Latest news with #CrackerBarrel400
Yahoo
16-07-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Kevin Harvick Has 1 Issue With Current NASCAR Drivers
Kevin Harvick Has 1 Issue With Current NASCAR Drivers originally appeared on The Spun. Former NACAR Cup Series champion Kevin Harvick isn't afraid to share his unfiltered thoughts about the sport, that's for sure. There's been plenty of drama this season in the Cup Series. Back in June, there was a lot of drama surrounding Carson Hocevar and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. due to their collision at the Cracker Barrel 400 in Nashville. Things got so ugly that people accused Hocevar of being a reckless driver. We also can't forget that Joey Logano and Ross Chastain exchanged words after the Chicago street race earlier this month. During this Tuesday's episode of the "Kevin Harvick's Happy Hour" podcast, Harvick addressed all the drama surrounding the Cup Series. Harvick made it clear that he wants drivers to stop talking trash and start retaliating when they feel cheated on the track. "I don't know about the fights, but if you're going to call somebody out on the radio and you're going to talk a bunch of [expletive], at least go do something, or immediately just hammer them," Harvick said, via On3. "Just all the [expletive] talking that happens on the radio, and then nothing happening on the racetrack. There's just no better message that you can send than just wiping somebody out in retaliation. Then they know you'll do it, right? When they know that you'll do it, they're not going to wipe you out. Because they don't want to deal (with that). "That's one reason why, back when I drove, you just — every once in a while, you just had to wipe somebody out. You had to just send a message. You had a bunch of chaos — do you want to deal with the chaos, and do you want to get wiped out? Fine, let's do it. But I don't know that anybody is going to do that." Harvick obviously doesn't want NASCAR's product to become an utter mess each week, but the sport could benefit from some fireworks. The Cup Series will resume on July 20 at Dover International Harvick Has 1 Issue With Current NASCAR Drivers first appeared on The Spun on Jul 16, 2025 This story was originally reported by The Spun on Jul 16, 2025, where it first appeared.
Forbes
01-07-2025
- Automotive
- Forbes
A Consistent Ricky Stenhouse Jr. Grows With Hyak Motorsports
Ricky Stenhouse Jr., driver of the No. 47 NOS Energy Chevrolet, walks onstage during driver intros ... More prior to the NASCAR Cup Series Cracker Barrel 400 at Nashville Superspeedway on June 01, 2025 in Lebanon, Tennessee. (Photo by) Ricky Stenhouse Jr. is known for his on-track aggression, and each of his four career Nascar Cup Series wins are because of exactly that. But the 37-year-old racer, now in his 13th Cup season, is still searching for consistency. His small Hyak Motorsports is one of the biggest underdog stories in the entire sport. With less than 30 full-time employees and a lack of major tech support, the little team that could does plenty. When Stenhouse won the 2023 Daytona 500, it literally sent shockwaves throughout the garage. This year, the team formerly known as JTG Daugherty Racing underwent an ownership change. Jodi and Tad Geschickter, who first formed an Xfinity Series team in 1995 and debuted a Cup car in 2008, left the ownership group. Gordon Smith took over as principal owner, with NBA legend Brad Daugherty remaining as a minority owner. Mark Hughes and former Nascar crew chief Ernie Cope also joined the ownership group. 'Nothing has changed on the competition side," Stenhouse said. "My team has stayed the same with my engineers and shop guys. I think that's what helped us get off to a hot start. We focused this offseason on what we needed to get better at from last year. 'Executing was pretty high on the list. We still need to get our speed better. But even when we had cars that weren't as we needed them to be, we worked the system with strategy, good restarts and just came out with good finishes.' At the same time, the newly coined Hyak Motorsports had to hunt for a new sponsor. Kroger left the team to partner with all three drivers at RFK Racing, marking a major shift for the No. 47 car, which had worked with Kroger since 2010. But the new ownership group has done a great job at marketing the No. 47 car and its driver. Major partners have joined the team or expanded previous packages, such as SunnyD, Rate, Martin's Famous Potato Rolls, betr, Real American Beer, NOS Energy, Hungry Jack, Fun Pops and several other firms. 'The toughest part of switching the brand is you lose all of the office people who handled that side of things,' he explained. 'We put new people in place. We've had great [partners] come on board. We're looking to build our partners at our race team. Everybody's been really pleased about what we've been able to do for them.' Right now, Stenhouse's goal is to get the team back into the playoffs. After 18 races, he sits 21st in the regular season standings and likely needs a win in the final eight events before the playoffs begin to qualify for the postseason. 'It would be huge,' Stenhouse, who's qualified for the postseason twice, said. 'It's tough to do in the sport, especially as a single-car team. We have 24 employees that work on this thing. It would be huge for our company.' But even with the loss of a major corporate sponsor, Stenhouse's performance has stabilized. He has an average finish of 18.9, which is second behind his best with the No. 47 team (17.8 in 2023). If he didn't have some tough luck, he'd likely be right around the playoff bubble. He was 13th overall in the standings through the Coca-Cola 600 in late May. 'Mike Kelley [crew chief] and I have been working really hard together to dissect our races to see where they went wrong,' Stenhouse said. 'We're trying not to put ourselves or our car in bad positions before the end of the race. That's helped us out a lot this year.'
