NASCAR officials penalized the No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing team Tuesday for a lug-nut infraction after Sunday’s GEICO 500 at Talladega Superspeedway.
After Kyle Busch drove the No. 18 Toyota to an 18th-place finish, officials discovered one lug nut not safety secured in a post-race check. That safety violation (Section 10.9.10.4 in the rule book) resulted in a $10,000 fine for No. 18 crew chief Ben Beshore.
There were no post-race penalties after Saturday’s Xfinity Series event at the 2.66-mile Talladega track. Three teams failed pre-race inspection twice and will cede pit selection for the series’ next race, scheduled May 8 at Darlington Raceway: the No. 16 Kaulig Racing Chevrolet for AJ Allmendinger, the No. 39 RSS Racing Ford of Ryan Sieg, and the No. 54 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota, which has featured a rotating cast of drivers this season but was most recently driven by Ty Dillon.
If it wasn’t for the success Kyle Barnes saw last year at Kingsport Speedway, he’s not sure how much confidence he’d have going back to his home track for the 2021 season.
Motor Mile Speedway, a NASCAR Advance Auto Parts sanctioned 0.416-mile paved oval track in Radford, Virginia, that is just about 20 minutes from Barnes’s home, didn’t hold races in 2020 amid the coronavirus pandemic. So Barnes and his team instead travelled two hours every week to Kingsport, a 0.375-mile concrete semi-banked oval track in Kingsport, Tennessee.
Kyle Barnes celebrates in Victory Lane after winning a race at Kingsport Speedway last season. (RPM Photos/Randall Perry/Courtesy Kyle Barnes)
The travelling paid off. Barnes won 10 of 13 races, and was Kingsport’s sportsman class champion.
“We had a stellar, stellar year,” Barnes said. “We were travelling two hours up the road and back every week. I think one morning we saw the sun rise on Saturday. So that was really difficult.
“I got my championship out of the way last year and it was an amazing job by my entire family to help me be able to do that.
As Motor Mile reopens and Barnes returns home, he knows racing in the track’s limited sportsman division won’t be easy. In the opening race there were 22 cars, compared to between 10-14 he was usually up against at Kingsport.
Having a full year of success at Kingsport under his belt, though, gives him a huge amount of confidence for 2021.
“Anytime you can go into somebody else’s home turf and really pick up on something really fast it makes a huge confidence booster for you. Last year we competed against a bunch of great, awesome drivers out there and learned a lot. It taught me a lot about racing.” Barnes said.
“Without last year I probably wouldn’t go into this year with that much confidence, but I’ve got confidence in my team and my sponsors to be able to do well. Without them I know it wouldn’t be possible. I think early season results have shown we can win some races, just now it’s just putting it together.”
Barnes plans to run a full season at Motor Mile, something he hasn’t done in the 10 years he’s been racing there. In 2010 he won the Rookie of the Year Award in the limited sportsman class and the season finale race. Since then, his team has also travelled throughout Virginia and the Carolinas over the years, but they’ve raced at least five times at Motor Mile every season.
This year the team is going into the season focused more on wins than points.
“Our goal is to try to get three wins down there and if we can get three wins down there that would be big,” Barnes said.
In two races this season he has a seventh and second place finish.
He learned a lot at Kingsport he’s taking to Motor Mile.
“Just learning how to deal with traffic and trying to manage your tires race after race and just having them for the next week,” Barnes said.
“Kingsport is way more of a bullring than Motor Mile. It’s a lot more hardnose racing, door to door. There’s a little bit more contact out there so it really teaches you more about car control and I guess that’s why I love that place because it puts it more in the driver’s hands.”
The 26-year-old Barnes learned how to drive from his dad and uncle, who both also raced in the 90s and early 2000s. It was Barnes’ uncle, Anthony, who drove the sportsman car for the team before him.
They’re both now the main help for Barnes at the track, with his dad, Tim, serving as crew chief and car owner, and Anthony the main tire guy in the pits.
