Posted on by Staff Report



RELATED: See the incident that happened at Gateway

The potential penalty phase for Saturday night’s NASCAR Camping World Truck Series altercation between Spencer Gallagher and John Wes Townley is scheduled this week, with NASCAR Executive Vice President and Chief Racing Development Officer Steve O’Donnell saying that repercussions were likely.

O’Donnell’s remarks came Monday during a guest appearance on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio’s “The Morning Drive” program.


Gallagher and Townley collided twice during Saturday’s Drivin’ For Linemen 200 at Gateway Motorsports Park. The second crash eliminated both drivers from the race and triggered an on-track wrestling match after both drivers exited their crumpled trucks.



Both drivers were summoned to the Camping World Truck Series hauler after the wreck to consult with NASCAR officials. The incident will be discussed further once competition officials return from Sonoma Raceway, site of Sunday’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race.



“We’ll look at all the video feeds we have,” O’Donnell told SiriusXM. “We’ve certainly talked to both drivers post-race and got their side of things, so to speak, but we’ll have our discussions coming back from the West Coast usually late Tuesday, early Wednesday. We’ll kind of have an evaluation and talk to everyone about where we stand on that.



“Certainly not our best moment, for sure. Two passionate drivers … you know, again, that’s part of things sometimes when emotions run high but certainly don’t like to see that where it occurred, especially out on the race track.”



O’Donnell said the competition team would weigh the potential intent or retaliation in the second incident. While O’Donnell said he appreciates the passion of drivers in the heat of competition, he said it remains a delicate border to tread.



“I think it’s a balance,” O’Donnell said. “I think we talk to the drivers, certainly we want them to show their emotions, but it’s a balance for us. We’d certainly like to see drivers if they’re going to express their emotions be outside of a race car. That’s where we really jump in and react when it’s drivers using their race cars beyond what’s normal in the race. That’s a huge issue for us and we’re going to react heavily when we have to.



“In this case, there still will be repercussions, for sure, but again we want to make sure drivers, if they’re going to do anything, are outside of their car, but certainly don’t encourage what happened at Gateway.”

Gallagher issued a statement through his team’s (GMS Racing) Facebook account.


Among other topics O’Donnell discussed Monday:



— As the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series returns to Daytona International Speedway for the Coke Zero 400 Powered by Coca-Cola (7:45 p.m. ET, NBC, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), it will mark one year since Austin Dillon’s tumbling last-lap crash into the 2.5-mile track’s catch fencing. O’Donnell lauded the safety measures that kept Dillon uninjured and said that officials at the NASCAR Research and Development Center were busy with more than a dozen initiatives designed to improve safety.



O’Donnell said a safety council “within all the teams” has been created, increasing the collaborative effort toward safeguarding the sport.



“I think what often gets forgotten is this is a dangerous sport, so we’re going to do everything in our power to protect the drivers, the crews and the fans, so that’s our No. 1 priority,” O’Donnell said. “One of the things that often gets lost is when you do have an incident, one of the first things we check is, ‘did everything we had in place work?’ And when you look in the case of Austin Dillon, all belts, the seat, a lot of the different things we did with the seatbelt configuration all worked. It did its job and you saw that he was able to walk away from that incident unharmed. So those are kind of the first things, verifying.



“The second piece is, you can have assumptions and think something may work, but that takes time to go test it, to re-enact any incident to make sure it’s going to be safe, to make sure it’s going to work. And then work with the teams, and the teams have been tremendous in terms of when they know there’s something that’s going to work, getting it in the car — we do that immediately, but there is a process you’ve got to go through to make sure the assumptions work, then you’re able to go test them so you know you’re ready at high speed for everything to work as it was designated to.”



— After a particularly tumultuous race in May at Talladega Superspeedway, O’Donnell said no rules changes will be in place at Daytona, where similar rules are used to restrict horsepower and lower speeds.



