NASCAR teams are making their final preparations for the season finale races at Homestead-Miami Speedway this weekend. Before leaving for Florida, let’s take a look at how a few teams are doing before they leave.
Both Hendrick Motorsports and the Xfinity Series’ JR Motorsports held rallies for their championship teams. Here’s a peek at those rallies as well as a look at how other teams are preparing for the end of the 2016 season.
Hendrick Motorsports
JR Motorsports
Stewart-Haas Racing
With the year coming to a close, it’s time to reflect on what went down in 2019.
But this isn’t some serious retrospective on the events witnessed in NASCAR over the last 12 months.
Nope, we’re going to talk about paint schemes.
That’s it.
Without further ado, here are 10 of the coolest paint schemes that graced the track this year.
Corey LaJoie’s No. 32 Scooby-Doo Mystery Machine Ford
For the second year in a row, Go Fas Racing and sponsor CorvetteParts.net expressed their inner child for the Martinsville Cup race ahead of Halloween.
Following their “Peanuts” car in 2018, LaJoie’s car was transformed into the Mystery Machine from the Scooby-Doo cartoons.
It definitely echoes the Cartoon Network cars that competed in the 1990s and we don’t have a problem with that.
Kurt Busch‘s No. 1 Star Nursery Chevrolet
The Chip Ganassi Racing driver didn’t wait until the Southern 500 to bring a throwback scheme to the track.
Busch had Star Nursery on his car for the spring race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. A local Las Vegas sponsor, the company backed Busch when he won the 1999 Southwest Tour championship.
William Byron‘s No. 24 City Chevrolet … Chevrolet
Hendrick Motorsports dropped the hammer with Byron’s Southern 500 scheme, almost a direct copy of a car Cole Trickle drove in the movie Days of Thunder, which Hendrick Motorsports advised on the making of.
City Chevrolet is a real car dealership in Charlotte, North Carolina, that Rick Hendrick owns.
Michael Annett‘s No. 1 Baby Ruth Chevrolet
JR Motorsports trotted out this tribute to Jeff Gordon’s 1992 Xfinity Series car at Darlington.
Having both the right number and the sponsor to complete the ensemble made it the MVP of the Xfinity Series’ portion of the throwback weekend.
Alex Bowman‘s No. 88 Nationwide Patriotic Chevrolet
The Hendrick Motorsports driver arrived at Charlotte Motor Speedway with this scheme for the Coca-Cola 600 in May.
Unlike the typical red, white and blue schemes for the Memorial Day race, Bowman’s had a more subtle approach and came away with a very slick look.
Bubba Wallace‘s No. 43 Air Force P-40 Warhawk Chevrolet
Richard Petty Motorsports unleashed this scheme at the Bristol night race.
A tribute to World War II fighter planes, we can imagine being startled by seeing this car approaching in the rear-view mirror.
Brad Keselowski‘s No. 2 Miller Lite Holiday Knitwear Ford
Sure, this paint scheme was raced in Arizona in the middle of November.
But we’re not going to fault the timing of this holiday-themed car.
While it would be easy call this an “ugly Christmas sweater” design, there’s nothing ugly about it.
Kevin Harvick‘s No. 4 Busch Beer Gen X Ford
The folks at Busch Beer proved it’s possible to have a sequel paint scheme … or would that be a prequel?
Harvick drove this Gen X-themed scheme at Pocono in July. Two months earlier, Harvick competed in the All-Star Race with a Millennial paint scheme.
Ben Rhodes‘ No. 99 Havoline Ford
Rhodes and ThorSport Racing provided a blast from the past with this sponsor and scheme in the Truck Series.
Havoline made its return as a NASCAR sponsor for the first time since 2008. It was on Rhodes truck for eight races.
Kevin Harvick’s No. 4 Harvick Beer Ford
Using the excuse that it was tired of giving free promotion to Kyle and Kurt Busch, Busch Beer turned the No. 4 car into the “Harvick Beer” car for the playoff race at Dover International Speedway.
For anyone who has played a NASCAR video game or collected diecasts, it’s a reminder of the kid friendly cars that replaced beer names with the names of the driver.
What was your favorite paint scheme this season? Let us know in the comments.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — It would be easy for some to expect that Chase Elliott’s second consecutive NMPA Most Popular Driver award marks the early stages of a streak that could rival, if not top, Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s record run of 15 consecutive titles.
