. I’m excited to be running the first race with Monster Energy as the series sponsor, and I love how the program came together with Castrol, Lordco and the Gaunts."
The remaining events for GBR, for which the driver will be announced at a later date, include Talladega Superspeedway on Sunday, May 7, Daytona on Saturday, July 1 and Talladega on Sunday, Oct. 15.
CONCORD, N.C. — With the start of the 2017 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series little more than one month away, Stewart-Haas Racing teams continue to work through the switch to a new manufacturer, Ford officials now have "more bullets" in their chamber and Clint Bowyer can’t wait to make his first official start for SHR.
Those were the key takeaways from Wednesday’s gathering of Ford and SHR folks held at the Ford Performance Technical Center here in Concord, North Carolina.
After years of fielding Chevrolet entries, SHR announced last February that the four-team organization would make the swap to Ford for ’17.
That’s increased the workload somewhat at the team’s Kannapolis, North Carolina, headquarters, but preparing for a new season always keeps teams busy.
"Every offseason, we start the year and don’t feel like we’re ready, don’t feel like we’re quite where we want to be," said co-owner Tony Stewart. "This winter has been a big challenge obviously, but we were prepared for it. …
"The team has done a great job. The great thing is their spirits are high and they’re really excited about the switch to Ford. You can tell there’s a lot of work to be done and a lot going on but … I’m really proud of our guys and how dedicated they’ve been to this process."
Dave Pericak, Global Director of Ford Performance, said the quickness with which SHR has progressed off the track has been impressive.
"The level of collaboration has been fantastic and the speed at which these guys implement and get things done, these guys are racers and there’s no messing around," he said. "When there is something that we all know is the right thing to do, just the speed at which Stewart-Haas gets things done is pretty amazing."
Stewart ended his NASCAR driving career in ’16 with three championships and 49 victories. Bowyer, following a one-year stint at the former HScott Motorsports, will take over Stewart’s familiar No. 14 entry.
Not surprisingly, after a season that saw him finish a career-low 27th in points with just three top-10 results, Bowyer admitted he is "champing at the bit."
"Pretty damn hard not to be," Bowyer said when asked if he felt rejuvenated by the opportunity.
"The thing about it, they’re just racers," Bowyer said of the SHR group. "Everybody’s working … just head down, working hard, trying to get better, trying to get faster. They don’t take second as an option. It’s not an option. They go and work hard and figure out how to win these races.
"It doesn’t matter what it takes to do it. You have those resources put in place."
For Ford officials, the addition of SHR "will raise the level for all of us," according to Raj Nair.
Nair, Executive VP for Global Product Development and Chief Technical Officer for Ford Motor Company, said "you can’t argue with the results out of Stewart-Haas."
"So we’re all going to learn a lot just by that association."
"It’s no secret that (the addition of SHR) brings more bullets to our gun as well," Nair said. "We’ve got more cars that will be running up front and a bigger chance to win. Sometimes in this sport you’re playing the odds a little bit. You can have the fastest car but sometimes stuff happens. So having more faster cars up there is going to increase our chances to make sure the blue oval is in Victory Lane."
All around him, across the shop floor, were race car chassis. No body, no paint, no decals — Just skeletons of race cars-to-be.
It’s part of a long process for Stewart-Haas Racing, as the team transitions from Chevrolet to Ford for the 2017 NASCAR season.
"This has been a really, really tough offseason for these guys," Stewart said Wednesday at the Ford Performance Center. "…To think how far these guys have come in such a short amount of time, I mean, I’m really proud (of them). Especially the fab shop — Those guys really deserve a big pat on the back because it has been a huge undertaking to get so many cars ready in such a short amount of time.
"And when I say they’re getting them ready, they didn’t throw them together; the same level of quality that they always do. I’m really proud of what they’ve produced so far."
His team isn’t the only one making a huge transition this season; Stewart begins the new year as a freshly retired Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series driver, having raced his final season in 2016. This marks the first season in 18 years where Stewart won’t be prepping for a season in NASCAR’s premier series.
"It will be nice to be at the track and not be sore and not be uncomfortable sitting on the pit box," said Stewart, who battled back from a severe back injury at the start of his final season. "I’ll actually be able to really focus on what’s going on and … move around and listen to each car and what they’re fighting during the day and hopefully being able to have some input that can help."
But "Smoke" fans, never fear: Stewart will still be at the race track. The three-time champion NASCAR driver plans on racing nearly 80 late model, sprint cars and three-quarter midget races this season, along with managing his race team, co-owned with Gene Haas. Stewart expects to attend nearly all the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup races in 2017, where he’ll be able to offer guidance to the teams of Kevin Harvick, Kurt Busch, Danica Patrick and Clint Bowyer, the new driver of the No. 14 ride.