“I think we looked at a lot of things more specifically around Talladega when we go back,” O’Donnell said of the Alabama track’s race date in October. “We saw the race in Daytona and certainly felt we were in a good place heading into that race, but again I go back to the number of projects that are ongoing with the race teams, so some of those may not be as visible to some of the drivers out there, but very confident that the race teams know where we are and what we’re working together to achieve.”



— O’Donnell said he applauded the full-contact racing between Tony Stewart and Denny Hamlin in the last lap of Sunday’s Sprint Cup race at Sonoma, where Stewart claimed a crowd-pleasing victory to end an 84-race skid.



“I’m not surprised,” O’Donnell said of the largely positive reaction to Stewart’s win. “He’s one of the more popular drivers that we have and to win in the fashion he did, this goes back to winning and what really matters in a race. I know from time to time, we talk about where’s the line in racing and hopefully, that’s understood. Going for wins and battling door to door is what we’re all about. We saw that multiple times, especially on the last lap of that race.



“So, a lot of respect between the drivers, but knowing how much a win means and propelling someone to the Chase is important. Proud of what Tony did; equally proud of what Denny did in racing each other hard and going for a win.”

Posted on by Staff Report



RELATED: Daytona schedule | TV schedule

 

Sunday’s Toyota/Save Mart 350 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Sonoma Raceway marked the final Sprint Cup Series race broadcast by FOX Sports in 2016. Starting this weekend at Daytona International Speedway, NBC Sports Group will provide race coverage for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series and NASCAR XFINITY Series events.

 

FOX Sports will continue to televise NASCAR Camping World Truck Series races through 2016.

The Sonoma race (which Tony Stewart won) concluded the 16-race broadcasting schedule for FOX, which saw recently retired Jeff Gordon join the broadcast booth to rave reviews. Mike Joy provided the play-by-play action and Darrell Waltrip, a NASCAR Hall of Famer, completed the three-person ensemble.

 

MORE: Gordon opens up on Keselowski, Stewart

This is NBC Sports’ second year of a 10-year rights agreement, which was first announced in 2013. NASCAR.com will have additional coverage on NBC’s second year — including exclusive behind-the-scenes photos from Year 1 — later this week.

 

Rick Allen returns in play-by-play duty for NASCAR Sprint Cup Series races. He’ll again be joined in the booth by analysts Steve Letarte (former crew chief to Dale Earnhardt Jr.) and former driver Jeff Burton, who made nearly 700 starts in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series.

 

Both networks still will have their weekly television shows as well. “Race Hub” airs at 5 p.m. ET on FS1. “NASCAR America” starts at 6 p.m. ET, a new time slot this year, on NBCSN.

 

MORE: Reasons behind time change


Posted on by Zack Albert



WATCH: Stewart’s smoky burnout | Bird’s-eye view of the last-lap pass

KANNAPOLIS, N.C. — In a lightning-paced span of less than 24 hours, Mike Bugarewicz went from Sonoma Raceway’s Victory Lane in the heart of California wine country to right back to work on the shop floor at Stewart-Haas Racing.

 

The first-year crew chief had just made the savvy pit call of a veteran, propelling Tony Stewart to his first NASCAR Sprint Cup Series win in more than three years and the brink of his first Chase playoffs appearance in almost four. Accordingly after such an intense day atop the No. 14 team’s pit box and all the high-energy fanfare that followed, sleep did not come easy.

 

Movies replaced shut-eye on the plane ride back to North Carolina, and once Bugarewicz arrived at his home, he said he still didn’t feel tired. So at 4 a.m. with a hoppy West Coast IPA by his side, he finally found a quiet moment to exhale.

 

Sonoma‘s celebratory drink of choice is typically served in a chalice; Bugarewicz’s comes in a pint glass.

 

“I just needed a minute to myself to just reflect on the day and just enjoy a nice, cold beer,” Bugarewicz said Monday from SHR’s expansive stock-car headquarters. “I just sat and thought about everything that happened and how special it was for Tony and this whole organization…

 

“It’s still kind of sinking in quite a bit, but seeing all the people here at the shop, how happy everybody is and all that, it’s just a great feeling around the shop today.”

