GREENSBORO, N.C. -- Dale Earnhardt Jr. may not be competing in NASCAR's Sprint Cup Series as the 2016 season begins to wind down, but the series' most popular driver still has plenty to keep him busy.
"Going to the races, doing all my (sponsor) appearances, doing everything I was doing before, just not driving," Earnhardt said Wednesday during a stop at the corporate headquarters of Wrangler.
"Take the driving part out of it and everything else I'm still doing."
Earnhardt was joined by team owner Richard Childress to help kick off the second annual "Jeansboro Day" celebration and reminisce about the long relationship Wranger has enjoyed with Childress and Earnhardt.
Earnhardt has been sidelined since midseason after suffering concussion-like symptoms following a pair of crashes. In his absence, drivers Jeff Gordon and Alex Bowman have handled the driving duties in the Hendrick Motorsports No. 88 Chevrolet.
After missing two races in 2012, this marks the second time in his premier series career that Earnhardt has missed races due to a concussion or concussion-like symptoms.
Although he won't be back behind the wheel this season, Earnhardt told the crowd that he plans to be back in the car when the 2017 season gets underway atDaytona International Speedway.
"It's coming along pretty good," Earnhardt said when asked about his recovery. "We got dinged up, had a lot of wrecks this year, got dinged up pretty good. …
"(I'm) starting to feel real good, starting to be able to get out and do things, enjoy myself.
"I miss being in the car but we have every expectation of being in the car come February for the Daytona 500."
The Sprint Cup Series heads to Talladega Superspeedway this weekend for Sunday's Hellman's 500 (2 p.m. ET, NBCSN, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). It is the final race of the Round of 12 in this year's Chase, with only the top eight advancing to the next round.
Earnhardt, who has six career victories on the 2.66-mile track, said he plans to be at Talladega "all three days."
On his promotional tour for his new book "Jeff Gordon: His Dream, Drive & Destiny", Jeff Gordon sat down with SiriusXM Shade 45 host Sway Calloway for his radio show, "Sway in the Morning".
Gordon was an open book in the interview, no pun intended.
He talked about everything from his early start in auto racing, to his days of break dancing as a kid in California, and more.
When a comment was made about how open Gordon was in his book, he elaborated on its purpose to be a reflective chapter for his fans of his NASCAR career.
"This book happened because it’s not just the 23-year NASCAR career, this all started when I was 5 or 6 years old," Gordon said on Shade 45. "This gets very in-depth and even my parents showed a lot of how the process started to get me into a race car. There was a lot going on with my mom and dad then, too.
"I like to be transparent and open. Knowing my career was ending in 2015, I wanted to bookend it with this, and we had the opportunity to talk about some fun and exciting moments but also some of the adversity."
The entirety of the interview hasn't been released outside of SiriusXM but will likely be posted on the Sway in the Morning YouTube channel later today or tomorrow.
During a break in the segment, Sway played hip-hop artist Nelly's 2000 song, "E.I." which features a line about Gordon.
When the song ended, Jeff rapped the part featuring his name -- "I'm flashy, double takes when you walk past me, nasty, don't be scared boo, go 'head and ask me, I drive fastly, call me Jeff Gordon in the black SS with the navigation."
And afterward, Gordon said he wasn't even aware of the song when it released, despite liking Nelly's music.
"I didn’t even know about being in that song until hearing it," Gordon said. "I was living in Florida at the time and some family members in California called me and told me to listen to the song. I thought 'that is awesome, that is so badass'. After that, I went to Nelly’s concert and met him and told him how amazing it was that he'd do that.'
Jeff jokingly added, "I know one thing I definitely took full advantage of it when I was in the clubs."
To hear more from Jeff, check out his appearance with NASCAR Race Hub’s Danielle Trotta and Kaitlyn Vincie on their new weekly digital show, "Off Track", which premieres today, Oct. 18 at 3:30 p.m. ET on Facebook Live. To watch live, go to the NASCAR on Fox Facebook page.
International
Speedway Corp. held its conference call with investor analysts Thursday
morning to detail results from the third quarter.
ISC hosted four Sprint Cup weekends
during the third quarter, which ended Aug. 31 — two races at Michigan,
Daytona in July and Watkins Glen. For the full financial report, go here.
Among the items mentioned in the nearly hour-long conference call:
— Admissions for comparable Cup events
was up about 1 percent compared to the same time last year. This was
mostly attributed to the Daytona race in July. In 2015, the seating
capacity was reduced to about 50,000 for the Daytona summer race as
construction continued on the grandstand. The stadium debuted at this
year’s Daytona 500 with 101,500 seats.
— Watkins Glen had a second consecutive sellout this year.
— Michigan International Speedway saw admission declines for both its Sprint Cup events.
— The average ticket price for the four
Cup races at ISC tracks in the third quarter was $83.11. That’s an
increase of about 8 percent from the same period last year. The increase
was mainly generated by the new seating and pricing at Daytona.
