Denny Hamlin
11 FedEx Express Toyota
Joe Gibbs Racing

Race Info:
Race: Ally 400
Date/Time: Sunday, June 20/3:30 p.m. ET
Distance: 300 laps/399 miles
Track Shape: Oval
Track Length: 1.333 miles
2020 Winner: N/A

Express Notes:

Press Kit: Download the 2021 FedEx Racing press materials at www.fedexracing.com/presskit, including bios for Denny Hamlin, Chris Gabehart and Joe Gibbs Racing leadership, program highlights and statistics.

All-Star Recap: Following a random draw, Hamlin started the multi-segment non-points paying event from the 16th position, and after a handful of laps, reported he was battling an extremely loose FedEx Camry. However, the unique format would give crew chief Chris Gabehart plenty of opportunities to make necessary adjustments to improve the handling. As the race progressed and adjustments were made, Hamlin became more comfortable with the handling and worked his way up to third during the fourth segment. Hamlin managed to stay in the top 10 during the fifth segment, which included a mandatory pit stop. The FedEx crew changed four tires during the stop but realized there was a good possibility that some of the lug nuts might not be tight. The team was hopeful there would be a well-timed caution that would allow them to remedy the situation, but the caution never came and Hamlin had to pit prior to the end of the race, relegating him to the 21st finishing position.

Nashville Preview: The NASCAR Cup Series heads to the Music City for the first ever running of the Ally 400 Cup Series event at Nashville Superspeedway. Drivers will try to conquer the 1.333-mile concrete oval in front of a sold-out crowd. Hamlin and his team will look to use their past success at superspeedways in an attempt to capture their first win of the season.

Hamlin Conversation – Nashville:

What are you looking forward to and what will be the struggle going to a track where no one really has much experience?

“It’s been 15 years since I’ve raced there, and I can remember how difficult it is to pass there, but we’ll have practice and that will be really helpful to get to know the track to find the lanes that we want to be in. I think it’s going to be a fun race, and it’s always interesting when you’re racing at a new track.”

What do you think about NASCAR adding this new destination to the Cup schedule?

“I know a lot of work has gone into getting the track ready for this event. Nashville is a great town, and there’s a lot for fans to do – at the track and in the surrounding area. It’s not just the race; there’s a whole family atmosphere and there’s a lot of fun things to do.”

FedEx Express Along for the Ride at Nashville: The #11 FedEx Express Toyota will carry the letters FYMA on the B-post in recognition of the FYMA Station in Columbia, Tenn. During the past year, the 36 team members at FYMA dealt with personal tragedies, with three employees losing loved ones – two sons and a brother – in the space of one month. The FYMA team pulled together and covered the open shifts and showed uplifting support for their fellow team members during trying times.

Team recognized for excellence in creative marketing and communications with team partners Castrol and Kohler

CONCORD, N.C. (June 16, 2021) — Roush Fenway Racing has been recognized for outstanding achievement by the prestigious Hermes Creative Awards, taking home four Platinum and two Gold Awards along with one Honorable Mention for its marketing efforts over the past year. The Hermes Creative Awards is an international competition that recognizes excellence in concept, writing and design of traditional and emerging media while promoting the philanthropic power of marketing and communication.

The team garnered a trio of awards for its creative marketing efforts designed to overcome pandemic induced obstacles. The fan-facing Roush Madness platform in March 2020 won Platinum in the Social Media Campaign category. The robust Virtual Hospitality Partner program that the team implemented with partners earned a pair of Gold Awards, one for the 2020 efforts in the Pandemic Response category and another for the virtual Daytona Live event for the 2021 Daytona 500 in the Virtual Event category.

“We are very proud of the efforts of our team over the last year,” said Roush Fenway Racing vice president of marketing operations and communicaitons Kevin Woods. “This has been a difficult year for everyone, and our team’s ability to adapt and develop innovative platforms for our partners has been extremely rewarding. We also appreciate the trust from our partners to allow us to continue pushing the envelope in promoting their brands and developing engaging marketing solutions.”

In addition, the team received Platinum Award recognition in two categories for its work with team partner Castrol. The campaign promoting the Garage Life platform with driver Ryan Newman during the early weeks of the Covid-19 shutdown won in the Social Content Campaign category, while the Driving for Change program to promote the team’s carbon neutral mission won in the Corporate Social Responsibility Program.

The team also received Platinum Award recognition for the unveil of the Kohler Generators partnership, with the program launch winning in the Strategic Communication/Marketing Plan category.

Finally, the team’s expanded prerace video productions took home an Honorable Mention in the Interactive Sports Video category.

