NASCAR Cup Series

With the first race of The Chase for the Sprint Cup complete, Richard Petty Motorsports is the team playing spoiler. With Aric Almirola and the No. 43 Ford team collecting their second consecutive Top-10 finish Sunday at the Chicagoland Speedway, the team finished higher than six others competing for the championship. The No. 43 team has momentum going into New Hampshire and is focused on a win before the season ends.

In an effort to give fans even more flexibility when it comes purchasing tickets for the Goody’s® Headache Relief Shot® 500, the Martinsville Speedway ticket office is open on weekends.

When a right rear tire went down early in the 267-lap MYAFIBRISK.COM400 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series (NSCS) race, Kurt Busch battled back in his No. 41 Haas Automation Chevrolet SS to score a third place finish at Chicagoland Speedway. It marked his ninth top-10 in 15 races at the 1.5-mile speedway, and was the first of 10 rounds in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup.

Richard Childress Racing drivers Ryan Newman, Paul Menard and Austin Dillon finished fourth, 17th and 43rd, respectively, in the MyAFibRisk.com 400 at Chicagoland Speedway.

Lowes Foods, a Carolinas-based grocer with locations in North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia, will serve as the primary sponsor for Sam Hornish Jr. and the No. 9 Ford team at Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway in October.

When Denny Hamlin spun on lap two, it seemed as though his day was over. However, a timely question mid-race to get him back on the lead lap and a strategy play at the end would result in the driver of the No. 11 FedEx Ground Toyota making it to victory lane.

Kurt Busch looked to have the race in hand, holding a solid advantage ahead of Jeff Gordon as the race began to come to a close. Then, with nine laps to go, the caution would fly due to debris after Matt DiBenedetto got into the wall. Rather than scoring the victory, Busch would fall back on the final restart after staying out, finishing third.

In the first race of the 10-race Chase to the championship here is what was surprising and not surprising from 15th Annual myAFibRisk.com 400 at Chicagoland Speedway.

Staying out on old tires, Hamlin grabbed the lead moments after a restart with five laps left and streaked away to a .963-second victory over Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Carl Edwards, who surged from sixth to second during that restart on Lap 263 of 267.

Martin Truex Jr. finished an unlucky 13th in Sunday's Chase opener at Chicagoland Speedway. When the final caution came out with eight laps remaining in the Sprint Cup Series race, Truex was comfortably running in sixth place.