On Thursday, NASCAR announced the following penalty has been issued:
NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour driver Stephen Kopcik is indefinitely suspended from NASCAR.
The rule infraction is as follows:
2-11 Required Notice
Any NASCAR Member charged with any violation of the law (misdemeanor and/or felony), shall notify NASCAR at [email protected] or visit http://reporting.nascar.com prior to the next scheduled Event or within 72 hours of being so charged, whichever is earlier.
12-8
1. NASCAR membership is a privilege. With that privilege comes certain benefits, responsibilities and obligations. Correct and proper conduct, both on and off the race track, is a part of a Member’s responsibilities.
A Member’s actions can reflect upon the sport as a whole and on other NASCAR Members. Ideally, NASCAR Members are role models for the many fans who follow this sport, regardless of the type of license a Member may hold, or the specific Series in which a Member may participate. Therefore, NASCAR views a Member’s conduct, both on and off the race track, which might constitue a behavioral Rules violation under this Rule Book with great importance.
12-8.1
E. Member actions that could result in a fine and/or indefinite suspension, or termination.
3. Being charged with or convicted of significant criminal violations (e.g. Domestic Violence, Trafficking, Assault), or having had determinations rendered by criminal or civil authorities that in NASCAR’s judgement necessitate action. NASCAR will not pre-judge guilt or innocence in the criminal or civil legal system, or the guilt or innocence of a Member, but rather review each matter in its own context and circumstances and with regards to its potential effects upon the sport.
Daniel Suárez and Trackhouse Racing are riding the high of winning one of the closest finishes in NASCAR history during the Ambetter Health 400 at Atlanta Motor Speedway on Sunday in a three-wide finish with Ryan Blaney and Kyle Busch.
The party didn’t just end once the team loaded up from the Peach State as Trackhouse Racing co-owner Pitbull performed at the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, Tennessee, on Wednesday night. During Pitbull’s set, he speaks about Suárez in great detail, calling the Monterrey, Mexico native a “fighter” and an “underdog” before describing Suárez as someone who is “living the American dream and fighting for it.”
Pitbull would then go on to shout out the entire Trackhouse organization before bringing Suárez out on the stage to celebrate the win with cheers from the Nashville crowd.
You can view the full interaction that Trackhouse posted on social media below.
MOORESVILLE, N.C. — Champion Late Model driver Andrew “Bubba” Pollard will make his NASCAR Xfinity Series debut next month with the support of Rheem Manufacturing and JR Motorsports, the team announced today.
The 37-year-old Senoia, Georgia native will drive the No. 88 Rheem Chevrolet for the team owned by NASCAR Hall of Famers Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Rick Hendrick, and Kelley Earnhardt Miller in the March 30 Xfinity Series race at Richmond Raceway.
Pollard, a perennial contender in the prestigious Snowball Derby at Five Flags Speedway in Pensacola, Florida year after year, has gone to Victory Lane in more than 100 Late Model races in his career, including the All American 400 at Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway and, most recently, at Speedfest for the third time. Next month’s event at Richmond will mark the veteran short track ace’s first attempt in an Xfinity Series machine and his first at the racy 0.750-mile oval.
“I’m very excited,” Pollard said. “I really don’t know what to expect, as it’s all very new to us, but I’m very thankful for the opportunity that Rheem and JR Motorsports have given me. I hope we can make the most of it. I’ve never had any laps at Richmond, and I haven’t driven an Xfinity car, so it’s all going to be new.”
The future of the sport is one that relies on drivers earning their way to the top levels, and both Rheem and JRM understand the importance of an opportunity like this for one of the top Late Model racers in the nation.
“JR Motorsports has grown so much over the years,” said Earnhardt Miller, CEO of JR Motorsports. “But the core of what we do, from our championship-winning Late Model team to the NASCAR Xfinity Series, is to produce championship drivers and team personnel. Bubba Pollard is a great example of that sort of progression, and we’re proud to support him alongside a great partner in Rheem Manufacturing.”
Bubba Pollard celebrates in Victory Lane after winning the ASA STARS National Tour ECMD 150 at North Wilkesboro Speedway on May 17, 2023. (Photo: Adam Fenwick/NASCAR)
Rheem Manufacturing, founded in 1925, is currently the only manufacturer in the world that produces heating, cooling, water heating, pool & spa heating and commercial refrigeration products and the largest manufacturer of water heating products in North America.
