Race Weekend Central

NASCAR 101: First 5 Kentucky Winners? Probably Not the Same as the Next 5

2015 Kentucky Cup Green Flag Credit Nascar Via Getty Images

(Photo: NASCAR via Getty Images)

In 2011, Kentucky Speedway got what track officials had been dreaming of for a decade: a NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race. Now it’s 2016. Five years ago, the inaugural Quaker State 400 was contested, and Saturday’s race, the 18th of the 2016 Cup season, marks the sixth in the track’s still-relatively-short history. With its addition, …

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NASCAR 101: Daytona, Talladega Become Place to Be for One-Offs

Joe Nemechek And John Hunter Nemechek

(Photo: NASCAR via Getty Images)

OK, picture this: a NASCAR national series where you don’t really know who’s going to show up each week. Entries vary by track, whether it’s by type of speedway or from a regional standpoint, with, say, Michigan drivers building a car and saddling up for a race in their home state, or a Southwest-based team dropping …

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NASCAR 101: Recent Road Ringers Who Actually Made An Impact

2015 Sonoma Cup Pack Racing Credit Danny Peters

(Photo: Danny Peters, Frontstretch)

It’s been a slow descent for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series from having bona fide, competitive road course ringers entered in its events at Sonoma Raceway and Watkins Glen International, to continuing to buy into the illusion that said ringers still had a shot at a top five, let alone a win, at one of …

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NASCAR 101: The New(ish) Faces You’ll See This Weekend at Iowa

2015 Iowa Ii Nxs Green Flag Credit Nascar Via Getty Images

(Photo: NASCAR via Getty Images)

There was a time in NASCAR when a standalone race in the XFINITY or Camping World Truck series wasn’t an oddity in the sport. Back then, there was a healthy split between race weekends where the lower series joined the Sprint Cup Series at the same track and those when either series might race elsewhere …

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NASCAR 101: 3 Up-and-Coming Drivers Making NASCAR Debuts in 2016

2014 Mudsummer Classic Eldora Speedway Gray Gaulding Camping World Trucks Mike Neff 324

(Photo: Mike Neff)

On Wednesday, Richard Childress Racing revealed more of its stable for the 2016 NASCAR XFINITY Series season, particularly its drivers for the standalone races that are not contested at the same track on the same weekend as the Sprint Cup Series. Let’s see… AJ Allmendinger, check. Michael McDowell, check. Sam Hornish, Jr., check, and good …

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NASCAR 101: 3 Old School Owner-Drivers

2016 Dover I Cup Tony Stewart Aj Allmendinger Racing Matthew T Thacker Nkp

(Photo: Matthew Thacker/NKP)

With Tony Stewart‘s retirement on the horizon, the role of owner-driver in the Sprint Cup Series may potentially be reaching its final chapter. The addition of franchising combined with the expenses of running a top-tier program these days makes it difficult to see another athlete hopping on that bandwagon. Stewart, though, isn’t like most owner-drivers in the history of …

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NASCAR 101: The Iron Men of the (Recent) Coca-Cola 600s

2016 Phoenix I Cup Kevin Harvick Carl Edwards Racing Nigel Kinrade Nkp

(Photo: Nigel Kinrade / NKP)

With a Formula 1 race in Monaco and IndyCar’s biggest event of the year in the Indianapolis 500 taking place this weekend, you know NASCAR has to do things a little bit bigger in order to vie for the attention of motorsports fans across the country. Luckily, NASCAR is able to achieve just that each …

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NASCAR 101: Ranking the 15 Drivers Definitely Running the All-Star Race

2016 Dover I Cup Kyle Busch Carl Edwards Nigel Kinrade Nkp

(Photo: Nigel Kinrade/NKP)

Are you ready? This weekend marks the most recent running of the NASCAR Sprint Cup All-Star Race in its newest format. Come Saturday night, 20 drivers will take to the track at Charlotte Motor Speedway to go for broke in exchange for a solid paycheck and a nice projection of what their Labor Day weekend …

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NASCAR 101: Who’s Won at the Most Tracks?

2016 Richmond I Cup Tony Stewart Danica Patrick Racing Nigel Kinrade Nkp

(Photo: Nigel Kinrade/NKP)

It’s only a more recent development, but wow, Kyle Busch has won at a heck of a lot of tracks in NASCAR. The younger Busch brother has had an exceptional career so far, capped off by his 2015 Sprint Cup Series championship no doubt, but more recently, the driver of Joe Gibbs Racing’s No. 18 …

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NASCAR 101: Last 5 Tracks Actually Added to the Cup Schedule

2016 Las Vegas Cup Ryan Blaney Pack Racing Matthew T Thacker Nkp

(Photo: Matthew T. Thacker/NKP)

Another year, another NASCAR Sprint Cup Series schedule with minimal changes. OK, maybe not minimal, necessarily, or at least it’s not like that every year. For 2017, the Cup schedule consists mainly of a few date swaps, with much of the discussion directed toward the changeover of Talladega Superspeedway’s fall race from the sixth race in …

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NASCAR 101: 5 NASCAR Drivers Present & Future at ARCA’s Talladega Race

Martinsville Trucks Kroger 200 John Wes Townley 2015 Mike Neff (1)

(Photo: Mike Neff)

In the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, teams visit the two 2-and-a-half-mile superspeedways, Daytona International Raceway and Talladega Superspeedway, twice a year, for four races total. In the XFINITY Series, it’s slightly less, at three races. Even less in the Camping World Truck Series, which races twice. On the other hand, outside of NASCAR, the Ohio-based …

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NASCAR 101: Shades of Rich Bickle

Another driver came to mind when Matt DiBenedetto finished sixth at Bristol Motor Speedway in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series last weekend, and that was even before his post-race interview. To recap, although chances are you’ve seen the stories or read the interviews by now: DiBenedetto, driver of the No. 83 for BK Racing, managed …

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