Tag: North Wilkesboro

Penske sweeps Sunday with Logano’s NASCAR All-Star win

It was a study in domination and impeccable strategy. Leading a NASCAR All-Star Race record 199 of 200 laps, pole winner Joey Logano kept Denny Hamlin and peripatetic Kyle Larson at bay on Sunday night in winning the 40th running of the event and …

It was a study in domination and impeccable strategy.

Leading a NASCAR All-Star Race record 199 of 200 laps, pole winner Joey Logano kept Denny Hamlin and peripatetic Kyle Larson at bay on Sunday night in winning the 40th running of the event and collecting the $1-million top prize.

Running the entire race on softer option tires—and eschewing the more durable prime tires at repaved and revitalized North Wilkesboro Speedway—Logano beat runner-up Hamlin to the finish line by 0.636s, with Chris Buescher passing Larson for third place on the next-to-last lap.

The All-Star Race victory was the second for Logano and the fifth for Team Penske, which also won with Kurt Busch (2010), Ryan Newman (2002) and Ryan Blaney (2022).

“A lot of fun when you’ve got a car this fast,” said Logano, who is winless in 13 NASCAR Cup Series points events this season. “The Shell/Pennzoil Mustang, it’s just so great to get in Victory Lane.

“All of our sponsors and everyone who stuck with us to get a win, it feels nice. It’s been a while. I wish it was for points, but a million bucks is still a lot of money, and I feel great about that.”

Though Logano spent the race at the front of the field, Larson drew his share of attention, too, as he shuttled between 2.5-mile Indianapolis Motor Speedway and the historic 0.625-mile short track.

After qualifying fifth for next Sunday’s Indianapolis 500—the first leg of a planned double with the Coca-Cola 600 next Sunday at Charlotte Motor Speedway—Larson left Indy on a helicopter at 5:44 p.m.

After transferring to a private jet registered to HMS Holdings and arriving at Wilkes County Airport, Larson took a helicopter to nearby North Wilkesboro Speedway and landed on the track property at 7:15 p.m.—to loud applause from fans in the grandstands.

Larson started from the rear of the field because of a driver change, given that Kevin Harvick had qualified the No. 5 Chevrolet while Larson was at Indy.

During a planned caution at lap 151, Larson pitted for option tires that had spent only one green-flag lap on his car and charged through the field from 10th at the restart to challenge Hamlin for the runner-up spot before fading in the closing laps.

Larson ran out of steam, and Hamlin was frustrated by his inability to make a move on the race winner.

“I needed more of an advantage to pass, for sure,” Hamlin said. “I would run to him, and then you couldn’t pass. I would lose a little bit of air there, and I would try to give my car a break and then run to him again—just have to be so much faster to get around.

“Hats off to the track, NASCAR and Goodyear for giving [two tire choices] a try. Hopefully, we learned something here for future short tracks.”

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The fireworks started early on Sunday. Ricky Stenhouse Jr. went up the middle to create a three-wide scenario mid-pack and angered Kyle Busch on the outside when the cars collided. Busch retaliated on Lap 2 and turned Stenhouse’s Chevrolet into the outside wall, eliminating Stenhouse from the race.

Stenhouse drove his damaged car to pit road, parked it in Busch’s stall and expressed his displeasure to Busch’s crew chief, Randall Burnett. After the race, Stenhouse vented his pent-up rage in a brief fistfight with Busch, which also involved crews from the two teams.

 

“At least we had an exciting fight in the end—something to talk about,” said Hamlin, always the curmudgeon.

Under the caution for Stenhouse’s wreck, five drivers—Logano, Tyler Reddick, Brad Keselowski, Buescher and Blaney—stayed on the track on the softer option tires, while the rest of the field came to pit road and switched to the prime tires.

Preserving track position proved to be the winning move for the No. 22 Team Penske Ford. When crew chief Paul Wolfe saw the car’s performance on the option tires, he chose not to change to primes at the 100-lap halfway break.

“Well, we did the first 100, so why wouldn’t it last the second 100?” agreed Logano. “That was our thought, so it was definitely an aggressive strategy, but it worked out good.”

Blaney came home fifth, followed by Bubba Wallace, Ross Chastain, Chase Elliott, Michael McDowell and Busch.

Toyota drivers Ty Gibbs and Wallace transferred into the main event by finishing first and second, respectively, in the 100-lap NASCAR All-Star Open.

