Editor’s note: Bozi Tatarevic is a professional racing mechanic and pit crew member. He will provide technical analysis for NASCAR.com throughout the 2022 season.
Sunday’s WISE Power 400 at Auto Club Speedway was an eventful race as drivers figured out the handling and cooling limits of the Next Gen car on the surface of the 2-mile oval. We saw some of those challenges and how much harder this car is to drive in practice as well as the race. Multiple cars spun from lift-off oversteer while cooling challenges started to show themselves for some teams in the early stages.
Lift-off oversteer is a condition where load transfer happens from the rear to the front tires of a car as the throttle is lifted, which causes the rear tires to lose traction and the tail of the car to snap around. This is also often referred to as the car snapping loose. It was something we saw starting in the practice sessions with multiple cars spinning and some ending up in the wall. One such case was the No. 4 Ford of Kevin Harvick which ended up hitting the wall with its right corner.
The Stewart-Haas Racing crew examined the damage on the car and decided to repair it instead of going to a backup. They were able to unbolt the deck lid and the composite rear bumper and quarter panels to find that the rear bumper assembly had taken most of the damage. Since the Next Car has modular chassis and body components, they were able to unbolt that rear bumper assembly and bolt a spare one and then reinstall the bodywork back over it. This would have required a backup car in the past as the chassis supports in the rear required cutting and welding for repair versus bolting on a new one with the redesigned car.
In all honesty all of that part went really well.
Last year would have been 1 week in the chassis shop, 2 days in heavy fab, 6 days on a body plate, 2 days in finish fab, 2 days in the body shop, a day in the scan room, 40 runs in the Hawkeye. https://t.co/Hc5YR5evlN
Crew chief Rodney Childers took to Twitter to share feedback from their repair experience and stated that the repair process went well and shared that the at-track repair that the team completed on this car would have taken almost two weeks of work at the shop last year. According to Childers, it would have had to visit their chassis and shops for repair and welding of the damaged chassis components and sheet metal work on that body. Vinyl was re-applied once the composite body panels were bolted back on and Harvick went on to finish seventh in the race after having to start at the rear due to those repairs.
While Harvick had a fairly smooth start to his race after his initial troubles in practice, we saw the first yellow flag of the race come out as Kyle Busch lost traction with his No. 18 Camry when he touched one of the seams on the racing surface. As he was bringing his car back to pit road, we heard that his engine temperatures were hot and that was likely a combination of the new cooling configuration and possible debris on the track limiting some of that cooling.
We’ve gotten used to grilles being taped up over the years as the radiator used to receive its airflow from that grille in the front and engines pulled air into their intakes from a cowl below the windshield, but the Next Gen car changes all of that as both the radiator and engine intake pull their air in from that grille at the front and tape is no longer allowed. Outlawing that tape works in conjunction with new radiator ducting that now exits out of the top of the hood.
The radiator duct assembly has a grille at the front and most teams run a secondary screen inside the duct before it reaches the radiator to trap debris. That duct now leads to the radiator and oil cooler which are sandwiched together and then a snorkel from that assembly leads to the engine air intake. This type of configuration discourages teams from taping the grille or trying to obstruct it in some other way because it could potentially reduce airflow to the engine intake, therefore, reducing power.
The way that teams can control how much air passes through the radiator now is with a blocker plate that can be installed behind the radiator to throttle some of that airflow. If a team chooses to use a radiator blocker plate then it must use a piece that is 0.062 inches thick with identical circular holes to allow the air to pass through. Teams can tune how much air passes by the size of these holes if the blocker plate is installed.
The likely scenario that we saw in the Kyle Busch incident, and a few others that complained of overheating, is that those cars likely had a throttle plate installed which would limit a certain amount of airflow. That combined with sandy debris we saw at Auto Club limited airflow to the radiator enough to cause engine temperatures to rise. Teams attempted to resolve some of this by clearing the grille area during pit stops but that is the limit of what can be done in race conditions because the blocker plates cannot be removed during the race and they are not allowed to be adjustable.
Auto Club was definitely a track for collecting data on repairs and adjustments and we’re likely to see improvements based on that information as teams head into Las Vegas Motor Speedway this week.
