NASCAR’s Camping World Truck Series will debut at a new venue — and this Friday, it’s the famed Knoxville (Iowa) Raceway half-mile dirt, short track. The Corn Belt 150 Presented by Premier Chevy Dealers at Knoxville (9 p.m. ET on FS1, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Racing on dirt isn’t necessarily new to the Truck Series, which competed at Bristol this spring and held seven races on the famed Eldora (Ohio) Raceway from 2013-19. This week’s new venue — renowned as the “Sprint Car Capital of the World” and host of the summer’s Knoxville Nationals — creates a fresh challenge for the Truck Series drivers and has definitely become a popular venture as far as fans are concerned.
NASCAR Cup Series driver Martin Truex Jr. won the Bristol Truck race on dirt earlier this season with full-time series championship competitors Ben Rhodes finishing runner-up and Todd Gilliland finishing fourth. Current championship leader, five-race winner John Hunter Nemechek finished 39th on the Bristol dirt track, crashing out after completing only 48 laps.
Nemechek, 24, arrives in Knoxville riding a career year in NASCAR competition. He won the last truck race – two weeks ago in Pocono – to extend his series-best victory total to five. He’s won three of the last four races (at Charlotte, Texas and Pocono), has led laps in 11 of the season’s 13 races and his 485 total laps out front is more than double that of any other full-time series competitor. Nemechek has a series-high eight top-five and 11 top-10 finishes in the No. 4 Kyle Busch Motorsports Toyota.
As Rhodes, 24, showed at Bristol this spring, he is up for the dirt challenge. The driver of the No. 99 ThorSport Toyota has kept Nemechek honest in the championship standings all season – winning the opening two races and adding that runner-up at Bristol. Interestingly, he’s earned 10 top-10 finishes, but led only 74 total laps in 13 races – only 11 laps in the last five races. Certainly, Rhodes would like to re-establish some consistency heading into the playoffs. In the last four races, he has two top-10 finishes and two finishes 17th or worse.
Gilliland, driver of the No. 38 Front Row Motorsports Ford is another driver to watch at Knoxville. He didn’t lead a lap the first seven races of the season, but the team has obviously switched into gear and he’s led laps in five of the last six. In fact, Gilliland has been particularly effective on the new venues to this year’s schedule – winning at Circuit of The Americas, finishing fourth on the Bristol dirt and finishing runner-up at Nashville. He’s third in the championship and one of only four full-time drivers with a victory to ensure his place in the Truck Series Playoffs.
With two races remaining in the regular season, Chandler Smith holds a 31-point advantage over former series champion Johnny Sauter for that final playoff transfer position. Tyler Ankrum is 33 points behind Smith.
The NASCAR Xfinity Series makes its first “return” trip of the season, racing for the second time in 2021 at Atlanta Motor Speedway with Saturday’s Credit Karma Money 250 (3:30 p.m. ET on NBCSN/NBC Sports App, PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Justin Allgaier is hoping for an Atlanta season sweep. He beat NASCAR Cup Series regular Martin Truex Jr. in March for the Atlanta victory and has been among the hottest full-time Xfinity Series drivers of late, finishing in the top five in three of the last four races – including runner-up work at both Texas Motor Speedway and Nashville Superspeedway. The 1.5-mile Atlanta track has been particularly good for the driver of the No. 7 JR Motorsports Chevrolet. He has seven top-10 finishes in 11 career starts, including the last four races there.
Allgaier’s JRM teammate, Noah Gragson, is another driver with a good history at Atlanta. He has had an inconsistent year with a series-high six DNFs, but Gragson has never finished outside the top 10 in three Atlanta starts, including a runner-up finish in 2020 and a fourth-place finish this March.
The driver of the No. 9 JR Motorsports Chevrolet has yet to win a race this season but has answered an uncharacteristic streak of three DNFs with four top-10 finishes in the last four races. He sits 10th in the championship standings with nine races remaining to set the 12-driver playoff field.