For Gibbs, the victory was a cakewalk. Starting from the pole, the driver of the No. 54 Joe Gibbs Racing Camry led every lap and crossed the finish line 1.572s ahead of Wallace, who had to hold off charging Josh Berry and Justin Haley to secure his spot in the show.

Berry was third in the Open, less than a half-second behind Wallace, with Haley trailing in fourth. Berry’s Stewart-Haas Racing teammate, Noah Gragson, finished fifth but transferred into the All-Star Race by winning the Fan Vote.

“I can’t say enough about the fans,” Gragson said after learning he had been voted into the race. “They’re bad-ass. They keep us motivated each and every weekend to come out and do our jobs.

“When times aren’t great, the fans always pump us up and we feed off their energy. I appreciate everybody’s support and we’ve got 200 laps to go chase a million bucks.”

The chase came up short. Gragson started at the back of the 20-car field and finished 11th.

RESULTS

All-Star incident boils over between Busch and Stenhouse

Ricky Stenhouse Jr. followed through on his promise that he would see Kyle Busch after the NASCAR All-Star Race at North Wilkesboro Speedway. Stenhouse not only saw Busch in the garage Sunday night but threw a punch at the Richard Childress Racing …

Ricky Stenhouse Jr. followed through on his promise that he would see Kyle Busch after the NASCAR All-Star Race at North Wilkesboro Speedway.

Stenhouse not only saw Busch in the garage Sunday night but threw a punch at the Richard Childress Racing driver as the two went back and forth about their on-track contact. The night had ended on lap two for Stenhouse after Busch wrecked him in Turn 2. But without a tunnel at North Wilkesboro, Stenhouse remained in the infield and was waiting for Busch as the No. 8 hauler after the race.

“Go back and watch the replay, I didn’t touch you. Not once,” Stenhouse could be heard saying to Busch.

“We all hit each other,” Busch replied.

“You hit the fence and then you hit me,” Stenhouse said, pointing toward the racetrack.

“I don’t believe it, but if that’s what happened, OK,” Busch said.

“Go back and watch it,” Stenhouse said before punching Busch.

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Once the punch landed, Stenhouse grabbed Busch, and the two went toward the ground before being separated. NASCAR security pulled Stenhouse away while Stenhouse’s father, Ricky Sr., went after Busch.

Stenhouse repeatedly yelled, “Dad,” as the situation escalated, with more and more individuals getting involved. “Get my dad.”

Eventually, Busch made it onto the tailgate of his hauler, but he and Stenhouse continued to yell at each other about what happened on the racetrack.

“I don’t give a [expletive],” Busch said. “I suck just as bad as you.”

Stenhouse finished last in the 20-car field. Busch was not a factor in the 200-lap race and finished 10th.

“I feel like Kyle and I have always raced each other really hard back to the [Xfinity] Series when we were competing for wins week-in and week-out,” Stenhouse told Fox Sports after the fight. “We never had any issues, and then I wrecked one time at Daytona, and he’s kind of bad-mouthed me ever since then, so I feel like we get along with each other OK outside the racetrack. I talk to him quite a bit.

“I’m not sure why he was so mad that I shoved it three-wide, but he hit the fence and came off the wall and ran into me… When I was talking to him, he kept saying that I wrecked him, so yeah, it’s definitely built-up frustration with how he runs his mouth all the time about myself. But I know he’s frustrated because he doesn’t run near as good as he used to and I understand that. We’re a single-car team over here; we’re working really hard to go out and get better each and every weekend and we had a really good game plan coming [into today]. Our car was really strong Friday in practice; I was looking forward to running to the front. I think we’d passed a couple of cars there, and I was excited for the rest of the night, and he ruined it.

“Being stuck in here definitely doesn’t help the frustration. If there was a tunnel, I’d [have] probably been home watching the end of that. But here we are.”

Early-out Stenhouse vows to wait on Busch at North Wilkesboro

Ricky Stenhouse Jr. wanted to take a page from Kyle Busch’s book by parking in the latter’s pit stall at North Wilkesboro Speedway. Stenhouse’s night in the NASCAR All-Star Race ended on lap two when Busch retaliated in Turn 2. The lap before, …

Ricky Stenhouse Jr. wanted to take a page from Kyle Busch’s book by parking in the latter’s pit stall at North Wilkesboro Speedway.

