Kevin Harvick lay in wait, just like a predatory shark. When the opportunity to seal the deal presented itself late in the race, he was there to feast on the mistakes of others. Could you say Harvick stole this race? (more…)
Martin Truex
Harvick and Hamlin Battle at the Monster Mile
Denny Hamlin and Kevin Harvick took home top honors this weekend at the Monster Mile. The two championship contenders battled it out, splitting the double header in dominant fashion. (more…)
Kevin Harvick Sweeps Michigan…. Where Will Erik Jones Wind Up?
Michigan might be an historically good track for Joe Gibbs Racing, but as I alluded to last week, they all had to beat Kevin Harvick. That proved to be a tall order. (more…)
NASCAR Presents…. The Brad And Denny Show
While it wasn’t necessarily a race of follow the leader all day, it sure was a statement race by two of the most dominant drivers on the track today, Denny Hamlin and Brad Keselowski. (more…)
Chase Wins One (In A/For A) Million; Austin Wins at Texas
It was another fun-filled week of racing with the All Star race Wednesday night at Bristol and the Cup race at Texas. Chase Elliott won an entertaining but anticlimactic All Star race. Bristol proved it is an All Star caliber track that offered a different style of racing than Charlotte, as if there was really any doubt. (more…)
Cole Custer is the First Rookie to Win at Kentucky
In a surprising finish, rookie Cole Custer stole the show from the veteran drivers on the final restart to win not only his first Cup race, but he became the first rookie to win at Kentucky. All past winners at Kentucky Speedway are Cup champions, which could speak to Custer’s future. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves here.
Truex and Hamlin Win (While NASCAR Is Changing Before Our Eyes)
With weekday races nearly at end, this week we saw Martin Truex, Jr. win at Bristol and Denny Hamlin winning at Homestead. This was the first win of the season for Truex and Hamlin has now notched three wins to lead all drivers. (more…)
Martin Truex Jr. – No. 19 Auto-Owners Insurance Toyota Camry Preview – Food City Presents Supermarket Heroes 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway
No. 19 Auto-Owners Insurance Toyota Camry News and Notes
- TRUEX AT BRISTOL: Martin Truex Jr. has earned two top-five finishes and three top-10s in NASCAR Cup Series competition at Bristol Motor Speedway. Most recently, Truex matched his career-best starting position (third) and led 52 laps when the Cup Series visited the ‘World’s Fastest Half-Mile’ last August. He posted finishes of 17th and 13th in two starts at Bristol in 2019 despite running in the top five during both events.
- CHARLOTTE RECAP: Truex claimed a pair of top-10 finishes in two starts at Charlotte Motor Speedway earlier this week. In the Coca-Cola 600, he ran inside the top five throughout the race before ultimately finishing sixth. On Thursday night, Truex battled a loose handling condition throughout the race and ran as low as 28th before mounting a late charge to finish ninth.
- BREAKTHROUGH MOMENT: In March 2004, Bristol Motor Speedway played host to Truex’s first NASCAR national series victory when he won the NASCAR Xfinity Series race. He led a race-high 134 laps that afternoon and fended off Kevin Harvick and Kyle Busch for the first of six victories during his 2004 Xfinity Series championship season.
- SINCE THE RETURN TO RACING: The No. 19 team is tied for the most points scored since NASCAR’s return to racing on May 17. Counting the two Darlington races and a pair of events at Charlotte, Truex and overall points leader Kevin Harvick have each earned 167 points. Over that stretch, Truex jumped from 15th to seventh in the series standings.
- STRONG IN THE STAGES: Through eight races, Truex ranks second in stage points. His 92 stage points trail only Alex Bowman in that category.
- NASCAR LOOP DATA: According to NASCAR’s Loop Data, Truex ranks seventh or better in multiple categories. He leads all drivers as being the fastest on restarts. The No. 19 driver is also fourth in fastest laps run and percentage of laps run on the lead lap. Additionally, he is fifth in fastest drivers early in a run and sixth in average running position, green flag speed, laps in the top 15, laps led and speed by segment. Truex currently has the seventh-best driver rating.