Team Penske’s Austin Cindric leads all full-time series drivers with four wins in 2021 but has two finishes outside the top 10 in the last five races. Although Cindric has not won previously at Atlanta – his best finish is seventh in 2018 – he has been particularly strong at 1.5-mile tracks, where he has four top-five finishes this season. The driver of the No. 22 Ford has led laps in 16 of the 17 races to date. His 534 laps out front nearly 200 more than the next best total (Daniel Hemric’s 345).
These drivers expect good competition this weekend from Kaulig Racing’s AJ Allmendinger, who sits second to Cindric in the championship hunt. Allmendinger earned his first career NASCAR oval victory at Atlanta last year and shows up this week with seven top-six finishes in the last eight races, including a win at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course. In two Atlanta starts, he has a win (2020) and a fifth place (2021).
Similarly, Joe Gibbs Racing’s Daniel Hemric has continued to turn in the top-10 results. He was runner-up to Kyle Busch at Road America last week. In four Atlanta starts, he has never finished worse than 11th.
Of course, the biggest challenge on the grid for full-time series drivers this weekend is Busch, who has literally been perfect this season in the Xfinity Series, winning all four races he has competed in. This weekend marks the last Xfinity start for the two-time NASCAR Cup Series champion, and he’d love to tie up his 2021 work with a victory circle ending. He won his last two Xfinity Series starts at Atlanta – in 2016 and 2017 – and has five more runner-up showings in 13 career Xfinity races at the track. Three times he has led at least 100 laps.
NEW YORK —USA Network announced Thursday it has given the green light for “Race for the Championship (WT),”an exhilarating new eight-part docuseries about the elite drivers and teams competing in this year’s NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs. It is set to premiere in 2022.
With the backdrop and high stakes of the 2021 NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs and Championship, “Race for the Championship” will take viewers inside the lives of NASCAR’s top drivers and teams on and off the track. Across eight thrilling episodes, the all-access series will chronicle the sport’s best as they balance their personal lives with the passion, pressure and perils of racing, all for a chance to make history.
The 10-week NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs begin at Darlington Raceway on Sept. 5 at 6 p.m. ET on NBCSN. For playoffs results and schedule, click HERE.
“Race for the Championship” is produced by NASCAR Productions with NASCAR’s Tim Clark, Matt Summers and Amy Anderson serving as executive producers.
NASCAR.com will preview the NASCAR Cup Series racing action at Atlanta Motor Speedway on Sunday, July 11, live at 1:30 p.m. ET before the running of the Quaker State 400 presented by Walmart. NASCAR.com’s Alex Weaver will host the live show from Atlanta Motor Speedway, joined by reporter Alan Cavanna.
The pre-race show will feature exclusive interviews with NASCAR Cup Series drivers, a sitdown with NASCAR on FOX’s Larry McReynolds, top moments in Atlanta Motor Speedway history, debates, fantasy start/sit thoughts and an on-site look at the track.
The race is set to air at 3:30 p.m. ET on NBCSN/NBC Sports App and will feature NASCAR’s biggest names in the second Cup Series race at Atlanta this season.
Fans can catch the live pre-race show Sunday at 1:30 pm ET on NASCAR’sYouTubeand Facebook channels.
A lot of talk in recent weeks has been centered around Hendrick Motorsports, and understandably so. The Chevrolet organization has won seven of the last eight points-paying events.
The outlier in that stretch was a win by Joe Gibbs Racing, and with that came chatter about whether the Toyota-backed team is catching up to its competitor.
Remember, there is still a third manufacturer in the field. Ford just hasn’t visited Victory Lane since April 25. Sunday’s Quaker State 400 at Atlanta Motor Speedway, though, could be the end of that 10-race drought.
Ford has won the last five races at Atlanta, making it the only make to win five consecutive times in track history.
Chevrolet’s last Atlanta win was in 2016 with Jimmie Johnson, who is now retired from the series. Toyota’s goes back to 2013 with Kyle Busch.
Those details paint a different picture than the current 2021 landscape in which Chevrolet claims 10 of the 20 races so far, Toyota has six and Ford has four.
