Posted on by Holly Cain



RELATED: Big fantasy week at Sonoma — get our advice

 

SAN FRANCISCO — Looking out over a sunny and scenic San Francisco Bay — Alcatraz Island in the foreground and the Golden Gate Bridge in the distance — reigning Daytona 500 winner Denny Hamlin lunched with media members on Thursday ahead of Sunday’s Toyota/Save Mart 350 at nearby Sonoma Raceway.

 

It’s the first of two road course NASCAR Sprint Cup Series races of the season and the challenging 1.99-mile, 12-turn Northern California track has crowned seven different race winners in the last seven years.

 

Kasey Kahne (2009), Jimmie Johnson (2010), Clint Bowyer (2012) and Carl Edwards (2014) are on that list. Martin Truex Jr. (2013) and Kurt Busch (2011) are also among the recent victors.

 

And who could forget Kyle Busch‘s triumphant win here last year — his first victory since returning from severe leg injuries after missing the first 11 races of the year. He went on to win three of the next four races after Sonoma, including three in a row, to ensure his place in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup postseason field, and he ultimately hoisted his first championship trophy.

 

With a new Chase format that rewards regular-season winners with a position in the 16-driver, 10-race playoff format, the emphasis on winning has never been greater. It also has created a unique set of circumstances where early-season winners feel they can use other races to test new ideas and feel out nuances to their car that may pay out in the fall playoffs.

 

But because there is no road course in the 10-race Chase, this week’s stop at Sonoma Raceway is a unique offering on the schedule.

 

And Hamlin — who has yet to win on a road course — says the lack of a road course event in the Chase does affect the approach this weekend.

 

“There really isn’t any experimenting here,” Hamlin said. “Unless someone in the road-course department has come up with a different setup and is like, ‘Let’s try this,’ you’re really not coming with an experimental car or anything like that. This is what you’ve got.

 

“This is a big event, we take a lot of pride in running really well out here in Sonoma. It’s a long way to come just to go through any motions and pack up on plane and go home. I get as frustrated here as anywhere when I don’t run well and I’m as proud, and have my chest out when I do run well. It’s a big race for us personally and for team members. It’d be a trophy I’d love to have.”

 

WATCH: Hamlin previews race while driving through city

 

The other side of it is that for drivers who have excelled on road courses, the Sonoma race — and the Watkins Glen event in August — stand as two prime opportunities to earn a Chase playoff spot.

 

Jamie McMurray, who has four top-five finishes in the Rolex 24 at Daytona, and his Chip Ganassi Racing teammate Kyle Larson — who won Daytona’s 24-hour sports car race in 2015 — consider these two tracks to be potential difference-makers. They both are still looking for a win this season.

 

McMurray has won three pole positions at Sonoma, but his best showing was a runner-up back in 2004. His only other top-five finish (fourth place) came two years ago. Larson has two top-five starts at Sonoma, but his best Cup finish is 15th here last year.

 

Who could forget AJ Allmendinger‘s dramatic and emotional victory at Watkins Glen in 2014?  The California native won the pole at Sonoma last year — and started on the outside pole in 2014 — but ended up in 37th place both times. His best Sonoma showing is seventh in 2009.

 

“There’s 10 of us (2016 race winners) with nothing to lose, and we’re being super aggressive right now,” said Hamlin, driver of the Joe Gibbs Racing No. 11 FedEx Toyota. “Then the other 30, this is their opportunity to punch their ticket in to the Chase and they are getting more aggressive.

 

“No one is looking at points at Sonoma. They’re out here to win. It’s the only type of course I haven’t won on, except in the XFINITY Series. It used to be I’d come to the road-course races and finish in the top 10 pretty easily. Now it’s just a battle.”


Posted on by Holly Cain



RELATED: What rust? Hornish’s Iowa win | Hornish returns to racing

 

Sam Hornish Jr. didn’t even have his official NASCAR license or “hard card” when he received a call from Joe Gibbs Racing last week asking if he’d like to drive the team’s No. 18 Toyota in the Iowa Speedway XFINITY Series event on Father’s Day Sunday.


After the deal was formalized last Wednesday afternoon for the 36-year-old to make his first NASCAR start of the year — five months into the 2016 season — the former XFINITY Series championship runner-up hastily arranged to take the NASCAR mandated drug test. Fortunately, he had turned in all his other medical paperwork before the season started “just in case” he got the phone call as he did last week.


Lastly came the job of quickly packing all his racing gear. Some of it was at the family home in Ohio where the Hornish family was last week, and other parts of it were in the family’s North Carolina house.


