USA Network’s new unscripted series “Race for the Championship” premieres tonight at 10 p.m. ET, and the first of 10 episodes provides exclusive looks and sounds with multiple NASCAR Cup Series champions as they prepare for the 2022 season.
Each episode throughout the series will feature multiple drivers and their lives and stories away from the track. Joey Logano, Kyle Larson and Daniel Suárez will be the three spotlighted tonight.
In tonight’s episode, you can also expect to see:
• Mic’d up sound from Chase Elliott, Larson and Ryan Blaney from a Next Gen test at Phoenix Raceway before the start of the 2022 season;
• Larson sitting down with Hendrick Motorsports executive and NASCAR Hall of Famer Jeff Gordon to discuss the upcoming season … and Larson’s fandom as a child;
• The difficult decision with which Joey Logano and wife Brittany wrestle, as Brittany is nearing the birth of their third child during the week of the Busch Light Clash;
• A never-before-seen look and analysis of the inaugural Busch Light Clash at the Coliseum in Los Angeles.
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In the debut season of NASCAR’s Next Gen Cup Series car, drivers have noted that certain crash impacts have been particularly jarring.
“I feel like my jaw was like one of those boxers that gets his whole face demolished,” said Denny Hamlin, one of the victims of a 13-car wreck last Sunday at Daytona International Speedway.
Rear impacts with the Next Gen car are the primary concern, and NASCAR is looking at a variety of solutions to ameliorate the issue.
Officials from the sanctioning body met with Cup drivers and teams throughout the design and development process for the Next Gen car. Crash tests were conducted first with simulations and then with physical tests involving parts of cars, half-cars and eventually full vehicles.
“When we discussed it with the drivers and the teams, we essentially said that in right-frontal impacts and right-lateral impacts, right-side impacts and left-side impacts, we expected the experience to be approximately the same as they’ve had in the past (with the Gen 6 car),” said John Patalak, managing director, safety engineering at NASCAR.
“In frontal impacts, the Next Gen [data] shows to perform a little better… In rear impacts, we didn’t have as much space available to us as we did in Gen-6 for crush. We wanted to be sure we were not going to have fires or fuel cell damage during rear impacts. So we were a little bit limited, and we talked to drivers about that in 2021, and also the teams.”
NASCAR maintains a crash database dating to 2011 and has started accumulating data from Next Gen crashes this season. The two most useful statistics involve change in velocity (known as Delta-v, which is not vehicle dependent and also considers the angle of the crash) and peak acceleration (which involves the g-forces at impact).
“Those two things have shown to be good predictors of driver injury risk,” Patalak said. “We’ve correlated those statistically with research from a few years ago, and we continue to look at that and track that, because they’re important to us and because they are good predictors.
“A lot of drivers have said at different times, ‘Hey, that felt like the hardest hit I’ve ever had. What’s going on? That was huge,’” Patalak said. “When we look at the speed and angle into the wall of some of those crashes, which are two things which dictate crash severity, we have indeed seen some big hits this season, and that would be the case regardless of the type of race car.”
The handling behavior of the car is a contributing factor. The impacts from overcorrecting or from breaking loose on corner exit approaching the outside wall tend to be more severe, Patalak said.
“From that perspective, I think the data from the car is matching the driver’s perception of the crash,” he added.
Then again, there are crashes that are less severe than a driver might have anticipated.
“For me, I’ve only crashed the Next Gen car, truthfully, twice where I feel like it was a hard wreck, and they were both at superspeedways,” said Stewart-Haas Racing driver Chase Briscoe. “Both of them were way better than I thought they were going be. The Talladega wreck, for sure, I thought was going to be way worse from a ‘feel’ standpoint, and I felt fine.
“I was sore the next day or two, but I feel like that was kind of typical. Obviously, I think there’s still stuff we can do to make it better, but I think in the old car there was still stuff we could do to make it better. So I think that’s the hard thing right now with the Next Gen car is, with the old car, we literally probably had thousands of data points that we could look at in crashes, where right now we’re not even probably in the hundreds yet.
