Posted on by Nascar

RELATED: Full race results

 

BRISTOL, Tenn. — Dale Earnhardt Jr. spotted the field two laps and then nearly won the race Sunday.

 

Well, maybe not won. But he did spot the field two laps, thanks to an unspecified electrical issue. And he did run as high as second with only five of the 500 laps remaining in the Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway.

 

But it would have taken quite a turn of events for the Hendrick Motorsports driver to overtake leader and eventual race winner Carl Edwards.

 

Not that he and crew chief Greg Ives didn’t try. Instead, Earnhardt wound up with his second consecutive second-place finish and his third of the season.

 

Earnhardt said it was an issue with the braking system that caused the engine to shut off practically at the drop of the green flag. With no power, his No. 88 Chevrolet was nearly run over from behind by the No. 43 of Aric Almirola (Richard Petty Motorsports), which in turn was nearly run over by the No. 23 of David Ragan.

 

“If your throttle is stuck and you mash the brake to a certain (pressure) — you’re going to mash the (expletive) out of that brake when the throttle sticks; it’ll shut the motor off. That’s a system; that’s one of the two systems that you have to choose from in this sport.

 

“The other is a button on the steering wheel. I don’t like the button on the steering wheel because when the throttle sticks, I ain’t going to think, ‘Mash a button.’ I’ll be in the fence before it’s over with.”

 

Ives said officials were still evaluating the situation after the race. “It looks like the engine might have just went into protection mode,” he said. “They’re still diagnosing it … we’re just double-checking everything before we claim (that) was the real issue.”

 

Once the problem was corrected, if not entirely solved, Earnhardt Jr. began the long, arduous task of racing his way back into contention on a speedy half-mile where passing options are limited and mistakes are often costly.

 

He gained one of the lost laps by taking the wave-around during the first of 15 caution periods during the race. When the yellow flag appeared a third time at Lap 116, he once again remained on the track and was back on the lead lap when green-flag racing resumed.

 

Late restarts were beneficial since for nearly each one, Earnhardt restarted in the preferred outside row. A position or two here, a position or two there and suddenly, with five laps remaining, he shot from fourth to second. A misstep by Edwards and the No. 88 team would have been in Victory Lane.

 

But Edwards didn’t waver and both Earnhardt and Ives knew they didn’t have the best car.

 

“We had a really good car last week, a top‑three car,” Earnhardt said. “This car wasn’t that good, but we kind of understand why. We’re going outside the box as far as what we typically run here for setup.

 

“And that’s good. The setup didn’t quite work but you still had a good day and you can go home and learn and try to science it out and make that setup work.”

 

Ives agreed. The car was good enough, he said, to allow his driver to make passes and “do what he needed to do.”

 

“But I don’t think we had a second-place car or a top-10 car,” the crew chief said. “I felt like we were probably 12th to 15th at best with the race car. Just Dale working the traffic and doing what he needed to do got us in position there at the end. That really allowed us to get a second-place finish, but I definitely need to bring better cars.

 

“Obviously we want to run well and win races, but if you just keep on bringing the same stuff year in year out you’re not going to learn anything.”

 

Earnhardt hasn’t won since last fall’s Phoenix race, however he and the team have five top-10s in the season’s first eight races. As a result, he sits sixth in points and is poised to head back to the Chase for the Sprint Cup at the end of this season. Not that he’s taking anything for granted.

 

“Going to Victory Lane is important to our sponsors and it’s obviously fun,” he said. “But it’s good for our team to set ourselves up to not have to worry about the Chase anymore.

 

“Even though you know you’re a top‑five team or top‑10 team that should make the Chase without any issue, you can’t help but count them points to 16th or 17th each week.”

Posted on by Nascar

This was expected to be a big year for HScott Motorsports, with the addition of veteran Clint Bowyer to its driver lineup and a closer working relationship with Stewart-Haas Racing helping to stabilize a team that is only in its third full season of full-time competition.
 
