Official NASCAR Thread

[Ex Hellraiser]

The flag hit the ground...

 

 

Those fans weren't happy about that.

 

But that was a really great race at the end. I didn't tune in until about 50 to go, but it was really competitive. Was almost a 5 car race with 5 to go. Really bummed about Chase though. He had another great race taken away by a wreck. Hope he has some better luck at Phoenix.

Edited March 7, 2016 by Ex Hellraiser

[theGTAking101]

I liked the race, everyone was close and a lot of people were in contention again.

 

Matt Kenseth is now 3 for 3 in having an awesome race ruined by bad luck. Chase 2 for 3.

 

Something cool I noticed:

• Daytona, photo finish for 1st.
• Atlanta, photo finish for 2nd.
• Las Vegas, photo finish for 3rd.

Photo finish for 4th at Phoenix confirmed?

 

Stenhouse had another strong run today, he might actually make the chase.

Edited March 7, 2016 by theGTAking101

[Ex Hellraiser]

Chase finished 8th last week, but regardless, he has had a top 10 car all three weeks.

 

I like Blaney too. He did pretty well finishing in 6th.

Edited March 7, 2016 by Ex Hellraiser

[theGTAking101]

Chase finished 8th last week, just saying.

 

I like Blaney too. He did pretty well finishing in 6th.

Forgot about that.

 

This is gonna be a really good rookie battle, I can already see it. It's hard to tell who's gonna come out on top. This could be just as good as Kenseth/Jr., Newman/Johnson and Larson/Dillon. It'll probably be even better because if they have better luck, I can see them both making the chase easily. Dillon and Stenhouse could be some dark horses as well. It should be a fun year with some new names running up front.

[SupaDoopa]

The flag hit the ground...

 

 

Those fans weren't happy about that.

Kes and the team should have seen that coming with the 50 MPH winds.

 

Good race, nice to see Blaney and Dillon in the top 6.

[kk9fan97]

Looks like Regan Smith is going to be part of the all-star lineup for JR Motorsports' #88 car. Lionel just put out a few diecast renders on their twitter page including new pant schemes for the #88 and one of them is listed as being driven by Regan Smith -

 

Smith -

 

Junior -

 

Harvick -

 

They also posted one of Chase Elliott's cars about a week ago -

 

so the #88 driver lineup now is -

- Dale Earnhardt, Jr.

- Kevin Harvick

- Kasey Kahne

- Chase Elliott

- Alex Bowman

- Josh Berry

- Kenny Habul

- Cole Custer

- Regan Smith

 

that is quite the list of talented drivers.

 

edit: Cole Custer's #00 One Main Financial Truck for Eldora, Talladega and the fall Martinsville race -

 

 

 

 

and Aric Almirola's #43 U.S. Air Force car -

 

 

 

 

not sure why the Custer and Almirola renders are so big

 

edit: Snap Fittness is back with Landon Cassill -

 

 

and AAA Mid-Atlantic moves to Richard Childress Racing from MWR and will sponsor Austin Dillon in the Cup Series and Brandon Jones in the Xfinity Series - http://www.rcrracing.com/news/index.cfm?cid=52731

 

Dillon's car -

 

 

 

edit: Furniture Row Racing has withdrawn their appeal of Cole Pern's suspension - http://www.motorsport.com/nascar-cup/news/furniture-row-withdraws-appeal-truex-crew-chief-to-serve-suspension-678230/

Edited March 8, 2016 by kk9fan97

[kk9fan97]

Hendrick Motorsports' paint schemes for this weekend -

 

 

 

a Hendrick Motorsports plane had to make an emergency landing Monday moring due to smoke in the cockpit. None of the 4 drivers were on the plane.

http://www.foxsports.com/nascar/story/jimmie-johnson-s-spotter-discusses-emergency-landing-of-hendrick-plane-030816

 

NASCAR's Steve O'Donnell commented on the delayed caution for Cody Ware's crash in the Xfinity Series race which led to Darrell Wallace, Jr. crashing hard into Ware and then Justin Marks to hit the wall and then crash into Wallace, Jr. -

http://www.foxsports.com/nascar/story/las-vegas-motor-speedway-xfinity-series-caution-flag-bubba-wallace-cody-ware-030816

 

 

Radioactive was pretty good this week, it seemed like most of the drivers were pretty mad during the race and as usual Junior had some pretty funny comments

 

 

 

EDIT: Stewart-Haas Racing has put put out an update on Tony Stewart's injury -

 

 

also three teams received warnings from NASCAR for inspection issues - #78 Furniture Row Racing, #31 Richard Childress Racing and #19 Joe Gibbs Racing -

