Kaulig Racing announced Wednesday that Justin Haley has been cleared to return to competition after a one-week absence because of COVID-19 protocols.
Haley, 22, is set to return to Kaulig’s No. 11 Chevrolet for Saturday’s Pit Boss 250 (4 p.m. ET, FS1, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) at Circuit of The Americas. He ranks eighth in the Xfinity Series standings.
Haley was pulled from the entry list last Friday and did not compete in last weekend’s Xfinity or Cup Series events at Dover International Speedway. He was replaced in the Kaulig No. 11 by Camping World Trucks regular Zane Smith, and Josh Berry made his Cup Series debut in place of Haley in Spire Motorsports’ No. 77 Chevy.
NASCAR officials confirmed last weekend that Haley would receive a medical waiver to maintain his Xfinity Series playoff eligibility, should he meet all other postseason requirements. He was a part of the Xfinity circuit’s Championship 4 field last season.
The fourth round of the 2021 eNASCAR iRacing Pro Invitational Series is set for Wednesday at virtual The Circuit of The Americas, with coverage beginning at 6 p.m. ET on FS1. The race, a 32-lapper featuring 40 cars and two resets, will get underway at 7 p.m. ET, also on FS1.
The fan-vote winner, as revealed on FS1’s NASCAR Race Hub is once again Jesse Iwuji. The popular NASCAR Camping World Truck Series driver will join promoter’s provisional picks Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Clint Bowyer as special entries into the race.
Wednesday’s race was designed with the idea to give fans a preview of The Circuit of The Americas, which the NASCAR national series will take on for the first time starting with Saturday’s Camping World Truck and Xfinity Series races. The Cup Series will follow on Sunday at 2:30 p.m. ET on FS1, PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
Here is the entry list for Wednesday’s Pro Invitational Series race (subject to change).
NASCAR Hall of Fame inductee and NASCAR on NBC broadcaster Dale Earnhardt Jr. took to Reddit on Tuesday to participate in one of the site’s Ask Me Anything (AMA) events.
Fans tossed plenty of questions over to Earnhardt, who joined on behalf of NASCAR Premier Partner Xfinity to talk everything he’s watching on Peacock, Netflix and a few other topics.
Excited to get @DaleJr warmed up for his Reddit AMA with #AskJr on the Dale Jr. Download!
Which driver or story in our sport would make a great movie?
That’s a great question. I think Denny Hamlin would be a good one. Denny came from humble beginnings and now he’s rubbing shoulders with Michael Jordan. He’s had a pretty interesting life.- Dale Jr.
Favorite TV show?
My favorite TV show of all time is the mini-series Lonesome Dove. I made my wife Amy watch all eight hours in one sitting before I would take the relationship any further. I said, “If you want to know me, this is what we have to do.” -Dale Jr.
Favorite pump-up movie?
I would say Tombstone, particularly the characters of Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday. -Dale Jr.
Favorite character on The Office?
Ed Helms and I did a Budweiser Super Bowl spot when he was just getting started, he was still doing stand-up. Of course, he’s long forgotten me now, but I’m still a big fan of his. His new show on Peacock looks pretty good too. -Dale Jr.
What actor would play you in a movie?
This has come up a lot. Every time I think Matt Damon, but I hate to answer cause it sounds so conceited. Maybe we go with Neil Patrick Harris. -Dale Jr.
Cannonball Run, Smokey and Bandit, Dukes of Hazzard, or Bullitt?
I would probably say Smokey and the Bandit. I was a big Burt Reynolds fan. -Dale Jr.
Someone you’d want on the podcast that’s no longer with us? Dream guest?
There’s a long list. David Pearson would be at the top, how about my dad. I never even had that thought in my head til just now. Dream guest would be Cale Yarborough.- Dale Jr.
Favorite race you won?
Probably the All-Star Race in my rookie season. Celebrating in Victory Lane with dad after that race was an epic moment for me. -Dale Jr.
HOLTSVILLE, N.Y. — On Saturday, May 15, at Riverhead Raceway, Justin Bonsignore led 175 laps and finished third in the Miller Lite 200. The third-place finish broke a streak of four consecutive Riverhead wins for the two-time NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour champion — but the solid finish helped him gain some crucial ground in the point standings in chase of a third title.
