Posted on by Staff Report

Chalk up another top-10 finish for Dale Earnhardt Jr.

 

The Celebrity DBI powered by Repucom has ranked the Hendrick Motorsports driver among its Top 100 athletes, pulling in at No. 10 overall, according to Sports Business Daily. According to the study, which measures the influence and relevance individuals have on the public, Earnhardt’s celeb “DBI score” is 72.38, which gives him a celebrity status comparable to rapper Kanye West, musician Nick Jonas and New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning.

 

Respondents in the twice-a-week poll are asked to evaluate the celebrity based on eight attributes — awareness, appeal, aspiration, breakthrough, endorsement, influence, trend-setter and trust.

Stewart-Haas Racing driver Danica Patrick was right off Earnhardt’s pace, ranking 11th among athletes, with a comparable celebrity status to model Kate Upton, actor James Franco and musician Bono.

 

Three other NASCAR drivers appeared in the top 100, in six-time Sprint Cup Series champion Jimmie Johnson (33rd among athletes), three-time champ Tony Stewart (44th) and Kurt Busch (92nd).

Posted on by Staff Report

RELATED: Complete lineup, qualifying times

 

Grant Enfinger earned his first career pole during the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series Keystone Light Pole qualifying after acclerating his No. 33 GMS Racing Chevrolet to a quickest lap of 180.752 mph during the session’s final minutes. 

 

Enfinger’s GMS Racing teammate Johnny Sauter was second-fastest as he propelled his No. 21 around the 2.5-mile track at 180.086 mph. 

 

Third-fastest during the session, which was two-rounds in single-truck qualifying, was the No. 17 of veteran Timothy Peters (179.691 mph).

 

The No. 2 Ford of Austin Theriault (179.158 mph) and the No. 51 Toyota of Daniel Suarez (179.108 mph) were fourth and fifth respectively. 

 

Two-time series champ Matt Crafton soared around DIS, clocking in at 178.948 mph in the No. 88; which was good enough for a sixth-place result.

 

The 11 drivers who failed to qualify for the field in their trucks were: Korbin Forrister, Ryan Reed, Clay Greenfield, Austin Hill, Norm Benning, Carlos Contreras, Reed Sorenson, Jennifer Jo Cobb, Ryan Ellis, David Levine and Mike Harmon.

 

The Truck Series starts off the three-day race weekend at 7:30 p.m. ET for the NextEra Energy Resources 250 (100 laps, 250 miles with coverage on FS1, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.

Posted on by Staff Report

WATCH: The big wreck in Can-Am Duel #2



Kurt Busch‘s No. 41 Stewart-Haas Racing Chevrolet was caught up in a wreck at the end of the second Can-Am Duel race on Thursday, but the team elected not to go to a backup car.


Instead, crew chief Tony Gibson and his crew dug in and made a day’s worth of repairs Friday once the garage opened. Wrapping the car proved time consuming, and help came from an expected place: Joe Gibbs Racing.


“We are all a family in the garage,” Gibson explained in his Twitter post.


Busch will start eighth in Sunday’s Daytona 500 (1 p.m. ET, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) — going to a backup car would have sent him to the rear of the field.


WATCH: Duel wreck takes out heavy hitters

Posted on by Staff Report

Practice 2 | Full Practice 2 results

Denny Hamlin propelled his No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota around Daytona International Speedway at 199.658 mph to top a particularly competitive practice session on Friday afternoon.

Hamlin led a pack of Toyotas that dominated the 55-minute session: His JGR teammate Kyle Busch — who won Can-AmDuel No. 2 on Thursday night — was second-fastest, wheeling his No. 18 entry at 198.640 mph.

Martin Truex Jr., whose Furniture Row Racing team switched from Chevrolet to Toyota this year — laid down the third-fastest speed, his No. 78 clocking in at 198.640 mph. Truex was one of the four drivers — among AJ Allmendinger, Matt Kenseth and Jimmie Johnson — who wheeled out backup cars for today’s practice session after incurring heavy damage in a multi-car wreck during Duel No. 2 Thursday night.


WATCH: Wreck from Can-Am DUel No. 2


Kurt Busch also received damage in Thursday’s melee, but his No. 41 team elected to repair the primary car. Due to extra preparations, Busch did not turn a lap during practice Friday.

RELATED: JGR crew lends helping hand to SHR

JGR teammates Carl Edwards (198.610 mph) and Kenseth (198.566 mph) rounded out the top five.

Wood Brothers Racing‘s Ryan Blaney was the fastest among the Open teams, ranking sixth on the leaderboard with a top speed of 196.498 mph.

Duel No. 1 winner Dale Earnhardt Jr. came up 11th on the leaderboard in the final practice session, his No. 88 Chevrolet dubbed “Amelia” recording a fast lap of 194.670 mph.

