Posted on by Staff Report

The 2021 NASCAR Salutes Together with Coca-Cola campaign is more than just a military appreciation platform — it’s a campaign that salutes heroes next door. Each week, NASCAR.com will highlight multiple individuals in the week’s race markets who have made a difference with their service both in the military and to their communities.

In the latest profile of a next-door hero, NASCAR.com is highlighting U.S. Air Force Technical Sergeant Camrin Northrop.

RELATED: Learn more about NASCAR Salutes | Daniel Suarez takes part in virtual visit with Mission 600

TSgt Northrop is a Lieutenant Fire Officer with the Sumter County (S.C.) volunteer fire department. He has provided more than 450 hours of volunteer emergency response time. Northrop is considered a driving force in connecting South Carolina’s Shaw Air Force Base with Sumter County’s emergency capabilities and making the two departments nearly operate as one. That includes ensuring the appropriate level of support to each department through 40 joint emergency responses.

In his role as a fire fighter in the Air Force, Northrop is currently working to increase the 911 capabilities of the base and to help build resiliency with the local community. He has worked to partner with the Sumter County 911 center to help develop common methods of managing initial emergency communications. He is a self-motivated person as evidenced by his successful completion of his Fire Inspector II and Fire Inspector III certifications. Those certifications allowed him to achieve his Chief Officer designation through the Center for Public Safety Excellence.

After the passing of his good friend, Sumter County Deputy Corporal Andrew Gillette, Northrop joined the board of Running for Heroes. The Running for Heroes organization honors fallen first responders with a memorial run and a donated flag presented to each fallen first responder’s family. In addition, the organization provides grants to first responders who are injured in the line of duty, providing assistance that their department and insurance providers cannot. Northrop has brought vigor and new connections in his position as a board member to help grow the following and raise awareness to the difficult duties and risks in the lives of first responders.

2021 Northrop2 Main
Photo courtesy of TSgt Camrin Northrop

Northrop also manages the safety program at Sumter Speedway, a dirt track in the community. He partnered with a fellow Air Force Civil Engineer to develop the Squadron’s second haunted trail, raising $2,000 for their squadron’s booster club funds. In his free time, Northrop volunteers as a mentor with the United Ways School Mentor Program. 

Posted on by Steve Luvender

NASCAR’s newest car met NASCAR’s oldest superspeedway Wednesday night in the eNASCAR iRacing Pro Invitational Series — and one of the sport’s most iconic cars brought home the checkered flag. 

Erik Jones raced his No. 43 Richard Petty Motorsports Chevrolet from fourth place on a late-race restart to surge past Timmy Hill and Anthony Alfredo in the closing laps at the virtual Darlington Raceway — in the first outing for the NASCAR Next Gen car, unveiled just hours before the race.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. qualified on pole for the 120-lap event and looked like the car to beat early, leading through a rash of early cautions as drivers worked to become acclimated to a brand-new car for the first time.

The learning curve was a steep one as three cautions flew in the race’s first 21 laps, eating up many racers’ two available fast-repair resets — an instant fix to the car afforded to competitors in the sim-racing world. 

RELATED: Leaders wreck in final laps at virtual Darlington

Longtime iRacer William Byron snagged the top spot from Earnhardt on Lap 48 as the tires began to wear on the track “Too Tough to Tame.” It wasn’t long, however, before another caution flew and forced drivers to grapple with strategy. 

Former Pro Invitational Series winner Timmy Hill became a competitor for Byron at the front of the pack, taking the lead after a caution for an Alex Bowman crash. The two iRacing veterans battled hard, but neither emerged as the clear favorite.

A caution in the closing laps set up for a mixed-bag strategy on a late-race restart. Hill elected to stay on track with old, worn tires; others, including Byron, chose to pit for fresh tires at the expense of track position. 