“Bubba Pollard represents everything that’s good about racing from the sport’s grass roots to the highest levels,” said Ed Raniszeski, Rheem motorsports executive. “What’s so admirable about Bubba and others like him is their lifetime investment in quality performance, professional dedication, doing things right, and giving it their best all the time, even when they think no one is watching.
“That’s why Rheem, the Earnhardt and Miller families, as well as many others, are thrilled to give Bubba the chance he’s earned and deserves to show others what we have been watching in amazement for years.”
Pollard recognizes the efforts of both Rheem and JRM in bringing new drivers from the grassroots to NASCAR’s top divisions.
“Dale and Kelley and Rheem have a history of giving guys like me opportunities to race at the next level, opportunities that normally wouldn’t happen,” Pollard said. “I have a lot of respect for them for how much they offer to drivers like me. It’s pretty cool to be part of it. You never know what might happen in the future.”
To prepare for his race at Richmond, Pollard will compete in the ARCA Menards Series event at Five Flags to get acquainted to a heavier stock car. Following his race at Richmond, Pollard has a full short-track schedule in both Super Late Models, as well as races in the zMAX CARS Tour set for 2024.
Pollard’s Xfinity Series debut at Richmond behind the wheel of the No. 88 Rheem Chevrolet for JRM is scheduled to go green on Saturday, March 30 at 1:30 p.m. ET on FS1, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Channel 90.
It took two weeks for the smoke to clear from the 1976 Daytona 500’s slam-bang finish before the NASCAR Winston Cup Series schedule resumed. By then, the garage was still abuzz over David Pearson’s last-lap tangle and triumph over Richard Petty, but the race that followed – while perhaps not an all-timer – holds its own with a special distinction.
Forty-eight years ago today, the Cup Series held its only event on Leap Day, Feb. 29 – a calendar oddity that occurs once every four years. North Carolina Motor Speedway in Rockingham was the venue for the Carolina 500, a grueling race that was marked by a real-life leap with a shaken Bobby Allison’s wild, tumbling wreck on the backstretch.
On paper, the race went into the books as a Petty rout for the No. 43 Dodge — career victory No. 178 on the royal march toward 200. Behind the stat sheet, there was plenty to unpack from a full weekend at the 1.017-mile oval known as “The Rock.”
Petty and Pearson entered as co-favorites in the pre-race billing. Cale Yarborough, another headliner, was vying for his third consecutive Rockingham victory, but his No. 11 Junior Johnson team was without chief mechanic Herb Nab, sidelined in a Charlotte-area hospital with ulcers. “We’re going to miss Herb,” Yarborough said, “but we hope we can win without him.”
That year, Yarborough eventually won his first of three Cup Series championships, but both Petty and Pearson were top of mind for the last day in February. The two drivers recalled their fateful collision in the “Great American Race” from two weeks earlier, when Pearson prevailed by nursing his battered No. 21 Wood Brothers Mercury to the finish line. Two weeks later and not surprisingly, their accounts of the incident still differed.
“Richard pinched me,” Pearson told the Associated Press in Rockingham. “Maybe he thought I was going to back off. I don’t know. I do know that when he pinched me, he sent me into the wall.”
“Everybody except David and I know what happened,” Petty told the AP, discounting the wind and any bumps in the track as possible factors. “… We were both going for it, but there wasn’t room for both of us. I had about three-quarters of a car length on David as we entered the tri-oval. I was in a better position to win. Why would I pinch him? I know he’s a racer and wouldn’t back off. He knows I wouldn’t either.”
The other post-Daytona buzz stemmed from the irascible A.J. Foyt, still fuming from having his field-fastest qualifying lap for the 500 disallowed after his car was found with a nitrous-oxide bottle on board. Foyt had been fined $1,000 for the infraction, but he refused his Daytona prize money – a sum of $4,600 for 22nd place – until the penalty was rescinded. Super Tex also threatened to boycott the rest of his stock-car schedule, but he made it to Rockingham with his Hoss Ellington-owned team, holding court with the idea that NASCAR needed a commissioner along the lines of Pete Rozelle – the NFL’s top honcho at the time. Naturally, Foyt volunteered himself for the role.
Qualifying at Rockingham went much smoother. Dave Marcis, another Daytona DQ because of a trick radiator flap found in time trials there, redeemed himself at Rockingham in Nord Krauskopf’s No. 71 Dodge with a pole lap at 138.287 mph. That speed was enough to terrify his chief mechanic, NASCAR Hall of Fame nominee Harry Hyde, who broke his usual qualifying routine to watch Marcis’ run from a different vantage point, at the entry to Turn 1. “He scared the hell out of me,” Hyde told the Charlotte (N.C.) Observer. “I thought the throttle had hung.”