While Bowyer’s stay at HSM will be brief — he leaves to take over the No. 14 entry at Stewart-Haas Racing next year — he had expressed hopes of being able to help HScott improve its program before his departure.
 
Such has not been the case, however.
 
Through the first seven races, Bowyer is 32nd in points and understandably frustrated.

There has been no increase in the level of support provided by Stewart-Haas, in light of that four-team organization’s impending move to Ford in ’17, an announcement made in late February by team co-owners Tony Stewart and Gene Haas.
 
That wasn’t expected to be the case when Bowyer was introduced as the newest driver addition to HScott late last year. At that time, relationships with Stewart-Haas and Hendrick Motorsport were said to be key factors in the decision-making process for all involved.
 
“I’m looking forward to the marriage that (team owner Harry Scott) has with Hendrick (Motorsports), with Stewart-Haas, that is very strong and it’s something that I’m looking forward to building on,” Bowyer said at the time. “I’ve got the best of the best when you talk about equipment. We’ve got Hendrick engines; we’ve got ties to Stewart-Haas Racing. These are the guys that are winning all the races. I now have that bond, that connection to this kind of equipment.”
 
Bringing Bowyer, an eight-time winner in NASCAR’s premier series, on board even for only one year was seen as a step up the competitive ladder for HScott, which struggled on the track with teammates Michael Annett and Justin Allgaier in ’15. Additional support from a group as successful as SHR would be a boon to the smaller outfit.
 
Instead, Bowyer had a single top-20 finish (18th at Auto Club Speedway) and an average finish of nearly 29th heading into Sunday’s Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway. Bowyer would finish eighth Sunday, for his best showing of the season.
 
For a driver who has rarely been outside the top 20 in points in 10 seasons of full-time competition, it’s been a frustrating start.
 
Contacted by NASCAR.com, Stewart-Haas officials said via email this week that “There isn’t a formal alliance between Stewart-Haas Racing and HScott Motorsports, but SHR does collaborate with HScott and offers technical support when it can.”
 
HScott has obtained limited technical support from SHR since 2015 while also purchasing many of the cars in its fleet from the organization.
 
But those close to the HScott situation say the technological tether that tied the teams of Bowyer and Annett to SHR appears to have been severed with the Ford announcement.
 
It may also be a byproduct of the growing divide between the Chevrolet-branded Hendrick group and SHR as the latter outfit begins working toward the manufacturer change. At some point this season, the data sharing and flow of information between Hendrick and SHR will begin to cease; HScott, with a driver soon to be making the move to a rival Ford team, is perhaps caught in between.
 
Changes in the relationship between Hendrick and Stewart-Haas were noted earlier this year by Stewart, who said, “the dynamic of it was kind of already changing this year anyway” and that “the technical side of it has changed quite a bit going into this season.”
 
“It’s like parents who are going through a divorce,” one HScott representative said of the situation, “and this team is caught in the middle.”
 
Stewart-Haas fields four Sprint Cup Series teams and its drivers have won two of the last five series championships, all under the Chevrolet banner. Its engines and chassis come from Hendrick, as well as technical information and extensive engineering support.
 
Hendrick Motorsports fields four Sprint Cup Series teams and has won 11 Sprint Cup titles overall and six of the last 10.
 
Although its chassis currently come through SHR, HScott leases engines from Hendrick, an arrangement that was already in place when Scott purchased the team from former owner James Finch in September of 2013. But the link between Hendrick and HScott ends there, according to Hendrick officials. The Hendrick/HScott relationship, they say, has not changed in light of the Stewart-Haas Ford announcement.
 
In a statement provided to NASCAR.com, HScott officials noted the abundance of adjustments the organization faced heading into the 2016 season.
 
“The challenges so far this season have primarily been the elements of change. Change has been a constant and it’s had an effect. The team relocated its shop from (Spartanburg) South Carolina to (Mooresville) North Carolina in January. We have a new driver and crew chief combination, a new fleet of cars and a new aero package.” 
 
