Noah Gragson, driver of the Stewart-Haas Racing No. 10 Ford, won the All-Star Race Fan Vote on Sunday and transferred into the main event at North Wilkesboro Speedway (8 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Gragson will join Joe Gibbs Racing’s Ty Gibbs and 23XI Racing’s Bubba Wallace, who finished first and second in the All-Star Open, respectively, as the final entries into Sunday’s race for the $1 million prize.
“It means a ton to me,” Gragson said on pit road post-race. “Being a kid, I never would have thought I’d ever see somebody wearing a shirt with my name on it or having one of my die-casts. It’s just awesome to be able to have people to support you, and I’ve got great fans. All the fans out there are awesome, but I’ve got some really great fans that support me, and they’re diehard. They’re diehard, and we feed off that energy as a race team and they keep us going. So, it’s exciting stuff. It’s exciting to be a part of the All-Star Race two years in a row, and it’s all part for the race fans. They’re the ones that give us the opportunity to go out there. So just, big thank you.”
This is the second time Gragson has won the fan vote (2023), an All-Star Race tradition that stretches back to 2004. Ken Schrader won that first vote, with Martin Truex Jr. taking the honor in 2005. Other notable fan-vote winners include Kyle Petty, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Carl Edwards and Danica Patrick.
Kasey Kahne is the only fan-vote winner who also went on to win the All-Star Race, doing so in 2008.
From running over a muffler to fending off a hard-charging Austin Beers, nothing came easy for the defending NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour champion. Silk still managed to withstand every obstacle in his path to obtain his third victory of the 2024 season.
Silk’s paramount concern during the closing laps was how his car would handle after hitting the loose muffler off Turn 4. The only damage on Silk’s car was superficial, which was crucial in helping him fend off the rest of the field behind him.
“[The muffler] kind of went under [the car], and I felt it come out the back,” Silk said. “This was just a great job from my entire crew. The car was awesome, and [the speed] lasted right until the end. We’ve got another win on the season, and we’re just going to keep trying to pick them off.”
Silk considered himself fortunate the muffler did not derail what had been a hard-fought battle to obtain and then maintain the top spot.
A rainout of qualifying on Saturday would have normally given Silk the pole according to the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour rulebook. Instead, Silk ended up starting in the sixth position following a redraw of the top 10 starters, which allowed Trevor Catalano to lead the field to the green flag.
Silk did not let the circumstances deter him; he utilized the speed of his silver No. 16 Haydt-Yannone Modified to pick off his fellow competition. After only 30 laps, Silk had already worked his way into the lead after passing Craig Lutz.
Despite holding steady at the front of the field, Silk faced relentless pressure from Lutz, who was eager to obtain his first NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour victory since 2022. When Lutz’ car began to fade, Silk then encountered challenges from championship rival Justin Bonsignore and Austin Beers.
An overtime restart provided Beers the perfect opportunity to steal a victory. The young Modified competitor attempted a crossover on Silk in Turn 4 coming to the checkered flag but could not get the run he needed to make the race-winning pass.
Beers, who won two NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour events last year, knew it would be tough to usurp Silk with how strong he was on the bottom line. He was still proud of his overall effort at Riverhead and hopes two consecutive second-place finishes provide him the necessary momentum to earn another win soon.
“[Silk] just had a little bit better drive,” Beers said. “Being on the bottom really helped, and that’s where our car really worked. We were stuck on the top, but my spotter did a great job clearing me down and giving me a shot to get Ron.
“It was bumper cars at the end, but we made it across the line for another good points day.”
(Photo: Susan Wong/NASCAR)
With his triumph Sunday, Silk has now won twice at Riverhead over the past two seasons after previously being unable to visit the track’s Victory Lane since making his NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour debut in 2003.
Being so competitive on a regular basis is something Silk attributes to the hard work that is prevalent at Haydt-Yannone Racing. It took time for everyone within the program to build cohesion when Silk first joined in 2022, but the chemistry and leadership were instrumental in Silk breaking a 12-year championship drought last season.