Choose the nickname: “The World’s Most Famous Short Track” or the “Birthplace of the NASCAR Stars.”
Either properly conveys the significance of Hickory Motor Speedway, the .363-mile NASCAR Home Track located in Newton, North Carolina.
One of the most storied tracks in stock car racing, Hickory in 2022 continues to host weekly racing from March through October as part of the NASCAR Advance Auto Parts Weekly Series. The track’s “Big 10” events conclude with the Weekly Series championship night — with double points for all divisions — in September.
From Gwyn Staley in 1951 to Josh Kossek in 2021, the list of track champions at Hickory is loaded with notable names. And that list does not include the NASCAR national series winners at the track in the 1950s, ’60s, ’70s, ’80s and ’90s.
Below is everything to know about Hickory Motor Speedway.
14 degrees in Turns 1-2; 12 degrees in Turns 3-4; 8 degrees on frontstretch and backstretch
Surface
Asphalt
Hickory Motor Speedway opened in 1951 as a half-mile dirt track. That was the configuration on which Staley won the first race at the venue en route to his track championship that year.
That dirt track produced more notable track champions in the 1950s, as Junior Johnson won Hickory’s second track championship in 1952 before Ralph Earnhart reeled off consecutive Hickory titles in 1953-54.
Earnhardt would go on to win three more track championships at Hickory, in 1956, 1957 and 1957. Those titles sandwiched Hickory championships for Ned Jarrett in 1955 and Johnny Miller in 1958.
The Hickory dirt track was reconfigured to a shorter distance (0.4 miles) in 1955 before it was paved during the 1967 season. The track’s current configuration, an even shorter asphalt oval, arrived in 1970.
Hickory hosted 35 NASCAR Cup Series races from 1953-71. Johnson has the most Cup wins at the track with seven in 20 starts, ahead of second-place Richard Petty’s five victories in 22 starts. Petty has the most top-10 Cup finishes at Hickory with 18 in those 22 starts.
Hickory also hosted 42 races for what’s now the NASCAR Xfinity Series from 1982-98. That includes six of 28 events in 1982, the first year for the series.
Tommy Houston and Jack Ingram are tied for the most Xfinity Series wins at Hickory with eight apiece.
Below are the complete lists of winners at Hickory Motor Speedway in the NASCAR Cup Series and NASCAR Xfinity Series, followed by Hickory’s list of track champions.
After two-plus years of postponements, the 26th edition of the Kyle Petty Charity Ride Across America is set to roll on, with a seven-day route announced Tuesday to raise funds and awareness for the Victory Junction camp.
The ride is scheduled April 30-May 6, starting in Phoenix and making a loop of roughly 1,500 miles through Arizona and Utah. Approximately 225 participants are signed up for the weeklong event, which is presented by Cox Automotive.
The Charity Ride celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2019, but the COVID-19 pandemic forced postponements in each of the last two years. The organization held the Charity Ride Revival last September, creating an abbreviated three-day version of the event with scenic trips through Virginia and West Virginia. A virtual fundraiser was held in 2021.
As with previous editions of the event, several celebrity riders have plans to participate. Former drivers Richard Petty, Donnie Allison, Harry Gant, Hershel McGriff and Ken Schrader are scheduled to ride, along with NBC Sports broadcaster Rick Allen.
“We’ve been planning this 26th Anniversary Ride since the end of our 2019 event, and patiently waiting for the right time to gather again amidst the coronavirus pandemic,” Kyle Petty said. “So now, nearly three years in the making, I’m beyond thrilled to finally get our riders back together for an exciting adventure in Arizona and Utah. This year’s Ride is all about stopping to see some of the beautiful places we’ve ridden by in the past, mixed with a few new places for our riders to explore. Together, we will create memories to last a lifetime. And it’s all for the kids at Victory Junction! We ride so that deserving kids get to experience the magic of camp.”
The 2019 edition of the Charity Ride raised $1.7 million and sent 128 children to Victory Junction, which provides life-changing recreational experiences for children with serious medical conditions. More than 8,200 children have attended the camp at no cost as a result of the Charity Ride’s contributions.
