Chase Elliott spends time away from NASCAR perfecting his racing craft

After you’ve won the NASCAR Cup Series championship, there’s no need to further develop your racing abilities, right? And more, doesn’t that tour’s 36-race schedule offer enough opportunities for the sport’s top drivers to get their racing fix? Well, it’s often said that anytime a race car driver sits in the seat of a race car, that driver is bound to improve his skillset. If that’s the case, Chase Elliott has been working to perfect his racing craft during the times over the past year or so when NASCAR has not been racing. Of course, with the Next Gen car…

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Kyle Busch stands to gain the most from the return of practice

The statistics compiled by Kyle Busch between 2015 and 2019 are nothing short of amazing. During that time period the Joe Gibbs Racing driver steered his Toyota into victory lane a total of 27 times and finished in the top-10 a stunning 70% of the time. In those five seasons he started from the pole position 16 times and led more than 1,300 laps each year except for his injury-shortened 2015 campaign. Most importantly, Busch was a Championship 4 participant in the season finale of all but one of those seasons with that stretch being bookended by two NASCAR Cup…

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The downside of NASCAR bringing back practice and qualifying

Since the NASCAR Cup Series returned to action following a shutdown brought on by the global pandemic early in the 2020 season, the sport has greatly altered the way in which it carries out each race weekend. For the most part, the institutions of practice and qualifying, which were once thought to be essential, have been eliminated. Instead, the teams have rolled their cars onto the track on race day having not turned a single lap leading into that particular racing event. However, with Covid-19 seeming to subside(hopefully) and the coming of a new car, NASCAR plans on returning to…

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Can NextGen car help Stewart-Haas regain form?

A look at the overall statistics from the 2020 season makes it seem as if the entire Stewart-Haas Racing organization was highly competitive. However, a closer examination of those numbers reveals that, in reality, it was only one of of that company’s teams that compiled the bulk of those stats. During that season, SHR had a total of 10 wins and 30 top-5 finishes. Their Ford machines led a total of 2121 laps during that campaign. But that closer look mentioned above reveals that the No. 4 car driven by Kevin Harvick actually amassed nine of those ten wins and…

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NASCAR Championship vindicates Kyle Larson’s extracurricular racing schedule

After Kyle Larson was suspended by NASCAR early on in the 2020 season, the Elk Grove, California native went on an amazing tear through the dirt racing world that saw him collect trophies from Sprint Car, Midget, and Late Model events across the country. Essentially, not having any Cup Series entanglements freed him up to do other things and he did those other things remarkably well. But at the beginning of 2021, Larson was reinstated by that sanctioning body and was then signed by powerful Hendrick Motorsports to drive their No. 5 Chevrolet machine. Once that took place, some began…

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Should a season championship be decided by the last pit stop of the last race?

While there were all sorts of possibilities for how the NASCAR Cup Series season could have ended, its conclusion ultimately played out in the best possible way. Following the 2020 campaign in which the driver with the most wins over the course of the year did not even make the Championship 4, the driver that had dominated in virtually every way possible in 2021 ultimately hoisted the trophy on Sunday evening at the Phoenix Raceway. And he did so in the most dramatic of ways. Kyle Larson earned the NASCAR Cup Series title after having won the regular season championship,…

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NASCAR watches its Playoff dream come true with Xfinity finish

Daniel Hemric stood atop his car and did a successful backflip off in celebration of the last lap pass that not only earned him his first NASCAR Xfinity Series win but also the season championship for that tour. And if they were capable of doing so, it’s likely that some high ranking NASCAR officials would have been doing the same thing from atop their desks, sofas, or luxury suite seats at the end of the Xfinity Series Championship Race on Saturday night at the Phoenix Raceway. The leaders of the sport got everything they hoped for when they devised the…

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If not this year, how many more opportunities will Denny Hamlin have?

There is no doubt that Denny Hamlin is one of the top drivers in the NASCAR Cup Series. The Chesterfield, Virginia native has scored a total of race 46 victories at the top level of the sport including three Daytona 500 triumphs. And more, the Joe Gibbs Racing pilot is a perennial championship contender. That said, however, the 40-year-old star has never been able to parlay his ability to contend for a championship into an actual championship. Hamlin’s placements in the final series standings throughout his career have been nothing short of remarkable. He was second in the final rundown…

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Championship contenders have to let Martinsville go

From a fan’s perspective, having the final cutoff race of the season at the Martinsville Speedway provides for great excitement and entertainment. From a competitor’s perspective, having that final cutoff race on the paper clip shaped half-mile track must be a gut wrenching experience. Martinsville is a track where virtually anything can and does happen. And, it’s almost a certainty that sheet metal is going to be wrinkled, feelings are going to be hurt, and tempers are going to reach the boiling point on that short track in such a high pressure situation. Once a driver and team have cleared…

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Playoff system meant to reward winning sometimes rewards not winning

The old NASCAR points system that was used up until the end of the 2003 season was one that rewarded consistency. Designed in the early days of the sport, the sanctioning body sought to have a format that would encourage drivers to run the entire schedule so points were distributed in such a way that those who showed up most often would place highly in the standings while those who might win races but not run the full circuit would have little chance of winning a championship. However, it was decided that such a system was not exciting enough in…

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