Posted on by Staff Report

Jeb Burton, son of former Daytona 500 winner Ward Burton, will compete full time in the NASCAR XFINITY Series this season for Richard Petty Motorsports, according to a team release.

 

Burton, 23, will pilot the No. 43 Ford for the organization. RPM also fields a pair of entries in NASCAR’s Sprint Cup Series, the No. 43 with driver Aric Almirola and the No. 44 with Brian Scott.

 

Burton competed last season in the Sprint Cup Series, making 28 starts for BK Racing. He has only two previous XFINITY Series starts along with 50 starts in the Camping World Truck Series.

 

“When you think NASCAR, you think Richard Petty, and I’m really looking forward to continuing their winning tradition and contributing to the legacy that is Richard Petty,” Burton said.

 

Veteran Drew Blickensderfer will handle crew chief duties for the team. Blickensderfer, a former Sprint Cup crew chief, worked with former RPM drivers Marcos Ambrose and Sam Hornish Jr. He was crew chief for Matt Kenseth in 2009 at Roush Fenway Racing when that team opened the season with back-to-back wins in the Daytona 500 and Auto Club 500. A third win came in 2011 with driver David Ragan, in July at Daytona.

 

Burton’s father Ward won five times in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, and finished in the top 10 in points twice. Jeff Burton, Jeb’s uncle, is also a former winner in the series and currently serves as a race analyst for NBC Sports.

 

“We have worked with Jeb on a few opportunities over the past couple of years, and they just didn’t fall into place,” Brian Moffitt, Chief Executive Officer at Richard Petty Motorsports, said. “We feel Jeb is an extremely talented young driver, and I’m happy we have him in our organization.

 

“He’s proven he can win races and compete at a high level in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series, and we believe he can do the same in the NASCAR XFINITY Series.”

Posted on by Staff Report

Martin Truex Jr. detailed his girlfriend Sherry Pollex’s 17-month fight with ovarian cancer in a raw and emotional piece posted Monday on The Players’ Tribune. 

 

Pollex announced Jan. 11 she had completed her final chemotherapy treatment.

 

Among the specifics revealed in the story was the fact that Furniture Row Racing owner Barney Visser offered to let Truex sit out the remainder of the 2014 season after Pollex was diagnosed with Stage 3 ovarian cancer on Aug. 7, 2014.

 

“But Sherry and I never considered it,” Truex wrote. “We both needed to get back to our normal. And normal for us is racing.”

 

Truex wrote about first meeting Pollex more than 10 years ago, and how “being with her was one of those things where you were all-in right from the start. You never really questioned it, you never really thought about it. You just did it because it felt right.”

 

Pollex first began experiencing abdomen pain in April 2014, Truex wrote, but because ovarian cancer often is difficult to diagnose, she did not have a CT scan until August. The following week, Pollex had surgery.

 

Wrote Truex: “The surgery was performed on August 15, just a short week after we first heard those words. We arrived at the hospital at 5:30 a.m., and Sherry was prepped for what we thought was going to be a four-hour procedure. Instead, after seven hours of surgery, which included a radical hysterectomy and the removal of tumors all the way up to her spleen and appendix, the doctor was finally confident that he had removed all “visible” signs of cancer. It was only four months from the time Sherry had initially told me she was having abdominal pain, and the cancer had literally spread everywhere.” 

 

Worse than the surgery was the chemotherapy that followed, Truex wrote.

 

“Watching Sherry go through the grueling eight-hour chemotherapy sessions every couple of weeks for six months was almost unbearable. She lost her hair and lost 27 pounds from her healthy weight of 120 pounds. She could barely walk from the living room to the kitchen in our home. It was one of the darkest times in our lives.”

 

Truex has expanded his Martin Truex Jr. Foundation to focus on both pediatric and ovarian cancer since Pollex’s diagnosis.

You can read the full story here

Posted on by Staff Report

EARNHARDT NATION is the story of one of NASCAR’s most famous families, from dirt-track racer Ralph to American legend Dale to NASCAR icon Dale Junior. The book is the first to trace the entire history of the Earnhardt family, from Ralph’s first days working under a hood to Dale Junior’s 2015 Sprint Cup campaign, and everything in between. EARNHARDT NATION is on sale Feb. 16 at bookstores everywhere, or online at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and all other booksellers. Author Jay Busbee is on Twitter at @jaybusbee and on Facebook at facebook.com/jaybusbee.