Pole-sitter Chase Elliott turned the 14th-fastest lap in Friday’s final practice, posting a top speed of 194.175 mph in his No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet.

The Sprint Cup Series is back on track Saturday at 12:15 p.m. ET for final practice.

 

Practice 1 | Full Practice 1 results

Debuting a backup car in Friday’s first NASCAR Sprint Cup Series practice at Daytona International Speedway, Jimmie Johnson climbed to the top of the leaderboard early, posting a fast lap of 194.083 mph. Johnson’s primary chassis was heavily damaged in a last-lap wreck in Thursday night’s second Can-Am Duel race, forcing crew chief Chad Knaus and the No. 48 team to prep the backup Chevrolet for today’s practice session.

Matt Kenseth, Martin Truex Jr. and AJ Allmendinger also incurred heavy damage in last night’s wreck and were forced to backup cars, but neither team made a run during this afternoon’s practice.

Sprint Unlimited winner Denny Hamlin was second-fastest, his No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota rounding the “World Center of Racing” at 193.861 mph.

Johnson’s Hendrick Motorsports teammate — and Sunday’s Daytona 500 pole-sitter — Chase Elliott was next on the speed charts, his No. 24 Chevrolet clocking in at 193.216 mph. Roush Fenway Racing‘s Ricky Stenhouse Jr. was fourth fastest, wheeling his No. 17 Ford at 192.653 mph, while Hendrick Motorsports‘ Kasey Kahne rounded out the top five with a fast lap of 192.505 mph in his No. 5 Chevrolet.

Newcomer Robert Richardson Jr. — who raced his way into the Daytona 500 during Duel 2 — was 11th on the leaderboard, whirling around the 2.5-mile track at 188.933 mph.

Only 13 drivers made their way onto the track for opening practice. 

Posted on by Staff Report

Practice 3: Results

Ty Dillon was once again back on top in the third and final NASCAR XFINITY Series practice on Friday afternoon at Daytona International Speedway.


The Richard Childress Racing driver paced the final session at 182.113 mph to best the field, hitting the mark on his fifth and final lap. Ray Black Jr. was next on the charts at 181.207 mph, followed by Jeb Burton (181.127 mph), Joey Gase (180.411 mph) and Darrell Wallace Jr. (179.802 mph) to round out the top five.


Midway through the session, Wallace’s No. 6 team was forced to swap out the transmission in his Roush Fenway Racing Ford backup car.


The red flag was also displayed in the session, as Derek White had a mechanical problem in Turn 2 that dropped fluid on the track.


The NASCAR XFINITY Series hits the track again for Coors Light Pole Award qualifying at 10 a.m. ET Saturday on FS1, followed by the season-opening PowerShares QQQ 300 at 3:30 p.m. ET, also on FS1.



Practice 2: Results



David Starr topped the second of three NASCAR XFINITY Series practices Friday at Daytona International Speedway.


Speeds dipped significantly in the afternoon session, with Starr’s 183.516-mph clip well off the pace that Ty Dillon (192.526 mph) set in the opening practice.


Dillon’s teammate, Brandon Jones, was next on the charts at 183.109 mph, followed by Joe Nemechek (183.035 mph), Ryan Preece (182.964 mph) and Benny Gordon (182.426 mph).


Erik Jones made a mock qualifying run in his only lap of the session, pulling in ninth at 180.567 mph.


Practice 1: Results



Ty Dillon paced the opening NASCAR XFINITY Series practice of 2016 on Friday morning at Daytona International Speedway.


Dillon, one of the favorites to win the 2016 series title, bested the field with a top speed of 192.526 mph, achieved on his eighth of 16 laps. 


Blake Koch was next on the charts at 191.963 mph, followed by Dillon’s brother and Sprint Cup Series regular, Austin, at 191.910 mph. A pair of Cup regulars followed in Kasey Kahne (190.034 mph) and reigning Daytona 500 champ Joey Logano (190.002 mph).


The practice session was halted early after Darrell Wallace Jr. was turned by the No. 98 of Aric Almirola, sending his No. 6 Roush Fenway Ford down onto the apron and then up into the outside retaining wall.


MORE: Early practice wreck forces Bubba Wallace to backup


“It’s just a bummer, but excited to be here. just trying to be a better pack racer,” Wallace told FS1 after the wreck. “I don’t know if I came down on him or he just got into me.


“If this is a sign of getting (wrecking) out of the way early, I’m an advocate of that.”


Final practice is at 3 p.m. ET, with Saturday’s season-opening race seeing the green flag at 3:30 p.m. ET on Saturday. Follow all the coverage on FS1 and keep track on NASCAR.com’s Live Leaderboard.

