Category: MotorSports

Denny Hamlin reveals the staggering amount of money NASCAR teams waste on tires

Denny Hamlin reveals how much NASCAR Cup Series teams spend – and waste – on tires over the course of a season.

It costs a lot of money to fund a NASCAR Cup Series team, but Denny Hamlin shared a shocking stat on his podcast that revealed how much cash some teams are wasting in unused Goodyear tires over the course of a season.

Each weekend when teams arrive at the track, a Goodyear truck will be stocked with hundreds of sets of tires. Each race has a maximum allotment of tires that can be used, and teams will always buy as many as they can get to give themselves strategic flexibility during a race – but not all of those sets of tires are used on a Sunday. Goodyear does not allow teams to turn unused tires back in for a refund, however.

“Say we go to Texas this weekend and they give us eight sets of tires. If we use six, we don’t get a rebate on those two [left over]. We do not get reimbursed for those tires…. If we have a leftover set, $2,400 a piece or whatever they might be, we can’t just turn them back into Goodyear and get a refund. They tell us ‘you’re buying these sets of tires and they’re yours now, you can do whatever you want with them.”

The problem for NASCAR teams is that on most NASCAR tracks, there are usually enough long green flag runs – and not enough tire degradation – to get through a race without using every set purchased. Which means most weekends, teams are bringing unused tires back home.

For a four-car team like Joe Gibbs Racing, which Hamlin is a part of, those costs quickly add up. Hamlin said that in 2022, the first year that NASCAR used the current next-gen car, JGR’s inventory of unused tires at the end of the season was worth nearly seven figures.

“Nearly $1 million dollars worth of tires that [Joe Gibbs Racing], the team spent on tires that it never ran.”

So why can’t NASCAR teams just re-use the tires next week?

It’s complicated. Hamlin explained that the tires his teams saved in Texas could potentially be used again when the Cup Series visits Kansas – a similar 1.5-mile track, on May 5th, but given the competitive advantage to having the freshest tires possible from Goodyear, it’s unlikely they would be used.

“They’ll put [the unused tires] in inventory…. Let’s say we go to Kansas next weekend, we likely would tap into that extra set and say ‘OK, we’re going to practice on those tires.’ But if Kansas is three, four months down the road we’re not going to want old date codes. We’re not going to want older tires because they age. Rubber ages and it changes compounds. It’s funny when you get older tires, that can really mess up a car. So it just goes to waste.”

NASCAR fans react to Chase Elliott ending his 42-race winless streak at Texas

Chase Elliott snapped a 42-race winless streak with a perfect drive on Sunday.

For the first time since September of 2022, former NASCAR Cup Series champ Chase Elliott is back in victory lane.

Elliott outlasted Ross Chastain, William Byron and Brad Keselowski in a wild finish at Texas Motor Speedway that saw multiple overtime periods and an unbelievable amount of chaos.

Elliott was running out of fuel and only had enough for one more restart, but he managed to take the white flag in the lead before Chastain and Byron wrecked down the backstretch, securing Elliott’s win.

The victory snapped a 42-race winless streak for Elliott, who has been open about his struggles in adapting to the next-gen car. After back-to-back solid finishes at Bristol and Martinsville, Elliott put himself into the playoffs on Sunday and re-established himself as a leading championship contender.

Here’s what fans were saying:

Fans slammed NASCAR for call on Denny Hamlin potentially jumping the final restart

Martin Truex Jr. says Denny Hamlin jumped the final restart en route to a win, and he may be right.

A NASCAR Cup Series race at Richmond on Sunday night appeared to be heading toward an inevitable Martin Truex Jr. win in the closing stages, but a late-race caution caused chaos – and left Truex Jr. fuming and driving into the back of his own teammate.

With Truex Jr. coming around to take the white flag, Bubba Wallace spun Kyle Larson to bring out a caution. This forced the entire field to pit for tires, and Denny Hamlin’s crew delivered a scorching top, vaulting the No. 11 car from third to first.

Hamlin held off Truex Jr. on the restart and went on to win his second race of 2024 – but after crossing the checkered flag, Truex Jr. sped up and slammed into the back of Hamlin multiple times.

