Infield, garage access to expand this weekend at Darlington

Posted on May 7, 2021 by Zack Albert

In the latest sign that the potential “new normal” after the COVID-19 outbreak is approaching, the NASCAR garage will open this weekend at Darlington Raceway with a new level of infield access for selected guests.

It’s a full-circle trip for the 1.366-mile South Carolina venue and track president Kerry Tharp, who helped resume the racing schedule there last May after the pandemic’s onset. One year later, the garage’s footprint will expand to fully vaccinated guests with fans back in the grandstands at a limited capacity — both sections still observing COVID-19 safety protocols.

“I think it’s exciting for sure, and it brings you a lot of encouragement for how things are going to continue to move forward,” Tharp said earlier this week, with final preparations ongoing for NASCAR’s annual throwback weekend. “The sport has been a leader, I think NASCAR has been a leader in being able to get live sports back, and I think they’ve been very disciplined in their approach with how they’ve done things. They’ve preserved the integrity of the competition area. They have brought fans back in a very strategic and meaningful way, and I think it’s served the sport well.

“Being able to expand the footprint starting here at Darlington gives us a lot of pride, but it’s also a big responsibility. We want to do it the right way, and I know we will, but I think it gives you a lot of hope for how the rest of the season’s going to be. I think as we get each week of the schedule behind us, you’re going to see more and more opportunities for fans to get back to experiencing things that they’re used to doing.”

NASCAR officials announced April 20 that the garage footprint would grow to include selected guests — such as sponsor representatives, corporate officials and media. Those guests will be subject to a screening process before entry. Another trial run at expanding the garage footprint is scheduled for the inaugural race weekend at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas on May 22-23. Those two events will help officials to determine infield protocols as the schedule moves toward the summer months.

Darlington officials had previously announced Feb. 25 that spectator seating for the weekend would be open at a limited capacity, with social distancing and other protocols in place; a similar system was in place for last year’s Cook Out Southern 500 on Labor Day weekend. Other tracks with later dates on the schedule — Atlanta, Pocono and Sonoma among them — have announced that grandstands will be open at full capacity.

“It’s refreshing that we can get back to some sort of normalcy,” Todd Gordon, crew chief of Team Penske’s No. 12 Ford for Ryan Blaney, told SiriusXM on Monday. “Most all of my guys are either on the road to fully vaccinated or are fully vaccinated. I’m through it, I’m a couple weeks through everything myself. I think it’s great that we’re able to continue to move toward getting our sport and our country back to some normalcy that will allow people to kind of get back on the road to what their lives were like.

“It’s cool to see fans back in the stands. It’s cool to have an opportunity to bring people back into the garage area — fully vaccinated — but I think that’s the next step of what we’re doing and really looking forward to that.”

Darlington Raceway hosted three Cup Series races last season as NASCAR officials worked with tracks and local officials to safely resume the racing schedule. Those first races — held without fans, and minus practice and qualifying — included three national-series events run in a five-day span.

MORE: Saving the season in 2020

By now, teams and drivers have developed a bit of a routine with the protocols that have been in place for nearly a year. One year ago, it was a brand-new frontier. This weekend’s guidelines offer the next step in developing new at-track procedures.

“Being able to bring live sports back to this country is something that we’ll never forget. I think that it went a long way toward NASCAR awarding us a second race date,” Tharp said. “… Drivers like coming here, teams like coming here, fans — it’s in a good location and some of the most history of any track we go to, and being able to be back here now almost a year later and having the throwback weekend and having some fans here, I’d call it a real blessing.”

Posted on May 7, 2021 by Marcus DiNitto

A perusal of recent results from Darlington Raceway reveals a dominant Kevin Harvick at the South Carolina track. Over the last 10 races there, Harvick has three wins, nine top fives and a head-turning 3.5 average finish. Harvick won two of the three races last year at Darlington and finished third in the other.

When handicapping Sunday’s Goodyear 400 (3:30 p.m. ET, FS1), however, bettors should be careful how much weight they give to these performances.

That’s because teams will bring the 750-horsepower, low-downforce package to Darlington this year, a change from the 550-horsepower, high-downforce package used the previous two seasons, and the different equipment makes a massive difference in how the race should be analyzed.

Additionally, comparing the unique in size and shape 1.366-mile speedway to 1.5-mile tracks like Homestead-Miami, Las Vegas, Atlanta and Kansas — where the 550-horsepower package has been used this season, isn’t of much value.

