By Jared Turner Can Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s final season get any worse? Apparently so. It certainly did on Saturday night at Bristol. Making his last start at the popular .533-mile short track where he picked up his only win in 2004, Earnhardt Jr. finished an embarrassing 23rd— three laps down. This after qualifying 31st.  Now without a top-10 finish in his last eight starts (he’s posted only four top-10s all year), NASCAR’s most popular driver is faced with the seemingly inevitable reality of missing the playoffs in his final season. Earnhardt Jr. continues to stand by crew chief Greg Ives, whom he…

By Jared Turner Fans love to loathe Kyle Busch. This was never more evident than on Saturday at Bristol, where boos rained down on the 2015 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series champion after his victory in the Bass Pro Shops / NRA Night Race. The victory capped an amazing four-day stretch for Busch, who won the NASCAR XFINITY Series race a night earlier after going to Victory Lane in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race two nights before that. When Busch parked his No. 18 Toyota at the start/finish line and emerged from his car with arms raised in celebration after…

By Ben White Joey Forgette, body template specialist for Richard Petty Motorsports and driver Aric Almirola, was introduced to stock car racing as a child through his father’s job at a local short track. “To be honest, I wasn’t real big into it while I was growing up,” Forgette said. “My Dad and I used to go to a local short track close to my hometown in Norway, Mich. It was a small quarter-mile paved track. He would drive the wrecker for races there and for work and stuff.” Forgette started his career with Key Motorsports and PPC Racing, as well as…

By Joseph Wolkin It’s been a few weeks since Aric Almirola stepped back into his racecar. The driver of the No. 43 Ford for Richard Petty Motorsports is not only thankful for his ride, but grateful to be alive after a scary incident at Kansas Speedway. How much of a relief is it to get back into the car and not feel pain? “It’s a huge relief. When you break a bone or have an injury of the sort of nature that takes you out of your day-to-day routine, that’s a struggle in of itself. But when it takes away from your…