Posted on by

RELATED: XFINITY Grid | Career highlights for Suarez

Daniel Suarez had been eyeing Dover International Speedway‘s Miles the Monster trophy for years.

 

The Joe Gibbs Racing driver finally was able to take home the iconic monster hardware Sunday after his dominating XFINITY Series win at the “Monster Mile.”

 

“This little guy,” a beaming Suarez said after the race, gesturing to the trophy during his post-race winner’s press conference. “You know what? I’ve been trying really hard to get one of these guys because in the K&N Series, I used to see this guy and think that this was really cool and I wanted to have one of those for my house. And finally to get this guy and be able to bring it with me home is going to be very special.”

 

But for the 24-year-old driver hailing from Monterrey, Mexico, this trophy represents more than just another trip to Victory Lane: Suarez’s win came during Hispanic Heritage Month, which is celebrated annually from Sept. 15 – Oct. 15.

“This is something really cool,” Suarez said. “Honestly, I didn’t remember this until they asked me in Victory Lane so this is something really good, very special for me and for all the people that have been supporting me since I moved here to the U.S. almost five years ago.

“Having all of the support that I have had from Mexico and from here in the U.S. and all of Latin America has been super special. I really feel lucky to be in this position and to be able to represent all of them.”

His first XFINITY Series career win at Michigan International Speedway on June 11 earlier this season rewrote history books, as he became the first Mexican-born driver to win a national series race. Having come to the United States less than five years ago, Suarez needed to learn the English language first — which he calls one of his toughest challenges upon moving to America — and then focus on competing in the top tier of racing.

Imagine driving at speeds of more than 100 mph and not being completely fluent in the sport’s native language.

Talk about overcoming obstacles.

“Think about what he battled through,” team owner Joe Gibbs said post-race Sunday. “He’s racing go-karts in Mexico and fighting his way up through all the series down there. You know what that takes for a young guy to be able to go through all of that, get recognized and then have a chance to come up here? It’s a great story. … I think it’s great for our sport and we’re thrilled to be a part of that.”

This season has been a breakout year for the budding star and this Dover victory was another shining moment: His taming of Miles the Monster was a win for his country, his culture, his career — and the next generation of NASCAR drivers.

“He is one of the up and coming … young stars,” Gibbs said. “I think from a diversity standpoint, from a Hispanic standpoint too, I think it’s huge for our sport.”

Now, the young driver has a chance to compete for a championship, the first year of the XFINITY Series Chase. While many viewed fellow Joe Gibbs Racing driver Erik Jones as the JGR title favorite, Suarez quickly is proving his No. 19 team needs to be in the conversation.

“Something really good about my team is that we have a lot of chemistry,” Suarez said. “We don’t give up, we work really hard. When we have bad days, we work even harder. I really like my team because we are together — we win together and we’ve lost together. We just have a lot of communication.

“A couple months ago, we were having a lot of conversations because we needed to find more speed and we were working hard to try to make that speed happen. I’m just proud of my team, proud of how we’ve been performing the last few weeks and I think in the next month and a half, couple months is going to be better.”

But before that, he needs to figure out where to put his hard-fought monster trophy.

“Where I’m going to put it, I don’t know, but it will be something easy to figure it out,” Suarez said, smiling.

Wherever Miles ends up, Suarez better leave some room for more trophies — he likely will need it. 

 

Posted on by

RELATED: Johnson loses lead at Dover after costly pit road penalty


CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Despite a cumulative 208 laps led throughout the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup‘s first three races, Jimmie Johnson remains frustratingly winless thanks to a string of costly mistakes during the playoff’s first round.

To be more precise, pit road mistakes.


Albeit frustrating, it has been highly motivating.

The Chase opener at Chicagoland Speedway saw the dominant No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet atop the leaderboard for 118 circuits — a race high — in the 270-lap event. A pit road speeding penalty changed everything, though, preventing “Six-Time” from reaching Victory Lane.


