Kyle Larson second-fastest in rain-shortened Indy 500 open test

Posted on April 11, 2024April 11, 2024 by Zack Albert

Kyle Larson rocketed to second-fastest on the leaderboard Wednesday, gaining experience and showing speed in a rain-abbreviated Indianapolis 500 open test.

Larson, the 2021 NASCAR Cup Series champion, drove the No. 17 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet to a best lap of 226.384 mph at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. His speed was second to the chart-topping 228.811 mph posted by defending Indy 500 champ Josef Newgarden, driving for Team Penske.

Larson is attempting to compete in both Memorial Day weekend classics on Sunday, May 26, driving in the Indianapolis 500 before transitioning to Charlotte Motor Speedway for the Cup Series’ Coca-Cola 600 (6 p.m. ET, FOX, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). A total of 34 cars made laps in Wednesday’s session, and Larson’s track time was his first among other vehicles in an IndyCar.

“It felt good. Just good to get laps and get in some traffic, and to visually see what that looked like, to feel the runs and the dirty air a little bit,” Larson said after a morning run. “I feel like I learned quite a bit there and still have a lot to learn. It’s been a good morning so far. By yourself, (the car) has a lot of grip. In traffic, it was good. The first time I got in traffic, the balance felt normal. I didn’t feel like I went into a big transition from clean air to dirty air, but the last time, I was super tight. It was good to experience to feel what that felt like.

“The packs I’ve been in have only had two or three cars, but it’ll be way different when the field is out there. I’ve just got to keep getting laps, and as the packs keep getting bigger, I think I’ll learn a lot more.”

Weather, however, cut into the field’s testing opportunities, interrupting Wednesday’s opening day and canceling a scheduled second session on Thursday. The field was split into veterans and rookies for the first four hours Wednesday, interrupted by intermittent rain. More showers halted Wednesday’s activity shortly after 2 p.m. ET—nearly four hours early.

Practice for the Indianapolis 500 opens Tuesday, May 14, with qualifying scheduled that weekend, May 18-19.

Posted on April 10, 2024April 11, 2024 by Pat DeCola

Here’s what’s happening in the world of NASCAR with Martinsville in the rearview and Texas (Sun., 3:30 p.m. ET, FS1) right around the corner.

THE LINEUP ️

1️⃣ Byron putting together a season for the ages

2️⃣ First spring tumble in Texas since 2019

3️⃣ Exclusive: Jeff Gordon in moments after Martinsville

4️⃣ Ending streaks in the Lone Star State

5️⃣ Catch the pack — news and notes from around the garage

Getty Images

1. Byron putting together a season for the ages

William Byron is off to a blazing start in the No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet, showing shades of a certain four-time champion.

You’d better get used to seeing that cherubic grin on the front stretch after the checkered flag on Sundays, because it sure looks like it will be happening quite often from here on out.

William Byron’s victory at Martinsville Speedway this past weekend just felt so huge for so many reasons, but sort of lost in all of the duly deserved overall Hendrick Motorsports jubilee seemed to be that Byron is laying the bricks for an all-time great NASCAR season.

That feels kind of obvious to point out, but it’s notable because several drivers have echoed the sentiment that the days of double-digit-win seasons are over with the level of parity we’ve seen thus far in the Next Gen era. Yet, here we are with a driver holding three trophies just eight races into the schedule, on three race tracks that couldn’t be more different.

Not only is Byron — who passed Hall of Famer Terry Labonte on Hendrick’s all-time wins list on Sunday — on pace to hit the double-digit mark, but he could really be putting together something special here.

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For context, the last driver to hit double-digit wins was teammate Kyle Larson in his 2021 championship season, one of the more dominant campaigns in recent memory. No. 5 didn’t pick up his third win that year until Sonoma — in June.

STACKING PENNIES: Will Byron hit double-digits?

Digging a little deeper and comparing him directly to the Hall of Fame driver who made the No. 24 famous, Byron’s third win almost certainly indicates championship potential, if not likelihood.

Jeff Gordon won his third race of the season as early as Byron did this year — or earlier — just three times in his career, amazingly, in consecutive years from 1995-97. Between those three seasons, he netted a pair of championships, a runner-up finish to Labonte (who had eight fewer wins) and 27 total Cup Series victories. The next year Gordon actually clocked in a career-high 13 wins — and, naturally, the title — but remarkably didn’t pick up his third until race No. 11.

Sunday’s 1-2-3 finish led by Byron, with all of the emotion tied into it and everything that it foretells down the road, felt like the biggest Martinsville moment for Hendrick since the half-mile short track reverberated with bellows of “We’re goin’ to Homestead!”

And it’s only fitting it was ushered in by a ruby red, flame-adorned No. 24 Chevrolet doing burnouts with a grandfather clock awaiting in Victory Lane.