Last season’s COVID-interrupted schedule is also a factor bettors should consider.

“I wouldn’t rely on hardly anything the drivers did last year at the track,” said Zack White, a professional bettor who specializes in NASCAR. “First of all, the first two (Darlington) races last year were the first ones back from the pause, people kind of scrambled bringing a car to the track, and with no practice and no qualifying, nobody was really sure what they were getting into. …

“And the difference in horsepower is definitely gonna make a big difference here,” White added. “The shorter spoiler is gonna make handling a challenge. I certainly wouldn’t look at other downforce tracks this year, mile-and-a-halves or bigger, where they ran a different package and say, ‘Oh yeah, they’re going to run that same way at Darlington.’ That’s absolutely not going to happen.”

Harvick, whose Stewart-Haas Ford has had trouble keeping up with the Gibbs/Penske/Hendrick triumvirate this season, opened at 8/1 odds at SuperBook USA in Las Vegas to get his first win of 2021, making him the fifth favorite on the oddsboard.

“I would be surprised if Harvick’s ready to contend for a win,” said Ed Salmons, who handles NASCAR oddsmaking duties at the SuperBook. “I think you’re going to start to see him get top fives all the time, but I don’t think he’s quite ready to win yet.”

“Equipment-wise, there’s some issues going on at Stewart-Haas this year,” White added. “When you look at drivers historically, yeah, Harvick’s going to be at the top of that list, (Denny) Hamlin is going to be at the top of that list of people who have found success at this track. But this year is going to be a different beast.”

Larson tops the betting board

Kyle Larson, who had the best car at Kansas until he got into Ryan Blaney on the restart with three laps to go, opened as the betting favorite for the second week in a row. This week, he’s an even shorter 7/2 (+350, or bet $100 to win $350) to finish in front.

Success at Darlington demands a high level of skill, and Larson has proved he can drive this oval. In his six runs in a Chip Ganassi Chevrolet here, he has five top 10s, including three top 5s, with a 6.7 average finish. This season, he’s piloting a Hendrick Chevy.

“If you look through his runs here, he’s been incredible, and that’s when he was in Ganassi equipment,” Salmons said. “The last two races on 1.5-mile tracks — Atlanta and (Kansas) — he’s been dominant. He didn’t win either one, but he’s just been unbelievably dominant, which you just don’t see in today’s NASCAR. And this is his kind of track, where he can run that really high line, so he was my starting point here. … He seemed like the guy that should be the big favorite in this race.”

White doesn’t sound particularly interested in backing Larson at such a short price.

“Dominating and leading all those laps last week (132) and then his wins at other mile-and-a-halves this year is going to put him at the top as the favorite going to this track,” White said. “I think it’s probably right, but not necessarily for that reason. If this was another downforce race, yeah, but I wouldn’t automatically put him as a favorite with this new package if I didn’t have another angle to look at. I’m not going to be betting him, but I think he’s going to be leading laps. …

“There’s still some drivers that have done well at Kansas and Atlanta that are going to translate and still do well here even though it was a different setup,” he continued. “That’s just because they’re wheelmen, and they got the equipment and they’re good at both packages.”

Is Joe Gibbs Racing separating from the pack?

After Larson on the oddsboard comes a trio of Joe Gibbs drivers: Hamlin, who has yet to win this season but has eight top fives and leads the Cup Series standings, opened 4/1; Martin Truex Jr., who has two wins and is second in points, is 6/1; Kyle Busch, who got off the schneid with his first win of the season last week, is 7/1.

Based largely on the strength of the Gibbs team, the SuperBook prices Toyota as the +155 favorite to be the winning manufacturer, with Chevy +165 and Ford +245. Barstool Sportsbook has Gibbs as the +185 chalk to be the winning team, followed by Hendrick (+200), Penske (+450) and Stewart-Haas (+600).

Salmons shakes some salt on Busch’s Kansas win but anticipates the No. 18 will continue to be a force in this menace of a garage.

“He shouldn’t have won on Sunday, he had more of a third- or fourth-place car, but he had a solid run and he just capitalized on the cautions at the end,” Salmons said.

“(But) the Gibbs cars are running really well this year, and he showed that he can win. Guys like Kyle Busch, it doesn’t take much for them to regain their power rating from where they were in their glory days.”

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.

