Posted on by Reid Spencer

MORE: See all 43 cars for Sunday’s race | Complete lineup for Sunday

FORT WORTH, Texas—As a driver who likely must win one of the next two races to keep his NASCAR Sprint Cup Series title prospects alive, Brad Keselowski took a giant step in the right direction during Friday’s knockout qualifying session at Texas Motor Speedway.
 
The 2012 series champion covered the 1.5-mile distance at a speed of 196.929 mph in the money round to win the pole for Sunday’s AAA Texas 500 (2 p.m. ET on NBC/Live Extra, PRN, SiriusXM), the second of three races in the Eliminator Round of the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup.
 
The Coors Light Pole Award was Keselowski’s first at Texas, his third of the season and the 11th of his career. It was also the third pole in the last four races for Team Penske.
 
The driver of the No. 2 Ford posted the fastest time in each of the three knockout rounds. Kevin Harvick (195.993 mph) qualified second, followed by Kyle Busch (195.716 mph) and Joey Logano (195.419 mph), as Chase drivers claimed the top four spots on the grid.
 
However, Keselowski and Logano, embroiled in catastrophe and controversy last week at Martinsville Speedway, are on decidedly different agendas from those of Busch and Harvick, who are tied for second and fourth, respectively, in the Chase standings.
 
“This is a good start, but our ultimate goal is to be the fastest at the end of the race on Sunday,” Keselowski said. “It’s a good start, and it gets us up front with a great pit stall, and hopefully we can make the most of it.
 
“I’m pumped about this race. Track position is important everywhere, and here isn’t as much as maybe a few others, because the track wears out, and you see some comers and goers with the way the track wears out—but we will still take it.”
 
Keselowski and Penske teammate Logano are sixth and eighth, respectively, among the eight drivers still eligible for the championship.
 
“I think, if you’re not in the top five right now, you’re in a must-win situation,” Keselowski said. “Thankfully, we started out in the right situation with being fast. We feel like we’ll be really strong next week at Phoenix as well.
 
“So all signs point to us having a very strong opportunity to win one of the next two.”
 
Non-chase drivers took the fifth and sixth starting spots, with Kyle Larson qualifying on the inside of the third row and Erik Jones, subbing for suspended Matt Kenseth, grabbing the sixth position on the grid. Kenseth must sit out the next two races for wrecking Logano last Sunday at Martinsville.
 
“Sixth is a really good effort for us,” Jones said. “We made the final round at Kansas as well (in relief of injured Kyle Busch in May), so it’s cool to make the final round in both our starts.
 
“We’ll see where it goes from here. Obviously we’ve got a long ways to go yet for Sunday—500 miles. This definitely helps everybody’s confidence a little bit for that.”
 
Kurt Busch, who also needs a win to stay in the Sprint Cup title hunt, will start seventh. Chase driver Carl Edwards qualified 13th, missing the cutoff for the final round by .004 seconds.
 
Jeff Gordon, who secured a spot in the Nov. 22 Championship Round race at Homestead-Miami Speedway by winning at Martinsville, will start 18th. Martin Truex Jr. will take the green flag from the deepest position in the field among Chase drivers—23rd.
 
Danica Patrick posted a season-best 11th-place qualifying effort.

Posted on by Pat DeCola

RELATED: Kenseth’s suspension upheld on final appeal

FORT WORTH, Texas — With so much conversation surrounding the Matt Kenseth/Joey Logano debacle this week, one term that continues to be thrown around is “driver code.”

Certainly a subjective concept, driver code is interpreted differently from driver to driver, a gray area not unlike baseball’s “unwritten rules.”

The complexity hasn’t cleared up much for Kenseth’s Joe Gibbs Racing teammate, Carl Edwards.

“Not really, no. I don’t know what it all means,” Edwards said Friday at Texas Motor Speedway, site of Sunday’s AAA Texas 500 (2 p.m. ET, NBC/Live Extra, PRN, SiriusXM) “… There’s so many factors in this situation with so many different things happening, it’s really difficult to line it all up and say, ‘Okay, this is why this happened and this is how to proceed going forward.’ It seems pretty complex. I’m just going to focus on my deal and we’ll move on.”

RELATED: Hamlin says Kenseth upheld ‘driver code’

While driver code may still not be the clearest of pictures for Edwards — or any one else on the track or around it, for that matter — he did get his first lesson in it about a decade ago from a potential future NASCAR Hall of Famer.

