Posted on by Holly Cain

Perhaps it is only fitting. The Next Gen car rolls into NASCAR Cup Series competition in 2022 with an expanding group of Next Gen team owners; from a successful 40-year-old entrepreneur to former drivers and current competitors to an NBA legend and a Grammy winner, they’re all creating a new-look ownership landscape in the sport’s premier series.

Yes, the NASCAR “titans” remain still very much in play, with NASCAR Hall of Fame owners such as Rick Hendrick, Richard Childress, Jack Roush, Roger Penske and Joe Gibbs. But a group of next-generation ownership including businessman Matt Kaulig, former competitor Justin Marks and current racers Denny Hamlin and Brad Keselowski will field cars on the grid next season, too.

Add to that NBA legend Michael Jordan and Grammy winner Pitbull, who are lending a decidedly marquee feel to the grid as well as part of the new NASCAR ownership groups.

MORE: Key players in 2022 Silly Season

It’s one of the largest “new class” of NASCAR Cup Series ownership and a sure sign the sport will retain its competitive foundation for the foreseeable future. It is Opportunity with a capital O but also a well-regarded safety net for the sport’s natural transitions in team ownership.

“The sport has a lot of momentum,” said Hendrick, who in June named four-time NASCAR Cup Series champion, Hall of Famer Jeff Gordon, 49, as Hendrick Motorsports’ vice chairman, essentially his heir apparent. “We have a whole crop of young drivers who are winning races and developing into stars. We have a huge fan base and they’re coming back in a major way after the pandemic. When you see 100,000 people at Road America, that’s very exciting.

“NASCAR has done an excellent job with the schedule and introducing new venues. The business model is also changing and making things more attractive for potential new owners. It’s a great time for the sport.”

Kaulig, a team owner, certainly agrees. As a former college football player, whose father was an executive at Raybestos Brakes, Kaulig grew up around motorsports. In five years fielding a team full time in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, his Kaulig Racing organization has scored 10 wins and amassed an impressive 142 top-10 finishes in 283 total starts.

Kaulig has also made a few highly competitive forays into the NASCAR Cup Series as well. In April, he announced his team will field a car for his current 22-year-old Xfinity Series driver, Justin Haley, full time in the NASCAR Cup Series.

With a solid track record, his background as a successful businessman and his genuine aspirations of expanding his place in the sport, Kaulig said he had originally hoped to make the jump into the NASCAR Cup Series ranks full time for the 2021 season. But COVID-19 and the extenuating circumstances the pandemic created pushed his plans back a year.

Still, it is the ultimate outcome for someone who initially became involved in the sport as a sponsor, putting his LeafFilter Gutter Protection company on the hood of cars and eventually becoming so involved he bought his own team.

He, too, welcomes the increased level of competition all around and is adamant the ever-burgeoning group of new teams coming into the sport right now are a valuable and visible asset.

Certainly rolling out the Next Gen car for 2022 presents a kind of fresh start or even reset for everyone on the grid. The timing just makes sense.

“I think it’s really healthy and I think NASCAR is embracing it,” Kaulig said of the new, younger ownership groups. “There’s definitely a transition going on and I’m super excited about it. I want to be one of the guys that’s looked at as kind of taking over care for the sport. I know Justin (Marks) has been pretty vocal about their goals to do that, too.

“These longtime owners, like Richard Childress, Jack Roush, they’ve been great and I aspire to be like them.”

To that point, one of the most successful all-around racing organizations, Chip Ganassi Racing, has sold its entire NASCAR operation to Marks, who along with international music superstar Pitbull, debuted Trackhouse Racing Team this year. Currently Trackhouse fields the No. 99 Chevrolet for Daniel Suarez. Next year, thanks to the Ganassi purchase, there will be two cars on track for the team, although the second driver has yet to be named.

With essentially a jump on the pivotal 2022 season, Marks, 40, a former NASCAR Xfinity Series race winner who has had a successful and versatile driving career himself, is optimistic about having a year under the team’s belt. He’s especially enthusiastic about what acquiring Ganassi’s assets and some of the team’s manpower could mean going forward.

Marks also sees the present rise in new ownership as a sort of competitive evolution. Seeing so many younger team owners is a natural and positive sign of progression. And it bodes well not just for a couple of upcoming seasons but potentially for decades to come.

“I think where my mind goes is proof of concept for NASCAR’s vision for the future,” Marks said. “It’s proof of concept for the new car. This is exactly what they were trying to do with the new car. The business model of the sport made the barrier of entry for new ownership higher and higher and higher every single year and it was going to take something like this to ignite a movement like this.

“I think we’re proving that there’s a lot of desire to get into this sport, just the mechanism to do that had just been too high of a mountain for a lot of people to climb. But I think the promise of the new car and the model of the new car is that opportunity for a lot of owners.

“Denny (Hamlin) and I talk about this and it’s a common theme among a number of the new owners that this is the opportunity to come in when the sport is in a big period of transition and I think the days ahead of the sport and for the new ownership and these new teams are really, really bright and I’m very fortunate to be a part of it.”

Hamlin, who partnered with the NBA great Jordan to form 23XI Racing — a nod to Jordan’s famed No. 23 jersey and Hamlin’s famed Joe Gibbs Racing No 11 Toyota — also sees a true transition of sorts in NASCAR.

A three-time Daytona 500 winner and consummate NASCAR Cup Series championship contender, the 40-year-old Hamlin has managed to both compete in the sport’s highest level – he currently leads the championship standings – and operate his own team employing driver Bubba Wallace.

The latter is something the sport hasn’t really seen since the late Dale Earnhardt drove for Richard Childress Racing but also fielded cars under Dale Earnhardt Inc. (DEI).

For Hamlin, the formation of his team this season came a little sooner on the grand calendar than he anticipated.

“But the stars just aligned perfectly with myself and Toyota,” Hamlin said.

