Team Penske's No. 2 Team assessed P2 penalty after Michigan

The team for No. 2 Ford driver Brad Keselowskiin the Sprint Cup Series was assessed a P2-level penalty after the car failed post-race inspection atMichigan International Speedway.

NASCAR on Wednesday fined crew chief Paul Wolfe $15,000 and docked the team 10 championship driver points and 10 championship owner points after the No. 2 failed post-race laser inspection.

The No. 2 Team Penske squad also received a written warning for failing pre-race laser inspection twice.

NASCAR also gave written warnings to several other teams on Wednesday following last weekend's action at Michigan International Speedway and Road America. Twelve of the warnings were issued to Sprint Cup Series teams, while the XFINITY Series had one.
 
The teams of drivers Regan Smith, Ryan Newmanand Michael McDowell each received a written warning for failing pre-race laser inspection twice. 

The teams of drivers Josh Wise and McDowell received written warnings and a loss of 15 minutes of practice time after failing pre-qualifying laser inspection three times.

The teams of drivers Kasey Kahne, Chase Elliottand Michael Annett received written warnings for failing pre-qualifying laser inspection twice.

Trevor Bayne, Smith and Kyle Larson all received written warnings for failing pre-qualifying template inspection twice.

As for the XFINITY Series, the only written warning given out was to Owen Kelly for failing pre-race laser inspection twice.

Camping World Truck Series wheelman Spencer Gallagher received a behavioral penalty and was fined $5,000 for approaching the racing surface or apron during the event.

Greg Biffle looks for win No. 3 at Darlington in Alan Kulwicki throwback

DARLINGTON, SC – Greg Biffle will honor the late Alan Kulwicki by running a Hooters throwback scheme in the famed Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway on Sunday, September 4th.  In addition to honoring the 1992 Winston Cup Champion, Biffle and Hooters have teamed up to help petition congress to recognize our local and national heroes who risk their lives on a daily basis by creating a National First Responders Day.

“I’m really looking forward to Darlington," Biffle said. "It’s my second best track, second favorite track to race at.  We ran well there last year and I’m looking forward to going back, especially with Hooters on the car.  This weekend is a good opportunity to get a solid finish and race for the win.  I think we are capable of it.”

Biffle has 15 Sprint Cup career starts at Darlington, earning two wins, three top-five and six top-10 finishes. Biffle holds his best average starting position of 11.1 at Darlington and his fourth best finishing average with a 13.6. Biffle has two poles at Darlington, 2008 and 2012.

According to NASCAR’s Loop Data Statistics, Biffle ranks first in laps led (637), first in fastest laps run (309), fourth in average speed early in run (163.729) and fifth in driver rating (102.9), dating back to 2005, among all active, full-time drivers.

In memory of Kulwicki, Biffle’s No. 16 Hooters Ford Fusion will have “UNDERBIRD” across the nose of the car for the NASCAR Throwback weekend at Darlington Raceway.

In 1992 Kulwicki changed his “THUNDERBIRD” to “UNDERBIRD” for the 1992 Hooters 500 season finale, as he was the underdog to win the Championship that season.  Kulwicki overcame a 30-point deficit to become the 1992 Champion.

Last year at Darlington, Biffle started the race 24th after brushing the wall in qualifying and suffered a flat tire early on in the race.  Biffle rebounded from the flat tire only to spin around the halfway mark.  Tire management became the name of the game and the early stop for the flat put the team a set behind others.  Biffle lost track position saving a set of stickers for the end and ultimately crossed the finish line 18th.

Trevor Bayne seeks victory in Mark Martin throwback at Darlington

DARLINGTON, SC - Trevor Bayne will make his second NASCAR Sprint Cup Series (NSCS) start at Darlington this weekend. Bayne finished 35th in his lone NSCS start at the famed speedway in 2015. In three starts in the NASCAR XFINITY Series in Darlington, Bayne earned a best finish of ninth in 2014.

Bayne finished 35th in his lone NSCS start at the famed speedway in 2015, and in three starts in the NASCAR XFINITY Series in Darlington, Bayne earned a best finish of ninth in 2014.

