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Three-time Sprint Cup champ healthy after restful offseason

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CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Two years removed from an accident that left him with a shattered right leg, and less than six months after another on-track incident took the life of a fellow racer, Tony Stewart said his desire to race "is probably stronger than it’s ever been."

"I’m not happy about the last two years of my life by any means," Stewart said during Tuesday’s Charlotte Motor Speedway Media Tour presented by Technocom. "It’s given me more drive and desire to go back and get back to the old form that our fans and our sponsors are used to seeing. I’m looking forward to it. This is probably the most prepared I’ve been in awhile for a season to start."

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Stewart, a three-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion and co-owner of Stewart-Haas Racing, missed the final 15 races of the 2013 season after breaking his leg in an accident during a sprint car race in Iowa.

Following multiple surgeries, Stewart, 43, returned in time for the 2014 season, and competed in the first 21 points races before tragedy struck again. This time Stewart wasn’t injured, but fellow racer Kevin Ward Jr. died from injuries sustained when he was struck by Stewart’s car during a non-NASCAR race in New York.

Stewart sat out three NASCAR races following the incident before returning to complete the remainder of the season. An investigation into Ward’s death cleared Stewart of any criminal wrongdoing.

For the second year in a row, Stewart hopes to begin rebuilding a career just as doctors rebuilt his right leg.

Tuesday, the limp was hardly noticeable and Stewart said the leg feels "much better."

That, and the fact that he spent a portion of his offseason at home relaxing rather than competing in non-NASCAR affiliated races has helped.

"Normally during the offseason I go to a couple of races, especially through the holidays," he said. "I just stayed home and relaxed and enjoyed time with my family and friends.

Racing wasn’t totally off his radar, however. During this month’s Chili Bowl Nationals, one of the year’s largest sprint car events, Stewart provided his services to work with the track’s "grounds crew." He spent long hours helping groom and prepare the racing surface each day.

"My leg hurt," he said, "but it was sore from being on my feet all day. It wasn’t pain (related to the injury).

"Physically, even after the (Dec. 1) surgery, this is the best I’ve felt since the accident happened two years ago."

But can Stewart, the winner of 48 Sprint Cup races return to the form that helped make him one of the most successful drivers of the past decade and a half? His last victory came early in the ’13 season, at Dover, Delaware, and the late-summer problems resulted in his missing NASCAR’s last two championship playoffs, the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup.

"I really haven’t seen much difference externally," SHR co-owner Gene Haas said of Stewart. "He looks like the same Tony that I’ve always known. He’s always enthusiastic. I think he really loves racing so that makes up for a lot of … the pain that he’s gone through."

Stewart is one of five full-time drivers in the series 40 or older. Six-time series champion Jimmie Johnson will turn 40 later this year while defending series champ Kevin Harvick turns 40 in December.

"I’ve never questioned who I am and what I do," he said. "We’ve had two rough years back to back; I would never wish that on anybody. Deep down inside, I know who I am as a person and I know who I am as a driver. That’s what I want to get back to.

"That’s what makes the start of 2015 so exciting for me. It’s flipping the page and getting ready to get focused again on what we love doing."

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2012 champion believes ‘a new era’ has come with current Chase format

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CHARLOTTE, N.C. – It’s hard to determine if Brad Keselowski relishes his "anti-establishment" image in the world of NASCAR, but one thing is clear – the former Sprint Cup Series champion remains unapologetic for the way he races and the fallout that’s been known to follow.

"You know you’re doing something … right in this sport when you’re racing the establishment and you make them upset," Keselowski, 30, said Wednesday during the annual Charlotte Motor Speedway Media Tour presented by Technocom. "When you make them upset under the terms that I did – I made guys mad racing for the win, it wasn’t racing for 20th.

"If you get in a wreck and a fight racing for 20th, that doesn’t make SportsCenter. You get in a wreck and a fight with a previous champion racing for a championship, going for a win then you’re probably doing the right things."

