Posted on by Reid Spencer

Grant Enfinger stayed ahead of trouble in a race that produced seven cautions for 40 of 134 laps and forged a decisive victory in Saturday night’s Heart of America 200 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race at Kansas Speedway.

Enfinger crossed the finish line 4.358 seconds ahead of Corey Heim to post his first victory of the season.

RELATED: Race results | Weekend schedule

Enfinger’s eighth career win was his first at Kansas and his first since winning at Lucas Oil Raceway in Indianapolis in the 17th race of 2022.

“It was a huge night for us,” said Enfinger, who led a race-high 65 laps. “From the drop of the green flag, we had a really, really good Chevy Silverado. Just started out really tight. Once (crew chief) Jeff (Hensley) made one adjustment on it, I felt like from that point forward, we were potentially the best truck out there.”

ENFINGER SAYS MORE: ‘Lights out’ performance

Grant Enfinger races across the finish line.
Sean Gardner | Getty Images

Heim won a close battle for second over Zane Smith. Stewart Friesen was fourth, followed by Ross Chastain. Nick Sanchez, Kyle Busch, Jake Garcia, Taylor Gray and Tyler Ankrum completed the top 10.

The final caution dimmed Heim’s chances.

“I think that last caution (for Kris Wright’s second spin) put a hole in our strategy a little bit,” Heim said. “If we had that last run go green and we had the same tires as the 23 (Enfinger), I thought we could beat him straight up.

“As soon as we got that last caution and we were on uneven tires, I knew it was going to be all track position. I got hung up trying to block the 38 (Smith) and kind of took a step back from there and lost track position.”

Two of the fastest trucks in the race saw their winning chances end in a shunt on Lap 72, when Rajah Caruth spun across the bumper of Ty Majeski’s No. 98 Toyota into the outside wall on the frontstretch.

Caruth’s truck was too heavily damaged to continue, and Majeski’s too heavily damaged to contend.

“It was really close, and we had a long way to go,” Caruth said after exiting the infield care center. “I was trying to cover the top, and he just kind of hooked me there. Good to know.

“I didn’t double-move or anything. I picked the top there, and he just took me.”

From appearances, though, Caruth was late in an attempt to block Majeski’s progress, to the detriment of both trucks. Majeski finished 25th.

“We had a good truck. We got back up front there with a little bit of strategy,” Majeski said. “Thought we may have made a wrong adjustment when we were racing the No. 24 there. He was ultra-aggressive blocking. So, he blocked once, then twice, and I had a run and he was a little late.”

Pole winner Christian Eckes likewise was involved in a terminal wreck after the subsequent restart on Lap 79. Aggression got the best of drivers at the front of the field, and the trucks of Eckes, Matt DiBenedetto, Carson Hocevar and Chase Purdy all were KO’d in Turn 1.

“Just aggression I guess,” Eckes said. “He (DiBenedetto) blocked a little late and got loose, and I tried to go high, and I might have caught his rear quarter panel. Yeah, it sucks.”

WATCH: Big wreck stacks up contenders

Busch won the first stage before tangling with Ben Rhodes after the Stage 2 restart. Enfinger powered past Busch into the lead on Lap 40 but came to pit road under the third caution for Wright’s spin through the infield grass.

Enfinger gave up the lead with the stop but charged back to second by the end of the stage, which Majeski won.

The Craftsman Truck Series’ next race is the Buckle Up South Carolina 200, scheduled Friday at Darlington Raceway (7:30 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

Note: Post-race inspection in the Craftsman Trucks garage was completed without issue, confirming Enfinger’s victory.

Contributing: Staff reports

Posted on by Reid Spencer

Almost assuredly, Tyler Reddick will qualify for the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs, thanks to his March 26 victory on the road course at Circuit of The Americas in Austin, Texas.