But that would be overlooking some challenges Elliott will face.
One could come from Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jimmie Johnson, who said 2020 will be his last full-time Cup season.
That gives him a final chance to win one of the few honors he’s never captured in his NASCAR career.
Johnson is the only seven-time champion not to win the Most Popular Driver award. Dale Earnhardt was awarded the honor posthumously in 2001. Richard Petty won it eight times, the last time in 1978.
If he couldn’t win an eighth championship, would there be a better sendoff for Johnson than to win the sport’s most popular driver award?
“There’s no award that Jimmie could or will ever win that he doesn’t deserve,” Elliott said Thursday night after the NASCAR Awards show at the Music City Center. “Whatever next year brings, I’m looking forward to spending it with him. It’s been an honor to be his teammate. If he gets the (most popular driver) honor next year, that’s great and I’ll be happy for him. There’s no doubt that he deserves it. You do what he’s done in this sport, my opinion, you can do whatever you want. Pulling for him. I’d love to see him get eight (championships). I’d also love to get one.
“Don’t write him off yet because I think he’s pretty fired up, and I could see him having a big year next year.”
Johnson had his fans early in his career but his success turned many off, who tired of the Californian winning so often.
Things changed before the 2016 championship race in Miami as Johnson prepared to go for his record-tying seventh title. He saw it as he went around the track in a pickup during driver intros.
“I usually get flipped off a lot,” Johnson said that day after winning his seventh title. “They shoot me the bird everywhere we are, every state, everywhere we go. I kept looking up and seeing hands in the air thinking they’re shooting me the bird again. It was actually seven. All the way around the race track everyone was holding up seven, and it just gave me goosebumps, like wow, what an interesting shift in things.”
Another key challenger for Elliott for Most Popular Driver is two-time champion Kyle Busch.
Yes, that is correct.
Busch finished second to Elliott in the voting for Most Popular Driver award this year.
It once seemed impossible that Busch would finish in the top five in any type of most popular driver voting, but his Rowdy Nation fan base continues to grow.
If not next year for Busch, there’s the chance his fan base could carry him to a Most Popular Driver award sometime in the future.
Wouldn’t that be something?
2. Gut-wrenching pain
The most emotional moment of Thursday’s awards show came when Kyle Busch turned to wife Samantha to thank her for her support and also console her for the multiple failures this year in trying for a second child.
The couple went through in-vitro fertilization to have son Brexton in 2015. They used that experience to create the Bundle of Joy fund to provide money to infertile couples.
Samantha Busch announced in Nov. 2018 that she was pregnant with their second child only to suffer a miscarriage eight days later.
Busch’s voice quivered as he revealed on stage the pain he and his wife went through this year.
“I read quote recently that hit home for me,” Busch said to Samantha. “It said: “The strongest people are not those that show strength in front of the world but those who fight and win battles that others don’t know anything about. I’m right here with you knowing how hard it has been to go through multiple … yes multiple failed attempts of (in-vitro fertilization) this year.
“To walk around and try to face people week after week is difficult for me always knowing in the back of my mind how helpless I feel in life knowing how much I wanted to answer your prayers and be able to give you a gift of our baby girl.”
Busch said he had talked briefly to his wife ahead of time about revealing their loss publicly.
“I think there was a lot of naysay and negative discussions about what my emotions where and who I was in the playoffs and things like that,” Busch said after Thursday’s ceremony. “Not everybody knows exactly what is going on behind the scenes. Focus on your own.”
Busch said he never felt the devastation from the miscarriages impacted his performance.
“There were certain times, maybe, in meetings and things like that that I wouldn’t say it affected but it obviously came across my mind,” he said. “As far as it comes to the race track, when I put my helmet on, I feel like I can zero that out and do a really good job of focusing what the task at hand is.”
3. Nashville momentum?
The fan reception in Nashville has those in the sport encouraged that this week can build momentum to have a race at Fairgrounds Speedway.
Jerry Caldwell, executive vice president and general manager of Bristol Motor Speedway, continues to lead the efforts for Speedway Motorsports to return NASCAR racing to the historic track.
But to do so, Caldwell and SMI officials will have to navigate through the city’s politics from the mayor’s office to the metro council and the fair board.
“We understand that it’s a new administration,” Caldwell told NBC Sports about Mayor John Cooper, who was sworn into office in late September. “We’re encouraged with the conversations that we’ve had with them and look forward to continuing those. I think we all see a bright future there.
