Posted on by Staff Report

RELATED: Full results | Standings post-Dover



Stewart-Haas Racing driver Kevin Harvick was not satisfied with the No. 4 team’s pit stops during Sunday’s race at Dover International Speedway, and he let the crew know over the scanner.


“We need to learn how to make a (expletive) pit stop,” he said at one point. “Track position means a whole lot.”


Harvick led 116 of the opening 120 laps, but was shuffled back during a spate of four caution flags from Lap 120 to Lap 185.


Responding to a jab on Twitter, crew chief Rodney Childers hinted at a possible reason why.



Because Harvick won at Phoenix earlier this year, he is all but locked into the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup. Many Chase-qualified teams test different setups in order to learn for the postseason, so it would make sense for the experimentation to spill over onto pit road as well.

Posted on by Staff Report

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

With help from NASCAR Hall of Famer Dale Jarrett and Sprint Cup Series champion Kyle Busch, Interstate Batteries revealed Busch’s No. 18 paint scheme for this fall’s Bojangles’ Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway on Tuesday at the NASCAR Hall of Fame. 

 

Sticking with the throwback theme, the No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota will be a replica of the original design Jarrett raced to victory in the 1993 Daytona 500, which was the first-ever win for JGR and Interstate Batteries. 

 

The 2016 season marks 25 years for JGR and its relationship with Interstate Batteries. The No. 18 throwback scheme will take the track Sept. 6 at the South Carolina track (6 p.m. ET, NBC, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

 

The top scheme below is Busch’s; the one below it is Dale Jarrett’s car that inspired the throwback look.

 

Posted on by Staff Report

The NASCAR Expansion for Forza Motorsport 6 has been released and race-gaming fans of all sorts can enjoy the thrills of stock car racing available now on Xbox One.

The NASCAR Expansion includes an all-new NASCAR World Tour Career mode, letting users race NASCAR stock cars against opponents from a huge variety of motorsport leagues. Hendrick Motorsports drivers Jimmie Johnson and Chase Elliott tested the game out and both agree the game has strong ties to real-life racing. Both HMS drivers had a hand in developing the game to give a correct representation of the tracks they race on week-after-week.


The game will feature 24 new cars from the 2016 season, including drivers Elliott and Johnnson, as well as Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jamie McMurray, Kyle Larson, Kevin Harvick, Danica Patrick, Tony Stewart, Kurt Busch, Brad Keselowski, Joey Logano, Denny Hamlin, Kyle Busch, Carl Edwards and Matt Kenseth.


Along with new drivers, the game will also feature a new track on the NASCAR circuit, Homestead-Miami Speedway. Forza Motorsport 6 currently includes Daytona International Speedway, Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Watkins Glen International and Sonoma Raceway.


The game will also have new multiplayer events and new display elements for improved drafting and car spotting, as well as exclusive Mods, Badges and 250G Achievements to unlock.

Posted on by Official NASCAR Release

RELATED: Get to know the 2016-17 NASCAR Next class

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (May 17, 2016) – Two are following in the footsteps of their former NASCAR Sprint Cup Series driving fathers. One is a long-time racer who competed on the reality television show “Survivor,” and later added a degree from Stanford University. Another is one of the fastest rising stock car drivers in the Midwest. There is even a pair of international phenoms.

 

From Charlotte to New York City, and from Quebec to Israel, the 11 drivers who were announced as the 2016-17 NASCAR Next class today are primed for a successful and impactful future in NASCAR. This is the sixth edition of NASCAR Next, an industry-wide initiative designed to spotlight to best and brightest rising young stars in racing.

 

“The NASCAR Next program has introduced current stars such as Kyle Larson, Chase Elliott and Ryan Blaney to the NASCAR fan, and we believe this year’s class has the same potential,” said Jill Gregory, NASCAR senior vice president of marketing and industry services. “These drivers have shown the talent and intangibles to climb the NASCAR ladder, and we look forward to watching their careers grow.”

 

This year’s NASCAR Next class was selected through an evaluation process that included input from industry executives, the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Drivers Council and media. Drivers must be between the ages of 15-25, have tangible and expressed goals in eventual competition in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series and demonstrate the potential to realize that goal.