“So it’s just hard to kind of pinpoint what we need to do better on this car, and as it runs and as we get through the years, I’m sure we’re going to continue to make progress on it and make it better. But I think it’s always a moving target. You’re never gonna be perfectly safe; I don’t think. You’re a race car driver. You’re driving nearly 200 miles an hour, and anything can happen, but the safer we can make it, the better.”
Right now, the primary target is lessening the severity of the rear impacts. The possible solutions aren’t limited to the structure of the car. Enhancing head-surround foam is another potential safety improvement.
“Can we make that better with newer and different materials, as well as optimizing the current materials?” Patalak said.
All potential improvements are data-driven and fed by simulations.
“We are looking at ways to be creative in creating more deflection for rear impacts,” Patalak said. “It would involve all those parts and pieces—the rear clip, the rear crash structure, the rear bumper, the rear bumper foam. That whole area from behind the driver’s seat has to work as a complete assembly during a crash.”
It may be hard to believe, but Matt Hirschman once went nine straight seasons without winning a NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour event.
That statistic is a bit misleading, of course. From 2009-17 Hirschman, competed in just 38 Tour events, which included one full season in 2011 and two seasons (2010 and 2015) when he didn’t compete in any Tour events at all.
Hirschman has made a living as an outlaw, a driver who doesn’t commit to one particular series, instead bouncing from race to race chasing the biggest possible paychecks. It’s worked out for him, as through the years he has earned the nickname “Big Money Matt” for his ability to take home big paychecks in Modified races up and down the East Coast.
As the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour prepares to compete Saturday at Oswego Speedway, Hirschman has his sites set on taking home another paycheck at a track where he’s enjoyed an incredible amount of success.
Remember that streak of nine straight seasons when Hirschman was winless with the Tour? He snapped that drought in 2018 with a victory at Oswego. The victory was his third career Tour win to go along with two he earned back in 2008.
In 2021, Hirschman struck again at Oswego, leading a race-high 70 laps en route to his fourth career NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour victory. Counting his wins with the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour and other sanctioning bodies, Hirschman has captured the checkered flag 13 times in Modified competition at the track.
Hirschman’s 13 victories is tied with NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour legend Richie Evans at the top of the modern day Modified win list at Oswego. Should Hirschman strike again Saturday night at Oswego during the Toyota – Bud Mod Classic 150, he would surpass Evans.
Odds are certainly in Hirschman’s favor. In the five Tour events he’s competed in at Oswego, he’s finished no worse than second.
Tommy Baldwin Racing continues dominant season
It doesn’t matter who you put in Tommy Baldwin Jr.’s No. 7NY this year. All the team seems to do is win.
That trend continued last Saturday night with Doug Coby going wire-to-wire for Baldwin at Langley Speedway to earn his third victory of the season. Combined with wins by Jimmy Blewett at Wall Stadium Speedway and Mike Christopher Jr. at Jennerstown Speedway, Baldwin’s No. 7NY has won five of the 12 NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour races held so far this season.
The team has earned 11 top-10 finishes between Coby, Blewett and Christopher and has an average finish of 5.58 through the first 12 races of the year.
That adds up to a 32-point advantage in the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour owner standings for Baldwin ahead of Saturday’s 13th race of the season at Oswego Speedway.
Coby will once again be in the seat of the No. 7NY for Baldwin, and based on how strong the pairing has been already this season, odds are good that they’ll be in contention for the victory.
Oswego is a track where Coby has found success in NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour competition. He scored his lone Tour win at the track in 2016 by leading a race-high 121 laps.
Jon McKennedy, driver of the No. 79 Middlesex Interiors Modified, during qualifying for the CheckeredFlag.com 150 for the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour at Larry King Law’s Langley Speedway on August 27, 2022. (Photo: Ryan M. Kelly/NASCAR)
McKennedy, Silk take championship fight to Oswego
With only four races left in the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour season, it’s a literal tossup as to who is going to walk away with the season-long driver championship.
Jon McKennedy and Ron Silk are locked in a back-and-forth battle for supremacy, with McKennedy currently on top of the standings by three points ahead of Silk.
Should McKennedy win the championship, it would be his first with the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour. If Silk were to win the championship, it would be his second with the Tour following his first championship in 2011.