NASCAR Camping World Truck Series driver Hailie Deegan is a racer who wants to wheel anything she can get her hands on. Born into motorsports, her development driving years were spent racing off-road. Tires on dirt and in the air is where it all started, and now with the invite from Method Race Wheels she is headed back off-road to take on the Mint 400.
The current Mint 400 is a unique, multi-day format beginning with competitors in their race vehicles parading down the Vegas strip on Wednesday, March 9 followed by The Mint 400 Off-Road Festival taking place on Thursday, March 10 in downtown Las Vegas on Fremont Street East from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. The event is free and open to the public. Come down and meet Hailie in person March 10 at 1 p.m. on the corner of Fremont Street and Las Vegas Boulevard in the Method Race Wheels Booth to get an autograph.
On a blustery February afternoon at a secret Southern California desert location, Deegan and her 2022 Mint 400 machine came together for the first time. Powered by a 6.2-liter V8 engine, the Unlimited Truck SPEC class at the Mint 400 is one of the fastest vehicles in the desert. With 525 horsepower, 24” front suspension travel in front and 30” in the rear, these trucks eat bumps the size of refrigerators for hours on end. With some brief coaching from Chuck Dempsey of truck builders Brenthel Industries, she was quickly up to speed running multiple laps of the several mile-long test loop.
“This might be the most fun I’ve ever had driving anything!” – Hailie Deegan
Injuries may have forced him to retire prematurely from NASCAR in 1999, but horsepower continues to be a major part of Ernie Irvan’s life.
Two vastly different types of horsepower, that is.
There’s the traditional version of horsepower that the veteran NASCAR driver knows all too well. It keeps him still involved in racing, serving as a car owner, builder, crew chief and pretty much anything else that needs to be done overseeing son Jared’s career in late model racing these days.
“It’s just the two of us, Jared and myself,” Irvan told NASCAR.com. “We take care of the car ourselves. And we run right here in Citrus County (Florida). There’s like five tracks that we can go to within a couple, three hours.”
The other type of horsepower that takes up a big chunk of Irvan’s time is being with Kim, his wife of 29 years, and their daughter Jordan, who are both involved in horse racing and other equestrian events.
The Irvan’s and their adult children — Jordan, 28, and Jared, 24 — moved to central Florida several years ago to be closer to equestrian competitions in the Southeast for Kim and Jordan, as well as Jared’s budding racing career.
“Jared would love to (reach NASCAR),” Irvan said. “Even though he’s getting his private airplane pilot’s license now, he would love to (race in NASCAR).”
Irvan then added with a good laugh: “I always (tell Jared) racing’s the best way to make a living and not have to work. You get paid, but if you could, you would do it for free.
“I remember I asked Dale Earnhardt one time, ‘What should I ask for my next salary in my next contract?’ He said, ‘You love racing?’ I said, ‘Yep.’ He said, ‘Would you do it for free if you had to?’ And I said yep again. Then Dale said, ‘OK, I would do that, too, but don’t tell Richard Childress!’”
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While the semi-retired, 63-year-old Irvan says “life is good” these days, it wasn’t always like that. In a little over a five-and-a-half-year span, he and his family endured three terrible incidents, including one that almost killed Ernie.
On Aug. 20, 1994, he was involved in a horrendous wreck during Cup practice at Michigan International Speedway. A tire blew and he went head-on into the Turn 1 wall. When rescuers pulled him from the mangled race car, Irvan was unconscious and drowning in his blood.
Had it not been for a quick response at the race track and being airlifted to a hospital for immediate surgery, Irvan likely would not have survived. He gives much of the credit to that life-saving surgery to Ann Arbor, Michigan, trauma surgeon, Dr. John Maino, who just happened to be volunteering that day with the local rescue squad that was stationed in the infield near Turn 1.
“Who would have ever thought there was a trauma doctor in the corner where I crashed and he saved my life,” Irvan said. “Dr. Maino came right out with the ambulance, they didn’t know how bad I was. He diagnosed me real quick. So, he put a trach in me right away, to get it to where I could breathe again. He saved my life … and I was able to come back to racing a year later.
