By Aaron Burns I can’t remember the last time I didn’t watch a NASCAR Sprint Cup race. I can, however, remember the last time a non-Joe Gibbs Racing car won. It was Joey Logano at Bristol in late August. Before that? I don’t know, maybe Jimmie Johnson sometime last year. JGR has had a stronghold on victory lane for months now. The four-car team of Denny Hamlin, Kyle Busch, Carl Edwards and Matt Kenseth has combined to win 12 races this year, including nine of the last dozen. In that timespan dating back to late June, only two other drivers have won:…

By Jared Turner For the second week in a row, a restart that seemed a little too good to be true raised eyebrows. And for the second week in a row, NASCAR didn’t penalize the driver in question for jumping a restart. Just eight after days after rivals claimed Matt Kenseth jumped the final restart en route to his victory at Richmond, Jeff Gordon faced a similar allegation after scooting away from race leader Kyle Busch on a restart at Chicagoland. Only this time, unlike at Richmond, NASCAR conducted a formal review of the restart to determine if the driver under scrutiny…

By Jerry Bonkowski Trash talking can be a very melancholy game. Sometimes, you intimidate your opponent – much like Tony Stewart did with Carl Edwards prior to the season-ending and championship-deciding Chase race at Homestead in 2011. Other times, your words come back to bite you like a grizzly bear. Such is the case with defending Sprint Cup champion Kevin Harvick, whose bid for a second consecutive championship got off to a horrible start Sunday in the opening race of the Chase for the Sprint Cup at Chicagoland Speedway. Just a few days before the race, Harvick talked smack, promising to pound…

By Jared Turner The dress rehearsal is over and it’s down to business this weekend at Chicagoland Speedway where the 10-race Chase for the Sprint Cup kicks off on Sunday with the MyAFibRisk.com 400. With the standings reset and the 16 championship contenders seeded based on wins from the regular season, there’s a three-way tie atop the points between Jimmie Johnson, Matt Kenseth and Kyle Busch. Even more significant, however, is that just 12 points separate the championship leaders from the five winless drivers who enter the Chase with no bonus points. Although the season is 26 races old, Sunday’s showdown at…

By Aaron Burns Wearing a black bicycle helmet, black-and-silver shorts and a bright green shirt that says “Play hard, practice harder,” Caleb C. gets to work on another rap video. This isn’t the type of rap video to which many are accustomed. For one, Caleb C. is still in his first year as a rap sensation, so he’s still learning his way in the business. Oh, and he just turned eight on Sept. 1. The star of “Little Rappers,” a group of kids who rap about NASCAR, Caleb has cornered the stock-car rap market. He produced his first video, “The NASCAR Rap,”…