PHILADELPHIA – Comcast is proud to announce nominations for the 2024 Comcast Community Champion of the Year are now open through June 10, 2024 at ComcastCommunityChampion.com. In its 10 years, this prestigious annual award has served to recognize the philanthropic efforts of individuals within the NASCAR community. Last year, Comcast surpassed the $1,000,000 mark in total contributions made to organizations affiliated with previous winners and finalists.
To nominate and learn additional details about the award, visit ComcastCommunityChampion.com today through Monday, June 10.
Created in 2015, the Comcast Community Champion of the Year Award was designed to honor the incredible efforts of NASCAR industry members who are selflessly giving to improve their communities. Comcast will select and honor three finalists, sharing their stories publicly. Following the finalists’ selection, a committee of NASCAR & Comcast executives, as well as 2023 winner Ryan Vargas, will name the Comcast Community Champion of the Year, awarding $60,000 to the champion’s affiliated charity and $30,000 to each of the two finalists’ selected charities later this year.
“Inspiring change is at the forefront of what Comcast strives to accomplish, and we’re honored to recognize the philanthropic efforts of individuals within the NASCAR family who go above and beyond to support their local communities,” said Matt Lederer, vice president of Brand Partnerships, Comcast.
Any individual with a 2024 annual credential or NASCAR full-season license from any of NASCAR’s top-three national series is eligible to be nominated as a 2024 finalist, including:
Team owners, drivers and all NASCAR Cup Series, NASCAR Xfinity Series and NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series employees
Full-time employees of tracks that are currently on the schedule for NASCAR’s three series
NASCAR Media members who have a Print, Broadcast or Photography Hard Card
NASCAR Officials
NASCAR Partners/Sponsors
Family members of drivers and crew members
Driver and team employees (motorhome drivers, agents, and managers etc.)
Support industry personnel (engine builders, parts and service providers etc.)
Since the inception of the program, Comcast has donated to 27 different nonprofit organizations, furthering the impact of the philanthropic efforts of all finalists and champions. This year, Comcast reached the milestone of donating over $1 million to deserving organizations associated with individuals within the NASCAR family.
Past champions include:
OnPoint Motorsports driver Ryan Vargas, representing FACES: The National Craniofacial Association
Senior Director of Live Shows at CSM Productions Jes Ferreira, representing Foster Village Charlotte
World Wide Technology Raceway owner Curtis Francois, representing Raceway Gives Foundation
NASCAR driver Bubba Wallace, representing the Live To Be Different Foundation
Dover Motor Speedway president Mike Tatoian, representing USO Delaware
NASCAR champion Joey Logano, representing the Joey Logano Foundation
Chip Ganassi Racing’s pit crew department, representing Ronald McDonald House
JR Motorsports fabricator Wade Jackson, representing Camp LUCK
NASCAR driver Joey Gase, representing the Iowa Donor Network
Comcast has a long track record of community service, aiding in the advancement of local organizations, developing programs and partnerships, mobilizing resources to connect people and inspiring positive and substantive change. To learn more about these efforts, visit the Comcast Community Impact site.
CONCORD, N.C. — At this point a season ago, Noah Gragson ranked 32nd in the NASCAR Cup Series points standings 11 races into his rookie campaign. The most flattering result was a 12th-place finish at Atlanta, marking one of two top-20 finishes he scored in that span.
What a difference a year makes.
Racing for a new team at Stewart-Haas Racing, some eight and a half months removed from an indefinite suspension while racing for Legacy Motor Club, Gragson has seemingly come into his own in 2024 as a Cup Series driver. What was a 27.6 average finish in his first 11 races of 2023 has vaulted tremendously in 2024, with a 17.3 average finish through the same stretch this season.
“I don’t know if we’ve fully seen our potential yet,” Gragson said Tuesday during a media availability, “because I’ve been taking steps as a driver each and every week on my preparation and whatnot that I don’t feel like I’m anywhere close to where I could be, just based off — if these steps can keep on going my whole career, it’d been pretty cool. And that’s what we’re trying to work for.”
Gragson’s return slotted him into the No. 10 Ford at SHR with crew chief Drew Blickensderfer, departing from the Chevrolet ties Gragson held since joining JR Motorsports in the NASCAR Xfinity Series back in 2019. With that move came an exit from Josh Wise’s program with Chevrolet drivers, a company called Wise Optimization that, at its roots, helps drivers sharpen their approaches and abilities to become better, more efficient race car drivers.
Gragson found incredible use of the program when he was part of it — but says he discovered since leaving that he almost relied upon it too much.
“I didn’t have a process at all before Josh’s and then kind of developed a process at JRM and utilizing Josh,” Gragson said. “But definitely, you have your hand held a lot through that just because you’re never having to go through the SMT data and pull up restart clips and look at all this data. It’s just presented to you. So it’s really good when you’re in it because, like, man, I could utilize all this stuff, and this is what I need to look forward to. But now, not having it, it’s like, ‘oh man, I don’t know where to start.'”
Enter Blickensderfer, now in his 16th year as a crew chief at the Cup level. Once Blickensderfer got word Gragson would be his next driver, the two-time Daytona 500 winner wasted no time in arranging a meeting to get to know his 25-year-old driver better.
