Posted on by Staff Report

NASCAR issued penalties Thursday to the No. 8 NEMCO Motorsports team and Camping World Truck Series driver John Hunter Nemechek for P2 infractions found last weekend at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.

 

Nemechek’s No. 8 Chevrolet failed to meet the minimum ride height during an inspection after last Saturday’s UNOH 175, the opening race of the Camping World Truck Series Chase playoffs.

 

Competition officials docked the team 10 championship points in both the owners’ and drivers’ standings. The penalty dropped Nemechek, who rallied from an early spin to finish ninth last weekend, from fourth to seventh on the Chase Grid with two races remaining before cuts are made to the championship-eligible field.

 

NASCAR officials also fined crew chief Gere Kennon $6,000 and NASCAR probation for the crew chief continues through Dec. 31, 2016. It’s the second such violation this season for the NEMCO team, which also failed the ride-height minimum at Iowa Speedway in June for a P2-grade infraction.

 

NASCAR abandoned ride-height rules for its Sprint Cup Series ahead of the 2014 season. Those restrictions remain in effect for its other two national series.

 

This week’s penalty report for the Sprint Cup and XFINITY Series was marked by written warnings and lesser violations. From the Sprint Cup Series race weekend in New Hampshire, the following teams were cited:

 

— The No. 7 Tommy Baldwin Racing team of driver Regan Smith received written warnings for failing pre-race LIS twice and pre-qualifying LIS twice.

— The No. 4 Stewart-Haas Racing team of driver Kevin Harvick, No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports team of driver Kasey Kahne, No. 16 Roush Fenway Racing team of driver Greg Biffle and No. 83 BK Racing team of driver Matt DiBenedetto all received written warnings for failing pre-qualifying LIS twice.
— The No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing team for driver Denny Hamlin received a written warning for failing pre-qualifying template inspection twice.

The pre-qualifying LIS failures of Nos. 4, 5, 7 and 16 teams were each their third infractions, meaning the next such infraction will see those teams penalized with the last selection of a pit stall on the weekend that violation occurs. Of those cars, only the 4 of Harvick is in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup.

Warnings from the XFINITY Series’ event at Kentucky Speedway:

 

— The No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing team and No. 51 Jeremy Clements Racing team of driver Jeremy Clements received written warnings for failing pre-race LIS twice.

Warnings from the Camping World Truck Series’ event at New Hampshire Motor Speedway:

 

— The No. 50 MAKE Motorsports team of driver Travis Kvapil received a written warning for failing pre-race template inspection four times and also a loss of 15 minutes of practice time this weekend at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Posted on by Official NASCAR Release

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (Sept. 29, 2016) — Seventeen drivers from across the country will compete for spots in the top driver development program in motorsports, NASCAR Drive for Diversity, during a national tryout at Florida’s New Smyrna Speedway from Oct. 10-12.

 

The 13th annual NASCAR Drive for Diversity Combine invites promising ethnically diverse and female drivers from across North and South America to test their skills over a three-day period as NASCAR evaluates talent for the NASCAR Drive for Diversity Class of 2017.

 

“This year’s NASCAR Drive for Diversity Combine will feature some incredible talent and we’re excited to watch these young drivers compete,” said Dawn Harris, NASCAR director, multicultural development. “NASCAR’s first-class development program has produced the likes of Kyle Larson, Daniel Suárez and Darrell Wallace Jr., so it will be fun to see who rises to the top at New Smyrna.”

 

In partnership with Rev Racing, NASCAR Drive for Diversity offers racing opportunities in the NASCAR K&N Pro Series East and NASCAR Whelen All-American Series for one full season, providing drivers with equipment, mentoring, and competition experience.

 

“This is an unbelievable opportunity for these up-and-coming drivers; something I am very proud to be a part of for the sixth-consecutive year,” said Jefferson Hodges, Rev Racing director of competition. “To see past Drive for Diversity participants compete across all three NASCAR national series speaks volumes for the solid foundation Rev Racing provides these drivers in their budding careers.”

 

This year, there are 13 female drivers competing for spots with Rev Racing. Returning this fall is Macy Causey, who at 14 years old was the youngest combine participant in NASCAR Drive for Diversity history in 2015. Also participating is Hailie Deegan, daughter of Brian Deegan, the most decorated athlete in freestyle motocross history, and Hope Hornish, the niece of 2006 Indianapolis 500 winner and current NASCAR XFINITY Series driver Sam Hornish Jr.

 

Drivers under consideration to return to the team in 2017, but who will not compete at the NASCAR Drive for Diversity Combine, include current NASCAR K&N Pro Series East and NASCAR Whelen All-American Series drivers: Jairo Avila, Enrique Baca, Collin Cabre, Madeline Crane, Ruben Garcia Jr, and Ali Kern. Collin’s brother, Chase Cabre, is also among the drivers selected to compete in this year’s combine.

