Posted on by Zack Albert

Ty Dillon moves to Nationwide Series looking to build off of 2013 success in Truck Series

This is the fifth in a series of 2013 Camping World Truck Series driver recaps that will be featured on NASCAR.com.

The way Ty Dillon sees it, he has some catching up to do.
 
For the second time in his budding NASCAR career, he’ll be moving up a rung in the national series ladder, following a championship-winning lead this year from big brother Austin Dillon, who won the NASCAR Nationwide Series title last season. Ty Dillon couldn’t quite make a family sweep of championships in 2013, but the consolation prize was still sweet — a two-win season in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series and a runner-up finish to runaway champ Matt Crafton, complete with some fireworks along the way.
 
Even though his brother has a 2-0 lead in national series championships, Ty Dillon sees his move to Nationwide competition for Richard Childress Racing in 2014 as a chance to help even the score.

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"I’m a little behind right now," Dillon said with a sheepish grin at the Nationwide and Camping World Truck Series Awards Banquet in November. "I really wanted to get that truck championship so that I was at least on the same level. It’s cool just to be able to succeed for RCR and to be able to win races this year was great enough for me. We really wanted that championship, but I’m going to do all it takes to get another one next year."
 
The younger Dillon’s second full season on the truck tour started off slowly, with just one top-five finish in the first six races, leaving him seventh in the points by the time the calendar turned to June. But he rallied from a devastating engine failure and 31st-place finish at Dover with a second-place effort at Texas and his first victory of the year at Kentucky in the two-race span that followed.
 
Dillon’s showing on those 1.5-mile speedways was an accurate indicator of more success on intermediate-sized tracks — he recorded top-five finishes in six of the series’ eight races on 1.5-mile layouts. Late-race contact, however, hampered competitive outings by Dillon in the next three races (Iowa, Eldora and Pocono) to offset his progress through the summer months.
 
"For sure, there were a lot of opportunities that I learned from now that would’ve put us right in it," said Dillon, who led laps in 12 of 22 races last season. "… It seemed every time we gained momentum to get back in the hunt for the championship, we’d make a mistake, whether it was just me or a mechanical failure. But that’s racing — if it was easy, it’d be called winning, not racing. So I’ll learn from it and use my experience that I learned this year to go on to the Nationwide Series."
 
Some of Dillon’s biggest 2013 headlines, though, came in the later portion of the season — both in races he didn’t win. He was punted from the lead by fellow youngster Chase Elliott in the final corner of the final lap in the series’ debut at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park, touching off a heated post-race confrontation in a race full of them.
 
Five races later at Martinsville Speedway, Dillon locked horns with Kevin Harvick in a late-race battle for second place, triggering a fender-clanging duel on the track and plenty of name-calling off it. Even given time and distance from the incident, Dillon said he wouldn’t have changed his approach.
 
"I’m a hard racer and maybe I’d have given him another lap or so, but I was there to win the race," Dillon said. "Matt Crafton had a huge points lead. As we’d seen, maybe if I’d we would’ve won that race or finished up front, we’d have had a better shot coming into Homestead. I’m a hard racer. I want to win races, and I feel like those guys are trying to steal my money, steal my job, so I’m going to do whatever it takes to win races."
 
The 21-year-old driver accomplished that in the series’ next race, leading 130 of 147 laps for a dominant victory at Texas Motor Speedway. That triumph and a fourth-place run the following week at Phoenix helped Dillon grab a tenuous hold on second place in the standings, but his chances of catching Crafton for the overall crown were officially gone once Crafton started the season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
 
Dillon, who added the series’ Most Popular Driver Award to his 2013 accolades, will carry two years of seasoning to NASCAR’s next level, where he already has 12 career starts. Even though he anticipates a challenge in the Nationwide Series, he makes the move into the championship-winning team vacated by his brother, who joins the Sprint Cup Series full-time in 2014.
 
"My expectations are always the same. Even though it’s my rookie year, I’m going out to win the championship and win races," Dillon said. "I’m moving in to a great team that’s showed they’ve got the ability to win championships and that’s what we’re going to do right off the bat. We’ve kind of taken a slower path in our careers, making sure that when we’re ready to move up, we can win races right away. That’s the plan — I’m going to set my goals high for next year and hopefully, win four or five races. I think if you set your goals high, if we don’t achieve that goal and only win two or three, it’ll still be pretty good."

MORE:

READ: Year in Review
driver profiles

READ: A season defined
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READ: Top 10 on-track
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WATCH: Handing out the
2013 Loopie Awards
Posted on by Brad Norman

The 2013 season, as told by drivers and crew chiefs

It was a year bookended by history.

Danica Patrick opened the 2013 NASCAR season by winning the Coors Light Pole for the Daytona 500. Jimmie Johnson ended it by winning his sixth NASCAR Sprint Cup Series championship.

In between, there were stories made more intriguing when described by the colorful cast of NASCAR characters.

Here’s the story of the year, in their own words.

• "I was brought up to be the fastest driver not the fastest girl, and that was instilled in me very young from the beginning." — Danica Patrick after becoming the first woman to win the Coors Light Pole for the Daytona 500.

• "It is just awesome, there’s no other way to describe it. To be the first to win in a Gen-6 car … I’m just very proud of the moment." — Jimmie Johnson after winning the Daytona 500 in his 400th career start.

This tweet by Denny Hamlin ignited his feud with Joey Logano.

• "I’m no health freak by no means. Last year I was like, ‘Man, the (firesuits) are shrinking, something is wrong with the washer.’" — Dale Earnhardt Jr. on losing 20 pounds in the offseason

• "You know, I was pretty comfortable where I was at. We had cars that could win races (at Roush). I know (Joe Gibbs Racing is) expecting me to perform and do my job. Before this year, I can’t remember the last time I’ve ever been nervous at all inside of a race car." — Matt Kenseth after winning at Las Vegas, his first victory with Joe Gibbs Racing.