Atlanta’s winningest active drivers are Kevin Harvick and Kurt Busch, with three victories apiece. Two of Harvick’s wins were in a Ford, the other a Chevrolet. Busch had one win in a Ford, the others in a Dodge, which no longer runs in the sport. Neither the elder Busch nor Harvick has won this season, and they both won in 2020. Busch had one win, but Harvick had a series-best and career-high nine wins. Harvick still drives a Ford, and Busch is now in a Chevrolet.
BetMGM put Harvick at 9-1 odds for Sunday, making him for the highest-favored Ford driver and putting him fourth overall. Busch is further down on the list at 33-1.
Chase Elliott is then 8-1 from the pole position, Kyle Busch represents the highest Toyota at 15-2 and Kyle Larson is 9-4 to put Chevrolet atop the board.
Ryan Blaney, who won the Atlanta race earlier this season, is an 10-1 favorite. He actually took the lead from Larson with nine laps remaining in the 325-lap event. Compared to Larson’s race-high 269 laps led, Blaney was out for just 25 – including the most important one. There were three Fords in the top 10, three Toyotas and four Chevys.
Chevrolet has been dominant in 2021, with Toyota trailing, but Ford has dominated at Atlanta in recent years – and Atlanta is up next.
Dirt-track qualifying procedures that were washed away with barely a trial run at Bristol Motor Speedway are back. The format, which includes qualifying heats with incentives for passing, will return for the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series’ debut at Knoxville Raceway.
The procedures will set the starting lineup for Friday night’s Corn Belt 150 at the Iowa half-mile. The first of four heats is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. ET with the 150-lap main event set for 9 p.m. ET — all broadcast on FS1, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
Torrential rain and flooding nixed qualifying for both the Cup Series and Trucks at Bristol’s dirt layout in March, mothballing the revised race structure until this weekend. Here’s how that system is laid out, with qualifying, pit-road procedures and race format:
Starting lineup format
Four qualifying heats of 15 laps each will be held, with only green-flag laps counting. No overtime rule will be in effect, but free-pass and wave-around procedures will remain.
Qualifying heat assignments and starting positions will be determined by a random draw, conducted in order of team owner points standings. A total of 40 trucks are on the Knoxville entry list, which would mean 10-truck fields for each heat. The main event’s field is capped at 40 trucks, so barring a late entry, all trucks will qualify for the feature.
The starting lineup will be determined by a formula that weighs finishing position plus the number of positions gained during each heat. Drivers finishing first in their heats earn 10 points, second place earns nine, third place collects eight and so forth. Additionally, drivers earn one passing point for each position gained in their heat; there are no point deductions or “negative points” for drivers who lose positions in their heats. The points totals determine starting positions. Also, these points are only used to determine the starting lineup and do not count toward the season-long championship standings.
Ties in these combined points totals will be broken by current team owner points.
Pit-stop format
Teams will not be allowed to change tires or add fuel except during the breaks between stages.
Teams are required to pit during at least one of the stage breaks. There will be no race onto or off pit road, using a controlled pit-stop procedure similar to the format in previous dirt-track events. The non-competitive pit stops must be completed within a designated time limit (to be determined).
Stages and schedule
Stages for Friday’s main event will end at Lap 40 and Lap 90, with 150 laps the scheduled full distance.
The series will hold an 80-minute practice session Thursday, starting at 7:05 p.m. ET (FS1).
Chase Elliott, driver of the No. 9 Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports, will go head-to-head with three other nominees for the Best Driver honor at the 2021 ESPYS on July 10.
In 2020, Elliott won the All-Star Race at Bristol Motor Speedway and grabbed his first Cup championship at Phoenix Raceway, becoming the third-youngest Cup Series champion in NASCAR history.
The 25-year-old first-time nominee will be up against IndyCar’s Scott Dixon, NHRA’s Erica Enders and Formula 1’s Lewis Hamilton.
“I’m super grateful for the consideration,” Elliott said. ” … Those are some great race car drivers, obviously different disciplines than what we do on the NASCAR side, but I feel like anybody who’s involved in motorsports, you have an appreciation for other types (of racing) and I’ve always respected those names. It’s crazy. I’m honored and very grateful for the consideration.”
