NORTH WILKESBORO, N.C. — Ty Gibbs advanced to the NASCAR All-Star Race on Sunday, putting another rookie into the main event at North Wilkesboro Speedway. But transferring as the Open’s runner-up came at the expense of veteran Michael McDowell, who expressed his frustration — with fenders and words.
Gibbs finished second behind Open race winner Josh Berry, who subbed in for the injured Alex Bowman for the fourth straight week. But the 100-lap preliminary fireworks helped Berry’s No. 48 Chevrolet slip by for the checkered flag.
Gibbs had ignited a crash with McDowell, sending his Joe Gibbs Racing No. 54 Toyota into the back of the veteran’s No. 34 Front Row Motorsports Ford. McDowell slipped out of the groove and made contact with Justin Haley’s No. 31 Kaulig Racing Chevrolet, causing significant damage to both cars.
McDowell told his crew to fix his car “so I can take care of it,” he said on the No. 34 radio. When Gibbs encountered McDowell on the backstretch to put him another lap down, McDowell squeezed Gibbs toward the inside wall. Their contact allowed Berry to sneak past in the 78th lap and lead the rest of the way.
McDowell — who finished three laps down in 13th — said he showed “100% restraint” and made sure that his message to Gibbs wouldn’t impact Berry’s day.
“I wasn’t going to ruin anybody else’s race, and I just wasn’t going to wave them by,” McDowell said. “I was going to make him go around on the outside, and he still wanted to try to go through the bottom, which he was setting himself up. I should’ve ran him into the barrels and called it good.”
Gibbs’ crew chief Chris Gayle told Gibbs on the No. 54 radio post-race: “Good job staying level-headed and consistent when others weren’t.” The Sunoco Rookie of the Year candidate said the two had a run-in last month at Martinsville Speedway, an incident that he had let slide.
“I was just setting him up to pass him and try to get away from him as fast as I can. I feel like that’s the best thing I could have done …,” said Gibbs, who led a race-high 53 laps. “I understand it, but at the same time, we got clobbered for 18th at Martinsville and completely wrecked across the frontstretch, and I never said or did anything afterward. I got it back kind of a little much, but it was him and the 31 getting connected. Everybody’s pushing each other down in an LCQ (last-chance qualifier) race. So it’s a mess.”
McDowell suggested that there was no real history between the two, and he acknowledged Gibbs’ aggressive style as he talked about their on-track relationship.
“It wouldn’t matter who it is. I mean, when you get run over, you’re gonna be upset,” McDowell said. “I mean, I haven’t had any issues with Ty really, previously. It’s not like this is building up. But it wouldn’t matter if it was the 10, the 41 or the 48 (Aric Almirola, Ryan Preece, Berry). If you get run over, you’ve got to expect that I’m not going to just wave them by the next time I see him. So it’s just racing.”
The fans have spoken, and Noah Gragson will fill the final lineup spot in Sunday night’s NASCAR All-Star Race at North Wilkesboro Speedway (8 ET, FS1, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
This is the first time that Gragson, who drives the No. 42 Chevrolet for Legacy Motor Club, has won the All-Star Fan Vote, and this will be his first All-Star Race appearance.
The fan vote has existed since 2004, when Ken Schrader won the inaugural polling. Kasey Kahne, in 2008, is the only fan vote winner who has gone on to win the All-Star Race. Kyle Petty, Danica Patrick and Clint Bowyer are also on the list of fan vote winners.
“We’ve been voted most popular driver in the trucks and the Xfinity Series, and then to get the fan vote in the Cup Series for this All-Star Race, it means a lot,” Gragson told NASCAR.com. “It means you get an opportunity to race for a million bucks. I know the car’s torn up; we’re working hard to get that back, but you still have an opportunity, and everybody’s been working really hard, campaigning for the fan vote. … It means a ton to me. It means a ton to be a part of this All-Star Weekend. I know as a little kid in Vegas, going to the NBA All-Star Game and then seeing all the All-Star stuff on TV as a kid, the little kid in me is super-excited.”
Drivers were eligible for the fan vote if they attempted to qualify for the 2023 Daytona 500, had not won a 2023 NASCAR Cup Series race yet or did not finish inside the top two in the NASCAR All-Star Open qualifying race. The top five in voting coming into the final weekend, along with Gragson, were AJ Allmendinger, Aric Almirola, Corey LaJoie and Ryan Preece.
RIVERHEAD, N.Y. – For most of Sunday’s Buzz Chew Chevrolet Cadillac 200, it appeared Ron Silk would finally visit Victory Lane at Riverhead Raceway in his 23rd NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour start at the track.