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The Team Penske driver won a career-best six races last season and he and teammate Joey Logano were consistently fast throughout the course of the 36-race season. But it was incidents during the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup with Joe Gibbs Racing drivers Denny Hamlin and Matt Kenseth at Charlotte, as well as a post-race brawl at Texas with four-time champion Jeff Gordon, that thrust Keselowski, and the sport, into the glare of the national spotlight.

Kenseth and Gordon both questioned not only Keselowski’s actions on the track, but his unrepentant attitude after such incidents. Hamlin simply described he 2012 champ as "out of control."

Keselowski said such episodes either during the race or afterward didn’t affect him personally. Taking a big picture view, such altercations showed that "there’s a new era coming in this sport with this Chase," he said.

"Honestly, it’s already arrived. You’re going to have to be very aggressive to win championships under this format. That was probably the lesson I learned – more so about the sport than anything else."

That others were angry, he said, wasn’t surprising, noting "you should be upset when you don’t win."

The Chase format – which consists of four rounds with wins in any round by a qualified driver guaranteeing advancement into the next round – increased the on-track intensity and aggressive nature of the competition 10-fold. Evidence was impossible to miss.

"We certainly saw that with some moves I made, and I wasn’t the only driver," he said. "We saw that out of Kevin (Harvick) at the end; and Ryan Newman at the end. And I’m sure there was more than that. I don’t view that as a bad thing. I think that’s great for the sport. I think our fans will respond to that in the long term; that’s what we should be aiming for is what makes our fans happy."

Racing defensively and protecting one’s position went out the window with the new format, he said, noting that, "when that … mentality disappears from how the races play out, you see more aggressiveness.

"I think you see more heated moments. You see a lot of different things that I think are, in general, good for the sport."

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Three-time NASCAR champion will become sole owner of organization

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Three-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion Tony Stewart has entered into an agreement to purchase the All Star Circuit of Champions Sprint Car Series.

The announcement, made Wednesday, stated that Stewart has agreed to terms with series owner Guy Webb to become the sole owner of the organization.

"My passion for sprint car racing is well known," Stewart said in a release, "and the All Star Circuit of Champions … series has been a pillar of the sport for a long time.

"Racing is my business and I look forward to building the series’ already impressive legacy by taking it to a new level of success and sustainability."

Stewart, co-owner of the four-car Stewart-Haas Racing NASCAR Sprint Cup Series organization, has continued to compete in sprint cars throughout his NASCAR career. Incidents in the past two seasons, however, have left many wondering if his extracurricular racing activities should be either curtailed or stopped entirely.

In 2013, Stewart suffered a broken right leg in an accident while competing at a sprint car race in Iowa. The injury forced Stewart to miss the final 15 races of the ’13 NASCAR season.

Last August, Stewart was again competing in a sprint car race when his entry struck and killed a fellow driver, Kevin Ward Jr. Stewart sat out three NASCAR races while dealing with the emotional and legal turmoil. Although he was cleared of any wrongdoing in the incident, Stewart said the fatality was something that would stay with him "forever."

Dirt track racing makes up a large part of Stewart’s business endeavors, and includes ownership of Eldora Speedway in Rossburg, Ohio as well as Tony Stewart Racing, a successful World of Outlaws race team.

Webb said he had put his "heart and soul" into the All Star Circuit, "and it gives me great peace of mind to hand over the reins … to Tony Stewart.

"Tony is dirt track racing’s biggest advocate, and he’s always working in the best interest of sprint car racing."

The series, which is not tied to one specific sanctioning organization, has a 50-race schedule in store for the 2015 season. The first event of the new year is scheduled for Feb. 5-7 at Bubba Raceway Park in Ocala, Florida.

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Michael Annett joins Justin Allgaier in new-look two-car team

RELATED: See all roster changes for 2015

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — HScott Motorsports announced Tuesday during the Charlotte Motor Speedway Media Tour presented by Technocom that Michael Annett will join Justin Allgaier and the organization in 2015, ultimately expanding to a two-car NASCAR Sprint Cup Series team.