Getty Images

2. First spring tumble in Texas since 2019

After a spate of short tracks, what does a return to a 1.5-mile track have in store for Sunday?

Bristol, Richmond and Martinsville each offered their own unique twists and surprises, but when all was said and done all three races were won by two title favorites in Byron and Denny Hamlin.

The way things are going it’s hard to look past No. 24 — the most recent winner at Texas, last fall — especially considering he’s finished in the top 10 in seven of the last eight races on 1.5-mile tracks and has the second-longest active top-10 streak at the Fort Worth track. It’ll take a catastrophe for him not to be in the mix, but each of the last seven Texas races was won by a different driver for the longest streak of different winners at the track since the first 12 races there were won by fresh drivers.

Byron could go out there and dominate, but the window is certainly open for others, particularly where there’s no direct comp for this race since the last time it was run in the spring was in 2019 with a different generation of car and much longer length.

His Hendrick teammate Kyle Larson has the edge when it comes specifically to 1.5-mile tracks as a whole, having won at least one stage in each of the last five races on them — including sweeping the stages en route to Victory Lane in two of the last three. Nobody’s touching the California native on the intermediates right now, with Larson winning 31% of all stages on 1.5-mile tracks in the Next Gen era and Hendrick itself claiming 50% of them.

The two-headed monster Hendrick has right now between Byron and Larson is beyond intimidating and we could be looking at a decade-plus of this. (And that’s not to mention 2020 champion Chase Elliott, who is heating up in a big way and nearly took the Martinsville win himself).

Outside of Hendrick, this feels like the weekend 23XI Racing really collectively puts it all together after showing plenty of promise in the early going so far, with both Bubba Wallace and Tyler Reddick looking like top-10 locks for Sunday — and Wallace, in particular.

There’s still some smoothing out across the board to be had with the No. 23 team, but there have been a few spots this season (Martinsville chief among them) where it looked championship-capable. Texas might be where Wallace enters that conversation completely.

The two-time Cup winner was dominant in the Lone Star State last fall, leading 111 laps from the pole and averaging a running position of 4.2 before Byron took control on a late restart to win. Wallace has been excellent on 1.5-milers in general lately, though, with his five top fives in the last 11 races on them — including a Kansas victory — tied for third most during that span.

It’s entirely possible that when Wallace exits his No. 23 Toyota on Sunday evening, he does so with his head held high as he’s handed the checkered flag.

bubba wallace exits his car at texas — Getty Images

3. Exclusive: Jeff Gordon on how his Hendrick family ‘changed (his) life’

The NASCAR Hall of Famer caught up with NASCAR.com after the team’s historic 1-2-3 finish at Martinsville.

4. Ending streaks in the Lone Star State

Texas has seen six drivers snap 30-plus-race winless streaks in its history. With five past champions riding lengthy droughts of their own, will one snap the skid on Sunday?

Driver	Car	Winless Streak	Date
Elliott Sadler	No. 38 Yates Racing Ford	108	4/4/2004
Austin Dillon	No. 3 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet	88	7/19/2020
Matt Kenseth	No. 17 Roush Fenway Racing Ford	76	4/9/2011
Greg Biffle	No. 16 Roush Fenway Racing Ford	49	4/14/2012
Jeff Gordon	No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet	47	4/5/2009
Kyle Busch	No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota	33	10/25/2020

5. Catch the pack — news and notes from around the garage

Power Rankings: Ryan Blaney’s title defense set to start shining

Paint Scheme Preview: See the schemes for Texas tripleheader

Analysis: Byron’s rebound, milestone moment swell 40th anniversary emotions

Rick Hendrick reflects on Martinsville triumph: ‘I’m glad they played nice’

Bubba Wallace on Martinsville showing: ‘Got the result we deserved’

Sawyer: Officials ‘trying to get to a better place’ with short-track package

Inside the Race: Byron’s upper hand at Martinsville

Chase Elliott on trying to ‘go for the win’ at Martinsville, falling short

Kyle Petty: Hendrick’s domination is a Martinsville ‘walk-off’

@nascarcasm: Fake texts to Martinsville winner William Byron

Which driver is favored to win 2024 title after Martinsville?

start of the race at texas — Getty Images

Posted on April 10, 2024 by Zach Sturniolo

MARTINSVILLE, Va. — Carson Kvapil knew the opportunity in front of him at Martinsville Speedway was special. There was no way Saturday could be just another day.

He made sure he did his part behind the wheel to make his NASCAR Xfinity Series debut unforgettable.

The 20-year-old native of Mooresville, North Carolina stormed to a fourth-place finish in his inaugural Xfinity start in the No. 88 JR Motorsports Chevrolet, impressing but perhaps not surprising anyone who has followed Kvapil’s career up through the CARS Late Model Stock Tour as the two-time defending series champion.