Stenhouse’s night in the NASCAR All-Star Race ended on lap two when Busch retaliated in Turn 2. The lap before, Stenhouse made it three-wide through the middle of Michael McDowell and Busch. There was no contact between Stenhouse and Busch, but Busch bounced off the outside wall.

“We got a really good start, and he left the door wide-open,” Stenhouse said. “I went through the middle and almost had him clear. [McDowell] kind of ran up the track and we all just kind of touched there – nothing major. And then Kyle tried to wreck me in [Turns 3 and 4], and then finally did wreck me there in [Turns 1 and 2].

“Our car was really fast; I felt really good. We were good yesterday, and I’m bummed that we had already passed two or three cars there; bummed that we couldn’t see it to the end.”

Stenhouse drove his damaged Chevrolet to pit road and parked it in Busch’s pit stall. After climbing from his car and taking off his helmet, Stenhouse climbed up the side of Busch’s pit box to tell crew chief Randall Burnett to relay a message to his driver.

“Well, first, I parked it there because I figured Kyle would do something similar, and then I just told Randall that he could tell Kyle that I’d see him afterward,” Stenhouse said. “Since there’s no tunnel here, I can’t leave, so I’ll be here when the race is over.”

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When asked what he wanted to hear from Busch in their post-race meeting, Stenhouse said, “Nothing. I’ll handle it.”

How will he handle it?

“You can just watch [after the race],” he said.

The JTG Daugherty Racing driver didn’t think the incident was significant enough to warrant being wrecked. Stenhouse started 16th and was racing with McDowell for 10th place when he made it three wide.

“We barely touched,” Stenhouse said of Busch’s reaction. “I haven’t seen a replay, but the gap was [opened] and I drove through there. You could have put one and a half cars through it in the center and then [McDowell] was coming up off the bottom. It was just hard racing, I thought.

“It’s the All-Star Race — short track. You’ve got to get as much as you can early. Once this thing stretches out, you won’t pass. You’ve got to get all the cars you can early, and I felt like I did a really good job and he did a poor job on the start, and then he was mad about it. I think that’s the way his season’s gone.”

Gibbs dominates All-Star Open, Wallace and Gragson advance

Ty Gibbs led every lap en route to winning the NASCAR All-Star Open to advance into Sunday night’s All-Star Race. Gibbs will be joined by Bubba Wallace, who finished second. The top two finishers from the All-Star Open advanced into the All-Star …

Ty Gibbs led every lap en route to winning the NASCAR All-Star Open to advance into Sunday night’s All-Star Race.

Gibbs will be joined by Bubba Wallace, who finished second. The top two finishers from the All-Star Open advanced into the All-Star Race.

“We were pretty good,” Gibbs said. “I feel like we were pretty solid, so it’s good to make it. It’s good to see Bubba make it, too, so hopefully we can go and win it. I think [Michael] Waltrip did it once, so it’d be cool to go win a million bucks and go buy some sprint cars or something.”

 

Josh Berry finished third and Justin Haley finished fourth. Noah Gragson finished fifth and was announced as the fan vote winner.

The All-Star Race field will have 20 drivers, with the additions of Gibbs’ and Wallace’s Toyota XSEs and Gragson’s Ford Mustang Dark Horse.

“We came from the back last year,” Wallace said. “So let’s do it again.”

There were two cautions in the 100-lap All-Star Open. Gibbs started from the pole and held the lead through the only pit stop when most of the field switched from the primary to the option tire.

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The mandatory four-tire pit stop came at the lap 50 break. Gibbs, Alex Bowman, and Wallace were the first three drivers off pit road.

Austin Cindric was the cause of the caution on lap 59. He was caught in the middle of Carson Hocevar and Noah Gragson coming off Turn 4, severely damaging his Ford Mustang Dark Horse.

Gibbs maintained control of the race off the restart with 36 laps to go, and Wallace moved into second place. Bowman began to fade after being moved by Berry for third place. Bowman finished sixth.

Chase Briscoe finished seventh, Ryan Preece, eighth, Austin Dillon, ninth, Carson Hocevar, 10th, Kaz Grala, 11th and Corey LaJoie, 12th.

It’s the second straight year Gibbs transferred into the All-Star Race from the Open. For Wallace, it’s his fourth appearance in the All-Star Race. Gragson makes the race for the second consecutive year as the fan vote winner.

