Three teams hit with P3 penalties, have crew chiefs suspended

Posted on June 1, 2016 by Staff Report

Three NASCAR Sprint Cup Series teams have been issued P3 penalties coming out of the Charlotte race weekend, which resulted in their respective crew chiefs being suspended for at least one race, according to the NASCAR penalty report released Wednesday evening. Additionally, a P2 penalty was handed down to Tony Stewart .

The Roush Fenway Racing No. 16 (Greg Biffle), Stewart-Haas Racing No. 41 (Kurt Busch) and JTG Daugherty Racing No. 47 (AJ Allmendinger) teams, respectively, were hit with the P3 punishment.

Biffle’s was the most severe. Multiple infractions were found during post-race inspection, including a body design that was either not submitted to NASCAR for approval or did not comply with the approved body designs. His crew chief, Brian Pattie, has been fined $50,000 and suspended for the next two races at Pocono and Michigan. The team will also lose 15 driver and 15 owner points.

Crew chiefs for Allmendinger (Randall Burnett) and Busch (Tony Gibson) were each fined $20,000 and suspended for the upcoming Pocono race. Both of their infractions were found in Section 10.11.3.4 a of the NASCAR Rule Book, which states: “All tires, and wheels, and all five lug nuts must be installed in a safe and secure manner at all times during the Event.”

Stewart’s P2 penalty included infractions in body design and surface conformance found during pre-race inspection. His crew chief, Mike Bugarewicz, has been placed on probation through Dec. 31.

Busch is second in the Sprint Cup Series points standings, behind only Stewart-Haas Racing teammate Kevin Harvick. His 11 top-10 finishes (through 13 races) leads all drivers. He finished sixth on Sunday in the Coca-Cola 600.

Biffle finished 11th in the 400-mile event, and was the random car selected for further post-race inspection on Tuesday at the NASCAR R&D Center in Concord, North Carolina. The penalty will drop him from 23rd place in the standings to 24th, behind Danica Patrick .

Allmendinger was 16th on Sunday, and he’s currently one point behind Ryan Newman in the battle for the final spot in the 16-driver Chase Grid.

The NASCAR penalty scale ranges from P1 to P6 (most serious).

Other news from the penalty report:

• The No. 27 of Paul Menard was issued its second warning for failing pre-qualifying template inspection three times. He has received a written warning and was docked 15 minutes of practice time for the next event.

• The No. 20 of Matt Kenseth and No. 43 of Aric Almirola failed laser inspection twice pre-qualifying. It’s the first offense for the 20 team, the first for the 43. They both received a written warning.

• The No. 43 also failed template inspection twice pre-qualifying. The No. 88 of Dale Earnhardt Jr. and No. 48 of Jimmie Johnson also failed twice. They all received a written warning.

• In the NASCAR XFINITY Series, the No. 16 of Ryan Reed and No. 18 of Joe Gibbs Racing failed inspection three times pre-race. Each received a written warning.

Posted on June 1, 2016 by Staff Report

Jeb Burton will make his first NASCAR Sprint Cup Series start of 2016 this weekend at Pocono Raceway in the Axalta ‘We Paint Winners’ 400 (Sunday, 1 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

Burton will pilot the No. 32 Go Fas Racing Ford with sponsorship from Rocky Ridge Custom Trucks. The 23-year-old is no stranger to the Sprint Cup Series having made 28 starts for BK Racing last season. Burton finished 33rd and 35th in the Pocono races in 2015.

“I’m really looking forward to racing this weekend in the No. 32 Go Fas Racing Ford in the Sprint Cup Series,” Burton said in a team release. “I’ve raced twice at Pocono in the Cup Series, and twice in the Truck Series, so I know I can be competitive there and use the experience I have to bring home a good finish.

“The track is so unique in that each turn is different, but I think using my experience in the Cup Series will really help and keep us at the front of the field.”

This year, Burton had made 11 starts with one top-10 finish in the NASCAR XFINITY Series, driving the No. 43 Richard Petty Motorsports Ford. Financial issues with the team’s primary sponsor forced RPM to cut back from its planned full-time schedule, the team announced on Wednesday.

Burton is the fourth driver to pilot the No. 32 for the Archie St. Hilaire-owned team. Jeffrey Earnhardt (eight starts), Joey Gase (three starts) and Bobby Labonte (two starts) have driven the car in the season’s previous races.