Posted on by Zack Albert

RELATED: Full race results


DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — The NASCAR Camping World Truck Series’ new caution clock rule came into play for the first time in the season-opening race at Daytona International Speedway.



Sort of.



The NASCAR rule — new this season for the truck tour — mandates that the yellow flag fly if a caution period hasn’t slowed the event after 20 minutes of green-flag racing. During Friday night’s NextEra Energy Resources 250, it meant teams were watching not only the lap counter but also the new caution clock.



After the timer’s debut, teams may also be watching for possible rules tweaks.



With less than 20 seconds remaining before the clock was set to expire, a handful of teams scrambled to dive to pit road on Lap 42. The strategy would have given the early birds track position over the drivers who stopped during the impending caution.



But several trucks made contact trying to slow for the pit entrance, sending Cody Coughlin and Spencer Gallagher spinning. Coughlin smacked the inside retaining wall. Gallagher looped his truck and collided with the pitting truck of Christopher Bell, before nosing into the infield grass. As a result, the 100-lap race’s third yellow flag — with 11 seconds remaining on the caution clock timer — went into the race’s statistics as a naturally occurring caution period.



Gallagher, who wound up 21st in the 32-truck field, suggested that competition officials close pit road at a certain point before the clock is set to expire to prevent a recurrence. NASCAR race procedure is to close pit road shortly before a competition caution period begins.



“I’m going to be real forthright about it,” Gallagher told NASCAR.com. “NASCAR needs to add some kind of shutdown to pit road. I’d say probably even around five minutes before the caution clock is due to hit, just because of that exact reason it happened. It just invites too much gamesmanship with making a green-flag stop and trying to outsmart everyone else. That’s what happens. Things get way too crazy.”



One driver who just missed the carnage was race winner Johnny Sauter, Gallagher’s teammate at GMS Racing. Sauter was making his entry to pit road as the bedlam erupted behind him; his No. 21 truck just missed being part of the stack-up.



“I knew it was going to be chaos, and I really thought about making the call of pitting the lap before that so we wouldn’t be in all that,” Sauter said after securing the 11th victory of his truck series career. “I really think it’s going to — I wish they could close pit road a couple, three minutes before the caution clock comes out so we don’t have this problem every week at these other racetracks, Texas, Michigan. It’ll make it so much nicer.



“I know we want to make it interesting for the fans, but we don’t want to have tore‑up race trucks like we did tonight on a pit stop.”



Third-place finisher Parker Kligerman, making his first truck start since 2014, attributed part of the frenzy to the lack of hand signaling from high amount of rookie drivers making their first superspeedway appearances. Protocol at restrictor-plate tracks calls for drivers to indicate on the backstretch that they intend to pit.



Runner-up Ryan Truex seconded Kligerman’s thoughts, saying that he had little indication that so many trucks would be pitting. But he also said he welcomed the provision in the rules change that turns the caution clock off for the final 20 laps.



“I think it’s different. It spices it up a little bit,” Truex said after his career-best truck result. “I’m glad that we got rid of it at the end there and got to run 15 laps straight or whatever it was, 10 laps straight.”



No other green-flag run in the 100-lap race came close to the caution clock’s 20-minute limit.

Posted on by Reid Spencer

RELATED: Race results | Updated series standings

 

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — With the No. 4 Toyota of Christopher Bell barrel-rolling through Turn 1 behind him, Johnny Sauter nosed ahead in his No. 21 Chevrolet and had more than a car-length lead when NASCAR called the final caution of the NextEra Energy Resources 250 at Daytona International Speedway.

 

With the victory, Sauter is all but guaranteed a spot in the first NASCAR Camping World Truck Series Chase, a seven-race playoff modeled after the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup.

 

But Sauter needed a push from Bell to take the lead, moments before contact with the No. 17 Toyota of Timothy Peters launched the No. 4 and sent it rolling in as part of a 10-truck accident. Ryan Truex ran second, followed by Parker Kligerman, Brandon Brown and Tyler Young, as attrition eliminated some of the strongest trucks in the field.

 

RELATED: ‘Big One’ collects multiple trucks | ‘Big One’ strikes again

 

The victory was the first for Chevrolet in 17 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series races at Daytona. It was Sauter’s 11th win in the series in his first start in the No. 21 GMS Racing Chevy and his first race with crew chief Marcus Richmond.

 

“I just had this feeling that our truck was so good yesterday that, if I didn’t make any mistakes, we were going to have a shot at this,” Sauter said. “And Marcus did a phenomenal job calling the race… This is unbelievable.

 

“I’m so pumped to be the first guy to get to Victory Lane here. GMS — I mean, what can I say? This is the opportunity of a lifetime.”

