NASCAR
Jimmie Johnson, Chad Knaus enter NASCAR Hall the way they should—together
By Reid Spencer
NASCAR Wire Service
CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Call them inseparable.
Despite a few rough patches in their 17-year working relationship, driver Jimmie Johnson and crew chief Chad Knaus achieved a level of success at NASCAR’s highest level unparalleled in the current century.
Together, on Friday night in the Crown Ballroom at the Charlotte Convention Center, Johnson and Knaus reaped the rewards of their remarkable accomplishments—induction into the NASCAR Hall of Fame Class of 2024 in their first year of eligibility.
Johnson and Knaus entered the Hall along with Donnie Allison, elected to NASCAR’s highest honor from the Pioneer Ballot. An original member of the famed Alabama Gang, Allison helped elevate stock car racing’s visibility with both his driving skills and his fists.
Johnson earned high praise from Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jeff Gordon, who lobbied on Johnson’s behalf when team owner Rick Hendrick considered adding a fourth team in 2002.
“He’s the best driver I ever raced against,” Gordon said in a video introducing his teammate.
In his acceptance speech, Johnson demurred with typical modesty, opening his remarks with a story about the motorcycle he found under the Christmas tree in 1979.
“I realize how many people played a role in this Hall of Fame induction,” Johnson said later in the speech. “Thank you to my family, friends, fans—everyone at Jimmie Johnson Racing, former team members and teammates, everyone who has been part of this journey.
“This success story of seven championships and 83 wins, and now this, is all about relationships. I’m truly grateful for the journey and the amazing relationships forged and the incredible companies I’ve represented like Lowe’s and Ally.
“Whether on two wheels or four, in SoCal or Charlotte, in the driver’s seat or up on top of the pit box, moonlighting as race car mechanic or driving a school bus (as his parents did), whether you’re looking up to your heroes, driving for them or competing against them… if you’re with us now or up in heaven, thank you for being a crucial part of this incredible run.
“This is beyond my wildest dreams—and I thought Christmas morning in 1979 was special.”
Johson reserved special praise for his teammate and team owner.
“I’m forever grateful to Jeff Gordon and Rick Hendrick,” Johnson said after receiving the Hall of Fame ring from his wife Chani. “You guys selected me for the No. 48 car, and I’m still not sure why.”
“Congrats, brother,” Johnson said to Knaus. “I’m so glad that we’re able to go in on the same ballot.”
After Tony Stewart won the 2005 series title, Johnson embarked on a remarkable run, claiming a record five straight championships from 2006 through 2010—a streak broken only by Stewart’s unexpected third title in 2011.
The pairing of Johnson and Knaus almost ended before the streak began. At the end of the 2005 season, they were barely speaking, and team owner Rick Hendrick considered splitting them up.
Before making a decision, Hendrick invited Johnson and Knaus to a meeting and served them milk and cookies on Mickey Mouse plates.
“If you’re going to act like children, I’m going to treat you like children,” was Hendrick’s blunt message to his driver and crew chief.
Hendrick made his point, and with the ice broken, the pair became NASCAR’s version of the “Untouchables” for the next five years.
“That shift allowed us to become champions,” Knaus said.
The five straight Cup championships eclipsed NASCAR Hall of Famer Cale Yarborough’s previous mark of three straight (1976-1978) and is one entry in the NASCAR record book that likely will remain unassailable. With two non-consecutive titles each, Kyle Busch and Joey Logano are the only active full-time Cup drivers with more than one.
Johnson added championships in 2013 and 2016, tying the record of seven held jointly by Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt Sr., both members of the inaugural NASCAR Hall of Fame Class of 2010. He won his last Cup race—a track-record 11th victory at Dover Motor Speedway—on June 4, 2017, marking the 16th consecutive year he and Knaus had teamed to win at least two events.
That victory was Johnson’s 83rd, tying him with Yarborough for sixth on the career list. The book on Johnson’s career, however, is not quite closed. As co-owner of NASCAR Cup Series entry Legacy Motor Club, he will compete in select races this season, starting with the season-opening Daytona 500 on Feb. 18.
Knaus’s wife Brooke presented the 2024 inductee ring to her husband.