Wearing a large smile on Wednesday, Bowyer’s high spirits conveyed his excitement about racing the No. 14 car — and his new team owner.
"To be honest with you, it’s been a breath of fresh air," Bowyer said on having Stewart as his car owner. "I didn’t know what he was like as an owner, I only knew what he was like as a person hanging out and things like that.
"But man, I’m telling you, at the shop at the Christmas party this year — he showed up as Santa Claus, by the way, and the outfit fit him perfect — but Santa Claus interacted and made everyone feel at home. Those are his people and he treated them as his people and it showed me, you could just see how much they embraced that and enjoyed that interaction with him and what it meant to them."
The NASCAR world has known that Bowyer was next in line for the No. 14 crown since the end of Sepember 2015. But that reality seemed to sink in when Bowyer’s name glistened above the door of the new No. 14 Ford today — No more "Smoke."
Tony’s OK with that.
"It’s not that weird, honestly," Stewart said. " … I’m proud to see his name above the door and proud to see what he can do. The part that’s been shocking is going back to my sprint car shop and seeing them put my name on cars this week because they’re decaling our cars for the season. I haven’t been used to that for a couple years now, so I’m excited about both sides of it."
It’s a ground of familiarity for Stewart, whose background is rooted in dirt track racing. But as he hasn’t driven a sprint car in two and a half years, the 45-year-old isn’t sure what to expect of his results on track this season.
Dare he say he’s like a rookie again?
"I know it sounds like I’m a rookie driver, but I kind of feel like one," Stewart said. "(My schedule) depends on how I’m progressing really … I think there’s going to be some races that we are going to announce coming up pretty soon that are races that I’ve been looking forward to going to that I’ve not had a chance to run before. So there’s a bunch of tracks and a bunch of events that I’ve not raced at before that I’m going to finally get to go to."
Where the long-term future holds for Stewart the driver is yet to be seen, as he jokes that he’s thrown a curveball in probably every offseason since joining forces with Haas.
But right now, it’s about his team.
"I’m going straight to the shop from here," Stewart said. "I’m excited to see how much is done versus the last time I was there. Everybody says we have a long way to go, but we’ve come a long way. I think I’m going to be very pleasantly surprised when I get there."
In premier series history 24 drivers have reached the 30-win plateau, from Richard Petty (200 wins) to fellow Hall of Famer Dale Jarrett (32). Of those 24 drivers, 18 have been eligible for the NASCAR Hall of Fame … and all 18 have been inducted, or in the case of Mark Martin, will be inducted.
Jeff Gordon (93 wins) and Tony Stewart (49 wins) aren’t eligible yet, but are widely considered locks to be enshrined as well. The other four drivers above 30 wins in NASCAR history are active and ineligible at this time.
Here’s a look at the three current drivers (it was four prior to Carl Edwards‘ announcement last week) with 30 in their sights, as well as a full list of drivers with 30 or more wins in NASCAR’s history.
Kurt Busch
Career wins: 28
Rank all time: Tied for 26th
Outlook: This one is tough to call. Busch has been a full-time driver for 16 years, so with 28 wins, that’s an average of 1.75 per season. He needs two. We’re pretty sure he’ll get one — Tony Gibson had the No. 41 humming at a pretty good clip last year — but we are less confident in Busch getting multiple.
Turns out, not everyone was thrilled with Logano’s upper lip addition. Before its apparent demise, plenty of opinions were expressed on popular review site Yelp.
Richard Childress will go into the NASCAR Hall of Fame Friday night with perhaps a bit more of an appreciation than most, having spent the better part of his life tied snugly to the sport of stock car racing.
It’s been his livelihood and his lifeblood. From selling snacks as a youngster in the grandstands at a local track to overseeing a racing organization today that boasts more than 500 employees, Childress is one of the few still around that has seen and done it all.
Childress, 71, will be inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame Friday along with fellow team owners Rick Hendrick and Raymond Parks and former drivers Mark Martin and Benny Parsons (8 p.m. ET, NBCSN).
Incredible stories shadow each of this year’s inductees. The story of Childress’ rise from dropout to multi-millionaire is no less so.
Six of his championships came with driver Dale Earnhardt, an inaugural member of the NASCAR Hall of Fame and regarded by many as one of the sport’s most talented and influential drivers.
"I’m sure every one of the inductees are very proud," Childress said last week during a round of media availabilities for this year’s Hall of Fame Class. "My feeling is, I started out selling peanuts and popcorn at Bowman-Gray Stadium watching my heroes, Billy and Bobby Myers, Curtis Turner and Glen Wood, these guys race and that’s all I ever wanted to do was become a race driver."
He worked full time to live his dream part-time until the pull of the racing won out and for the longest time it looked like a fool’s errand.