At Oswego, Silk has the advantage on McKennedy in Tour competition.
Silk has one victory at Oswego, which came last season, as well as two top-five and four top-10 finishes in four Tour events at the track. McKennedy, on the other hand, has made three Tour starts and has never finished better than 15th.
Could Silk regain control of the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour championship fight at Oswego, or will McKennedy retain control of the championship battle?
We’ll find out Saturday night.
Notes:
Of the active drivers entered in Saturday’s race at Oswego Speedway, Justin Bonsignore, Patrick Emerling and Eric Goodale lead the way with six Tour starts at the New York oval. Of the trio, only Bonsignore has a victory at Oswego.
Chuck Hossfeld returns for his second NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour start of the season Saturday night at Oswego. In his only other start this season, Hossfeld finished third at Richmond Raceway in April. He’ll once again be piloting the No. 2 for the Bertuccio family.
J.B. Fortin will make his 50th NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour start Saturday evening. In his 49 previous starts, he has one top-five and six top-10 finishes.
Brad Perez doesn’t like to do things the easy way.
Instead, he prefers to jump straight into the deep end.
He did just that when he made his NASCAR Camping World Truck Series debut earlier this year at Circuit of the Americas, and again when he debuted in the NASCAR Xfinity Series at Watkins Glen International on Aug. 20.
“My entire career is me just tossing myself in the deep end and hopefully something good happens,” Perez said with a laugh.
With that in mind, it makes sense that Perez would jump into the deep end one more time as he prepares to make his Late Model Stock Car debut this Saturday night during one of Hickory Motor Speedway’s most historic events, the Bobby Isaac Memorial.
The event, held in honor of the late 1970 NASCAR Cup Series champion, is one of Hickory’s longest standing events. It typically draws a strong field of cars and a big crowd.
“At the start of last season, I was really trying to do some Late Model racing,” Perez said. “Obviously I had a lot going on with the NASCAR stuff, and I really wanted to see where that could go. I was not really in a position where I could find much money for anything, and I figured the hardest possible sell was something that’s not on national TV.”
The opportunity to make his Late Model Stock Car debut recently materialized when he was contacted by Danny Johnson, who along with Derek Peebles have partnered with the Findley family to field a Late Model Stock Car.
That opened the door for Perez to make his debut at Hickory.
stoked to make my LMSC (or actually any late model period) debut in 2 weeks in the bobby isaac memorial at @hickoryspeedway!!
thanks @DPeebs75 and @dljohnson44 for the opportunity and the Findley's for allowing me to wheel this thing
“He was like, ‘Man, it would be a really good deal if you could come up with some money to do the Bobby Isaac and maybe the Fall Brawl’ and I was like, ‘I’m in,’” Perez said. “I’m a little nervous, but I’m excited either way.”
Perez is a popular face in the NASCAR garage, where he has worked as a tire specialist for a variety of teams. Behind the wheel, Perez has lots of experience on road courses thanks to his time racing a Spec Miata with the Sports Car Club of America.
However, other than a few starts in a Legend Car, Perez has no experience racing on ovals.
He explained that his plan was always to start big by racing road course events in NASCAR before shifting gears to gain experience on ovals in Late Models. His goal is to race on an oval with the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series or NASCAR Xfinity Series at some point in the future.
“It actually was the plan almost all along,” Perez said. “I didn’t actually have a concrete plan or an idea of how it was going to happen. To be completely honest, selling sponsorship for the national series’ is easier. The same type of money you can run up front in Late Models with is the same type of money you can take to Xfinity.
“I was trying to be able find the partners to give a bigger sell, too, and in turn use those connections to achieve something in local racing. That’s what I’ve always wanted to do. It was tough for me to find any type of money to go local racing, and that was the goal all along. Went to do the big thing, got the connections to do the small thing and now we’re going to do the best we can at the small thing, which is kind of a big thing.”
The Bobby Isaac Memorial is the third event in Hickory Motor Speedway’s inaugural playoffs. Landon Huffman enters the event as the championship leader and holds a 15-point edge on Annabeth Barnes Crum with two nights of racing remaining.
The event will be available live on FloRacing this Saturday night beginning at 7 p.m. ET.