The broadcast crew was mystified. The battle between Hamlin and Truex Jr. into Turn 1 was close, but nothing out of the ordinary. When he got out of his car and spoke to Jamie Little, however, Truex Jr. accused Hamlin of jumping the restart, giving himself the advantage he needed down the straight to beat Truex in the corner.

The replays showed… that Martin Truex Jr. may be correct. Hamlin seemed to gain an advantage on Truex Jr. before he crossed the white line on the track that denotes the start of the restart zone.

Strangely, however, Fox commentator Mike Joy quickly reported that NASCAR had already ruled that the restart wasn’t under review.

UPDATE: NASCAR told reporters after the race that it reviewed the restart and found nothing wrong. It’s unclear why Joy was told at the time and relayed on the broadcast the restart wasn’t under review.

This raised eyebrows among fans for several reasons. One, there would have obviously been no harm in reviewing the restart. There is no restart more important to extensively review than a green-white-checkered that determines a winner.

Since NASCAR is saying it did review the restart, it’s reasonable for fans to expect some kind of a breakdown explaining the call. NASCAR would presumably have the exact data it needs to either clear Hamlin of any wrongdoing or prove he jumped – which at this point it needs to do publicly. Every team gets a detailed stream of SMT data, which shows exactly when and where drivers are applying the throttle or the brake at any point of the track.

It’s hard to overstate the importance of verifying the race winner. A hypothetical post-race penalty for Hamlin – which doesn’t seem to be coming – would give the win to Joey Logano, locking him into the playoffs in what has otherwise been a brutal year for the No. 22 so far.

NASCAR told reporters that while the restart was “awful close,” officials deemed it to be legal.

Did NASCAR just get this call wrong?

How a North Carolina race track discovered a possible secret moonshine cave under its grandstands

Yes, you read that right.

NASCAR and moonshine go way, way back. So while it may seem incredible, it’s not totally surprising that North Wilkesboro Speedway in North Carolina recently may have discovered a secret moonshine cave underneath its grandstands.

And it’s all thanks to cracks in the grandstands’ foundation.

But let’s back up for a second.

Prohibition in the 1920s and 1930s contributed to the development of stock car racing in the U.S. And after prohibition, moonshine runners still needed to enhance their cars to evade authorities, laying the groundwork for NASCAR’s eventual inception in 1948.

Even racing legend Junior Johnson — who went to prison for a year for running an illegal whiskey still — once said: “If it hadn’t been for whiskey, NASCAR wouldn’t have been formed. That’s a fact.” And his whiskey still is now in the NASCAR Hall of Fame too.

OK, so back to North Wilkesboro’s stunning discovery.

The track — which was recently renovated and current host of NASCAR’s All-Star Race (May 19) — noted in a release Tuesday that operations staff found cracks in the concrete grandstands on the frontstretch of the 0.625-mile oval last week. After removing seats to figure out the extent of the damage, they discovered “an open area of approximately 700-square-feet” underneath the concrete.

And it could be an old moonshine cave. More via North Wilkesboro:

“When we began renovating and restoring North Wilkesboro Speedway in 2022, we’d often hear stories of how an old moonshine still was operated here on the property under the grandstands,” said Steve Swift, senior vice president of operations and development at Speedway Motorsports. “Well, we haven’t found find a still (yet), but we’ve found a small cave and an interior wall that would have been the perfect location to not only make illegal liquor, but to hide from the law as well. We don’t know how people would have gotten in and out, but as we uncover more, there’s no telling what we might find.”

According to the track, about 600 seats have now been removed from the area, and North Wilkesboro staff is figuring out how best to address it before the All-Star Race weekend in May.

If you want to learn more about NASCAR and its history with moonshine, check out The Sneak, a serialized true crime podcast with a sports angle from For The Win and USA TODAY.

In the third season, we explore the life of former NASCAR crew chief Mario Rossi, a brilliant engineer and innovator, and we investigate his mysterious 1983 disappearance, which could be connected to a $300 million drug-smuggling ring that infiltrated motorsports.

Binge every episode of our true crime podcast, The Sneak: The Disappearance of Mario Rossi

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Formula 1 rules: How does the points system work?

Explaining how the Formula 1 points system works for the 2024 season.

