Kurt Busch wins Coors Light Pole award in Pocono

Posted on June 5, 2015 by NASCAR Wire Service

Carl Edwards starts on front row in Sunday’s Axalta ‘We Paint Winners’ 400

LONG POND, Pa. — NASCAR Sprint Cup qualifying can be fraught with twists, turns and unexpected bumps in the road.

Friday’s qualifying session at Pocono Raceway, which saw Kurt Busch capture the Coors Light Pole for Sunday’s Axalta ‘We Paint Winners’ 400 had them all.

Throughout the day, Turn 2 — the Tunnel Turn — had been a major topic of concern.

"There are grocery store parking lots around the country that are jealous of those three bumps that have developed there," said Busch, speculating that an offseason beautification project with water feature, enhancing the exterior tunnel entry, somehow created the lumpy racing surface.

"To me, if they could just go ahead and take some bumps like that and put them over in the other corners too, it would be even better," said Carl Edwards. "It adds something. As long as it’s not breaking parts, I believe it gives us an opportunity to setup passes."

Ultimately, the issue with the bumpy track took a back seat when Denny Hamlin spun in Turn 1 in the final minute of qualifying, halting the session with 39 seconds remaining and preventing himself and four other drivers from posting a time in the final round.

"It really is a bizarre set of circumstances," said Jimmie Johnson, a winner of four races this season but one of the drivers left in the qualifying cold. "It’s just unfortunate (for) the guys that were on the track. But as long as NASCAR is consistent (with the rule) through all three series, then we will take our medicine and just deal with it. We (start) ninth. That is the best we’ve been in a while.

Joey Logano, the last driver not from Hendrick Motorsports to win at Pocono, was not so forgiving. Logano said he already had a ‘headache’ thanks to the bumps — and that was before his lap in progress was negated by Hamlin’s spin.

"A car spins out and they throw a red flag for it and then you don’t get an opportunity to go out and make a lap," Logano said. "I don’t understand it. It makes me mad. I don’t get it. We didn’t even have a chance to try to put our car up front."

Busch suggested that Pocono Raceway attempt to grind the bumps prior to Sunday’s race. Earnhardt was encouraged that Pocono Raceway CEO Brandon Igdalsky was not only aware of the situation, but planning to take action before the Sprint Cup Series returns in late July.

"I feel like they understand that while we can probably get through this weekend with what’s back there right now, it’s probably not in their best interest to leave it as-is," Earnhardt said. "It will continue to get worse and I don’t think that we can get our race cars through there if it gets much worse than it is."

Carl Edwards finished second in qualifying. "My plan with Denny (Joe Gibbs Racing teammate) almost worked out," Edwards joked. "But he didn’t spin early enough to keep Kurt from catching me."

Martin Truex Jr. qualified third in the Furniture Row Racing Chevrolet, unaware that the session had been cut short but well aware of the challenges in Turn 2.

"It’s wild," he said. "The first time through there, I thought either our car was way off or there’s something wrong with the race track. The bumps are 10 times bigger than they were last year, which is crazy. You’re going across bumps that are 8-10 inches tall and, literally, the tires are coming off the ground."

Jeff Gordon qualified fourth and series leader Kevin Harvick, who posted the fastest lap in each of the first two qualifying sessions, was fifth. Kyle Busch and Kasey Kahne were the other drivers who were burned by Hamlin’s spin, having waited too long to attempt a lap in the five-minute session.

Kurt Busch noted during practice that he was losing speed in Turns 1 and 3 and elected to focus on the vast majority of the course, not the troubles in Turn 2. His team also overcame a "wrong gear ratio in the transmission in third gear."

"There was so much disconnect when we first got here," said Busch, whose third pole of the season was the 19th of his career. "We had to drop back, reboot with (crew chief) Tony Gibson, (engineer) Johnny Klausmeier, the whole gang. Today was a big group-bonding day and a strength-building day on what this No. 41 team can do together."

With 43 race entries, all drivers qualified for Sunday’s race.