— The average ticket price for all Cup
races at ISC tracks through the first nine months of the year is $96.14.
That’s an increase of about 8 percent, also driven by pricing at
Daytona.
— For the fourth quarter, ISC reported
lower attendance-related revenue for Cup weekends at Darlington,
Richmond and Chicagoland Speedway. Advance sales for the remaining
events at ISC tracks (Kansas, Talladega, Martinsville, Phoenix and
Homestead) are down 10 percent on average. ISC officials anticipate a
sellout for the season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
— In response to a question about
admissions and the future of the sport, John Saunders, president of ISC,
said on the call: “On the attendance side, we’re doing a number of
things internally where we are looking at the next generation of fans
and how we reach them. We’ve talked before about aging fans, avid fans
that are aging out. We have repositioned resources within the company
and are currently working through and resourcing how we recruit the next
generation of fans. We’ve got to be very aggressive in the next phrase
and we are. We’re ramping it up more than ever. … We’ve got great
racing, but we’ve got to get these folks to the track, we’ve got to get
them exposed to the live experience and from there we’ll build
retention.’’
— In response to another question about attendance, Saunders noted the changing landscape of Cup drivers (both Jeff Gordon and Tony Stewart are scheduled to drive their final Sprint Cup races this season). Saunders said: “We find ourselves in the sport with star-power
opportunities, I won’t call them challenges, I will call them
opportunities. We have a generation of drivers who are starting to
retire and we believe that’s having an impact. … What’s key for us on
the attendance side is to stay focused on our consumer strategies,
really, really honing in on the live entertainment value of these
events, the social experience of these events and building that driver
connectivity, star power, we’ve got great drivers coming up through the
ranks.’’
— ISC exceeded its corporate sales target by about 12 percent from 2015.
— From 2017-2021, ISC plans to spend $500
million on capital expenditures. ISC has stated that redevelopment
construction at Phoenix International Raceway will begin in 2017 and
continue through late 2018.
— Daytona International Speedway’s stands suffered no structural damage from Hurricane Matthew.
Martinsville Speedway will add lights next season, track officials announced Wednesday.
Construction is scheduled to begin the day after the Oct. 30 Sprint Cup race at the 0.526-mile oval. The track will be the first motorsports facility to have LED lighting. There will be 14 poles installed.
Clay Campbell, president of Martinsville Speedway, said the lights will be used as an “insurance policy” in case the race is delayed or goes later into the afternoon. In the Nov. 1, 2015 race, Jeff Gordon won as darkness enveloped the track.
“If we would have had one more delay, we wouldn’t have finished that race,” said Campbell, who estimated the project will cost $5 million and added it would be paid for by International Speedway Corp., which owns the track. “It’s important and critical we get those races finished.”
“I think it’s great for the racetrack, and it opens up a ton of possibility for the track itself,” he said. “Martinsville is one of the very best short tracks in the country. It’s awesome, and it’s been a long time coming.
“I would say I would love to have a night race here any day of the week. Short-track racing is what this sport was born on.”
The move comes as the track prepares to celebrate its 70th anniversary next year.
The 2017 race times have been set. Martinsville’s April 3 race will be at 2 p.m. ET and the Oct. 30 race will start at 1 p.m. ET
With Martinsville adding lights, tracks that host Sprint Cup races that don’t have lights are Dover International Speedway, Talladega Superspeedway, New Hampshire Motor Speedway, Pocono Raceway, Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Watkins Glen International and Sonoma Raceway.
Four-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion and FOX NASCAR analyst Jeff Gordon will make a guest appearance on 'LIVE with Kelly.'
Gordon will join Kelly Ripa and guest co-host, singer/songwriter Ciara, on the show Wednesday, Oct. 19.
Over the course of his career, Gordon has been a frequent guest on the show filmed in New York City.
Gordon will sub for Dale Earnhardt Jr. for the final time this
season in the No. 88 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet at Martinsville
Speedway on Oct. 23.
When a grand marshal is usually announced
for a NASCAR race, it’s normally an actor promoting a movie or an
executive for a race sponsor no one remembers once the green flag drops. The NASCAR Whelen Euro Series will have a grand marshal to remember for its season finale in the Elite 1 series. Jeff Gordon,
four-time Sprint Cup champion and 93-time winner, will give the command
to start engines for the race at Zolder Circuit in Zolder, Belgium on
Oct. 9. “I’ve been to Zolder before, and I am really looking forward to
seeing the NASCAR Euro Series race there,” said Gordon in a press
release. “I’ve become friends with (series points leader) Anthony Kumpen and I’ve heard great things about the series popularity. I’m looking forward to seeing it first hand.” Belgium is also the home country of Gordon’s wife of 10 years, Ingrid Vandebosch. The Elite 1 series is the one that NASCAR Next member Alon Day competes in and has three wins. “This is a great honor for everybody involved in the NASCAR Whelen
Euro Series,” said Jerome Galpin, NASCAR Whelen Euro Series President /
CEO in the release. “We are extremely proud to be part of the NASCAR
family. We have developed a really amazing relationship in few years.