During the race, Johnson could be heard bellowing “No! No!” on the team radio when he learned of the penalty. After rallying to a disappointing 12th-place finish, Johnson admitted post-race that he was “dumbfounded” by the penalty.

Fast forward to two weeks later at Dover International Speedway, Johnson again served a pass-through after NASCAR tagged the team with having crew members over the wall too soon. Following the gaffe, Johnson — who had led for 90 laps — ended the day eighth.

Chris Krieg, head coach of the Nos. 48 and 88 pit crew teams, has refused to let these playoff errors lessen the morale of his championship-contending team.

“In athletics you’re going to have negative things happen and you have the ability to either stand back up and put your chin up and get ’em next time or you can choose to go in the corner and run from it,” an upbeat Krieg said Wednesday at the Nos. 48 and 88 shop in Charlotte, North Carolina.


“Our guys are standing up and they’re working harder than they ever had. And we will absolutely bounce back.”


Saturday’s Bank of America 500 at Charlotte Motor Speedway (7 p.m. ET, NBC, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) is the team’s chance to put the hard work to practice at a track where Johnson has collected seven wins.


“Our goal is just to be consistent and give our car and our driver the best ability to finish a race well and win a race,” Krieg said. “(We want to) go out there and be consistent and clean and smooth and if we can do that, we’ll have a good ending to the race.”


Wednesday, Krieg also welcomed five new pit crew members during Hendrick’s second-annual pit crew signing day. The group joining the four-car organization are: TJ Semke, Mason Harris, Austin Holland, Timmy Hall and Dylan Intemann.

Posted on by Staff Report

NASCAR gave warnings to nine Sprint Cup Series teams for failing in passes through the laser inspection station (LIS) during last weekend’s events at Dover International Speedway, including the No. 4 Stewart-Haas Racing team for Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup driver Kevin Harvick.

The No. 4 team, which received a warning for failing LIS twice in pre-qualifying, served its penalty at Dover, as did the No. 46 team of Michael Annett, the No. 47 team of AJ Allmendinger and the No. 88 team of Jeff Gordon.

The No. 6 team of Trevor Bayne, the No. 19 team of Carl Edwards and the No. 23 team of David Ragan also failed LIS twice in pre-qualifying but did not have to serve penalties.

The No. 27 team of Paul Menard failed LIS three times, pre-qualifying. It received a written warning and lost 15 minutes of practice time at Dover.


The No. 30 team of Josh Wise failed pre-race LIS three times. The team received a written warning and will lose 15 minutes of practice time. 


In the NASCAR XFINITY Series, the No. 20 team of Erik Jones received a warning for failing template inspection three times pre-race at Dover.

Posted on by Team Release

CONCORD, N.C. — Team leadership at Circle Sport-Leavine Family Racing has announced that Todd Parrott will assume crew chief duties for the No. 95 entry in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series for the remainder of the 2016 season. Dave Winston will move to a race engineer role within the organization.

“Todd brings a depth of knowledge to our team and I’m excited to have him on top of the pit box at all of our races for the remainder of 2016,” said Jeremy Lange, VP of CSLFR. “Todd has been calling the races while Ty Dillon has been in the car and we’re pleased to be able to continue our alliance with Richard Childress Racing and use their resources to help our growing team.”

Parrott has more than 20 years of experience in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series garage and won a championship with driver Dale Jarrett in 1999.

Posted on by

RELATED: See the Chase Grid


Story lines abound, and NASCAR.com’s Holly Cain and Zack Albert tackle three pressing topics as the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup enters the Round of 12 at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

1.  What surprised you most from Dover weekend in terms of who advanced in the Chase elimination race and who did not?

Cain: I was surprised by the results in several areas, but more so by drivers who did not advance as expected. Like many, I believed Chip Ganassi Racing driver Kyle Larson would advance well beyond the Round of 16. In fact, I had him in my Championship 4. I do believe he will win another race before the season is over. And perhaps I was being sentimental in expecting Tony Stewart to advance, but I still remember the amazing Chase charge in 2011 and saw the motivation in the three-time champion’s eyes after he won at Sonoma this summer.