But the driver of the No. 45 23XI Racing Toyota hasn’t adjusted seamlessly to the transition to his new Toyota team. In fact, after moving from Richard Childress Racing to 23XI to start the 2023 season, Reddick has suffered through some spotty results on paved oval tracks.

RELATED: See full Cup Series schedule | Toyota growing in ’24 with Legacy MC

“Honestly, I like to look at the ‘What ifs’ to a degree,” Reddick said. “We’ve had a lot of other good races that have kind of gotten away from us. But this is a new venture for me—my first year with Toyota, first year with this team and just trying to get to know everybody.

“I think, from that standpoint, we’re doing a really good job of that. It’s really great that we have that win, but we’re just building on all the important things that matter when the playoffs come around.

“The numbers, while we’d certainly like to have a few more here or there in certain columns, it’s just about going through these experiences and learning together, so when it comes time to get down to business in the playoffs, we’ve gone through all those trials, and we’re ready.”

Reddick comes to Kansas Speedway with extra motivation. The No. 45 Camry he drives swept last year’s two races at the 1.5-mile track—with two different drivers behind the wheel.

Kurt Busch won the spring race, and after Busch was sidelined with concussion-like symptoms, Bubba Wallace moved from his customary No. 23 to the No. 45 and won the playoff race at Kansas last September.

MORE: Can 23XI Racing keep Kansas streak alive?

With the start of the new season, the No. 45 went to Reddick, who has a chance to be the third straight different 23XI driver to win a race at Kansas.

“This is a track where I had a lot of speed last year in both events (in the No. 8 RCR Chevrolet) but just couldn’t quite put the whole race together,” Reddick said.

“I’m really excited to get back here, obviously. I had to race against 23XI here last year, and it was really cool to see all the speed they had, knowing that I was going to be going there at some point.”

Posted on by Zach Sturniolo

KANSAS CITY, Kan. — Legacy Motor Club sent a ripple through the NASCAR Cup Series garage after announcing Tuesday that the two-car team will switch to Toyota for the 2024 season, a shift from its current relationship with Chevrolet.

Its leap in alliances adds a pair of cars to a manufacturer in serious need of more entrants. The only current Toyotas on track are the four fielded by Joe Gibbs Racing and two by 23XI Racing. For the time being at Toyota, the more the merrier, particularly at superspeedways where drafting partners can more swiftly equal success.

“Talking with Toyota (executives), they’re excited because it’s numbers, right?” Bubba Wallace, driver of the No. 23 23XI Racing Toyota, said Saturday at Kansas Speedway. “We’re getting more numbers, more cars to play, especially (super)speedway stuff, so strategy can vary now a little bit. Still a minority, but I think numbers (are) important for sure.”

MORE: Full details on Legacy’s move | Kansas schedule

Martin Truex Jr., the series’ most recent winner and 2017 champion, echoed Wallace’s observations, thankful for more resources to pull from as a whole in the near future.

“I think it’s good for us. I think any time we get more cars in the Toyota camp, it’s more information, it’s more ideas being thrown around,” Truex said. “And then, especially when we go superspeedway racing, it’s more partners for us that we’ve struggled to not have. I think it’s good on all fronts.”

His teammate, Tyler Reddick, is looking forward to having some familiar faces join the brigade in the upcoming year. Legacy M.C. drivers Noah Gragson and Erik Jones, who drive the Nos. 42 and 43 cars, respectively, both used to compete for Toyota. Jones rode the Toyota train from Kyle Busch Motorsports in the Craftsman Truck Series all the way to JGR in Cup, while Gragson spent two years at KBM.

“Really excited about it,” Reddick said. “Obviously, the more of us that we have out there on the race track certainly really helps at the superspeedways, but just having a larger pool of drivers and crew chiefs and minds that can share information with one another and work together. Obviously, I guess I don’t know how all that’s gonna work out. I don’t want to say anything before I should. But certainly, on the drivers’ side, getting to work with Noah again is going to be a lot of fun. Me and him worked together a lot when we were at Chevy, and Erik’s familiar with the Toyota camp and has had a lot of success with Toyota as well.”