“Obviously, there was somebody above, God, looking out for me. I mean, I had more in this world to accomplish than I had accomplished. Racing was just a very small part of it. Most important was my family needed me (Jordan was just 1 year old at the time and Jared would come along four years later).”
It took him nearly 14 months of recovery after that crash, but Irvan eventually returned to racing and finished sixth in his first race back at North Wilkesboro (N.C.) Speedway on Oct. 1, 1995.
Even though he earned 15 wins in his Cup career, including the 1991 Daytona 500 and returned to Michigan to win there again in 1997 (his final Cup victory), one race stands out above all else for Irvan.
You might say it was a win of a different sort.
Bill Hall | Allsport
“In a lot of ways, I look back and that race when I came back, at North Wilkesboro, was probably the best race I ever had,” Irvan said. “Not because I did it with an eye patch on, or that it wasn’t because it was the best finish I ever had. It was because I got back to racing and doing what I loved.”
It was team owner Robert Yates who convinced NASCAR officials that Irvan could race well, even with an eye patch.
“NASCAR took Robert Yates’ word of me being able to drive a race car again, and Robert had a lot of credibility,” Irvan said. “Robert said, ‘he’s good.’ So I was able to do that. Just being able to finish the race without having any problems, it was just such a reward in my life, to be able to get back to do what I love to do, to be able to do it again and being able to extend my career more.”
In a cruel twist of irony, five years later to the day of his original crash, this time being Aug. 20, 1999, Irvan was once again back at MIS, qualifying for a Busch Series race, when he lost control exiting Turn 4 and hit the wall. While his injuries were less severe than his crash five years earlier, they were serious enough that two weeks later, in a tearful goodbye, he announced his retirement as a driver at Darlington Raceway.
Even though his 1994 wreck involved a blown tire, Irvan has long blamed himself somewhat for the circumstances of the wreck.
“I always say there was decisions I made in my career that probably led to things that I could have changed, situations where like I might never have gotten hurt,” he said. “That first accident at Michigan, Larry McReynolds (Irvan’s crew chief, now a Fox Sports NASCAR analyst) said, ‘Hey, let’s go out and run a 10-lapper (practice run) and see what we’ve got.’
“I was making the 10 laps and Larry said, ‘Man, we definitely need to work on this thing so come in and we’ll work on it.’ I told him, ‘Let me make a couple more (laps).’ Well, I went into Turn 1, blew the tire out and hit the fence. If I would have not done that, who knows what would have happened. I made that extra lap and I paid the price for it. I look back on it now and say, ‘Man, I wish I hadn’t done that.’
“And then the second accident five years later, we had just built a brand new car and I was qualifying in Michigan and we were really, really fast. I think it was 3/10 quicker than everybody on the first lap. Then I told myself, ‘Man, I swear I can hold this thing wide open.’ And I tried to and busted my butt.
“I was never happy. It’s like, ‘OK, I’m on the pole. Let’s pull in.’ But no, I always wanted to get to the next step, to go faster.”
Irvan’s run of misfortune didn’t end with the 1999 wreck. Sadly, just over six months after his premature injury-related retirement, Irvan was on vacation with his family when an electrical issue caused a fire that destroyed the family’s Lake Norman, North Carolina, home.
Virtually all of his racing memories, including all of his winner trophies, were destroyed in the fire. But to his credit, then-NASCAR President Bill France Jr. ordered identical duplicate trophies be made to replace the ones Irvan had lost in the fire. Something for which Irvan will forever be grateful.
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Irvan’s early retirement from racing also prevented him from achieving more goals. Even though he amassed 15 Cup wins in 313 starts (plus three other triumphs in the Busch Series), he’s long felt he could have won many more if it hadn’t been for the 1994 wreck.
“I feel really good about what I was able to accomplish, but would I have been able to accomplish more if the situation hadn’t happened with me getting hurt? There’s no doubt,” Irvan said. “When I was driving the 28 car, we were en route to being able to win more races. Larry McReynolds did an interview a few years ago and said if I hadn’t gotten hurt, I might have won 30 or 40 races.”
These days, even though he has a lifetime pass that allows him to attend any NASCAR event, Irvan still keeps up with sport, mainly watching races on TV and making occasional in-person appearances at race tracks.