MORE: Xfinity Series schedule

A top-five result in his first outing after never driving the Xfinity chassis before Friday’s 20-minute practice and two-lap qualifying sessions dazzled. But Kvapil admitted he wanted a little more still.

“Man I know this 88 team, this Chevrolet Camaro, it’s capable of winning,” Kvapil said. “So the end goal and really the expectation for me is to go out and win. So coming up with a fourth is obviously not bad, right? I’m pretty excited. But I felt like we had a car that was capable of at least running top three and maybe going for the win.”

That perspective and drive are what JR Motorsports co-owner Dale Earnhardt Jr. admires most about his shining prospect, who has wheeled JRM late models since the beginning of 2022. Kvapil may be young, but the head upon his shoulders only bolsters the talent he sees on the race track.

So while Kvapil may have had higher expectations for himself, Earnhardt was beaming under the bright lights of Martinsville Speedway after such a notably positive performance.

“He’s got such good race craft — better race craft than probably 80% of people in the field,” Earnhardt said. “He’s just mature. And (that’s) not a knock on everybody in the field here. He’s just that good, I think. Kid’s grown up in it, works on cars all day, every day. Everything about his life, every minute is racing, and he’s got this incredible temperament.

“He’s level all the time. Not once did he show any nerves or anxiety over this being too big or too heavy. Can’t seem to really rattle him, you know? I asked him in the middle of the race what he thought. He’s like, ‘It’s pretty simple. Do what I’m supposed to do, you know?’ So just fun to watch him race. Awesome to be able to give him a car that he can do something with, and his dad and his mother did a good job raising him. He’s just such an awesome character. Awesome character and a hell of a race car driver.”

James Thomas | NASCAR.com

Kvapil’s father is none other than Travis Kvapil, the 2003 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series champion and a longtime driver between NASCAR’s three national series with 481 combined Cup, Xfinity and Truck starts. The younger Kvapil made his first national appearance in the Truck Series last season at Bristol Motor Speedway, where he finished 12th, 20 years after his father’s title run.

Travis Kvapil keeps it no secret that he’s been fortunate to help open doors for his sons — both Carson and the up-and-coming Caden Kvapil — as he helps find sponsorship to fund future opportunities. But Carson Kvapil’s performance Saturday at Martinsville was just the latest example of the sheer talent and ability to perform on the race track once those opportunities come to fruition.

“He’s put in the work and he’s got the ability,” Travis Kvapil said. “To me, Carson is the right story. You know what I mean? He’s a young kid. He’s worked hard. He’s put in the work. He’s started at Millbridge and Bandoleros and cut his teeth and won at every level. And get an opportunity like this and then go do great things when you do get the opportunity.”

James Thomas | NASCAR.com

Kvapil is far from the first late model driver from the JRM stable to get his inaugural Xfinity start with the same program. Earnhardt — who himself has returned to the grassroots level he loves so much — helped propel Josh Berry all the way to the NASCAR Cup Series, with the Tennessean racing for JRM for more than a decade before this year’s rookie campaign driving the No. 4 Ford for Stewart-Haas Racing, a coveted seat at the sport’s top level.

“The deal with Carson is kind of similar to Josh,” Earnhardt said. “We’re just gonna keep grinding, running the late model races and doing everything we can to get him chances. And for Josh, it took 10 years. Hopefully it doesn’t take that long for Carson. You know, runs like that didn’t do much for Josh’s career. You know, we’d take Josh somewhere, he’d run really good, and we thought the phone was gonna ring. But you’ve just got to stay in it like Josh did. That’s the example of dedication and sticking with it and not giving up on your dream. And we’re gonna keep doing that with Carson as long as we can.

“I’m almost sad watching him run good out there because I know he might move up and move on out; at least out of the late model car. And it’s tough when you get so used to them driving it every single week.”

Kvapil hopes not to stray far from the Earnhardt family any time soon, expressing his gratitude for Earnhardt’s belief in him Saturday night.

“You guys have seen what he’s done for short-track racers the last few years,” Kvapil said. “It’s an honor to drive his late model full time and it’s definitely an honor to get the run at Martinsville here with them. So obviously I was wanting to go out and win, right? That’s everyone’s goal. But I’m pretty happy with how I did.”

Posted on April 10, 2024 by NASCAR Official Release

NEW YORK and DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — NASCAR, the sanctioning body for the No. 1 motorsport in the United States, is enhancing its NASCAR Mobile app experience by launching a new In-App Stories product from WSC Sports, the global leader in AI-powered sports video content.