 


The joy was magnified by both the manner in which the owner/driver outdueled Denny Hamlin on the last lap and the protracted wait for his first checkered flag after an 84-race dry spell. That it also put Stewart one step closer to championship eligibility in his final Sprint Cup campaign made it that much more meaningful. Stewart now has the victory he needs; his next agenda item is to inch into the top 30 in driver points in the 10 regular-season races that remain.

 

Though the three-time champ’s actions behind the wheel played a huge part in the Sonoma success, Bugarewicz’s strategy play to give Stewart precious track position was similarly crucial. With NASCAR spotters searching to confirm reports of debris on the track, Bugarewicz called for Stewart to hit pit road ahead of the other frontrunners. When the yellow flag flew just one lap later, Stewart was out front and in control.

 

“I talked to him on the radio and said, well, our options here are either to ride it out and finish in the teens somewhere, and yeah, we’ll gain some points on 30th (in the drivers’ standings), but we all know at the end of the day we have to win to have an opportunity to compete in the Chase,” Bugarewicz said. “So I said our other option is listen to radio and when we think a caution’s going to come out, we’ll hit pit road, we’ll take the chance. If it works, yesterday’s result could come, and if it doesn’t work, well, we might finish 30th, but you know what, I don’t think the losing 10 points versus gaining 10 points is really what we’re looking for. We were shooting for wins.”

 

In other words, no pressure. Taking late-race gambles weighs on even the most experienced crew chiefs. So is Bugarewicz, just 16 races into his first season atop a premier-series pit box, getting more comfortable with the weekly tension?

 

“It still makes you nervous because if it wouldn’t have worked out, then I’d be kicking myself today, saying, ‘well, that was dumb and we lost 10 points because of it,’ ” Bugarewicz said. “With the way the format is nowadays in NASCAR, and especially in our unique situation, winning is everything. People are taking the bigger risks and the bigger chances to try and get those wins because it does solidify your Chase hopes.”

 

While Bugarewicz is less than halfway through his rookie season as a crew chief, he’s spent even less time working directly with Stewart behind the wheel. The severe back injury that kept ‘Smoke’ out of the No. 14 Chevrolet’s seat for the first eight races forced Bugarewicz to adjust, calling the shots for substitute drivers Brian Vickers (five races) and Ty Dillon (three races) in the interim.

 

In the two months since Stewart’s April return at Richmond, Bugarewicz said the communication has improved, with the 34-year-old engineer trying to keep Stewart loose and reminding him to have fun. Though the farewell season now has its defining highlight to date, Bugarewicz said he hopes to add an equally compelling postseason chapter to the story.

 

“We keep meshing better and better every week and I think if it keeps progressing like it has and we can still show that every week that we can contend, we can lead laps, we can run up front, in the top 10, top five and so forth, then absolutely we can be a contender,” Bugarewicz said. “Heck, we’ve really only had eight races together now, me and him working together and the rest of the team. We’ve got a lot of time yet to prepare for the Chase and there’s still going to be a lot of that prep work going on.”

 

Bugarewicz said the focus wouldn’t necessarily change over the regular season’s home stretch, indicating that the No. 14 team will still aggressively pursue victories when the chances arise, but with a measured approach to minimize any subpar results in the points standings.

 

Stewart sits 32nd in the driver standings, just nine points behind Brian Scott and the 30th-place threshold he needs to cross. That quest continues this weekend at Daytona International Speedway in the Coke Zero 400 Powered by Coca-Cola (7:45 p.m. ET, NBC, MRN, SiriusXM), a race Stewart has won four times in his career.

 

Though Bugarewicz was already back to business Monday, his spirits were lifted by watching a jubilant Stewart’s long-awaited celebration, a festive memory to carry through one special sleepless night and beyond.

 

“It was a genuine happiness that I haven’t seen on his face in a long, long time,” Bugarewicz said. “I’ve seen a drive in him that, it’s what we all remember and we see in the highlight films and remember Tony as. I mean, that guy just wanted it yesterday and just seeing that sheer happiness in his face is definitely going to stick with me.”