Kyle Barnes will race the No. 00 in the sportsman division at Motor Mile Speedway this season. (Emma Chrisley/Courtesy Kyle Barnes)
Even though Barnes himself has been racing for 14 years, he still leans on his elders, especially in situations during races when things aren’t going his way.
“This past week we got into a little skirmish on the front stretch and got shuffled back to 20th. Just having Anthony and my dad in my ear kind of coaching me and keeping me calm and getting me back up in traffic we were able to go from 20th to 4th in about 25 laps,” Barnes said. “In situations like that, that’s where my uncle with all his driving experience and my father, with all his crew chief and spotting experience, that’s where they really shine and that’s where they help me out the most.”
Barnes is now also able to help the next generation of Barnes drivers in the same way. His younger brother, Tristen, is in his first full-time season of racing. The 15-year-old is competing in the super street division at Motor Mile, and also helps Barnes on the car during the week.
“I’m not always able to get down to the shop so my little brother and my dad, they’re the main driving force behind getting the car ready and making sure it’s up to the standards we have to get to go racing,” Barnes said.
“I try to coach him the best I can. He did an amazing job this weekend. I can’t say enough about how well he did. He’s really, really good about taking care of his equipment and not wrecking and getting into anything. I can’t say enough about that because I definitely was more wild than he is.”
The entire Barnes team is a family event. His mom, Wendy, helps out as well, and he also has help from Emma Chrisley, Jimmy Whitt, and Junior Bailey. Whitney Cockram and Daryn Cockram, who also competes in the limited sportsman division at Motor Mile, help out and are sponsors with DCT Towing and Recovery. Fort Chiswell RV Park, where Barnes also works, and PayToWinSetups.com also help sponsor the car and provide support for the team.
“Without those three partners we wouldn’t be able to make it to the track each and every week,” Barnes said. “Without my little brother, my uncle, my dad, and my mom, the rest of my crew, all those guys and girls, they really make it possible for me to be able to do what I do behind the wheel.”
Barnes has always told his dad his biggest goal was to get one championship in his race career. Now that he’s done that, he wants to continue to travel around and collect as many wins at as many tracks as possible.
Thanks to a stellar 2020 season, he has the confidence to work towards that.
“We got the championship that I wanted. I wanted to at least be able to say I won one championship, but I think wins to me are a whole lot more exciting,” Barnes said. “I’d like to go out and win three, four, five races and go somewhere else and win a few too. Some of the greatest drivers in short track history, Lee Pulliam, Philip Morris, and all them, they travel around and they’ve got wins at almost all the tracks on the east coast. That’s what makes them great.
“I know I don’t have the budget to run late model stocks like they do, so if I can go and run a limited sportsman or a sportsman class like we do now and we can go get those wins, that’s awesome in my book and that’s our main goal. Just travel and be in contention to win anywhere we go.”
Racing will return to Motor Mile Speedway on May 8 with twin late model 60s, limited sportsman, super streets, mod-4, and U-Cars beginning at 7 p.m.
Two days removed from a rollover wreck at Talladega Superspeedway, Team Penske driver Joey Logano said he wants to be “an advocate of change” as NASCAR investigates Sunday’s wreck and evaluates its superspeedway racing package.
Logano’s No. 22 went airborne on the final lap of Stage 1 at the 2.66-mile track after a multicar wreck. Logano was running third and in the high line when inadvertent contact from Ricky Stenhouse Jr. into Denny Hamlin sent Hamlin’s No. 11 car into the left rear of Logano’s No. 22, starting the incident.
“We want to continue to make our sport better,” Logano said on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. “And we have over the years. Think about where our cars came from and where they are now. And now we need to look at, how do we keep these cars on the ground?
” … I want to be an advocate for change for our sport to look at ways to be better. I know we have the Next Gen car coming (in 2022). We think that will be better, but we have two more races on superspeedways this year and we must do something.”
NASCAR Senior Vice President of Competition Scott Miller had previously said Monday that NASCAR shared Logano’s sentiment about his car leaving the racing surface.
“Cars getting up in the air is not good,” Miller said. “It’s something that we’ve been working on and will continue to work on, and I know that our engineers will be in touch with the crew chiefs and the engineers at Penske and Joey, trying to dig through every detail of what transpired there.”