His hero — Mark Martin.

“Mark Martin, very early on … we were racing at Bristol in 2004 maybe or 2005, and Mark is a mentor of mine, he is one of my heroes and helped me a ton in my career and during that race he ran into the back of my car — it was all I could do to not wreck,” Edwards recalled.

“At the time, I wondered what happened and didn’t know what was going on. On Monday, I called him, ‘Hey Mark.’ He said, ‘Hey Carl.’ I said, ‘Remember that race when you ran into the back of me and I didn’t know if there was something that I needed to know there?’ He said, ‘No, for the last few races you’ve been racing me hard and I thought you were taking a little more and I just figured if that’s how you want to race, that’s how you want to race.’ I was like, ‘Whoa, no I don’t want to race like that.’ He said, ‘Okay, fine then don’t and we won’t.’ ‘Okay, cool.’ He said, ‘See you next week.’ That was it.”

Perhaps the conversation was only so cordial because, you know, they were teammates at Roush Fenway Racing at the time, but it was a significant lesson that Edwards holds true and lives by to this day, as a contender for the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup.

“Car racing … everybody drives their car and you just have to do what you think is the best and what is the right thing to do at the time and all of us have done all sorts of things. Some of them were right, some of them definitely weren’t right,” said Edwards. “You just have to go out there and race everybody the way you want to be raced. In some ways you have to demand the same in return.”

Posted on by Pat DeCola

FORT WORTH, Texas — People love a good underdog story.
 
Chances are, that opening sentence made some of you reading this chant, “Rudy! Rudy!” under your breath, but what about when you’re the one being overlooked, cast aside and not given your due?
 
That’s the position Martin Truex Jr. and his No. 78 Furniture Row Racing team find themselves in — despite being third in points with three races left in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season.
 
The veteran explained that it’s a double-edged sword Friday at Texas Motor Speedway, site of Sunday’s AAA Texas 500 (2 p.m. ET, NBC, PRN, SiriusXM).
 
“There’s two sides to it. I really enjoy the underdog role; it’s really cool and I think for a lot of reasons, if you look at our race team, we are an underdog,” said Truex, who earned his Chase berth with a win in June at Pocono. “I’ve never been in a championship battle in this series. I’ve got a rookie crew chief. We’re a single-car team in Denver. There’s a lot of reasons why we do fit the mold of an underdog.


“At the same time, I get frustrated sometimes because I feel like what we’ve done this season gets overlooked and people have short memories. We were second in points in the summer and we’ve had a really good season. There’s a lot of times where I’d like my team to get a lot more credit than they have. Sometimes I’d like to get a little more credit as a driver, but at the end of the day, that’s not what really matters. What really matters is us coming out here and doing our jobs.”
 
Truex has quietly performed at a consistently high level all season. Be it his overall reserved demeanor or ability to stay out of the dramatic spotlight some of the other high-profile drivers have found themselves in, Truex’s name doesn’t seem to be mentioned as often as the rest of the front of the pack, despite the fact he’s performed better than most of it.
 
Especially when it comes to title talk, Truex is all but forgotten from the general conversation. It’s odd, because at this point with a trio of races left, the New Jersey native’s stats — one win, eight top fives and 21 top 10s — eclipse those of 2014 Ryan Newman, who finished second at Homestead and nearly took home his first title.
 
Truex has managed an average finish of 9.0 during the Chase — for comparison, three-time 2015 Chase winner Joey Logano‘s is 8.43 — but next to nobody is deeming the 78 team title-worthy.
 
Even The Chase Grid Battle Powered by Bing forecasts he’d be out of contention before the Eliminator Round, and only 59 percent of Chase Grid Battle players that made picks for Homestead have him advancing. Yet here we are.

Still, Truex is determined to improve on his finishes.
 
“I don’t think it’s good enough. I think we’ll need to improve for sure, unless we have some crazy stuff happen again in the next two weeks, which is highly unlikely,” Truex said. “I think, for us, I don’t think ninth will be good enough. I also think almost every race in the Chase besides Martinsville and Talladega, we’ve run better than we’ve finished and we need to change that. If we can finish the way we’ve been running, I think we’ll be in good shape. Texas and Phoenix are two good tracks for us. We tested out in Phoenix a month or so ago and we were really fast.
 
