Posted on December 8, 2021December 8, 2021 by Holly Cain

Editor’s Note: This continues the series of season reviews for the 2021 NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs drivers.

Driver: Alex Bowman
Car: No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet
Crew chief: Greg Ives
Final 2021 ranking: 14thKey stats: 4 wins, 8 top fives, 16 top 10s, 161 laps led

How 2021 ended:
Bowman was eliminated in the Round of 12 of the Cup Series Playoffs after a 38th-place DNF at Talladega Superspeedway put him in a difficult points position entering that round’s final race at the Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval. Although eliminated from championship eligibility, Bowman dramatically won the penultimate event at Martinsville Speedway – punctuating a career-best four-win season.

RELATED: Alex Bowman through the years

Best race:
Bowman led 98 laps on his way to a career-first victory at Dover International Speedway. He led the race’s final 97 laps to beat teammate Kyle Larson — the eventual NASCAR Cup Series champion — to the flag by an impressive 2.017 seconds. It was his second victory of the year, marking the first time he’d ever won multiple NASCAR Cup Series races in a season.

Other season highlights:
Bowman’s four wins was a personal-best mark and came on a variety of tracks – from the 0.75-mile venue of Richmond Raceway, to the Dover “Monster Mile” to Pocono Raceway’s tricky 2.5-mile triangle to the Martinsville short track. And 2021 was also a year that saw career-high marks in top-five (eight) and top-10 (16) finishes.

Stat to know:
Bowman’s four-victory season stands out, as do his career-best statistical marks – only 2021 champ Larson won more races (10). Yet for as big as his trophy haul was, Bowman led only 161 laps – far off the totals he put up the last two years (200 in 2019 and 440 in 2020). His average finish (15.1) was also below the marks he established in the last two seasons (14.4 in 2019 and 14.7 in 2020).

MORE: All-time winners for Hendrick Motorsports

Quotable:
“Was confident coming into this year, but the thing that I’ve always circled is just try to be consistent, consistently running well. We’ve struggled to do that. It’s pretty hard for me to be super-excited right now (after his Martinsville win). The beginning of the season if you told me I was going to win four times, I’d be pretty excited. Wish we were going to Phoenix with a chance to win the championship. It has been painful to kind of go through the playoffs this way. But it’s awesome to at least start to end the year on a strong note.” – Bowman after his Martinsville Speedway victory on Oct. 31.

Looking ahead:
Career-high marks in 2021 are a good sign for the 28-year-old Bowman, who is looking to elevate his overall performance to contend for the championship. He has proven himself able to take home the race trophy, and in 2020 proved that he can race further into the title race. Now, it’s time to combine the efforts and challenge for the bigger trophy won by different teammates the last two seasons. Bowman finished sixth in the championship in 2020; advancing to the Round of 8 is a reasonable expectation given the current success of the Hendrick Motorsports organization.

Posted on December 7, 2021December 14, 2021 by Zack Albert

The recent deal between team owners Maury Gallagher and Richard Petty came into clearer focus Tuesday with the announcement that the newly formed organization will operate under the banner of Petty GMS Motorsports.

Petty GMS will field two chartered entries in the NASCAR Cup Series starting next year, with Ty Dillon and Erik Jones as the drivers. The details, plus a new team logo and car designs, were unveiled Tuesday afternoon at the NASCAR Hall of Fame.

Gallagher’s GMS Motorsports operation had announced June 17 that it intended to field a Cup Series entry in 2022, tapping Dillon as its driver nearly four months later. Last Wednesday, the two teams announced that Gallagher had purchased a majority interest in the Petty operation, an agreement that included the two Cup Series charters.

Tuesday brought the news that Petty, the series’ all-time win leader, will maintain a presence both in the team’s name and at the track. He was also in attendance for Tuesday’s announcement, and Gallagher said that Petty’s appearance schedule and his stature as the public face of the franchise was part of what sweetened the deal.

“Well, there’s there’s a number of elements to success, right?” Gallagher said. “You can’t save yourself into a profit, but you can spend yourself out of one. What that means is you need revenue, and Richard is a brand, a name that really is important. And I think he’ll admit to the same thing. And candidly, as he said, we stepped into the middle of the ongoing thing. There are sponsors and things that were really important to keep going, and he’s the reason they have the sponsors today. Yeah, the racing is important, too, but he’s a big component — more so perhaps than any other team. Richard Petty as your masthead, it’s a big deal.”

