Entering the 2022 Camping World Truck Series Playoffs, Ty Majeski is having a season that’s up to par with the top of the field.
He’s tied for third in season top 10s with 10 and tied for second in top-five finishes with seven. Even without a victory, Majeski is on solid ground to start his run toward a championship.
What you may not know about Majeski is that his high-quality season comes in his first full-time NASCAR campaign. He joined the ARCA Menards Series in 2016, running a part-time schedule, which would be the story for Majeski’s next five years.
Majeski saw part-time rides in the Xfinity Series with Roush Fenway Racing (2018) and Niece Motorsports (2020) before an opportunity arose with ThorSport Racing.
“I told them I was interested and a few months later, they got back to me and offered me an engineering job and said they would put together a few races for me in 2021 and with the intentions of building something bigger in the future,” Majeski said.
He ran just four Truck Series races in 2021 but grabbed two top-10 results at Charlotte Motor Speedway and Nashville Superspeedway.
In February, ThorSport announced Majeski would run a full-time 2022 schedule.
Safe to say, Majeski is making the most of his maiden full-time season.
Majeski credited the success he’s had this season to learning from past champions like Matt Crafton, Johnny Sauter and Ben Rhodes.
“It’s cool to be a part of that seniority,” Majeski said. “Ben [Rhodes], Matt Crafton & Johnny Sauter have all won championships so it’s nice to have those guys as assets and at our disposal to seek advice going to a new track or how to handle different situations.”
Majeski isn’t the only full-time newbie at ThorSport as Christian Eckes returned to full-time racing this season, driving the No. 98 for the team.
Neither has been able to secure wins this season but both start the postseason above the Round of 8 cutline entering the Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park Friday.
“They are certainly turning it on at the right time,” Rhodes said. “They were good at the start of the year but have gotten better and better as the years progressed. To have all four trucks in the playoffs is pretty dang good. I don’t think any team’s done that recently.”
With Majeski first working as an engineer for ThorSport, he’s said he’s able to keep his mind occupied during the week to keep the pressure off him before the race weekend.
“I keep myself preoccupied in the shop. It’s business as usual,” Majeski said. “I have a day job at ThorSport and work with my crew to come up with setups for race day so it keeps my mind occupied during the week. It’s made me better as a driver knowing what I’m going to the race track with and having input each and every week. It’s a part of what’s made us good at every type of track.”
Majeski opens the postseason seventh in the 10-driver playoff standings with a four-point gap over Grant Enfinger, who sits just below the cutline.
The 2022 Truck Series Playoffs open Friday at IRP (9 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
“When I came to ThorSport, this is what I envisioned and hoped for,” Majeski said. “I’m thankful for the opportunity and do what I always thought I could do. Duke and Rhonda have assembled a great team around me.”
Sunday, the NASCAR Cup Series caps off an incredible weekend of racing in Indianapolis with the Verizon 200 at the Brickyard on Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s road-course layout.
Before this weekend’s chain of events leading up to Sunday’s race (2:30 p.m. ET, NBC, NBC Sports App, IMS Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), take a look at some important information you need to know.
LET’S GET DIALED IN
The Cup Series slate kicks off Saturday with practice and qualifying. For practice (9:35 a.m. ET), teams will be divided into two groups (A and B) for separate 20-minute sessions.
Qualifying (10:35 a.m. ET), following the standard r0ad-course format, will see two groups have 15 minutes of on-track time to set their quickest lap. The five fastest from each group will advance to the final round and compete for the Busch Light Pole Award. The final round will be a 10-minute run.
Both practice and qualifying will be broadcast on USA Network and streamed live on the NBC Sports App.
Under the control of Tony Hulman’s grandson, Tony George, the speedway began a program of diversification. For the 2000 season, a deal was struck with Bernie Ecclestone to re-establish a US Grand Prix on a new 2.605-mile road course, built within the infield and utilizing Turn 1 of the oval course.
Changes in the circuit were made for the 2014 season to accommodate a new event for the month of May: the Grand Prix of Indianapolis run by IndyCar. The revised course ran in the opposite direction of the Formula 1 course, raced from 2000-07, with a “Snakepit” series of corners inside Turn 1.
After racing 27 times on the oval layout, spanning from 1994-2020, Sundaywill be the second Cup Series race on the Indy Road Course after the inaugural event a season ago.