Jones and Gragson will also, in a way, reunite with former KBM teammate Christopher Bell, the driver of the No. 20 Toyota at JGR that Jones previously piloted.

“What’s ironic is I’ve been teammates with both of them already,” Bell said. “It’s gonna be really interesting to see how they fit into the equation. I don’t know if we’re gonna have debriefs with them or if they’re gonna kind of be on their own separate page. So there’s a lot of details that I’m not aware of yet. That’ll really tell the tale.”

Posted on by Adam Fenwick

WINCHESTER, N.H. – It only took three races during the 2023 NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour season for Doug Coby and Tommy Baldwin Racing to return to their winning ways.

Coby, who won three NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour races in a part-time role with the team in 2022 and is running the full schedule this season, took the lead on Lap 13 and cruised to victory in Saturday’s Duel at the Dog 200 at Monadnock Speedway.

The race served as the opening round of the Whelen Granite State Short Track Cup, a special mini-series created by JDV Productions.

RELATED: Results from Saturday’s Duel at the Dog 200

The driver from Milford, Connecticut, credited his early years racing quarter midgets at the Silver City Quarter Midget Club in Meriden, Connecticut, for preparing him to race at a track like Monadnock.

“I’m a quarter midget kid man. Silver City is opening their season today, a tight little bullring,” Coby said after his 35th career NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour victory. “That’s where you start when you’re five or six years old and learn how to get around these quarter miles. I’ll tell you what, I’ve won at some big race tracks, but it’s the little ones that mean the most and really make me think of my roots and where I started.”

After starting fourth, Coby made quick work of the drivers that started in front him. He moved by Ron Silk to take second on Lap 8 and it only took him five more laps to move past Bonsignore to assume the lead.

While he led the rest of the 200-lap event, that doesn’t mean he went unchallenged. He had to fend off multiple challenges from Bonsignore and other drivers during several restarts.

“This thing was just awesome,” Coby said. “I had to fend those guys off on restarts. Justin was pretty nice to me that one or two times he got under me. He probably thought it was a little too early to push the issue.

“We race each other hard and sometimes we know when it’s time to push and when it’s not. I knew with 50 to go that he wasn’t going to lift the next time he got under me. We just had enough car to drive away and clear the lap cars.”

Saturday’s victory in the Duel in the Dog 200 is Coby’s second at Monadnock, making him the second NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour driver with multiple victories at the quarter-mile bullring. Bonsignore has four Tour victories at the track.

Jon McKennedy, the defending NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour champion, made a late charge through the field to finish second. New Smyrna Speedway winner Ron Silk finished third, followed by Richmond Raceway winner Austin Beers and Bonsignore.

Sam Rameau, Eric Goodale, Kyle Bonsignore, Matt Hirschman and Patrick Emerling completed the top-10.

A replay of the Duel at the Dog 200 at Monadnock will air on CNBC on Saturday, May 13 at 9:30 a.m. ET.

The NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour season resumes with the first of two trips this season to New York’s Riverhead Raceway on Saturday, May 20. That event will air live on FloRacing beginning at 8 p.m. ET.