“For us, it’s really all about our expectations of ourselves and we’re going to be disappointed if we don’t perform at the level we know we’re capable of. We’ve got three to go and we’ll see what happens. We’re having fun with it and hopefully we can get the job done to the best of our abilities.”

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RELATED: Kenseth’s suspension upheld

Today the National Motorsports Final Appeals Officer, Mr. Bryan Moss, heard and considered the appeal of a Behavioral Penalty issued on Nov. 3, 2015 to Matt Kenseth (driver) relative to NASCAR Sprint Cup Series vehicle #20 at Martinsville Speedway.
 
The penalty concerns the following sections in the 2015 NASCAR Rule Book: Sections 12.1 and 12.8.
 
The original penalty assessed included suspension from NASCAR until the completion of the next two NASCAR Sprint Cup Series events and placed on NASCAR probation for six months following the issuance of the Penalty Notice.
 
Earlier today, a three-person National Motorsports Appeals Panel heard the appeal and made the following decisions:
 
1. The Appellant violated the rules set forth in the Penalty notice;
2. The Panel affirms and upholds the original Penalty levied by NASCAR.
 
Upon hearing this afternoon’s testimony, the National Motorsports Final Appeals Officer made the following decisions:
 
1. The Appellant violated the Rules set forth in the Penalty Notice;
2. The Penalty is amended to: “Suspended from NASCAR until the completion of the next two NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Championship Events. Placed on NASCAR probation through December 31, 2015.”
 
The decision of the National Motorsports Final Appeals Officer is final and binding on all parties.

Posted on by

RELATED: Panel upholds Kenseth suspension



The National Motorsports Appeals Panel today heard and considered the appeal of a Behavioral Penalty issued on Nov. 3 to Matt Kenseth (driver) relative to NASCAR Sprint Cup Series vehicle No. 20 at Martinsville Speedway.



The penalty concerns the following sections in the 2015 NASCAR Rule Book: Sections 12.1 and 12.8.



The original penalty assessed included suspension from NASCAR until the completion of the next two NASCAR Sprint Cup Series events and placed on NASCAR probation for six months following the issuance of the Penalty Notice.



Upon hearing the testimony, the decisions of the National Motorsports Appeals Panel are:

1. The Appellant violated the rules set forth in the Penalty notice;

2. The Panel affirms and upholds the original Penalty levied by NASCAR.



The panel consisted of the following three individuals:

Mr. Ken Clapp

Mr. Bill Mullis

Mr. Dale Pinilis



The Appellant has chosen to appeal the decision of the National Motorsports Appeals Panel to the National Motorsports Final Appeals Officer in accordance with Section 15 of the NASCAR Rule Book. The appeal will begin at 1 p.m. ET.

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Editor’s note: During each week of the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup, The Joey Logano Foundation will provide grants to a non-profit in each of the race markets in a program called “Chasing Second Chances.” Each week, Logano will detail those plans for NASCAR.com.

 

Hey everyone!

I appreciate the words of encouragement a lot of you have been sending. Our #22 team is looking ahead and focused on what we need to do in order to secure our place in the championship. We will keep fighting.

This Week’s Cause: Cancer Awareness

The month of November has a variety of awareness causes focusing on cancer. It includes lung, pancreatic and stomach cancer to name a few. With all the different cancer awareness causes in the same month, we decided that Chasing Second Chances would focus on a couple organizations helping individuals fighting all types of cancer.

For this blog post, I wanted to talk about something that is really important, especially as I look at the organizations Chasing Second Chances is helping this month and the issues they are addressing. I want to talk about perspective.

By nature, I am a positive guy. I smile and laugh a lot. It doesn’t mean that I don’t get frustrated or down at times, but I’m usually able to find positive out of most situations thanks to my amazing wife, loyal fans, and a team that believes in me.

I hear a lot of stories of people battling cancer, finding themselves unable to pay their mortgages or at risk of losing a job because they are too sick to work.  Sometimes the simple tasks of daily life that you and I take for granted become to tiring to accomplish. I won’t take for granted all that I have been blessed with. It is not fair to those fighters who battle for their lives daily; who battle for the strength to care for their children or go for a simple walk outside to not keep things in perspective. I hope my foundation’s support this month will offer encouragement and assistance needed to get these individuals and their families through the challenges they face.
    