RELATED: Late caution at virtual Darlington

On the ensuing restart, NASCAR Cup Series rookie Chase Briscoe went for a spin on aging tires near the front of the field, collecting multiple race contenders, including Byron, James Davison and Anthony Alfredo. 

Alfredo, who’s an iRacing regular, elected not to fix crash damage on his battered No. 38 Front Row Motorsports Ford. What’s Darlington without the classic stripe anyway? 

On the final restart, Hill led the field to the green flag on his worn tires; Alfredo’s damaged machine followed. The two battled for the top spot, checkered flag in sight, until Jones surged to the lead in a daring pass on the track’s apron into Turn 1.

RELATED: See the Next Gen cars’ first iRacing lap

Jones, driving a throwback paint scheme honoring the late John Andretti, held off the field to claim his first-ever Pro Invitational Series victory. It was a surreal juxtaposition of NASCAR’s future-era car, painted in legendary Petty team colors at NASCAR’s oldest superspeedway, driven by one of the sport’s brightest young stars. 

Alfredo came home second, while Earnhardt recovered late to finish third. Tyler Reddick placed fourth, and defending Cup Series champ Chase Elliott rounded out the top five.

The Cup Series stars visit Darlington — the real-world version — Sunday, for the Goodyear 400 on NASCAR’s Throwback Weekend.

The Pro Invitational Series makes its next stop at Circuit of the Americas on May 19.

Posted on by Press Release

RICHMOND, Va. — Justin Bonsignore spent Tuesday morning and early afternoon taking laps around Richmond Raceway in Virginia behind the wheel of his No. 51 Phoenix Communications, NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour ride for Kenneth Massa Motorsports. As part of a tire test, Bonsignore took laps in preparation for the Virginia Is For Racing Lovers 150, which is set for Friday, September 10.

The race will mark the return to the .750-mile oval for the Whelen Modified Tour for the first time since 2002.

“To get Richmond Raceway back on the Whelen Modified Tour schedule — it’s definitely going to be a marquee event and one that everyone is going to want to win,” the two-time Whelen Modified Tour champion said. “Having the chance to be there, it’s a beautiful facility. Track President Dennis Bickmeier spent some time with us today, and he was really excited for the return of Modifieds.

“I think the track is going to race well — it should be an exciting race for the fans to watch.”

RELATED: Virginia Is For Racing Lovers 200 Race Center | Buy Tickets

Tickets for the Virginia Is For Racing Lovers 200 are currently available through Richmond Raceway. The race will come in the final month of the season, where Justin and the rest of the competitors will compete in four races, in four weeks, in September, to crown the champion.

Justin Bonsignore returns to the track on Saturday, May 15, at Riverhead Raceway for the third race of the Whelen Modified Tour season. Bonsignore has won the last four tour races at the New York oval. For more information on Justin, visit JustinBonsignore.com and follow his athlete page on Facebook.

Posted on by Zack Albert

For projects that either originate or roll through the garage doors at the NASCAR Research & Development Center, safety remains an essential priority in every phase of development. The case of the Next Gen car, built from the ground up for the 2022 NASCAR Cup Series, is no different.

From more durable composite bodies, to better bumpers front and rear, to new devices designed to reduce rollover crashes at superspeedways, the Next Gen car will carry new safety features into next season, building on the advances developed in its predecessors but also introducing new safeguards intended to protect drivers in the event of a wreck.

Prominent among those new safety measures is the addition of energy-absorbing foam bumpers designed to dissipate front and rear impacts. Bald Spot Sports, an Indianapolis-based manufacturer of performance-enhancing foam products, provides the components, which are also used as a brace for the vehicle’s doors.

“A lot of the design in the vehicle from a first-order perspective, a lot of the targets were set by our safety group and we’ve gone through probably hundreds of iterations of chassis structure and front and rear bumper structures to get to the final solution,” said John Probst, NASCAR’s senior vice president of racing innovation. “I think that when you look at, for the first time in our sport, and this is not uncommon in production cars where they actually have crash structures built into the car, we do have those built into this race car.