Albert: Austin Dillon‘s advancement on the basis of pure consistency didn’t send shock waves through the ol’ surprise meter, but fate’s cruel hand for Chip Ganassi Racing did. To see both Larson and teammate Jamie McMurray ejected from the Chase field at least qualified as a mild stunner. It’s a solid dozen that remain, but Dover showed again how exacting this postseason format can be.


RELATED: Larson, McMurray ousted from Chase after Dover woes

2. With the points standings reset for the Chase Round of 12, all drivers resume with a clean slate. Are there any incentives you would add to enhance the current format?

Cain: A case could be made to give drivers who have won in the Chase a small points bonus in the ensuing round. But the equal reset given to all 12 drivers in the current format certainly increases the drama in a very different way from the Chase start, when regular-season wins are factored in. It’s the first time since the Daytona 500 green flag that the top-tier drivers are ranked evenly, and it should make the next three races even more dramatic.

Albert: It may not rate highly on the drama scale, but I’ve always maintained that the top points-earner during the regular season should be rewarded — nominally if not handsomely. A first-round bye might be a stretch, but a bigger bounty of points would offer a larger incentive for consistent performance over the opening 26 events. Offering bonus points through each elimination round would be an inviting enhancement, but keeping them out of the championship race — leaving the calculators at home — has valuable merits.

RELATED: Are added incentives for regular-season winners on horizon?

3. Among the remaining 12 Chase drivers, who’s your pick to win this weekend at Charlotte and lock in early in the Round of 8?

Cain: There’s a certain six-time champion who I believe will collect his eighth win at Charlotte Motor Speedway this weekend. Jimmie Johnson has been close to wins already in the Chase only to fall victim to pit-road miscues — something uncharacteristic of his Hendrick Motorsports organization. You’ve got to think that will be cleaned up, and I believe there’s no one more motivated to remind naysayers why he is the modern era’s very best.

Albert: Is there any stopping the Truexpress? Wins in two of the first three Chase races have established the Furniture Row Racing No. 78 Toyota as a strong title favorite, and the team returns to the site of Truex’s crushing victory in the Coca-Cola 600 in May. Placing former Charlotte winners Kevin Harvick, Carl Edwards and Jimmie Johnson under the heading of “sleepers” ranks as a testament to Truex’s formidable stature this season. Upcoming wild-card races at Talladega and Martinsville have the potential to derail the No. 78’s march; don’t count on that happening this weekend at Charlotte.


Posted on by Nascar

RELATED: Chase Grid | Round of 12 outlook for every driver

NASCAR Sprint Cup Series driver Kevin Harvick and his No. 4 Stewart-Haas Racing team have become accustomed to overcoming long odds.

It is not a situation the group particularly enjoys.

Timely victories have kept Harvick in title contention ever since NASCAR officials re-vamped the series’ Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup format three years ago, adding an elimination element to the process.

In 2014, he faced a must-win situation at Phoenix International Raceway. He won, then went to Homestead the following week and beat Ryan Newman, Denny Hamlin and Joey Logano to capture his first Sprint Cup championship.

In 2015, he and his team needed a victory at Dover International Speedway, to advance out of the Round of 16. He won again. And once again made it all the way to the Championship 4, eventually finishing second to Kyle Busch.

Harvick didn’t need a win this past weekend at Dover – a victory the previous weekend at New Hampshire Motor Speedway had already guaranteed he and his team a berth in the Round of 12 – but when a broken track bar mount sidelined the black & white Chevrolet, the “what-ifs” came to mind.

RELATED: Early trouble sends Harvick to the garage at Dover

What if Harvick hadn’t won at New Hampshire? What if he had finished second? Had that been the case, based on the Dover results, it would have been Tony Stewart, the three-time series champion and co-owner of Harvick’s team, advancing and not Harvick.