Instead, Justin Bonsignore ended up celebrating his 10th career Whelen Modified Tour victory at Riverhead.
A dominant performance for Silk was undone by a perfect restart from Bonsignore on the outside line with less than 10 laps remaining. Bonsignore subsequently held off Silk during an overtime restart to further establish himself as the most dominant driver at Riverhead in the last decade.
“Ron and I have been beating the hell out of each other all year,” Bonsignore said. “That caution with 15 to go was good for us, and I got a really good restart after he spun the tires bad. We were beating and banging, and I thought we were going to wreck when that yellow came out but thank God we didn’t.
“It’s unbelievable to get No. 10 here and it’s a cool way to get into Victory Lane after a battle like that.”
Bonsignore’s dominance at Riverhead dates to 2011 when he earned his first NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour victory after leading 158 of the 175 laps.
With accomplishments at the facility that include four consecutive victories spanning from 2018-2019, Bonsignore has set a commanding precedent for both full-time NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour competitors and track regulars each time the series visits Riverhead.
Silk was confident his car was strong enough to outrun Bonsignore heading into the weekend. He quickly wrestled the lead away from Bonsignore after the initial start and methodically controlled the race while navigating his way through slower traffic.
The decision by Silk to take the inside line on the penultimate restart ultimately gave Bonsignore the opening he needed to pull ahead and deny the 2011 NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour champion the opportunity to add a Riverhead win to his resume.
Despite the disappointment, Silk still considered the afternoon a success and believes the speed he showed on Sunday will carry over into the next two Riverhead events on the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour calendar.
“This is the best car we’ve had here in a while,” Silk said. “I thought I was a little bit better than Justin even after he got by me. The bottom is where you want to be on the restart, but I didn’t do a good enough job and he was able to get in front of me. This is the best we’ve run here so far, and hopefully we’ll do a little better [in the next race].”
Bonsignore said Silk’s efficiency in the Buzz Chew Chevrolet Cadillac 200 highlighted just how tough NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour wins are to obtain, but he added the challenge provided by the series only made his 10th Riverhead victory even more memorable.
“Anytime you can win one of these races is special,” Bonsignore said. “We’ve won our fair share over the years, but they never get any easier because everyone is always trying harder each year to take down the previous year’s champion. We had a tough year last year but have had at least a second-place car just about every race.
“[If] you put yourself in that position, you’re going to win races.”
Bonsignore will have two more chances to add to his Riverhead win total during the 2023 season. His next triumph at the facility will tie him with Mike Ewanitsko, who claimed 11 NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour wins at Riverhead from 1987 to 2000.
Defending NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour champion Jon McKennedy finished third in the Buzz Chew Chevrolet Cadillac 200, with Tyler Rypkema and Eric Goodale completing the top-five. J.B. Fortin, Patrick Emerling, Jake Johnson, Craig Lutz and Kyle Bonsignore rounded out the top-10 finishers.
The NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour will be back in action on Saturday, May 27 with the running of the Granite State Derby at Lee USA Speedway. The green flag will wave at 7:45 p.m. ET with FloRacing providing live coverage.
See above where your favorite driver will pit in Sunday’s All-Star Race in the NASCAR Cup Series at North Wilkesboro Speedway (8 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
For the first time since 1996, it’s NASCAR race weekend at North Wilkesboro Speedway.
The NASCAR All-Star Race is back in the state of North Carolina and shifts to the 0.625-mile oval in Wilkes County at the historic short track, which welcomes back the Cup Series and its modern-day stars on Sunday night (8 ET, FS1, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
With the All-Star Race comes unique changes to the weekend format, at the forefront of which are a Pit Crew Challenge and heat races. The main goal, however, remains a simple, easy-to-follow setup that’s bound to excite throughout this special weekend.
• Lineups for the two heat races and the All-Star Open were determined by Friday’s Pit Crew Challenge, which featured each team performing a four-tire pit stop. The winning No. 54 Joe Gibbs Racing team of driver Ty Gibbs started Sunday’s All-Star Open from the pole position.
• The 21 teams locked into the All-Star Race were split into two heat races on Saturday night. Those who finished first, third, fifth and so on in the Pit Crew Challenge competed in the first heat race; those who finished second, fourth, sixth and so on competed in the second heat.
• The two 60-lap heats helped determine the starting positions in Sunday night’s $1 million main event. The results of the first heat set the inside row — first, third, fifth and so on — for the starting grid of the All-Star Race, while Heat 2 set the outside, even-numbered positions.
