By Jared Turner Last week’s revelation that Danica Patrick won’t return next season as driver of the No. 10 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford is a troubling one. With the sport’s 14-time most popular driver, Dale Earnhardt Jr., set to retire at the end of 2017, NASCAR could really use Patrick — arguably the sport’s second most marketable driver — to help offset the blow that will inevitably come with Junior’s departure. But Patrick, just five years into her Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series career, appears to be headed for the sidelines instead of waiting in the wings to fill the void left by…

By Jared Turner Martin Truex Jr. entered the playoffs as a heavy favorite to capture his first Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series championship. Sunday’s playoff opener at Chicagoland did nothing to change Truex’s standing. Already the No. 1 seed in the 16-driver playoff field based on the playoff points he amassed for race wins and stage wins in the regular season, Truex cruised to his fifth win of the season and in the process punched his ticket to the Round of 12. Now guaranteed of advancing, Truex can spend the next two races fine-tuning for the next round and trying to add…

By Jared Turner With each year, it seems to get harder and harder for a non-playoff driver to win in the final 10 races. If Sunday’s Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series playoff opener at Chicagoland is any indication, expect non-playoff drivers to face a similar uphill battle this time around. Of the top 11 finishers on Sunday afternoon in Joliet, Illinois, 10 were playoff drivers. The only top-10 finisher not in the playoffs was seventh-place Joey Logano, who despite running well, never seriously contended for the win in his No. 22 Team Penske Ford. So, how likely is it that a non-playoff…

By Jared Turner Before the first lap was ever logged in the 2017 Monster Energy Series playoffs, the familiar late-season smack talk had already commenced. And, you can thank Brad Keselowski. Clearly peeved by Toyota’s dominance in recent weeks, the Team Penske/Ford driver used Twitter as his medium to suggest that Toyota currently has a major aerodynamic advantage over the other two manufacturers in NASCAR’s top series. “We are all in for a rude awakening,” Keselowski tweeted on Friday. “Haven't seen NASCAR let a manufacturer get this far ahead since the 70s.” Quick to challenge Keselowski’s bold statement was, not surprisingly, one…