Our drivers receive a great welcome every time they race in the USA and
we are pleased to welcome more and more drivers and personalities
visiting us from the USA. This Atlantic ocean becomes definitely smaller
day after day.” Gordon’s trip to Zolder comes a week after earning a top-10 finish at Dover International Speedway in a substitute effort in the No. 88 of Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Gordon is scheduled for one more start in the Sprint Cup Series this
year at Martinsville Speedway, where he won last year before retiring
from full-time racing.
Martin Truex Jr. won the last visit to Charlotte when he led 392 laps and won the Coca-Cola 600. Joey Logano won the fall race last year to start a sweep of the second round of the Chase for the Sprint Cup.
DOVER, Del. — Jeff Gordon climbed from his car after 400 miles at Dover International Speedway and exhaled.
“Whew.’’
His first top-10 finish since returning to fill in for Dale Earnhardt Jr. provided a sense of excitement and pride for the four-time series champion.
He had come close before, scoring an 11th
at Bristol, but Sunday gave Gordon his 476th career top-10 finish and
also marked the first time he’s led laps, leading seven circuits.
“I felt like we had a really good race
car all weekend long,’’ Gordon told NBC Sports after the race. “I
realized real early on we were going to have our work cut out for us,
starting 18th. It was really tough getting through traffic. I kind of
led them down a path. We were loose that first run and over-tightened it
and that didn’t do us any favors. But we got it tuned up and had some
great pit stops and got our way into the top 10.’’
With Earnhardt, who is out the rest of
the season because of a concussion, watching from the team’s pit box,
Gordon took the lead on Lap 373. Gordon climbed to the front when crew
chief Greg Ives kept him out as the rest of the field pitted. When the
team didn’t get a caution, Gordon had to pit. He returned 12th and
gained two spots in the final laps.
“I loved the risk, I loved the play and the guys were really solid all day and all weekend long,’’ Gordon said.
Gordon’s run leaves him with one race
left. He’ll return to Martinsville Speedway later this month, a year
after his final Sprint Cup victory. Unless something changes,
Martinsville will become the site of Gordon’s 805th and final Sprint Cup
start on Oct. 30.
“I wanted to get a top-10 in this car
before my time in the car is over,’’ Gordon said of the No. 88
Chevrolet. “We got that. Now let’s go get a top five or something better
at Martinsville.’’
Jimmie Johnson is the leader at the halfway point of the Citizen Soldier 400 at Dover International Speedway. Johnson started eighth and has led 11 of 200 laps. He took the lead on a restart on Lap 190, passing Martin Truex Jr. Truex started second and has led 81 laps. He took the lead for the first time on Lap 6, passing pole-sitter Brad Keselowski. Kyle Busch is the only other driver to lead during the first half of the event. Busch has led twice for 102 laps. Chase drivers were eight of the top 10 at halfway with Johnson leading Truex, Keselowski, Matt Kenseth, Busch, Chase Elliott, Joey Logano, Denny Hamlin, Kasey Kahne, and Jeff Gordon. There have been four cautions in the first 200 laps. Chase driver Kevin Harvick,
who already is locked into the Round of 12 after winning last weekend
at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, brought out the first caution on Lap 33
when he suffered a broken track bar mount. Following repairs in the
garage, Harvick returned to the race on Lap 77 and was running 39th, 44
laps down at halfway. Under the same caution, Chase driver Kyle Larson
lost power in his No. 42 Chevrolet and had to be pushed to pit road.
Larson lost a lap while the team worked on the car and then was called
for a pass-through penalty for having too many crew members over the
wall. The second caution was for Ryan Blaney,
who blew a tire coming off Turn 2 on Lap 104. Larson then brought out
the third caution when he blew a tire on Lap 182. The fourth caution was
for Larson’s teammate, Jamie McMurray, who blew an engine on Lap 193.