Logano’s personal suggestion is to reduce the size of the rear spoiler, which is 9 inches tall at Talladega and Daytona International Speedway.
“Everyone is going to have their own suggestion — mine is that we have to get some of the spoiler back off the car,” Logano said. “The spoiler creates, in my opinion, the runs that we see. The big runs that create the pushes and the shoves. Cars don’t crash in the corners anymore. They crash down the straightaways from pushing.
” … A lot of it is the big spoiler and the big runs and all the pushing. It is nobody’s fault. Denny (Hamlin) is trying to go, and (Stenhouse) is trying to go. It is a product of this racing. We have to fix it, though.”
“We’re going to make it better, no matter what, because we have a lot of smart people with big hearts that care,” Logano added. “That’s exciting for me. I look forward to see what comes up here the next few weeks.”
Sunday’s GEICO 500 from Talladega Superspeedway resulted in solid betting handle for sportsbooks across the country. In fact, it was the most wagered-on NASCAR race at BetMGM since the marquee season opener.
“Best handle we had on NASCAR since Daytona,” BetMGM Sports Trader Seamus Magee told NASCAR.com on Monday morning.
Added Ed Salmons, vice president of risk management at SuperBook USA in Las Vegas, “It was a good handle race, really a lot of write.”
DraftKings also saw good handle on Sunday’s race, although the write didn’t quite match what the company booked for Talladega last April. Johnny Avello, Director of Race and Sportsbook Operations at DraftKings, attributed the dip to the demand built up in the betting market during the 2020 lockdown.
“I was looking at the numbers compared to last year. It wrote about the same amount of tickets; the handle was down a little, probably didn’t take quite as many bigger bets,” Avello said. “But remember last year’s Talladega was emerging from the no-sports syndrome. We had nothing, so people were just looking for something to wager on. I think that’s why last year’s did a little better.”
Keselowski win a mixed bag for the books
While Brad Keselowski’s victory was a good result for BetMGM and DraftKings, it marked a loss for the SuperBook.
Of the 25 bets the SuperBook wrote on the No. 2 Ford, two larger ones came from a casino regular.
“One of our house guys, who loves to bet NASCAR – he’ll bet four or five guys in a race – he bet $800 (on Keselowski) at 14/1, and he bet $500 at 12/1,” Salmons said.
Keselowski, who accounted for about 7% of both handle and tickets at BetMGM, was a winner for the book in the outright market, according to Magee.
At DraftKings, Keselowski was about fifth in handle. “We did pretty well there,” Avello said.
The last-lap mishap by Matt DiBenedetto, whose move to the high side opened a passing lane for Keselowski, saved BetMGM from paying out some big winners. DiBenedetto was bet from 65/1 opening odds to 30/1, the largest move of any driver on the board.
Denny Hamlin, who’s been on the cusp of victory virtually every week this season and was the clear favorite at Talladega, topped the list of drivers who drew the most action to win Sunday.
At BetMGM, Hamlin drew about 20% of the handle and 15% of the tickets, leading both categories, and saw his odds shorten from a +650 opener (bet $100 to win $650) to +600 by the time the green flag dropped. One player made a $12,000 bet on Hamlin to win.
“The public was all over Hamlin,” Magee said. “Hamlin was the big name in our book this weekend.”
He was followed by Joey Logano (11% of handle, 10% of tickets), whose dramatic wreck ended his day early, and Chase Elliott (7% of handle, 8% of tickets).
The story was similar at the SuperBook, where Hamlin led the ticket count with 32 wagers to win. Ricky Stenhouse Jr. was second with 28 bets, and then Keselowski with 25 and Logano with 23.
Hamlin’s chances essentially came to an end when a skirmish at the end of Stage 2 took him off the lead lap.
A handful of drivers who had a shot in overtime caused the SuperBook a bit of a sweat.
“There were a few guys we didn’t need,” Salmons said. “We didn’t need (Erik) Jones, (William) Byron, who wound up second, and Keselowski. We were good on DiBenedetto and (Ryan) Blaney. (Kevin) Harvick we were good on.”