“I didn’t want to put all my eggs in one basket, I knew I couldn’t carry-on everything, but I did put some things in there in case my checked bag got lost,” Hornish shared with NASCAR.com this week, his voice still exhilarated for what turned out to be a thrilling victory at Iowa — with no preparation other than the event’s scheduled time on the track.


“It was huge especially after the year we had last year, just to get the opportunity was fun,” Hornish said. “I knew with the strength of the 18 car there was opportunity. I was a little bit nervous just because you get into that kind of race car and having been out of the car as long as I was, you just kind of wonder if everything is going to work out the way you think it should.


“I don’t know how it could have been much better.”


The best part for the 2006 Indianapolis 500 winner was that it was the first time his young family was all in attendance to see him hoist a trophy.


“Ever since first Father’s Day in 2008 and Addison was just a baby, I remember waking up at Michigan — my first year in the Cup Series –and she was sitting there on the bed,” Hornish recalled. “I remember thinking how cool it would be to take her to Victory Lane. The other races I won my family (wife Crystal and including his other two children Eliza and Sam Hornish III) they didn’t happen to be there. Even my dad, who was there, was driving my bus for me so he’d leave the track when the race started.


“It feels good you won, but you want to share it with somebody. I can’t remember how many times in the XFINITY Series I finished second and the kids were there. I remember thinking, am I ever going to be able to make this happen?”


Even thinking about it half a week later makes Hornish emotional.


Many have wondered when the talented driver will give NASCAR another shot after he nearly won the XFINITY Series championship but struggled to post good results in four full Cup Series seasons with the Team Penske and Richard Petty Motorsports operations and several half-season efforts in between.


Having had NASCAR success — challenging for the 2013 XFINITY crown — and won three IndyCar championships and an esteemed Indy 500 ring, Hornish said this week that he is most proud of having his children present with him in Victory Lane.


The time out of the car Hornish has spent in a most unusual — yet exceedingly gratifying way.


He is a devoted member of a prayer group in Charlotte, North Carolina. And in May, he and his father made a long-awaited 11,000-mile road trip to Alaska. It was something the two had talked about doing for half a decade but always put on hold because of racing. Now he had the time.

 

“A lot of other people were saying, ‘Too bad you’re not getting any wheel time,’ and I told them, ‘Man I’m getting some wheel time,’ ” Hornish shared with a laugh. “I did close to 11,000 miles of driving during the month of May.”


Perhaps the most surprising and interesting thing Hornish has done out of the race car is find a place in the classroom — as a substitute teacher.


He’s taught physical education to first-graders and a music class — yes music — to students from kindergarten to eighth grade.


“Most of the kids just know me as Addison’s dad,” Hornish said.


And right now, that feels pretty good.


Even before he drove to Victory Lane last weekend, Hornish had secured two XFINITY starts for Richard Childress Racing and he will be in the No. 2 Chevrolet at the next Iowa race and the series’ second Kentucky stop.


“That’s what I know right now and in a lot of ways, I hope there will be more,” Hornish said. “At this point in time, one of the hardest things is explaining to people, I could be out there racing right now, if I didn’t want to run well. I’m fortunate that I can be choosy.”


And he added — his voice unmistakably filled with emotion, “After everything that happened last week, it’s like you got the ice cream sundae with whipped cream and the cherry on top.


“I keep thinking how blessed I am all those things got to happen. Without getting too sentimental, I kept thinking to myself for the past six to seven months, if I could just win a race and have them there, that’s all I need.


“Then I can be happy about everything I’ve done, whatever the ups and downs were.”


Posted on by Staff Report



The FedEx Preview Show was live on location this week, and with a guest host, as well.

 

Denny Hamlin, driver of the Joe Gibbs Racing No. 11 Toyota, took viewers through the streets of San Francisco starting at 2:15 p.m. ET. NASCAR.com’s Jonathan Merryman will be riding shotgun to chat with Denny about Sonoma, along with the sights and sounds of the West Coast.

 

See the video clip above.


Posted on by Staff Report



RELATED: Gateway entry list

Erik Jones is returning to the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series for a start this weekend at Gateway Motorsports Park.

 

The 2015 Camping World Truck Series champion will pilot the No. 51 Toyota for Kyle Busch Motorsports in Saturday’s Drivin for Linemen 200 brought to you by Altec (8:30 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN, SiriusXM). This marks Jones’ first start in the series since clinching the title at Homestead-Miami Speedway last November. 

 

Cody Coughlin was originally slated to pilot the ride but a schedule conflict came up between the Camping World Truck Series race and his full-time Late Model competition. The 20-year-old has made three starts in the Truck Series in 2016 for KBM.

 

Jones is competing for a championship in the NASCAR XFINITY Series driving the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota. The 20-year-old led 84 laps in last year’s event at the 1.25-mile track before an electrical issue relegated him to a 23rd-place finish. The XFINITY Series is off this weekend. 

