Posted on by Kathy Sheldon

RELATED: Race results | Busch earns first Kansas win | Standings post-race


KANSAS CITY, Kan. — Denny Hamlin said he was “going for it” when he got loose in Turn 4 on Lap 241. His fishtailing No. 11 Toyota then sent Brad Keselowski‘s No. 2 sideways as well, eventually creating a four-car pileup in Saturday night’s GoBowling 400.

Also caught up in the late wreck at Kansas Speedway was Keselowski’s Team Penske teammate Joey Logano in the No. 22 Ford. Kyle Larson‘s No. 42 Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates Chevrolet was pinned against the outside wall.

The four cars raced out of a Lap 240 restart for a shot at leader Kyle Busch, on the heels of the night’s fifth caution when Ricky Stenhouse Jr.’s No. 17 spun.

Logano came into the wreck last and couldn’t see what was happening in front of him through thick smoke. He didn’t place any blame for the accident, saying, “It was just racing, it wasn’t hard racing.”

Logano added, “It just sucks to be coming out of the infield care center two weeks in a row. … We made some good changes on it and actually made it to where I thought it was a possible winning car,” referencing a tangle he was involved in at Talladega Superspeedway.

Larson was dismayed about getting caught up in yet another wreck, especially with possibly his fastest car this season and best chance at getting that crucial win for a Chase bid.

Larson has finished on the lead lap of only five of the 2016 season’s 11 races, with a wreck also ending his day at Fontana.

Keselowski is already essentially in the Chase with wins at Las Vegas and Talladega while Hamlin’s post-season hopes look promising thanks to the season-opening Daytona 500 win.

The No. 2 Team Penske driver said the drive to win was what led to the wreck, saying Larson “did what he had to do” but opened the door to Hamlin by trying to block and protect his position.

“I’m disappointed, but I don’t think there was anything malicious,” Keselowski said. “We’re just all racing for wins and that was everybody’s shot to win the race.”

Hamlin said he put the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing team behind with two speeding penalties on pit road earlier in the race and was working hard to put a fast car up front.

“I was going in there three-wide. I wasn’t letting off and the 42 (Larson) was just too close up there. It wasn’t his fault by any means, but we were both trying to drive in there to clear each other and I just got loose.


“I’ve got to get better on pit lane to give us a chance and then I was just going for it there because I knew our car had some speed. I was on two tires and the guys in front of me were on none or two. I was just going for it. I’ve got the win and that’s part of this format is going for it and that’s what we did.”


MORE: Relive the day in photos

Posted on by Nascar

RELATED: Results | GoBowling 400 recap | Post-Kansas standings

KANSAS CITY, Kan. — The most disappointed man in Kansas Saturday night was Martin Truex Jr.

He forced a smile as he climbed from his Furniture Row Racing Toyota, but there was disappointment in his eyes.

“It sucks. I don’t know what you want me to say,” Truex responded as members of the media crowded him back against his car on pit road. “It’s not fun to lead all those laps and come up 14th. I wish the race was longer. We were hunting them down quick at the end.”

On a warm night at Kansas Speedway, Truex dominated the GoBowling 400 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race, only to see a broken bolt on a rear wheel strip a potential victory from his grasp.

After leading 172 of the first 211 laps, Truex headed to pit road as a late cycle of green-flag pit stops got underway. But as soon as he headed back out onto the track, he said, he knew something was amiss.

“I knew right away,” he said. “It was shaking.”

His first thought?

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he said. “I couldn’t believe it.

“The wheel was on tight, but it was crooked because there was something jammed behind it.”

It wasn’t the fault of his crew, he said, but rather a funky, how-could-that happen occurrence.

Forced back to pit road to correct the problem, the three-time winner returned to the track once more, this time buried deep in the field, 20th and one lap down.