• The 16 drivers not yet locked into the main event fought through the 100-lap All-Star Open event to earn one of two transfer positions into the All-Star Race. The top two finishers advance to the All-Star Race. In addition, the Fan Vote winner also bumps from the Open into the All-Star Race. The award is granted to the driver with the most votes who did not already advance via the transfer positions.
Heat Race No. 1: Results
A switch to wet-weather tires before the race didn’t sway the field from attempting to put on their best during the 60-lap sprint to the finish. After Chase Elliott initially rose atop the field, Daniel Suárez vaulted ahead of the No. 9 Chevrolet on Lap 27 and held strong to hold off a resurgent Joey Logano to win the opening heat.
“I think we had more grip with the wets than we did with the drys,” Suárez said of the tire choice for his heat. “These tires, for some reason, they had so much forward drive … I feel like our car was pretty damn good.”
Finishing Spot
Car Number
Driver
1
99
Daniel Suárez
2
22
Joey Logano
3
14
Chase Briscoe
4
20
Christopher Bell
5
11
Denny Hamlin
6
12
Ryan Blaney
7
9
Chase Elliott
8
29
Kevin Harvick
9
2
Austin Cindric
10
47
Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
11
43
Erik Jones
Heat Race No. 2: Results
A perfect game might mainly refer to baseball or bowling, but in the case of the second heat race, it also applied as Buescher swept all 60 laps en route to the win. Contact with the wall bumped Kyle Larson back to an eighth-place finish.
“I liked our Fastenal Mustang on slicks — I was really happy with it,” Buescher said. “I didn’t want to put ‘rains’ on. I felt like it was still pretty dry out there. I guess it was starting to drizzle a little.”
Finishing Spot
Car Number
Driver
1
17
Chris Buescher
2
3
Austin Dillon
3
24
William Byron
4
6
Brad Keselowski
5
23
Bubba Wallace
6
19
Martin Truex Jr.
7
8
Kyle Busch
8
5
Kyle Larson
9
1
Ross Chastain
10
45
Tyler Reddick
All-Star Open: Results
Acting as a sub-in for an out-of-action Alex Bowman didn’t dissuade Josh Berry from capitalizing on contact between Ty Gibbs and Michael McDowell to seize the lead and hold it en route to winning the top Open spot for the All-Star Race. A rebound from Gibbs helped the No. 54 Toyota collect the final Open position. Gragson’s win in the Fan Vote, meanwhile, cemented the final berth.
Finishing Spot
Car Number
Driver
1
48
Josh Berry
2
54
Ty Gibbs
3
10
Aric Almirola
4
41
Ryan Preece
5
16
AJ Allmendinger
6
15
JJ Yeley
7
42
Noah Gragson
8
77
Ty Dillon
9
7
Corey LaJoie
10
78
Josh Bilicki
11
21
Harrison Burton
12
51
Ryan Newman
13
34
Michael McDowell
14
31
Justin Haley
15
38
Todd Gilliland
16
13
Chandler Smith
FULL STARTING LINEUP FOR ALL-STAR RACE (Sunday, 8 p.m. ET, FS1)
NORTH WILKESBORO, N.C. – Ty Majeski registered a hard-fought runner-up finish in Saturday afternoon’s Craftsman Truck Series race, unable to quite chase down a victorious Kyle Larson in overtime. He matched his best result of the season, but the atmosphere of a rejuvenated North Wilkesboro Speedway was one aspect that truly held his attention.
“I’m glad you brought that up. I mean, this place is packed. I don’t know that the Truck Series will see a better crowd than this all year,” said Majeski, who was barely 2 years old when the track held its last race. “So, good to see. Hopefully, we can go back to some cool places – Rockingham, here, of course, Milwaukee’s back on our schedule, we went back to IRP (Indianapolis Raceway Park) last year. That place is back, so hopefully, we see a pattern here and keep marching in this direction. It’s fun going to all these short tracks where this series belongs.”
A near-capacity crowd of some 30,000 filled the historic 0.625-mile track for the Tyson 250, the Truck Series’ first event here since 1996. The celebration marked the venue’s return to NASCAR’s national series rotation, and the hearty fans basked in the circuit’s rebirth.
Among them were the competitors, who battled each other and the rough, well-worn racing surface.
“This is one of the things that I don’t think anybody can complain about,” said 10th-finishing Grant Enfinger. “I think the race put on a great show, too. Very happy that they left this old surface, but to revitalize a historic track, it’s pretty, pretty special to be part of it. Had somewhat of an electric atmosphere, kind of like Eldora (Speedway) used to be for our Truck Series — only amped up a little bit from that. Pretty cool deal what they did.”
