Posted on by Holly Cain

RELATED: Women racers pave new roads to success in NASCAR

 

There is a bit of irony in Danica Patrick‘s Martinsville Speedway resume.

A racer who made international headlines and officially became a first-name only reference for nearly winning her Indianapolis 500 debut at one of the world’s most famous and grand-sized tracks, Danica bolstered her track record in many eyes by scoring one of her best NASCAR finishes (seventh) on one of stock car racing’s smallest (.526-mile), most challenging and endearingly iconic facilities: Martinsville Speedway.

Patrick, who celebrated her 34th birthday during the off-week, returns to “The Paperclip” for Sunday’s Sprint Cup Series’ STP 500 (1 p.m. ET, FS1) — site of a historic seventh-place finish for her only a year ago.

The result tied her with the great Janet Guthrie for most NASCAR top-10 finishes (five) by a woman, and two weeks later Patrick made the mark her own, scoring her sixth top 10 — a ninth-place showing at the sport’s second smallest track (.53-mile) in Bristol, Tennessee.

RELATED: Janet Guthrie’s groundbreaking racing career

In fact, Patrick’s record at Martinsville makes this challenging shortest of tracks one of her best. She recorded a 12th-place debut in 2012 — a better first try than some of the sport’s greatest champions such as Hall of Famers Rusty Wallace (who finished 15th) and Dale Jarrett (14th) and even Patrick’s team owner, three-time Cup champ Tony Stewart, who finished 20th in his first start there.

“I came from a road-course racing background and at Martinsville, I feel like you have to set passes up a little bit like that,” Patrick said. “I think it’s also a track where you have to exercise a lot of discipline. It’s easy to make mistakes. It’s easy to overdrive and try to get a little bit more when you’re passing somebody and make mistakes. Those are the two things I keep in mind when I’m there. I also think you really need a good car there, too, and Stewart-Haas Racing has always had good cars there.”

This time around Patrick’s No. 10 TaxAct Chevy will have a new crew chief, Billy Scott. It’s her third crew chief in four seasons as the team searches for the kind of good chemistry and juju to elevate Patrick into the post-season and give her a legitimate shot to score her first Sprint Cup victory.

 

MORE: SHR names new crew chiefs for Danica, Stewart

It’s already been a challenging start to 2016 with Patrick crashing in two of the opening five races. She was handed a $20,000 fine from NASCAR last week for violating safety rules because she angrily approached and gestured toward Kasey Kahne‘s car after they wrecked at California’s Auto Club Speedway. Kahne’s car hit hers while the two were racing close together.

For Patrick, this week is a real opportunity to restore her preferred path to the postseason.

By the fifth race in each of her full-time Cup seasons, she has been ranked 29th, 27th and 23rd in the standings and is now 29th again despite two top-20 finishes.

The challenge in having another new crew chief is the early season get-to-know-you time. But the other tasks that have dominated Patrick’s transition from Indycars to stock cars have become more manageable, giving her and the team great reason to be optimistic.

 

MORE: Danica reacts to SHR move to Ford

Especially here. Especially now.

“I’m far more confident and comfortable,” Patrick said coming into the season. “I’m understanding the car properly and able to help in making it better quickly on the race weekend. 

“Also the comfort of getting up to speed fast helps that learning curve, too. I remember there were lots of times in the very beginning when I wasn’t able to drive the car to the very limit. We’d come in and make changes based on the way that I was driving it. Once I was driving it the way it needed to be, all of a sudden we ended up back where we started. We wasted all practice for me to learn how to do it. 

“I’m much better at getting up to speed. But always room to improve. I’m still working on doing a better job at that. I think as a driver, we all tend to have our general weak areas and general strong areas. I know mine.” 

That this track has provided some of the most interesting story lines in NASCAR history is only another reason to expect better days.

Morgan Shepherd won a pole position here at 45 years old in 1987 and Harry Gant famously won the race in 1991 at the age of 51 and a half.

Eleven drivers scored their very first Cup wins at Martinsville — the last being Ricky Craven in 2001.

Notably, the majority of Patrick’s top-10 finishes have come after sub-top-20 starts. Her very best Cup showing, for example, a seventh-place finish at Atlanta in 2014, came after starting 27th.

