Backstretch Motorsports

The emotion of winning at Richmond International Raceway for Denny Hamlin is finally realised. With tonight’s victory by Hamlin on his hometrack , Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR) has now totaled 75 victories in NASCAR’s elite racing series.

He also did it in convincing style, battling door-to-door with Jeff Gordon along the way. It was Hamlin’s second win of the season. He won earlier this year at Pocono.

“This is my Daytona 500″ said the FedEx Toyota Camry driver from nearby Chesterfield, Va. “I wanted to win here before I get a 500 win. It’s a good run for our team. It’s how we have run the last few times here and just haven’t got the win. You know, today everything just came together. We had good pit stops and didn’t make any mistakes.” [read more...]

Starting from the rear of the field under a penalty for adjustments outside of impound, Carl Edwards methodically weaved his way through tight quarters Richmond International Raceway traffic to win tonight’s Virginia 529 College Savings 250 NASCAR Nationwide Series race.

After his Dan Stillman led crew got his No. 60 Ford off pit road in the top spot under caution, Edwards ran away from Kevin Harvick over the final 20-lap green-flag run.

This is his fourth victory, 22nd top-10 finish in 2009 and his 24th victory in 168 NASCAR Nationwide Series races, three of those coming here at the classic .75 mile venue. [read more...]

The stage is set, the actors are as ready as they are going to be. It is showtime.

Making the big show is goal. All these drivers think they are going to be in - but somethings gotta give, not everybody can make it.

When the “Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup” format was instituted in 2004, Richmond International Raceway inherited the annual Chase “cut-off” race, the final event before the Chase field is finalized. [read more...]

HAMPTON, Ga. (Sept. 5, 2009) — Kevin Harvick passed polesitter Dale Earnhardt Jr. on the next-to-last lap and pulled away to win Saturday night’s Degree V12 300 at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

Kyle Busch, who also passed Earnhardt on Lap 194 of 195, ran second and padded his NASCAR Nationwide Series points lead from 192 to 221 over second-place Carl Edwards, who completed the race despite fracturing two bones in his right foot playing Frisbee on Wednesday. Edwards finished seventh, one lap down.

After pitting for the last time on Lap 125, Earnhardt saved enough fuel to make it to the end of the race but couldn’t stay ahead of Busch and Harvick, who came to the pits for four tires and gas on Lap 181 and 182, respectively.
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“Do not go gentle into that good night” .. I doubt Dylan Thomas could’ve ever imagined his words would be used as a racer’s mantra for making the NASCAR playoff series.

But they work.

In truth, nearly all of the top finishers in the Sharpie 500 race at Bristol Motor Speedway could lay claim to the sentiments expressed in that poetic phrase. [read more...]

Michigan’s dust-up has barely settled, the fuel milage battle was a game changer in many ways.

Brian Vickers gets the ‘all-important’ 10 bonus points, and albeit not comfortably, stays ahead of both Clint Bowyer and Kyle Busch in actual standing.. but still not quite in the “Chosen Twelve” that get to the Chase.

The win was the important part, and another win would put him in no matter what others do. [read more...]

WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. (Aug. 8, 2009) — When Marcos Ambrose and Kyle Busch came to the chicane or “bus stop” on Lap 64 of Saturday’s NASCAR Nationwide Series Zippo 200 at Watkins Glen International, Busch stopped — out of necessity — and Ambrose didn’t.

Ambrose’s bold move into the chicane proved to be the winning pass, as the driver of the No. 47 Toyota held the lead the for the final 19 laps, winning the event for the second straight year. [read more...]

Montreal, August 6, 2009 - Stock-Car Montreal, the event organizing body of the NAPA Auto Parts 200, Presented by Dodge, welcomed Kyle Busch, one of the brightest young stars of the NASCAR championship series, to Montreal on Wednesday August 6. Meeting with the press at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, located on Parc Jean-Drapeau, the current Nationwide Series point’s leader confirmed that he will compete in the upcoming August 29-30 race weekend. With six wins so far, 15 top-5 and 18 top-10 finishes since the start of the 2009 season, Busch will go head-to-head in Montreal with Carl Edwards, who is currently running second in the standings, 207 points behind. The Las Vegas born driver, who started his NASCAR racing career in 2001 at the age of 16, will be making his Montreal debut. [read more...]

JOLIET, Ill. –A gutsy call, or a mistake in judgement. You could’ve hung your hat on either opinion if you had been sitting in the stands at Chicagoland Speedway for the close of Friday night’s NASCAR Nationwide Series race.

It’s all point of view.. neither really matters now, Dave Rogers sold his concept to his driver on a final restart that led to Victory Lane.

“This guy (Dave Rogers, crew chief) is a heck of a motivator.” race winner Joey Logano told reporters in the post-race presser. “I don’t know if you’ve ever heard him on the radio, that guy will make you drive harder than anyone out there. You can have a ninth-place car and he’ll make you think you have a first-place car. Always being confident on the radio helps me a lot as a driver. I was going off what he said. At first I thought this was going to be bad and then he made me think 50-50 of what it was going to be. Either way, I just drove my brains out.” [read more...]

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (July 4, 2009) — With Kyle Busch slamming the frontstretch wall after an unsuccessful attempt to block, Tony Stewart won Saturday night’s Coke Zero 400 at Daytona International Speedway.

The victory was Stewart’s second of the season, his second as an owner/driver for Stewart-Haas Racing and the 35th of his NASCAR Sprint Cup Series career. [read more...]