Roush Fenway Racing has also won a total of 26 MarCom Platinum Awards since 2011, when it took home its first Platinum for the famed ‘Ricky vs. Trevor’ campaign. In addition, Roush Fenway has also taken home top honors from the PR News Platinum Awards, NASCAR Marketing and Communications Awards and Social Media Icon Awards.

Hermes Creative Awards is administered by the Association of Marketing and Communication Professionals (AMCP). The international organization consists of several thousand marketing, communication, advertising, public relations, digital media production, and freelance professionals. AMCP oversees awards and recognition programs, provides judges, and awards outstanding achievement and service to the profession.

Judges are industry professionals who look for companies and individuals whose talent exceeds a high standard of excellence and whose work serves as a benchmark for the industry. There are expected to be about 6,000 entries from throughout the United States and dozens of other countries in the Hermes Creative Awards 2021 competition.

Being a Platinum or Gold Winner is a tremendous achievement symbolized by the intricately detailed Hermes Platinum and Gold awards. The name Hermes (Greek messenger) and the idea for the award were chosen to represent our roles as the messengers and creators of marketing and communication materials and programs.

KEVIN HARVICK
Nashville Advance
No. 4 Monster Jam/Grave Digger Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing

Event Overview

• Event: Inaugural Ally 400 (Round 17 of 36)
• Time/Date: 3:30 p.m. EDT on Sunday, June 20
• Location: Nashville (Tenn.) Superspeedway
• Layout: 1.333-mile, concrete oval
• Laps/Miles: 300 laps/399.9 miles
• Stage Lengths: Stages 1: 90 laps / Stage 2: 95 laps / Final Stage: 115 laps
• TV/Radio: NBCSN / MRN / SiriusXM NASCAR Radio

Notes of Interest

● Introducing Grrraaaaaaaave Digger! That’s right, one of the most decorated Monster Jam trucks in the world will be represented in the inaugural Ally 400 NASCAR Cup Series race Sunday at Nashville (Tenn.) Superspeedway… and we have Keelan Harvick to thank for it. Keelan wanted to give his dad, Kevin, the most awesome Father’s Day gift ever, so the eight-year-old organized a surprise for his dad – a Grave Digger paint scheme on Kevin’s No. 4 Ford Mustang. It turns out the iconic paint scheme featured on the 12,000-pound, larger-than-life truck that rides on enormous 66-inch BKT tires transfers well to a sleek and fast Stewart-Haas Racing-built Ford Mustang. The No. 4 Monster Jam/Grave Digger Ford Mustang is sure to turn heads this Father’s Day weekend – in the stands and on the track as drivers do a double-take when they see Grave Digger looming large in their rearview mirror.

● Fans in Nashville who want to see the real Grave Digger only need to wait a month. Monster Jam visits Bridgestone Arena in downtown Nashville July 17-18. There are three events – two on Saturday at 1 p.m. CDT and 6:30 p.m., and one on Sunday at 1 p.m. Tickets start at $20 and can be purchased by clicking here.

● It’s been 10 years since NASCAR last competed at Nashville Superspeedway, and it was an Xfinity Series race on July 23, 2011 that was won by Carl Edwards. The NASCAR Cup Series has never competed on the 1.333-mile oval, but Cup teams tested there extensively back in the day when it was fashionable to race on Sunday, test somewhere on Tuesday and Wednesday, and then fly to the next Cup race on Thursday. Harvick, now in his 21st year of Cup Series competition, has logged many laps in a Cup car at Nashville Superspeedway despite the track never hosting a Cup race until this Sunday’s inaugural Ally 400.

● Harvick has, however, raced at Nashville Superspeedway and performed incredibly well. In four career Xfinity Series starts at the track, Harvick has two wins – April 15, 2006 and April 3, 2010. He finished third on June 10, 2006 and recorded his worst finish, seventh, in his first Xfinity Series race at Nashville Superspeedway on April 14, 2001. It all gave Harvick an average finish of third. He also had a lap completion rate of 100 percent, running all 900 laps available to him, and he led 123 of those laps.

● Harvick also made one NASCAR Camping World Truck Series start at Nashville Superspeedway. It was on April 2, 2010 when he finished second to Kyle Busch.

Kevin Harvick, Driver of the No. 4 Monster Jam/Grave Digger Ford Mustang

So how does a Monster Jam truck – and not just any Monster Jam truck, but the Monster Jam truck of Monster Jam trucks – rank as a cool Father’s Day gift, and a surprise Father’s Day gift from your son, Keelan?