“Today, when we say we’ve got a front and rear bumper, it’s not a front/rear bumper in a sense that it had a whole lot of safety thought put into it. It’s basically there to hold the front/rear bumper, so this for the first time will be a proper crash structure with energy-absorbing foam on the outer skin of the actual crash structure itself. It just takes some of the energy out of the car and absorbs it into the foam.”

RELATED: Next Gen car unveiled | Next Gen project timeline 

The issue of superspeedway safety flared last month after Joey Logano’s No. 22 Ford became airborne during a multicar crash at Talladega Superspeedway. The Next Gen car has several components designed to decrease lift in the event of a high-speed backward slide, but the newest is a flap located at the diffuser under the rear bumper.

Roof-mounted air flaps that deploy during a spin carry over from the current car, but the Next Gen model includes a cable that connects the roof flap to the new diffuser flap, allowing them to deploy in tandem. The flap design is among the nine patents that competition officials obtained in development of the Next Gen car.

“I think that any time in our sport that we have a vehicle leave the ground, we take it very seriously,” Probst says. “We employ all methods of technology and testing that we can to mitigate that. The diffuser flap is an example of such an effort on our part. We’ve had it in the wind tunnel, I think on four different occasions. … The whole concept is, if a car gets to the point that the roof flaps would be deployed that this diffuser flap as well would be deployed with the roof flaps. When we do get a car around backward, it’s just to deploy all measures to keep the vehicles on the ground by all means necessary that we can engineer.”

Some of the safety systems have already been appraised in real-world situations, both occurring with the P3 prototype that has been in heavy testing rotation for more than a year. William Byron crashed during a March 2020 season at Auto Club Speedway, and more recently Tyler Reddick looped the tester vehicle at Darlington Raceway on April 7, making slight right-side contact on his final run of the day.

Neither driver was hurt. In Reddick’s case, after a quick change of tires, he was able to drive the car back to the garage with little issue.

“That was a love tap, by most measures of what you can do to a car at Darlington,” Probst said. “I don’t know that we learned a whole lot there, honestly, other than that the car can take a little bit of a hit and keep going.”

Scm Nextgen 3oems Hero

Posted on by Paul Lambert

It took some diving, ducking and dodging by Patrick Emerling on the final restart, but the No. 07 team’s luck finally, finally turned around last Friday at the Spring Sizzler.

Emerling avoided the carnage on the final restart, swerving to the right and shooting the gap between the spinning cars of Justin Bonsignore and Anthony Nocella to grab the lead and the win.

“I don’t know what happened there,” Emerling said. “Everyone started getting together. Sparks were flying and just kind of burned right through the smoke there and just kind of worked out.”

For much of the day, however, it appeared that the rotten luck that has plagued the team since 2020 would bite them again. The pure speed was there last season — they qualified six of eight races inside the top-10 — but one way or another, the team could not catch a break, scoring only one top-10 finish in 2020.

An electrical problem Friday forced the team to miss both practice and qualifying and start the race last.

But good fortune came storming back as the race drew on. Emerling caught a caution on lap 61 and got the lucky dog. Even after spinning to bring out the yellow on lap 95, Emerling had worked his way to fifth by the time the race restarted for the final time.

Patrick Emerling, driver of the #07 Captain Pip Marina Chevrolet, celebrates in victory lane after winning the NAPA Auto Parts Spring Sizzler for the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour at Stafford Motor Speedway on April 30, 2021 in Stafford Springs, Connecticut. (Adam Glanzman/NASCAR)
Patrick Emerling (right) celebrates in Victory Lane with crew chief Jan Leaty after winning the NAPA Auto Parts Spring Sizzler. (Adam Glanzman/NASCAR)

Even though the race was called early due to the rain, crew chief Jan Leaty still felt the team was in good shape to pass the top four cars had the race gone the distance.

