2016 in NASCAR

To be honest, I'm struggling to be bothered to do this on here....

Anyway. New year, and big changes in the NASCAR Cup series. Going to be weird not seeing Jeff Gordon in the #24 for starters. More on that later though, because the big news came along this week.

NASCAR is implementing a Charter agreement with Cup series teams. 36 have been granted a Charter.

NASCAR.com said:

• This long-term agreement is for nine years.

• There are 36 Charter teams, currently from among 19 organizations. The number 36 was not pre-determined -- NASCAR analyzed which teams showed a long-term commitment to the sport by attempting to qualify every week for the past three years. That criteria yielded 36 Charters.

• Because of the above criteria, the following teams do not have Charters: the No. 19 of Joe Gibbs Racing, the No. 21 of Wood Brothers Racing, the No. 41 of Stewart-Haas Racing and the No. 46 of HScott Motorsports.

• A Charter guarantees entry into the field of every Sprint Cup Series points race. Qualifying speeds still determine the lineup.

• Sprint Cup Series fields will shift from 43 cars to 40 cars. That means 36 Charter teams are guaranteed to make every points race, and four non-Charter (or "open") teams will complete the rest of the field.

• Charter owners may transfer their Charter to another team, for one full season, once over the first five years of the agreement.

• Charter teams are held to a minimum performance standard. If a Charter team finishes in the bottom three of the owner standings among all 36 Charter teams for three consecutive years, NASCAR has a right to remove the charter.

• Teams may sell their Charters on the open market.

• Organizations now have a hard cap of four cars; there will be no fifth car for rookie drivers.

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As matters stand, the Charter teams are as follows:

The #43 and #44 of Richard Petty Motorsports
The #3, #27 and #31 of Richard Childress Racing
The #2 and #22 of Team Penske
The #5, #24, #48 and #88 of Hendrick Motorsports
The #6, #16 and #17 of Roush Fenway Racing
The #1 and #42 of Chip Ganassi Racing
The #11, #18 and #20 of Joe Gibbs Racing
The #4, #10 and #14 of Stewart-Haas Racing
The #78 of Furniture Row Racing
The #34 and #38 of Front Row Motorsports
The #47 of JTG Daugherty Racing
The #7 of Tommy Baldwin Racing
The #13 of Germain Racing
The #32 of Go Fas Racing
The #23 and #83 of BK Racing
The #62 of Premium Motorsports
The #95 of Circle Sport Racing
The #15 of HScott Motorsports

The more observant of you will notice that there are 34 car numbers there, not 36. That's because Michael Waltrip Racing, who were granted Charters for what was the #15 and #55, aren't actually racing any longer and will be selling those Charters - current indications are that the SHR #41 and the Gibbs #19 will be buying them.

For the most part, I think the Charter system is a good thing. I don't like that the grid is shrinking, but sponsor budgets aren't exactly at an all-time high so it's hardly a shock. But rather than give a defunct team a Charter as they've done with MWR, why not give one to the Wood Brothers #21 given the historical importance of that car? Especially since they're making the return to full-time competition. Hey ho.

So, team changes. As mentioned, MWR has pulled out and the #21 Wood Brothers team is running the full schedule for the first time since 2008. Front Row and BK Racing are both dropping back to running only two cars each full-time (shutting down the #35 and #26 respectively), Circle Sport and Leavine Family Racing have merged, and Premium Motorsports will run one car full-time and another on a part-schedule. Also, Furniture Row is switching manufacturers - from Chevy to Toyota.

The driver changes are actually fairly substantial. Biggest change of course is in the #24 Hendrick Motorsports team, with Jeff Gordon retiring from driving and Chase Elliott (son of '88 Cup champ Bill 'Awesome Bill From Dawsonville' Elliott) stepping up from the XFINITY series to campaign the car. Jeff leaves behind some incredibly big shoes to fill, and I hope Elliott does well. Clint Bowyer is replacing Justin Allgaier at HScott Motorsports, the #51 being renumbered as the #15 this season. Brian Scott replaces Sam Hornish Jr at Richard Petty Motorsports. Chris Buescher is moving up from the XFINITY series to drive the #34 for Front Row. Landon Cassill replaces David Gilliland in the Front Row #38. Jeffrey Earnhardt and Bobby Labonte are sharing the #32 Go Fas machine - Labonte is running the restrictor plate races. David Ragan will drive the #23 for BK Racing. Regan Smith replaces Alex Bowman in the Tommy Baldwin Racing #7.