With Toyota essentially losing a team with Leavine Family Racing closing shop at the end of 2019, Jordan being open to NASCAR ownership and Hamlin always seeing it as a goal down the road for himself, things just moved more quickly.

“It happened certainly at least two or three years quicker than I thought it would, but I also thought this was really the right time,” said Hamlin, whose 23XI Racing Toyota is part of a Joe Gibbs Racing team alliance.

Hamlin is hopeful to add a second car soon to the 23XI team. Sponsorship and driver choice are essential to the expansion. And, as with Marks, he sees the 2022 debut of the Next Gen car presenting the perfect timing for all the new teams.

“You won’t be starting from behind where if you come in two to three years from now, people have already started to refine stuff,” Hamlin said. “You’re not starting at a deficit now, everyone is kind of starting at the same time, with the same playing field. Everyone is starting fresh. The drivers and teams, we’re all going to be learning together. I think that’s the reason now is kind of a critical time.”

Hamlin carries no illusions to how difficult it has been competing against the longtime legends of the sport in Penske, Hendrick, Childress, Roush and Gibbs. Unlike those long-tenured, championship owners, Hamlin doesn’t bring a fortune with him from success in ventures outside of racing. He – and many of his fellow new, next-generation owners – must rely on sponsorship dollars and the business-sense of racing.

A renewed emphasis on keeping costs down is part of the philosophy behind the Next Gen car and a real attraction for potential owners.

“It’s very difficult for the new owners coming in because ultimately when you look at us, we don’t have billion-dollar businesses that we can leverage our partners in,” Hamlin said. “So what is the landscape for the next owners that come in?”

Like Marks and Hamlin, Gordon’s transition from NASCAR’s FOX broadcast booth has been well received and a positive sign about the health of the sport in general.

Gordon was a part-owner on seven-time NASCAR Cup Series champion Jimmie Johnson’s Hendrick Motorsports car. And he has long been heavily involved with major decisions at the team. Beginning Jan. 1, however, he will sit alongside Hendrick on the NASCAR team owner council and oversee the day-to-day overall operation of the organization – whose four driver’s average age, by the way, is only 26.

“I cannot put into words what Hendrick Motorsports means to me,” Gordon said upon the June announcement of his expanded role with the company. “In many ways, it’s my home and the people here are my family. I’ve never lost my passion for the organization, for our sport and for the sheer challenge of racing and winning at the highest level.

“Being part of the competition is where I’m happiest and feel I can make the biggest contribution to the continued, long-term success of the team.”

It’s a similarly optimistic view for yet another former NASCAR Cup Series champion, Brad Keselowski, who formally added his name to the ownership mix just two weeks ago.

MORE: Keselowski set to join Roush ranks

As with Gordon, team ownership has always been important for the 2012 champ Keselowski. He owned a successful NASCAR Camping World Truck Series team from 2008-17 that earned 11 wins and twice finished runner-up in the championship with Ryan Blaney (2011) and Tyler Reddick (2015).

Having spent the last 12 years driving for Team Penske — and earning 34 wins — Keselowski will move to Roush Fenway Racing at the end of this season, assuming an ownership role in that famed NASCAR operation.

Roush Fenway Racing president Steve Newmark said several extensive conversations took place between himself and Keselowski about the next era of NASCAR competition, long before the idea of Keselowski becoming part of the team’s ownership group.

“It was a lot of focus on where we were headed with Next Gen and I was able to tell him unequivocally that from the Fenway and Roush perspective, we think the Next Gen is a pivotal point for the sport and is one that our owners and are committed to investing and continuing to build upon,” Newmark said. “And I think more importantly stepping back, we talked about how our ownership group really believes that NASCAR is going in the right direction and really bullish on the future and a lot of that stems from the leadership provided by Jim France, Steve Phelps and Steve O’Donnell and a lot of the initiatives around the Next Gen, social initiatives, esports and so we talked a lot about the future and why we were coming up with five and 10-year plans.

“But we also explained that there was kind of a hole in our strategy going forward in that one of the things that we were looking for at Roush Fenway is a more solid succession plan.”

Keselowski said he entered into discussions with the team and set certain “deal-breakers” — from his insistence on securing a long-term driving contract to having a leadership role, to having an ownership stake. All those critical conditions were not only met by the Roush Fenway group but embraced.

The timing, with the introduction of the Next Gen car, made the opportunity feel so right Keselowski called it a “no-brainer”.

“The Next Gen car coming into the sport should be a significant reset with the technology, a significant reset for the way the processes flow and some of those things that we would need to overcome,” Keselowski said. “So I think that kind of taking that down the course of NASCAR leadership and some of the things they have going on, I have a lot of confidence in where the sport is heading.

“I think we’re on a big upswing and I kind of feel like I’m buying into a stock as it’s about to go up with looking at the landscape.”

It’s a theme, for sure, and one that is significantly defining the NASCAR model going forward.

“I’m a big believer in the law of attraction,” Pitbull said when announcing his ownership at the start of the season. “I want to be involved. There’s no better time to be involved in NASCAR, with Trackhouse, Daniel (Suarez), Justin (Marks) and (team executive) Ty (Norris) than now.

“It is all about creating awareness. In the same way that music is a universal language, I also see NASCAR as a universal language. Everybody loves a fast car and a great story, you know.”

Posted on by Staff Report

NASCAR Cup Series star Bubba Wallace has proposed to longtime girlfriend Amanda Carter — and she said yes.

The 23XI Racing driver shared the happy news on his social channels Friday afternoon.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by bubbawallace (@bubbawallace)

Despite waiting “so long,” Wallace picked the perfect time to pop the question and soak in the freshly engaged bliss — while on vacation during NASCAR’s multi-week break in the schedule. Wallace, currently 20th in points, will look to make his first career Cup playoffs in the four races that remain before the postseason grid locks in next month at Daytona International Speedway.

Congrats to the happy couple!