However, Bonsignore didn’t leave the night without some hardware. He scored his 15th career Mayhew Tools pole in qualifying with a lap of 11.431 seconds (78.733 mph). That lap was fast enough to earn Bonsignore the track record in Whelen Modified Tour action at the quarter-mile oval. During qualifying, the top eight cars broke the track record, led by Bonsignore. A combination of a bit of repaving at the track, and a different tire compound, helped increase the speed for the ground-pounding Modifieds around the New York bullring.
“Breaking the track record at my home track is special after all of the success we have had there lately,” Bonsignore said. “I always enjoy going home and being back in front of the hometown fans. We had a solid run.”
[QUALIFYING] Justin Bonsignore wins Mayhew Tools Pole Award at Riverhead
The old track record was held by Chuck Steuer, who posted a lap speed of 77.969 mph in 2000, en route to a ninth-place finish in the Miller Lite 200. Bonsignore will have a chance to break his own record in the next Whelen Modified Tour race at Riverhead Raceway on June 19.
NASCAR officials announced penalties Tuesday to four Cup Series teams for lug-nut violations after Sunday’s Drydene 400 at Dover International Speedway.
The infractions fell under Section 10.9.10.4 in the NASCAR Rule Book, with each team found with a single unsecured lug nut in a post-race check. Each team’s crew chief was fined $10,000.
The teams penalized:
• No. 8 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet (crew chief Randall Burnett, driver Tyler Reddick) • No. 17 Roush Fenway Racing Ford (crew chief Luke Lambert, driver Chris Buescher) • No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet (crew chief Ryan “Rudy” Fugle, driver William Byron) • No. 37 JTG-Daugherty Racing Chevrolet (crew chief Trent Owens, driver Ryan Preece)
In order to get the Circuit of The Americas on NASCAR’s 2021 schedule, Speedway Motorsports Inc. went old school with its approach.
Marcus Smith, CEO and president of SMI, already had a connection at COTA through its chairman, Bobby Epstein, well before talks of NASCAR running in the Austin, Texas, market even began. Therefore, when the sanctioning body did express interest in adding new road courses to its track roster, Smith tapped into that relationship and pitched an idea he learned from his father. SMI could lease the COTA facility for a NASCAR race weekend.
All parties involved obviously came to an agreement considering COTA is indeed set to host all three NASCAR national series for the first time ever with this Saturday’s Xfinity and Camping World Truck Series doubleheader (1 p.m. and 4 p.m. ET, FS1) and Sunday’s Cup race (2:30 p.m. ET, FS1) with the help of SMI.
“That’s how the chairman, Bruton Smith, used to do it,” SMI chief strategy officer Mike Burch told NASCAR.com. “You’d go out and you had people who owned facilities but maybe weren’t great promoters and you had people who were great promoters but didn’t own facilities. It’s only been in the modern age where the promoters have also been the facility owners.”
SMI, for example, owns and operates eight tracks that host NASCAR events: Atlanta Motor Speedway, Bristol Motor Speedway, Charlotte Motor Speedway, Kentucky Speedway, Las Vegas Motor Speedway, New Hampshire Motor Speedway, Sonoma Raceway and Texas Motor Speedway.
COTA, meanwhile, has regularly welcomed Formula 1, IMSA and MotoGP – along with big-name concerts and other sports championships.
Quite simply: SMI has NASCAR experience. COTA has marquee-event experience. The two are now combining their strengths for a 2021 marquee NASCAR event.
“It’s a mutual exchange of bag; it’s not just we’re paying them,” Burch said. “Like you’re renting out a hall for a wedding. There’s multiple revenue streams – there’s food and beverage, there’s hospitality, there’s sponsorship – so we had to work out an arrangement. Who gets what? They’re providing box-office services, so how do they get compensated for the staff and the expertise they’re providing?
“We set up a lease that gives everyone an incentive to perform well, and if we all perform well, we all share in the results from a prestige status point of view as well as a financial point of view.”
Like any lease, the paperwork is long and detailed. Negotiations had to take place. And not just between SMI and COTA, but also add in NASCAR.
SMI had to sacrifice one of its two Cup Series points-paying races at Texas for COTA. In return, though, Texas was given NASCAR’s All-Star Race in June. That exhibition loophole keeps Texas’ oval weekend total technically the same.
“To be able to go to COTA, we did not want it to come at the expense of Texas,” said Steve O’Donnell, NASCAR’s executive vice president and chief racing development officer, at the time of the 2021 schedule release. “The ability for us to bring the All-Star Race to Texas, and also have a race at COTA was a home run. When that idea was brought to us, we felt like this is the best of both worlds.”