In-App Stories offers NASCAR fans a user-friendly, multi-clip vertical video experience in a format they are familiar with seeing on other social media platforms. Fans can tap into the new experience on race weekends and beyond, as the stories will provide live in-race highlights for NASCAR Cup Series, Xfinity Series, and Craftsman Truck Series races. Additionally, In-App Stories will have a prominent place on the NASCAR Mobile homepage throughout the week, so fans can continue to engage with the best on-track action and additional stories centered around their favorite drivers.

“NASCAR’s unique style of close, side-by-side racing delivers plenty of highlight-reel moments each week and In-App Stories are an ideal way for us to deliver the type of compelling content fans crave on mobile,” said Wyatt Hicks, vice president of Digital Media at NASCAR. “We’re eager to continue collaborating with WSC Sports and building deeper connections with NASCAR fans around the world.”

NASCAR Digital Media

The new integration comes as part of an expanded partnership between NASCAR and WSC Sports, in which NASCAR has been using the WSC Sports platform to quickly ingest and create highlight content from a multitude of video sources. The expansion coincides with NASCAR’s continued brand resurgence and growth the past several years, including increases in unique users, visits and page views inside the NASCAR Mobile app to start 2024.

“We are thrilled to be growing our partnership with NASCAR,” said Aviv Arnon, chief business development officer at WSC Sports. “Together, WSC Sports and NASCAR have taken initial steps towards giving fans even closer access to racing content and I am certain the path of innovation will continue. For this racing season, fans will be able to connect with their favorite NASCAR drivers on a scale like never before.”

The In-App Stories solution is beneficial for media rights holders like NASCAR in augmenting owned and operated platforms with vertical video content in a seamless, technologically forward way. It allows rights holders to instantly update their website and mobile app to fit fan consumption behaviors driven by other social media platforms. For NASCAR specifically, the In-App Stories SDK paired with WSC Sports’ content automation will allow the league to promote personalized content specific to each driver or what is currently happening in that weekend’s race within dedicated content widgets. In-App Stories bring valuable opportunities for media rights holders to share their content on a more intimate level in a more immersive experience to a global audience while also retaining important user data.

For more information, visit wsc-sports.com and nascar.com.

Posted on April 9, 2024 by Zack Albert

Kyle Larson will enter the next phase in his bid for his Indianapolis 500 debut this week when Indianapolis Motor Speedway hosts a two-day open test.

Larson will be among the entrants for Wednesday and Thursday sessions in preparation for the 108th running of the 500-mile event on May 26. The Hendrick Motorsports driver will attempt to run two historic races on the same day, traveling from Indianapolis that afternoon to compete in NASCAR’s Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway that evening.

This week’s test will mark the third on-track session for Larson in an IndyCar. He successfully completed rookie orientation at the Speedway last October, then participated in a test with his Arrow McLaren team at Phoenix Raceway in February.

“I’ve been excited about it since January of last year when we announced it, but yeah, I don’t get too overly excited about anything,” Larson said during last weekend’s NASCAR events at Martinsville Speedway. “Just take it every day, day by day. Hopefully, the weather is good next week, and we can get in the car as scheduled on Wednesday and Thursday and just get to learning, I think, from there. I think next week is when I’ll really get to learn more about things, racing and getting to be around my team of people. The other times I’ve been in the car, I haven’t had — and I don’t even know, maybe I have been around a lot of the team members, but I’ll at least have my team there next week to kind of talk to and learn from. And then yeah, as far as being at the track with teammates and all of that sort of stuff, it will be good.”

The track is scheduled to open Wednesday at 9:05 a.m. ET for a nearly two-hour session for veteran drivers, followed by a two-hour rookie orientation practice and refresher at 11 a.m. ET. The session is then open to all drivers from 1-6:30 p.m. ET Wednesday and again from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. ET Thursday. Admission is free, with infield access limited because of construction near the IMS Museum.

Larson enters this Sunday’s Autotrader EchoPark Automotive 400 (3:30 p.m. ET, FS1, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) having won the pole position in the last two Cup Series events. He has one victory (Las Vegas in March) through eight races this season and ranks second to Martin Truex Jr. in the points standings.

Posted on April 9, 2024April 9, 2024 by Zack Albert

NASCAR’s top competition executive said Tuesday that work is ongoing to produce better short-track racing and that officials were working closely with Goodyear to find a suitable direction with the Cup Series’ tires.

Elton Sawyer, NASCAR senior vice president of competition, made the remarks during his weekly appearance on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio’s “Morning Drive” program and in the aftermath of Sunday’s Cup Series event at Martinsville Speedway.

RELATED: Cup Series schedule | Points standings

Sawyer contrasted Sunday’s Cook Out 400 at Martinsville with the circuit’s most recent event March 17 at Bristol Motor Speedway, where accelerated tire wear produced an intriguing race that placed a premium on strategy and tire management. Tires have been in sharper focus in recent weeks, including the March 31 event at Richmond Raceway, where teams began the race with wet-weather tires that evening after a spike of afternoon showers.