Yahoo
13-06-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Denny Hamlin reveals how NASCAR In-Season Challenge will influence his racing strategy
Denny Hamlin is one of the winningest drivers in NASCAR Cup Series history, but he doesn't have a championship on his Hall of Fame resume. While every point is valuable during the regular season, it appears the NASCAR In-Season Challenge will have some influence on how he races. On Monday's episode of the Actions Detrimental podcast, Hamlin stated that drivers will very much care about the NASCAR In-Season Challenge once it starts on June 28 in Atlanta. He highlighted that motivation, sharing how matchups will influence his strategy on road courses. Advertisement Related: Denny Hamlin guarantees Ricky Stenhouse gets revenge on Carson Hocevar 'If we go to a road course, suddenly, I'm telling you. I'm gonna tell Gayle, 'beat that guy'. I just want to beat that guy. Where we think, 'Oh well, maybe we'll stay out and get 3 stage points here.' Hell no. I want to do whatever I have to do to beat that guy. So, we're gonna care.' Denny Hamlin stats ( 443 points, 2 wins, 7 top 10s, 6 top 5s, 2 DNFs, 450 laps led, 12.357 average starting position, 14.357 average finishing position Related: Insider reveals Denny Hamlin's future with Joe Gibbs Racing As described by the field for the In-Season Challenge is comprised of 32 drivers in a single-elimination format over five races. While the field of 32 (top 32 points leaders) was set following the Cracker Barrel 400 at Nashville, the seedings will be determined by the next three races – Michigan International Speedway, Autódromo Hermanos Rodriguez and Pocono Raceway – with drivers seeded by how they finish in those three races. Advertisement Ahead of the Cracker Barrel 400, the majority of Cup Series drivers didn't express a ton of enthusiasm for the in-season tournament. However, Hamlin expects that to change ahead of the first race on June 28, entirely because the winner of the NASCAR In-Season Challenge gets $1 million. Related: Denny Hamlin credits Kyle Busch for huge development in his career The tournament matchups will also add more excitement for fans during races. While the focus would normally center on the battle for first, the head-to-head matchups created by the tournament mean that two drivers battling in the middle of the field will be competing to advance to the next round. In Hamlin's case, his approach would mean sacrificing stage points on a road course to ensure he snags a better finishing position than the driver he is seeded against in the NASCAR In-Season Challenge. Whoever advances, the $1 million winner will be determined on July 27 in the Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Advertisement Also Read: Reporter explains when Corey Heim might become full-time driver in Cup Series Related Headlines
Newsweek
12-06-2025
- Automotive
- Newsweek
Earnhardt Jr. Uncovers Rare Stories from Dale Sr.'s 1980 Season in New Show
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. Dale Earnhardt Jr. spoke about his upcoming show, 'Becoming Earnhardt 1980,' which is based on two scrapbooks that his aunt created from articles about Dale Earnhardt Sr.'s NASCAR Cup Series title fight from 1979 and 1980. The show will focus on the 1980 season, revealing lesser known details of the events that unfolded, eventually leading to Dale Sr.'s spectacular championship victory. Dale Jr. opened up about the show on his Dale Jr. Download podcast. He said: "It's just a show that I started. I got these two scrapbooks from my aunt when my grandmother passed away. We went to her house, we were kind of looking through some of the things - photos and all kinds of stuff - and there were these two scrapbooks that my aunt made. Dale Earnhardt Jr. speaks on the NASCAR on Prime Video broadcast set after the NASCAR Cup Series Cracker Barrel 400 at Nashville Superspeedway on June 01, 2025 in Lebanon, Tennessee. (Photo by ) Dale Earnhardt Jr. speaks on the NASCAR on Prime Video broadcast set after the NASCAR Cup Series Cracker Barrel 400 at Nashville Superspeedway on June 01, 2025 in Lebanon, Tennessee. (Photo by )"They are literally, one is from the '79 year and one's from the '80 Cup season. She cut out every article and everything. So right there in front of me, man, is basically this kind of book of, like, 'here's what happened to Dad.' "I just never really dove into that real deeply to get details about that particular couple of years when he drove for Rod Osterlund and landed his first full-time ride in NASCAR. "So we decided to make a series, Becoming Earnhardt, to detail what's in those scrapbooks and the things that we learned. It's pretty