Source: Racing Insights
GOODYEAR TIRES
Sunday in Indianapolis, Cup Series teams will run the same tire that was run at Road America earlier this month. While teams will be running the same tire on each corner of the car, there will be two separate tire codes on the left front and right rear.
“Running the same tire with two different codes allows us to mount tires directionally on all four corners of the car,” said Greg Stucker, Goodyear’s director of racing. “Doing this – with one code on the left-front and right-rear and the other on the right-front and left-rear — helps protect the beveled splice of the tread component. This allows the tread splice to be ‘closed’ on both front tires under the force of braking and on both rear tires under the force of acceleration.”
Cup teams will be allotted seven sets of tires: one for practice, one for qualifying and six sets for the race (five new race sets plus one transferred from qualifying).
Seen exclusively for road-course events, Goodyear will also bring the wet-weather tire in preparation for inclement weather.
INDY STORY LINES
— Three drivers without a win in 2022 have previously won on a road course.
— Ford is winless in the last 15 road-course races.
— Chevrolet has won the last nine races on road courses.
— All three road courses in 2022 were won by drivers getting their first Cup win with crew chiefs getting their first Cup win.
— The last five road-course races were won by five different drivers.
Source: Racing Insights
BRICKYARD BETS
If you’re familiar with his track record, it is not surprising to see Chase Elliott (4-1) leading the charge at the top of this week’s oddsboard. Though winless on road courses this season, his track record, performance at Road America and dominant run-of-form leaves him a no-brainer when analyzing the projected outcome. Perhaps the most surprising odds stand for a driver a bit further down the list — Chase Briscoe at 14-1.
Briscoe put on a stellar performance at the Indy Road Course in 2021, leading 12 laps and contending for the win before being parked for an incident with Denny Hamlin. This time around, the second-year driver from Mitchell, Indiana, will be looking to seal the deal in his home state. But to do so, he has to beat defending winner AJ Allmendinger (16-1) who is back for another chance to kiss the bricks.
If you are looking at true dark horses, Justin Haley’s odds at 125-1 bring solid value. Though he has been quiet this season, his seventh-place finish in the inaugural race last year with Spire Motorsports is pretty impressive. His 17.0 average finish this season on road courses, including two top-15 finishes, means he could be a sneaky-good play if you’re looking to bet big.
Want to manage a team and race your way to the top of the leaderboards? Check out NASCAR Fantasy Live, which is open now. The free-to-play game lets you choose your drivers each week and show off your crew-chief instincts by garaging a driver by the end of Stage 3, and there is a $25,000 prize for the winner.
The 2022 Fantasy Live points leaders are Chase Elliott (781), Ross Chastain (671) and Ryan Blaney (668).
Get additional camera views by logging on to NASCAR Drive, where each week a select number of in-car cameras will be available — as well as a battle cam and an overhead look.
NASCAR has partnered with LiveLike to add fan engagement in the NASCAR Mobile App. Log in to the mobile app during the race for polls, quizzes, the cheer meter and more — and see instant results from NASCAR fans like you.
Six years ago, in late July 2016, Chris Buescher emerged from the fog and rain at Pocono Raceway to win the weather-shortened Pennsylvania 400, his first career NASCAR Cup Series victory.
It was the first win for a first-time winner since August 2014, snapping a drought of 70 races. And it was just the third trip to the winner’s circle for a first-timer winner since 2011. In nearly 200 races from mid-2011 through mid-2016, there were only three first-time Cup Series winners.
There have been three first-time Cup Series winners in three road-course races in 2022 – plus another two first-time winners on oval tracks.
“It was a huge sense of relief,” Tyler Reddick said four weeks ago after outlasting Chase Elliott in the KwikTrip 250 at Road America for his first win, echoing a sentiment expressed by Ross Chastain and Daniel Suárez, whose first wins also came on road courses this season.
As of Thursday, 10 winless Cup Series drivers are on the entry list for the Verizon 200 at the Brickyard, the fourth of six road races on the 2022 schedule. Unlike most of the first-time winners this year, all 10 are buried in NASCAR odds at BetMGM.
No winless driver has better odds than +50000, miles behind the favorites Chase Elliott (+450), Kyle Larson (+700), and Chastain (+700), second-tier drivers like Reddick (+1000) and Chase Briscoe (+1600), and even long shots like Austin Dillon (+12500) and Aric Almirola (+1500).