Posted on by Staff Report

Duel at the Dog 200

Monadnock Speedway

  • Race Results
Pos No. Name Sponsor Laps
1 7 Doug Coby Mayhew Tools 200
2 79 Jon McKennedy Middlesex Interiors 200
3 16 Ron Silk Blue Mountain Machine and Future Homes 200
4 64 Austin Beers Dell Elect/Lumierre Elect/Andrew James Interior 200
5 51 Justin Bonsignore Phoenix Communications Inc. 200
6 06 Sam Rameau Quality Fleet Services/Dennison Lubricants 200
7 58 Eric Goodale GAF Roofing 200
8 22 Kyle Bonsignore Chateau Performance/MTT/Munn’s Auto 200
9 60 Matt Hirschman Pee Dee Motorsports 200
10 07 Patrick Emerling Bonesteel Automotive 200
11 32 Tyler Rypkema Northeast Drilling/MUSCO Lighting 200
12 34 J.B. Fortin A&R Materials/John’s Fuel Oil/Rapid Recovery 200
13 25 Brian Roble * Maurice Enterprises 200
14 3 Jake Johnson * Propane Plus/Lins Propane Trucks 200
15 6 Woody Pitkat Koopman Lumber 199
16 82 Craig Lutz Horton Ave Materials 199
17 54 Tommy Catalano FX Caprara/Catalano Motorsports 199
18 46 Justin Brown * Riverhead Building Supply 199
19 18 Ken Heagy Buoy One Seafood and Restaurant 198
20 43 Matt Kimball * J&M Towing/Poodlack Wealth Mgmt/Post & Beam 197
21 5 Kyle Ebersole Ebersole Excavating Inc. 197
22 24 Andrew Krause Supreme Manufacturing 197
23 26 Gary McDonald Lakeland Landscape /TRC Electric 193
24 4 Tim Connelly * Connelly Companies LLC 187
25 19 Anthony Sesely Wanick Construction Inc. 142
26 01 Melissa Fifield Pine Knoll Auto Sales 121
27 92 Anthony Nocella Nocella Paving/K&D Associates/Airgas 94
28 47 Jacob Perry * Jacks Competition Engine/Rick Rak 20
29 1 Cory Plummer * Apex Racing/Gene’s Auto Service 11
30 36 Dave Sapienza Sapienza Enterprise/Eastport Feeds 4
Posted on by Reid Spencer

If William Byron maintains his pace, he’s going to earn a nickname — as “Rocket Man” Ryan Newman did for his qualifying prowess.

With a lap at 179.206 mph (30.133 seconds) on Saturday afternoon at Kansas Speedway, Byron earned the pole position for Sunday’s AdventHealth 400 NASCAR Cup Series race at the 1.5-mile intermediate track (3 p.m. ET on FS1, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

RELATED: Sunday’s starting lineup | Weekend schedule

In an extremely tight final round, Byron edged teammate Kyle Larson (179.134 mph) by 0.006 seconds to earn the 10th Busch Light Pole Award of his career in 192 events, which included a stretch during the pandemic when qualifying did not take place.

Larson and teammate Chase Elliott (21st in qualifying) are the only Chevrolet drivers to win in the last 12 Cup races at Kansas.

The pole was Byron’s second of the season and his first at Kansas. Ross Chastain claimed the third starting spot with a lap at 179.134 mph, just 0.012 seconds behind Byron.

“I had to work on the balance (in practice) to get (the No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet) freer for qualifying, but it seemed like we did that there,” said Byron, who continued without issue after a minor wall scrape in practice. “So really good through (Turns) 1 and 2 and got a little tight through 3 and 4, so I’ve got some data to probably study of how I can get through that end.

“But I’m just proud of the effort from the whole team.”

Martin Truex Jr., Monday’s winner at Dover Motor Speedway, qualified fourth, followed by Tyler Reddick, who is attempting to extend the two-race Kansas winning streak of the No. 45 23XI Racing Toyota. Kurt Busch and Bubba Wallace won in the car last season at the track on the Kansas side of the Missouri River.

Joey Logano, Ty Gibbs, Denny Hamlin, Daniel Suárez and Ryan Blaney completed the top 10 in qualifying, which included an eclectic mix of four Chevrolets, four Toyotas and two Fords.

With hot weather predicted for Sunday, Byron spent the week preparing for the high temperatures on the track.

“Yeah, it’s going to be a scorcher, so I’m just trying to stay hydrated,” said Byron, who has never converted a Cup pole into a victory. “I did a lot of work throughout the week for that. Yeah, it’s going to be tough inside the car, so just got to stay mentally locked in and hopefully have a solid, smooth race, have good pit stops and good restarts.”