 

Cole Custer (No. 00 JR Motorsports Chevrolet) is the defending race winner at the Madison, Illinois track.


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RELATED: This week’s TV schedule


STAMFORD, Conn. — NBCSN presents #NASCARThowback, the ultimate NASCAR viewing party, Wednesday, June 29th at 8 p.m. ET. Through on-air social integrations fans can relive the 2001 July Daytona race with their favorite past and present NASCAR drivers, on-air personalities and race teams.


NBCSN encourages viewers to react live, tweeting their thoughts and showcasing their own at-home watch parties throughout the two-hour cut down race from Daytona International Speedway. The iconic race from 15 years prior saw Dale Earnhardt Jr. capture his emotionally charged victory.

The first completely interactive on-air race, fans can tweet using #NASCARThrowback and potentially see their tweets, and those of their favorite drivers, appear on screen during the broadcast. The tweets will be pulled into NBCSN’s broadcast center and featured alongside the race, giving viewers a glimpse into what drivers and other viewers were thinking during this unforgettable race.

NBC Sports’ production team is just 10 days away from the 2016 debut of live NASCAR Sprint Cup and XFINITY racing, set to unfold over Independence Day weekend celebrations from Daytona International Speedway, and highlighted by the Coke Zero 400 on Saturday, July 2nd at 7 p.m. ET.


Posted on by RJ Kraft



RELATED: Series standings | See how the XFINITY Chase Grid looks


Photo credit: (HHP/Gregg Ellman)

For any rookie there is always a bit of a learning curve, but for Brandon Jones he has several veterans surrounding him to help guide the way in his first full NASCAR season.

One of the younger drivers in the garage, 19-year-old Jones pilots the No. 33 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet in the NASCAR XFINITY Series. He’s fifth in the standings with seven top 10s ahead of next weekend’s Subway Firecracker 250 (July 1 at 7:30 p.m. ET, NBCSN, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

At RCR, Jones has a stable of teammates with a variety of experience in Brendan Gaughan (No. 62 Chevrolet) and the brothers Dillon, Ty (No. 3 Chevrolet) and Austin (No. 2 Chevrolet) as well as Paul Menard (No. 2 Chevrolet) to lean on for advice and guidance.

“The biggest thing everybody’s helped me out with is not coming so much to the tracks I’ve been to in the past, but the tracks that we haven’t seen so far,” Jones said at Iowa Speedway last week.

“People like Brendan and all the teammates really they help me out a lot. We’ve got a lot of notes from previous years from everybody that goes to driver debriefs so I have that to kind of go over and look through. They are just always there to help me out if they see something.”

Gaughan, who has 20 years of NASCAR experience, shares an easy rapport with the young Jones as evidenced by their willingness to play off their similar first names and their exchange when the elder statesman of the RCR team asked Jones how old he was during a recent press conference. When Jones answered, 40-year-old Gaughan buried his head in his hand.

Just past halfway in the regular season of the XFINITY Series, Gaughan likes what he has seen from Jones.

“When he goes out and runs top 10 just about every week, it’s not like you need to keep giving him a lot of coaching,” Gaughan said. “You just want to try to keep the head on straight, keep him pointed in the right direction — and he does a good job of that already to begin with.”

Jones also has the experience to draw on from crew chief Mike Hillman Jr. atop his pit box. Hillman comes from a racing background but he used another sport to describe how the young driver gets ready, especially for a track that’s new to him. Coming into this season, Jones, a Georgia native, had 30 NASCAR national series starts split between the XFINITY Series and Camping World Truck Series. 

“It’s kind of like being a quarterback; he watches a lot of game film, a lot of in-car camera stuff and the races that have been run at the racetracks before to try and be on top of it before we ever get here,” Hillman told NASCAR.com at Iowa.

Hillman notices the cool and calm demeanor with which Jones carries himself. The duo bonded away from the track as well and Hillman, age 37 and a father of three, has welcomed Jones into his family.

“To have the age difference between the two of us, but to have a lot of things in common and enjoy a lot of things outside of racing, it’s really cool to be able to hang out and grow together,” Hillman said.

Hillman, a New York native, brings a wealth of experience and knowledge from working primarily in the Camping World Truck Series and winning two championships with Todd Bodine, as well as working with young drivers such as Kyle Larson, Jeb Burton, Cameron Hayley and Ben Rhodes. Last season, Hillman was atop the pit box for Brian Scott and the No. 2 team at RCR in the XFINITY Series.

