NASCAR Cup Series

Another doubleheader of Monster Energy NASCAR Cup and NASCAR XFINITY Series action is scheduled for this weekend at Richmond Raceway. Ford has had good success at the three-quarter mile track, which includes Joey Logano’s victory one year ago. Here are some other notes and highlights of Ford victories through the years.

Richmond Preview: The series heads to Richmond Raceway for Saturday’s 400-lap race under the lights at Hamlin’s hometown track. The Chesterfield, Va., native has two wins at the three-quarter-mile speedway and has a led a career-best 1,653 laps around the Virginia oval. Hamlin picked up two of his ten career top-five finishes at Richmond in 2017 following a third-place finish in the spring and a fifth-place finish in the fall.

Kyle Busch: Busch overtook Kyle Larson late to win the Food City 500, which concluded on Monday due to weather delays. Busch led 200 laps and picked up his second consecutive win.

Jimmie Johnson on racing at Richmond after a top-five finish at Bristol: “The finish in Bristol is exactly what this team needed. I’ve known that every week we have been getting better, but it's nice to finally have a finish to back that up. Now if we could just fix these bouts of bad luck we have been having. I’m already ready to get back in the Lowe’s for Pros Chevy and looking forward to Richmond. We have put together some solid runs there lately and with the momentum from Bristol, I’m ready to roll.”

Roush Fenway Racing has announced a deal that will solidify its partnership of Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and the No. 17 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series team through 2021. Fastenal will continue to serve as the anchor partner of the No. 17 and will increase its number of primary races with Stenhouse and the team. SunnyD and Fifth Third Bank will each continue to play a major role with the team, serving as primary partners with the No. 17 in multiple events over the next four seasons.

In six races at the .750-mile short track, Bayne has an average finish of 19.3 with his best of 13th coming in last season’s spring race. He also recorded two top-17 results in 2016 with a 17th-place finish in the spring race, and 14th in the fall event.

Stenhouse has ten career Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series (MENCS) starts at Richmond with an average starting position of 15.8 and average finishing position of 20.1.

Earlier today, Ford announced that Mustang will be coming to the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series for the 2019 season. Mark Rushbrook, global director, Ford Performance held a press conference this afternoon to talk about the news.

Martin Truex Jr. will make his 450th career NASCAR Cup Series start in Saturday night’s Toyota Owners 400 at Richmond Raceway.

Richmond race fans are invited to the Kroger store located at 9351 Atlee Road, Mechanicsville, VA 23116 on Thursday, April 19 from 5:30 – 6:30 p.m. The free event will include an appearance from AJ Allmendinger, who currently competes full-time in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series, driving the No. 47 Kroger ClickList Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 for JTG Daugherty Racing, along with autograph signing, photo opportunities with fans and a shopping competition for the Mechanicsville Christian Center Food Pantry, an agency partner of FeedMore.