- AUTO-OWNERS: Sunday marks the first race this season that Auto-Owners Insurance will be featured as primary sponsor of Truex’s No. 19 Camry. The Lansing, Michigan-based company offers multiple lines of insurance, including life, home, auto and business to customers in 26 states. In their first season with Joe Gibbs Racing, Auto-Owners was on board for monumental moments like Truex’s first victory for the team at Richmond in April, his 500th career start at Michigan in August and the No. 19 team’s dominant Martinsville win that propelled them to a Championship 4 appearance.
- JGR AT BRISTOL: Joe Gibbs Racing owns 13 NASCAR Cup Series victories at Bristol Motor Speedway, including both races last season and four of the past five overall. In 138 combined starts, the organization has amassed 34 top-five finishes, 52 top-10s, 11 pole awards and 5,833 laps led the .533-mile concrete oval. Kyle Busch, Carl Edwards, Denny Hamlin, Matt Kenseth and Tony Stewart have each raced JGR entries to victory lane at Bristol.
- TUNE IN: Coverage of this weekend’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Bristol Motor Speedway begins Sunday at 3:30 p.m. ET on FOX Sports 1, PRN Radio and Sirius XM NASCAR Radio.
Martin Truex Jr., Driver of the No. 19 Auto-Owners Insurance Toyota Camry
Talk about going to Bristol on Sunday and racing with no practice…
“Bristol is always wild, so you go in there expecting anything can and probably will happen. Going there without practice and running the low downforce package will be exciting and a challenge for everyone for sure. I feel like we’ve actually ran pretty well there the last few times and just crazy stuff happens to knock us out of contention. We just need to be able to put a full race together without any mistakes. If we can do that, I feel good about our chances to have a solid day.”
Truex NASCAR Cup Series Stats at Bristol Motor Speedway
| Starts | Wins | Top 5 | Top 10 | Poles | Laps Led | Avg. Start | Avg. Finish | ||||||||
| 28 | 0 | 2 | 3 | 0 | 282 | 16.0 | 20.6 |
Truex 2020 NASCAR Cup Series Season Stats
| Starts | Wins | Top 5 | Top 10 | Poles | Laps Led | Avg. Start | Avg. Finish | ||||||||
| 8 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 118 | 15.0 | 16.1 |
Truex NASCAR Cup Series Career Stats
| Starts | Wins | Top 5 | Top 10 | Poles | Laps Led | Avg. Start | Avg. Finish | ||||||||
| 521 | 26 | 102 | 209 | 19 | 9,024 | 14.4 | 15.7 |
About Auto-Owners Insurance
Established in 1916 and headquartered in Lansing, Michigan, Auto-Owners Insurance Group is the 15th-largest property/casualty insurance group in the nation, based on written premium of over $7.4 billion. The company also ranks 375th on the Fortune 500 list. Auto-Owners is one of nine insurance carrier groups in the U.S. to receive the highest rating possible, A++ Superior, by A.M. Best, which is a nationally recognized rating agency for insurance companies. Auto-Owners offers auto, home, business and life insurance through more than 44,000 licensed independent agents in its 26 operating states. Auto-Owners owns Atlantic Casualty Insurance Company which sells excess and surplus lines polices in 49 states and is affiliated with Concord General Mutual which sells property & casualty products in four states. Auto-Owners employs over 5,000 associates nationwide. Find your agent at auto-owners.com, and connect with Auto-Owners Insurance on Facebook and Twitter (@AutoOwnersIns).
Erik Jones – No. 20 CRAFTSMAN Toyota Camry Preview (NCS) – Charlotte Motor Speedway
No. 20 CRAFTSMAN Toyota Camry News and Notes:
- JONES AT CHARLOTTE MOTOR SPEEDWAY: Erik Jones will make his sixth Cup Series start at the 1.5-mile Charlotte Motor Speedway on Wednesday night for the Alsco 500(k). In his previous five starts at the track in the Cup Series, Jones best finish is seventh during his first appearance in the Coca-Cola 600 in 2017. In addition to his Cup starts, Jones has five Xfinity Series starts at the track earning a best finish of second in 2015. In his lone Truck Series start at track, Jones led 88 laps before falling to second to Kasey Kahne in one of the closest finishes in Truck Series history.