Posted on June 1, 2016 by Staff Report

RELATED: Buy Darlington tickets | ’16 throwback schemes | SHOP: Logano gear

A week after his Team Penske teammate Brad Keselowski revealed his Darlington throwback look on FS1’s RaceHub, Joey Logano has done the same.

The scheme honors the first paint scheme that Shell had when Bobby Labonte piloted the No. 44 to the company’s first NASCAR victory in 1996 at Nashville Speedway in what is now known as the NASCAR XFINITY Series. Interestingly, Labonte drove the same paint scheme to Victory Lane at Darlington in 1998 in the same series.

“I think it’s a no-brainer to help celebrate Shell’s 20th anniversary of NASCAR involvement and run this cool paint scheme at Darlington on Labor Day,” Logano said in a team release. “It’s pretty neat that Shell is celebrating 20 years in NASCAR and even cooler that Bobby (Labonte) won at Darlington Raceway with this car, so it’s a huge honor for myself and everyone at Team Penske to run this look.

“Heritage is a main theme in everything we’re doing this year and it’s been great to have the support from Shell-Pennzoil in running paint schemes to help us commemorate the heritage of our team and the heritage of our sport.”

This marks Darlington’s second straight year — in a five-year plan — hosting a throwback-themed event for the famed Bojangles’ Southern 500 (Sept. 4, 6 p.m. ET, NBC, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

Posted on June 1, 2016 by Pat DeCola

RELATED: Dale Jr. through the years

LOUDON, N.H. – Over the course of a career going on two decades long, a driver tends to pick up a few things.

There’s also a tendency to lose a little off the old fastball as the years tick off the calendar, but typically, what a driver surrenders in youthfulness, he or she collects in veteran guile.

“There’s things that you lose and there’s things you gain,” Dale Earnhardt Jr. said at a Goodyear tire test Wednesday at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. “A young guy … sometimes being ignorant is a blessing. These guys come into the sport and if you can get in good equipment when you’re really young, you can just go out there without any knowledge and just power through and just drive on instinct.

“Sometimes that produces very quick laps and you can be successful, but as you get older you gain some experience and understand how to keep yourself out of bad situations and maybe finish some more races and get more out of your car and get a better result out of your car, and over the longevity of the course of the season, you maybe have more consistent finishes.”

Just looking at the career arc of the Hendrick Motorsports driver, it’s obvious he knows what he’s talking about — having lived just that.

The now-41-year-old burst onto the Sprint Cup Series scene at age 24, picking up 15 of his 26 career victories just past his 30th birthday. A dry spell full of frustration and changing faces and scenery around him from 2005-13 produced just four race victories and just three points finishes within the top 10.

Since 2014, we’ve seen the ‘Juniorenaissance,’ with seven wins, career highs in top-five and top-10 finishes, and the feeling that championship No. 1 for Earnhardt Jr. is actually within reach for the first time in a decade.

It didn’t happen overnight.

Junior has taken the lessons presented to him through his challenges over the years and finally put the pieces together to succeed in both his personal life (see: his upcoming wedding to Amy Reimann along with successful business ventures, including JR Motorsports) along with the clarity that he knows what to do behind the wheel – not brashly, but intelligently.

“I think you’re smarter and a lot more thought goes into what you’re doing, and you understand how to be a better asset to your team as a person and individual; how to be in the mix with conversations with the crew chief and how to be accountable and ready to work,” said Earnhardt, who is 13th in points as the series turns this weekend to a race at Pocono that he won in 2014.

“When you’re young, you’re just going and doing and you’re just trying to have as much fun as you can away from the track. As you get older, you realize the more you put in the more you get out of it.”

Posted on May 31, 2016 by Nascar

Goodyear officials and teams from four NASCAR Sprint Cup Series organizations are slated to travel to New Hampshire Motor Speedway this week for the final regularly scheduled tire test of 2016.

The two-day test, set for Tuesday, May 31 and Wednesday, June 1, will include the following drivers and teams: Dale Earnhardt Jr. (Hendrick Motorsports No 88 Chevrolet), Denny Hamlin (Joe Gibbs Racing No. 11 Toyota), Aric Almirola (Richard Petty Motorsports No. 43 Ford) and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. (Roush Fenway Racing No. 17 Ford).

It is the season’s eighth tire test.

Organizational tests currently are scheduled for Kentucky Speedway (June 13-14), Indianapolis Motor Speedway (July 12-13), Watkins Glen International (July 26-27), Chicagoland Speedway (Aug. 23-24) and Homestead-Miami Speedway (Oct. 18-19).