The AdvoCare Ford will have a different look this weekend as part of Darlington’s Tradition Continues as it will carry the same red, white and blue design as Mark Martin’s No. 6 Roush Fenway Ford did during the 1996 and 1997 NSCS seasons.

“This weekend will be a lot of fun," Bayne said. "It’s a huge honor to be carrying Mark Martin’s paint scheme on our AdvoCare Ford for the second straight season and it is really cool to see Darlington continuing this tradition for another year. Hopefully we can give this scheme the run it deserves and have a strong, solid night on Sunday.”

Martin scored four victories in the famed scheme, all of which in 1997, at Sonoma Raceway, Talladega Superspeedway, Michigan International Speedway and Dover International Speedway.

Bayne battled a tight-handling AdvoCare Ford for much of the 200-Lap event at Michigan International Speedway. This handling condition, along with numerous long green flag runs, made track position difficult to come by, ultimately leading to a 24th-place finish.

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At AdvoCare, We Build Champions® through physical and financial wellness. Backed by the latest science, AdvoCare provides innovative nutritional, weight-management, and sports performance products. In addition, the AdvoCare business opportunity empowers individuals to explore their ultimate earning potential. AdvoCare was founded in 1993 and is headquartered in Plano, Texas. For more information, visit http://www.advocare.com/ or call 800-542-4800.

Looking To Carry Throwback Coca-Cola/Bobby Allison Scheme To Victory Lane in Sunday Night’s Southern 500

KANNAPOLIS, North Carolina – Tony Stewart knows he has a tall task ahead of him in Sunday night’s Southern 500 at Darlington (S.C) Raceway. But the three-time NASCAR Sprint Cup champion would like nothing better to celebrate his 50th victory after his final race at one of NASCAR’s most historic tracks.

Adding to the prestige of this weekend’s penultimate race before the start of NASCAR’s 2016 Chase for the Sprint Cup playoffs, the No. 14 Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR) Chevrolet SS will carry a red-and-gold Coca-Cola paint scheme honoring the 1971 and 1972 racecars driven by Bobby Allison in back-to-back victories at Darlington. 

“Winning the Southern 500 is a goal of anyone who ever races in NASCAR,” Stewart said. “We’ve been fortunate enough to win a lot of races and championships, but I’m not going to lie – taking home the trophy from the Southern 500 would be really cool, especially in a really cool car.”

The “cool car” he refers to is part of throwback weekend at Darlington, when teams will honor the NASCAR heritage with special paint schemes and uniforms. Nearly every car in the field will sport a throwback paint scheme. The No. 14 crew will wear 1970s-styled, red-and-white Coca-Cola pants throughout the three-day Darlington weekend.

Stewart’s car will also be emblazoned with Coca-Cola’s tagline of that era, “The Real Thing.” The authentic look from Allison’s race-winning cars have been recreated for Stewart’s Chevrolet this weekend, right down to the gold wheels and cubic-inch displacement boast on the hood. Allison dominated from start to finish in both the 1971 and 1972 races at the 1.366-mile oval. He started from the pole each time and led 558 of the 734 laps available – 76 percent – in the two races. He paced the field for all but 38 laps in the 1971 Southern 500 and led a race-high 229 laps in the 1972 Southern 500. The victories were the first of five premiere series wins Allison earned at Darlington.

“(Allison) was fierce in a racecar,” said Stewart, who remembers watching Allison at a dirt race in Scottsburg, Indiana as a youngster. “You knew that if he was out there, you were going to have to be on your game to beat him that day.”

Five hundred miles at Darlington is normally tough under any circumstances but, for Stewart, “The Track Too Tough To Tame” and Kentucky Speedway in Sparta, added to the schedule in 2011, are the only venues on the Sprint Cup circuit where he has yet to win. He owns a career-best third-place finish in the 2009 and 2012 Southern 500s. He posted four top-five finishes and 12 top-10s and has led a total of 30 laps in his 23 career Sprint Cup starts at Darlington. His average Darlington start is 17.5, his average finish is 12.0, and he has a lap-completion rate of 99.1 percent. One of Stewart’s 11 career Xfinity Series victories came at Darlington on May 9, 2008.