Jones will return for his second season in the No. 43 Chevrolet, but the group’s second entry will wear No. 42 — a car number with deep ties to the Petty family. Hall of Famer and patriarch Lee Petty drove the number to all but one of his 54 Cup Series wins, and Richard’s son, Kyle, flew the No. 42 in six of his eight big-league wins.

Keeping his hand in the business and his family name out front was also an enticing aspect for Petty, stock-car racing’s king. Not surprisingly, the team’s new logo blended GMS’ familiar orange with the trademark Petty Blue.

“It’s not for me. It’s for my kids, my grandkids, my great-grandkids from that standpoint,” Petty said of his ongoing role as team chairman after the sale. “… So you’ve got a little bit of control over your name. I think everybody, just like Joe Blow, would like to protect their name as much as they can.

“I ain’t going nowhere. When my toes turn up, that’s when I’m gone.”

The team indicated that previously announced driver-crew chief pairings will remain intact — Jones will work with former JR Motorsports crew chief Dave Elenz, and Dillon will partner with first-year crew chief Jerame Donley. Mike Beam will guide the organization’s day-to-day operations as the team president.

Beam also has long-running ties to the Petty family. He was crew chief for Kyle Petty during the first four full-time seasons of his Cup Series career, and he later worked with Richard Petty in the 1985 season. Now with GMS, he says that he and Gallagher bring a no-frills approach, evidenced by their reluctance to bask in the spotlight and by — Beam says in jest — Gallagher’s tendency toward ‘dad shoes.’

“You look at all the GMS wins and stuff, you’ll never see me and Maury hogging the picture,” Beam says. “No, we just want the trophy and the money. We’re gone. We’re good. We don’t need the pictures. The pictures, it does not go in the bank.”

GMS Racing plans to remain a full-time entrant in both the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series and the ARCA Menards Series, according to the team. GMS has tallied 41 Camping World Truck wins, plus two series championships — with Johnny Sauter in 2016 and Sheldon Creed in 2020.

Beam said GMS Racing will field two full-time trucks, an operation that is independent of the Petty GMS group. The organization previously announced that Grant Enfinger would wheel the No. 23 Chevrolet in 2022 and ’23, and Jack Wood is set to compete for Sunoco Rookie of the Year honors next year in the No. 24 Chevy. Daniel Dye is scheduled to return to drive GMS Racing’s ARCA Menards Series entry.

On the Cup Series side, Petty GMS will move forward with two young racers with much still to prove. Jones, 25, has two Cup wins from his time with Joe Gibbs Racing, but he is still in the early stages of trying to bring the iconic No. 43 back to its former prominence. The 29-year-old Dillon is back on the Cup Series circuit full-time after a partial campaign over multiple series last year.

Gallagher’s GMS bunch made a significant impact on the Camping World Truck Series status quo, expanding rapidly and hoisting its first championship trophy less than four years after its 2013 debut. As far as the Cup Series expectations go under the Petty GMS umbrella, Gallagher says he has optimism for the new team’s future.

“One, two?” Gallagher joked, pointing out that his truck organization’s 1-2-3 finish in the 2020 standings had spoiled him. “You know, I think we can win. It’s easy for me to say, since I’m not going to be on the floor day to day doing it, but this is the best racers in the world. I don’t want to come across as being arrogant and the like, but it will take us a while to get there, but this crowd, they know what they’re doing.”

Posted on December 7, 2021December 7, 2021 by Marcus DiNitto

Kyle Larson is the favorite to repeat as the NASCAR Cup Series champion in 2022, per opening futures odds posted around the betting market. He’s followed by Hendrick Motorsports teammate Chase Elliott, then drivers from Joe Gibbs Racing, with Team Penske after that. In other words, bookmakers anticipate next season playing out a lot like the recently completed 2021 campaign.

This remains despite the change on tap to the Next Gen car.

While the Next Gen car could even the playing field, emphasizing driver skill over equipment, SuperBook USA’s Ed Salmons — a top NASCAR oddsmaker — will believe it when he sees it.

“I’ll go with the assumptions I’ve seen the last couple years, and when I see something different on the track, I’ll go with that,” Salmons said. “Stuff that tells me otherwise, I’ll build that into the odds, but until I know something factual, I’ll just assume all the stuff I know is what I know from the other car.”