Now with three wins on his resume through five races this season, Silk knows he and Haydt-Yannone Racing can end the year as NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour champions once again with the speed and determination they possess every week.
“I have all the confidence in the world,” Silk said. “We haven’t gone anywhere where we haven’t had a chance to win. Crew chief Phil Moran and car chief Bob Tulipani work a lot on these things to get them just right. The commitment is certainly appreciated.”
Following Silk and Beers in the running order was Justin Bonsignore, with J.B. Fortin and J.R. Bertuccio completing the top five. Jake Johnson, Lutz, John Beatty Jr., Patrick Emerling and Mark Stewart were the rest of the top-10 finishers.
The next race up for the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour will be the J&R Precast 150 at Seekonk Speedway on Saturday, June 1. FloRacing will provide live coverage of all the on-track action.
NORTH WILKESBORO, N.C. — Brenden ‘Butterbean’ Queen heard the cheers perk up from the rugged front grandstand at North Wilkesboro Speedway. He figured the commotion was for Corey Heim, his Tricon Garage teammate and Sunday’s winner of the rain-delayed NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race.
Instead, the 26-year-old CARS Tour star was the deserving recipient. Upon realizing it, he egged the crowd on.
Queen was the darling of a stellar Truck Series debut, rallying his No. 1 Toyota for a fourth-place finish in the Wright Brand 250 after sustaining a mid-race speeding penalty on pit road. The top-five result came on the same 0.625-mile track where he scored a CARS Tour victory last year, and the partisan Wilkes County crowd has since adopted the short-track hero and fan favorite as one of their own.
Sunday’s outcome followed the mold of respectable national-series efforts in recent years from other Late Model standouts, such as Josh Berry, Carson Kvapil and Bubba Pollard in the Xfinity Series. Queen added his name to that list Sunday.
“It’s just special, man. It just shows how important Late Model stock-car racing is and how important the CARS Tour is,” Queen said. “Just the support around our series, they want to see these guys that they’ve watched at the short tracks get these opportunities to go toe-to-toe with the big names. So I can’t believe it. I won here last year, so I think that’s where I gained a lot of the Wilkesboro crowd, and so many people came out and watched me tonight. I’m just super-blessed.”
Queen drove through the field twice to find the field’s upper reaches, starting 26th on the 36-truck grid after rain washed away Saturday’s qualifying. He made it to 12th place when a downpour halted the event Saturday afternoon after 81 of the 250 laps.
Queen kept climbing when the race resumed Sunday morning, making it to seventh place before he sped entering the pit lane on Lap 119. “I screwed us,” he radioed his Tricon Garage team, which told him to stay focused, even as he fell back to 29th for the restart. Almost prophetically, Queen replied: “Sorry, I’ll make up for it.”
Queen cracked the top 20 by Lap 148, then forged back into the top 10 on Lap 167. “Fastest truck on the race track right now,” his team told him, just before he arrived in the top five with 57 laps remaining.
Alejandro Alvarez | NASCAR.com
The final stretch included some tenacious racing with Craftsman Truck Series points leader Christian Eckes, who clanged his No. 19 Chevrolet into Queen’s side in retaliation on the back straightaway after an aggressive move through Turns 1 and 2. “Oh, yeah. Shove that finger up your tail, buddy,” Queen said over the No. 1 radio after Eckes showed his displeasure.
“I didn’t feel like I did anything wrong,” Queen said later. “We were racing hard, I got loose under him, and I didn’t wreck him. He did more damage down the backstretch than I did in the turn there.”
Queen lined up fifth for the last restart with 32 laps to go, but made a point to thank his crew for the opportunity, no matter how the final stretch turned out. The team was just as grateful, lauding his ability to slice through the field and finish with a relatively clean race. The fan reaction was a bonus.
“I mean, I’m a Late Model guy myself, so to me, it’s awesome,” No. 1 crew chief Seth Smith told NASCAR.com. “The kid has an incredible following, and a lot of it is to do with his attitude and the work he puts in. Just very appreciative of any opportunity he gets to do anything, so he’s a very humble kid and just super cool to have the fan support that he does. Like I said, I think a lot of that’s because how humble he is.”