The odds say we’re running out of first-time winners, as does the public – no winless driver has more than 1.6% of the race-winner tickets or 0.5% of the race-winner handle – and zero winless drivers are included in this week’s featured matchups at BetMGM:
Ross Chastain (-225) vs. Denny Hamlin (+170)
Ross Chastain’s six-race top-eight streak was snapped with a 32nd-place finish last weekend, but the 29-year-old winner of the EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix at Circuit of The Americas remained No. 2 in Pat DeCola’s NASCAR Power Rankings and remains a threat at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Chastain is seeking a third win this season – after opening his career with a 119-race winless streak – as his opponent Denny Hamlin, whom he battled at Pocono. The public likes Hamlin’s plus odds in this featured matchup; he has 94% of the handle against Chastain.
Chase Elliott (-155) vs. Kyle Larson (+120)
Chase Elliott’s career average road-course finish is 7.5. No other active driver is better than 12.
Elliott is 0-for-3 in road races this year but still has three more career road wins (seven) than any other active driver. He’s also tied with Kyle Busch for the most laps led despite 22 fewer starts – Elliott ranks 18th in road starts among active drivers – and has the best top-five and top-10 finishing rates (59% and 73%, respectively).
The public is pounding Elliott in both race-winner betting and featured matchup betting. He has more than 40% of the race-winner handle (on 16% of tickets) and 95% of the featured matchup handle against Denny Hamlin (on 92% of the tickets).
Chase Briscoe (-120) vs. Martin Truex Jr. (-110)
Martin Truex Jr.’s win in the 2016 Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway was the first of 28 wins over approximately five years. He won roughly once every seven starts over that time.
Now, Truex and his No. 19 Toyota can’t find wins anywhere. His seventh-place finish at Pocono extended a winless drought to 29 races, his longest since 2015-16.
And Truex isn’t a popular pick to end the drought on Sunday; only 0.6% of the handle (on 2% of the tickets) is on him to win, though he is drawing 83% of the handle against Chase Briscoe, who has just one top 10 in his last 13 starts after opening the season with three in his first eight starts.
Tyler Reddick (-155) vs. Ryan Blaney (+120)
Thanks to his win at Road America, Tyler Reddick suddenly ranks seventh in average road-course finish among active drivers. And his top-10 finish rate (50%) ranks fourth to only Chase Elliott, Kyle Busch (55%), and Ryan Blaney (55%), the latter of whom he’s facing in the least-experienced featured matchup this weekend.
Despite the recent road-course success, Reddick is buried in race-winner ticket (2.3%) and handle (0.9%) share. Nonetheless, he’s a popular pick to finish ahead of Blaney; he has 91% of the head-to-head handle.
You can view updated Verizon 200 at the Brickyard odds and more online sports betting opportunities at the BetMGM online sportsbook.
We’re more than halfway through the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour season, and only one series regular – Justin Bonsignore – has made his way into Victory Lane.
Bonsignore has won twice this season, earning victories at Richmond Raceway in April and New Hampshire’s Monadnock Speedway in June.
While that may bode well for him in advance of the Clash at Claremont 150 this Friday at Claremont Motorsports Park (8:45 p.m. ET on FloRacing), something working against Bonsignore is the fact that he’s never raced at the 0.333-mile paved oval.
“We’re always excited to visit a new track with the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour,” Bonsignore said. “We’re looking forward to the challenge of figuring out the track quickly and contending for not only the win in the race, but the Whelen Granite State Short Track Cup title. Ending the month of July on a high note is important to us.”
The history of the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour at Claremont is brief. Dating back to 1985, the Tour has only visited the track twice. Richie Evans won the inaugural race at Claremont in 1985, with James Civali winning the only other previous event in 2007.
Of those entered, only a handful have previous NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour experience at Claremont. They include championship leader Ron Silk, Matt Hirschman and Jon McKennedy. Each of them finished in the top 10 the last time the Tour visited Claremont, with Hirschman finishing the best among them with a second-place result.
Bonsignore continues his effort to gain ground in the Tour standings after a tough start to his season. He’s currently fourth in the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour standings, 25 points in arrears of Silk with less than half of the season remaining.
He’s not out of the championship hunt yet, and another victory Friday could certainly help him further close the gap to Silk.
Final race of the season for JDV Productions
The Clash at Claremont 150 at Claremont Motorsports Park serves as the final race of the season for NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour partner and event promoter JDV Productions.
Led by veteran promoter Josh Vanada, JDV Productions has become a dedicated partner to the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour by promoting a handful of events on the schedule each season.