Martin Truex Jr. further established himself as championship favorite by dominating the Citizen Soldier 400 at Dover International Speedway. Already locked into the Round of 12 following a victory in the Chase
opener at Chicagoland Speedway, Truex picked up his second win of in the
first round after leading 187 of 400 laps Sunday afternoon. The victory
is the second at Dover for Truex, a New Jersey native, who earned his
first career win at his home track in June of 2007. It is also his seventh career win and fourth of the season. Truex
finished first, seventh, and first in the Chase’s first three races
while leading a total of 360 laps. “We’re not messing around, I guess,” Truex told NBC Sports of his
first round performance. “I don’t know. What else can you say? We are
here to get it done and golly, the best bunch of guys you could ever ask
for and just amazing to drive their racecars and do what we’re able to
do. I’m just ecstatic.” MORE: Results and statistics from the Citizen Soldier 400 at Dover MORE: Martin Truex Jr. takes point lead after Dover win Truex took control of the race after Jimmie Johnson,
who led 90 laps, was penalized for having too many crew members over
the wall during a round of green flag pit stops on Lap 280. Johnson had
been leading at the time but would finish seventh, the first car one lap
down. The No. 78 of Truex then took the lead for the final time on Lap 374
after the race’s final round of pit stops. His margin of victory was
seven seconds over Toyota teammate, Kyle Busch. The top five were Truex, Busch, Chase Elliott, Brad Keselowski, and Matt Kenseth. The first four drivers eliminated from the Chase were Tony Stewart, Kyle Larson, Jamie McMurray, and Chris Buescher. HOW TRUEX WON: Truex cycled to the race lead by seven seconds with 26 laps to go following the final round of pit stops. WHO ELSE HAD A GOOD RACE: Chase Elliott earned his
second top-five finish in the Chase with a third-place run … Team Penske
put both cars in the top-10 with pole-sitter Brad Keselowski finishing
fourth and Joey Logano finishing sixth … Jimmie Johnson recovered from a pit road penalty to finish seventh … Jeff Gordon earned his first top-10 finish in the No. 88 car with a 10th-place effort. WHO HAD A BAD RACE: Kyle Larson finished 25th, six
laps down after losing power in his Chevrolet, being issued a pit road
penalty, and hitting the wall … Kevin Harvick broke a track bar mount and finished 37th … Ryan Blaney blew a tire and finished 38th … Jamie McMurray blew an engine and finished last, 40th. NOTABLE: With his fourth win at Dover, Truex is now
tied with Brad Keselowski and Kyle Busch for the most in the series.
Dover is also the first track where Truex has scored multiple race wins.
Truex has also now led more laps in the last six races (588) than each
of his prior seasons entering 2016. QUOTE OF THE DAY: “It feels good. Now it’s time to
knock some more of these guys out because we’ve got this opportunity and
I’m going to say we’re going to be the underdog in this next round, so
let’s go do it.” — Austin Dillon on advancing to the Round of 12 in the Chase. WHAT’S NEXT: The Round of 12 begins at Charlotte Motor Speedway with the Bank of America 500 on Oct. 8 at 7 p.m. ET on NBC.
NORTH WILKESBORO, N.C. -- Paint peels and memories fade but the echoes of the past still ring off the hillsides here.
Twenty years ago today, the checkered flag fell on the final NASCAR premier series race at North Wilkesboro Speedway.
Bob Flock won the first race, in 1949 and on dirt. Jeff Gordon won the last, in 1996 and on asphalt. The two races serve as bookends for a track that even after 20 years of silence serves as a reminder of the sport's colorful past.
For 48 years and 93 races, NASCAR teams made the trek to the secluded .625-mile track in the Brushy Mountains of northwestern North Carolina.
"It's one of the sport's most historic tracks, one that really helped put NASCAR on the map," car owner Richard Childress said. "A lot of people overlook that. But a lot of great things happened there. (Former series sponsor) R.J. Reynolds really supported it; Holly Farms back in the day … all those things were important to building our sport to what it is today."
Built by Wilkes County resident Enoch Staley and partners Lawson Curry and Jack and Charlie Combs, North Wilkesboro Speedway was a venue unlike any other -- in part because the front straightaway ran slightly downhill and the backstretch uphill.
It opened in 1947, two years before the debut of NASCAR's Strictly Stock Series, and hosted its first NASCAR premier series event in October of '49.
The Wilkes 200 featured a 22-car field and was the final race of the inaugural season for NASCAR's new featured series. Flock won the race but it was Red Byron, finishing 16th, who captured the series' first championship.
RELATED: Veterans share fond memories of track
'I felt like I was lost'
Thirty-eight drivers made it to Victory Lane at North Wilkesboro through the years, including 19 members currently in the NASCAR Hall of Fame. Richard Petty mastered the track, winning a record 15 times; Darrell Waltrip won 10 times.
No active full-time driver competing in the premier series today made a single start at the track.
Gordon was the last to win at North Wilkesboro in NASCAR's top division and the last active driver to compete there.
"I saw somewhere this year the last eight laps or so of the (final) race," Gordon told NASCAR.com. "That's the cool thing about it. If you look at the cars, there were no splitters, the air dams weren't on the ground, nothing was all sealed up. It was all about mechanical grip. Springs and shocks played a role. The driver played a role. Managing the tires and the brakes played a role. It was nice to be able to go there and focus on those things.
"North Wilkesboro was probably one of the most challenging short tracks that we went to. Hard to get ahold of, very slick, really unique. The banking and radius of the corners as well as the uphill, downhill aspect of it. It was just really old school. Very old school and I felt like I was lost the first couple of times that I went there.
"That's why that pole meant a lot to me the year before, because I felt like 'Boy, I don't know if I have what it takes to get around this track' and then the next year to win the race? I'm sure that's what was going through my mind; I thought I'd never win at this place."
Ray Evernham helped guide Gordon to three championships as crew chief of the No. 24 Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports. But it took some doing, and eight career starts, before the duo solved the riddle of the unique little track.