 

http://nascar.nbcsports.com/2016/03/09/nascar-issues-warnings-to-three-sprint-cup-teams/

 

edit: Looks like Cole Custer is going to join Kasey Kahne and Chase Elliott in the #5 car in some races for JR Motorsports -

Edited March 9, 2016 by kk9fan97

[kk9fan97]

well Kahne's bad luck strikes once again. He just had one of the most bizare things ever happen in round 1 of qualifying. Something in the car caught on fire and in his interview with FS2 he said when he shut all the switches off in his car for some reason everything kept running. Jim Utter of Motorsport.com tweeted that the #5 team thinks it has something to do with the air box.

 

https://twitter.com/NASCARONFOX/status/708443189716377600

 

his interview with FS2 - https://twitter.com/NASCARONFOX/status/708444724068290560

 

edit: Looks like Kahne will be credited with the 24th starting spot because he technically advanced to round 2 - he was third fastest in round 1.

 

EDIT: FS2 is reporting that the the #5 went into EFI (Electronic Fuel Injection) protection mode and the engine blew up. The team is going to have to change engines and will go to the rear of the field for the start of the race.

 

https://twitter.com/MattWeaverSBN/status/708447333604786176

 

 

I'm telling you sometimes it really hurts to be a Kahne fan with all the bad luck he has.

 

 

EDIT: Kyle Busch wins the pole. JImmie Johnson crashed extremely hard in the final round and is ok and will have to go to a backup car and to the rear of the field at the start of the race.

 

Johnson's crash - https://twitter.com/NASCARONFOX/status/708454011356254208

Edited March 12, 2016 by kk9fan97

[theGTAking101]

I feel bad for Kahne. The past 3 years especially have been terrible for him on track. It always seemed like he was the odd man out at Hendrick.

 

Dale really needs to get better at qualifying. 26th, like seriously? I know he'll probably get to in the top 10 in the race but it's still frustrating to see him qualify this bad. PS his car looks amazing, but I'm still impatiently waiting for the Mountain Dew cars to be released.

 

Larson is always good in qualifying, but he seems to fade in the race. Let's hope he runs well this weekend, I had really high hopes for him with this new aero package.

[kk9fan97]

It was revealed this morning that the steering wheel came off in Johnson's hands causing the crash in Qualifying yesterday. Johnson took the blame for not fully securing it.

 

http://www.popularspeed.com/steering-wheel-just-came-off-in-my-hands-says-johnson-of-qualifying-crash/

 

so between Kahne's issue with the EFI going into protection mode and blowing the engine and Johnson's crash because of not fully securing the steering wheel, Hendrick Motorsports had quite the strange qualifying session.

[SupaDoopa]

Helluva race today. 2016 has been a great season so far.

[theGTAking101]

I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'll say Daytona was my least favorite race out of the four. The non plate races have just been that good. This new package is awesome. The one track I'm excited to see with this package is coming up next. The last 3 years at Fontana have had amazing finishes.

 

It's impressive that half of the season's races so far were decided by a photo finish, not to mention the photo finishes for 2nd and 3rd at Atlanta and Vegas.

[kk9fan97]

That photo finish for 3rd place at Atlanta really was not a photo finish. The caution was thrown for the multi-car wreck just before the leader got to the start/finish line. The positions were immediately frozen as a result.

 

In typical Fox Sports fashion they failed to understand the rules and thought they were allowed to race to the start/finish line which was not the case.

 

As for Today's race I did not get to see it due to being scheduled to work but I had the chance to listen to the first little bit of it on the radio (I heard up until Newman's crash.

 

I saw video of the finish when I got home and it was quite the finish. I am going to try to watch the replay of the FS1 in the morning.

 

I also saw that Kahne's bad luck hit once again and heard a bit more info on his qualifying issue while listening to the race on the radio - when he finished his qualifying lap he shut the engine and everything else off as he normally would, and it stayed off for 5 seconds before suddenly coming back on. They then said when the engine came back on, the EFI system went into protection mode for some reason and at the same time the engine was going backwards and stayed that way for 45 seconds before blowing up according to MRN.

 

Also, not NASCAR, but NASCAR related - Juan Pablo Montoya, driving for Team Penske won the Verizon INDYCAR Series season opener at The Streets of St. Petersburg for the second straight year. His teammate Simon Pagenaud finished 2nd.