“I think all of us thought Noah had great talent to drive race cars,” Blickensderfer said in a Wednesday teleconference. “He showed it in Xfinity. It didn’t work out for him last year driving Cup cars. Why was that? What can we do better? So after a few weeks into the season, we started getting into routines to where we prepare for the weekend together. His backpack, his laptop are on the table right next to me right there. He’ll probably be walking in in a little bit. We’re going to the Ford simulator here in about half an hour. So just things to prepare ourselves.
“Noah’s talent level is extremely high driving race cars on Sunday. Figuring out what line he needs to run, figuring out how to make passes, where to put his car, things like that. The things we had to work on were how to unload to where he was comfortable, could get up to speed quickly, and then qualify better.”
Brittany Wilbur | NASCAR.com
That came to fruition last weekend at Dover Motor Speedway, where their goals were to qualify and finish inside the top 15. Instead, Gragson qualified fifth and finished sixth, marking his fourth top-10 finish of 2024 already and second in a row after a career-best finish of third at Talladega Superspeedway. For Gragson, it all circles back to prep work.
“I’ve been making a lot of steps with the help of Drew,” he said. “Just personally, as a driver, I’ve been making steps of growth over the past — just this year. Week in and week out, it seems like I learn something new, where I maybe hadn’t taken those steps through Xfinity and my Cup career where it’s like, ‘oh man, I could be a valuable resource.’ I look at the simulation and being able to add changes. I’m not the best at describing it, but the 1% that I have learned over the past couple of weeks, I can look at whatever that graph is and say, ‘hey, I need it to be a little different here,’ where I’ve never seen that. So just learning new things, perfecting my process.”
While this stage of Gragson’s career brings immense change, Blickensderfer’s isn’t too dissimilar. “It’s changed tremendously,” the 47-year-old Illinois native said. He’s spent the majority of his career working with experienced Cup veterans — NASCAR Hall of Famer Matt Kenseth, Hall nominee Jeff Burton, 2021 Daytona 500 champion Michael McDowell and, most recently, longtime veteran Aric Almirola. The last time Blickensderfer worked with a driver this inexperienced relative to the field was in 2018, when a 24-year-old Bubba Wallace took over the No. 43 car at what was then called Richard Petty Motorsports.
That’s where the benefit of face time with Gragson has paid its most dividends.
“What I learned early was that Noah was willing to do that work. He just didn’t know where to look for that, and we had to kind of spoon-feed that to him,” Blickensderfer said. “Noah and I have had tough conversations. We’ve had good conversations about it. I’ve enjoyed the process of figuring out what it was going to take for Noah to be better prepared, for Noah to perform versus another guy, right? My challenge as leader of the 10 team is to determine what’s going to get the best result on Sunday. Well, maybe us getting the best result is me spending more one-on-one time with Noah and a little less time on the setup plate with the guys down there.”
There has also been significant collaboration with his Stewart-Haas Racing teammates, most notably Chase Briscoe and crew chief Richard Boswell of the No. 14 Ford. Realizing he was behind as he entered the season, Gragson “felt like I needed to take the initiative” and build a connection with his new teammate, formerly a rival in the Xfinity Series.
“Chase and I communicate pretty close to the same on the cars and our setups are close to the same,” Gragson said. “So I was like, ‘Hey, man, we got to figure it out. Would you be willing to prepare with me?’ And so we started doing that and now Josh (Berry, driver of the No. 4 SHR Ford) jumped on board, and it just helps us have an open dialogue and communication. They’ll say something and I’ll be like, ‘man, I didn’t think of that.’ So just having an open-minded conversation and being able to learn from those guys, what they say and we just are all helping each other out.”
Meg Oliphant | Getty Images
Blickensderfer recalled Briscoe’s similar struggles upon entry to the Cup level and noted Briscoe’s quick friendship with Gragson, who will look to complete his first full-time season at the Cup level this year. This season, the two pairs of drivers and crew chiefs meet every Tuesday to ensure the right paths are taken.
“We have the ability to give them a ton of information and kind of overload them,” Blickensderfer said. “So we are able to sit down with that information and say, ‘you guys don’t have to read 28 pages of data every single week and try to memorize it. What’s important to you?’ And in those talks, we were able to tell them what we thought was important for us. … I think with Chase and with Noah, it wasn’t so much about how to drive the race car on Sunday. It was, this is what the fast guy was doing in practice when the speed was up. What was going on in practice when the speed is up and then going into qualifying? These … are the things you need to do. So we have lunch on Tuesdays together, work through all of that stuff, and we’re able to communicate and we’re able to see things.”
The No. 10 team is especially optimistic with the AdventHealth 400 at Kansas Speedway ahead on Sunday (3 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Gragson picked up a sixth-place finish at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, another 1.5-mile oval, back in March, giving the 25-year-old Vegas native the confidence he needs at intermediate tracks.
“I’m super pumped up for these next handful of weeks because I’ve been calling it like mile-and-a-half season,” Gragson said. “We got Kansas, and then Darlington’s a faster track where you can move around. You got the Coke 600. And so I’m really excited for the month of May.”
After Denny Hamlin conquered the Monster Mile at Dover Motor Speedway last weekend, Racing Insights has its sight set on Kyle Larson responding with a win in the AdventHealth 400 at Kansas Speedway this Sunday (3 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN Radio, Sirius XM NASCAR Radio).
