CONCORD, N.C. — The days of penciling in a Hendrick Motorsports team as a championship contender aren’t exactly over, but it would be inaccurate to describe the four-team organization as peaking with just one race remaining before the start of this year’s Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup.
A year ago, HMS had all four of its teams, with drivers Jimmie Johnson, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jeff Gordon and Kasey Kahne, ready for the start of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series’ 10-race playoff.
Heading into this weekend’s Federated Auto Parts 400 at Richmond International Raceway (7:30 p.m., NBCSN, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR), only Johnson and Earnhardt have secured bids for the 16-team Chase. Gordon can make the field based on his position in the points standings (he needs to finish 17th or higher Saturday night) or with a victory, while Kahne mathematically can get in on points but more likely needs a win to get in.
RELATED: Updated standings
The Chase officially gets underway Sept. 20 at Chicagoland Speedway.
While many organizations would be content with such a scenario, team owner Rick Hendrick knows that’s not what’s expected from his group — which has won 11 series titles. Hendrick engines and chassis have also been on the entries of eight of the last nine championship-winning teams (including those won by Stewart-Haas Racing‘s Kevin Harvick and Tony Stewart).
The bar rests high for his organization, Hendrick said Tuesday at the HMS campus.
“People catch up; people work hard,” he said. “Rule package, rule changes, usually we’re on top of it and we come out in front.
“To think that you can be in this sport every single year and be the dominant guy that wins them all, that isn’t going to happen. NASCAR isn’t going to let that happen.”
Johnson won four of this year’s first 13 races, equaling his win total from a year ago, while Earnhardt Jr. has a pair of victories this season.
Earnhardt Jr. has five top-10 finishes since his win in the July Daytona race; Johnson and Gordon have three while Kahne has none. Combined, the four have led just seven laps in the past eight races, a statistic that doesn’t please the team owner.
“It’s just part of it,” Hendrick said. “I’m a big fan of (Winston) Churchill … I don’t like it when we’re behind, but it motivates me. We’ve just got to work hard, work smart and we’ll be back.
“We get in position in Darlington where we have three in the top six or seven and we run out of tires and that’s our fault. … Maybe we just didn’t use the right strategy, who knows? There’s been a lot of that this year. We’ve just fumbled the ball more than normal.”
Earnhardt Jr., who finished eighth, was the only HMS driver to finish in the top 10 at Darlington Raceway this past weekend. Kahne finished 12th, Gordon 15th and Johnson 19th.
RELATED: Results from Southern 500
HMS personnel aren’t blind to the situation.
“We know as a company … we see the obvious,” Earnhardt Jr. said during Tuesday’s edition of the “Dale Jr. Download” podcast heard on Dirty Mo Radio. “We see we’ve got to improve and get more speed. We as a whole group sense that.”
Knowing the strength and past success of the organization tempers concerns with the Chase on the horizon.
“I’m real confident that our company’s going to be able to find what they want and what they’re looking for,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “They always have.”
While his group may not be competing at the level expected, Hendrick isn’t ready to toss in the towel. He admits the organization, as a whole, is “off a little bit.”
“Maybe we’re the same and everybody else is better,” he said. “We’ve had a lot of success and these people want it and they want it bad. They have a lot of pride and they don’t like to be beaten. So does Joe Gibbs (Racing), so does (Team) Penske, so does everybody out there.
“The question is how do you get back?”
JGR and Penske teams have been the teams to beat of late, with JGR drivers winning seven of the past 10 races and Penske teams scoring two wins in that stretch.
“We’ve been (there) before when we weren’t looked at as the best team out there, the best record or whatever,” Hendrick said. “But it isn’t over yet. So you go ahead and count us out.”
CONCORD, N.C. — Contract extensions for six-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion Jimmie Johnson, crew chief Chad Knaus and primary sponsor Lowe’s are expected to be announced before the start of this year’s Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup.
Hendrick Motorsports team owner Rick Hendrick said Tuesday that contract extensions would be finalized within the next week.
“It’s just a matter of rolling it out; probably next week,” Hendrick said following a groundbreaking ceremony for a 45,000-square-foot Axalta Customer Experience Center to be located on the grounds of the Hendrick Motorsports campus.
Johnson, 39, is attempting to become just the third driver in series history to capture seven premier series titles, a mark currently shared by Richard Petty and the late Dale Earnhardt.
A four-time winner this season, Johnson is currently the top seed in this year’s Chase with one race remaining to determine the 16-team field, this weekend’s Federated Auto Parts 400 at Richmond International Raceway (7:30 p.m. ET, NBCSN, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR).
