NASCAR Season Review: Carl Edwards

After top-five finishes in the Daytona 500 and at Atlanta, Carl Edwards went door-to-door (literally) with Kevin Harvick at Phoenix in the fourth race of the season, losing by a mere .010 seconds, the same margin Denny Hamlin won the Daytona 500 over Martin Truex Jr. Edwards exited Phoenix ranked fifth in the points standings and off to a good start in his second season with Joe Gibbs Racing.

Edwards won his first of a career-high six Coors Light Pole Awards on the season in April at Texas Motor Speedway. He finished seventh at Texas for his sixth top-10 finish in the season's first seven races. He went on to win poles at Bristol (twice), Sonoma, Watkins Glen and New Hampshire to run his career total of pole wins to 22 in 13 seasons.

Edwards went from pole winner to Victory Lane at Bristol, but it wasn't that easy in a race that saw other competitors, including all three of his JGR teammates, encounter troubles that led to their demise. Edwards, meanwhile, led 276 of 500 laps at Thunder Valley to claim his first win of the season and his fourth at the fabled short track. The victory all but assured Edwards a spot in the Chase. And he, of course, celebrated with his signature backflip.

Edwards made it two wins in a row by executing a bump-and-run pass of teammate Kyle Busch on the final lap at Richmond. The finish provided goosebumps for NASCAR fans seeing as though it was the first last-lap pass for a win in the track's history. But the silence was deafening on Busch's radio afterward and the incident would come up a handful of times over the rest of the season -- most notably heading to Miami for the Championship 4.

Crashes at Talladega, Dover and Daytona contributed to a string of subpar finishes for Edwards as the season's summer months set in. However, Edwards is strong at the fuel-mileage game, and it almost paid off for him in the July race at Kentucky. With Brad Keselowski saving fuel, Edwards made up a gap of nearly six seconds in the race's final 10 laps. But Edwards couldn't quite get past the No. 2 Team Penske Ford, finishing .175 seconds behind.

Edwards was in strong contention for a win in October at Kansas, which he considers his hometown track. However, Kevin Harvick drove away from Edwards after a late restart, leading to the Joe Gibbs Racing driver's second runner-up finish at the 1.5-mile track. Edwards expressed his disappointment with another close call at Kansas, but on the bright side it was his first top-five finish of the season's second half and he advanced to the Round of 8 in the Chase.

Edwards advanced to his first Championship 4 thanks to a rain-shortened win in November at Texas. Edwards took the lead on Lap 258 of an eventual 293 and benefited from a super fast pit stop late to close the deal. The victory came on the heels of a 36th-place finish at Martinsville, so the veteran was in pretty much in need of a win to advance to the Championship 4. It was the 28th premier series victory in his career and his fourth at the 1.5-mile track in Fort Worth. And it put him in position to avenge his runner-up finish to Tony Stewart in the 2011 Chase at Homestead.

With 10 scheduled laps to go in the Ford EcoBoost 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway, Edwards restarted second alongside race leader Kyle Larson. But when Joey Logano went for an inside move, Edwards went to block him and the contact between the two championship-contending cars sent Edwards' No. 19 Toyota into the inside wall and out of the race. Edwards went from Chase leader to a 34th-place finish and experienced his second near-miss at Homestead in six seasons.

√=To his credit, Edwards didn't pout or place blame on anyone else in the face of the huge disappointment at Homestead. Instead, he got out of his car and walked toward pit road, climbed up the pit box of Joey Logano's team and offered his side of the story. Logano's crew chief, Todd Gordon, called Edwards a stand-up guy for coming over and having the talk. Meanwhile, Edwards could just walk away and shake his head and wait until 2017 for another shot at that elusive first championship.

Info taken from NASCAR.com.

NASCAR Season Review: Matt Kenseth

Matt Kenseth could rival Martin Truex Jr. in the bad luck department. His No. 20 was leading at the Daytona 500 and had been for 40 laps when he wound up on the losing end of last-lap gamesmanship due to the draft. He finished 14th. Kenseth had qualified second for the race, and the bad luck began when he had to start at the back of the pack after a final-lap crash in the second qualifying race for the Daytona 500, forcing him into a back up Camry.

Bad, or at least bizarre, luck continued in the season's second race at Atlanta Motor Speedway. Kenseth led 47 laps and had a strong car but was black flagged after his crew chief and spotter failed to call him to serve a pass-through penalty after a disputed pit stop penalty. Not realizing his laps wouldn't be counted, Kenseth stayed out after the white cross was shown, and finishes two laps down in 19th place.

Kenseth's luck turned around at Dover in May. He escaped an 18-car pileup on Lap 356 that caught up Kevin Harvick, who had led 117 laps, and a host of others. It was Kenseth's third career win at the "Monster Mile" and the first for him in 2016.