Able to regain the lost lap, Truex began working his way back through the field as the final 50 laps of the 267-lap race played out. By Lap 255 he was 17th but could only get back inside the top 15 before fellow Toyota driver Kyle Busch (Joe Gibbs Racing) was flagged the race winner.

“You always know there’s the possibility of those things happening; you just hope they are earlier in the race and you can overcome them,” Truex said. “We certainly had a car fast enough that we could have overcome that if it was earlier. We just ran out of time there at the end.”

It was the second race this season that Truex had led the most laps but failed to come away with the victory. He led 141 at Texas Motor Speedway but finished sixth. He began the season with a second-place finish to Denny Hamlin (JGR) in the Daytona 500, losing by .010 second.

Busch’s winning car rumbled slowly by as Truex calmly continued to answer questions. Team owner Joe Gibbs, whose organization supplies the pit crew for Furniture Row, as well as providing technical support, stopped by after checking with the crew to try and explain the unexplainable to the driver.

“I swear, you watch guys win races that don’t have the fastest car or on fuel mileage and all this stuff and it’s like, ‘Damn,’ ” Truex said. “Someday I’m going to get on one of those or (be) on the other side of one of them.

“Usually you can dominate and win, but it’s tough and it happens. It’s part of racing.”

The Furniture Row Racing team, which advanced to the Championship Round with Truex last season at Homestead-Miami Speedway, switched from Chevrolet to Toyota before the 2016 season. That ended an alliance with Richard Childress Racing and began one with JGR.

This week’s pole winner has been a force through the first segment of the season, but Victory Lane has continued to elude the 35-year-old.


Crew chief Cole Pearn could only shrug his shoulders afterward. “We run the same stuff every week,” he said. “We’ve never had a problem and randomly when you’re leading you get that. So … whatever.

“You just have to put it behind you. Heck, it’s kind of laughable at this point. We just do our homework, figure out what happened and go get them next week. That’s all we can do.”

The setback cost Truex, a native of Mayetta, New Jersey, only one spot in the points standings — he’s now 10th and headed to Dover International Speedway next week, his “hometown” track.

“It’s hard when you give them away like that,” Truex said. “It’s hard to get cars that good in this series. … We’ll just keep trying, that’s all you can do. It’s a team sport, win and lose as a team.”

MORE: A day at the track

Posted on by Nascar

RELATED: Race results | Updated standings


KANSAS CITY, Kan. — It was a night that an 18-year-old scored his first career in NASCAR’s Camping World Truck Series. A two-time champion went from first to 10th to second. And the first- and second-place trucks on the final lap wrecked before they got to the finish line.



In other words, Friday night’s Toyota Tundra 250 at Kansas Speedway was your typical Truck Series race.



“It got pretty exciting there; obviously all you hope for at the end of a deal like this, especially with all the cautions we had in the race, was to have an opportunity,” said third-place finisher Daniel Hemric (Brad Keselowski Racing).



William Byron seized the opportunity, picking up the win for Kyle Busch Motorsports after getting nearly overwhelmed on a green, white, checkered restart.



But contact between Johnny Sauter (GMS Racing) and Ben Rhodes (ThorSport Racing) while battling for the lead shot their chances and opened the door for Byron.


RELATED: Rhodes makes contact with Sauter


“It was very interesting,” runnerup Matt Crafton (ThorSport), the two-time series champ said, pausing to watch a replay of the final lap play out and the leaders spin.



“Wow. He smoked her down in there, didn’t he?



“I shoved it three wide in the middle and I’m like ‘Yeah, this probably isn’t the way to go.’ I lifted just a little bit, got it back to the bottom and got a decent run. The bottom had been terrible all night and I got a decent run, everybody got loose and checked up … it worked out for me.”


MORE: Relive the day in photos

Hemric and Crafton each improved five positions in the points standings — Hemric vaulted from seventh to fifth and Crafton returned to the top-10 after sitting on the outside following the season’s second and third races. He now sits sixth as the series prepares for to head to Dover International Speedway next week. It will be the first back-to-back race weekends for the series this season.