 

Team Penske actually swept the front two rows in qualifying at St. Pete for the second straight year as well with Will Power taking the pole, Pagenud qualified 2nd, Montoya in 3rd and Helio Castroneves in 4th (they qualified in that exact order last year as well)

 

Power unfortunately did not start the race due to nausea possibly caused by a concussion that no-one, not even Power knew about that was sustained in a hard crash in practice (The concussion got diagnosed and announced while the race was going on). Oriol Servia drove Power's car in the race (He had to use one of Montoya's uniforms, and to have one of his seats flown in from Indy and had to have his helmet flown in from California).

 

The Ganassi cars also did pretty decent in the race, but not as well as the Team Penske cars did.

Edited March 14, 2016 by kk9fan97

[kk9fan97]

I just watched the replay of the race on FS1 and that was quite the race for sure. The low downforce package was definetely the right choice for NASCAR, it's brought back a lot of excitement during the races.

Edited March 15, 2016 by kk9fan97

[theGTAking101]

I think this is gonna be an amazing year, it'll probably even blow 2011 out of the water.

[kk9fan97]

so there has been 4 race weekends now, and all four weeks the #78 Furniture Row Racing team has had problems getting through inspection. They received a writen warning from NASCAR for failing at the laser inspecton station twice in pre-race inspection.

 

also the #17 Roush-Fenway Racing team received a written warning and has been penalized with the loss of 15 minutes of practice at Auto Club Speedway after failing at the laser inspection station three times during pre-race inspection.

 

the #38 Front Row Motorsports team received a written warning for failing at the template inspection twice during pre-qualifying inspection.

 

on the Xfinity Series side, the #20 Joe Gibbs Racing car of Erik Jones was found to have the rear toe outside of tolerance during post-race inspection. The crew chief was fined $5,000 as a result

 

and the #21 GMS Motorsports team (driver Spencer Gallagher) recieved a written warning and has been penalized with the loss of 15 minutes of practice this weekend at Auto Club Speedway after failing at the laser inspection station during pre-race inspection

 

- http://www.jayski.com/stats/2016/pdfs/04pir2016postracepenalties.pdf

 

 

edit: new paint scheme and sponsor for the #14 car -

 

 

 

 

edit: the Superman (Johnson), and Batman (Junior) paintschemes are being run this weekend..

 

to go along with that, Kasey Kahne's spotter Kevin Hamlin posted a hilarious picture on twitter of Junior's spotter T.J. Majors that has to do with the Superman/Batman stuff-

 

https://twitter.com/KevinHamlin/status/709880532713082881

Edited March 17, 2016 by kk9fan97

[theGTAking101]

It was fun watching Dale and Jimmie go back and forth on Twitter the past few days posting random Superman/Batman GIFs. They're really enjoying this.

[theGTAking101]

Austin Dillon winning the pole surprised me, this should be a good year for him. I'm also impressed with Buescher coming in 16th and Bayne in 7th. Roush is looking better this year.

 

Typical Jr. sucked in qualifying again. Oh well he should get to the front in no time. Kahne's bad luck continues when he couldn't even put a lap in in the final round.

 

I also hope Larson gets his sh*t together, he's usually good in qualifying but sucked today.

[kk9fan97]

I didn't get to see it but it sounds like the Xfinity Series had quite the finish - Kyle Busch was leader and took the white flag to only blow a tire going into turn 1, which gave Daniel Suarez the lead until he ran out of fuel on the backstretch giving the lead back to Busch who was then passed by

Austin Dillon who won the race.

 

 

 

the spoiler is there just in case anyone is planning on watching a replay of the race or taped it and has not seen it.

[theGTAking101]

Yeah I was gonna watch the race later but I got the winner spoiled somewhere else but it sounds like quite the finish. Can't wait to see it later.

[kk9fan97]

Not NASCAR, but related - Haas F1 Team ran in their first F1 Grand Prix overnight and earned their first ever points when Romain Grosjean finished 6th. They earned 8 points as a result. Their second car driven by Esteban Gutierriez struggled from the start with engine issues, and just before halfway he got involved in a massive crash with Fernando Alsono, that sent Alonso's car into the wall and then airborne and upside down and causing the safety car to be deployed and the red flag to be put out. Alonso's car flew upside down for a long distance before barrel rolling in the gravel trap and coming to rest on it's side against a tire wall. The crash was so bad that initially none of the commentators realized Alonso had been involved because of how destroyed his car was.

 

Greg Biffle and Kyle Larson were involved in a crash during practice yesterday. Larson got sideways and the hit the wall and had to slow down causing Biffle to have no time to react and Biffle ran into Larson. Both teams repaired their cars.

[theGTAking101]

Looks like Kyle Busch could be in some sh*t after what he did yesterday, whining about there not being a caution on the final lap then refusing to do any post-race interviews.