Annett, who is still without a crew chief and car number for the new season, comes from Tommy Baldwin Racing where he was a contender for the 2014 Sunoco Rookie of the Year Award and earned his best finish of 16th in May of last year at Talladega Superspeedway.

Annett’s move to HScott is not unfamiliar, though, as team owner Harry Scott Jr. explained that he and Annett have been around each other for quite some time.

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"We’ve kind of come up though the ranks together," Scott explained. "I started with ownership the same time he started in the national series."

Besides Annett having familiarity with Scott, the 28-year-old Des Moines, Iowa, native also recognized the small team’s accomplishments on track.

"It doesn’t take very long for them to have success," Annett said. "We saw that last year (in the team’s first full season in the Sprint Cup Series). Justin and I started as rookies and we were parked next to each other. And he kept moving further and further away from me to ask questions."

With the season opener at Daytona International Speedway less than a month away, Annett also said that despite the rush to put a team together, he would not have made the move without full confidence that it would be a benefit.

"There’s definitely a rush, and I’ve been in situations where we’ve put together a team late and we’ve made some mistakes — and not necessarily the team," Annett said. "Maybe I’ve made jumps into certain situations where we didn’t sit back and calculate them, and that’s when you get behind. We’re definitely rushed, but we wouldn’t have made this decision if we didn’t think we could pull it off with success, and not just halfway through the season."

Justin Allgaier, who will be back in the No. 51 car with Steve Addington as crew chief (as well as overall competition director for HScott Motorsports), spent a lot of the offseason reflecting on his rookie showing last year and what he would do differently in 2015.

"I look at 2014 and I look at some of the things that I did as a driver, some of the times that I maybe got too excited, too aggressive, maybe not aggressive enough in certain aspects," Allgaier said. "I feel like there are a lot of things that I look back at and think, ‘Man, I wish I would have done that differently.’

"I look at 2015 not as a sophomore season, but to keep that learning alive and to look at it as another rookie season. I’m not smart enough to know everything. To get at these race tracks again for a third or fourth time, I’m still learning. Hopefully, we can take all of that and use that to our advantage."

Because Allgaier spent his rookie season last year on a single-car team, the addition of Annett sparks the idea that the two Sprint Cup sophomores can work together both in the garage and on the track.

"To have a second car, I believe in today’s age of NASCAR is paramount," Allgaier said. "To have that teammate to be able to lean on. When we go to the race track on a weekly basis as a single-car team, you’re shooting in the dark. You hope that you hit everything exactly right.

"To have a teammate it allows the opportunity to try new things, to grow, but also, too, Michael and I are a lot alike. We’re very similar as far as our on-track driving abilities, our thoughts, what we want in a race car, so that excites me because we can work together and really grow. … I think all of that really helps our organization grow."

Growth appears to be essential for HScott Motorsports as the team now houses two young second-year Cup drivers both hungry for their first elite-series win and from the sounds of it, willing to work together to achieve success.

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All-star lineup of talent includes Jeff Burton and Hall of Famer Dale Jarrett

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — In the time since it was announced in July 2013 that NBC Sports would be returning to its coverage of NASCAR, a snowball effect-type buzz has been building around the media group’s Stamford, Connecticut, studios that would make Winter Storm Juno jealous.

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With its first season of Sprint Cup Series coverage in nearly a decade barreling towards us, the buzz reached a paramount on Tuesday when the incoming, all-star team was introduced during the Charlotte Motor Speedway Media Tour.

"Everybody at NBC Sports is thrilled to be back in the sport," said Jeff Behnke, NBC Sports Vice President, NASCAR. "It’s been eight and a half long years and I can tell you that the buzz around all of our production people, our engineers and our talent, sales, marketing; every group. We are absolutely thrilled to be back in the sport."

