Posted on by Staff Report

RELATED: Qualifying results | Edwards earns sixth Coors Light Pole of 2016


Multiple drivers, including three Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup competitors, were left sweating it out in the garage when their cars did not pass pre-qualifying inspection by the start of NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Coors Light Pole Qualifying at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.

Qualifying began on time at 4:45 p.m. ET, with a long line of cars still waiting to be cleared. Those that did not initially pass included the No. 3 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet of Austin Dillon, the No. 4 Stewart-Haas Racing Chevrolet of Kevin Harvick and the No. 14 SHR Chevrolet of Tony Stewart, all Chase drivers.


Despite the backlog, all 40 cars eventually posted a qualifying time for Sunday’s Bad Boy Off Road 300 (2 p.m. ET, NBCSN, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), with Regan Smith the last to clear inspection as he headed to pit road with 3 minutes, 15 seconds left in the opening 20-minute knockout round.


“We feel like what is going on is that the stakes are higher now that we’re at the Chase,” NASCAR Senior Vice President of Competition Scott Miller said on the NBCSN broadcast. “I think all of our competitors are trying to push the envelope. … If someone doesn’t make it out there, it’s not our process, it’s them pushing the envelope.”

In other technical-related news, the Hendrick Motorsports No. 24 team for rookie Chase Elliott received its fourth written warning for issues in inspection. Elliott’s team will be relegated to the final pick in pit-stall selection ahead of the second race of the 10-race postseason.

Dillon and Harvick were eventually cleared with less than 12 minutes to go in the opening 20-minute round of group qualifying, and Harvick got on the track with seven minutes to spare. The final latecomers were granted a slight time cushion when Clint Bowyer spun out in Turn 4 during a qualifying pass, stopping the clock with 11:39 remaining.

Harvick eventually posted the seventh-fastest time of the round, with Stewart in 17th and Dillon 29th in his backup car after a crash in opening practice damaged his primary No. 3 Chevrolet.


“It’s different,” Dillon said of the logjam outside of the inspection bay. “I see NASCAR just trying to keep everybody on the same playing field.”


Harvick will start 19th. His team owner and SHR teammate, Stewart, will start 22nd in what’s expected to be his final New Hampshire start.

The full list of cars not cleared from inspection when the green flag dropped: the No. 10 of Danica Patrick, the No. 47 of AJ Allmendinger, the No. 7 of Smith, the No. 83 of Matt DiBenedetto, the No. 5 of Kasey Kahne, the No. 16 of Greg Biffle and the No. 17 of Ricky Stenhouse Jr., in addition to the Nos. 3, 4 and 14.


Posted on by Staff Report

Related: Practice 1 results | Top 10 consecutive lap averages


Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup driver Austin Dillon crashed into the outside wall of New Hampshire Motor Speedway‘s Turn 1 late in Friday’s first Sprint Cup Series practice session, and suffered significant damage to the right rear of the No. 3 Chevrolet that will require a move to a backup car. He finished the session 32nd (132.813 mph).



WATCH: Dillon hit the wall

The session was led by Kyle Larson, who topped the leaderboard at 135.941 mph in the No. 42 Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet.


Right behind him was Chase Elliott in the No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet at 135.893 mph.


Rounding out the top five were Kevin Harvick in the No. 4 Stewart-Haas Racing Chevrolet at 135.757 mph, Carl Edwards in the No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota at 135.738 mph and series points leader Martin Truex Jr. in the No. 78 Furniture Row Racing Toyota 135.709 mph.


Sprint Cup drivers return to the track at 4:45 p.m. ET for Coors Light Qualifying (NBCSN, NBC Sports App). The next practice session is Saturday at 9 a.m. ET (CNBC, NBC Sports App).

Posted on by Zack Albert

LOUDON, N.H. — NASCAR returns to the business of postseason Chases in all three of its top series this weekend. Two of those tours have landed in New England, greeted by crisp weather and the changing of the seasons.