"I just loved that place," Evernham said. "The fact that it would change throughout the day and you really had to manage your car and you really, honestly, had to worry about mechanical grip back then. The fact that it was two completely different corners. Any of the tracks that had a real history to me and were real challenging were tracks I really wanted to win at. Just because of the design and surface (at North Wilkesboro), it didn't matter if you had a good motor, none of that mattered.
"It was really about the pureness of what stock car racing was -- you had to get your car to handle, you had to get your driver to hang in there, your pit crew guys had to be good. It wasn't about all the latest and greatest technology; it was about pure racing."
The first race NASCAR race at North Wilkesboro came in 1949 -- and it was on dirt.
Through the years
North Wilkesboro Speedway was the site of so much throughout its four-plus decades as a part of NASCAR's annual schedule. Close finishes and close calls; rivalries renewed and rivalries begun; and at least one finish that's memorable because it wasn't close at all.
Just a few that stand out:
• The spring race of 1955, the Wilkes County 160, saw Buck Baker edge Dick Rathmann for the win. The margin of victory, officially 3 feet, was the closest winning margin in the seven-year history of the series.
• Two years later, in the spring of 1957, Fireball Roberts won the 100-mile race without making a single pit stop. The big news, though, was that this was the last race on dirt at North Wilkesboro.
• Lee Petty's first North Wilkesboro win came in 1959. And it was his only victory with the Petty Enterprises' No. 43, a number later made somewhat famous by his son, Richard.
• The win for Junior Johnson in October of 1965 was the hometown favorite's 50th and final as a driver. In all, Johnson won four times at North Wilkesboro. His teams went on to earn 15 more victories with the Ingle Hollow, North Carolina, native as an owner.
• On Oct. 1, 1967, Richard Petty won the Wilkes 400 for his 10th consecutive victory and his 27th on the season. Both records remain unmatched.
• Another Petty item -- this one involving Bobby Allison, who was one of the King's biggest rivals back in the day -- took place in '72.
"There wasn't a winner's circle; you just stopped on the race track," Petty's championship winning crew chief Dale Inman recalled. "I guess Richard and Bobby, the last five or six laps got to bumping each other; got to bumping each other pretty hard.
"We just stopped on the race track and that was the winner's circle. Richard got out of the car and handed Maurice (Petty, Richard's brother and the team's engine builder) his helmet and somebody came up and put their hands on Richard. Maurice hit him right in the face with the helmet.
"When Maurice hit him, he staggered over and I caught him. He said, 'What'd he hit me for?' I said, 'Hell, I don't know.' "
• In 1989, Goodyear officials successfully debuted the company's radial race tire in a race won by Dale Earnhardt.
Earnhardt won five times at North Wilkesboro and finished second on six occasions. It was a rare race that didn't see the "Intimidator" in contention, much as Waltrip and Petty had been dominant earlier.
RELATED: How end of "tire war" started at track
Dale Earnhardt won five times at North Wilkesboro, including the 1989 race that ushered in the ending of the "tire war."
Earnhardt passed us so often one time there we thought there were two of 'em on the track," said Wood Brothers Racing co-owner Eddie Wood.
• The Tyson Holly Farms 400 in 1994 featured only one driver on the lead lap at the finish -- race winner Geoffrey Bodine. It was the last premier series event in which the winner lapped the entire field.
• Terry Labonte tied Richard Petty's consecutive starts record at North Wilkesboro; Ernie Irvan returned to competition at the track after being critically injured 14 months earlier; Harry Gant's streak of four consecutive wins in the month of September came to an end at North Wilkesboro.
So much happened at such a tiny facility. But that was what made the track so enjoyable and so memorable.
'Just an awesome race track'
Former NBA all-star Brad Daugherty became a race fan in part because of the numerous treks with family to watch the NASCAR races at North Wilkesboro. Today he remains involved in college basketball and the NBA as an analyst for ESPN.
He's also involved in NASCAR -- he's the Daugherty in the JTG Daugherty Racing team that fields the No. 47 Sprint Cup team with driver AJ Allmendinger.
"I used to go there a lot … I mean we went every year," Daugherty said. "We'd go watch that Holly Farms race every year. Just awesome.
"Actually that's where I got to know Junior Johnson really well as a young fella. Me and my dad and my uncle, I've got to give my uncle all the credit, we used to go to North Wilkesboro and Bristol a lot. But he loved going to North Wilkesboro and I did, too. It was great. We'd spend all day, driving over from Asheville, winding our way up through there and getting to the race track.
"I remember getting there and seeing all the cars -- the Tide car, the Levi Garrett car, the Skoal car. It was just a wonderful race track and I was just so disappointed that it went away. It was just an awesome race track."
Childress, an owner/driver for just over a decade before turning his attention solely to ownership, called the track "one of my favorites."
"That and Martinsville were my two home tracks," the Winston-Salem, North Carolina, native said. "I had some good runs and good finishes there. The fans, how they got into it, was just amazing. Those fans were true to Junior Johnson. It was just quite a deal to go back up there and race.
