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In case you missed it , StatChat is counting down the days ‘til the 2021 Daytona 500.  Every two days, we will have a new article featuring one of the Top 30 Drivers of 2020.    23 rd Place – Michael McDowell – 588 pts   By the Numbers:   20.92 2020 Average Finish – Michael McDowell quietly put together his best average finish of his career in 2020.  This being his 3 rd year with Front Row Motorsports, his average finish has continued to get better with each season (24.53 and 24.17 in 2018 and 2019, respectively).   355 Career Starts – Being a record holder is usually something to take pride in, but Michael McDowell is likely not too excited about this one: He currently has the most Career Starts without a win out of all the active drivers.  McDowell has unfortunately spent his career on mostly back-marker teams.   6 Laps Led – In all of 2020, Michael McDowell only led 6 laps.  And even less impressive, the most ...

  Few topics in the NASCAR world were more talked about than Kyle Busch’s winless streak and his decline in performance in 2020.  After winning his 2 nd championship in 2019, expectations were high in 2020, but Busch suffered through a disappointing season, going winless until the 34th race of the season when he visited victory lane at Texas in October for his lone win in 2020. Opinions varied as to why victories eluded Busch in 2020, and the Kyle Busch haters had a ball throwing out theories on why he wasn’t winning.  Busch turned 35 during the 2020 season, and one popular opinion is that Father Time was beginning to catch up with Busch.  Another opinion is that the lack of practice time was hurting Busch’s performance.  Possibly the most absurd opinion was that the overall decline at Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR) exposed Busch as a mediocre driver that could only win when he was in superior equipment – don’t laugh, I actually read that one more than once! The tru...

In case you missed it , StatChat is counting down the days ‘til the 2021 Daytona 500.  Every two days, we will have a new article featuring one of the Top 30 Drivers of 2020.    24 th Place – Ricky Stenhouse Jr. – 584 pts   By the Numbers:   8 DNFs in 2020 – Ricky Stenhouse Jr. tied with two other regular drivers for most DNFs (Did Not Finish) this year with 8.  He tied with Ryan Preece and Brennan Poole.  If Ricky wants to have a better next year, he’s going to need to keep his car clean.   4.75 Average Places – 2020 was Ricky Stenhouse Jr.’s first year at JTG-Daugherty Racing, essentially swapping teams with Chris Buescher.  In 2019, Buescher had an average finish of 17.83, and this year Stenhouse finished with a 22.58.  This means that in basically the same equipment, Ricky finished an average of 4.75 places worse than Buescher did a year earlier.     6.82% Less Miles Driven – Piggybacking off the DN...

In case you missed it , StatChat is counting down the days ‘til the 2021 Daytona 500.  Every two days, we will have a new article featuring one of the Top 30 Drivers of 2020.    25 th Place – Ryan Newman – 566 pts   By the Numbers:   15:40 – Ryan Newman suffered one of the most horrific crashes in recent memory at the Daytona 500.  Ryan spent 15 minutes and 40 seconds stuck in his car before being removed from it, though there was a trauma doctor at the car with him within 33 seconds.    12 Less Top 10s – A speedy health-related recovery for Newman after his crash didn’t necessarily translate to a return to form on the track.  In 2020, Ryan Newman scored only 2 Top 10s, and one of those was his 9 th place at the Daytona 500 where he crossed the finish line upside down – compare this to 14 Top 10s in 2019.   24.3% Laps in the Top 15 – Of the 8,976 laps that Ryan Newman ran in 2020, 2,206 of them were spent in the ...

In case you missed it , StatChat is counting down the days ‘til the 2021 Daytona 500.  Every two days, we will have a new article featuring one of the Top 30 Drivers of 2020.    26 th Place – Ty Dillon – 556 pts   By the Numbers:   1 Stage Win – Ty Dillon had a single stage win in 2020 – he won the first stage of the 32 nd race of the season at the Charlotte Roval.  (Ty couldn’t stay up front for the remainder of the race and wound up finishing 23 rd )   162 Winless Races – Ty Dillon has started 162 races in the Cup Series, and still has yet to score a win.  Unlike some of his other winless compatriots, things aren’t looking hopeful for Ty to get his first win any time soon.   14 Lead Lap Finishes – In 2020, Ty Dillon finished on the lead lap only 14 times.  If you add his 4 DNFs (Did Not Finish), that means 18 of 36 races in 2020 (50%) had Ty Dillon finishing at LEAST one lap down.    7.41% DNF % – Th...