 

MORE: Full NASCAR Next coverage

 

The following drivers have been selected to the 2016-17 NASCAR Next class:

 

Harrison Burton (@HBurtonRacing) – The 15-year-old from Huntersville, North Carolina, is the son of former NASCAR Sprint Cup Series driver Jeff Burton. He has climbed to the NASCAR K&N Pro Series after setting the record last year as the youngest Division I race winner in NASCAR Whelen All-American Series history.

 

Collin Cabre (@CollinCabre12) – In his second season driving for Rev Racing and the NASCAR Drive for Diversity in the NASCAR K&N Pro Series, the 22-year-old from Tampa, Florida, captured his first career win last October after making the successful move from racing sprint cars.

 

Spencer Davis (@SpencerDavis_29) – The 17-year-old Dawsonville, Georgia, driver has shown a proficiency in nearly everything he’s raced. After winning the Sunoco Rookie of the Year Award last season in the NASCAR Whelen Southern Modified Tour, Davis has transitioned to the NASCAR K&N Pro Series, where he has established himself as a championship contender with top six finishes in his first seven series starts dating back to last season.

 

Alon Day (@Alon_Day) – One of two international drivers on the list, Day is the first NASCAR Whelen Euro Series driver to earn a NASCAR Next recognition. Day, 24, from Ashdod, Israel, completed his first full season in the Whelen Euro Series as championship runner-up. Including the final two rounds of 2015, Day has won four of the last eight Elite 1 races and is again a threat win the title.


Tyler Dippel (@Tyler_Dippel) – An accomplished dirt racer, the 16-year-old from Wallkill, New York, has already scored his first NASCAR K&N Pro Series East victory in March. Dippel previously competed in the DIRTcar Racing Series in the northeast, earning the rookie of the year title and becoming the youngest race winner in that series.

 

Todd Gilliland (@ToddGilliland_) – The son of NASCAR Sprint Cup Series veteran David Gilliland, the 16-year-old from Sherrills Ford, North Carolina, made NASCAR history by winning his first four career NASCAR K&N Pro Series starts. He became the youngest winner in series history with his victory last fall, and has followed it up with wins in both the K&N Pro Series East and West season openers this year.

 

Noah Gragson (@NoahGragson) – The 17-year-old from Las Vegas finished second in the championship standings last year in the NASCAR K&N Pro Series West, collecting the Sunoco Rookie of the Year Award in the process. Gragson followed the path set by Kyle and Kurt Busch, learning his trade in the Legends and Bandolero Divisions at The Bullring at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. He earned a pair of K&N Pro Series West wins in 2015 and is again a championship contender. 

 

Gary Klutt (@Garyklutt) – The second Canadian to be named to the program and the first full-time driver from the NASCAR Pinty’s Series, Klutt represents a crop of young drivers making an impact on Canada’s championship stock car series. The 23-year-old from Halton Hills, Ontario, earned his first career pole and win last year en route to being named the Jostens Rookie of the Year. He finished fifth in series points and will be among the title contenders when the series opens later this month.

 

Julia Landauer (@julialandauer) – Landauer, 24, from New York City, got her start racing a variety of cars – from Formula BMW to Ford Focus Midgets to stock cars. The versatile Landauer was a contestant on the hit reality show ‘Survivor’ before graduating from Stanford in 2014 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Science, Technology, and Society. She became the first female to win a Limited Late Model division championship at Motor Mile Speedway in Radford, Virginia, last year before graduating to the K&N Pro Series West this season. 

 

Ty Majeski (@TyMajeski) – The 21-year-old from Seymour, Wisconsin, showcased his ability with a dominating display at Florida’s New Smyrna Speedway in February, collecting three wins and earning the 2016 Super Late Model championship in the 50th Annual World Series of Stock Car Racing. Majeski added a NASCAR Whelen All-American Series Late Model track record and victory in the FrostBuster at Wisconsin’s LaCrosse Fairgrounds Speedway in April.

 

Matt Tifft (@Matt_Tifft) – A development driver for Joe Gibbs Racing, the 19-year-old from Hinckley, Ohio, is driving part-time in the NASCAR XFINITY Series for JGL Racing as well as JGR, and racing in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series for Red Horse Racing. He earned his first career pole in the NASCAR XFINITY Series at Talladega earlier this month.