Elliott has had eight top-five finishes this season and was named the Most Popular Driver in the Cup Series in 2018, ’19 and ’20.
Hendrick Motorsports is having a historic run in 2021, having become the winningest Cup Series team in NASCAR history in May, surpassing Petty Enterprises, at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
The ESPYS were held remotely last year and a best driver was not awarded, but NASCAR’S Kyle Busch was the last driver to get the honor at the 2019 ceremony.
Fans can vote here and watch the live ceremony at 8 p.m. ET on July 10 on ABC.
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — NASCAR and United Rentals, the largest equipment rental company in the world, announced a multiyear partnership Thursday that will designate United Rentals as the “Official Rental Equipment Partner of NASCAR” beginning in 2022. The wide-ranging agreement will span across the sanctioning body and NASCAR-owned facilities.
“United Rentals is the premier equipment rental company around the globe, so their expanded presence in NASCAR will further enhance support for both the race and the event experience at our facilities,” said Jeff Wohlschlaeger, NASCAR’s vice president and chief sales officer. “As we build on our new partnership with United Rentals, we will feel the strength of the organization’s support behind the scenes and showcase our collaborative partnership through race entitlements at three of our NASCAR-owned tracks.”
“Our customers count on us to provide high-quality equipment, service and expertise, and we are excited to bring those resources to our partnership with NASCAR,” said Dale Asplund, United Rentals’ executive vice president and chief operating officer. “With a shared focus on exceeding customer expectations and delivering exceptional results, we see NASCAR as a natural partner. We look forward to working together.”
The multiyear United Rentals partnership includes race entitlements for 2021 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series events at Watkins Glen International and Martinsville Speedway and future spring NASCAR Xfinity Series events. The United Rentals 176 at The Glen on Aug. 7 will be the last regular-season race for the Camping World Truck Series and the United Rentals 200 at Martinsville Speedway on Oct. 30 will be the penultimate race of the series’ season.
United Rentals, a preferred partner this season, will become an official partner of NASCAR beginning with the 2022 season. The brand will also be the “Official Heavy Power Rental Equipment Company of NASCAR” and the “Official Port-O-Let Partner of NASCAR.”
As part of the partnership, NASCAR-owned facilities will work collaboratively with United Rentals for access to rental construction and industrial equipment, supplies and tools and additional items for ongoing facility maintenance and race preparations and support. The partnership will also extend to non-race events hosted at NASCAR-owned facilities.
Motorsports returned to the top 10 most bet sports in Colorado in May, according to a report released by the state’s Department of Revenue. The month of April marked the first time since February auto racing did not appear on the list of top 10 sports by handle in the Centennial State.
Colorado provides an instructive view into motorsports’ place in the betting hierarchy, as the state reports handle and revenue in greater detail per sport than other jurisdictions. Many states, including New Jersey and Nevada, offer data specific only to sports such as football, basketball and baseball, grouping all others together in a separate category.
In May 2021, Colorado gamblers made $718,489 in motorsports bets, an all-time high for auto racing since legal sports betting launched in the state in May 2020. The previous high was $666,413 in February, when Daytona Speedweeks and the Daytona 500 kicked off the NASCAR season.
Auto racing was one of only two sports in which Colorado bettors beat the sportsbooks in May. Per the state report, $735,608 was returned to players in the month, amounting to a loss of about $17,000 for the operators. This marks the first time in state’s short history of legal sports betting that motorsports gamblers got the better of the books.
Golf, too, showed a profit for the customers, as $5.3 million was paid to the players on handle of about $4.8 million.
February was a particularly brutal month for auto-racing bettors, as they saw just $355,739 returned to them for a loss of $310,674. That’s a “hold” (or win) percentage of 46.6 for the books, a huge number for the gaming industry.
For perspective, Colorado bookmakers won about $15.2 million of the $248.9 million wagered on all sports in May, a hold percentage of 6.08%. In February, their hold percentage was a minuscule 3.92%.