Money didn’t flow and bills piled up but like everyone else chasing a dream, Childress was undeterred.
At 24, he got his first big break, competing at Talladega Superspeedway after many of NASCAR’s top stars, citing tire concerns, boycotted the race.
He returned home to purchase a small parcel of land with the money he earned from that weekend’s races, and started his own auto repair business.
"I left there with more money than I’d ever seen at one time," he said. Being his own boss also kept his NASCAR dream alive.
He jumped in full time in 1976 as an owner/driver at a time when only a handful of teams had the support and the finances to contend for wins on a consistent basis.
"I can remember the days when we had to syphon the fuel out of the race car to get home, put it in the tow car," Childress said. "A lot of people don’t understand how it was back in the early ’70s … what not just me but everyone was going through. You had the Pettys, Junior Johnson, Bud Moore, there were about four big teams … those were the guys you were racing against."
His second big break came in the early ’80s when he made the decision to focus on ownership and leave the driving to someone else.
Earnhardt came and went, driving a handful of races at the end of the ’81 season. A two-year stint with Ricky Rudd helped the team turn the corner and build the consistency necessary to compete for wins on a regular basis.
By ’84, Earnhardt had returned and RCR had improved its product tremendously.
"Ricky was a young, up and coming driver and I think we both helped each other a lot," Childress said. "He helped me as a car owner and I think we helped him as a driver, with the past driving experience I had and as an owner being able to work with a driver was totally different. I think it was a learning experience for all of us.
"When Dale came back in ’84 I was much more comfortable as an owner at that point."
Childress, winless as a driver in 285 career starts, remains positive and focused. No different than when he was just starting out with little more than a dream and a desire.
"You had to have a passion," he said. "Even when I was driving and wasn’t winning … I never started a race that I didn’t think this was going to be the day that the big boys had a problem and I was going to be able to come in there and win.
"Just the sheer drive of wanting to succeed, that’s what kept me going."
And it’s led him right into the NASCAR Hall of Fame.
With the season-opening festivities at Daytona International Speedway right around the corner, drivers are taking the last few weeks of the offseason to make sure they’re livin’ on the edge, not wanting to miss one thing on their downtime bucket list before they get back in the saddle again.
Okay, now that we’ve got all of the cleverly-placed Aerosmith references out of the (walk this) way, here’s a photo of singer Steven Tyler performing at Kurt and Ashley Busch’s recent wedding celebration after the pair wed overseas earlier this month.
It’s worth noting that Steven Tyler is a significant upgrade over Busch’s initial entertainment consideration.
Big thanks to @IamStevenT for his legendary show @ our wedding celebration! ud83dudc83ud83cudffcud83dudd7aud83cudffcud83dudc95@MrsAshleyBusch & I had an epic time! More pics to come. pic.twitter.com/sbFGDbY0an
Editor’s note: Visual brand representation was completed before announcement of Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series and new brand identity.
NASCAR.com’s homepage has been redesigned with mobile and live events in mind. The new look and functionality improves the user experience by taking fans to the track and the news of the day on any device, wherever they are.
The more visual layout presents top stories, videos and photo galleries in a consistent way across computers, tablets and phones. A single homepage highlights news, schedules and standings for the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series, XFINITY Series and Camping World Truck Series.
Races are at the heart of the new NASCAR.com homepage with the new Race Center component, which you can see in the video above. When cars or trucks are on track, find quick links to all the ways to keep track of what’s happening in a clean, well-organized format. It’s your go-to spot for weekend schedules, live leaderboards and results for all three national series. For now, we have a countdown clock until the start of the 2017 Daytona 500.
Each week, the upcoming track will be featured with facts, photos and ticket links for fans to learn more about that week’s venue and see the races live.
The new NASCAR.com homepage is now live, so take a look around and soak it all in. Any feedback? Let us know at [email protected].
Mark Martin is respected and revered for a 31-year NASCAR racing career that includes 40 Cup victories, 49 XFINITY wins and five heralded IROC championships.
He is considered one of the most talented, highly focused and broadly successful competitors in NASCAR history.
And later this week, Martin will formally acquire a designation that makes him most proud of all: NASCAR Hall of Famer.
"When I’m introduced at a function, now people can call me something, I’ll have a title," Martin, 58, said this week with a laugh. "Prior to that, you kind of had to search for a title, although I had done a lot of cool and amazing things in my career."
His long list of "cool and amazing things" is what earned Martin this highest of honors. He joins Benny Parsons, Richard Childress, Rick Hendrick and Raymond Parks in this year’s Hall of Fame class and will be formally inducted Friday in Charlotte (8 p.m. ET on NBCSN).
