Newsmaker of the Week

It’s been said that it’s better retire a winner than to hang on too long. Matt Kenseth, who made it fairly clear that he was not walking away willingly from NASCAR Sprint Cup racing, had the last laugh Saturday at Phoenix Raceway when he won the Cup race in what is to be his next-to-last career start. The normally staid …

Matt Sheppard concluded his remarkable 2017 season with a come-from-behind championship drive in the final race of the Super DIRT Series. Sheppard’s win was the 41st of his season and the twelfth of the Super DIRT Series. What sets this one apart is the fact that Sheppard’s season title came despite missing two point races, and being stripped of points …

Conventional wisdom in auto racing is that to win lots of races, you have to enter lots of races. While that axiom may be true for most drivers, Matt Hirschman certainly subscribes to an opposite philosophy. This past Saturday at Seekonk (MA) Speedway, Hirschman raced his way to his fifteenth victory of 2017, and it came in just his 30th start. …

Few things are more captivating in the sport of auto racing than witnessing a young driver ascend through the ranks to greatness. So it was this past weekend when Brandon Grosso, whose progression from from Crate Sportsman to Modified has been swift, won the high profile All Star Cup Modified feature at New Egypt Speedway this past Saturday. That came …

For the fourth straight year, and fifth time in six years, Doug Coby is the NASCAR Whelen Modified Touring Series champion. It’s a remarkable achievement. Others have won more titles, but no one has done it with such concentrated dominance. This one was Coby’s and his team’s most difficult. Early season crashes put Coby way behind to the point of …

To say that Matt Sheppard was ‘Super’ at Super DIRT Week is to state the obvious. In the midst of the his most productive season ever as a Modified driver, Sheppard swept both ends of Super DIRT Week at Oswego Speedway, winning the 358 Small Block race Saturday, then completing a tremendous last lap, outside pass of Peter Britten to win the …

He came, he saw, he conquered – for the second time in four years. David Gravel, one of the shining stars on the World of Outlaws Sprint Car circuit, put Chad Clemens’ 410 across the line first Saturday at Williams Grove Speedway and in so doing, picked up a whopping $50,000. Though the Clemens team is Pennsylvania based, Gravel is …

Bobby Varin is one of racing’s most reliable veterans. He may not be the biggest winner of all time, but whenever he takes a green flag, he’s a threat. Varin’s son Danny is cut from the same cloth, but unlike his father, has been dividing his time between Modifieds and 360 Sprints for the past several years. The Varin family …

Ted Christopher’s death in a plane crash while en route to compete in the NASCAR Whelen Modified Touring Series race at Riverhead Raceway has cast a broad and deep pall over the auto racing community. In a sport where tens of thousands try, few achieve legendary status. TC did. He did it by winning 378 career features, by being among …

Lance Dewease’s race to the rich Tuscarara 50 win Saturday at Port Royal Speedway was set up by a thrilling drive to victory the night before and was preceded by five previous Tuscarora 50 scores. Ever since joining forces with car owner Don Kreitz, Dewease’s penchant for winning high profile races seems to be unquenchable. On this night, before one …