This year, JDV Productions brought the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour to a trio of New Hampshire tracks – Claremont, Lee USA Speedway and Monadnock Speedway – in addition to Pennsylvania’s Jennerstown Speedway.
In addition to serving as an event promoter, JDV Productions also launched the Whelen Granite State Short Track Cup this season. The three-race miniseries that includes the events at Claremont, Lee and Monadnock offers competing teams the opportunity to battle for additional purse money.
Claremont serves as the finale of the Whelen Granite State Short Track Cup, with the winning car owner receiving a $5,000 prize. Tommy Baldwin Racing currently leads the standings ahead of Friday’s race, which will see Doug Coby return to the wheel of the No. 7NY Modified.
Coby (Lee), Mike Christopher Jr. (Jennerstown) and Bonsignore (Monadnock) picked up victories in the three previous JDV Productions events this season.
Tickets for Friday’s Clash at the Claremont 150, as well as VIP JDV Experience tickets, are available by visiting JDVProductions.com.
Jake Johnson, driver of the No. 3 Propane Plus – Lin’s Propane Trucks Modified, enters his car before the Inaugural Granite State Derby presented by USA Insulation for the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour at Lee USA Speedway on May 21, 2022. (Photo: Adam Glanzman/NASCAR)
Momentum on the side of Jake Johnson
While rookie Jake Johnson remains winless with the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour so far this season with Boehler Racing Enterprises, he recently crossed his first Modified victory at New Hampshire’s Star Speedway.
The victory, which came in a non-NASCAR event last Saturday, was an important landmark for Johnson as he continues to adapt to Modified racing after previously racing Late Models.
“It’s a huge win for me, but you know, it’s a huge win for everyone,” Johnson said at the time.
His rookie season in the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour has featured both positives and negatives.
The positives include his maiden NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour pole at Lee USA Speedway, where he led three laps and finished fifth. He also secured a seventh-place finish at Monadnock Speedway.
On the negative side of things, Johnson failed to finish his most recent NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour event at New Jersey’s Wall Stadium Speedway due to a mechanical issue. He also struggled for speed and battled mechanical issues in his Tour debut at New York’s Riverhead Raceway, where he finished 24th.
Notes:
The NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour will be joined by four weekly racing divisions Friday at Claremont Motorsports Park. The Six Shooters, Mini Stocks, Pure Stocks and Street Stocks will all compete for weekly series points prior to the Clash at Claremont 150.
After making his NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour debut at Monadnock Speedway earlier this year, Brian Robie is back for his second Tour start this weekend. He finished 23rd in his maiden Tour start at Monadnock.
Sam Rameau is back for his third NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour start of the season. In his last race at Monadnock, Rameau started fifth and finished a career-best fourth.
Just a few years ago, hemp sponsorships were frowned upon in any sport. That’s why when Richard Childress Racing announced in January that 3CHI would be the anchor partner of Tyler Reddick’s No. 8 Chevrolet in 2022, it caught many off guard.
The partnership is significant for multiple reasons, but the obvious being it marks the first category-specific team partnership in NASCAR and first hemp-based consumer brand sponsorship across all major professional sports. That brings a lot of new eyeballs to the product.
Torrey Galida, president of Richard Childress Racing, is heavily involved in bringing sponsorship to the race team. When Pocono Raceway announced Pocono Organics CBD would be the entitlement sponsor of the first race of the Pocono doubleheader in 2021, it got Galida’s head spinning.
“I said to the business development team, ‘Guys, we need to look in this category, it’s going to do nothing but continue to grow,’ ” Galida told NASCAR.com. “The laws and regulations are changing around the country and if we can get out in front of this, it would be a really good thing for us.”
RCR isn’t foreign to being the pioneer of new sponsorship avenues in NASCAR. Last year, it signed BetMGM, which was the first major U.S. sportsbooks to land a deal with a NASCAR team. It also had Jack Daniels as a previous sponsor, one of the only hard liquor companies to sponsor a car in the sport’s history.
After RCR created a list of potential CBD companies to reach out to, 3CHI responded to the inquiry. Last August for the inaugural race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Road Course, the team hosted Justin Journay, founder of 3CHI, as the company is local to Indianapolis.
“I knew of NASCAR, but I didn’t like NASCAR prior to that race,” Journay said. “It was amazing. I absolutely loved my time at that race. There’s this misconception that you go fast and turn left. That’s not what it is. There’s so much science behind it, and that’s what really got me. When they walked through the engineering and all of the analytics, being a science nerd myself, I fell in love with it on that aspect.”