To some sharp NASCAR bettors, though, the change to the Next Gen car necessitates a new handicapping approach.

“Short answer is it’s going to change everything,” bettor Blake Phillips said. “… You have to throw out a lot of the previous results to an extent. … My approach next season is going to be very different in that I’m going to be looking at recent results much, much more heavily than historic results, and I’m going to be seeing how closely they align with previous results and how much they differ.”

To pro bettor Zack White, the change represents an opportunity to be a step ahead of the oddsmakers.

“It’s definitely going to be a challenge. Luckily it will be a challenge for the bookmakers, too,” White said in a text message. “I haven’t finalized a plan yet on how I will adjust handicapping, but obviously a lot of old data will have to be thrown out. We will see what kind of information I can get my eyes on before those first couple races and go from there.”

Here are early odds from two sportsbooks — SuperBook USA and NASCAR sponsor Barstool — to win the 2022 Cup title for drivers priced at 100-1 odds or less at the Las Vegas shop.

Driver	SuperBook	Barstool
Kyle Larson	+350	+250
Chase Elliott	+500	+500
Denny Hamlin	+800	+550
Kyle Busch	+800	+800
Ryan Blaney	+1000	+1000
William Byron	+1000	+1000
Martin Truex Jr	+1000	+550
Joey Logano	+1400	+1400
Kevin Harvick	+1400	+1400
Alex Bowman	+2000	+2000
Christopher Bell	+2000	+2500
Kurt Busch	+3000	+3000
Brad Keselowski	+3000	+1800
Tyler Reddick	+6000	+5000
Ross Chastain	+10000	+12500
Daniel Suarez	+10000	+12500
Austin Cindric	+10000	+6600

SHUFFLING OF THE FIELD?

Throughout the 2021 season, we spoke of the “Big Three” garages — Hendrick, Gibbs and Penske — but should the Next Gen car accomplish NASCAR’s goal of elevating the importance of driver skill, we may see teams with lighter budgets win more races.

“Guys like Tyler Reddick come to mind,” Phillips said. “I think that’s the guy who might suddenly be a lot more competitive than he is now when we go to the new package. But at the same time, this is a guy who has to drive that car as hard as it will go every single week, and I want to see if he can keep it clean.”

The inverse would also be true: Drivers who can thank their equipment for their past success may come back to the pack (Denny Hamlin is looking at you, Alex Bowman).

“I do expect we’re going to see some of these lower-funded teams and drivers who have a ton of talent but don’t have a ton of money being quite a bit more competitive, and I think we’re going to see some of the lower performers on the heavily funded teams dropping a little bit further down in the pack,” Phillips said.

Salmons is skeptical.

“The one thing I always hear whenever they wheel out a new car is the guys that never win, they’re going to have a chance now, it’s going to even the field,” the bookmaker said. “I believe the teams that have the most money spend the most and find stuff out first and get the advantages first. That’s just how it is. I could be dead wrong. But until I see it on the track, I’m not going to believe it.”

Marcus DiNitto, senior news editor at Gaming Today, has been covering sports business for more than 20 years and sports betting for about 10. NASCAR is among the many sports he bets — and typically loses — on. Follow him on Twitter; do not bet his picks.

Posted on December 7, 2021 by Staff Report

23XI Racing and McDonald’s announced Tuesday that their sponsorship agreement would grow in 2022, with the restaurant brand supporting the team’s entries for Bubba Wallace and Kurt Busch in the NASCAR Cup Series.

The team indicated that McDonald’s will serve as primary sponsor for several races each on Wallace’s No. 23 Toyota and Busch’s No. 45 Toyota next year, including the season-opening Daytona 500 (Feb. 20, 2:30 p.m. ET, FOX, MRN, SiriusXM) for Wallace. The organization — co-owned by Michael Jordan and Denny Hamlin — is expanding to a two-car operation for its second season.

RELATED: On the Move: Changes for 2022

McDonald’s was primary sponsor for Wallace in eight races last season, including his first Cup Series win Oct. 4 at Talladega Superspeedway. That victory brought a long-awaited return to Victory Lane for McDonald’s, which had last graced a Cup Series winner in 1994 with Jimmy Spencer — also at Talladega.