“You just will never know for sure,” Leaty said. “But I know, the position we were in, we executed the strategy to put on our tires later in the event than most of the guys did. So we had 25-lap better tires than almost everyone… I felt like the cars in front of us, we were going to pass them. The car was mint, and they were holding him up, to use his words.”

Leaty won the Sizzler as an owner-driver in 1996 with friends and family. While it was certainly a different experience to celebrate in the rain, it was proof to him that the team is still a force to be reckoned with in the Tour garage.

“It’s different for sure,” Leaty said. “It made me feel good that other guys, the next generation, so to speak, got to experience it too, and that I got to help them get there.”

Now, Leaty’s just looking forward to an issue-free day soon.

“It’s not like we’re all of a sudden on cruise control here,” Leaty said. “We’re working really hard to get the results we’re getting. I keep telling the guys ‘One day, things are just gonna go smooth and we’re not gonna know what to do with ourselves.’”

Patrick Emerling, driver of the #07 Captain Pip Marina Chevrolet, spins out during the NAPA Auto Parts Spring Sizzler for the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour at Stafford Motor Speedway on April 30, 2021 in Stafford Springs, Connecticut. (Adam Glanzman/NASCAR)
Patrick Emerling spins out on Lap 95 of the NAPA Auto Parts Spring Sizzler. (Adam Glanzman/NASCAR)

Other Notes:

  • Justin Bonsignore’s 12th-place finish at Stafford snapped a 16-race streak of top-five finishes dating back to 2019. Bonsignore had also finished in the top 10 in 21 consecutive races. The last time Bonsignore finished outside the top 10 was almost two years ago at Wall Stadium in 2019.
  • Eric Goodale continued his strong start to the 2021 season, finishing second to Emerling. With that run, Goodale has more top-fives in 2021 than all of 2020. It’s the first time Goodale has strung back-to-back top-fives together since April of 2019. He’ll maintain the points lead as the series heads to Riverhead.
  • Timmy Solomito drove the family-owned No. 66 New England Gear High Marine Building Efficiency Chevrolet to a fourth-place finish, his best run since finishing second at Riverhead in September of 2019. Like Emerling, Solomito was involved in an early incident, on Lap 72.
  • Despite only one career Tour start heading into 2021, Max McLaughlin has held his own to start the season. He currently sits fourth in points after his 11th-place run in the Spring Sizzler.
Posted on by Staff Report

Brad Keselowski has claimed the Busch Pole Award for Sunday’s Goodyear 400 (3:30 p.m. ET on FS1, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) at Darlington Raceway.

Keselowski will start his No. 2 Team Penske Ford from the pole position for the second week in a row. He finished third last weekend at Kansas Speedway and won the race before that at Talladega Superspeedway.

RELATED: Darlington weekend schedule | 2021 Cup Series standings

John Hunter Nemechek’s No. 4 Kyle Busch Motorsports Toyota is on the pole for Friday’s LiftKits4Less.com 200 (7:30 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN, SiriusXM) in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series, and AJ Allmendinger’s No. 16 Kaulig Racing Chevrolet is on the pole for Saturday’s Steakhouse Elite 200 (1 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN, SiriusXM) in the NASCAR Xfinity Series.

As NASCAR adapted to COVID-19 protocols last season, practice and qualifying were eliminated at a majority of national-series events to limit at-track time, exposure and to cut race weekend costs. To determine starting lineups, competition officials used grouped draws, added inversions for weekend doubleheaders, and eventually adopted a performance-metrics formula. That metrics format remains in place this season, drawing on performance from both individual races and season-long results.

NASCAR’s metrics formula for 2021 weighs:

  • 25 percent: Driver’s finishing position from the previous race
  • 25 percent: Car owner’s finishing position from the previous race
  • 35 percent: Team owner points ranking
  • 15 percent: Fastest lap from the previous race

See the full lineup for Sunday’s Cup Series race below.