In this excerpt, a young Dale Earnhardt, not yet a NASCAR driver, is learning just how treacherous life can be when you’re racing for your groceries every week.



Friends, family, everyone was telling Dale to quit this racing silliness — to go get a real job and stop smashing the family’s money into unforgiving track walls. When Earnhardt quit his last real job, at Punchy Whitaker’s Wheel Alignment in Concord, North Carolina, Whitaker, a local automotive legend, asked, “What are you going to do?”


“I’m going racing,” Dale told him. 


“You gonna starve to death, boy,” Whitaker declared.


Dale’s one-page 1975 application to race in NASCAR is a country music song on Courier-font paper. Beside “Children (Names & Ages) Earnhardt wrote “Kerry Dale, 5 / Kelly [sic] King, 2 / Dale Junor [sic], 3 months.” Beside “What happened in first race,” he wrote “finish 10th.” And beside “Ambition (other than racing),” he wrote “None.”


Dale saw a glimmer of something more in himself, and each weekend, he drew just enough encouragement to keep running – sometimes literally. One night at some dirt track – it could have been any of them, really – he was running in fourth place when third paid enough for his family’s food for the next week. He had one hell of a problem right ahead of him in the person of Gene Daves, a locally famous driver who went by the nom de track of “Stick Elliott.”


Stick was a man in Ralph Earnhardt’s mold; he’d mortgaged his life in the early ’60s and gone on to win hundreds of races in his career. But where Ralph had preferred the solitude of his own tools and motors, Stick had gone for the glory. Stick had served as a stunt driver for the 1968 Elvis Presley flick “Speedway,” and according to legend, even took Elvis on a terrifying ride around Charlotte Motor Speedway. In short, young Dale Earnhardt was about to toy with the man who’d intimidated The King himself.


Not that it mattered. Dale Earnhardt would have put a bumper to the devil if need be. On the final lap, Dale caught Stick, turning the veteran and scooting past his spinning car for that third-place finish and some critical grocery money. As Earnhardt was climbing out of his car, word reached him that one of Stick’s crewmen was headed his way with a pistol. Earnhardt fled the track, still wearing his dirt-covered firesuit. The next weekend, Earnhardt showed up at the track only to see Stick and his crew headed Dale’s way.



Oh, hell, Dale thought.


Stick walked right up to the kid, stared straight at him, and then broke into a grin. “You know, son,” he said, “you might just make a driver yet.”


Young and wild-haired, Dale Earnhardt did little to distinguish himself from any of a dozen other drivers’ kids. He drove a ’55 Chevy, same as his father, but that and the surname were the only connections between Dale and Ralph. Where Ralph was precise, Dale was ragged; where Ralph worked his car like a scalpel, Dale wielded his like a club. “That Earnhardt boy,” an old driver named Red Farmer said one night, “hit everyone and everything at the track except the people in the grandstands.”

At one 200-lap Sportsman race in Savannah, Dale prepared to race against a crew of luminaries that included fellow future Hall-of-Famer David Pearson.


“I got to win this race,” he told Gary Hargett, his car owner and mechanic at the time.


“No way,” said Hargett.


“I’m broke,” Dale said. “I got to win this race.”


And that’s exactly what he did. For 199 of the race’s 200 laps, he tailed Pearson, but on the race’s final lap, Dale turned Pearson, putting him into the wall and sliding past him for the win.


Hargett was furious; turning a man was no way to win a race. “Why in the world would you do something like that?” he complained.


“(Forget) him,” Earnhardt shot back. “He’s got money, and I’m broke.” He and Hargett had to peel out of the track at full speed to avoid a pack of fans eager to discuss sportsmanship with the kid from Kannapolis.


“You didn’t want to mess around at these tracks,” his friend Little Bud Moore said. “Some of these places, you didn’t want to get too close to the wire fence or the women would cut you.”