The support system between Hendrick and Stewart-Haas, and Stewart-Haas and HScott, isn’t unusual. Similar alliances abound in NASCAR, each varying to some degree.
 
Furniture Row Racing had a “technical alliance” in place with Richard Childress Racing before this season. When the Denver-based team made the switch to Toyota, it aligned itself with Joe Gibbs Racing, which provides chassis as well as engineering support. A comparable arrangement exits between the Ford entities of Team Penske and Wood Brothers Racing.
 
That teams would begin to “wean” themselves from such alliances as they work their way through the process of changing manufacturers is understandable considering what’s at stake — not the least of which is proprietary information and data that cannot be obtained without extensive research and development, and at much cost.
 
While the current partners have benefited from their individual relationships, at the end of the day it remains a very competitive business.
 
All of which leaves HScott and its teams trying to make the best of what appears to have become an unexpectedly harsh situation.

Posted on by Staff Report

The NASCAR Sprint Cup Series and NASCAR XFINITY Series will head to Richmond International Raceway this week while the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series is off. Check out the full weekend schedule below.


Note: All times are ET



SUNDAY, APRIL 24:

ON TRACK
— 12:30 p.m.: Driver introductions
— 1 p.m.: Presentation of Colors by: Ft. Lee Color Guard
— 1:00:20 p.m.: Invocation by: Joe Ellison
— 1:01:00 p.m.: National Anthem: Trent Harmon
— 1:02:30 p.m.: Flyby TOT: Team Bandit (Turn 1 to Turn 4)
— 1:07:30 p.m.: “Driver’s, Start Your Engines” by: Robert “Dell” Wilson
— 1:14 p.m.: Green flag: NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Toyota Owners 400 (400 laps, 300 miles), FOX (Results)



PRESS CONFERENCES (Watch live)
— 4 p.m. (approx.): NSCS post-race


DAILY ROUNDUP
— See at-track photos from Richmond
— Stewart cuts tire in first Cup return
— Edwards pulls bump-and-run on JGR teammate for Richmond win
— Watch Edwards’ last-lap shove to the No. 18
— Ky. Busch dodges questions of Edwards’ shove post-race
— Edwards: ‘I thought, I’m gonna give him a little nudge’

FRIDAY, APRIL 22:

ON TRACK
— 11 a.m.-12:25 p.m.: NASCAR Sprint Cup Series practice, FS1 (Results)

— 12:30-1:55 p.m.: NASCAR XFINITY Series practice, FS1 (CANCELED, weather)
— 3-3:55 p.m.: NASCAR XFINITY Series final practice, FS1 (CANCELED, weather)

— 4:15 p.m.: NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Coors Light Pole Qualifying* (CANCELED, weather), FS1 (Lineup)

*Lineup was set by the rule book


GARAGECAM (Watch live)
— 10:30 a.m.: NASCAR Sprint Cup Series
— 2:30 p.m.: NASCAR XFINITY Series (CANCELED, weather)


PRESS CONFERENCES (Watch live)
— 9:30 a.m.: Ryan Blaney
— 9:45 a.m.: Matt DiBenedetto
— 10 a.m.: Kurt Busch
— 10:45 a.m.: Erik Jones
— 12:30 p.m.: Carl Edwards
— 1 p.m.: Denny Hamlin
— 5:15 p.m. approx.: NSCS post-qualifying

DAILY ROUND-UP
— Stewart climb into No. 14 Chevy for first time in ’16
— Harvick tops rain-shortened Richmond practice
— Rain puts halt to activity at Richmond
— Harvick on pole after qualifying rained out at Richmond
— Hamlin: Drivers Council ‘didn’t agree’ with fine

SATURDAY, APRIL 23:

ON TRACK

— 9-9:50 a.m.: NASCAR XFINITY Series practice, FS1 (Results)
— 9:35 a.m.: NASCAR XFINITY Series Coors Light Pole Qualifying*(CANCELED, weather), FS1 (Lineup)

