NASCAR Cup Series

After having a week off, the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series returns to action for the first of two races this season at Martinsville Speedway. This marks the beginning of a stretch that will see two of the next three events take place on half-mile tracks. Here’s a look at Ford’s history at Martinsville.

Biffle has 26 Sprint Cup Series starts at Martinsville. In those starts he has earned five top-10 finishes, two of which came in 2013 with back-to-back top-10 finishes.

Calling Martinsville (Va.) Speedway a puzzle over the years took a positive turn last season for Martin Truex Jr. The Furniture Row Racing driver scored a pair of sixth-place finishes in 2015 at the .526-mile oval, and had qualifying efforts of third and second respectively.

Ricky Stenhouse Jr. restarted eighth on the final green-white-checkered attempt and gained three positions in the final two laps to score his first top-five finish of the 2016 NSCS season.

Big Z is returning to JWT’s Chevy bowtie at NASCAR’s famous paperclip-shaped oval in south Virginia.

Fontana Recap: Denny Hamlin rallied from a pair of pit road penalties to finish third in NASCAR’s most recent Sprint Cup Series race at Auto Club (Calif.) Speedway on March 20. The first violation came when Hamlin felt a tire going down on Lap 26, and headed to pit road.

I still can't imagine that it has been 23 years since we lost Alan Kulwicki in a plane crash as he was headed to Bristol Motor Speedway. The sight of the No. 7 hauler taking the lap around Bristol before leaving the track still brings a chill up my back.

RCR in the NSCS ... In 2,643 Sprint Cup Series starts dating back to 1969, RCR has amassed 46 pole awards,105 wins, 469 top-five finishes and 1007 top-10 finishes, with an average starting position of 17.8 and an average finishing position of 16th. RCR has earned 15 total championships (six Sprint Cup Series championships with Earnhardt in 1986, '87, '90, '91, '93 and '94, six NASCAR XFINITY Series titles, two NASCAR Camping World Truck Series titles and one ARCA Racing Series presented by Menards title and was the first organization to win titles in NASCAR's three national series.

It’s no secret that JTG Daugherty Racing has some of the greatest household brands sponsoring AJ Allmendinger’s No. 47 Chevrolet SS in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. Today, JTG Daugherty Racing officials welcome The Original Louisiana Hot Sauce to the team through an expanded relationship with Southeastern Mills in efforts to promote the brand along with Better than Bouillon, Shore Lunch® Premium Soup Mixes and Southeastern Mills® Gravy Mixes at select events this season.

Texas Motor Speedway is having a casting call during next week's Duck Commander 500 NASCAR doubleheader that will give fans of Blake Shelton the opportunity to take part in a national television commercial featuring the country music superstar.