Spire Motorsports confirmed on Thursday that Corey LaJoie, driver of the No. 7 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet, will not return to the team following the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series season.
“Corey LaJoie has been a cornerstone of Spire Motorsports since 2021 and it would be impossible to overstate what he’s meant to this organization and how much I’ve agonized over this decision,” Spire Motorsports co-owner Jeff Dickerson said in a team release. “Corey put his heart and soul into this team. He rolled up his sleeves and went to work before we had a race shop, a toolbox or even our own cars. Those days, looking back, were so much simpler than where we are in our journey now. Back then, we just wanted to get to the race track. Today, we’re consumed with consistently battling for top-10 finishes and contending for wins in the near future.
“In racing, there are always variables but one thing we all know is this is a performance-based business, and it just hasn’t been there for several reasons. All those reasons are factored in when it comes to making a decision of this magnitude. With Ryan (Sparks) moving upstairs, and Rodney (Childers) coming in next season, the best thing for Spire Motorsports is a clean slate for the No. 7 car in 2025. Corey deserves a fresh look from another organization, too, and we’ll do everything we can to help him get another opportunity in the Cup garage. I believe in Corey and his ability to be successful in this sport and look forward to him using this as motivation to prove all his doubters wrong.”
LaJoie spent four years with Spire in the NASCAR Cup Series, tallying four top fives and six top 10s in 129 races so far, with a career-best finish of fourth coming three separate times at Atlanta Motor Speedway, Talladega Superspeedway and Daytona International Speedway.
The 32-year-old driver made his Cup debut in 2014 and spent his first seasons with BK Racing, TriStar Motorsports and GoFas Racing before landing at Spire.
With four races remaining in the 2024 regular season, LaJoie sits 28th in points.
“I won’t be driving the 7 car next year,” LaJoie told The Athletic, which first reported the news. “I take a lot of satisfaction from having an integral part of building Spire into a respectable team on the grid, but unfortunately, the future won’t involve me. We will finish the remainder of 2024 strong, continuing to deliver for my partners, my guys who work hard to build good cars, family, fans and friends who have supported me since Day 1 in the Cup Series.
“This chapter ends after Phoenix, and I’m excited to see what the Lord has in store for my family next.”
It’s been an active Silly Season for Spire as the organization announced that Michael McDowell will pilot the No. 71 Chevrolet beginning next season and crew chief Rodney Childers will sit atop the box for the No. 7 team following the closure of Stewart-Haas Racing at the end of the year.
With NASCAR on a two-week break as the Olympics take center stage, this is a good chance to step back and assess the first five months of the 2024 schedule. So far, we’ve already seen our share of historically close finishes, dominant victories and record-breaking overtimes. But we also thought now would be a good time to give out some midseason awards to honor the most impressive performances of 2024 to date.
Let’s recognize the best of 2024 so far with some extremely prestigious (and definitely not completely made-up) accolades.
Driver of the Year: Kyle Larson, Hendrick Motorsports
Other nominees: Chase Elliott, Tyler Reddick
Who else could it be — especially after his latest win this past weekend at the Brickyard? Larson ranks No. 1 in the standings, leads all drivers this season in wins (4) and average Driver Rating (102.1), is tied for first in top fives (9) and leads the field in my Adjusted Points index (Pts+) metric, with a mark 87% better than the Cup Series average:
There are arguments for other drivers: Elliott has the best average finish (10.5) of anyone this season. Reddick has finished among the top 10 in 15 of 22 races (68%) — by far the most consistent performance we’ve seen. Christopher Bell averages more laps with the fastest speed per race (18.8). Ryan Blaney can seem unstoppable when he gets on one of his recent hot streaks. And William Byron (who has more top 10s than Larson) and Denny Hamlin are both only a win shy of Larson’s lead, with three apiece. But nobody combines pace, consistency, closing ability and skill at every type of track like Larson does.
Team of the Year: Hendrick Motorsports
Other nominees: Joe Gibbs Racing, 23XI Racing
Dominant seasons are nothing new for Hendrick, the winningest organization in Cup Series history (with 310 victories and counting). But with nine wins out of the 22 races run in 2024 so far — a winning percentage of 41% — including at least one from each of their full-time drivers, this is shaping up to be one of the team’s best seasons ever:
Second among teams in the win tally is Joe Gibbs Racing, with six victories (of which three belong to Bell and three to Hamlin). Gibbs has finished No. 2 in total wins behind Hendrick in each of the past four seasons — and they’ve had the second-most wins in six of the past seven years overall, with 2019 standing out as the lone exception. (That’s when Kyle Busch, Martin Truex Jr. and Hamlin all won at least five times, and Erik Jones captured a checkered flag at Darlington.) Gibbs might be due for even more wins if Truex and Ty Gibbs can get their bad luck straightened out later in the season — more on that in a bit.