A good example of that was four days before this year’s Daytona 500. Irvan, who lives roughly 80 miles from Daytona International Speedway, was once again invited to take part in a popular annual old-timers event at the legendary Streamline Hotel where NASCAR was founded in 1948.
“Bobby and Donny Allison were there, Red Farmer was there, there was quite a few different racers there,” Irvan said. “So I went and did that deal, saw a bunch of people, then went back home and watched the race on TV on Sunday.”
Then he added with his noted sense of humor, “I can watch it on TV and I can drink my own beer rather than have to pay the $9 or $10 for a beer there.”
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Even though it was cut short, Irvan says he has no regrets from his racing career, except for one that he hopes may still happen one day.
Namely, induction into the NASCAR Hall of Fame.
Surprisingly, Irvan’s name has never made the cut for the 20- or 25-individual field of nominees each year from which the final inductees emerge.
“To make the Hall of Fame would be unbelievable,” Irvan said. “That’s something that I would love to have that, that I could put on my mantle and say I’m in the Hall of Fame.”
Irvan isn’t the only one who would like to see him in the NASCAR Hall. A lot of his fans would also love to see that.
Even to this day, fans remain a big part of Irvan’s life, whether they see him at a race track or a local restaurant or bump into him at the store.
“It’s really nice to be able to be recognized,” Irvan said.
But he admits he also owes some fans an apology from instances of years past.
“When I was racing all the time, sometimes you might be at dinner and a fan come up – you’re in the middle of a bite – and want an autograph,” he said. “You don’t know how important that is until you don’t have that anymore.
“Today, I have no problem with that. But it’s also not 30 times a day. Nowadays, I enjoy talking to race fans more than I did before because I was just more focused on racing. I was there to beat everybody, every day, whatever it took. I regret I didn’t take care of my race fans as well as I should have and didn’t take care of my sponsors as well as I should have.”
Even after nearly a quarter-century away from his last race, Irvan admits he still feels good when fans come up to him.
“It really does,” he said, then laughs while relating another story. “Especially here in Ocala and somebody recognizes you at a restaurant. It’s like, man, I’m in horse country and somebody recognizes me in a restaurant?”
He then returns to a more serious side and adds, “It’s just amazing, the memories that people have. It’s really rewarding to be able to have it where people remember you for what you’ve done.”
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The Ernie Irvan file:
* Age: 63
* Hometown: Now lives in Ocala, Florida
* Wife: Married 29 years to Kim
* Children: Daughter Jordan (28 years old) and son Jared (24 years old)
Career highlights:
* NASCAR Cup career: 313 races, 15 wins, 68 top-five finishes, 124 top 10s and 22 poles. Best standings finish: fifth (1991).
* NASCAR Xfinity Series career: 57 races, 3 wins, 12 top-five finishes, 15 top 10s and five poles. Only part-time seasons in the series.
* NASCAR Truck Series career: 12 races, 0 wins, 7 top-five finishes and 8 top 10s. Only part-time seasons in the series.
The NASCAR Foundation is currently accepting nominations for the 12th annual Betty Jane France Humanitarian Award.
The award, named in honor of the foundation’s late founder and chairwoman Betty Jane France, recognizes NASCAR fans who volunteer for children’s causes in their racing communities. Ultimately, four award finalists will be determined who will each receive a minimum $25,000 donation for their organization with the overall winner receiving a $100,000 donation from the NASCAR Foundation to further their efforts.
Nominations are being accepted through Friday, March 18th. The official nomination form can be downloaded via the NASCAR Foundation’s website at NASCARfoundation.org/award.
The preseason buzz about the prospects of a successful merger for the newly formed Petty GMS Motorsports is starting to pay some early dividends. Count in Erik Jones’ sterling Sunday drive at Auto Club Speedway as Exhibit A for that early assessment.
Jones pushed the No. 43 Petty GMS Chevrolet to a third-place finish, backing up the weekend-long speed he showed at the 2-mile California track. The result marked his first top-five finish since taking over Richard Petty’s No. 43 at the start of last season.