“I appreciate all the fans; you guys [rock],” Gragson said. “We didn’t quite have what it took there in that race but you fans pulled through. Your support means everything.”

RESULTS

Heim dominates rain delayed Truck Series at North Wilkesboro

Corey Heim dominated Saturday’s weather-delayed Wright Brand 250 at North Wilkesboro Speedway, but the driver of the No. 11 TRICON Garage Toyota had to share the spotlight with his teammate, Brenden “Butterbean” Queen, who finished fourth in his …

Corey Heim dominated Saturday’s weather-delayed Wright Brand 250 at North Wilkesboro Speedway, but the driver of the No. 11 TRICON Garage Toyota had to share the spotlight with his teammate, Brenden “Butterbean” Queen, who finished fourth in his NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series debut.

Heim grabbed the lead from Jake Garcia after a restart on lap 186 of 250 and held it the rest of the way to win for the third time this season, the first time at North Wilkesboro and the eighth time in his career.

Crossing the finish line 2.474s ahead of runner-up Grant Enfinger, Heim trimmed the series lead of sixth-place finisher Christian Eckes to four points in a race that was halted on Saturday by extreme weather after 81 laps and resumed on Sunday after a red-flag period of 21 hours, six minutes, 14 seconds.

 

When five inches of rain fell during a 90-minute stretch on Saturday, Heim’s truck was all but submerged at the legendary short track, which experienced drainage issues during the deluge.

“Of course, we hoped for no water damage,” Heim said. “The truck was submerged in almost three feet of water—we picked probably the worst pit box in that scenario, but obviously you can never really intend on something like that happening.

“I’ve never seen so much rain come down in an hour in my life. That was crazy, but eventually we were able to wipe it down and make sure there was no damage, and I was able to recover from that, for sure.”

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Layne Riggs came home third, holding off Queen in the late going, but Queen enjoyed the raucous support of “Bean Nation” as soon as he climbed from his No. 1 Toyota. To finish fourth, Queen had to overcome a pit road speeding penalty incurred under caution on lap 118.

“Oh, man, I can’t believe it,” said Queen, who restarted 26th on lap 124 and worked his way back through the field. “We got that speeding penalty. I thought I was conservative on the lights, and it just got us—rookie mistake.

“But I told the team I was going to get ‘em back in position, and we did.”

The season-best second-place finish was a welcome result for Enfinger, who leaves the 0.625-mile short track eighth in the series standings, 170 points behind Eckes.

“We haven’t been performing to our ability or our standards,” said Enfinger. “I feel like last week at Darlington was the turning point in our season (despite a 16th-place finish). I’m standing by that.

“Very, very proud of this truck. Proud of our pit crew all year long. Finally, we have a little bit of a result to show for it.”

Riggs got his first top five of the season in the No. 38 Front Row Motorsports Ford.

“We really, really needed this finish,” Riggs said. “It was a great day for us, and I hope we can continue to build on this momentum.”

Varying pit strategies produced considerable movement with the field throughout the race. Heim restarted 13th on lap 124 but methodically worked his way up the running order. On lap 175 he passed Riggs for second place, and after Conner Jones spun in Turn 4 to cause the sixth of seven cautions on lap 177, Heim shot past Garcia on the lap 186 restart.

Staying out on older tires, Ty Majeski won the first stage of the race. Using the same strategy, Tyler Ankrum triumphed in Stage 2. But Heim had the fastest truck and quickly proved it after the second stage break.

Moonlighting from the NASCAR Xfinity Series, Sammy Smith finished fifth, followed by Eckes, Nick Sanchez, Ankrum, Daniel Dye and Stewart Friesen.

RESULTS

Truck Series delayed, All-Star heats canceled at North Wilkesboro

Unrelenting rain and lightning stopped Saturday’s Wright Brand 250 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race in progress and forced cancellation of qualifying heats for Sunday’s NASCAR All-Star at North Wilkesboro Speedway (8 p.m. ET ON FS1, MRN and …

Unrelenting rain and lightning stopped Saturday’s Wright Brand 250 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race in progress and forced cancellation of qualifying heats for Sunday’s NASCAR All-Star at North Wilkesboro Speedway (8 p.m. ET ON FS1, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

The Truck Series race, which completed 81 of 250 laps before nearby lightning halted the event, will resume at 11:30 a.m. Sunday. Ty Majeski won the 70-lap first stage and led at the suspension.