Organizational tests are limited to one team per organization, meaning likely no more than 20 teams would take part in any single test.

Posted on May 31, 2016 by

NBCSN’s “NASCAR America” will move to a new time beginning June 13, the network announced Tuesday. The one-hour evening program will move from a 5 p.m. ET start time to a 6 p.m. ET start time.

“It’s a shift that we think is going to be a great move, not only for us at NBC, but also for all of the viewers,” Vice President of NASCAR Productions Jeff Behnke told NASCAR.com. “We feel like there’s going to be more people at home to be able to be able to watch it (at 6 p.m.), whether they’re watching it on NBCSN, whether they’re watching it on the Live Extra app.

“We just feel like 6 o’clock is a window that we can get more eyeballs on it and whenever we can do something that we can help grow the sport and push things forward, that’s what we want to do.”

In addition to the start-time shift, the show will also feature “90-Minute Mondays” on select Mondays throughout the year, which involves the show extending from 60 to 90 minutes in length. This — in combination with two NBC studios located in NASCAR’s home base of Charlotte, North Carolina, where many of the race shops are located — will allow more for more in-depth coverage of the sport, Behnke said.

“The backbone of NBC Sports is storytelling,” Behnke said. “By going to ’90-Minute Mondays,’ it’s going to allow us to continue to tell the stories of these drivers. The different things we do on the show, we feel like certainly help the viewers. … We’ll be able to spend more time at race shops, we’ll certainly be able to have more time with highlights, more time with opinion and just breakdown sessions with our announcers.”

The announcer lineup for the network is star-studded, featuring former drivers and crew chiefs such as Hall of Famer Dale Jarrett, renowned drivers Kyle Petty and Jeff Burton, and former Hendrick Motorsports crew chief Steve Letarte.

“We feel like the talent that we have is going to be a big part of what we do and what they have to offer is going to be a big part of what we do in those 90-minute shows,” Behnke said.

NBC Sports will resume race coverage of NASCAR beginning with the Coke Zero 400 at Daytona International Speedway on July 2.

Posted on May 31, 2016 by Staff Report

Chat with fans during the Axalta “We Paint Winners” 400 at Pocono Raceway.

Posted on May 31, 2016 by Staff Report

From 8-11 a.m. ET on Tuesday, NASCAR.com will live stream the post-race inspection process.

The three-hour look takes you behind the scenes as NASCAR officials inspect NASCAR Sprint Cup Series vehicles following Sunday’s Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

The cars being inspected this week are: the No. 78 Toyota of Martin Truex Jr. (winner of Sunday’s race), the No. 4 Chevrolet of Kevin Harvick (runner-up in Sunday’s race) and the No. 16 Ford of Greg Biffle (random).

For more information on what the inspection process entails, click here.

Posted on May 31, 2016 by Track Release

RELATED: Buy tickets to the event

BROOKLYN, Mich. (May 31, 2016) – UFC Women’s Bantamweight Champion Miesha Tate will serve as the grand marshal for the FireKeepers Casino 400 on June 12 at Michigan International Speedway.

Tate will give the command of “Drivers, start your engines!” when the FireKeepers Casino 400 gets underway at 1 p.m. The FireKeepers Casino 400 will be broadcast live on FS1.

Tate is the Ultimate Fighting Championship Women’s Bantamweight Champion. She claimed the title in stunning fashion on March 5, defeating then-champ Holly Holm with a rear naked choke in the fifth round of UFC 196 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.

Tate is represented by KHI Management, the marketing agency owned by driver Kevin Harvick and his wife, DeLana.

Considered a fan favorite in the mixed martial arts world, Tate will defend her title July 9 in Las Vegas against No. 4-ranked Amanda Nunes at UFC 200.

“I’m excited and honored to be the grand marshal for the FireKeepers Casino 400 at Michigan International Speedway,” Tate said. “There are a lot of things I look forward to doing at the track, but to give the command to start the engines is at the top of my list for sure.”

Training out of Las Vegas, Tate has fought professionally since 2007. She holds an 18-5-0 record in her professional MMA career and a 5-2-0 UFC record. Tate has also earned a host of accolades and recognitions, including being voted “Female Fighter of the Year” in 2011 by World MMA Awards.