• "He said he was coming for me. I usually don’t see him, so it’s usually not a factor." — Denny Hamlin, taking a shot at Joey Logano not running near the front following an argument at Bristol.

• "He probably shouldn’t have done what he did last week, so that’s what he gets." — Joey Logano following a last-lap wreck with Denny Hamlin at Fontana. At the time, Logano did not know Hamlin had been taken to the hospital.

• "He’s a tough guy on pit road as soon as one of his crew guys is in the middle of it. Until then he’s a scared little kid and wants to throw a water bottle at me. He’s going to learn a lesson. And he can run his mouth on Twitter all he wants tonight, I’ve got plenty of people that are going to watch for that. It’s time he learns a lesson." — Tony Stewart, who shoved Logano on pit road at Fontana.

• "I can tell you there’s no team in this garage with the integrity of the 2 team and the way we’ve been treated over the last seven days is absolutely shameful." — Brad Keselowski after his car failed pre-race inspection at Texas and he was forced to change his rear-end housing.

• "Who cares how you get caught? If you’re cheating, if you’re doing wrong, it doesn’t matter what you’re doing — it’s wrong." — Clint Bowyer, on whether Michael Waltrip Racing would turn in another team for bending the rules.

• "I think the penalties are grossly unfair. I think it’s borderline shameful." — Matt Kenseth after NASCAR handed Joe Gibbs Racing a massive penalty when his engine failed post-race inspection following a win at Kansas. The penalties were later largely overturned.

• "When you can leave a race track and there’s people in tears because they won and (people) in tears because they got crashed, you know, that’s what brings us to the race track." — Clint Bowyer, who finished runner-up to Kevin Harvick in a frenzied spring race at Richmond.

• "It’s a true David vs. Goliath story. I couldn’t be more proud to play my own role." — David Ragan after winning at Talladega.

David Ragan’s win at Talladega Superspeedway was the first for Front Row Motorsports as an organization.

• "We have alligator blood. I don’t know what to say. It’s just we’re a different breed that are willing to throw caution to the wind just to get back to what we love doing." — Denny Hamlin on his eagerness to return after a back injury sidelined him for four races.

• "He screwed up again. It was his third time this year he’s screwed up." — Kasey Kahne on Kyle Busch after the two bumped at Darlington, sending Kahne into the wall.

• "Dropping valves, blowing up. Goodbye. Goodnight Gracie." — Kyle Busch over his scanner in the Coca-Cola 600.

• "I guess my question is why don’t we have two batteries? My late model has two batteries in it." — Kurt Busch on the radio after having to change his battery following a red-flag period at Charlotte.

• "Did I get a nice dinner out of it? Let’s see. No, went home and went right to bed. I think I ate something on my bus. I think I had half of a banana, a little chocolate protein shake and two beers. That’s what I had." — Danica Patrick, speaking about the aftermath of her crash with boyfriend Ricky Stenhouse Jr. at Charlotte.

• "As much as I hate to say it, it’s good to be back in the media center.”  — Tony Stewart, opening his press conference after recording his first victory of the season at Dover.

Winning at Dover brought Tony Stewart to one of his favorite places — the media center.

• "He ain’t our teammate." — Carl Edwards on Roush Fenway Racing partner Greg Biffle, who was leading the June race at Michigan and declined to slow his pace to help Edwards remove debris from his grille. Biffle won the race, while Edwards finished in eighth place.

• "I’m bringing in another one of my friends to the organization, but also knowing that I’m losing a friend at the end of the year to the organization. The number one thing when Ryan and I spoke is that our friendship will not change. This was a business decision." — Tony Stewart, in announcing that Kevin Harvick would be with Stewart-Haas Racing next season, and Ryan Newman would not.

• "Train wreck; extremely fast train, but usually ends up derailed somehow.”
— Clint Bowyer sums up his thoughts on former Formula One and Indy 500 winner Jacques Villeneuve’s NASCAR exploits.

• "The No. 20 (Matt Kenseth) broke the pace car speed, which you aren’t supposed to, but, they aren’t calling guys on that so I need to start trying that in the future." — Jimmie Johnson after his Kentucky misfire. Restarts troubled the Hendrick Motorsports driver this year.

• "You will not win this championship, mark my word." — An irate Elliott Sadler, jabbing his finger into then-NASCAR Nationwide Series points leader Regan Smith’s face following an on-track incident at New Hampshire. Smith did not win the championship as he finished third in the final standings.

• "He’s the biggest, stupid idiot out here and he’s a big ogre and can do whatever he wants ’cause he can probably kick anybody’s butts. No sense in getting in a fight with him." — Kyle Busch, who was less than pleased with Ryan Newman at Loudon.

• "I think it was a success. It was such a great show… This is real racing right here, and that’s all I’ve got to say." — Austin Dillon, who was thrilled with NASCAR’s return to dirt racing at Eldora and won the Camping World Truck Series event at the venue.

• "I never lifted." — Norm Benning, who held his line and emerged from the last-chance race to make the main event at Eldora.

• "I got fired a couple weeks ago, come back here, win the pole and win the race." — Ryan Newman, who won at Indianapolis weeks after losing his spot at Stewart-Haas Racing.

• "Ogres don’t have emotions, you know that." — Ryan Newman, who hadn’t forgotten Kyle Busch’s words during his interview at Indy.