Queen said he will turn his season-long aspirations back to the CARS Tour schedule but was hopeful for more Truck Series opportunities, should they arise. Whatever the future holds, he’ll take away special memories backed by solid support from the team and the crowd.
“That’s awesome when your team believes in you,” Queen said. “And that’s why this 1 group is so special, is when you all believe in each other, you run good. If you don’t believe in somebody, that’s when the mistakes start happening, and so just everybody on this 1 team is special, and I hope I can be here with them next year.”
NORTH WILKESBORO, N.C. — Corey Heim dominated Sunday’s weather-delayed Wright Brand 250 at North Wilkesboro Speedway, but the driver of the No. 11 Tricon Garage Toyota had to share the spotlight with his teammate, Brenden “Butterbean” Queen, who finished fourth in his NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series debut.
Heim grabbed the lead from Jake Garcia after a restart on Lap 186 of 250 and held it the rest of the way to win for the third time this season, the first time at North Wilkesboro and the eighth time in his career.
Crossing the finish line 2.474 seconds ahead of runner-up Grant Enfinger, Heim trimmed the series lead of sixth-place finisher Christian Eckes to four points in a race that was halted on Saturday by extreme weather after 81 laps and resumed on Sunday after a red-flag period of 21 hours, six minutes, 14 seconds.
When five inches of rain fell during a 90-minute stretch on Saturday, Heim’s truck was all but submerged at the legendary short track, which experienced drainage issues during the deluge.
“Of course, we hoped for no water damage,” Heim said. “The truck was submerged in almost three feet of water — we picked probably the worst pit box in that scenario, but obviously you can never really intend on something like that happening.
“I’ve never seen so much rain come down in an hour in my life. That was crazy, but eventually we were able to wipe it down and make sure there was no damage, and I was able to recover from that, for sure.”
Layne Riggs came home third, holding off Queen in the late going, but Queen enjoyed the raucous support of “Bean Nation” as soon as he climbed from his No. 1 Toyota. To finish fourth, Queen had to overcome a pit road speeding penalty incurred under caution on Lap 118.
“Oh, man, I can’t believe it,” said Queen, who restarted 26th on Lap 124 and worked his way back through the field. “We got that speeding penalty. I thought I was conservative on the lights, and it just got us — rookie mistake.
“But I told the team I was going to get ‘em back in position, and we did.”
The season-best second-place finish was a welcome result for Enfinger, who leaves the 0.625-mile short track eighth in the series standings, 170 points behind Eckes.
“We haven’t been performing to our ability or our standards,” said Enfinger. “I feel like last week at Darlington was the turning point in our season (despite a 16th-place finish). I’m standing by that.
“Very, very proud of this truck. Proud of our pit crew all year long. Finally, we have a little bit of a result to show for it.”
Riggs got his first top-five finish of the season in the No. 38 Front Row Motorsports Ford.
“We really, really needed this finish,” Riggs said. “It was a great day for us, and I hope we can continue to build on this momentum.”
Varying pit strategies produced considerable movement with the field throughout the race. Heim restarted 13th on lap 124 but methodically worked his way up the running order. On Lap 175 he passed Riggs for second place, and after Conner Jones spun in Turn 4 to cause the sixth of seven cautions on Lap 177, Heim shot past Garcia on the Lap 186 restart.
Staying out on older tires, Ty Majeski won the first stage of the race. Using the same strategy, Tyler Ankrum triumphed in Stage 2. But Heim had the fastest truck and quickly proved it after the second stage break.
Moonlighting from the NASCAR Xfinity Series, Sammy Smith finished fifth, followed by Eckes, Nick Sanchez, Ankrum, Daniel Dye and Stewart Friesen to complete the top 10.