“McDonald’s has really stepped up over the years and played a large part in my career,” Wallace said in a news release provided by the team. “Getting McDonald’s back to Victory Lane for the first time since 1994 and having them on our Camry for my first win in the Cup Series this year was really special. To be a part of the McDonald’s family and be involved in programs like Black and Positively Golden and work toward similar goals both on and off the track also means a lot to me. I’m excited to continue to build on our relationship and get the 2022 season started with McDonald’s on our Camry TRD for the Daytona 500 — hopefully with another trip to Victory Lane.”

Busch was tapped as 23XI Racing’s newest driver on Aug. 27. Next year — his 22nd season at the Cup Series level — will mark his first events with McDonald’s as a primary sponsor.

“Racing with Monster Energy over the last decade together has been an incredible ride,” Busch said. “We win, we have fun, we promote together, and I am very grateful for their partnership. It feels like family racing for them, and I believe McDonald’s will have the same feel. The power of these brands elevates the No. 45 Camry TRD to a top-tier level before we even take the green flag. Let’s win!”

Posted on December 7, 2021 by Davey Segal

Editor’s Note: This continues the series of season reviews for the 2021 NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs drivers.

Driver: Aric Almirola
Car: No. 10 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford Mustang
Crew chief: Mike Bugarewicz
Final 2021 ranking: 15th
Key stats: 1 win, 2 top fives, 5 top 10s, 51 laps led

How 2021 ended:
After qualifying for his fourth straight playoffs, Almirola’s finishes of 16th at Darlington Raceway, 14th at Richmond Raceway and 18th at Bristol Motor Speedway saw him exit the playoffs in the first round for the second time in three years.

But as the playoffs rolled on, Almirola improved, with both his top 10s coming in the final two races: sixth at Martinsville Speedway and Phoenix Raceway, his second-best results at those respective tracks.

Best race:
Almirola’s season highlight was winning at New Hampshire Motor Speedway this summer. Coming out of seemingly nowhere, Almirola’s speed was evident from the drop of the green flag. After starting 22nd, he made his way inside the top 10 and gained stage points in the second frame before quickly passing cars on his way to the lead battle as the laps wound down

In total, Almirola led 25 laps (including the last 20) before darkness forced the event to end eight laps early en route to his third career victory and first on a non-superspeedway.

Additional highlights:

• Kicked off the 2021 season winning the first Bluegreen Vacations Duel at Daytona International Speedway.

• A sixth-place finish at Richmond, his seventh top 10 there, gave the veteran his first top 10 of the season in April.

• Winning the pole at Nashville Superspeedway in June before finishing fourth gave Almirola the confidence to know the speed on 750 horsepower tracks was enough to not just contend, but win. And that’s exactly what he did at New Hampshire a month after Nashville, punching his playoff ticket.

Stat to know:
In the Cup Series’ first ever trip to Nashville Superspeedway, Almirola won the pole, marking only the third P1 start of his career. With qualifying only taking place eight times over the course of the year, Almirola showed his single lap speed was still prevalent in time trials.

Quotable:
“Nobody should have thought that we were going to win. Only our race team is the people that should have thought that or believed that. I mean, based on our performance especially this year, we haven’t been a contender to win. Coming into this race we never really gave anybody a reason to pick us, to be completely honest. I know that. It feels good to be the underdog and kind of come out of nowhere and have a race car like we did, kind of put it to ’em at the end of the race and drive off and go win this race.” – Almirola after his New Hampshire victory

Looking ahead:
Almirola has established himself as a perennial playoff driver at Stewart-Haas Racing but has only advanced past the first round twice in his four years with the organization. Making it to the Round of 12 or even the Round of 8 could be a realistic goal for Almirola and company in 2022 to improve on their steady performance over the last half decade.

With three superspeedway events in the regular season presenting themselves as some of Almirola’s best chances to score a win (plus one in the postseason), the playoffs remain the expectation for driver No. 10, but advancement throughout them also remains the goal.

While nothing official has been announced from Almirola or SHR, the two are expected to remain together for a fifth season with Smithfield returning as a primary sponsor of the No. 10 Ford. Add in the Next Gen car providing an opportunity for all drivers and teams to start from a proverbial square one (Almirola was the fastest on Day 2 of the Charlotte oval test) and Almirola/SHR will look to earn their fifth consecutive playoff berth and help reascend the organization to Victory Lane on a weekly basis after a one-win season in 2021.