Win No. 2 for the No. 20 came two months later at New Hampshire, where Kenseth also has three career victories. Kenseth led the final 31 laps as the Toyota family of cars led 299 of the 301 laps in the race.

Matt Kenseth's Darlington throwback paint scheme featured the iconic Tide look similar to the one on Ricky Craven's car in 2003 when he edged Kurt Busch at the track "Too Tough to Tame." Ricky Rudd and Darrell Waltrip also ran the scheme. Kenseth finished sixth in the race.

Kenseth and his Joe Gibbs Racing teammates (Kyle Busch, Denny Hamlin and Carl Edwards), along with fellow Toyota driver Martin Truex Jr., entered the Chase as favorites after the five drivers accounted for half of the wins in the 2016 regular season.

Kenseth's 2016 Chase was solid, with eight top 10s in the 10 races, including runner-up finishes at New Hampshire and Charlotte.

Kenseth's Chase came to an end in a wreck at Phoenix. He was leading in the closing laps before a caution came out, setting up a dramatic restart -- the first of NASCAR overtime. Contact with Alex Bowman in a battle for the lead sent the No. 20 out of sorts. Kenseth would go on to finish fifth in the final season standings, his sixth ranking of seventh or better in the last seven seasons.

Info taken from NASCAR.com.

NASCAR Season Review: Denny Hamlin

In a photo finish that was the closest ever in the Daytona 500, Denny Hamlin emerged victorious by .010 seconds over Martin Truex Jr. to win "The Great American Race." The Joe Gibbs Racing driver called the win the "biggest race of his life" as he scored Toyota's first win ever in the event and the first for JGR in 23 years at the season opener.

Pit road speeding penalties were a constant bugaboo for Hamlin and the No. 11 team all season long. The issues seemed to dissipate over the summer -- something the driver was confident would be the case in the spring.

Coming into 2016, Hamlin had yet to score a win on a road course and that nearly changed at Sonoma. Hamlin led 33 laps and caught Tony Stewart on the final lap before "Smoke" got to the back of Hamlin in the final turn in one of the best finishes of the year.

Just over a month after his runner-up finish at Sonoma, Hamlin grabbed his first victory on a road course at Watkins Glen. He led just the last 10 laps to notch his first win since the season-opening Daytona 500, and the veteran driver would keep the good times rolling heading toward the Chase.

Hamlin notched his lone Coors Light Pole Award of the season in the regular-season finale at Richmond. He would go on to win that race in an overtime finish -- leading 189 laps on the evening. Earning strong starting spots was the norm in 2016 for Hamlin as he started outside the top 12 just one time.

The rest of his JGR teammates may have driven at the back of the pack at Talladega Superspeedway but Hamlin got all he could as he looked to advance to the Round of 8. Hamlin's third-place finish left him tied with Austin Dillon for the final transfer spot into the Chase's Round of 8. Based on each driver's respective best finish in the Round of 12, Hamlin advanced. Hamlin's Chase run would end after the Round of 8.

The racing got a bit physical between Hamlin and eventual series champion Jimmie Johnson at Martinsville in the Round of 8 opener. The two drivers each have had their success at the short track and the close-quarters racing led to some fiery exchanges over the radio. Johnson passed Hamlin with 92 laps to go, scoring the race win while Hamlin placed third. The duo engaged in a humorous game of one-upmanship on Twitter in the days after the race over their Halloween costumes.

Info taken from NASCAR.com.

NASCAR Season Review: Kurt Busch

Kurt Busch started the 2016 season hot with a top-10 finish at Daytona followed by consecutive Coors Light Pole Awards at Atlanta and Las Vegas. He finished fourth and ninth at those races, respectively.

Busch's top-10 finishes in 12 of the season's first 14 races led to a breakthrough return to Victory Lane at Pocono for the No. 41 Stewart-Haas Racing team. He earned the victory with interim crew chief John Klausmeier on top of the box for the suspended Tony Gibson.

Busch's consistency was on display from a 10-race stretch of top 10s from Texas on April 9 to Sonoma on June 26. During that time, the 2004 champion also notched four top fives.

Busch also had a streak of 22 lead-lap finishes to start the season (25 if you go back to the Texas Chase race in 2015). This streak ended with a crash and a 38th-place finish for the No. 41 Chevrolet at the Bristol summer race.

Busch's win at Pocono and consistently strong performance were enough to secure the 2004 champion a berth in the 2016 Chase. Through the 26 regular-season races, Busch had 17 top 10s and was in the top 10 in points.

Busch and teammate Kevin Harvick tangled at Talladega, trading paint on the cool-down lap after the race in which Harvick finished seventh and Busch fourth. On pit road, Harvick confronted Busch, while his teammate was still in the car.

Busch's 2016 Chase ended in the Round of 8 with finishes of 22nd at Martinsville, 20th at Fort Worth, and fifth at Phoenix. This was the second straight year Busch was eliminated in the Round of 8.

Info taken from NASCAR.com.

NASCAR reveals new brand identity, series name and logo

The following is a press release from NASCAR.com from yesterday, December 19, 2016.

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- NASCAR today unveiled a new official brand identity which will replace the bar mark used by the sanctioning body since 1976. The announcement was made in conjunction with the news that Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series™ will be the new name of the sport's premier series beginning January 1, 2017.

The new brand mark and Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series mark, which prominently features the iconic Monster Energy logo, together represent a new era in NASCAR and were first shared today across NASCAR social and digital media channels.

The NASCAR brand identity has been in development since early 2016 as part of a broader effort to refresh the NASCAR brand. It was designed to pay tribute to the storied history of NASCAR, incorporating elements of all four previous marks since the company’s inaugural season of 1948.

"Our new NASCAR mark is modern, timeless, and embraces the heritage of our sport," said Jill Gregory, NASCAR senior vice president and chief marketing officer. "It was important for us to recognize our history and implement a piece of each previous mark in the new design. Our goal was to evolve the sport's visual identity to make it concise, relevant and functional, while respecting and maintaining the unique qualities of the original mark."

The first Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series points race will be the 59th running of the Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway on Feb. 26 (2 p.m. ET, FOX, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Tickets are available at NASCAR.com/tickets.

NASCAR Season Review: Kevin Harvick

Kevin Harvick was fast enough to qualify ninth for the season-opening Daytona 500, but his machine didn't pass post-qualifying inspection. "Simple mistake on our part," crew chief Rodney Childers explained. No matter. Harvick drove through the field on Sunday to finish fourth.

Leading 139 of 313 laps, Harvick won for the fifth time in the past six Phoenix events, doing so in thrilling fashion by beating Carl Edwards to the line by 0.010 seconds.

A post-race inspection failure at Indianapolis resulted in crew chief Rodney Childers being suspended for the series' next race at Pocono.

Harvick's No. 4 exhibited such speed throughout the year that it was easy to forget he entered August with just one victory. That changed at Bristol when he won the Bristol Night Race -- on a Sunday afternoon after a rain postponement -- for his second victory that also served to prime the No. 4 team before the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup.

One week after a public dressing down of his pit crew over the radio at Darlington, Harvick rolled into Richmond with two new members on his over-the-wall crew -- the front tire changer and front tire carrier. The transition yielded quicker stops, and a more pleasant driver.

One week after a weird Chicagoland race in which Harvick was trapped a lap down, his chances of advancing in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup were … not bad, but certainly not as comfortable as he would have liked. No worries. As he's done time and time again in this format, Harvick and his team rose to the occasion with a clutch victory at New Hampshire to advance into the Round of 12.

Harvick inched closer to his third consecutive year racing for the championship in Miami when he won at Kansas in October. The victory ensured the Stewart-Haas Racing driver would advance to the Round of 8, where his best track, Phoenix, awaited.

Harvick has had his share of incidents over the years, and the Talladega Chase race added another to the list. Close racing at the event's conclusion appeared to lead to a miscommunication with Harvick and Stewart-Haas Racing teammate Kurt Busch, which led to Busch swiping Harvick's car on the cool-down lap. Harvick responded on pit lane post-race by delivering a jab into Busch's car while the driver was unbuckling.

It didn't take long for Harvick to be back in the headlines with a conflict. Two weeks after he and Kurt Busch tangled at Talladega, he faced criticism at Texas from Austin Dillon after contact sent Dillon's car careening into the outside wall and spoiling his good day. "He didn't like that the silver spoon kid was outrunning him," Dillon quipped -- a reference to a conflict between the two in 2013, that included some choice words from Harvick, for which he later apologized. If it matters (it didn't to the No. 3 camp), Harvick owned up to the incident and apologized.

In what might go down as the biggest upset in the postseason, Harvick -- who entered the penultimate race at Phoenix having won five of the past six races at the track, and finishing second in the other -- did NOT win in the desert. He finished fourth, a pretty good showing under any circumstance, but it wasn't great on this day. With two spots available in the Championship 4 for Miami, Harvick fell just short as Joey Logano won the race and Kyle Busch finished second, sending those drivers to the title round -- to join Carl Edwards and Jimmie Johnson in the final.

For the first time since 2014, when the Chase changed to an elimination-style format, Harvick was not one of the four drivers competing for the title. But he had one of his best showings of the season regardless, starting on the pole, leading 79 laps and finishing third. It could portend yet another strong year in 2017 when SHR makes the manufacturer transition to Ford.

Info taken from NASCAR.com.

NASCAR Season Review: Johnny Sauter

Johnny Sauter wasted no time trying to qualify for the first-ever Camping World Truck Series Chase by winning the 2016 season opener at Daytona. Sauter edged ahead of the field on the final lap -- and just in time before the caution flag flew for a wreck that included Christopher Bell barrel-rolling through Turn 1. Bell was OK after the 'Big One,' and Sauter had his 11th win in the series and first for GMS Racing.

Sauter's first and only pole win of the season came in June at Texas Motor Speedway when he posted a fast lap of 180.024 mph at the 1.5-mile track. Sauter was competitive throughout the race, spending 117 of the 167 laps running in third place or better. Sauter, who led nine laps, ultimately finished third, behind race winner William Byron and Matt Crafton.

After advancing past the Round of 8 with top-10 finishes at New Hampshire, Las Vegas and Talladega, Sauter kicked off the Round of 6 with a victory at Martinsville. Sauter held off Chase Elliott to finish ahead by .316 seconds and take the checkered flag. Sauter rebounded from a last-place finish at Martinsville in the spring to lead 50 of the 200 laps in the fall and punched his ticket to the Championship 4.

One week after winning at Martinsville, Sauter took the checkered flag at Texas. Sauter passed Matt Crafton with two laps to go and held on for a .836-second victory, his second in a row in the Chase and the third of his career at Texas. Sauter started 16th and led only six of the 147 laps, but it was enough to capture the 13th Truck Series win of his career.

Sauter started further back in the field than any of the other Championship 4 contenders on Nov. 18 at Homestead-Miami Speedway, but with less than 25 laps to go, the driver of the No. 21 GMS Chevrolet passed Matt Crafton and never let go. William Byron won the race, but Sauter completed his quest for the championship by finishing third. It was the Wisconsin native's first title in a NASCAR national series.

Info taken from NASCAR.com.

Kyle and Kurt Busch team up for ROC Nations Cup in Miami

Kyle Busch will team up with his older brother Kurt Busch for the 2017 Race of Champions Nations Cup event on January 21-22, 2017.

“It's really cool to be included in the 2017 Race of Champions," Kyle Busch said. "You look at the list of drivers and their backgrounds and it's pretty impressive. I love to race anything I can, so I’m really excited to be heading to Miami and getting behind the wheel of some different types of vehicles in order to compete against the best guys in the world.”

Kurt Busch previously raced in the event in 2014.

Indy 500 winners Alexander Rossi and Ryan Hunter-Reay will race for Team USA IndyCar while Travis Pastrana and Scott Speed will join forces for Team USA Rally X.

The event will take place at Marlins Park in Miami, Florida, which is the home stadium of Major League Baseball's Miami Marlins.

Drivers already confirmed for ROC Miami:

Sebastian Vettel, four-time Formula 1 world champion
Tom Kristensen, nine-time Le Mans 24 Hours winner
Petter Solberg, double FIA World Rallycross Champion
Juan Pablo Montoya, 2015 Indianapolis 500 winner
Ryan Hunter-Reay, 2014 Indianapolis 500 winner
Tony Kanaan, 2013 Indianapolis 500 winner
Felipe Massa, 11-time Formula 1 grand prix winner
Kurt Busch, 2004 NASCAR Cup champion
Travis Pastrana, action sports legend
Scott Speed, double Global Rallycross Champion
Alexander Rossi, 2016 Indianapolis 500 winner
Gabby Chaves, 2015 IndyCar Rookie of the Year
David Coulthard, 13-time Formula 1 grand prix winner
Jenson Button, 2009 Formula 1 world champion
Kyle Busch, 2015 NASCAR Cup champion

NASCAR Season Review: Daniel Suarez

Daniel Suarez started 2016 on a high note, earning the Coors Light Pole Award at Auto Club Speedway -- the fifth race of the season. By the end of the 150-lapper, Suarez was five-for-five in top-10 finishes.

After several close finishes, the Joe Gibbs Racing wheelman finally drove his No. 19 to Victory Lane for the first time in the XFINITY Series at Michigan. The win made NASCAR history with Suarez becoming the first Mexican-born driver to win in a national series race. The win also secured him a spot in the series first Chase -- where he would vie against 12 of his peers for the 2016 championship.

Four months later, Suarez found Victory Lane again, but this time at Dover during the second race in the Chase. And he didn't just win, he completely dominated the event, topping the board for a whopping 123 laps -- out of the 200 laps run that day. The win granted him an automatic berth into the next round of the playoffs -- the Round of 8.

Suarez was the man to beat at Miami after earning the Coors Light Pole Award -- his third of the season -- and he didn't disappoint, leading a race-high 133 laps. The Mexican-born driver outraced fellow championship drivers Erik Jones, Elliott Sadler and Justin Allgaier for the title. He made some more history as he became the first Latin American driver to win a NASCAR national series championship.