“As far as the product on the race track, I think we can’t lose sight of the fact of what happened at Bristol a couple of weeks ago,” Sawyer told SiriusXM. “I think we’re not naive to this. We, as NASCAR, want our short-track package to be better. We want that racing to be at the level that superspeedways and our intermediate race tracks are today. I promise you, we are working as hard as we can with Goodyear and we need to work harder. That’s the bottom line. We need to work harder to come to a place where, as I said a couple of weeks ago, we need to figure out how to bottle up what we learned at Bristol and also what we learned the first 30 laps at Richmond last week on how that race unfolded.

“The tires, and the way they wear, and the way the drivers had to manage that tire wear and the tire fall-off is really what we’re trying to achieve. When you can go out on any track, especially short tracks, and you can run it 10-tenths, and the equipment will take it and the tire will take it, then you’re taking all the skillset away from the driver. So we are, I promise you and I promise our fans, that we are working daily to continue to try to come up with a tire that will give us the short-track racing that we’re all looking for.”

MORE: Martinsville race results

Competition officials introduced a new aerodynamics package for use at short tracks this season, one that relies on fewer strakes on the rear diffuser. Sawyer mentioned that aero has been an offseason focus and a work in progress with the Next Gen car’s short-track set-up, but that finding an ideal tire combination is now the greater point of emphasis.

“This car is in its third year, so a lot of work has been done on the aero side of the short track. And just to be perfectly honest, that doesn’t move the needle. It really doesn’t,” Sawyer said. “For whatever reason, it could be the speeds in the middle of a corner, there’s a multitude of things that would go into that. But the bottom line is it doesn’t move the needle, and the drivers will tell you that. So there’s no need for us to put a lot of energy toward that type of testing. It really comes down to us and Goodyear and getting to a level we felt like it at Bristol that we were really close.”

When asked about the potential for a bump in horsepower as a suggested solution or a trial balloon at the non-points NASCAR All-Star Race on May 19 at North Wilkesboro Speedway, Sawyer noted that such an increase does not present an easy fix — pointing out the cost involved and the lure for prospective new manufacturers entering the sport.

“I think it’s been well-documented on the engine side of it of why that’s not a lever that we can pull instantly,” Sawyer said. “It’s just not, when you work through all the dynamics. And understand that’s, our fans and some sometimes even our folks within the industry will point to that, that’s just not a lever that is easily pulled, and we have the data right in front of us. I don’t want us to lose sight of the fact of what Bristol look like, and again, what the first 30 laps of Richmond looked like and why it looks the way it did it. We didn’t change the horsepower. The horsepower was exactly the same at those two events than we had this past weekend. So what we have to do is continue to work on the rubber that meets the asphalt.”

A run of intermediate-sized tracks are next up on the Cup Series schedule, starting with Sunday’s AutoTrader EchoPark Automotive 400 (3:30 p.m. ET, FS1, PRN, SiriusXM) at Texas Motor Speedway. Sawyer said there are no plans to add any resin or traction compound to the 1.5-mile track’s surface to widen the racing grooves.

“We’ve had conversation with Goodyear, with our drivers and obviously with (Senior VP of Operations and Development) Steve Swift and the folks at (Speedway Motorsports) and collectively made a decision to not do any track treatment at Texas,” Sawyer said. “We’ll head out there and give all the teams that information so they can plan accordingly.”

Posted on April 8, 2024 by Zach Sturniolo

MARTINSVILLE, Va. — Bubba Wallace has been no stranger to the front of the field this season, but his finishes haven’t often reflected that.

Wallace left nothing to worry about Sunday at Martinsville Speedway.

The No. 23 Toyota took the checkered flag fourth after remaining a mainstay at the front of the pack in Sunday’s Cook Out 400, offering to play spoiler in Hendrick Motorsports’ dominant (and prominent) weekend as it celebrated its 40th anniversary.

MORE: Byron’s victory leaves Hendrick team in ‘awe and shock’

Wallace didn’t mind breaking up the brigade to finish second in each of the opening stages and hung around the top five despite the Chevrolets’ charge to the front for a 1-2-3 Hendrick finish. His 23XI Racing Toyota faded to sixth on the penultimate run, but a late-race caution and Denny Hamlin’s decision to pit afforded Wallace fifth place on the overtime restart. Wallace capitalized and snagged a pass on longtime buddy Ryan Blaney to finish fourth, complementing his 3.79 average running position to score his first top-five finish since opening the season with two in a row.

“I appreciate everybody’s effort, you know?” Wallace told NASCAR.com. “Being able to close the deal out, it’s just — finally, right? It’s one of those moments where it’s like you can let out a big breath because we got the result that we deserved. I was content with finishing sixth there to end it, but you never give up on those restarts. So it’s actually nice to be able to fire off good and actually net positive.”