Following Behnke’s introduction, an eye-popping promo video for NBC’s coverage (which begins Fourth of July weekend with the Coke Zero 400 at Daytona International Speedway) was played, featuring enough high-throttle footage of raucous racing and wrecking to get the heart pumping — and the season hasn’t even started yet.

"I wish you could go up to Stamford, Connecticut, and walk through the halls," said Kyle Petty, former driver and NBC newcomer. "They are truly excited to have this property; it’s crazy. With the Premier League, with NHL, with NFL, some of the other properties that they have, the whole building there’s a buzz, and there was a buzz building all last year.

"That’s the exciting part for me. Sometimes when you drove a race car, all it took was a different paint job on the car and you got excited when you showed up at the race track. Or you put on a different uniform, a different sponsor and you were excited. It was like being a kid again. This group is excited to come back. It’s a new look, it’s a different feel and I think they’re going to bring some stuff this year that hopefully will excite (the media) but I know it’s going to excite the fans."

Of course, live racing on television can only take you so far without a group of highly talented individuals to call the action, so NBC has arranged a star-studded crew to bring it all home.

Media veteran Rick Allen will helm the lap-by-lap duties while 21-time Sprint Cup Series winner Jeff Burton and former Hendrick Motorsports No. 88 crew chief Steve Letarte will join him for color commentary. Other on-air talent includes Marty Snider — who was part of the original NBC coverage from 2001 to 2006 — NASCAR Hall of Famer Dale Jarrett, Krista Voda, Kelli Stavast, Mike Massaro, Dave Burns and Rutledge Wood. Motorsports journalists Nate Ryan and Dustin Long have also signed on for editorial coverage.

For Burton, who was in the car for four races just a season ago with Michael Waltrip Racing and Stewart-Haas Racing, this whole "being a media member" thing is a completely new, heavier experience.

"I’ve put on some weight," Burton said. "The media gets fed well, so that’s been an issue for me. Jeff has done an incredible job of putting a group of people together. This is just like building a team, it really is. It’s the same as being part of a race team. We have a goal that’s different than winning races, but it’s about doing the best broadcast we can and it’s really been fun to get to know everybody."

In addition to the studio in Stamford where the flagship show "NASCAR America" will be broadcast from, additional support will come from an NBC Sports studio in Charlotte, along with a smaller studio at Burton’s own late model garage — appropriately titled "Burton’s Garage."

While the long-time driver is more focused on the culinary aspects of being a member of the media, Letarte — an employee of Hendrick for two decades — may find that his biggest obstacle is objectivity.

Even so, it’s an aspect that he’s looking forward to.

"For 20 years, I’ve basically looked at one car and one car only,” Letarte, most recently crew chief for Dale Earnhardt Jr., said. "…You’re looking at one car and that car is your whole day. The opportunity to step back and see the entire race unfold, all 43 competitors, the different strategies; it’s going to be nice to not have to cheer for one car but to cheer for a good race and to see what competitor can bring his best game that day. That’s a big difference for me."

The commitment to NASCAR that NBC is making cannot be understated, and it really began last year. The outlet found ways to marry motorsports into its coverage of other sports and entertainment, whether it’s seeing Jimmie Johnson race Jimmy Fallon on "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon," Snider doing a piece with Johnson and his love of bicycles for the Tour de France or Carl Edwards teaming with Kentucky Speedway for a Triple Crown promotion. Dale Jarrett will also have an upcoming segment on the Golf Channel to showcase his links knowledge.

WATCH: Johnson race Fallon in a Cooler Scooter Race

On Friday, we’ll see the newest installment of cross-promotion when the NASCAR Gridiron Challenge airs at 10 p.m. ET on NBCSN, pairing drivers with former NFL players for a 20-lap race and an NFL skills-type challenge.

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Following up teammate Kurt Busch’s attempt isn’t in the cards

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CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Two of her Stewart-Haas Racing teammates are among the four drivers to compete in the Indianapolis 500 and the Coca-Cola 600 on the same day over Memorial Day weekend, but that prospect doesn’t sound too enticing to Danica Patrick.