The Truck Series will next race on Friday at Charlotte Motor Speedway in the North Carolina Education Lottery 200 (8:30 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
NOTE:Post-race inspection was completed in the Truck Series garage at North Wilkesboro Speedway without any major issues, confirming Heim as the race winner. Officials found the runner-up No. 9 CR7 Motorsports Chevrolet of Enfinger with one unsecured lug nut in a post-race check. The infraction will likely result in a fine for crew chief Jeff Stankiewicz this week.
NORTH WILKESBORO, N.C. — Daniel Suárez took two minutes and 23 seconds out of his drive home from last weekend’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Darlington Raceway to make an impassioned plea to his supporters to stick with him. The reel he posted to Instagram offered an apology after his 24th-place finish that Sunday, expressing his frustration during this recent rough stretch of performance for his No. 99 Trackhouse Racing team.
Suárez is virtually assured of a spot in the Cup Series Playoffs based on his three-wide victory at Atlanta Motor Speedway in the second event of the season, but his subpar results in most of the races since had clearly taken a toll. That all fueled his social-media address to his fans.
“The way I see it, there is a lot of people that come from very far away, and I see them every week because I go to the merchandise hauler to sign our autographs for them for 30 minutes,” Suárez said Friday at North Wilkesboro Speedway, after his arrival for All-Star Weekend events. “And I see people that come from many different places around the country with Mexican flags to support me, and I don’t feel like I’ve been doing good lately. If my driver is running 30th, that sucks. You know, that’s not good. And I feel like they deserve better, and I’m not saying that I’m not doing the work, because actually I am putting the work and my team is putting in the work.
“We just are in a point right now where we are not fast, and we have to figure it out, and I just wanted to let them know that is not going unnoticed. I feel that they deserve better, and I would like to see people with Mexican flags in the grandstands and people support me with their kids, and me running like that, that’s just not me. Like, if this was my normal, I would retire tomorrow because this is not … I’m not designed to be running like this.”
Suárez missed the postseason cut last year, and the organization juggled its crew chief lineup, bringing in Matt Swiderski from Kaulig Racing as a replacement for Travis Mack on the No. 99 team. His Atlanta victory in February sealed a playoffs return, but Suárez has just one top-10 finish — a fifth at Texas — in the 11 races that followed. Six of the last eight races have netted results outside the top 20, leaving the 32-year-old driver 18th in the overall Cup Series points.
That placement in the standings won’t change after this weekend’s All-Star festivities, where no points are on the line. But Suarez says his No. 99 Chevrolet team is striving to gain some short-track knowledge this weekend at North Wilkesboro, as the organization redoubles its efforts for the second half of the regular season before the 10-race playoff stretch begins.
“It’s not a secret the last few weeks, we’ve been a 30th-place car, and we’ve been finishing 25th with it, so we have some work to do,” Suárez said. “This is what I told my team: We have two months to figure it out. Two months to figure it out, and I say two months because I would like to have one month before the playoffs, to have the mentality of playoffs. Because if we think that we’re going to go into the playoffs and flip a switch and just be great, that won’t happen. No matter who it is, that doesn’t exist. So we have to just be ready when the time comes.”
Persistent rainfall during the afternoon and into the evening forced NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour officials to postpone the Miller Lite Salutes Wayne Anderson 200 to Sunday.
Qualifying had already been canceled by the precipitation earlier in the day, forcing the Modified Tour to set the field by the rule book. Defending champion Ron Silk would have started on pole, but a redraw moved him to sixth on the starting grid with Trevor Catalano claiming the top spot.
Live coverage of the rescheduled Miller Lite Salutes Wayne Anderson 200 begins at 12:15 p.m. ET on FloRacing with the support features at Riverhead. The green flag for the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour race waves at 2:30 p.m. ET.
INDIANAPOLIS –Qualifying started for the Indianapolis 500, and it took more than three hours (and one deflating misfire) before Kyle Larson had logged an official speed in the record book.
If that seems an agonizing and tense wait for making your debut at the Greatest Spectacle in Racing, you don’t know Kyle Larson very well.