As proven in the Texas projections a few weeks ago, Larson dominates on 1.5-mile tracks. Owning the most wins (three) and second-highest point total (592) at intermediate tracks in the Next Gen era, Larson has posted a win, four top-five finishes and led 475 laps in his last six races at Kansas Speedway. Over the two races last season, Larson led the most laps at Kansas with 184, which was close to doubling Hamlin’s second-ranked 97 laps led. With Hamlin now stacking his third win of the year, there’s no doubt Larson will look to get the upper hand this week.
Following Larson in the projections is Hamlin, Joe Gibbs Racing’s Martin Truex Jr., Larson’s Hendrick counterpart William Byron with 23XI Racing’s Tyler Reddick rounding out the top five. Chase Elliott, Ross Chastain, pole winner Christopher Bell, Ryan Blaney and Bubba Wallace complete the projected top 10.
As competition heats up in the thick of the season, anticipation mounts for a Midwestern showdown this weekend at Kansas.
OTHER DRIVERS TO WATCH
DENNY HAMLIN: Hamlin’s win last week sets him up for the three-peat he’s eyeing to complete before the All-Star Race. Kansas is a great track for him, as he’s currently riding a streak of five top-five finishes at the circuit. As an added bonus, Hamlin has won three of the last nine Kansas races, and his four career wins there rank most all-time at the speedway.
TYLER REDDICK: Reddick won Kansas last fall and the No. 45 Toyota has won three of the last four races at the circuit. Reddick has been a force so far on intermediate tracks. He is the only driver to finish in the top five at both true 1.5-mile races this year (second at Las Vegas, fourth at Texas), giving him an average finish of 3.0 on intermediates. BUBBA WALLACE: Don’t sleep on the 23XI crew this weekend, as the organization has posted some of its best numbers at the track. The same goes for Wallace. His last win was at Kansas and he’s finished in the top 10 in three of the four Next Gen races at the speedway.
MARTIN TRUEX JR.: Given his consistency week after week, it wouldn’t be a shock to see Truex run up front. His average running position of 8.87 ranks second-best and his average finish of 9.36 is the best among full-time drivers. Plus, 1.5-mile tracks used to be his bread and butter with 12 career wins on those tracks.
KYLE BUSCH: Busch managed to turn in his second top-five finish of the season last weekend at Dover. He will aim to keep up the momentum this weekend at Kansas where he’s tallied four top-five finishes in his last nine races.
RACING INSIGHTS’ PROJECTIONS FOR THE ADVENTHEALTH 400 Racing Insights’ advanced statistical formula includes current track, current track type, recent performance, team data and pit-crew data to arrive at a projected winner and full race results.
ARLINGTON, Va. – Ryan Blaney knew well in advance that a commemorative visit to Arlington National Cemetery had been on his daily planner. The notice gave him some time for anticipation, to gather his thoughts on what to expect in visiting one of the country’s most solemn places, where more than 400,000 of America’s service members and their loved ones have been placed at rest, scores of white marble headstones against rolling green grass.
Facing the thought of comprehending the magnitude and the meaning, the NASCAR Cup Series champion says he stopped trying to think of what to expect.
“You don’t realize how special it is, until you’re actually a part of it,” Blaney said from the raised concourse at the Military Women’s Memorial on the 639-acre grounds. “Honestly, until you’re here, you don’t understand the sheer mass of this place, and how respectful everyone is here, and why it’s here.”
Blaney and a delegation of Charlotte Motor Speedway dignitaries opened their recognition of the NASCAR Salutes initiative Wednesday — the first day of National Military Appreciation Month –with a visit to Arlington National and their participation in a wreath ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Blaney was a distinguished guest as the defending race winner of the Coca-Cola 600, which the Charlotte track hosts Sunday, May 26 (6 p.m. ET, FOX, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) on Memorial Day Weekend.
NASCAR’s longest race will be the final act on what is traditionally one of the motorsports calendar’s grandest days, with fanfare and the sounds of roaring from both crowds and engines. Wednesday was the opposite, a day of meditative calm and reflection.
The time-worn traditions of paying respects at Arlington National Cemetery have been shared by visitors spanning from American presidents and international heads of state, to school groups and tourists. Wednesday morning, just after the sounding of 11 bells, Blaney and Speedway Motorsports CEO Marcus Smith offered their own tribute by placing a wreath by the 103-year-old sarcophagus, shortly after the changing of the guard. The banner that stretched across the laurels read, “Honored and remembered.”
The moving experience of being here for the first time, Blaney said, “really just all hits you at once.”
“You respect Memorial Day, you understand what it represents. So you understand the people that have laid down their lives to their country, so that we can live in the country we live in,” said Blaney, in a dark suit, the jacket lined with an American flag print. “But really, until you’re here and you see it all, and you see everything that’s around it, it just puts it into another perspective for you of just how small you actually are, in this grand scheme of things. …
“It’s just a whole different kind of outlook on everything, so I definitely will be at the 600 this year with a different perspective, just because I’ve been here and have been able to be a part of it and understand it more.”
Blaney’s tour included viewing memorials to the astronauts aboard both the Space Shuttles Challenger and Columbia, a walk-through of the Memorial Amphitheater and its Display Room of historic exhibits, and a welcome from North Carolina District 9 congressman Richard Hudson. Major Jake Bagwell handed Blaney a passport-sized copy of the Declaration of Independence in the receiving line. The inscription: “Hope you enjoyed your visit. Keep your pedal to the metal.”
