The following are team press releases previewing the Goody’s Headache Relief Shot 500 at Martinsville Speedway (1:15 p.m. ET, Sunday, NBCSN, MRN, SiriusXM).
Joe Gibbs Racing:
Kyle Busch | Team preview
Carl Edwards | Team preview
Stewart-Haas Racing:
Kevin Harvick | Team preview
Kurt Busch | Team preview
Hendrick Motorsports:
Jeff Gordon | Team preview
RELATED: Full schedule for Martinsville weekend
Stewart-Haas Racing announced on Friday at Martinsville Speedway that TaxAct has signed a multi-year extension with Danica Patrick and will continue to serve as a primary sponsor for her No. 10 team.
Coming just a few days after the release of next year’s schedule, TaxAct has signed on for four races as primary sponsor in 2016. It will also be an associate sponsor in all other races.
“Working with TaxAct has been great and I’m proud to continue this relationship for years to come,” Patrick said in a team release. “TaxAct offers a terrific product that empowers people to take the wheel by giving them ownership of their taxes.”
TaxAct sponsored three races for Patrick during the 2015 Sprint Cup Series season, including March’s Martinsville race in which Patrick finished seventh, her best result of the year. The other two were for the Sprint Unlimited exhibition at Daytona and April’s race at Texas Motor Speedway.
Meanwhile, Patrick is looking for another top-10 finish at Martinsville with this Sunday’s Goody’s Headache Relief Shot 500 at 1:15 p.m. ET (NBCSN, MRN, Sirius XM).
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PLAY NOW: Play The Chase Grid Battle Game Powered by Bing
This weekend marks the first race of the Eliminator Round and pressure is on for the remaining eight drivers who will be battling it out for top spots on the leaderboard. With points now reset back to 4,000 for each contender, it will be an even playing field at Martinsville Speedway.
Fans have been participating throughout the exciting NASCAR playoffs with The Chase Grid Battle Powered by Bing and Bing Predicts. This interactive game allows spectators to follow the races live, selecting drivers they think will advance to the next round. Lineups are scored based on finishing order and correct selections. When selecting yours, we show you inline the Bing Predicts probabilities of drivers advancing. Each race is scored so participants are encouraged to set a lineup each round and check back each week to see the results.
The Eliminator Round is the last chance to join in on the fun and make your picks for the final four before the championship race at Homestead-Miami Speedway. New entries will be accepted until Sunday, Nov. 1 at 1:15 p.m. ET, right before the green flag for the Goody’s Headache Relief Shot 500 (NBCSN, MRN, SiriusXM).
New participants can still win Eliminator and Championship Round prizes and can register for the game here and, with the help from Bing Predicts, attempt to make the perfect picks.
The drivers still in the fight for the coveted trophy are: Joey Logano, Carl Edwards, Jeff Gordon, Kurt Busch, Brad Keselowski, Martin Truex Jr., Kevin Harvick and Kyle Busch.
MARTINSVILLE, Va. — Jeb Burton will return to the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series next weekend, driving the JR Motorsports No. 00 Chevrolet at Texas Motor Speedway.
Burton, a Sunoco Rookie of the Year candidate in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, talked Friday at Martinsville Speedway about the ride. A formal announcement is expected Monday.
Burton, 23, will become the fifth Sprint Cup regular to fill the seat in the No. 00, joining Kevin Harvick, Kasey Kahne, Alex Bowman and Kyle Larson — all of whom have one truck series start each for JRM. Primary driver Cole Custer, a NASCAR Next product, has fielded the part-time entry in eight races.
Burton was quick to thank JRM team principals Joe Custer, Gene Haas, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Kelley Earnhardt Miller and L.W. Miller for the opportunity, which comes at the site of his first NASCAR national series victory — in the truck tour in 2013.
“It’s been a great place for me in the trucks,” Burton said. “We’ve got a pole there, a win and a second, so I’ve always been good there. I just went and talked to Cole and them and they’re pumped up to have me in the truck. I went by the shop and (crew chief) Joe Shear, and all of them are pumped up. Those guys work very hard. Kasey won in it and Larson had a really good showing in Chicago, so the truck’s really fast and hopefully we can go Thursday, have a good practice and try to be fast all weekend.”
Custer has been limited to tracks of 1.25 miles and shorter because of NASCAR’s minimum age requirement, but that restriction will be lifted after he turns 18 next January in advance of a full-time truck campaign for JRM in 2016. Burton is the latest in a series of Sprint Cup regulars helping the team to gather data and experience to help Custer make the full-time leap next season.