This Week’s Joey Logano Foundation Chasing Second Chances Partner

This week, Chasing Second Chances is supporting Cancer Care Services out of Fort Worth, Texas. Their mission is to provide help and hope to cancer patients, survivors, their families and caregivers through direct financial, emotional, spiritual and social programs, services and activities.

You can learn more about them through this video: http://bit.ly/1M7jKqR

Cancer Care Services provides support to anyone impacted by cancer living in Tarrant, Parker or Hood counties. The services they provide include:

·  Financial assistance for qualifying cancer patients:  Cancer prescriptions, food supplements, medical equipment, supplies, transportation reimbursements, COBRA insurance payments, dental assistance and emergency funds;

·  Emotional support for everyone: Free one-on-one family or group counseling, general or specialized support groups;

·  Social support for everyone: Free yoga, massage therapy, children’s day camp, art therapy, music therapy, children’s play expression, educational seminars and other seasonal social activities;

·  Spiritual support for everyone: Free, one-on-one counseling and support groups.

Through our gift of support, the Joey Logano Foundation hopes individuals and families seeking assistance will find comfort in a scary and many times overwhelming situation. We are proud to support this organization and the work they do to make the community a better place.

Posted on by Staff Report

Matt Kenseth:

“Really, I just want to. … I appreciate them having the process and going here, didn’t turn out like we wanted. Obviously, I’m more than a little disappointed with the decision and the penalties to start with. A couple of facts, which I’m sure you guys will find — I’m the first driver in the 65-year history of NASCAR to get suspended for an incident that happened in the Sprint Cup Series race, so I feel like I was unfairly made the example instead of knowing where the line is, what the penalties are.



Like I said, I’m extremely disappointed but we’ll get through this. Look forward to going to Homestead. I’m not going to change who I am. I’m not going to change what I stand for. I’m not going to change how I race. I’ve been in this business for a long time. I feel like I’ve had a pretty good career to this point, and I feel like I’m going to continue to have the respect on the race track that I feel like I deserve. So I’m looking forward to going to Homestead, hopefully going there and getting a win before the year is out.”



Joe Gibbs Racing team owner Joe Gibbs:

“I think all of us right now are just so disappointed. I just wanted to say, that guy right there has spent 20 years in this sport. He had one other minor infraction, I think it was a $5,000 fine. He has spent 20 years of his life racing in this sport and he’s been great for NASCAR. Our reason for appealing is we felt like this penalty was kind of unprecedented and it was inconsistent with a number of other on-track incidents. One of those is exactly like this one, and yet this penalty against Matt is an unprecedented one. I appreciate getting the chance to go through this process. I think we’ve done all we can do, and we’re going to go back to racing.”

Posted on by Staff Report

Photo credits: KLTV.com

The weekend for the No. 46 HScott Motorsports team heading to Texas Motor Speedway started off in a surprising manner after their hauler caught fire en route to the track on Thursday.

 

 

 

 

Michael Dennis Smith, who was driving the trailer on Interstate 20, told KLTV 7 TV, an ABC affiliate in East Texas, that he and a passenger did not suffer any injuries from the event. Smith was hauling two NASCAR stock cars in preparation for the racing weekend at Texas.

 

Officers responded to the scene, closing down traffic on the westbound side of the highway, according to KLTV 7.

 

Michael Annett is scheduled to race the No. 46 Chevrolet in Sunday’s Sprint Cup Series AAA Texas 500 (2 p.m. ET, NBC, PRN, SiriusXM). HScott Motorsports ensured fans, via Twitter, that this would not affect the team’s on-track plans.

 

 

UPDATE: On Friday, the 46 team went to work transforming Justin Allgaier‘s backup car into Annett’s ride for Texas.

Annett also took to Twitter over the weekend to take his team, Allgaier and BK Racing for their help.

Posted on by Staff Report

MORE: Kenseth’s suspension upheld | Kenseth, Gibbs discuss final penalty


Erik Jones will drive for the suspended Matt Kenseth in the No. 20 Toyota in Sunday’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Series AAA Texas 500 (2 p.m. ET, NBC, PRN, SiriusXM) at Texas Motor Speedway, according to a Joe Gibbs Racing official.

A series of appeals of Kenseth’s two-race suspension were heard on Thursday in Concord, North Carolina. Ultimately, the two-race suspension was upheld.