• "You mortals have got to learn. You guys (in the media) need to watch more sprint car videos and stuff. It’s starting to get annoying this week about that. That was just an average sprint car wreck. … If it’s bad, we’ll let you guys know." — Tony Stewart defended racing sprint cars following an on-track accident when pressed at Pocono.

• "We expect a full recovery by Daytona or close to it. You know, it may be able to be done earlier, it’s just not worth it. It’s a bad break to the leg, and he needs time to go through the process of healing, rehabilitation, all those things." — SHR Competition Director Greg Zipadelli on Tony Stewart, who broke his right leg in three places in a sprint car accident days after the Pocono race.

• "The thing is, you’ve got to live life. You can’t spend your whole life trying to guard against something. If you do that, you’ve wasted your time. We’re all here a short amount of time in the big picture. I’m going to take full advantage of whatever time I’ve got on this earth." — Tony Stewart during an insightful press conference in his first meeting with the press after breaking his leg.

• "I told him that he ain’t going to finish Iowa if he runs it. Whichever race he’s in, he ain’t going to finish it." — Ty Dillon issued a warning to Chase Elliott after Elliott dumped Dillon while racing for the win at Canadian Tire Motorsports Park in a Truck Series event. 

• "It’s an opportunity of a lifetime to be teamed up with (Kevin) Harvick, with Tony (Stewart), Danica (Patrick). Us four in the same meetings, it could be hell or could be great. I’m just kidding about the hell part." — Kurt Busch giddily explaining why he accepted an offer to join Stewart-Haas Racing.

• "Kicked me in the nuts again, metaphorically." — Brian Scott, who led the first 239 laps at Richmond but finished second in the 250-lap race. Scott was kicked below the belt by Nelson Piquet Jr. in the spring race at the 0.75-mile track.

• "I know it’s a lot of fun for you guys to write a lot of wacky things. Go ahead, if you want to. Get creative. But don’t look too much into it." — Clint Bowyer, after his suspicious-looking spin in the regular-season finale at Richmond.

• "It was the craziest thing I ever saw. He just spun right out.” — Dale Earnhardt Jr., who had a great view of Bowyer’s spin.

• "It is our determination that the (Michael Waltrip Racing) organization attempted to manipulate the outcome of the race. As the sport’s sanctioning body, it is our responsibility to ensure there is a fair and level playing field for all of our competitors and this action today reflects out commitment to that." — NASCAR Vice President for Competition Robin Pemberton in announcing that Ryan Newman would replace Martin Truex Jr. in the Chase.

• "I don’t really have any emotions right now. We weren’t good enough to make it and we didn’t. That is the reality." — Defending series champion Brad Keselowski, who didn’t qualify for the 2013 Chase.

• "We believe in looking at all of it that there were too many things that altered the event and gave an unfair disadvantage to Jeff and his team, who would have qualified, and I have the authority to do that. We are going to do that." — Brian France in announcing Jeff Gordon would be added to the Chase as an unprecedented 13th driver.

• "For me to win at New Hampshire, first of all, is more than a stretch and more than a dream. This is probably one of my worst places." — Matt Kenseth after opening the Chase with back-to-back victories.

• "To be honest with you, I walked into media day (in February at Daytona), and there were two people standing in line to conduct interviews, so from day one of this year, everybody’s kind of written us off." — Kevin Harvick, who won at Kansas in the fall to keep his title hopes in good standing despite this being his last year with Richard Childress Racing.

• "I got wrecked by a dirty driver. There’s no other way of putting it. He’s cool with that. I have raced him really cool over the last year to be respectful to him and try to repair our relationship. … It is not going to last, I can tell you that. Now we’ve got war.” — Brad Keselowski, who didn’t take kindly to getting dumped by Kyle Busch in the Nationwide Series race at Kansas.

• "That just goes to show you the kind of person Brad Keselowski is and the class he doesn’t have. Brad Keselowski knows what dirty drivers are because he’s done it plenty of times." — Kyle Busch, in response.

• "If you care about your well-being, your health and your quality of life, it’s a smart move to embrace." — Dale Earnhardt Jr., who missed two races in 2012 with post-concussion symptoms, on NASCAR instituting mandatory baseline concussion testing in 2014.

• "Well, when the checkered flag dropped, I heard a big boom from heaven, and my daddy said, ‘Hell, yeah!’ " — Franklin Scott, son of pioneer Wendell Scott, following Darrell Wallace Jr.’s historic win at Martinsville in the Truck Series.

• "That’s exactly the reason I’m leaving RCR because you’ve got those punk-ass kids coming up. They’ve got no respect for what they do in this sport and they’ve had everything fed to them with a spoon." — Kevin Harvick after an on-track incident with Ty Dillon in a Camping World Trucks Series race. Harvick apologized the next day.

• "I’m pretty disappointed in the things that just went down. I used to look up to that guy." — Ty Dillon’s take on the incident.

• "That’s a divorce. You ever seen a divorce? That’s like her taking not only the furniture and the silverware — she took the dog, too. (Harvick) didn’t get the animal, I would say." — Clint Bowyer, chiming in on the Harvick-Dillon spat.

• "Maybe I overreacted a small amount. But I wanted him to realize that I was not happy with what took place. I would do it again today." — Greg Biffle, who whipped Jimmie Johnson around by the collar on pit road at Martinsville.

• "I think we were in great shape last year. I think we’re in as good or maybe just a pinch better shape this year, though I do feel the opponent is a little more formidable than what we had last year." — Chad Knaus, Jimmie Johnson’s crew chief, on the team’s title chances.

• "If I was going to give Matt (Kenseth) a piece of advice, I’d say use the s— out of him. Every time you get, run him hard, because that’s his weakness." — Brad Keselowski, perhaps in response to Knaus’ comments.