The state’s report also illustrates that gamblers overwhelmingly prefer getting their bets down via digital platforms rather than in retail environments. Online wagering accounted for $714,815 of the $718,489 bet on motorsports in Colorado in May, an eye-opening 99.49%. Overall, $246,488,626 in sports bets were place online, again more than 99% of the total handle booked in the state.
Perusing these reports, one may be surprised to see table tennis rank so high on the list. What’s known to many as ping-pong was the fourth most bet sport in Colorado in May and the sixth most bet over the 12-month span that ended in April. Table tennis grabbed gamblers’ attention as the pandemic shut down most other sports last year and evidently has some legs among the crowd.
As for NASCAR and motorsports in general, while the data from Colorado shows auto racing has some catching up to do as it carves its niche in the sports betting landscape, there are signs it is making its way through the field.
Marcus DiNitto is a writer and editor living in Charlotte, North Carolina. He has been covering sports for nearly two-and-a-half decades and sports betting for more than 10 years. His first NASCAR betting experience was in 1995 at North Wilkesboro Speedway, where he went 0-for-3 on his matchup picks. Read his articles and follow him on Twitter; do not bet his picks.
With just nine NASCAR Xfinity Series starts to his name, Ty Gibbs is a focal point whenever he hits the track. Quite simply, he’s outperforming what many in the garage thought is possible so early into a national touring career.
Sure, throughout his racing career, Gibbs, 18, has always been in superb equipment. After all, his grandfather is Coach Joe Gibbs, who built a NASCAR empire after a successful coaching career in the NFL.
Still, few expected Gibbs’ grandson to win in his Xfinity Series debut on the Daytona International Speedway road course. Or for him to follow that up three months later at Charlotte Motor Speedway by winning his first time out on a 1.5-mile track.
But Gibbs is a driver who expects the absolute best — optimal performance — out of himself. And with seven top-five finishes in nine starts — with his two other finishes being 18th at Darlington Raceway (sped twice on pit road) and 33rd last weekend at Road America (transmission issues) — it’s safe to say he’s living up to those standards.
“It’s definitely going better than I expected,” Gibbs recently told NASCAR.com. “It’s been fun. I was definitely a little nervous coming in because it’s so different and it’s a high level – just one level more and it’s the Cup Series. It’s cool to think about that, but we put our heads down and focus on racing.”
The all-star No. 54 Toyota, which also has four wins from Kyle Busch and a runner-up result from Martin Truex Jr. this year, is led by crew chief Chris Gayle. Before the 2021 season, Gayle spent the past four years working with Erik Jones in the Cup Series.
Despite being in the JGR camp for nearly a decade, Gayle didn’t have a real connection with Gibbs before working with him this season. And after chatting with Coy Gibbs (vice chairman and chief operating officer of JGR) over the offseason, the team planned on running Ty in roughly 15 races this season.
And at first, the plan was to take baby steps.
“I think after talking to [Coy] and looking at him having no experience, we were just looking for top 10s,” Gayle said. “We were going to get our feet wet. We were just trying to select races that made sense that fell in his wheelhouse where he had experience in other cars and could go in and potentially perform well.”
Ty has an average finish of 7.7 and sits 16th in the championship standings, despite missing eight races. Though having a stellar stat sheet, he made it clear he doesn’t run off confidence. “I don’t really think I have that emotion in my body,” he says. “I’ve never really [gotten] too confident about races.”
Like Gayle, Gibbs was aiming for top-10 finishes at the beginning. A breakout run might be cracking the top five. However, in a deeper Xfinity Series this season, he knew that was going to be a tough feat.
In fact, the teenager is taken aback by some of his success this season.
“It’s definitely surprising, for sure,” he said. “To be able to run for wins and top fives every weekend has been super cool. I feel like a couple of races like Darlington, we had a shot to win that one. At Dover, we missed it a little bit. But my team works really hard at what they do and we’re going into each weekend running well.”
A measured approach
Across the board, the No. 54 Toyota has won six of the 17 Xfinity races run this season.