Posted on December 7, 2021December 7, 2021 by Staff Report

Dale Earnhardt Jr. and JR Motorsports unveiled the No. 88 Hellmann’s Fridge Hunters Chevrolet paint scheme Earnhardt will run in the 2022 NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Martinsville Speedway on April 8.

The winning wrap was revealed Tuesday during JR Motorsports’ Unilever production shoot via Earnhardt’s Instagram live.

You voted, @Hellmanns delivered. Check out @DaleJr‘s 2022 @MartinsvilleSwy ride. @unileverusa | @Degree pic.twitter.com/nRLfRlhiQH

— JR Motorsports (@JRMotorsports) December 7, 2021

Earnhardt retired from full-time racing after the 2017 NASCAR Cup Series season. The 15-time National Motorsports Press Association Most Popular Driver Award winner is now a broadcaster for NBC Sports but still races once a year in the NASCAR Xfinity Series with his JR Motorsports team. In 2021, he finished 14th at Richmond Raceway.

Posted on December 6, 2021 by Reid Spencer

NASHVILLE — The overwhelming consensus among NASCAR Cup Series drivers is the new Next Gen race car, which will debut in 2022, is one of the most radical changes in the history of NASCAR’s premier division.

Defending Daytona 500 winner Michael McDowell believes the Next Gen car represents a more substantive change than, say, NASCAR’s move from bias-ply to radial tires some three decades ago.

McDowell comes from a sports-car background, and there are aspects of the Next Gen car that give him both a sense of comfort and a reason for optimism. The driver’s seat, for example, is shifted more toward the center of the car — more akin to its location in a sports car.

“You try not to be arrogant, cocky, boastful, but I’m just like that’s a proper race car with a proper foot box and a proper seat positioning,” McDowell said last Thursday at the Music City Center during an interview session with reporters before the NASCAR Awards. “It took me forever to get comfortable in our (Gen 6) cars, but when I jumped into that (Next Gen car), I felt right at home.

“A lot of guys have talked about the steering being too fast and twitchy and all that, but when you turn the wheel, the car’s supposed to turn, and it’s doing that. You don’t have huge sidewall deflection and laziness and all that we had in our old car. It feels like a proper race car to me.”

Posted on December 6, 2021December 17, 2021 by Staff Report

Editor’s Note: This is the first in the series of season reviews for the 2021 NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs drivers.

Driver: Michael McDowell
Car: No. 34 Front Row Motorsports Ford Mustang
Crew chief: Drew Blickensderfer
Final 2021 ranking: 16th
Key stats: 1 win, 2 top fives, 5 top 10s, 26 laps led

How 2021 ended:
McDowell struggled as the regular season came to a close with one top-20 finish (Michigan) in the final seven races. Those woes carried over into the playoffs with three finishes outside the top 20 in the Round of 16 — including a crash 30 laps into the playoffs at Darlington — leading to his elimination. He averaged a 20.5 finish on the season — a career best, but worst among all the playoff drivers. He was eliminated alongside Tyler Reddick, Kurt Busch and Aric Almirola.

Best race:
At the season-opening Daytona 500, McDowell won his first-ever Cup Series race in 358 starts. Heading into the race, the odds of him winning were 66-1 (via BetMGM). McDowell didn’t lead during the entire 200-lap event until the very end. The veteran driver grabbed the lead in a wreck-filled last lap that saw Team Penske teammates Joey Logano and Brad Keselowski crash running 1-2. McDowell beat out reigning champion Chase Elliott and Austin Dillon for the win to become the eighth driver to earn their first win in “The Great American Race.” He also scored Front Row Motorsports’ third Cup victory.

Other season highlights:
• Three straight top 10s to kick off the 2021 season — first time in his career he had three straight top 10s in the Cup Series.

• Finished third in the GEICO 500 at Talladega Superspeedway. This was his second and last top-five finish of the season as he finished behind Brad Keselowski and William Byron.

• Five top 10s and 16th-place finish in the standings were both career bests in the Cup Series for McDowell.

Stat to know:
His three-race streak of consecutive top-10 finishes to open the season was a career first for McDowell and set him up very early on to surpass his previous season-best of four top 10s in 2020.

Quotable:
“This sport is so challenging and it’s week to week, and you’re only as good as your last race. So when you have a struggle and a difficult weekend, and you come to the office to do autograph requests or sign pictures, when you keep signing that same picture of you in Victory Lane at the Daytona 500, it’s a good reminder that when you’re struggling, it’s worth it.” — McDowell on the perspective he carries on a week-to-week basis.