“Dale knew that the difference between doing well and doing poorly would determine whether he was headed back to the cotton mill,” said NASCAR Hall of Fame executive director Winston Kelley. “The thing about Earnhardt is, even when he got to the point where he didn’t have to be successful every race, he raced just as hard.”

Posted on by Official NASCAR Release

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (February 15, 2016) – From the speedway tailgates to the wave of the checkered flag, NASCAR fans will be able to share their race-day experiences with Snapchat users across the world as part of a new Live Story partnership, announced today by NASCAR and Snapchat.

Through this partnership agreement, Snapchat will double its coverage of the sport’s premier race events in 2016, launching its first NASCAR Live Story at the 2016 Daytona 500 on February 21 (1 p.m. ET on FOX).

“Snapchat’s Live Story coverage of NASCAR events will make its users near and far feel like they’re at the racetrack,” said Jill Gregory, NASCAR senior vice president, marketing and industry services. “With Snapchat, NASCAR fans can share their stories from our iconic race events with a massive, global audience, which elevates the social experience for our fans.”

Beginning at Daytona International Speedway, Snapchat will cover multiple NASCAR Sprint Cup Series races throughout the year, giving millions of NASCAR fans the opportunity to experience the excitement – from behind-the-scenes in the garage to the fans’ perspectives in the grandstands.

Snapchatters will contribute their unique, race-day perspectives through video and photo Snaps submitted to one collective Live Story, capturing the real NASCAR story, straight from the fans.

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

“We’re thrilled to be partnering with NASCAR to bring Snapchatters closer to the race experience and behind-the-scenes of some of NASCAR’s biggest events this year,” said Ben Schwerin, Director of Partnerships at Snapchat.

NASCAR launched its presence on Snapchat before the 2015 season and experienced rapid growth on the platform as the sport targeted younger and more diverse audiences. Snapchat is available on iOS and Android.

Posted on by Official NASCAR Release

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (February 15, 2016) – Inspired by fans’ shared love of racing, NASCAR® today unveiled a new, integrated marketing campaign celebrating the launch of the 2016 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series™ season. Ready. Set. Race will engage NASCAR fans online, at home and on the go through a blend of digital and social media activation, and original television creative.

 

Fans will be invited to put their racing skills to the test during the 2016 Daytona 500® on February 21, when NASCAR hosts the first-ever Hashtag 500 on Twitter. The unique promotion, developed by Ogilvy & Mather New York, will give fans a chance to win memorabilia from this year’s “Great American Race®,” including a driver firesuit, helmet, steering wheel and set of Goodyear tires, among other race-used items.

 

“Ready. Set. Race was built around the simple human truth that all people love to race in some form – in the backyard, on their bikes or on the racetrack,” said Jill Gregory, NASCAR senior vice president, marketing and industry services. “This campaign is unlike anything we’ve ever done, inspiring fans who love to race, and creating experiences for them to race other fans on social media.”

 

To race in the Hashtag 500 on Feb. 21, fans must watch Daytona 500 race coverage on FOX (beginning at 12 p.m. ET) and follow @NASCAR on Twitter to receive a custom hashtag for each of 10 pieces of memorabilia. Once each hashtag is unveiled, the 500th person to tweet the hashtag in conjunction with #DAYTONA500 will win that race and receive the prize.

 

Beginning today through Saturday, fans can practice for the Hashtag 500 by competing in daily Twitter races for a chance to win unique, personal items from six NASCAR Sprint Cup Series drivers. Short digital videos featuring the drivers will unveil each day’s custom hashtag and be shared via @NASCAR and NASCAR.com/hashtag500.

 

Dale Earnhardt Jr. will host today’s first practice race. The 500th person to tweet the hashtag and #DAYTONA500 will win a pair of sunglasses from the two-time Daytona 500 champion.

 

A promotional teaser for the Hashtag 500 aired on FOX this past weekend, beginning during Saturday’s season-opening Sprint Unlimited. Additional new NASCAR Sprint Cup Series creative promoting Ready. Set. Race will debut on Sunday during the Daytona 500 on FOX.

 

The creative will drive home the narrative that, first and foremost, it’s a universal love of racing that connects and inspires NASCAR fans, and drives their passion for the sport.  