Immediately, Journay, who launched 3CHI in July 2018 after learning heavily about hemp for a half year, wanted to be a focal point of sponsorship in the sport.
He also knew that being the first sponsor of his kind could pay dividends.
“We enjoy paving the way in our industry,” he said. “We look at ourselves as a leader and try to maintain that leadership position. The team, too, RCR in general, are great people. It’s like a family and something you want to be a part of.”
The process to get a hemp sponsor approved by the sanctioning body was fairly thorough. Galida presented NASCAR with the idea face-to-face last September in a meeting at the Charlotte, North Carolina, office. RCR was given guidelines it had to follow in order to receive the sponsor’s approval, as NASCAR wanted to make sure 3CHI would be in line with the television networks standards and practices.
In December, 3CHI was approved.
Since sponsoring Reddick in the Daytona 500, 3CHI has set up vendor booths at many race tracks. By the time the 2022 season concludes, it will have been set up at 15 different tracks, including Road America, where Reddick picked up his first Cup victory.
The company is even allowed to sell some of its products – pain creams, THC gummies and vape products to name a few – at the track in states that hemp is legal.
“We were nervous going into Daytona when we first did it,” Journay said. “But there hasn’t been any issues. It’s been eye-opening in the sense that it’s really something that should be allowed to be out there more if you can do it responsibility.”
Galida was surprised NASCAR, Speedway Motorsports Inc. and some of the independently owner tracks allowed 3CHI to set up a display booth on their premises.
“They’ve been really pleased with that; the results have been good and they’re doing really well on site,” Galida said. “They’re continuing to invest in their display and it’s getting better every week. So far for a new sponsor, they’re doing a really great job.”
This weekend, Journay will return to the site of his initial meeting with RCR. This time around, 3CHI will host approximately 450 people in a suite at Indianapolis, watching Reddick chase another checkered flag.
The battle for the Whelen Granite State Short Track Cup remains wide open as the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour heads into its final race at Claremont Motorsports Park on Friday evening.
Following two competitive races at Lee USA Speedway and Monadnock Speedway, Tommy Baldwin Racing and Roy Hall find themselves tied atop the Whelen Granite State Short Track Cup point standings, but they only hold a 15-point advantage over the rest of the top nine drivers.
Baldwin kicked off the Granite State Short Track Cup at Lee by having six-time NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour champion Doug Coby take home the checkered flag. Coby got the victory over Hall’s driver Matt Hirschman, who had led the first 100 laps on the day before settling for third.
Hirschman appeared poised to bounce back in the second Granite State Short Track Cup event at Monadnock with another efficient performance, only to see his chances of a win fade in the closing laps following contact with the lapped car of J.B. Fortin. Despite this, Hirschman still finished second, putting him and Hall in a tie with Baldwin.
While Baldwin and Hall have set the pace so far in the Granite State Short Track Cup, a championship is far from assured for either operation, as they will have to fend off several other talented teams through 150 grueling laps at Claremont.
Below is a breakdown of the current Top 10 in the Whelen Granite State Short Track Cup and how their championship hopes look going into the Clash at Claremont 150.
Several teams remain in contention for the Whelen Granite State Short Track Cup, with Tommy Baldwin Racing and Roy Hall tied atop the standings with 86 points a piece. (Nick Grace/NASCAR)
7NY Tommy Baldwin Racing – 86 points
Despite using several different drivers on the 2022 Whelen Modified Tour season, Baldwin has utilized Coby for both Granite State Short Track Cup races. Coby has been efficient in those two starts but will have to separate himself from Hirschman on Friday to bring home the title.
60 Roy Hall – 86 points
Hall and Hirschman enter Friday’s Clash at Claremont 150 with something to prove after just narrowly missing out on a victory at Monadnock. The win would have given the duo a small lead in the Granite State Short Track Cup, but they will still have to engage in a heated battle with Coby for a shot at the championship.
16 Tyler Haydt – 83 points
Haydt’s driver Ron Silk currently leads the Whelen Modified Tour standings by just 10 points after nine races. Silk’s finishes of fourth and third at Lee and Monadnock respectively have put him Haydt well within striking distance of the Granite State Short Track Cup lead shared by Baldwin and Hall.
51 Ken Massa – 81 points
A feast-or-famine year for Massa and Justin Bonsignore currently has them five points behind Baldwin and Hall in the Granite State Short Track Cup. Bonsignore managed to pick up a crucial win at Monadnock following Hirschman’s run-in with Fortin and is hoping for good luck to fall his and Massa’s way on Friday.