 

Since its inception in 2011, 27 of the 35 drivers who have been selected as part of the program have gone on to compete in one of NASCAR’s three national series. Nearly a third of the drivers have made a NASCAR Sprint Cup Series start, with nine drivers winning a NASCAR national series race.

 

The last two NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Sunoco Rookies of the Year have been NASCAR Next alum, as are the top two contenders for this year’s award: Blaney and Elliott. The last three Sunoco Rookie of the Year winners in both the NASCAR XFINITY Series and NASCAR Camping World Truck Series were also part of the NASCAR Next program.

 

For more information, visit NASCARNext.com and make sure to follow the drivers on Twitter and on the track.

 

About NASCAR

The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, Inc. (NASCAR) is the sanctioning body for the No. 1 form of motorsports in the United States. NASCAR consists of three national series (the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series™, NASCAR XFINITY Series™, and NASCAR Camping World Truck Series™), four regional series, one local grassroots series and three international series. The International Motor Sports Association™ (IMSA®) governs the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship™, the premier U.S. sports car series. Based in Daytona Beach, Fla., with offices in eight cities across North America, NASCAR sanctions more than 1,200 races in more than 30 U.S. states, Canada, Mexico and Europe. For more information visit http://www.NASCAR.com and http://www.IMSA.com, and follow NASCAR on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat (‘NASCAR’).

Posted on by Pat DeCola
https://www.nascar.com/drivers/kyle-busch/
KyleBusch
0
Joe Gibbs Racing

Busch was caught up in the massive pileup toward the end of the AAA 400, but still came out of Dover atop the Chase Grid.

MORE: Monster melee collects 18

Harvick led a race-high 117 laps and managed to wade through a few negative circumstances and still come out 15th. 

Edwards looked primed to win before contact with Kyle Larson. He dropped to fourth in the standings.

 

MORE: Edwards’ shot at win dashed in wreck

https://www.nascar.com/drivers/jimmie-johnson/
JimmieJohnson
0
Hendrick Motorsports

Two Dover races in a row, Johnson went into the race as the heavy favorite — and came out with two finishes of 25th or worse.

 

MORE: ‘Monster’ bites master, Jimmie 

With a remarkable series-high 10 top-10s in 12 races, Busch now sits third in the standings.

https://www.nascar.com/drivers/brad-keselowski/
BradKeselowski
-1
Team Penske

Keselowski spent 49 laps out front before having his quarterpanel mangled, but really recovered for a nice finish.

Guess we can all put the talk of Kenseth’s troubles behind us. Victory is now in hand, and he really had to earn that one.

MORE: Kenseth holds off Larson for first 2016 win

Logano has a top-eight finish in every Sprint All-Star Race he’s competed in, expect for 2014 when he wrecked out.

Truex knows his team is too good to continue to be this unlucky week in and week out (he was behind the stalling Jimmie Johnson in the big wreck), so the 78 team should break through at some point.

 

MORE: Bad luck finds Truex again

https://www.nascar.com/drivers/dale-earnhardt-jr/
DaleEarnhardt Jr.
-2
Hendrick Motorsports

Junior wasn’t a factor at Dover, but he’ll be charged up for the Sprint All-Star Race, an event he hasn’t won since his rookie year.

https://www.nascar.com/drivers/chase-elliott/
ChaseElliott
2
Hendrick Motorsports

Elliott’s consistency has been excellent all season, but the racing prowess he displayed at Dover was next level.

 

MORE: Elliott impresses at Dover

https://www.nascar.com/drivers/denny-hamlin/
DennyHamlin
-2
Joe Gibbs Racing

Hamlin’s woes continued at Dover, but perhaps he’ll get back on track in the Sprint All-Star Race, which he won last year.

https://www.nascar.com/drivers/austin-dillon/
AustinDillon
-2
Richard Childress Racing

You know Dillon’s having a good season when he can finish 33rd in a race one-third of the way through the year and he’s still in the top 10 despite dropping two spots in the standings.

Blaney continues to get the most out of his No. 21 Wood Brothers Racing ride, the output of a single-car organization in its first season of full-time competition in some time.

