NASCAR on NBC podcast, Episode XIV: Steve Letarte and Parker Kligerman

With a wild race at Talladega Superspeedway to dissect, analysts Steve Letarte and Parker Kligerman join the latest NASCAR on NBC podcast to offer their unique insights.

Letarte makes a case that aero development might be contributing to three cars getting airborne Sunday at the 2.66-mile track, noting that teams heavily focus on the undersides of their cars to find speed. The former Sprint Cup crew chief also explains why the rash of steering wheel problems will be a teachable moment for younger racers and what makes Talladega winner Brad Keselowski so good in the draft.

Kligerman will return to the Camping World Truck Series this weekend at Kansas Speedway and details the recent developments of his underdog team, which remains second in points despite having only two full-time employees.

The former Talladega winner also describes how drivers wrestle with the levels of acceptable risk at Talladega and why all of the focus on understanding side-drafting and aerodynamics has made drivers and teams so good, it raises the chances of wreckfests such as Sunday.

Other topics covered by Kligerman:

–Comparing and contrasting the restrictor-plate methods of Keselowski and Dale Earnhardt, NASCAR’s current draft kings.

–How the lower downforce rules package might affect racing this weekend at Kansas Speedway.

–The NASCAR America analyst’s tricks for wheeling a driving simulator while talking live on national TV (hint: It helps to have a few thousand hours behind the wheel and several producers as spotters).

You can listen to the podcast by clicking below or download and subscribe to it on iTunes by clicking here. The free subscription will provide automatic downloads of new episodes to your smartphone. It also is available on Stitcher.

Time cues for easy reference in listening to the episode are coming soon.

NASCAR warns seven Xfinity Series teams for prerace inspection failures at Talladega

NASCAR warned several Xfinity Series teams Wednesday for prerace inspection failures on the laser inspection system at Talladega Superspeedway.

The teams of Garrett Smithley, Ross Chastain, Matt Tifft, Jeb Burton, Derrike Cope and Bobby Gerhart received warnings for failing the LIS twice before Saturday’s Sparks Energy 300.

Ty Dillon’s No. 3 team also was warned for failing the LIS three times in prerace. His car will miss the first 15 minutes of practice in the circuit’s next race at Dover International Speedway.

It’s the first warning of 2016 for the teams of Smithley, Chastain, Tifft, Burton, Cope and Gerhart. Dillon’s team has two warnings.

After four cumulative warnings, a team loses pit stall selection in the next race.

AJ Allmendinger honors 1975 Rookie of the Year with Darlington paint scheme

AJ Allmendinger‘s No. 47 Chevrolet will fly the colors of former Sprint Cup Rookie of the Year Bruce Hill in this year’s Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway.

While keeping its traditional red, white and blue colors, Allmendinger’s car will look like the one driven by Hill from 1974- 1977. The Topeka, Kansas, native was Rookie of the Year in 1975.

“Being remembered for something is always an honor especially as big as the sport has gotten,” Hill said.

In the 1975 season, Hill recorded three top-five finishes, including a fifth-place result at Darlington.

“I thought it was kind of neat when they decided to do the throwback schemes at Darlington Raceway,” Hill said. “I had good memories of Darlington. It was a track that you either loved or hated and that probably hasn’t changed over the years. I loved the track because it was slick and I ran better on a slick racetrack because it was all about getting your car to handle. I always loved Darlington and you always love a track you have good luck at.”

Hill finished 16th in the points in 1975 and beat out a driver named Carl Adams for the rookie award.

“My overall best NASCAR memory is winning Rookie of the Year mainly because I came out of Kansas and that was unheard of back then because it was a Southeastern sport,” Hill said. “I think a lot of people thought I was crazy when I thought I’d take a jump and go down there and try it.”

Hill would stay in the sport for 100 races, his last start coming in the Champion Spark Plug 400 at Michigan International Speedway in 1981.

Hill still resides in Kansas and will be in attendance this weekend at Kansas Speedway, where he will meet Allmendinger for the first time.

“I’m really looking forward to meeting Bruce on Friday,” Allmendinger said in the press release. “I think what Darlington Raceway does to recognize former NASCAR drivers and the heritage of the sport is unprecedented. It’s a great way to celebrate our sport and the people who made it what it is today. It’s pretty neat to see all the sponsors and teams really get into it.”

The Southern 500 is scheduled for Sept. 4 on NBC.

Hendrick, Chevrolet most successful in first 15 years of racing at Kansas Speedway

The newest track on the Sprint Cup circuit is Kentucky Speedway, which has hosted five Cup races since 2011.

But 10 years before that, the new kid on the block was Kansas Speedway, the 1.5-mile track in Kansas City, Kansas, the series returns to for its 16th season this weekend for the GoBowling.com 400.

Saturday’s race marks the 21st race for the Cup series on the track. The very first one, held on Sept. 30, 2001, was won by Hendrick Motorsports’ Jeff Gordon in his No. 24 Chevrolet.

Over the following 14 seasons, that would be the scene that played out the most – a Chevrolet owned by Hendrick going to victory lane.

Six times in 20 races, a Hendrick car has won at Kansas Speedway. Gordon won the first two races and then claimed another in 2014 before retiring at the end of 2015.