“It’s THE monster truck. Loud noises, big engines, big wheels, big tires, fast racecars, and to have that be a surprise, it’s surprising to me because of the fact that it’s with Grave Digger and everything, the history, that goes with that truck. But it doesn’t surprise me that it’s something related to a car and tying it in to what we do. This one caught me off guard, though, because I had no idea that any of this was happening and, to have my 8-year-old son be able to pull that off and know more about it than I do makes me feel like I’m a little bit left out. So we’re going to have to talk to somebody.”

How many times have you been to Monster Jam and what is it about those events that resonates with you and Keelan?

“We have been to Monster Jam. We went to Charlotte. We went to Atlanta several years ago. We’ve been to a few of them. For Keelan and I, racing is a legacy, you pass it on from one generation to the next. And the same thing has happened with Grave Digger and the drivers of that truck. What we do, you see generations of families that have had their fathers, their sons and their sons move on through the ranks of racing. It’s something that you grow up around and are a part of and you learn to love the sport. And when you’re around it, you understand it’s a family sport and, for me, that’s the best part of it – that it’s something we can do together.”

When Dennis Anderson, the patriarch of Grave Digger, was behind the wheel of his Monster Jam truck, he was crushing cars. That doesn’t typically work too well in a stock car. How are you going to live up to Grave Digger’s legacy?

“You’ve got to set yourself apart from everybody else, right? The best way to do that for us is to run faster than everybody else, so hopefully we can have this No. 4 Monster Jam/Grave Digger Ford Mustang doing what it’s supposed to do and running fast – scare them right off the track. They’re all going to be jealous because I get to drive Grave Digger’s car.”

You last competed at Nashville in 2010 during a NASCAR Xfinity Series race. What are your expectations when you roll back in there in 2021?

“I didn’t ever go to Nashville without the expectation of winning. It was one of our best racetracks throughout the years and we’ve always had good success there and always enjoyed the racetrack itself. I’m looking forward to Cup finally going there. I know that facility was built to entertain having a Cup date and I can’t believe it’s taken this long because Nashville is such a great area for us as a sport. I’m excited to be there because we have just a ton of fans. Obviously, it’s the home of Hunt Brothers Pizza, as well. So there’s just a lot of good things that are happening when we go back to Nashville.”

In addition to Xfinity Series racing at Nashville, that track was the go-to track back when you had unlimited testing. Outside of the Xfinity Series, how many testing miles do you think you have at Nashville?

“Not many in the last little bit, but there was a period of time that we spent a lot of time at Nashville. We developed a lot of the coil binding in the front and rear springs there and at Milwaukee. When Nashville was built, I actually was part of the very first tire test – the first time that anybody was on the racetrack. Obviously, I’ve had a little bit of a layoff there, but from the very first moment I’ve been a part of that racetrack.”

Talk about those days of unlimited testing, where after a three-day race weekend, you’d go test for two or three days somewhere, oftentimes at Nashville.

“Really, we can go back to 2000. I did all the testing for Dale Earnhardt as we went through the year. So, we would go race and then we would go to a racetrack, whatever racetrack that would be, and I also did my own testing. We probably did four or five tests – I think at that point they could only do seven tests in the Cup Series – and then I had all my tests that you could do in the Xfinity Series. But you could also go to any racetrack that wasn’t on the schedule, and at that particular point, Kentucky wasn’t on the schedule, so we spent a lot of time at Kentucky developing stuff for Dale and the Cup program. But for the most part, we did, midweek, probably 20-25 tests a year as we went through the season, and most of them would be two-day tests. And that’s what you did. You were never home. You tested all the time. When you had a problem, you just went somewhere and tested. Whether it be Greenville-Pickens or Caraway or VIR, Milwaukee, it didn’t matter, you could go to any racetrack if it wasn’t on the schedule. Through the years they just changed that because we would spend so much time at the racetrack. We would test on different brands of tires and different series of cars, and we would do whatever it took. But, for the most part, you probably spent 20-25 two-day tests away from what you did on those three-day weekends.”

Do veterans like yourself who have actual, on-the-ground experience at Nashville have a leg up on those who have only driven Nashville on a simulator?

“I don’t think so. Some of the younger guys haven’t been there before, but with all the information and all the technology that we have in today’s world with the tire test already happening there, the information is already spread through all the manufacturers. They’ll have all that stuff plugged into their simulators and have the track measured and do all the things that they do. I think there are a lot of guys who grew up even after I started a decade later, they were still racing there, so a lot of guys have experience at Nashville and I don’t think there will be a huge advantage.”