“It was good. It feels good to be interviewed after the race, too,” Jones said. “It’s awesome, but it’s frustrating too. You’re that close and you have a car that you feel like can do it. The No. 43 FOCUSFactor Chevrolet definitely had it today. It was a matter of getting up front and taking advantage of clean air, and we did that a couple of times.
“A couple restarts just didn’t go our way. I probably could have done a better job here and there, and it just didn’t add up. I just haven’t raced up front a lot in the last year and a half. There are some things I need to be better at. Hopefully I have a lot of time to work on that. We want to keep running up front and if we keep doing that, we’re going to win some races.”
Jones led six times for 18 laps Sunday, a one-day doubling of the total he led in all of last season. He backed up his second-place effort in Saturday’s qualifying session, keeping pace with early dominator Tyler Reddick and finishing second behind him at each stage break. Jones was also the only driver who spent all 200 laps scored among the top 15.
Jones earned 52 points Sunday – tied for the most with race winner Kyle Larson – and used that bonanza to rebound nicely from a crashed-out 29th-place finish in the Daytona 500 opener. It’s a small sample size points-wise so far, but he gained 16 spots to jump to sixth in the Cup Series standings.
The Petty organization joined forces with Maury Gallagher’s GMS outfit on Dec. 7, growing to a two-car operation with Ty Dillon added as Jones’ new teammate. So far, early signs of a new direction performance-wise are also taking shape.
“I’m really proud of this whole group,” Jones said. “It’s been a big offseason with the merger and everything we’ve done, so this is a very satisfying run for everybody. and I just hope we can keep going.”
Daniel Suárez had said in the weeks leading up to the 2022 NASCAR season that he was optimistic his first Cup Series win was approaching. Sunday at Auto Club Speedway, he nearly made an early delivery on that promise.
Suárez gave defending series champ Kyle Larson a full-on challenge in the final restart of Sunday’s Wise Power 400 before slipping to fourth place at the checkered flag. That finish matched his best result since joining Trackhouse Racing for its first campaign last season, equaling the fourth-place run in the inaugural dirt-track race at Bristol Motor Speedway.
For a brief moment, it looked as if Suárez might cash in with Trackhouse’s first victory. Suarez gained six spots in the final exchange of pit stops, and he lined his No. 99 Chevrolet up alongside Larson’s No. 5 when the green flag flew for the final time with four laps remaining.
Suárez briefly went in front on Lap 198 of 200, thanks to a push from fellow Chevy driver Erik Jones. But Suárez only led part of that lap as Larson regained the edge with a frontstretch crossover move that kept him out front for his first win of the season.
Austin Dillon and Jones worked their way by in the closing laps, but Suárez was encouraged by the performance as he reflected on the day.
“We’re going to win a few races very soon here,” said Suárez, who continued after a scrape of the outside retaining wall with 14 laps left. “I just can’t thank everyone enough in my team. We had a fast car, but we went through a lot of adversity. We had a few issues. We hit the wall once. We had an issue with the diffuser. My pit crew, those guys are legends; it’s unbelievable. It’s the best pit crew I’ve ever had, and it’s a lot of fun to race like that.
“Freeway Insurance, Chevrolet, everyone that helps Trackhouse out, to be able to be here and perform this way. I’m happy and I’m honored at the same time. I can tell you that I’m going to work very, very hard to go to Victory Lane very, very soon here.”
Hendrick Motorsports landed its reigning champion driver in Victory Lane after Sunday’s Wise Power 400 NASCAR Cup Series race at Auto Club Speedway, but it didn’t escape the 2-mile track Fontana, California, without incident.
With 20 laps to go and amidst a three-way battle for the lead with Joey Logano, eventual race winner Kyle Larson issued a block on teammate Chase Elliott, squeezing the 2020 champ into the wall.
“What the (expletive) is he doing, man? It wasn’t even close,” Elliott exclaimed over his in-car communications. ” … It’s probably going to break again before the end of the race. But I don’t really give a (expletive) who is leading the race.”
Elliott quickly faded through the pack as a result of the damage, and his suspicions were right — he spun just a few laps later, prompting the last of the race’s 12 caution flags. Cumulative damage between this brush with the wall and an earlier incident were too much to overcome, and Elliott landed 26th on the final results sheet, two laps down.
