The NASCAR Cup Series will be racing this weekend in the Pala Casino 400 at the Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, California. It will be the last event held on the current 2-mile configuration as the track will be converted to a short track afterwards. The race will be aired live on Fox at 3:30(ET). Practice and qualifying were cancelled due to weather. Kyle Larson won at Auto Club in 2022. Here is Sunday’s starting lineup:
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…
*Turn 2 Blog is a regular feature on InsideCircleTrack.com. Here, site operators Michael Moats and Richard Allen take turns offering their thoughts on the NASCAR and pavement short track racing topics of the day. What are your thoughts on how all three races at Daytona finished? Richard: All three races in Daytona had a dissatisfying ending in that none of them actually took the checkered flag at speed to conclude the race. Although the finish of the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race was out of the hands of the officials because of weather conditions, it is always disappointing to have…
February 19, 2023 By Reid Spencer NASCAR Wire Service DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — In the longest DAYTONA 500 in NASCAR history, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. got help from an unexpected source and won the sport’s most prestigious race when a wild wreck froze the field in the second overtime. Stenhouse and reigning NASCAR Cup Series champion Joey Logano were battling for the lead on Lap 212 when contact from Aric Almirola’s Ford started Travis Pastrana’s Toyota spinning in Turn 2. Pastrana’s Camry clipped the Chevrolet of Kyle Larson and set it rocketing into the outside wall. Tires screamed, sparks flew and…
February 18, 2023 By Reid Spencer NASCAR Wire Service DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – After Sam Mayer spun on the roof of his Chevrolet on the backstretch at Daytona International Speedway, trailing a shower of sparks, Austin Hill, Justin Allgaier and John Hunter Nemechek sat in their cars and waited. And after what must have seemed an eternity to the drivers, NASCAR reviewed video of the final lap of overtime and declared Hill the winner of his second straight season opener at the World Center of Racing in front of the largest crowd to witness an Xfinity Series race at Daytona…
February 17, 2023 By Reid Spencer NASCAR Wire Service DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — On the fifth try, rain finally got the better of Daytona International Speedway—and that was perfectly all right with reigning NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series champion Zane Smith. NASCAR called Friday night’s NextEra Energy 250 after 79 of a scheduled 100 laps, making Smith the winner when the fifth rain shower of the evening thwarted track-drying efforts. In front of the largest crowd for a NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series race at Daytona since 2011, Smith won the season opener for the second straight year, having taken the lead…
The Bluegreen Vacations Duel races held on Thursday night at the Daytona International Speedway demonstrated something very important that will likely prove to be a factor in deciding the eventual winner of the Daytona 500. Of course, picking a winner in the races held at this track and its sister venue, the Talladega Super Speedway, is much akin to playing darts blindfolded using your left hand(provided the thrower is right handed). Still, clues emerged that have been evident in previous years as well that can help in the predicting of a winner in ‘The Great American Race’. A Ford Mustang…
The NASCAR Cup Series proved to be highly competitive in 2022 with a total of 19 different drivers making a trip to victory lane at some point during the season and that’s not including a driver who won the NASCAR All-Star Race but won no points-paying events. The competition was so evenly spread out that four drivers(including the injured Kurt Busch) who won a race did not make the NASCAR Playoffs. Whether it was because the teams are becoming more evenly matched or the Next Gen car brought an element of equality, there was a record-tying number of individual victors….
*Turn 2 Blog is a regular feature on InsideCircleTrack.com. Here, site operators Michael Moats and Richard Allen take turns offering their thoughts on the NASCAR and pavement short track racing topics of the day. Is the Daytona 500 still the most prestigious race on the NASCAR schedule? Richard: There are some who will argue that the Daytona 500 has lost some luster over recent years because of the fact that it has the randomness that comes along with the pack racing generated by restrictor plate/tapered spacer type of action but I disagree with that. This race has always been and…
The NASCAR Cup Series schedule is currently in the middle of a pair of events that use what essentially amounts to heat races to set the starting grid. The Busch Light Clash held inside the L.A. Coliseum used heat races to set its lineup and the Daytona 500 has throughout its history employed the Bluegreen Vacations Duels to establish the starting order for the sport’s biggest race. So should there be more races that use preliminary races to set the field? Arguably, the best racing of the weekend during the Busch Light Clash came during the heat races. The 150-lap…