“It’s twice as hard as it used to be to get to Victory Lane,” Patrick said. “It was hard to do it back when I was in IndyCar. I did it once in seven years. It’s very challenging. There’s lots of great drivers. Experience definitely helps. I’m working on getting that. 

“I mean, everybody wants to win. … It’s very hard to win in Cup, it just is. Everything’s got to go your way and be right and be clicking. That’s what also makes it so great when it happens. The blood, sweat and tears to get there. 

“It’s always frustrating, but it’s frustrating to just keep wanting to do better. But that’s what drives you.”

Posted on by Staff Report

RELATED: Buy tickets for Texas

Worlds will be colliding as Brandon Jones will sport the colors of Major League Baseball’s Texas Rangers during next weekend’s NASCAR XFINITY Series O’Reilly Auto Parts 300 (Friday, April 8, 8:30 p.m. ET, FS1) at the 1.5-mile track.

Jones’ No. 33 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet will carry the logo of the defending American League West division champions on the hood of the car. Watch how it came together below.


Jones is in his first full season in the XFINITY Series. The 19-year-old Sunoco Rookie of the Year candidate ranks fourth in the series standings with three top 10s through the series’ first five races.

The scheme’s running coincides with the opening week of the Major League Baseball season. A tripleheader of games kicks off the season this Sunday, April 3, with the traditional “Opening Day” for most of the other teams on Monday afternoon.

Texas Motor Speedway is located in Fort Worth, Texas, while the Texas Rangers play in nearby Arlington.

Posted on by Staff Report

Two-time champion Ray Alfalla (Slip Angle Motorsports) took his first checkered flag of the 2016 NASCAR PEAK Antifreeze Series in dominating fashion at Auto Club Speedway on March 29. Alfalla started on the outside pole and quickly asserted himself as the driver to beat by taking the lead on the opening lap from pole-sitter Cody Byus (The TEAM) and totaled a race-high 66 circuits at the front.

PJ Stergios (Last Row Motorsports) finished second, five seconds behind Alfalla at the checkers for his fourth top-five finish in as many races. Kenny Humpe was third, his second top-five finish of the season. Allen Boes (Deadzone) finished fourth and David Rattler (LockDown Racing) played an alternate pit strategy to earn a fifth-place result.

“This is one of my favorite tracks, and it feels nice to bring it home with the win,” Alfalla said.

Two weeks after a caution-free event at Phoenix, the caution flew twice in the first nine laps for a pair of incidents. First, Timmy Hill was sent spinning after contact with Justin Bolton. Hill was able to continue to a mediocre 23rd-place finish. Just a few laps later, Dillon Raffurty veered hard into the outside wall on the restart after experiencing technical difficulties. The crash would collect nearly a dozen cars and end the race for five sim racers, including Raffurty, who was credited with 42nd-place.

After the two quick cautions, the rest of the 125-lap race was run caution-free, giving drivers with speed on the long run an advantage while also allowing varying pit strategies to play out. With tire wear once again a huge factor, drivers near the front chose to pit well before fuel became an issue.

 

On the first run Alfalla fired off quickly and built a gap to the rest of the field but slowly began losing his gap as the run wore on. Since Alfalla was on a three-stop strategy, his total time given up was quite minimal and after performing some adjustments to his car, his long run speed improved in later runs. Despite the early troubles on the long run, Alfalla was never seriously challenged on speed the rest of the race.

With the race seemingly in hand, other drivers lacking the outright speed to keep up with Alfalla tried a riskier two-stop pit strategy. Rattler and Andrew Fayash were two drivers willing to try the counter-strategy and Rattler in particular found success with it. Although his car was not as fast as the leaders, his long run speed was competitive and one less trip down pit road than the leaders saved him nearly 40 seconds on track.

Instead of being stuck mid-pack, Rattler wound up leading 34 laps and was leading as late as Lap 111 before Alfalla overtook him on fresher tires. Though he fell short on picking up his first NASCAR PEAK Antifreeze Series win, a top five was just what Rattler needed as he moved up to 12th in the series standings.

With a quarter of the 2016 season in the books, a quintet of drivers is in position to battle for the series title. PJ Stergios and Alfalla are tied for the points lead, 11 points ahead of Boes. Jake Stergios is another three points adrift, followed by Chris Overland, who sits four markers behind the second Stergios brother.

Consistent top-five finishes have separated the front five drivers from the pack. Nick Ottinger, who is sixth in the championship, is 25 points behind fifth and 48 points — equal to a full race — behind the leader.