• "I really will walk away from this year feeling like we all gave it everything there was to give. But from a competitive standpoint it’s been by far the best season of my career." — Matt Kenseth, who won seven races this year but couldn’t slow Jimmie Johnson’s march to six titles.

• "I have six. We’ll see if I can get seven. Time will tell. I think we need to save the argument until I hang up the helmet. I just want to enjoy the moment, soak it all in." — Jimmie Johnson on his place in history.

MORE:

READ: Year in Review
driver profiles

READ: A season defined
by a night in Richmond

READ: Top 10 on-track
moves of 2013

WATCH: Handing out the
2013 Loopie Awards
Posted on by Holly Cain

Hornish remains reflective of 2013 and optimistic for the future

The fact that Sam Hornish Jr. was so disappointed with a NASCAR championship runner-up finish says a lot.

The frustration was evident on Hornish’s face as he leaned against his Penske Racing Ford on Homestead-Miami Speedway’s pit road moments after the final checkered flag of the 2013 season.

After turning in the finest season effort of his burgeoning NASCAR career, the 2006 Indy 500 winner was left three painful points shy of his first stock car championship — just losing out on the Nationwide Series title to Austin Dillon despite a valiant showing in the season finale.

FULL SERIES COVERAGE

SEASON IN REVIEW

"I wish we could have brought it home," Hornish said, "But this was a great opportunity."

Hornish’s struggles in moving directly into NASCAR’s premier Sprint Cup Series from 2008-2010 from a triple-championship resume in the IndyCar Series are well documented. But Hornish flourished given the chance to regroup and properly gain experience as a full-time competitor in the Nationwide Series the past two years.

And it culminated with an impressive near-championship run in 2013 that almost ended as well as it started.

Hornish never finished worse than seventh in the first two months of the season — a run highlighted by a win at Las Vegas and runner-up showings in the Daytona season-opener and again at Auto Club Speedway in March. He led the championship standings for the first seven weeks — 15 weeks in all.

His 16 top-five and 25 top-10 finishes were a series best and only Dillon (seven) bettered Hornish’s four poles. And he led 603 laps — nearly three times as many laps as he had led before combined.

Hornish was one of only three full-time Nationwide competitors — not including Dillon — who won in 2013. And he was ranked either first or second in the standings for all but two weeks on the season.

The problem — as it so often turns out — was with the rare off days. Hornish finished worse than 17th place only four times in 33 races. But three of those — a 34th at Texas, a 32nd at Michigan and a 34th at Indianapolis — were way off.

"There were a lot of good days and very few bad ones, but when they were bad they were catastrophic," Hornish said after accepting his second place trophy at the season awards banquet.

"But," he added with a smile, "a lot of things learned this year and I had a lot of fun doing it."

The silver lining in his championship near-miss was that he had such high expectations and felt competitively comfortable in a stock car — at last having a legitimate opportunity to develop, learn and ultimately succeed at a high level.

The irony is that after turning in his best season to date in NASCAR, Hornish received word late season that he needed to look for a new job in 2014. Although Hornish has not revealed his plans about next season, he indicated that he would be open to competing in Nationwide again or returning to Sprint Cup.

And he said in Homestead that he had several offers to ponder.

"The biggest thing for me is not to rush into anything," Hornish said. "As opposed to getting into something I don’t even have an outside chance at winning in, I’d rather sit at home. I feel like I’ve come too far to put myself in a position where I’m just going to bang my head against the wall and not have any opportunity to win."

With his wife Crystal due with the couple’s third child in early in 2014, Hornish was understandably both reflective of the year and optimistic about the future.

"I do this because I want to do it, but I’m not going to do it just to say I’m a race car driver," Hornish said, insisting he didn’t want to be in an non-competitive situation at this point in his career.

"I guess a lucky and blessed thing to be able to say that. I have a lot of things in my life I’m really happy to have.

"And given the opportunity with the right tools, I think we’ve shown what we can do."

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Posted on by Staff Report

NASCAR drivers thank fans for all their support in 2013

With the year coming to a close as well as the holiday season, NASCAR drivers have a special, heartfelt message for the fans.

In the video above, watch as Jimmie Johnson, Matt Kenseth, Kyle Busch, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Jeff Gordon and more thank the fans for their support of the 2013 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season.

The drivers also offer their wishes to everyone for a great holiday season and as Clint Bowyer says, "we’ll see you in Daytona."

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First season with Joe Gibbs Racing results in second-place finish in standings

RELATED: 2013 recaps of every Chase driver

This is the 12th in a series of 2013 Sprint Cup Series driver recaps that will be featured on NASCAR.com

Matt Kenseth was virtually certain that he’d never have another chance to win a title again.

That was his mindset a year and a half ago at Roush Fenway Racing, where he was solid driver who contended for race victories, but didn’t think he had the week-to-week speed necessary to threaten for the year-end crown. But suddenly circumstances intervened, and Roush’s decision to promote two-time NASCAR Nationwide Series champion Ricky Stenhouse Jr. left no room for Kenseth, who departed for Joe Gibbs Racing and a No. 20 program that had experienced only moderate success under his predecessor, Joey Logano.

The result was a transformation, with Kenseth recording a career-best and series-high seven race victories, and the 2003 champion of NASCAR’s premier circuit making his most serious title run in a decade. He wound up second, finishing 19 points behind Jimmie Johnson, but the entire experience was one he didn’t even think possible just a short time earlier.

"Honestly, before we put this deal together a year and a half ago, I was 95 percent sure that I wasn’t going to have that shot again," Kenseth said. "I don’t mean this as any disrespect or anything like that, but I was almost 100 percent sure we were never going to be fast enough to beat somebody like the 48 (team of Johnson) every week to win one again. This year, we could have. I felt like on average all year, we could go toe-to-toe with anybody."

