NASCAR Features – Inside Circle Track

Archive by category "NASCAR Features"

Austin Hill making bid to show Cup teams he is worthy

There is no doubt that whenever a NASCAR Xfinity Series race is held on one of the super speedway style tracks Austin Hill will be among the contenders for the win. The 28-year-old driver’s victory on Saturday in the Raptor King of Tough 250 at the Atlanta Motor Speedway was his third triumph out of five races so far in 2023 and his second(combined with Daytona) on the tracks that call for drafting and pack racing. In all, Hill has amassed five wins at Daytona and Atlanta(since the reconfiguration) in the Xfinity Series and the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series. The…

Can William Byron find the consistency that could lead to a championship?

As he did on Sunday in Las Vegas, William Byron has shown during his relatively short NASCAR Cup Series career that he can win races for his Hendrick Motorsports team. The 25-year-old driver now has a streak of at least one win in each of the past four seasons. But the bigger questions surrounding the driver who hails from Charlotte are can he become a regular front runner and multiple-time winner during each campaign and can he seriously challenge for a championship at the sport’s top level. The 2017 NASCAR Xfinity Series champion’s best result in the final series standings…

Did you expect Kyle Busch to win so soon? He didn’t

Kyle Busch is an extraordinary talent in a race car and Richard Childress Racing proved last year that they are a competitive organization once again by winning a total of four races and placing drivers Austin Dillon and Tyler Reddick in the NASCAR Playoffs. Even with all of that taken into consideration, winning a NASCAR Cup Series race in only their second outing together might seem to be a bit of a stretch. After all, every aspect of the new pairing was foreign to all parties. Busch only joined RCR during the most recent off-season after parting ways with Joe…

JTG-Daughtery working to carry Daytona momentum into the remainder of the season

The last three Daytona 500s have produced surprise winners with the most recent version doing exactly that when Ricky Stenhouse Jr. was deemed by NASCAR Cup Series officials as the victor when they ruled that the JTG-Daugherty Chevrolet was ahead of the pack when a race-ending yellow flag waved. It was only the third career win for the Olive Branch, Mississippi driver with both his other triumphs having come back in 2017 when he drove for Roush Fenway Racing. Stenhouse’s JTG-Daugherty team had only won one other Cup race prior to last Sunday with driver A.J. Allmendinger in 2014 on…

Jimmie Johnson has much to learn going in to Cup Series return

How could a driver who has amassed seven championships and 83 victories at the NASCAR Cup Series level over the course of a stellar career have anything to learn? When that driver has not turned a single competitive lap in the Next Gen car and has been out of this form of racing since the end of the 2020 season, the answer to that question is quite a bit. Jimmie Johnson retired from full-time competition in NASCAR two seasons ago to pursue racing in IndyCar. After finding only marginal success in open-wheel machines, the 47-year-old star is now back as…

Austin Dillon looking forward to new teammate, improved performance

A win in the cutoff race at the Daytona International Speedway last August got Austin Dillon into the 2022 NASCAR Playoffs for the fifth time in his NASCAR Cup Series career. This season, the 32-year-old driver is hoping to do more than just make the cut. With a new teammate in the stable, he hopes the entire Richard Childress Racing operation will take another step toward returning to the dominant form it once had. It isn’t as if RCR was lagging way behind the competition last year. After all, Dillon scored the one win and then teammate Tyler Reddick drove…

Daniel Suarez: “We’re happy but we’re not satisfied”

After several seasons marked by struggles at the NASCAR Cup Series level while driving for teams such as Joe Gibbs Racing and Stewart-Haas Racing, Daniel Suarez seemed to find a comfort zone in 2022 in his second campaign with Trackhouse Racing. Bolstered by confidence provided by team leaders Justin Marks and ‘Pitbull’, the 30-year-old driver became a consistent front runner and secured his first win at the top level of the sport when the No. 99 Chevrolet pulled into victory lane at the Sonoma Raceway. While Suarez was happy to earn his first Cup win, he believes there were other…

Is there enough rising talent in the pipeline to fill potentially vacant seats?

It looks as if NASCAR could be set for a generational change such as that from a few years ago when drivers such as Tony Stewart, Jeff Gordon, Matt Kenseth and Carl Edwards left the sport within the space of just a few seasons. Now, it appears as if Kurt Busch, Kevin Harvick, Denny Hamlin and Martin Truex Jr. are at the age where they will be stepping away in the not-to-distant future. Of course, that process has already begun. Kurt Busch retired last year and Kevin Harvick has announced that this will be his last as a full-time competitor….

Christopher Bell looking to continue progression in 2023

It is sometimes said that getting to the top is one thing and staying on top is another. Christopher Bell will be working to prove that he can stay on top after having proven last season that he could get there. The 28-year-old driver from Norman, Oklahoma won three NASCAR Cup Series races in 2022, two of which came in the most pressure-filled situations imaginable. While 2021 was not necessarily a bad season. After all, the Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota driver won his first Cup race on the road course at the Daytona International Speedway. But this past year seemed…

Ross Chastain: “We were and we are willing to do anything”

If Hollywood were looking to make a movie about racing, a possible script idea could sound something like the following. A driver spends several seasons struggling at the lower levels of NASCAR with no real success achieved only to finally get a big break. However, that opportunity is ultimately ripped away leaving said driver seemingly out of luck. However, new opportunities arise that ultimately lead to a seat with a new and unproven team that quickly emerges as a contender allowing the driver to score Cup Series wins. Those victories ultimately lead to some miraculous last lap heroics and a…