Stewart announced in November that 2016 would be his final season as a full-time Sprint Cup Series driver. He missed the first eight races of the season after sustaining a burst fracture of the L1 vertebra in a Jan. 31 all-terrain-vehicle accident. Brian Vickers and Ty Dillon filled in during his absence. Stewart’s first race in 2016 didn’t occur until April 24 at Richmond (Va.) International Raceway. With rookie crew chief Mike Bugarewicz, Stewart has surpassed preseason predictions, winning at Sonoma (Calif.) Raceway in June and racing at the front of the field nearly every race since. In the last 10 races, Stewart has scored the fifth-most points of any driver. His 21st-place finish at Michigan Sunday clinched a spot in the Chase, which begins Sept. 18 at Chicagoland Speedway in Joliet, Illinois.

Stewart said the next two races are important to Chase preparation for himself, as well as his SHR teammates Kevin Harvick and Kurt Busch, who have clinched Chase berths, as well. 

“You want to be peaking at that time,” Stewart said. “It’s never that you go to the track and you’re like, ‘Well, we don’t want to peak this weekend, so we’re not going to try to win the race.’ That’s not the scenario you put yourself in. You want to have momentum, you want your team guys to feel like they’re building on something and feel like they’re getting to the top of the pile.

“I feel like we’re in a position like that. Kevin and Kurt are both running well each week, our car has been getting better and better each week, as well. Until the last two races, we were knocking out top-fives left and right here and, if we can have that kind of consistency again, that could carry us a long way in the Chase."                                                                                           

TONY STEWART, Driver of the No. 14 Coca-Cola Chevrolet SS for Stewart-Haas Racing:

What is your first memory of Bobby Allison?

“I can’t remember what I had for lunch most days, but it was at Scottsburg, Indiana. They ran Late Models, Street Stocks and Bombers, or something like that, that night. It was him in a Coke-sponsored car. He was running around the bottom the whole time. I was yelling, ‘Run the top.’ I wanted to see him run the top once. But he was set up for the bottom, I’m sure, and I remember he ran eighth. That was probably 30 to 35 years ago, but I can remember it. I knew Bobby because he was a NASCAR driver. My family, we barely could afford to race the go-karts we were racing, let alone go do something else, so I went with a buddy of mine. I didn’t know Bobby was going to be there that day. But out front of the racetrack, on the marquee, it said Bobby Allison was racing and the date, and I thought, ‘Wow, that’s going to be cool.’”

What are your thoughts on Darlington?

“Races at Darlington have been pretty tough for me. We’ve had some decent runs there, but it just seems like you really have to put everything together the whole day. If you can say you won a race at Darlington, that’s a feather in your cap because you conquered something that’s very difficult to obtain. That’s something to be proud of, knowing that you’re in a group of drivers with names like Allison and Pearson and Petty, the pioneers of our sport.”

BOBBY ALLISON, NASCAR Hall of Famer:

What are your thoughts after seeing the No. 14 Coca-Cola Chevrolet SS?

“Those red-and-gold Coca-Cola cars were very good to me. From 1970 through 1975, Coca-Cola was on my car and we won a lot of races. We won 11 races in ’71 – the most I ever had in a single season – and then we came back to win 10 more in ’72. And that first win at Darlington, it was such a tough track and such a long race, it meant so much. Tony Stewart is a real racer who would’ve fit right in during the time I raced in NASCAR. He’s a perfect fit for this Coca-Cola Chevy. I know what car I’ll be watching in the Southern 500.”

