Familiar sight: Kyle Busch wins at Texas for fourth consecutive NASCAR victory

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When you’re hot, you’re hot – and Kyle Busch is on fire.

The defending Sprint Cup champion won his fourth consecutive NASCAR race, capturing Saturday night’s Duck Commander 500 at Texas Motor Speedway.

Busch has won back-to-back Sprint Cup races at Martinsville Speedway and Texas. He also won the Camping World Truck Series race at Martinsville last Saturday and Friday night’s Xfinity Series race at Texas.

Busch took the lead at Texas just after the final restart on Lap 301 and built nearly a 2-second margin, capturing the checkered flag for the 36th time in his Sprint Cup career.

Busch takes over the lead in the Sprint Cup standings through seven races and also earned the ninth weekend sweep of his NASCAR career.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. finished second, followed by Joey Logano, Jimmie Johnson, Chase Elliott, and Martin Truex Jr., who led the most laps (141).

On Lap 223, Carl Edwards was running second to teammate Matt Kenseth when the No. 19 slowed coming out of Turn 1 and limped back to pit road for a loose wheel. He dropped from 2nd to 19th and off the lead lap. Edwards rallied to finish seventh.

MORE: Results of Duck Commander 500

MORE: Kyle Busch takes over lead in Sprint Cup standings

HOW BUSCH WON: Patience was Busch’s biggest virtue. His team kept improving his car with every pit stop, while he kept himself close in the top 10 for most of the evening. Busch took the lead off the final restart on Lap 301 and cruised.

WHO ELSE HAD A GOOD RACE: Dale Earnhardt Jr. didn’t lead a lap, but he came close to earning his first win of 2016. … Chase Elliott (fifth) led a lap and earned the best finish and first top-five of his young Sprint Cup career. In addition to being the highest-finishing rookie in the race, Elliott has finished in the top eight in three of the last four races. … Kasey Kahne (eighth) earned his best finish of the season and his best finish since Kansas Speedway (fourth) last October.

WHO HAD A BAD RACE: After being tagged from behind by Kasey Kahne, Greg Biffle hit the Turn 2 wall hard with 47 laps to go, ending his night. Biffle was running 17th at the time and finished 39th. … Clint Bowyer continues to struggle, finishing a season-worst 38th. Bowyer has finished 30th or worse in four of the first seven races of 2016.

NOTABLE: The start was delayed one hour, 50 minutes to dry the track from rain in the afternoon. … Trevor Bayne took the lead with 75 laps to go, the first time he’s led a Sprint Cup race since May 2014 at Talladega. Bayne led 12 laps before being passed by Truex. Still, those 12 laps led were a single-race career-best for Bayne.

QUOTE OF THE DAY: “It’s pretty darn good, I’ll tell you that. I have a great wife, a great son, having a blast and living the dream with (crew chief) Adam Stevens and these guys. … It’s just fun, right now it’s all clicking and going together.” – Kyle Busch to Fox Sports on life these days.

WHAT’S NEXT: Sunday, April 17 (1 p.m. ET), Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway

Follow @JerryBonkowski

Sonoma Xfinity starting lineup: Kyle Larson wins pole

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SONOMA, Calif. — Kyle Larson will start on the pole for Saturday’s inaugural Xfinity Series race at Sonoma Raceway.

Larson won the pole with an average speed of 91.393 mph around the 1.99-mile road course. Justin Allgaier joins Larson on the front row after a lap of 90.562 mph. Sheldon Creed (90.429 mph) qualified third. Aric Almirola (90.375) will start fourth. AJ Allmendinger (90.274) will start fifth.

MORE: Sonoma Xfinity starting lineup

MORE: Alpha Prime Racing’s road woes don’t keep team from competing

Larson is one of seven Cup drivers entered. The others are Almirola (starting fourth), Allmendinger (fifth), Ty Gibbs (seventh), Ross Chastain (15th), Daniel Suarez (17th) and Ty Dillon (32nd).

The green flag is scheduled to wave at 8:20 p.m. ET Saturday on FS1.

Could Daytona International Speedway host NFL games?

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The president of Daytona International Speedway says track officials plan to speak with the NFL’s Jacksonville Jaguars about hosting the team’s games if Jacksonville’s stadium is renovated.

The Jaguars will need a temporary home site if plans go forward to renovate the team’s stadium. Daytona International Speedway has been mentioned as a possible candidate. The Jaguars released details Wednesday of what the stadium will look like after the renovation project.

Provided the project is approved by the city of Jacksonville, it is believed the Jaguars would need to find another home site for a couple of seasons while work is being done to its stadium. Daytona International Speedway is among possible sites for the Jaguars to play. More than 100,000 people saw Ricky Stenhouse Jr. win this year’s Daytona 500.