Big gains are starting to come for Kahne, as another top 10 has him up to 16th in the standings, his highest place since Richmond.

Larson came up just short of beating veteran Matt Kenseth, but the incredible run will likely set the No. 42 team up for more success.

 

MORE: Larson takes Kenseth to limit

McMurray slipped two spots in the standings, but, like Hamlin, maybe he’ll regain some of the momentum he had after winning the Sprint All-Star Race recently (2014).

While Newman doesn’t have a single regular season win at Charlotte, he did win the 2002 All-Star Race.

https://www.nascar.com/drivers/ricky-stenhouse-jr/
RickyStenhouse Jr.
-2
Roush Fenway Racing

Stenhouse dropped a spot in the standings, but a 14th-place finish in a race filled with so much attrition is a positive for the No. 17 team.

Allmendinger is still hanging around in the standings (17th) and we still have two road courses to race at before the Chase field locks.

Posted on by Nascar

Denny Hamlin won the season-opening Daytona 500 and the Joe Gibbs Racing driver has been going like gangbusters ever since.

Which isn’t necessarily a good thing.

Hamlin has been flagged six times this year for excessive speed on pit road. Toss in a couple of tire violations and most recently an improper fueling mishap at Dover on Sunday and it appears Hamlin and the No. 11 FedEx team are their own worst enemy.

Even on those occasions when they don’t have a problem, they seem to have a problem.

“We’re up to nine now, which is a pretty big number, through all the races,” Hamlin said Monday during a conference call with media. “Even this weekend (at Dover), we pitted twice under green and both times we got caught by a caution and that was a total of three laps down that we went, two laps once and one lap the next. It’s just too hard to overcome it.”

Teammate Matt Kenseth finally broke into the winner’s circle this past weekend, while Kyle Busch has three wins and Carl Edwards has two wins. All of which leads Hamlin, 13th in points, to acknowledge that “our results don’t look nearly as good as our teammates by any means.”

Busch is currently second in points, Edwards fourth and Sunday’s win moved Kenseth from 14th to 12th.

Pit road violations such as speeding result in a trip to the tail end of the line if the incident occurs under yellow flag conditions, or a return trip down pit road if it takes place under green.

“A lot of it is just hurting ourselves by having to go to the back of the pack so many times through the race,” Hamlin said. “We just need to have a smooth race; we’re going to get it together eventually. It’s taken a little bit of time. I’m very confident that by the time we get to the next month or two we’re going to have some of these bugs worked out and we’ll be contending for wins like our teammates are.”

Hamlin will attempt to become just the third driver to win back-to-back Sprint All-Star Race events when NASCAR’s Sprint Cup Series teams arrive at Charlotte Motor Speedway for this weekend’s non-points event (Saturday, 9 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

The 113-lap race, which will be consist of two 50-lap segments followed by a 13-lap final segment, will be the first since NASCAR announced changes to the current rules package in an effort to lessen downforce and side force.

“I think it’s just kind of an effort to keep going down the path that we started this year of taking downforce away,” Hamlin said. “Most of these changes are going to take side force away, which to a fan may not mean much, but it’s all really an effort to take the center of the corner speed down.

“Ultimately we can take more chances when the speeds are down and the person in front of us is lifting off the throttle. It allows us to carry it in there, similar to like I did in Kansas. It gave me the opportunity to make a move. It may work, it may not.

“It didn’t in my case, but at least gave me the chance.”

Posted on by Nascar

RELATED: Submit your picks in Sprint Fan Vote

Updates to the current rules package aimed at reducing both downforce and side force will be in place this weekend when NASCAR Sprint Cup Series teams travel to Charlotte Motor Speedway to compete in the Sprint Showdown and Sprint All-Star race.
 
According to Gene Stefanyshyn, senior vice president of innovation and racing development for the sanctioning body, three areas have been addressed with the updates. They involve truck trailing arm and crossmember assembly, electric fans used for cooling purposes on the cars and rear wheel toe alignment.
 
The trailing arm issue was actually addressed previously with a change put into place before the series competed earlier this month at Kansas Speedway. Teams must now weld truck trailing arm mounting brackets (and mounting tabs, if used) to prevent movement. That change will remain in place for the remainder of the 2016 season.
 