But thoughts continue to focus on the news of this week’s social unrest nearly 900 miles away in Charlotte, North Carolina — stock-car racing’s hub and one of the sanctioning body’s primary headquarters. Protests have gripped Charlotte’s Uptown area in the wake of the fatal police-involved shooting of Keith Lamont Scott on Tuesday.

Relatively few drivers claim North Carolina as their home state, but the proximity to home bases for both drivers and teams makes the connection to Charlotte a part of their fabric.

It’s what has made this week’s turmoil difficult.

“Obviously, we’re trying to do things here today, but, yeah, there’s an emotional reaction,” Joey Logano — a Middletown, Connecticut native — said Friday from New Hampshire Motor Speedway. “A lot of times when you see things like this happen, it’s in a different city and you don’t recognize where it’s at, but when you see the NASCAR building getting vandalized and you see areas of the city that you know very well with just crazy things happening it makes you sick to your gut. You don’t know what to do, and you kind of feel helpless.

“All we can do really is just say some prayers and hope that eventually everything calms down and everyone is able to come to some kind of peace at the end of this thing, and we can move on and move forward and make our world better.”

 

Logano also said he understands the role professional athletes play when it comes to social issues.

“I think any athlete or public figure takes on a responsibility,” he said. “There’s a lot of people that you can influence in good ways or bad ways, and I feel like you should know that. There are a lot of athletes and public figures that don’t realize that about the reaction they can make across the country or the world in a lot of cases by just a couple of words. … I personally believe when I sit down here I know the influence that I can have on young eyes watching us that are very fragile at the time that they could go a lot of different ways.  You want to be a positive member of society.”

North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory declared a state of emergency late Wednesday night as the protests took violent turns. Windows were broken at the NASCAR Hall of Fame and adjacent NASCAR Plaza offices, and several other businesses were vandalized in the city’s central business district, escalating Charlotte to the lead in national news broadcasts.

“You can’t really ignore it,” said Austin Dillon, who — like his Richard Childress Racing team — calls Welcome, North Carolina home. “It’s on all the news stations, but for me it’s sad that our country is at this point in time. I just hope everybody can look at everything and gather their thoughts and figure out the right way to fix the problems we have. Hopefully, with the way things are the right people will come together and fix these problems that are going on. It’s just sad, really.”

Said Matt Kenseth, a Cambridge, Wisconsin, native: “You just hope it stops. I don’t know enough about what actually happened to start it all. Obviously, I think that we’re very, very, very fortunate to live in a free country and peaceful protest and demonstrations are OK. I mean certainly the violence and the vandalism and the theft and stuff isn’t — isn’t really a way to I think prove a point or try to make things better. It’s definitely not making things better in that sense, so hopefully we’ll get it all figured out and go from there.”

Posted on by Zack Albert

LOUDON, N.H. — As the engines cooled from last weekend’s Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup opener at Chicagoland Speedway, Joey Logano and his Team Penske No. 22 crew shared emphatic high-fives back at the team hauler.

The celebration might have been unbefitting for a runner-up effort, but for Logano, the strength his over-the-wall outfit showed in a pressure-packed situation provided a window for added optimism.

Logano’s second-place finish last weekend kept him lodged in the top half of the Chase grid heading into Sunday’s Bad Boy Off Road 300 (2 p.m. ET, NBCSN, PRN, SiriusXM) at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. He sits fifth in the Sprint Cup standings, just seven points back of series leader Martin Truex Jr., last weekend’s winner.

As last week’s race headed to overtime, Logano’s No. 22 Ford benefited from speedy service and emerged from pit road ahead of Denny Hamlin‘s No. 11 Toyota — which happens to be the Joe Gibbs Racing team with one of the best pit-stop crews in the business. The fast stop allowed Logano to restart on the outside line, following Truex’s charge through to the front in the two-lap dash to the checkers.