Army chaplain, Maj. Joanna Forbes, greets Ryan Blaney in the Memorial Display Room at Arlington National Cemetery | Charlotte Motor Speedway photo
Blaney was also met by Army chaplain Maj. Joanna Forbes, who brought a large flag she received as a Christmas gift that commemorates the driver’s first Cup Series championship last year. Forbes brought the banner to unfurl for a photo with Blaney. Getting it autographed was an unexpected bonus.
“Not only is he gracious, but he’s the champ and he’s my favorite driver,” said Forbes, on staff at Arlington National for nearly a year and a half. She proclaimed her fandom dating back to Blaney’s days with Wood Brothers Racing, and anticipated his visit after his win in the 600-miler a year ago. “The fact that he also raises funds for Alzheimer’s and TBI (traumatic brain injury) through the Ryan Blaney Family Foundation is a cause near and dear to my heart because my dad died earlier this year of Alzheimer’s. So there’s more than one reason. He’s a great human being, and he’s also a great driver, so he’s a great champ for NASCAR.”
Just over three weeks remain until the 65th running of the Coca-Cola 600. Smith’s family has traditionally taken great care to ensure that the pre-race pageantry includes a respectful display of honor that underlies the crown-jewel event.
Wednesday marked Smith’s fourth visit to Arlington National with the reigning 600 champ, and he said the experience has been meaningful each time.
“I think you really have to let yourself be in the moment here at Arlington and take it all in,” Smith said. “At first, you might just think about the thousands of people that are buried here who all served our country in our armed forces, and then I also thought today about how special it is that we have as a country set aside this really, really beautiful place to not only memorialize but I think also celebrate what it means to serve in the military. What a great thing to do as a country.”
Blaney returns to competition this weekend at Kansas Speedway, kicking off a busy month that includes the Cup Series’ stops at historic venues in Darlington and North Wilkesboro before the annual endurance test in Charlotte. His victory in last year’s 600-miler was a pivotal point in his title-winning season, breaking a 59-race dry spell and celebrating with fans in the stands.
Blaney’s return to Charlotte this year as the defending winner now comes with a fresh, solemn perspective about the weekend’s deeper meaning.
“It did kind of get lost in the ether a little bit because it was in May, and then obviously, we went on to do some really cool things later. But it’ll be neat going back, trying to defend it,” Blaney said. “Honestly, coming here makes me want to win it even more than I did, because I want to come back. I want to do this again. I want to bring my family. I want them to see it. So that part, it even motivates me more to try to win it again.”
NASCAR’s two perennial powerhouses look to be in a tier of their own in 2024 — but is it possible a third team enters the fray of the elite?
Sunday’s winner at Dover Motor Speedway, Denny Hamlin, has led in 15 straight races, with his last shutout coming last October in the Bank of America Roval 400 at Charlotte Motor Speedway (a race he finished third in Stage 2 in before wrecking out).
No. 11 has looked dominant all year. But so has Dover runner-up Kyle Larson. And three-time 2024 winner William Byron. And Martin Truex Jr., leading the series with a 9.4 average finish. Not to mention Chase Elliott’s 10.3 number and Ty Gibbs’ 11.5 right behind him. Oh, but wait, there’s Alex Bowman putting together his career-best average finish (13.6). And remember when Christopher Bell started the season with a win and three top fives in the first six races? Surely, he appears destined for a third straight Championship 4, right?
Wait a second … all of these drivers have something in common — they all drive for Hendrick Motorsports or Joe Gibbs Racing.
Obviously, it’s no surprise that two of NASCAR’s winningest organizations are pacing the field this year, but what is a bit of a shock is just how far out ahead of everyone else they appear to be.
The two teams have combined for five poles, nine race wins, 29 top fives and a whopping 2,185 laps led (the next highest team on the list is defending champion Team Penske, with 388.) Of the drivers with the best average running positions in 2024, the top five (Hamlin, Truex, Larson, Elliott and Gibbs, respectively) all drive for these teams.
It feels like a slam dunk that with eight drivers this capable of dominance, the 2024 Championship 4 will be heavy on Gibbs and Hendrick contenders.
But who could squeeze their way in and crash the party?
After all, it’s only May and we’ve seen “slam dunks” completely brick before, even in the not-too-distant past like when Joey Logano toppled the “Big Three” of Truex, Kyle Busch and Kevin Harvick for his first title in 2018.
No. 22, himself, hasn’t had a season to remember so far — but it’s an even-numbered year and are you really going to write off Logano and crew chief Paul Wolfe on May 1? Absolutely not, and don’t forget that defending champ Ryan Blaney has still looked the part this year, he just hasn’t won yet. We aren’t done hearing from Team Penske, a team that notoriously finishes strong, by a long shot.
Also in the Ford camp, it wasn’t that long ago that Stewart-Haas Racing was essentially in that top tier of finishers along with Gibbs, Hendrick and Penske and, though a rebuild in the post-Harvick days is still in process, there are some encouraging signs here as the season continues. Don’t let it go unnoticed that Noah Gragson has secured back-to-back top 10s for the first time in his career with a decent shot to make it three in a row on Sunday, while Chase Briscoe is putting up career numbers as the new top dog at SHR.
