A member of NASCAR’s famed “Alabama Gang” and an ambassador for the sport for more than 50 years, Donnie Allison had never planned to be a race car driver.
But when Donnie’s older brother, Bobby, made the claim that Donnie could never be a driver, well, Donnie set out to prove him – and anyone else – wrong. Like Bobby, Donnie got his start racing modifieds and worked his way to the top level of stock car racing.
After winning the 1967 Cup Series Rookie of the Year, Allison partnered with famed mechanic Banjo Matthews where he experienced his most success. In 1970, Allison won three races for Matthews, including the Coca-Cola 600. The following weekend he finished fourth in the Indianapolis 500, setting a record for best-combined finish in the two-race crossover that still stands today.
But Allison might be best-known for his role in NASCAR’s most famous moment – his 1979 Daytona 500 fight with Cale Yarborough. An intense battle for the win ended with both drivers wrecked, scuffling in the infield.
It all happened on the first nationally-televised NASCAR race and made headlines across America. The publicity was instrumental to the growth of NASCAR and remains one of the defining moments in the sport’s history.
DONNIE ALLISON BIO
Born: Sept. 7, 1939 Hometown: Hueytown, Alabama
Cup Series Stats Competed: 1966-88 Starts: 242 Wins: 10 Poles: 17 Years on Ballot: 1
In an era of change in NASCAR, there was one constant – Jimmie Johnson. Jimmy Johnson hall of fame nominee included in the class of 2024.
Despite competing under a variety of championship formats and three generations of race car, you could count on finding Jimmie Johnson in Victory Lane and on the NASCAR Cup Series championship stage.
Johnson’s seven career NASCAR Cup Series championships famously tie him with Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt for most in series history; his five consecutive titles are a NASCAR record.
Johnson’s on-track accomplishments behind the wheel of a stock car put him on the short list in the ‘Greatest of All-Time’ discussion – he has 83 wins at 20 different race tracks including multiple wins in every NASCAR crown jewel event: two Daytona 500s (2006, ’13), four Brickyard 400s (2006, ’08-09, ’12), four Coca-Cola 600s (2003-05, ’14), two Southern 500’s (2004, ’12) and four All-Star Race wins (2003, ’06, ’12-13).
Currently the co-owner of NASCAR team LEGACY MOTOR CLUB, Johnson was named one of NASCAR’s 75 Greatest Drivers in 2023.
NASCAR unveiled the ballot for the Hall of Fame’s Class of 2024 on Wednesday, adding three new names to form the list of 15 total nominees.
Jimmie Johnson, the seven-time NASCAR Cup Series champion and an 83-time winner in NASCAR’s top division, joined the list in his first year of Hall of Fame eligibility. He’ll be joined by his crew chief Chad Knaus, who directed those seven championships, as a fellow newcomer to the Modern Era Ballot.
Another legend was added to the Pioneer Ballot — Donnie Allison, an indelible member of the “Alabama Gang” and 10-time Cup Series winner. The Pioneer Ballot is designed to honor those whose careers began more than 60 years ago.
The Hall of Fame also revealed the list of five nominees for the Landmark Award for Outstanding Contributions to NASCAR, adding to the ballot Les Richter, a former standout linebacker for the Los Angeles Rams — but more importantly, for these purposes, later in life the senior vice president of operations for NASCAR and president of Riverside International Raceway. Lesa France Kennedy, Janet Guthrie, Alvin Hawkins and Dr. Joseph Mattioli remain on the Landmark Award list for this year; NASCAR Vice Chairman Mike Helton is the most recent recipient.
Voting for the Class of 2024 is scheduled for Aug. 2. Two inductees will be chosen from the Modern Era Ballot, which includes (alphabetically): Neil Bonnett, Tim Brewer, Jeff Burton, Carl Edwards, Harry Gant, Harry Hyde, Johnson, Knaus, Larry Phillips and Ricky Rudd. One will be elected from the five names on the Pioneer Ballot: Allison, Sam Ard, A.J. Foyt, Banjo Matthews and Ralph Moody.
A panel of 61 voting members will meet to cast ballots for the 2024 Hall of Fame class, with one ballot to be added through fan voting on NASCAR.com. The Fan Vote (www.nascar.com/halloffame) is currently open and will close on July 30 at midnight ET.