The event marked a bit of a history lesson for some of the series’ younger competitors. When Goodyear held a tire test for the truck tour here two months ago, all three of the participating drivers – Corey Heim, Carson Hocevar and Zane Smith — were not born at the time of the track’s closure. “I mean, it’s a bloomin’ travesty they left this place,” said Hocevar, who placed fourth.
Some of North Wilkesboro’s character was also new to the 30-year-old Larson, who didn’t know the track’s traditional post-race procedures for winners and their vehicles.
“I wasn’t watching races when I was 4 years old, either, so I didn’t know how Victory Lane worked,” Larson said. “I didn’t know that you ride this elevator up. That’s honestly probably the coolest Victory Lane I’ve ever been in.”
For the Truck Series regulars, the cool factor was only matched by what was likely the tour’s biggest attendance figure this year.
“This might be it right here,” Majeski said. “That’s pretty damn cool, so hopefully, we put on a good show.”
NORTH WILKESBORO, N.C. – Kyle Larson proved an admirable substitute on Saturday at North Wilkesboro Speedway.
Subbing for injured Alex Bowman — who had been scheduled to race the No. 7 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet — Larson led 138 of 252 laps in winning the Tyson 250 in overtime.
Larson is the first driver to win a NASCAR-sanctioned race at revitalized North Wilkesboro in 27 years. The victory was Larson’s third in 15 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series starts.
At the end of the two-lap overtime, Larson beat ThorSport Racing’s Ty Majeski to the finish line by 0.974 seconds. Matt DiBenedetto ran third, followed by Carson Hocevar, Bubba Wallace and pole winner Corey Heim.
“It was a really fun track there, especially in the truck where you can use the apron and such at both ends,” said Larson, who was making his first Truck Series start of the season. “I had a good time. That was a lot of fun on the long runs.
“I wasn’t supposed to run. Unfortunately, Alex got hurt [in a sprint car accident], and I got the opportunity to run this.”
Larson made the most of his opportunity, dominating the action and charging from sixth after a Lap 228 restart where the first three cars in the running order stayed on the track during the 11th caution, and fourth-place Majeski gained track position with a two-tire pit stop.
On Lap 238, Larson passed Wallace for the lead and held it through one more caution and the overtime.
Thanks to pit strategy, Majeski salvaged the runner-up finish.
“Yeah, we just missed it today,” Majeski said. “Sometimes when you’re in the back with nothing to lose, you make gutsy calls, jumping on two tires there, and we were just able to hold off guys who put four tires on. So, a subpar day for us turned into a good finish.”
The race was the first in the series at North Wilkesboro since 1996 when the Craftsman Trucks ran at the 0.625-mile short track for the second time. Saturday’s renewal produced a record 12 cautions for 81 laps.
The harshest of on-track incidents came on Lap 201 when the truck of Tyler Ankrum was forced into the outside backstretch wall. As Ankrum slowed, Rajah Caruth’s No. 24 Chevrolet and the Fords of reigning series champion Zane Smith and Ben Rhodes suffered a chain-reaction collision that eliminated the three trailing trucks.
Before the wreck, Smith had suffered a pit road speeding penalty that sent him to the back of the field.
“Just a product of what happens when you get put back there,” said Smith, who started the race in the rear of the field because of three failed inspections and had worked his way into the top five before the speeding penalty.
The Truck Series will next trek to Charlotte Motor Speedway to race in the North Carolina Education Lottery 200 on May 26 (8:30 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Note: Post-race technical inspection concluded without issue in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series garage, confirming Larson as the race winner.
NORTH WILKESBORO, N.C. — When Dale Earnhardt won at North Wilkesboro Speedway on April 16, 1989, the left side of his black No. 3 Chevrolet showed evidence of battle scars and scrapes in true “Intimidator” form. The Goodyear logos were nearly worn clean off the left-front tire’s sidewall, but the rubber his Richard Childress Racing entry sported was still far from nondescript.
Earnhardt’s victory here 34 years ago in the First Union 400 was significant as the first win for Goodyear radials. The new tire design replaced the former bias-ply construction and proved to be a pivotal point in the “tire wars” era at the end of the 1980s.
The NASCAR Cup Series’ return to North Wilkesboro after a 27-year absence has kindled plenty of nostalgia ahead of Sunday’s All-Star Race (8 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). But it’s also stoked some fond memories for Greg Stucker, the tiremaker’s director of race tire sales.
“Obviously, we learned a lot going into that, and things have changed dramatically since then,” says Stucker, who joined Goodyear’s team in 1979. “But it was a pretty good introduction for the radial tire package, without a doubt. So that’s why North Wilkesboro kind of has a really soft spot in our heart.”