“Cole’s always been really fast, and I’ve been right there with him,” Burton said. “Hopefully we can help him get a notebook. I think their mile-and-a-half stuff’s already there, but they just want to make sure one more time.”
MARTINSVILLE, Va. — Bobby Pierce has made countless dirt-track starts in his career, thanks to the barnstorming nature of Late Model racing. But when asked how many appearances he’s made on paved speedways, the answer is also countless, but in a quizzical way.
“About four to five races,” Pierce says with a half-grin, recalling his handful of trips to asphalt tracks.
Pierce, best remembered among the NASCAR crowd for his dirt-slinging performance this summer at Eldora Speedway, will attempt to change his answer to “about five or six” with his first NASCAR Camping World Truck Series start on asphalt in Saturday’s Kroger 200 (1:30 p.m. ET, FOX Sports 1, MRN, SiriusXM). He got his first taste of racing trucks on pavement in Friday’s two practices, placing 30th and 29th on the afternoon leaderboards.
“It’s completely different, especially for a dirt driver,” Pierce said after Friday’s first practice session. “There’s just a lot of things that you’re kind of molded into that you’ve got to throw out the window. I’m just trying to take all those experiences that I’ve had in other asphalt cars and apply it to this.”
Pierce first wowed NASCAR fans on Eldora’s dirt half-mile, taking his tattered No. 63 truck to a hard-fought, second-place finish in his series debut behind eventual winner Christopher Bell. He led 39 of 154 laps for underdog MB Motorsports, handing team owner Mike Mittler his best finish in his two decades in the series.
The 18-year-old Pierce — a native of Oakwood, Illinois — said he still has the race saved on his DVR for the sake of posterity. Though he didn’t hoist the golden shovel in Victory Lane, his feverish battle with Bell down the stretch raised the profile for both himself and the team.
“I don’t know, though — finishing second in a Truck race whether it’s dirt or asphalt, it’s still a NASCAR truck race and when I was a little kid, you dreamed of doing stuff like this,” Pierce said. “I don’t think it’ll really ever sink in to the full potential that it can, but I’ll try.”
For Mittler, it was only natural that he would turn again to the driver who nearly snared the MB organization’s first victory.
“That’s exactly what the feeling is with us that a guy that can drive, he can drive and it doesn’t matter if it’s dirt or asphalt,” Mittler said. “Did we have the home-track advantage at Eldora? Sure we did. He’s got tons of dirt experience, been driving dirt since he could almost walk, so we knew. We had no delusions that we were going to come here and run top-five right off the bat. By the end of the race, he’ll be good. I know he will be. Experience is all it is.”
The spotlight has shown brightly on Eldora in its three-year affiliation with NASCAR, but at Martinsville, Pierce has a chance to grab more time in the public eye on a shared stage with the Sprint Cup Series. It’s the next step toward potentially extending his relationship with MB Motorsports in 2016, a partnership Mittler hopes can continue.
“There’s nothing firm yet, but we’re absolutely looking at what the options are and we really like Bobby, his family, Bob and Angie,” Mittler said. “Just a great, great group of people who come from a parallel background in the Midwest with us — a hard-working family race team, so there’s just a lot of synergy between us. If we can figure out how to make it work, we’re going to do it.”
MARTINSVILLE, Va. — One of NASCAR’s tightest race tracks just got safer, but also that much tighter. Whether it affects the seventh race in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup playoffs is an answer that will have to wait until Sunday.
Thanks to Martinsville Speedway‘s midseason safety renovations, energy-absorbing SAFER (Steel and Foam Energy Reduction) barrier now encircles the entire outside retaining wall at the .526-mile track. It follows a recent trend of additions at International Speedway Corp.-owned tracks, including Talladega and Phoenix.
The only areas where SAFER does not cover the concrete are on the inside wall in the turns, beyond the curbing and the slivers of infield grass. But the exterior SAFER protection — which juts out roughly 30 inches from the original wall — has made an already snug paper-clip circuit even cozier.
“First of all, we appreciate the SAFER barriers, that’s good. The fans should appreciate it because it’s going to make it more narrow than it was,” said Carl Edwards, one of eight drivers still alive in the Chase’s Eliminator Round. “It seems driving down the straightaway trying to pass cars even in practice, it just seems really tight. As narrow and tough as this place was, it’s just going to be narrower and tougher.”