Posted on May 6, 2021May 6, 2021 by Track Release

CONCORD, N.C. (May 6, 2021) – Earlier this week, as part of Charlotte Motor Speedway’s Mission 600, Coca-Cola Family Racing driver Austin Dillon and his Richard Childress Racing pit crew traded high-intensity workout routines with soldiers from U.S. Army Central Kuwait. The virtual gathering was designed to serve as a prelude to the upcoming Coca-Cola 600 on Memorial Day Weekend and to highlight the shared connections between NASCAR and the U.S. Armed Forces.

While the two groups were physically more than 6,800 miles apart – or the distance of more than 11 Coca-Cola 600s – they found common ground in the importance of physical exercise to success in their respective fields.

“When you think back to the Daytona 500 you won, think about how good that felt,” said Maj. Clarence Black from U.S. Army Central Kuwait. “All of the hours of training and preparation, all to culminate on probably what was your best day. For us, it’s different. When we train, we are training for combat, and that’s arguably our worst day – not something any of us ever want to do. We train hard so that we can survive and thrive on our worst day ever.”

During the Zoom meeting, members of U.S. Army Central Kuwait demonstrated several exercises that are part of Army Combat Fitness Training (ACFT), including deadlifts, power throws, sprint/drag/carry drills, among others. The unit then highlighted how those drills help prepare them for real-world scenarios on the battlefield.

“It’s awesome to see a lot of the workouts and how they apply to what they do,” Dillon said. “When we get in the gym and pit stop practice, all (my) guys are doing similar things to be the best they can be at their job.”

Following the military demonstrations, Richard Childress Racing strength and conditioning coach Jackson Meadows led Dillon and the No. 3 pit crew in a series of upper body workouts to show the soldiers how race teams use plyometric exercises to prepare themselves for the rigors of a pit stop.

“In pit stops, we are training the anaerobic system,” Meadows said. “Anaerobic systems are anything between 10-12 seconds. We are not conditioning. We are doing straight explosive power movements… to train us to be faster off the jump and faster out of kneeling positions.”

Dillon was the latest Coca-Cola Racing Family driver to participate in Mission 600, joining Daniel Suárez, who held a virtual visit with U.S. Coast Guard sailors last week. Mission 600 is scheduled to continue next week with Ryan Newman taking part in an in-person visit to Camp Lejeune. Later this month, Joey Logano is slated to visit virtually with Air Force Network Japan.

Posted on May 6, 2021May 6, 2021 by Terrin Waack

There’s freedom in the future with the Next Gen car.

As modern-day advancements are made not only in motorsports but in everyday transportation, the ability to adapt is practically required. NASCAR and its manufacturers know that, which is why there was an emphasis on hybrid and electric capabilities for the new set of wheels coming in 2022. The Next Gen car is built to change.

“The current Gen-6 car, it would be a complete overhaul to go to a hybrid system,” said Richard Johns, Ford Performance’s program engineer. “With this, it’s not a complete overhaul. It’s adding a few bits and pieces of electronics, and you’re ready to go on the race track.”

It’s a few more bits and pieces for a full-electric car, too.

Quite simply, and for this purpose, the Next Gen car is divided into three parts: front, middle and back. Switching to a hybrid would involve altering one part. Electric would take two.

Ford Performance’s global director, Mark Rushbrook, can better explain in further detail.

“With this module of the car — with the center section and then the bolt-on front clip and bolt-on rear clip — you have a lot of architectural flexibility there,” he said. “The first step with hybrid will be relatively easy in the sense that the combustion engine stays the same, the driveline stays the same; well, the transaxle in the rear, you can put on electric motor to drive back there and a modest battery — and boom, you’ve got a hybrid. … For a full electric, there will be more changes required, but with the bolt-on front clip and rear clip, you can then have a unique front clip for an electric motor version.”

Johns also called it “package protected.” The package is the powertrain. It’s what has been modified to allow the car to go hybrid or electric.

If the switch happens, then there’s the actual racing aspect on the competition side to consider, aka figuring out how to keep fast speeds once the car is hybrid or electric. Aerodynamics will continue to play a part there, with adjustments being made the same way they would normally.

“We have a driving simulator to run things; if we need to, we could put everything together there,” said Tommy Joseph, Ford Performance’s aerodynamics supervisor. “Here’s the effect of the hybrid-powered unit, here’s how much faster or slower it goes, this is the drag change we need to go with that — we can work through all that virtually.”

Of course, none of this is an immediate concern for 2022. The Next Gen car is going to remain non-hybrid, non-electrical for the season-opening Daytona 500 in February, when it’ll make its competitive debut. Ford, Toyota and Chevrolet are also the only manufacturers involved still; it’s more than likely too late for others to join for next year.