Looking ahead to Kansas Speedway next weekend, Logano won the most recent race there, and Hamlin won the two before that. The guess here is that again, both drivers will be priced among the favorites and see heavy interest from NASCAR bettors.
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.
In the last superspeedway race before Sunday’s, Brad Keselowski was seen slamming his helmet into the side of his smoldering No. 2 Ford, which skidded to rest about a mile short of the Daytona 500 finish. Sunday at Talladega Superspeedway, he gained some measure of consolation from that ache with a triumph that placed him in the stock-car racing ether.
Instead of repeating the Team Penske tangle that upended both his and teammate Joey Logano’s victory hopes at Daytona, Keselowski stayed steady in a busy overtime scrap to continue his climb up Talladega’s all-time win list. His first NASCAR Cup Series victory of the year also helped take some of the edge off his season-opening defeat, one that still resonates.
“I mean, Daytona, that’s a big one. Man, it stings still,” Keselowski said. “This is a good one. We’ll take it. Beggars can’t be choosers. Certainly, I learned some lessons from that race, tried to apply them. It came together at the end. Michael McDowell gave me a great push, kind of like he did at Daytona. I was a little bit smarter how I handled it, so it all came together.”
Capably handling the two-lap rumble has re-established Keselowski as an all-timer on the 2.66-mile Alabama high banks, which is now the site of his first and most recent Cup Series victories — both races where he led only the final lap. That total of six Talladega wins pulls him even with Hall of Famers Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Jeff Gordon on the track’s list, four behind the great Dale Earnhardt’s peerless 10 wins there.
Sean Gardner | Getty Images
His breakthrough Talladega win in 2009 came after a dramatic last-lap tangle with rival Carl Edwards. Keselowski had already distinguished himself in the Xfinity Series as a driver for Dale Jr.’s JR Motorsports organization, but his big-league arrival also elevated his name as a must-have prospect among team owners. Roger Penske snapped him up for full-time Cup duty the following year, completing his rise from humble beginnings to NASCAR’s majors.
“I never thought I’d even have that chance,” Keselowski said. “It’s tremendous to me. I grew up loving the sport, still love the sport. We fight sometimes, like husband and wife, but I still love the sport. I love the challenge every day of getting up, trying to find excellence, reinventing yourself as the rules change, people change around you.
“It’s hard. It’s a hard sport. Any success you have means the world. So I think to have my name on any list that has Dale Earnhardt, Jeff Gordon, Dale Earnhardt Jr. at Talladega, that’s a pretty big deal. I’m super happy and super proud to be there with them.”
Sunday’s outcome prompted more defining numbers from Keselowski’s perspective. He now has 35 Cup Series wins, two ahead of Fireball Roberts and two behind Bobby Isaac — both NASCAR Hall of Famers. His success also has longevity; Keselowski’s first victory of the season marks 11 consecutive years with at least one win.
Though he’s yet to win on a road course in his Cup Series career, there’s balance to be found in Keselowski’s overall record on ovals, where he’s won on short tracks, mile-long circuits, intermediates and the sport’s biggest speedways. Still, that Talladega tally of six stands out in front — both for its sheer magnitude and for its association with the high bars set by Gordon and Earnhardt Jr.
“Again, the word ‘surreal’ comes to mind,” Keselowski says. noting the full-circle nature of tying Earnhardt Jr., his former boss, on Talladega’s all-time list. “I never thought that would have been the case.”
“Our day will come.” The refrain from Matt DiBenedetto on Sunday was a familiar one, this time coming after a split-second scramble at the front of a Talladega Superspeedway pack that left his No. 21 Wood Brothers Ford just on the fringe of a Victory Lane visit.
DiBenedetto led the next-to-last lap and the 13 circuits that came before it as Sunday’s GEICO 500 pushed into overtime. His move to block the advances of an ally in Team Penske driver Ryan Blaney as the white flag unfurled, however, opened the low lane for Penske’s Brad Keselowski to methodically surge ahead for his sixth Talladega win.