Start pos.
 Driver Car # Team
1 Brad Keselowski 2 Team Penske
2 Kevin Harvick 4 Stewart-Haas Racing
3 Kyle Busch 18 Joe Gibbs Racing
4 Martin Truex Jr. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing
5 William Byron 24 Hendrick Motorsports
6 Chase Elliott 9 Hendrick Motorsports
7 Denny Hamlin 11 Joe Gibbs Racing
8 Matt DiBenedetto 21 Wood Brothers Racing
9 Austin Dillon 3 Richard Childress Racing
10 Tyler Reddick 8 Richard Childress Racing
11 Chris Buescher 17 Roush Fenway Racing
12 Joey Logano 22 Team Penske
13 Michael McDowell 34 Front Row Motorsports
14 Kyle Larson 5 Hendrick Motorsports
15 Daniel Suarez 99 Trackhouse Racing Team
16 Ryan Blaney 12 Team Penske
17 Kurt Busch 1 Chip Ganassi Racing
18 Ross Chastain 42 Chip Ganassi Racing
19 Alex Bowman 48 Hendrick Motorsports
20 Ryan Newman 6 Roush Fenway Racing
21 Christopher Bell 20 Joe Gibbs Racing
22 Chase Briscoe 14 Stewart-Haas Racing
23 Bubba Wallace 23 23XI Racing
24 Cole Custer 41 Stewart-Haas Racing
25 Anthony Alfredo 38 Front Row Motorsports
26 Erik Jones 43 Richard Petty Motorsports
27 Aric Almirola 10 Stewart-Haas Racing
28 Ricky Stenhouse Jr. 47 JTG Daugherty Racing
29 Ryan Preece 37 JTG Daugherty Racing
30 Corey LaJoie 7 Spire Motorsports
31 Justin Haley 77 Spire Motorsports
32 BJ McLeod 78 Live Fast Motorsports
33 Cody Ware 51 Petty Ware Racing
34 JJ Yeley 53 Rick Ware Racing
35 Quin Houff 00 StarCom Racing
36 James Davison 15 Rick Ware Racing
37 Josh Bilicki 52 Rick Ware Racing

Practice and qualifying are tentatively scheduled for eight Cup Series races this year. Busch Pole Qualifying was held for the season-opening Daytona 500, and rain canceled the qualifying races for Bristol Motor Speedway’s dirt-track race. The next Cup Series event with qualifying scheduled is the May 23 debut at the Circuit of The Americas road course in Austin, Texas.

Posted on by Steve Luvender

Before NASCAR Cup Series stars honor racing history for Throwback Weekend at Darlington Raceway, they’ll look toward the future in Wednesday night’s eNASCAR iRacing Pro Invitational Series race by competing virtually in the NASCAR Next Gen car (8 p.m. ET, FS1).

Drivers and fans will get a first look at NASCAR’s new car, which will debut in competition in 2022, in the third event of this year’s 10-race schedule that features a full field of NASCAR Cup Series stars facing off in iRacing exhibition races live and aired by FOX Sports and NBC Sports.

The race follows the formal unveiling of each manufacturer’s Next Gen car model in a much-anticipated event at 3 p.m. ET on Wednesday in Charlotte, North Carolina, streamed live on NASCAR.com.

Just four days later, the NASCAR Cup Series visits the historic Darlington Raceway for the Goodyear 400 (3:30 p.m. ET, FS1) on Throwback Weekend, a nod to NASCAR’s history in the form of commemorative paint schemes — and even a special Goodyear tire design.

For the second Pro Invitational Series race in a row, Camping World Truck Series driver and U.S. Naval officer Jesse Iwuji will compete against the field of Cup Series stars after winning a fan vote against a mix of up-and-coming stars and popular names across multiple NASCAR national series.