 

Driver combine participants will be evaluated on their driving skills and take part in a physical fitness assessment and receive additional training at Bethune-Cookman University.

 

The NASCAR Drive for Diversity Combine has proven successful in identifying and developing future stars of the sport. Current NASCAR Driver for Diversity members have garnered four Top-5’s and 13 Top-10’s combined in the NASCAR K&N East and NASCAR Whelen All-American Series this season and are looking to repeat last year’s season ending victory at Dover International Speedway.

 

Program graduate, Kyle Larson, earned his first victory in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series this year at Michigan International Speedway. Fellow graduate and NASCAR XFINITY Series driver Daniel Suárez this year became the first Mexican-born driver to win a NASCAR national series race. Suárez and fellow NASCAR XFINITY driver Darrell Wallace Jr., another NASCAR Drive for Diversity alumnus, are currently competing in the first NASCAR XFINITY Series Chase.  

 

Fans can follow the Combine live on Twitter at @NASCARDiversity and @RevRacing.

 

Below are the invitees to the 2016 NASCAR Drive for Diversity Combine:

 

First

Last

Age

City

State/Country

Ali

Kern*

23

Fremont

Ohio

Amber

Balcaen

24

Winnipeg

Canada

Ariel

Biggs

22

Castaic

California

Armani

Williams

16

Grosse Point

Michigan

Chase

Cabre

19

Tampa

Florida

Collin

Cabre*

23

Tampa

Florida

Enrique

Baca*

25

Monterrey

Mexico

Hailie

Deegan

15

Temecula

California

Hannah

Newhouse

19

Twin Falls

Idaho

Hope

Hornish

19

Defiance

Ohio

Jairo

Avila*

21

Alhambra

California

Jay

Beasley

24

Las Vegas

Nevada

Kayli

Barker

19

Las Vegas

Nevada

Luis

Rodriguez

22

Miami

Florida

Macy

Causey

15

Yorktown

Virginia

Madeline

Crane*

18

Meansville

Georgia

McKenna

Haase

19

Carlisle

Iowa

Nicole

Behar

18

Otis Orchards

Washington

Reegan

May

22

De Pere

Wisconsin

Ruben

Garcia Jr.*

20

Mexico City

Mexico

Santiago

Tovar

23

Mexico City

Mexico

Taylor

Jorgensen

20

Stockbridge

Georgia

Walter

Thomas III

18

Indianapolis

Indiana


* Current NASCAR Drive for Diversity drivers eligible for 2017 program; will attend but not compete in Combine

Posted on by Mobil 1

In the third instalment of the Mobil 1 “Our Normal Drives” video series on NASCAR.com, the Official Motor Oil of NASCAR gives fans a look at a “normal” day for two Stewart-Haas Racing interior specialists.

Check out how Kyle Anderson and Justin Peiffer work behind the scenes with drivers.

Watch today’s video, which is part of NASCAR Inside Track presented by Mobil 1, then come back throughout the season for more in-depth looks at NASCAR from Mobil 1.

Posted on by

RELATED: Chase Grid | Bubble Watch

 

Story lines abound, NASCAR.com’s Holly Cain and Zack Albert tackle three pressing topics before the 2016 Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup postseason makes its first elimination at Dover International Speedway.

 

1. Which driver currently below the Chase cutoff line is most likely to advance to the Round of 12?

 

Cain: I realize this is a long-shot and a sentimental pick, but I’m not counting Tony Stewart out of his final Chase run quite yet. I remember watching him win five of the 10 Chase races — including the 2011 season finale — to grab his third title from Carl Edwards‘ clutches. Stewart is 11 points from the transfer position heading into the weekend, but he also is a three-time winner at Dover.

 

Albert: Jamie McMurray, primarily based on the performance increase that Chip Ganassi Racing has enjoyed in recent weeks. While his teammate Kyle Larson has more regularly competed for wins, McMurray has been a tick more consistent. In the opening round, staying steady and avoiding the Monster Mile’s pitfalls may be enough.

 

2. Which driver currently above the Chase cutoff line is most likely to be eliminated at Dover?

 

Cain: Kurt Busch has only one top-10 finish in his last nine starts at Dover. Similarly, Carl Edwards has only a single top 10 in his last eight starts at the Monster Mile. They are 16 and 15 points, respectively, above the cutoff line. While that’s some cushion to the good, they will need to perform well Sunday as this is a place where crazy things have happened. Ask Jimmie Johnson.

 

Albert: The provisional top 12 is a pretty stout list. While Chase Elliott has righted the ship to a degree from his dreadful July and August stretch, he’ll need to conjure up the positive mojo from his third-place finish at Dover in May and avoid the mistakes that he tends to lament so bitterly.