interesting." Dale Jr. revealed a controversy from 1980 that will be covered in the show. He added: "1980 is what this particular season of Becoming Earnhardt will be focusing on, and there is a high-profile split with crew chief Jake Elder. How Jake handles that in the media is wild—Jake goes off the rails, Jake comes back on the rails—it's just wild. "And Dad and Cale get nippy in the media late in the year. Cale actually is real critical of Dad on the racetrack. Just watching that whole thing—kind of reliving it, putting yourself in the moment of going back through that particular year—I think it's really fun for me. "I'm a nostalgia freak. I love the history of the sport. So it is a great time for me, a good excuse for me to dive more into learning about that particular part of Dad's life. I lived a lot of the late '80s and the '90s. I wasn't even in Dad's life in 1980. I was not living with him yet." One point to be noted is that the show uses original calls from the radio broadcasts, adding to its authenticity. Dale Jr. confirmed: "We used a lot of original calls from MRN, and there was also an alternate broadcasting network that is now property of App State—the college. "So we went to their archives to pull out some of the original calls from those radio broadcasts, and hearing all that stuff is a lot of fun."
Newsweek
11-06-2025
- Automotive
- Newsweek
Denny Hamlin Stunned by Alex Bowman's Michigan Crash - 'Big Lick'
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Denny Hamlin has reacted to Alex Bowman's crash during the NASCAR Cup Series race at Michigan International Speedway on Sunday. Hamlin was surprised by the intensity of the incident and described it as a "big lick." Five drivers were involved in the crash that brought out the red flag. Contact between cars No. 41 and 2 triggered the incident. Cars No. 99, 48, and 19 weren't spared either. Bowman, Daniel Suarez, Cole Custer, Austin Cindric, and Chase Briscoe were the affected drivers, and fortunately, all escaped unharmed. However, Bowman crashed hard, which prompted him to admit that it was the "biggest hit" he had experienced in a stock car. Newsweek Sports reported his statement after the crash: Alex Bowman, driver of the #48 Ally Chevrolet, pits after an on-track incident during the NASCAR Cup Series Cracker Barrel 400 at Nashville Superspeedway on June 01, 2025 in Lebanon, Tennessee. Alex Bowman, driver of the #48 Ally Chevrolet, pits after an on-track incident during the NASCAR Cup Series Cracker Barrel 400 at Nashville Superspeedway on June 01, 2025 in Lebanon, Tennessee."It happened so fast that I didn't even see them. I didn't know who hit me until I saw the video. It's always turbulent in the 300th. It's crazy back there. It gets wild and that is part of racing. It's wild all through the field. "Unfortunately, the further back you get, the less downforce cars have, the dirtier the air, the situations you're in, and the worst everybody stuff drives. So stuff like this tends to happen." He added: "I feel okay. It was the biggest hit I've ever taken in a stock car by a mile. Head-on into the wall at Michigan, it's gonna be that way. Try to go get them next week." The red flag is out at @MISpeedway after this incident involving multiple cars.@Alex_Bowman exited the No. 48 under his own power. — NASCAR (@NASCAR) June 8, 2025 Hamlin said on his Actions Detrimental podcast that he knew the crash was serious since he wasn't allowed to go past the "crime scene." He said: "Major. I knew it had to be a big lick, because they wouldn't even let us go through this crime scene. The caution came out for us, I think I was somewhere on the back stretch, and we were stopped right after the start-finish line. "So, at that point, when it goes red that quickly, I'm like, 'Oh, must've had a big one.' I point myself out to look at the screen to see the replay, and I was like, 'Whoa, that was a big hit.'" When the NASCAR veteran was asked about the impact of the crash and the pain that comes from such crashes, he said: "You certainly feel it more so the day after and the following days. Like, for instance, my wrist from Daytona - I think it's still not right from where it was. Like, I'm so old now, it's like, will it ever be right again? It just sucks to put any kind of pressure on it. "It's just, I think it's different for everyone. People recover differently. But yeah, I mean, head-on impact like that. Certainly when the Next Gen originally came out and it was solid as a rock, you know, before they started cutting up the roll cage and all kinds of stuff to get the impacts a little bit softer, you know, that could've been a way worse wreck than what it appears that it resulted in."