The heat races for the All-Star Race will not be run. The $1-million-to-win All-Star main event will be preceded by the NASCAR All-Star Open at 5:30 p.m. Sunday.

The top two finishers from the Open, along with the winner of the Fan Vote will be added to the 17 drivers already eligible for the All-Star Race.

Logano on All-Star pole as No. 20 JGR team wins Pit Crew Challenge

Joey Logano won the pole for the NASCAR All-Star Race at North Wilkesboro, while Joe Gibbs Racing claimed a repeat Pit Crew Challenge victory. The overall time for Logano to claim the pole was 89.754s between his qualifying laps and pit stop. His …

Joey Logano won the pole for the NASCAR All-Star Race at North Wilkesboro, while Joe Gibbs Racing claimed a repeat Pit Crew Challenge victory.

The overall time for Logano to claim the pole was 89.754s between his qualifying laps and pit stop. His No. 22 Team Penske team clocked in at 13.59s, the fifth overall time in the competition.

“It’s probably the most fun qualifying session we have all year, and I think that’s why we didn’t cancel it last night,” Logano said. “We just postponed it to today because everyone looks forward to this event, and it really does a great job at showcasing every team member on the team. From setting the dash to make sure all the lights are right and making sure you maximize your speed on pit road, to the car going fast obviously, executing onto pit road, rolling time, the spotter helping me be able to make sure I hit all the right lights around the corners to maximize that… Obviously, the pit crew doing their part and then back onto the racetrack.

“It’s a very detail-oriented exchange all the way through that we typically see every weekend when we have green flag stops, but it’s really neat to put it all on the line and do that today. It’s a very special pole, maybe the most special pole I’ve ever had because it’s a great example of everybody and I’m proud of that. It’s a lot of work that goes into the minute-and-a-half out there.”

Logano will start on the pole for both the first All-Star Race heat and the All-Star Race. Brad Keselowski, who qualified second, will start from the pole in the second All-Star Race heat race. Keselowski’s overall time was 90.14s.

Christopher Bell qualified just third at 90.16s, however his No. 20 team won the Pit Crew Challenge with a time of 13.22s. It is the same team that won the Pit Crew Challenge last year as the No. 54 team for Ty Gibbs.

The winning pit crew claims $100,000 and gets the first pick of pit stall selection for the All-Star Race.

Bell’s crew members are:

Jake Holmes (tire carrier)

Peyton Moore (fueler)

Blake Houston (front tire changer)

Michael Hicks (rear tire changer)

Derrell Edwards (jackman)

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Daniel Suarez qualified fourth with an overall time of 90.19s, Chris Buescher, fifth with an overall time of 90.28s and Tyler Reddick, sixth with an overall time of 90.66s.

Ross Chastain qualified seventh at 90.76s, Martin Truex Jr., eighth at 90.94s, Michael McDowell, ninth at 90.99s and AJ Allmendinger completed the top 10 at 91.67s.

Four drivers were called for speeding during their pit stop: Kyle Busch, Ryan Blaney, William Byron, and Chase Elliott. All were given 10s penalties for the infraction.

Elliott’s No. 9 team also had a slow pit stop on the left rear. Blaney was given an additional 10s penalty for hitting the commitment box coming to pit road.

The No. 5 and No. 47 teams had some of the more significant issues during their pit stop.

It was trouble on the left rear for the Hendrick Motorsports team as they could not get the left rear tire on the car and needed additional pumps on the jack.

JTG Daugherty’s No. 47 crew had the slowest time in the Pit Crew Challenge because of trouble on the right front and the left side. After being slow on the right front, the jack fell on the left side of the car, and the jackman needed to give it multiple pumps to lift the car back up.

The pit stop times were as follows:

Christopher Bell’s team: 13.22s

Brad Keselowski’s team: 13.32s

Ryan Blaney’s team: 13.51s

Ross Chastain’s team: 13.52s

Joey Logano’s team: 13.59s

William Byron’s team: 13.84s

Tyler Reddick’s team: 13.95s

Kyle Busch’s team: 13.98s

Daniel Suarez’s team: 14.03s

Martin Truex Jr.’s team: 14.07s

AJ Allmendinger’s team: 14.18s

Chris Buescher’s team: 14.18s

Michael McDowell’s team: 14.38s

Chase Elliott’s team: 16.93s

Kevin Harvick’s (Kyle Larson) team: 17.94s

Ricky Stenhouse Jr. team’s: 25.74s

The first All-Star Race heat race will be at 5:20 p.m. ET Saturday. The second heat race will run afterward at approximately 6:15 p.m. ET.