Goodyear had competition for the 1988 and the start of the ’89 season in the form of Hoosier Tires, led by president Bob Newton. The Indiana-based company took on its neighbors from Akron, but the resulting arms race for better on-track performance often came at the cost of durability. Teams often switched alliances depending on which tire was faster, and blowouts led to crashes, which carried far more peril in those days before SAFER barriers and HANS devices.
“That’s what eventually led to us being the sole supplier in 1997,” Stucker says. “I think Bill (France) Jr. said that tire wars are not a good thing for everybody. So it was, let’s move on.”
Goodyear helped to make that transition with the development of a racing radial tire, which has a centered construction around the crown of the tire versus the angled, overlapping ply structure of the bias-ply tires. Goodyear had planned their rollout for the ’89 Daytona 500, but the durability component hadn’t been perfected; Earnhardt and Ford rival Bill Elliott were involved in a pair of crashes before “The Great American Race,” and Goodyear reworked the design.
“We came here to test in preparation for the spring race and tested with Junior — imagine that. Terry Labonte drove for Junior Johnson because they obviously knew the track so well,” Stucker recalled of the test just a few weeks before the race. “And we came with what we thought was going to be the right setup.”
The team built up to 100-lap runs, eventually trying a configuration that eliminated rear stagger, placing a harder-compound right-side tire on the left-rear. The feedback was positive, and Stucker remembers the lap times being consistent and fast.
Despite some apprehension that the radials had less adjustability, Goodyear stayed with the setup once April arrived in North Wilkesboro. There was also skepticism from the Hoosier camp, which doubted that the radial design would work on heavy stock cars, especially at larger ovals.
That distrust was answered by Phil Holmer, Goodyear’s stock-car field manager at the time, who told the Associated Press before the North Wilkesboro race that April: “By the time the leaves turn color, we’ll be using them everywhere.”
The race was a forerunner to proving that point. Rusty Wallace won the pole position on Hoosiers, with his crew chief Barry Dodson favoring them after a North Wilkesboro win on those tires the previous fall. But many were undecided, even during the race weekend, and the 32-car field was a nearly even split – 17 starting on Goodyears and 15 on Hoosiers.
The great Tom Higgins of the Charlotte Observer wrote that the race’s results had potentially revolutionized the Cup Series, calling it a “radial rout.” Earnhardt led 296 laps, holding off Alan Kulwicki down the stretch. Wallace’s Hoosiers gave way, and by Lap 77, he had gone a lap down to early leader Darrell Waltrip on Goodyears. By Lap 110, all 31 cars that were still running had bolted on Goodyear rubber.
Goodyear continued to develop its radial design, phasing them in at larger tracks as the season went on. But North Wilkesboro was a turning point; Hoosier withdrew by the end of April and only made a brief return to NASCAR’s top series in 1994.
“There was really no specific reason that we chose North Wilkesboro other than it was the right time on the calendar, the right-size tire, the right-sized race track,” Stucker said. We decided to step into the short tracks, and then it progressed from there.”
Zack Albert | NASCAR Studios
The progression of the sport has made a full-circle trip back to North Wilkesboro for this weekend’s All-Star Race. The invitational event will be held on the same racing surface that Earnhardt won on; fresh asphalt was last placed on the 0.625-mile track in 1981.
The abrasive surface and tight confines, Stucker says, are expected to provide a tire-management challenge. Cup Series and Craftsman Truck Series teams tested here in March to get a feel for the considerable wear, and Goodyear officials scanned the surface to find a common connection with other established tracks – the comparison wound up being similar to Atlanta’s old pavement and current-day Darlington.
“We landed on the Richmond and Phoenix setup. That was our control,” Stucker says, noting that Goodyear went with more durability than the Martinsville configuration. “We tried softer, harder, left sides, right sides, and that just seemed to be in the sweet spot. All three drivers felt like that was a good, reasonable setup. The soft stuff was just way too soft. The hard stuff, it was just hard to get a hold of the race track.
“We were probably leaning that way anyway because obviously, we’re going to come here to fairly unknown race track for most of these guys, so at least we can give them a tire that they’re familiar with, that they’ve raced before. We felt like that was also a benefit.”
The last time Goodyear’s trucks were parked in the North Wilkesboro infield for a race weekend came in 1996 when the Cup Series last visited the North Carolina foothills. The return is being celebrated as a revival of stock-car racing’s roots. For Stucker and Co., it’s also a reminder of a key part of Goodyear’s racing history.
“If you look back on 1988, you know, we both crossed the line at times, right?” Stucker says. “I think we learned a lot, and we certainly figured out with a radial tire that the tire can be much more robust in a lot of ways than the bias tire was. I think we felt like that also gave us an edge.”