But say NASCAR does go hybrid in 2023 or even 2024. And so does the rest of the world. The sport then has the ability to gain additional appeal to potential partners looking to promote their own technological development.

“I don’t know that the car itself — if we kept running the internal combustion engine that we have today — will necessarily bring other manufacturers,” Rushbrook said. “But if we go hybrid and/or full electric, I think that will bring more manufacturers.”

Posted on May 6, 2021 by Reid Spencer

Last September, the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series returned to Darlington Raceway for the first time since 2011.

Ben Rhodes won last year’s event and — naturally enough, given the hiatus — revisits Darlington as the only former winner in the field this week. Rhodes also won the first two races of the 2021 season and will try to add a third victory in Friday night’s LiftKits4Less.com 200 (7:30 p.m. ET on FS1, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

After Rhodes’ two wins, Kyle Busch Motorsports swept the next five events on the schedule, keeping Ford and Chevrolet out of Victory Lane. Like Rhodes, KBM driver John Hunter Nemechek will try for his third triumph of the season in the first of three Triple Truck Challenge races, with a $50,000 bonus available to the winner.

For Rhodes, ThorSport Racing’s switch from Ford to Toyota between seasons has been an important aspect of his success.

“I think the big difference for us just has been Toyota’s engineering platform,” Rhodes said. “They’ve got so much engineering support and so much knowledge and data and information available to us that it really makes it night and day, not only strategy during the race, but when you are going to a place and you don’t have practice, what do you pull from?

“I think that’s the biggest difference is the fact they’ve got this wealth of knowledge and they’ve got this army of people, and together we’re working towards the future, not just looking over our shoulder the whole time at what we did in the past.”

Posted on May 6, 2021 by Reid Spencer

Armed with a paint scheme commemorating his first and only NASCAR Cup Series victory and a pole position starting spot, AJ Allmendinger hopes to add another oval-track victory to his resume in Saturday’s NASCAR Xfinity Series race — the Steakhouse Elite 200 — at Darlington Raceway (1 p.m. ET on FS1, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

An acknowledged ace on road courses, Allmendinger predictably got his Cup win at Watkins Glen International in 2014 when he was driving for JTG Daugherty Racing. Last year, he picked up his first Xfinity Series oval victory at Atlanta Motor Speedway and proved that wasn’t a fluke by winning earlier this season at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Though he has 11 career Cup Series starts at 1.366-mile Darlington (without a top-10 finish), this will be Allmendinger’s first trip around the “Lady in Black” in an Xfinity Series car.

“I’d be lying if I said Darlington is a place I’ve always been good at,” said Allmendinger, who drives the No. 16 Chevrolet for Kaulig Racing. “It’s a race track that is unique and unlike any other track in the world.

“It’s a challenge, but I know we’ll have really fast race cars there. We’ve put a lot of work into trying to improve our program at this track. We’ll have another shot to win $100,000 for the Xfinity Dash 4 Cash.”

In fact, Kaulig Racing features two of the four eligible drivers in the running for the Dash 4 Cash bonus at Darlington. Jeb Burton, winner of the rain-shortened race at Talladega Superspeedway, also can claim the prize by finishing higher than the other three eligible drivers. But the two Kaulig drivers will have to beat Noah Gragson, who claimed the first two $100,000 bonuses this year, and series leader Austin Cindric, the Talladega runner-up.

Brandon Jones, who went to Victory Lane in last year’s September race, is the only former Darlington winner in the field this week.

Posted on May 6, 2021 by Staff Report

NASCAR will reopen its infield footprint to a small number of guests beginning May 7-9 at Darlington Raceway. The 1.366-mile South Carolina track was also the site of NASCAR’s first races back after last year’s pause for the COVID-19 pandemic.

NASCAR is re-introducing guests to the restricted areas (garage and pit road) in a measured and deliberate way in order to provide a safe environment. Guest allocations (for teams, OEMs, tracks and drivers) will be provided in advance.

Guests will also need to be fully vaccinated in order to enter the infield footprint.

Additionally, NASCAR has outlined a larger infield footprint for the May 22-23 race weekend at Circuit of the Americas. Guest allocations for future events such as Charlotte, the All-Star Race and Nashville are contingent upon the result of the first two events.

There will be plans to grow these numbers as the season progresses, but with the safety of all of those involved as the main priority.