DiBenedetto settled for fifth place in the frenzied final-lap shuffle, gathering a season-best finish to help soothe a rough start to the 2021 Cup Series campaign. But he still wound up just shy of his first big-league victory after the 222nd start of his journeyman career.
“I think as I get older my perspective on a lot of things gets better,” said DiBenedetto, who remained upbeat after the defeat, “so the way I look at it is, yeah, it’s disappointing to come close so many times, not just today because this is Talladega and a lot of things happen that’s crazy, but to come close — a lot of my career has consisted of a lot of that and some heartbreaks and it’s tough. The way that I look at it is I focus on what’s in my control and focus on the positives. I’m driving fast cars. We’re in position to win and I know that if we keep doing that, like I said, our day will definitely come.”
DiBenedetto led his first 28 laps of the season Sunday, gathering his first stage win and establishing himself as a contender along with his affiliated Team Penske compatriots. After a final-stage pit cycle, he shook out as a leader again in the late going and by the time the field assembled for the final restart, DiBenedetto had reinforcements lined up behind him — two Penske stablemates in Blaney and Keselowski as Ford drivers owned the top six spots.
He abandoned the bottom lane heading to the white flag, pulling in front of Blaney on the top side. But changing horses and stemming that charge left Keselowski free to fill the gap on the low side. When the top lane became disorganized, the late rooting and gouging for finishing positions intensified and DiBenedetto’s help in the aerodynamic draft evaporated.
“I’ll drive myself crazy if I just look back at it, replay exactly what happened and will never let myself live it down,” DiBenedetto said of the late jumble. “We did the best job we can. Circumstances are crazy, especially with how big the runs are and all that, so it’s nothing to beat ourselves up over. We had a stage win and a good day, and I know that although my career has consisted of a lot of heartbreaks our day will come, so I don’t look at it in a negative way.”
At stake Sunday was also a landmark victory for the venerable Wood Brothers team, which remains at 99 Cup Series victories all time. DiBenedetto is in his final season in the Woods’ No. 21 Mustang; he’ll make way for Xfinity Series champ Austin Cindric’s rookie campaign in 2022.
DiBenedetto has come close before, finishing second in both Las Vegas Motor Speedway races last season and clinching an emotional runner-up effort in his last blast for Leavine Family Racing in Bristol Motor Speedway’s night race in 2019. After starting this season with three finishes outside the top 25, he has righted the ship with six straight efforts in the top 15, including two consecutive top-10 results. That first victory, however, remains on the horizon.
“Matt D. is an incredibly talented guy. He’s not going to have to wait as long as I did to win a race, I can promise you that,” said Michael McDowell, who finished a strong third Sunday and broke his own 0-for-357 skid by winning this year’s Daytona 500. “He’s up front so much in these races, not just at the speedways, but he has a great team behind him. He will get to Victory Lane. The biggest thing is not getting down and discouraged, and building. …
“But he’s been doing so well. He will win a race. He is a great guy, has a lot of heart. He fights hard. That’s the thing, you got to fight hard. You got to want it and fight hard. He’s got that.”