“If it wasn’t for that pit stop, we wouldn’t have been in position for a great finish like we had,” Logano said Friday at the 1.058-mile track in the cradle of the Connecticut native’s New England stomping grounds. “That pressure and the way you handle it is, to me, the definition of a true athlete. There are a lot of athletes that can practice really well and when it becomes game time and you put the pressure on them, it goes the wrong way. And then there’s an athlete that you put the pressure on and they get better, and that’s what I saw in the 22 team last weekend, and I couldn’t be more proud to be a part of that.”

The finish provides some needed breathing room for Logano, who’s claimed two of his 15 Sprint Cup victories at New Hampshire. The cushion he obtained last weekend is hardly a failsafe, but it hasn’t altered his team’s tack in the Chase’s Round of 16, the opening three-race series in the postseason.

“We talk about this round as being base hits and don’t have to do anything crazy,” Logano said, taking a cue from the “small-ball” tactics of baseball strategy. “We did that exactly last week, so we’ll just come up here and do the same exact thing. If something happens, something happens and we’ll approach Dover in a different way, but, right now, let’s go out here and if we can win the race, let’s win the race. If not, let’s try to top-5 it and that will give us a good sense of security heading into Dover. It’s one race at a time, one step at a time.”

The pressure of the opening round may not drastically sway the game plan for either Logano or teammate Brad Keselowski, but there’s already some incentive coming from within the walls of Team Penske‘s Mooresville, North Carolina, headquarters. Simon Pagenaud locked up the IndyCar championship last weekend for team owner Roger Penske, leading a 1-2-3 sweep of Penske-owned cars in the series’ final standings.

The IndyCar title and podium monopoly have given Team Penske one crowning highlight to its 50th anniversary season. Your move, Joey and Brad.

“It makes the NASCAR guys want to go out here and continue this awesome year that Team Penske has had so far, and Brad and I have a great shot at it,” Logano said. “What if we finished 1-2 at Homestead? How cool would that be? We have an amazing opportunity to do that. We’ve got a long ways to go to get there, but we can do it.”

Posted on by Reid Spencer

RELATED: Starting lineup | See the full field


LOUDON, N.H. – Carl Edwards never had the reputation as a spectacular qualifier – until this year.

On Friday at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, Edwards ran 135.453 mph (28.119 seconds) in the money round of knockout qualifying to earn the top start spot in Sunday’s Bad Boy Off Road 300 (2 p.m. ET on NBCSN, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), the second race in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup.

The Coors Light Pole Award was Edwards sixth of the year, doubling his previous single-season best. It was his third at New Hampshire, all coming in the last four races at the Magic Mile, and the 22nd of his career.

Edwards edged fellow Toyota driver and last week’s race winner, Martin Truex Jr. (135.212 mph) for the top starting spot by .05 seconds.

During a qualifying session that started slowly because more than a dozen cars were late to the grid thanks to inspection issues, Chase drivers grabbed 10 of the top 12 starting spots for Sunday’s race.

Non-Chaser Ryan Newman (134.896 mph) qualified third, followed by Jimmie Johnson (134.858 mph) and Denny Hamlin (134.796 mph).

Chip Ganassi Racing teammates Kyle Larson and Jamie McMurray were sixth and seventh, respectively, with Matt Kenseth and non-Chaser Kasey Kahne eighth and ninth. Chase Elliott, Brad Keselowski and Kyle Busch completed the top 12.

“These Toyotas are really fast,” said Edwards, who spent considerable time in qualifying trim earlier in the day. “It’s a fun place to drive when your car’s that good. (Crew chief) Dave (Rogers) made great changes.

“That’s what we needed. We didn’t run well at Chicago (a 15th-place finish). I was very frustrated. So to come here and start on the pole and get great pit stall, hopefully we can turn this into a good race.”

With his sixth pole of the year, Edwards won the Coors Light 6-Pack Award, worth $25,000 to the charity of the driver’s choice.

“Half of it’s going to Speedway Children’s Charities and half to the NASCAR Foundation in honor of Betty Jane France,” Edwards said. “It’s really cool of MillerCoors to do that. It’s going to help a lot of people.”

With a long family history at the track, Truex covets a win at the Magic Mile and was delighted with his front-row starting spot.