It’s tough to compare teams with different numbers of drivers, but we have to give a shoutout here to 23XI Racing’s tandem of Reddick and Bubba Wallace. They’ve only combined for a single win — Reddick’s victory in April at Talladega — which is tied with RFK and Trackhouse, and compares unfavorably to Team Penske with its four checkered flags. But 23XI actually ranks second only to Hendrick in average finish (13.8) and average Adjusted Points index (150) per driver per race, with as many top fives (13) and more top 10s (23 versus 21) than Penske despite fielding one fewer driver.
Sean Gardner | Getty Images
Biggest Breakout: Ty Gibbs, Joe Gibbs Racing
Other nominees: Noah Gragson, Todd Gilliland
This has been a good season for young drivers producing career-best campaigns. Perhaps the least surprising of those — but still the most impressive — belongs to Gibbs, who was coming off a season spent as the youngest full-time driver in the Cup Series in 2023.
He still held his own in that situation, with 10 top 10s, an average finish of 18.4 and a solid Pts+ index of 92, but he was also outdriven badly by his veteran Joe Gibbs Racing teammates. (Gibbs had a 31-77 head-to-head record against them across all of his races, one of the worst marks of any regular driver.) The expectations were that Gibbs would continue to improve and close the gap against the rest of the team this season, and that’s exactly what happened. His Pts+ index has soared to 131, making him one of the Cup Series’ most improved drivers in that regard. Just as importantly, he now has a perfectly 0.500 record of 33-33 against his teammates, an impressive showing considering the competition is Bell, Hamlin and Truex.
Interestingly, Gragson improved his Pts+ index even more than Gibbs this year, rising from a miserable 31 last season — which ranked ahead of only B.J. McLeod among drivers with 20 or more starts — to an essentially league-average mark of 97. The difference is that Gibbs will likely make the playoffs with his performance, though it has still been nice to see Gragson re-establish himself as a rising driver to watch. And Gilliland deserves credit for his own improvement this year at age 24. Among drivers under age 30 who didn’t previously have a career Pts+ index of at least 100, Gilliland’s 25-point improvement on his previous career mark ranks third behind only Gragson and Gibbs.
Most Pleasant Surprise: Alex Bowman, Hendrick Motorsports
Other nominees: Chase Briscoe, Daniel Suárez
Fair or not, Bowman was viewed over the past few years as the “other” Hendrick driver — solid enough, but nowhere near the class of Larson, Elliott or Byron. That trajectory reached its low point for Bowman with an injury-marred 2023 season that saw him miss three races with a fractured vertebrae in his back from a sprint-car accident and finish with a barely above-average Pts+ index of 104, his worst in a Cup season since he debuted in relief of Dale Earnhardt Jr. in 2016.
This year, however, Bowman has returned to the form that once made him one of the sport’s up-and-coming young drivers. Not only did he snap an 80-race losing streak at Chicago, passing Joey Hand and holding off a charging Reddick late, but he has six top fives and 12 top 10s in 22 races, producing a 150 Pts+ index that is on pace for a career high — and is much more in line with what his teammates do on a weekly basis.
Others who currently fall under this category include Briscoe, who has rebounded from a rough 2023 to compile six top 10s, an average finish of 17.5 and a near-career best 99 Pts+ index, even as Stewart-Haas has declined from the team’s state when Briscoe joined it in 2021. And while Suárez has been only moderately more consistent than he was in 2023, he is returning to the playoffs for the second time in his career by virtue of winning in February at Atlanta.
Unluckiest Driver: Ty Gibbs, Joe Gibbs Racing
Other nominees: Martin Truex Jr., Tyler Reddick
For all of his improvements at age 21 in his third Cup season, Gibbs still has yet to win a race at the sport’s highest level. (He has started from the pole twice, including at Pocono a few weeks ago, but his best career finish is as a runner-up in May at Darlington.) Based on how he’s driven this season, however, Gibbs should have taken at least one checkered flag so far.
We can measure this by creating a statistical model that predicts how often a driver with a given Driver Rating in any given race wins it. If we do that (based on every race since 2005), here are the “unluckiest” drivers of 2024 — those with the largest gaps between the wins we’d expect them to have, and how much they actually won:
Truex is another name that probably should be locked into the playoffs by now but instead has to sweat things out via the points, as things currently stand. And Reddick is an interesting one: He has won a race, but he also owns two of this year’s five cases where a driver would be expected to win more than 50% of the time off of his Driver Rating, but failed to win (Texas and Indy).
Comeback Driver of the Year: Chase Elliott, Hendrick Motorsports
Other nominees: Alex Bowman, Noah Gragson
This is another choice that seems obvious. The 2023 season was, by many measures, the worst of Elliott’s career: Not only did he miss seven races — six due to injury and one for suspension — but he was also less effective when he did get back behind the wheel, posting his worst average finish (13.1) since 2019 and his lowest Pts+ index ever in a full season (149). He suffered his first winless campaign since 2017 — part of what would eventually become a 42-race drought — and missed the playoffs for the first time as a full-time Cup driver.