 Catchfence.com is reporting  that the #62 Chevrolet from Bear Motorsports that was recently vacated when Brendan Gaughan retired will be driven by NASCAR Xfinity star Noah Gragson. The driver will participate in his first ever NASCAR Cup Series event in the 2021 Daytona 500. Details on sponsorship or future schedule were not made available and the team did not confirm this at the time of the report. Follow Racing Refresh for further updates on this story. 

In case you missed it , StatChat is counting down the days ‘til the 2021 Daytona 500.  Every two days, we will have a new article featuring one of the Top 30 Drivers of 2020.    27 th Place – John Hunter Nemechek – 534 pts   By the Numbers:   11 th Place – At both Daytona races in 2020, John Hunter Nemechek placed 11 th .  This gave him the best career average finish at Daytona for any active driver (2 nd Place is Bubba Wallace with 14.86).  Of course, it’s important to note that this is a small sample size, based only on 2 races.   16 Top 20s – Finishing the year with 16 Top-20 finishes (44.4%) may not sound like much, but when considering that JHN’s veteran Front Row Motorsports teammate Michael McDowell only managed 2 more than him (in a career year of his own, no less), that is an impressive haul in subpar equipment for a rookie.   100 Average Green Flag Passes – (A Green Flag Pass is when you pass another car w...

In case you missed it , StatChat is counting down the days ‘til the 2021 Daytona 500.  Every two days, we will have a new article featuring one of the Top 30 Drivers of 2020.    28 th Place – Matt Kenseth – 521 pts   By the Numbers:   20 seasons – 2020 was Matt Kenseth’s 20 th (nearly) full-time season as a Cup Series driver.  It seems time has not been friendly to Matt, as this was also his worst season by average finish.   697 races – Kenseth will finish just 3 races shy of 700 for his career, as he has decided 2020 will be his last year of full-time racing.  Only 17 drivers in NASCAR history have achieved over 700 starts.   6.81 Average Finish – Matt Kenseth’s average finish of 21.38 in 2020 was 6.81 points worse than his career average.  Since he has so many starts, his year only caused his average to increase by 0.32 points.   16 th Race – 2020’s 16 th race of the year was the Big Machine Hand Sanit...

In case you missed it , StatChat is counting down the days ‘til the 2021 Daytona 500.  Every two days, we will have a new article featuring one of the Top 30 Drivers of 2020.    29 th Place – Ryan Preece – 477 pts   By the Numbers:   P9 – Ryan Preece’s best finish of the 2020 Cup Series Season.  The finish came during the Round of 16 at the Bristol Night Race.  This and a 10 th place finish two races later at Talladega marked Ryan Preece’s only 2 Top-10 finishes (compared to 3 Top-10s the year prior).   1.28 – Ryan Preece may only have been in his second year of full-time Cup Series racing, but his results at JTG-Daugherty Racing have trended in the wrong direction, finishing an average of 1.28 spots worse per race than in 2019.   13.53 points – The average number of points earned by Preece per race.  JTG-Daugherty may not be one of the premiere teams but even Ricky Stenhouse Jr., his teammate (who would be the ...

This was the first major publication written by retired auto racer Bill Lester in regards to his racing career. He's won many awards, some great races, and been recognized by his peers in his former field of work in computer engineering as well. When I found out that Bill was sharing a detailed exploration of his story, it was one that I wanted to read. Not as a member of NASCAR's independent media, but as a fan. At 9 years of age I learned about former NASCAR winner Wendell Scott's career. It bothered me to hear the reasons why he was not always embraced. As we got older, my brother and I had many favorites, and Bill Lester was one of them. Truthfully. The fact that he was a black man in a white man's world created a major part of our support of him. His poise and calm demeanor ordered you to pay attention as well. He meant business, and we were fans. We appreciated his proper grammar and larger vocabulary that was not always used by drivers in motorsports. We also lov...

-- Roush Fenway Racing Press Release --   Premier retail mortgage lender to continue serving as primary partner in 2021 CONCORD, N.C., (December 17, 2020) – Guaranteed Rate, which joined Roush Fenway as a primary partner on Ryan Newman’s No. 6 Ford Mustang entry in the NASCAR Cup Series in 2020, has extended its partnership and will continue as a primary in multiple races in 2021. “We are excited to have Guaranteed Rate back on our Ford this season,” said Newman, who boasts 18 wins in the NASCAR Cup Series. “They came on board last year and were really a strong presence for our team down the stretch. They are a great group to work with and I look forward to building on the program in 2021.” Guaranteed Rate, one of the largest retail mortgage lenders in the United States, initially joined Roush Fenway midway through the 2020 campaign, as a primary on Newman’s Ford at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. Following that event, in conjunction with Fenway Sports Management, the brand expanded...