And then there's Tony Stewart. Tony had decided this would be his last season, with Clint Bowyer lined up to replace him in 2017. And he hoped that he could make this last season a good one having gotten himself in the best shape he'd been in since his single-seater days. But at the end of January he was driving an ATV while on holiday and had an accident - he's suffered a burst fracture of the L1 vertebra. He's had surgery and is expected to recover but will miss the start of the season - no confirmation yet on who will stand in for him.

Sprint Unlimited on Saturday. The race will be in two segments - 25 laps, a competition caution, and 50 laps. Eligibility is as follows:

Drivers who had a pole position in 2015 - AJ Allmendinger, Kurt Busch, Kyle Busch, Carl Edwards, Denny Hamlin, Kevin Harvick, Jimmie Johnson, Kasey Kahne, Matt Kenseth, Brad Keselowski, Jeff Gordon, Joey Logano.

Former winners of the Unlimited - Dale Earnhardt Jr., Tony Stewart.

Past Daytona 500 pole winners - Greg Biffle, Austin Dillon, David Gilliland, Danica Patrick, Martin Truex Jr.

2015 Chase for the Sprint Cup drivers - Clint Bowyer, Jamie McMurray, Paul Menard, Ryan Newman.

2015 Cup championship points to get the field to 25 cars - Aric Almirola, Kyle Larson.

Some of those drivers will obviously not be entering - Jeff Gordon and Tony Stewart for certain, and I don't think David Gilliland has a drive. The provisional drivers who would take over any vacant spots are based on 2015 points - the first five would be Casey Mears, Ricky Stenhouse Jr, Sam Hornish Jr, David Ragan and Trevor Bayne. Of those, Hornish doesn't have a ride.

I've started playing iRacing and it's made me want to get back into watching nascar and indycar. What channel would nascar be on or is it streamed on there website?

Overlag said:

I've started playing iRacing and it's made me want to get back into watching nascar and indycar. What channel would nascar be on or is it streamed on there website?

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I don't think there's any easy way to watch it live or streamed in the UK.
All of last year's races are on Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLtc57NTUizP6mUx4936fvX11B-1T_dysO
So far I'm halfway through last year.

I only got interested in NASCAR last November when I was wondering what to do for my 50th birthday which I'll be celebrating in Canada & USA. I've booked a package to Richmond in April.

Denny Hamlin won the Unlimited. Giant 'who cares?'.

Qualifying for the Daytona 500, as usual, is a bit different to other races. Qualifying itself sets the front row and the fields for what are now the Can-Am Duels. The results of the Duels set the inside and outside rows, and are the last chance for non-Charter teams to nab themselves a start in the 500.

Qualifying first, and a magical start to Chase Elliott's career in the #24 as he netted himself pole. Matt Kenseth will join him on the front row. It was a bit of a Chevy benefit, with 5 of the top 10 being Bowties.

Then the Can-Am Duels. Duel 1 saw an emotional win for Dale Earnhardt Jr on the 15th anniversary of the death of his father.

NASCAR.com said:

"It's real special. I was thinking about that," he said. "I try not to make too big a deal. I've told all you guys in interviews we've done how much I like people to remember Dad, talk about Dad. It really warms my heart to see the stuff on social media and so forth. That's probably my best way to gauge the reaction to a day like this. You see a lot of people mention him, even the Braves and all that stuff. It's pretty cool."

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Michael McDowell raced his way into the 500 field as the fastest non-Charter car in Duel 1, while Cole Whitt and Josh Wise didn't do enough to make the field. In Duel 2, Robbie Richardson Jr finished 18th which was good enough to make the field. David Gilliland and Reed Sorenson failed to make the cut.

Starting Line-up for the 500.

NASCAR's Youtube for the 2016 races
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLtc57NTUizP538OlT9gAhMhOTv1v5BB4m
Nothing there yet....

Overlag said:

I've started playing iRacing and it's made me want to get back into watching nascar and indycar. What channel would nascar be on or is it streamed on there website?

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Permier Sports channel in the UK on Sky and Virgin have the rights to the Sprint Cup and are showing all races live, with around 6-8 Truck races too.

It is a pay to view channel but I know they also (for those who don't have subscription based TV) a premier player on their website for £9.99 per month access to everything they show.
Might be handy to know they also show the BrisCa championship too.

Daytona 500 just about to get underway.

Premier sports is free today on Sky so anyone can watch 428 or 462 for HD

cant find any working streams online. Oh well.

Great finish! Think the right guy got the win in the end. Great 1-2-3 for Toyota.

Race Rewind from NASCAR's YT channel:


Was a decent enough race, with a great finish - even if it was between Toyotas.

Over in XFINITY, Chase Elliott had a rather better day than his Cup race:


And the trucks....well, they did their thing:


Whole lotta torn-up sheet metal....truxxin'!