Crafton led 57 laps, tops in a 170-lap race that was slowed by 11 cautions.



The leader on a restart on Lap 135, Crafton quickly fell back through the field after contact with the second-place truck of Timothy Peters (Red Horse Racing). Gathering it back in after falling to 10th, he slowly began working his way back toward the front.



“I was like, ‘OK, we’ll probably be all right, probably drive back by here in a minute'” Crafton said of the initial setback. But advancing through the field proved to be a handful and the final restart saw his No. 88 Toyota seventh in the running order.



And then?

“That last restart was just chaos,” he said.

Posted on by Staff Report

The NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, NASCAR XFINITY Series and NASCAR Camping World Truck Series all will head to Dover International Speedway this week. Check out the full weekend schedule below.


Note: All times are ET



SUNDAY, MAY 15:

PRE-RACE SCHEDULE
— 11 a.m.: NSCS Driver/Crew Chief Meeting (NCWTS Garage Area Tent)
— 12:20 p.m.: NSCS Driver Introductions with NASCAR Special Awards presented backstage
— 1:00:00 p.m.: Intro Presentation of Colors by: Dover Air Force Base Color Guard
— 1:00:20 p.m.: Invocation by: Dan Schafer, Pastor of Calvary Assembly of God in Heightstown, New Jersey
— 1:01:00 p.m.: National Anthem by: Tom Dixon, Nashville recording artist 
— 1:02:00 p.m.: Aerial Adventures (3) Parachutists Land on track (frontstretch, turn 1 and turn 4) 
— 1:02:40 p.m.: Flyover TOT by: (2) US Navy F/A – 18C Hornets Strike Fighter Squadron from Naval Air Station Oceana, Virginia Beach, Virginia (Turn 3 > Turn 2) 
— 1:07:30 p.m.: “Drivers, Start Your Engines” by: Jason Jones, Star of the TBS comedy, “The Detour” 
— 1:15:00 p.m.: Green Flag: AAA 400 Drive For Autism (400 Laps / 400 Miles) 


ON TRACK

— 1 p.m.: NASCAR Sprint Cup Series AAA 400 Drive for Autism (400 laps, 400 miles), FS1 (Results)

PRESS CONFERENCES (Watch live)

— 4:30 p.m.: (approx.) NSCS post-race


DAILY ROUNDUP
— Kenseth holds off Larson, wins at chaotic “Monster Mile”
— Larson, Elliott hunt down Kenseth in final laps
— Monster-size wreck claims 18 cars at Dover
— Edwards knocked out of contention with 40 laps remaining

THURSDAY, MAY 12:

ON TRACK
— 2:00-2:55 p.m.: NASCAR Camping World Truck Series practice (Results)
— 4:00-4:55 p.m.: NASCAR Camping World Truck Series final practice (Results)



DAILY ROUNDUP

— Byron, Custer quickest at Thursday’s practices

— Recalling Stewart’s last win at Dover — and looking to his next

— JGR confirms No. 18 pit crew replacement

— Fantasy Fastlane: Dover


FRIDAY, MAY 13:

ON TRACK

— 10-10:55 a.m.: NASCAR XFINITY Series practice, FS1 (Results)

— 11 a.m.-12:20 p.m.: NASCAR Sprint Cup Series practice, FS1 (Results)

— 12:30-1:55 p.m.: NASCAR XFINITY Series final practice, FS1 (Results) — Ended early due to rain

— 2:15 p.m.: NASCAR Camping World Truck Series Keystone Light Pole Qualifying, FS1 (Results) — Canceled due to rain

— 3:45 p.m.: NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Coors Light Pole Qualifying, FS1 (Results) — Canceled due to rain
— 5:30 p.m.: NASCAR Camping World Truck Series JACOB Companies 200 (200 laps, 200 miles), FS1 (Results)

GARAGECAM (Watch live)
— 10:30 a.m.: NASCAR Sprint Cup Series


PRESS CONFERENCES (Watch live)

— 8:45 a.m.: Brendan Gaughan

— 9 a.m.: Joey Logano

— 9:15 a.m.: Ty Dillon

— 9:30 a.m.: Martin Truex Jr. 