FULL SERIES COVERAGE

SEASON IN REVIEW

That much was evident over the course of a year that saw the 41-year-old take the top seed into the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup and hold onto it for six weeks of the playoff.

From the very beginning, it was clear Kenseth was going to a threat — he was the class of the Daytona 500 field before his engine expired, he scored an early-season victory at Las Vegas, and he kept piling up race wins as the year went along. Prior to this season, Kenseth’s personal record for race victories had been five, set way back in 2002. He matched that at Bristol in August, and then became the third driver to sweep the first two events of the Chase.

The move to JGR helped Kenseth show vast improvements at tracks like New Hampshire and Martinsville, where he had rarely contended in the past. It made him a beast on 1.5-milers, and did nothing to detract from his prowess on restrictor-plate venues. It put Kenseth in the thick of the title hunt until the very end — he and Johnson were knotted at the top leaving Martinsville, three races from the finish, after which the six-time champion gradually pulled away.

"Before the year started, honestly my first goal was to win, and to win early. I thought that was really, really important. It was important for me personally, but I thought it was really important. We put this whole thing together and we looked at it on paper and it looked like it was going to work and all that, but how do you know until you get to the track? So it was important to get that first win under out belt, and it happened really early, which was great," Kenseth said.

"And of course your goal is really to win the championship every year, but we’ve ran better and won more races than anybody I think really expected. And really we were in position to win several more races. So yeah, when you’re running that good, and you’re inning races and you’re leading the Chase the first five, six weeks and you don’t win the championship, you’re a little disappointed. You can’t help not to be."

Even at the end, though, there was never bitterness — just gratitude over a season no one had seen coming. "I really will walk away from this year feeling like we all gave it everything there was to give," he said after finishing second in the finale at Homestead. "… I think when you look at our season overall, when I talk about it being the best season of my career, we didn’t come up with the championship. The championship is the ultimate goal, you always want that. But from a competitive standpoint, it’s been by far the best season of my career."

Kenseth was even able to joke about his second-place points finish in a skit that was part of the Sprint Cup Awards Ceremony in Las Vegas. And yet, one thing still bugged him — the penultimate race at Phoenix, where his setup was off from the beginning, and he faded to a 23rd-place finish that helped Johnson secure the title. He and crew chief Jason Ratcliff were at a loss as to what had caused Kenseth’s worst finish of the season that didn’t involve a crash or a failure.

Weeks later, he remained puzzled by that day in the desert. "I’m not over it," he said in Vegas. "Yeah, I do wonder why it went so bad a little bit, because there hasn’t been any of that this year — even when we’ve been off, gosh, we’ve could still run 12th or something. We didn’t have a day like that. I think Jason has some answers in his head that he’s pretty sure was the biggest problem, but I think we all need to be better there as a group. … It’s something we’re still working on. I think we all have some ideas."

And yet, when taken in full, not even that one uncharacteristic stumble could detract from a career year, and the closest anyone’s come to winning a title in a debut with a new team since Darrell Waltrip did it with Junior Johnson and Associates in 1981. No wonder then at Homestead, Kenseth sounded as if he didn’t want the season to end.

"For me, when you’re running good, you kind of don’t want the season to end in a way," he said that night. "You want to keep going to the track." Given the success Kenseth enjoyed this past season, it was easy to see why.

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Posted on by Staff Report

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‘3’ in Sprint Cup

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Legacy of ‘Mr. 500’ lives on in NASCAR

He was one half of perhaps the most important sponsorship deal NASCAR has ever known, a man whose company would become as synonymous with Richard Petty as the driver’s seven championships and ostrich-feathered cowboy hat. Everybody knew the King. But everybody in motorsports also knew Andy Granatelli.

They called him "Mr. 500," and he was a gravelly-voiced force of nature who through auto racing built STP into a company whose brand identity rivaled that of almost any other company in America. A relationship with Petty that began in a Chicago office in early 1972 blossomed into a game-changer for a sport whose teams had previously relied primarily on local or regional sponsors to foot the bill.

That is the NASCAR legacy left behind by Granatelli, who died Sunday at 90 of congestive heart failure in a hospital in Santa Barbara, Calif., his son told The Associated Press. Granatelli won two Indianapolis 500 titles as a car owner, once promoted stock car races at Chicago’s Soldier Field, and as chairman of STP struck the $250,000 deal with Petty that changed the landscape of team sponsorship in NASCAR.

"Andy was one of the best at public relations and marketing in all of motorsports. He was ahead of his time and set the standard for selling his products," Petty said Monday. "We still enjoy our relationship with STP today and it was our meetings with Andy that started it all. He was really determined about how he wanted to market his product, and he never stopped wanting to get his way, but that’s what made him successful, too."

"Before Andy Granatelli and STP arrived on the scene, cars were sponsored by Joe’s Garage and Abby’s Fish Shack and lot of just local people," Dean Kruse, a friend of Granatelli’s, remembered in 2011. "Sometimes when they’d go to a race track 100 miles away, they’d go visit people and put their restaurants and gas stations on the cars. But there was no major money. … [The STP deal] inspired other drivers, and [Bill] France, to approach bigger companies. Andy was the one who thought of that. He’s a great innovator."

He was relentless, building STP through lavish promotion, backing Motor Racing Network broadcasts, being among the first to make "welcome race fans" banners. Reports from the time indicate Granatelli spent roughly $20 million a year to promote STP through auto racing, an amount that played a role in his eventual split with the company in 1973.