In two weeks, the rest of the field will look to close in on the front five as the series heads to Texas Motor Speedway. The fast 1.5-mile track is aero-dependent and notoriously tough to pass on, making qualifying and pit strategy of high importance. Can past champions Humpe and Tyler Hudson spoil the fun of the top five, or will Texas see familiar faces at the front once again? Find out in two weeks’ time when the NASCAR PEAK Antifreeze Series takes to the Texas high-banks on iRacingLive!

 

Posted on by Nascar

Photo Credit: Richmond International Raceway‘s official Twitter account, @RIRInsider

RELATED: Schedule for Martinsville

Joey Logano isn’t expecting a warm reception when he arrives at Martinsville Speedway for this Sunday’s STP 500 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race (1 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), but the driver of the Team Penske No. 22 Ford isn’t losing any sleep over it.
 
“I think that’s one of those race tracks that will probably be fairly negative toward me,” Logano said during a break in Tuesday’s Goodyear tire test at Richmond International Raceway. “But you know, I guess over the years there are only certain people that know who I really am. I don’t really take that stuff too personal. I know there’s only one person who can judge me. So I don’t get worried about it. To be honest with you, it motivates me. I’m kind of OK with it.”
 
It will be the first Sprint Cup race at the 0.526-mile track since last fall’s Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup event, when Logano’s day soured after he was taken out, while leading the race, by Joe Gibbs Racing driver and 2003 series champion Matt Kenseth.
 
Many fans on hand that day cheered as Kenseth drove his ailing Toyota into the left rear of Logano’s Ford, pushing it up into the outside wall in Turn 1.

RELATED: Recap what happened at Martinsville last year
 
Kenseth had been spun out of the lead in a race at Kansas two weeks earlier after contact from Logano as the two battled for the lead. He was parked by NASCAR and eventually suspended for two races as a result of his actions at Martinsville.
 
Logano was unable to rebound from the incident, and failed to advance to the championship round as a result.
 
How he is greeted this week, Logano said, “doesn’t bother me at all.
 
“I just want to go show them up,” he said. “It gives you that motivation, you know. … Someone puts you down and you want to show them. It gives you that little extra fire to show people what’s up. And I think that kind of gives me a little drive.”
 
Asked if Logano has merely gotten a bad rap, Hamlin — who had his own run-in with the 25-year-old — joked “He’s in the room, so (it’s) a little difficult …”
 
“Careful what you say!” Logano quipped.
 
“My perfect 100 percent honest answer is Joey races really tough and really hard,” Hamlin, who also races out of the JGR camp, said. “At times he’s difficult to pass. A lot of times that pays off in the end … I think it just seems like sometimes there are coincidences. I’ve had probably the same thing happen to me — somebody is pissed at me, then next week someone else was pissed at me.
 
“We all have our styles of driving. … You can’t expect someone to convert the way that they drive to appease other people, because it’s what’s made them successful. It’s hard for me to criticize the way anyone drives, even though it may not be the way that I do it.”
 
Hamlin opened up the 2016 season with wins in the Sprint Unlimited non-points event, then capped off SpeedWeeks with his first Daytona 500 victory.
 
Logano, six times a winner last season, is sixth in points and searching for his first victory of the year.
 
“A lot of times when drivers put on helmets, their attitude changes,” Logano said. “It becomes a competitive atmosphere. You’re out here to win.
 
“Like Denny said, I race hard. I’m not going to disagree with that. That’s what I’ve found works for me. I’ve tried it the other way and it didn’t work. When you find something that works for you, you try to stick to that.”

Posted on by Nascar

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The respect was there from the beginning, a carryover from years of competing against one another on the track.
 
The understanding has been a bit slower to materialize as the two former rivals became co-workers, but it’s coming along nicely according to NASCAR on FOX analyst Jeff Gordon.
 
The four-time premier series champion, speaking Tuesday at the NASCAR Hall of Fame, said there are no issues between himself and fellow NASCAR on FOX analyst Darrell Waltrip.
 
“We all understand the age difference and the different eras where we were dominant in our sport, but the respect that DW and I have for one another has always been there,” Gordon, 44, said during an appearance to help promote this Sunday’s STP 500 NASCAR Sprint Cup event at Martinsville Speedway (1 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
 
Gordon retired from driving at the conclusion of the 2015 season with 93 victories to go along with his four titles. Waltrip, a staple in the FOX broadcast booth since 2001, ended his career with 84 wins and three championships.
 