Monday, April 26
4:30 a.m., NASCAR Cup Series: GEICO 500 at Talladega Superspeedway (re-air), FS1
8 a.m., eNASCAR iRacing Pro Invitational Series: Talladega Superspeedway (re-air), FS2
9:30 a.m., ARCA Menards Series: General Tire 200 at Talladega Superspeedway (re-air), FS2
11:30 a.m., NASCAR Xfinity Series: Ag-Pro 300 at Talladega Superspeedway (re-air), FS2
2:30 p.m., NASCAR Cup Series: GEICO 500 at Talladega Superspeedway (re-air), FS2
6 p.m., NASCAR Race Hub, FS1
7 p.m., NASCAR Cup Series: GEICO 500 at Talladega Superspeedway (re-air), FS1
10 p.m., Blink of an Eye (re-air), FS1
Tuesday, April 27
6 p.m., NASCAR Race Hub, FS1
On MRN:
7 p.m., NASCAR Live
Wednesday, April 28 6 p.m., NASCAR Race Hub, FS1
Thursday, April 29
6 p.m., NASCAR Race Hub, FS1
6:30 p.m., Dale Jr. Download, NBCSN
7 p.m., NASCAR Race Hub — Best of Radioactive: Kansas Speedway, FS2
Friday, April 30
6 p.m., NASCAR Race Hub, FS1
7 p.m., NASCAR Race Hub — Best of Radioactive: Kansas Speedway (re-air), FS1
Saturday, May 1 1:30 p.m., ARCA Menards Series: Dutch Boy 150 at Kansas Speedway, FS1
7 p.m., NASCAR RaceDay: NASCAR Camping World Truck Series at Kansas Speedway, FS1
7:30 p.m., NASCAR Camping World Truck Series: Wise Power 200 at Kansas Speedway, FS1
11 p.m., NASCAR Camping World Truck Series: Wise Power 200 at Kansas Speedway (re-air), FS2
On MRN:
1:30 p.m., ARCA Menards Series: Dutch Boy 150 at Kansas Motor Speedway
7 p.m., NASCAR Camping World Truck Series: Wise Power 200 at Kansas Speedway
Sunday, May 2
1 a.m., ARCA Menards Series: Dutch Boy 150 at Kansas Speedway (re-air), FS2
3 a.m., NASCAR Camping World Truck Series: Wise Power 200 at Kansas Speedway (re-air), FS1
5 a.m., ARCA Menards Series: Dutch Boy 150 at Kansas Speedway (re-air), FS1
7 a.m., NASCAR Race Hub — Best of Radioactive: Kansas Speedway (re-air), FS2
1 p.m., NASCAR Race Hub — Best of Radioactive: Kansas Speedway (re-air), FS1
1:30 p.m., NASCAR RaceDay: NASCAR Cup Series at Kansas Speedway, FS1
3 p.m., NASCAR Cup Series: Buschy McBusch Race 400 at Kansas Speedway, FS1 (Canada: TSN5)
6:30 p.m., NASCAR Cup Series: Post-Race Show at Kansas, FS1
On MRN:
2 p.m., NASCAR Cup Series: Buschy McBusch Race 400 at Kansas Speedway
Despite sustaining damage in an early wreck, and despite leading only one lap in Sunday’s GEICO 500 at Talladega Superspeedway, Brad Keselowski nailed down an opportunistic overtime victory in the 10th event of the NASCAR Cup Series season.
Surging to the front on the final lap, after fellow Ford driver Matt DiBenedetto abandoned the bottom lane and gave Keselowski a clear run to the front, Keselowski claimed his first victory of the season, the 35th of his career and his sixth at Talladega, tying Jeff Gordon and Dale Earnhardt Jr. for second-most all-time at the 2.66-mile track.
As the ninth different winner this season, Keselowski joined Team Penske teammates Joey Logano and Ryan Blaney on the 2021 victory list.
Keselowski said he thought “Merry Christmas!” to himself when the bottom lane opened up on the final lap.
“The whole race, I had a couple of opportunities to take the lead, but I just kept thinking, ‘Man, just keep your car in one piece till the end.’ We’ve been so close here, and it just didn’t seem to want to come together here the last few years, and I’ve been on kind of a four-year drought here, but it’s nice to get number six.
“I would have never dreamed I’d tie Jeff Gordon and Dale Earnhardt Jr. here. That’s something. Those guys are really legends. I’m just really proud of my team. We had an accident there early, and they recovered and got it fixed up to where I could keep running. My crew chief, Jeremy Bullins, had a lot of confidence.
“I told him (before pitting on Lap 173 of a scheduled 188), ‘I want to come in and put four tires on this thing,’ and he said, ‘Yep, go ahead.’ And that really helped a bunch at the end.”
William Byron ran second, extending his streak of top-10 finishes to eight races. Daytona 500 winner Michael McDowell was third, followed by Kevin Harvick and DiBenedetto. Kaz Grala, Tyler Reddick, Austin Dillon, Ryan Blaney and Cole Custer completed the top 10.
