Category: NASCAR Blogs

In a season being completely dominated by the Toyotas of Joe Gibbs Racing and the Fords of Team Penske in terms of visits to victory lane, there has been little for those who carry the Chevrolet banner to cheer about. Not only has no car sporting the “Bowtie” logo on its grille taken a checkered flag while leading the pack in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series, their sightings within the top-5 have been almost as rare. With eight races in NASCAR’s premier division now in the books, all eleven Chevrolet drivers have managed to score only five top-5 finishes…

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Eventually NASCAR is going to get tired enough of all the shenanigans that have taken place so far this season during their qualifying sessions that they will institute an actual change rather than minor modifications. No doubt the sanctioning body is exhausted with having to explain why no car in a particular round posted a time or why a driver was or was not able to get on track to make a run as a result of a “clog” on pit road. It seems apparent that someone or some entity within the sport, whether it be the television networks or…

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There have been six Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series races held so far in 2019 and all six of those events have been won by drivers from the stables of Joe Gibbs Racing and Team Penske. What’s more, drivers from those two organizations currently reside in six of the top-10 spots of the series standings. Apart from their three wins, JGR drivers have scored 11 top-5 and 18 top-10 finishes among their four Toyota cars so far in 2019. Denny Hamlin won the season-opening Daytona 500 then Kyle Busch collected trophies from ISM Raceway in Phoenix and Auto Club Speedway…

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So far in 2019 there have been three races won by Toyotas as Joe Gibbs Racing drivers Kyle Busch and Denny Hamlin have scored those victories in this young season. At the same time, Ford drivers have taken two checkered flags as Team Penske pilots Brad Keselowski and Joey Logano have each paid a visit to victory lane. However, those who campaign on behalf of the Chevrolet name plate have failed to earn a win thus far on the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series. More alarming for the fans and teams of the ‘Bow Tie’ brand, Chevrolet has not even…

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Coming into the 2019 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series season there were some very high expectations among fans, media, and competitors because of a new set of rules that would impact the amount of horsepower produced by the engines and the amount of down force placed on the bodies of the cars. Many seemed to believe that the changes instituted by the sanctioning body would bring about more drafting and pack-type racing as seen on the restrictor plate tracks in Daytona and Talladega. And at least on the start of each race and the restarts following each caution or stage…

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Unless you have been secluded somewhere well outside of the racing world, you probably already know that Kyle Busch is closing in on his 200th career win in NASCAR sanctioned races. His 52 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series wins, 94 NASCAR Xfinity Series victories, and 53 NASCAR Gander Outdoors Truck Series checkered flags amount to a total of 199 triumphs. It is certainly a remarkable feat for any race car driver to visit victory lane that many times. However, there are a significant number of detractors who argue that Busch has padded his statistics by winning races in what amounts…

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For the second time in this very young 2019 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series season driver Michael McDowell found himself at odds with one of his fellow Ford competitors when he and Daniel Suarez scuffled during qualifying for the Ticket Guardian 500 at the ISM Raceway in Phoenix. Suarez walked to McDowell’s pit area and the two briefly fought after both found themselves eliminated from contention for the pole position when they did not advance to the second round of the seemingly appropriately named “knockout qualifying” session. Suarez believed McDowell had interfered with his qualifying run by getting in his…

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*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. In this edition of the Turn 2 Blog we will be discussing five topics regarding the NASCAR Gander Outdoors Truck Series. We are happy to be joined by Josh Weinrich who serves as the Public Relations representative for Hattori Racing Enterprises. Last year that team won the NGOTS championship with driver Brett Moffitt and in 2019 the No. 16 Toyota captured the season opening NextEra Energy…

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One of the few non-sports television shows in recent years that I have enjoyed was hosted by one of my favorite authors. The History Channel production titled Brad Meltzer: Decoded began with the best selling mystery and suspense writer asking, “What if I told you … “. Well, what if I told you at the beginning of a Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race that there would be 19 lead changes among nine different drivers with no cautions other than the two scheduled stage breaks and the margin of victory would be just over one car length? Most people would…

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I am going to play the “NAS $400K Piston[$100K to 1st]” contest on DraftKings.com under the name IndyJones. The game pays $100,000 to the winner and pays through the top-9,880 places. It comes with a $10 entry fee. Each driver is given a dollar value with each participant being allotted a budget of $50,000 to purchase six drivers. Last week at Atlanta Motor Speedway I banked heavily on Hendrick Motorsports being competitive under the new rules package partially put in place in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series. That proved to be disastrous. This weekend at Las Vegas Motor Speedway…

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