Posted on by Nascar

RELATED: Key moments in SHR’s history

HAMPTON, Ga. — The addition of Stewart-Haas Racing to Ford in 2017 will mean an increased workload for Roush Yates Engines, the company that supplies Ford power to teams in all three of NASCAR’s national series.
 
But it means much more than the 60 or so additional engines the supplier will have to produce, according to CEO Doug Yates.
 
“For us, that’s four more top-notch cars, opportunities to win races and championships,” Yates said Saturday at Atlanta Motor Speedway. “But the work starts now because we’ve got to get ready for next year.”
 
SHR, which currently runs under the Chevrolet banner, fields four full-time Sprint Cup entries, with drivers Tony Stewart, Kevin Harvick, Kurt Busch and Danica Patrick. Clint Bowyer will take over Tony Stewart‘s No. 14 car in 2017.

RELATED: Stewart makes surprise appearance at Atlanta
 
Yates, son of famed engine builder and former team owner Robert Yates, said his company currently has approximately 250 engines in its fleet for Sprint Cup teams.
 
“We’ll start building them up but next year, with four cars will mean about 60 more engines. … Today we build about 750 Cup, XFINITY and Truck engines a year. At our road race shop we build about 250 a year. Obviously we will have to add some people. We feel like we have a good process, we just have to add volume.”
 
The benefit, he said, is it will be “a good opportunity to allow us to bring on more resources for the R&D side, more testing, more engineers. Just add depth to every department. It’s exciting.
 
“When we brought on (Team) Penske several years ago, we were not as prepared as we wanted to be … there were a lot of long nights, a lot of stress. So we’re going to try to be ahead of that.”
 
Team Penske made the move from Dodge to Ford after the 2012 season. Dodge left NASCAR on a high note; Penske driver Brad Keselowski had just won the Sprint Cup title.
 
The following year, Keselowski finished 14th and teammate Joey Logano eighth in points.
 
“We’ve never been afraid to build a lot of engines,” Yates said. “My dad and I have been in the engine business our entire lives. That part’s really not a concern. But we’re here to win races and championships, and there’s a lot of responsibility and pressure that goes along with that.
 
“Roush Yates has been in business for 12 seasons now, this is our 13th. Between Cup, XFINITY, Truck and road races, we’ve won over 250 races. With Penske in three years we’ve won 48 races and 20 Cup races. But the last Cup championship we won was in 2004. So that’s really the emphasis on us is to go win championships and we feel like with teams like Penske and Stewart-Haas and Roush Fenway and Petty (Richard Petty Motorsports), we have a really good opportunity to do that.”
 
Yates has built winning engines for decades, following in his father’s footsteps. His can recall his first race-winning engine as if it had been built just last week.
 
“It was a huge moment,” he said. “It was the fall Charlotte race … with Davey Allison. That was the first one I built all the way through. That was just such an incredible feeling of accomplishment. It was like ‘This is just incredible.’ That was really special to me.”

Posted on by Staff Report

RELATED: Full race results


During a Lap 111 restart, the No. 4 of Christopher Bell tipped the back of Kyle Busch Motorsports teammate Daniel Suarez‘s No. 51 entry, causing a chain reaction to bring out the caution at Atlanta Motor Speedway.


Suarez’s truck immediately got into race leader Matt Crafton‘s No. 88 Toyota, which immediately went spinning on the 1.54-mile track. 



NASCAR then brought out the red flag on Lap 112 while cleanup began.



Both Crafton’s and Suarez’s Toyotas were wheeled to the garage, done for the day with significant damage. Both drivers were evaluated and released from the infield care center.


Crafton and Suarez were ranked 30th and 31st, respectively, by the race’s end. Bell wound up 26th. 

Posted on by Staff Report

RELATED: Full lineup

 

Matt Crafton won the Camping World Truck Series Keystone Light Pole Award on Saturday at Atlanta Motor Speedway and will lead the field to green to kick off the Great Clips 200 (4:30 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

 

Driving the No. 88 Toyota, the ThorSport Racing driver soared to the top of the leaderboard with a speed of 179.790 mph. The two-time Camping World Truck Series champion is also the defending race winner and the only previous winner in Saturday’s field.

 

John Wes Townley will start second to Crafton in his No. 05 Athenian Motorsports Chevrolet.

 

Christopher Bell, Grant Enfinger and Cameron Hayley complete the top five in the starting lineup. Enfinger led two of the three Truck Series practices on Friday.