The other footnote to qualifying was a bushy-haired 20-year-old rookie from Georgia named Bill Elliott, who drove a powder-blue No. 9 Ford to the 34th starting spot at Rockingham in his Cup Series debut. “It was totally out of my realm,” Elliott told the Observer’s David Poole in 2000. “I was just trying to get in a race and get some experience and learn the cars. … I don’t know that I had a clue what I was doing.” Elliott completed 32 laps in the race until his engine gave way, and he collected $640 for 33rd place in the first of 828 Cup Series starts that made up his Hall of Fame career.
Petty qualified third, and the No. 43 team’s swagger received another jolt on the eve of the Carolina 500 with a victory in the annual Unocal 76 pit-stop competition. The Petty crew changed right-side tires and fueled the car in 17.689 seconds, and even a two-second penalty for coming up short of the 14 minimum gallons of gas was more than enough to top Lennie Pond’s team.
Crew chief Dale Inman and mechanic Maurice Petty brushed off the suggestion that any extra effort or emphasis went into the pit-stop preliminary. “Oh yeah, we’ve been practicing,” Maurice Petty bristled. “We’ve been practicing for 20 years.”
When race-day Leap Day arrived, Petty quickly established what would be an afternoon of dominance, with a pair of unscheduled pit stops for cut tires the only hiccups. Pearson, believed to be his top challenger, led just nine laps before a faulty oil pump halted his No. 21 Mercury after just 186 of the 492 laps.
NASCAR Research & Archives Center | Getty Images
Instead, another strong contender emerged in Bobby Allison, who was in front for 91 laps in Roger Penske’s No. 2 Merc. Allison’s bid ended dramatically on Lap 373 in what reporters called one of the most chilling crashes in the track’s then-brief 11-year history.
Allison’s car made contact with Yarborough’s No. 11, then impacted the outside retaining wall. The momentum sent the car barrel-rolling along the back straightaway, throwing parts and sheet metal along the way and bouncing atop the Chevrolets of both Richard Childress and Benny Parsons as it tumbled, coming to rest with wheels up and the shell of the roll cage freshly exposed.
“I was on the outside and Bobby was on the inside, and I guess he figured he had gotten far enough past me to move back over,” Yarborough said, recalling their contest through Turn 2. “I don’t know whether he couldn’t see me or what, but I got knocked into the outside wall. When he cut back over, my front end hit his rear end and turned him sideways. That’s when he rammed the wall head-on. When he did that, his front end dug into the wall and he started flipping. He must have flipped from one end of the straightaway to the other. I heard he wasn’t hurt bad and I’m sure glad of that.”
Childress was among the eight drivers involved. “For a minute, it was pure hell on the backstretch,” he said. “Things happened so fast. I really don’t know what happened. Things broke loose so fast. All of a sudden, I saw Bobby Allison’s Mercury flying through the air, coming right at me. I caught the full impact of his car right on the hood of my car. The blow caved the entire front end of my car in. It cracked the windshield and even knocked the top of my car down when he went on over.”
Said Parsons: “It’s hard to explain what it’s like to see a stock car flying through the air.”
Amazingly, Allison escaped serious injury, with X-rays revealing no broken bones. He was transported to a local hospital with complaints of chest soreness and shock, but doctors reported Allison to be in satisfactory condition that evening.
Allison was bruised but back the next week, winning the pole and placing third at the Richmond, Virginia fairgrounds oval. Credit was given to the safety of the car made by master builder Banjo Matthews, who noted the Mercury’s ability to absorb the impact.
“He was flipping and rolling through the air,” Matthews told The News & Observer of Raleigh, N.C. “It’s like a piece of raw hamburger. You throw it into the air and bat it around with the palms of your hands and it doesn’t mess it up that bad. But take it and lay it on a table and smack it with your fist and you splatter it all over the place. In a high-speed crash, as long as there’s no sudden stop and if he keeps rolling, he usually gets out OK. The thing that hurts is the sudden stop.”
Petty was well clear of the bedlam, and his No. 43 Dodge was three laps clear of second-place Darrell Waltrip when the race resumed. As he circled the track during the caution period, Petty watched safety workers attend to Allison, getting a thumbs-up signal from NASCAR officials a few laps later to assure the leader that his rival wasn’t seriously hurt.
“Naturally you are concerned,” Petty said later. “But you feel you’ve still got your job to do. You’ve got to keep trucking along. You are naturally anxious, but you can’t stop. You still have the job to do.”