Sprint Cup and NASCAR Camping World Truck Series teams didn’t spend much time double-file during Friday’s practice and qualifying, so the full extent of the makeover may not yet be known until Sunday’s Goody’s Headache Relief Shot 500 (1:15 p.m. ET, NBCSN, MRN, SiriusXM).
“I don’t think you can tell a difference on the exit of the corner, but once you get down the straightaways, you can see people scrape the wall halfway down the straightaways just trying to get their entry opened up,” Kyle Larson said. “It’s not too terribly different. I mean, this track’s tight anyway.”
Timothy Peters , last week’s Truck Series winner at Talladega, tried out the track’s new configuration two weeks ago during Martinsville’s annual 300-lap Late Model race, finishing fourth as he crashed across the finish line in a last-lap bid for the lead. Peters made contact with the SAFER-protected inside wall, but didn’t notice a significant difference in racing with a tighter groove.
“The Late Model and the trucks are a little bit different — less horsepower and stuff — you don’t use much of the race track,” Peters said. “When I get in my truck this afternoon, I’ll be able to tell a little bit more with our Tundra. As far as the Late Model, I didn’t even notice it. I tested it out, but I didn’t notice it.”
RELATED: Sunday’s full lineup
MARTINSVILLE, Va. — At NASCAR Sprint Cup racing’s shortest track, Joey Logano‘s torrid run just got longer.
The winner of three straight races — constituting a sweep of the Contender Round of the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup — Logano toured .526-mile Martinsville Speedway in 19.215 seconds (98.548 mph) in the final round of Friday’s knockout qualifying session to win the pole for Sunday’s Goody’s Headache Relief Shot 500 (1:15 p.m. ET on NBCSN).
Driving the No. 22 Team Penske Ford, Logano edged fellow Chase driver Martin Truex Jr. (98.487 mph) by .012 seconds in the race for the top starting spot for the first race in the Chase’s Eliminator Round.
The Coors Light Pole Award was Logano’s second at the paperclip-shaped speedway, the first one having come in March of this year. It was the 14th pole of his career, six of which have come in 2015, and it earned Logano a significant benefit above and beyond the top spot on the grid.
Logano will also get the first pit stall (closest to the exit from pit road at the start of the backstretch). There is no other track on the Sprint Cup tour where pit stall No. 1 is more valuable.
“It’s an amazing run we’re on right now,” Logano said. “This Shell-Pennzoil team is unbelievable. I’m just the lucky guy that gets to drive this thing right now.
“It’s so much fun. We’re doing everything right, right now, but all that can end in a blink of an eye, so we’ve got to keep our focus. Starting first here — anywhere here at Martinsville pays a lot bigger than most race tracks. Having a great pit stall and staying up towards front — as well as keeping your fenders on the car is important. I couldn’t be more proud of these guys as I am right now.”
AJ Allmendinger (98.068 mph) led a pair of non-Chasers on the second row. He’ll start to the inside of Jamie McMurray (98.007 mph). Eight-time Martinsville winner Jeff Gordon qualified fifth at 97.896 mph, followed by fellow Chase driver Kyle Busch (97.850 mph).
“I don’t think anybody had a shot at Joey, really,” said Gordon, who is retiring from the No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet at the end of the season. “He’s in a league of his own and he has been here, qualifying all year. But we wanted to make a big effort at it and I felt like we did.
“The first two rounds went exactly as planned, and it didn’t feel too bad there (in round 3), but just lacked a little bit of speed. When you go to three rounds, it really changes things dramatically, trying to save tires and see how hard you can push it and keeping up with the balance. I thought we executed really well and came up a little bit short.”
Ryan Newman, Aric Almirola, Kyle Larson, Denny Hamlin, Brad Keselowski and reigning champion Kevin Harvick will start from positions seven through 12, respectively.
Two Chase drivers failed to crack the top 12 — Carl Edwards (14th) and Kurt Busch (15th).
“I just wasn’t fast enough the very first run, so I put a run on the tires and got us a cycle behind everyone,” Edwards said. “It’s okay — we’re going to be just fine. I think in my history of qualifying here, this is still about 10 spots better than normal.
“We have a fast pit crew, the car is a lot better than it was in practice … and I’m going to have some fun on Sunday.”
On his fourth lap of the first knockout round, Kasey Kahne wheel-hopped his No. 5 Chevrolet into the Turn 1 wall and was forced to resort to a backup car — a ticket to the rear of the field for the start of Sunday’s race.
Keselowski also scraped the outside wall in the first round but managed to squeeze into 12th place in the second and improved to 11th in the money round.
