NASCAR Cup Series

From the Team Penske pole repeat to the Most Interesting Man’s command to start the engines, here is what was surprising and not surprising...

Ned Jarrett was the quintessential NASCAR champion. His consistency coupled with the ability to win races led to two Sprint Cup championships.

Three races in, and the story of the 2014 Cup season is the success of Dale Earnhardt Jr. He wins at Daytona, finishes second in Phoenix, and a hiccup in his fuel pick up was all that kept him from victory at Las Vegas. That and Brad Keselowski. Still, take a gamble, have it turn sour, and still come home second is not all that bad.

The multi-GRAMMY nominated, award winning, American singer-songwriter and actor BILLY RAY CYRUS will get race day started in country/rock style at Auto Club Speedway on Sunday, March 23 when he performs a pre-race concert beginning at 10 a.m. on the O’Reilly Auto Parts Fan Zone main stage.

Building upon the success of its August debut, Bristol LIVE expands its reach for the March 2014 event, adding two FM and two AM signals to its existing scanner frequency.

University of Tennessee football coach Butch Jones and Virginia Tech head man Frank Beamer, whose teams meet in the Battle at Bristol in two years, serve as co-Grand Marshals for NASCAR’s Sprint Cup stop in Bristol this week.

Richard Childress Racing teammates Paul Menard, Ryan Newman and Austin Dillon finished third, seventh and 16th, respectively. Ryan Newman ranks ninth in the Sprint Cup Series championship point standings, trailing current leader Dale Earnhardt Jr. by 36 points, while Austin Dillon ranks 13th and Paul Menard ranks 18th.

Trevor Bayne and the Motorcraft/Quick Lane team bounced back from a disappointing start to the Kobalt Tools 400 weekend at Las Vegas Motor Speedway and came away with a top-20 finish.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. in the No. 88 Mountain Dew Kick Start Chevrolet SS came ever so close to scoring his second win of the 2014 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series (NSCS) season. Earnhardt lead a total of 51 laps in the race, including 44 of the final 45 before running out of fuel down the backstretch on the final lap at Las Vegas Motor Speedway (LVMS) in the Kobalt Tools 400. He was able to carry his momentum across the finish line to come home second.

JOEY LOGANO – No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Ford Fusion – “We were really good in clean air, which everybody probably is, but in dirty air it’s a completely different car and really, really hard to drive. Overall, it was a solid day and another top five. That’s good, but like I said last week, it’s all about the win.”