On Tuesday at the Charlotte Motor Speedway Media Tour presented by Technocom, Patrick said she has "less thoughts about doing Indy every year."

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"Like I said last year and the year before, the further I get away from it, the less I think about it and the less I want to do it," Patrick said. "I feel like being in position to have a chance to win every year I went there was something great and I don’t want to do anything to take away from that and what I accomplished by going there and being worse than that essentially."

In seven starts in the Indianapolis 500, Patrick has finished in the top 10 six times, including a best finish of third place in 2009.

"It’s a never say never thing," Patrick added, "but its definitely further and further away in my mind."

Patrick’s SHR teammate Kurt Busch ran the 500-600 double last year with a sixth-place finish at Indianapolis for Andretti Autosport and a 40th-place finish at Charlotte Motor Speedway due to an expired engine.

Would Busch consider the double again?

"It’s nice to have Tony Stewart‘s blessing to run Indy," Busch said. "To have Michael Andretti give me the access to come back to give it a shot. It’s something we haven’t talked about."

Stewart, Patrick’s boss and teammate, has done the double twice, in 1999 and 2001. His best result came in 2001 when he completed all 1,100 miles of the double with a sixth-place finish at Indianapolis and a third-place finish at Charlotte.

Patrick also recently attended the Chili Bowl with her boyfriend, fellow NASCAR Sprint Cup Series driver Ricky Stenhouse Jr., who ran in the event. However, she warns not to expect to see her in that event, either.

"Yeah, a lot of people want to get me to run the Chili Bowl and I thoroughly enjoy standing around and hanging out," she said.

"It’s fun to watch a race. I do like watching racing every now and again and I rarely get to do that."

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Owner of Eldora feels sad, but says offer to race at dirt track is open

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CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Count Tony Stewart among those who were surprised by Jeff Gordon‘s announcement last Thursday that the 2015 Sprint Cup Series season would be his final campaign in a full-time ride.

In fact, the three-time champion who was also the runner-up to Gordon for the 2001 title, says it’s hard to imagine the day Gordon will not be piloting the No. 24 car.

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"It caught me off-guard," Stewart said during the Charlotte Motor Speedway Media Tour presented by Technocom. "I think it caught everybody off-guard. I always thought my whole life, especially early when we were rivals, I thought, ‘Man, I can’t wait until this guy announces his retirement,’ but it’s the polar opposite.

"I was really sad. I can’t imagine the day that he is not in the 24 car at the track. It’s not something I am looking forward to.

"I think we all respect Jeff Gordon, everything that he has done in this sport. I don’t think any of us ever imagined the day we weren’t going to see him in a car. As the season gets closer to the end, you are going to see a lot of people that are pretty sad about it, especially his peers that he races with."

Last Friday, Stewart took to Twitter to make Gordon an offer about running the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series 1-800-CARCASH Mudsummer Classic in 2016 at Eldora Speedway, the dirt track that Stewart owns in Ohio.

RELATED: Gordon at Eldora? Stewart wants it

The proposal seemed to gather some traction on Twitter, but Stewart said he hasn’t heard from Gordon about it yet.

"When you guys see him this week, make sure you re-emphasize that is an open offer," Stewart said. "We’ll make a great deal for him."

As for when Stewart will race at the dirt track, that may not happen for a bit.

"Probably not for a while," Stewart said. "It’s very hard to go to the track and be a promoter of an event, do everything that we need to do and try to drive at the same time."

The 2015 1-800-CARCASH Mudsummer Classic will take place at 9 p.m. ET on July 22 on FOX Sports 1.

MORE: Full Gordon coverage

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Smokey Mountain Herbal Snuff extends partnership with No. 98 entry

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Smokey Mountain Herbal Snuff and Pouches has extended their partnership with ThorSport Racing and Johnny Sauter for the 2015 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series, the team announced on Tuesday.

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The partnership is for eight races beginning with the season opener at Daytona International Speedway, the NextEra Energy Resources 250 on Friday, Feb. 20 (7:30 p.m. ET, FOX Sports 1).