“I wasn’t too stressed out after not getting to complete that first run,” he said while standing at the base of VictoryCircle at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. “Yeah. I mean, to this point, it’s been a really fun experience. I’ve never gotten to compete in a qualifying day like this. So it’s honestly pretty relaxing. I feel like everybody talks about how stressful it is, which maybe if your car speed wasn’t there, it’d be more stressful. Or if we had another issue, then you’d begin to stress. “But I feel like when you do multiple runs, it just calms the nerves for me anyway.”
His blood might be pumping Sunday when the 2021 NASCAR Cup Series champion will be among the 12 drivers who take a shot at trying to win the pole position for the 108th Indianapolis 500. The Hendrick Motorsports star, who will attempt to become the fifth driver to race the Indy 500 and Coca-Cola 600 on the same day, posted the seventh-fastest four-lap average at 232.563 mph in his No. 17 Dallara-Chevrolet.
“Kyle’s one of the best drivers I’ve ever worked with for sure, without a doubt,” said Arrow McLaren team principal Gavin Ward, a veteran of Formula One, who also has been the lead engineer for two-time IndyCar champion and defending Indy 500 winner Josef Newgarden. “I can’t believe how well he’s done here. I’m over the moon, the team at Arrow McLaren is over the moon, and Hendrick Motorsports is absolutely over the moon with how things have gone from here. We’ll just keep trying to execute from here.”
The speeds of the Fast 12 will be reset for another round of four-lap attempts starting at 3 p.m. ET. Then, the fastest six driverswill square off for the Indy 500 pole in a final round that will begin at 5:25 p.m. ET.
Walt Kuhn | Penske Entertainment
And if he makes it throughall of that, Larson then has to hop on a Hendrick jet and hustle to Sunday night’s All-Star Race at North Wilkesboro Speedway. It’s wheels up for North Carolina at6:20 p.m., about 25 minutes after the pole winner will be determined.
“It’s really cool, but it makes the windows a lot tighter for (Sunday),” Larson said with a laugh about making the Fast 12 in his Indy 500 debut. “But yeah, I think it’s something to be proud of, for sure, on my part a little bit. But qualifying is about the team. And they brought a fast race car. So I’mproud of everybody’s effort.”
It had been an inauspicious start for Larson and his three teammates at Arrow McLaren, which was unable to post an official qualifyingspeed until nearly three hours into the qualifyingsession.
As the sixthdriver to make an attempt after qualifying started at 11 a.m. ET, Larson easily was on pace to secure a spot in the 33-car grid until the last of his four laps around the 2.5-mile oval. That’s when he suddenly lost power because of a plenum fire in his Chevy engine– a misfire that causes a drop in engine torque. The only remedy is to lift off the accelerator to extinguish the small fire. Larson did that, but he also pulled off the track instead of taking the checkered flag, which aborted his attempt.
“The car slowed down,and I didn’t know what to do,”he said. “And then there was miscommunication. I guess they told me just to complete my lap, but I thought they told me to abort the lap.
“If I had known what to do in that circumstance, I could havejust lifted and went back to (the accelerator)and completed abelow–average run, but at least it would have probably been enough to be in the show at that point. But it didn’t matter anyway.”
That’s because Larson cooly put together a swift second run that sandwiched him betweenthe Hondas of eight–time IndyCar winner Colton Herta and six-time IndyCar polesitter Felix Rosenqvist. While he didn’t make any adjustments to his car, Larson had a smooth shifting pattern while hitting the buttons to adjust weight distribution on the straightaway beforecorner entry.
“I feel like I executed a better run (than the first time),” he said. “You’re just being more comfortable with hitting buttons and watching for shift lightsand things like that, The first run, I mean I felt like I executed it good, too. I was just more like having to think about it and really pay attention more.So it just became a little bit more natural.”
He was multitaskingat a top-end speed of nearly 240 mph with an extra 100 horsepower from an added turbo boost(which will be removed after qualifyingweekend for the race). But Larson was surprised to be relatively unfazed by going faster than he ever had in a race car.