But this season, Elliott has returned to the level of performance we’ve come to expect from him over the course of his career. He took first place at Texas to finally end his winless streak, he has 11 top 10s in 22 races, he’s gotten back to his previous career norm for Pts+ (he has a 165 mark in 2024 so far), and he owns the aforementioned Cup Series lead in best average finish (10.5). He’ll also be back in the playoffs as a driver that nobody really is looking forward to tangling with in races that count.
No, Elliott doesn’t have the same dramatic year-over-year improvement as other drivers like Bowman and Gragson. But in terms of pure “returns to form,” it’s hard to argue against the sport’s most popular driver here.
James Gilbert | Getty Images
Best Silly Season Pickup: Noah Gragson, Stewart-Haas Racing
Other nominees: Josh Berry, Justin Haley
Unlike in previous Silly Seasons, where we had stars on the magnitude of Kyle Busch and Kurt Busch or Brad Keselowski changing teams, there weren’t many big names on the move heading into 2024. (The most anticipated might have been Shane van Gisbergen, who wasn’t even going to run the Cup Series full time this year.)
Still, a few drivers have acquitted themselves well on their new teams. We’ve already talked at length about Gragson’s season, but the move from Legacy Motor Club to SHR seems to have been exactly the change in scenery he needed to rediscover the potential he’d shown as Xfinity Series runner-up in 2022. Still just 26 years old, we’ll see if Gragson can land here again next year as he’ll move to Front Row Motorsports for 2025.
“Doing More With Less” Award: Carson Hocevar, Spire Motorsports
Other nominees: Ryan Blaney, Kyle Busch
Hocevar has already gained a bit of an, um, reputation this season for his aggressive driving — something that his peers have not taken kindly to. But he is also quietly having the best head-to-head season against teammates of any regular driver this year. Driving for Spire Motorsports, Hocevar has a 33-11 record against his teammates, good for a Cup Series-high winning percentage of 75%:
Hocevar has a winning record (154-147) against the other Chevys this season as well. If we’re looking for drivers who are doing their best to rise above, Hocevar absolutely belongs on that list.
As do Blaney and Busch. For the former, it might seem odd to think of a Penske driver in that group, given how the team won each of the past two Cup Series titles. But aside from the No. 12 car, Penske has been surprisingly average this season, with non-Blaney drivers Joey Logano and Austin Cindric combining for a Pts+ index of 99.6 (remember, average is 100) despite Logano driving much better recently. On top of his 30-14 head-to-head record in the chart above, Blaney has also beaten his teammates by a stunning 59 points of Adjusted Pts+ index, the largest margin of any regular driver with below-average rated teammates in 2024.
And we should also highlight the work Busch continues to do for RCR, despite extremely challenging circumstances. In what has otherwise been the worst stretch in the worst season of his illustrious Cup Series career, Busch has still found the ability to rack up an 18-9 head-to-record against mostly Austin Dillon (but also Austin Hill, Ty Dillon and Will Brown) — one of the best marks on our list above — and he’s also beating his teammates by a whopping 42 points of Adjusted Pts+ index.
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (July 25, 2024) — NASCAR and Straight Talk Wireless today announced an official multi-year partnership that makes Straight Talk Wireless an Official Wireless Partner of NASCAR. With this, Straight Talk Wireless also becomes an Official Partner of Homestead-Miami Speedway, including the entitlement to the Oct. 27 NASCAR Cup Series Playoff race — the Straight Talk Wireless 400. Terms were not disclosed.
“We’re excited to come together with NASCAR as there is so much overlap between Straight Talk customers and NASCAR fans,” said Cheryl Gresham, CMO of Verizon Value. “This partnership is very fitting. Our Straight Talk customers appreciate real value and reliable service wherever they are. As they experience the legendary NASCAR series this year, we look forward to meeting them at the track.”
In addition, NASCAR and Straight Talk Wireless will also be joining forces to present “NASCAR on Tour,” an exciting event series coming to select Walmart parking lots in Daytona Beach, Florida; Darlington, South Carolina; Atlanta, Georgia; Bentonville, Arkansas; Bristol, Tennessee; Kansas City, Missouri; Talladega, Alabama; Charlotte, North Carolina; Greenville, South Carolina; and Miami, Florida from Aug. 21 to Oct. 27. “NASCAR on Tour” will bring the ultimate racing experience to fans across the country, allowing them the opportunity to enjoy racing-themed experiences, giveaways, driver appearances, exclusive offers and much more. Additionally, new customers attending the “NASCAR on Tour” on-site events are eligible to participate in an exclusive Straight Talk Wireless promotion: buy one month and get one month free on any unlimited plan.
“Straight Talk Wireless is such a recognizable brand and one that shares NASCAR’s priorities in providing tremendous value for its customers and their families,” said Michelle Byron, NASCAR executive vice president and chief partnership and licensing officer. “We are thrilled to have Straight Talk Wireless join the NASCAR family as an Official Partner, both at the league and track level.”