‘We’ve got to be perfect from here on out’ – Logano

Joey Logano remains confident in the ability of his Team Penske race team but also admitted he has some anxiety for the first time in quite a few seasons for this point in the year. “There’s no running away from it,” Logano said at North Wilkesboro …

Joey Logano remains confident in the ability of his Team Penske race team but also admitted he has some anxiety for the first time in quite a few seasons for this point in the year.

“There’s no running away from it,” Logano said at North Wilkesboro Speedway, where the NASCAR Cup Series runs the non-points All-Star Race. “It is what it is. We’ve got to be perfect from here on out.”

The two-time Cup Series is 17th in the championship standings. Logano has earned just three top-10 finishes in 13 races.

“I always look at the points,” Logano said. “We’re halfway through the regular season and, obviously, it’s not been the season that we’ve wanted or have hoped for at this point. But we keep fighting. I don’t feel like we’re in a bad spot. We’re not in as good a spot as we want to be by [any] means, but we can definitely make up the points…just by getting consistent and running up front more often like we should.

“The facts are, if you’re not good enough to make the playoffs, you’re probably not good enough to win the championship anyway, so we’ve got to get to that point where we’re good enough, and then the points will follow that, for sure.”

It was a struggle for Logano and the No. 22 team for much of the 2023 season, which resulted in a first-round exit from the postseason. Logano won only once last year.

For 2024, Ford debuted a new body – the Mustang Dark Horse — but Logano’s group is still behind. If not for self-inflicted wounds such as speeding last weekend at Darlington Raceway, it’s been pure lack of speed. The intermediate racetracks have been their weakness, but Logano looks at how well Ford teammates Chris Buescher and Brad Keselowski from RFK Racing have run and believes there is an opportunity to do the same.

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“We just have to go find it,” Logano said. “Whatever that is. We have to figure that out.”

Fortunately, Logano doesn’t feel his team is that far off. Then again, the entire Cup Series field could say that because Logano said everything is fairly close.

“Last week, we had a top five coming and I sped on pit road, which that one stings a lot,” he said. “But outside of that, I’d say it was a pretty solid weekend, so our race teams still got it. We all just have to clean up a little bit. Obviously last weekend I made a mistake, and we’ve got to keep getting faster.

“I feel confident this weekend here in [North Wilkesboro]. We came and did the tire test, and I felt pretty good about what we had. Hopefully that transfers [to this weekend]. Charlotte, I don’t know. [Ryan] Blaney had a great run there [last year], so hopefully we can learn a lot from that.”

With 13 races down, there are 13 races left in the regular season. Over the next month, the series will run its longest race in the Coca-Cola 600, make a third trip to St. Louis, visit a repaved Sonoma Raceway and debut at Iowa Speedway.

All of it sounds good to Logano.

“The [Coke] 600, I think I feel OK about,” he said. “Gateway has been a solid race for us the last two times we’ve been there, so I look forward to that one. Sonoma is repaved, so who the heck knows? Then Iowa — new tracks have been good, and short tracks have been good for us, as well.

“I like the way the schedule’s lined up the next few weeks.”

Gibbs on pole for Open, All-Star qualifying postponed to Saturday

Ty Gibbs and Alex Bowman will start on the front row of the NASCAR All-Star Open by points after rain ended Friday’s qualifying session early. NASCAR set the field by the rule book (driver points) since the session was not run to completion. Gibbs …

Ty Gibbs and Alex Bowman will start on the front row of the NASCAR All-Star Open by points after rain ended Friday’s qualifying session early.

NASCAR set the field by the rule book (driver points) since the session was not run to completion.

Gibbs and Bowman will be on the front row with Chase Briscoe starting third and Bubba Wallace starting fourth. Noah Gragson will start fifth.

The top two finishers in the All-Star Open will advance into the All-Star Race. The NASCAR All-Star Open field has 20 drivers.