 

“We believe that everyone is born with a love of racing and with this campaign, we are hoping to remind them of it,” said Teddy Lynn, Chief Creative Officer of Content and Social, Ogilvy & Mather North America. “Our goal with the creative was to bring that racing mentality to life.”

Fans can follow @NASCAR on Twitter and Facebook, and visit NASCAR.com for an early look at the Ready. Set. Race creative later this week.

 

For more information on the Hashtag 500, fans can visit NASCAR.com/hashtag500.

Posted on by Nascar

RELATED: Fast facts about Charter system | Learn more about NASCAR’s 2016 procedural changes

 

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Ryan Blaney and Matt DiBenedetto won’t have to worry about where they finish in Thursday’s Can-Am Duels, guaranteeing themselves starting spots for the Daytona 500 (Sunday, Feb. 21 at 1 p.m. ET, FOX) with solid qualifying laps here Sunday at Daytona International Speedway.

 

Because 36 teams were already locked in by virtue of owning Charters, Blaney (Wood Brothers Racing) and DiBenedetto (BK Racing) were among the eight drivers vying for the four Open positions available in the 40-car field.

 

Blaney, fast all week in the No. 21 Ford, finished with the day’s seventh-fastest speed (194.746 mph) in qualifying. He was the only Open driver to advance to the final round which saw the 12 fastest from the opening round vie for the pole position.

 

RELATED: Daytona qualifying speeds

 

For DiBenedetto, it was the most nerve-wracking of experiences.

 

“Man, I can sleep well this week finally,” the 24-year-old said after locking in his No. 93 Toyota. “I’ve done a lot of things in my career, (but) I was more nervous for that than probably my first Sprint Cup race last year.

 

“I was really nervous all night, between me and Michael McDowell really is where it seemed like it was going to fall. We were really close in our practice speeds. We kept kind of bouncing back as to who was quicker.”

 

As it turned out, DiBenedetto (192.686 mph) narrowly edged McDowell (192.604), who is in a second Circle Sport-Leavine Family Racing Chevrolet for this week.

 

McDowell, Robert Richardson Jr., Cole Whitt, David Gilliland, Josh Wise and Reed Sorenson can race their way into next Sunday’s race by finishing highest among the Open teams in Thursday’s Duel qualifiers. If either Blaney and/or DiBenedetto finish highest in their respective qualifiers, the final two positions would be based on Sunday’s qualifying speeds, meaning McDowell (27th) and Richardson (38th) would be awarded the final two spots.

 

“This is just a testament to my team,” DiBenedetto, who will be making his Daytona 500 debut, said. “They stayed here until 9:30 last night. The latest they could stay here, we’ve been here. I’m really thankful to those guys, thankful just to be here this season and most importantly, thankful to be racing in my first Daytona 500. This was a team effort; I’m just glad to get them in the Daytona 500. This is more about them, not me.”

 

DiBenedetto finished the day 26th-fastest. His BK Racing team used an engine from Toyota Racing Development for qualifying, but will switch to a Triad-built engine for Thursday’s Duel.

 

Qualifying for the season-opening Daytona 500 differs from how the starting lineup is determined for the remaining NASCAR Sprint Cup Series races. Only the two fastest from Sunday’s qualifying lock in positions for next week’s 58th running of the race. Chase Elliott (Hendrick Motorsports) and Matt Kenseth (Joe Gibbs Racing) were first and second, respectively, to earn those positions.

 

Starting positions 3-38 will be determined by Thursday’s Can-Am Duel qualifying races, with four spots awarded to Open teams. Those four will consist of the two fastest in qualifying (in this instance, Blaney and DiBenedetto) along with two that either finish highest in their Duel (should they finish ahead of Blaney or DiBenedetto) or based on their qualifying speeds if they do not.

 

Blaney is making the move to full-time status with Wood Brothers Racing this season. Although the legendary team was not one of the 36 awarded Charters earlier this week, meaning Blaney will have to make the race each week based on his qualifying results, officials noted speed wasn’t a problem in ’15.

 

And, as Blaney said, it wasn’t an issue on Sunday either.

 

“We knew we had a really fast race car yesterday from single-car runs,” he said. “I knew we had a good shot to get locked in. But you never know what can happen. It’s such a big relief to be locked in early. Now we can go racing on Thursday night (in the Duel).”