“We all see that there’s a ton of potential at Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway to create something that the city can be proud of, race fans can embrace and love, we can protect the heritage and celebrate that but also turn it into a venue that can be used 365 days a year.”
With NASCAR President Steve Phelps’ self-imposed deadline of April 1 to announce the 2021 Cup schedule, it would seem highly unlikely that negotiations can be completed in time for the track to be added to the schedule by then. Caldwell declined to speculate on timing “because we’re still in some conversations with the city to figure that out because there are a lot of moving pieces.”
Chase Elliott hopes this week shows city leaders the value of what a NASCAR race at Fairgrounds Speedway could be.
“Hopefully this sparks something in the city that allows the right people to make the right moves to come and race up here,” Elliott said, “because this place is too perfect not to.”
4. New cars for Bubba Wallace
Brian Moffitt, chief executive officer for Richard Petty Motorsports, says the team plans to have some sponsorship news in January. With the additional funding, the team will add new cars to its fleet for Bubba Wallace.
Even with the upcoming news, Moffitt said the team will still have some races available for sponsorships for the upcoming season.
Moffitt has high hopes entering the 2020 season.
“We’re going to be better right out of the gate this year in 2020,” Moffitt told NBC Sports. “We’re going to be right there with our partner (Richard Childress Racing) working with them a lot closer.”
Moffitt said the team anticipates having about half a dozen new cars by the first quarter of the season.
“We are going to have a lot newer equipment than we started (2019) with,” Moffitt said.
The challenge with that is that all the equipment will be outdated by the end of the season with the Next Gen car debuting in 2021.
“It’s still important in 2020,” Moffitt said. “We still have to perform for our partners. We want to be up there. It will help you prepare for 2021 coming out of the gate.”
Moffitt said the team also plans to add engineers and mechanics this season.
“We’re going to have some track engineers we haven’t had,” Moffitt said.
Wallace finished 28th in points last year, matching his finish in the points in 2018 as a rookie.
5. Pit road woes
Kurt Busch said a key area of improvement for his Chip Ganassi Racing team will be its performance on pit road. Busch said the team lost 120 spots on pit road.
“You can’t do that,” he said. “You’ve got to try to break even. You’re supposed to have a plus on pit road as far as spots gained. That’s where you’re going to see Gibbs … all those guys at Gibbs gained spots on pit road. We can’t lose that many spots at Ganassi on pit road.”
Losing spots on pit road can be related to when a crew chief calls in the driver to pit road, how quickly the driver goes down pit road without speeding and how well the pit crew performs.
“It just seemed like one pit road penalty led to a bad restart, a bad restart led to now the pit crew has to pick it up and get those spots back,” Busch said.
He noted how his season mirrored another Chevrolet driver.
“Our season was real similar to Alex Bowman,” said Busch, whose one win last season came in July at Kentucky. “Alex Bowman won at Chicago (in June) and then they faded and they were right with us in points all the way through the playoffs.
“Some of it was team. Some of it was me overdriving. Some of it was pit crew mistakes. The Camaro was a bit behind that we saw now at the end of the year with all those Toyotas in the championship 4.”
NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Denny Hamlin and Martin Truex Jr. pranked Cup champion Kyle Busch by dumping 30,000 pennies on his bed as part of Truex’s payoff for losing a bet to Busch last month in New York City.
Hamlin, Truex, Busch and Kevin Harvick were all together in New York City promoting their appearance in the championship race in Miami. They were riding in traffic when Busch bet he could get to the hotel quicker by jogging. The other three took him up on it.
Busch arrived ahead of them and won.
Truex owed Busch $300 for losing the bet. Hamlin helped him come up with a creative way to pay it back.
Truex said on an Hamlin’s Instagram story: “It’s going to be fun to see his reaction. He’s going to be happy that he’s getting his money, I’m just not sure he’s going to be able to carry it home with him. We’ll see how this plays out.”
Busch didn’t know about the prank until Hamlin asked if he had seen Hamlin’s Instagram story.
“Took a look … and damn it,” Busch said after the banquet.
“I guess it’s in the pillow cases and everywhere. We’ll have to figure that out (how to remove them).
Asked if Truex was still good for paying off the bet that way, Busch joked: “He might get wrecked.”
NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Before the show, drivers and their significant others walked the red carpet. Here’s a look at their outfits for the evening.