Tony Stewart, mired in 28th in the point standings, was forced to a backup car after a crash coming out of the Tunnel Turn in the 36th minute of Friday’s practice session. Stewart was 28th in the first round of qualifying and failed to advance. "Driver error," said Stewart, who has managed just one top-10 finish this season. "I was already past the bump. I got loose on the exit (of the turn) and couldn’t catch it."

Posted on June 5, 2015 by

More heartache for Erik Jones, who started on pole

FORT WORTH, Texas _ Matt Crafton continued his recent domination of NASCAR’s intermediate racetracks Friday night, hammering out a victory over an aggressive Daniel Suarez in the 19th annual WinStar World Casino & Resort 400 at Texas Motor Speedway.

Crafton, the two-time/reigning NASCAR Camping World Truck Series champion, survived a pair of late-race cautions and restarts against Suarez – including the final with two laps to go – to record his eighth career victory by 0.569-seconds.

FULL SERIES COVERAGE

• Latest news
• Standings
• Schedule

"The restarts were hairy," Crafton said in Victory Lane. "We got a pretty good start on that last one and ran side-by-side-by-side. We’re happy for sure, but not satisfied."

Erik Jones started on the pole Friday night after turning a qualifying lap at 181.074 mph in qualifying earlier in the day. Crafton started second and was seriously challenged only by No. 51 Kyle Busch Motorsports Toyota driver Suarez, who finished second in a two-lap shootout after trading paint with the No. 88 in the late laps.

It was Crafton’s third win of the season. The two-time defending series champion extended his lead in the points standings to 25 over Tyler Reddick.

John Wes Townley in the No. 05 Chevrolet , Johnny Sauter‘s No. 98 Toyota and Austin Theriault in the No. 29 Ford rounded out the top five.

Reddick was fastest in the first round of qualifying but wound up starting 16^th in Friday’s Truck Series race. His No. 19 Brad Keselowski Racing Ford looked to have speed to challenge Crafton, but Reddick was forced to serve two pit road penalties then stalled on pit road late in the race.

Jones, who has finished second or third four times in six races, had heartbreak again as the pit crew had trouble locating a spare battery when he pitted with a voltage problem. He was a lap down when repairs were complete. Before the mechanical trouble, Jones had led 68 of the first 86 laps in the No. 4 Kyle Busch Motorsports Toyota.

Ten laps after the swap, Jones reported the new battery hadn’t resolved the problem. He had to pit for a third battery on Lap 139 and went two laps down, finishing 15th.

Crafton won last year’s event here on fuel mileage, a strategy he and crew chief Carl "Junior" Joiner mapped-out en route to victory on the 1.5-mile Kansas Speedway last month. Crafton also prevailed on the 1.5-mile Atlanta Motor Speedway, a sister facility to TMS.

Crafton led a career-best 118 laps en route to victory here last June, snapping a 26-race TMS winless streak. Crafton and Joiner stretched their fuel mileage over the final 61 laps and cruised to a 13.302-second margin of victory over Justin Lofton. That comfortable MOV erased the series’ previous TMS record of 11.817-seconds set by Dennis Setzer in 2004. The victory was the fifth of Crafton’s career and second of 2014, marking the first time he had scored multiple wins in a season.

Friday night’s start was Crafton’s 29th at TMS – more than any active series driver entered in the 167-lap/250.5-mile event. For Crafton, that familiarity has bred respect.

"You don’t have to reacquaint yourself with the racetrack, but this track has changed quite a bit over the years," said Crafton, driver of the No. 88 Ideal Door/Menards Toyota Tundra fielded by ThorSport Racing. "Last year in this June race, it was really, really different than what I’d seen in the past. Usually when you’re here, you can run quite a few laps wide-open and I bet there wasn’t a total of five laps the whole weekend wide-open. It’s a lot slipperier and the racetrack is getting a lot more age on it. It’s definitely changing and I think it’s changing for the better."