Evidenced by the loop data, Wallace was a frequent flyer inside the top five at the 0.526-mile oval Sunday. But the No. 23 car was too “swingy,” Wallace described on his radio.

“When you settle into this corner,” Wallace explained as he walked toward Turn 3, “the rear end wants to come around, so you can’t be aggressive. So it sounds like if you slow down to get it [the car] underneath you, that’s fine, but then somebody else can drive around you. So it’s just the little things. It doesn’t take much to put you in the game; it doesn’t take much to take you out of it.”

James Thomas | NASCAR.com

There is a strong case to be made for this marking Wallace’s second straight top five had his Richmond Raceway finish not gone awry. Accidental contact from Wallace to Kyle Larson spun Larson with just two laps remaining in last weekend’s race to bring out the yellow flag. Larson recovered to finish inside the top five — third — but a slow pit stop plummeted Wallace to a 13th-place finish after running fifth at the time of the caution. The final rundown eliminated any proof of Wallace’s good day — a second-place Stage 1 finish, eighth-place in Stage 2 and an average running position of 5.74, fourth-best of the field that day.

There was no derailment at Martinsville, where Wallace has now finished 11th or better in each of his last four starts — including Sunday’s fourth-place finish, his first Martinsville top five.

“It’s just our first green race of the year, our first race with no mistakes,” crew chief Bootie Barker said. “That’s just what we’ve got to do. Speed’s there.”

Nothing about their team’s performance surprised Barker, who is in the midst of his 21st full-time NASCAR Cup Series season, per 23XI Racing’s website. The team advanced into the Round of 12 in the NASCAR Playoffs a season ago and went to Victory Lane in each of its first two seasons in 2021 and 2022.

“I mean, we should be good everywhere we go,” Barker said. “If you want to be elite, this is what you’ve got to do.”

Wallace, Barker and Co. now have momentum heading back to Texas Motor Speedway, where Wallace led 111 laps in the Round of 12 opener in last year’s postseason before a late-race restart wound up with Wallace third. A win in that event would have propelled the No. 23 team into the Round of 8, but the group was ousted from the playoffs two weeks later instead.

So does Martinsville momentum matter to Wallace with a return trip to Fort Worth in store?

“It’s really good going into Texas — the race I still won’t go back and watch,” Wallace said. “Got some redemption to do.”

Posted on April 8, 2024 by Zack Albert

Rick Hendrick says he cherished watching from afar as his four ruby-red cars ran at the front of the pack in Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Martinsville Speedway. The enjoyment, however, took a plot-twisting turn when a late caution flag forced overtime.

William Byron emerged victorious from the final restart in Sunday’s Cook Out 400, the centerpiece race in Hendrick Motorsports’ 40th anniversary celebration. But Byron’s march to the checkered flag had its nervous moments for the 74-year-old team owner, watching from home as he continues his rehabilitation from recent knee-replacement surgery.

Contact between Byron’s No. 24 Chevrolet from Chase Elliott’s No. 9 Chevy with fellow teammate Kyle Larson’s No. 5 in close pursuit prompted a vocal reaction from Hendrick as he watched the broadcast. Having watched teammates Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson famously come up empty in a 2012 restart at the 0.526-mile track, Hendrick said seeing such scenarios “always knots your tummy up.”

“I think I was yelling a little bit like, ‘Oh, don’t, don’t, no, no, no!'” Hendrick said in a Monday availability. “You’ve got to let ’em race, but man, all I could see was them wrecking and maybe taking Larson with them, and then I’d be over — well, I couldn’t go over there today, but I’d be trying to settle everybody back down. I’m glad they played nice and raced each other clean.”

Hendrick Motorsports pulled out all the stops for its anniversary celebration at Martinsville, the site of the organization’s first victory with Geoff Bodine back in 1984. A crowd estimated at 1,500 Hendrick employees and their families watched from a hospitality area above Turn 2, and all four cars sported special commemorative paint schemes in a deep ruby red.

Hendrick, who was scheduled to be the honorary pace car driver for Sunday’s event, took in the race from home, just past the midpoint of a 6-8 week recovery period from a total replacement. He said he watched from home with his wife, daughter and grandchildren, plus Hendrick Companies president Marshall Carlson and Speedway Motorsports CEO Marcus Smith.

“It was such an unbelievable event, and I wanted to go in the worst kind of way,” Hendrick said. “It just didn’t work out. I hated it because it was such a big event, and then after we won, I really hated I wasn’t there.”

MORE: Hendrick Motorsports’ historic wins

Hendrick said his phone notifications “starting lighting up” in the moments after the checkered flag, with 240 text messages and 40-plus emails that he said are on his list to reply to. He said knee soreness has made sleeping difficult in recent days, so he awoke at nearly 2 a.m. Monday morning and started watching a replay of Sunday’s race.