RFK Racing is probably the most likely of the other Ford teams to push for race wins and land both of its drivers in the playoffs, however, but Chris Buescher and Brad Keselowski have two top 10s combined since they both grabbed one at Richmond — in March.
From a strictly speed standpoint, the JGR-affiliated 23XI Racing and rapidly growing upstart Trackhouse Racing tend to be the biggest competitors to the juggernauts each weekend, and as such are the only other two teams to score a race victory this year. Both project as having deep-playoff-run potential (nobody would bat an eye if Trackhouse’s Ross Chastain or 23XI’s Tyler Reddick raced for a title at Phoenix this year) but there’s a certain polished poise and deeper well of resources and knowledge that JGR/Hendrick have from successfully running championship-capable, four-car organizations for so long that it’s impossible for a pair of two-car teams in their relative infancy to replicate.
Beyond these teams, several other organizations are capable of — and likely will — win this year. We might even see things shift dramatically once we start hitting some of these tracks for a second time and teams continue to build their notebooks and catch up.
But for now, it really feels like both of these powerhouse contenders are without weakness from top to bottom and it’s evident that even if someone is able to topple the Goliaths, the road to the championship very much runs through Gibbs and Hendrick in some form or fashion.
2. What ‘big moment’ might be in store for Kansas?
Kansas Speedway has turned into one of the most intense, electrifying venues on the circuit, prone to big and memorable moments and jaw-dropping finishes.
Kansas is the last remaining track that the series visits in the playoffs that it hasn’t seen yet this year for a regular season race, and teams will certainly be looking for an edge this weekend given its importance later this season. Kansas kicks off the Round of Terror 12 and with the uncertainty that can come along with the other two races at Talladega Superspeedway and the Charlotte Roval, teams tend to look at Kansas as the “safe” race to go out and win to ensure any later chaos is unimpactful.
There’s only one problem with that strategy — Kansas has been wild the past few years and brings its own degree of uncertainty. Even still, with the degree of importance teams put on it, perhaps that’s part of why the racing there has been so intense and has provided so many memorable moments over the past few years alone. Heck, just look at last year’s spring race that saw 37 lead changes — the most in a 400-mile race on a 1.5-mile track … ever.
For as dominant as all of the season’s winners have seemed, Martin Truex Jr. is actually outpacing them all on a weekly basis as the only driver to average a finish inside the top 10 so far. He’s actually been remarkably consistent, finishing the top 20 in each of the first 11 races for the first time in his career.
This feels like the weekend he not only finishes in the top 20, but finishes ahead of everybody else, too.
The No. 45 Toyota has won three of the last four Kansas races — but, notably, with three different drivers — and it feels quite likely that Reddick will also be dialed in there once again this weekend. But how about the No. 54 Toyota, with the sophomore Gibbs still aiming for career win No. 1? His hot start has cooled in recent weeks, but the weekend ahead looks very pro-Toyota and Gibbs had a great handle on the track in 2021-22 in the Xfinity Series, winning once and finishing P3 with a bunch of laps led in the other.
Bubba Wallace is one of those who delivered a win in the No. 45 there and he stands as one of several former Kansas victors still looking to hit paydirt in 2024, along with Busch, Logano and Brad Keselowski — all former champs that could get it done this weekend despite lengthy winless streaks of their own.
Of course, all of the familiar Gibbs/Hendrick faces will likely be strong again as well (see: bullet No. 1 above) but the window is open this weekend without question.
No matter who winds up in Victory Lane, though, it isn’t likely to be inconsequential. Kansas’ big-time impact is real.
Kim Coon and Skip Flores look ahead to the weekend in Kansas before the NASCAR Cup Series heads back out West.
4. Mile-and-a-Half Martin is due … overdue, even
Truex Jr. was once the 1.5-mile master with 12 total wins, but it’s been 39 races since his last one. He’s been close with 28 top 10s in that span. Racing Insights breaks them down:
Finish
Times
2nd
3
3rd
5
4th
2
5th
1
6th
7
7th
4
8th
2
9th
4
5. Catch the pack — news and notes from around the garage
RALEIGH, N.C. – Advance Auto Parts, a leading automotive aftermarket parts provider, the official auto parts retailer of NASCAR, and official partners of the NTT IndyCar Series and Indianapolis Motor Speedway, is kicking off the summer travel season by offering its Speed Perks loyalty rewards members the chance to win a bucket-list motorsports experience to “Do the Double.”
On May 26, Advance will send one winner and their guest on a free VIP experience to attend the 108th running of the famed Indianapolis 500 before traveling to North Carolina to watch the Coca-Cola 600, one of NASCAR’s crown-jewel events, held at Charlotte Motor Speedway. Fans can enter for their chance to “Do the Double” from May 1-12 at AAPDoTheDouble.com. Race fans can enter up to three times per day during the program.
To be eligible to win, entrants must be members of Advance’s Speed Perks loyalty rewards program. Speed Perks is free to join, and upon signing up, new members will receive $5 off their first in-store or online purchase of $20 or more. Race fans can sign up for Speed Perks at AdvanceAutoParts.com.
For race car drivers, doing the double involves competing in both the Indianapolis 500 and Coca-Cola 600 in the same day. It is one of the most challenging feats for any race car driver to attempt, given the significant differences between open-wheeled IndyCar cars and NASCAR stock cars. In fact, only four drivers have completed the double since 1994.