Posted on by Holly Cain

RELATED: Full Daytona qualifying speeds

 

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — It wasn’t a Daytona 500 pole-winning effort Sunday afternoon at Daytona International Speedway, but Joe Gibbs Racing Toyotas were four of the top-10 fastest qualifiers for next Sunday’s Daytona 500.

 

And that’s an important first step.

 

Twenty-year old rookie Chase Elliott became the “Great American Race’s” youngest ever pole-winner driving newly retired Jeff Gordon‘s No. 24 Chevrolet, but a team of Toyotas turned in efforts to ensure they must be reckoned with come the Feb. 21 season-opening Daytona 500.

 

Toyota driver Denny Hamlin joked even late Saturday night after winning his third Sprint Unlimited non-points race that the trophy and acclaim were great for his resume, but the Daytona 500 was what mattered most. To him and to the team.

 

“I was joking with Denny in the winner’s circle, I said, it’s the 500, OK, not the Unlimited,” Hamlin’s team owner Joe Gibbs said, laughing but clearly quite serious, too. “I says (to him), try and get us a 500, will you? It’s been 23 years since we were able to win one.”

 

As soon as Hamlin sat down to take post-race questions from the media, the first thing he asked the crowd was, “By the way, has Joe mentioned he wants to win the 500 yet?”

 

Unlike past years when one manufacturer tended to dominate the top-10 qualifying spots, this year’s pole-qualifying featured a more balanced look — five Chevrolets (including pole-winner Elliott), four Toyotas and three Fords among the top-12 final round qualifying participants.

 

Hendrick Motorsports had three of its four Chevrolets among the top six.

 

But it is the first time the two-time Daytona 500 winner Kenseth has started on the front row for the event. Michael Waltrip was the last Toyota driver to earn a front row start — lining up second alongside Jimmie Johnson in 2008.

 

“Obviously everybody says it but qualifying here is truly a team effort,” Kenseth said. “We’ve never qualified on the front row here before so that certainly takes some of the pressure off earlier in the week.”

 

Kenseth’s JGR teammate Carl Edwards echoed the promise and potential coming out of Sunday’s qualifying efforts. He sounded encouraged by the speed and hopeful of how it may translate in Thursday’s Can Am Duel races that will set the remainder of the field behind the front row.

 

“We’re just building good cars and that showed up on the track last night,” Edwards said of the Unlimited showing. “Those days you have Toyotas up front and Denny was able to close the deal. He was the first to say we worked well together and it was overall good.”

 

Then Edwards smiled and acknowledged, “He brought that up to me too,” of Gibbs’ vocal urgency to win the Daytona 500. “He’s a competitor deep down and he wants to win this thing.”

Posted on by Staff Report

RELATED: Full qualifying results | Can-Am Duel lineups


DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — NASCAR cracked down on two teams in Sunday’s Daytona 500 post-qualifying inspection, disallowing qualifying speeds for two Stewart-Haas Racing Chevrolets. In addition, Furniture Row Racing‘s lone Toyota missed its qualifying run.

The Stewart-Haas No. 4 Chevrolet driven by former NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion Kevin Harvick and the SHR No. 14 Chevy — currently wheeled by Brian Vickers in place of the injured Tony Stewart — were found with track bars out of compliance with NASCAR specifications. Harvick had posted the 14th-fastest lap and Vickers the 21st-fastest before their qualifying times were disallowed.

Rodney Childers, crew chief for SHR’s No. 4, said on Twitter after the qualifying session that the violation “was a simple mistake on our part.” He explained that the team had measured the track bar from a different spot than NASCAR officials, resulting in a quarter-inch discrepancy.

The Furniture Row No. 78 Toyota Camry piloted by Martin Truex Jr. was halted before making a qualifying attempt because of an issue with the right-side roof flap being out of compliance. NASCAR officials said in a statement that since the team could not fix the issue in the five-minute warning time, the No. 78 team forfeited its qualifying attempt.


MORE: Roof issue keeps No. 78 parked


NASCAR officials said that the issues with all three cars would be discussed further in Tuesday competition meetings.

