The first Chase race is finally behind us, with Mark Martin earning his season-high fifth win of the season at New Hampshire. It was one of the wilder races in the history of the 1-mile oval, and that’s reflected in a poll in which 11 of the top 13 drivers swapped spots this week. But …
The final weekend in the race for the Chase saw plenty of playoff-worthy drivers put their best foot forward at Richmond. Brian Vickers slipped in, Kyle Busch fell just short… and there were a slew of others in between who made it clear they’ll spend this fall fighting for a season championship. The shuffling of …
The aged surface of Atlanta Motor Speedway offered up multi-groove racing from the drop of the green flag that also yielded some bizarre events, with Jimmie Johnson and Carl Edwards both having freak problems that knocked them out of contention. Tony Stewart also had another off weekend, which cost him some of his first-place votes …
The buzz generated by Sunday’s exciting night race at Atlanta Motor Speedway will likely reverberate through the NASCAR masses for a long time. The Pep Boys Auto 500 saw exciting racing for much of the event and saw someone not driving a non-Hendrick-affiliated car go to victory lane (though many were picking Jimmie Johnson to …
The new banking at Bristol, along with the new car, has bred a new form of racing at the old bullring. Single-file bump-and-runs have been replaced by side-by-side competition, with wrecks at the finish line replaced by the type of winning maneuvers you’d be more likely to see at a track like Atlanta or even …
Love it or hate it, the new Bristol Motor Speedway is a far cry from its older, one-grooved brethren. Perhaps the only half-mile oval out there that can boast legitimate three-wide racing, Thunder Valley may no longer boast the wrecks that made its night race so famous, but still poses a treacherous challenge to those …
Did You Notice? How amazing it is Jeff Gordon’s competing for the title this year? I say that not because of his ailing back (although that’s another story all to itself) … it’s because he’s busy changing diapers at home. Who in the world is capable of doing both? Now, I’m mostly joking around with …
A fuel-mileage race at Michigan? Who would have guessed it? Seriously, as expected Sunday’s 400-mile affair in the Irish Hills left us counting drops of Sunoco gasoline to see who was going to make it to the finish line first. And just like any stock car event decided by fuel strategy, those final few laps …
What a weekend for Brian Vickers! After winning poles in both the Nationwide and Cup series at Michigan International Speedway, Vickers scored his second career Cup win on Sunday and came close to scoring the sweep Saturday in the NNS race. Now within 12 points of the Chase, Vickers’s place in this week’s column is no surprise. But with fuel mileage on the minds of many, the MIS race saw a team or two use their gas tanks to keep the momentum going, while several others saw their August success run dry before the checkered flag. Here are this week’s HOT, WARM and COLD drivers following the 400-miler.
Turning right and turning left was good for some at Watkins Glen, but turned others into a knot they never wriggled out of. After his record-breaking fifth victory at the track, Tony Stewart was able to once again garner all of the first-place votes for this week, but the remainder of the spots in our poll were up for grabs. In all, 13 of the top-15 positions changed hands as a second straight rain delay threw a wrench into more than a few teams’ summer momentum. Read this week’s Power Rankings to find out which drivers avoided the gravel trap and head to the Irish Hills as the favorites.
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