Jimmie Johnson is the defending winner of Saturday’s race and has Hendrick’s other three wins, in 2008, 2011 and 2015.

“I really like the surface of the Kansas track and looking forward to a great race,” Johnson said in a press release. “Last year (Crew chief) Chad (Knaus) made a great call and we had a fast Lowe’s Chevy and the gamble paid off.”

Looking to bounce back from a dismal outing at Talladega is Dale Earnhardt Jr., whose best Kansas finish is second in 2011. He wound up third in last year’s spring race.

“That place has widened out pretty good and you can run against the fence there, which is a line that I like to run,” Earnhardt said in a press release. “It’s a very fast racetrack and very smooth – a lot of fun, so we should have a good time. We ran good there on the last several trips, so I anticipate us being very competitive.”

Chevrolet has won 10 of the 20 Kansas races, with Tony Stewart earning two (2006, 2009) with Joe Gibbs Racing and Stewart-Haas Racing. The remaining two victories were claimed by Joe Nemechek and Kevin Harvick while he was with Richard Childress Racing.

Ford has six wins and Toyota has two, but none since 2013.

The next most successful teams at Kansas are Roush Fenway Racing and Team Penske with four wins each. Penske has the most recent success, winning with Joey Logano in two of the last three races, both in the fall race held in the day.

Penske’s first Kansas win came with Ryan Newman in 2003 driving a Dodge. Now Newman is in a Chevrolet at RCR.

“It’s super-fast and it has a little bit of a goofy transition into Turn 1,” Newman said in a press release. “It just seems like it is a combination of downforce and horsepower to go fast. It’s super smooth so it doesn’t really matter so much how your car rides as much as how you have the tires loaded up in each corner and the overall grip you can get out of the car with the downforce.”

Roush’s last Kansas win came in 2012 with Matt Kenseth. The three-car team is looking for its first win since 2014 and has performed well on intermediate tracks so far in 2016, but Ricky Stenhouse Jr. has the only top-10 finish, placing 10th at Atlanta Motor Speedway. But he and teammate Trevor Bayne ran in the top 10 for much of the Texas race.

Stenhouse will be back with crew chief Nick Sandler this week after Sandler was suspended for the Talladega race for an unapproved steering wheel coupler.

“The tires usually don’t wear (at Kansas) so pit strategy becomes a factor because you want to minimize the amount of time you are on pit road,” Sandler said in a press release.

NASCAR warns teams of Jimmie Johnson, Brian Scott, Cole Whitt for inspection failures

The Sprint Cup teams of Jimmie Johnson, Brian Scott and Cole Whitt received warnings Wednesday for prerace inspection failures Sunday at Talladega Superspeedway.

Johnson’s No. 48 Chevrolet also was docked 15 minutes of practice this weekend at Kansas Speedway for failing template inspection three times.

Whitt’s No. 98 Toyota failed template inspection twice, and Scott’s No. 44 Ford failed the laser inspection system twice.

It’s the second warning for each of the teams. A fourth cumulative warning results in loss of pit stall for the next race.

Radioactive: TALLADEGA SUPERSPEEDWAY

This week's addition of 'Scan All' comes from Talladega Superspeedway, where radio transmissions between teams, drivers, and spotters aren't always fun during restrictor plate races.

Austin Dillon’s career-best finish comes in car that reflects Talladega carnage

You may have been confused watching the final three laps of Sunday’s GEICO 500 at Talladega Superspeedway.

Confused as to why a car that looked like Austin Dillon‘s had any business being near the leaders who were jockeying for the win.

After starting second, Dillon was part of three wrecks during the race, including the 21-car blunder on the frontstretch with 27 laps remaining. Covered in tape and scrapes, the No. 3 Chevrolet looked like it would barely survive 500 laps at Martinsville Speedway, let alone be competing at the end of 188 laps on a superspeedway.

“I had guys climbing on the hood, beating the hood down,” Dillon said. “I had guys putting screws everywhere in the car to keep it together. It worked out for us.”

The third-year driver for Richard Childress Racing was not laps down and just trying to get out of the way. After 16 visits to pit road during the race and the ability to stay on the lead lap, Dillon was one or two good pushes on the frontstretch from celebrating his first Sprint Cup win.

“I actually think with it being so draggy and beat up, the 1 car (Jamie McMurray) hooked to us at the end and he just pushed me all the way through three and four, gave me a heck of a run,” Dillon said.

“Once I left that air, though, there wasn’t much I was going to be able to do once that happened. It was my one shot off of Turn 4, I tried it,” Dillon said.

“Halfway through this race, you’re not thinking it’s your day. All of a sudden when it comes down to it, we kept our minds in it, kept working on the car, came home with a third‑place finish.”

It’s Dillon’s best Sprint Cup finish in three years on the circuit and his third top-five of the season after earning just one in each of the previous two seasons. He heads to Kansas Speedway 10th in the point standings.

“I’m just proud of my guys,” Dillon said. “They had (16 pit) stops. They fixed the damage, never panicked.

“That’s something we struggled with this year, kind of panicking when something goes wrong. We’ve been meeting about it the last couple weeks. We can’t lose our minds because sometimes it’s just not your day.”