DiBenedetto held the lead at the white flag in overtime, which took the race three laps beyond its posted distance. But the driver of the No. 21 Wood Brothers Ford moved up the track — uncovering Keselowski behind him — to block a run by Blaney. Keselowski used a strong push from McDowell to charge to the lead.
“Our day will come,” DiBenedetto said ruefully of the lost opportunity. “We’ll get there … It’s just so circumstantial — our day will come.”
Joey Logano had a much shorter day on track than his winning Team Penske teammate. As the lead pack of cars approached the green/checkered flag to end the first 60-lap stage of the race, an aggressive push from Ricky Stenhouse Jr. forced Denny Hamlin out of line. In the process, Hamlin hooked the left rear of Logano’s car, which got airborne off the bumper of Stenhouse’s Chevrolet, turned upside-down, landing on its roof and barrel-rolled before righting itself. Keselowski’s car also sustained minor damage in the incident.
When Logano’s car bounced on its roof, his head hit the roll bar.
“It’s nobody’s fault,” Logano said after a mandatory visit to the infield care center. “Denny is trying to go and the 47 (Stenhouse) is trying to go. It’s a product of this racing. We have to fix it, though. … At the same time, I’m appreciative of driving a car that is this safe and what Team Penske has done for the safety of these cars so that I can live to talk about it and go again.
“I got lucky that I didn’t get hit while I was in the air.”
The end of the second stage also produced fireworks, and once again, Hamlin was at the center of the maelstrom. As the top lane bunched up behind Keselowski, who was running second at the time, Martin Truex Jr. tapped Hamlin from behind, turning the No. 11 Toyota into the wall.
Truex then spun sideways, sustaining damage. Behind him, Byron steered down the track to the avoid the wreck and collected Hendrick Motorsports teammates Alex Bowman and Chase Elliott in a chain-reaction collision. Bowman couldn’t get his car repaired in the requisite six minutes and fell out of the race in 38th place.
Series points leader Hamlin, who led a race-high 43 laps, finished 32nd, three laps down.
Elliott, the reigning series champion, was able to continue and finished 24th. Harrison Burton came home 20th in his NASCAR Cup Series debut.
The NASCAR Cup Series’ next event is the Buschy McBusch Race 400, scheduled for 3 p.m. ET next Sunday (FS1, MRN, SiriusXM) at Kansas Speedway.
Notes: Five Toyota teams were docked for unapproved adjustments just before the green flag, sending a quintet of drivers to the rear of the field for the start. The drivers penalized for their teams’ A-post violations: Hamlin, Truex, Wallace, Christopher Bell and Harrison Burton. … The 20-year-old Burton finished 20th in his Cup Series debut for Gaunt Brothers Racing.
The race-winning No. 2 Team Penske Ford of Keselowski passed NASCAR’s post-race inspection. The No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota of Kyle Busch was found with one lug nut not safe and secure.
Matt DiBenedetto was leading in his No. 21 Wood Brothers Racing Ford, with Ryan Blaney pushing behind him in the No. 12 Team Penske Ford. Logano, another Team Penske driver, was running third. Issues arose when Denny Hamlin, the No. 11 Toyota wheelman for Joe Gibbs Racing, tried to make a move toward the bottom and pass Logano’s No. 22 Ford. Hamlin was getting a heavy push by Ricky Stenhouse Jr.’s No. 47 JTG Daugherty Racing Chevrolet, though, and clipped the left rear of Logano’s car. Logano then spun into the pack behind him, went airborne after being hit and skidded on its roof before settling back on all four wheels.
Once the No. 22 came to a halt, Logano reported he was OK over the team radio. He was later evaluated and released from the infield care center. He went down in the results sheet as 39th out of 40, with only Kyle Larson below him after early motor issues.
DiBenedetto won the stage and finished fifth overall. Blaney came in ninth. Hamlin placed 32nd, and Stenhouse was 33rd.
Also involved in the crash: the No. 2 Team Penske Ford of Brad Keselowski, No. 14 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford of Chase Briscoe and No. 23 23XI Racing Toyota of Bubba Wallace.
Keselowski ultimately went on to win the race, leading just the final lap in overtime. Briscoe was 11th. Wallace turned in a 19th-place result.
