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--Press Release From Michael Shank Racing-- MSR finishes its 18th Rolex 24 At Daytona in debut race with the Acura ARX-05 Daytona Beach, Fla. (31 January 2021) – Meyer Shank Racing made a strong debut run in the Acura ARX-05 to fourth in this weekend’s 59th annual Rolex 24 At Daytona. The race finish was the first chapter as the two-time defending IMSA championship squad returns to Prototype class competition with Acura as the team targets a third consecutive IMSA championship title. MSR drivers Dane Cameron, Olivier Pla, Juan Pablo Montoya and AJ Allmendinger had their eyes set on claiming the coveted Cosmograph Daytona timepiece following 24 hours of day-to-night racing. Clocking in a record 39 pit stops to support the Acura through 807 laps of competition, the Meyer Shank Racing team pushed through 12 caution periods to finish its 18th Rolex 24 At Daytona. It was not an easy feat with the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship welcoming in an additional class (LMP3) and bringing in...

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.    7 th Place – Martin Truex Jr. – 2341 pts   By the Numbers:   5 Stage Wins – Martin Truex Jr. has the most career stage wins of any driver with 43.  Truex became so synonymous with winning stages, it grew into meme-like status.  “Stage Winner MTJ, C’mon,” was a commonly repeated phrase across the internet.  However, 2020 was a down year in this particular discipline, as he only won 5 – the lowest number he has won in a single season.   5 3 rd Place Finishes in a Row – From July 23 rd to August 16 th , Martin Truex Jr. was the most consistent driver in the Cup Series.  Part of an even longer streak of 8 Top 5s in a row, in a crazy turn of events, he scored 5 3 rd place finishes in a row.  Martin wound up scoring 14 Top 5s through the cour...

  To The Andretti Family,  I hope you all are doing well during these hectic times. I write you this letter for the grieving I, and many still feel for John Andretti’s passing. I’ve spent the past year thinking about this letter and what to say. I wanna start by talking about myself. I am a 22-year-old recent graduate of Texas State University, and I want to be a high school history teacher and football coach. I have been a NASCAR fan since I was three, and I was the first in my family to fall in love with auto racing. This love of racing starts from another love of mine… Cheerios. At the time I got a small Cheerios car, not knowing it was a NASCAR, but not too long after getting the car my parents were trying to get back to a Dallas Cowboys game, and while we were flipping channels and I saw the same Cheerios car on TV and I was hooked. This was in 2001, and I quickly learned that bright yellow 43 was driven by none other than John Andretti. That day I became a lifelong fan...

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.    8 th Place – Kyle Busch – 2341 pts   By the Numbers:   10 th Best Season in 2020 – Kyle Busch famously had a subpar season in 2020 by his own standards.  He had the most DNFs (Did Not Finish) since his first full-time year in 2005.  The last time he had this few Top 10s was 2015 when he missed the first 11 races due to injury.  His average finish in 2020 was 13.83, his 10 th best of 16 full-time seasons.   16 Consecutive Seasons with a Win – Much was made about the prospect of Kyle Busch breaking his streak of 15 straight seasons with at least one win.  Once he was eliminated from the playoffs in the round of 12, that became his biggest focus.  In the 34 th race of 36 in 2020, he finally captured a win at Texas 2, continuing his streak....

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.    9 th Place – Ryan Blaney – 2336 pts   By the Numbers:   14 Times – Ryan Blaney had a solid 2020 season by most metrics.  Being a part of one of the premiere teams, Team Penske, certainly helps.  Blaney’s teammates often end up generating more buzz, resulting in Ryan Blaney sometimes being seen as the weakest link on Team Penske.  However, of the 36 races in 2020, Blaney finished as the worst driver of the three Team Penske drivers only 14 times.  Not only that, but he was the best Team Penske driver 11 times.  It seems the load is fairly evenly split between all three drivers.   89 Places Lost in 2020 – In 2020, Ryan Blaney’s average starting spot was 11 th , but his average finish was 13.83, which means he finished an average of 2.47 spo...

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.    10 th Place – Kurt Busch – 2287 pts   By the Numbers:   11 Years – Kurt Busch has been a regular Cup Series driver for 20 years, and has been competing against his brother Kyle since 2004.  For the majority of their duelling careers, Kyle has gotten the better of Kurt, statistically speaking.  However, in 2020 Kurt had a better average finish than Kyle for the first time in 11 years.   32 nd Career Win – 2020 brought Kurt Busch his 32 nd career win, continuing a streak of winning at least one race per year that dates back to 2014.  While the wins haven’t come all that frequently, Kurt Busch is usually good for at least one win a year, and therefore an appearance in the playoffs.   720 Career Starts – Making him the driver with the longest te...

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.    11 th Place – Austin Dillon – 2277 pts   By the Numbers:   2.11 Difference – Austin Dillon missed the 23 rd race of the season (Daytona Road Course) when he contracted COVID-19.  However, his stats after returning seem to show that he was no worse for wear.  Dillon’s average finish before contracting COVID was 16.95, but after he returned he improved that average by 2.11 places (14.84).   3 rd Career Win – In a surprising turn of events, Austin Dillon finished the first Texas Race of 2020 at the front of the pack, giving him his 3 rd career win.  Teammate Tyler Reddick finished just 0.149 seconds behind him, meaning RCR’s two drivers finished 1-2, a feat that is rare with a team like RCR.  Hendrick Motorsports and Joe Gibbs Racing were the o...