The Next Gen car has been designed in collaboration with NASCAR, its OEMs — Chevrolet, Ford, and Toyota — and teams in order to boost competition. The car has been developed and tested extensively, but Wednesday night’s iRacing Pro Invitational Series race will mark the first time a full field of drivers have competed in the fully stylized cars.

The live broadcast of the eNASCAR iRacing Pro Invitational Series race from Darlington Raceway, featuring Next Gen cars, airs Wednesday at 8 p.m. ET on FS1. Pre-race programming begins during NASCAR Race Hub, also on FS1, at 6 p.m. ET.

The entry list for the race is as follows (subject to change):

No. Team Driver
00 StarCom Racing Quin Houff
2 Team Penske Brad Keselowski
3 Richard Childress Racing Austin Dillon
4 Stewart-Haas Racing Kevin Harvick
5 Hendrick Motorsports Kyle Larson
6 Roush Fenway Racing Ryan Newman
7 Spire Motorsports Corey LaJoie
8 Richard Childress Racing Tyler Reddick
9 Hendrick Motorsports Chase Elliott
10 Stewart-Haas Racing Aric Almirola
11 Joe Gibbs Racing Denny Hamlin
14 Stewart-Haas Racing Chase Briscoe
15 Rick Ware Racing James Davison
17 Roush Fenway Racing Chris Beuscher
18 Joe Gibbs Racing Kyle Busch
19 Joe Gibbs Racing Martin Truex, Jr.
20 Joe Gibbs Racing Christopher Bell
21 Wood Brothers Racing Matt DiBenedetto
22 Team Penske Joey Logano
23 23XI Racing Bubba Wallace
24 Hendrick Motorsports William Byron
34 Front Row Motorsports Michael McDowell
38 Front Row Motorsports Anthony Alfredo
41 Stewart-Haas Racing Cole Custer
42 Chip Ganassi Racing Ross Chastain
43 Richard Petty Motorsports Erik Jones
47 JTG Daugherty Racing Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
48 Hendrick Motorsports Alex Bowman
51 Petty Ware Racing Garrett Smithley
52 Rick Ware Racing Josh Bilicki
53 Rick Ware Racing Joey Gase
77 Spire Motorsports Justin Haley
78 Live Fast Racing BJ McLeod
99 Spire Motorsports Daniel Suarez
66 MBM Motorsports Timmy Hill
88 Promotor’s Provisional Dale Earnhardt Jr.
25 Promotor’s Provisional Bobby Labonte
87 Fan Vote Jesse Iwuji

 

Posted on by Staff Report

NASCAR officials issued penalties for lug-nut violations Tuesday to three Cup Series teams after last weekend’s event at Kansas Speedway.

Each team’s crew chief was fined $10,000 after their cars were found with a single unsecured lug nut following Sunday’s Buschy McBusch Race 400. Those infractions fell under the heading of Section 10.9.10.4 in the NASCAR Rule Book.

Penalized teams were:

  • The No. 1 Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet (crew chief Matt McCall; driver Kurt Busch)
  • The No. 17 Roush Fenway Racing Ford (crew chief Luke Lambert; driver Chris Buescher)
  • The No. 22 Team Penske Ford (crew chief Paul Wolfe; driver Joey Logano)

NASCAR officials also announced Jonathan Stewart, listed on team rosters as an engineer for the No. 21 GMS Racing team in the Camping World Truck Series, has been reinstated after successfully completing NASCAR’s Road to Recovery Program. Stewart was suspended March 16 for violating NASCAR’s Substance Abuse Policy (Section 19) and Section 12.1, which outlines infractions and disciplinary action.

There were no penalties issued after Saturday’s Camping World Truck Series race at Kansas. The No. 88 ThorSport Racing Toyota for driver Matt Crafton failed pre-race inspection twice, and the team will lose pit-stall selection for Friday night’s LiftKits4Less.com 200 (7:30 p.m. ET on FS1, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).