AVONDALE, Ariz. – Ryan Blaney climbed out of his No. 12 Team Penske Ford on Phoenix Raceway pit road Sunday and took a few minutes to himself, then hugged his fiancé Gianna and shook hands with his team – clearly exhausted mentally and physically after racing to a mere .330-seconds – the blink of an eye – away from a second consecutive NASCAR Cup Series championship.
It hurt.
RACE RUNDOWN: Joey Logano and the No. 22 Shell-Pennzoil Ford Mustang team fought through more adversity than any of the other Championship 4 drivers in Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series (NCS) Championship Race at Phoenix Raceway, but sheer perseverance won out as he took the checkered flag to capture his third NCS title.
Christian Eckes makes his debut in the Championship 4 as an absolute favorite to hoist his first series trophy.
Not only is he coming off a dramatic win in last weekend’s Martinsville (Va.) Speedway race, but he is also the only one among the four title contenders to have a past win at the Phoenix Raceway mile—claiming the trophy last year although he wasn’t part of the Championship 4.
BRISTOL, Tenn. – In racing, luck is often just as important as skill. That was the case for William Sawalich on Thursday night at Bristol Motor Speedway.
Not only did Sawalich win the Bush’s Beans 200 for the second straight season at Bristol, but he also won his second ARCA Menards Series East championship thanks to a stroke of bad luck for title rival Connor Zilisch, who entered the East Series season finale with a 16-point lead.
“We had a really fast Starkey-Soundgear Toyota Camry today,” Sawalich said. “I had Tony Hirschman in my ear just to kind of calm me down and make me be cautious around those lap cars. That was definitely the whole race right there.”
The Alpine A110 Rallye GT+ secured its first overall victory in the French Rally Championship on Rallye Mont-Blanc Morzine.
Nine-time world rally champion Sébastien Loeb and co-driver Laurène Godey gave the A-arrow brand its first overall win since the 2021 Rallye Antibes Côte d’Azur.
Alpine also won in the French Two-Wheel Drive Rally Championship with the A110 Rally of Yann Clairay and Gilles De Turckheim, winners on the return to action of the Alpine ELF Rally Trophy. (more…)
At Watkins Glen, there won’t be one “1/4 ley” racing, but two of them! Welcome to the ARCA Menards Series Alex Quarterley. Alex will be racing alongside his father Dale Quarterley at Watkins Glen for the General Tire 100 on September 13th. The 30-year-old driver from Westfield, Massachusetts has a racing background that goes back to go-karts, motorcycles, as well as getting his feet wet in the late model scene recently.
While his father Dale will be in the #4 car, Alex will be in a 2nd 1/4 ley Racing entry, the #3. Alex’s effort in the #3 will be run under the Mullins Racing banner though using their owner points, and Willie Mullins himself will be serving as crew chief for the car. Van Dyk Recycling will be serving as the primary sponsor for both cars while Applewood Controls, Motul Oil, Motorcycles 508, Walker Furniture will be amongst the associate sponsors for the cars. Alex and Dale will become the 2nd father-son duo to race in ARCA this year after Brian and Alex Clubb both drove a few races together.
Three-time NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour champion Justin Bonsignore is not only racing in Saturday’s Mohegan Sun 100 – of which he is the defending winner – but he is also making his NASCAR Xfinity Series debut in the SciAps 200 piloting the No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota.
Oliver Solberg is a double BAUHAUS Royal Rally of Scandinavia winner after he outpaced his rivals in a high-speed battle for FIA European Rally Championship glory. (more…)
LOUDON, N.H. – NASCAR Cup Series (NCS) driver Martin Truex Jr. earned his first Loudon the Lobster at New Hampshire Motor Speedway (NHMS) in 2023, and he’s looking to capture another on June 23 at the USA TODAY 301. Truex, who finally landed in victory lane last year after his 30th start at “The Magic Mile,” spoke to media Wednesday in advance of New England’s only NASCAR weekend. (more…)
(Stafford Springs, CT)—With 81 career feature wins, Keith Rocco is one of the winningest drivers in Stafford Speedway history, trailing only Ted Christopher with 131 wins, Woody Pitkat with 83 wins, and Tom Fearn with 82 wins. Among his 81 career wins, Rocco has won just about everything there is to win at Stafford with the exception of the NAPA Spring Sizzler® and the NAPA SK 5k.
Bob Tasca III will drive a Ford Motorsports-themed Dark Horse Funny Car in 2024, but the reality is that the NHRA frontrunner will be anything but a dark horse. (more…)
Ryan Blaney didn’t need to win the race at Phoenix, he just needed to finish ahead of his three competitors to win the title. And that’s exactly what he did, holding off Kyle Larson (P3), William Byron (P4) and Christopher Bell (P36).
ENNIS, Texas _ Ford Racing loyalist Bob Tasca III and a veteran crew he playfully has dubbed “The Outcasts” continue to shake-up NHRA’s Funny Car pecking order.
The current “Big Three” features three-time Funny Car world champions Ron Capps, Matt Hagan and Robert Hight, respectively representing OEMs Toyota, Dodge and Chevrolet. For the record, their combined nine titles still are overshadowed by drag racing icon John Force’s massive 16. (more…)
It appears there is a new road course ringer in the NASCAR Xfinity Series – JR Motorsports’ Sam Mayer. The 20-year-old driver, Mayer, had a dominate performance on the Charlotte Motor Speedway Road Course, leading 50 of the 67 laps and snagging the win by .909 seconds over runner-up Cole Custer.
Last week Denny Hamlin led a lot of laps and left without a win. This week the same thing occurred, but at the end saw him win as an owner with Tyler Reddick leading just two laps, but the most important two laps.
It looked like this was a race that had Denny Hamlin written all over it. He signed a nice extension with Joe Gibbs Racing, he started on the front row, won both Stages and he led 177 laps. I mean, you could just write this one early and go to bed, right?
Nope.
Fort Kent, Maine’s Austin Theriault hasn’t run a long-distance auto race since Oct. 14, 2019. That’s when he was injured in a wreck during the NASCAR Monster Energy Cup Series 1000Bulbs.com 500 at Talladega Superspeedway in Alabama. (more…)
Andrea Crugnola has made it five different winners in this season’s FIA European Rally Championship with a charging drive to victory on Rally di Roma Capitale today (Sunday).
Crugnola had come agonisingly close to winning his home ERC round on two previous occasions only to be denied through no fault of his own. (more…)