HUNTERSVILLE, N.C. – Joe Gibbs Racing announced today that Denny Hamlin will not compete in Saturday’s NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Darlington Raceway as originally planned. In Hamlin’s absence, Christopher Bell will pilot the No. 18 Sport Clips Toyota GR Supra in the Sport Clips Haircuts VFW Help A Hero 200.
While Hamlin will not participate in Saturday’s Xfinity Series race, he will be behind the wheel of the No. 11 Sport Clips Toyota Camry TRD for the Cup Series playoff opener Sunday evening. The Chesterfield, Virginia native enters the playoffs ranked sixth overall and is the defending winner of the Southern 500.
“I have had some soreness in my neck, back, and hips from the wreck on Sunday,” said Hamlin, who owns nine Darlington wins across NASCAR’s top-two series. “I feel like the right thing for me to do is to sit out the Xfinity Series race and put 100 percent of my focus on getting ready for this weekend’s Cup Series playoff race.”
Bell, who will also be competing in the Cup Series Playoffs, has made a pair of Xfinity Series starts at the “Track Too Tough to Tame” with a best finish of fourth in Aug. 2019. Since moving to the Cup Series, Bell has posted three top-15 finishes in six starts at Darlington, including a sixth-place finish earlier this year after qualifying third.
This weekend’s Sport Clips Haircuts VFW Help A Hero 200 NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Darlington Raceway is scheduled for Saturday, September 3, at 3 p.m. ET on USA Network, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, and the NBC Sports App.
NASCAR announced Wednesday afternoon that a change to the Damaged Vehicle Policy (DVP) clock will be implemented ahead of Sunday’s Cup Series Playoff opener at Darlington Raceway (6 p.m. ET, USA Network, NBC Sports App, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
The DVP clock will see a four-minute increase from six to 10 minutes for teams to make repairs to their cars on pit road. This adjustment is in collaboration with teams throughout the season following learnings on repair time with the Next Gen car. The clock resetting after a driver is able to meet minimum speed on track under the DVP will remain in place.
The race for a 2022 championship will continue for the No. 45 Toyota of 23XI Racing — just on the owners’ side.
One week after Kurt Busch and 23XI decided to withdraw the veteran driver’s waiver to compete in this year’s NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs, the organization announced that Bubba Wallace will run the course for the No. 45 team for the remainder of the season.
Owners’ points reset alongside driver points before the Round of 16, and the No. 45 23XI Racing entry qualified among those eligible for an owners’ title, boosted by Busch’s May 15 win at Kansas Speedway.
“Kurt put us in the playoffs and isn’t able to finish out the mission,” Steve Lauletta, president of 23XI Racing, told NASCAR.com. “We’re still qualified for the owners’ championship and now we’re looking to [Bubba] and Bootie [Barker, crew chief] and that team to take the No. 45 mantle and try to have our strongest run.”
Though he missed out on the drivers’ playoffs, Wallace has seven top-14 finishes in the last eight races in the No. 23 Toyota. That includes a third-place finish at New Hampshire Motor Speedway and a runner-up effort at Michigan International Speedway.
Wallace is only in his second year with the blossoming organization, debuting in 2021 as the team’s inaugural driver for a single-car operation. This season, 23XI brought on Busch and expanded to two cars.
“Since we started 23XI as a one-car team and grew to two cars, we’ve always said we are two cars but act as one team,” Lauletta said. “This is us putting that, again, into reality. The whole point of this is to put our team in the best position to get as far in the owners’ championship playoffs as possible.”
The owners’ championship battle mirrors the Cup Series Playoffs and plays out over 10 races, ending with the championship race at Phoenix Raceway. 23XI Racing’s No. 45 entry enters the stretch 12th, only 33 points back from leader Hendrick Motorsports’ No. 9 Chevrolet.
Swapping the numbers on the car, while keeping personnel changes consistent to what we have seen throughout the season, allows Wallace to compete for the owners’ championship on behalf of the team while Ty Gibbs gains valuable experience behind the wheel of the No. 23 car with Billy Scott remaining as crew chief.