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.    12 th Place – Clint Bowyer – 2254 pts   By the Numbers:   4 Stage Wins – Coming into the 2020 season, Clint Bowyer had won 3 stages in his career, one in each of the previous three years.  This year, he won 4 stages, surpassing his career total.  He won both stages at Darlington 2, one at Michigan 2, and another at Texas 2.   2 nd Place – Bowyer’s best finish of the year quietly came at the first Bristol Race, where he finished 2 nd .  The spotlight was stolen from Clint and eventual race winner Brad Keselowski as everyone was focused on Joey Logano and Chase Elliott, who tangled with each other with 3 laps to go.   50% Finishes from 11-20 th – Clint Bowyer finished outside of the Top 20 only 6 times in 2020, and finished inside the Top 10...

 Bob Pockrass of Fox Sports broke the news this morning that NASCAR Xfinity Series Champion Austin Cindric is expected to attempt to qualify for the 2021 Daytona 500 under the Team Penske banner. According to the announcement, the car will be numbered 33 and is likely to include additional races for the young driver from Columbus, Ohio. It was announced earlier this year that Cindric would take over for Matt Dibenedetto in the #21 Ford Mustang in 2022 season as a full-time rookie.  No details on sponsorship were available at the time of the post. Miles Stanley will be the crew chief. 

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.    13 th Place – Matt DiBenedetto – 2249 pts   By the Numbers:   14.75 Average Finish – Fan favorite Matt DiBenedetto put together his best average finish of his career in 2020.  DiBenedetto’s first year with Wood Brothers Racing was 3.56 spots better than his 2 nd best year, 2019.  In fact, his average finish has gotten better in every one of his six seasons as a Cup Series driver.  Can he break through and get his first career win in 2021?   11 Top 10s – Eclipsing his 7 Top 10s in 2019, Matt DiBenedetto earned 11 in 2020. Not only was it a career high, but it also matched the number of Top 10s he’d scored in the previous 5 seasons, bringing his career total up to 22.    1 DNF in 2020 – With his only DNF (Did Not Finish) coming at the fi...

 It was announced this morning that retired driver Jamie McMurray will return to the wheel of a NASCAR Cup Series race car after being away from the sport for 2 years. The Joplin Missouri native is a past champion of both Daytona's Rolex 24 hour endurance race as well as the Daytona 500. He also has past victories in the summer race at Daytona and victories at Talladega making him a favorite for the win every time he is on the high banks. McMurray will be driving in the #77 Chevrolet Camaro and it will be sponsored by Advent Health. While on paper this is a Spire entry, it was reported by Fox Sports' Bob Pockrass that the ride will be prepared by Chip Ganassi Racing, the team McMurray raced for in the majority of his Cup Series Starts.  In a release, McMurray commented with the following. “It doesn’t get any better than the Daytona 500, and I am so excited to have the opportunity, thanks to AdventHealth, to run this race one more time. I have enjoyed my time out of the c...

  10. Kyle Busch returns with a vengeance – Kyle Busch was notably absent from victory lane for much of 2020.   Kyle only notched one win in 2020, at Texas in the 33 rd race of the season at Texas.   JGR, as a group, was off their game in 2020, with Martin Truex, Jr., also notching only one win.   Nothing was normal in 2020, and nothing was odder than seeing Kyle Busch running outside the top 5 in most races.   Look for the Gibbs camp to get things straightened out this offseason and look for a highly motivated Kyle Busch to return with a vengeance.   My prediction:   Kyle Busch gets the monkey off his back by winning the Daytona 500, ends the season as part of the Championship 4, and the over/under on his victories for the year is 5.     9. Matt D. gets the Wood Brothers their 100 th win – Matt D. has made a name for himself over the last two years.   First, with his impressive run at Bristol in 2019, where he led a ton of laps and...

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.    14 th Place – William Byron – 2247 pts   By the Numbers:   98 th Race – A recap of William Byron’s 2020 wouldn’t be complete without mentioning his first career win.  Coming in his 98 th Career Race, William Byron led the field across the finish line, beating teammate Chase Elliott by 0.119 seconds in an overtime finish.  However, some of the excitement over his first career win may have been overshadowed by the sealing of NASCAR legend Jimmie Johnson’s fate, as he missed the playoffs by 7 points.   24 Laps Led @ Daytona 2 – In a perhaps curious wink from the NASCAR Gods, William Byron (who drives the 24 car for Hendrick Motorsports) led a total of 24 laps over the course of his first victory at the regular season finale.   9.67 Average Career Fi...

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.    15 th Place – Aric Almirola – 2235 pts   By the Numbers:   9 Races – 2020 was a sneakily solid year for Aric Almirola.  It wasn’t always flashy, but it was his 2 nd best year as far as average finish goes.  Over the course of the 9 races from Homestead to New Hampshire, each of Almirola’s finishes were in the Top 10, with five of them being Top 5s.  Almirola only had one other Top 5 all season long.   1 DNF – One of the (many) keys to success in any racing series is to keep your car ‘clean,’ so to speak, meaning you finish the race without crashing.  Aric Almirola finished 2020 with only a single DNF (Did Not Finish), coming at the 2 nd Talladega race.    28 Lead Lap Finishes – Not only did Aric Almirola keep his car clean throu...