Petty didn’t stop, save for the occasional blip for tire wear on the gritty banked asphalt. The right blend of horsepower and handling clicked, and he led 362 of the 492 laps – including the final 220.
“It’s just a case of everything working right for us,” Petty said.
Nearly five decades later, the 1976 event still lives in the shadows of the Daytona 500 that preceded it, but it’s remembered as a Leap Day classic on a date that stands on its own.
Here’s what’s happening in the world of NASCAR with Atlanta Motor Speedway in the rearview mirror and the Pennzoil 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway right around the corner.
1. Will Daniel Suárez ride the momentum from Atlanta into Las Vegas?
With “hot seat” conversations swirling, Suárez’s early trip to Victory Lane provides window into what could be a strong regular season.
The difference between Atlanta winner Daniel Suárez finishing first or third was a matter of 0.007 seconds — the tightest margin between three cars in NASCAR Cup Series history, according to Racing Insights. But those milliseconds could be the difference of a career path for the driver of Trackhouse Racing’s No. 99 Chevrolet.
Suárez, the 2016 Xfinity Series champion, now has the chance to build an incredible regular season after earning a treasured spot in the playoffs just two races into the year. Locking that up before the calendar turns to March provides Suárez and new crew chief Matt Swiderski the opportunity to take more gambles — both in setups and race strategy.
The next steps of that journey will be taken this weekend at Las Vegas Motor Speedway (Sunday, 3:30 p.m. ET, FOX, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), the first track of the 2024 schedule that won’t feature drafting in a pack and may provide better insight on what the year will truly have in store for the field. The bumpy 1.5-mile tri-oval in Nevada hasn’t been great for Suárez historically, a track where he’s nabbed just two top 10s in 13 starts. He led 31 laps in the 2022 playoff race there but only finished 16th, following that up in 2023 with results of 10th in March and 15th in October.
But a win in Suárez’s pocket could open the door for bigger risks in hopes of bigger rewards — without facing the penalty of missing the postseason. Trackhouse Racing’s dilemma — and therefore Suárez’s — is that there are four drivers signed to the quickly-rising team with only two charters in team owner Justin Marks’ hands. Suárez’s teammate Ross Chastain has won four races across each of the past two seasons to Suárez’s two, and Zane Smith is already at the Cup level under a Trackhouse contract while racing the No. 71 Chevrolet at Spire Motorsports. Shane van Gisbergen made the leap from elite Supercars racer to rising NASCAR star after winning his Cup debut at the inaugural Chicago Street Race in 2023 and now has a full-time ride in the Xfinity Series, contracted with Trackhouse while competing for Kaulig Racing — with eyes on a full-time Cup ride whenever that door opens.
A thrilling and popular victory at Atlanta may be all Suárez needed to quell those concerns surrounding his future, even if he “never felt like (he) was on the hot seat.” But improved performance through the rest of 2024 could prove pivotal after just nine top fives from 2022-23 compared to Chastain’s 25.
It all starts Sunday in Sin City.
Alex Slitz | Getty Images
2. Will Ford or Toyota put an end to Chevrolet’s dominance?
Two races, two wins for Chevy. But Ford and Toyota bring new hope into the Las Vegas desert.
Chevrolet’s early-season stranglehold on the competition isn’t only limited to the NASCAR Cup Series. Through six national series regular-season events including the Xfinity Series and Craftsman Truck Series, the bowties are undefeated.
But the other two manufacturers in NASCAR might have a bigger say Sunday at Las Vegas. Ford’s new Dark Horse Mustang and Toyota’s fresh Camry XSE have had their own flashes of brilliance through this season’s infancy — and we may not have seen all their potential capabilities yet either.
Fords have swept the front row in qualifying each of the last two weeks with Joey Logano and Michael McDowell taking turns as Cup Series polesitters in 2024. Toyotas swept the Bluegreen Vacations Duels qualifying dashes at Daytona with Tyler Reddick and Christopher Bell just 12 days after Denny Hamlin celebrated a victory in the exhibition Busch Light Clash at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum on Feb. 3.
Las Vegas will be a beast of its own, one that likely tells us more than what Los Angeles, Daytona or Atlanta could offer. But that’s not to say Chevrolet should suddenly cower in the corner. Hendrick Motorsports has won each of the last three spring races at Las Vegas with three different drivers — Kyle Larson in 2021 (in the Gen 6 Camaro), Alex Bowman in 2022 and William Byron in 2023. For what it’s worth, Chase Elliott would love to break his winless streak and add to Hendrick’s full house.