Available only at Walmart or via www.straighttalk.com, Straight Talk Wireless is a wireless service provider that offers a wide variety of value-based plans, including month-to-month options for customers seeking plan flexibility and affordable pricing. As part of the Official Partnership, Straight Talk Wireless will have a presence at all NASCAR-owned events, including the option to activate on site at select events and to create customized offers for NASCAR fans.
The NASCAR Cup Series continues with the Cook Out 400 at 6 p.m. ET on Aug. 11 at Richmond Raceway on USA, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio and the NBC Sports App.
As the owner of an automotive repair shop, Alex Miller has spent a lot of time with cars.
He’s also spent a lot time at the race track, sponsoring drivers and watching family members compete.
About eight years ago, he said, “We finally figured: Why don’t we all just do this ourselves?’
“We had always kind of been hot rodders and stuff. So we went and bought a car and started turning the bolts on it.”
Having worked on cars as a career, Miller enjoyed the shop side of racing and learned about setup quick.
“I like the geometry of it, the mechanics of it,” he said. “I kind of picked up on that stuff really fast on how the geometry works. Why does putting a longer A-arm here work, and a shorter one here, why does that work? I really like that side of it.”
The driving side took a bit longer. Miller, now 41, said it took two or three years before he finally felt comfortable behind the wheel. The first year, he said, “I wrecked a lot.”
The second year he finished more races but still wasn’t running near the front.
The third year, Miller “stopped holding on for dear life” and got more relaxed in the car. From there, everything seemed to change.
“Once I started getting settled in the car, you really start looking ahead,” he said. “You don’t really pay attention to who’s in front of you. You’re looking at who’s in front of them and who’s in front of them. And then you can really start lining up passes, setting things up, positioning yourself on the race track where you’re supposed to be.
“Until you get calmed down, you can’t ever do that, or I couldn’t.”
Alex Miller (No. 37) in action at Kingsport Speedway. (Photo: Kingsport Speedway/Facebook)
Eight seasons in, after now thousands of laps at tracks throughout the southeast, Miller finally feels like he’s able to compete.
“Eventually you get tired of changing noses and you quit wrecking,” he said. “It’s not really like driving down the interstate, but you’re just more relaxed in the car…That’s when you really start learning how to race. There’s really a lot to it, a lot of finesse in racing. It took me, I’d say, a good three years to kind of start working on the finesse side of it. Instead of just manhandling a car and going sideways out of a corner and running around like Bo and Luke Duke.”
This season is one of the best of Miller’s career so far. Driving in the late model division at Kingsport Speedway, a NASCAR Regional track in Kingsport, Tennessee, he has one win and 14 top-five finishes in 17 races this summer. He’s third in the track’s points standings and 14th in the NASCAR Advance Auto Parts Weekly Series Division I national standings.
Miller said he hasn’t done much different this season. He’s in the same car he’s had for about four years. But he’s starting to stay more consistently up front week after week.
“Maybe we’re just getting the bugs worked out. I don’t know,” he said. “But it seems to be doing pretty good this year.”
One of Miller’s competitors at Kingsport is his dad Alan. The Millers have always worked on the cars together, and after seeing his son on the track, Alan got into racing himself a couple seasons ago.
“He’s a wild man,” Miller said of his dad. “He said, ‘Hey, I’m helping you work all night. Let’s go get me one.’ That’s how he got into it.”
Alan is currently 11th in the Kingsport late model points.
The Millers are extremely close. They help each other in the shop, but they’re also each other’s biggest competition on the track.
“We’re competitive people by nature,” Miller said. “We don’t like to lose.”
Even though they’re looking for wins, Miller said being with family is the best part of racing.
Miller has never really competed for points, but he’s been at every race at Kingsport this year, and he plans to complete the season. He’s also looking at traveling to Florence Motor Speedway in South Carolina later this summer, and potentially racing in the ValleyStar Credit Union 300 late model race at Martinsville Speedway in September.
He’ll return to Kingsport on Aug. 2 for race No. 12 of the season. The night will feature Mod 4s, Street Stocks, Super Street, Pure 4 and Late Models beginning at 7 p.m. ET.
“Racing at Kingsport, not tearing your car up is a huge win,” Miller said. “It’s a little tight track, not a lot of room. Really every race at Kingsport, if you come home and you don’t have to change a nose or a quarter panel, or change an A-arm or something, that’s a win in itself, and that helps me to keep my momentum up because now I’ve got something I can work on and make it faster.
“Wins help. You catch a win every now and again, that’s kind of a good pat on the back.”
1. Did summer in Indianapolis provide a championship preview for Phoenix in the fall?
The driving acumen needed to conquer the Brickyard could very well pave the way to success in November … possibly en route to a championship trophy.
No two tracks are truly identical, but there can be telltale signs of a pair coming pretty close. Enter the comparisons between Indianapolis and Phoenix. Now, let’s make one thing clear from the jump: When it comes to track dimensions, these facilities are very different from one another. A quick eye test would prove as much. Indianapolis is a 2.5-mile rectangular oval, while Phoenix is a 1-miler with more of a banked tri-oval feel. Instead, the comparison comes more in what drivers take away from each facility, and how one tackles each track can serve as the framework to conquer the other, especially when a championship crown is on the line.