Looking ahead:
McDowell will be back with Front Row for the 2022 season and he tested the Next Gen car for the organization at Charlotte last month. McDowell will continue to be a threat for wins and top fives on superspeedways and a sneaky factor on road courses with six of those on the Cup schedule for 2022. He will not have his crew chief back though as Drew Blickensderfer has left Front Row to pursue other options.

Posted on December 5, 2021December 8, 2021 by Staff Report

2021 NASCAR Advance Auto Parts Weekly Series Division I champion

Peyton Sellers

When Peyton Sellers won his first NASCAR national championship 16 years ago, he hoped the title could be used as a stepping stone in his racing career.

In many ways, it was. He got an opportunity to race across the country, in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, and with Richard Childress Racing.

“I went from a local driver driving around Virginia and North Carolina to all of a sudden my name was more on a national platform,” Sellers said.

Even though the 38-year-old said he didn’t take his first national championship for granted, he cherishes his second more. Sellers won the 2021 NASCAR Advance Auto Parts Weekly Series Division I title this year by 34 points.

READ MORE

2021 NASCAR Advance Auto Parts Weekly Series Division I regional champions

Peyton Sellers took the NASCAR Advance Auto Parts Weekly Series Division 1 national championship in 2021, his second such title. He did so with the Southeast Region championship in hand.

The two drivers who finished behind Sellers in the national Division I standings, though, did not end the season empty-handed. Both Jacob Goede (second in national standings) and Craig V0n Dohren (third) were named regional champions in the NASCAR Advance Auto Parts Weekly Series.

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2021 NASCAR Advance Auto Parts Weekly Series Jostens Rookie of the Year winners

With the 2021 NASCAR Advance Auto Parts Weekly Series season in the books, the Jostens Rookies of the Year for Division I competition have been named.

The award winners include one national Jostens Rookie of the Year and four regional winners.

This year’s national Jostens Rookie of the Year, Gunner Martin, hails as the Midwest Region rookie of the year, as well.

READ MORE

2021 NASCAR Advance Auto Parts Weekly Series Division II champion

David Greenslit

David Greenslit had a specific goal in mind going into the 2021 race season. He wanted to win a national championship. He did it in 2020, and he wanted to do it again.

“That was one of our main goals,” Greeslit said. “We came into the year wanting to win both track championships and the national title.”

Greenslit won seven races in the R.E. Hinkley Street Stocks division at Claremont Motorsports Park in New Hampshire, and six races in the street stocks division at Hudson Speedway, also in New Hampshire. He took home the track championship at both tracks.

His 11 NASCAR wins and 27 top fives were enough to lead Greenslit to the NASCAR Advance Auto Parts Weekly Series Division II national championship by eight points over second-place Terry Schultz.

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2021 NASCAR Advance Auto Parts Weekly Series Division III champion

Chad Baxter

Chad Baxter thinks he may have finished in the top 10 in the national points once in his career prior to 2021. He came into the season simply looking to collect as many wins as possible and, maybe, go for a track championship in the Sportsman division at Seekonk Speedway.

But as the wins piled up, people started to notice how good of a season he was having.

“There’s a guy that I work with, he’s always looking at that type of stuff (the national points), and during our lunch breaks he was going through it and he would tell me where I was, and we kept on moving up,” Baxter said. “I was like, ‘Wow.’ Eventually I was like, ‘Oh, I think we might have a shot at this.’”

By the end of the season, Baxter had six wins, 13 top fives, his first Seekonk track championship and his first NASCAR Advance Auto Parts Weekly Series Division III national title.

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2021 NASCAR Advance Auto Parts Weekly Series Division IV champion

Tom McCarthy

In just his first full season of racing, Tom McCarthy is a national champion.

McCarthy won the Auto Value Parts Store 4-Cylinder division championship at Michigan’s Berlin Raceway, and he picked up five wins and 19 top-five finishes in 21 races to win the NASCAR Advance Auto Parts Weekly Series Division IV national championship.

“It’s awesome,” McCarthy said. “It doesn’t get any better than that, right?”

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2021 NASCAR Advance Auto Parts Weekly Series Division V champion

Chris Vannausdle

A lot more people noticed when Chris Vannausdle showed up to the race track this season.