3 Boehler Racing – 77 points
As with Baldwin’s operation, Boehler Racing has had multiple cars piloting Ole Blue in 2022, but Jake Johnson has driven the famous car in the two Granite State Short Track Cup races at Lee and Monadnock. Finishes of fifth and seventh in those races have given Johnson and Boehler an opportunity to take the title for themselves at Claremont.
64 KLM Motorsports – 73 points
A solid rookie campaign for Austin Beers with KLM Motorsports has him fifth in the Whelen Modified Tour standings and sixth in the Granite State Short Track Cup standings. Beers will have to improve upon a seventh-place finish he obtained at Lee in order for him and KLM to unseat Baldwin and Hall.
58 Edgar Goodale – 73 points
The Goodales are looking to rebound at Claremont after a last-lap crash at New Hampshire Motor Speedway took away their chance of a victory. Eric and Edgar are in a tie with KLM for sixth in the Granite State Short Track Cup after finishes of ninth and sixth at Lee and Monadnock respectively.
06 Randy Rameau – 72 points
The two Granite State Short Track Cup events at Lee and Monadnock are the only ones Sam and Randy Rameau have run with the Whelen Modified Tour this year. Sam rebounded from a tough outing at Lee to finish fourth at Monadnock, but he still has ground to cover in his and Randy’s quest to win the title on Friday.
22 Kyle Bonsignore – 71 points
Kyle Bonsignore is coming off a season-best performance of second at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. With finishes of sixth and 11th at Lee and Monadnock, Kyle will try to build on the momentum from New Hampshire and pull off an upset victory for the Granite State Short Track Cup.
54 Amy Catalano – 68 points
Tommy and Amy Catalano face significant odds of winning the Granite State Short Track Cup following finishes of 11th and ninth at Lee and Monadnock. Tommy is enjoying the best season of his Whelen Modified Tour career, but he will need another efficient performance and luck to have a shot at the championship.
79 Tim Lepine – 68 points
Currently tied for tenth with the Catalanos, the Granite State Short Track Cup has not gone according to plan for Lepine and his driver Jon McKennedy. After finishing second at Lee, a dismal 18th place run at Monadnock put the duo in a deep hole heading into the final race at Claremont on Friday.
After last weekend’s crash at Pocono Raceway, Kurt Busch will miss his second consecutive race this weekend at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Road Course.
Busch’s crash in Saturday’s qualifying session at Pocono left him with concussion-like symptoms that prevented him from being medically cleared to compete. After being evaluated before Sunday’s Verizon 200 at the Brickyard (2:30 p.m. ET, NBC, NBC Sports App, IMS Radio and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), Busch was not cleared to participate in this weekend’s events.
Busch enters Sunday’s race 17th in the current points standings (was 14th before Pocono), but 12th in the playoff rankings after his win in May at Kansas Speedway.
Gibbs, currently a top contender for the Xfinity Series championship, finished 16th in his Cup Series debut at Pocono.
Competition officials announced that Busch will be granted a postseason waiver upon his return, if he meets all other criteria for Cup Series Playoffs eligibility.
LONG POND, Pa. — It’s been a long seven years for Sage Karam.
Seven years of grief. Seven years of healing. Seven years of what-ifs.
But last Saturday, Karam finally wrote new memories at Pocono Raceway, making peace at his home track with a quiet, uneventful 20th-place finish in a NASCAR Xfinity Series race, his first at the 2.5-mile tri-oval since a 2015 IndyCar crash that resulted in the death of fellow competitor Justin Wilson.
“That was the goal for me today was to come in and just do all the laps I could do and keep the car clean and kind of let whatever was gonna happen in the race happen for us,” Karam told NASCAR.com. “And if that was P1, P10, P20, P30, then so be it.”
Karam wheeled the No. 45 Alpha Prime Racing Chevrolet through a clean Saturday just 30 miles northwest of Nazareth, the hometown he shares with the Andretti family. But to understand Karam’s journey is to start long before that fateful day in August 2015. That’s where Dr. Jarrod Spencer first comes into frame.
Zach Sturniolo | NASCAR Digital Media
Spencer, a sports psychologist, wrestled under the coaching of Karam’s father, Jody Karam, at Liberty (Pa.) High School in Bethlehem, and met the younger Karam six years prior, when Karam was just 14. Jody Karam saw his son’s potential in racing and knew Spencer’s guidance could prepare his son for the mental challenges ahead.