 

Norm Benning, Timothy Viens, Ryan Ellis, Korbin Forrister and Jordan Anderson failed to qualify.

Posted on by Staff Report

RELATED: Practice 2 results | Full lineup


Daytona 500 winner Denny Hamlin launched to the top of the leaderboard Saturday in final NASCAR Sprint Cup Series practice at Atlanta Motor Speedway.


Hamlin pushed the Joe Gibbs Racing No. 11 Toyota to a fast lap of 188.450 mph on the 1.54-mile track in final preparation for Sunday’s Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500 (1 p.m. ET, FOX, PRN, SiriusXM). Hamlin holds the 12th starting spot for the 500-miler, the series’ second race of the season.


Martin Truex Jr., runner-up to Hamlin in last weekend’s Great American Race, was second-fastest on the leaderboard again. The driver of the Furniture Row Racing No. 78 Toyota, an affiliate team to the Gibbs operation, registered a lap of 188.226 mph.


Defending race winner Jimmie Johnson piloted the Hendrick Motorsports No. 48 Chevrolet to the third-fastest speed (187.297 mph) in the 80-minute session. The remainder of the top five was filled with his Hendrick teammates — Dale Earnhardt Jr. (187.095) and rookie Chase Elliott (186.963), the Daytona 500 pole winner.


Defending Sprint Cup champion Kyle Busch, whose fast time in Friday’s qualifying was disallowed because of a technical violation, clocked the sixth-fastest lap in the Joe Gibbs Racing No. 18 Toyota. Kurt Busch, who inherited the first starting position in Friday’s Coors Light Pole Qualifying after his brother’s time was disallowed, was ninth-fastest in final practice.


Jamie McMurray, who will start second Sunday, brushed the frontstretch wall near the 15-minute mark of final practice, scraping the right-rear fender of his Chip Ganassi Racing No. 1 Chevrolet.


McMurray took blame for the accident, saying he had looked down to check lap times on his digital dashboard and lost track of the racing line. McMurray indicated in TV interviews that the team did not plan to deploy a reserve car.


McMurray was fastest in the category of best consecutive 10-lap average, running his first 10 laps at 181.480 mph. Ryan Newman, Johnson, Kurt Busch and Austin Dillon completed the top five.

Posted on by Staff Report

RELATED: Starting lineup

Kyle Busch scooted to the Coors Light Pole Award in Saturday morning qualifying for the NASCAR XFINITY Series at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

Busch, driving the Joe Gibbs Racing No. 18 Toyota, turned a fast lap of 185.499 mph in the final qualifying round on the 1.54-mile track. The pole position was Busch’s first of the season, fifth at Atlanta and 49th of his career on the XFINITY tour.

Erik Jones‘ No. 20 Toyota from the Gibbs stables will start second in Saturday’s Heads Up Georgia 250 (1:30 p.m. ET, FOX Sports 1, PRN, SiriusXM) after posting a lap at 185.078 mph. Daniel Suarez logged a 185.022-mph lap to complete a 1-2-3 JGR sweep in the starting lineup for the series’ second race of the season.

Kyle Larson (184.689 mph) and Brennan Poole (183.333 mph), both in Chevrolets for HScott Motorsports with Chip Ganassi, rounded out the top five.

Sprint Cup regular Kevin Harvick, winner of the last three XFINITY races at Atlanta, qualified 10th in the JR Motorsports No. 88 Chevrolet. Series points leader Elliott Sadler, Harvick’s JRM teammate, will start 16th in the No. 1 Chevy.

Jones was tops in the 10-minute second round of qualifying, just ahead of JGR teammate Busch. Ty Dillon, celebrating his 24th birthday Saturday, was the final driver to make the third and final round of qualifying, just a tick ahead of 13th-fastest Blake Koch. He improved to wind up sixth in the starting lineup.

Busch edged Harvick for the top spot in the opening 20-minute qualifying round. Ryan Preece was the final driver to make the 24-car cut after Round 1, just nipping Harrison Rhodes to advance. Chris Cockrum‘s stalled car at the 13:04 mark brought the session’s only stoppage.

Posted on by Reid Spencer

NASCAR Sprint Cup Series pole winner Kurt Busch seems to have adapted to the 2016 low-downforce competition without missing a beat, but the same can’t be said for Team Penske driver Joey Logano, one of the preseason favorites to win the series title this year.
 
