Remember way back to the second race of the 2022 NASCAR Cup Series season at Auto Club Speedway when Kyle Larson threw a late-race block on Hendrick Motorsports teammate Chase Elliott that angered the 2020 champion but opened the door for the 2021 champion to score the win in Fontana, California. Consider this- had Larson not thrown the block then gone on to win that race, he would be outside the NASCAR Playoffs bubble as the time for the cutoff approaches. That’s right, the driver who won ten races and the championship in 2021 would not even be in a…

Continue reading

It’s no secret that Denny Hamlin and Ross Chastain haven’t exactly gotten along on the race track this season. Multiple incidents between the two have resulted in torn up race cars and brought promises of retribution along with acknowledgement that certain acts have been deserved. It’s safe to say that both the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota and the No. 1 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet have each had chances to end days in victory lane taken away by these confrontations. With the NASCAR Playoffs fast approaching and both drivers and their teams locked in to the championship run, the feud…

Continue reading

Certainly one of the biggest news stories during the 2022 NASCAR Cup Series season has been the uncertain contract status of two-time champion Kyle Busch. The contract of the talented 37-year-old driver with Joe Gibbs Racing will expire at the end of the current campaign and has yet to be renewed. Unless that situation changes, the Las Vegas native could become one of the most highly regarded free agents to be available in quite some time. Busch’s record speaks for itself. He has won a total of 60 NASCAR Cup Series races and was crowned as the champion in 2015…

Continue reading

*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. The Hy-Vee supermarket chain went all out to promote the recent IndyCar double-header at the Iowa Speedway. Is more enthusiastic promotion of this kind needed in all forms of racing? Richard: For any company that chooses to sponsor a race, it is in their best interest for the event to do as well as possible. An empty grandstand serves no one well. With that in mind,…

Continue reading

*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 all the Kyle Busch contract drama surprising to you? Richard: I’m not sure anything surprises me anymore when it comes to Kyle Busch. Without question, the Las Vegas native is one of the most talented NASCAR drivers of all time but he also is one of the sport’s most interesting personalities. Getting back to the question at hand, I am not surprised that his contract…

Continue reading

Call it what you will- circumventing the rules, working in the gray area, finding a competitive advantage, or cheating – but all of those things have been a part of racing since racing has been a thing. And one would think that more often than not, despite the best efforts of the rule enforcers, many have gotten away with something that ultimately led to a victory. That said, NASCAR has stated since early on in the development of the Next Gen car that they will not look favorably on teams that try circumvent the rules(or cheat) and they clearly demonstrated…

Continue reading

Kevin Harvick has been one of the most prolific winners on the NASCAR Cup series over the past decade. The Bakersfield, California native has won a total of 58 races over the course of his career with 35 of those victories and a championship coming since joining forces with Stewart-Haas Racing in 2014. But as has been well documented, things have not gone so well of late for the No. 4 Ford crew. Harvick is currently in the midst of a 63 race winless streak that dates back to the Bass Pro Shops/NRA Night Race at the Bristol Motor Speedway…

Continue reading

NBC/USA/Peacock took over the coverage of the NASCAR Cup and Xfinity Series races a couple of weekends ago in Nashville and it feels like, at least to me, that there has been a definite theme in the early going. Almost like the the WWE or Marvel movies, the coverage seems to be taking on a heroes vs. villains type of concept as the broadcasts appear to label certain drivers as one or the other. Mind you, this is not really meant to pick on NBC but simply to make an observation. Keep in mind that Fox never really seemed to…

Continue reading