Posted on by Cara Cooper

Fans at Grandview Speedway know Bobby Gunther Walsh for how he drives on the track and the sound of his voice.

Gunther has been a modified racer at Grandview – a NASCAR-sanctioned third-mile banked clay track in Bechtelsville, Pennsylvania – for 25 years, but he’s been on the radio longer. He’s the morning show host on NewsRadio 290 WAEB in Allentown, PA, a job he’s held for 37 years.

“It’s interesting. When I first started there (at Grandview), the people that knew that I was a radio guy, I think many of them thought I was doing it for a stunt,” Gunther said. “Most people had never heard of it, never heard my show.”

RELATED: Coverage of NASCAR Roots | Advance Auto Parts Weekly Series News

He talks about his races on his radio show every Monday morning, and he’s become surprised at how many listeners have told him they now go to his races. He’s also become pleasantly surprised by how many drivers now listen to him in the morning.

“I’ve brought a lot of radio fans from up here to the track,” he said. “When I first started down there it was kind 0f like people kind of knew and they had an idea, but they never really heard of me and never heard my show. But now I’d say a good portion of them now have heard my show and many of them listen.”

It wasn’t a radio stunt that brought Gunther to Grandview. When he first started racing he said, “I was going through a divorce and looking for something to take my mind off things.

“I thought, I need something to look forward to. My dad used to race and I thought I’d give it a whirl,” he added.

He grew up going to races a bit, but not as much as he would have liked, and his dad got out of the sport just before Gunther was old enough to start helping on the car.

Getting a later start in the sport, Gunther laughs when asked how long it took him to get comfortable driving a modified car. He’s still learning, and estimates it was about five years before he really knew what he was doing. He joked that his decision to race in Grandview’s highest division with no prior driving experience led him to look back and wonder “what I was thinking.”

“It was not easy,” he said. “I guess maybe after a couple years I got adequate, and I was able to not get lapped in a heat race. The heat races at that time were only 10 laps and I used to get lapped in some of them.

“After that I got better. There are some guys that are so legendary and they’re so good and you know that they’re going to get two or three wins each during the year, if not more. There’s like four or five of those guys. So that leaves the rest for everybody else. So it’s just tough.”

More than two decades into his career, there are many aspects of the sport that keep Gunther wanting to continue racing. Mainly, the fun, the thrill, the rush of the speed, and the challenge. The biggest challenge being getting his first real feature win.
Gunther has won heat races at Grandview, and once won a race specifically for drivers who have never been to victory lane, but he’s never celebrated a real Grandview victory.

That doesn’t mean there weren’t close calls. Last year he was leading a race until Lap 24 when he was passed by Jeff Strunk, a 10-time Grandview track champ, Mike Gular, the reigning track champ at the time, Craig Von Dohren, an 11-time track champ, Frank Cozze, a more than 400-time feature winner, and finally Duane Howard, a 7-time track champ.

“So I feel like I won because the guys that beat me, you feel like, I didn’t lose to somebody who’s my ability. I lost to the best out there,” Gunther said. “Do I wish I won? Yeah. But I took some consolation in, my gosh, it wasn’t as though I got beat by some slacker.”

There was another race Gunther led for 20 laps, and had built a sizable lead alongside Howard. As he began pulling away from the field, something on his car broke with four laps to go, and he was forced to coast into the pits and end his night.

Howard, too, had something break soon thereafter.

“If I had not broken I would have gotten the lead back,” Gunther said. “And Frank Cozze, who was in third said, ‘I hate to win like this. I couldn’t even see those guys they were out front so far.'”

Another time, he led until Lap 23 when he made the wrong decision at the choose cone on a restart, getting passed up top and falling away.

“So there’s been a bunch of things like that here and there where you come close but no cigar,” Gunther said.

Even without a win, getting around Grandview is so fun it’s not a place Gunther plans to leave any time soon. He’s raced at other bigger tracks, but found them boring compared to the speedway of his third-mile clay home away from home.

“I raced at a 5/8-mile track a few times… After having raced at Grandview for so long I actually thought I should have brought a book to read,” Gunther said. “Because Grandview is so fast, you’re constantly having to be up on the wheel. You cannot take a breath for one minute. If you snooze you lose.

“And at Grandview you have to drive perfect laps. At other tracks that are bigger, more spread out, you can make a mistake and they won’t catch you. At Grandview, you make a mistake and everybody is on you and you’ve just lost a bunch of spots.”

Gunther has also become a fan favorite at Grandview. He involves the track with some of his charity work, including a recent fundraiser for a local animal no-kill shelter. Last month, the fundraiser raised more than $210,000 for the second straight year.

Every Saturday after races, Gunther stays after to hand out candy and treats from his sponsors to fans.

“I like to help market sponsors so they’ll renew,” he said. “It has also made me more connected to the fans. I get a line of fans every week at the car. Certainly they’re there for free things but you wind up talking about them, you know their life, they know about my family … so you end up making fans that way and you wind up having people rooting for you in the stands simply because they know you now. They’re not rooting for a car, they’re rooting for a person.”

Between using his racing for good, using the sport to bring fans to his radio show and vice versa, and trying to find victory lane, Gunther will continue to be at Grandview every Saturday night for more thrills around his favorite dirt track.

“It’s the thrill of still hoping you can do it. I guess some people say it’s an addiction,” he said. “Dirt racing, I think it’s the original extreme sport. It’s crazy.”

Posted on by Steve Luvender

It’s time for two weeks off from racing, so we’re checked out until the first week of August. Won’t you help us write a blog about the 2021 season so far while we sip some coconut water by the pool?

Can you believe it? Two whole weeks off for the NASCAR Cup Series! It’s going to be a  couple of weeks until .

As a  fan, I never thought I’d see . That made me feel so !

Perhaps the only thing that  more was when .

While the season started out with a lot of , through the spring, the big story was . Talk about a 
effort!

Even though he hasn’t won a race yet this season, I think  is next to visit .