It really has been a collaborative effort among folks from COTA, SMI and NASCAR. All three entities were responsible for getting the facility ready from a competitive and hospitality standpoint. Changes had to be made on both fronts – like safety precautions on and off the track – but each group shared its intel to come up with the most successful practices.
The entire process has been an old-school tactic revamped.
“Nothing worth having is easy,” Burch said. “A lot of people have put in a lot of hard work. … A lot has gone into this. Hopefully, it’ll be a great event and be the first of many there at the Circuit of The Americas.”
Editor’s note: This story initially ran March 2, 2021.
Visions of a five-wide dash past the start-finish line danced through Martin Truex Jr.’s head as he and two other NASCAR Cup Series champions got a glimpse of the Circuit of The Americas road course during Tuesday’s Goodyear tire test in Austin, Texas.
Truex, the 2017 Cup champ, was the Toyota driver responsible for testing around the 3.41-mile track that will be the site of the second of seven road-course races during the 2021 season, the May 23 EchoPark Automotive Texas Grand Prix (2:30 p.m. ET, FS1, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Chase Elliott, last year’s champ and part of the Chevrolet camp, and Brad Keselowski, the 2012 title winner and Ford representative, joined Truex for the test.
“I would say the start of this race would probably be pretty cool, because you got that long front straightaway and it’s very, very wide and (then) you go into a very, very sharp, slow corner, ” Truex said of his first impressions. “We have races at places like Pocono where we get five- or six-wide down the frontstretch and there’s potential for that to happen here.”
Truex admitted he had not had time on the simulator or on iRacing to get used to the track. So when he drove Tuesday in the No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota it was with a completely fresh perspective.
“My learning curve was really steep, I had no practice before, I had never seen this track before, had never watched a race here before,” Truex said. “I literally watched five minutes of in-car footage last night, I think it was of a Porsche going around this place, and I was like, ‘OK, it looks pretty straightforward.’ But then you get out here and you got the elevation changes and you got the blind corners. Those are the things that take time to learn because you have to go off instinct instead of what you’re seeing.”
Keselowski, meanwhile, talked about how the changes of speed he experienced in his No. 2 Team Penske Ford really stood out to him.
“It’s different than a lot of the road courses we go to, very high speed,” Keselowski said. “This section over here you’re 185 mph, which is pretty fast, and then you slow down to 30. So 185 to 30, that’s a heckuva ride. I know it would make my wife sick if she was riding with me.”
Tuesday’s test will help NASCAR officials and Goodyear determine the final tire combination for the weekend in May when all three NASCAR national series are in action.
NASCAR officials released preliminary entry lists Monday for NASCAR’s inaugural race weekend at Circuit of The Americas, and several new faces, part-time teams and road-course specialists have emerged on the rosters. A handful of Cup Series regulars have also scheduled starts in the other national series to gain experience on the 3.41-mile circuit in Austin, Texas.
All three NASCAR national series will be in action at COTA this weekend, with Xfinity and Camping World Trucks sharing Saturday’s bill and the Cup Series finishing out the weekend with Sunday’s EchoPark Texas Grand Prix. Practice and qualifying is scheduled for all three series.
EchoPark Texas Grand Prix (Sunday, 2:30 p.m. ET, FS1, PRN, SiriusXM)
• AJ Allmendinger is set for his second Cup Series start of the season as Kaulig Racing’s No. 16 Chevrolet returns to competition. The Xfinity Series regular placed seventh earlier this year at the Daytona road course.
• Kyle Tilley is scheduled for his Cup Series debut for the Live Fast Motorsports No. 78 Ford team. The English driver was part of the LMP2 class-winning effort in this year’s Rolex 24 at Daytona. Sunday will mark the first of four scheduled Cup Series starts for Tilley, who also plans to compete at Road America, Watkins Glen and the Indianapolis Road Course.
• Austin Cindric is slated for his fifth Cup Series start as part of his part-time campaign in the Team Penske No. 33 Ford. Cindric’s limited schedule this season comes before a move to full-time duty for the Wood Brothers Racing No. 21 team in 2022.
• Gaunt Brothers Racing returns to the grid this weekend, with Ty Dillon to make his third Cup Series start of the season. The Marty Gaunt-owned No. 96 Toyota has made three starts this season — two with Dillon, and the Talladega series debut of Xfinity regular Harrison Burton.
Pit Boss 250 (Saturday, 4 p.m. ET, FS1, PRN, SiriusXM)
• Kevin Harvick is on target for his first Xfinity Series start since 2018, joining forces with BJ McLeod Motorsports in its No. 5 Chevrolet. Harvick claimed Xfinity Series championships in 2001 and 2006.