For Martin, it is a story of supreme determination and talent. In addition to his 40 wins and five championship runner-up finishes in NASCAR’s highest level, Martin proved to be one of the series’ most diverse competitors — ever.
He won four GT class championships competing in the Rolex 24 during the 1990s. And his five IROC titles — and four more runner-up IROC championship finishes — showed Martin’s great ability bettering the best drivers across all forms of racing from NASCAR to IndyCar to sports cars to sprint cars.
It is certainly something that separates and elevates him to the highest of standards through four decades of the best competition in multiple genres. So understandably, Martin had to really think about what in his vast career makes him most proud.
"I don’t know if there’s a single thing," Martin said. "One thing, I would have to say the fact that I made it to NASCAR at such a young age (22). At the time it was an amazingly young age, then I fell on my face and had to go home and start my career again.
"So I would say perseverance, if you want to sum it up in one word. Having to start my career all over again and building my way back. Having a second chance is probably the biggest thing."
"And the second thing is what I did in the IROC Series."
Martin has acknowledged that he was as focused and intense as they came. He was the first driver to seriously incorporate fitness training into his race preparation — something that may have eased his ability to compete at such a high level even into his 50s.
That determination to find an edge was apparent in the garage, even from an early age. He was among the rare drivers to frequently be seen looking into the hood of his car and working alongside the crew. It was the way he was raised by his father Julian, who took great care in guiding his son’s passion.
There are photos of Martin’s earliest racing days clearly showing how Julian Martin had gone so far to alter his son’s first race cars out of love and safety — mounting the steering wheel in the middle of the car instead of having it on the far left.
Dad and son travelled from their native Arkansas throughout the Midwest following the racing dream and they were very close — now the hard work rewarded with Martin’s long list of achievements and this highest of NASCAR’s high honors.
Heartbreakingly, Julian was killed when the plane he was piloting crashed in the Nevada mountains in August of 1998, also taking the life of Martin’s stepmother and 11-year old stepsister. Martin remembers immersing himself in competition as best he could to deal with the tragedy.
Martin won the night race at Bristol two weeks after losing his father. Immediately after climbing out of his car in Victory Lane, he emotionally thanked the race fans for "their sympathy, love and support" saying their "love for our family has meant everything."
"I felt it was my obligation and responsibility to go racing and that’s what my dad would have wanted," Martin acknowledged last week. "It was tough, but it would have been tough sitting on a couch in a daze, too.
"To me, racing was sort of a responsibility that I had. I felt responsibility toward the 50 or 100 people that supported the (then-Roush Racing) 6-car and a responsibility to race. I just didn’t feel like missing a race because I was grieving. … To me, at the time, it just didn’t seem like the right thing to do.
"It did help me cope with the horrendous loss I was experiencing because I did have to pick up and go racing."
And for Martin, the success he would later experience in the second half of his career is as impressive and inspiring as anything he accomplished. He came as close as he ever had to winning the Daytona 500 in 2007, losing the race to Kevin Harvick by a mere 0.02-seconds — a hood-length — in a photo finish that marked Martin’s best ever showing in the Great American Race.
Two years later, at the age of 50, Martin challenged Jimmie Johnson for what is now known as the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series championship, winning five races and claiming seven pole positions. Martin led the standings after each of the opening three Chase races, only to finish runner-up to Johnson, a seven-time winner on the year.
It marked the fifth and final time Martin was a championship runner-up in an amazing 20-year span of his career. It is a remarkable accomplishment and something he says he is at last comfortable enjoying, free of any near-miss regret.
"I never scored enough points to win one, and that’s that," Martin said, when asked about it last week. "I would have won one if I had scored more points than anyone else. … and I let that take an enormous amount of joy (from me).
"It’s something I let go of and I refuse to allow that to rob me of joy. I have a lot to be thankful of, be grateful for. I accomplished a lot in my career and I’m not sour about the things I didn’t accomplish."
The attitude accompanies good reason — because by all standards Martin accomplished so much and is admired by so many.
Later this week, he will be fittingly celebrated in all the glory he deserves for a career that showed everyone what hard work and mental focus could produce.
Forever more, Mark Martin shall be known and introduced as a NASCAR Hall of Famer.
"It means more than anything I achieved while I was racing because I was so busy racing, anything I achieved I never paid attention to," Martin said. "I was just storming ahead worried about how I would win the next race.
"Now that I’ve had some time to soak it in, it’s the last big deal, the big win, the crown jewel of my career.
"Don’t forget the people in the Hall of Fame are my heroes, the founders of the sport, the real men that did it with their bare hands. I’m a little bit uncomfortable going in there with them, to be honest with you, because I don’t feel like I belong in that kind of company."
Perhaps once he stands on stage — properly celebrated and duly honored — Martin will accept that he is absolutely a part of that good company. The best.