“The whole time when I found out about me doing the Indy 500. I was like, ‘Man, that boost is going to be crazy,’” he said. “And watching qualifying last year when you see the mph,you’re like, ‘Holy (crap)!’ Like that’s got to feel crazy, but when you have the grip there, it doesn’t feel like you’re going 20 mph faster. That’s what’s been like the weirdest thing for me to try and get used to is I‘ll make a run that doesn’t really feel that fast. And then I come in and our number istowards the top of the pylon. So it’s a little bit weird.”
Chris Owens | Penske Entertainment
He might feel a little more harried Sunday when he will be trying to qualify an Indy car in one state and race a stock car in another.Thoughthe forecast has improved for Sunday at North Wilkesboro, Larson was hoping fora potential postponement of the All-Star Race to Monday night. He is scheduled to practicein traffic from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Monday at the Brickyard.
However the schedule unfolds,Larson’s NASCAR team will be ready. On hand in Indy to witness Larson’s qualifying debut were Hendrick president Jeff Andrews and chief operating officer Jeff Gordon, a record five-time winner at the Brickyard. The No. 17 entourage drew a large crowd wherever they walked Saturday at Indy, but Larson was the center of attention.
“I definitely feel way more popular here just because I’m doing something unique,” he said. “I’ve tried to take as much time and sign autographs and take pictures for fans. I feel like I’ve signed more than a thousand autographs since I’ve been here, so it’s been enjoyable.
“It’s been specialfor me to experience this, but I think what makes it even more enjoyable for me is like getting to have all these other people experience it with me. Jeff Gordon, Jeff Andrews, and we’ll have Rick Hendrick here next week. My (Cup) team is going to come on Carb Day (next Friday). My family, my kids, friends, like anybody who’s close to me. Getting to come here and enjoy in the experience as well has been very nice.”
Nate Ryan has written about NASCAR since 1996 while working at the San Bernardino Sun, Richmond Times-Dispatch, USA TODAY and for the past 10 years at NBC Sports Digital. He is the host of the NASCAR on NBC Podcast and also has covered variousother motorsports, including the IndyCar and IMSA series.
NORTH WILKESBORO, N.C. — Joey Logano starts from the best seat in the historic house for Sunday’s NASCAR All-Star Race, having put his No. 22 Team Penske on the pole position in Saturday’s unique qualifying session at North Wilkesboro Speedway.
Logano will chase the $1 million prize from the front of the field in Sunday night’s 200-lap main event (8 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), but his pursuit of a third NASCAR Cup Series championship hasn’t had quite the same speedy results. Before on-track activity began Friday, the 33-year-old driver admitted that his tension level was as high as it has been this late in a season in recent memory.
“Yeah, in a while for sure, but there’s no running away from it. It is what it is,” Logano said. “We’ve just got to be perfect from here out.”
Logano sits at the midpoint of the 26-race regular season, just 17th in the Cup Series standings. He’s 18th in the provisional playoffs order, 30 points outside the elimination line for the 16-driver postseason field.
Logano has gone the last five races without a top-10 finish; his lone top-five result of the year — a runner-up at Richmond — came at the end of March. His hopes for breaking out of his recent rough patch at Darlington Raceway last weekend were thwarted by a late-race penalty for speeding on pit road.
Logano managed to take away some positives as he closes out the month of May — his early Darlington strength, the learnings from a North Wilkesboro tire test, RFK Racing’s upswing as a fellow Ford team, and in Team Penske’s performance in the Coca-Cola 600 last year, when teammate Ryan Blaney claimed the laurels at Charlotte Motor Speedway. Those markers have fed some of his optimism for reversing his current slide.
“I mean, any given weekend, we can be right there,” Logano says. “I mean, we ran in the top five most of the race last week, so I feel solid about that. I feel solid about this weekend and Wilkesboro after the test here. I think we should be pretty strong. And Charlotte, yeah, who knows, right? Blaney had a really good run there last year. Maybe we can hit on something there, too. There’s no doubt the mile and a halfs have been a weakness of ours, but you also look at what RFK has done in the last couple of weeks and you say, ‘well, the opportunity’s there.’ We’ve just got to go find it. Whatever that is, we’ve got to figure that out.”