“Everybody knows the challenge,” Lauletta said. “We continue to work together to put both cars in position to be competitive. We want to continue the momentum with the No. 23 team and Bubba that we’ve had, and we want to continue to get Ty more accustomed to this Cup car and the way races play out.”
Busch has been sidelined with symptoms stemming from a concussion sustained in a qualifying crash July 23 at Pocono Raceway. Xfinity Series points leader Gibbs has commanded the entry since.
The current plan has Gibbs continuing to fill the seat until Busch is cleared and ready to make his return. In his first six Cup Series starts, Gibbs has an average finish of 19.7.
Wallace’s first start in the new-look No. 45 entry is scheduled for Sunday’s Cook Out Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway (6 p.m. ET, USA Network, NBC Sports App, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Editor’s note: Primary sponsors and paint schemes will follow each driver alongside the number swap.
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — NASCAR-themed teddy bears named ‘Speedy Bear’ are being delivered to children in hospitals across the United States and Mexico as The NASCAR Foundation and Kaulig Giving join together for the sixth annual “Speedy Bear Brigade.” This year’s program expands into Mexico bringing the cumulative total to more than 8,000 Speedy Bears delivered over six years to help comfort children during their hospital stays.
The NASCAR Foundation’s Speedy Bear Brigade began delivering Speedy Bears to children earlier this week with stops in Monterrey, Mexico, and Charlotte, North Carolina. NASCAR volunteers assisted with the deliveries, including representatives from the NASCAR Mexico Series who joined efforts for the first time.
“We are thrilled that our Speedy Bear Brigade continues to grow and impact more children each year,” said Nichole Krieger, The NASCAR Foundation executive director. “Support from donors like Kaulig Giving, the NASCAR Mexico Series and all of our wonderful NASCAR fans are so important in making this program a success as we help deliver cheer and positivity to children in hospitals everywhere.”
This year’s efforts mark the biggest to date with nearly 70 hospitals participating in race markets across the United States and Mexico. The initiative culminates on National Teddy Bear Day on Friday, Sept. 9, with events in Akron, Ohio, home to Kaulig Giving headquarters and during NASCAR’s Kansas Speedway race weekend.
“We’re honored to team up with The NASCAR Foundation to deliver cheer, positivity, and comfort to children in hospitals across the country through the Speedy Bear Brigade program,” said Matt Kaulig, team owner of Kaulig Racing and founder of Kaulig Giving. “Our partnership with The NASCAR Foundation continues to grow on and off the track and is a priority for us. All of us share the incredible goal of impacting the communities we love by helping children in need live happier, healthier lives.”
NASCAR fans are encouraged to join the Speedy Bear Brigade by making a $25 donation to The NASCAR Foundation to sponsor a Speedy Bear and send an inspirational message to a child in the hospital. As an additional incentive, Kaulig Giving has provided a challenge grant of $25,000 to double the impact of donations made at NASCARfoundation.org.
Locations supported by The NASCAR Foundation’s Speedy Bear Brigade powered by Kaulig Giving include:
Akron, Ohio — Akron Children’s Hospital
Birmingham, Alabama — Children’s of Alabama
Braselton, Georgia — Northeast Georgia Medical Center
Charlotte, North Carolina — Hemby Children’s Hospital and Levine Children’s Hosptial
Cleveland, Ohio — Cleveland Clinic
Concord, North Carolina — Jeff Gordon Children’s Hospital
Darlington, South Carolina — McLeod Children’s Hospital
When Tommy Catalano was a school-aged child, he looked forward to Fridays.
Sure, most of us looked forward to Fridays during our school years, but Tommy had a different reason.
While Tommy was riding the bus home from school, his parents Amy and Dave would be riding in their race car hauler on the way to nearby Spencer Speedway in Williamson, New York.
“It’s a mile and a half, maybe a little less from our house,” Tommy said of Spencer Speedway. “You’d get home from school, and I would wait for my Grandparents. They would take me to the track with them. My parents, you’d be getting off the bus and they’d be passing you with the truck and trailer headed down the road to the track.
The Catalano family has been involved in racing — specifically Modified racing — for decades. It may as well be a family tradition.