But the Chevrolets also have the advantage of bringing a known product to the race track with relevant notes to inform decisions. Ford and Toyota, meanwhile, will head to Vegas relying solely on simulation data and hopes their reconfigured calculations prove correct.
Todd Kirkland | Getty Images
3. Inside the Race: Significance of roof rails and the Stewart-Haas Atlanta confiscation
One question remained Sunday night for the team owner who has turned the NASCAR world on its ear.
And after a post-race media center session sprinkled with some of his now familiar musings about the Next Big Idea, Justin Marks seemed giddy and relieved to steer the subject matter to much humbler beginnings.
“You’re my last interview tonight, and you know what, I think you were the first interview that I ever did in stock-car racing at Kentucky in ARCA in 2005,” Marks told Catchfence.com’s Chris Knight. “I finished like 38th.”
Actually, it was a 36th in that July 7, 2006 race at Kentucky Speedway — one of many inauspicious finishes in a relatively nondescript stock-car career. Marks won in ARCA and Xfinity, and he enjoyed even more success in sports cars with a Rolex 24 class win among victories at several prestigious tracks.
He is, by many definitions, a racer, but behind the wheel is not how he made his fame.
Marks is most recognizable as the founder of Trackhouse Entertainment Group, a burgeoning sports and entertainment conglomerate whose racing division has established a strong foothold in the Cup Series since 2021 and will expand overseas into MotoGP this season.
The success generally is viewed through the prism of Silicon Valley upstart. His stunning and steep trajectory into the team ownership stratosphere smacks of a venture capitalist playing four-dimensional chess. Marks deftly has executed eight-figure power plays to acquire charters, drivers and real estate.
It’s an impressive portfolio, and it sometimes obscures what underpins it all — results.
Give this NASCAR disruptor his due: His race team is far more than just a startup trying to move fast, break stuff and sell out for the big payday.
Marks always is clear on the primary objective. “Trackhouse is a winning company,” he said matter of fact Sunday night at Atlanta Motor Speedway after his team’s seventh Cup victory in less than two years.
But when your partner is an internationally renowned recording artist named Pitbull whose latest album is named after your team, it’s easier for the general public to overlook how well your finishes are backing up your already grandiose plans for transforming global motorsports.
Daniel Suárez’s exhilarating three-wide victory at Atlanta Motor Speedway finally might have been a tipping point.
It now seems reasonable to suggest Trackhouse’s dynamism on the track somehow is exceeding its ambitious vision for overhauling how teams do business in NASCAR’s premier series.
As Dizzy Dean once said, “It ain’t bragging if you can do it,” and Trackhouse has made a habit recently of delivering its biggest flourishes when the NASCAR spotlight is at its brightest:
— The astounding “Hail Melon” was concocted and accomplished by Ross Chastain at Martinsville Speedway, the unbelievably brave and violent wall ride heard around the world that catapulted the No. 1 Chevrolet into the 2022 championship round.
— Capping the first street course in the series’ 75-year history, New Zealand’s Shane van Gisbergen (hand-picked by Marks as part of the Project 91 initiative) became the first driver to win his Cup debut in more than 40 years — giving NASCAR the indelible and improbable visual of a Kiwi celebrating in the heart of downtown Chicago as dusk fell on the Fourth of July weekend last season.
— Chastain stole the show by outdueling champion Ryan Blaney to win the 2023 season finale at Phoenix Raceway and mark himself as a trendy 2024 championship favorite as the first non-title contender to win the championship round.
— And now Suárez’s mesmerizing victory — the third closest in NASCAR history — has become another viral sensation for a team accustomed to life in the racing zeitgeist.
With the installation of each new eye-popping LED screen brightly illuminating the pits and garage, Trackhouse has become a trendsetter. Its VIP areas aim to set new standards of at-track hospitality. Live entertainment is a staple of its marketing activations.
The case can be made that Trackhouse Racing’s on-track exploits actually have been undersold and overshadowed because the team has tried so hard to change the game with an aggressively creative and unconventional approach off the track.
“We want to be the people that come in and try to do different things,” Marks said. “This is a sport that needs big brands and teams that are motivated to be ambassadors of an entertainment property and to give the fans something to get excited about. If we’re leaders in that, then great. We’re kind of doing our thing, but this is an amazing sport, and more people need to see it. So we feel like we’re ambassadors of that.”
But along with that flash and sizzle, don’t overlook the team also is doing the blocking and tackling necessary to become a formidable and perennial championship contender. It’s excelling in major moments while stockpiling an enviable stable of young talent with the long-term contours of possibly expanding into a four-car dynasty.