Johnson, 47, is one of the most decorated drivers in the sport’s history and one of just three champions to win seven career titles. After breaking out for 18 victories and two runner-up standings finishes in his first four seasons, Johnson went on an unprecedented — and unmatched — five-year streak of titles from 2006-10, later adding two more (2013, ’16) to tie Hall of Famers Dale Earnhardt and Richard Petty in the feat. Johnson is currently a part-owner and part-time driver for Legacy Motor Club after spending his entire full-time career with Hendrick Motorsports.
Knaus, 51, has called 708 Cup races from atop the pit box, winning 82 of them — and landing in the top 10 in more than half of them (371). Knaus guided Johnson from 2002 to 2018, with 81 of those 82 wins coming with “Seven-Time” behind the wheel. The cerebral pit boss wrapped his career with driver William Byron in his final two seasons, with the No. 24 car picking up his final win in 2020.
Allison, 83, looks to join his brother, Bobby, and nephew, Davey, in the Hall after a career spanning 21 years in the Cup Series. Allison’s 10 victories came at some of NASCAR’s most famous tracks — Bristol, Charlotte, Daytona and Talladega, to name a few. Allison is etched in NASCAR lore forever as a willing and vibrant participant in the fight between he, his brother and Cale Yarborough at the 1979 Daytona 500, one of the first NASCAR races televised live from beginning to end.
Richter, who died in 2010 at age 79, was the second overall pick in the 1952 NFL Draft and compiled a stellar career that led to a 2011 induction to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. After his playing days were over, his attention shifted to racing, where he ran Riverside until 1983 while later taking on other roles for International Speedway Corporation and International Race of Champions in addition to his role with NASCAR.
The reigning Cup Series champion has participated as part of the Voting Day panel each year since 2014*. Reigning champ Joey Logano will participate in voting for the second time.
*Because 2022 voting and induction procedures were canceled, Kyle Larson and Chase Elliott — the 2020 and ’21 Cup Series champions — both participated in the 2023 Hall of Fame vote.
Championships are won through hard work, commitment, attention to detail and the relentless pursuit of perfection … All traits that led Chad Knaus to become one of the greatest crew chiefs in NASCAR history.
Leading his father to multiple track championships as a teenager, Knaus was destined to be a successful crew chief at stock car racing’s highest level. His NASCAR start came at Hendrick Motorsports as an assistant in the body shop, learning under Hall of Famer Ray Evernham as part of the ‘Rainbow Warriors.’ His breakthrough came in 2002 when he was paired with rookie driver Jimmie Johnson on a fourth Hendrick team – the start of one of the most productive partnerships in sports history.
The pair combined for seven NASCAR Cup Series championships, including a NASCAR-record five in a row. They won 81 races over 19 seasons, including the 2013 Daytona 500, two Southern 500s, four Coca-Cola 600s and four Brickyard 400s. Knaus won his 82nd – and final – race with William Byron in 2020. He trails only Dale Inman and Leonard Wood for all-time wins by a crew chief.
Knaus currently serves as Vice President of Competition for Hendrick Motorsports.
CHAD KNAUS BIO
Born: Aug. 5, 1971 Hometown: Rockford, Illinois
Championships (7) Cup – 2006-10, ’13, ’16 (crew chief)
Cup Series Crew Chief Stats Competed: 2000-20 Starts: 708 Wins: 82 Poles: 42 Years on ballot: 1
It was midway through the 2014 season when Kalvin Catlin raced for the first time at Tucson Speedway.
The next season, he won a track championship in Tucson’s Pro Stock division.
That was the last time he raced a full year.
In the second to last race of 2015, Catlin flipped his car coming down the back straightaway at Tucson, a NASCAR-sanctioned 0.375-mile paved oval track located just south of Tucson, Arizona.
The incident, as well as health issues his dad was facing and Catlin’s growing family, took Catlin out of the sport for seven years.
It was his kids who convinced Catlin to get back in the car and start competing again.
“They love watching me race,” Catlin said of his four children, Madison, 5, Ashden, 7. Kalvin Jr., 8, and Julianna, 10. “They look up to me, watching me. They love going out there every weekend.
“For a little while there, even while I was off we would be out there watching. I’d take the kids out and they’d just love it and they’d kept trying to talk me into going back out, like, ‘Dad, you need to get a car together.’”