— 12:45 p.m.: Ricky Stenhouse Jr.

— 1:15 p.m.: Jimmie Johnson

— 5 p.m.: (approx.) NSCS post-qualifying

— 7:30 p.m.: (approx.) NCWTS post-race

DAILY ROUNDUP
— Crafton conquers Dover for Truck win
— Harvick to start up front after qualifying rained out
— Stewart, Danica involved in early practice wreck
— RCR teammates discuss A. Dillon’s strong start to ’16


SATURDAY, MAY 14:

ON TRACK

— 9:30-10:25 a.m.: NASCAR Sprint Cup Series second practice, FS1 (Results)

— 10:45 a.m.: NASCAR XFINITY Series qualifying, FS1 (Results)

— 12:30-1:25 p.m.: NASCAR Sprint Cup Series final practice, FS2 (Results)

— 2 p.m.: NASCAR XFINITY Series Ollie’s Bargain Outlet 200 Heat #1 (40 laps, 40 miles), FOX (Results)

— 2:50 p.m. (approx): NASCAR XFINITY Series Ollie’s Bargain Outlet 200 Heat #2 (40 laps, 40 miles), FOX (Results)

— 3:30 p.m. (approx): NASCAR XFINITY Series Ollie’s Bargain Outlet 200 main race (120 laps, 120 miles), FOX (Results)

PRESS CONFERENCES (Watch live)

— 4:30 p.m.: (approx.) NXS post-race


DAILY ROUNDUP
— Key story lines to watch for Sunday’s race
— Jones wins at Dover, takes Dash 4 Cash prize
— Johnson: A monster talent at Dover
— Bubba makes history, strides with Dover runner-up

Posted on by Staff Report

With Kyle Busch‘s win Saturday night at Kansas Speedway — long a place where he has struggled over the years — ‘Rowdy’ checked another track off his all-time list of NASCAR Sprint Cup Series conquests.

 

The GoBowling 400 victory, along with his win at Martinsville earlier this year, leaves only Charlotte Motor Speedway and Pocono Raceway as unchecked tracks on the list. And Busch still visits each facility twice this season, starting at Charlotte for the Coca-Cola 600 on May 29.

 

Below is a list of Busch’s starts and wins at every active track on the Sprint Cup circuit.

Kyle Busch Wins By Track

Track Starts Wins
Atlanta 18 2
Auto Club 18 3
Bristol 22 5
Charlotte 24 0
Chicagoland 11 1
Darlington 11 1
Daytona 22 1
Dover 22 2
Homestead 11 1
Indianapolis 11 1
Kansas 17 1
Kentucky 5 2
Las Vegas 12 1
Martinsville 22 1
Michigan 22 1
New Hampshire 22 2
Phoenix 22 1
Pocono 22 0
Richmond 22 4
Sonoma 11 2
Talladega 22 1
Texas 21 2
Watkins Glen 11 2
Posted on by Staff Report

RELATED: Coverage of Stewart’s accident, comeback | Updated Chase Grid

 

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 the season’s 11th of 26 regular-season races.

WHAT JUST HAPPENED

The two-time Kansas winner proved why he’s so good at the 1.5-mile track, just missing the top 10 with a 12th-place finish. “Smoke” even led for 12 laps while a cycle of green flag pit stops was taking place. 

WHAT HE NEEDS
Stewart has received a waiver from NASCAR for Chase eligibility. The sureest way into the Chase is by winning before the end of regular season (at Richmond International Raceway on Sept. 10) 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. Currently, Stewart is 37th in the standings, 59 points behind Regan Smith for 30th place.