He’s had one  season. I guess you could say he’s  for !

Silly season has really had me , too. The most  to me was how . I think it can be summed up in one word:.

Well, summer is calling, and that can only mean one thing: time for some !

Posted on by Jerry Bonkowski

When his NASCAR Cup Series career essentially ended following the 2018 season, you might say Trevor Bayne stopped and smelled the coffee.

Now, instead of competing in NASCAR Cup, the Knoxville, Tennessee, native has traded for a different kind of cup — a coffee cup, that is – and his second career is percolating quite well these days.

Bayne stunned the sports world in 2011 when, in only his second career NASCAR Cup start and one day following his 20th birthday, he became the youngest driver in history to win the Daytona 500.

RELATED: Trevor Bayne career stats | Daytona 500 surprise winners

Driving for the legendary Wood Brothers, the longest of long shots in that year’s edition of the Great American Race was pushed across the finish line to victory by fellow Ford driver and future Roush Fenway Racing teammate Carl Edwards, changing Bayne’s life forever.

Unfortunately, just seven years later, he lost his sponsorship and his ride with Roush Fenway Racing, leading Bayne to sit out the 2019 campaign entirely.

But at the same time, it was also somewhat of a rebirth for Bayne.

“When I left NASCAR, I probably went dark to a lot of people, just got off the grid a little bit,” he told NASCAR.com. “But that wasn’t on purpose. We just got busy and don’t post on Instagram very much. So we’ve got three kids now, a fourth on the way in December. In July 2019, we started a coffee roasting business and opened up a coffee shop here in Knoxville called Mahalo Coffee Roasters. And that took up a large part of our 2019 to finish that year. And then last year, we added a second (coffee shop in Knoxville) and our wholesale coffee roasting side has really been growing.

“So that’s where most of my time is consumed, working on roasting, fulfilling online orders, working at our coffee shops, managing that, trying to grow that business. And then when I’m not there, I’m at our farm, taking care of it, taking care of the kids and doing a little bit of racing every now and then.”

For decades, NASCAR drivers have parlayed their on-track success into business success. NASCAR Hall of Famer Rusty Wallace owns several auto dealerships. Dale Earnhardt Jr. co-owns an Xfinity Series team with his sister, as well as having financial interests in a bar, media company and an air-filter supply company. Kevin Harvick has a company that manages the career of several athletes, most notably MMA stars.

But no present or former driver has a couple of coffee shops like Bayne.

“In NASCAR, we were fortunate to get to travel around a lot,” he said. “We’d go to a lot of different cool cities and … we found coffee roasting places all around the country and we’d go to coffee shops. It was a good way to get some energy boost to ride my road bike or drive the race car – even though my crew chief didn’t like when I’d drink too much coffee because I talked too much (due to the caffeine, he said with a laugh).

“We had an espresso machine on the motorhome and coffee’s just an international thing. You can go to Australia or wherever and there’s coffee. So it was a hobby that was a passion and turned into a business. It’s kind of crazy. I don’t think I ever thought this is what I would be doing. But it’s been really fun to build a culture and build a business and really see it flourish and grow.”

While racing prospects have been few the last couple years, the coffee business has proven to be very good for Bayne and wife Ashton. They’re set to open a third Knoxville-area coffee shop in October, just a couple of months before their fourth child is due.

“We’re keeping things in Knoxville for now just so we can be hands-on and help grow these things,” Bayne said. “But we do have our online stuff going on and we do a lot of roasting for restaurants, hotels, other coffee companies that maybe have a private label and things like that.

“So there’s been a lot of growth, and we’re really excited about it. We’ve got some new products coming out that make it really easy for somebody to brew coffee. Like if you’re traveling, they’re kind of like a tea bag, throw the hot water in. And if you’re on the plane, or you’re traveling or whatever you’re doing, you can throw that in and have a good cup of coffee.”

RELATED: See every Daytona 500 winner

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Even though he won the sport’s biggest race just seven years earlier, Bayne’s NASCAR career ended much sooner than he expected. The combination of sponsorship going away and Roush Fenway Racing replacing him with Ryan Newman in the legendary No. 6 for the 2019 season caught Bayne somewhat by surprise.

“To me, at 28 years old, I didn’t want to be done with NASCAR,” he said. “There was kind of a misconception amongst some fans that maybe my health was an issue or something like that. That wasn’t the case at all. When things didn’t work out at Roush Fenway Racing and our current sponsor at that time decided to leave the sport after that season, it left me looking for a sponsor and a team all at the same time. And that’s tough to put together in a couple months.

“The sport has very much shifted to if you have funding, you can have a ride. But if you don’t have it, it’s tough to hang on to. In all fairness, I don’t feel like I got to prove what I could do in the 6 car. At the time, we were just struggling on performance. And it’s not like football, where you can see if the quarterback’s throwing good passes, or the receiver’s not catching them or whatever, you don’t know what the issue is. I don’t feel like I really got to showcase what I can do in the Cup Series. And because of that, I didn’t have another opportunity and would have loved to. I would love to run Xfinity or Cup again.”

What would it take to get him back into a full-time ride?

“Not much,” Bayne laughed. “I mean, if it was a good deal. I still love racing, I still feel like I have the ability. I’m 30 years old, I don’t feel like I’ve peaked in my life by any means.”

At the same time, though, Bayne fears the ship of dreams of a NASCAR comeback has all but sailed for good.

“I would like that to happen, but I don’t know that two years out, I’m even a topic of conversation in the (team) competition meetings,” he said. “There hasn’t really been an opportunity. I don’t see that really just coming out of thin air. It’s something I did my whole life, I started when I was five years old and did it till I was 28. It was tough to just let that go, you know? We did well, we made a run at it and it’s what I’ve always done.