"I can remember back when I ran there; I remember spinning out one time, it had just rained and the track was wet. Enoch Staley owned the track … I never will forget. I spun out, went across the grass back there on the back side of the track and tore down one of his fences.
"He came over there raising hell about me tearing down his fence; he didn't care anything about the fact that I had my old car torn all to pieces. But that's just the way he was."
Jeff Gordon went down in history as the final winner at North Wilkesboro Speedway in 1996.
One last hurrah
The weekend of Sept. 27-29, 1996, was the final NASCAR race weekend at North Wilkesboro. Two races were held -- the Lowe's 250 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race on Saturday followed by Sunday's Tyson Holly Farms 400.
The Truck Series race was stop No. 20 of 24 for the season and it was just the second time the series visited the legendary facility.
Sunday's premier series race was No. 27 of 31 for the 1996 season. It was the last season in which the schedule consisted of 31 races. The following year at the request of the track's new owners, the spring date at North Wilkesboro was moved to Texas Motor Speedway while the fall date went in as the second of two dates at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.
Friday, Sept. 27: Following a 3 p.m. ET start, rain interrupted first-round qualifying with 13 of 40 drivers still waiting to get on track. Bobby Hamilton, driving the popular No. 43 Pontiac fielded by Petty Enterprises, was fastest before the delay.
After a 2 1/2-hour wait, Gordon was first out on the track, and the defending series champion quickly put his Chevrolet on top with a lap of 117.937 mph. The run held until Ted Musgrave, driving the No. 16 Family Channel/Primestar Ford Thunderbird for car owner Jack Roush, won the pole with a lap of 118.054 mph. It was Musgrave's first pole of the season and the fifth and final No. 1 starting spot of his career.
Hamilton wound up third, with Mark Martin and Irvan completing the top five.
In the Truck Series, all but five drivers had made qualifying attempts when rain returned and darkness forced officials to postpone the remainder of the program until Saturday. Rookie Johnny Benson had the fastest lap when qualifying was stopped. Rain was in the Saturday forecast and had it continued, leaving officials to set the lineup by the rule book, Benson would have failed to qualify as he had only two previous starts that season.
Saturday, Sept. 28: Second-round qualifying was still in place for the Cup Series, allowing drivers to stand on their first-round times or make a second attempt. Only the top 25 locked in times from first round the previous day. The practice was done away with following the 2000 season, with only one round used to determine the lineup.
Six drivers made second-round attempts, with Hut Stricklin fastest and Dale Jarrett also improving on his first day's effort. Provisionals went to Bodine, Lake Speed, Robert Pressley, Jeff Green and Darrell Waltrip (past champion's provisional).
Ward Burton, Dick Trickle and Gary Bradberry failed to qualify.
Rain following the Truck Series race cut short final practice for Cup teams. Gordon completed just 15 laps when his car developed engine problems, later traced to debris in the carburetor.
In the Truck Series race later that day, Mark Martin won in just his second start in the series to become only the third driver at that time to win at least one race in all three of NASCAR's national tours.
For posterity, the entire field posed for a picture prior to the last race at the fabled .625-mile track.
Sunday, Sept. 29: More than 40,000 fans were on hand to witness the final premier series race at North Wilkesboro. Many carried signs with, "We'll miss you North Wilkesboro," "Farewell Old Friend" or similar messages.
Television coverage was provided by ESPN Speedworld; it was the 30th premier series race broadcast from the track by the network, which had begun airing races from Wilkesboro in 1982.
The race featured eight different leaders, but it was Gordon who had the dominant car. He led at halfway, collecting a $10,000 bonus, and moved past Earnhardt after a restart with 79 laps remaining to grab the lead for the final time.
When the checkered flag appeared, it was Gordon across the stripe first, with Earnhardt, Jarrett, Jeff Burton and Labonte rounding out the top five.
Evernham said the win was special because "we knew it was going to be the last race there."
"For a little bit of time there the short tracks had almost been our Achilles' heel and we got a handle on it," he said. "And that's the year we won 10 races, so we were pretty proud of that accomplishment; I was really proud of that even though we had won the championship in '95. I felt like we were becoming one of the dominant teams.
"When you could beat guys like (Dale) Earnhardt, Junior Johnson's cars and those people at North Wilkesboro, you deserved to be there."
In addition to being his 10th win of the season, it was also Gordon's third in a row, coming on the heels of victories at Dover and Martinsville.
"We were on a pretty good roll that year," Gordon said. "Winning wasn't outside of the realm but at the same time, knowing it was the last race there … now looking back on it, it's extremely special to me because it was the last race and because it was such a tough, challenging race track.
"To be good on the short tracks meant a lot back then."
Bill Brodrick, known as the Hat Man, was waiting in Victory Lane, situated on top of a building in the infield. So, too, was team owner Rick Hendrick and the rest of Gordon's crew.
Several hours later, the gates swung shut at North Wilkesboro Speedway. The fans had departed. And this time, NASCAR had, too.