WHAT’S NEXT
“Smoke” heads to Dover International Speedway for the AAA 400 Drive for Autism race on May 15 (1 p.m. ET, FOX Sports 1, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). The 1-mile track has been the site of three of Stewart’s 48 wins, including his most recent win in 2013. In addition to the three wins at the “Monster Mile,” Stewart also has 11 top fives and 17 top 10s in 33 starts there.

 

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

Posted on by Staff Report

RELATED: Find FOX Sports 1 in your area


All times ET

Monday, May 9
8:30 a.m., NASCAR Sprint Cup Series: GoBowling 400 (re-air), FS1
5 p.m., NASCAR Race Hub, FS1
5 p.m., NASCAR America, NBCSN

Tuesday, May 10
9:30 a.m., NASCAR Camping World Truck Series Toyota Tundra 250 (re-air), FS1
5 p.m., NASCAR Race Hub, FS1
5:30 p.m., NASCAR America, NBCSN

Wednesday, May 11
Noon, NASCAR Camping World Truck Series Toyota Tundra 250 (re-air), FS2
2 p.m., NASCAR Sprint Cup Series: GoBowling 400 (re-air), FS2
5 p.m., NASCAR Race Hub, FS1
5:30 p.m., NASCAR America, NBCSN

Thursday, May 12
5 p.m., NASCAR Race Hub, FS1
5 p.m., NASCAR America, NBCSN
6 p.m., NASCAR K&N Pro Series West Race: Tucson Speedway (taped), NBCSN
6:30 p.m., Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge: Mazda (re-air), FS2

Friday, May 13
8 a.m., Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge: Mazda (re-air), FS1
10 a.m., NASCAR XFINITY Series practice, FS1
11 a.m., NASCAR Sprint Cup Series practice, FS1
12:30 p.m., NASCAR XFINITY Series final practice, FS1
2 p.m., NASCAR Camping World Truck Series Keystone Light Pole Qualifying, FS1
3:30 p.m., NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Coors Light Pole Qualifying, FS1
5 p.m., NASCAR Camping World Truck Series SetUp, FS1
5:30 p.m., NASCAR Camping World Truck Series: May Dover Race, FS1

Saturday, May 14
3 a.m., NASCAR Camping World Truck Series: May Dover Race (re-air), FS1
9:30 a.m., NASCAR Sprint Cup Series practice, FS1
10:30 a.m., NASCAR XFINITY Series Coors Light Pole Qualifying, FS1
Noon, NASCAR Race Hub: Weekend Edition, FS1
12:30 p.m., NASCAR Sprint Cup Series final practice, FS2
1:30 p.m., One Hot Night: The NASCAR 1992 All-Star Race (re-air), FS2
2 p.m., NASCAR XFINITY Series FOX Pre-Race Show, FOX
2:30 p.m., NASCAR XFINITY Series: Ollie’s Bargain Outlet 200, FOX

Sunday, May 15
2:30 a.m., NASCAR XFINITY Series: Ollie’s Bargain Outlet 200 (re-air), FS1
8:30 a.m., NASCAR XFINITY Series: Ollie’s Bargain Outlet 200 (re-air), FS1
11:30 a.m., NASCAR RaceDay, FS1
1 p.m., NASCAR Sprint Cup Series: AAA 400 Drive for Autism, FS1
11:30 p.m., NASCAR Sprint Cup Series: AAA 400 Drive for Autism (re-air), FS1

 

Posted on by Staff Report

Johnny Sauter was leading on the final lap of the Toyota Tundra 250 at Kansas Speedway and looked to be closing in on his second win of the 2016 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series season.

But contact from Ben Rhodes, who was running second at the time, sent Sauter out of the lead and allowed William Byron to get to the lead before the caution came out to end the race in NASCAR overtime. 

See what Sauter had to say about the finish in the video above.