RELATED: Buy tickets for Homestead
MIAMI — This November, legendary, Grammy award-winning singer, songwriter and actor Tim McGraw will be “on top of the world” with a brand new album, Damn Country Music, and a special live performance at Homestead-Miami Speedway on Sunday, Nov. 22 prior to the Ford EcoBoost 400, the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series championship finale.
The three-time Grammy Award winner will be a highlight of Ford Championship Weekend, with part of his live performance featured on Countdown to Green on NBC Sports Network, which begins at 1:30 p.m. ET. The Ford EcoBoost 400, which marks the final event of the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup, will air on NBC at 3 p.m. ET, and be broadcast internationally to more than 200 countries in 24 languages.
McGraw will release his fourteenth studio album, Damn Country Music, on November 6. Eleven of his albums have debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Country Album chart, and he has sold more than 40 million albums. In addition, he has had 36 number singles reach No. 1 on the country radio charts. McGraw has won three Grammy Awards, 14 Academy of Country Music Awards, 11 Country Music Association Awards, 10 American Music Awards and three People’s Choice Awards, the most recent in 2014 for “Country Music Icon.”
“We couldn’t be more excited to bring Tim McGraw to Homestead-Miami Speedway and South Florida to kick off the championship finale, the Ford EcoBoost 400,” Homestead-Miami Speedway President Matthew Becherer said. “Tim McGraw is a legend in the country music industry, and this is the perfect way to get things revved-up for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series championship race. We are really looking forward to his special performance and know the fans will be as well.”
Homestead-Miami Speedway and McGraw will also be teaming up to create exclusive ticket packages offered for the 2015 Ford Championship Weekend (November 20-22). For $145, fans can purchase a ticket package that includes a ticket to the Ford EcoBoost 400 on Sunday, November 22, a Pre-Race Pit Pass to be down on the fronstretch and up-close for the live performance, and an album download of McGraw’s brand new album, Damn Country Music.
Fans who have already purchased tickets to the Ford EcoBoost 400 can also take advantage of this exclusive offer, by purchasing a Pre-Race Pit Pass to watch the performance up-close and album download of Damn Country Music for $85.
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!
What a weekend! Our team worked hard to get to the front at Talladega and it was amazing to walk away with another win. Our goal is to keep winning and keep our No. 22 in victory lane. As always, thank you for your support!
This Week’s Cause: Domestic Violence
This is our final week for raising awareness about domestic violence. I hope I have shared some information that can help individuals or families facing this issue.
Last week, we focused on the effects domestic violence can have, especially on children. For this week’s blog, I want to talk some about a topic that has been given more attention in recent years — animal abuse and its link to domestic violence. In recent years, researchers have been studying and documenting a stronger correlation between animal abuse and domestic violence.
According to the ASPCA, a study of 11 cities showed pet abuse to be a significant indicator of who is at risk for domestic abuse. It makes sense. If someone can harm a living animal, they should be looked at for potential acts of violence against people. Additional information from the site included:
• Batterers who also abuse pets are more dangerous and use more violent and controlling behaviors than those who do not harm animals.
• In Wisconsin, 68 percent of battered women revealed that abusive partners had also been violent toward pets or livestock; more than three-quarters of these cases occurred in the presence of the women and/or children to intimidate and control them.
• Children who are exposed to domestic violence were three times more likely to be cruel to animals.
• The Chicago Police Department found that approximately 30 percent of individuals arrested for dog fighting and animal abuse had domestic violence charges on their records. (https://www.aspca.org/fight-cruelty/report-animal-cruelty/domestic-violence-and-animal-cruelty)
Most of you know that Brittany and I are huge animal lovers. We treat our animals like family and are extremely attached to them. It’s hard to think about how abusers use intimidation tactics like threatening to kill the animal if their partner leaves them or battering an animal to force someone to stay. It causes victims of domestic violence to remain in abusive and sometimes deadly relationships because they are afraid something will happen to their beloved animal.
An incident of animal abuse can tell law enforcement a lot about potential for additional abuse in the family. Knowing the correlation between animal abuse and domestic abuse is extremely strong, law enforcement have an opportunity to ask additional questions when called out for an animal abuse case. They could discover a much bigger issue with the right questions.
It is imperative that first responders understand the connection between animal abuse and family violence. When responding to domestic calls it is imperative to be alert for signs that children and/or pets might be victimized.
This Week’s Joey Logano Foundation Chasing Second Chances Partner
This week’s charity partner as we head to Martinsville is Citizens Against Family Violence.