“I think there’s a big opportunity in this sport,” Marks said. “I have a certain belief about what’s possible in this sport, and it’s just the way I do things.”
HendrickCars.com extended its partnership with NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series driver Rajah Caruth and Spire Motorsports and will continue to serve as the primary sponsor for the No. 71 Chevrolet for the rest of the 2024 season.
It was announced before the season that HendrickCars.com would initially partner with Caruth for the first 10 races of the Truck Series season, but the 21-year-old standout from Washington, D.C., drew attention after finishing third at Daytona International Speedway and eighth at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
“Rajah has had a tremendous start to 2024,” Gary Davis, executive vice president of the Hendrick Automotive Group, said in a press release. “When you combine his on-track potential, how he represents himself and HendrickCars.com, his impressive social media presence, and the incredible fan support he receives, we couldn’t pass on supporting him for the entire season.”
Caruth is an alumnus of NASCAR’s Drive for Diversity Driver Development Program and is currently fifth in the Truck Series standings. With the backing of HendrickCars.com and a solid start to the season, Caruth aims to build off the early momentum and become a budding contender as the season progresses.
“It’s pretty special to have HendrickCars.com on my chest,” Caruth said in the release. “I think about Phoenix last year when I drove the Xfinity car for Hendrick Motorsports. That, within itself, was an incredible moment. Knowing that HendrickCars.com has extended their relationship with Spire Motorsports and my No. 71 team kind of leaves me speechless. I’m super grateful because they don’t do that for just anyone. For me, to be affiliated with that group and have their support is an honor. I’m excited to get on with the rest of the season. We’ve gotten off to a good start and I think the race in Las Vegas on Friday night is going to show our potential for the rest of the season.”
Caruth’s next race will be Friday’s Victoria’s Voice Foundation 200 from Las Vegas Motor Speedway (9 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Sheldon Creed’s two-year stint at Richard Childress Racing in the Xfinity Series ended sourly. The California driver was ready for a restart, and Joe Gibbs Racing became his new home.
“I was looking at the future, and I wasn’t in love with where I was,” Creed told NASCAR.com of his move to JGR three days before the 2024 Xfinity Series season got underway. “I liked it, I had fun and had a lot of good people around me, but I wasn’t enjoying it as much as I wanted to. I felt like I would fit in better here or somewhere else.”
Admittedly, JGR wasn’t the first call Creed made. Once Josh Berry announced he was moving to the Cup Series with Stewart-Haas Racing, Creed called JR Motorsports, but Sammy Smith filled that spot quickly. Stewart-Haas Racing was another potential suitor.
Steve deSouza, JGR’s EVP NASCAR Xfinity Series/Development, explained it wasn’t the first time they spoke with Creed. With JGR rebranding its Xfinity program, the timing was perfect.
“Sheldon and his grandfather (Maurice Ortega) have come to us three times, and a lot of times it was timing, and it just didn’t work,” deSouza said. “This year, it came up with a number of sequences of events on their side and some on ours. We had a slot that was open for an interim period of time, and they called right in there.
“I got a text from Maurice and a phone call from Sheldon on the same weekend, and they didn’t even know that either one of them had called me. I was thinking they were just exploring, which they had done a couple of times previously. We were happy to get him.”
With little sponsorship, Creed admitted that moving to JGR was a challenge. But after two winless years with RCR and a total of 11 top-five finishes, the move was made.
“I felt like I was stuck,” Creed said of his time at RCR. “Some weeks, we would be good, and some weeks, we would run 15th all day. That was frustrating to me. There was maybe nothing that I could do about it, but it was tough to accept that. I didn’t think it was me.
“I’ve said in the past that I think Gibbs cars are some of the best. I’m getting rid of that excuse now this year. Now, it’s up to me. I like that pressure, and me saying that puts pressure on myself. If I don’t do good this year and run the same, I’ll go race dirt for fun. This is a proving year to myself as well.”
Creed’s drive to perform is visible to deSouza and JGR. They know he has something to prove after moving to the Xfinity Series in 2022 as a top prospect after winning the 2020 Craftsman Truck Series title with GMS Racing.
“[Creed] has ambition,” deSouza said. “He’s won in everything. He has championships in everything he’s run, and this has been a struggle for him. Part of our mission is to try to work with him and get him through that. Clearly, he’s got the speed. He’s impatient at times, so we will try to coach up on that and focus on what’s important from the technology side of performance. From the drivers meetings we’ve had, he’s very knowledgeable about a lot. He doesn’t vocalize a lot of it, but in the discussions, it’s very clear that he understands all of it and can have a dialogue about it, which is very encouraging.”
Creed is labeling 2024 a make-or-break season. He believes he must wheel the No. 18 Toyota to multiple wins in order to call his first season under the Toyota banner a success.
“I came out of trucks winning, and if I wasn’t the favorite, I was at least looked at,” Creed said. “I went to two years of not running good and, in my opinion, got forgotten about. If I could turn this into a good year with multiple wins and a shot at the championship, then I feel like I put my name back in the conversation.”
Before the season went green, Creed hadn’t spoken to former RCR teammate Austin Hill, who he had a run-in with during the final laps of the penultimate race of the 2023 season. The former teammates rubbed fenders at Martinsville Speedway, allowing Justin Allgaier to get the win. The following week, neither driver was eligible for the Championship 4 at Phoenix Raceway. He also laughed off comments made by Richard Childress following the Martinsville race, saying, “I’ve had drivers drive for me before, but nobody as stupid as Sheldon Creed.”
Creed knows he will be racing Hill’s RCR team aplenty throughout the 2024 season, and the No. 21 team is undefeated thus far in two superspeedway races. The No. 18 car nearly lost out on the battle with Hill in the season opener, as Creed scored his third consecutive runner-up finish dating back to that Martinsville race.
If Creed performs well with JGR, he’s hoping it snowballs into an opportunity at the Cup level. His primary goal is to make it to the Cup Series in a solid car. Creed has kicked off the season with a bang, scoring top fives in both races at Daytona and Atlanta. As the series heads to Las Vegas Motor Speedway (March 2, 5 p.m. ET, FS1, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), he ranks second in the championship standings.
“I would just love to have a paid-for ride,” Creed added. “I want to race Cup; that’s my goal is to race a good Cup car. That’s goal number one, down the road, whether that’s next year, two years from now. Who knows, I could be here at Joe Gibbs Racing in an Xfinity car another three years.”
Eighth and 26th-place finishes on paper don’t have the ring to them that racing organizations look for after any given race.
These were the results for Front Row Motorsports Sunday at Atlanta Motor Speedway following a 400-mile firecracker that saw intense, edge-of-your-seat racing from Lap 1 to the three-wide finish that saw Daniel Suárez grab his second career checkered flag in the third-closest finish in Cup Series history.
While the finishing order doesn’t show either FRM car as a race-contending competitor, the on-track performances from both Michael McDowell and Todd Gilliland earned a historic day for the Ford camp.
FRM led 85 laps in the 260-lap thriller Sunday evening, the most the organization has ever led in a Cup race.
McDowell was the polesitter for the event, but it was Gilliland who diced his way to the lead after starting fourth. Gilliland held serve more than every other driver at Atlanta, leading six different times for a grand total of 58 laps.
A string of late-race incidents eventually caught Gilliland as the 23-year-old settled for the 26th-place result four laps down, but he proved he can put the speed and talent on display when given the opportunity.
“It felt really good. In my heart, I definitely believe that I can do it with those guys week in and week out,” Gilliland said. “Our car was really fast. I was making really aggressive moves but really in control the whole time. That’s what it takes is my confidence gets more and more, and hopefully, those guys’ confidence around me gets better with every lap also. We’ve just got to keep doing that, and hopefully, the better runs will come more consistently and race up front with those guys more and more.”
Gilliland was willing to put his No. 38 Ford in precarious moments in the pack. Whether side-by-side, three-wide or even four-wide on the narrow straights, Gilliland was ready for the ferocity.
During the race, Gilliland threw out the simile of the racing as a haunted house, calling it “fun, but I’m scared for my life.”
“It’s 100% intensity every single lap,” Gilliland added. “When I was up front, we were just throwing massive slide jobs, and it’s full commitment every single lap. I don’t think anyone’s car’s driving 100% perfect, so it’s very on edge. You’re expected to be in the gas almost wide open around the whole place. Air’s moving so much around in the pack and can really put you in some tricky spots, so you’re white-knuckled pretty much the whole time.”
Through two races, Gilliland has led the most laps in the Cup Series (74). It’s already throttled what he led in his career before the Daytona 500 (11). After not piloting the No. 38 on six different occasions last season, the young driver is hungry to prove he belongs at NASCAR’s highest level.
“I’m trying to prove it to myself, my team, sponsors, everyone, right? The whole industry,” Gilliland said. “This is what I want to do for the rest of my life, so I better start running good and just keep sticking around, keep having good runs and hopefully just better finishes along the way.”
The opening races of the season for FRM attest to the team’s overall prowess on drafting-style race tracks.
McDowell, winner of the 2021 edition of the “Great American Race,” has sat on the front row adjacent to Joey Logano in both races to start 2024. McDowell nabbed his first career pole during the weekend in his 467th Cup Series start. However, a mechanical failure early at Daytona and a pit-road mistake in Stage 2 have kept the 39-year-old from backing the strong qualifying efforts.
“The start of the year has been strong,” Peterson told NASCAR.com. “It sucks we didn’t get to race for it in Daytona. It kinda sucks we didn’t get to race for it again (Sunday), but I think we had two of the best cars in the field back-to-back weeks. Obviously, it gets a little more real going to non-superspeedway racing here soon, but I really felt like we were probably the car to beat. It was super strong. He could go a whole lane by himself and get to the front. Awesome that the 38 got up there and led like he did. Hate the way it ended for them.
“Happy we ended up salvaging an eighth with a completely busted up car, but hopefully, this just leads to good things. Hopefully, we can keep doing this every week, and we won’t have to worry about stressing about points.”
McDowell has reached the playoffs two of the last three years and has proven to be one of the top road-course aces in the Cup Series after he dominated on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course last year to punch his 2023 postseason ticket.
Up next on the checklist for the organization is to continue racing up front every Sunday. From qualifying to the checkered flag, there’s hope in the FRM camp that they are capable of racing with the big-time organizations on any type of track, and the chemistry between the No. 34 and No. 38 teams adds to the optimism.
“The better we both do, the more we push each other, the better we all get as a group,” Peterson said. “That’s the type of thing we need to do every week is both run up front and have speed and see what the year brings us.”
“It’s incredible. I’m super excited and super happy to be a part of it,” Gilliland said. “Michael’s been here for a long time, and he’s been on a steady grind of getting better and better. I’m super excited to hopefully start contributing more and more every single week. Last year, a lot of races he was head and shoulders better than us so we still have a long ways to go compared to everybody and our teammates especially, but to see the growth of this organization is incredible.”
NASCAR hit Stewart-Haas Racing with two L1-level penalties Tuesday after last weekend’s race at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
After NASCAR confiscated the roof rails of the No. 10 Ford of driver Noah Gragson and the No. 41 Ford of Ryan Preece at the race track, it docked both teams 35 driver and owner points in Tuesday’s penalty report.
Per the NASCAR Rule Book, roof air deflectors must consist of parts outlined in Section 14.5.6.1.a. Additionally, they must meet the following criteria: be constructed of 0.05-inch thick aluminum; be installed perpendicular in the applicable slots; must not interfere with the functioning of the roof flaps; and must be painted.
“It’s a team part, but it has to meet the CAD drawing,” NASCAR Senior VP of Competition Elton Sawyer said on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio on Tuesday. “And in this case, it didn’t meet that.”
Joey Logano, driver of Team Penske’s No. 22 Ford, was also dealt a $10,000 fine for modifying an SFI-approved protective glove. Section 14.3.1.1 (“Driver Protective Clothing/Equipment”) in the NASCAR Rule Book requires protective gloves meet SFI-approved specifications.
After qualifying second at Atlanta, Logano was sent to the rear of the field for the start of Sunday’s race and issued a mandatory pass-through penalty after the green flag.
“What happened at the race track and the way it was handled was strictly based on performance and using that device,” Sawyer said on SiriusXM. “Now, altering an SFI-certified safety piece of apparel, that’s a different topic.”
Logano’s left-handed glove was modified with webbing between the thumb and index finger. Per SFI specifications, “gloves shall have separate sections for each finger and thumb.”
In the NASCAR Xfinity Series, the No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota piloted by Ryan Truex was found with one lug nut unsecured after the conclusion of Saturday’s race, resulting in a $5,000 fine to crew chief Seth Chavka.
Additionally, SS GreenLight Racing crew chief Jason Miller was suspended from each of the next two NASCAR Xfinity Series races at Las Vegas Motor Speedway and Phoenix Raceway. Miller, crew chief of J.J. Yeley’s No. 14 Chevrolet at Atlanta, was found in violation of Section 4.4.D of the Xfinity Series Rule Book, which specifies “member-to-member confrontation(s) with physical violence (e.g. striking another competitor)” as an action that could result in a fine and/or suspension. Miller confronted and became physical with driver Kyle Weatherman after Saturday’s race.