MORE: Classic Dale Jr. story: Angry dad, purple gas jug.
JOLIET, Ill. — While rookie Chase Elliott’s third-place finish puts him in a good spot to advance to the next round of the Chase, it doesn’t put away any frustration with trying to score that first Sprint Cup victory.
For the second time in the last four races, Elliott lost the lead in the late stages of a race.
Sunday, Elliott was leading at Chicagoland Speedway when a caution came out for Michael McDowell’s blown tire, sending the race into overtime. Elliott went to pit but came out second. Three cars did not pit. That meant Elliott restarted fifth. Martin Truex Jr. restarted fourth and took the lead shortly after the green flag waved to win his third race of the season.
“There are some things you just can’t control with the amount of guys that stay out and where you line up on a restart,’’ Elliott said. “We played the cards we were dealt and came up short.’’
So when will Elliott win?
Maybe one should look at the driver he’s replaced in the No. 24 — Jeff Gordon.
Sunday’s race was Elliott’s 32nd career Sprint Cup race. Comparing his stats to what Gordon accomplished in his first 32 races (his 32nd career start was the 1994 Daytona 500), the results are eerily similar. Consider their totals:
Wins: Gordon 0; Elliott 0
Runner-up finishes: Gordon 2; Elliott 2
Top-five finishes: Gordon 8; Elliott 8
Top-10 finishes: Gordon 12; Elliott 14
Poles: Gordon 1; Elliott 2
Laps led: Gordon 237; Elliott 238
Gordon scored his first career victory in the 1994 Coca-Cola 600. That was Gordon’s 42nd career series start.
Will Elliott beat that?
RESOUNDING DAY
Although Hendrick Motorsports saw its winless drought reach 22 races — tying its third-longest drought in team history — there was much for the organization to feel good about.
Three of its four drivers finished in the top 10 and its cars led 193 of 270 laps.
Chase Elliott led 75 laps and finished third.
Kasey Kahne finished seventh for his third consecutive top-10 finish.
Alex Bowman, driving the No. 88 in place of Dale Earnhardt Jr., finished a career-best 10th.
Jimmie Johnson led a race-high 118 laps but finished 12th after a speeding penalty on pit road late.
WHAT HARKENS AHEAD?
One of the fascinating aspects about the inaugural Chase in the Camping World Truck Series and Xfinity Series is that no one is quite sure what to expect.
This weekend completed the 12-driver lineup for Xfinity and eight-driver field for the Truck series. Their playoffs begin this week (Trucks in New Hampshire and Xfinity in Kentucky).
While many competitors professed excitement about the tracks in their Chase, some talked about being leery of the aggression surely to be seen in the coming races — just as it has in the Sprint Cup Chase, leading to driver confrontations on and off the track each of the previous two seasons of the elimination-style format.
“It’s going to be very interesting to see how everybody races,’’ said two-time Truck series champion Matt Crafton. “It’s going to bring a lot of different characters.’’
Said Timothy Peters: “I guess the unknown is that the Trucks are already aggressive anyway and the Chase is adding that to boot. The unknown is how many people want to be play bumper cars.’’
There’s also that feeling among some in the Xfinity Series, especially with five of the seven races on 1.5-mile speedways. Track position will be critical.
“I feel like restarts are going to be really important,’’ Brennan Poole said.
Justin Allgaier said aggression could be a key in the Chase but not how much.
“The aggression level is really high right now,’’ he said. “I don’t think it will elevate a whole lot, but I think you’re going to have to manage that through the Chase. You watch a guy get too aggressive and get himself in trouble, then you’re going to have to back yourself down to make sure that you are going to capitalize.’’
Most drivers anticipate the aggression will increase as it gets closer to the championship in Miami.
“Most of these young kids understand the Chase format because they’ve watched it,’’ Brendan Gaughan said. “The problem is understanding it. They see John Hunter Nemechek do what he did a couple of weeks ago (vs. Cole Custer ). They see Ryan Newman at Phoenix (move Kyle Larson out of the way two years ago to reach the final).
“They see all the exciting things. You can make the Chase pretty exciting.’’
PIT STOPS
— Martin Truex Jr. had three wins in his first 369 Sprint Cup starts. He has three wins in his last 27 Cup starts.
— Denny Hamlin’s sixth-place finish extended his career-best streak of consecutive top-10 finishes to nine races.
— Trevor Bayne was Roush Fenway Racing’s top-finishing driver Sunday at Chicagoland. He placed 23rd.
— Clint Bowyer finished 22nd for the third consecutive race.
— Austin Dillon (14th) has placed between 12th and 16th in each of the last four races.
— Jimmie Johnson led 118 laps Sunday. He had led 120 laps in the previous 22 races combined.
— Through 27 races, Kasey Kahne has led 0 laps this season.
— Tony Stewart (16th) has failed to finish in the top 15 in each of the last five races.
Kevin Harvick starts the Chase with a 34 percent probability of being the 2016 champion.