Posted on May 6, 2021 by Jerry Bonkowski

Greg Biffle isn’t letting the grass grow under his feet in semi-retirement from NASCAR racing. But having sand in his shoes — well, that’s an entirely different story.

And while you’re at it, throw in a few lemons (more on that in a minute).

The two-time NASCAR champion is still racing these days, but not on pavement or even dirt. Rather, he’s getting ready to kick up a bunch of sand competing in the six-race Sand Outlaws Series that starts next weekend, May 15, and runs until mid-November.

Biffle is one of the founders of the series, which holds races in remote — and obviously very sandy — places such as Sand Mountain, Utah; Glamis, California; Anthony Dunes, Idaho and Oregon Dunes in Oregon. The events are either NHRA-style straight-line drag races or hill climbs that often have the sand buggies flying through the air.

“I’m building some of those side by sides and off-road cars, and I really enjoy doing that,” Biffle told NASCAR.com. “It’s the same mentality. Racing is racing. It’s that adrenaline, you want to be better than the competition, you want to build a better piece and have a faster car. I just enjoy the competition.”

There’s another type of competition for the man nicknamed “The Biff.” After driving cars that cost $100,000 or more in 510 Cup races in his career, in recent years since retiring from Cup he’s gotten some of the greatest fun in his life racing “lemons,” which are essentially beater cars that can’t cost more than $500 and in-race repairs must be minimal.

“I’ll tell you, the most fun I had in probably 10 years was two years after I quit running Cup full-time, I ran a lemons race,” Biffle said. “We built this car, went to Pittsburgh and I’m running this thing like a race team, right? You know, from the spirit of the rules, the car has got 218,000 miles on it and we’re doing everything we can to prevent it from failing on the track.

“I wanted to run a 24-hour race at Carolina Motorsports Park in Kershaw, South Carolina. That was my target. Well, we needed to test. We can’t go there the first time to the race track with a car and hope it’s going to make it 24 hours.

“So I’ve got this bright idea, we’re going to run the race two weeks prior to that in Pittsburgh, so that we can get an understanding and a feel for the car and how the tech process works and all that. So we went to Pittsburgh and raced this race. I mean, an absolutely beautiful race track in the middle of nowhere. A great road course. I mean, we had a ball. We finished second there, three laps down.

“I’m telling you, running a 24-hour race with just backyard parts and five gallon plastic fuel cans, that’s hard. You’re not allowed to have any fancy stuff. The thing burns a quart of oil about every three hours. So four hours into the race, we had to put four quarts of oil in. I’m telling you, organizing that as sort of being the crew chief and the team owner and the driver, was tough.”

And when he won that race?

“It’s like I won the championship or the Daytona 500,” Biffle said.

Biffle had to skip this weekend’s season-opening lemons race at Sebring, Florida, but has plans to compete in several other races this year. He has high hopes, including swapping out the original Ford Mustang motor for a newer — but used — higher horsepower Mustang under the hood.

“The cool thing about lemons is they run all these iconic tracks, places like Sebring, the road courses at places like Daytona, New Hampshire, at Sonoma, which I love, and Road Atlanta,” Biffle said. “We’re planning on running some more of them. I want to keep it fun.”

While racing lemons, sand buggies and competing in this summer’s six-race Ray Evernham’s and Tony Stewart’s Superstar Racing Experience are occupying much of Biffle’s time, he isn’t ruling out a return to the NASCAR world.

Biffle’s last NASCAR Cup race was in 2016. With each passing day, month and year, it continues to surprise him that he’s been out of NASCAR’s top series for so long.

“I’m telling you, yes it does,” Biffle said. “And the more years that go by, I think my gosh it’s been more days and more days and more days. But yeah, it’s amazing that it’s been that long.”

Biffle never officially retired. He didn’t have a going away or goodbye tour. He just kind of stopped following the final race of 2016 at Homestead.

But he was lured out of retirement twice in the last two years, competing in the Camping World Truck Series both times, once for Kyle Busch Motorsports in 2019 and then GMS Racing in 2020.

His one-off start for KBM was his first race in a Truck since 2004, but it was quite evident he hadn’t lost a step, winning the race at the challenging Texas Motor Speedway.

And don’t forget Biffle is one of just three drivers who have won championships in both the Truck Series (2000) and Xfinity Series (2002). He came close to being the first driver in history to win a crown in all three of NASCAR’s premier series in 2005, winning the Cup season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway, but came up short by 35 points to Tony Stewart for the championship, tied for second with Roush Fenway Racing teammate Carl Edwards.