With his earlier victories this season at AMS and Kansas Speedway, Crafton definitely is the measuring stick on 1.5-mile layouts. He entered the night with an 11-point lead (257-246) over Tyler Reddick of Brad Keselowski Racing, last week’s winner at Dover International Speedway, and a 14-point lead over Erik Jones, Friday night’s pole-sitter and driver of the No. 4 Special Olympics World Games Toyota fielded by Kyle Busch Motorsports.

Posted on June 5, 2015 by RJ Kraft

Driver making third Cup start of 2015 at Pocono

LONG POND, Pa. — Ty Dillon was a bit more definitive about his 2016 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series plans on Friday morning.

FULL SERIES COVERAGE

• Latest news
• Standings
• Schedule

"The plan is to be with be RCR," Dillon said. "And that’s definitely what I want to do and my grandfather (Richard Childress Racing team owner Richard Childress) so we’re working 100 percent. There might be options later down the road, but right now we’re 100 percent focused on getting sponsorship for full-time for RCR."

That said, the driver who is currently second in the NASCAR XFINITY Series standings in his second full-time season says there is "nothing real concrete" yet about the move up.

"We had talks, actually starting last year that going into this year we were going to start searching for an opportunity for me to run full-time in the Sprint Cup Series, like my brother (Austin) after his second year in the XFINITY Series. But it’s a slow process. We’re doing a lot of different things and working with a lot of different people. It’s not really our main focus. It’s kind of on the back burner at this point.

"But if we could get something nailed down early, it would only help our effort for next year. But right now, my main focus as a driver is getting experience."

The 23-year-old did offer up his dream scenario for next season, though.

"I think in a perfect world, just to kind of put it out there, I would love to run both series full-time and compete for the Rookie-of-the-Year title in the Sprint Cup Series and do what my brother is kind of doing this year in the XFINITY Series, but run all the races if I could."

Austin Dillon has run 10 XFINITY Series races so far this season with two wins, in addition to a full Sprint Cup slate.

Dillon will make his third Cup start of 2015 in Sunday’s Axalta ‘We Paint Winners’ 400 at Pocono Raceway (1 p.m. ET, FOX Sports 1, MRN, SiriusXM) and fifth of his career. His best finish so far was a 25th-place showing in his debut last Labor Day weekend at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

Posted on June 5, 2015 by RJ Kraft

Roush Fenway Racing driver wins ARCA race as he gets more Pocono seat time

LONG POND, Pa. — Trevor Bayne said the fine NASCAR issued him was a "hard pill to swallow" but the Roush Fenway Racing driver understands the seriousness of safety.  

FULL SERIES COVERAGE

• Latest news
• Standings
• Schedule

Bayne was fined $20,000 and placed on probation through Dec. 31 by the sanctioning body on Wednesday for exiting his car without the supervision of safety officials during last Sunday’s FedEx 400 benefiting Autism Speaks at Dover International Speedway. He also had been summoned to the NASCAR hauler for consultation on Sunday.

"It’s really tough," Bayne told NASCAR.com on Friday at Pocono Raceway, site of Sunday’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Axalta ‘We Paint Winners’ 400 (1 p.m. ET, FOX Sports 1, MRN, SiriusXM).

"It’s something they take very serious and I take very serious. Obviously, safety is a priority and I understand that. It’s a hard pill to swallow as big as the fine is for what I did. My car was on fire and I got out of the race car, which you are going to have to do. I felt like I was trying to exit the racing surface to get to the ambulance. I guess I needed to wait on the ambulance to get to me.

"I made a mistake and it won’t happen again. It’s really unfortunate. I felt like it was not an intentional thing by any means."

Bayne was involved in a three-car crash with HScott Motorsports teammates Michael Annett and Justin Allgaier in the 175th lap of the race. Bayne’s car skidded to a stop with severe front-end damage, he dismounted during the caution period and walked down the banked track surface in Turn 1 to the awaiting ambulance for the mandatory ride to the infield care center.