“In the booth, even though we might not always agree on things, because we have common respect for one another … it probably took a little bit of time of that understanding and having more personal time together, at dinner and meetings and texting back and forth – but our relationship is great,” Gordon said. “And I think we’re having a lot of fun.”
 
There have been differences of opinion, but Gordon said fans shouldn’t read “controversy” into those situations.
 
When Stewart-Haas Racing driver Kevin Harvick pitted for tires and fuel under green and then inherited the lead in the Auto Club 400 thanks to a caution flag barely two laps after his stop, the question for Gordon and Waltrip was who benefited? Harvick because of the immediate gain in track position as those who hadn’t previouly stopped came to pit road, or Jimmie Johnson, the race leader at the time of the caution, who restarted second after a two-tire change?
 
“I wouldn’t call it a disagreement but a difference of opinions,” Gordon said of the conversation. “The nice thing … (whichever) one of us is right and one of us is wrong, we smile about it, pat one another on the back, make jabs about it and go on. I think at first fans were taking that maybe the wrong way or people at home were taking that as ‘Oh man, these guys genuinely don’t like one another.’
 
“No … we do have differences of how we see things and we’re going to express that. But at the end of the day we’re going to have fun and enjoy those differences and not take it personally.”
 
The Auto Club Speedway discussion was similar to one just a few weeks earlier when rev limiters on the cars was the topic.
 
Waltrip, 69, later addressed that particular discussion in a posting on the FOXSports.com website.
 
“Some of you have tweeted suspecting there’s friction, but trust me, you couldn’t be more wrong,” Waltrip wrote. “Just because we don’t agree on everything doesn’t mean I don’t like him and he doesn’t like me. Who wants a booth where they all think, sound and act alike? I sure don’t.”
 
With five races in the booth under his belt, Gordon is becoming more comfortable in his new role. Whenever possible, he arrives at the track on Friday morning and heads into the garage as soon as it opens.
 
“My old crew chief, Alan Gustafson, is all mad at me (saying), ‘Oh sure, you stop driving and now you decide to come in the garage area at 8 o’clock when it opens up,’ Gordon said.
 
“I said, ‘Yeah, I didn’t need to know all this stuff before. I just drove the car.’ “
 
Those early-morning conversations allow him to catch up on topics of the day and get acquainted with many people he once raced against.
 
“When you’re up in that booth and mentioning names, it’s nice to put a face with it and have a conversation with … (No. 78 crew chief) Cole Pearn comes to mind, someone I talked to at Daytona,” he said. “… A lot of these guys, I’ve been on the other side where they’re my competitors and I didn’t really get to know them.
 
“Now I’m looking at it as personalities that really make up our sport. And I don’t think our job on Sunday in the broadcast booth is to come up with some revelation of ‘Hey, somebody’s doing this or doing that and that’s how they’re getting a competitive advantage.’
 
“It’s not necessarily that, but if something happens, you want to have knowledge. And understand why they’re doing that. Or why they’re not doing that. Whether it’s a pit call … an adjustment to the car or what the car looks like on the race track.”
 
Such understanding, he said, is important in his new role. And thus far, it’s been extremely helpful.
 
“In the times I’ve gone in the garage are I probably have learned more in that hour that I’ve been there than I have in years, actually,” he said.

Posted on by Staff Report

JR Motorsports officials have announced that Cole Custer, driver of the No. 00 Chevrolet in the Camping World Truck Series, will compete in five XFINITY Series events for the organization this season.



Team owner Dale Earnhardt Jr. said Custer, 18, “is a driver who has shown a lot of potential.



“He is fast and tenacious, he leads laps and wins races, everything you want out of a driver no matter how much experience they have.”



Custer, a two-time winner in the NCWTS, is scheduled to make his XFINITY Series debut April 23 in the JRM No. 5 Chevrolet at Richmond International Raceway. He will be behind the wheel of the group’s No. 88 entry for races at Charlotte Motor Speedway (May 28) and Kentucky Speedway (July 8), then return to the No. 5 ride for events at CMS (Oct. 7) and Homestead-Miami Speedway (Nov. 19).