“It’s tough to be around it and not be driving. For me, if I’m not driving, it was really hard to be at the track. Now two years later, I’ve kind of gotten through that, processed it and said, ‘OK, I could be around the track some and not drive if there were opportunities like TV or something like that.’ I think now at this point, I could handle it and not be bitter about it. You know, every time you see this driver is moving (to another team) or this car is available, at first I was like, ‘I need to call them or try to get into that place.’ Now, it’s kind of to where I’m like, ‘OK, that’s probably not an opportunity that I could land,’ so my heart doesn’t start racing every time I see a driver moving cars now.”

There’s no question Bayne misses NASCAR racing. After sitting out the 2019 season, he had a brief return to the sport last season, competing in eight races for Niece Motorsports in the Camping World Truck Series, earning one top-five and two top-10 finishes.

“The Niece Motorsports deal came about for me to go and run eight races with them and try to help out with some feedback and evaluate their program with them, and that was fun,” Bayne said.

With sparse NASCAR opportunities, Bayne has returned to his racing roots this year, competing in a handful of dirt races with his own team “to scratch that itch a little bit,” he says with a laugh.

And of course, he’s promoting his coffee business at the same time.

“It’s been cool to have Mahalo on the dirt car,” Bayne said. “Growing a business to a place where it’s able to help support a racing program is really cool. That wasn’t the goal behind starting a business, but it’s cool that it’s been able to do that some.”

Two weeks ago on the dirt track across from Charlotte Motor Speedway, Bayne showed he still has what it takes behind the wheel, qualifying second in a massive 62-car field and wound up finishing fifth in a late model American Crate All-Star Series event, his third race of the season.

“I’m a race fan,” he said. “I love racing. I love being in the car and like I tell Ashton, my wife, there was probably a year’s period where I didn’t get back in a race car, and then when I went and ran this dirt car, I told her ‘this is where I feel the most like myself, when I’m working on a race car, I’m thinking about (set-up) changes, I’m driving the car, it’s like that dynamic at the track comes natural. It’s easy for me to be in that environment. I don’t really even have to think about it, it just naturally comes to you when you’ve done it your whole life, so I love that part of it.’”

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Even though Bayne was diagnosed with early onset of multiple sclerosis in 2013, the disease is medically under control and Bayne looks great physically these days; full of energy and with an ever-present smile on his face. Coffee helps, obviously, but he says he’s feeling great and is in good shape.

“Like racing, if we’re going to do it, we’re going to be all-in,” he said. “So with Mahalo, I’ve tried to be all-in. It’s not just an investment or a passive business thing, it’s what we spend the majority of our days doing and working on. We spend a lot of time learning how to roast properly and have great coffee. And so we’ve worked on that hard, and then our culture with our staff has been really good.”

Bayne now has 16 full-time employees, with more soon to be hired for the upcoming third shop. Surprisingly, even with his name and his Daytona 500 triumph and racing career, Bayne’s coffee shops do not have any type of racing theme.

“I totally separated it,” he said. “I love branding, I love marketing stuff. And one of my passions is just being near the ocean, being in Hawaii, being in surf culture kind of places, and I wanted to create a lifestyle brand. Racing is great and I have a good following there, but I wanted to do something different. And so it’s called Mahalo Coffee Roasters, which is a Hawaiian word for ‘Thank you.’

“If you come to our shop, it’s kind of casual, just has a surf shop kind of feel to it. So people come in with families, and it’s not a pretentious environment where you feel like you’ve got to be quiet and be on your computer working – although we do have people that do that. It’s really cool to see families or people on friend dates or whatever, just hanging out at our shops.”

And coffee is good for both the body and soul.

“I’m drinking it all the time, I probably have five or six cups of different stuff that I’m trying at the shop, great quality stuff, tasting different things,” he said, before adding with a laugh, “My wife is pregnant now, so she’s on decaf — but we have pretty good decaf.”

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One element of his NASCAR career that remains a constant is Bayne is still a fan favorite. Fans regularly stop into his coffee shops and some even have gone to great lengths to catch him racing on the grassroots level.

“What was cool at that race a couple weeks ago at Charlotte, I mean, I haven’t been around there for a couple years and several fans in full-on 6 car gear showed up,” Bayne said. “They had all kinds of die-casts and bumpers and doors and all kinds of stuff.

“In the first dirt race I raced this year, I even had a fan drive all the way from Kansas the night before, when they found out I was going to be racing.

“With the coffee business, we’re not far from (tourist attractions like) Pigeon Forge and that kind of vacation area. I get five or six people a week that come into the two shops looking for me. They kind of seek us out and get stuff signed and things like that.

“So it’s really super cool to see that they still feel like I’m relevant, I guess, that I still have that kind of support and those fans around.”

Bayne doesn’t reflect back too much on the 500 win. He last watched a tape of it nearly two years ago.

“It really doesn’t seem like the same lifetime, to be honest, it feels like a totally different deal,” he said. “It’s not really something I think about that often, as far as my daily life stuff. You just kind of move into the next thing. And, now it’s like, alright, how are we going to sell more coffee?”

***********************************************

The Trevor Bayne file:

* Age: 30

* Hometown: Knoxville, Tennessee

* Notable: Began racing go-karts at the age of five and over the next eight years won three World Championships and over 300 feature wins and 18 state and track championships. … Was Rookie of the Year (13 years old) in the Allison Legacy Series in 2003, and then won its championship in 2014, at 14 the youngest driver to ever do so. In 41 starts over those two seasons, he earned 14 wins, 30 top-five finishes and 19 poles.

Career highlights:

* NASCAR Cup career: 187 starts, 1 win, 5 top-five and 16 top-10 finishes. Best season finish: 22nd (in both 2016 and 2017).

* NASCAR Xfinity Series career: 152 starts, 2 wins, 25 top-five and 73 top-10 finishes. Also seven poles. Best season finish: tied for sixth in both 2013 and 2014.

* NASCAR Camping World Truck Series career: 8 starts, 0 wins, 1 top-five and 2 top-10 finishes.

* ARCA Menards Series career: 1 start, 1 win. Also 1 pole.

