Circle Tracks

Denny Hamlin was the straw that stirs the drink in the final Final Four press conference prior to the NASCAR Cup Series Championship Race on Sunday at Phoenix Raceway. First, Hamlin was much looser than he was on Friday following a mechanical scare, aided by the fact that he scored pole position on Saturday afternoon. During the NextGen era, the finalist that qualified the best of the four ...Keep readingView the full article

Denny Hamlin is not 100 percent right now after an emotional rollercoaster of a winter and he may not get there until after the end of the 2026 season concludes. That is because, in addition to the death of his father in a house fire that also hospitalized his mother, Hamlin also re-tore the right shoulder he got surgically repaired after the 2023 season. This happened during a fall while going ...Keep readingView the full article

The 42-year-old has spent the entirety of his Cup career with Gibbs since he made his debut at the top level in 2005, winning 50 of his 641 race starts. Hamlin's deal with JGR was due to expire at the end of this season, and he revealed last month that negotiations had been delayed in part by his involvement as a co-owner in rival Cup squad 23XI Racing, which currently has a technical alliance ...Keep readingView the full article

Adding even more credence to the notion that the 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports v NASCAR antitrust lawsuit and countersuit is destined to trial was Denny Hamlin in how he characterized settlement mediation over the past week. “It went okay the first day, not great the second day,” Hamlin said during a press conference on Saturday at Martinsville Speedway. “I don’t know. Didn’t ...Keep readingView the full article

After announcing that he will part ways with AM Racing, Harrison Burton has secured a new ride with Sam Hunt Racing, where he will drive the No. 24 Toyota next season in the NASCAR Xfinity Series (which is set to be renamed as the NASCAR O'Reilly Auto Parts Series). Burton, who currently sits 12th in the championship standings, moved back down to the second division this year after three ...Keep readingView the full article

Kevin Harvick, the 2014 NASCAR Cup Series champion, and current NASCAR on FOX television analyst did not mince words about this weekend’s championship races. He said it would be ‘embarrassing’ if Corey Heim and Connor Zilisch did not win the Truck Series and Xfinity Series championships, respectively. “Here’s what I think is interesting,” Harvick said on Kevin Harvick’s Happy ...Keep readingView the full article

Hendrick Automotive Group inked a $2.25 million contract with the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement in August. The story was first reported by The Washington Post with a follow-up report this week by Charlotte, North Carolina television station WBTV. According to the contract, the agreement was for the sale of 25 Chevrolet Tahoes. Hendrick Automotive Group is owned by NASCAR ...Keep readingView the full article

There will be a change atop the pit box for the No. 1 Trackhouse Racing Team Chevrolet next season. Brandon McSwain, who has worked as an engineer for the No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports team for the past six years, will replace Phil Surgen. Chastain has worked with Surgen since the 2021 season when he still drove for Chip Ganassi Racing, and has won all six of his Cup races with the same crew ...Keep readingView the full article

Things were not exactly dire over at Hendrick Motorsports but winning the most recent Cup Series race at Martinsville Speedway in advance of the Easter break was a much needed momentum boost. Prior to Chase Elliott and crew chief Alan Gustafson breaking through with a pit strategy-aided victory over Denny Hamlin, the narrative surrounding the Chevrolet flagship was an organization and ...Keep readingView the full article

NASCAR's Most Popular Driver will have an updated look for 2026 with some changes made the NAPA Auto Parts paint scheme on his No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet. The NAPA No. 9 will continue with its blue/white color combination, but the big changes come along the door. After going almost fully blue in 2025, the car will bring back some white along the door while including a blue stripe with ...Keep readingView the full article

The NASCAR Xfinity Series, which will be rebranded as the NASCAR O'Reilly Auto Parts Series in 2026, will have Hendrick Motorsports on the grid every weekend. The No. 17 Hendrick Chevrolet will compete for the championship with Corey Day, an acolyte of Kyle Larson, behind the wheel. The 19-year-old ran eleven races with HMS this year, finishing as high as fourth at Las Vegas Motor Speedway ...Keep readingView the full article

Hendrick Motorsports (HMS) was established as All-Star Racing in 1984, while Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR) joined NASCAR for the first time in 1992. Since then, HMS has won 320 races and JGR has won 227, making them the two of the three winningest teams in Cup Series history.  They've also combined to win 19 of the last 30 Cup titles, with Hendrick collecting 14 championships and Gibbs five ...Keep readingView the full article