Doubtful? Well, hear it from five-time Brickyard winner, four-time Cup Series champion and NASCAR Hall of Famer Jeff Gordon:
“It’s a technical track. There’s a lot of different ways to approach the corners, how you arc in, how much brake you use, when you release the brake, working with the team to get the car set up right,” Gordon said about Indianapolis following Kyle Larson’s Brickyard 400 victory. “I’ve always felt like the best teams rise to this occasion as a whole. I think the 5 team is very, very strong, one of the best teams out there obviously. I think that now having this win under their belt, it’s really going to kind of set the tone for the rest of the season of who’s the biggest threat for the championship.
“I know this is not Phoenix, but it’s about momentum, confidence, being able to step up in the biggest moments. I think today was one of those big moments for this team — for everybody out here today.”
In times under the championship spotlight, prior moments shape you. Look no further than Larson, who, during Sunday’s Brickyard running, had to navigate past fellow championship contenders Ryan Blaney, Brad Keselowski and others to eventually find Victory Lane, and after two NASCAR Overtimes, no less. Coming through in the clutch then could very well prove decisive later when Larson attempts to follow in Gordon’s footsteps in becoming a multi-time champion.
The physical comparisons to Phoenix might be limited, but in terms of necessitating drivers to adapt on the fly and do so in the spotlight, Indianapolis has illustrated its ability to shape champions. And no matter where the championship is decided, it all seems to trace back to those fabled bricks.
Sean Gardner | Getty Images
2. The regular-season schedule dwindles … as do the opportunities to clinch a playoff berth Four races remain before the 2024 Cup Series Playoffs begin. How will the remainder of the 16-driver field shake out?
Make no mistake — Cup Series drivers will utilize the two-week break during the Summer Olympics to catch a breather. But for drivers who have yet to clinch a coveted — yet limited — berth in the 16-driver postseason grid, the break will provide a chance to scout and prep even more than they would otherwise.
Let’s break it down. Four regular-season races remain — Richmond Raceway, Michigan International Speedway, Daytona International Speedway and Darlington Raceway — before the Round of 16 begins at Atlanta Motor Speedway. Twelve drivers have won at least one Cup Series race this year, provisionally clinching them into the 16-driver postseason grid. Martin Truex Jr. (+108), Ty Gibbs (+42), Chris Buescher (+17) and Ross Chastain (+7) currently make up the final four spots, while Bubba Wallace (-7), Chase Briscoe (-83) and Kyle Busch (-112) are next in line and currently beneath the elimination threshold.
In terms of points, Truex Jr. should very well be in the good, but even the No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing driver is operating under the same mindset as all others — Win. Given the parity the Next Gen car has brought to the table since its 2022 debut, there is optimism any of these drivers could make just enough noise to squeak out one — or perhaps more — wins during the looming four-race sprint. Additional wrinkles — including a choice of tire strategy at Richmond, Daytona always being unpredictable and Darlington acting as the regular-season finale instead of the postseason opener — only add to the excitement during this final push.
So, how will the final spots shake out? Truex, given his points position, seems to be in solid standing, and a possible breakthrough at Richmond could be in order, given he has yet to finish worse than 11th in each of his last 11 races there. Then there’s Buescher, who cranked it up a notch during 2023’s waning regular-season stretch and triumphed at Richmond and Michigan in back-to-back bouts … and then won the regular-season finale at Daytona just for good measure.
There’s plenty more. Gibbs, despite finishing outside the top 10 in seven of his last eight Cup races, could rekindle the same energy that carried the No. 54 Toyota to top-10 finishes in five of the first six races of the 2024 campaign. Chastain has shown the ability to be aggressive and capitalize on clean air in the past. The first of Wallace’s Cup victories came on a superspeedway. Todd Gilliland has already matched his career top-10 total from last season (four). Busch, despite a frustrating 2024 to date, has a track record that speaks for itself. Briscoe could find a spark. Then again, perhaps another driver not already mentioned pushes their way into the picture, making the postseason picture even cloudier.
The regular-season endgame is near, and truly, anything can go from here on out. Which drivers will cash in? Which ones will take a gamble or three? Stay tuned.
NASCAR fined the crew chiefs for one Xfinity Series team and two Craftsman Truck Series teams on Wednesday for lug-nut infractions during last weekend’s races at Indianapolis Motor Speedway and Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park.
Crew chief Andy Street for the No. 21 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet was docked $5,000 when one lug nut was found not safe and secure after Saturday’s Pennzoil 250 at the 2.5-mile Indianapolis oval.
Austin Hill drove the No. 21 to a sixth-place finish in the race won by Riley Herbst in the No. 98 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford. Hill is third in the Xfinity standings as the series takes a three-week break before returning Saturday, Aug. 17 at Michigan International Speedway (3:30 p.m. ET, USA, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App).