But by then, the Petty deal was already in place. It almost didn’t happen — Granatelli wanted his cars to be day-glow orange, as they always had been at Indianapolis, while Petty insisted on his team’s namesake blue. A compromise was struck, resulting in car that often sported both colors. "Stick with me," Granatelli told Petty that day, with his typical swagger, "and one day you’ll be as famous as I am."

Petty won the championship in his first season with STP, and would run a car backed by the familiar red oval up through his final race at NASCAR’s top level, at Atlanta in 1992. Of his former partner, Granatelli had nothing but praise. "He was the best," Granatelli said of Petty in a 2011 interview. "He’s a gentleman’s gentleman. Nobody didn’t like Richard."

And in NASCAR, nobody will forget Andy Granatelli. A decades-long deal that altered the scope of sponsorship — paving the way for future agreements involving the likes of Jeff Gordon and DuPont, Dale Earnhardt and Goodwrench, Kevin Harvick and Budweiser, Jimmie Johnson and Lowe’s, and countless others — ensures that the memory of “Mr. 500” will continue to live on.

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Ragan’s move up the middle, Kurt Busch’s surge on a restart among the best

The ability required to drive a race car at the highest levels is not always an obvious thing. Thanks to in-car cameras, it’s evident sometimes when we see a driver’s hands fighting the steering wheel, or perhaps working the pedals with his feet. But unlike dunking a basketball or hitting a home run, skill in race car driving is more subtle, more innate, more difficult to define in and of itself. Obviously, it’s there. But it’s most clearly manifested not through the competitor, but the 3,300-pound vehicle wrapped around him.

It’s the cars that act as translator, the cars that put all that skill onto vivid display, the cars that become the physical indication of just how good the guy behind the wheel really is. Outside the cockpit, they can look like everyone else; inside, they become superstar athletes possessing abilities few others can match. The mental and physical wherewithal required to compete at NASCAR’s national level can be impossible to deduce from the outside looking in. It’s the cars that speak. And sometimes they speak volumes.

That’s never more the case than when a car slides or spins and somehow rights itself, or sails up against the wall in a daring pass, or muscles by another competitor off the final restart. A driver’s talent and focus are on maximum display during instances of great triumph or crisis, whether it’s passing someone for the victory or trying to pull a car out of a spin. Those are the snapshots that best encapsulate NASCAR, those heart-in-your-throat moments when there seems no way a driver can pull off the impossible — yet somehow, he does.

Through all the months and weeks and laps of competition, it’s those individual moves on the race track that so often stand out, and the 2013 season certainly had its share. Jimmie Johnson may have his sixth Sprint Cup Series trophy, and testing for the 2014 campaign may be mere weeks away, but for the moment let’s pause and look back at the 10 best moves from this past season, and marvel once again at how good these guys can be.

10. Synchronized sliding

A tricky triangle, indeed. Tony Stewart and Brad Keselowski discovered as much during the June event at Pocono Raceway, when the last two champions of NASCAR’s premier division at the time made slight contact driving through Turn 2. That light touch as the cars were running on the outside was all it took to send both drivers into slow, synchronized slides that at one point had their respective front ends pointed toward the inside wall. But both drivers saved it, and Greg Biffle and Kyle Busch somehow avoided any contact as they rushed by on the low side. Stewart even rallied to claim a top-five finish.
 

9. Spin and win

Kyle Busch’s hopes of winning the NASCAR Nationwide Series race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway seemed dashed when he made contact with Sam Hornish Jr. trying to sneak by on the low side through Turn 1. Busch’s No. 54 car spun right in front of Austin Dillon, and right toward the outside wall on the narrow Brickyard track. But the Sprint Cup star somehow avoided any contact with anything, staying off the concrete and keeping his black and green vehicle in good enough shape to get back to the front. The end result? He passed Brian Scott with three laps remaining, and recorded the biggest of his 12 Nationwide Series victories in 2013.

8. Save and a beauty

Johnson may have all but secured his sixth Sprint Cup title with a strong run at Phoenix International Raceway, but not until weathering a hold-your-breath moment at the very start of the penultimate event of the season. Johnson started from the pole, but didn’t lead the first lap — he was assaulted at the green flag by an onrushing Denny Hamlin and Joey Logano, the latter of whom made contact with Johnson’s left-rear entering Turn 3. The No. 48 car fishtailed and wiggled up the track, but Johnson held it together, kept it off the wall, and recovered for a third-place finish that made his sixth championship all but a sure thing.

7. A monstrous moment

Stewart’s 2013 season was a star-crossed one indeed, a year that ended with the three-time champion on the shelf due to a broken leg suffered in a sprint car crash. Well before that there were struggles of another kind, as Stewart-Haas Racing tried to find its footing after a sluggish start. The breakthrough came in June at Dover International Speedway, where Stewart reeled in Juan Pablo Montoya and made the pass for the win with three laps remaining. Johnson jumping a late restart may have received much of the attention that day, but the end result for Stewart was a needed victory that kept him in playoff position until his injury.

6. Against the wall

In one of the defining moments of the 2013 season, the simmering feud between Hamlin and Logano went white-hot on the final lap at Auto Club Speedway, where the two rivals made contact and sparked an accident that sent the No. 11 car crashing into an inside wall. Almost lost in the aftermath — which included a broken back vertebra by Hamlin that would keep him out of four races — was the winning move made by Kyle Busch, who slipped by almost unnoticed on the high side as the two antagonists were busy going at one another. The No. 18 car slides by against the wall right before the other two vehicles make contact, clearing Logano and Hamlin just in time to avoid the chaos erupting behind.