“I’ve been after this one a long time,” said Truex, whose father, Martin Truex Sr., raced in both the Busch North and XFINITY Series at NHMS. “I feel like we’ve been close before, and there’s no other track I’d rather win at right now.”

Notes: Elliott’s No. 24 Chevrolet received its fourth written warning for failure of pre-qualifying inspection and will have the last choice of pit stalls… The No. 4 Chevrolet of Kevin Harvick, the 2014 series champion, also had inspection issues and qualified 19th after getting to the grid. Harvick is 14th in the standings after a 20th-place run at Chicagoland. The 13th-16th-place drivers will be eliminated from the Chase after the Oct. 2 race at Dover… Truex led the second round of qualifying at 135.236 mph, a session that saw the four fastest drivers all within .010 seconds of each other.

Posted on by Pat DeCola

RELATED: Chase Grid | See Truex’s initial reaction

LOUDON, N.H. — Martin Truex Jr. and Kevin Harvick had an on-track incident last Sunday at Chicagoland Speedway in the opening race of the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup, but don’t expect it to escalate further between the two title contenders moving forward, according to the Furniture Row Racing driver.

 

Truex, who wound up winning the race, said in his post-race press conference that the left-rear contact to his No. 78 Toyota from Harvick’s No. 4 Chevrolet was “on purpose,” but the pair has discussed the incident since and put it to rest.

 

“We did talk. We’re fine; we’re good to go,” Truex said Friday at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, site of Sunday’s Bad Boy Off Road 300 (2 p.m. ET, NBCSN, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). “We just talked about what our perspectives were on it and agreed that it’s over, it’s done with and we’ll move on and race like we always have, which is hard — very hard — we’ve raced very hard, but always clean. So we agreed that it was a racing deal and we’ll move forward.”

 

Truex explained that he still isn’t positive why Harvick was upset with him in the first place, just offering that it was “heat of the battle stuff” and “I guess he thought that I ran into him.”

 

“I’m not real sure (if he was trying to ignite a caution), I’m not sure, honestly,” added Truex, who clinched his berth in the next round of the Chase with his Chicago victory. “I really don’t care at this point, because we went on to win the race and we’re going to move on.”

 

While the contact didn’t impact Truex’s finishing position, it was perhaps nearly costly in another way — the No. 78 failed post-race LIS inspection. Furniture Row Racing put out a statement on Monday, with president Joe Garone saying that the failure, “in high probability was due to damage in that area as a result of being hit by the No. 4 car.”

 

The No. 78 team was not penalized by NASCAR, but Truex doesn’t want the win tarnished by the failed inspection, either.

 

“It’s such a little thing and it so easily could’ve went the other way, it’s frustrating that it kind of taints your win a little bit, honestly,” Truex said. “That’s the biggest part for me and for my guys. I don’t want people to look at them or us as cheaters, for 10 thousandths of an inch. It’s really nothing.”

Posted on by Pat DeCola

RELATED: Truck Chase Grid | Learn more about the drivers in the Truck Chase

LOUDON, N.H. — The inaugural Camping World Truck Series Chase is upon us, which means the pressure, nerves and action that come along with it are set to rise to unparalleled levels over the next eight weeks.

So is the tension.

After John Hunter Nemechek and Cole Custer fought, quite literally, to the finish and beyond at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park last month — rguably costing the JR Motorsports his spot in the Chase, as the driver of the No. 8 Chevrolet came away victorious in that one — the consensus is that Custer will find a way to repay the favor to Nemechek at some point during the series’ first playoff season.

RELATED: Custer, Nemechek get physical at Canada

The two-time 2016 winner doesn’t see it that way.

“I wouldn’t say we have a target on our back; we’re all racers,” Nemechek said Friday at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, site of Saturday’s Chase-opening UNOH 175 (1 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). ” … You can’t really worry about it. If it happens, it happens. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t. You just kind of have to take it race by race, lap by lap. And we’re going to go out there and focus on our race and do everything we have to do to get another win.”