This includes three-time NASCAR Cup Series champion Tony Stewart, who won the 1997 IndyCar title prior to beginning his Hall-of-Fame NASCAR career. Stewart is partnering with Advance on AAPDoTheDouble.com and is the perfect ambassador for the program.
“This is the chance of a lifetime for a fan to also complete the double by having a front-row seat at the Indianapolis 500 and Coca-Cola 600,” Stewart said. “Advance Auto Parts has put together a fantastic program that is truly unique. Doing the double is history in the making and thanks to Advance, a fan and their guest will get to experience it all in real time. They’ll both be able to say, ‘I was there.’”
Stewart has done the double twice. His first attempt came in 1999 when he became the first driver to complete both races in the same day, finishing ninth and fourth, respectively, in the Indianapolis 500 and Coca-Cola 600, driving a total of 1,090 miles.
Stewart repeated this feat in 2001 and bettered his mark from 1999. He finished on the lead lap in sixth at the Indianapolis 500 before jetting off to Charlotte for the Coca-Cola 600. He improved that finish as well, coming home third in the 600-miler. Stewart completed all 1,100 miles — breaking his own record for most racing miles driven in a single day.
“Historically, doing the double has been a journey reserved for only the world’s most talented and dedicated race car drivers, like Advance brand partner Tony Stewart,” said Junior Word, Advance’s executive vice president, U.S. stores. “Now, one lucky Speed Perks member will have the unique opportunity to ‘get in the driver’s seat’ to experience their own version of the double. Advance is thrilled to work alongside our partners at NASCAR, IndyCar and Indianapolis Motor Speedway to give two race fans the memory of a lifetime.”
CONCORD, N.C. — Michael McDowell is ever the optimist, even in the face of adversity. That’s as evident now as any other time in the middle of a six-race skid that has produced four DNFs in the past six races.
Three consecutive early exits have contributed to a 31.2 average finish over the past six weeks, dating back to the March 24 race at Circuit of The Americas.
“Yes! Get you some of that,” McDowell laughed during a Tuesday media availability at the NASCAR Productions Facility after being reminded of the stretch.
A veteran of the sport with 476 Cup starts behind him, McDowell knows the ups and downs of motorsports well. The downs are obvious right now, but context helps: In two of the past three races — at Texas Motor Speedway and Talladega Superspeedway, respectively — McDowell was racing for the lead at the time of crashing out, including in the final half-mile on Talladega’s 2.66-mile high banks. The third was a hub failure last weekend at Dover Motor Speedway.
Wrecking from first or second place is typically as effective on the results sheet as wrecking from 31st, but there were positives to take from these scenarios nonetheless.
“No doubt, it’s been a rough few weeks, right?” said McDowell, the 2021 Daytona 500 champion. “Some of them have been my self-inflicted wounds. Some of them have been our self-inflicted wounds from a team and preparation and parts standpoint. Last weekend in Dover, we had a right-front hub break, and that’s a spec part. That’s a sealed part. We just found out today … it only had one race on it, had no damage. It wasn’t out of mileage, so nothing to indicate that we did anything wrong. It was just a failure. And so sometimes you have failures, right? And so it’s just been a rough stretch.”
McDowell has often described himself as analytical and put that analysis to work Tuesday, dissecting why he crashed at Texas — “100% my fault.” With an opportunity to take control of the race at the end of Stage 2, McDowell was racing in the outside lane against Ross Chastain before his No. 34 Ford snapped loose over the Turn 3 bumps and was sent careening rear-first into the SAFER barrier. Then came a long discussion regarding the Talladega finish as he tried to block the advances of Brad Keselowski in the closing moments, how those runs evolved and how the race changed when the outside lane lost momentum.
“If you stay in your mind about it, it can mess you up. But I don’t,” McDowell said. “I mean, if I break it down analytically and I think about it, I can give you good excuses for all of them. Excuses don’t produce results in racing, and we all know that. But having answers is important, if that makes sense. So if you replace that word ‘excuses’ with ‘answers,’ we have an answer to why these things happened. And so we’re not in a panic of, ‘Aw man, we just we don’t have speed or we can’t do that.’ We have speed and we can run in the top 10 and we have the speed to do that. We just have to have everything cleaned up a little bit.”
James Gilbert | Getty Images
That mental clarity and leadership from both McDowell and second-year crew chief Travis Peterson are keeping the team on the right path despite sitting 29th in points with 15 races remaining in the regular season.
“If we can dig ourselves in a hole in four weeks, we can probably dig ourselves out of a hole in five or six — but the hole is getting mighty deep,” McDowell said. “But to be honest with you, that hasn’t been my mindset or our approach all year. Our mindset and approach has been we need to win a race.
“Now, this year is different because I don’t think you have to win a race to make it in, based on how many races Denny’s won and (Kyle) Larson and William (Byron) and those guys are going to win. It seems like we’re not going to have 17 winners this year, so I don’t think you have to (win) from that standpoint. But our mindset has been to try to win races.
“And it’s easy to get double-minded, right? So if you go back and you’re like, ‘Oh, if you just play it safe and you play it safe and you play it safe, we would’ve had a fourth, fourth and fifth. And adding that all up, you’re like, ‘Oh, we could have probably pointed our way in.’ But there’s so many more weeks left where that can go wrong. And there’s only so many opportunities that you have in the Cup Series to win races. And so I think that when you have a shot at winning races, you’ve got to be aggressive and go for it.”