“Good timing, that’s for sure,” Harvick said Tuesday during a round of media availabilities at NASCAR’s Charlotte headquarters.

“But I think that’s really how this whole deal has to go; no matter how fast your car is you still have to have things go your way as well.”

The ability to come through in the clutch says a lot about Harvick, 40, and the team led by crew chief Rodney Childers. It speaks to their ability to overcome adversity under pressure. It speaks to their individual talent, as well as the product they put on the race track.

“You’re only as good as the people you have around you,” Harvick said. “In my particular situation, you have a group of people that just take it to another level when we get into the Chase.”

RELATED: Harvick has been clutch in the Chase quite often

The preference, of course, would be for a team not to find itself in a must-win situation in the first place. But things happen. Parts break. Wrecks occur. That his team has managed to successfully navigate its way through the setbacks on so many occasions, Harvick said, has made the group stronger.

“We’ve definitely had our back against the wall more times than we probably should have,” he said, “but I think it’s also been great character builders for us … the past couple of years. It gives us a lot of experience in dealing with the pressures and things that come with the Chase. It’s a high pressure situation and you need to win races in order to keep moving on.”

And in today’s NASCAR, winning is everything. Win a race before the Chase, and you’re practically guaranteed a berth in the 16-team Chase field. Win a race in the Chase, and you move on to the next round.

Points play a pivotal role as well, but Harvick said he would rather control his own destiny than leave it up to the “points gods.”

Winning provides him that opportunity.

“There are just so many things on these cars that can go wrong,” he said. “You can get in an accident. You just never know.

“Everybody talks about Talladega but we could have a huge pileup on a restart like we did at Dover in the (spring) race. At Charlotte, Kansas, Martinsville, you could go anywhere and have that happen.

“You just have to look at it like any moment could be a bad moment and any moment could be a good moment. You need to capitalize on the good moments in order to control as many as you can.”

• The No. 4 team has seen no pit-road issues since making a change in its over-the-wall crew prior to this year’s Chase, and Harvick said Tuesday he has no regrets about voicing his concerns.

“This is a championship team,” he said. “We’ve won the championship. And it needs to be a championship team from the performance on the track, in the shop, on pit road and from the driver’s seat. That’s just the expectation that is out there. Those are the expectations that I have and those are the expectations I put on my guys and they put on each other.

“I believe there is some pretty thick skin on my team and they all know that we are there to be successful. It’s easier to talk about things when they aren’t going well than to let them progress. I have no problem being the bad guy; some people love me; some people hate me. It doesn’t bother me.”


Posted on by Staff Report

Dale Earnhardt Jr. again found himself in need of a substitute driver. Tony Stewart was there to answer the call.

 

Earnhardt Jr. was at Charlotte Motor Speedway on Tuesday for a Dale Jr. Foundation charity ride-along event. The problem: Earnhardt Jr. has not been cleared to drive by his doctors as he recovers from concussion-like symptoms. The event raises “quite a bit of money,” Junior said in a video posted to Twitter.

 

Never fear, ‘Smoke’ is here. The three-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion volunteered to fill the seat so Tuesday’s event could go off without a hitch. Earnhardt Jr. posted the thank-you video below, calling Stewart a “good dude” for filling in.

Posted on by Staff Report

Chip Ganassi Racing‘s third annual socially driven “Sound Garage” event took place Tuesday night at the team shop — and pictures came in droves on social media channels.

 

The event, targeted toward millenials, featured a concert by New Politics, a Danish rock band that describes its sound as punk, pop and electronically induced dance rock. That was the centerpiece, but there was plenty more for fans and drivers alike.

 

What else made the event special? For starters, those in attendance needed a special code from Twitter or their own event invitation to get in the doors. And in the event’s terms and conditions, the first item stated that smart phones were encouraged due to it being a social event.

 

See below for some of the top scenes.