Though success came quick in other series, specifically ARCA, JGR didn’t want to rush Ty up the ranks. There were no hesitations of giving him the Xfinity opportunity in 2021, but Steve DeSouza, executive vice president of JGR’s Xfinity and development program, has seen drivers rushed up through the program too soon before.
That wasn’t going to happen again.
Jared C. Tilton | Getty Images
“He gets in the car, gets in a zone and goes,” DeSouza said of the young Gibbs. “He’s got the ability to zone in and his feel seems to be coming naturally on where he needs to be on the race track. It’s almost like he has a radar of where he can move and when, without a lot of people directing him and coaching him.
“He’s still young and he’s the first one to raise his hand and say, ‘I made a mistake.’ He does an extensive amount of preparation. He’s a student of the sport. We’re really encouraged.”
Gayle echoes DeSouza’s assessment of Gibbs’ work ethic. A lot of his preparation comes from iRacing, even though he might get an allotted amount of simulator time at TRD. That way, he’s already prepared before entering the simulator.
And when Ty is away from the track and not racing (as was the case recently at Nashville Superspeedway), he will still be tuning in from home, looking for ways to get better.
Gayle said, “He stayed home, but he was like, ‘I’ll have SMT up while practice is going. I’ll watch SMT, I’ll watch the timing scoring and go through it like I’m there.’ I think that’s the thing that says a lot about it, that people behind the scenes don’t know how bad he really wants this.
“This is all he’s ever really wanted to do. I’ll tell you, I didn’t know that coming into it. You can hear people say that, but until you see it, I’m coming into it with the same apprehension that everyone else has, ‘Sure, this is Coach’s grandson and we want it to work out, but does [Ty] really want this?’ That’s what I’ve seen out of this. This is what he lives and breathes. There’s nothing he really wants to do other than this, and it shows in how much he puts himself around it all the time.”
As a father, Coy is proud to see his son achieve success on the race track. But had he known how well Ty was going to do, JGR would have found a way to run him full time in Xfinity this year.
“You don’t know how good anyone is until you stick ’em up in there,” Coy recently said to a group of media at Pocono Raceway. “We probably would have changed what we’re doing, what he’s racing this year, if we knew he could run that good. It’s been a pleasant surprise.”
Partnering for a promotion
As far as potentially developing into a full-time Xfinity driver in 2022, JGR claims to not be in a hurry to move him up. But with his success in a limited schedule this season, it would be logical to move him into one of the team’s full-time rides.
DeSouza recalls there have been several times in the past where he thought a driver wasn’t ready for the big leagues, only for them to prove him wrong at the Cup level.
“I think Coach and Coy are open, but they didn’t want to push it,” DeSouza said. “They want to get him up there and let him be successful. I’ve been the first to stand on the soapbox at times with Denny [Hamlin], Joey [Logano], talking about them in passing. A lot of people were saying, ‘Let’s take them, they’re ready’ and I go, ‘I don’t know if we should do that.’ I would say 90% of the time I’ve been wrong. When they got there they were fast.
“I feel protective of our little guys, and I want them to have the experience and knowing once they get there we’ve done everything we can as an organization, as our group on the Xfinity side to help them be ready. Getting to Xfinity, he’s demonstrating that now.”
DeSouza added that when sponsorship and opportunities present themselves, the team will evaluate what those are and if some of those include moving him up full time to Xfinity then that’ll be on the discussion table. But the team wants to find the right partner, so that Ty can be integrated into the company’s marketing plan.
For now, though, Gibbs doesn’t mind running primarily a black race car, believing it looks fresh and stands out. The easiest way to attract new sponsors is to continue winning.
So is Ty a leading candidate to run for JGR full time in 2022?
DeSouza said, “I think what we’ve seen so far, I don’t think there’s any question he’s capable. But we want to see him run the rest of the races he’s got scheduled and again, if the opportunity with a partner comes along and it’s a great match for him.”
As for what’s the next challenge for Ty, he wants to continue learning about himself and how life works. Everything after that is just a bonus.