— 10:30-11:50 a.m.: NASCAR Sprint Cup Series final practice, FS1 (Results)
–12:30 p.m.: NASCAR XFINITY Series ToyotaCare 250 Heat #1 (35 laps, 26.25 miles), FS1 (Results)

–1:10 p.m. (approx): NASCAR XFINITY Series ToyotaCare 250 Heat #2 (35 laps, 26.25 miles), FS1 (Results)
— 1:45 p.m. (approx): NASCAR XFINITY Series ToyotaCare 250 main race (140 laps, 105 miles), FS1 (Results)

*Lineup will be set by the rule book

PRESS CONFERENCES (Watch live)
— 3 p.m. (approx.): NXS post-race


DAILY ROUND-UP
— Allgaier tops Richmond NXS practice
— Cup Richmond pit stall assignments
— See at-track photos from Richmond
— Johnson tops final Cup practice at Richmond
— Dale Jr. holds off T. Dillon for Richmond win

Posted on by Staff Report

RELATED: Full race results


Fans were treated to a thrilling Food City 500 Sprint Cup Series race at Bristol Motor Speedway on Sunday, with Carl Edwards sealing the win.


Drivers took to Twitter to talk about their respective runs after the race and, in some cases, clear some air.



NASCAR Nation also made sure to comment on the career-best run for Matt DiBenedetto (6th) and the emotional post-race interview he gave on pit road.



It was also a season-best finish for Clint Bowyer, who fought back for an eighth-place finish.

Posted on by Staff Report

Defending race-winner Matt Kenseth didn’t repeat after going behind the wall to fix damage incurred on Lap 327 of Sunday’s Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway.

 

The Joe Gibbs Racing driver had rebounded from an early race brush with the wall after a right front tire went down to get back into the top three, but a similar issue cropped up with a little less than 200 laps to go to send the No. 20 car hard into the outside wall, where it sustained significant damage.

 

“We just keep blowing right front tires, I don’t know why,” Kenseth told FOX after the second incident.

“The first one was a little confusing, I knew I blew a right front, but I thought they were telling me it wasn’t flat so I was a little confused. This one just blew a lot earlier and the angle was a lot worse hitting the wall. We really weren’t very tight, our Dollar General Camry was pretty fast today. I was encouraged again today even though we don’t have the result.”

Goodyear will be taking the tires that had issues from the JGR teams of Kenseth, Kyle Busch and Denny Hamlin for further analysis. All three drivers had tires go down on them during the race. Despite his teammates’ struggles, Carl Edwards led 276 laps and won the race at Bristol.

 

Kenseth returned to the track at Lap 363. He was scored in 35th position and was 36 laps down at time, despite having led 142 laps on the day.

The 2003 champion finished in 36th place.

Posted on by Staff Report

Kyle Busch, winner of two straight NASCAR Sprint Cup Series races, saw his streak snapped after tire issues sent him into the wall multiple times in the Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway on Sunday.

 

“Fans were on. Everything was fine. Just blew a (expletive) tire,” Busch told the team over the radio after a right front tire problem sent him into the wall on Lap 50.

Goodyear Racing offered an explanation for what happened in the first instance to the No. 18 on Twitter.

 

Busch was not the only JGR driver with tire woes on this day as both Matt Kenseth and Denny Hamlin also had issues. Goodyear is taking those tires from the 11, 18, and 20 for further analysis. The JGR drivers’ teammate Carl Edwards won the race while leading 276 laps.

RELATED: Kenseth goes into wall, derails bid for Bristol win

It was a long day for Busch as he also was penalized for being too fast on pit road when he came in for adjustments after the hit.

 

Later, on Lap 116, Busch was tapped from behind by the No. 34 of Chris Buescher and spun out down to the bottom apron, but he managed to avoid major damage.

 

After all that, “Rowdy” had steered his No. 18 Toyota back into the top 12 by Lap 160 before the final nail in the coffin ended his day.

 

On Lap 258, Busch had another tire go down, sending him back into the wall for his hardest hit of the day.