“As I was growing up in the Midwest, my father taught me what it meant to have the best race cars,” Knaus said during his induction speech, “to have the proper maintenance schedule, to never settle for second and to continuously learn—and to always push the rules.”
Thanking his driver of 17 years, Knaus said, “Jimmie let me find out who I was by believing in me.”
A brilliant innovator dedicated to making Johnson’s No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolets go faster, Knaus manned the pit box for 81 of Johnson’s 83 Cup wins, having been sidelined under suspension for the first two victories of 2006 for pushing the rules too far in trying to gain an aerodynamic advantage at Daytona.
After the Johnson/Knaus pairing ended following the 2018 season, Knaus served as crew chief for William Byron’s first career victory in the summer 2020 race at Daytona. In 2021, Knaus took on a management role as vice president of competition at Hendrick Motorsports.
From a career standpoint, Knaus’s seven championships as a crew chief are second only to NASCAR Hall of Famer Dale Inman’s eight. His 82 victories are third all-time.
Allison and brother Bobby Allison accumulated the second-most Cup victories by two brothers (94), a number exceeded only by Kyle and Kurt Busch, who have accounted for 97 wins (with Kyle still active at 63).
Donnie Allison earned his greatest notoriety, however, after he had won the last of his 10 races (1978 at Atlanta). He and Yarborough were battling for the lead on the final lap of the 1979 Daytona 500, the first race featuring live flag-to-flag coverage on national network television, and after repeated contact between their cars, they both wrecked at the end of the backstretch.
The drivers climbed from their cars with anger in their eyes and started the fight that would captivate the television audience with its intensity. After Richard Petty inherited the victory, Bobby Allison parked his car near in Turn 3 and joined the fray, as the Alabama drivers ganged up on the South Carolinian.
The race and the fisticuffs that followed sparked interest in the sport of stock car racing and launched the sport’s steady growth over the next two decades.
Allison is the fourth member of the Alabama Gang to enter the NASCAR Hall of Fame, joining brother Bobby, nephew Davey Allison and Hueytown patriarch Red Farmer.
Asked what the induction meant to him, Donnie replied, “The closest thing was the feeling I got when I married my lovely wife Pat.”
Allison was the 1967 Cup rookie of the year. He also turned heads with a fourth-place finish in the 1970 Indianapolis 500, earning rookie-of-the-year honors for the race.
“All I can say is wow!” Allison said during his induction speech, during which, with tongue in cheek, he disputed the characterization of his altercation with Yarborough in 1979. “Fought? I never fought… I never touched that man. He never touched me…”
During the ceremony, pioneering driver Janet Guthrie was honored as the recipient of the Landmark Award for outstanding contributions to NASCAR. An accomplished sports car racer, Guthrie finished 15th in her NASCAR Cup debut in the 1976 Coca-Cola 600 and went on to compete in 33 Cup races, with a best finish of sixth at Bristol.
NASCAR Hall of Famer Rusty Wallace received the Buddy Shuman Award for his charitable endeavors. Also recognized at the ceremony were two titans of the sport who passed away in 2023—broadcaster Ken Squier, co-founder of the Motor Racing Network, and Yarborough.
It was Squier, providing play-by-play for the 1979 Daytona 500 for CBS, who called the fight against Yarborough that Allison insists never really happened.
Squier’s legacy also extends to the Squier-Hall Award of Media Excellence, conferred on the late Shav Glick of the Los Angeles Times this year.
By Reid Spencer
NASCAR Wire Service
BRISTOL, TN (September 19, 2026) – When Ty Gibbs finally ran out of magic, Joey Logano took full advantage.
Thanks to a dramatic pass through a gaggle of traffic on Lap 494 of 500, Logano stole a victory in Saturday’s Bass Pro Shops Night Race at Bristol Motor Speedway and moved close to the lead in the NASCAR Cup Series Chase Presented by Mobil 1.
As Logano celebrated on the frontstretch, his Team Penske teammate, Ryan Blaney, traded punches with Carson Hocevar on pit road.