Byron said that, as part of his training for the heat, he stayed in the sauna until he couldn’t stand it. But some of that heat apparently transferred to his car during Saturday’s qualifying session.

Truex (Group A) and Chastain (Group B) were tops in their respective portions of qualifying. The five fastest from each group went for the pole position in the final round.

Hamlin fastest in Kansas practice

Denny Hamlin powered to the top of the Cup Series practice leaderboard Saturday, leading the way with a best lap of 174.887 mph.

Hamlin’s No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota also performed in the longer-haul runs, topping the charts in the consecutive 10-lap, 15-lap and 20-lap averages categories.

Austin Cindric was second-fastest on the single-lap ledger, clocking a 174.531-mph lap in the No. 2 Team Penske Ford. Kyle Busch was third-fastest, with Joey Logano and Bubba Wallace completing the top five in that order.

RELATED: Practice results

William Byron scrubbed the outside retaining wall in Turn 3 roughly five minutes into the Group A practice session. His No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet made its way back to the pit road with slight right-side damage. He later recovered to make the final round of qualifying and eventually secured the pole position.

Josh Bilicki’s No. 78 Live Fast Motorsports Chevrolet was the only other casualty of practice, with the car breaking loose off Turn 2 and sliding to a halt on the backstretch apron. Bilicki did not post a lap in qualifying.

Contributing: Staff reports

Posted on by Staff Report

NASCAR officials penalized two Cup Series teams Saturday for issues in pre-race technical inspection at Kansas Speedway.

RELATED: Weekend schedule | Latest odds: Kansas

The No. 45 23XI Racing Toyota for driver Tyler Reddick and the No. 15 Rick Ware Racing Ford driven by Brennan Poole both failed pre-race inspection twice at the 1.5-mile track. Those penalties meant an ejection for the car chief for each team and a loss of pit-stall selection for Sunday’s AdventHealth 400 (3 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

The corresponding car chiefs who will be barred from the rest of the weekend are Dave Jones (No. 15) and Michael Hobson (No. 45), according to the NASCAR rosters portal.

Reddick was among the pre-race favorites, clocking in at 8-1 odds to win Sunday’s 400-miler. The No. 45 team has swept the last two Kansas Speedway races, with Kurt Busch (spring) and Bubba Wallace (fall) dividing victories in last year’s Cup Series events there.

Reddick qualified fifth for Sunday’s race, the 12th Cup Series event of the season. Poole is set to start 34th in the 36-car field, making his second Cup Series start of the year.

Posted on by Zach Sturniolo

KANSAS CITY, Kan. — NASCAR officials met with media members Saturday morning to display and explain the specific modified part that led to the L1-level penalty issued to the No. 3 Richard Childress Racing team, following the April 16 race at Martinsville Speedway.

MORE: Kansas schedule | Cup standings

Brad Moran, managing director of the NASCAR Cup Series, and Carl Goodman, who manages and oversees technical inspection for the series, brought the piece to Kansas Speedway to further explain what went wrong, leading to a 60-point penalty against the No. 3 team and its driver Austin Dillon, in addition to the $75,000 fine and two-week suspension issued to crew chief Keith Rodden.

The part is known as a splitter stay, one of six bars that connect the splitter to the frame of the body as part of the overall underwing. Each bar is supposed to feature three separate securing nuts — two jam nuts and a centered couple nut — that lock the splitter into place within one one-thousandth of an inch and is not adjustable after pre-race inspection.

However, on the specific bar utilized by the No. 3 team at Martinsville, those three nuts were bonded together, creating one singular piece instead — which disables the locking function of the nuts and permits further movement and adjustability either after pre-race inspection or during a pit stop.