NASCAR formalized the rule, which is presented as a reminder during each pre-race drivers’ meeting, last August after a fatal accident involving three-time premier series champion Tony Stewart. Stewart was driving a sprint car at Canandaigua (N.Y.) Motorsports Park’s half-mile dirt track when driver Kevin Ward Jr. exited his car after a crash and was struck and killed.

The rule allows a driver to leave his or her vehicle before the arrival of safety personnel in the event of extenuating circumstances, such as fire.

Bayne’s infraction came two days after a similar incident involving driver Jennifer Jo Cobb, who walked onto the track surface to express displeasure with eventual NASCAR Camping World Truck Series winner Tyler Reddick as vehicles circled during the yellow flag. Cobb was fined $5,000 and placed on probation through Dec. 31.

Thursday brought better news for Bayne with the announcement that he and wife Ashton are expecting their first child.

"We’re really excited," Bayne said with a wide smile on his face. "Ashton and I have been looking forward to this for a long time. I feel like we had good timing here so far with it being a December baby, so we will be able to be home for the first couple of months with it and they’ll travel with me. There’s a lot of babies in the garage so we definitely aren’t on our own in this. Just really excited about it."

Kyle Busch, Brad Keselowski and Landon Cassill have all welcomed children into the fold in the past month.

This weekend, Bayne will be pulling double duty at Pocono, running the Sprint Cup race on Sunday and the Pocono ARCA 200 in the ARCA Racing Series on Saturday afternoon. With no prior experience at the Tricky Triangle, the 2011 Daytona 500 winner is looking for as much seat time as possible.

"I’ve never run anything at Pocono so that’s the point just to get seat time on this racetrack to learn," Bayne said on Friday before ARCA practice. "I want to get as many laps as possible and I think that’s a good way to do it. I’ve never been in an ARCA car before this racetrack so got to learn those as well. Feel like its going to be a lot of fun."

The additional seat time was fun indeed and a success for Bayne as he scored the pole position for his first ARCA race and roared to victory. That came a day after Bayne qualified 33rd for Sunday’s Sprint Cup race.

Kyle Larson won the ARCA event at Pocono last year ahead of his first start at the track.

Posted on June 5, 2015 by Staff Report

See where every driver will pit at 9 p.m. ET, FOX Sports 1

RELATED: Full qualifying results

Erik Jones earned the 21 Means 21 Pole Award and will seek his first series win of the season but second of the year at Texas Motor Speedway. He chose the third stall, first one at the exit of pit road heading into Turn 1.

FULL SERIES COVERAGE

• Latest news
• Standings
• Schedule

Points leader and two-time defending series champion Matt Crafton qualified second and will pit in the 14th stall with an opening in front of him. Daniel Suarez qualified third and will pit in the seventh stall with an opening behind him.

The fourth-fastest driver in qualifying, Crafton’s ThorSport teammate Johnny Sauter, will put 19th with an opening in front of him. John Wes Townley was fifth and will pit in the 22nd stall with an opening behind him. The sixth-fastest qualifier, Austin Theriault, will pit in the ninth stall with an opening in front of him, across from Suarez.

Timothy Peters qualified seventh and will pit in the 37th stall with an opening behind him. Fellow fourth row driver, Cameron Hayley, will pit in the 35th stall with an opening in front of him.

On the fifth row, a fourth rookie will start in the top 10 as Daniel Hemric qualified ninth and will pit in the 12th stall with an opening behind him. The 10th-fastest driver was Joe Nemechek, who will pit in the 27th stall with an opening in front of him.

Posted on June 5, 2015 by Staff Report

Truck Series points leader Matt Crafton qualifies second

Related: Full qualifying results

Erik Jones grabbed the 21 Means 21 Pole Award Friday night at Texas Motor Speedway, piloting his No. 4 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota around the 1.5-mile paved oval at 181.074 mph (29.822 seconds). It’s Jones’s second Truck pole of the season, and fifth overall when counting his three XFINITY pole awards.