Just like last year, with the help of Andrew Maness from the racing analytics firm Pit Rho, we ran the numbers to show every driver’s shot of moving through each round of the Chase. As usual, the mathematical model was designed by both Maness and myself, taking into account past driver performance to predict future results. By running 100,000 simulations of how the rest of the season might play out, we can see what the most likely outcomes are.
Technically speaking, every one of the 16 drivers has a chance of winning the title. Even that 0.0 for Chris Buescher is actually 0.016 percent. That means if he ran his 10 best races, while everybody else ran less than their 10 best, he could pull off the upset.
2016-chase-probs
At the top of the list, you see the usual culprits, like Harvick, Brad Keselowski, and Denny Hamlin. Remember that the Chase sets up weird incentives: You need to win or at least run consistently to move through the rounds. And making it through the rounds isn’t the same as winning the title.
Notice the difference between Kyle Busch and Jamie McMurray. They have very similar chances of advancing to the second round (Busch at 81 percent and McMurray at 78 percent). But Busch has a real solid shot at winning the title (6.8 percent) while McMurray’s is much closer to zero.
That’s because we know Busch can win races, but he also could blow up at any time. We can’t trust Busch to guarantee a second round spot, but if he does make it, then all of a sudden he could get hot and win it all. Busch only has the ninth-best chance of making it past round one, yet he has the fifth-best chance of winning the title. That’s the uncertainty I’m talking about.
Martin Truex Jr. is the opposite. He has a 90 percent chance of making it past the first round, but only a five percent title chance. He’s a consistent driver in the top 10 but has trouble sealing the deal on winning races. Notice his 90 percent chance to make the second round is almost the same as Denny Hamlin’s chance, but they have significant differences in their title shots.
This year’s loss of Jeff Gordon and Dale Earnhardt Jr. from the Chase has opened the door for fresher names to make it in, like Chip Ganassi’s Kyle Larson.
“If you had asked me in April, there’s no way that I would have predicted that both Ganassi cars would be running so well at this point in the season,” said Dr. Josh Browne, a former NASCAR race engineer and now co-founder at Pit Rho. “It’s a remarkable turnaround in such a short period of time. The model seems to capture this, and we give both cars a good chance of making it to the next round.”
Of course, you have to remember that these numbers are good for this week and this week only. As soon as the next race is completed, new performance results will change the data. As we know, 15 drivers are eventually going to see their title hopes dwindle away to zero by November.
Eric Chemi runs data journalism for our sister network CNBC, including a heavy dose of sports analytics. Prior to that, his NASCAR forecasts have been on Sprint Cup television broadcasts, and he has consulted for Sprint Cup teams on strategy, statistics, data, and analytics. He graduated with an engineering degree from MIT.
The struggle was real in a virtual way for Joey Logano, which was exactly what the Sprint Cup veteran was seeking.
In a recent night of playing NASCAR Heat Evolution, the video game released today, Logano couldn’t win as much as he tried at Martinsville Speedway in the game’s career mode.
Logano had a limited budget to optimize the parts on his car to go faster, and the game adapted to his ability, limiting him to a best of 10th at the 0.526-mile oval.
“I had a hell of a time,” Logano said with a laugh. “You had to make money to buy stuff to make the car better, and I didn’t have any money, so my car wasn’t very good. It was hard, and things like that are kind of fun to play.”
It was much different from the racing games Logano played (then in the guise of Jeff Gordon’s No. 24) as a whiz kid many years ago.
“I would stop for a lap and try to get them all ahead,” he said. “You don’t have to do that to make it a challenge.”
The key to making NASCAR Heat Evolution challenging without completely curtailing success is its adaptive AI feature, which allows the game to react to a player’s performance and customize the experience.
“As you get better at the game, it realizes that, and it adjusts automatically the strength of the competition, so that’s pretty cool,” Logano said. “Because you don’t want to finish 40th every time, but you also don’t want to win every time, too.”
Players also will have the option to customize setups and modify their cars with upgrades.
Logano is an investor in the game along with teammate Brad Keselowski, and they provided input on the development with a goal of balancing realism with rewarding entertainment value.
“It’s a fine line because you want the game to be fun, but you also want it to be challenging,” Logano said. “If you make it drive too much like a race car, not many people are going to be able to do it. You want it to be enjoyable but not so complicated that you have to be setting up your car and play it all the time to win. You want it to be challenging enough that people come back and get better, but you don’t want people to have to live it to be decent at it.”
The game, which is available on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC, also will have an online playing feature that will permit a full field of 40 players remotely racing each other. Players can host private races or join existing events and control various factors such as laps, fuel, tire wear and number of entrants.
“I look at a video game like it’s the only way our fans are able to understand a little of what we feel because you can’t just go to your local sporting goods store and buy a race car like a baseball bat,” he said. “So the only way you can kind of get a feel for it is through video games. That’s still very different from what we do, but it’s kind of the closest thing to it.
“You can’t go drive your car down the highway at 150, or at least you’re not supposed to, so this is the best way to let fans try to experience what we feel.”