5. Power move at Pocono

One of the best winning passes of this past season occurred back at Pocono, this time in an August race where Jeff Gordon found himself in the lead with eight laps remaining. But a caution for an accident involving Matt Kenseth forced one final restart, and Gordon lined up on the front row with Kasey Kahne to his outside. Kahne had been the class of the event earlier in the day, and the strength of his No. 5 car was evident on the restart as Kahne pulled even with Gordon entering Turn 1. One corner later he had completed the pass, doing it the hard way by powering around Gordon on the outside lane of the 2.5-mile track. One lap later, he had secured the victory.

4. High, wide and handsome

Dale Earnhardt Jr. didn’t win a race in 2013, but he certainly seemed capable of it in the season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway, particularly in one galvanizing moment when he made the kind of sweeping pass he’s become famous for. In a move that was vintage Dale Jr., NASCAR’s most popular driver swept by Hamlin and Keselowski in dramatic fashion, soaring into the lead high on the outside in a move that brought the crowd to its feet. Earnhardt led 28 laps that night, but couldn’t hold off Hamlin in the end and settled for third. Even so, it was a move that brought back memories of Earnhardt at his best, and it came in a resurgent season that saw him record his best points finish in years.

3. Train a-comin’

Kenseth dominated the spring race at Talladega Superspeedway, as the restrictor-plate ace led 142 laps on the big Alabama track. He was in front on the final restart, which came in the gloaming near the end of the long day of rain delays. But in an event where strategy often blurs into guesswork, Kenseth found himself in the wrong spot on the final lap. Up high against the wall, he was out of position to try and block the onrushing David Ragan, who burst up the middle off the final corner with teammate David Gilliland pushing him. It was a perfectly-timed move that resulted in a stunning finish, with the Front Row Motorsports drivers snaking past one final obstacle in Carl Edwards, and recording a huge victory for the sport’s little guys.


2. He never lifted

Everyone knew the inaugural NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race at Eldora Speedway, NASCAR’s first national event on dirt since 1970, would be special. But nobody expected the night’s biggest moment to unfold in the last-chance qualifying race. But that’s just what happened when the final transfer spot into the main event turned into a personal battle between Norm Benning and Clay Greenfield, and the latter throwing everything he had at the former. Twice over the final two laps Greenfield tried slide jobs on Benning, hammering into the side of the red No. 57 truck. Twice Benning held on. Benning came to the checkered flag pinned to the outside wall, Greenfield right on his bumper, but stayed in front. "I never lifted," the veteran driver said later, after a moment that encapsulated what dirt racing is all about.

1. ‘The seas parted’

Kurt Busch needed to make something happen. He was mired back in 11th place on a late restart at Atlanta Motor Speedway, and his hopes of getting single-car Furniture Row Racing into the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup were on the line. What happened next was mesmerizing, the single-best individual move of the 2013 season — a jaw-dropping charge from 11th to second over the course of just one single lap, a surge that essentially vaulted the single-car No. 78 team into the playoff for the first time. "The seas parted," Busch said afterward. But it was much more than that.

Busch had started the night with what he termed a 15th-place car, but his team gradually made it better, and he was 11th on a restart 293 laps into the 325-lap event. What followed was riveting — Busch charged through the low lane, then sailed high to pass a line of cars though turns 1 and 2, then crossed down to jet around Logano. Suddenly, he was second. On social media, the comparisons to similar moves made by Dale Earnhardt were immediate. "Where everybody else was, I went opposite," Busch said. The result was a fourth-place finish that put Busch 10th in points, and one week later at Richmond he and Furniture Row cruised into the Chase — thanks in large part to one sensational restart at Atlanta.

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Posted on by Holly Cain

Final season with RCR ends with four wins, third-place finish

RELATED: Season recaps of all 2013 Chase drivers

This is the 11th in a series of 2013 Sprint Cup Series driver recaps that will be featured on NASCAR.com

After sitting on stage alongside fellow title hopefuls Jimmie Johnson and Matt Kenseth for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series championship contenders press conference three days before the 2013 season finale, Kevin Harvick couldn’t resist pointing out the irony.

A four-time race winner and bona fide championship player right up until the last checkered flag, Harvick chided the NASCAR press corps for not giving him much of a shake nine months earlier in Daytona Beach. He recalled only two reporters attended his preseason media availability.

"I did tell those two people that this has a very good possibility of being the best year that I’ve ever had at RCR just for the fact there’s really no pressure for me," Harvick said with a smirk. "Everybody wants to go out on a high."

And that he did.

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SEASON IN REVIEW

Harvick completed a dramatic and successful 13-year tenure in the Sprint Cup Series at Richard Childress Racing with one of the most accomplished seasons of his career.  His third-place finish in the championship — for the third time in four years — equaled a career-best finish and featured nine top-fives, 21 top-10s and his first Coors Light Pole position (Kansas) since 2006.

In fact, the 21 top-10 finishes was the second-best tally ever for Harvick. And only the newly crowed six-time champion Johnson (six wins) and runner-up Kenseth (seven) had more wins on the year. Kyle Busch matched Harvick with four victories.

Two of Harvick’s wins in the No. 29 Chevrolet came when it counted most during the 10-race Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup, highlighted by a win from the pole at Kansas. He also won the Sprint Unlimited preseason all-star race at Daytona and one of the two Budweiser Duel races at Daytona.

Harvick’s performance ultimately shamed anyone too willing to write off his final season at RCR as a lame-duck effort.

"It’s all you could have asked for," Harvick said. "We obviously wanted to win the championship, but under the circumstances, it (the season) far exceeded everyone else’s expectations but our own."

There were, however, challenges.

Knowing that 2013 would be Harvick’s final year with RCR, there was a lot of speculation as to what kind of send-off it would be. Winning the Sprint Unlimited and one of the Daytona 500 qualifiers seemed to answer any questions about Harvick or his team’s motivation. 