It all started with Tommy’s great uncle Joe Catalano, who began racing Modifieds in the 1960s in upstate New York. The racing bug was handed down to Dave, Tommy’s father, who drove for Joe years later.
Tommy inherited the bug from his father and mother, both of whom are racers. The third-generation driver is in the midst of his fifth NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour season, which continues this Saturday night at New York’s Oswego Speedway.
Tommy Catalano, driver of the No. 54 FX Caprara Modified, during qualifying for the Phoenix Communications 150 for the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour at Thompson Speedway Motorsports Park on August 18, 2022. (Photo: Adam Glanzman/NASCAR)
It all adds up to more than 60 years of racing Modifieds for the Catalano family.
“When you look back on it, you see pictures on Facebook or even if you go to the race track and they have the vintage class and you look at some of the cars and you go, ‘Man, I can’t believe people raced these,’” Tommy said. “Then you think, ‘That’s where our family started in Modifieds.’
“It’s definitely crazy to think about how far it’s come and how long we’ve stayed in it.”
Historically speaking, the Catalano family is relatively new to the Tour.
Tommy didn’t make his first Tour start until 2018. His mom Amy made her Tour debut in 2019, his uncle Buck made three starts during the mid-2000s, and his younger brother Timmy has made 23 Tour starts.
However, when one takes into account all of their local and regional Modified racing through the decades, the Catalanos might be the one of the longest tenured families in all of Modified racing.
“To me they are some of the coolest race cars,” Tommy said. “Growing up in my late teens I ran Late Models, Midgets, obviously the SK and Modified stuff in our family car. The Modifieds have always been, I don’t want to say a challenge, but they’re something that if you work at it, you get better and you see the results.
“Growing up, my uncles, my dad, my mom, the whole family, it was Modifieds. Where we’re from, if you got to the Modifieds, that was the premier division. That was the class everyone came to watch. That was the goal, to get to the Modifieds.”
Despite their short history with the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour, the Catalano family does have a special place in the Tour history books.
On Aug. 31, 2019, the Catalano family made history when mom Amy raced against her sons Tommy and Timmy at Oswego.
While that may seem like a unique accomplishment, for the Catalano family, it happened nearly every Friday night when they raced at Spencer.
Tommy Catalano driver of the No. 54 FX Caprara Modified, enters his car before the Duel at the Dog 200 for the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour at Monadnock Speedway on June 19, 2022. (Photo: Nick Grace/NASCAR)
“That was just normal,” Tommy said. “When you got old enough, you just jumped in. Mom was out there. That’s just what we did. Around here, it’s kind of what we do. When we went to the Tour everyone was like, ‘Oh my goodness!’
“We were like, ‘What’s going on, what’s wrong?’ I tell everyone all the time, ‘I wonder what normal people do on weekends?’ And they say, ‘Are you calling yourself not normal?’ And I say, ‘Apparently not,’ because to us that was normal, but so many people are shocked by it.”
The Catalano family will be racing against each other in the lead-up to Saturday’s Tour race at Oswego when they return to Spencer this Friday evening. In all, five members of the Catalano family are expected to be in action Friday. Four of them — mom Amy and brothers Tommy, Timmy and Tyler — will be competing in the headlining Modified division. A fourth brother, Trevor, will also be in action in the SK Modified class.
Oh, and there is a fifth Catalano brother. His name is Troyer, and he currently races Go Karts.
The future of the Catalano family looks bright, especially with the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour.
While Tommy has yet to win a Tour race, he’s come close. This season he nearly won at Richmond Raceway, leading a race-high 69 laps before Justin Bonsignore passed him for the lead and eventually the victory with 11 laps left.
At 24 years old, Tommy should have plenty of opportunities to break into Victory Lane with the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour.
If all goes as planned, he hopes to continue racing Modifieds for the rest of his life and then hand the tradition down to his own children.
Until then, he plans to continue making memories and adding to the legacy of the Catalano racing family. As long as he’s having fun, he says, he’ll continue racing Modifieds.
“At the end of the day, you’ve got to be able to ride home in that truck and still enjoy it, because if you’re not enjoying it, it’s another job,” Tommy said. “At that point, it’s not worth it.”