 

“It’s (expletive) killed,” crew chief Adam Stevens said over the radio as he summoned his driver to the garage. “We’re done, go home.” 

 

After getting out of the car, Busch told FOX that he had “no idea” what kept leading to his cut tires.

 

“Guess it just wasn’t meant to be,” Busch told FOX.  “We drove up from the back to the front a couple times and showed them what we’re made of, but unfortunately it doesn’t matter when you’re in the garage.”

 

A five-time winner at Bristol, Busch finished the race in 38th place.

Posted on by Staff Report

RELATED: Find FS1 in your area


All times ET

Monday, April 18
8 a.m., Empty Cup: Quest for the 1992 NASCAR Championship (re-air), FS1
8:30 a.m., NASCAR Sprint Cup Series: Food City 500 (re-air), FS1
5 p.m., NASCAR Race Hub, FS1
5:30 p.m., NASCAR America, NBCSN

Tuesday, April 19
8:30 a.m., NASCAR XFINITY Series Fitzgerald Glider Kits 300 (re-air), FS1
5 p.m., NASCAR Race Hub, FS1
5:30 p.m., NASCAR America, NBCSN
6 p.m., 100,000 Cameras: Daytona (re-air), FS1
6:30 p.m., WeatherTech SportsCar Championship: Long Beach (re-air), FS1

Wednesday, April 20
5 p.m., NASCAR Race Hub, FS1
5:30 p.m., NASCAR America, NBCSN

Thursday, April 21
5 p.m., NASCAR Race Hub, FS1
5:30 p.m., NASCAR America, NBCSN
2 a.m., NASCAR K&N Pro Series East (tape), NBCSN

Friday, April 22
9 a.m., WeatherTech SportsCar Championship: Long Beach (re-air), FS1
11 a.m., NASCAR Sprint Cup Series practice, FS1
12:30 p.m., NASCAR XFINITY Series practice, FS1
2 p.m., NASCAR Race Hub: Weekend Edition, FS1
3 p.m., NASCAR XFINITY Series final practice, FS1
4 p.m., NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Coors Light Pole Qualifying, FS1

Saturday, April 23
3 a.m., NASCAR XFINITY Series practice (re-air), FS1
4:30 a.m., NASCAR XFINITY Series final practice (re-air), FS1
5:30 a.m., NASCAR Sprint Cup Series practice (re-air), FS1
7 a.m., NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Coors Light Pole Qualifying (re-air), FS1
8:30 a.m., NASCAR Sprint Cup Series practice, FS1
9:30 a.m., NASCAR XFINITY Series Coors Light Pole Qualifying, FS1
10:30 a.m., NASCAR Race Hub: Weekend Edition, FS1
11 a.m., NASCAR Sprint Cup Series final practice, FS1
Noon, NASCAR RaceDay: XFINITY, FS1
12:30 p.m., NASCAR XFINITY Series: ToyotaCare 250, FS1

Sunday, April 24
10:30 a.m., NASCAR RaceDay, FS1
1 p.m., NASCAR Sprint Cup Series: Toyota Owners 400, FOX
Midnight, NASCAR Victory Lane, FS1

 

Posted on by Reid Spencer

RELATED: Full race results | Updated series standings | SHOP: Edwards gear


BRISTOL, Tenn. – The record will show that polesitter Carl Edwards won Sunday’s Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway in dominating fashion, leading 276 of 500 laps and beating runner-up Dale Earnhardt Jr. to the finish line by .766 seconds.
 
But while Edwards cruised to victory with the fastest car in the eighth NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race of the season, drivers behind him suffered a litany of troubles, populating the top 10 with the most unlikely array of competitors this season.
 
Consider that:
 
Sunoco Rookie of the Year candidate Chase Elliott posted a career-best fourth-place result a week after recording a career-best fifth at Texas.
 
Trevor Bayne ran fifth, scoring his first top five since his surprise victory in the 2011 season-opening Daytona 500.
 