- JGR AT CHARLOTTE MOTOR SPEEDWAY: Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR) has 134 total starts at Charlotte Motor Speedway in Cup Series competition. In those starts, the team has earned seven wins, 52 top-five finishes, 80 top-10 finishes and 10 pole starting positions. The team has led 3,760 laps, completed 46,965 of 48,727 attempted laps (96.4%) and earned an average start of 12.1 and an average finish of 11.7. Bobby Labonte leads the team with two wins followed by Dale Jarrett, Tony Stewart, Carl Edwards, Kyle Busch and Martin Truex, Jr. all with one win each.
- STARTING LINEUP: For the Alsco 500(k) at Charlotte Motor Speedway, Jones will start the race from the eighth position. The top 20 finishers from the Coca-Cola 600 will be inverted to set the top 20 starting positions for Wednesday night’s race. By virtue of his 11th-place finish, Jones earned the 10th starting position.
- THIS WEEK ON THE NO. 20 CAMRY: This weekend, the No. 20 Toyota Camry will carry the classic red and black CRAFTSMAN paint scheme for the first time this season.
- POINTS UPDATE: With his 11th-place finish in the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, Jones gained two positions in the point standings to secure the 13th position.
- COCA-COLA 600 RECAP: Qualifying in the 14th position, Jones ran as high as second in the Coca-Cola 600 before finishing the race in the 11th position.
- RACE INFO: The Alsco 500 (k) at Charlotte Motor Speedway is scheduled for Wednesday, May 27, 2020. Coverage will begin at 8:00 p.m. ET on Fox Sports 1, Sirius XM Channel 90 and PRN Radio.
Jones Career NASCAR Cup Series Stats at Charlotte Motor Speedway:
| Starts | Wins | Top 5 | Top 10 | Poles | Laps Led | Avg. Start | Avg. Finish |
| 5 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 15.4 | 19.0 |
Jones 2020 Season NASCAR Cup Series Stats:
| Starts | Wins | Top 5 | Top 10 | Poles | Laps Led | Avg. Start | Avg. Finish |
| 7 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 27 | 16.7 | 14.9 |
Jones Career NASCAR Cup Series Stats:
| Starts | Wins | Top 5 | Top 10 | Poles | Laps Led | Avg. Start | Avg. Finish |
| 118 | 2 | 25 | 52 | 2 | 609 | 13.4 | 15.9 |
From the Driver’s Seat: Erik Jones
Erik Jones: “I’m looking forward to getting back to Charlotte for race two. The 600 was a good race for us most of the night. We were pretty strong and ran up front. We had a car that I thought was good enough to contend for a while, unfortunately, we lost the handle late in the race and fell back towards the end. I think we learned a lot though about the track and how it changed and what we need to do to be fast and how our car handled through the night. Hopefully we make some good changes for Wednesday night. It’s a short race, so we aren’t really going to have an opportunity to work on the car as the night goes. We’re going to have what we have when we start and as the race gets going. I’m looking forward to it. Charlotte has been a fun track for me. We’ve had some fast cars there so we can hopefully put it all together and have a good finish at the end of the night.”
About CRAFTSMAN:
CRAFTSMAN is the American icon that homeowners, home builders, auto enthusiasts and master mechanics have trusted since 1927 – and today’s CRAFTSMAN continues that legacy. With a focus on reliable, high-performance tools, storage and equipment, CRAFTSMAN has revived its long-established pride in superior quality. Now it’s easier than ever to get the tools trusted for generations at more places than ever. For more information visit www.craftsman.com or follow CRAFTSMAN on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
Brad Keselowski Wins Rain-Delayed Coca-Cola 600
After a 68 minute rain delay, the Cup drivers got back to it with few cautions until the very end when the final caution came out with Chase Elliott on his way to what appeared to be Victory Lane. (more…)