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For the second year in a row, the crew van for Danica Patrick‘s No. 10 Stewart-Haas Racing Chevrolet was broken into in California. Crewmen said the burglary happened while they were at an event for sponsor Nature’s Bakery. When the crewmen returned to the vehicle after the event, a window was broken and bags were missing.

Most of the crew had their cell phones and wallets with them, but plenty of valuables were gone along with one hard card.

“They got everything they could grab without opening the doors. It’s seemed to be a smash-and-grab-type of robbery,” one crew member said.

 

For more pit crew news, visit PitTalks.com.


Posted on by Holly Cain



RELATED: Full race results | Standings | Chase Grid

 

SONOMA, Calif. — An hour after all the Victory Lane photographs, congratulatory pats on the back from competitors, all the smiles and toasts, Tony Stewart conceded that while leading the field with eight laps remaining in Sunday’s Toyota/Save Mart 350, he also did get a little emotional while steering his Chevrolet around the twisting Sonoma Raceway road course.

“With about eight to go it was the first time I thought, ‘hey, we might actually have a shot to hold onto this,’ and I actually got a little bit emotional thinking about it while I was driving,” Stewart said. “But you stay so focused and you have to. That was when they got racing each other and there was a bit of a gap and I had a little bit of a breather there to kind of think that once Denny (Hamlin) got closing in, it was back to business. 

“You didn’t have time to think about wine and flowers and ponies and all that stuff. I had to get back to business. But it was nice.”

 

RELATED: See all of ‘Smoke’s’ wins | Coverage of the accident, comeback 

 

As the laps wound down and Denny Hamlin‘s Toyota crept closer and closer to the three-time Sprint Cup Series champion’s bumper, the rest of the people in Stewart’s pit stall rose to cheer and support — at times tearfully. Stewart’s mother and father, his girlfriend, his close friends and his sponsor guests all stood at the track wall pumping their fists and yelling out encouragement each time he drove his No. 14 Code 3 Associates/Mobil 1 Chevrolet by them on the last turn of the winding course.

A member of his crew sat on pit wall looking down and averting his eyes, praying out loud each time Stewart whizzed by.

After Stewart led the previous 21 laps, Hamlin snuck by on Turn 7 of the final lap, forcing a rather “Stewart-like” aggressive but fair move back for the win on the final turn of the last lap as his supporters looked on 20 yards away.

Some were crying, some cheering, most high-fiving. All of them were smiling. 

 

His father, Nelson Stewart, was still wiping away tears while watching his only son celebrate in Victory Lane.

“It’s been a tough three years not just for him but everyone that’s close to him,” his father said. “I don’t know what to say. We all needed that bad. He really needed that bad.”

The “people’s champion,” as he is belovedly known among NASCAR fans, has won his first Sprint Cup Series race in nearly three seasons. It had been 84 races, multiple surgeries and plenty of emotional comebacks since his last checkered flag at Dover in 2013. He missed the first eight races this season after suffering a broken back in an all-terrain vehicle accident a couple weeks before his final season was to begin. It was the third time in four seasons that Stewart has missed races.

This win wasn’t just important in bolstering Stewart’s odds to make the playoff Chase for the Sprint Cup (he is still nine points out of the top-30 cutoff position), it was important in providing a proper farewell for the 49-time winner, three-time champion and one of the most talented racers to compete in NASCAR’s elite level.

Recently retired four-time Sprint Cup Series champion Jeff Gordon, now an announcer on FOX Sports’ Sprint Cup Series race broadcasts — came to Victory Lane still dressed in a suit to congratulate Stewart in person. Kevin Harvick and his wife, DeLana, stopped by for hugs and handshakes, as did Kurt Busch and Aric Almirola.

“It’s huge,” Gordon said, smiling broadly after speaking with Stewart. “I know from experience how big it is to win in your final season, get into Victory Lane and get into the Chase. Tony’s such an amazing race car driver and person, it was hard not to be pulling for him.

“That was a spectacular finish and that was completely Tony Stewart right there. They put him out front and he had to drive the wheels off of it to get it done.”