“We are thrilled to have Miesha Tate serve as the Grand Marshal for the FireKeepers Casino 400,” track President Roger Curtis said. “A lot of our guests are fans of the UFC; I certainly am. And it will be exciting for us to share all the great things about NASCAR at Michigan International Speedway with her and really treat her to a thrilling event in our ‘octagon.’ “

Outside of the octagon, Tate has modeled for numerous publications and websites including ESPN Magazine’s Body Issue. Her fighting style, which focuses on wrestling and Brazilian jiu-jitsu, earns her praise from the media, as well as her peers.

“Miesha Tate packs a powerful punch, so she is the perfect grand marshall for the first FireKeepers Casino 400,” FireKeepers Casino Hotel President/CEO Brian Decorah.

The NASCAR Sprint Cup Series goes to Michigan International Speedway twice in 2016. The first of the track’s two NASCAR weekends is June 10-12 with the Corrigan Oil 200 ARCA Racing Series on June 10; NASCAR XFINITY Series Menards 250 presented by Valvoline on June 11; and the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series FireKeepers Casino 400 on June 12.

Posted on May 31, 2016 by Pat DeCola

Kevinharvick

Harvick moves back up top after his second runner-up finish in three starts. And hey, the last time the series raced a track that started with ‘P’, Harvick won (Phoenix). On to Pocono.

More: Harvick: ‘I was swatting flies’

KyleBusch

-1

Two straight DNFs for the defending champ are tough to ignore, regardless of whether they were Busch’s fault.

Kurtbusch

We’re getting close to seeing an all-Busch sweep at the top of these Power Rankings. Could come after Pocono, where the Stewart-Haas Racing driver is the defending pole-winner.

JimmieJohnson

Johnson couldn’t keep up with Truex at Charlotte, and we could see the pair battle again at Pocono, where Johnson has an average finish of 9.5.

More: Johnson on Truex: ‘He wasn’t going to be denied’

BradKeselowski

Keselowski battled for a top-five finish at Charlotte in one of NASCAR’s most grueling races. It was so grueling, in fact, the Team Penske driver dropped eight pounds.

More: Keselowski loses significant weight in race

Carledwards

-3

Last year’s Coca-Cola 600 winner failed to make it two in a row, but does head to a track where he once won in his first attempt in 2005.

More: Pit road miscue costs Edwards

Joeylogano

-1

Mr. $1 Million didn’t sweep Charlotte, having been done in by a pit road hiccup. He has a pair of top-four finishes in his last three Pocono races, though.

More: Pit road penalty bites 22

Mattkenseth

After struggling to open the season, Kenseth now has four top 10s in his past five races.

Martintruex jr

Truex dominated Sunday’s race, and now heads to a track at which he dominated for a win last year (97 of 160 laps led) at Pocono.

More: Truex sets records, wins Coca-Cola 600

ChaseElliott

Elliott has run his top-10 finish streak to four in a row, and has a remarkable eight in his last 10 races.

More: Chase Elliott reveals Darlington paint scheme

DennyHamlin

It’s strange to see that Hamlin has top-10 finishes in less than half his races, but he’s notched two in a row.

DaleEarnhardt Jr.

-3

Earnhardt and Co. aren’t meeting their own preseason expectations and now have five straight finishes outside the top 10.

More: Junior’s speed sinks at Charlotte

AustinDillon

Dillon’s excellent record at Charlotte continued Sunday, as the track now ranks second on his career average-finish list (12.8).

Kylelarson

-1

Larson’s average finish at Pocono (9.0) and his only career Cup pole suggest we’ll see the talented driver in the fold yet again this weekend.

Ryanblaney

Blaney’s only national series experience at Pocono came in 2013 and 2014 in the Camping World Truck Series, but one of his four career wins came there.

Jamiemcmurray

Don’t be fooled by McMurray’s poor average finish of 19.1 at Pocono. Over his last eight races there, he has four top 10s and no finishes lower than 17th.

Ryannewman

Newman really excels at Pocono (12.8 average finish), but struggled last year with finishes of 39th and 23rd.

Kaseykahne

-2

Kahne won at Pocono as recently as 2013, but has two finishes of 42nd and 43rd since 2014.

RickyStenhouse Jr.

Stenhouse Jr. has just two top 10s on the year, and has yet to come close to getting one at Pocono, too.

Ajallmendinger

Bad news first, for AJ: Allmendinger has just two top-10 finishes in 16 races at Pocono. Good news: one of them was last summer at the Pennsylvania track.