NASCAR also fined crew chief Blake Bainbridge for the No. 43 McAnally-Hilgemann Racing Chevrolet and Tyler Young for the No. 46 Young’s Motorsports Chevrolet $2,500 each for one unsecured lug nut after Friday night’s TSport 200 at IRP.
Daniel Dye finished 27th in the No. 43, and Thad Moffit was 32nd in the No. 46 in a race won by Ty Majeski in the No. 98 ThorSport Racing Ford.
The Truck Series will be back in action on Aug. 10 at Richmond Raceway for the final race in its regular season (7:30 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
It was last Tuesday evening, and Parks had just left the NASCAR Advance Auto Parts Weekly Series track located in Claremont, New Hampshire, after doing some minor maintenance around the facility.
A storm had begun to roll in, and Parks decided that was the appropriate time to pack up and head home for the night.
“I went up late Tuesday afternoon to get some mowing done when it wasn’t 100 degrees,” Parks explained. “I started mowing the parking lots. I got one parking lot done, and I looked over and I saw a bolt of lightning come down.
“I said, ‘OK, that’s enough of that,’ and packed everything up and went home.”
Parks didn’t get far from the track before his phone rang. It was Mark Beaudry, who is part of the broadcast crew that streams races from the track, and he had bad news.
“Half hour, 20 minutes after I left the race track, my phone rings,” Parks said. “It was Mark, and he was in a complete panic. He said, ‘Mike, this place is destroyed.’”
Parks immediately turned his car around and drove back to Claremont Motorsports Park. When he got there, he was horrified to find the facility looked nothing like how he had left it only an hour before.
Trees and power poles were snapped in half. Roofs were missing from multiple buildings. A new VIP trailer was destroyed. Fences were ripped apart. Billboards were shredded. Debris was scattered everywhere.
“It looked like a bomb went off in the place, to be honest,” Parks said.
As he surveyed the damage, Parks quickly realized his priority needed to be getting power restored. The track had just received a full shipment of food for the upcoming race weekend, and if power wasn’t restored quickly, all that food would have to be thrown away.
“All our freezers were full as we were getting ready for the weekend,” Parks said. “Fortunately we had backup generators. I called a friend of mine, Hayden Scott at HMS Electric, a part-time competitor who has also been doing our electrical work for us.
“I bet he stayed until Midnight that night and he got the electrical fixed so we could get the generators going so we could get power to our freezers.”
That was one problem solved. Parks then had to figure out how to tackle the rest of the problems created by the Tuesday evening storm.
Parks posted photos of the damage to the track’s Facebook account Tuesday evening with a call for help from local race fans and businesses. He was not prepared for the outpouring of support that followed.
“We threw some pictures up on social media, explained what happened and if anybody was available, if we wanted to race this weekend, we could definitely use the help,” Parks said. “The community support we received was over the top.”
The support was vast and came from a variety of businesses and individuals.
It started with J.S. Automotive owner Joel Stoddard, who was supposed to sponsor Friday’s racing program.
“They own five independent automotive repair shops,” Parks said. “Joel took one person out of each of his repair shops and brought his tractors and dump trailers. Those guys worked their asses off from 7:30 in the morning to 7:30 that night. That’s a race sponsor doing that.
“Then I had a company, CLR Tree Service, don’t even know the (owner). He’s not even really a race fan. He saw our stuff on social media and said, ‘Hey, it looks like you guys could use some help today.’”
The help didn’t just come from local businesses. Parks said in all there were between 75 and 100 people at the track Wednesday helping clean up and repair the damage done by the Tuesday evening storm.
“I felt bad because I wasn’t doing any of the manual work,” Parks said. “I was just running around keeping everybody going and keeping them going in the right direction as to what needed to be done.
“We had guys like Robbie Streeter from Streeter Construction; he dropped what he was doing on his construction work. He came and he fixed all the roofs and all the billboards. He jumped in and helped with all the fencing. Zullo Construction and Zullo Property Maintenance, they came down helped us reset the light poles.
“Late Wednesday night, we turned the lights back on.”
Fans and competitors packed Claremont Motorsports Park on Friday, days after a destructive storm made it seem as though there would be no racing at the track last week. (Photo: Claremont Motorsports Park)
Incredibly, by the time gates opened for Friday’s $5 Fan Appreciation Night, nearly all the damage done by the storm had been cleaned up except for a few trees.
The only significant damage that couldn’t be repaired was done to a VIP trailer, which will likely have to be replaced.
“I don’t want to downplay what happened in any sense, but it was the perfect storm for our event Friday night. We had a good sponsor for the night, we were already doing $5 Fan Appreciation Night, and we were doing an on-track pit party. We knocked it out of the park on Friday night.
“Car counts were the best they’ve been all year; we had absolutely the largest crowd we’ve had all year. It was the perfect storm.”
Parks expressed gratitude for every person and business that took time out of their days to come and help clean up and repair the damage done by Tuesday’s storm. Without each of them, it’s likely there would have been no racing at Claremont Motorsports Park last weekend.
“It gave me a little faith in humanity again, if that makes any sense,” Parks said. “I don’t know how else to explain it. Whatever needed to be done, they just pitched in and got it done.”