“I met him and was like, ‘I like this kid.’ And I saw it,” Spencer told NASCAR.com on Saturday. “And as soon as I saw him at 14, I said, ‘I’m in,’ and so I’ve been a friend and mentor since that time.”
Karam was a rising star in IndyCar, making 12 starts as a highly touted rookie during the 2015 season for Chip Ganassi Racing. But his shine sometimes left his competitors blinded by fury instead of admiration. Karam’s on-track aggression brought the ire of numerous drivers despite the speed he brought to the track.
That 12th start of 2015 will forever live with Karam. Leading with 21 laps to go, Karam’s car snapped loose in Turn 1 and spun hard into the outside SAFER barrier. Pieces of his car scattered. One was the nosecone of his No. 8 car. The cone bounced through the air and struck Wilson in the helmet, leaving Wilson with a traumatic head injury. Wilson succumbed to the injury the next day at a nearby hospital.
Karam spiraled into a deep depression, caused by his own grief and exasperated by numerous hate messages directed his way on social media.
The road out of that depression was bumpy at best and worsened in his first trip back to Long Pond.
That was three years later, returning as a spectator for another IndyCar race at Pocono in 2018. Among the people at his side that weekend was his girlfriend, now wife, Abby.
“I was like, OK, like, we’re going to do it, it’s going to be fine. It’s going to be a good day,” she recalled Saturday. “And he has this like crazy intuition. And we were riding in that day, and he’s like, ‘Something bad’s gonna happen.’ And I’m like, ‘No, I think you’re just jaded by what happened here, and it’s gonna be OK, we’re gonna be good.’ ”
Her optimism was short-lived. On the first lap at speed, Robert Wickens suffered a horrendous crash in the Tunnel Turn that sent his car into the catchfence. The car shredded apart and the crash left Wickens paralyzed from the waist down.
Karam’s depression came back in full force, shaken by watching a friend suffer such a terrifying accident. But Karam persevered, and at age 27, four more years after Wickens’ crash, he came back to Pocono — this time to finally get back behind the wheel of a race car.
“Ever since that moment (in 2018), I didn’t think this day would come,” Abby Karam said. “I really didn’t know if he would ever be ready to come back here.”
Spencer was by Karam’s side through the trauma. How it changed Karam, Spencer said, is a reflection of who Karam has always been.
“A moment like that will break a person beyond their mind and really, to their spirit,” Spencer said. “And you go deep inside of yourself when you experience a life moment like that. And so his resiliency, his adversity management there came from not just his mind, but really deep in his heart and spirit and soul. And so deepening his faith, growing in his emotional maturity, and then developing the resilience, those don’t come in life unless we sometimes really have to go through it.
“Well, he went through it. But to his credit, he’s come out on the other end of it, as we saw here today, like in an unbelievably impressive way.”
The result in Saturday’s Xfinity Series race was always going to be insignificant compared to his other races — so long as he finished the race and avoided adversity. He did, and for once, he was able to climb from a race car in Long Pond with a smile on his face.
“To be honest, that was one of the most fun times I’ve had driving a race car,” Karam said. “This place was really, really fun in these cars. I had a lot more fun in these cars than I did even with IndyCars, and IndyCars around here was really cool. But with these cars, you’re braking in every corner and through the Tunnel Turn, there’s a couple of bumps. So the car is like really reacting and you got to really be on top of it. And you’re just chasing it up towards the walls and everything. And it was really fun.”
It was a remarkable change of perspective at the track with which he’s always had a conflicted relationship.
Zach Sturniolo | NASCAR Digital Media
“This track means a lot and has a lot of emotional value to me, whether that’s negative or positive,” Karam said. “And for all those negative times I’ve had here, I will say that I’m glad it’s this track because this is my home track and anybody that can be here that’s in my support system, whether that’s friends, family, peers, I mean just anybody who’s helped me along the journey and seven years is here today. And there’s a lot of people that can’t go to all my races and can’t go to any other race, so for it to be this race, that makes it — I don’t want to say easier, but it does make it nicer for me because I can have that that full-on support system here for me.”
The race didn’t come without a scare, though. At Lap 46, Santino Ferrucci spun at the exit of Turn 3, triggering a blinding smokescreen that led to a multi-car pile-up. As Ricky Stenhouse Jr. spun to the left side of the track, Jeb Burton launched over his front end and tumbled onto his roof. Karam witnessed the entire incident and drove past the upended No. 27 Chevrolet.