Logano, who garnered the Coors Light Pole Award at Atlanta Motor Speedway last year, wasn’t close to having his No. 22 Ford dialed in when the series returned to the 1.54-mile track on Friday. The six-time pole winner from 2015 was 26th fastest in the first round of knockout qualifying, failing to transfer into the second round by .054 seconds.
 
“We were just really loose,” Logano said after his second attempt to crack the top 24. “I don’t really understand. We weren’t super-fast in practice, but we were a top-10 car for sure. We were really, really loose the first run and made some changes, but it’s hard to go fast here the second run when tires wear out so much. We did go a little faster, but that one kind of hurts.

 
“We’ve got to figure it out. We’ve got a little bit of work to do. It’s obviously a new package, and we apparently don’t have our heads wrapped around it perfectly yet, but we’ll get it. We’ve just got to keep our heads down and keep digging. It’s still a long weekend here. I thought we were pretty good in race trim. We just have to race a little bit from the back now.”
 
Based on Saturday’s final practice, however, Logano still has work to do. The No. 22 Ford was 32nd fastest on the Happy Hour speed chart.

Posted on by Reid Spencer

RELATED: Full race results | Updated series standings

HAMPTON, Ga. – In a wild race that saw some of the best trucks in the field destroyed before the finish, John Hunter Nemechek held off Cameron Hayley in a two-lap dash to the checkers to win Saturday’s Great Clips 200 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series event at Atlanta Motor Speedway.


But it was a skull session with 2014 Sprint Cup champion Kevin Harvick the night before that was instrumental in guiding Nemechek to victory in his unsponsored No. 8 Chevrolet.


“I’ve got to give a shout-out,” said Nemechek, who was racing at AMS for the first time. “I can’t thank Kevin Harvick enough. I went and sat with him for about 30 minutes to an hour last night, trying to learn everything I could.”


Obviously, the lesson paid off. After extensive cleanup from Christopher Bell‘s hard crash into the Turn 4 wall, Nemechek chose the inside line for a restart on Lap 199 of 200. When John Wes Townley spun his tires in the outside lane, Nemechek pulled away to beat Hayley to the stripe by .305 seconds.


The victory was Nemechek’s second in 32 Truck Series starts and his second on a 1.5-mile intermediate speedway, the first coming last year at Chicagoland Speedway. At 18 years, 8 months and 16 days, Nemechek is the youngest NASCAR national series winner at Atlanta.


Before the family-owned team with a shoestring budget could get to Victory Lane, however, attrition took care of the drivers who led the majority of laps leading up to the finish.


Two corners after a restart on Lap 112 — following the race’s second expiration of the 20-minute caution clock — Bell lost the nose of his No. 4 Toyota, hooked Kyle Busch Motorsports teammate Daniel Suarez‘s No. 51 Tundra and turned Suarez into race leader Matt Crafton, who had spent 76 circuits at the front of the field.

MORE: Caution Clock expires for first time in CWTS |  Bell triggers big wreck

The trucks of Crafton and Suarez were damaged beyond repair, leaving Bell, who lead 42 of the 130 laps, to grab the top spot after the subsequent restart on Lap 116. Bell pulled away, but on Lap 123, a tire rub resulting from the earlier contact finally popped the right front, and Bell’s Toyota swerved straight into the outside wall in Turn 4.


Behind Nemechek and Hayley, Timothy Peters came home third, followed by Daniel Hemric and Grant Enfinger, respectively.


Nemechek was circumspect about the circumstances surrounding his conversation with Harvick, but the information he received was clearly valuable.


“That’s kind of a secret,” said Nemechek, who got pit crew help from Jimmie Johnson‘s No. 48 Sprint Cup team. “But Kevin’s one of the best racers here in Atlanta, so I had to ask him. He’s very good at conserving tires, very good at winning races here, so to go and talk to him was very special.”


Nemechek also got advice from his father and team owner Joe Nemechek, who won a NASCAR XFINITY Series race at Atlanta in 2001.


Eighth-place finisher Parker Kligerman took the lead in the series standings by one point over Hemric and three over Nemechek.


The afternoon proved expensive for Kyle Busch, who as a driver won the first leg of the Saturday doubleheader in the XFINITY Series race, only to lose three trucks as an owner in the nightcap. In addition to the wrecked trucks of Bell and Suarez, Busch also had to write off the engine of William Byron, which blew on lap 59, with Byron running second.