Last year, an opportunity came up for Catlin to race for Vance Cast at Delta Trading Group. Cast asked Catlin to help get his Hobby Stock car race ready last season, and gave Catlin the opportunity to race, as well.
He’s continued with the team in 2023, and is picking up right where he left off all those years ago.
In Tucson’s Hobby Stock division, after missing the first race, Catlin has six wins in six features. He’s also trying his hand in the Thunder Trucks, where he’s finished in the top-five in all three of his races.
Getting back into the car, Catlin said he felt the same as when he first started racing.
“It definitely was that feeling of being the first time back at the track. It was definitely fun. It felt natural, for sure,” he said.
Catlin began racing in 2007 when his uncle started him on a dirt track. The next year, Catlin, his mom, and dad built a brand new car from the ground up, and he stayed in that car for seven years.
Kalvin Catlin’s two children were a big reason why he returned to racing at Arizona’s Tucson Speedway. (Photo: Courtesy of Kalvin Catlin)
Midway through the season in 2014, he took that Pro Stock car and moved it from dirt to asphalt at Tucson. In six races at Tucson that season, he won three times.
“That was the car I ran until 2015,” he said. “We switched it from dirt to asphalt and went out and won the championship on the asphalt with the same dirt track car that we had.
“Back then we were getting 25-30 cars every Saturday, so it was very competitive there.”
Catlin grew up racing quads and dirt bikes, so jumping into the car didn’t feel much different.
“Ever since my first year racing, definitely it’s always felt natural since,” he said. “And even my first year it felt natural… I always had that need for speed.”
Catlin was just a fill-in driver for Cast’s Hobby Stock after the owner had heart surgery in April. But, after seeing how much success he’s had, the entire team is ready to let him keep driving and chasing as many points and wins as possible.
“Originally I was only going to just race a couple races, and I had already missed the first race so we didn’t think we were going to get very far in the points,” Catlin said. “Then we realized we were gaining points pretty quickly here. We won the first couple races there and the car owner was like, ‘Well, let’s just keep going for it.’”
Catlin is currently second in the points at Tucson, one point behind leader Brian Love. He’s also currently seventh in the NASCAR Advance Auto Parts Weekly Series Division V West Region standings, 42 points behind the leader.
The team is now looking to add more races to the schedule to get more national points. Catlin has also had some new sponsors wanting to put their name on a winning car. The new sponsors will allow the team to travel around to face new competition.
His goal the rest of the season is to go for the Hobby Stock championship, and maybe even a rookie-of-the-year title in a class he’d never raced in before.
Catlin would also like to try for a win in the truck.
“It’s just definitely been a great opportunity I’ve been given with Vance Cast being able to have a good car,” he said. “It’s nice to have good equipment and go out and go for a win.”
His two children enjoyed going to races with Catlin, but they’re loving watching him race even more.
“They love it,” he said. “My daughter, she loves going up and she’ll help the flag man out and flag my races. It’s awesome. It’s definitely a family sport, for sure.”
NASCAR Cup Series champion Chase Elliott is set to make his return to the NASCAR Xfinity Series on July 22 at Pocono Raceway, Hendrick Motorsports announced Wednesday.
Elliott, the 2014 Xfinity title winner, will drive the No. 17 HendrickCars.com Chevrolet in the Explore the Pocono Mountains 225 set for that Saturday evening (5:30 p.m. ET, USA Network, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App).
The start will be Elliott’s first in the Xfinity Series since a one-race appearance in 2021 at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course, where he finished fourth driving for JR Motorsports. The Dawsonville, Georgia, native owns five wins, 34 top fives and 66 top 10s in 82 Xfinity starts. Elliott’s lone series start at Pocono resulted in a runner-up finish in 2018 for GMS Racing.
The 2021 Cup champion and five-time most popular driver is the defending winner of the Cup race at Pocono Raceway and earned his lone ARCA Menards Series victory at the 2.5-mile triangular track in 2013.
More than two years into his Xfinity Series stint, Mayer is still looking to capture his first checkered flag.
“Not having any experience on the large tracks hurt me a little bit,” Mayer said last week. “At the same time, I was learning a new race car. Three different things going against me all at once. It got in the way a little bit.”