* NASCAR K&N Pro Series West and East (combined): 16 starts, 1 win, 6 top-five and 10 top-10 finishes. Also two poles.

* X-1R (formerly Hooters) Pro Cup Series: 39 starts, 3 wins, 15 top-five and 17 top-10 finishes. Best season finish: 2nd in 2007 (despite running in only 13 of 21 races).

Veteran motorsports writer Jerry Bonkowski is writing a number of Where Are They Now? stories this year for NASCAR.com. Check out stories he’s already done on Ken Schrader, Shawna Robinson, Sam Hornish Jr., Bobby Labonte, Greg Biffle, Ricky Rudd, Darrell Waltrip, Mark Martin, Marcos Ambrose and Juan Pablo Montoya. Also, follow Jerry on Twitter @JerryBonkowski and @TheRacingBeat, as well as The Racing Beat podcast, available on most podcast platforms.

Posted on by Terrin Waack

Twenty-two races down. Fourteen to go.

NASCAR’s 2021 Cup Series season has been an eventful one, to say the least, and now that the schedule is in the midst of a two-week break, there has been ample time to reflect on all that has happened so far. From numerous victors to new tracks and record marks to winless streaks, this year has seen a bit of everything. Below is a recap of five themes through 22 events.

RELATED: Playoff picture | Championship standings | Title odds

… NEW TRACKS, WHO DIS?

This year’s Cup Series schedule features three new tracks in addition to two new track layouts. NASCAR hasn’t had this much of a shake-up since 1969.

The road course at Circuit of The Americas made its stock-car debut on May 23. NASCAR’s top competitors returned to Road America for the first time since 1956 on July 4. And then Nashville Superspeedway hosted its inaugural Cup Series race on June 20.

RELATED: Road America crushed its NASCAR Cup Series return

Those were the three new venues.

One of the two new layouts already happened at Bristol Motor Speedway on March 28. The short track turned into the dirt track. There hadn’t been a Cup Series race on dirt since 1970.

Still to come is Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s road course, a configuration the Cup Series has never raced. That event will take place Aug. 15, the third-to-last regular-season race.

… KICK THE DUST UP

Ovals and road courses are nothing new to the Cup Series. Dirt, however, was a large question mark.

Sure, many drivers have competed in dirt races before. But not in a stock car. None of the active drivers were competing back in 1970, aka the last time NASCAR took on dirt.

RELATED: Bristol dirt weekend to return in 2022

The Bristol Dirt Race was scheduled to be one of the eight race weekends that featured practice and qualifying, as the sanctioning body continues to limit at-track time due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Cup Series completed its two practices Friday, but its four qualifying races were canceled due to wet-weather conditions. Sunday’s main event was then postponed to Monday.

Joey Logano, driver of the No. 22 Team Penske Ford, ultimately won, leading 61 of the 253 laps. Martin Truex Jr.’s No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota led a race-high 126 circuits but finished 19th. Kyle Larson, who’s known as a dirt-racing maniac, actually placed his No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet 29th, four laps short of the total distance.

… EVERYBODY GETS A TROPHY

The first domino fell in the season-opening Daytona 500 with Michael McDowell, and another six went down in order.

NASCAR saw seven different winners in the first seven Cup Series races. Truex was the first repeat offender, claiming the fifth (Phoenix Raceway) and eighth (Martinsville Speedway) trophies. After Truex, though, there were another three different winners, making it 10 of out the first 11.

RELATED: 2021 NASCAR Cup Series winners

A quick look at that order: McDowell, Christopher Bell, William Byron, Larson, Truex, Ryan Blaney, Logano, Truex (second win), Alex Bowman, Brad Keselowski and Kyle Busch. Only for Truex to end the trend again.

Overall, there have been 13 different winners this season, the most recent being Aric Almirola at New Hampshire Motor Speedway right before the sport’s off weeks.

… A NEW TOP DOG

Hendrick Motorsports became the all-time winningest team this season, taking the top spot from Petty Enterprises, which had been No. 1 since 1999. Hendrick Motorsports tied Petty Enterprises at 268 wins on May 23 at Circuit of The Americas and then pushed ahead a week later at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

RELATED: Top 10 car owners in NASCAR Cup Series

Larson won the 2021 Coca-Cola 600 to put Hendrick Motorsports in the lead. Since then, Hendrick Motorsports has added an additional four victories. The team now stands at 273 wins all time.

Speaking of Larson and accomplishments, the pilot of the No. 5 Chevrolet has won a series-best four points-paying races this year, including three in a row between May and June. During that stretch, Larson also won the exhibition All-Star Race at Texas Motor Speedway.

Larson sits second in the points standings with four races left before a regular-season champion is crowned.

… Y’ALL GOOD?

Neither Kevin Harvick nor Denny Hamlin have won a race this season. Harvick had a series-high nine wins in 2020, while Hamlin had a second-best seven.

At this point last year, Harvick already had six wins and Hamlin had five.

Instead, in 2021, Harvick has driven his No. 4 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford to six top-five and 15 top-10 finishes. Hamlin’s No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota has tallied 11 top fives and 15 top 10s. Each has one runner-up showing.

RELATED: How Kyle Larson caught up to Denny Hamlin in points

Harvick and Hamlin have 14 opportunities left to score a win, starting Aug. 8 at Watkins Glen International (3 p.m. ET on NBCSN/NBC Sports App, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). But they only have four chances left to qualify for the NASCAR Playoffs.

Hamlin currently sits atop the point standings, and if he holds on to that lead, he’ll earn the regular-season title and with that comes a postseason berth. Otherwise, he has a 283-point buffer on the cutoff line.

Harvick’s advantage is only 82 points. He’s only two spots away from elimination.

Both of them made the 16-driver field last season. This year is TBD.

Posted on by Staff Report

Tyler Paige, an engineer at JR Motorsports, is competing in Tokyo at the 2021 Olympics representing the American Samoa sailing team.