Even Hamlin, who dueled with the 45-year-old Stewart in the final laps, drove by on track to offer his best after a hard-fought race.

“We’ve got a lot of respect for each other,” Stewart said of his former teammate.

Then he added with a smile. “I sat there as soon as they threw the checkered, I didn’t slow down right away because I’m like, the faster I go, the less of a running start he’s going to have to plow into me. But he pulled up, he saw me, and gave thumbs up, and I’m like, great, I didn’t want to have to fight today.”

Stewart was in exactly the kind of “good place” you would expect of someone who hadn’t won in three years and was in the midst of his final season of competition.

He was vintage Smoke — a mix of self-deprecating humor and plenty of wisecracks.

“I’m going to go to Zaxby’s and eat chicken all week just in support of (Camping World Truck Series driver) John Wes (Townley),” Stewart joked about the tussle near the end of Saturday’s Camping World Truck Series race. “Hey, I’m all for it. I’m glad to see somebody had some emotion and actually did something with it. I’m going to live my life through him for this week. At least I did last night.”

Stewart said he was most grateful to earn his crew chief Mike Bugarewicz his first Sprint Cup Series victory and to see his crew “who have stuck with me” celebrate in Victory Lane after nearly four years of emotionally charged up and downs.

From the look on Stewart’s face, to the emotion of family members that love him, to his crew’s celebratory cheers, to the hundreds of fans that stayed long after the race and broke into a simultaneous chant of “Ton-y, Ton-y, Ton-y” while Stewart took photos in Victory Lane — this will be one of the most popular wins of the year no matter what.

“I’ve always told people, this is one of those tracks that it’s either you leave here happy or you leave here so mad you can’t see straight, and normally the restarts and the chaos on the restarts make you mad,” Stewart said. “We didn’t have that today.

“I told (Bugarewicz) when he asked me before the restart, he goes, ‘are you having fun?’ I said, yeah, I’m not even mad at anybody yet, and that’s pretty amazing to be within 15 laps of the finish and I’m not mad at anybody. 

“I was at least hopeful that that was going to continue, I just didn’t know that we were going to have a chance to win the race with it.

“You know, this may be our only opportunity to get in the Chase, to get a win this year,” Stewart said. “I believe in etiquette and I believe in racing guys the way that I want to be raced, and that’s not the way I like to race those guys, but Denny knew what was at stake for us and what the opportunity for us was. 

“Most of those guys did. I thought it was a great race. Like I said, we didn’t see guys shoving each other off the racetrack. It was good racing all day.”

And a happy ending anyone could appreciate.

“I got the flag at the flagstand, and I thought, well, I’ll turn and come back down pit road backwards,” Stewart explained with a wide smile. “And then I was like, this is my last time here. I want to go one more lap, and I went one more lap.  I didn’t just drive the lap, I drove up there and where the crowd was, I did burnouts and revved the motor onto the chip. I’m sure Hendrick is going to love that.

“But it just was fun to say, ‘hey, thanks.’ This place has meant a lot to me. It’s nice to ‑‑ if I don’t win another one — it’s cool to win the last one here. If it doesn’t happen again, it’s cool. I’ll be all right if this is the last place I win one.

Then he quickly added, “I’m going for more, just for the record. I see pens going crazy. I’m not saying I’m laying down, I’m saying if that’s the only one I get this year, then I’ll be content. But I don’t think ‑‑ I think you’ve known me long enough, you guys know that I don’t lay down for anything. All you’ve got to do is just give me that little bit of hope, and I’ll run with it.”


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RELATED: Race results | Chase Grid | Stewart Chase watch | Standings

 

Never one to mince (or soften) words, Tony Stewart had plenty to say after his win Sunday at Sonoma Raceway, a victory that saw him move Denny Hamlin in Turn 11 of the final lap.

 

His victory in the Toyota-Save Mart 350 put the Stewart-Haas Racing driver and co-owner on the verge of qualifying for the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup.