"Smokey Mountain has been a huge supporter of our series, and every year they are able to increase their presence in NASCAR," Sauter said in a team release. "I’m honored they have chosen not only to extend their partnership with myself and ThorSport Racing in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series, but to have also increased their presence in 2015. This kind of partnership is hard to find these days, so I’m honored to be carrying their colors and representing their brand again this season."

In addition to the opener at Daytona, Smokey Mountain Herbal Snuff and Pouches will serve as the primary sponsor for both races at Martinsville Speedway (in March and October), the May races at Charlotte Motor Speedway and Dover International Speedway, the August race at Bristol Motor Speedway, the October race at Talladega Superspeedway and the November race at Texas Motor Speedway.

Last season, Smokey Mountain Herbal Snuff was a primary sponsor for Sauter in six of the series’ 22 races.

In the 2014 season, Sauter scored a win at Michigan International Speedway and finished fourth in the final standings, driving the No. 98 Toyota Tundra for ThorSport Racing.

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Ran nine races in 2014 in a fill-in role for the team

BK Racing named JJ Yeley as its primary driver for 2015, piloting a Toyota Camry for the team in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. The exact car number has not yet been announced.

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Yeley ran nine races for BK Racing in 2014, including eight in the No. 83 car, taking over the ride from Ryan Truex for the first time at Michigan International Speedway. Running a quarter of the season with the team, his best finish was 29th in October at Kansas.

"I am looking forward to getting back behind the wheel of my BK Racing Toyota Camry," Yeley said. "I filled in for the team at the end of the 2014 season, and I’m glad to be given the opportunity to come back again for another season. I am ready to get the 2015 season started and head to Daytona International Speedway for some restrictor plate racing."

In 220 career starts in NASCAR’s top series, Yeley has two top-five finishes, eight top-10s and one Coors Light Pole Award. He ran two full-time seasons for Joe Gibbs Racing in the No. 18 car in 2006 and 2007 and ran all but one race in 2013 for Tommy Baldwin Racing.

"JJ has been a great asset to the BK Racing team," owner Ron Devine said. "He has been involved in the motorsports industry for several years now, and has the knowledge and skill to help build this organization."

In a statement, the team indicated "more information on the remaining BK Racing drivers, sponsors and partnerships" would be forthcoming.

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Axalta ‘We Paint Winners’ 400 scheduled for June 7

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Pocono Raceway announced Tuesday that the first NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race of its season will get a winning paint job from a sponsor that has coated championship cars.

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The track’s longtime partner, Axalta Coating Systems, entered into a multi-year entitlement agreement which includes the June 7 race held at ‘The Tricky Triangle’ as the Axalta "We Paint Winners" 400.

"We are very excited to share this great news, in cooperation with everyone at Axalta Coating Systems," Pocono Raceway President/CEO Brandon Igdalsky said. "They have been a great addition to the Pocono Raceway family, and we look forward to growing this relationship in 2015 and beyond.

"What makes this even more special is the fact we get to work hand-in-hand with a true global powerhouse who also calls the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania ‘home.’"

Based in Philadelphia, Axalta has sponsored Hendrick Motorsports driver Jeff Gordon throughout his career, initially under the DuPont banner. Gordon holds the record for wins at Pocono with six.

"Axalta is proud of its 22-year motorsports partnership," Axalta Vice President and head of its North America business, Nigel Budden said. "As a leader in the U.S. refinish business, our paint graces race cars that burn rubber on the track each season and we proudly support four-time NASCAR Cup Series champion Jeff Gordon.

"Now, we are pleased to expand our racing involvement as Pocono Raceway‘s title sponsor of the upcoming race on June 7. We look forward to cheering on Gordon as he vies for a seventh win at Pocono Raceway."

Axalta Coating Systems is "The Official Finish" of Hendrick and Stewart-Haas Racing, the two most recent Sprint Cup championship organizations.