At the beginning of 2020, Paige received an opportunity to join JR Motorsports as an engineer. He accepted but delayed his start date so he could continue training for qualifying races in hopes of making the Olympic team.

When sailing came to a standstill due to COVID-19 and sailing dates were rescheduled, he began working for the JR Motorsports’ NASCAR Xfinity Series teams from September to February. He is currently on a leave of absence in order to compete in the Olympics.

At 25, Paige competes for America Samoa, which is a U.S. territory of seven South Pacific islands. The sailing program has been rebuilding for the past few years, and Paige volunteered to help get the program Olympics-ready. He will compete in 10 Olympic heats alongside his teammate, Adrian Hoesch, beginning Wednesday.

Paige began sailing in his childhood and ranked as high as 20th in the world in 2015 in the men’s 470 category. In 2018, he represented the United States at the Junior 470 world championship.

Paige will return to JR Motorsports after his Olympic journey is over.

Posted on by Terrin Waack

One of the biggest surprises of the 2021 NASCAR Cup Series season so far is that neither Kevin Harvick nor Denny Hamlin has won any of the 22 races. These two combined for 16 wins in 2021, with Harvick tallying a series-high nine and Hamlin contributing the other seven for the second-best mark. Eleven of those total victories were accomplished by this point last year, too.

RELATED: Playoff picture | Cup standings | 2021 schedule

OK then, what has been the problem with the No. 4 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford and No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota drivers? There have been 13 different winners this season, so it’s not for a lack of variety.

NASCAR.com’s Pat DeCola and Terrin Waack debate whether Harvick or Hamlin will take home a trophy first. Four races are left in the regular season, and then there are another 10 in the playoffs. Plenty of opportunities remain.

DeCOLA: It’s truly remarkable that both of these drivers remain winless after what we witnessed last year, especially considering neither of them is having a bad season and one of them has been leading the point standings since February. Alas, here we are — Gooseegg City. That said, I do think both of them will win before the season is up. The regular season, that is.

Since we just mentioned February, let’s go back there. Do you recall what the big, on-track story line was? Oh yeah — Hamlin was vying for his third straight Daytona 500 crown. While it didn’t come, he notched his fourth top five — he finished fifth — in the last five races at the notoriously mercurial Daytona. Few out there will argue against Hamlin being the undisputed superspeedway ace at the moment, and the notion of him going to Daytona winless with an unsecured playoff spot makes it feel like a sure thing he’ll be the one walking out of there holding the trophy.

And now for the bait-and-switch …

Harvick is going to win first.

One week before Daytona? Michigan. Winner of four of the last five Michigan races? Harvick.

It’s a bit concerning that No. 4 crew chief Rodney Childers said two weeks ago the team was struggling to find more horsepower and downforce, admitting the performance of the car “kind of is what it is at this point,” but there are some encouraging signs.

SHR is the most recent Cup team to win, with Aric Almirola’s New Hampshire victory highlighting five Fords in the top six after a season of domination from Chevrolet and Toyota. It gives the Blue Ovals the upper hand as the sport entered a multi-week break amidst a recent uptick in performance overall. Given that Harvick has perhaps been Ford’s most consistent — albeit, you know, winless — driver this year, logic stands to reason that if the manufacturer has found something and closed the gap on the others, the 2014 champ would be the primary benefactor.

And even if it hasn’t, Harvick and Childers clearly have Michigan figured out and it’s their race to lose.

WAACK: Truth be told, I really just want to say “I told you so!” at the end of the season.

In NASCAR.com’s bold 2021 preseason predictions, I said: “You know how Kyle Busch struggled after his 2019 championship run? A similar story line is going to unfold for Kevin Harvick after his nine-win 2020 season.”

And that is exactly what is happening.

Through 22 races, the Stewart-Haas Racing driver has yet to park his No. 4 Ford in Victory Lane. Harvick’s best finish yet — second — came at Kansas Speedway back in May, and he has had just two top-five runs since then (11 races).

Harvick is in danger of not making the NASCAR Playoffs, sitting in 15th and 82 points above the cutline, with four races left in the regular season. Hamlin is 14th with a 283-point buffer, for comparison. The two drivers are tied for most top-10 showings (15) in the series, but the difference is 11 of those double as top fives for Hamlin, while only six do for Harvick.

Neither has won, but Hamlin is performing better than Harvick, leading me to believe he will punch his winning ticket first.

Posted on by Staff Report

Joey Logano and wife Brittany revealed that they are expecting their third child on social media via a YouTube video Tuesday. You can watch the video here for a unique gender reveal, courtesy of a replica No. 22 Shell Pennzoil Ford driven by son Hudson and with son Jameson riding shotgun.

The couple’s first child, Hudson, was born in January 2018. He made his debut in Victory Lane just three months later and got to see his dad win the 2018 NASCAR Cup Series championship. Their second child, Jameson, was born in 2020.

Congrats to the Loganos on their expanding family.

RELATED: Joey Logano through the years

Posted on by Taarnold

Phil Horton likens the driver-pit crew relationship to the difference between NFL quarterbacks and special teams.

Drivers may have the celebrity status of a quarterback, but special teams are expected to do their job behind the scenes to perfection on football teams. When they don’t, they are the first ones criticized. But every part of the team is important.

Pit crews are the sometimes-overlooked part of professional racing. They not only take care of the car, but they also take care of the driver, ensure their safety and help to put them in a position to win the race.

A successful pit crew can change the pace of a race. Drivers and pit crews depend on each other. If a driver can take a team up to third place, maybe a fast pit stop can get the driver into second or first, Horton explains. That can be the difference between winning and losing.

The NASCAR Drive for Diversity Program was launched in 2004, establishing a driver and pit crew development and recruitment program. Those initiatives are part of the NASCAR Diversity, Equity & Inclusion platform. Max Siegel, the owner of Rev Racing and a former executive with Dale Earnhardt Inc. and USA Track and Field, has been instrumental in making significant Drive for Diversity advancements through the years.