A new Formula 1 season begins on March 2nd in Bahrain, where 20 drivers and 10 teams will start a long, globe-trotting journey that will see them race on five continents and 21 different countries.

There are 24 full-length races on the calendar for 2024, along with six sprint races which also award championship points.

Points awarded to drivers count in the standings for the World Drivers’ Championship. Teams also compete for the World Constructors’ Championship, where points scored by each respective team’s drivers are added together each week.

Let’s take a look at what each position is worth in each type of race:

Grand Prix races

Points are awarded to the top 10 finishers per race as follows:

1st: 25 points
2nd: 18 points
3rd: 15 points
4th: 12 points
5th: 10 points
6th: 8 points
7th: 6 points
8th: 4 points
9th: 2 points
10th: 1 point

Bonus point for fastest lap: In a Grand Prix race, an additional 1 bonus point will be awarded to the driver who completes the fastest lap. In order to be eligible, the driver with the fastest lap must finish inside the top 10.

Sprint races

Sprint races will be held in China, Miami, Austria, Austin, Brazil and Qatar.

1st: 8 points
2nd: 7 points
3rd: 6 points
4th: 5 points
5th: 4 points
6th: 3 points
7th: 2 points
8th: 1 points

Shortened races

Formula 1 also introduced new scoring rules for Grands Prix that are shortened due to weather or other reasons, following the highly controversial 2021 Belgian Grand Prix, which awarded half points to the top 10 despite zero racing laps being run.

In the event that a race is shortened, points will be paid out depending on how much of the scheduled race distance was completed.

If less than 25% of race distance is completed: 

Points awarded: 6, 4, 3, 2, 1 (zero points awarded to 6th place and below)

If 25%-50% of race distance is completed: 

Points awarded: 13, 10, 8, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 (zero points awarded to 10th place and below)

If 50%-75% of race distance is completed: 

Points awarded: 19, 14, 12, 9, 8, 6, 5, 3, 2, 1

Has the points system always worked this way?

No, in fact the current points system is a very modern invention.

Ignoring the invention of sprint races 2021, F1 only awarded points to the top six finishers from 1950 all the way to 2002.

From 2003 to 2009, F1 paid points to the top eight drivers, with the race winner still only receiving 10 points. The current system of 25 points for a win was introduced in 2010 in order to incentivize and properly reward winning races, as the points gap between first and second became much wider.

NASCAR fans react to outrageous 3-wide photo finish at Atlanta

Here’s what drivers and fans were saying about the wild finish.

The re-imagining of Atlanta Motor Speedway to turn it into a pseudo-Daytona has created some wild races in recent years, but the Cup Series’ best just delivered one of the closest finishes we’ve ever seen on Sunday evening, with three drivers crossing the line simultaneously.

At the end of a chaotic 400-mile race that featured several huge accidents, Ryan Blaney, Kyle Busch and Daniel Suarez went three-wide on the final lap and had a drag race to the line. The broadcast initially thought that Blaney had crossed first, but a slow-motion camera at the finish line showed that Suarez edged the other two cars by the slimmest of margins.

Officially, Suarez crossed the line .003 seconds ahead of Blaney, and .007 seconds ahead of Busch.

The stunning win will likely lock Suarez into the playoffs – which coincidentally will begin in Atlanta later this year.

Here’s what drivers and fans were saying about the wild finish.

NASCAR at Atlanta: See the starting lineup for the Ambetter Health 400 with Michael McDowell on the pole

Some cool paint schemes lined up for NASCAR’s Atlanta weekend too.

Following Monday’s rain-delayed Daytona 500 — which William Byron won after some mild controversy from NASCAR officials at the very end — the NASCAR Cup Series is racing at Atlanta Motor Speedway this weekend.

The 2024 Ambetter Health 400 is set for Sunday at 3 p.m. ET on Fox at the 1.54-mile track, and Michael McDowell will start on the pole after having the best performance in qualifying Saturday. It’s the first pole in McDowell’s 17 Cup seasons for his 467th career start, and he edged out Joey Logano to start first.

Here’s a look at the starting lineup for the Ambetter Health 400 at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

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NASCAR official explains the late Daytona 500 caution and how William Byron was declared the winner

What NASCAR looked at and how it determined when to throw the late caution, making William Byron the Daytona 500 winner.