Having yet to find Victory Lane isn’t due to a lack of effort. During his 2021 rookie campaign, Mayer scored a top-five finish at Martinsville Speedway after leading 49 laps at Bristol Motor Speedway more than a month prior. In 18 total starts – with 17 as pilot of the No. 8 ride — he had six DNFs.
In 2022, JR Motorsports had lights-out speed, winning 15 of 33 races. Its other three full-time drivers qualified for the Championship 4, while Mayer settled for seventh in the championship standings. And even though he was tied for the fifth-most top fives in the series with 11 – the same amount as teammate Josh Berry – he didn’t find the Winner’s Circle.
“It’s tough because we had the speed to do it every week and something got in our way,” Mayer said of 2022. “Whether it was me as a driver or something crazy on the race track, it was always something. We were close so many times that it was super frustrating. I don’t let that get in my way; I do my best each and every week, and my guys do the same.
“One of these days, it will click, and once it clicks, it will be hard to stop us.”
From a competition standpoint, Mayer believes the Xfinity Series is about as challenging as he expected. He believes he had instant success in the Craftsman Truck Series – winning in his seventh career start – because he believes that style of racing suits his driving style better.
Of Mayer’s 68 Xfinity starts, he believes his best shot at a victory was battling AJ Allmendinger in a photo finish last fall at Talladega Superspeedway. His only other runner-up finish came earlier this year at Auto Club Speedway to John Hunter Nemechek.
For the 2023 season, JRM reconnected Mayer with crew chief Mardy Lindley, who made the move from the Truck Series with Kyle Busch Motorsports. The duo won five of the 13 ARCA Menards Series races in 2020 while winning five of the six ARCA East races and picking up another win in the ARCA West division in just two starts.
“When I walked into his office for the first time in November, it’s like we never left each other,” Mayer said. “It took a lot of learning from both of us to get back in the swing of things, but now that we’ve got a grip on everything, I think we’re going to be really good.”
Reflecting back, Lindley believes Mayer needed one full season in the Truck Series before moving to the Xfinity Series to progress his development and gain experience. Having jumped to NASCAR’s second-tier series the weekend that he turned 18 years old, he was previously only eligible to compete on one mile-and-a-half before making the colossal move.
“I’m not going to say it’s a bit rushed because you’ve got to learn to do everything,” Lindley said, “but I think that’s why some of the results haven’t been there and the finishes, because of a lack of experience. He’s gaining it quickly now. He’s got a ton of talent.”
Lindley believes it’s minute details Mayer needs to work on to make the next step. Items such as qualifying better, maximizing time getting to pit road, communicating about his car and breaking even on restarts.
Oftentimes, Mayer gets compared to Ty Gibbs as the two are similar in age and progressed through the NASCAR ranks together. In ARCA, Lindley believes Mayer, who was running for GMS Racing, had the best car in the field. The only car that could compete with him was Gibbs.
“Ty has definitely progressed a lot faster than Sam,” Lindley said. “I don’t think Ty has any more talent than Sam, I just wish Sam would have stayed a little longer and gained the experience because the Xfinity Series has a way of humbling yourself, especially when there’s Cup guys in it at some of these races and the guys you have to beat have been in the series multiple years.
“If you come in here with the same talent they have but no experience, it puts you behind the eight-ball, and it’s hard.”
Despite having three top-five finishes in the last five races, Mayer considers his 2023 season to be “mediocre” thus far. Collectively, JRM has won just one of the opening 17 races in 2023, a far cry from its domination last season. Still, Mayer’s 13.6 average finish is currently a slight improvement over last year (13.8).
Sitting 46 points above the cutline, Mayer isn’t worried about qualifying for the postseason because his team is trending upward. As he put it, “We’re on offense, not defense.”
Not yet having a win, though, requires a resilient mindset. This resilience will look to show itself once again when the Xfinity Series races at New Hampshire Motor Speedway on July 15 (3 p.m. ET, USA, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App).
“It takes a toll on you mentally, and the mental part is big for racing,” Mayer said. “Having good people around me helps out a lot, and having good runs like we’ve had the last couple of weeks helps too. I’m not that worried about it. It’s just about making it happen, winning that one race and then the floodgates open.”
NASCAR Hall of Famer Dale Earnhardt Jr. has long wanted to dive deeper into the origins and stories that make up the career of his legendary father, Dale Earnhardt.