Up next is Kansas Speedway, where the NASCAR Cup Series will hold the AdventHealth 400 on Sunday (3 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). McDowell has never scored a top-10 finish there in 25 starts, his best result a 13th-place finish twice (2017 with Leavine Family Racing and in 2021 with FRM). He qualified seventh in last year’s playoff race, but ultimately finished 26th.
Perspective is key, though. And that past experience keeps McDowell’s head up despite whatever the numbers say.
“I’ve been here before and I’ve also been on the flip side of it,” he said. “I’ve been on the flip side where it’s like you’re running 20th all day. Somehow, you steal a top 10 and you’re like, ‘I’m gonna leave as fast as I can before they figure out that we stole this one.’ And then the next week, it’ll happen again and the next week. We’re like, ‘holy cow, we just stole three top 10s!’ And so I’ve been on the other side where it feels like you can’t do anything wrong. And I’ve been on this side where you just can’t put it together for the life of you, right?
“And whether it’s circumstances or failures or whatever it is. … we’ve just got to break the streak.”
NASCAR has reinstated Whelen Modified Tour driver Stephen Kopcik, who was suspended indefinitely Feb. 29.
Kopcik is eligible to resume NASCAR competition immediately and is scheduled to serve as the crew chief for the No. 19 entry this weekend at Monadnock Speedway.
Denny Hamlin’s called-shot win Sunday at Dover Motor Speedway might just be the start of something bigger. Turns out, the driver of the Joe Gibbs Racing No. 11 Toyota may have had some extra incentive when he and crew chief Chris Gabehart established some performance-goal parameters heading into the midpoint of the NASCAR Cup Series’ regular season.
“I mean, Chris Gabehart told me that I needed to win one of the next three weeks to feel good about where we’re at at the All-Star break,” Hamlin told NASCAR.com after his late surge to victory in Sunday’s Würth 400. “And so I told him I’d get it done, if not win all three.”
All three, you say?
Stopping short of elevating Hamlin’s statement into a decisively bold 3-for-3 guarantee, history suggests that the No. 11 team’s aspirations for a trifecta in the weeks ahead aren’t that far-fetched. Hamlin tops the win list among active drivers for the next two tracks — Kansas Speedway, the site of Sunday’s AdventHealth 400 (3 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio); and Darlington Raceway, where the Goodyear 400 will be held Sunday, May 12 (3 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN, SiriusXM). The non-points NASCAR All-Star Race will follow May 19, at which point 13 regular-season events will be complete, with 13 more to go until the playoffs.
Confidence is brimming right now for the No. 11 bunch, but with good reason. Here’s how both of those races stack up — for Hamlin and the rest of the Cup Series field:
KANSAS
Hamlin’s history: The No. 11 team came out ahead in last year’s 400-miler at the Kansas City track, where Hamlin converted a last-lap pass on Kyle Larson with some well-publicized contact between the two. Hamlin is a four-time Kansas winner, and he steams into the Cup Series’ next race with five consecutive top-five results there. He’s finished among the top two his last three times out at the 1.5-mile track.
Top challengers? The most significant threat to Hamlin’s bid at Kansas likely stems from the 23XI Racing team that he co-owns with basketball legend Michael Jordan. The organization has won three of the last four there with three different drivers all flying the No. 45 — Kurt Busch (May 2022), Bubba Wallace (Sept. 2022) and Tyler Reddick (Sept. 2023). Outside of the Toyota camp, Larson looms largest, having led the most laps in both Cup Series races at Kansas last year before settling for top fives.
Sean Gardner | Getty Images
DARLINGTON
Hamlin’s history: Hamlin’s four-win portfolio at the track “Too Tough to Tame” could have easily added a fifth in last September’s playoff opener, where he led 177 of the 367 laps before an extra pit stop for a vibration knocked him from contention. He’s led 100-plus laps six times in his Cup Series career at Darlington, where he has also registered six victories in the Xfinity Series.
Top challengers? William Byron, the Cup Series’ other three-time winner this year, is likely to contest for the Darlington laurels as the defending race winner, but also as the top points-earner there since the Next Gen stock car debuted in 2022. Other probable standouts include Larson — the most recent victor at the 1.366-mile oval — and JGR’s Martin Truex Jr., a two-time Darlington winner who has led laps in seven of his last eight starts there.
DOVER, Del. — The circuits were waning, and Kyle Larson was gaining. During the final laps of Sunday’s Würth 400 at Dover Motor Speedway, Larson closed the gaps between his No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet and Denny Hamlin’s No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota. Hamlin’s already-thin 0.60-plus second lead over the 2021 NASCAR Cup Series champion with approximately 20 laps to go quickly diminished to an even thinner 0.347 seconds with 11 laps remaining.
The picture between the pair has played out in a similar fashion numerous times. And who could expect anything less? One former champion (Larson) vs. a driver with Hall of Fame-caliber credentials fighting for his first championship (Hamlin). Title-winning moves are made during the regular season, so they say, and both drivers were looking to cast one of those stones at the famed Monster Mile.
And during a campaign when both drivers will fight tooth and nail for the coveted Bill France Cup, the Delaware round went to Hamlin, who outlasted Larson by 0.256 seconds to claim his third Cup triumph of the season.