Series leader Matt Crafton will share the front row after posting a qualifying speed of 180.379 mph in the No. 88 Toyota. Daniel Suarez (179.886 mph), Johnny Sauter (197.456 mph) and John Wes Townley (179.456 mph) round out the top five for the WinStar World Casino 400 (9 p.m. ET, FOX Sports 1). It’s the seventh race of the season in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series.

Tyler Reddick, who won last week’s NCWTS race at Dover, did not advance to the third round of qualifying on Friday and will start 16^th.

Jennifer Jo Cobb, who had an on-track incident with Reddick at Dover and was later fined for walking up the track, qualified 20^th for the WinStar 400.

The trucks are back on track at Texas at 9 p.m. ET for the WinStar World Casino 400 (FOX Sports 1).

Posted on June 5, 2015 by Staff Report

See where your favorite driver will pit on Sunday (1 p.m. ET, FOX Sports 1)

RELATED: Starting lineup

Kurt Busch won the Coors Light Pole Award for Sunday’s Axalta "We Paint Winners" 400 (1 p.m. ET, FOX Sports 1, MRN, SiriusXM) and earned the first pick of pit stall. He’ll pit his No. 41 Stewart-Haas Racing Chevrolet SS in the No. 1 stall at the exit of pit road.

FULL SERIES COVERAGE

• Latest news
• Standings
• Schedule

With the second-fastest lap and second pit pick, Carl Edwards chose the 43rd stall at the entrance to pit road off of Turn 3 for his No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota Camry. Third in qualifying, Martin Truex Jr. chose the second stall next to Busch for his No. 78 Furniture Row Racing Chevy.

Jeff Gordon was fourth in qualifying and picked the 30th stall at the start/finish line with an opening behind him to pit his Hendrick Motorsports No. 24 Chevy.

Points leader and reigning champion Kevin Harvick was fifth-fastest, but his team was penalized with the final pit pick after consecutive weeks of written warnings at Charlotte and Dover. The No. 4 Stewart-Haas Racing team chose the 13th stall in the middle of the pack in the first set of stalls.

Denny Hamlin was eighth-fastest and picked the 25th stall for his No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota with an opening in front of him. His JGR teammate, Kyle Busch, was 10th and will pit across the opening from Hamlin in the 24th stall.

The ninth-fastest driver, Jimmie Johnson, picked the 31st stall on the Turn 3 side of the start/finish line. The No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports team will be across an opening from teammate Gordon. A third Hendrick car, Kasey Kahne, was 12th in qualifying and chose the 41st stall to pit his No. 5.

Joey Logano was 11th in qualifying and selected the fifth stall for Sunday’s race.

Posted on June 5, 2015 by Staff Report

SHR teammate Tony Stewart wrecks, goes to backup

Kevin Harvick led NASCAR Sprint Cup Series practice on Friday at Pocono Raceway. Harvick turned a lap of 176.932 mph around the 2.5-mile course in 50.867 seconds.

FULL SERIES COVERAGE

• Latest news
• Standings
• Schedule

Kyle Busch finished second with a speed of 176.772 mph, followed by Carl Edwards, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Austin Dillon to round out the top five.

Earnhardt Jr., the defending race winner, posted a speed of 176.564 mph.

Tony Stewart spun out exiting Turn 2 and hit an interior wall, bringing out a red flag with 49 minutes left in the session. Stewart, who was in the No. 14 Chevrolet, had to go to a backup car.

"I was already past the bump," Stewart said. "I got loose on the exit of it and couldn’t catch it. Driver error."

Sprint Cup Series action continues with Coors Light Pole Qualifying at 4:45 p.m. ET (FOX Sports 1).

Posted on June 5, 2015 by Zack Albert

Drivers’ opinions of track surface mixed after opening practice

LONG POND, Pa. — NASCAR drivers were greeted Friday by a challenging new wrinkle to an already treacherous turn at Pocono Raceway. A wrinkle, a bump — or even a motorcycle jump, depending on whom you ask.