Stefanyshyn said the decision to reduce the number of fans was made after it was determined that some of the units “have actually been creating downforce on the car.”


RELATED: Explaining the low downforce package

 
Limiting the number of cooling fans will provide “a good efficiency improvement as far as managing or attenuating some costs … and it also gave us a downforce reduction,” he said. “So it was a win-win. Some of those fans were driving things like bigger fans, bigger alternators, bigger batteries … that kind of thing.”
 
Rear toe alignment changes will decrease the amount of skew (slant) allowed in a car’s setup.
 
“We currently allow them to set up the car with some skew that provides not only a turning advantage but also a side force advantage,” he said. “Usually the way a team would set that up is on the right side they take 0.6 degrees of toe out and on the left side they do about 0.3 degrees of toe in. We’re going to change the specifications so it’s going to be neutral; it will be zero setup. That will take some of the skew out of the car, which will take some of the side force off the car.”
 
It is also expected to reduce corner speeds approximately 3 mph at a track such as Charlotte.
 
The rear toe change will be in place only for this weekend’s all-star events.


MORE: All-Star format | Eligible drivers

“We want to see what the effect of it is,” Stefanyshyn said. “The fans … we know directionally (that’s) downforce off. And we know the (teams) made some back, so taking it off puts us in a good spot. Plus it’s a good cost (savings). So everybody feels comfortable.”
 
The changes are part of the evolution of the lower downforce package that debuted in mid-2015 where it was used for races at Kentucky Speedway and Darlington Raceway. It was implemented full time for the 2016 season on all tracks except Daytona International Speedway and Talladega Superspeedway.


Downforce is the pressure created across the surface of a vehicle at speed. Likewise, side force is generated by the flow of air along the sides of the vehicle.
 
Although teams continue to work to recover the loss of downforce with the current rules package, Stefanyshyn estimated that any gains teams have made have likely been relatively small.
 
“We took over 900 pounds of downforce off for this year. Some … are saying ‘Well, they’ve gotten it all back,’ ” he said. “We don’t believe that it’s been that drastic, that they’ve gotten all 900 back. We’re thinking it’s maybe 100-200, something like that,” he said.
 
Because the Sprint All-Star Race is a non-points event, it provides officials and teams the opportunity to observe the impact of the changes without the fear of upsetting the integrity of the regular season.
 
And officials at Charlotte have been behind the decision to roll out the changes during the all-star weekend.
 
“We really need to thank Marcus Smith here because when we do some of these things we want to make sure the tracks know the package is coming, they’re supportive,” Stefanyshyn said. “Marcus has been very open-minded to help us try some of these things.
 
“Everybody plays an important position here; we all want everybody together.”
 
Four teams are scheduled to take part in a one-day Goodyear tire test Tuesday at Michigan International Speedway, and are expected to have the latest changes in place while also looking at possible changes to the aerodynamic package for 2017.
 
The 2-mile track was the site of a high downforce test last year.
 
Austin Dillon (Richard Childress Racing), Kyle Larson (Chip Ganassi Racing), Aric Almirola (Richard Petty Motorsports) and Martin Truex Jr. (Furniture Row Racing) are slated to participate in Tuesday’s test.
 
“A lot of stuff we’ve done have not been with aero pieces on the car but they do have an aero effect,” Stefanyshyn said of the latest changes. “But we are looking at other things, working on other things. We’ve been working on this for the last two or three years and the question on it is how do you implement it in a way that’s friendly, cost-effective and all that?
 
“Depending on how the journey goes and what we find out, that could be something we could consider for ’17. The good thing is now that we’re all working closely together, we’re further ahead quite a ways. So if we get to the point where we decide we want to implement, I think we do it in a very structured and calm way, not hectic … so that everybody feels comfortable.”


The Sprint All-Star Race weekend includes Friday’s Sprint Showdown, a 50-lap qualifying race for teams not already in the main event. Segment winners (the race consists of two 20-lap segments and a final 10-lap dash) earn a berth in Saturday night’s All-Star Race.
 
Now in its 32nd season, the All-Star Race itself consists of two 50-lap segments and a final 13-lap segment.


A Sprint Fan Vote winner will also make the Saturday night main event.



