Posted on by Holly Cain

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Danica Patrick showed up at a sunny and already-steamy Daytona International Speedway on Wednesday afternoon dressed fittingly in a short-sleeved black polo – embroidered with her Nature’s Bakery sponsorship, of course — jean shorts and her hair in a pony tail.

After greeting a crowd of mostly local reporters and speedway officials, she took her place behind a table alongside executive chef Mikell Blocker and the two prepared the track’s newest namesake offering of “Danica’s Coke and Lime Cilantro Shrimp Wraps” with cameras flashing and television cameras rolling. Patrick, an accomplished cook, paused often to offer the assembled onlookers some culinary advice and food wisdom.


Before a quick exhibition of frisbee golf under the pavilion – Patrick dominated that competition with reporters – she took questions, touted the upcoming July 2 Coke Zero 400 (7:45 p.m. ET, NBC, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) race here and spoke about her season, her career and her expectations.


Patrick was clearly in her element. Both preparing good food and racing on Daytona’s high banks have been pleasurable pursuits for the 2013 Daytona 500 pole-winner.


“It was definitely the preferable view,” Patrick said, fondly recalling her first time leading a lap at Daytona in the 2011 XFINITY Series race at DIS.


Of the 64 total laps she’s led in the XFINITY Series, 34 were on the 2.5-mile Daytona superspeedway. She’s led seven laps in Cup competition here and paced the field 16 laps at NASCAR’s biggest track, Talladega Superspeedway.


Just being at the sport’s flagship facility in Daytona brings good vibes. And she’ll take ’em.


Patrick has scored five top-20 finishes through the first 13 races this season, earning a best of 13th place at the 1-mile Dover International Speedway three weeks ago.


The series doesn’t arrive for its second Daytona stop for another month, but it’s a date that Patrick always at least tacitly knows. It’s a race that she always feels highly competitive participating in despite the daunting nature of speedway racing.


She figures she’s taken to NASCAR’s most famous track in Daytona in much the same way she took to excelling in the Indianapolis 500 when she competed in IndyCars.


“I’ve always had the good fortune of driving for good teams that have good cars,” Patrick said of her No. 10 Chevrolet fielded by Stewart-Haas Racing.


“My IndyCar background is very similar to the style of superspeedway racing in NASCAR: Full speed, flat out, don’t lift if you don’t have to and just keep your momentum up. For me that was the one thing coming to NASCAR that was like my IndyCar days. It’s about making good decisions.


“And getting to the end isn’t just half the battle, it’s the majority of the battle,” Patrick says of racing at Daytona. “You definitely come into a speedway race with the assumption you may not be taking that car home on one piece.”


That’s happened to Patrick the last two times she’s competed here. She has had back-to-back 35th place finishes after being caught up in a wreck in both races. On the other side of that, she has two top-10 finishes at Daytona (eighth-place runs in 2013 and 2014) which equate to one-third of her career top-10 total in Cup.


She was optimistic this week speaking about her chances and expectations at the upcoming Daytona race, yet acknowledged the 2016 season hasn’t gone exactly as she’d prefer. Patrick is paired with her third crew chief in as many years — Billy Scott — and explained there is a natural time progression to get accustomed to one another at this level of competition.


“We showed up in Daytona and had never had an on-track conversation before,” Patrick said. “I had never been on track and talked to him about what the car did and there we were at Daytona. [The next race at] Atlanta was baptism by fire.


“I feel like when a good combination comes together it tends to stick for awhile, and I hope that’s Billy and I.


“I know there’s no substitute for time on some level. That doesn’t mean you can’t push and try to get better. For me, it’s about approaching things in a different way and seeing if we can’t get better results.


“I feel like we need to step it up, some adjustments need to be made to get better. If we keep doing the same things, we’ll get the same results. We need to change our approach and need to improve for sure. We’ve been about 20th all year and it’s not good enough. I want to at least get back to where we were, lead laps and get top-15 finishes and be competitive each weekend and be mad if we didn’t qualify in the top 12.


“We need to put ourselves in position to win races. But that takes work and I know that.”


Having covered Patrick, 34, long before she arrived fulltime in NASCAR, I know the extreme drive she possesses, the determination, the expectation.


Listening to her speak about her career – her fondness for stock car racing and her intense desire to win at the Cup level – it’s apparent that she is fully committed to success here. And not afraid to put in the work. She doesn’t make excuses.


“For me, I’ve realized how important so many elements are to being successful,” Patrick said. “It’s not just the team, not just the driver, not just luck, it’s all those things. Everything has to be on.


“I feel like that’s why there’s so much pride and excitement when you do get to Victory Lane — because it’s so hard.


“I feel like at any point in NASCAR you can see great drivers struggle for a year and then all of a sudden come back. We as drivers don’t forget how to drive, it’s just getting all the puzzle pieces together. That’s what I feel like I’ve learned the most about NASCAR is how many elements have to come together and how much work it is from both a personal standpoint on the team to getting it done on track.”


That’s work that she has always been willing to put in.


“I have been blessed with an extreme amount of opportunities in my career and I would not change a thing,” Patrick said. “Every now and again, I may feel like it’s a little tougher out there for me and I feel like I’ve heard other people say it looks a little harder for me out there.


“At the end of the day, my job as a driver is to pass the car that’s in front of me. If it’s difficult, it’s difficult and I just have to work that much harder. I’m not looking for anyone to move over,” she said allowing a slight smile and joking, “Unless you’re lapped traffic.”

Posted on 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 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 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 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 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.

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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 by Staff Report

RELATED: Watch live stream here | Inside look on official NASCAR inspection


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 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.