Now 51, Biffle isn’t ruling out returning to race in a truck again this season if he gets a call.

“I want to run (more) races for Kyle. … It’s certainly not out of the question,” Biffle said. “We’ve had more casual conversations, nothing serious. Kyle’s bugged me about running full-time, but not necessarily this year. … To be honest with you, I love it, it’s what I grew up doing and I love it so much. But at the same time, I just don’t think I want to run full time again.

“I’m obviously a huge fan of the sport. Unfortunately, this COVID thing has driven a lot of people away. We haven’t been able to do some of the things we want to do. I was scheduled to drive three races for Kyle in 2020, and talked to some other teams about doing some things, and then the world got turned upside down.

“Then it’s just show up, get in the car and drive. I certainly watch all the races, but this was the first year in like 21 years that I wasn’t in Daytona this year in February for Speedweeks. I’d go to the track every day, hang out, it’s good to see everyone. Last year, I drove the pace car, gave rides for NASCAR, all that stuff.

“So this is the first year that I haven’t gone to a race so far. It’ll be nice to get this behind us.”

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When Biffle looks back on his career, he has a lot of high points. Most notable are his Truck and Xfinity championships, as well as a career-high six wins and finishing oh-so-close for the Cup championship in 2005 — the one that got away.

“(I think about it) all the time,” Biffle said. “I mean, you just can’t escape that we left a wheel loose and I was running third at Texas. I’m not saying I would have won the race but probably you know we’d won there a lot. We had a great car. We were running third, we had a loose wheel and we finished 20th.

“And then I was leading Homestead in the last race and I was ready to put Tony (Stewart) a lap down and the caution came out. There are coincidences for sure, but boy, two of the last three races — Texas and Homestead — there were a lot of close calls that kept me from winning the title. But you know what, close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. I didn’t win a title and it’s unfortunate, but that’s the way it goes.”

As for other career high points, Biffle added:

“It’s so hard for me to put my finger on one thing, so many great things happened. I think back to my first truck win in Memphis (1999), I think back to winning nine races in a single season in the trucks (also 1999), my first win in a Cup car in Daytona (2003 Pepsi 400). As for individual seasons, probably 2005, winning more races than anyone in the series. That tells you how competitive it was.”

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As if sand and lemons racing aren’t enough to keep the native of Washington state busy these days, Biffle also owns a fully operational mine and rock quarry in Virginia, operates heavy equipment there, and is also a real estate investor (oftentimes doing his own repair work on properties to make them more appealing for sale), including buildings used by some Cup teams in the Charlotte area. He also enjoys traveling (he just came back from a vacation in Aruba), has a boat in Florida, or can be found fishing.

And then there’s his biggest non-racing passion of all, the Lake Norman Humane animal shelter and rescue in suburban Charlotte.

“We raised money for a long period of time and then we finally were able to build a facility,” Biffle said. “We’re fortunate enough to be able to do that. It’s going very well. It’s a constant battle to raise money and keep all the pets in our care, keep them fed and cared for and then get them to a new home.

“We’ve had some months where we’re adopting out 100 animals per month. We’re having some big days and big success and I feel good about it. You know, I’m an animal lover from way back and it’s just a passion of mine.”

For a guy who doesn’t like to use the “R word” (retired), Biffle is as busy these days as when he was racing full-time in the Cup Series. But he’s doing things on his time and on his schedule. And he wouldn’t want it any other way.

“I’m just enjoying life,” Biffle said. “I really, really miss the sport, being behind the wheel. I feel like I could still get in there tomorrow and win a championship. I don’t know that I want to go to the track every week, but I’d like to be involved to some degree.

“Let’s get back to normal, you know? I was even in discussion with a few teams about potentially helping in some manner. It’d be nice to still be involved at some level. I just really enjoy it and like the sport.”

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The Greg Biffle file:

* Age: 51

* Hometown: Vancouver, Wash. Has lived in suburban Charlotte for more than 20 years.

* Rookie of the year: 1998 Craftsman Truck Series, 2001 Busch Series

* NASCAR Cup career: 510 starts, 19 wins, 92 top-five and 175 top-10 finishes. Also 13 poles.

* NASCAR Xfinity Series career: 244 starts, 20 wins, 93 top-five and 149 top-10 finishes. Also 14 poles. Won 2002 championship.