The 2.5-mile speedway’s second corner — otherwise known as the "tunnel turn" for the location of the track’s infield entry lanes — provided rough terrain during opening Sprint Cup Series practice, spawning mixed reviews from drivers and a promise from track president Brandon Igdalsky to find a remedy before the circuit returns Aug. 2. Barring an unforeseen development, a fix won’t happen before this Sunday’s Axalta "We Paint Winners" 400 (1 p.m. ET, FOX Sports 1, MRN, SiriusXM), which could produce interesting competition in the 14th of 36 races this season.

FULL SERIES COVERAGE

• Latest news
• Standings
• Schedule

"I’ve still got a headache," former Pocono winner Joey Logano said. "Apparently, winter was really harsh here or something. It’s unbelievable. I figure (extreme sports and motocross star) Travis Pastrana would be really good here with the jump in the tunnel turn. It’s brutal. It’s a big, big jump."

The triangular facility was last repaved ahead of the 2012 season, relatively recently in terms of track surface age. But Igdalsky said the trouble with asphalt settling in Turn 2 was accelerated by severe cold and snowfall the past two winters, and the fact that far less dirt is packed between the infield tunnel and the track’s asphalt.

"Those bumps have been there since we did the repave," Igdalsky told reporters Friday afternoon. "The first year, they weren’t there. The second year, they were there. Last year, they were a little bigger. It’s just been gradual, and the winter this year — these guys will tell you, living in Pennsylvania, the roads this year just got disintegrated. Everything just got beat up so bad because it was so cold. And it’s basically two back-to-back years of awful winters, and they’re taking their toll.

"A road is not any different than a race track at the end of the day. When the ground gets frozen, it does bad, bad things."

Igdalsky said the issue had nothing to do with a new decorative rock wall and waterfall added at the tunnel entrance in an offseason beautification project. But Kurt Busch, Friday’s Coors Light Pole Award winner, hinted that the notion might have some merit.

"For some reason the top side of the entry way was compromised," Busch said. "There are literally speed bumps the size that you would put in grocery store parking lots up on top of the track. Where did they come from? They had to have come from the underside where they were creating a beautiful fancy entryway. It is what it is. The sooner you get over it the better you are going to be."

Because NASCAR returns to Pocono for opening-day practice July 31, the turnaround time for a track renovation project is tight but doable, Igdalsky said. After the visit by the Sprint Cup and Camping World Truck Series, Indy cars race here three weeks later.

"We’re going to try to get something done before the next race," Igdalsky said. "If it’s as bad for these guys, it’s going to be worse for the Indy cars. So we’ve got to look at them, too. Those races being so close, we’re not going to have time between those two races to get it done. We have a really busy track schedule. We’ve got cars out there just about every day, so it’s just a matter of finding enough days to do something, get the track cleared, do something and then make it work."

The court of garage opinion seemed split on the tunnel turn’s transformation. Reigning Sprint Cup champ Kevin Harvick was among those in favor, tweeting, "Love the character of Turn 2. Makes you really have to change your car up!" Then again, Harvick may have had extra reasons for saying so after finishing opening practice atop the leaderboard.

Tony Stewart spun exiting Turn 2, but blamed his crash into the inside wall’s water barrels on driver error instead of bumps. Dale Earnhardt Jr. wasn’t far behind Harvick in fourth place in opening practice, but his review initially was less favorable. Even then, Earnhardt said he felt Igdalsky and the Pocono track management had a handle on the situation.

"I think everything is going to work out," Earnhardt said. "I would be worried had they not been aware of it and not had any interest in fixing it. Brandon does a great job with this place. I’ve gotten to know him really well over the last couple of years. He listens to the drivers, the series officials and really takes what everybody has to say to heart. He just wants to have a good facility people enjoy coming to whether you are a driver or a fan or what have you.

"I’m happy that they are going to tune on it. Whatever they do, anything to improve it. I just think over time another hard winter and it is just going to be a little bit too much."

Among those surprised by the abrupt development in the track surface was Earnhardt’s Hendrick Motorsports teammate, Jeff Gordon, who offered hope that the coarse nature of Turn 2 might produce an intriguing 400-miler here Sunday.