Matt DiBenedetto came home sixth, scoring a best-ever finish (and only the second top 10) for BK Racing. Clint Bowyer rallied from laps down to run eighth, his first top-10 and third lead-lap finish of the season.


RELATED: See all of Edwards’ career Cup wins

All Joe Gibbs Racing drivers other than Edwards had serious issues on Sunday. Kyle Busch, trying for his third straight Sprint Cup win, blew two right front tires, hit the wall twice and retired from the race in 38th place. Matt Kenseth and Denny Hamlin suffered similar issues with right fronts and finished 36th and 20th, respectively.
 
Kevin Harvick, who had arguably the fastest car in the closing stages of the race, never got a chance to show it, because he kept drawing the inside lane for every restart. The speed at Bristol is in the outside lane, and Harvick ultimately ran seventh with a No. 4 Chevrolet that was much better than its finishing position.
 
Simply put, it was another wild, action-filled afternoon at Thunder Valley, but for Edwards, it was simply an extension of what he and the No. 19 Toyota team have been accomplishing this season.
 
Edwards posted his seventh top 10 in eight races, climbed to second in the series standings (one point behind Harvick) and, first and foremost, all but assured himself of a spot in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup.

RELATED: See the best photos from Sunday at the track
 
“It was a really great race for us,” said Edwards, who won for the first time this season, the fourth time at Bristol and the 26th time in his career. “It started on Friday well, started this winter building these cars. But the car was really fast in qualifying, got the first pit stall, and that meant a lot to the guys. They were just flawless on pit road. The car was really fast, and (crew chief) Dave (Rogers) did a good job of managing everything.
 
“We didn’t have any trouble, and really it’s just a testament to everybody at the shop and our whole team. Really awesome to have a win so now we can really have some fun and focus on this championship.”
 
If Edwards’ race was problem-free, hardly anything else was ordinary. Even Earnhardt’s second-place finish was an anomaly.
 
The driver of the No. 88 Chevrolet inadvertently activated the “kill” switch on his car at the start of the race by applying too much brake pressure. Earnhardt rolled onto pit road and lost two laps while his team rebooted the electronic control unit (ECU) that governs the electronic fuel injection.
 
Two wave-arounds under caution in the first half of the race put the 88 back on the lead lap, and Earnhardt parlayed his good fortune into a better-than-expected run. Unlike Harvick, Earnhardt benefited from restarts in the outside lane, and on the final restart with five laps left, he rocketed from fourth to second and held off third-place finisher Kurt Busch.
 
“Just warming the brakes up, I engaged that system to kill the throttle,” Earnhardt said of the early trouble. “I was warming the brakes up like I always do, and apparently I applied too much pressure and it killed the motor.
 
“We’ll work on that and maybe raise that threshold a little bit, because I wasn’t really using the brake that much.”
 
Earnhardt acknowledged he stole a runner-up finish with a car that wasn’t that good.
 
“We had about a 10th-place car,” Earnhardt said. “We weren’t really that good all day. We tried a setup that we’ve never really ran here before, just trying to learn a little something going forward, and we’ll go home and science it out a little bit.
 
“We got real lucky the last three restarts to be on the outside line. We restarted 10th, sixth and fourth, and when you restart fourth, you’re typically going to come out in second place after that. I was hoping we didn’t have any more cautions after that. So it was good. We’ll take it.”

Posted on by

RELATED: Full race results | Series standings

BRISTOL, Tenn. — It’s payday for Erik Jones, as the 19-year-old is going home with an extra-large $100,000 check for taking the first NASCAR XFINITY Series Dash 4 Cash bonus at Bristol Motor Speedway on Saturday.

The race-winning Joe Gibbs Racing driver led a total of 62 of the 200 laps in the Fitzgerald Glider Kits 300, and his victory essentially locks up a spot in the NASCAR XFINITY Series Chase. Should Jones record another Dash 4 Cash bonus in any of the three remaining Dash 4 Cash races, having two Dash 4 Cash bonuses would be the equivalent to a regular-season race win and give him a leg up on seeding when the Chase begins on Sept. 24 at Kentucky Speedway.