Technology advances quickly. Can you just go out onto the track there at Nashville and start ripping around, or do you need to see what’s it’s like after a 10-year absence?

“The good news is it’s concrete, so it’s always had what I always called the sidewalk hop, like if you’re riding your bike or your skateboard over the sidewalk. And I think as you go through the weekend, a lot of those little cracks and things start to fill in with rubber, so hopefully the tire will actually lay some rubber on the racetrack because that was always the biggest thing there, getting the racetrack rubbered up. Once the racetrack rubbers up, it becomes much better to race on because the groove just becomes so much wider. It’ll be interesting to see if we race on the track as it is, or if we race on the track with PJ1 sprayed on it somewhere.”

CONCORD, N.C. (June 15, 2021) – As the NASCAR Cup Series (NCS) returns to the Music City for the first time in almost four decades, it’s no surprise that country music will play a central role when the series makes its inaugural visit to Nashville Superspeedway in nearby Lebanon, Tenn.

Spire Motorsports announced today that Black River Entertainment recording artists Pryor & Lee will be showcased as the primary sponsor aboard Corey LaJoie’s No. 7 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE in Sunday’s Ally 400.

“Three of our favorite things are coming together this Sunday; NASCAR, Nashville, and country music,” said Pryor Baird and Kaleb Lee. “We can’t wait to be trackside cheering Cory LaJoie’s No. 7 Pryor & Lee car on for the win!”

The country duo will also perform a pop-up show Thursday (6/17) at 8 p.m. CT in the heart of Downtown Nashville at Ole Red (300 Broadway).

Last weekend, Lajoie tested his mettle at Texas Motor Speedway when the Lone Star State hosted the NASCAR All-Star Race for the first time. LaJoie raced in or near the top five for portions of the NASCAR All-Star Open, but ultimately faded to 10th in the three-segment, 50-lap qualifying race. While only four drivers transferred from the All-Star Open to the feature event, LaJoie was pleased with how his Chevrolet Camaro raced at the ultra-fast Texas tri-oval.

LaJoie is currently 29th in the NCS point standings, but the Concord, N.C., native is in close quarters with several drivers who compete for some of the most well-heeled teams in the sport.

“I’m a giant country music fan, so I’m really pumped to have Pryor & Lee on our Spire Chevy Camaro this weekend in Nashville,” commented LaJoie. “It’s obvious they have a passion for sharing their music through a grass roots, ‘pounding the pavement’ effort, so I can definitely relate to that in my racing career.

“It’ll be my first time at Nashville, so I’ll have to learn the track quick and get the car dialed in during practice.”

The Ally 400 from Nashville Superspeedway will be televised live on NBCSN Sunday, June 20 beginning at 3:30 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time. The 17th of 36 races on the 2021 NCS schedule will be broadcast live on the Motor Racing Network and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Channel 90.

About Pryor & Lee …
Black River Entertainment recording artists Pryor Baird and Kaleb Lee are the epitome of how sometimes, two is better than one. This unexpected discovery came after they were brought together as roommates while competing as solo artists on NBC’s singing competition, The Voice. In January of 2020, Black River signed the duo, and the guys decided on the name “Pryor & Lee.” Then it was off to the races, literally. “Pryor & Lee” kicked off the Daytona 500 with a pre-race concert and later performed the televised National Anthem at the NASCAR Bank of America ROVAL™ 400 at Charlotte Motor Speedway. American Songwriter said it best, “Pryor & Lee bring some overdue rowdy to country radio” as they released their first single, “Y’allsome” written by Rhett Akins, Marv Green, and JT Harding. After 2020 closed in on everyone, the guys rounded out a mostly virtual radio promo tour, appeared in an episode of NBCUniversal and Xfinity’s Camp Tonsafun, wrote and recorded new music, and played a New Year’s Eve show on a Daytona Beach stage facing a rowdy audience multiple stories high on their hotel balconies. With a new year comes new music, and on March 26, the duo released two new songs, “Good Ol’ Dogs and God” and “Carry On.” 2020 was their caution lap. Wait ‘til you see what happens when these guys are let loose in 2021! For more information and tour dates, please visit www.pryorandlee.com and follow them on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter ,YouTube, and yes, TikTok.

About Spire Motorsports …
Spire Motorsports was established in 2018 and is co-owned by longtime NASCAR industry executives Jeff Dickerson and Thaddeus “T.J.” Puchyr. Spire Motorsports earned an upset victory for the ages in its first full season when Justin Haley took the checkered flag in the Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona International Speedway on July 7, 2019.