BRISTOL, TENNESSEE – SEPTEMBER 19: Carson Hocevar, driver of the #77 Zeigler Auto Group Chevrolet, (L) and Ryan Blaney, driver of the #12 WABASH Ford, get into an altercation after the NASCAR Cup Series Bass Pro Shops Night Race at Bristol Motor Speedway on September 19, 2026 in Bristol, Tennessee. (Photo by Chris Graythen/Getty Images)
Moments after taking second place from the Spire Motorsports driver, Blaney wrecked off Hocevar’s front bumper on Lap 458, leading to an aggressive confrontation after the race.
The victory was Logano’s third at the 0.533-mile concrete track, his third of the season and the 40th of his career, tying him with NASCAR Hall of Famer Mark Martin for 20th all-time.
The three-time Cup Series champion climbed four positions to third in the Chase standings, 16 points behind race runner-up Kyle Larson, who took over the series lead by one point over top-seeded Denny Hamlin, Saturday night’s eighth-place finisher.
As Hocevar and Gibbs raced side-by-side for the lead after the final restart—with Larson immediately behind Hocevar in the top lane—Logano rolled the bottom past the trio of cars and moved up the track with the lead. As Gibbs faded to fifth, Larson moved into second place.
After climbing from his No. 22 Ford on the frontstretch, Logano was greeted with a chorus of boos by the same partisans who had waved yellow M&M’s hand towels honoring Busch (distributed by the track) when Gibbs was out front.
“I’ve got a great team,” said Logano, who led twice for 93 laps. “We’ve got a team that knows how to win championships. I thought there for a minute, I was like, ‘OK, I might just finish third or fourth here tonight,’ but (we) kind of worked our way up, and I was like, ‘Well, Merry Christmas to me. I got a gift there.’
“There is nothing like the Bristol Night Race, man. This is just the coolest experience as a race car driver, being in front of all you fans down here, hearing everyone screaming, cheering, sometimes booing. That’s all right. It’s pretty awesome.”
In arguably the fastest car, Gibbs ran an exceptional race in a Toyota featuring a throwback M&M’s point scheme honoring the late Kyle Busch. Gibbs led 120 laps and appeared victory-bound until he succumbed to relentless pressure from Hocevar (who finished third) and Logano, who came from fourth on the final restart to win the race.
Ostensibly channeling some of Busch’s prowess and good fortune at a track where the driver nicknamed “Rowdy” won eight Cup races, Gibbs survived a three-wide accident at the start/finish line immediately after passing Hocevar for the lead on Lap 432.
Gibbs tried to split the middle between the cars of Alex Bowman and Cole Custer, but Bowman moved up the track, sandwiching Gibbs’ Toyota between the two cars. Miraculously, despite contact from both sides—enough to put Bowman out of the race—Gibbs was able to continue and maintain the speed he showed before the wreck.
“It was an honor to drive the M&M’s Camry and it was something I’ll never forget,” Gibbs said. “That was such a fun race. Unfortunate that we lost it. I just tried to stay up a little bit too long in (Turns) 1 and 2 that shut the 77 (Hocevar) off, and then the 5 (Larson) got in there, and we just missed it a little bit.
“But I had a blast tonight, and it was so much fun. We’ll just keep working hard and keep getting better.”
Blaney led a race-high 202 laps and regained track position after a commitment line penalty caused by an inopportune caution on Laps 397 near the end of a cycle of green-flag pit stops.
After passing Hocevar for the second on Lap 457, he moved down the track to block Hocevar’s line. Hocevar didn’t lift and knocked Blaney into the outside wall in Turn 1. Blaney’s Ford was damaged too extensively to continue, and he exited race in 33rd place, dropping three positions to sixth in the Chase standings, 52 points out of the lead.
On pit road after the race, Blaney approached Hocevar aggressively with a hand to Hocevar’s shoulder. The Spire driver landed two punches in return. After the second blow, Blaney lost his balance and fell backwards. He got to his feet and landed a left hand to Hocevar’s face before officials and crew members pulled them apart.
“I just felt like he didn’t lift,” Blaney said of the wreck. “I left him plenty of room for a lap before that. I didn’t chop him. I didn’t run him into the fence or nothing like I easily could have. I protected the bottom, and he just decided he wanted to be there and didn’t lift and wrecked me.”
Hocevar seemed all but nonchalant after the fight.