Tony Stewart Darlington Record

Year	Event	Start	Finish	Status/Laps	Laps Led	Earnings
2015	Southern 500	17	15	Running, 367/367	10	$125,249
2014	×Southern 500	23	9	Running, 374/374	0	$136,873
2013	Southern 500	20	15	Running, 367/367	0	$139,855
2012	×Southern 500	17	3	Running, 368/368	0	$209,415
2011	×Showtime Southern 500	9	7	Running, 370/370	6	$141,758
2010	Showtime Southern 500	24	23	Running, 366/367	5	$116,923
2009	Southern 500	18	3	Running, 367/367	1	$171,696
2008	Dodge Challenger 500	4	21	Running, 366/367	0	$125,061
2007	Dodge Avenger 500	26	6	Running, 367/367	0	$145,961
2006	Dodge Charger 500	13	12	Running, 367/367	0	$133,386
2005	×Dodge Charger 500	15	10	Running, 370/370	0	$131,586
2004	Carolina Dodge Dealers 400	8	17	Running, 293/293	1	$101,118
	Mountain Dew Southern 500	6	17	Running, 366/367	0	$109,678
2003	Carolina Dodge Dealers 400	28	10	Running, 293/293	0	$103,158
	Mountain Dew Southern 500	20	12	Running, 367/367	0	$109,503
2002	Carolina Dodge Dealers 400	36	36	Accident, 225/293	7	$83,233
	Mountain Dew Southern 500	4	8	Running, 367/367	0	$100,528
2001	†Carolina Dodge Dealers 400	14	16	Running, 293/293	0	$53,735
	Mountain Dew Southern 500	33	4	Running, 367/367	0	$93,900
2000	Mall.com 400	9	4	Running, 293/293	0	$68,230
	*Pepsi Southern 500	29	9	Running, 328/328	0	$55,735
1999	*TranSouth Financial 400	10	6	Running, 164/164	0	$44,240
	*Pepsi Southern 500	19	12	Running, 270/270	0	$46,620

 

* Race cut short due to weather.            

× Race length extended due to green-white-checkered finish.

† Qualifying canceled due to weather, starting position set via car owner points.

Busch Beer Celebrates Racing Heritage During Darlington Throwback Weekend

KANNAPOLIS, N.C. – Kevin Harvick, driver of the No. 4 Busch Beer Chevrolet SS for Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR), is helping to turn back the clock this weekend at Darlington (S.C.) Raceway, site of the Southern 500 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race. Instead of the standard Busch Beer livery that Harvick has run several times in 2016, his No. 4 Chevrolet will feature the paint scheme that NASCAR Hall of Famer Cale Yarborough drove during the 1979 and 1980 premier series seasons as part of Darlington’s “The Tradition Returns” weekend.

Yarborough drove the iconic Busch Beer paint scheme in one of the most significant races in NASCAR history – the 1979 Daytona 500. With most of the eastern part of the United States covered in snow thanks to massive winter storms, millions tuned in to watch the race, which was the first 500-mile NASCAR race televised in its entirety.

The 1979 Daytona 500 featured intense racing and an incredible finish that resulted in a brawl following the checkered flag. On the final lap, race leaders Yarborough and Donnie Allison collided on the backstretch. Neither driver was able to finish the race, opening the door for Richard Petty, who trailed by nearly a half lap at the time of the incident, to win his sixth Daytona 500.

As Petty made his way to victory lane, a fight broke out between Yarborough, Donnie Allison and Bobby Allison inside of turn three where the cars came to rest in the infield following the on-track collision. The live television broadcast caught both the finish and the fight and NASCAR gained national publicity.

Yarborough drove the No. 11 Busch Beer car for the entire 1979 and 1980 seasons. He went on to score 10 wins, 38 top-five finishes, 44 top-10s, 15 poles and led 4,130 laps over the 62-race span.

While Harvick will drive a No. 4 Chevrolet honoring the history of his sponsor Busch Beer, he is looking to score his second Sprint Cup win at the 1.366-mile egg-shaped oval.

In 2014, Harvick won the 65th running of the iconic Southern 500 – one of the crown jewels on the 36-race Sprint Cup schedule – in dominating fashion. He started from the pole and led 238 of 374 laps en route to beating runner-up Dale Earnhardt Jr. to the finish line by .558 of a second.

The win at Darlington was the second of Harvick’s five Sprint Cup wins during his championship season.

With only two races remaining before the start of the 10-race Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup playoffs, Harvick would like to add his third Sprint Cup win of the season at Darlington Sunday night. He scored his first of the year in the season’s fourth race at Phoenix International Raceway, and his second two weeks ago in the Bass Pro Shops NRA Night Race at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway.

Harvick clinched his spot in the Chase field with his fourth-place finish Aug. 1 in the Pennsylvania 400 at Pocono (Pa.) Raceway, securing a Chase spot for the 10th time in his career. He only needs to attempt to qualify for the remaining two regular-season races to make his playoff status official.

While Harvick and the No. 4 team are locked into the Chase field by points and wins, gaining bonus points for additional wins is now their top priority through the next two races, starting this weekend at Darlington.

KEVIN HARVICK, Driver of the No. 4 Busch Beer Chevrolet SS:

Is it exciting and fun to go to Darlington for the throwback weekend?

“Not only is it exciting to see NASCAR go back to Darlington and participate in all the throwback stuff, I think it’s an honor to drive a car that is iconic in our sport, and Cale Yarborough has been such a huge part of our sport. The NASCAR fans have been very receptive to the Busch brand and their heritage to the sport. Bringing some of that back to the throwback weekend at Darlington is fun to be a part of.”

Were you a Cale Yarborough fan growing up?

“I grew up in an Earnhardt house, mainly because of my dad. But, I think when you look back, Cale, David Pearson, Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt and a lot of these guys paved the way for where our sport is today with the battles they went through in their day and age. It’s different now, but it’s still the same – it’s just a different group of drivers. Those are the guys everyone watched, learned from and watched as our sport grew into what it is today. They’re such a big part of our history and it’s been a lot of fun to see everyone honor them with these throwback paint schemes. It’s just become a lot of fun to go to Darlington.”

Did you have any input on the Busch Beer throwback paint scheme?

“I was pretty set in that we were going to have gold wheels on the Busch Beer retro car. You can’t just jump in the pool and get half wet. I think it’s one of those situations where, if you’re going to participate in something like this, you have to participate all the way. To see that car as close to what it was is pretty cool. Busch has been very open to wanting to know about things and how they think about things. This was their idea. They have such a strong team of people who take an idea and run with it. Once you tell them you’re good with something, they are all in. It’s fun to be a part of a program that activates like that.”

Kevin Harvick Darlington Raceway Performance Profile:

Year	Event	Start	Finish	Status/Laps	Laps Led	Earnings
2015	Southern 500	3	5	Running, 367/367	44	$175,190
2014	Southern 500	1	1	Running, 374/374	238	$328,708
2013	Southern 500	10	5	Running, 367/367	0	$165,976
2012	×Southern 500	23	16	Running, 368/368	0	$136,391
2011	×Showtime Southern 500	13	17	Running, 370/370	47	$141,111
2010	Showtime Southern 500	35	6	Running, 367/367	2	$151,076
2009	Southern 500	24	11	Running, 367/367	0	$127,843
2008	Dodge Challenger 500	11	39	Running, 265/367	0	$116,711
2007	Dodge Avenger 500	9	17	Running, 367/367	0	$125,886
2006	Dodge Charger 500	14	37	Running, 350/367	0	$104,036
2005	×Dodge Charger 500	24	14	Running, 370/370	0	$123,561
2004	Carolina Dodge Dealers 400	23	8	Running, 293/293	0	$98,743
	Mountain Dew Southern 500	14	32	Running, 354/367	0	$90,728
2003	Carolina Dodge Dealers 400	33	36	Running, 283/293	0	$77,843
	Mountain Dew Southern 500	18	2	Running, 367/367	14	$149,063
2002	Carolina Dodge Dealers 400	16	3	Running, 293/293	0	$108,443
	Mountain Dew Southern 500	17	40	Accident, 193/367	0	$88,503
2001	†Carolina Dodge Dealers 400	3	14	Running, 293/293	0	$81,487
	Mountain Dew Southern 500	5	8	Running, 367/367	0	$93,727

× Race length extended due to green-white-checkered finish. 

* Race cut short due to weather.

† Qualifying canceled due to weather, starting position set via car owner points