But a crash and 42nd-place finish in the season-opening Daytona 500 put the team in catch-up mode from the first green flag. And Harvick managed only a single top-10 in the first eight races (ninth at Las Vegas).

His first trip to Victory Lane in 2013, at Richmond in April, righted the ship, however.

Following the win at Richmond, he had top-10 finishes in nine of the next 10 races, including another win at Charlotte. A crash and 40th-place finish at Talladega was the only blemish in that span.

A strong summer set Harvick up for a legitimate run at the championship. Not only did he win twice during the Chase, but he led 218 laps (out of his season total of 269 laps led) during those 10 races.

Perhaps most telling about Harvick and his team’s commitment was that he succeeded despite a controversial late season incident while competing in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series at Martinsville, where he had a run-in and verbal sparring match with his team owner Richard Childress’ grandson, Ty Dillon.

Harvick answered the headline-making hullabaloo with a Cup win two weeks later at Phoenix.

It was a turning point for Harvick in a much broader sense. He said in reconciling the situation with Childress, it brought the two full circle. It triggered a time to reflect on their time together which included an incredibly emotional and difficult Cup beginning when Childress tabbed Harvick to succeed Dale Earnhardt in the car after the seven-time Cup champion died following a crash in the 2001 Daytona 500.

"I think the Martinsville situation drew to our attention to just how good each other have been through the years for each other," Harvick said. "There’s that competitive fire that’s driven in both of us."

"You think back to just how it started. That was obviously the highest of a situation of being in an adversity situation you could be, and yet we were able to overcome and perform. And then when we had lack of performance through the years to comeback and get the performance back where it needs to be, saying things you don’t need to stay, stressing that relationship, figuring that out and knowing how to come back and win.

"We’ve done that for years."

Even as Harvick closed out his final 2013 interview session — attended by dozens of reporters — discussing his highly anticipated move to Stewart-Haas Racing next year, he took the time to celebrate and relish this season. And he was able to look back on his career at RCR with few regrets and many triumphs — including a proper final chapter.

"Really this was the way I would want to leave with everybody shaking hands and happy that we have been together and been successful together," he said.

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Posted on by Zack Albert

No repeat for Buescher, but 2012 champ had memorable moments

This is the fourth in a series of 2013 Camping World Truck Series driver recaps that will be featured on NASCAR.com.

James Buescher was the only driver with a shot at a specific feat of history last season, an accomplishment that hasn’t been achieved in the 19-year existence of the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series — back-to-back championships.

Buescher righted himself after a slight stumble out of the starting blocks, but couldn’t make the inroads necessary to unseat eventual champion Matt Crafton. He’ll make the move to the NASCAR Nationwide Series in 2014, right on the heels of his 2013 third-place finish in the truck tour.

"You know, we got off to a slow start. It definitely had its ups and downs," Buescher said. "I felt the way the second half of our season went, if we’d had a decent first part of the year, we’d be able to repeat what we did last season. It’s been a trying season, for sure, and a lot of things have happened, on the race track and in my personal life, that just changed everything in my life. It’s been a fun year for me."

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The off-track developments Buescher alluded to include the birth of his first child, Stetson, on July 26. Buescher and his wife, Kris, brought their son to his first race at Michigan International Speedway just 22 days later. At that point in the season, Buescher ranked fourth in the standings, but had just two top-five finishes through the first 11 races.

Good luck charm or not, Buescher rallied to win at Michigan, vaulting the No. 31 Turner Scott Motorsports team back into championship contention and touching off a stirring celebration with their newborn son in tow.

"It’s definitely different than any Victory Lane experience we’ve ever had, including the championship last year," the 23-year-old Texas native said. "It was an exciting moment for us, and something we’ll never forget, for sure."

Three races later, Buescher closed in more and shed a stumbling block in the process. Surviving a flurry of late-race restarts in an overtime finish, Buescher finally notched a win at Iowa Speedway, breaking through in his 13th career start across all forms of stock-car racing.

"I’ve raced there since the second year the track was open several times a year and had so many races slip away from me there that I felt like if anywhere on the circuit owed me one, Iowa and Texas probably owe me more than anywhere — if you can say a race track owes you," Buescher said. "These things are hard to win, and to be able to get to Victory Lane, we played a really good strategy at Iowa and that was pretty cool as well."

The triumph entrenched Buescher in second place in the series standings, but he was still 37 points behind the steady Crafton with seven races left in the year. Buescher would get no closer, losing a substantial portion of his momentum in a crash-related 26th-place effort at Talladega Superspeedway.

"We did a good job of chipping away at it for a while, and then the end of the season we took a big chunk out, to the point that I think that they were starting to get nervous," said Buescher, who wound up just three points behind series runner-up Ty Dillon at season’s end. "Then we had two bad races and what we gained was lost. It was unfortunate, but that’s kind of the way our season started off, so the fact that it ended that way wasn’t real surprising, but we did have some highlights in the middle of it."

The transition for Buescher will be twofold in 2014. On Dec. 13, he announced he’ll be entering his first full-time season in the Nationwide Series, and he’ll be doing it with a multiyear deal with a new team — RAB Racing — after opting to leave the racing operation run by his father-in-law. With his plans still unsettled at the time of the series’ awards banquet, Buescher was coy about his options.

"We’re waiting to figure out what everything is," he said Nov. 18. "Regardless, I’ll be in a race car in a NASCAR series and hopefully be winning races and competing for championships."

When asked if he had unintentionally tipped his hand by saying car instead of truck, Buescher laughed. "I mean. … We all slip up and call trucks cars all the time."

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