• Among the other Cup Series regulars tapped for Xfinity duty: Cole Custer in the No. 17 SS Green Light Racing/Rick Ware Racing Chevrolet; Tyler Reddick in the Jordan Anderson Racing No. 31 Chevrolet; Kyle Busch in the Joe Gibbs Racing No. 54 Toyota; Austin Dillon in the Bassett Racing No. 77 Chevrolet. For Custer and Dillon, Saturday’s event will mark their first Xfinity starts since 2019.
• Road-racing veteran Spencer Pumpelly is slated for his Xfinity Series debut in the JD Motorsports No. 6 Chevrolet. The 46-year-old driver is a two-time class winner in the Rolex 24 at Daytona.
• Boris Said is scheduled to be back in a NASCAR national-series event for the first time since 2017, pairing up with MBM Motorsports to drive the team’s No. 13 Toyota. Said has one career Xfinity win (Montreal, 2010) and last competed in the series in 2015.
• Miguel Paludo is set for the second of three scheduled road-course starts for JR Motorsports this season in its No. 8 Chevrolet. Paludo finished seventh on Daytona’s road course back in February, making his first NASCAR national-series start since 2013. He’s also scheduled to drive the No. 8 JRM entry in June at Mid-Ohio.
• Preston Pardus, a two-time SCCA Spec Miata champion, is set for his second Xfinity start of the season — and eighth of his career — in the DGM Racing No. 91 Chevrolet.
Toyota Tundra 225 (Saturday, 1 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN, SiriusXM)
• Paul Menard is set to return to NASCAR competition for the first time since 2019, piloting a fifth ThorSport Racing entry — the No. 66 Toyota. The 40-year-old veteran was a longtime driver in the Cup Series, and he last raced in the Truck Series in 2007.
• Austin, Texas native Logan Bearden, a Super Late Model standout, is in line for his Camping World Trucks debut. The 25-year-old driver will join Niece Motorsports’ four-truck effort in the No. 44 Chevrolet.
• Trans Am Series regular Michele Abbate is on tap for her NASCAR debut in the On Point Motorsports No. 30 Toyota. Abbate finished second in the TA2 class in the series’ visit to Circuit of the Americas last season.
• GMS Racing has announced the ARCA Menards Series regular Jack Wood will make his Camping World Trucks debut in its No. 24 Chevrolet. It’s the first of two scheduled starts for the 20-year-old Wood, who is also listed for Charlotte Motor Speedway the following week.
• Roger Reuse has been tapped to wheel Jordan Anderson Racing’s No. 3 Chevy, marking the 54-year-old driver’s first start of the season.
Mooresville, N.C. (May 16, 2021) – Confrontation may not be the first thing associated with NASCAR drivers, but two-time NASCAR Cup Series champion Kyle Busch says it’s all part of the price of winning on the latest episode of I AM NASCAR which debuts on the I AM ATHLETE (IAA) podcast Monday (watch HERE).
“You have to understand what it takes to beat the competition,” said Busch. “My dad always told me that you’re competing against the rest of the drivers, they aren’t your friends. Eventually something is going to happen on the track, and they won’t be your friends any longer, so there’s no point befriending them.”
This episode marks the IAA crew’s third sit-down with a NASCAR driver, after previous episodes saw them dive deep with NASCAR’s lone black driver Bubba Wallace, and most recently the legendary Dale Earnhardt Jr. I AM NASCAR will continue to run weekly during this month, with the exploratory expansion into this new arena set to feature monthly episodes throughout the NASCAR season, all available on the IAA YouTube Channel.
Busch did not hold back on his own racing history and image as a NASCAR “villain” during the special IAA episode, as he explained his numerous feuds and more to former NFL star and IAA founder Brandon Marshall, along with IAA co-hosts and former NFL stars Chad Ochocinco, Channing Crowder and “Unc” Fred Taylor.
“Kyle has embraced that it’s okay to be the villain,” said IAA co-host Ochocinco, who was no stranger to embracing that role during his storied NFL career. “It’s a great role. That’s why I love you and your energy and your f-you mentality when it comes to racing.”
Throughout his renowned career, Busch has butted heads with various drivers, including last week’s I AM NASCAR guest, Earnhardt Jr. Busch went into his side of their altercation on the track years ago, during this conversation with the IAA crew.