“Daytona International Speedway is a world-renowned sports and entertainment venue and hosts a full schedule of events each year,” said Frank Kelleher, president of Daytona International Speedway, in a statement. “As good neighbors in the Florida sports community, DIS will be speaking with the Jacksonville Jaguars to see if we can assist them with their potential upcoming facility needs around our scheduled events.”

Daytona International Speedway hosted Soccer Fest in July 2022. An announced crowd of 7,573 fans saw the Orlando Pride and Racing Louisville play in a National Women’s Soccer League game at Daytona.

NASCAR displays counterfeit part from Chase Briscoe car

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SONOMA, Calif. — NASCAR displayed the counterfeit part from Chase Briscoe‘s car on Saturday at Sonoma Raceway, showing how the part did not correspond to what should have been in the car.

NASCAR found the issue at its R&D Center after last month’s Coca-Cola 600. The sanctioning body fined crew chief John Klausmeier $250,000 and suspended him for six races. NASCAR also docked Briscoe and the team 120 points and 25 playoff points for the L3 infraction.

“We want to be transparent on the penalties,” said Brad Moran, managing director of the Cup Series as he displayed the counterfeit part to media.

Moran displayed a a portion of the engine panel from Briscoe’s car. He noted the engine duct was counterfeit. He said the proper pieces are 3D printed at the R&D Center and Fiberworks Composites sells them and installs them for teams. Moran said the duct is “in the bottom of the car under the engine panel. It’s to help cool the driver. It was added prior to the first race. During testing … we realized we wanted to get heat out of the engine compartment, and that’s what this piece does.”

Moran noted that with the counterfeit part, “we can clearly see the textures are different (from the proper part).”

He displayed what officials call a gauge that determines if the duct fits the proper parameters. He showed it fitting a proper duct and not properly fitting in the counterfeit part.

“It was a part that was made, and it was made for whatever reason,” Moran said. “It was, I guess, put on by error, but it was on the vehicle. It is a piece that should not have been made in the first place, and it was spotted at our teardown at the R&D Center.”

Moran said the issue was found in a visual inspection of the part. NASCAR inspected it further and Moran said “there are certain little characteristics that are in (a proper piece)” that officials did not see in the one on Briscoe’s car. “The more we examined it, the more we realized that’s not a part they bought.”

Moran noted that while the penalties were severe, they could have been worse based on the rulebook.

“It was the low end of the L3,” Moran said. “It’s a real big hit for any team. If it continues, and we feel we are not where we need to be, unfortunately, it’s going to ramp up. We’re not going to stop.

“The deal with this car is it needs to be run without modifying. It costs teams a lot of money in development. All the owners agreed. We all agreed where we need to be to make this a successful program, and we’re not going to give up.”

 

 

Sunday Cup race at Sonoma Raceway: Start time, TV info, weather

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The Cup Series heads to wine country to compete on the 1.99-mile road course at Sonoma Raceway. This race leads into the final off weekend of the season. After the break, the series races 20 consecutive weekends. NBC and USA will broadcast those races.

Details for Sunday’s Cup race at Sonoma Raceway

(All times Eastern)

START: Adam Devine will give the command to start engines at 3:38 p.m. … The green flag is scheduled to wave at 3:50 p.m.

PRERACE: Cup garage opens at 12:30 p.m. … Drivers meeting is at 2:45 p.m. … Driver intros are at 3 p.m. … Earl Smith, pastor for the Golden State Warriors and San Francisco 49ers, will give the invocation at 3:30 p.m. … Tiffany Woys will perform the national anthem at 3:31 p.m.

DISTANCE: The race is 110 laps (218.9 miles) on the 1.99-mile road course.

STAGES: Stage 1 ends at Lap 25. Stage 2 ends at Lap 55.

STARTING LINEUP: Qualifying begins at 6 p.m. Saturday

TV/RADIO: Fox will broadcast the race at 3:30 p.m. … Coverage begins at 2 p.m. on FS1 and switches to Fox at 3 p.m. … Performance Racing Network coverage begins at 2:30 p.m. and also will stream at goprn.com. SiriusXM NASCAR Radio will carry the PRN broadcast.

STREAMING: Fox Sports

FORECAST: Weather Underground — Partly cloudy with a high of 69 degrees and a 1% chance of rain at the start of the race.

LAST YEAR: Daniel Suarez won his first career Cup race last year at Sonoma. Chris Buescher finished second. Michael McDowell placed third.

CATCH UP ON NBC SPORTS COVERAGE:

Friday 5: Kyle Busch, Randall Burnett forming potent combination

Rick Hendrick hopes rough driving settles down after Chase Elliott suspension

Concussion-like symptoms sideline Noah Gragson

NASCAR implements safety changes after Talladega crash

Dr. Diandra: Brad Keselowski driving RFK Racing revival 

NASCAR penalizes Erik Jones, Legacy MC for L1 violation

Drivers to watch at Sonoma Raceway 

NASCAR Power Rankings: William Byron, Kyle Busch rank 1-2