The 2016 season is Custer’s first full-time effort in the Truck Series; He ran a limited schedule (10 races) for the organization last year and made nine starts for Stewart-Haas Racing co-owner Gene Haas in ’14.



“Seat time is critical to development as a driver, and the more I can get, especially with a team like JRM, the faster that development will go,” said Custer, the Truck Series’ youngest race winner. “This is a great opportunity for me to get more laps, get used to the equipment, and compete at another level.”



JRM fields three full-time XFINITY Series entries, two for drivers Elliott Sadler (No. 1) and Justin Allgaier (No. 7) and a third (No. 88) that is shared by several competitors in the JRM/Hendrick Motorsports group. The No. 5 entry competes on a limited schedule.



“We take a lot of pride in helping guys advance their careers towards their ultimate goal of racing in the Cup Series,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “Cole is on that path and I’m happy that we’re able to put him in our cars to help in that process.”



The No. 00 is the lone NCWTS entry fielded by JRM. Custer enters this weekend’s third series stop, at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway, 22nd in points.

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Front tire changer Nick Krizmanich of Chip Ganassi Racing will undergo open-heart surgery on March 29. Krizmanich has been a mainstay on pit road for the last few years working with multiple teams, including the Nos. 11, 2 and 42. This year Krizmanich was slated as the backup for the Nos. 1 and 42.

“My condition was found during a physical,” Krizmanich said. “The condition the doctors are fixing is called an aortic insufficiency. They will be replacing the main aortic valve in my heart through open-heart surgery. Apparently, the valve I was born with has a defect and doesn’t close all the way, not allowing blood to fully pump through my heart and body.

“Thankfully, they found it, and it’s getting fixed before it got even worse.”

Good luck to Nick in his surgery. There has been a GoFundMe page set up, if you would like to help: https://dm2.gofund.me/2fvcvnz6

For more pit crew news, visit PitTalks.com.

Posted on by Staff Report

RELATED: Entry list for Martinsville

A pair of NASCAR Sprint Cup Series regulars will double-dip into the Camping World Truck Series this weekend at Martinsville Speedway.

 

Defending Sprint Cup champion Kyle Busch will attempt to break an 0-for-8 drought in the series at the .526-mile track, driving the No. 18 Toyota from his Kyle Busch Motorsports stables in Saturday’s Alpha Energy Solutions 250 (2:30 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). He’ll be part of a four-truck KBM effort with teammates Christopher Bell, William Byron and Daniel Suarez.

 

Kyle Larson is scheduled to make his first Truck Series start since September 2015, driving the GMS Racing No. 24 Chevrolet. GMS will also field three other trucks in Saturday’s 250-lapper, with Larson joining Daytona winner Johnny Sauter, Spencer Gallagher and Kaz Grala, a NASCAR K&N Pro Series standout making his Truck Series debut.

 

Justin Haley, formerly known as J.J., plans to make his fourth career truck series start in the Braun Motorsports No. 32 Toyota. The 16-year-old driver won the most recent K&N Pro Series East event last weekend at Greenville-Pickens Speedway.

Posted on by Staff Report

Matt Kenseth will have a familiar voice over his team radio this weekend at Martinsville Speedway.

 

Chris Osborne will return to the spotters’ stand at the .526-mile track for the Joe Gibbs Racing No. 20 Toyota team. Osborne — nicknamed “Crazy” — has been out since the start of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season to recover from multiple injuries suffered in an automobile crash on Dec. 17.

 

Osborne suffered severe injuries to his right leg and foot. His wife, Melissa, was affected by major injuries to her pelvis, right hip, right shoulder, right arm and elbow; and Osborne’s son Austin suffered a concussion, partially collapsed lung, cracked sternum and broken nose.

 

“It’s been a lot of tough days and nights and healing,” Osborne said Tuesday morning on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. “The mindset was to get back at Daytona, but the physical part of it and the reality was, there just wasn’t enough healing time. Once we got past Daytona and Atlanta, the doctor said ‘I can’t release you to get on an airplane and fly back and forth to the West Coast three weeks in a row.’ “

 

Kenseth has worked with two spotters so far this season. Lorin Ranier handled the duties for Daytona’s Speedweeks in February; Curtis Markham spotted for Kenseth in Atlanta and the three Sprint Cup races that followed at Las Vegas, Phoenix and Auto Club.

 

Osborne was welcomed back by drivers and spotters alike when he got to the track Friday morning.