“He felt like you were salty,” said Marshall referring to Earnhardt Jr., who shared with them his perspective of the 2008 incident during his I AM NASCAR appearance, diving into the confrontation at Richmond Raceway that officially sparked their long-running feud that divided NASCAR fans for years.
“Oh I was salty,” replied Busch. “But I didn’t wreck him on purpose. When you’re racing against guys you don’t like, you don’t give them an extra inch. You’re trying to pass them the whole time. If you slip and you hit them, who cares? I had no care in that moment. If I was racing someone I liked, I probably wouldn’t have ran so hard. From like 2008 through 2011, we hated each other. I avoided eye contact and all of that stuff. We eventually became cordial with each other. There wasn’t really a turning point, it just kind of evolved into that.”
When Crowder asked what “qualifies for an ass-whopping?” on the track, Busch then goes into his confrontation with Joey Logano and how it went from beef on the track, to an incident after the race where Busch threw a punch at Logano.
“I didn’t tell anyone what I was going to do,” said Busch. “Never said anything on the radio. Kept it all to myself. I marched my happy ass down to pit road. Turned right into where he was, pulled it back and let it rip. I got the one hit in, because of course the rest of the fight was just all these dudes coming in and separating everyone.”
Ochocinco looked to dig deeper on Busch’s many feuds, prompting Busch to continue to expound on his issues with Logano.
“You’re an (expletive) like I am, but a nice (expletive),” said Ochocinco. “You said there are others who you do have similar relationships with now like you once had with Dale?”
“Joey Logano is still number one,” said Busch. “The problem with Joey, is that he’s two-faced. People know I’m an (expletive) on the race track. Logano will come in here and he’s laughing and happy-go-lucky. But you put him on the race track, then he flips the (expletive) switch on. If you’re going to be a nice guy, be a nice guy on the track as well.”
This topic leads Marshall to make a comparison between the perception of Busch, and Marshall’s former teammate on the Denver Broncos and Chicago Bears, Jay Cutler.
“The perception people have of you, reminds me of Jay Cutler,” said Marshall. “But the people in both of your circles, absolutely love you. Is perception reality? What are we missing?”
“I’ve seen the persona fans and media put on Jay and he definitely gets a bad rap,” said Busch. “Because you can see the way the players react to him. He’s different than the way he’s perceived on the outside. When I came into NASCAR in 2003, my brother (Kurt Busch) had made a name for himself, so people saw us as punk kids from Las Vegas. We didn’t come in from the standard southern upbringing. I was booed at my first race. I was guilty by association. So from there, I was just like, I’m going to do me. It was a rough start and it gave people a bad taste in their mouths.”
Acknowledging that it was time to “get messy,” Marshall asks Busch about his recent racing record, which has seen him only record two wins over his last 67 races. Busch displayed his belief that some rules limiting how many different series races he can drive in, have affected his performance.
“They made a rule in 2015 or 2016 where you’re only allowed to run five truck races and five Xfinity races if you’re a Cup driver for three years,” said Busch. “It’s the Kyle Busch rule. Because I was out there winning everything in the lower and upper divisions.”
This idea prompts Ochocinco to compare the Tom Brady vs. Bill Belichick debate to NASCAR, asking if more credit should be heaped on the drivers or their crew chiefs.
“Drivers are quarterbacks and crew chiefs are head coaches,” said Busch. “There are four tiers of drivers. A,B, C and D. There’s maybe four or five in the A tier, and six or seven in each of the rest. It’s similar with crew chiefs. There are five crew chiefs who are A-level. If you can work with them, you take it every time. If you have an A crew chief and B driver, you’re pretty good, and same if you flip it. If you have an A and an A, sky’s the limit.”
“You’re an A now,” responded Crowder. “Will you know when you’re a B or a C?”
“I don’t feel like I’ve lost anything,” said Busch. “I feel like my days are more challenging though. Starting in 12th and working up to 10th does take a lot. But it just tells me that the car has to be better off the truck. Any driver can only carry it so far.”
Before the episode concludes, Marshall makes sure to remind Busch and the crew that we are still in Mental Health Awareness Month and asks Busch to discuss his and his wife’s journey with IVF (in vitro fertilization) and give advice to those out there who are going through similar circumstances.
“If it happens, it happens, and if it don’t, it don’t,” said Busch. “It’s not in our hands. As much as science can figure so many things out, there’s ultimately a higher power that controls what’s going to happen.”
The Hendrick Motorsports No. 48 team — described as “kind of a bunch of weirdos” and a “sea of awkwardness” according to one of its own in driver Alex Bowman — did its best impression of a mutual admiration society after Sunday’s surge to victory at Dover International Speedway.
Bowman keyed his radio on the Drydene 400’s cool-down lap: “Pit crew, you won that race, not me. I’m so proud of you guys. Hell, yeah!” The reply from the No. 48 crew was just as complimentary: “Ah, give yourself a little credit. You’ve been hauling the mail for a little while now.”
In the battle of “you’re great” vs. “no, you’re great,” both sides were right. After a pair of single-win seasons, Bowman had just elevated himself to the elite ranks of the multi-race winners by holding off three equally matched teammates through the final 97 laps. And his No. 48 over-the-wall group, led by crew chief Greg Ives, could take its fair share of the glory after winning the last consequential round of pit service with the NASCAR Cup Series’ fastest four-tire stop of the year — a sterling 12.1776 seconds.
A band of misfits? On a performance basis at least, there was little reason to ridicule the No. 48 team on Sunday.
“I give them all the credit for the win there,” said Bowman, who supplanted teammate Kyle Larson as the leader off pit road on Lap 304 of 400. “I think without them we wouldn’t have gotten it done. So appreciate Greg and all those guys working so hard throughout the week to continue to get better. They’ve been super-fast all year. It’s cool to win a race that you can really point back to them and say they’re who got it done. It was cool to be able to do that. I feel like other guys do that all the time.”
The No. 48 pit crew now might qualify as a less-than-secret weapon, both after Bowman’s attaboys and the speedy four-tire flirtation with the 12-second barrier. Some of the team’s chemistry even predates Bowman’s full-time arrival, and its legacy as a cohesive bunch stretches back to its incarnation as the No. 88 crew.
That collegial spirit doesn’t happen without the leadership component in place, and that’s where Ives has blossomed as a steady guiding force, one who hasn’t been shy about pushing the team’s comfort level by creating a variety of hurdles in pit practice.
Sean Gardner | Getty Images
“I mean, for me it’s all about, as Alex said, the details of it, but also letting the guys kind of play in their own space,” said Ives, who is in his fourth season as Bowman’s crew chief. “They want to play at a high level. It’s all about creating comfort in that high-level stress environment. The last couple weeks I’ve been putting them in a lot of changes, high-stress environments, trying to get them to go fast when they have to make a lot of adjustments. I think it’s kind of like a batter swinging a heavier bat.”
Girding the No. 48 crew with challenging drills is part of what’s made the team’s race-day routine click. The fine-tuning has worked both ways, with crew members offering constructive pointers and suggestions to Ives to improve their pit-road choreography.
“We all worked through it. They’re not scared to tell the crew chief that I need to get better in the situation,” Ives said. “I think ultimately being on the same platform as them, allowing them to make some mistakes; when mistakes come learning from them rather than scolding them. I really appreciate what they do, the family we’ve become. We’ve been together for five, six years now. It’s easy to work through complications when you have that open communication.”
Bowman doesn’t appear on the over-the-wall roster, but he’s far from exempt in pit-road study hall. Pit-road entry and exit, pit-stall entry and exit, hitting his target speeds for each pit-road timing segment — those expectations are all laid out for him each week in the most visual of ways.
“At Hendrick Motorsports we really like charts. In our meetings we talk about charts. There’s a lot of charts,” Bowman says. “Sometimes I look bad on those charts, and that’s when Greg yells at me. There’s a lot of different pit road charts and ways to look at it. He tries to do whatever he can to help me maximize each and every area.
“I feel like I’m gaining on it. There are definitely guys that do a little bit better of a job than me right now still. But that 48 pit crew makes up for it a little bit because they are super-fast each and every week.”
Out of that self-termed sea of awkwardness came a foreign concept — normalcy. With vaccinations on the increase and COVID-19 restrictions beginning to lift for NASCAR’s garage footprint, the No. 48 team’s victory celebration was more heavy on social, and easier on the distancing.
Bowman did his best impersonation of a Jimmie Johnson-style burnout, mimicking one of his predecessor’s smoky celebrations against the Monster Mile’s inside wall in front of his crew. Those festivities spilled into Dover’s Victory Lane, which welcomed back the spray of champagne and raucous group gatherings after a year of more muted jubilation.
For Bowman and his No. 48 bunch, the reasons to toast each other were mutual.
“Means the world when I get to share that with them when I think so much of it was influenced by them,” Bowman said. “Really, really cool.”