With 74 career victories, Johnson is only two short of matching Earnhardt’s 76-win total. He has won multiple races every year since his first full season, including a career-high 10 in 2007. His five consecutive championships from ’06-’10 is a series record.
A former off-road racer, Johnson has been paired with Knaus since Hendrick elevated the El Cajon, California, native to a full-time Sprint Cup ride in 2002.
Knaus began his NASCAR career in 1991, working with driver Stanley Smith. He moved to HMS in ’92 as part of the buildup for the debut of the organization’s No. 24 team with driver Jeff Gordon and crew chief Ray Evernham.
After winning two championships with Gordon and Evernham (in ’95 and ’97), Knaus departed for a brief stay at Dale Earnhardt Inc. He reunited with Evernham to help with the return of Dodge to NASCAR in 2000 and the following year he worked as crew chief for driver Stacy Compton and team owner Mark Melling.
By season’s end, he had returned to Hendrick as crew chief to oversee the No. 48 entry with Johnson as driver and Lowe’s as the team’s primary sponsor.
The three principals have been together ever since.
HMS also fields NASCAR Sprint Cup Series entries for drivers Gordon, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Kasey Kahne.
Gordon, a four-time series champion, will retire from driving at the end of 2015 and be replaced by defending NASCAR XFINITY Series champion Chase Elliott beginning next season.
In late 2011, officials announced a five-year contract extension that will keep Earnhardt Jr. in the fold through at least 2017.
Kahne’s contract was renewed late last year and runs through the end of 2018.
NASCAR Sprint Cup Series driver Joey Logano is the 2015 Daytona 500 champion … and an action hero?
Logano and Team Penske teammate Brad Keselowski are “starring” in a pair of movie trailer-style videos, part of the auto manufacturer’s Ford Nation Sweepstakes platform geared around this year’s Chase for the Sprint Cup.
The storyline for Logano’s piece, which debuts Wednesday and is titled “Code Name Cobra,” has the 25-year-old racer, and winner of 11 Sprint Cup Series events, rescuing Miss Sprint Cup Madison Martin and retrieving the stolen Sprint Cup trophy.
RELATED: Watch the video
Brett Bortle directed the piece and filming took place in North Wilkesboro, North Carolina, in July.
“It came out better than I thought it would, for sure,” a grinning Logano said. “He did a good job for what he had to work with.”
Earlier this year, Logano and Keselowski appeared on camera briefly in “Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No!”
Logano had a single line in “Sharknado 3” (“That!” he exclaims to his teammate as sharks begin raining down on a racetrack).
In Code Name Cobra, Logano is the “star.”
“I’m going to stick to my day job, but I do enjoy acting,” he said. “I’m getting better, I would say. It takes me a little bit to let loose, let my guard down.
“It’s kind of weird when you’ve got to do things and there are cameras and a bunch of people staring at you while you’re doing it. I try to block it out … and then you have to do something goofy. If you just block it out and commit … it actually comes out pretty good in the end.
“When it’s all put together, it’s pretty cool.”
Each appearance is a learning experience, he said, noting, “It takes 10 attempts to do one thing.
“I didn’t get to drive the car, do some of the fun parts. That was a letdown. I wish I did. I’d rather be the stunt driver.”
Fans can visit here to register for a chance to win a 2015 Ford Mustang. Other prizes will be awarded throughout the course of the program as well. The Sweepstakes ends on Dec. 31.
Watch celebrities, awards from Daytona International Speedway media center
CLICK HERE: Live media center stream, starting at 3 p.m. ET
The schedule of pre-race media availabilities at Daytona International Speedway:
3 p.m. ET — Squier-Hall Media Award announcement by the NASCAR Hall of Fame
3:30 p.m. ET — Alyssa Milano, creator of the NASCAR line of Touch women’s apparel
3:45 p.m. ET — Sheryl Crow, recording artist and pre-race entertainment
5 p.m. ET — Adam Sandler and Kevin James, stars of "Grown Ups 2" and Coke Zero 400 grand marshals; Shaquille O’Neal, former NBA champion
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Joe Gibbs Racing announced Wednesday that Denny Hamlin has torn the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in his right knee, but that the driver is not expected to miss any time behind the wheel of the No. 11 Toyota.
The Joe Gibbs-owned team indicated that Hamlin, 34, was injured while playing basketball Tuesday night. The team said the torn ACL diagnosis was confirmed after a Wednesday morning evaluation at OrthoCarolina, an orthopedic practice in Charlotte. Hamlin will require offseason surgery to repair the ligament damage, according to the team.