 

3. Of the two, who is more likely to win the championship: Martin Truex Jr. or Kevin Harvick?

 

Cain: This is the $10 million question. In the preseason and again before the Chase I picked Jimmie Johnson to hoist the trophy. But clearly Truex and Harvick have proven themselves — again — as the drivers to be dealt with. Truex drives a Toyota, which has shown itself the power of the field, and his Furniture Row Racing team is exactly the kind of “all-in,” underdog, feel-good story that would make anyone smile. But as Harvick showed this past weekend, he should never, ever be underestimated. He’s as motivated, focused and ready as he’s ever been for a title and is the only driver in the series that has been in the Championship 4 each year of the new elimination format.

 

Albert: Truex and Harvick have certainly made a case for their championship credentials in the opening two races of the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup postseason. No weak links, regardless of the venue, for either of these two, save for Truex’s early season tendencies to have odd occurrences make victories somehow slip away. Still, it’s hard to anoint either one with eight races left in the 10-race playoffs with plenty of opportunity for mess-ups, especially at wild-card tracks Talladega and Martinsville. Forced to pick one of the two, I’ll call the coin toss in the air for Harvick.

Posted on by Nascar

RELATED: Updated Chase Grid | Who’s on the bubble? | Series standings


CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Crunch the numbers. Do the math. But don’t bother telling Tony Stewart the potential scenarios required for him to advance to the Round of 12 in this year’s Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup.


You’d be wasting your time and his time, too.


The only scenario Stewart, 45 and three times a Sprint Cup Series champion, cares about is the one that ends with him and his No. 14 Stewart-Haas Racing team celebrating in Victory Lane this weekend at Dover International Speedway.


“All we can do is go out and do the best we can this weekend,” Stewart said Wednesday during a daylong media stop in downtown Charlotte, North Carolina. “It still amazes me how people can take something that’s so simple and make it so complicated. ‘Will we be watching where everybody else is?’


“Well yeah, I can waste my time and do that but … I’ve got to focus on winning the race. Because if I win the race I don’t have to worry about where they’re at. But if I go and do everything I can to try and win the race and I finish second, then wherever they are is wherever they are. I can’t control those guys on the race track so why focus your attention on it? It’s a waste of time.”


The 2016 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season is the final one for Stewart. He’ll remain involved in the series as co-owner of Stewart-Haas Racing, which fields four Sprint Cup teams and one that will debut a NASCAR XFINITY Series entry next year. He’s a track owner, team owner and competitor in other series — some NASCAR-affiliated, some not — as well.


But his quest for a fourth title rests solely on the outcome of Sunday’s Citizen Soldier 400 at Dover (2 p.m. ET, NBCSN, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). A 16-driver field that began the Chase two weeks ago will be trimmed to 12 after Dover, and Stewart will arrive Friday 15th on the Chase Grid.


His approach to what could be his final race as a title contender will be no different than any other weekend.


“There is no mindset to it,” he said. “The most realistic mindset to go into it with is the same approach you go into it with every weekend of the year and that’s to go try to win the race. If you don’t, get the best finish you can get out of it. That’s not glamorous and that’s not what you want to hear … but it’s literally that simple. Go try to win the race. Do everything you can to win the race. If you can’t win the race, try to finish second. If you can’t finish second, try to finish third. It is as simple as it can possibly get.”


That Stewart is in this predicament is something of a surprise, given the strong summer run that saw him collect six top-10 finishes, including a win at Sonoma, in eight races. The No. 14 team, headed up by crew chief Mike Bugarewicz, seemed primed for a possible run at yet another title.

RELATED: See all of Stewart’s victories

But the results of the most recent six races weren’t nearly as impressive, with no finish higher than 16th.


“These things are such science projects,” Stewart said of today’s cars, “and pretty much the whole (SHR) organization fights the same thing. It’s whichever one can find the solution first.”


Teammate Kevin Harvick has guaranteed himself a spot in the Round of 12 with a win this past weekend at New Hampshire and Kurt Busch can advance either by points, depending on his finish, or with a victory. Teammate Danica Patrick is the only SHR entry not in the Chase field.

RELATED: Harvick surges late for Loudon win

“We’re going to have to rely on Kevin and Rodney (Childers, crew chief), Kurt and (Tony) Gibson (crew chief) for sure and do the best we can,” Stewart said. “We weren’t totally terrible at the spring race but definitely have to be better than we were to get done what we need to get done.”


Scenarios? Talk to Stewart at Homestead, if he happens to be one of the championship four. That’s when he’ll be more aware of such things.


“When you get to the last race of the year and you’re racing for a championship and you’ve got enough of a lead that no matter what, if you finish from here on up, then yeah, you think about that,” he said.


“But that’s not the scenario we’re in.”

Posted on by

Roush Fenway Racing has decided to reassign longtime pit crew coach Andy Ward, replacing him with Scott Bowen, a current RFR employee and an ex-pit crew member.

Ward has been at RFR for many years and has produced some very good pit crews. The Jack Roush-owned organization did not have any drivers qualify for the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup this year.

Roush Fenway Racing released the following statement regarding the move:

“We continuously evaluate our race team operations at Roush Fenway, and as part of a mid-season restructuring we have implemented a change in the department structure with our pit crew teams. We have placed Scott Bowen, who previously was our head of purchasing, in charge of our pit crew operations. Scott is a longtime employee of Roush Fenway, and worked as an over-the-wall pit crew member for several years. We believe this change will prove beneficial in our continued effort to improve on-track performance.”

For more pit crew news, visit PitTalks.com.

Posted on by Staff Report

XFINITY Series regular Ryan Reed will attempt to make his Sprint Cup Series debut at Talladega Superspeedway on Oct. 23 (2 p.m. ET, NBCSN, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), the team announced Wednesday afternoon.



Reed, who pilots the No. 16 Roush Fenway Racing Ford in the XFINITY Series, will drive the No. 99 Lilly Diabetes Ford in his debut.


The 2015 XFINITY Daytona winner has been racing in the XFINITY Series for three full seasons and has yet to attempt a Sprint Cup start in his racing career. He is currently one of the eight XFINITY drivers vying for the series championship in the inaugural Chase.

Posted on by Staff Report

Logan Clampitt (High Performance Motorsports) visited Victory Lane for the first time in the NASCAR PEAK Antifreeze Series, holding off championship contenders Ray Alfalla (Slip Angle Motorsports) and PJ Stergios (ineX Racing) at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. Brad Davies came home behind Alfalla and Stergios, with Ryan Lowe rounding out the top five.

Clampitt used pit strategy to take the lead after a round of green-flag pit stops late in the race and never looked back. He showed impressive poise for a rookie on a pair of late-race restarts, maintaining the lead as chaos erupted behind him.

Stergios started on pole but outside polesitter Nick Ottinger had the fastest car on the first run and moved into the lead on Lap 12. Ottinger began building a gap that grew to nearly 1.5 seconds before the first caution flag flew on Lap 23, drawing the leaders to pit road.

The leaders all took four fresh tires and Ottinger won the race off pit road, barely beating Stergios who restarted in second. On the next run, Alfalla moved to second and kept pace with Ottinger as Stergios fell to fourth behind Josh Berry. The four would run in this order until the third caution flew on Lap 52 for Chris Overland’s spin.

Ottinger once again kept the lead on pit road and looked to run away from the field when the green flag flew. This time, however, Ottinger had company at the front as Alfalla showed he could keep pace as the run wore on. On Lap 92 Alfalla made his move on the bottom and drew alongside Ottinger through Turns 3 and 4 but could not complete the pass as he lost drive off the corner on the flatter bottom groove.

For the next nine laps Alfalla hounded the race leader, diving to the inside on multiple occasions without success. Finally, on Lap 101, Alfalla got a strong run off Turn 2 and completed the pass entering Turn 3. The lead awarded Alfalla with an important bonus point, but green flag pit stops loomed.

Clampitt pitted a couple laps before the race leaders and the strategy paid off as he inherited the lead with 30 laps to go once the pit cycle completed. Alfalla was closing with his fresher tires, but Timmy Hill‘s spin with 18 to go brought the leaders to pit road and set up the dash to the finish.

Alfalla maintains the NASCAR PEAK Antifreeze championship lead into the series finale thanks to his runner-up finish. He gained one point on Stergios and holds a slim five-point lead. Disaster nearly struck Stergios with 10 laps to go when Mitchell Hunt crashed off Turn 2, slamming into Stergios’ door in the process. Somehow, Stergios continued on despite the damage and kept pace well enough to score a strong finish.

Jake Stergios appears relatively safe in third place, 104 points back of Alfalla and 22 points ahead of fourth-place driver Overland. Overland is in the middle of a points battle of his own as Dylan Duval (The TEAM) is now only two points behind after Overland’s troubles left him in 31st. The battle for the back end of the top five will likely be decided between the two as Kenny Humpe is 27 points back of Duval after experiencing Internet troubles.

With only one race remaining, all eyes will be on Alfalla and Stergios as the twosome head to Homestead-Miami Speedway in search of a NASCAR PEAK Antifreeze Series title title. Stergios is looking for his first championship while Alfalla is hoping to win his third after finishing runner-up the past three seasons. A five-point margin gives Alfalla the advantage, but if Stergios can get out to an early lead the pressure will be squarely on Alfalla.

Who will take home the crown? Be sure to tune into iRacing Live in two weeks to see the conclusion of the 2016 NASCAR PEAK Antifreeze Series from Homestead!