[kk9fan97]

Looks like Kyle Busch could be in some sh*t after what he did yesterday, whining about there not being a caution on the final lap then refusing to do any post-race interviews.

 

when you finish in the top 5 it's mandatory that you go to the media center. Years ago Stewart was mad about something after a race and he was supposed to go to the media center because he finished top 5. He never went to the media center and if I am rembering correctly, NASCAR ended up fining Stewart and placing him on probation...

 

it's not the first time that Busch has flipped out after an Xfinity Series race and likely won't be the last.

 

crazy start to the race with all these tire related issues -

 

Kurt Busch hit the wall and slowed down so much that Junior had no chance to react and hit Busch like with what happened to Larson and Biffle in practice

 

- Kyle Busch hit the wall and had a flat tire.

 

- Brian Vickers had a tire go down

 

- Chase Elliott hit the wall

 

- Denny Hamlin hit the wall and now has problems with his radio

 

- Chris Buescher blew a tire and hit the wall bringing out he caution..

 

 

and now "Kahne Luck" strikes again - just got penalized for the crew aparently being over the wall too early. His crew chief Keith Rodden tried fighting it and like always it did not help. Kahne has to restart at the tail end of the field.

 

I like how Fox completely ignored the pit road penalties, there was a few other drivers that got hit with penalties along with Kahne and FOX said nothing about it.

Edited March 20, 2016 by kk9fan97

[kk9fan97]

HOLY HELL. HUGE WRECK FOR LARSON.

 

Right before he wrecked, Kahne was behind him and his spotter Kevin Hamlin started yelling "Watch the #42! Keep Coming, no caution yet, but there is going to be one!"

[theGTAking101]

I think the worst thing about it is he was so upset over a second place finish in a lower tier series. That's the most childish part in my opinion. But like you said, that's not unusual of him. He was different and mature last year, but now it looks like the old 2008-2011 Kyle could be back.

 

EDIT: Wow I can't wait to see that Larson wreck when I watch the race later. But till then I should probably stay off social media lol. Ugh I was hoping he'd have a good day considering this is one of his good tracks.

Edited March 20, 2016 by theGTAking101

[kk9fan97]

I think the worst thing about it is he was so upset over a second place finish in a lower tier series. That's the most childish part in my opinion. But like you said, that's not unusual of him. He was different and mature last year, but now it looks like the old 2008-2011 Kyle could be back.

 

the fact that he tried to hook Dillon in the left rear coming to the checkers yesterday does not help his case.

 

 

Keselowski hit with penalty for an uncontrolled tire on pit road.

[theGTAking101]

Well I just watched the Larson crash on Twitter, and man that reminds me of Hamlin's impact.

Edited March 20, 2016 by theGTAking101

[kk9fan97]

Well I just watched the Larson crash on Twitter, and man that reminds me of Hamlin's impact.

 

one of the Fox Sports commentators actually brought up Hamlin's crash when they saw it. Thankfully the SAFER Barrier was there to soften the impact for Larson.

 

edit: sounds like Kyle Busch might be having radio problems now. That would be two JGR cars with radio issues.

 

edit: Harvick hit the wall and then pitted.

 

 

FOX Sports just interviewed Larson and he said he had no brakes and thinks when he tire blew it must have cut the brake lines.

 

edit: Hamlin penalized for speeding entering pit road. Menard too fast exiting pit road. lot of penalties today.

Edited March 20, 2016 by kk9fan97

[kk9fan97]

Danica just wrecked herself off the front of Kahne's car. the #10 team is blaming Kahne for it, but the replay clearly shows her moving up the track towards Kahne.

 

the hell? NASCAR just called Kasey Kahne, spotter Kevin Hamlin, and crew chief Keith Rodden to the hauler after the race.

 

if anyone should be called to the hauler it's Danica. She walked away from her car towards the track to show displeasure with Kahne...

 

 

edit: the bad day for Gibbs drivers bad luck continues. Edwards got caught speeding on pit road.

 

also the #13 team had a fire in their pit stall.

 

 

edit: Kahne did go down the track a little bit, but stopped when he got near Danica, but Danica went up the track and hooked herself off of Kahne's car.

Edited March 20, 2016 by kk9fan97

[kk9fan97]

deja vu for Kyle Busch. Right front tire goes down wih 2 laps to go and he hits the wall. Blaney also hit the wall. caution for Busch and they are going into overtime.

 

it gets even worse for JGR - Kenseth caught speeding on it road, has to restart at the tail end of the field.

Edited March 20, 2016 by kk9fan97