 

A colossal wreck on Lap 93 involved more than half the 32-truck field and eliminated some of the strongest competitors from contention, including Austin Theriault (who had led a race-high 31 laps), polesitter Grant Enfinger, two-time series champion Matt Crafton, defending race winner Tyler Reddick, Canadian Cameron Hayley and Mexican star Daniel Suarez.

 

NASCAR red-flagged the race for 27 minutes, 54 seconds for track cleanup. When the trucks began rolling again, Truex was in the lead, followed by Sauter and Peters, for a restart on Lap 98. Truex and Sauter battled side-by-side until Bell pushed Sauter to the lead after the trucks took the white flag.

 

“The 4 truck, thanks for the push,” Sauter said. “He was pushing me. I was sideways. We lost momentum there, and I thought we were all going to crash. The next thing I knew he was pushing me again and bumping me, and it all worked out.”

 

Note: After the race, Bell was transported to a local medical facility for further examination and observation. At 1 a.m. ET Saturday, Kyle Busch Motorsports tweeted a press release that stated Bell had been evaluated and released. No specifics about his condition were available, but Bell was able to climb from his car and walk to a waiting ambulance–standard protocol after any wreck.



READ MORE: NCWTS shifts to Chase elimination format

Posted on by Reid Spencer

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — At heart, we’re all racers.

 

That’s the crux of NASCAR’s massive marketing and social media platform surrounding Sunday’s Daytona 500 (1 p.m. ET, FOX, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), one that includes activation on Twitter and Snapchat and gives fans a chance to win prized race-used memorabilia by “racing” each other in the Hashtag 500.

 

In an integrated marketing campaign titled Ready.Set.Race, combining television creative and social engagement, NASCAR seeks to highlight the racers in all of us.

 

“When you’re a kid riding a bike and racing the other kids in the neighborhood,” says Jill Gregory, NASCAR senior vice president, marketing and industry services. “Or when you’re at the gym on the treadmill, and you’re trying to secretly race the person next to you.

 

“To us, all that just reinforces that love of racing, and what better way to get your racing fix than watching or attending a NASCAR race. We’re absolutely focused on that in our television creative, but this digital and social component, where we’re encouraging fans to race each other during one of our events, is a new and innovative way to make that love of racing come to life.”

 

MORE: Race-day experience elevated with Snapchat partnership

 

During the Daytona 500, fans wishing to compete for race-used memorabilia must watch the FOX broadcast (pre-race coverage starts at noon ET) and follow @NASCAR on Twitter to receive a custom hashtag for each of 10 memorabilia items.

 

Once each hashtag is unveiled, the 500th person to tweet that hashtag in concert with #DAYTONA500 will win that race and the prize that goes with it.

 

That’s not the only aspect of Twitter’s expanded support around the Great American Race. Other activations will include the use of Vine and Periscope; Twitter Moments; @NASCAR tweets featuring such celebrities as John Cena, Florida Georgia Line and Ken Griffey Jr.; Twitter Mirror, a tablet based application where celebrities pose for their own photos; and infield branding in Daytona International Speedway.

 

RELATED: Exclusive Daytona content via Twitter

 

To help tell the story of what it’s like to attend a NASCAR race, Snapchat will at least double its Live Story coverage of NASCAR events in 2016, beginning with Sunday’s Daytona 500.

 

“(There will be) a curated stream of photos and videos submitted by fans at the race, and Snapchat will provide people outside the race track and outside the sport an inside look at what NASCAR’s all about.”

 

The thousands of submitted Snaps from each event will be curated and packaged by Snapchat into a video stream that is shared globally with Snapchat’s more than 100 million daily active users right on their mobile devices. Each NASCAR Live Story will be available to view on Snapchat for 24 hours. 

 

Facilitating the social media engagement is the recently completed $400-million Daytona Rising project, which transformed the Birthplace of Speed into the first true motorsports stadium. One of the many benefits of Daytona Rising includes enhanced WiFi capability designed to heighten social media engagement of fans at the races.

 

In addition, broadcast partner FOX is asking fans to submit video content from Daytona 500 week for inclusion in a crowd-sourced documentary titled “100,000 Cameras,” to air on FS1 in late February.

 

NASCAR also offers a full range of digital and mobile products offering fans everything from in-car cameras to driver audio to social feeds and fantasy scoring. RaceView, for example, provides a 3-D representation of every car and track, real-time driver stats and multiple viewing angles for each NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race in real-time.

 

Last year, NASCAR set a record with 1.1 billion page views across its NASCAR.com website and digital platforms, a 20-percent increase over 2014.

 

“We know that our core fans are engaged quite a bit with these (social and digital) platforms, and we know younger, more diverse fans are users of these platforms,” Gregory says. “So for us it’s a win/win, because fans across all our segments have a way to engage with NASCAR.”