 

After missing the first eight races of the season with a broken back, Stewart faced a difficult post-season path. Sunday’s win was the crucial first step to getting there. Since Stewart has a win, he just needs to finish the regular season in the top 30 in the points standings. He is nine points behind 30th-place Brian Scott with 10 regular-season races remaining.

 

Here’s what Stewart said in a wide-ranging post-race interview.

 

On the last lap

You can’t crack the door open with me on the last corner of the last lap and expect me to not take it. I’ll kick the door in or drive a bulldozer through it to keep it open. When you’re in a scenario like that, I don’t know if I’m going to get another scenario or opportunity to win another race the rest of the year. We’re going to try, but knowing that that could be the difference between making the Chase or not making the Chase, I wasn’t going to be cordial in the exit of the corner and I roughed him up pretty good. If it has been a street fight, he’d have had two black eyes after that. 

 

On his post-race talk with Hamlin

Probably one of the best parts and one of the parts I’ll probably remember most about this race was before I got to Victory Lane and Denny leaning in there and the first thing he says is ‘I’m so damned proud of you.’ That meant the world to me. I mean, I told him right after that, and I said, ‘You know I had to do that,’ and he goes, ‘I know.’

 

On crew chief Mike Bugarewicz

I’ve had some awesome crew chiefs, but that’s something I’m really proud of, that Mike, he will sit there the night before the race, he won’t go out, he won’t go with me to dirt races and he won’t go play when we took crew guys to Six Flags last night and he stayed home and did homework. He’s so detail-oriented on that, and all my crew chiefs have been, but they all have their own different style, and that’s something about Mike that I really respect and appreciate.

  

On the nature of the race        

Normally by the time you leave here you’re so mad at everybody, and all I do, I go back and I sit in the transporter and take a shower in there and sit for a half hour because I don’t want to see them at the helicopter pad because I’m so mad at a dozen guys, and I’m like, ‘I can’t whip them all at once.’ … Normally we have five cautions in the last 10, 15 laps. We had one, and it was for a car that was stopped off the side. It wasn’t even for a wreck. I would say it was probably a pretty good race.

 

On his team          

My guys have been through this whole disastrous roller coaster the last three or four years and never backed down. They’ve never quit on me. There’s days I’ve quit on myself and they’re the guys that send you text messages and call you when you get home like hey, this isn’t over. I’m proud for them, and it meant more for me to get it for them than for myself.”

 

On NASCAR’s future

You see Ryan Blaney and Chase Elliott, there’s two guys right there that are filling seats that got this under control. I got in trouble enough one day that I got invited to fly down to Daytona Beach, Florida, and go to (NASCAR Chairman & CEO Brian France’s) office … and I was only in there for 10 minutes and then I got to drive back and fly home. But I remember him telling me, and I’m only saying this because it’s the truth, he was right, and it was something that resonated. He was like, you’re not bigger than the sport. You’re a star in the sport, but there were stars before you and there’s stars coming after you. With Jeff (Gordon) and I leaving, Chase Elliott is going to win a championship, and if the Wood Brothers keep going the way they are, Ryan Blaney is going to win a lot of races, too, and potentially win championships. … The sport is healthy, trust me.

 

On the emotional nature of Sunday’s win

This place has meant a lot to me. If I don’t win another one, it’s cool to win the last one here. If it doesn’t happen again, it’s cool. I’ll be all right if this is the last place I win one. I’m going for more, just for the record. I’m not saying I’m laying down, I’m saying if that’s the only one I get this year, then I’ll be content. But I don’t think ‑‑ I think you’ve known me long enough, you guys know that I don’t lay down for anything. All you’ve got to do is just give me that little bit of hope, and I’ll run with it.

 

MORE: Relive all of ‘Smoke’s’ win | Stewart: ‘I wasn’t going to be cordial’


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RELATED: Full Sonoma results | Standings | Chase Grid
SHOP: Stewart gear


Tony Stewart returned from a back injury in April, and the three-time champion is in pursuit of one of the 16 spots in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup in his final season. Here’s a look at where the driver of the No. 14 Chevrolet stands in his pursuit after Sunday’s win at Sonoma, the season’s 16th of 26 regular-season races.