JGR said in the release that Hamlin has received medical clearance to complete the 11 races remaining on the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series schedule, including those in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup playoffs. Hamlin secured his berth in the 16-driver postseason field by winning in March at Martinsville Speedway.
It isn’t the first such injury for Hamlin, who suffered a torn ACL in his left knee a month before the 2010 season, also while playing basketball. After initially opting to postpone surgery until after the season, Hamlin underwent an operation after the sixth race of the year, a victory for the JGR driver at Martinsville.
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Hamlin missed four races and a portion of a fifth in 2013 after suffering a broken back in a last-lap crash at Auto Club Speedway. The following March at the California track, Hamlin missed one race when a sliver of metal lodged in his eye, altering his vision.
Saturday night’s Federated Auto Parts 400 (7:30 p.m. ET, NBCSN, MRN, SiriusXM) at Richmond International Raceway represents a homecoming for Hamlin, who claims nearby Chesterfield, Va., as his hometown. He is a two-time winner at the .75-mile short track.
Hamlin is scheduled to address the media at 2:55 p.m. ET Friday at Richmond. The press conference will be streamed live at NASCAR.com/presspass.
RELATED: Updated standings | Full results from Darlington
Chris Buescher insists he’s not counting points, not with nine races left in the NASCAR XFINITY Series season. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t enjoy his perch atop the standings as the calendar turns toward crunch time.
“It’s not over by any means,” Buescher said Saturday after a scrappy fifth-place finish at Darlington Raceway. “There’s a long way to go and we’re going to have to race ’em hard all the way till the end, but I do like where we’re at. We’ve been able to kind of fluctuate a little bit right in this area this year, and that’s a huge testament to this 60 team, to everybody back at Roush Fenway. They’ve been working their tails off to try to get this stuff better, so we’re in a good spot. We want to get Ford back to a championship this year.”
Buescher, 22, converted his last time out with his first top-five finish in four career tries at Darlington, looking old-school with a damp towel around his neck after a sweltering afternoon of survival. The effort helped the Roush Fenway Racing ace pad his lead from 16 to 29 points over new second-place driver Ty Dillon. Chase Elliott slipped a rung to third place in the standings after Darlington, but remains within striking distance, just 35 points off the top.
The next challenge looming for Buescher is Friday night’s Virginia 529 College Savings 250 (7:30 p.m. ET, NBCSN, MRN, SiriusXM) at Richmond International Raceway, a track where he is 0-for-4 in the top-five column.
“Circling that one as one we need to try to turn around,” Buescher said. “That was a rough one for us earlier this year, but we have a lot of notes. We have a lot of things that’ve worked really well for us at short tracks since then, so we feel pretty comfortable going back. We’ll have to wait and see, but it’ll be a challenge surely. Honestly, I’m just glad we came out of Darlington with a solid day.”
Buescher will need more of the same at the .75-mile Virginia track, where he wrestled an ill-handling car to a 20th-place result in the most recent Richmond race, posting the No. 60 team’s worst finish of the season. Since that April evening, when he lagged three laps behind at the checkered flag, Buescher has righted the ship with two victories, the most recent of which placed him atop the standings.
To keep the team’s streak at No. 1 intact, crew chief Scott Graves said he’s hoping for another workman-like effort this weekend.
“We’ve spent a lot of time since the last Richmond really thinking about what we’re going to do there and coming up with a plan,” Graves said. “So next week, for sure, it’s really big for us.”
Buescher’s recent results on short tracks offer some encouragement. He prevailed in May at Iowa Speedway, a slightly larger but similar layout, and just last month the Texas native contended for the win at .533-mile Bristol Motor Speedway before running out of fuel on the race’s final restart.
The latter performance showed that Graves isn’t afraid to gamble for victories rather than playing it safe. Even then, he remains cognizant about the bigger picture.
“At this point, I’m always thinking about it,” Graves said of his driver’s position in the standings. “Nothing you can do other than just have days like we had today. If we keep doing this part, we’re going to be fine. We’ve just got to prevent the bad things from happening. We do the best we can to keep it from happening and if we keep it up like this, we’ll be just fine.”
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (September 9, 2015) — NASCAR® announced today that the annual NASCAR XFINITY Series™ and NASCAR Camping World Truck Series™ Awards will take place Monday, Nov. 23 at the Diplomat Resort and Spa in Hollywood, Florida.