Jones is also on the entry list for the Quicken Loans Race for Heroes 500 at Phoenix International Raceway next weekend (Nov. 15, 2:30 p.m. ET, NBC, MRN, SiriusXM).

RELATED: Entry list for Phoenix

Jones, 19, filled in for Denny Hamlin (in the No. 11 Toyota) in the Bristol spring race in April when neck spasms flared up for Hamlin during a lengthy weather delay at the 0.533-mile track. Jones made his first Sprint Cup start in May at Kansas for the injured Kyle Busch (in the No. 18 Toyota) and was enjoying a nice run until an accident on Lap 196 sent him to a 40th-place finish.

RELATED: Jones discusses busy weekend

With this addition to the schedule, Texas will be a tripleheader weekend for Jones. The points leader in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series will race Friday night in the WinStar World Casino 350 (8:30 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN, SiriusXM) and will also run in the NASCAR XFINITY Series race, the O’Reilly Auto Parts Challenge (3:30 p.m. ET, NBC, PRN, SiriusXM) on Saturday afternoon as well.

This latest opportunity comes as Kenseth has been parked by NASCAR for his actions at Martinsville Speedway last weekend.

NASCAR suspended Kenseth for two races on Tuesday for his role in a crash with Joey Logano at Martinsville Sunday. The 2003 champion was also placed on probation for six months by the sanctioning body, but that was lowered to through December 31, 2015 in the appeals process. Kenseth and Logano wrecked on Lap 454 and the incident occurred as Logano was leading the race and Kenseth was several laps down.

“Based upon our extensive review, we have concluded that the No. 20 car driver, who is no longer in the Chase, intentionally wrecked the No. 22 car driver, a Chase-eligible competitor who was leading the race at the time,” Steve O’Donnell, NASCAR Executive Vice President and Chief Racing Development Officer, said in a statement announcing the suspension. “The No. 20 car was nine laps down, and eliminated the No. 22 car’s opportunity to continue to compete in the race.
 
“Additionally, we factored aspects of safety into our decision, and also the fact that the new Chase elimination format puts a premium on each and every race. These actions have no place in NASCAR.”

Logano pressured and eventually spun Kenseth in a late-race battle for the lead two weeks earlier at Kansas Speedway. Logano, having already advanced to the next round in the Chase with a win the previous week at Charlotte, continued on to victory and was unapologetic for his aggressive racing in his post-race remarks.

Posted on by Staff Report

RELATED: Practice 2 results

 

FORT WORTH, Texas — Cameron Hayley greatly improved on his finishing position from the first session (13th) to top the final session of Camping World Truck Series practice Thursday at Texas Motor Speedway.

 

The No. 13 ThorSport Racing driver topped the practice with a best speed of 179.164 mph. His opening session speed was 177.421 mph.

 

Hayley edged Jeb Burton, driving for JR Motorsports this weekend, who was second on the charts at 178.430 mph. The top five was rounded out by Ben Kennedy (178.235 mph), Spencer Gallagher (177.895 mph) and Jesse Little (177.889 mph).

 

Matt Crafton, fastest in the first session, placed 12th with a best speed of 176.171 mph. Points leader Erik Jones was right behind him at 175.844 mph to place 13th.

 

Ten minutes into the session, the caution came out after the No. 08 of Korbin Forrister began smoking heavily.

 

The Camping World Truck Series is back on track at 4:40 p.m. ET on Friday for qualifying ahead of the WinStar World Casino 350 (8:30 p.m. ET, FS1).

 

Practice 1 recap | RELATED: Practice 1 results

 

Coming off a win at Martinsville Speedway last weekend, Matt Crafton propelled his No. 88 ThorSport Racing Toyota at 179.862 mph around Texas Motor Speedway to secure the top spot on the leaderboard during Friday’s opening practice.

The reigning Camping World Truck Series champion and recorded his best lap early, wheeling his fastest speed at Lap 2. Crafton also won the Truck Series race in The Lone Star State back in June.

Joe Gibbs Racing‘s Daniel Suarez was second-fastest, posting a top speed of 179.313 mph in his No. 51 ride.

GMS Racing’s Spencer Gallagher and Brandon Jones made up positions three and four (179.235 mph and 179.063 mph, respectively), while Red Horse Racing’s Timothy Peters rounded out the top five with a fast lap of 178.962 mph.