Posted on by Reid Spencer

RELATED: Full race results | Updated series standings

HAMPTON, Ga. — Scratch another race track off Kyle Busch‘s checklist.

In what evolved into a two-man battle against Kyle Larson on Saturday at Atlanta Motor Speedway, the reigning NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion continued his mastery in the NASCAR XFINITY Series, beating Larson to the finish line to win the Heads Up Georgia 250.

The victory was Busch’s first at the 1.54-mile track and the 77th of his career, extending his own series record.

But the outcome was far from a foregone conclusion when Busch led the field to green on the final restart with 29 laps left. Busch was strong in the short run, but Larson would start to close dramatically 20 laps into a green-flag run.

That’s exactly what played out over the final 29 laps, as Larson began cutting into a lead that had reached more than 1.5 seconds. Making up ground in the top lane through Turns 1 and 2, Larson’s No. 42 Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet was within eight car lengths of Busch’s No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota with two laps left when Larson’s progress was impeded by the lapped car of Ryan Preece through the first corner.

Larson lost ground, and Busch crossed the finish line with a lead of .466 seconds.

“I actually thought that last run was going to be too long,” Busch said. “(Crew chief Chris) Gayle did a good job of making some adjustments to our car, and it helped me. It helped me definitely on the front side of a run, for the first 20 (laps), and I don’t think it hurt me from there on to the end of the race.

“But Larson was just better than us. He could close and close and close. Lapped traffic — they were really nice to me. I think they screwed him up a couple of times. So I kind of appreciated those guys.”

Erik Jones, Busch’s JGR teammate, rallied from an early penalty — beating Busch, the pole winner, to the start/finish at the start of the race after Busch spun his tires — to run third, followed by Paul Menard and series regular Ty Dillon, who earned a free pass to the lead lap under the final caution, took four tires and charged into the top five from 11th on the restart.

Larson clearly had a problem with lapped traffic, but he wasn’t sure he could have passed Busch for the victory, even if he had pulled up to his rear bumper.

“I definitely would have gotten closer to him, but it would have been still tough to pass him,” Larson said. “He was saving his tires, I think, running the bottom, and I was running pretty hard at the top. He would definitely have moved up in front of me there in (Turns) 1 and 2, and it would have been tough to get underneath him.”

Elliott Sadler came home ninth and retained the series lead by three points over seventh-place finisher Daniel Suarez and five points over Dillon.

Posted on by Brad Norman

The Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500 (1 p.m. Sunday, FOX, PRN, Sirius XM Radio) will feature a special salute to fallen military service members on Lap 13, chosen because of the 13 folds in the American flag given to families of fallen service men and women.
 
Fans attending Sunday’s NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Atlanta Motor Speedway will be asked to raise and hold replicas of folded American flags on Lap 13 in a show of honor. The event is also a fundraiser for Folds of Honor, a non-profit organization that helps to pay for the education of children and adults whose parents or spouses are killed or injured in military service.
 
Rachel Faulkner-Brown is among the family members who will take part in the salute on Sunday. She and her husband, U.S. Air Force Major David “Blair” Faulkner, have two children. Blair, who was an A-10 fighter pilot and later a fighter trainer, was killed on a training mission in 2008. Their son was 2 and their daughter was 5 months old at the time.
 
Faulkner was a race fan and liked to drive fast (he had a Porsche) so it’s a natural fit for her to work with Folds of Honor at Atlanta Motor Speedway to bring awareness to the cause.
 
“Pilots are car nuts and watch nuts. When you go fast all the time, you want to go fast even when you’re just driving around, it’s such a drug,” Faulkner-Brown recalls with a laugh. “We were definitely racing fans and loved to drive fast cars, too.”
 
Her son David, who is now 10, and daughter Campbell, 8, have benefitted from Folds of Honor, and Faulkner wants to spread the message that while her family’s story has sad parts, she has a joyful heart, and her kids can “live fully” knowing their education is secure.
 
“The 10th fold in the flag is for the fathers,” Faulkner-Brown explains further about the significance of the name Folds of Honor. Each of the 13 folds in a ceremonial flag has a specific meaning. “The sons and daughters give so much to their country, too. It’s not just the service member who gives.”
 
To make a donation to Folds of Honor, visit www.foldsofhonor.org