WHAT JUST HAPPENED
The Stewart-Haas Racing co-owner/wheelman’s phenomenal day at Sonoma started in 10th, and he raced inside the top five a good portion of the 110-lap event.

 

Following a Lap 87 caution, Stewart stayed out after just pitting previously for four tires prior to the caution, allowing him to cycle to the lead for the restart. He then remained atop the leaderboard to take the checkered flag, breaking an 84-race winless streak after a final lap battle with Denny Hamlin that saw Hamlin pass “Smoke” late, only to have Stewart return the favor at the very end. “Smoke’s” last win came in 2013 at Dover International Speedway.

 

He now sits nine points outside of the top 30 — which is where he needs to be in order to make the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup and compete for his fourth championship.

RELATED: See how Stewart won at Sonoma | Overhead view of winning move

WHAT HE NEEDS
Stewart received a waiver from NASCAR for Chase eligibility. The surest way into the Chase is by winning before the end of regular season (at Richmond International Raceway on Sept. 10) — which Stewart did on Sunday — and climb into the top 30 in the points standings. En route to his 2015 championship, Kyle Busch faced a similar path after missing the first 11 races with a leg injury. With the win now in the bank, Stewart can focus on reaching the top 30. He sits 32nd in the standings, nine points behind Brian Scott for 30th place. 

WHAT’S NEXT
“Smoke” heads to Daytona International Speedway (July 2 at 7:45 p.m. ET, NBC, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), where he has four wins. In his 34 starts there, he also has nine top fives, 14 top-10 results and one pole award. Interestingly enough, all of his Daytona wins have come in the summer. 

RELATED: See all of Stewart’s wins | “Smoke” granted Chase waiver


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NASCAR Chairman & CEO Brian France joined FOX Sports’ Chris Myers during Sunday’s pre-race show on FS1, and the two discussed a number of topics — including the search for an entitlement sponsor, the possibility of mid-week races and the influx of talented young drivers.


See below for highlights of the conversation, which came on the final FOX Sports broadcast of a NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race for 2016.


On changes to NASCAR structure (including the Drivers Council and Charter system):

“Well, it’s a lot of structural changes that allow us to build for the future in a smarter way. It allows the owners to look at their expenses differently and build some enterprise value. … And it aligns our interests, too, which is very important. With the Drivers Council, it gives us the input that we need. That gives us the cooperation. This is an industry where the better we’re cooperating together, the better we can deliver for our fans the best, closest racing in the world.”


On lugnuts:

“That’s a safety thing. We would have preferred to not have to intervene all the time, but we will when we need to.”


On the search for a new entitlement sponsor:

“Several companies here (in California, site of this weekend’s race at Sonoma Raceway) are taking a hard look. It’s a very special asset in sports. We have a lot of interest and we just want to make a good decision as we go down this stretch and choose our next partner.”


On Tony Stewart retiring, other NASCAR stars advancing in age:

“I would be (concerned) if we didn’t have such a talented group of young drivers. And when we started the Drive for Diversity, we were out looking for different, talented drivers that maybe have a diverse background — you have Daniel Suarez being exemplary proof of that. We have a lot of talent coming.”


On a road course in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup:

“We would be for it. The reality is it’s very hard to get the schedule to match up.”


On more weeknight racing:

“Don’t see that.”


On the All-Star Race changing location:

“Maybe. There’s a lot of interest in that very interesting event. Charlotte’s been good to us for a lot of reasons, but we’ll always keep that open.”


On the possibility of shorter races:

“We’ve shortened some from time to time, and we’ll continue to look at it. And we’ll look at the format as well, not just the length of time but how it’s structured. … We’re OK with length of time.”


Posted on by Staff Report



The NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race at Gateway Motorsports Park started late due to weather, and ended late due to a handful of red flags.


NASCAR drivers stayed up to watch the event on FS1, though, and were quick to chime in on Twitter when drivers John Wes Townley and Spencer Gallagher scrapped on the track following a wreck.

Here’s what they said: