Posted on by Staff Report

RELATED: Chase Grid | Chase Bubble Watch

Practice 3 recap | Results | Best consecutive 10-lap average

Kyle Busch led final practice in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series on Saturday at Phoenix International Raceway. Busch turned a fast lap of 136.358 mph in the No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota on the 1-mile track where Sunday’s Can-Am 500 (2:30 p.m. ET, NBC, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) will determine the final two drivers in the Championship 4 in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup.

Team Penske teammates Brad Keselowski (136.286 mph) and Joey Logano (136.204 mph) finished second and third, respectively. The No. 2 Ford will line up 14th on Sunday, while the No. 22 Ford of Chase driver Logano will start fourth.

Pole winner Alex Bowman, who ran 50 laps during the session, was fourth in the No. 88 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet at 136.044 mph. Richard Childress Racing‘s Austin Dillon rounded out the top five at 135.977 mph.

Kyle Larson brought out the caution flag when his No. 42 Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet spun in Turn 2, but it appeared to avoid contact with the outside wall. Larson, a non-Chase driver, finished seventh in the session at 135.747 mph.

Other Chase drivers had the following finishes in final practice: Matt Kenseth (10th), Jimmie Johnson (11th), Kevin Harvick (14th), Carl Edwards (15th), Kurt Busch (20th) and Denny Hamlin (22nd).

Johnson (Martinsville) and Edwards (Texas) are locked into the Championship 4 by virtue of their wins earlier in the Round of 8.

Practice 2 recap | Results | Best consecutive 10-lap average

Martin Truex Jr. led Saturday’s first of two Sprint Cup Series practice sessions at Phoenix International Raceway ahead of Sunday’s Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Round of 8 elimination race.

With a top speed of 135.476 mph, Truex Jr. topped the speed charts in his No. 78 Furniture Row Racing Toyota in preparation for the Cam-Am 500 (2:30 p.m. ET, NBC, MRN, Sirius XM NASCAR Radio). After having pre-qualifying inspection trouble Friday that prevented him from making a qualifying run, Truex Jr. will line up 40th Sunday.

Truex was eliminated from the 2016 Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup in the Round of 12. Brad Keselowski, who suffered the same Chase fate, was second fastest at 135.410 mph in the No. 2 Team Penske Ford.

With only Jimmie Johnson and Carl Edwards locked into berths for the season finale at Homestead-Miami, the top Round of 8 contender on the speed charts in this practice session was Joey Logano in fifth at 135.014 mph in the No. 22 Team Penske Ford.

Two more drivers eliminated in the Round of 16 filled out the top five, with Jamie McMurray third at 135.105 mph in the No. 1 Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet and teammate Kyle Larson fourth after hitting 135.059 mph in the No. 42.

Kurt Busch, who almost certainly needs a win to advance to the Championship 4, was ninth fastest Saturday afternoon with a top speed of 134.786 mph in the No. 41 Stewart-Haas Racing Chevrolet. He will start 12th on Sunday. 

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PHOENIX, Ariz. — During a keynote presentation Friday at Transitions West 2016, a family business conference held in Phoenix, Arizona, NASCAR Chairman and CEO Brian France shared stories of advice provided to him by his grandfather William H.G. France and father Bill France Jr. — and how he now is doing the same with his nephew Ben Kennedy, a driver in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series.
 
“I sat (Kennedy) down a while back and I told him, ‘You better figure out where is your value going to come in the business,’ ” said France. “He’s going to get an opportunity. He deserves an opportunity. He’s a great guy, a great student and he deserves every opportunity you’d want any other family member to get.
 
“But on the other hand, I want him to really think long and hard about coming into the business where he can add value. That’s harder and harder to do when businesses are more mature.”
 
Each generation of the France family passed down that specific piece of advice, Brian France said Friday, and NASCAR’s current leader said he took it to heart. France saw his value in ushering NASCAR into the 21st Century, making bold decisions while using the constantly growing technology space to help bring the sport closer to fans.

 

France created the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup which has led to the most dramatic racing in years; introduced the landmark Charter and track sanctioning agreements that created stability for NASCAR’s teams and race tracks; signed agreements with FOX and NBC worth a reported $8.2 billion deal to broadcast races for the next decade; secured more FORTUNE 500 partnerships than at any time in history; and spearheaded the NASCAR Drive for Diversity program.
 
France talked about the importance of learning the business from the ground up and how that led to his first signature achievement — when as senior vice president in 1999, he consolidated the sanctioning body’s television rights.
 
“People said it could never be done, you’re too independent, tracks would never go along with that. And we took revenues at the time from $90 million to now $900 million in that one area,” he said.
 
Under France’s leadership, NASCAR now has more FORTUNE 500 partnerships than at any time in history and the NASCAR Drive for Diversity program is beginning to bear fruit which is critical to widening the fan base.
 
“I think communicating with your industry, your stakeholders, you can’t do that enough, you literally can’t do that enough,” he said.

 

RELATED: Suarez wins at Phoenix

 
NASCAR’s new emphasis on collaboration with its industry becomes even more important as fans change the way they consume sports — one of the biggest challenges France says the sanctioning body faces in the next five to 10 years.
 
“Millennial fans are consuming things way differently,” France said. “They’re getting their NASCAR not just solely from the TV, now it’s online, it’s video clips, it could be a number of things. They want to be entertained at a different level. They want to connect with their friends at the events.”
 
France believes that NASCAR’s emphasis on technology at the track and in its communication with fans provides it with an advantage over other sports in the changing consumption space. The sanctioning body has emphasized engaging with fans on Snapchat, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. Year-to-date, the NASCAR Facebook and Twitter accounts have generated 3.8 billion impressions.
 
NASCAR’s variety of digital offerings include NASCAR Drive, which gives fans drivers’ views from the cockpit, the NASCAR mobile app and a plethora of video content on NASCAR.com. Across all its digital platforms, NASCAR Digital Media has registered 890 million page views and 296 million video views.
 
“In our case, we can be a great validator of technology because of all the telemetry and things that go on to make up an event,” he said. “We can be very interactive, we already are, but we can be a lot better for our fan base. We have to get all that stuff right.”

Posted on by Staff Report

Aric Almirola will again have the U.S. Air Force as a sponsor on his No. 43 Ford in 2017, and for two of the most patriotic races of the season — the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway (Memorial Day weekend) and the fall race at Phoenix, which coincides with Veterans Day.

 

The team made that announcement Saturday at Phoenix International Raceway.

 

Almirola has had sponsorship from the Air Force every year since 2012, his first full-time venture with Richard Petty Motorsports, and the Air Force has been a partner with RPM specifically for eight consecutive seasons. The Air Force also served as the main sponsor in Almirola’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Series win at Daytona in the summer of 2014.

 

“I’ve been lucky enough to experience a lot of things and meet a lot of people through our partnership with the Air Force,” Almirola said in a team release. “I’ve had rides in fighter planes, experienced refueling missions and toured many bases, but the thing I love most about the partnership is being able meet and thank the men and women of the Air Force. The things they do to keep our country safe is nothing short of amazing. It’s remarkable to see that the Air Force and all of its members are working at the forefront of technology and truly making a difference. I’m honored to be able to represent them and share the message of the Air Force will all of our race fans.”

 

As part of the partnership, the U.S. Air Force also will continue its Summer Engineering Internship with U.S. Air Force Academy Cadets at Richard Petty Motorsports, applying their knowledge of aerodynamics, fuels and engineering systems to the No. 43 car. The Air Force will remain an associate partner on the No. 43 for the entirety of the 2017 season.

 

Almirola is a natural fit to have Air Force as his sponsor, considering he was born on Eglin Air Force base in Florida while his dad served.

 

“The Air Force is excited to partner with Richard Petty Motorsports again in 2017, for the ninth consecutive season,” said Maj. Jacob Chisolm, Air Force Recruiting Service National Events Branch Chief. “NASCAR is a great venue to inspire young adults, communicate the service’s mission and build awareness about career opportunities within the Air Force. It’s also a great way to highlight the connection between our Air Force mission and the science, technology, engineering and math principles that play a major role in NASCAR.”

Posted on by Staff Report

Practice 1: Results

Pos Car Driver From Lap To Lap Avg Speed
1 14 Tony Stewart 1 10 134.421
2 21 Ryan Blaney# 1 10 133.594
3 95 Michael McDowell 2 11 133.226


Practice 2: Results

Pos Car Driver From Lap To Lap Avg Speed
1 78 Martin Truex Jr. 7 16 134.539
2 24 Chase Elliott # 2 11 134.296
3 42 Kyle Larson 3 12 134.169
4 2 Brad Keselowski 22 31 134.137
5 48 Jimmie Johnson (C) 4 13 134.063
6 27 Paul Menard 1 10 134.049
7 41 Kurt Busch (C) 28 37 134.023
8 11 Denny Hamlin (C) 3 12 133.881
9 1 Jamie McMurray 23 32 133.830
10 20 Matt Kenseth (C) 2 11 133.811
11 88 Alex Bowman(i) 20 29 133.700
12 31 Ryan Newman 2 11 133.700
13 19 Carl Edwards (C) 26 35 133.608
14 18 Kyle Busch (C) 20 29 133.571
15 3 Austin Dillon 19 28 133.522
16 4 Kevin Harvick (C) 15 24 133.439
17 43 Aric Almirola 11 20 133.400
18 14 Tony Stewart 30 39 133.340
19 5 Kasey Kahne 1 10 133.304
20 13 Casey Mears 2 11 132.999
21 21 * Ryan Blaney # 26 35 132.976
22 47 AJ Allmendinger 23 32 132.751
23 95 Michael McDowell 2 11 132.717
24 34 Chris Buescher # 1 10 132.565
25 16 Greg Biffle 27 36 132.499
26 17 Ricky Stenhouse Jr. 18 27 132.307
27 6 Trevor Bayne 3 12 132.210
28 83 Matt DiBenedetto 3 12 131.564
29 38 Landon Cassill 31 40 131.506
30 32 Jeffrey Earnhardt # 4 13 128.467

Practice 3: Results

Pos Car Driver From Lap To Lap Avg Speed
1 88 Alex Bowman(i) 2 11 135.417
2 22 Joey Logano (C) 1 10 135.345
3 24 Chase Elliott # 1 10 135.204
4 78 Martin Truex Jr. 1 10 135.050
5 42 Kyle Larson 1 10 134.933
6 31 Ryan Newman 2 11 134.916
7 20 Matt Kenseth (C) 2 11 134.857
8 3 Austin Dillon 2 11 134.781
9 21 * Ryan Blaney # 1 10 134.694
10 5 Kasey Kahne 2 11 134.692
11 14 Tony Stewart 2 11 134.652
12 4 Kevin Harvick (C) 2 11 134.615
13 18 Kyle Busch (C) 1 10 134.576
14 1 Jamie McMurray 1 10 134.446
15 2 Brad Keselowski 1 10 134.383
16 48 Jimmie Johnson (C) 2 11 134.294
17 11 Denny Hamlin (C) 26 35 134.210
18 27 Paul Menard 1 10 134.145
19 19 Carl Edwards (C) 1 10 133.761
20 41 Kurt Busch (C) 33 42 133.738
21 34 Chris Buescher # 1 10 133.667
22 43 Aric Almirola 1 10 133.520
23 13 Casey Mears 1 10 133.440
24 38 Landon Cassill 1 10 133.438
25 10 Danica Patrick 28 37 133.388
26 83 Matt DiBenedetto 2 11 132.884
27 16 Greg Biffle 1 10 132.716
28 6 Trevor Bayne 21 30 132.594
29 7 Regan Smith 2 11 132.556
30 44 Brian Scott # 1 10 132.287
31 23 David Ragan 2 11 131.878
32 46 Michael Annett 3 12 131.485
33 15 Clint Bowyer 25 34 131.351

* Car must run 10 consecutive laps on the track to be included in the above chart
# denotes rookie

Posted on by Pat DeCola

RELATED: Chase Grid | Views from opening day at Phoenix


AVONDALE, Ariz. — Eight drivers enter this weekend’s race at Phoenix International Raceway still in contention for the Sprint Cup Series title. Four will emerge.


Hendrick Motorsports‘ Jimmie Johnson and Joe Gibbs Racing‘s Carl Edwards are already locked into next weekend’s Championship 4 race at Homestead-Miami Speedway via their wins at Martinsville and Texas, respectively, leaving six to battle for the checkered flag in the desert. These six seek an automatic title-round berth that comes along with a playoff victory, or hope to sneak by on points.

When the series hit Phoenix in 2013, the last season under the old points-centric format, we knew the title would come down to either Jimmie Johnson or Matt Kenseth. At this juncture, eight drivers enter the octagon — get it? — and have a realistic shot at the title.

The stakes stand the highest they’ve been in all of 2016 — possibly ever, given how close this race is — and the drivers (Kyle Busch, Kurt Busch, Denny Hamlin, Kevin Harvick, Matt Kenseth and Joey Logano) know what they’re up against.

“You just give it your all. There’s no second-guessing things. You go for it, don’t look back, and you try to be your best at that moment,” Kurt Busch said Friday at Phoenix. “But of course you don’t want to put too much pressure on yourself or ask too much of your crew chief. You want to blend everybody together to create the best powerful result you can. You don’t want to stretch it too far but you want to give it everything you have.”

Since the elimination format debuted in 2014, we’ve directly seen how typically even-keeled drivers can snap under the pressure with tension rising as each of the 10 Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup races ticks off the schedule on the road to Homestead-Miami. Wins are a driver’s saving grace, giving the victor a brief respite to focus on the following round while his peers seek to join him.



Logano, currently the driver best positioned to advance on points albeit by a small margin, knows he just missed out on being able to breathe freely this weekend.



“When (I talked to the media at Texas) after the race I was mad … I think after the race last week that it felt we missed an opportunity to win that race,” said Logano, who said he’s calmed down since then. “I think now we understand what we have to do when we come here. We pretty much have to win. I was joking about it earlier this week talking about when we went into Talladega in the last round we were in by zero points. This time we are in by one point, so we are closer than we were.



“It is pretty simple in all honestly for us and what we have to do. I know what I have to do and what the situations are but obviously I kind of need to know during the race if something changes (points-wise) that I don’t know or just to make sure we are all on the same page. It is important for me to know. Some drivers may say something different but for me, I don’t want an update the whole race but every now and again, especially toward the end of the race, to know where we are at and what I have to do to get in.”



RELATED: Would a driver move a teammate to advance?

Some drivers won’t have the luxury of keeping an eye on the points, however, as winning is their only likely route to advancement.


Count Kurt Busch among that group, and to a lesser extent his Stewart-Haas Racing teammate, Kevin Harvick.



Busch sits 34 points behind his brother, Kyle, for the last spot in. Harvick trails by 18, but many already have his name penciled into their Chase Grids to advance, as the winner of five of the past six Phoenix races.


“Our scenario to advance is to win,” said Busch, whose sole Phoenix win came in 2005. “It’s very similar to last year with how we made it through to the Round of 16, the Round of 12 and the Round of 8. We find ourselves with a must-win at Phoenix. It’s a unique format and it’s a lot of fun to work through it. To have a shot at it with only one race to go before the (Championship 4) makes you feel like you’ve had a successful season. We always want more, and we know we can do more. We want to try and go out with a win here in Phoenix to give ourselves a shot at the championship.”



Then again, not all drivers see this weekend as different than any other of the 36 race weekends.



You likely won’t be surprised as to which driver champions this sentiment most.



“You know, (Phoenix is) really not any different than any other weekend, really,” said Kenseth. “Our mindset when we show up is to always try to qualify the best we can on Friday and race the best we can on Sunday, so really no different this weekend. Just try to get a car that will run a fast lap (Friday), hopefully get qualified good and work on our race setup that hopefully is fast and drives good.


“All that I can speak for is myself and for me whatever it is and whatever the rules are when the year starts I’m fine with that,” the 2003 champ said. “Everybody has got the same opportunity to make that work the best they can for them. I’m all for whatever the fans are into. It doesn’t really matter that much to me.”

 

Posted on by Pat DeCola

RELATED: Race results | Updated Chase Grid

 

AVONDALE, Ariz. — Before the season, it would’ve seemed preposterous for a rookie with one career NASCAR national series start to his name to be the clear-cut favorite with a week to go in the Camping World Truck Series campaign.
 
Now it’s hard to process that William Byron won’t be among the four drivers competing in the Championship 4 round of the inaugural series Chase at Homestead-Miami Speedway next Friday.
 

Byron, the 18-year-old Kyle Busch Motorsports phenom and winner of a series-high six races in 2016, was poised to make it seven on Friday at Phoenix International Raceway before losing an engine with nine laps remaining in the Round of 6 finale.
 

He’d led 112 laps to that point.
 

“(The motor) was a little bit hot that run,” Byron said on pit road following the race. ” … I felt a little vibration a lap before that, but I was passing lapped trucks and I was poised to kind of ride and finish it out. But when I hit the throttle it just went dead. It started sputtering for a couple laps and I tried to flip through my boxes and just nothing took.
 

” … It’s just racing, I guess. It really is unfortunate when you’re out there leading and have the best truck, executing the way we needed to all night. Just one of those deals, I guess. It’s the worst possible time for it. We really wanted to compete for a championship. We were going to do that, for sure, but now we don’t get the chance to. It’s part of it. I guess we can go into Homestead and try to get a win. That’s what we really want to finish out the year.”
 

The engine failure saddled the young driver — a sure lock for Sunoco Rookie of the Year, if it’s any solace to him – with a 27th-place finish, allowing Timothy Peters to move past him in the standings to the fourth and final spot to race for the title in Miami.
 

Looking past the disappointment of Friday night, Byron’s success this season has been nothing short of incredible, finishing in the top five in nearly half of his starts.
 

The domination the No. 9 team has shown makes it ever-so-slightly easier to digest.
 

“I just try and smile it off, I guess,” Byron said. “The only satisfaction is that we had the best truck. We don’t have the win, but the only satisfaction is that we were that dominant. I’ve been really happy with the team this year. (Crew chief) Rudy (Fugle) has been amazing to me and hopefully we can just finish it off. I know he’s heartbroken like I am and we’ll just debrief and go onto Homestead.”
 

Given how disheartening it must be to know — and have all of your competitors know — that you’re the driver and truck to beat, only to have it come down to a parts failure … would Byron trade any of his wins to still be competing for the title?
 

“I definitely would like both (the wins and the championship) and feel like I can control both, but I would never take back the wins we had,” he said. “It’s gotten me to a new level; it’s gotten this team to a new level with confidence and just performance.
 

“I would never trade those; they were awesome moments with my team. I was thinking about sharing another one with them tonight, but it just didn’t happen.”

Posted on by Nascar

RELATED: Harvick apologizes for incident

AVONDALE, Ariz. — Kevin Harvick said he reached out to Austin Dillon following last week’s incident between the two Sprint Cup Series drivers at Texas Motor Speedway but got no response.
 
Austin Dillon said he’s here at Phoenix International Raceway this weekend to race, and preferred not to comment on what took place last weekend.
 
“I reached out to him and he didn’t reach back,” Harvick, the 2014 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion, said after qualifying Friday at PIR. “So it is what it is.”
 
The two competitors were racing for fifth place at Texas when contact from Harvick’s No. 4 Stewart-Haas Racing Chevrolet sent Dillon’s car into the wall in Turn 4 and ended his night.
 
Asked about the contact, Dillon said Harvick “knew how tight he was on my door and that’s why I got tight and slid up on front of him. He didn’t check (up), but he had the opportunity to.
 
“He didn’t like it that the silver spoon kid was out-running him tonight.”
 
The reference was to a 2013 incident involving Harvick and Ty Dillon, Austin’s younger brother, that took place at Martinsville in a NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race. Following late-race contact there, Harvick referred to the brothers as “punk-ass kids” who had “no respect for what they do in this sport and they’ve had everything fed to them with a spoon.”
 
Austin and Ty Dillon are the grandsons of team owner Richard Childress; Harvick spent his first 13 years in Sprint Cup driving for Richard Childress Racing before departing at the end of 2013 to join SHR.
 
Asked about the potential for retaliation, Harvick said Austin Dillon “can handle things however he wants to handle them.
 
“Obviously he is a little bitter about the things that I said … and that is probably a little bit my fault for never speaking to him about the situation,” he said.
 
Harvick said Dillon should have been mad about the Texas incident. “They are just starting to perform like they need to perform and he wants to win and he is a competitor and I can’t blame him for that,” he said.
 
“As far as the incident itself, it’s pretty self-explanatory when you watch the in-car as to what happened. There was nothing intentional there.”
 
Dillon said his focus this weekend is “to win this race.”
 
“We’ve had a good American Ethanol Chevy and I’m looking forward to showcasing that here in a little bit and trying to get two poles in a row,” he said before qualifying.
 
He didn’t win a second consecutive pole, but he did make it to the third round in qualifying and will start seventh in Sunday’s Can-Am 500 (2:30 p.m. ET, NBC, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
 
Harvick might be out of mind, but he won’t be out of sight — he qualified sixth and will start alongside Dillon.

Posted on by Nascar

AVONDALE, Ariz. — Upon his arrival in Phoenix Thursday, NASCAR Sprint Cup Series driver Joey Logano spent time at the Phoenix Children’s Hospital where he met with kids, handed out NASCAR merchandise and made a $5,000 donation to the hospital through his Joey Logano Foundation.

 

Such efforts always leave a lasting impression; Thursday’s even more so.

 

Only one day earlier, Logano and his wife, Brittany, attended the funeral for 5-year-old Jake Leatherman in Hickory, North Carolina. Leukemia claimed the youngster, an avid fan of NASCAR in general and Richard Petty in particular.

 

The couple were among the many members of the NASCAR community who responded to a grieving family and a mother’s request.

 

Brittany Logano had learned of the child’s story while in Texas for last weekend’s Sprint Cup race, seeing a Facebook post by Charlotte television reporter Molly Grantham.

 

“She had just watched the video and told me about him and how he was a big race fan,” Logano said, “and I thought it would be cool if we could do something for his funeral.”

 

The Loganos provided a small race suit with Leatherman’s name on it, and because he was big fan of Petty, the suit included the seven-time champion’s famous No. 43 car number.

 

But it didn’t stop there.

 

“It wasn’t just Brittany and myself,” Logano, driver of the No. 22 Ford for Team Penske, said. “There were around 100 team members there (at the funeral). It was one of the most real moments, one of the proudest moments I have been a part of in this NASCAR community. … We compete against every week out here at the race track and fight the crap out of each other every week. To come together as one team and be NASCAR as a whole for a child that who looked at us as superheroes. That is how his family members described what he thought of NASCAR.”

 

According to WBTV, fellow drivers Matt DiBenedetto, Ryan Ellis and J.J. Yeley were among those in attendance. Crewmen and crew chiefs turned out. Driver firesuits and crewmen uniforms replaced coats and ties.

 

Logano said he was “bummed” that he never got to meet the youngster.

 

“We all came together and were all there for him but we didn’t get to meet him and give him his race suit and how cool he would have thought that was,” he said. “To see all his heroes and pit crew members there that day would have been very special.”

 

It was one of the most difficult things he’s had to do, but Logano said it was “also one of the most impressive things, to see our NASCAR community come together like that. It was definitely eye opening and it puts life into perspective.

 

“I don’t have a kid yet but I can’t even imagine – watching his mom and dad and sister and grandparents all there it tore my heart out.”

 

And that was still fresh on his mind when Logano arrived at the Children’s hospital in Phoenix for Thursday’s previously scheduled event.

 

“It sure made that visit different for me,” he said.