* NASCAR Camping World Truck Series career: 83 starts, 17 wins, 43 top-five and 55 top-10 finishes. Also 12 poles. Won 2000 championship.

* Best NASCAR Cup season finish: 2005 (tied for second in the standings with teammate Carl Edwards, 35 points behind champion Tony Stewart) with 36 starts, 6 wins, 15 top-five, 21 top-10 finishes)

* Best overall NASCAR season statistically: 1999 Truck Series (9 wins, 14 top-five and 19 top-10 finishes)

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 Ricky Rudd, Darrell Waltrip, Mark Martin, Marcos Ambrose and Juan Pablo Montoya. Also, follow Jerry on Twitter @JerryBonkowski, his @TheRacingBeat podcast and his email newsletter, TheRacingBeat.substack.com.

Posted on May 6, 2021 by Cara Cooper

Just about every class at South Boston Speedway has a Dawson racing in it this season.

And not only are the four Dawsons competing all over the track in Southern Virginia, but all four of them are forces to be reckoned with.

Brothers Justin, Drew, and Jared Dawson and their cousin, Josh Dawson, all grew up within just a few minutes of South Boston, a NASCAR Advance Auto Parts Weekly Series sanctioned asphalt track in South Boston, Virginia. They enjoyed watching NASCAR and would go as a family to races when they were growing up.

RELATED: SouthBostonSpeedway.com | Twitter | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube

It was 25-year-old Drew who first decided to get behind the wheel himself when South Boston started a hornets division in 2015.

“We kept going to the track at South Boston watching them race the hornets for I’d say a year or so,” Drew said. “It was about the middle of 2015 I finally came up with enough money and got me a hornet. And as soon as I made two races, Justin and Jared, they had to get them one.”

Brothers Justin, Drew, and Jared Dawson and their cousin, Josh Dawson, all race at South Boston Speedway, where they’ve been competing since 2016.

By the next season, all three brothers were racing hornets. At the time, Jared was just 14 years old.

“We used to go bumper to bumper, three wide,” Drew said. “Dad came on the radio a few times and said Jared was catching me. I didn’t like that too much, my little brother catching me.”

Justin, the oldest of the group at 27, won three races that first year.

“The 2016 season was pretty good for me,” Justin said. “I think back then was the funnest. We would actually hit each other on the track and we wouldn’t get mad at each other. It was one wreck where Jared hit somebody and ended up taking me out but it is what it is. It wasn’t any hard feelings. I think we had more fun in the hornets than we had all year.”

Justin has now moved up to the pure stock division at South Boston. He has a second place and another top-five finish, and is fourth in the standings through four races.

“We had a rough start to the season with a blown motor, but we came back pretty strong,” he said. “It’s been an up and down season, but we’re getting a whole lot better than it was last year. Just find out things at the end and keep things together.”

The oldest Dawson is also currently building a limited sportsman so he can try to be competitive in that division alongside his brother as quickly as possible. His main focus is to try to move up this year, while also getting a win in the pure stocks division.

Drew runs in South Boston’s limited sportsman division, a series he picked up in his first career win in earlier this season. He also won the second of two 25-lap features this past Saturday.

“I feel like I have a pretty good car for now,” Drew said. “My dad and my crew chief, Tricky, they put a lot of hours into it trying to make it faster and faster.”

Josh, 20, currently leads the points in South Boston’s hornets division, with two wins and a third-place finish in three races.

“I’ve got a good car. Just trying to keep it in one piece. Don’t want to bring it home in pieces. That’s the main goal,” he said. “My main goal is to try to bring home as many trophies as possible. I don’t know what the season is going to end but bring home many trophies.”

The 20-year-old is also known in the family as the one who works on the cars the most during the week. He’s helping Justin build the limited sportsman to hopefully run soon.

“I’ve been building the new one. Five days ahead of race day I have to work on another one,” Josh said.

Jared floats between the hornets, where he’s currently second points, and the pure stock division. He has a win and two runner-up finishes this season.

“I feel like we can run for the championship this year,” Jared said. “I want to try to get better in the pure stock division and hopefully try to get a championship in the hornets division.”

Even though the family was extremely competitive when they first started racing, now they’ve learned to work with each other and celebrate any success within Dawson Motorsports.

“I would say Drew, Jared, and Josh, they’re all after championships,” Justin said. “All three of them have the car to do it.