In case you missed it , StatChat is counting down the days ‘til the 2021 Daytona 500.  Every two days, we will have a new article featuring one of the Top 30 Drivers of 2020.    30 th Place – Corey LaJoie – 408 pts   By the Numbers:   30 th Place – Corey LaJoie’s 2020 season may not have seemed all that flashy compared to some of his Cup Series compatriots, but his 30 th place finish is actually the best that his team, Go Fas Racing, has ever managed since its inception in 2011.    1 Top-10 – It might have been lost in the shuffle of Ryan Newman’s devastating crash at the Daytona 500, but Corey LaJoie’s lone Top-10 finish of 2020 came in the first race of the season, where he finished 8 th .    7 DNFs – A career-high number of DNFs (Did Not Finish) for LaJoie in 2020, being plagued by untimely mechanical failures, and a penchant for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.   13 Laps Led – Coming into this se...

-- Roush Fenway Racing Press Release -- High-performance lubricant brand to continue serving  as team’s official oil partner    Castrol to Serve as Primaries  on both No. 6 and No.  17 Ford Mustangs   CONCORD, N.C., (December 15 , 2020)  –  Roush Fenway Racing has announced that Castrol, who joined the team prior to the 2020 season, has expanded its partnership with Jack Roush’s championship organization  in  2021 and beyond. In addition to serving as the team’s official oil partner, Castrol will serve as a primary on both Ryan Newman and Chris  Buescher’s  Cup Series entries in select events.   “We are very pleased to have Castrol expand their program with Roush Fenway,” said NASCAR Hall-of-Fame owner Jack Roush. “Castrol is one of the most recognized brands in the world and  has  been synonymous with high engine performance for decades. We consider it a  distinct  advantage to utilize their products in our...

  Our first guest ever returns to Racing Refresh!  Bill Lester returns to promote his newest project, 'Winning In Reverse'.  From publisher Pegasus Books : "As America continues to grapple with racismin the world of sports and beyond, Bill Lester, a Black pioneer in NASCAR racing, offers us new insight into his personal journey with Winning in Reverse: Defying Odds and Achieving Dreams–The Bill Lester Story. NASCAR has traditionally been a southern, white man’s sport, but it was knocked off its axis when Bill Lester entered the playing field. Bill did not grow up in the sport as so many other drivers have. He enjoyed racing as a side hobby while he worked as an engineer at Hewlett Packard until, at the age of 40, standing on the brink of peril or promise, he quit his job to pursue racing full time. Blessed with a natural talent, Bill still had a trifecta of odds against him: he was Black, he was middle aged, and he was not a southerner. Bill was certainly not the quintess...

  EA Sports (Former publisher of NASCAR video games from 98 to 2009) is finalizing a deal that would acquire longtime motorsports video game publisher Codemasters. Codemasters is a British video game publisher and long-time developer of the famed annual F1 release on current generation video game consoles.  The current lineup of titles that would be transferred in this acquisition include Formula 1 , the Dirt Franchise, Grid , and OnRush , as well as the successful Project Cars property through Slightly Mad Studios.  “We believe there is a deeply compelling opportunity in bringing together Codemasters and Electronic Arts to create amazing and innovative new racing games for fans. Our industry is growing, the racing category is growing, and together we will be positioned to lead in a new era of racing entertainment. We have admired Codemasters’ creative talent and high-quality games for many years. With the full leverage of EA’s technology, platform expertise, and globa...

--Press Release--   23XI Racing announced DoorDash, McDonald’s, Columbia Sportswear, Dr Pepper and Root Insurance as its founding partners, joining Bubba Wallace and the No. 23 Toyota Camry for the 2021 season. Below are comments from Denny Hamlin, Bubba Wallace and key executives from each partner. Denny Hamlin “Today is a big day for us at 23XI Racing. To be able to announce the addition of five founding partners who are willing to join us in our first year and who share in our beliefs and values is such a great feeling. We’ve certainly had to make things happen fast to build this new team, and I’m excited to welcome each one of these partners and to get to know them better. I’m fortunate that during my time at Joe Gibbs Racing I’ve been able to have a great mentor and see how Coach, as an owner, is able to service each partner. That’s new for me - learning the owner side while still on the driver side, but I’m in for the long haul and will continue this far beyond my driving yea...