RELATED: Submit your picks in Sprint Fan Vote

Posted on by

RELATED: Full race results | Updated series standings

Breaking down the full field for the AAA 400 Drive For Autism at Dover International Speedway:

1. Matt Kenseth, No. 20 Toyota, Joe Gibbs Racing. Kenseth outdueled Kyle Larson to end his hard-luck start to the season and grab his first win of 2016. All four Joe Gibbs Racing drivers now have a victory. Grade: A

2. Kyle Larson, No. 42 Chevrolet, Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates. Larson did everything short of bumping Kenseth to get his first Sprint Cup victory. Instead he settled for his fourth second-place finish in 87 starts and his fourth top 10 in five starts at Dover. Grade: A

3. Chase Elliott, No. 24 Chevrolet, Hendrick Motorsports. Elliott overcame radio communication issues to make a late run at Kenseth before posting his eighth top-10 finish and move up four spots in the Sprint Cup Series driver standings to seventh. Grade: A

4. Kasey Kahne, No. 5 Chevrolet, Hendrick Motorsports. Kahne’s second top five in 2016 moved him back into the top 16 in the driver standings. He had three top fives all last season. Grade: A

5. Kurt Busch, No. 41 Chevrolet, Stewart-Haas Racing. A solid day for the No. 41. Busch ran among the leaders all afternoon to ring up his series-high 10th top 10. He also moved up two spots in the driver standings to third. Grade: A

6. Brad Keselowski, No. 2 Ford, Team Penske. Disaster struck when he clipped Austin Dillon while running second on Lap 283. Then un-disaster struck when the No. 2 wasn’t one of the 18 cars caught up in the big wreck. That’s what you call a good day. Grade: B

7. Denny Hamlin, No. 11 Toyota, Joe Gibbs Racing. Hamlin was all over the place Sunday, leading 15 laps, racking up another pit-road penalty and at one point finding himself two laps back. And this was before getting collected in the big wreck. It’s where you finish that counts, though. Grade: B

8. Ryan Blaney, No. 21 Ford, Wood Brothers Racing. Blaney avoided mayhem to post a career-best third straight top 10. He also moved up to 15th in the driver standings. Grade: A

9. Martin Truex Jr., No. 78 Toyota, Furniture Row Racing. You’ve heard this before: Truex deserved better. Truex led 47 laps and was a fixture in the top 10. Fate came calling again, though. During the 10th caution, he purposely slowed at the exit of pit road to allow the No. 19 to pass him so his No. 78 could start fourth on the outside of the second row with less than 50 laps to go. Unfortunately that put him right behind Jimmie Johnson, who touched off the big wreck on the restart. Grade: A

10. Trevor Bayne, No. 6 Ford, Roush Fenway Racing. Bayne spent only 46 laps in the top 15 and had an average position of 21.9. But he still netted a top-10 finish, his third of 2016, which is one more than he had all last season. Grade: B

11. Paul Menard, No. 27 Chevrolet, Richard Childress Racing. Menard was involved in the big wreck, but and in his highest running position. He was one of only two drivers who did not complete at least one lap in the top 10 Sunday (Tony Stewart was the other). Grade: C

12. Clint Bowyer, No. 15 Chevrolet, HScott Motorsports. Bowyer manufactured his third consecutive top-20 finish, his first since he strung together four in races 24-27 last year. Grade: C

13. Danica Patrick, No. 10 Chevrolet, Stewart-Haas Racing. Driving a backup car, Patrick posted her best finish since her last top 10 – a ninth at Bristol more than a year ago. Maybe that’s the formula. Grade: C

14. Ricky Stenhouse Jr., No. 17 Ford, Roush Fenway Racing. Stenhouse is showing consistency: His finishes the past three races are 16th, 13th and 14th (Sunday). Grade: C

15. Kevin Harvick, No. 4 Chevrolet, Stewart-Haas Racing. Harvick led a race-high 117 laps, and who knows how well he would have done if his pit crew had done its job? Harvick’s grade is an average of his A and his crew’s F. Grade: C

16. Ryan Newman, No. 31 Chevrolet, Richard Childress Racing. Newman overcame a pit-road penalty and survived the big wreck, but he still dropped a spot in the standings to 18th, eight points out of 16th. Grade: C