Under Hillman’s guidance, Jones is in a comfortable position to be one of the 12 drivers competing in the debut of the NASCAR XFINITY Series Chase, which begins Sept. 24 at Kentucky Speedway. While Jones has been consistent in averaging a finish of 11.4 — fifth-best among XFINITY Series regulars — he has yet to record a top-five finish in 2016, and has been out front for just 36 laps (all coming at Talladega in April).

 

Those are among the next steps Hillman wants to see Jones make as the series gets closer to the postseason. 

“We have to take our eighth-, ninth- and 10th-place finishes and make them fourth, fifths and sixths,” Hillman said. “And then once we do that, we can start making them firsts, seconds and thirds, and just take it a step at a time. Hopefully, if we keep doing that and progressing the way we are, by the time we get to the Chase, we’re in a spot to be in contention.”


Posted on by Staff Report



NASCAR handed down a pair of penalties to Camping World Truck Series teams on Wednesday after a P2-grade post-race violation by NEMCO Motorsports and an in-race behavioral infraction by driver Caleb Holman at Iowa Speedway.

The NEMCO No. 8 Chevrolet team was docked for failing to meet the proper ride height in a post-race inspection after pole-starter John Hunter Nemechek‘s 12th-place finish in the Speediatrics 200. The team was stripped of 10 championship points in both the drivers’ and owners’ standings, and crew chief Gere Kennon was fined $6,000 and placed on probation through the end of the year.

After the points adjustment, Nemechek drops from sixth place to a tie for eighth place in the driver standings.

Holman was fined $5,000 and also placed on NASCAR probation through Dec. 31 for approaching the racing surface after a crash with eight laps remaining. After exiting his wrecked No. 75 truck, Holman walked away from NASCAR officials and safety workers to gesture from the track apron at Austin Wayne Self’s passing vehicle.

Holman finished 26th in the 32-truck field; Self was 16th.


Posted on by Staff Report



Six NASCAR XFINITY Series crew chiefs have been placed on probation through Dec. 31 after receiving P2 Level penalties for irregularities discovered following pre-race inspection for this past weekend’s American Ethanol E15 250 at Iowa Speedway.

All six of the vehicles in question were singled out for right-side body panel modifications; five of the six drivers of those vehicles finished in the top 10 in Sunday’s race, including winner Sam Hornish Jr.

Those penalized were:

• Chris Gayle, crew chief of the Joe Gibbs Racing No. 18 Toyota. Hornish made his first start of the ’16 season when he was called on to fill in for driver Matt Tifft;

• Chris Gabehart, crew chief of the JGR No. 20 Toyota driven by Erik Jones. Jones finished 27th;

• Team Penske crew chief Brian Wilson; driver Brad Keselowski finished third in the No. 22 Ford;

• David Elenz, Kevin Meendering and Jason Burdett, all crew chiefs for JR Motorsports, were among those placed on probation as well.

Elenz heads up the No. 88 Chevrolet for JRM. The entry uses a variety of drivers throughout the year and saw Alex Bowman finish fifth with the team at Iowa.

Meendering is crew chief for driver Elliott Sadler (No. 1 Chevrolet); Sadler finished sixth.

Burdett oversees the No. 7 Chevrolet with driver Justin Allgaier for the organization. Allgaier finished seventh.

In addition to the P2 Level penalties, the No. 16 Roush Fenway Racing team with driver Ryan Reed received a written warning for failing the laser inspection station three times during pre-race inspection. As a result, the team has been docked 15 minutes of practice time at the series’ next event.

Also failing the LIS on two occasions, and receiving written warnings only, were the teams of Sadler, Daniel Suarez (JGR No. 19) and Harrison Rhodes (MBM Motorsports No. 13 Chevrolet).

The XFINITY Series is off this weekend and returns to action Friday, July 1 at Daytona International Speedway (7:30 p.m. ET, NBCSN, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).


Posted on by Staff Report



RELATED: See the full list


For the second consecutive year, Chase Elliott was ranked on the world’s 50 most marketable athletes list. He is listed in the 50th spot.


The list, produced by SportsPro, ranks athletes based on various criteria including value for money, age, home market, charisma, willingness to be marketed and crossover appeal. 


“He looks set to be the poster boy of stock car racing for years to come,” his entry reads. “… He might even eclipse his father’s (Bill Elliott) achievements.”


The 20-year-old star’s growth in his first full Sprint Cup season in 2016 has been striking as he is 11th on the Chase Grid — ahead of veterans Jamie McMurray and Hendrick Motorsports teammate Dale Earnhardt Jr. — and sixth in standings — one spot higher than six-time Sprint Cup champion Jimmie Johnson. 


The rankings were also largely based on the athletes’ marketing potential over a three-year span. 


Cristiano Ronaldo, Usain Bolt, Stephen Curry and Cam Newton were also featured on the list.