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — NASCAR and Boys & Girls Clubs of America announced a multiyear partnership Sunday that will support the nonprofit’s mission of enabling and enriching the lives of young people. As the Official Youth Community Partner of NASCAR, Boys & Girls Clubs of America will work with NASCAR and industry stakeholders to engage more than 4.6 million youth and teens across the country with NASCAR content and experiences.
The nationwide partnership will focus on three core areas — STEM education, career development and diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) initiatives — and extend across all NASCAR platforms and race tracks. Programming will include both virtual and at-track experiences with an emphasis on local Boys & Girls Club locations within NASCAR race markets.
Partnership efforts will build on the continuing work of The NASCAR Foundation to advance children’s well-being, including ongoing relationships with several Boys & Girls Clubs across the country.
“As a community leader, Boys & Girls Clubs of America continues to have immeasurable impact on the lives of our country’s youth, and NASCAR looks forward to engaging those efforts in meaningful ways,” said Steve Phelps, president of NASCAR. “Through this partnership and together with the NASCAR industry, we have boundless opportunities to advance the mission and objectives of Boys & Girls Clubs of America while at the same time introducing young future fans to our great sport.”
Said Boys & Girls Clubs of America president and CEO Jim Clark: “Kids and teens need safe places and caring mentors now more than ever, and local Boys & Girls Clubs around the country are doing whatever it takes to empower youth and build new opportunities so they can achieve every success in life. We are very excited to partner with NASCAR to elevate this support in communities even further, enabling more high-quality programing and experiences that will have a positive impact on kids and teens.”
As young people continue to emerge from the pandemic and navigate virtual learning, the first year of the partnership will focus on developing high-quality education programming that will live on MyFuture, Boys & Girls Clubs of America’s digital learning platform.
Additionally, NASCAR’s work with Boys & Girls Clubs of America will focus on career development and mentoring across a breadth of industry disciplines and will include engagement with industry executives and other employees.
Throughout the partnership, NASCAR will collaborate with drivers, teams and tracks to amplify the sport’s commitment to Boys & Girls Clubs of America and deepen the engagement with Club youth and teens. NASCAR partners will also have the opportunity to integrate with the new partnership, and several partners will look to build on their own longstanding relationships with Boys & Girls Clubs of America.
Eric Shanks, CEO and executive producer of FOX Sports, and Mark Lazarus, chairman of NBCUniversal Television and Streaming, are both members of the non-profit’s Board of Governors. Shanks attended Boys & Girls Clubs as a youth and is now a member of the Boys & Girls Clubs Alumni Hall of Fame. Next month, Lazarus will serve as chair of Boys & Girls Clubs of America’s Annual Conference.
NBCUniversal, parent company of NASCAR Premier Partner Xfinity, has partnered with Boys & Girls Clubs for nearly 20 years to drive digital equity. The company has opened WiFi-Connected Lift Zones at Boys & Girls Clubs across the country, including an upcoming Martinsville, Virginia, location to celebrate the NASCAR Xfinity Series Dash 4 Cash, to provide a safe space for students to access Internet for free to participate in distance learning and conduct schoolwork.
Coca-Cola is currently celebrating 75 years of partnership with Boys & Girls Clubs of America and is also represented on the non-profit’s Board of Governors. The NASCAR Premier Partner is also a founding sponsor of the non-profit’s Workforce Readiness Strategy, supporting essential skill development, career exploration, employability skills and credentialing, and work-based learning opportunities for young people at Clubs. Coca-Cola, NASCAR and Boys & Girls Clubs of America look forward to partnering.
Toyota’s partnership with Boys & Girls Clubs of America is focused on closing the opportunity gap for the nation’s youth and inspiring future innovators, problem solvers and leaders who will make a positive impact on the community.
Boys & Girls Clubs of America provides high-quality programming that helps level the playing field and provide opportunities to young people that will help them build the skills they need to become the leaders, innovators and problem-solvers who shape the world.
To learn more about Boys & Girls Clubs of America and support its mission with donations, visit BGCA.org.
