Two-time Las Vegas winner Jeff Burton will make his season debut this weekend at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, as this marks the beginning of a part-time campaign for Burton in this season, who will be retiring at the end of the season to join NBC Sports' broadcast team in 2015.
With the first knock out qualifying of the season and special guests like AJ Foyt celebrating the 50th anniversary of Phoenix International Speedway, here is what else was surprising and not surprising from The Profit on CNBC 500 presented by Small Business Fueling America.
While the focus has been on the Sprint Cup Series rookies, there is also a strong Nationwide Series rookie contingent. This year's series brings us five strong young drivers, who are each with strong teams, and have plenty of pressure on their shoulders. So far, it has been mixed results but they're off to a solid start.
With winning a necessity to make the Chase for the Sprint Cup in 2014, NASCAR has some decisions to make. With the inspection process much simpler this season, it leaves some possible rule changes open for discussion.
In 1949, Red Byron and Bob Flock each won two of the eight races run that inaugural NASCAR season. Bryon had more points, so he was the champion. The next year they ran 19 events with Curtis Turner winning four, Dick Linder had three, but one race winner Bill Rexford was king, and so it began.
The draft can be the great equalizer and sometimes leads to producing some special results for some drivers that fans do not normally hear about finishing up front. That happened last month with the NextEra Energy Resources 250 as Jimmy Weller brought his No. 08 Geneva Liberty Steel/Engine Parts Plus Chevrolet home in the ninth position.
Daytona was great. Phoenix was not bad, once you got used to the differences. One week we had a 2.5-mile superspeedway, the next we got was a single mile circuit. It rained in Florida, yet despite the forecast the only rain came to prematurely end the Nationwide race on Saturday. They ran in big packs in the southeast, not so much in the southwest.
For the third straight Nationwide Series race at Phoenix International Raceway, it was Kyle Busch taking home the victory as he dominated the event, leading the most laps before the race was ended prematurely due to rain.
After Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s big win last weekend in the Daytona 500, the big question was whether he could keep the momentum rolling and do well in The Profit on CNBC 500 this weekend. The critics have been answered as Earnhardt came home with a solid second place finish.
Kevin Harvick, though, known as, "The Closer," for the past couple of seasons, Harvick did it all on Sunday, leading 224 of the 312 laps, as he went on to easily cruise to victory at The Profit for CNBC 500, Presented by Small Business Fueling America.
Red Bull KTM Factory Racing’s Eli Tomac who prevailed with his third victory of the season, wrestling the lead away from Monster Energy Yamaha Star Racing’s Cooper Webb before soldiering home to a bounce-back win following an adversity plagued outing last weekend.
The 31-year-old Hill from Winston, Georgia, led a race-high 78 of 120 laps and persevered through a two-lap shootout to win the O'Reilly opener at Daytona for a fourth time in five years.
All six Toyota GR Supras from Joe Gibbs Racing and Sam Hunt Racing failed to finish an incident-filled NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series race at Daytona International Speedway on Saturday evening.
Nick Sanchez finished eighth in Stage 1, despite being collected in a multi-car accident coming to the finish line. The damage, however, was enough to force him out of the race in 36th place.
In just his 13th career ARCA Menards National Series start, Truck Series regular Gio Ruggiero earned his first career win in the series at Daytona International Speedway on a late race restart.