Citizens Against Family Violence is a leader in the fight against domestic violence, sexual violence and homelessness. They are the only organization that provides services to victims/survivors in Martinsville, Henry County, and Patrick County that provides post-emergency assistance and support programs.
Citizens Against Family Violence is able to make positive changes in the communities and to work toward putting an end to domestic violence through charitable donations by people like you. Your tax-deductible contribution will be used to support our programs that assist victims and survivors of domestic violence.
The Joey Logano Foundation is honored to support this organization and help the women and children that find help through the shelter. Chasing Second Chances will be providing a grant to fund the construction of a new roof. Thank you Citizens Against Family Violence for being a leader in the fight against domestic violence in your community.
RELATED: Updated series standings
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Jeff Gordon is proud of what his team has accomplished this year, even though among those accomplishments is a string of 32 races without a win.
Not exactly the type of thing you want to tout heading into the final four races of NASCAR’s Sprint Cup Series season.
Fortunately for the 44-year-old, coming soon to a NASCAR on FOX TV booth near you, that lack of success didn’t keep him out of this year’s Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup, and it didn’t keep him from advancing through two three-race elimination rounds.
Survive the next round and the Hendrick Motorsports driver will find himself going for a fifth title, his first under the current Chase format, and the opportunity to literally go out on top.
But that’s down the road, something Gordon will talk about but doesn’t dwell on in the here and now. Sunday’s Goody’s Headache Relief Shot 500 currently has the attention of the driver and his No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports team.
“Obviously we’re focused on Martinsville right now being the next race,” Gordon said Tuesday, arriving at the NASCAR Hall of Fame fresh out of a sit-down with crew chief Alan Gustafson and his band of engineers.
The talk on the HMS campus was of the team’s recent efforts, what’s working and what isn’t, as well as how the last outing at the .526-mile track went earlier in the spring (he led 21 laps and finished ninth). An eight-time winner at Martinsville, Gordon saw a potential victory slip from his grasp when he was penalized for speeding on pit road, a violation that took him from the front of the field (he had led the previous 20 laps) to the end of the longest line.
“We qualified pretty well there, but that number one pit stall is so huge and we want that thing bad,” Gordon said of Martinsville.
“At the end of that race, other than having the issue on pit road where I was trying to jump into my box, got caught speeding, trying to execute that a little bit better, but also get ourselves in a position at the end, I think we have a shot at winning this race.”
Winning races hasn’t been an issue for Gordon for much of his career. He has more victories (92) than any other active driver and more than all but two of the inactive ones (Richard Petty, 200; David Pearson, 105). Yet it’s been more than a year since his last win. The last time he went 0-for-the season was 2010.
Making this year’s Chase wasn’t a problem — his team was consistent enough to finish among the top 16. Advancing was a tougher nut to crack, especially the most recent round that included Charlotte, Kansas and the daunting Talladega.
“This past round was the one I was most nervous about,” he admitted. “Two mile-and-a-half tracks that have rock-hard tires. That does not suit me. I want a tire that falls off, that wears out, that slips and slides around. That was not Kansas or Charlotte.
“Then Talladega, I mean, I can’t remember the last time I finished a race at Talladega with a car in one piece, or a restrictor plate track for that matter.
“So, yeah, I didn’t have a tremendous amount of confidence. But I had a lot of confidence in our team, what we were capable of in the way that we’ve been going about it. I keep saying ‘grinding it out.’ If you analyzed the races the way we analyze our races, you have no idea how much we’ve had to fight for those finishes.”
There’s still time, he said, for additional trophies and a shot at the title. Martinsville, where he last won in 2013, Texas (where he has 13 top 10s) and Phoenix (three straight top-10 runs including a runner-up last fall) stand between Gordon and a ticket to Homestead.
If others don’t see he and his team as a threat, that’s OK. Gordon understands how such assumptions can be made.
“We have not shown the strength that other teams have that are still in (the Chase),” he said. “We’ve not been the dominant cars and team.
I hope after this round that changes. … But up to this point we’re definitely the underdog.”
Perhaps, but Martinsville begins another round and another set of opportunities.
“One thing that we’ve done so well that I think will continue no matter what, because it’s just this team, is we never stop fighting and grinding,” he said. “That’s what we’ve had to do. Now we’re just in that mode. … We seem to really do a great job being consistent and getting the best finish. That’s what we’ve been certainly doing in the Chase.
“If we do that for three more weeks,” he said, “I think we make it to Homestead.”