The Diplomat Resort and Spa also will host the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series’ Championship 4 Media Day on Thursday, Nov. 19. At the event, the four remaining eligible drivers in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup championship will take center stage to preview the series finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
This is the first year the NASCAR XFINITY Series and NASCAR Camping World Truck Series Awards will be held at the venue, one of South Florida’s premier beachfront resorts.
“NASCAR and our fans have enjoyed an action-packed year in the NASCAR XFINITY Series and NASCAR Camping World Truck Series,” said NASCAR Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer Steve Phelps. “We look forward to recognizing our sport’s champions and toasting to the season at a first-class venue in the Diplomat Resort and Spa.”
In its inaugural year, the NASCAR XFINITY Series has proven that it is indeed the series “Where Names Are Made.” The current leaderboard is crowded at the top with Chris Buescher , Ty Dillon and Chase Elliott leading the points standings, and a pair of NASCAR Drive for Diversity graduates in Darrell Wallace Jr. and Daniel Suarez engaged in a close battle for Sunoco Rookie of the Year honors.
The rough-and-tumble racing in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series promises to produce a battle-tested champion. Contenders include two-time NASCAR Camping World Truck Series champion Matt Crafton and 19-year-old future stars Erik Jones and Tyler Reddick . If Crafton clinches the 2015 title, he would become only the third driver in NASCAR national series history to win a championship in three consecutive seasons.
The NASCAR XFINITY Series and NASCAR Camping World Truck Series Awards will air on NBCSN at 7 p.m. ET Sunday, Nov. 29.
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. and CHARLOTTE, N.C. (Sept. 9, 2015) — FS1 with NASCAR Productions will present, as a part of FS1’s NASCAR RACE HUB™, a new documentary short film series entitled Beyond the Wheel to offer an inside look at the sport’s most interesting stories and traditions. The documentaries further NASCAR RACE HUB’s expansion into dynamic storytelling, taking a new approach to explore pivotal moments and provide never-before-seen insights on influential NASCAR legends and fascinating historical characters. Premiering Wednesday evenings during NASCAR RACE HUB, the first film will launch Sept. 23 on FS1 at 6:00 p.m. ET.
The four-part documentary short film series is comprised of the following themes:
• Chasing Davey follows Robbie Allison, son of former NASCAR star Davey Allison, as he seeks a connection with his late father by participating in the sport Davey loved.
• The Kiss details the once legendary trophy girls and iconic Victory Lane kiss, and how the tradition has evolved through the decades in response to America’s changing values.
• The Last American Hero is Junior Johnson, Yes! pays homage to the 1965 landmark Esquire article written by journalist Tom Wolfe that introduced the country to stock car racing, the New South and one of NASCAR’s most infamous outlaw heroes — Junior Johnson.
• White Knight explores the story of the man many consider to be the winningest race car driver in history, Dick Trickle, who took home victories in an estimated 1,200 races and became NASCAR’s Rookie of the Year at age 48 before tragically ending his life in 2013.
The subsequent three films in the Beyond the Wheel series air on Sept. 30, Oct. 7 and Oct. 21, respectively (6:00 p.m. ET). Each documentary will also be available via FOX Sports GO, the critically acclaimed app that provides live streaming video of FOX Sports content at home or on the go, or on FOXSports.com following its on-air premiere.
Granddaughter of Dale Earnhardt Sr. set to host eight-episode season
Season 2 of "NASCAR Hammer Down" is back and better than ever with the addition of Karsyn Elledge as the show’s new host. Elledge, granddaughter of Dale Earnhardt and daughter of Kelley Earnhardt Miller, will undoubtedly bring her expertise and extensive knowledge as a racer herself and member of one of racing’s most storied families.
"NASCAR Hammer Down" is a part of the Nick Sports fall lineup on NickToons. Nick Sports broadcasts sports-specific content for kids who are interested in athletics. Karsyn’s debut comes tonight at 10 p.m. ET.
Along with its new, 14-year-old host, the show is changing up its format. "NASCAR Hammer Down" is being promoted as a magazine show for its sophmore season.
The NASCAR-themed show is set to air alongside NFL RUSH, in a two-hour programming block.
During Elledge’s turn to play host in the two-hour Nick Sports TV block, she will take viewers to the track and back to the studio with interviews, pranks, celebrity guests and lots of fun facts.
Each episode will also include a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) NASCAR-based curriculum.
NFL RUSH is set for a September 9th premiere date while "NASCAR Hammer Down" is slated to start on Sept. 30, both collectively airing from 9 p.m. – 11 p.m. ET.