“It’s very satisfying because I was really looking forward to Texas (Motor Speedway),” Hamlin said. “When Kyle Larson was dominating the first half, I knew what kind of car I was going to have in the second half. He had a wheel problem. Man, I can’t race him straight up. We’ve had a lot of late-race battles. So, to get the better end of it certainly feels good on my end. I mean, he’s one of the best. The record proves it. The amount of wins he’s got since being over there, it speaks for itself. I mean, as old as I am, I’m just happy I can keep up at this point. But then to be a challenger to those guys who are half my age, it’s fun.”
With both drivers combining for three wins, six top fives, seven top 10s and 930 laps led this year heading into Dover, early indications were that both would — more than likely — be in contention once again entering the race weekend. And while Larson started Sunday’s race in 21st compared to Hamlin’s sixth, there was no denying the No. 5’s capabilities to quickly work back to the field’s front.
And that’s exactly what happened. Stage 1 concluded with Larson and Hamlin finishing fifth and sixth, respectively, with the former also being the first of the pair to lead laps, spanning from Lap 219 to Lap 253, attributing to a Stage 2 win (Hamlin finished third). Hamlin was next to draw blood, with a savvy three-wide sandwich with Larson and Alex Bowman culminating with a victory off pit road to begin the race’s final stage. And while Larson briefly reclaimed the lead on Lap 325, Hamlin’s speed proved to be electric enough to pull ahead once again.
Chris Gabehart, crew chief for the No. 11, understood the complete effort it took from the entire No. 11 team to overcome Larson and, perhaps equally as important, to help rebound from two consecutive finishes outside the top 30, spanning from Texas (30th) and Talladega Superspeedway (37th).
“In today’s NASCAR racing, to win a race at the Cup level, you have to have it all,” Gabehart said. “You have to have it all, nearly every lap of it. There’s no other form of motorsports where it’s this tight, where you literally have to have it all and then some, a little bit of fortune to go along with it. Texas we had multiple chances to win the race, didn’t get that fortune, cautions didn’t go our way.
“This team definitely has all the makings of it. Denny is doing a phenomenal job as a driver. The car, the new Toyota Camry’s really given us a lot to work with. Everybody at Joe Gibbs Racing is really pulling the rope and excited to win races. I just can’t say enough about our pit crew and all the work they’ve went through. Everybody here at the race track with the 11 car, week in and week out, just how much fun we’re having doing this. That’s what it takes. That’s what it takes to win races. Winning races wins championships. Really, that’s all the 11 is focused on, is winning races.”
James Gilbert | Getty Images
Winning races, not to mention football games back in the day, is something Joe Gibbs knows all too well. And to the 83-year-old coach and team owner, the 43-year-old Hamlin has shown a veteran poise that equates to race-winning success.
“I’m really thrilled with where Denny is,” Gibbs said. “Chris, he was talking about it. At this point in his career, for him to be after it the way he is, he’s in there with Chris, he’s in the simulator. He’s improved at a couple places where he felt like he was off. He took it upon himself in road racing. I got to tell you, in pro sports, it’s hard to get it all together. I think this team, the 11 team, with Chris’ leadership, really right now I feel so comfortable going to the race track. That’s hard to get. Just appreciate all of our guys. In this sport, we know it’s all really different. You got to have four teams working together to solve the problems. Then, when you get to the race track, it’s everybody on their own trying to win it.”
Lengthy green-flag runs late in the race were briefly sprinkled with a pair of cautions (with one of them including a JGR teammate in Christopher Bell), but Hamlin never wavered. Neither did Larson. And with an early-season champion-caliber primer between the pair coming down to the wire, it was Hamlin who eventually overcame a surging No. 5 to take the checkered flag.
The confetti flew. The pit crew celebrated. The crowd remained vibrant. But for Hamlin, the victory wasn’t his first rodeo — his Dover victory netted him his 54th in the Cup Series, which tied him with Lee Petty for 12th all-time.
Hamlin understands his pedigree, and he more than knows the significance of “pushing to the absolute edge” in order to optimize his shot at winning against a championship competitor willing to put it all on the line to win. As a four-time Championship 4 driver, Hamlin also understands that every chance for a Cup Series crown matters.
But simply winning at its base level matters, too. And Hamlin lets it be known, from his wheeling and dealing on the track to confident chuckling after the fact.
“Listen, I know that I’m a championship-caliber driver. I’ll just say it,” Hamlin said. “I think there’s been worse drivers to win a championship than me. I just feel that way just because of things that have worked out. It’s different. Find one driver saying that championships are the same as they were 10 years ago. It’s just not. I care about wins and winning every single week because, in the end, I absolutely would take 60-some wins and no championship over 20 and one. It’s just not even close. I just think it’s fun to be able to do it. When you can do it against someone that you really consider a big challenger in Kyle Larson — he’s a champion, not a challenger. I’m probably the challenger. I think it certainly helps your ego a little bit. Like I need that.”
Such battles involving Hamlin are bound to continue, and look no further than the upcoming AdventHealth 400 at Kansas Speedway (Sunday, 3 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), where Hamlin has four career Cup wins and, coincidentally, bumped past one No. 5 driver to tally that most recent win nearly one year ago on the dot.
Hamlin’s championship-style clashes during the regular season will not cease. More stones will be cast. And perhaps more satisfaction will come, too.