Custer narrowly missed out on the Chase cut, ending up tied with Cameron Hayley as the first drivers on the wrong side of the standings bubble. Taking that into consideration, along with how the future Stewart-Haas Racing XFINITY Series driver charged at Nemechek following the Mosport checkered flag, it may be a stretch to think that Nemechek won’t be targeted for payback at some point during the Chase.

William Byron didn’t cross too many drivers on his way to notching the top spot for the landmark CWTS Chase, but he did cross plenty of finish lines ahead of them — five, in fact.


RELATED: Byron checks off boxes one milestone at a time

Unlike Nemechek, the Kyle Busch Motorsports driver sees the level of competitiveness rising — potentially along with the tempers. 

“I think the competition and intensity is going to ramp up here in the last seven races,” Byron said Friday at the “Magic Mile.” “We’ve seen that in the (Sprint) Cup Series and so now we’re going to be able to experience that here in the Truck Series, so I’m looking forward to it.”

Regardless of whether the threat of payback looms large or not, there’s an incumbent sense of pressure and nerves that comes along with being among the youngest drivers — not to mention title favorites — in the first-ever Chase format for the series.

The nerves haven’t fully crept in yet, but that could change in a hurry.

“We’re going to take it race by race and we’re not going to let the pressure or nerves get to us unless it’s a pressure situation where we have a bad race,” Nemechek said. “We’re going to go out and do what we do best and that’s to run our race, try and lead laps and run up front and hopefully get another win. If you can’t do that, salvage a bad day into a good day. You just can’t make mistakes. You have to make every day the best you possibly can.

In reality, nobody really knows what to expect come Saturday.

“I think a little bit of nerves just with the unexpected of what this format is going to be like for us, but honestly it’s exciting and it’s something new and it’s the new era of the playoff-type format, so I’m looking forward to it,” said Byron.

“It’s something that we’ve been preparing for and I think we’re going to see what happens here in the next seven races.”

Posted on by Nascar

RELATED: Chase Grid 

 

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The last two times NASCAR’s Sprint Cup Series has competed at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, Matt Kenseth has come away with the win.

In fact, the Joe Gibbs Racing driver has won three of the last six Sprint Cup events at the 1.058-mile track located in Loudon, New Hampshire.

Maybe that makes him one of the favorites heading into this weekend’s race but Kenseth isn’t taking anything for granted. The Bad Boy Off Road 300 (2 p.m. ET, NBCSN, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) is the second race of this year’s Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup and the second of three in the opening Round of 16.

“You never know until you get there but we ran really well in July,” Kenseth, 44, told NASCAR.com Wednesday. “We ran really well last fall, too. Probably could have run second or third, ended up getting by (teammate) Denny (Hamlin) there at the end and Kevin (Harvick) ran out of gas.

“We’ve had really good cars there since I’ve been (at) JGR. It used to be a track that I sort of dreaded … but the last three years it’s been pretty good.”

Kenseth won twice during the 26-race regular season to qualify for one of the 16 Chase positions but had to rally for a ninth-place finish a week ago in the Chase opener at Chicagoland. Misfortune struck the 2003 series champion twice, leaving him scrambling to regain lost track position.

“I can’t say we weren’t good,” Kenseth said. “We started seventh … we pit under green and the caution came out … and that really got us behind. I had just gotten back to maybe the top 10 again … and I sped on pit road.

“So that put us in the back again. Really we just fought most of the day trying to get back our track position. I really felt like we had a pretty good car … I don’t know why, but for me it was just incredibly hard to pass.”

Kenseth has failed to qualify for only one Chase, in 2009. Six-time series champion Jimmie Johnson is the only active driver with more Chase appearances. But while all of Johnson’s titles have come since the debut of the Chase in ’04, Kenseth has yet to solve the riddle of the 10-race playoff. In the two years the Chase has featured an elimination format, he’s failed to advance to the Championship Four.

“There’s not a magic formula besides beating the rest of the cars because you just don’t know what the others are going to do,” he said. “It’s definitely different. One thing I really learned is that it’s unpredictable. You don’t know what’s going to happen. You’ve got to get that finish every week and not make mistakes.”