MORE: What to know about the Dash 4 Cash

“We got a really good restart and Kyle (Larson) just left the top open and we went up there and he worked pretty hard to keep us behind him,” Jones said post-race. “We just kept digging and it worked out. Just an awesome feeling. I never thought we’d get our first win here at Bristol.”

As for what he’s spending the dough on, Jones is a frugal man.

“Well, we’re all going to dinner so that’s going to be a big bill already I can tell,” Jones said. “After that, I don’t know, I’ll probably put it away. I don’t like to buy too many things.”

RELATED: Jones’ discusses emotional Victory Lane call

Jones’ JGR teammate Daniel Suarez, Richard Childress Racing driver Ty Dillon and JR Motorsports driver Justin Allgaier all qualified for the Dash 4 Cash competition by being the top two finishers among XFINITY Series regulars in the two heat races that preceded Saturday’s main event, which all came down to the final restart on Lap 198.

With just three laps remaining, it looked as if Suarez — who was running the highest of the Dash 4 Cash drivers in third — was going to be the one to hoist the cardboard check after the checkered flag fell. That was until his JGR teammate Kyle Busch spun his tires, backing up Suarez’s No. 19 Toyota.

“I feel like we had a top-three car all day long and we were running in the top five, top three all day,” Suarez said after the race. “In the end, the outside line was the preferred line and my teammate (Kyle Busch) spun his tires right there at the end with old tires and I was just right there stuck in the middle on the inside and there was nothing I can do at that point.”

Jones came from fourth on the restart to win the race. This was Jones’ first Dash 4 Cash event, as he was not eligible for the competition last season being a full-time Camping World Truck Series driver.

The next Dash 4 Cash event will be the ToyotaCare 250 at Richmond International Raceway on Saturday, April 23 (12:30 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). The two heat races will be 35 laps each, with a 140-lap main event. There are a total of four Dash 4 Cash events in the 2016 season.

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BRISTOL, Tenn. — Darienne Breazeale couldn’t walk down pit road at Bristol Motor Speedway on Saturday without NASCAR fans stopping to gush over a video of the 23-year-old North Carolina native’s recent encounter with Kyle Busch in traffic.

Before her now-famous exchange with the Sprint Cup Series champion, Breazeale was just a diehard Kyle Busch fan who, as told by her friends, would knock down walls to meet the No. 18 driver.

No destruction was necessary when Busch pulled up right next Breazeale in traffic after the Joe Gibbs Racing driver swept the weekend at Martinsville Speedway, winning both the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series and Sprint Cup Series races.

RELATED: Watch the video


After the video went viral, Kyle and Samantha Busch invited Breazeale and her friends to spend the weekend with the No. 18 crew at “The Last Great Colosseum,” which is Breazeale’s first trip to the short track.

“Ever since we’ve got here, everybody has just been so nice,” Breazeale told NASCAR.com on Saturday. “Every part of his crew has just gone out of their way … They’ve let us sit out here with the team the whole time, stand with him while he does the Pledge of Allegiance, national anthem and all that stuff.”

This was just Day 1 at the track for Breazeale, who plans on participating in more interviews and events before Sunday’s Food City 500 (1 p.m. ET, FOX, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

“I didn’t even have anything planned today with him,” Breazeale said. “I have a certain time to be with him tomorrow … but today when he got out of the car after practice I was standing at his trailer and I was like, ‘What’s up?’ and he did like I did in the video, started freaking out and was like, ‘You’re awesome’ and gave me a high five.”

Breazeale has gotten an outpouring of attention since the video was posted, but what she’s most proud of is what it’s done for her favorite driver.

“What’s so awesome to me, is that people who didn’t like him (Kyle Busch) before or didn’t realize how exciting NASCAR can be, they saw that and they saw how someone can be that excited about it,” Breazeale said.

“People that didn’t like Kyle before, they’re like, ‘Wow, he’s a good guy.’ So I think he gained some fans out it.”