17. David Ragan, No. 23 Toyota, BK Racing. Ragan posted his best finish since last September at Chicagoland (15th). And with his average running position of 30th, that kicks off a theme for the next four drivers. Grade: B

18. Chris Buescher, No. 34 Ford, Front Row Motorsports. Buescher probably thought his day was toast when he went spinning with a little over 50 laps to go. Instead, he gets the best finish of his Sprint Cup career despite spending most of the day in the back of the field (29.0 average running position). Grade: B

19. Landon Cassill, No. 38 Ford, Front Row Motorsports. Cassill’s average running position was 31.1 and he was 33rd at the halfway point. He also wasn’t caught up in the big wreck. Grade: B

20. Michael McDowell, No. 95 Chevrolet, Circle Sport-Leavine Family Racing. McDowell (30.0 average running position) raced in the neighborhood of David Ragan, Chris Buescher and Landon Cassill and finished in their neighborhood, too, for his best day since finishing 15th at Daytona. Grade: B

21. Jamie McMurray, No. 1 Chevrolet, Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates. McMurray started his day in a backup car and finished a season-high five laps off the pace. Grade: C

22. Joey Logano, No. 22 Ford, Team Penske. Logano suffered heavy damage in the big wreck and finished the race nine laps back without a hood or any other sheet metal up front. Grade: C

23. AJ Allmendinger, No. 47 Chevrolet, JTG Daugherty Racing. The 18-car pileup cost Allmendinger more than a poor finish; it dropped him outside the top 16 in the driver standings to 17th. Grade: C

24. Brian Scott, No. 44 Ford, Richard Petty Motorsports. His duel with Danica provided in-race entertainment in the first 100 laps. Grade: C

25. Jimmie Johnson, No. 48 Chevrolet, Hendrick Motorsports. When Johnson’s transmission wouldn’t go from second to third gear on the Lap 356 restart with the No. 48 on the outside of the front row, all the highlights of his day – moving up from starting 21st, passing 3,000 laps led at Dover – went out the window faster than it took 17 cars to pile up behind him. Grade: C

26. Casey Mears, No. 13 Chevrolet, Germain Racing. The big wreck triggered by Johnson ruined Mears’ day. Grade: C

27. Cole Whitt, No. 98 Chevrolet, Premium Motorsports. Despite his third DNF of the season, Whitt posted his third-best finish of the season. Grade: C

28. Carl Edwards, No. 19 Toyota, Joe Gibbs Racing. Just a handful of laps after avoiding the big wreck, Edwards was running third with 39 laps to go when a tap from behind from Kyle Larson sent the No. 19 hard into the inside wall nose first. Grade: B

29. Greg Biffle, No. 16 Ford, Roush Fenway Racing. Biffle stayed out during the fourth caution and led six laps – the first laps he has led this season. The big wreck left him with his third DNF of the season, the same number he had in the previous five seasons combined. Grade: B-

30. Kyle Busch, No. 18 Toyota, Joe Gibbs Racing. The handling was not good on the No. 18, and the big wreck took care of the rest of Busch’s car. Grade: D

31. Aric Almirola, No. 43 Ford, Richard Petty Motorsports. After making up the two laps he lost following purposeful contact from Tony Stewart on Lap 129, Almirola took a hard hit in the big wreck that left him with a potentially broken finger. In other words, not a good day. Grade: D

32. Dale Earnhardt Jr., No. 88 Chevrolet, Hendrick Motorsports. Junior suffered his third DNF of the season and second in three races when the No. 88 was knocked out in the big wreck.  Grade: C

33. Austin Dillon, No. 3 Chevrolet, Richard Childress Racing. A day to forget. Dillon brought out the fifth caution when a rotor broke on Lap 184 and he hit the wall. His team fixed the rotor, and he turned to the race only to be hit by Brad Keselowski on Lap 283. Grade: C

34. Tony Stewart, No. 14 Chevrolet, Stewart-Haas Racing. The No. 14 was not competitive (15th was its high point), and with 57 laps to go, the track bar on the No. 14 broke and punctured the oil tank. End of race. Grade: F

35. Jeffrey Earnhardt, No. 32 Ford, Go Fas Racing. Earnhardt was running at the finish – but a career-high 66 laps back. Grade: D