While he said he doesn’t feel as if his No. 20 team is running as good or getting the consistent finishes it was at this point a year ago, Kenseth said he’s confident his group will continue to contend.

“I feel like our equipment is just as good or better than it was last year,” he said, “so I feel like we can definitely get it together.”

Posted on by

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — At just 16 years old, NASCAR Pinty’s Series driver Cayden Lapcevich has already broken a record set by Daytona 500 winner Joey Logano.

In 18 starts, the Ontario (Canada) native has become the youngest driver to win a NASCAR series championship, beating out Logano’s previous K&N Pro Series East record of 17 years old set in 2007.

But it wasn’t without trial, tribulation and a dose of his mother’s trust.

In 2015, Lapcevich put up one top-five and three top-10 finishes in six starts, but come 2016, he found himself down a major sponsor and in need of a team.

“We lost that motivation at one point to even go down to the race shop because we just couldn’t see ourselves making it out this year,” Lapcevich told NASCAR.com. “But I finally was able to convince my mom that I would work on the cars and do it all myself and she was just like, ‘If you and your dad can prepare it, we’ll do it.’

“But even once we had the car prepared, she second-guessed herself. But I don’t think she’s second-guessing herself anymore. I think she realizes that she made the right decision by letting me go to the first race.

“It was hard to get to the first race with very minimal funding, but I’m glad we made the first race because it’s led to so much.”

Lapcevich is a third-generation driver and the son of an electrical contractor. His dad also doubles as his crew chief for the No. 76 Dodge.

“I’ve always looked up to my dad because he’s taught me everything I know about racing,” Lapcevich said. “He’s made me an all-around better race car driver.

“Even last year when we had the funding to pay someone (to be my crew chief), as good as it was to have someone so knowledgeable, it didn’t feel comfortable not having my dad as my crew chief because he’s been my crew chief my whole life. He’s always been my driving coach and we just connect so well. I think it’s a dream that every driver has.”

With his dad in his ear and his mother’s faith resting on his shoulders, Lapcevich began to build a race team — a volunteer race team, at that.

“A couple of the (pit crew) guys have been around (the sport) for 25 years, plus,” Lapcevich said. “They just show the same dedication and passion to the sport that I do and that my dad did and we all want to go out and win. I think that’s what keeps the guys that volunteer interested. They want to see what’s next and they want to be a part of that.”

Lapcevich and his team won three Pinty’s Series races this season, clinching the 2016 title after taking the green flag on Sunday at Kawartha Speedway.

With a championship — along with a fresh driver’s license — Lapcevich looks ahead to what the future could hold for a record breaker.

“Hopefully (next season) brings me down south,” Lapcevich said. “I’m hoping that something big comes up and we can put together a ride in K&N or make a few (Camping World Truck) starts, but we’ll see. I’m still trying to let the championship sink in.

“I’d like to see myself in the Sprint Cup Series or racing XFINITY full-time. I’ve set up some quality goals and I’m trying to chase those goals.”

As Lapcevich continues to grow and strives to fulfill his racing dream, he keeps in mind the drivers who have also come from similar beginnings.

“I look up to guys that started in quarter midgits, like me,” Lapcevich said. “Guys like Joey Logano or Ryan Blaney. They’ve just inspired me knowing that you can come from that starting point and make it to the top.

“Also breaking Joey Logano‘s record as the youngest champion gives me hope that we’re headed in the right direction here.”

While he admires Logano, ask this teenager who he has winning this 2016 Sprint Cup Series title and his answer has some roots.

“I’d like to see Martin Truex Jr. win it all because he’s been really consistent this year and he’s got Canadian crew chief Cole Pearn who used to race with my dad, so it’s really cool to see him climbing the ranks.”

Hear that, Logano? This kid is breaking your records and picking against you (let it be known, Lapcevich does predict the No. 22 Team Penske driver will make it to the Championship Round). Next thing you know, he could be in your rearview mirror, Joey.