Oh, and in team news a big shock - from 2017, Stewart-Haas Racing will switch to running Fords instead of Chevrolets. Amazing that in this day and age they were able to keep that under wraps until the announcement.

I re-watched the Truck race earlier and I have to say that of all the dumb, offensively idiotic, needlessly gimmicky and plain **** things that NASCAR has ever done with the sport, the caution clock has to rank in there.

From the second the green flag drops, a 20 minute countdown starts. At the end of that 20 minutes, a competition caution will be thrown. If the yellow comes out before the end of the 20 minutes, the clock is reset and starts again once they're back to racing.

Now, the Law Of Unintended Consequences™ is always lurking when poorly thought-out rubbish is involved. Daytona was no exception. The first time the caution clock got near to zero, drivers tried to get onto pitroad right before the yellow flag - that way they'd get to complete their service, get in line behind the pace car and then advance their positions when cars in front pitted under the yellow. Predictably, the attempt to get onto pitroad caused a crash and the yellow flew just before the clock could count to zero. If they hadn't been rushing to get onto pitroad to beat the clock, a crash would have been less likely.

JRS said:

I re-watched the Truck race earlier and I have to say that of all the dumb, offensively idiotic, needlessly gimmicky and plain **** things that NASCAR has ever done with the sport, the caution clock has to rank in there.

From the second the green flag drops, a 20 minute countdown starts. At the end of that 20 minutes, a competition caution will be thrown. If the yellow comes out before the end of the 20 minutes, the clock is reset and starts again once they're back to racing.

Now, the Law Of Unintended Consequences™ is always lurking when poorly thought-out rubbish is involved. Daytona was no exception. The first time the caution clock got near to zero, drivers tried to get onto pitroad right before the yellow flag - that way they'd get to complete their service, get in line behind the pace car and then advance their positions when cars in front pitted under the yellow. Predictably, the attempt to get onto pitroad caused a crash and the yellow flew just before the clock could count to zero. If they hadn't been rushing to get onto pitroad to beat the clock, a crash would have been less likely.

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Fair point. It's always annoying when they tinker with this stuff for no reason!

I will be watching my first NASCAR race in person this year, as this year's US road trip includes one! Yay!

mikeossy said:

Permier Sports channel in the UK on Sky and Virgin have the rights to the Sprint Cup and are showing all races live, with around 6-8 Truck races too.

It is a pay to view channel but I know they also (for those who don't have subscription based TV) a premier player on their website for £9.99 per month access to everything they show.
Might be handy to know they also show the BrisCa championship too.

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We have Virgin so I will look into getting Premier Sports. Big shame it's not HD though. Watching online might be better - I guess I should be able to stream it through Apple TV from an iPad or iPhone.

Joe T said:

I will be watching my first NASCAR race in person this year, as this year's US road trip includes one! Yay!

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I'll be at Richmond in April.

Atlanta was a good race. The 2016 aero package made for a decent spectacle, getting rave reviews from the drivers. Congrats to Jimmie Johnson, his win ties him with Dale Earnhardt Sr. in the all-time wins list at 76.


Faintly bizarre goings-on with Matt Kenseth and the way his penalty for improper fueling ended up utterly trashing his race. I'm not sure I agree with his lap count being stopped while the crew chief and team were still in conference with NASCAR officials, it would have been a lot fairer to play the argument out before showing him the black flag. Still got to lay the blame squarely on the team though.

Didn't see the XFINITY series race, but I did watch the trucks. If I was Daniel Suárez, I'd have gone to see my team-mate Christopher Bell post-race and punched him very hard indeed. Great win for John Hunter Nemechek though

Cool. I will have to catch the Atlanta race on YouTube. Last weekend I caught up with Daytona which was good.

Out in the USA for a while with work, just purchased a weekend ticket with 4 friends to go to Talladega next weekend.

Can't wait

Is there something else going on in the Stewart/Lug Nut fine thing that we aren't getting in the UK media?

Deciding not to bother checking that people are fitting wheels securely to 200mph race cars is utterly stupid, but to then fine someone for pointing that out is a whole new level of crazy. It feels like were not seeing the whole picture as from what I've read it just looks dumb.

Skeeter said:

Is there something else going on in the Stewart/Lug Nut fine thing that we aren't getting in the UK media?

Deciding not to bother checking that people are fitting wheels securely to 200mph race cars is utterly stupid, but to then fine someone for pointing that out is a whole new level of crazy. It feels like were not seeing the whole picture as from what I've read it just looks dumb.

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The whole thing screamed stupidity, fining Tony Stewart (Which he didn't end up paying, the Nascar Drivers Union did for him) for calling out on safety is just ridiculous.

Meanwhile, the weekends weather looks good.


Typical, it's only because I'm wanting to attend