All three teams are guaranteed starting berths in the Feb. 21 Daytona 500 (1 p.m. ET, FOX, MRN, SiriusXM) through the NASCAR Charter system. All three will be sent to the rear of the field for Thursday’s Can-Am Duel qualifying races (7 p.m. ET, FS1) that will determine the 40-car starting order for the Great American Race.

Posted on by Staff Report

Chase Elliott made quite the debut in the legendary No. 24 Chevrolet on Sunday, wheeling the fastest lap in the field to earn the Daytona 500 pole award. The accomplishment makes Elliott, 20, the youngest driver to ever win the Daytona 500 pole.

Drivers and NASCAR personnel took to Twitter to offer their congratulations to the budding star.

Posted on by Staff Report

RELATED: Full Daytona qualifying speeds | Pit stall assignments for Duels


Chase Elliott and Matt Kenseth clinched the front row for next Sunday’s Daytona 500 (1 p.m. ET, FOX), and they’ll also lead their respective Can-Am Duel races to the green on Thursday. Duel 1 is slated for 7 p.m. ET (FS1), with Duel 2 scheduled for 9 p.m. ET (FS1).



The rest of the Can-Am Duel field was set by Sunday’s qualifying speeds. Thursday’s results will set the field for the Daytona 500 .


Below are the lineups.



UPDATE: Biffle, Bayne headed to rear of Can-Am Duels 

MORE: Larson, more may go to back-up cars



* Denotes Open, non-Charter teams

Can-Am Duel 1 lineup

Position Car Driver Team
1. 24 Chase Elliott Hendrick Motorsports
2. 88 Dale Earnhardt Jr. Hendrick Motorsports
3. 17 Ricky Stenhouse Jr. Roush Fenway Racing
4. 21* Ryan Blaney* Wood Brothers Racing
5. 3 Austin Dillon Richard Childress Racing
6. 11 Denny Hamlin Joe Gibbs Racing
7. 22 Joey Logano Team Penske
8. 5 Kasey Kahne Hendrick Motorsports
9. 27 Paul Menard Richard Childress Racing
10. 2 Brad Keselowski Team Penske
11. 16 Greg Biffle Roush Fenway Racing
12. 44 Brian Scott Richard Petty Motorsports
13. 59* Michael McDowell* Circle Sport-Leavine Family Racing
14. 7 Regan Smith Tommy Baldwin Racing
15. 34 Chris Buescher Front Row Motorsports
16. 32 Bobby Labonte Go Green Racing
17. 6 Trevor Bayne Roush Fenway Racing
18. 15 Clint Bowyer HScott Motorsports
19. 98* Cole Whitt* Premium Motorsports
20. 23 David Ragan BK Racing
21. 30* Josh Wise* The Motorsports Group
22. 4 Kevin Harvick Stewart-Haas Racing

Can-Am Duel 2 lineup

Position Car Driver Team
1. 20 Matt Kenseth Joe Gibbs Racing
2. 18 Kyle Busch Joe Gibbs Racing
3. 48 Jimmie Johnson Hendrick Motorsports
4. 19 Carl Edwards Joe Gibbs Racing
5. 41 Kurt Busch Stewart-Haas Racing
6. 13 Casey Mears Germain Racing
7. 31 Ryan Newman Richard Childress Racing
8. 95 Ty Dillon Circle Sport-Leavine Family Racing
9. 43 Aric Almirola Richard Petty Motorsports
10. 1 Jamie McMurray Chip Ganassi Racing
11. 42 Kyle Larson Chip Ganassi Racing
12. 93* Matt DiBenedetto* BK Racing
13. 83 Michael Waltrip BK Racing
14. 10 Danica Patrick Stewart-Haas Racing
15. 47 AJ Allmendinger JTG Daugherty Racing
16. 46 Michael Annett HScott Motorsports
17. 38 Landon Cassill Front Row Motorsports
18. 26* Robert Richardson Jr.* BK Racing
19. 35* David Gilliland* Front Row Motorsports
20. 40* Reed Sorenson* Hillman Smith Motorsports
21. 78 Martin Truex Jr. Furniture Row Racing
22. 14 Brian Vickers Stewart-Haas Racing