The Dawsonville, Georgia, native had been leading in Stage 1 when he briefly lost control of his Chevrolet and slammed the outside wall, later bringing out the race’s second caution with a spin on Lap 38. A furious, race-long effort by his No. 9 group propelled his run back through the field to the front only to have it end in such a fashion surely compounded the frustration.
Larson claimed over his in-car radio he did not see his teammate approaching on his outside. The Elk Grove, California, native drove on, then survived a final restart with four laps remaining for his first Cup Series victory of the season. His post-race winner’s press conference allowed him to further elaborate on what he was seeing at the time.
“So, I didn’t get through (Turns) 3 and 4 very well. Joey (Logano) did a good job on the bottom, and then we were side drafting each other, and I’m not even looking in my mirror at that point because all I’m worried about is Joey and I’m looking out of my A-post window. I had a run, so I went to peel off, and as soon as I peeled off, my spotter is yelling, ‘Outside! Outside! Outside!’ And I had no clue he was even coming,” said Larson, who returned to Victory Lane in quick order after last season’s 10 wins. “I hate that I ended his day after they worked so hard to get back to the lead lap and back in contention to win, but it was just an honest mistake on probably both of our faults. I should have had more awareness in my mirror. My spotter could have told me he was coming with a big run, and we would have avoided that mess. I would have probably not been side drafting on Joey as hard as I was. I would have been more so protecting on Chase than worrying about Joey.
“It happened, and I hate that it did. I know they’re upset. But we’ll talk, and hopefully we’ll get on the same page. I would never run into my teammate or block him that aggressively and that late on purpose.”
Larson’s spotter, Tyler Monn, was quick to chime in on Twitter after the race, taking responsibility for the mishap.
Today I made a mistake. I will take full responsibility for what happen on track today. I was worried more about the 22 and not the 9. It was a late call on me it had nothing to do with Kyle.
This minor dust-up shouldn’t overshadow Larson’s win, a statement he’s going to still be just as formidable in the Next Gen era two races in. But Hendrick Motorsports has a little bit of sweeping to do in the coming days between its pair of star drivers and the sport’s two most recent champions. The last thing the team needs before the calendar even turns to March is bad blood among any of its drivers, let alone half of last year’s Championship 4.
No. 5 crew chief Cliff Daniels had a post-race chat with No.9 pit boss Alan Gustafson to “take his share of the responsibility,” mentioning he continues to view Elliott’s group as “great teammates, always have been,” and that’ll continue to be the base.
Conversations will still need to take place between the two drivers, however, to complete the fence-mending process.
“I think first that’ll need to start, from our perspective, between Kyle and Chase,” Hendrick general manager Jeff Andrews said. “Hopefully they can get to a good spot and kind of step back and look at the data and really watch what happened there. And then of course, as a group, Jeff Gordon, Chad (Knaus) and myself and Mr. (Rick) Hendrick, of course, we want to speak to them. We want to go to Las Vegas in a good spot.
“Certainly, very proud of both of those teams. They both had great race cars. That’s the great news, right? This other stuff that happens on the race track, we can get all that to a good spot between those two teams, and give Cliff credit for standing down there talking to (Gustafson) a while ago, and he said after what happened, their mission is going to be to do everything they can to help Chase and that 9 team as well as our other teams get a win and get on to the playoffs.”
Elliott did not appear to make any public comments after the race, understandably upset after a day in which he had a car capable of winning and walked away with 11 total points.
Larson intends to spark conversations with his teammate and doesn’t expect it to be a lingering issue.
“I’m going to tell him exactly how I told you guys, and he’ll take it for what it is,” Larson said. “Either way I’m sure he’ll still be upset even if we’re on the same page or not. It’s just a conversation that we’ll have, and we’re both young, we both respect each other a lot, so we’ll both be racing for wins for many years to come.
“I’m not too worried about it. I think if anything it’s probably a small bump in the road. I think if things happen more so in the future, then yes, it gets out of hand. But Hendrick Motorsports I don’t think will ever let it get to that point, and like I said, we have enough respect for each other that I don’t think it will get out of hand at all.”