36. Josh Wise, No. 30 Chevrolet, The Motorsports Group. Lost a cylinder early but was running at the finish. Grade: F

37. Michael Annett, No. 46 Chevrolet, HScott Motorsports. Contact from Jamie McMurray sent Annett smashing into the inside wall on Lap 227, ending his day. Grade: D

38. Reed Sorenson, No. 55 Chevrolet, Premium Motorsports. Sorenson’s day ended with a spin on Lap 214. Grade: F

39. Regan Smith, No. 7 Chevrolet, Tommy Baldwin Racing. Smith posted his worst finish of the season after going for a spin and hitting the wall on Lap 144. Grade: F

40. Matt DiBenedetto, No. 83 Toyota, BK Racing. The Monster’s outside wall devoured its first victim when the No. 83’s right front tire went on Lap 120. Grade: F

Posted on by Staff Report

In what could seemingly be called the State of the Union for the No. 88 team at the near-midway point of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series regular season, Dale Earnhardt Jr. proclaimed that the team has “got a lot of work to do” on Dirty Mo Radio’s “The Dale Jr. Download.”

Those words and more below came after Earnhardt’s involvement in an 18-car wreck on Lap 355 in the AAA 400 Drive for Autism at Dover International Speedway left him with a 32nd-place finish, the fourth straight finish outside the top 10 for the Hendrick Motorsports driver. That stretch has also seen the sport’s most popular driver drop from sixth to 11th in the driver point standings.

“Last week, it was ‘yeah, we finished 15th (at Kansas). We’ll get it figured out.’ This week, it’s more we got a problem, Houston,” Earnhardt said. “It’s time to start understanding how severe this situation is and get to owning it. Try to figure something out. We got a long season, lot of racing left.

“Not quite halfway to the Chase deadline (at Richmond) and I’m looking at this teams in the Chase and the teams that are not in the Chase and I know we’re better than them. It ain’t good enough to be just good enough to make it. In years past, we’ve won races, been locked in. We were up in the top five in points throughout the year. We definitely aren’t the team we were the past few years. We’ve got to figure out what’s going on. How we’re getting beat.”

A 26-time winner in the sport’s top series, Earnhardt is coming off seven wins in the past two seasons. In both of those seasons, Earnhardt had already registered a win by this point in the season (The Daytona 500 in 2014 and Talladega in May of 2015), which pretty much sewed up his postseason spot in the 16-driver Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup.

This week’s Sprint All-Star Race (Saturday, May 21, approx. 9 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) provides a bit of a real-time laboratory for the team to find some answers. 

“This All-Star Race weekend coming up ain’t going to be the answer to all our problems, but it’s an opportunity to work on some of them. I’ll be honest with you, I’d rather win that (Coca-Cola) 600 a 1,000 times more than I’d rather win the All-Star Race. Running good and running better the rest of the year is much more important to me than stumbling into a million bucks on this all-star weekend.

“If we come out of the All-Star Race winners, but don’t understand how to go into the (Coca-Cola) 600 and be competitive, it does us no good. I put us learning something, us understanding how to get better and us getting better as a team above anything else going forward.”

The team doing most of the winning in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series of late is the Joe Gibbs Racing stable of Kyle Busch (the defending series champion), Carl Edwards, Denny Hamlin and Matt Kenseth. Those four drivers have combined for seven wins through the first 12 races of the 2016 season. Last season, the foursome combined to win 14 races, including 11 of the final 21 races. 

This season, Hendrick Motorsports has recorded two wins through the first 12 races of the season, both by Jimmie Johnson, among its four-driver lineup of Earnhardt, Johnson, Chase Elliott and Kasey Kahne. 

“As a company, I think everybody agrees that we can be faster. I think with us all working toward that goal, sooner or later the company itself is going to find that extra gear and it’s going to affect all four cars all at once. You see all the Gibbs guys, all quick — practice, qualifying, race. They are all together. That’s because their smart, they figured it out, they got something going that’s working for them and their sharing information.

“Our team’s do the same thing. Once we figure out what’s going on, once we figure out what we need, I think the whole company will step up. I feel positive that will happen before the Chase. … We got to go to work.”