Sunday’s All-Star Open will be 100 laps with one chance at overtime if needed. All laps – green and caution – will count. There will be an All-Star caution at or around lap 50 with a mandatory four-tire pit stop.

In addition to the top two finishers, a third driver will advance into the NASCAR All-Star Race via the fan vote.

As rain continued to fall into the evening, NASCAR made the call to postpone qualifying for the All-Star Race (including the Pit Crew Challenge) to Saturday morning at 11:30 a.m. ET following CRAFTSMAN Truck Series qualifying at 10:30 a.m. ET (FS1).

ALL-STAR OPEN — FULL STARTING LINEUP

Harvick ‘peeking behind the curtain’ at Hendrick Motorsports

Kevin Harvick turned heads when he entered the North Wilkesboro Speedway media center Friday afternoon. Harvick, who retired at the end of the 2023 season from Stewart-Haas Racing, was not only back in a NASCAR Cup Series fire suit, but one he’d …

Kevin Harvick turned heads when he entered the North Wilkesboro Speedway media center Friday afternoon.

Harvick, who retired at the end of the 2023 season from Stewart-Haas Racing, was not only back in a NASCAR Cup Series fire suit, but one he’d never been seen in before.

Blue and white, with a touch of red, it was an outfit that displayed HendrickCars.com and other logos for the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports team.

In a one-off, Harvick is practicing and qualifying Kyle Larson’s car for the NASCAR All-Star Race. Larson is in Indianapolis, preparing to attempt to qualify for the Indianapolis 500.

“It’s definitely not the attire that I thought I would be wearing this year,” Harvick quipped. “But it’s been a fun process.”

Harvick’s fill-in role was announced last month, and he’s been fully involved with the preparations for the race weekend. The former series champion has gone through a seat fitting, made easier by Stewart-Haas Racing, which provided Hendrick Motorsports with the seats and seat rails that Harvick used to use. Harvick has also been in the simulator and all necessary team meetings.

“I heard from the [team] owner twice in two weeks,” Harvick said, laughing about what has struck him the most working with a new organization. “That’s different. It’s interesting to see…the race shop and the structure and the way that everybody goes about it differently. There are a million different ways you can do things, but I think the thing that sticks out for me about Hendrick Motorsports, in general, is it’s truly run like a business that’s part of an actual structure of how things flow and who you talk to.

“There’s the depth of the business side and the racing side. It’s deep. I think that is pretty eye-opening… I like structure, so I think that’s something that has been good to see.”

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Now an analyst with Fox Sports in the broadcast booth each weekend, Harvick’s time on the track is admittedly priceless. Acknowledging how quickly the sport evolves, the former series champion is glad he’ll be able to relate to viewers what the car is currently doing, how the two tire options felt during practice and the way the track felt on new asphalt.

Plus, Harvick is getting firsthand insight into how one of the best teams in the Cup Series garage operates. By working with Cliff Daniels and hearing a different team, Harvick can also share how the group processes.

“The more detail we have, the more we have to talk about and relay to the people and you guys to understand,” Harvick said. “I really look at it as we want to teach people what our sport is, as well, and the things that are happening. There are a number of things that go into that to make the car go around the racetrack that people just have no idea [about].”

Harvick has been impressed by how methodically Daniels and his team have approached the weekend, not only in getting Harvick ready for his Friday assignment, but also for when Larson gets into the car for Sunday night’s race. The team is going for back-to-back wins in the NASCAR All-Star Race.

It’s also been fascinating to have the opportunity to see how another organization operates.

“I was very fortunate to have a very, very good race team at Stewart-Haas,” Harvick said. “To walk into another very, very good race team and see the things that go on and happen, it’s fun to get a peek behind the curtain. I think that Kyle is very good at whatever he races, but Cliff is also very understanding of the fact that he’s off racing other things. How they talk about things and when they go through things with Kyle is very interesting. It seems like they want him to keep being Kyle and to be able to talk about the things they need in their car and how they structure things with Kyle and when they meet with him and why they do that – that part to me is very insightful because we all tick a little bit different.

“Kyle likes to race all the time. Some guys don’t like to race at all, they just want to race the Cup car and show up on the weekend and do that. Some guys like to race in the Xfinity car. There’s a balance for everybody that gets the most out of them, and it seems like they’ve leaned into letting Kyle be Kyle and that’s not always the case with everybody that drives in the Cup Series.”