That moment is here, and in a unique format as well. Earnhardt Jr. and Dirty Mo Media unveiled a new podcast Wednesday titled “Becoming Earnhardt,” an eight-episode series centered around the 1979 NASCAR Cup Series season in which, during his first full-time season, Earnhardt scored his first of 76 career wins en route to the Rookie of the Year Award.
As Earnhardt explains in the first episode, following the death of his grandmother Martha in 2021, the Earnhardt family poured through old newspaper clippings and highlights she had kept over the years. But it was a scrapbook specific to the 1979 season that Dale Earnhardt’s older sister, Kaye, had kept all these years that spurned the idea for this podcast.
“Thumbing through this collection of news articles was like discovering a treasure chest of hidden secrets. I was hooked,” Earnhardt Jr. explains in Episode 1.
On July 7, Earnhardt Jr. shared his thrill for the series in an Instagram video, acknowledging the work he and the Dirty Mo crew put into making this series a reality.
“I have been working with the Dirty Mo Media team very, very hard on this for months and wrote the majority of the script, and I narrate it myself,” Earnhardt said. “It’s ballooned up to about eight episodes. They’re about an hour, hour-and-a-half apiece. And I listened to the first episode a little bit (Friday), about a couple minutes worth, and I cannot express how excited I am to get that out so that y’all can hear it.
“I hope you’re gonna enjoy it. Something I’ve been working on in the background that I’m very proud of.”
NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series driver Ty Majeski added another accomplishment to his storied Super Late Model resume on Tuesday evening.
A late restart provided Majeski the perfect opportunity to challenge ARCA Menards Series East competitor Luke Fenhaus for the win in the Slinger Nationals at Slinger Speedway. Majeski utilized the high line to overtake Fenhaus and score his third victory in the prestigious event.
Without the caution, Majeski admitted he would not have been able to catch Fenhaus but considered himself fortunate that circumstances worked out in his favor.
“Sometimes these races go your way and sometimes they don’t,” Majeski said. “Luke was probably a little bit better than us. His car was more versatile, and he could make up more time in lapped traffic. All it took was a yellow and a good restart. Thankfully we came out on top [on Tuesday].”
Like the rest of the 27-car field, Majeski was simply trying to keep up with Fenhaus after he took the lead from Austin Nason shortly before the halfway break.
Fenhaus, who won the Slinger Nationals in 2021, spent the second half of the event running at his own pace while facing no resistance from his competition. A second Slinger Nationals win for Fenhaus seemed all but assured until a caution for Levon Van Der Geest forced him to fend off Majeski in a shootout.
Although he admitted to using up his car trying to navigate through slower cars, Fenhaus believed choosing the bottom would be the ideal strategy to keep the lead. Fenhaus did not get the launch he wanted and shouldered responsibility for not capping off a stellar night with a victory.
“I just screwed up,” Fenhaus said. “I thought I did everything perfect with lapped cars, maintaining the pace that I did and keeping a nice gap. We just didn’t need a caution.”
For Majeski, Tuesday was about putting together a clean race after a dominant run in last year’s Slinger Nationals did not result in a win. He was proud of the hard work put in by his team to make his No. 91 stronger for 2023 but also commended Fenhaus for the way he battled him during the last restart.
“Usually we struggled on the outside [lane],” Majeski said. “We came with a different setup this year to try and fix that. Luke and I raced really hard last year, and this year was a lot cleaner on both of our parts.”
Majeski headlined a star-studded cast of drivers for Tuesday’s Slinger Nationals. Chase Elliott was the highest finishing NASCAR Cup Series driver in sixth while defending Slinger Nationals winner William Byron came home in 10th.
Other notable drivers in the Slinger Nationals included Erik Jones (11th), Derek Kraus (15th), Johnny Sauter (21st) and Matt Kenseth (22nd).
The No. 7 JR Motorsports Chevrolet (driver Justin Allgaier) and the No. 48 Big Machine Racing Chevy (driver Parker Kligerman) were each found with one unsecured lug nut in inspection after Saturday’s Alsco Uniforms 250. As a result of the safety violation of Section 8.8.10.4a in the NASCAR Rule Book, crew chiefs James Pohlman (No. 7) and Patrick Donahue (No. 48) were each fined $5,000.
Kligerman finished eighth in the Atlanta event, notching his third top-10 finish in the last four races. Allgaier, who has one Xfinity Series victory already this year, placed 17th.