SPEEDWAY, Ind. — For years, Denny Hamlin hasn’t sugarcoated his affinity for Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Multiple times over his career, he’s experienced bitter defeat in the Brickyard 400.
That sorrow continued Sunday.
The No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing team went the extra mile to prepare for Indianapolis. Hamlin’s crew chief Chris Gabehart knows how badly Hamlin wants to kiss the yard of bricks, so in a strategy-filled race, he called the race in hopes of giving Hamlin a shot at the end.
All was swell for Hamlin in the early portion. He earned his sixth stage victory of the season in Stage 1, holding off a hard-charging Kyle Larson. The No. 11 Toyota began the second stage buried with track position but made quick work and sliced up to third, trailing only Bubba Wallace and Chase Elliott.
On a Lap 110 restart, Carson Hocevar dove into the middle of a three-wide battle. The No. 77 car made contact with Ryan Blaney, turning the No. 12 car into seven-time Cup Series champion Jimmie Johnson, who collected Joey Logano. During that caution period, Gabehart put his dice on the table, calling Hamlin to pit road, believing he needed a few cautions to go the distance on fuel.
“The problem is, fast cars burn a lot of fuel,” Gabehart told NASCAR.com. “Cars and drivers that aren’t in contention, when they get cautions, they figure out how to parlay those cautions into opportunities. It’s hard to be a fast car running up front and take advantage of all the opportunities out there.”
Restarting outside the top 15, Hamlin sliced through the field. Martin Truex Jr. wrecked on Lap 125 to bring out a caution, allowing the No. 11 Toyota to shut the engine off and save fuel. Hamlin’s strategy diverted to driving hard after the restart, unless he got stuck in traffic. Hamlin made little progress, leading Gabehart to call an audible and go into fuel-savings mode.
With a few laps remaining in regulation, Kyle Busch spun underneath Hamlin entering Turn 3 to bring out the caution, sending the race to overtime. Believing there would be multiple green-white-checkered finishes, Gabehart had Hamlin pit, making sure there was no question about whether he could make it to the end on fuel.
“I try not to make decisions based on pure emotion,” Gabehart said. “My feeling was if we had one green-white-checkered in the tank, it was going to be close. And the chances of a restart wreck are really high. So, if I got my pitting out of the way early then you have another restart wreck, like we did, then we’re in a lot better spot for those that either pitted in front of us because they know they can’t make it or the ensuing wrecks are going to happen.”
That instinct was correct. Entering Turn 1, Daniel Hemric and John Hunter Nemechek collided, ricocheting the No. 42 car off the inside wall and into traffic. Hamlin was pinned up against the wall and clobbered Nemechek.
Hamlin was credited with a 32nd-place finish.
“I couldn’t see,” Hamlin said of the wreck. “There was a car coming across the track and I hit [Nemechek].”
The cautions didn’t fall right for Hamlin and ultimately it was his caution that ended the chance at winning a fourth race in 2024.
“That’s just part of stage racing at a strategic race track like this,” Gabehart said. “It’s hard to cover all the bases, and unfortunately, we just didn’t get the cautions.”
For the 16th time, Hamlin missed out on winning the crown jewel race. He will have to wait at least another year to join the short list that contains Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson, Kevin Harvick and Dale Earnhardt — drivers who have all won the Daytona 500, Coca-Cola 600, Southern 500 and Brickyard 400.
Planning the racing schedule for next year may not be the first thing on Kyle Larson’s mind after winning Sunday’s thrilling Brickyard 400, but the 2021 Cup Series champion has interest in a second shot at the Indianapolis 500.
The “double” attempt in May was highly documented as a disappointment due to Mother Nature hampering Larson’s day in two different regions of the country on the same day.
In a collaborative effort with Arrow McLaren and Hendrick Motorsports, Larson qualified fifth for the 108th running of the Indy 500, but a pit-road speeding penalty in the closing stages of the event stymied Larson’s otherwise impressive outing, and he finished 18th.
Rain kept Larson out of the Coca-Cola 600, but the California native was able to run and win at the Brickyard with the same special paint scheme that was used for the Coke 600.
While Hendrick Motorsports owner Rick Hendrick provided a “not yet” to a potential deal for Larson to run the 109th Indy 500, Larson is on board for a sequel.
“We’ve definitely been talking about it,” Larson said in Sunday’s post-race press conference. “I think weighing what’s important to everybody … it sounds good, I’ll say, so far, but things could change, so we’ll see. Obviously, I’d love to do it. I think everybody knows that I would love to do it because, in my mind, I did not get to do it this year. I hope that the pieces can fall into place and we can hopefully get things put together and announce something and get excited about doing the double next year.”
With a Brickyard 400 victory now on Larson’s career resume, another shot at winning the Indy 500 only amplifies the presence of the 31-year-old wheelman, and he could go into rarified air if he’s able to take home the checkered flag in the 500.