The Iowa driver gave fans something to watch, too. He won the sport compact division track championship at I-80 Speedway in Nebraska, and he finished second in the compacts division Adams County Speedway in Iowa.

His 12 wins and 24 top-five finishes in 30 races was enough to win the NASCAR Advance Auto Parts Weekly Series Division V national championship for the second straight season.

Vannausdle called his 2021 season “just a flawless year.”

READ MORE

2021 NASCAR Advance Auto Parts Weekly Series state & provincal champions

PHOTOS: 2021 state & provincal champions

2021 NASCAR Advance Auto Parts Weekly Series track champions

Posted on December 5, 2021December 5, 2021 by Cara Cooper

A lot more people noticed when Chris Vannausdle showed up to the race track this season.

His 12 wins and 24 top-five finishes in 30 races was enough to win the NASCAR Advance Auto Parts Weekly Series Division V national championship for the second straight season.

Vannausdle called his 2021 season “just a flawless year.”

Chris Vannausdle poses with the trophy after one of his 12 wins this season. (Photo courtesy of Dawn Vannausdle)

For the second straight year, Vannausdle had to wait a while to get confirmation on his title. Both Adams County and I-80 finished the season in mid-September, and while he finished his races with about a 60 point lead, he had to sit and wait for more than a month and hope no one caught him.

Vannausdle ended up winning the title by 16 points over second-place Travis Pavlacky.

“My wife and I actually sat in the garage and looked for NASCAR tracks that week, and we couldn’t find anything close that we could feasibly drive to,” Vannausdle said. “So, to be honest, it was just like, it is what it is. We knew we had a substantial lead and wins, so we were hoping that was going to be enough to hold us.

“It’s a weight off your shoulders. It really was. I really don’t know what to say other than by God we did it, finally. And now we’re done for the year.”

After a grueling season going for a title in 2020, Vannausdle and his wife Dawn had decided they didn’t want to go for a second national championship. With most of the work done by just the two of them, and one track about an hour and a half away, it’s difficult for him to take time off work and fund that many races as his own primary sponsor.

But Vannausdle felt like he wasn’t able to celebrate his 2020 championship due to the cancellation of the NASCAR banquet and other events because of the COVID-19 pandemic. They wanted the chance to revel in another title properly.

“My wife and I had decided we were going to slow down, because it’s really expensive to race at two tracks, and we’re basically our own sponsors,” he said. “Around December it was like, ‘No, let’s slow down. We’re getting older.’ And I would say, probably around February we said, ‘You know what, let’s go for it one more time.’

“Originally we did not plan to go after it until the banquets got squashed last year and we said, ‘You know what, we really want to go to a banquet. Let’s go after it one last time.'”

The Vannausdles learned a lot from 2020 they were able to use in their 2021 quest for title No. 2.

“My wife and I got really good at maintenance and really checking the car over a little harder,” he said. “We caught stuff ahead of time before it broke at the track.”

Chris Vannausdle poses after one his wins at I-80 Speedway in Nebraska this season. (Photo courtesy of Dawn Vannausdle)

Not only did Vannausdle get to celebrate his own championships, but he got to be a part of his son’s, as well. Bryan Vannausdle won the compacts track championship at Adams County by 21 points over his dad. Bryan was also second in the sports compact division at I-80.

“He earned it like I earned mine, and I’m proud of him, and I know he’s proud of me,” Chris Vannausdle said.

The title streak for Vannausdle will end at two, and there won’t be a chance of him changing his mind next year. He and his wife are relocating to South Carolina to move their business, High Side Chassis, to a new location. High Side Chassis builds cages for sports compact and front-wheel drive race cars, and last season, Vannausdle built nine cars for Adams County and I-80 drivers.

He wanted to expand his business to an area where drivers don’t have a builder close by.

“We wanted to bring High Side Chassis to a new location with a new challenge. That’s really what we’re looking at,” he said.

He’ll keep racing in his new home, but it won’t be at a NASCAR track.

There’s no doubt, though, that no matter where Vannausdle is racing, people will continue to notice the two-time NASCAR national champion.

“It means a lot,” he said. “I’ve noticed lot more people noticing when we show up. Our name was always at the top of the list, and it’s pretty cool to have the announcer stating how you’re division five points leader and you were champion last year and stuff.

“We’re a pretty small cut little team. Just a husband and wife having fun.”