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Loeb started the morning with a 1.7s lead over Loubet after the pair shared the spoils across Friday's six stages. The rally leader and nine-time world champion made a strong start to the day by posting the second fastest time on the morning's 33.2km test (Stage 8) to maintain his lead. That advantage extended to 19.0s over Hyundai's Thierry Neuville, who managed to leapfrog Loubet. However ...Keep readingView the full article

Hocevar, who had struggled much of the race, made his final stop for gas on Lap 80 of 134 and tried to hang to the end and grab the win, which would be his only way to move on in the playoffs. It nearly worked. Nemechek, the first car on new tires, moved into second and eight seconds behind with 14 laps remaining. On the final lap, Nemechek easily got around Hocevar to reclaim the lead ...Keep readingView the full article

John Hunter Nemechek passes Carson Hocevar on the final lap in turn 1 to win at Kansas and knock Hocevar out of the Truck Series playoffs. View the full article

The Kiwi will continue his association with Hyundai New Zealand for his home World Rally Championship round, while the car also features increased backing from Repco. The automotive parts retailer is also the naming rights backer of what will be the first WRC round in New Zealand in a decade. Paddon and long-time co-driver John Kennard are part of a 12-car WRC2 field that also includes ...Keep readingView the full article

Nine-time world champion Loeb found himself locked in a fight with his younger team-mate Loubet across Friday’s six stages as the rally lead swung between the two Ford Puma drivers. A hat-trick of stages wins in the morning pushed Loeb into the lead before Loubet capitalised on an error from his rival to claim a maiden WRC stage win on Stage 5. The victory elevated the Frenchman to the rally ...Keep readingView the full article

The nine-time world champion, making a return to the World Rally Championship this weekend, ended the day with a 1.7s advantage as fellow Ford Puma driver Loubet produced the best performance of his WRC career to date. Loeb claimed a hat-trick of stage wins during the morning stages to move into the rally lead, but an error in the afternoon helped open the door for Loubet to claim a maiden WRC ...Keep readingView the full article

Few playoff drivers escaped the playoff-opener at Darlington Raceway unscathed. Four title challengers finished 27th or worse while others, like Ross Chastain and Kyle Larson, spent the entire race trying to rebound from early issues. Regular season champion Chase Elliott was the first to exit the event and finished in last-place. Martin Truex Jr. may have missed the playoffs, but he was ...Keep readingView the full article

The nine-time world champion benefitted from an advantageous road position on the dusty gravel stages, but once again showed his class to win all three stages of the morning loop. The 48-year-old, partnered by Isabelle Galmiche, became the oldest driver to lead a WRC event eclipsing the record perviously held by 1979 world champion Bjorn Waldegard set in 1991. Sitting seventh overnight, the ...Keep readingView the full article

Let the games begin — all of them. Thursday's NFL opener is just the beginning of a seemingly never-ending stretch of sports, Martin Rogers writes. View the full article

Dale Earnhardt Jr. explains how he ended up racing a late model stock car as part of the revival of North Wilkesboro Speedway, which will have dirt races in October after the asphalt is torn up and before it is resurfaced. View the full article

"I almost wanted to cry. It was so emotional." Dale Earnhardt Jr. describes the feeling of racing again at North Wilkesboro Speedway. View the full article

NASCAR announced Thursday that it will return to historic North Wilkesboro Speedway in 2023. Bob Pockrass breaks down what you need to know. View the full article

Neuville blitzed the 1.95km side-by-side tarmac test in front of a bumper 60,000 crowd on Thursday night, seeing off Toyota’s Elfyn Evans in their head-to-head contest to post a time 0.1s faster than WRC2 star Teemu Suninen, who set the early benchmark. The return of the Olympic Stadium super special for the first time since 2006 proved to be a hit with the drivers and particularly ...Keep readingView the full article

The nine-time world rally champion returned to the WRC this year with M-Sport Ford for what was initially a one-off appearance at Monte Carlo in January, which he subsequently won alongside Isabelle Galmiche to net an 80th career WRC win. Since the triumph, Loeb has made appearances in Portugal and Kenya with this weekend’s outing at the Acropolis Rally his fourth for the British team. It is ...Keep readingView the full article

Still seeking his first championship as a driver, Denny Hamlin is also wearing the owner hat in the playoffs, Bob Pockrass writes. View the full article

North Wilkesboro Speedway, opened in 1947, was one of the eight tracks on the original NASCAR Cup Series schedule in 1949. Won by Bob Flock, the then-dirt track eventually shifted to asphalt in 1957. It continued to host the Cup Series until 1996. That 93rd and final race was won by Jeff Gordon. Its recent revival, partly due to $18 million dollars (used towards rebuilding ...Keep readingView the full article

The Japanese manufacturer shuffled its driver roster this season after eight-time world champion Sebastien Ogier elected to scale back his WRC commitments to a partial campaign to spend more time with family and explore opportunities in sportscar racing. The decision resulted in Toyota signing Lappi to share the third GR Yaris with Ogier for the 2022 campaign. It was a move that brought Lappi ...Keep readingView the full article

The Toyota star has dominated the 2022 season, earning the 21-year-old the opportunity to become the WRC's youngest-ever world champion. Rovanpera can eclipse the record set in 1995 by Colin McRae, who was aged 27 when he claimed the title for Subaru if the Finn can outscore Hyundai rival Ott Tanak by 18 points on the Acropolis rally's rough gravel stages. Such has been Rovanpera's dominance ...Keep readingView the full article

Earlier this year, Speedway Motorsports announced that North Wilkesboro would host two months of racing in 2022 featuring multiple lower racing series, first in August on pavement and then again in October on a dirt surface. The track’s surface repaving – part of Speedway Motorsports’ planned multi-million-dollar renovation project – was originally scheduled to take place sometime in ...Keep readingView the full article

Chase Elliott on his Darlington wreck and it could play in his head as far as how hard he races on the edge at Kansas: “I’m going to do what I think is right and what my gut is feeling inside the car.” View the full article

Kyle Larson slapped the wall a few times at Kansas earlier this year and still finished second. Can he take that same aggressive approach in the playoffs? His philosophy: View the full article

At Darlington, Kevin Harvick's car burst into flames due to apparent rubber build-up on the headers that ignited. Other cars have caught fire in recent weeks, although for varying reasons. Another issue seems to be the exhaust getting moved/bent after contact, and catching the foam inside the door panel aflame. After Chris Buescher and Joey Logano's fires at ...Keep readingView the full article

Sebastiens Loeb and Ogier have re-written most of the World Rally Championship’s record book over the last 20 years. But when it comes to the Acropolis Rally the pair remain in the dust trail of Colin McRae, who remains the Acropolis master. Twenty years ago, the 1995 world champion conquered Europe’s toughest and most gruelling rally for a record fifth time in seven years to firmly stamp ...Keep readingView the full article

Elliott, who entered last weekend’s playoff opener at Darlington (S.C.) Raceway as the No. 1 seed, ended up being the first driver out of the race. On Lap 113 of 367, Elliott spun in Turn 1 and hit the wall, then got into Chase Briscoe as he slid down back across the track. The damage on the No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet was not repairable. Before the race was halfway over, Elliott ...Keep readingView the full article

Harvick was forced to retire from the first race of the NASCAR Cup playoffs in Sunday night’s Southern 500 at Darlington when his #4 Stewart-Haas Ford caught fire on lap 276 of 367. The 2014 Cup champion safely exited the vehicle, which quickly became engulfed by smoke and fire, and was classified a disappointing 33rd to leave him in danger of elimination from the playoffs' round of ...Keep readingView the full article