“Hopefully, someday I get the chance to win the 500 because I’ve won on the dirt track at the BC39, got to kiss the bricks there and now in the 400,” Larson added. “I guess there’s one more to check off in the Indy 500, which would be pretty special.”
Pit strategy and late-race chaos jumbled the leaderboard in the final 20 laps, but it was Kyle Larson finding Brickyard redemption after a speeding penalty hampered his Indianapolis 500 attempt back in May. Larson charged from outside the top 20 to the lead in the final 40 laps to score his fourth win of 2024 and first Brickyard 400 triumph.
The Cup Series goes on its Olympic break before returning to action at Richmond Raceway on Aug. 11 (6 p.m. ET, USA, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App), see which drivers are climbing upward or tumbling downward.
THREE UP ⬆️
1. Todd Gilliland, No. 38 Front Row Motorsports Ford
Started: 24th
Finished: 6th
What happened: There’s just something about Front Row Motorsports, no matter what layout is used at Indianapolis. Gilliland had enough fuel despite two overtime restarts to hold track position at the end and earn his fourth top 10 of the season, which matches a career-high set last season.
What’s next: Still needing a win to sneak his way into the 16-driver playoff field, opportunities are still present for the third-year driver to keep building momentum. The No. 38 team will have their best shot at stealing a postseason bid at Daytona International Speedway in August.
Sean Gardner | Getty Images
2. Austin Cindric, No. 2 Team Penske Ford
Started: 38th
Finished: 7th
What happened: Sunday could’ve been a lost cause for the No. 2 Penske team as it started at the rear of the field. However, a multitude of wrecks up front and drivers having to pit for fuel late cycled Cindric into the top 10 to give the Gateway winner his first top 10 since the surprise win in Illinois.
What’s next: With a playoff spot already locked up for Cindric, it’s all about finding speed and quality results as the Cup Series races to the playoffs. The two-week break will be much needed for the No. 2 stable to reset and lock in for the final month of the regular season.
Justin Casterline | Getty Images
3. Daniel Suárez, No. 99 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet
Started: 25th
Finished: 8th
What happened: Like Cindric, Suárez and the No. 99 team need any momentum they can get until their respective postseason runs begin. Suárez was able to survive the late-race attrition for just his fourth top 1o of the year and best result since finishing fifth at Texas Motor Speedway in April.
What’s next: It could be another trying push to the postseason for Suárez as Richmond, Michigan International Speedway, Daytona and Darlington Raceway don’t really suit the No. 99 driver. However, a top 10 heading into the Olympic break could be exactly what the doctor ordered for this team to be in postseason form when they look to sweep Atlanta to kick off the postseason.
James Gilbert | Getty Images
THREE DOWN ⬇️
1. Chris Buescher
Started: 23rd
Finished: 22nd
What happened: In the opening laps, Buescher was one of few drivers who could actually gain multiple spots during a green-flag run. However, two flat tires in Stage 1 hampered the No. 17’s day, putting the team multiple laps down and couldn’t get out of the hole until the final OT restart where Buescher couldn’t steal some spots before the caution flew to end the race.
What’s next: Buescher is now in quite the fight for a playoff spot as he sits just 17 points above the provisional elimination line. With three consecutive finishes outside the top 10, a two-week break leading into Richmond — (which began Buescher’s winning stretch last season) — would be the perfect remedy for the No. 17 RFK team to be the 13th different winner of 2024. If not, self-nicknamed “Bad Luck Buescher” could find himself without a playoff berth come September.
Justin Casterline | Getty Images
2. Alex Bowman, No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet
Started: 13th
Finished: 31st
What happened: Bowman was in line for another top-10 outing all race long, but the Chicago Street Course winner found calamity as he was collected in a big wreck on the first OT restart entering Turn 1 that also took out the likes of Denny Hamlin and John Hunter Nemechek, who were having great days as well at the Brickyard.
What’s next: Top 10s at Daytona and Darlington earlier this season could keep Bowman’s regular-season points result strong as he looks for those coveted bonus playoff tallies awarded to the top 10 in the Cup standings. However, Richmond may be another setback as the No. 48 started fourth only to finish 17th at the Virginia short track in March.
James Gilbert | Getty Images
3. William Byron, No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet
Started: 4th
Finished: 38th
What happened: Keeping the streak of the No. 24 winning the Brickyard 400 every ten years was not in the cards for Byron Sunday as he was collected in a hard wreck during Stage 2 with AJ Allmendinger and Harrison Burton. After Chase Briscoe’s Ford pushed up the track in front of the No. 24, Byron was hit by Ryan Preece sent Byron into Harrison Burton and then spun out of control down the backstretch. Byron was hit by Allmendinger’s No. 16 Kaulig Chevy before slamming into the inside retaining wall.
What’s next: With the regular season title all but out of reach for Byron, the focus for the No. 24 team is to reset during the break and focus on quality results to build that momentum for the playoffs. Highlighted by his Daytona 500 win, the No. 24 driver also finished in the top 10 at Richmond and Darlington, which could serve as a huge push for Byron in the final four races before the postseason.