The last time Hendrick Motorsports had a tandem like Kyle Larson and Cliff Daniels, the driver (Jeff Gordon) was signed to a lifetime contract and the crew chief (Ray Evernham) left to form a factory team for Dodge. Rick Hendrick was very adamant, with the two-time champions both on a contract year, to not lose his latest dynasty to any sort of free agency or market shift. “Well, it was ...Keep readingView the full article

When asked about the potential of using the 750 horsepower tapered spacer on intermediate tracks in addition to its return to short tracks this season, Joey Logano looked as if he had been asked the stupidest question in the world. Of course he wants more power, literally everywhere “I want more falloff,” Logano said with the most indignation in the world. “I mean, more fall off puts ...Keep readingView the full article

There were three key moments that delivered Chase Elliott his earliest victory to start a NASCAR Cup Series season on Sunday at Martinsville Speedway. Combined, it was a masterclass between Elliott and crew chief Alan Gustafson, a combination that doesn’t generally seem to get the respect everyone around them says they should. Gustafson (surprisingly) intends to two-stop the final ...Keep readingView the full article

America’s biggest form of motorsport, NASCAR, is very traditional. There’s a staid way of doing things and, even if the unexpected occurs every now and then, the rule of thumb is that the powerhouse teams always win. What doesn’t happen is a start-up operation arrives at its top level, bragging a co-owner who’s a Grammy Award-winning megastar. It then buys an entire team from one of ...Keep readingView the full article

Daytona 500 qualifying is unique, and different from every other race on the Cup Series schedule. It always delivers the drama, both in the battle for pole position, but also those trying to make it into the field. While the Indianapolis 500 has Bump Day and Fast 12, NASCAR has the Duels at Daytona. Four drivers and teams will be sent home on Thursday night as their dreams of competing in ...Keep readingView the full article

It was really easy on Sunday to see flat tires or tires come apart during the Cup Series race at Phoenix Raceway and say ‘tire failure’ but everyone with a reputable resume know that teams with problems were largely responsible for their fate.   As best described by Joe Gibbs Racing No. 20 crew chief Adam Stevens, there is a risk-versus-reward balance “It’s so tough,” Stevens said ...Keep readingView the full article

Denny Hamlin says Joe Gibbs went above and beyond with his family over the last year and leading up to the tragic house fire that claimed the life of his father Dennis and briefly hospitalized mother Mary Lou. The 60-race Cup Series winner was asked if business partner Michael Jordan has been available to him given that his own father was murdered in a 1993 robbery. Hamlin said Jordan has ...Keep readingView the full article

NASCAR isn’t typically known as a winter sport but they’ve decided to use their tools in order to help Team USA go faster at the Winter Olympics. The NASCAR research and development team is building virtual models of Olympic athletes and creating life size 3D printed versions of them in order to do wind tunnel and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) testing in order to find tweaks to help the ...Keep readingView the full article

Denny Hamlin was half a lap away from taking the white flag in the NASCAR Cup Series race at Kansas, one that seemed largely decided between himself and Tyler Reddick, but then Cody Ware cut a tire and spun out. Shake the snow globe!  Hamlin retained the lead off pit road, with most of the frontrunners taking just right sides, but lost it on the restart when he didn’t get the best launch ...Keep readingView the full article

The 2025 season marks a decade in which the NASCAR Cup Series has functionally operated under the ‘charter agreement,’ but it’s also the first year of the second document and first extension to an agreement first crafted in advance of the 2016 season. It’s also the first season that began with a lawsuit with two teams alleging federal antitrust violations against the sanctioning body ...Keep readingView the full article

Mixing up brake pads on a race car can seem counterintuitive at first glance but NASCAR Cup teams often do it on purpose in order to work around the rules and anyone wanting to be competitive at Phoenix this weekend will be trying it. The NASCAR Next Gen car is mostly assembled with single source parts so teams can’t build custom suspension or brake components but brake pad compounds are not ...Keep readingView the full article

The three-time Supercars champion started 31st at Tallladega in his third Cup start at NASCAR's biggest oval track. He quickly climbed through the field, and ended up near the front at several points during the dramatic pack race. While he didn't lead a lap, Shane van Gisbergen remained in the lead pack for most of the race. Unfortunately, his day nearly came to an end during a cycle of ...Keep readingView the full article

NASCAR has never been shy about changing up the way it crowns its champion, and the format has undergone a lot of changes since 1949. Red Byron won the first NASCAR cup title in 1949, Richard 'The King' Petty earned his first crown in 1971, Dale Earnhardt's seventh and final crown in 1994, Jimmie Johnson's historic run of five in-a-row in 2010, and Kyle Larson's latest triumph in 2025 -- all of ...Keep readingView the full article