"It’s extremely rough," Gordon said. "It’s going to make it an interesting race, for sure. It seems like at speed, you can get through there and get over pretty good. It gets your attention, but if you were inside of a car or something like that, it’s really going to get your attention. We’ll maybe see what we can do to address that when we leave here if there is something that can be done because it did catch a lot of us by surprise. But I don’t know. It might make for a great race and add some unique challenge that we weren’t expecting."

WATCH: Denny Hamlin spin ends Cup qualifying early

Posted on June 5, 2015 by Zack Albert

Gordon, Earnhardt, Johnson laud exchange of ideas with NASCAR

LONG POND, Pa. — Jeff Gordon has logged plenty of miles in his stock-car racing career, ever since running his first NASCAR race back in 1990. But for all the sights and on-track highlights, last weekend’s summit of drivers with NASCAR officials off the track left him captivated by the possibilities for the future of the sport.

"I’ve got to say I think this is one of the coolest things I’ve seen happen in this sport since I’ve been in it," the four-time Sprint Cup Series champion said Friday at Pocono Raceway, site of Sunday’s Axalta "We Paint Winners" 400 (1 p.m. ET, FOX Sports 1, MRN, SiriusXM). "I only wish it had happened long before my final year."

FULL SERIES COVERAGE

• Latest news
• Standings
• Schedule

Despite his transition in his last full season of racing, Gordon was among several drivers included in a closed-door meeting of a specially selected drivers’ council last Saturday night at the casino and convention center adjacent to Dover International Speedway. The meeting was intended to spark discussion and open the lines of communication among drivers and the sanctioning body’s competition department.

Other drivers who have confirmed their attendance were defending Sprint Cup champion Kevin Harvick, Joey Logano, Tony Stewart, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Denny Hamlin and Kyle Larson — all selected by their peers. From that part of the process to the sharing of ideas on various topics, Gordon lauded the progress made.

"I thought having the drivers choose it and having certain categories and ways to go about it, and just the openness that NASCAR had to pursuing that, I think it is awesome," Gordon said. "I really do. I think it is one of the greatest things that I have seen. When I look at maybe top 10 things that I see happening in this sport, this is one of them. I sat in that room and was in awe and just wowed by this step forward."

While NASCAR officials this week downplayed the gathering as one of many informal meetings with competitors and teams, drivers almost likened it to a paradigm shift in how the sides will communicate for the betterment of the sport. In terms of what was discussed, no one has said in specific detail — only that the topics of safety enhancements and settling on the right rules package were among the biggest items.

"I feel like we are in an environment right now where there is going to be more change and trying to make the right decisions is important," Johnson said. "I feel that the drivers … we are living it inside the car. I know there is a lot of simulation and technology out there to kind of say what will happen, but we just want to make sure our voice is heard and the people that make the decisions know what is really going on in the car. I guess right now the rules package is the priority from the drivers’ council."

Earnhardt said NASCAR approached the drivers and asked them to help organize the summit, a feat that required coordination of everyone’s busy schedules — a stumbling block for setting up meetings in the past, he said. From there, the drivers chose their delegation — a group that Gordon said could change over time based on the potential for voting off council members should their participation wane.

Drivers indicated Friday that the possibilities for future council summits — including who participates, how frequently the sides meet and the meeting format — are all developing. The common thread, Earnhardt said, is working toward a better stock-car series.

"Things always change, improve, evolve and this is just kind of a more organized way for us to get in a room and have conversation about everything on the table," Earnhardt said. "I think it is awesome because you have all the NASCAR guys in there that you want to talk to that you want five minutes with. You have a lot of great race car drivers in there with a lot of great ideas and opinions.

"Everybody is in the room to work together. Everybody wants the same thing. We all want to have a healthy sport. We all want the racing as good as it can be and as safe as it can be. We talk about everything. We talk about the hot button topics and we talk about everything as far as what we think about particular tracks."