RELATED: Learn more about NASCAR Drive for Diversity 

Horton, who is the director of athletic performance at Rev Racing, serves as the pit crew coach for the Drive for Diversity Crew Member Development Program. His background in athletics is wide ranging. He was a former strength coach for the Milwaukee Bucks and former head trainer at the University of Memphis and Florida A&M University. After a long career in that area, Horton started a private athletic training practice in North Carolina and began his work in NASCAR. He was first a personal trainer for former driver Ernie Irvan but soon began working with other drivers, pit crew athletes and race teams.

“I have 15 Cup wins as a pit coach, 12 Xfinity wins, 12 Truck wins, and a Truck championship from 2010,” Horton said. “That’s what makes it fun. Those are the rewards of being a part of a racing organization and winning.”

Now, he focuses on training new pit crews and looking for new ways to make pit stops more effective as the sport progresses.

The pit crew development program has become a staple for teams in finding high-quality pit crew members. The program boasts more than 90 alumni on teams all around the NASCAR garage. A large number of pit crew members come from professional and college sports backgrounds, specifically former players in football, basketball and softball.

Pit crew members must be strong, fast, and focused to be able to do what needs to be done. It’s also the ability to perform on the big stage that is something Horton is keenly keeping an eye out for.

“We’re looking for someone who doesn’t mind getting dirty … and someone who can deal with the pressure of performing in front of big crowds while changing tires,” Horton said. “We look for individuals who not only understand the team concept but have the personality to make that happen.”

On average, a four-tire pit stop in NASCAR is about 14 to 15 seconds. The top pit crews in the Cup Series get four-tire stops down in under 14 seconds, per Racing Insights. Two-tire stops are done in half the time. In this time, the over-the-wall crew jacks up the car, changes the tires, fuels the car, makes any adjustments, and sometimes rips a tear-off from the front windshield. If a car has a minor crash, the crew is needed to repair damage before the car can get back on the track.

It takes years to build the necessary skills to work on NASCAR Cup Series teams, Horton said. Crew members start at the grassroots level or in the ARCA Menards Series, then climb the ladder into the NASCAR national series. The pit crew development program trains its participants for about six months before they try out for specific teams.

RELATED: NASCAR, Rev Racing announce 2021 Drive for Diversity class

Horton travels to different schools and universities to recruit people and inform students about the ins and outs of NASCAR. If the resume fits, prospects will be invited to a NASCAR combine, much like the NFL Scouting Combine, but car-related and on a smaller scale. Candidates learn the workouts and routine of what pit crew members go through each week leading up to the race weekend. The combine serves as a test of their speed and their ability to quickly learn the concepts.

At every regional or national combine, about 10-15 people try out, but many are surprised at the number of physical capabilities it takes to be successful. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Rev Racing held a pit crew combine on the weekend of the Coca-Cola 600 for prospective pit crew candidates. The number of available spots depend on the season, but teams sometimes need backups in case of injury or illness.

“You only try out if you know about it, and you only know about it through your school or affiliated staff,” said Ricky Rozier, a fueler in Chip Ganassi Racing’s development system who gets his over-the-wall reps in all three national series for other teams on race weekends. “They really try to get those student-athletes out there to perform.”

Rozier is a former football player for Winston-Salem State University and already had an interest in NASCAR before trying out and looking into the Drive for Diversity pit crew program.

In the case of Jonathan Willard, a jackman for the No. 7 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet team in the Cup Series as well as the Jeremy Clements Racing team in the Xfinity Series and the Hattori Racing Enterprises team in Camping World Trucks, he played football at Clemson University. He then moved on to play for the NFL’s Tennessee Titans and in the CFL. Being a pit crew member has been a “great experience” for him, and this is his eighth season on board.

“I wanted to do something that was different from what everybody else was doing so by chance, I sent out a resume to the NASCAR Racing Experience and Andretti Racing School not thinking that they’d call me back,” he said. “Two or three days later, they called me in for an interview.”

This interview came at just the right time. He had just finished a brief stint in law enforcement and wanted to break away from his family’s drag racing business near Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. He trained twice a day with Horton one-on-one for about two months and got his first full-time gig a year later.

RELATED: The Brotherhood of NASCAR — Building a Culture

Traveling to races around the country is a part of the job, and the schedule can be intense. The pit crews travel nearly every weekend from February to November. For those with a family and roots at home, this takes some getting used to.

Marshall McFadden, a jackman in Chip Ganassi Racing’s development system who gets his over-the-wall reps in all three national series for other teams on race weekends and another alumnus of the program, compares pitting to being in the NFL. Though he played for the Pittsburgh Steelers, Oakland Raiders and the St. Louis Rams, his experience still couldn’t prepare him for NASCAR. The job requires you to stay in shape and constantly improve to keep your spot.

“By looking at it, you’re like ‘It ain’t too bad,’ ” McFadden said. “My first race of the season at Daytona in 2017 was very humbling. … I thought I could do it all, but it’s harder than you think. It takes a lot of practice, repetitions, and camaraderie with the team. I wasn’t as good as I thought I was.”

What was the biggest mistake he made at the beginning of his career? Not jacking up the car correctly during pit stops, which can cause the car to fall when the crews are changing tires and filling up the gas tank. It’s a common mistake among less-experienced pit crew members but a costly one, as all the actions of a pit stop are timing-based and well-choreographed. It took months of watching film for him to become comfortable moving at race-day speed with accuracy. With only five over-the-wall spots on each pit crew, each team member has to stay sharp.

Even though McFadden and Willard dreamed of playing professional football for most of their careers, they’ve both become accustomed to the NASCAR lifestyle and emphasize that everyone on a professional racing pit crew is an athlete.

The biggest difference? On a pit crew, you’re a special-teams athlete supporting the team’s quarterback, the driver.