He said he’s still coming to terms with Sunday’s victory and the 1-2-3 sweep of the podium.

“If you had one car that had a shot to win, you’d be really happy,” Hendrick said. “Man, it turns out we had multiple cars that could win the race. I’m still having a hard time believing it today. It was almost like divine intervention, just how in the world it all ended up like that on a day like that.”

Posted on April 7, 2024April 8, 2024 by Zack Albert

MARTINSVILLE, Va. — Jeff Gordon walked from the Turn 1 side of pit road on his way to the frontstretch Victory Lane set-up at Martinsville Speedway. Phone pressed to ear, the Hendrick Motorsports driver-turned-executive shared his post-race emotions with team owner Rick Hendrick on his way to congratulate a jubilant William Byron.

Forty years ago, Hendrick famously found out about his fledging team’s first NASCAR Cup Series win when pay phones were still a preferred method of communication and a call cost a dime. Flash forward to Sunday, and Gordon was transmitting text message updates, photos, and videos of the speedway’s scene, along with his joyous final reactions to Hendrick, in real-time.

The centerpiece race of Hendrick Motorsports’ 40th anniversary season lived up to its hype and promotion, with Byron collecting the organization’s 29th grandfather clock trophy. For the team that’s done virtually everything there is to do at one of NASCAR’s most storied venues, Sunday was a new one — a 1-2-3 finish by a single team for the first time in Martinsville’s 151-race Cup Series history.

The steady patter of texted updates halted in the late going, with Gordon not wanting to jinx the outcome or do much else other than hold his breath. No wonder the phone call to his boss and business partner after the checkered flag — full of background commotion on both ends — was so sweet.

“When I did talk to him, we just had a great moment of kind of in awe and shock,” Gordon said, noting the team founder’s remorse in missing the celebration in person owing to his recovery from recent knee surgery. “Even as much as he’s accomplished, this company has accomplished, when we do things like today, especially something that’s never done before, the 1-2-3 finish at Martinsville, he’s just so humble and appreciative. I love that about him.”

A crowd that the team estimated at 1,500 Hendrick Motorsports employees and their families shared in the joy, watching from a hospitality perch above the track’s second turn as all four of the team’s specially designed ruby-red cars placed among the top 10 — with Byron leading runner-up Kyle Larson, third-place Chase Elliott and Alex Bowman in eighth. Like the Wizard of Oz slippers of the same color clicking together, there was no place like home.

The notion, though, that Sunday’s Cook Out 400 would be an automatic coronation for one of the four was no sure thing. The Hendrick Motorsports fleet struggled mightily here in last fall’s Cup Series Playoffs race, with only Larson mustering a top-10 result in sixth place. Both Elliott and Bowman were outside of the top 15, and Byron willed his way into last year’s championship round by gutting out a 13th-place day that left him winded and dehydrated after climbing out of his No. 24 Chevrolet.

“I was spent last fall. I think that brought a lot of anxiety and nightmares coming up here this time,” Byron said. “I think just coming up the road and thinking about what’s the progress we’ve made inside the car, we’ve been working on it non-stop to try to get my helmet and fan feeling better. Then I’ve been doing a lot of work in the offseason, working out, things of that nature. It all adds up. Our car, we had a really tough day in the fall. One of the worst experiences as a team, but one of the best experiences to realize the resilience that our team has. That showed today. …

“It’s really a 180. I think that fall race gave us a lot of fuel to be able to come back here and try to create another good memory.”

WATCH: Byron discusses mindset on winning at Martinsville

Byron’s Cup Series win total now stands at an unlucky 13. Triskaidekaphobia aside, the 26-year-old star has been a regular contributor of Hendrick’s most memorable recent milestones. Larson made the organization the winningest in NASCAR history with Hendrick Motorsports’ 269th at the 2021 Coca-Cola 600, but in the years since, Byron has provided his own cherished additions to the team’s growing museum collection.

Byron notched Hendrick’s 300th win last fall at Texas Motor Speedway, added the team’s ninth Daytona 500 triumph to kick off this season, then delivered in the capstone moment of the team’s anniversary commemoration.

“He’s got to do more of it lately,” Larson said with a grin, “but it’s just really cool when you can win milestone races for the company because I know Rick wants this place to go on at least for the next 40 years, so days like today or those milestones, they’re gonna mean something. They meant a lot then, but they’re going to mean even more down the road. So yeah, that history within Hendrick is special, and when you can do something like what William did today, it means a lot.”

SHOP: Buy William Byron winner gear

When Gordon scored his first Cup Series victory 30 years ago, Hendrick Motorsports’ win total had only reached a modest 35. That total has only multiplied in the years that have followed, but so has the organization’s size and scope.