No one wants a NASCAR race to finish under caution and definitely not the Daytona 500. But sometimes, it’s necessary, and that’s exactly what happened Monday night at the end of the rain-delayed 2024 Daytona 500 when William Byron took the checkered flag at Daytona International Speedway.

Finishing a race under caution — when the yellow flag is out and yellow lights are flashing — is hardly ideal because drivers aren’t actually racing. They’re maintaining their track positions and driving at a slowed, set pace, which doesn’t produce thrilling finishes.

But fans may want to know how and why NASCAR reached the decision to throw the caution flag at the end of Monday’s Daytona 500.

Here’s what happened: With a little more than one lap to go in the 200-lap race, Byron was leading the field on the inside lane ahead of Austin Cindric with Ross Chastain leading the outside lane. When Byron moved up to the outside lane, Chastain and Cindric made contact, which sent them both sliding off the track.

Unscathed, Byron and teammate Alex Bowman continued in the outside lane and crossed the start-finish line as the white flag was waving, signaling the last lap. But because of the crash, NASCAR threw the caution.

And because the caution came out after the last-lap white flag, and because Byron was the leader at the time of the yellow flag, he would be declared the winner once he completed the final caution lap.

Though Byron’s No. 24 Chevrolet edged out Bowman’s No. 48 at the time of the caution flag, it was close.

So how did NASCAR officials come to this decision? NASCAR senior vice president of competition, Elton Sawyer, explained what factors were taken into consideration. He said, via NASCAR.com:

“At the end of a race, we use all available resources. So we’ll use [the time the] caution comes out. We’ll use video, timestamps. At the time of caution, it was the 24 [car] over the 48 [car].

“Obviously, we would love to have left it green and let it finish naturally. But once the [No.] 2 car had spun and started back up the race track and was going to be into traffic and oncoming traffic there, there was no choice but to throw the caution at that time.”

As Sawyer noted, the race likely would have continued under green if not for Cindric in the No. 2 Ford sliding back up the track into oncoming traffic. Understandably, that situation was dangerous, and NASCAR had throw the yellow flag.

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12 awesome photos of William Byron celebrating his 2024 Daytona 500 victory

William Byron won the 2024 Daytona 500 as cars around him wrecked.

The race started a day late and basically ended a lap early, but it all worked out pretty well for William Byron, who won Monday’s rain-delayed Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway’s iconic 2.5-mile track.

Coming to the white flag signaling the last lap of the race, Byron was racing hard to hold onto his lead the rest of the field, including Hendrick Motorsports teammate Alex Bowman. But contact between Ross Chastain and Austin Cindric brought out a caution flag.

Because NASCAR officials determined Byron, the race leader, crossed the start-finish line to begin his final lap before the caution came out, the race was over, Byron was declared the winner and the No. 24 Chevrolet was back in Victory Lane at the Daytona 500. Bowman finished second, Christopher Bell third, Corey LaJoie fourth and Bubba Wallace fifth.

The season-opening win is the 11th career checkered flag of Byron’s career, as he begins his seventh full-time Cup Series season. And it comes on the heels of a standout career-best six-win 2023 season.

Here are 12 of the best photos from the end of the race and Byron and his team celebrating their 2024 Daytona 500 win.

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Twitter reacts to William Byron winning the Daytona 500 in a wild finish

William Byron escaped a massive accident at the end of the Daytona 500 and went on to win.

Hendrick Motorsports returned to victory lane in the Daytona 500 on Monday night, as William Byron finished ahead of teammate Alex Bowman at the line in a chaotic ending to the race.

The race for the win changed drastically inside of the final 10 laps, when a series of pushes from Bowman to Byron caused a massive accident that affected more than half of the field.

Byron was unable to keep his car straight and veered into the side of Brad Keselowski at the front of the pack. Keselowski shot up the track into Joey Logano, creating a huge pileup as cars had nowhere to go.

Crucially for Byron, he drove through unscathed, as did his teammate Bowman. Byron controlled the inside line coming to the white flag – but just as they were about to cross the line, a collision between Ross Chastain and Austin Cindric brought out a race-ending caution. As Byron had crossed the line to start the final lap before the caution began, he sealed his first Daytona 500 victory.

Here’s what fans were saying: