Motorsports Racing News & Blog Articles

The last time Corey LaJoie competed in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series, he was a 22-year-old trying to find his place in NASCAR’s national divisions. Nearly a decade later, he will be back in a truck as he pilots Spire Motorsports‘ #7 Chevrolet Silverado RST at Daytona International Speedway (17 February) and Darlington Raceway (12 May).

LaJoie’s lone Truck experience came in 2014 when he ran the Kentucky and Bristol races for RBR Enterprises, respectively finishing seventeenth and tenth. He did not return to the series over the next nine years as he instead made sporadic starts in the Xfinity Series before becoming a Cup Series regular in 2017.

He joined Spire Motorsports in 2021, scoring a top ten at Daytona in his first start with the team. Although his points position dipped by two spots to thirty-first in 2022, he nearly won his first race at Atlanta but fell short after a late crash relegated him to fifth.

“Adding the Truck races this year will create some additional excitement and opportunities to find Victory Lane,” said LaJoie. “I’m really looking forward to climbing into the #7 Schluter Systems Chevrolet Silverado at Daytona International Speedway to kick off the season.”

Spire introduced a Truck programme in 2022 that ran eleven races with Cup drivers from ally Hendrick Motorsports as well as Rajah Caruth, Austin Hill, and Dylan Lupton. Hill finished fifteenth at Daytona in the truck’s début before William Byron won at Martinsville two starts later. The truck did not race at Darlington.

Despite uncertainty about the team’s 2023 plans, Our Motorsports will return for the upcoming NASCAR Xfinity Series season with the #02 running the full schedule. David Starr will be the car’s first driver at Daytona International Speedway on 18 February.

“After 25 years in the sport, I am over the top excited and honored to compete in the NASCAR Xfinity Series in 2023,” said Starr. “Since I was a young boy, this has been a dream of mine and it is awesome to still be living out this dream. That burning desire to race, compete, and win is still alive for me and I would like to continue to race as long as I can.

“I would like to thank Our Motorsports, Chris Our and Vic Reynolds, for giving me this opportunity. A huge thank you to Bret Baier for partnering with us for another season to make this all possible. I am so grateful for all of the fans, race teams, and companies who have supported and believed in me throughout the years!”

A former Craftsman Truck Series regular and four-time race winner, Starr has been in the Xfinity Series since 2014 which included racing full-time between 2015 and 2019 for multiple teams. He joined SS-Green Light Racing for 2022 and entered all but ten races, failing to qualify for four but nearly getting a top ten when he placed eleventh at New Hampshire.

Our had started the 2022 season with three full-time cars piloted by Anthony Alfredo, Jeb Burton, and Brett Moffitt. However, Moffitt was released from the #02 midway through the year due to a lack of funding and a rotation of drivers filled in. Alfredo and Burton have since left the team for B.J. McLeod Motorsports and Jordan Anderson Racing, respectively.

Chris Hacker is back at On Point Motorsports for five NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series races starting at Daytona International Speedway on 17 February, where he will pilot the #30 Toyota Tundra TRD Pro. Injury law firm Morgan & Morgan will sponsor his truck.

Hacker will also race at Atlanta Motor Speedway (18 March), World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway (3 June), Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park (11 August), and Bristol Motor Speedway (14 September).

He made his Truck Series début in 2021 and ran nine races since. Much of his starts came for Niece Motorsports, with whom he enjoyed his first two top-twenty finishes (sixteenth at Martinsville in 2021 and seventeenth at Atlanta in 2022) but also did a one-off for On Point at IRP last year and placed twenty-fourth.

“Climbing in the car before the race is the coolest part of the day. You just got done during driver intros, you see the fly-by go over you, you get to listen to the national anthem while everybody’s lined up, it’s really surreal,” began Hacker in a promotional video for Morgan & Morgan. “But things don’t start like kicking in until you like see the pace car start to pull down.

“You feel the do behind you bumping on you, you’re bumping on the dude in front of you, and all you know is that everybody’s going to be hitting the gas pedal at the same time here in about five seconds, and you never know what’s going to happen. You always got to be on your toes.

The 2022/23 ABB FIA Formula E World Championship is properly underway now for DS Penske, with Jean-Éric Vergne having claimed a famous victory at the inaugural Hyderabad E-Prix.

Despite having entered the season and the start of the Gen3 era as title favourites, the first three rounds were miserable for the Los Angeles-based team, with only seven points to celebrate after three races. However, as proven in Hyderabad, things can change incredibly quickly in Formula E, with DS Penske’s season having suddenly turned for the better.

After entering the weekend with just seven points, they left India with thirty-six, proving just how fast things can turn around. Everything finally came together for the team, with Vergne having shown exactly what is capable from their Gen3 powertrain. His victory, was remarkably his first since Season Seven, which also moved him to third in the Drivers’ Championship.

For Stoffel Vandoorne it was a hard-fought weekend, with the reigning World Champion having started in seventeenth, whilst Vergne started second. The Belgian fought through the field superbly, though, to finish sixth, only for a five-second time penalty to demote him to eighth.

Team Principal Jay Penske was nevertheless proud of both drivers, with their suddenly being a real fire amongst the pre-season favourites. Is this the start of the title charge for DS Penske?

Double Formula E Champion Jean-Éric Vergne well and truly got his season and DS Penske‘s underway at the inaugural Hyderabad E-Prix, following one of the greatest defensive performances ever seen in the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship.

After a challenging first few rounds of the season, Vergne was absolutely on it all weekend at the Hyderabad Street Circuit and was a regular name towards the top of the timesheets. The Frenchman made it all the way to the final of the duels where he was unfortunately beaten by Mitch Evans; however, this ultimately didn’t matter as he quickly overtook the New Zealander.

Once in the lead of the race, Vergne controlled proceedings superbly and managed to stay out of all the carnage that was unfolding behind, whilst managing his energy to near perfection. The final lap of the race is without a doubt up there with one of Vergne’s greatest, with him having somehow completed the final lap with just one-percent energy remaining. His energy hit zero the moment he crossed the line, with him having timed it to complete perfection.

Incredibly, due to everything that unfolded behind him, Vergne’s victory saw him jump to third in the Drivers’ Championship, with the Frenchman now hoping that the team can carry their newfound “momentum” into the upcoming rounds to pursue a title bid.

“I am obviously very happy with this victory! It’s great for the team to get back to the top after three tough races, and to come back to everyone with a win after working so hard on our understanding of the car. Clearly, we have made good progress. We have to keep up this momentum but, to tell you the truth, I’m quite confident because I think we still have a lot of room for improvement. It’s up to us to keep working hard to get more results like this!”

On 10 February, The Checkered Flag had the opportunity to speak with NTT IndyCar Series veteran Conor Daly as he prepares for what he hopes to be his Daytona 500 début.

Below is the full transcript of the interview. Some text has been altered from the actual dialogue to improve readability and remove verbal pauses.

An article summarising the interview can be read here.

Transcript

TCF: From the outside, it seems like the deal to run Daytona came together pretty late. I know you already raced with the #50 team last year, but can you break down how the deal for Daytona came together, like who approached who with the idea to race it?

CD: Yeah, for sure. I mean, honestly, at the end of the IndyCar season last year, Todd Ault from BitNile.com, he asked me if I wanted to race NASCAR. And I was like, ‘I mean, yeah, obviously, of course.’ And I didn’t really know if that was legit or not. Turns out it was. We were racing at the Roval not too long afterwards. The team I guess liked having me there and then there was, you know, Tony (Eury Jr.) and I worked really well together. They saw a lot in the race that I guess that they liked and so they expressed some interest to have me back.

After working for NASCAR Xfinity Series team Brandonbilt Motorsports as technical director, Collin Fern will become a team owner in 2023. FRS Racing‘s #96 Chevrolet Camaro will make its début at Richmond Raceway on 1 April, though the team has not immediately announced a driver.

According to the tentative schedule listed on their website as of this article’s publishing, the team hopes to run eight races in 2023. After Richmond, the #96’s next stop will be Charlotte Motor Speedway on 27 May, followed by Pocono Raceway (22 July), Michigan International Speedway (5 August), Watkins Glen International (19 August), Bristol Motor Speedway (15 September), Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval (7 October), and Martinsville Speedway (28 October).

“FRS Racing is the culmination of an entire offseason’s worth of hard work trying to build a brand from scratch,” said Fern. The team name stands for Fern-Ring-Sherman, with the latter two referring to his mother Catherine Ring and stepfather Will Sherman. “I am extremely excited for this opportunity, and I cannot thank Jerry Brown (Brandonbilt owner) and David Clarke (general manager) enough for their visions and belief in me to carry on what theyve built. I look forward to being on track part-time in 2023, with the hope that we can be full-time come the 2024 season.”

Fern had worked for Brandonbilt since 2016, spending four years as the marketing and public relations manager before being elevated to technical director in 2020. In their second year with Fern’s technical guidance, Brandonbilt won the Talladega fall race with Brandon Brown. Since then, however, the team’s future has been in flux due to a lack of sponsorship that forced Brown out of the #68 despite being Jerry Brown’s son.

Like Brandonbilt, FRS will have a technical partnership with Richard Childress Racing and use Earnhardt Childress Racing (ECR) engines.

Emerling-Gase Motorsports has signed Natalie Decker to compete in both the NASCAR Xfinity Series and ARCA Menards Series on part-time bases in 2023. She will pilot the #53 Ford Fusion in the ARCA season opener at Daytona International Speedway on 18 February, while her Xfinity slate was not immediately revealed.

Decker ran the full 2018 ARCA season for Venturini Motorsports and finished seventh in points, which was highlighted by her winning the pole and finishing fifth at Daytona. This was backed up by a sixth in the following year’s race, and she eventually became the first female driver to score a top five in NASCAR Truck Series when she was fifth in the 2020 Daytona opener. The ARCA start will be her first since 2020 when she crashed out at Daytona for Ken Schrader Racing.

She began competing in the Xfinity Series in 2021. In eight career starts, her best finish is twenty-fourth at Talladega in 2021. Decker attempted five races in 2022, failing to qualify at Daytona and Talladega but making the others with a highest run of twenty-seventh at Atlanta. Ironically, her entry at the second Daytona race was abandoned due to a hold-up by NASCAR with her sponsor and she was replaced by EGM co-owner Patrick Emerling.

“Natalie is a great addition to our team,” said Emerling. “I remember back when she was a teenager competing in her super late (model) at New Smyrna Speedweeks and I was racing Modifieds; she showed great talent. Needless to say, that’s why she’s here in our ARCA car at Daytona and a part of our NASCAR Xfinity Series team.”

During the offseason, Decker has mostly focused on online streaming. In January, she became a member of the HER Galaxy esports organisation and the adjacent Galaxy Racer team.

A.J. Allmendinger was one of the NASCAR Xfinity Series‘ top drivers over the past four years before moving up to the Cup Series with Kaulig Racing. However, he will drop back down to his old stomping ground on occasion in 2023 as he will pilot Kaulig’s #10 Chevrolet Camaro in select races starting at Circuit of the Americas on 25 March.

The COTA entry immediately makes Allmendinger the favourite as the defending race winner. He also leads all drivers in road course wins at the Xfinity level by a wide margin with ten total including having won the last four Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval races. The former open-wheel racer’s road course success also expands to the Cup Series with a win at Watkins Glen in 2014 and Indianapolis in 2021, the latter coming as a part-time driver for Kaulig’s Cup programme.

While a road course ace, Allmendinger’s Xfinity career has also seen him enjoy tremendous success on ovals that included winning at Talladega in 2022. He claimed the regular season championship in both of his full-time seasons in 2021 and 2022, and made the Championship Round in the former while coming up short in the latter.

Although the other races on Allmendinger’s itinerary were not immediately revealed, he will not have a chance to go five in a row at the Roval as it is an Xfinity playoff race, which Cup drivers are forbidden from entering. Allmendinger can run up to five Xfinity races.

Allmendinger is one of multiple drivers who will drive the #10 in 2023, which was vacated when Landon Cassill‘s sponsorship dried up, with others including his Kaulig Cup team-mate Justin Haley and the Cup drivers from ally Richard Childress Racing Kyle Busch and Austin Dillon. Busch won the 2021 COTA Xfinity race.

Jesse Love, one of Toyota’s young rising stars, will get a shot in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series as he joins TRICON Garage for three races in 2023 beginning at World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway on 3 June. The other starts will come at Kansas Speedway on 8 September and Phoenix Raceway on 3 November. He will pilot the #1 Toyota Tundra TRD Pro.

“I’ve known David Gilliland for a long time and have such a tremendous amount of respect for him as both a driver and a team owner,” said Love. “To put it simply, I literally can’t wait to get behind the wheel for both David and this team. A lot of time, sweat, and tears have gone into this opportunity and I’m looking forward to capitalising on it. I think Gateway will be a great place to get started, so June 3 can’t come fast enough.”

Love won the 2020 and 2021 ARCA Menards Series West championships, with the former making him the youngest champion in a NASCAR-sanctioned series at just fifteen years of age. His successes elevated him to the main ARCA Menards Series in 2022 for Venturini Motorsports where he ran fourteen races and led every lap at the Illinois State Fairgrounds to win.

Now eighteen years old, he will compete for the ARCA championship in 2023.

He finished fifth in the 2020 ARCA race at Gateway, while he notched a pair of sixth-place runs in the 2021 and 2022 ARCA West events at Phoenix. Due to his youth, he has no prior experience at Kansas.

CR7 Motorsports will be a multi-truck operation for the first time in their history, even if for just a one-off. On Thursday, the team announced owner Codie Rohrbaugh will pilot the newly opened #97 Chevrolet Silverado RST in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series season opener at Daytona International Speedway, where he will partner up with the full-time #9 piloted by Colby Howard.

“Surprise! Codie will be back behind the wheel at Daytona in a second @nascar_trucks entry for CR7 Motorsports,” posted the team on social media. “He will be piloting the #97 Grant County Mulch Chevrolet.”

Rohrbaugh and his family founded the team, also known as Grant County Mulch Racing, in 2014 before moving up to the Trucks in 2018. He competed sporadically before contesting much of the 2020 slate after barely losing out in a three-wide sprint to the finish at Daytona. Another top five came at Talladega later that year.

Despite another top ten at the 2021 Daytona race, he only ran seven more races and crashed out of the final four. Instead, he opted to let Grant Enfinger—who ironically defeated him for the 2020 Daytona win—drive the truck in nine races, during which he scored a fourth at COTA, while Howard made three starts himself. Rohrbaugh stepped aside entirely in 2022 as Blaine Perkins contested the full schedule and finished twenty-ninth in points. Howard joined the team for 2023 as Perkins moved into the Xfinity Series.

Rohrbaugh has also competed in the ARCA Menards Series for CR7 with seven top tens in twenty career starts.

Kyle Busch‘s reign of terror over the NASCAR Xfinity Series has resumed. On Friday, Kaulig Racing announced he will make his return to the series at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on 4 March and once again pursue a five-race schedule as permitted for Cup Series drivers.

Additional starts will come at Phoenix Raceway (11 March), Charlotte Motor Speedway (26 May), Watkins Glen International (19 August), and Darlington Raceway (2 September).

Busch is the only driver in Xfinity Series history with triple digit wins at 102 total, achieved after winning all five of his starts in 2021. He had long teased permanently stopping his Xfinity racing upon hitting 100, which was done at Nashville, and indeed did not run any races in 2022.

Of course, Friday’s announcement blows that plan out of the water.

“I’m looking forward to having some fun in the Xfinity Series again,” said Busch. “What Matt Kaulig and Chris Rice have built in just a few short years at Kaulig Racing is impressive, and with the team’s alliance with Richard Childress Racing, this made for an easy decision to be back competing in a series that I’ve had success in over the years.”

Despite being a full-time driver in the NASCAR Xfinity Series three times since 2018, Alex Labbé has struggled to do so consistently due to inconsistent funding. As a result, his 2023 schedule only consists of one race so face: the season opener at Daytona International Speedway on 18 February, where he will race the #36 Chevrolet Camaro for DGM Racing.

Despite being a consistent top-half driver during the 2020 and 2021 seasons as he respectively finished fourteenth and nineteenth in points, a lack of stable sponsorship led him to begin 2022 with plans of just running half the schedule. He ultimately acquired enough backing to run all but seven races and score three top tens en route to another nineteenth-place points finish.

However, there were snags that included failing to qualify for the Daytona opener.

“I want to redeem myself,” he told Le Journal de Montréal. “In 2022, the non-qualification was difficult to digest, but this time I am much more confident.

“Daytona is a must stop for any NASCAR driver. It’s always fun to take part in the first race of the season and I’m very happy to be there. I must thank all my partners without whom my presence would not be possible.”

Jean-Éric Vergne delivered one of the greatest defensive displays of his motorsport career, to claim his first victory of the Gen3 era at the inaugural Hyderabad E-Prix, which played host to the fourth round of the 2022/23 ABB FIA Formula E World Championship.

Evans Blinks First

As the inaugural Formula E race in India got underway, it was polesitter Mitch Evans who made the perfect start, with all of the drivers having remarkably made it through the opening corners without any collisions. Nick Cassidy was the first of the front drivers to pull off a great move towards the end of the opening lap, as the New Zealander dived down the inside of Sam Bird at Turn Three to move up to sixth.

For the top five it was as they were, whilst behind, Edoardo Mortara hit Cassidy at Turn Three, with the Swiss driver having failed to slow his car down in time for the corner. Mortara’s front-wing was broken as a result, dropping him to virtually the foot of the field after having to pit for a change. Interestingly, the field remained somewhat close together behind Evans, with the top twelve having all been within close proximity of one another.

As the race hit the sixth lap, neither Jake Dennis nor Pascal Wehrlein had made much progress towards the front, suggesting that it was going to be a bad day in regard to extending their lead at the top of the championship. At the front and the action suddenly went up a notch, as Evans dropped to fourth whilst activating his first Attack Mode, whilst at the same time Sébastian Buemi pulled off a great move on Vergne for what became the race lead. Evans quickly got back into third, though, as he pushed to make the most of his Attack Mode.

Bird Error Causes Jaguar Nightmare

On Lap Nine, Vergne moved back into the lead as Buemi opted to activate his first Attack Mode, which he managed to do whilst remaining ahead of Evans. It was yet more misery for Evans a lap later, as Vergne also managed to activate his first Attack Mode and remain ahead of initial race leader Evans, further suggesting that blinking first isn’t the correct strategy this season. Vergne’s decision to activate his first Attack Mode allowed Buemi to retake the lead; however, he immediately applied the pressure on the Swiss driver.

Conor Daly has been a mainstay in open-wheel racing for over a decade, but stock cars have also piqued his interest in recent times as he made starts in all three NASCAR national divisions over the past five years. Next week, he hopes his dabbling will culminate in getting to run the biggest NASCAR race of the year as he attempts to qualify for the Daytona 500.

On Friday, The Checkered Flag spoke with Daly on his Daytona preparations, his 2023 plans in both the NASCAR Cup Series and NTT IndyCar Series, and adapting to life in another discipline.

Daytona 500 qualifying will take place on Wednesday, 15 February, followed by the Duels the next day to set the starting grid. The race is on Sunday, 19 February.

Daytona Dreaming

Daly will enter the Daytona 500 in the #50 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 for The Money Team Racing, with whom he made his Cup Series début at the Charlotte Roval in 2022. The initial deal to enter the Cup Series arose via his IndyCar sponsor BitNile Holdings and its CEO Milton “Todd” Ault III.

“At the end of the IndyCar season last year, Todd Ault from BitNile.com, he asked me if I wanted to race NASCAR, and I was like, ‘I mean, yeah, obviously, of course,'” Daly recalled. “I didn’t really know if that was legit or not. Turns out it was. We were racing at the Roval not too long afterwards. The team I guess liked having me there. Tony (Eury Jr., crew chief) and I worked really well together. They saw a lot in the race that I guess that they liked and so they expressed some interest to have me back.”