The No. 3 Chevrolet was not inspected during at-track post-race inspection, selected instead to be taken to the NASCAR Research & Development Center for a full teardown. Moran explained Saturday each vehicle that is brought back to R&D gets a full, thorough strip down to the bare bones, disassembling and inspecting each panel, rod and piece with intense scrutiny. That process, he said, is meant to further ensure the model of the Next Gen vehicle, which features a plethora of single-sourced parts that teams must purchase to build their vehicles.

The modified parts that led to the penalty issued to Dillon’s No. 3 team are parts that the team is responsible for, though the rod and adjuster are supplied by single-source providers. Goodman explained that adjusting the splitter manipulates the floor of the vehicle, which is the most aerodynamically powerful section of the car. A single turn, the officials said, creates a significant adjustment.

The piece was made available for display Saturday in the NASCAR hauler for team managers and crew chiefs who chose to see it themselves. NASCAR is implementing a renewed sense of transparency and intends to make illegal parts available to media and team members on the first day of a Cup Series race weekend for further explanation, pending conclusions of any appeals.

The No. 3 team did appeal the penalty but lost its hearing on May 2. The National Motorsports Appeals Panel, which saw J. Kirk Russell, Lake Speed and Kevin Whitaker hear the case, stated: “As submitted the nuts are not a thread locking device – they are connected and part of the turnbuckle. The nuts do not lock the assembly. Therefore, the assembly has been modified.”

Posted on by Staff Report

Duel at the Dog 200

Monadnock Speedway

  • Qualifying Results
Pos No. Name Sponsor Best Tm Best Speed
1 51 Justin Bonsignore Phoenix Communications Inc. 12.703 70.849
2 16 Ron Silk Blue Mountain Machine & Future Homes 12.734 70.677
3 32 Tyler Rypkema Northeast Driling/MUSCO Lighting 12.734 70.677
4 7 Doug Coby Mayhew Tools 12.738 70.655
5 60 Matt Hirschman Elite Towing/Baker Racing 12.758 70.544
6 58 Eric Goodale GAF Roofing 12.765 70.505
7 3 Jake Johnson Propane Plus/Lin’s Propane Trucks 12.77 70.478
8 22 Kyle Bonsignore Chalew Performance/MTT/Munns Auto 12.781 70.417
9 64 Austin Beers Hughes Motors/AP Marquadt & Sons/Dell Electric 12.799 70.318
10 82 Craig Lutz Horton Ave Materials 12.837 70.11
11 92 Anthony Nocella Nocella Paving/K and D Associates/Airgas 12.846 70.061
12 79 Jon McKennedy Middlesex Industries 12.865 69.957
13 06 Sam Rameau Quality Fleet Services/Dennison Lubricants 12.876 69.897
14 07 Patrick Emerling Captain Pips Marina & Hideway 12.888 69.832
15 19 Anthony Sesely Wanick Construction, Inc. 12.895 69.794
16 43 Matt Kimball* J&M Touring & Recovery/Edmunds Ace Hardware 12.91 69.713
17 34 J.B. Fortin A&R Materials/CYA Screen Printing/Queens Concrete 12.919 69.665
18 6 Woody Pitkat Koopman Lumbar 12.921 69.654
19 25 Brian Roble Maurice Enterprises 12.922 69.649
20 54 Tommy Catalano FX Caprera 12.939 69.557
21 24 Andrew Krause Supreme Manufacturing Company 12.969 69.396
22 5 Kyle Ebersole Ebersole Excavating Inc. 12.986 69.305
23 47 Jacob Perry* Jack’s Competition Engine/Rick Rak 13.038 69.029
24 18 Ken Heagy Buoy One 13.114 68.629
25 46 Justin Brown* Riverhead Building Supply 13.172 68.327
26 1 Cory  Plummer* Apex Racing/Gene’s Auto Service 13.203 68.166
27 4 Tim Connolly* Connolly Companies, LLC 13.225 68.053
28 26 Gary McDonald Lakeland Ave Landscape Supply/L.I. Wood Heat 13.579 66.279
29 01 Melissa Fifield Pine Knoll Auto Sales 13.883 64.827