“I love it. I actually enjoy watching the two younger brother and Josh, I enjoy watching them race more than I race myself. It’s definitely exciting. We were on our toes the weekend before last when Jared was out front and Josh was running him down as far as the hornets. And then when Drew got out front in his limited, me and Jared, we were jumping up and down when Drew got that first win.”

Going to races is about getting to spend time with family. If they didn’t have racing, Jared said he doesn’t know any other way they would spend quality time together.

“It’s more of we get to spend a whole lot more quality time with our family, because all of our family loves to race so it’s more going out here, spending time with the family and going out there and being competitive and having fun,” Jared said.

“I think it’s awesome because I don’t really know what we would do if we didn’t have racing,” Drew added.

NASCAR racing will return to South Boston on Saturday, May 15, featuring twin 75-lap late model lap races, 50-lap limited sportsman, twin 15-lap Budweiser Pure Stock, and and a 15-lap Budweiser Hornets, all beginning at 7 p.m. Tickets are on sale at SouthBostonSpeedway.com

Posted on May 6, 2021May 6, 2021 by Terrin Waack

Win on Sunday. Sell on Monday.

The sales motto has returned.

With Wednesday’s unveil of the Next Gen car for 2022, it is clear NASCAR plans to put the “stock” back in stock-car racing. The Chevrolet Camaro ZL1, Ford Mustang and Toyota TRD Camry feature three individualized bodies, and their initial visual display closely reflects each of their showroom counterparts. Once again, the weekly race car closely matches the everyday street car.

“If you look at the cars from the ’90s and ’80s, whatnot, you could tell what type of car it was,” NASCAR Cup Series driver Denny Hamlin said. “If they were all white, you could tell that’s a Pontiac whatever. These, if you weren’t here, they look different. Like it’s not just the same car with Toyota headlights and taillights. These cars are different. All three of them have a very distinct and different look from the front and back.

“It doesn’t matter what the color scheme is. It’s not the same car with different decals on it, that’s for sure.”

NEXT GEN IN PHOTOS: Chevrolet | Ford | Toyota

That was a priority from the very start.

Next Gen discussions began in January 2019. Originally, the car was supposed to make its on-track debut in 2021, but the COVID-19 pandemic pushed the timeline back a year. That delay actually helped with development beyond design.

“It was the technical task of, OK, as we move through this, how are we going to get to a level playing field on the aerodynamics side?” said Brandon Thomas, who led the Next Gen project for NASCAR. “How are we going to get our version of racing to where the OEMs can have this branding but we’re not going to have one OEM design something into their car that can be heavily manipulated and deliver on performance?”

Important questions to prevent unfair advantages, and the manufacturers helped provide answers collectively. They, too, wanted more style relevancy. Because at the end of the day, they’re trying to sell a product through the sport of racing. And in order to do that, there needs to be a connection between a fan and the brand.

Representatives from each manufacturer were at the reveal in Charlotte, North Carolina, to share their thoughts on what this means for their future.

David Wilson, president of Toyota Racing Development: “There’s no mistake we’re racing a TRD Camry. I’m proud of the progress that the industry has taken towards that; even with Gen-6, so much better than what we’ve raced in the past. This is a revolutionary, another revolutionary, step forward. I do believe the mom or dad driving this beast of a TRD Camry is going to take more pride in our success.”
Eric Warren, director of NASCAR programs for General Motors (Chevrolet): “Now that we’re going to have the closeness between the race car and Camaro, we’re going to race it as long as Camaro exists because it’s the closest connection between the race car and production car, which is exciting for all the fans, Camaro owners and customers.”
Mark Rushbrook, global director of Ford Performance: “We think even for an F-150 customer, if it looks more like a Ford Mustang, it is more clearly Ford to them, and they’re going to be happy and proud of Ford on track in that Mustang and go buy a F-150 on Monday. It is good for the brand, just not that nameplate.”

This mindset revert could also bring new manufacturers to NASCAR, which is seen as a positive to those already in the garage. The more, the better. For everyone. A win over even more competitors would just further assert dominance for a manufacturer, and the more manufacturers involved would lead to better financial support and security for NASCAR.

All good things — or so it seems right now. Only time will tell as Next Gen tests continue and races begin. The car’s official on-track debut will be the 2022 Daytona 500 in February.

Until then, regular Camaros, Mustangs and Camrys remain in the showrooms and on the streets. Don’t be fooled.

“It looks like you can drive it down the road,” Logano said. “The cops might pull you over, but it has the same look. To that point, I say: Finally.”