By Jim Pedley | Managing Editor
RacinToday.com
Four years ago, as the Sprint Cup Series arrived at Homestead-Miami Speedway for it’s annual season-ending, championship-deciding weekend, it seemed all but certain that square peg Denny Hamlin was about to jam himself into a round hole.
The kid who just never really seemed to fit the part of star NASCAR [...]

Four quick thoughts (cut down from 10 because of the new elimination format) from last Sunday’s Sprint Cup Series race at Phoenix International Raceway:
1. The Sprint Cup series will  not roll into South Florida with the winds of excitement at its back. While Sunday’s race at Phoenix International Raceway produced the Final Four drivers in [...]

Kevin Harvick bulled his way into the four-driver, all-deciding, Championship Race in the Chase for the Sprint Cup Championship playoffs when he won at Phoenix International Raceway on Sunday.
The victory was his fourth of the year, second of the 10-race Chase and, as it turned out, it was also essential as he pursues his first [...]

RacinToday.com
Denny Hamlin on Friday won the pole for Sunday’s Sprint Cup Series race at Phoenix International Raceway.
Hamlin, who needs to finish 11th or better in Sunday’s race to secure a spot in the four-driver, season-ending Championship Round of the Chase for the Sprint Cup playoff, won the pole with a lap in 25.332 seconds (142.113 mph) [...]

RacinToday.com
In the wake of Sunday’s post-race brawl at Texas Motor Speedway, NASCAR issued the following statement Tuesday afternoon:
NASCAR has assessed penalties to crew members from the No. 5 and No. 24 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series teams for their involvement in post-race incidents on Nov. 2 at Texas Motor Speedway. In addition, the crew chiefs from [...]

Ten quick thoughts about Texas after dark:
1. Jeff Gordon screwed up. First by taking the outside line for the fateful restart and then by opening the door to Brad Keselowski on the restart. Gordon’s restart was anything but clean at a time when it should have been immaculate. The guess here is that upon viewing [...]

After every Sprint Cup race, the drivers who finished first through third are brought to track media centers for press conferences.
Brad Keselowski finished third in Sunday’s race at Texas Motor Speedway so, there he was on the dais late Sunday afternoon. The majority of the questions put to him, as one would expect, concerned the [...]

Jimmie Johnson became the second straight non-Chase driver to win a race in the Eliminator Round of the Chase for the Sprint Cup Championship Sunday when he beat the field at Texas Motor Speedway.
Johnson’s victory means that none of the remaining eight Chase drivers have yet won and, hence, have not locked themselves into the [...]

By Jim Pedley | Managing Editor
RacinToday.com
Late in day on Nov. 16, 2003, NASCAR had its Sprint Cup season champion. But it also had a problem. Matt Kenseth had won the championship even though he had won just one race during the 36-race season and had crashed and DNF’d at Homestead-Miami Speedway in the final [...]

Chase driver Matt Kenseth won the pole for Sunday’s Sprint Cup Series race at Texas Motor Speedway, but it was a qualifying run by non-Chaser Tony Stewart that was raising the level of discussion at the 1.5-mile quad-oval in Forth Worth.
During a run in the second round of three-round qualifying, Stewart topped the 200 [...]