The emotions are different now as a part of the organization’s front office, but Gordon said he still felt connected to the feelings of being in the car and the anticipation that a keepsake moment was approaching. Days like Sunday and those phone calls to remember have helped Gordon embrace the role “beyond what I could ever imagine and dream of,” he said.

“There’s just so many things wrapped up in the emotions of what today meant from just the time spent with Rick and Linda planning for 40th anniversary, talking about all of our drivers who have won, what Martinsville means to this company, planning this day, having all of our folks here,” Gordon said. “Then the day comes, the weekend comes, and you just go, ‘How in the world did it all happen like this?’ I mean, I know our folks are super-talented and they work really, really hard. Kind of glad we got beat kind of bad last year in the fall because I think that really made them go to work and get ready for this event.

“I don’t even know where to begin, honestly. There’s so many things that are special. Immediately looked up on the hill and saw all those ruby-red shirts just going nuts. Now they’re out there waiting to have a picture with our whole organization. You just cannot plan it any better, script it any better.”

Posted on April 7, 2024April 7, 2024 by Brandon White

THOMPSON, Conn. — Thompson Speedway Motorsports Park has been the site of many milestones for Ron Silk on the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour.

From tallying his first three Tour victories at the Connecticut facility to surviving a crucial title tilt against rival Justin Bonsignore in October, Silk regularly rises to the occasion whenever the series visits the historic, 0.625-mile oval.

The status quo remained in place for Silk in Sunday’s IceBreaker 150. A dominant performance from the defending Modified Tour champion enabled him to secure his seventh Thompson victory and build some crucial early season momentum in the point standings.

RELATED: Complete Thompson race results

Once the green flag waved for the IceBreaker 150, Silk knew his silver No. 16 Modified could set a commanding pace as soon as he climbed from the fourth starting position.

“I was confident before the pit stop,” Silk said. “I had driven to the lead there and was able to drive away from everybody. This was a fantastic car from the start of the race, and I’m just pumped to be back in Victory Lane.”

The only setback Silk endured during his stalwart day at Thompson occurred while in the pits, as a slow stop caused him to lose the lead to fellow Modified Tour veteran Patrick Emerling.

It only took Silk one corner to re-assert control over the field. Using the bottom line on the restart, Silk muscled Emerling up the track and claimed the top spot, and he did not receive a significant challenge for the lead during the remaining laps.

The champ breaks the ice!

Defending #NWMT champion Ron Silk WINS the IceBreaker 150 at @ThompsonSpdwy! pic.twitter.com/5ArApLDD1L

— NASCAR Regional (@NASCARRegional) April 7, 2024

Emerling, who settled for third, was not pleased with how the final restart played out. Not only did Emerling believe Silk was overly aggressive with his maneuver, but he maintained Silk should have been penalized for a premature launch.

“I kind of feel like Martin Truex Jr. the other day at Richmond,” Emerling said. “[Silk] jumped the start and then took us way up the hill. I’m just going to run him like that in the future, but I thought officiating would have caught that.”

Despite his frustrations, Emerling found solace in his second top-five performance of the season. After being eliminated in an early crash at Richmond the previous week, Emerling felt the IceBreaker 150 was more indicative of the speed prevalent in his first three starts with Rich Gautreau.

With the Thompson race reinforcing the optimism he already had in the program, Emerling believes he can keep tallying strong runs and make a charge for the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour title.

“We had the car to beat today,” Emerling said. “It took us a little bit to get going, but we were the fastest car right at the end. Everyone did an awesome job. I did everything right, but I got beat by a jumped start. We’re coming, though.”

Just like at Thompson on Sunday, Silk will be standing in the way of a potential championship for Emerling and the rest of the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour field. Aside from a sixth at Martinsville Speedway in November, Silk has not recorded a finish outside the top three in his last seven races.

Silk has every reason to believe he can defend his title after winning two of the first three events in 2024. For now, Silk is content with celebrating another milestone at Thompson with everyone at Haydt-Yannone Racing.

“[My confidence] is pretty high,” Silk said. “Richmond was a nail-biter, and we could be looking at three in a row. Should of, could of, would have, but we’ll go to the next one and try and get another one.”

In a repeat of the most recent Modified Tour event at Thompson, Jake Johnson placed second behind Silk, matching a career-best finish in the process. Emerling, Justin Bonsignore and Tyler Rypkema made up the rest of the top-five finishers.

Rounding out the top 10 were Craig Lutz, Austin Beers, Kyle Bonsignore, Matt Hirschman and Matt Swanson.

Following two consecutive weeks of on-track action, the Modified Tour gets a break before heading to Monadnock Speedway on May 4.

The Granite State Derby will make up the first leg of the Whelen Granite State Short Track Cup at Monadnock, with FloRacing set to provide live flag-to-flag coverage.