That said, the season is long … and that likely wasn’t their last battle at the front of the field.
“We’ll just have a conversation, and I’m sure it’ll be fine,” Larson said. “Like I said, he’s going to be upset, which he has a right to be, but I’ll explain my side just like I explained it to you guys, and he’ll believe me or he won’t.”
The Cup Series next races on Sunday at Las Vegas Motor Speedway at 3:30 p.m. ET on FOX.
Reigning NASCAR Cup Series champion Kyle Larson waited until late in Sunday’s Wise Power 400 to flex his muscles.
But in the end, the driver of the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet held off a charging Austin Dillon by .195 seconds at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, Calif., to notch his first victory of the season, his second at the 2-mile track and the 17th of his career.
In a race that featured 12 cautions for 59 laps, Larson, who started from the rear of the field because of unapproved adjustments to his Camaro, took the lead from Joey Logano on Lap 167 of 200 and held it for 27 of the final 34 circuits on the way to the victory.
That was after the dominant car of Tyler Reddick suffered a flat left-rear tire while leading on Lap 152, and in the aftermath of that incident was collected by the sliding car of William Byron.
Reddick had led 90 laps to that point—17 more than in his first 75 Cup starts combined—and had won the first and second stages in convincing fashion.
Larson, however, outlasted arguably stronger cars and was in position to win at the end of the race.
“It’s always fun to win here in the home state,” said the Elk Grove, Calif., native Kyle Larson. “There were definitely some guys that were quicker than us, but they had their misfortunes.
“Just kept our heads in it all day — long race. Restarts were crazy. The whole runs were crazy. So definitely wild, but cool to get a win here in California and hope we get on a little streak.”
James Gilbert | Getty Images
Larson’s victory came at the expense of teammate Chase Elliott, who fell two laps down after scraping the wall on Lap 33 and spinning off Turn 2 five laps later.
As the beneficiary under two cautions, Elliott regained the lead lap, drove through the field and was battling Larson and Logano for the lead when Larson shot up the track and pinched Elliott’s Chevrolet into the outside wall. Larson said on his radio that he didn’t know Elliott was there.
It was Elliott who spun on Lap 192 to cause the final caution and set up a dramatic four-lap sprint to the finish that saw Trackhouse Racing’s Daniel Suàrez briefly wrestle the lead from Larson, thanks to a push from Petty GMS Motorsports’ Erik Jones. But Larson regained the lead off Turn 4 with just over two laps left and held it the rest of the way.
In a testament to the relative parity achieved by NASCAR’s new Next Gen race car — admittedly with a small sample size so far — nine different Cup organizations finished in the top 10 at Fontana.
One of those was the Trackhouse Racing team of Suàrez who rolled home fourth behind the Chevrolets of Larson, Dillon and Jones.
“We’re going to win a few races very soon here,” Suàrez said. “I just can’t thank everyone enough on my team. We had a fast car, but we went through a lot of adversity. We had a few issues. We hit the wall once. We had an issue with a diffuser. My pit crew, those guys are legends, it’s unbelievable.
“It’s the best pit crew I’ve ever had, and it’s a lot of fun to race like that. The Freeway Insurance Chevrolet, everyone that helps Trackhouse out, to be able to be here and perform this way. … I can tell you that I’m going to work very, very hard to go to Victory Lane very, very soon here.”
Logano ran fifth, followed by Aric Almirola, Kevin Harvick and Kurt Busch (who started from the rear and served a pass-through penalty to start the race because of three inspection failures). Daniel Hemric and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. completed the top 10.
Pole-sitter and Daytona 500 winner Austin Cindric finished 12th after suffering damage in a four-car accident involving Brad Keselowski, Bubba Wallace and Harrison Burton on Lap 158.
Larson, who won 10 races last year in his first season at Hendrick Motorsports, led four times for 28 laps, second only to Reddick’s 90. All told, there were 32 lead changes among nine drivers in an event in which radical shuffling of the running order was commonplace.
The Cup Series’ next race is scheduled Sunday, March 6 (3:30 p.m. ET, FOX, PRN, SiriusXM) at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
Note: Inspection in the Cup Series garage is complete, confirming Kyle Larson as the official race winner.
