We have all heard the phrase “new normal” far too many times over the past three months or so. Everything we do has been altered as a result of the restrictions put in place because of the coronavirus pandemic. The way we work, the way we eat, the way we worship, the way we shop, and the way we are entertained do not even remotely resemble the ways in which those activities were once carried out. And among the things to have changed is racing. Who would have ever dreamed when the Daytona 500 took the green flag back February…

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I can always gauge how good a race is by the amount of attention my sons pay to it. They, like so many of their age, will forego watching a live event to just catch the highlights later. I call them Sports Center fans. But when they notice that a race I am watching is intriguing enough, they will put aside the video games, basketball, or whatever they happen to be doing to watch what happens. Over the final 100 laps or so of the action in the NASCAR Cup Series race Bristol Motor Speedway, they were zoned in and…

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Bristol Motor Speedway once had a streak of more than 50 consecutive races of completely selling out its grandstand seats for the two NASCAR Cup Series races held in the upper northeastern corner of Tennessee each year. And though that streak has long since been broken and there were events in which it looked as if the grandstands were barely half filled, there were signs that things had turned around and were beginning to head in the right direction in terms of tickets sales, particularly for the night race held each August. But this Sunday, there is no doubt what…

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The fastest car is supposed to win, right? Chase Elliott appeared to have the fastest car at Charlotte Motor Speedway on two separate occasions within the past week. The trouble is, he only won one of the two NASCAR Cup Series races held on that track within that time frame. As has been well documented by now, Elliott was seemingly on his way to victory on Sunday night in the Coca-Cola 600 until a late race caution came out when Elliott’s Hendrick Motorsports teammate William Byron suffered a flat tire and spun. With the race heading toward an overtime finish,…

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NASCAR’s first Cup Series race held on a Wednesday night in decades had no shortage of drama as the highly competitive event boiled down to a controversial late race incident and an early stoppage due to the weather. Denny Hamlin left Darlington Raceway at the end of the Toyota 500 as the winner when rain began to fall and NASCAR officials were forced to call the race with 20 laps still remaining. It was the second victory of the season for the driver of the Joe Gibbs Racing No. 11 Toyota. But the real story of the race actually occurred…

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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. Richard: It’s often easy to criticize NASCAR and virtually everyone who follows the sport has done so from time to time. However, now is the time to give credit where credit is due after this past weekend. NASCAR became the first major sport(I don’t care what UFC and PBR say) to return to action on Sunday when they contested ‘The Real Heroes 400’ at the Darlington…

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A NASCAR Cup Series race can actually take place without qualifying or practice? I’m sure there have been instances of such a happening when weather has been involved but in Sunday’s ‘The Real Heroes 400’ at Darlington Raceway that was the plan all along. In order to keep person-to-person contact to an absolute minimum, both of those NASCAR racing rituals were scraped well ahead of the time teams were scheduled to arrive at the track. As a result, drivers were kept separate from their teams and literally walked straight to the starting grid, got in their cars, and took off….

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After weeks of strictly racing on simulator rigs in virtual iRacing events, NASCAR Cup Series drivers will return to action on Sunday afternoon for their first race in actual cars since the checkered flag fell on the Fan Shield 500 at Phoenix Raceway on March 8, 2020. And not only will the drivers and crews be back on track for the first time in over two months, but they will be taking on perhaps the most difficult of challenges on the entire circuit. Darlington Raceway with its narrow racing groove and worn surface has rightfully earned the moniker of “Too…

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