“I saw a car go flying through the air and I was like, ‘you’ve got to be kidding me. Again?’ ” Karam said. “But as a driver, you kind of know when certain ones are worse than others and that it is happening right in front of me. And I saw it and it didn’t look as bad as far as like from like the intensity level of it to what it maybe looked like.”
The crash happened just in front of the No. 45 team’s pit box, where Karam’s wife and father were watching the race.
“I got on the radio right away and was just like, ‘hey, is everybody all good?’And they said he was out of the car pretty quickly,” Karam said. “So when I knew that, it was good. But yeah, that would have would have been pretty tricky if we would have left here with another bad experience with somebody getting hurt or something like that. But I’m glad that everybody had a safe day today and everybody had a good race and I had a lot of fun.”
Pocono had rarely conjured fun memories for Karam. This time, he left emotional for all the right reasons.
Mission accomplished. Really happy with how today went. Happy to give @TeamAlphaPrime a top 20👊🏼 thank you @CRCAuto for making this happen for me. Thanks to everyone who showed me support over the last few days. Was really cool to hear the cheers during driver intros today! pic.twitter.com/o2FSygeuEz
That picture, taken by Abby Karam, shows the moment Karam and Spencer connected after Karam conquered his journey.
“I was tearful, and he was tearful,” Spencer said. “And it was just that moment of like, OK, seven years, like we did it. And that moment was everything to me because there’s so much that goes into that picture of like, wisdom is healed pain. And that pain was really just healed at that moment.”
“Today was the making of a seven-year journey,” Karam said. “I’ve had opportunities to come back here and race and I wasn’t ready. And I took the time I needed to take and did the things that were necessary to make sure I was ready for the opportunity that, when I was going to come back here, I would make the most of it. And I felt that was this year, and I’m glad I waited. And I feel like we did make the most of it.
We couldn’t keep him hidden forever. We tried. But we couldn’t.
Our very own @nascarcasm (we say “our very own” because he won’t leave) thought it was time to meet face to face with the drivers he had poked fun at for so long, and reveal the face that had long been hidden behind pixels or blurs on social media.
We’ve watched the video. We can honestly say this is a huge occasion, not only for @nascarcasm, but also for race fans who enjoy being extremely disappointed by things.
It was a thrill for him, but the drivers as well, who have wanted to not meet him for a long, long time.
And now, without further delay, the revelation that no one asked for … here’s @nascarcasm.
Stephanie Moyer is driving change within NASCAR as an inaugural participant in the Busch Light Accelerate Her program and one of the few women drivers in the sport.
Growing up in a racing family in Pennsylvania, Moyer’s passion for motorsports began at a young age when she was mentored by both her father and her brother, who was a champion driver. While studying at the University of Northwestern Ohio, Moyer joined the race club and had the unique opportunity to intern as a mechanic for Mason Mitchell Motorsports in the ARCA Menards Series.
Through her internship, Moyer attended Daytona for the first time. It was this inspiring moment that defined her future in the industry, where she vowed to pursue racing at the professional level.
Now, through skill and fierce determination, Moyer’s career is flourishing. In 2021, she continued her success with a 10th-place finish by points in the ARCA Menards East Series. This past year, Moyer joined as an inaugural participant of the Busch Light Accelerate Her program, which aims to bring more access and brand support to women athletes in NASCAR.
“I’m excited to work with Busch Light on this program because it’s more than just getting a check from a company. Busch Light is invested in helping me and all women in NASCAR reach our goals and make it to the highest level of the sport,” Moyer said.
For the 2022 season, Moyer hopes to continue learning more about the intricacies of the sport and to show the world what she can really do.
ABOUT THE BUSCH LIGHT ACCELERATE HER PROGRAM
The Busch Light Accelerate Her Program is a three-year commitment that takes aim at the inequity of resources available to women drivers by investing directly in every 21+ woman driver in NASCAR, providing brand-building opportunities to increase fan visibility of drivers and the sport. The Busch Light Accelerate Her program is the next step in a proud, 40-year partnership between Busch Light and NASCAR that has propelled the sport forward, bringing fans closer to the action and expanding NASCAR throughout the U.S. Busch Light asks that fans show their support by heading to Busch.com/accelerateher where they can learn more about the inaugural drivers, including Natalie, that are receiving this opportunity.