“There wasn’t a whole lot of talking,” he said. “He just kind of said one thing and then went after me, and I wasn’t going to take it.
“I mean, that was fun with the 54 (Gibbs). I got ran into a lot for the win. I mean, that was for second and he wants to come fight… They got an old-school Bristol show here.”
Christopher Bell finished an unassuming and non-controversial fourth on Saturday and leaves Thunder Valley fourth in the standings, 17 points behind Larson, the only driver to have scored top fives (fifth, first and second) in all three Chase races so far.
“Yeah, I mean, it’s good,” Larson said. “It’s good. But there’s still so much racing left. Just got to keep having good, consistent days. It’s three top fives to open the Chase and looks like leading the points now by just a point.
“But we’re going to some good tracks for us but also good tracks for the Toyotas—Vegas and Kansas, Charlotte. It could easily change a lot here in the upcoming weeks. But we’ve just got to be ready for anything and keep plugging away.”
Josh Berry finished sixth, the only non-Chase driver in the top 11. Bubba Wallace, Hamlin, William Byron and Ryan Preece completed the top 10.
Kansas Speedway is next on the Chase schedule with the Sept. 27 Hollywood Casino 400 (3 p.m. ET on USA Network, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
By Reid Spencer
NASCAR Wire Service
BRISTOL, TN (September 18, 2026) – Like a stealth bomber, Sheldon Creed waited until the last minute to make his move.
Thanks to an astute call from crew chief Jonathan Toney, Creed had new tires for an overtime restart on Lap 304, and he used them to full advantage in winning Friday night’s Food City 300 at Bristol Motor Speedway.
The victory, Creed’s second in three Chase races, left the driver of the No. 00 Haas Factory Team Chevrolet on top of the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series postseason standings, 11 points ahead of top-seeded Justin Allgaier in second.
But the result left Allgaier angry after finishing fourth and left Jesse Love disconsolate and apologetic after running Allgaier into the outside wall after a Lap 286 restart.
Benefitting from a caution with three laps left in regulation, Creed lined up in the inside lane beside race leader William Sawalich on Lap 304. Getting an excellent launch on his new tires—after Toney had called him into the pits for fresh rubber on Lap 280—Creed got an excellent launch and seized the lead.
Sawalich moved to the top of the track in an attempt to counter, but Creed prevailed, beating Sawalich to the finish line by 0.253 second at the end of the two-lap overtime. Creed, who picked up his third victory of the season and third of his career, was credited with leading only the final three laps.
“Just a great call by my crew chief and engineer to put tires on,” said Creed, who lined up eighth for the penultimate restart on Lap 286 and quickly advanced to second. “Great pit stop by my guys to get me out first and be the first one on tires.
“To be honest, I wasn’t really good all night with the balance of our Chevrolet. Hats off to these guys. They just never give up. I just think the (overtime) restart there, I tried to time the 18 (Sawalich) well. With a lot newer tires, it was just easier for me to get going. I got clear and I was just kind of watching up top.”
Creed has finished first, second and first in the three Chase races, as the O’Reilly Series faces a week off before resuming in the Focused Health 302 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Oct. 3.
Allgaier was the leader for the Lap 286 restart, but in a bid for the lead, Love ran the No. 7 JR Motorsports Chevrolet into the outside wall shortly after the race went green. As soon as the race ended, with Allgaier in fourth and Love a disappointing 17th, Allgaier strode to Love’s No. 2 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet to express his dissatisfaction.
“(I was) just questioning why,” said Allgaier, who won the first stage despite creasing the nose of his Camaro during contact with the back bumper of Nick Sanchez’s Chevrolet in heavy traffic. “The race car we had was so good tonight. I’m just disappointed at coming out of here the way we did.”
Love, the defending series champion, was contrite and upset over a decision that cost both him and Allgaier the chance for a victory.
“Honestly, I got caught up in the moment racing with him,” said Love, who is fourth in the Chase standings, 41 points behind Creed. “I knew on the last restart (Lap 286), I had to get a good launch, and I was able to accomplish that. I came off (Turn) 4, we were side-by-side, and I needed to run my best corner, and instead I got caught up with racing him, and in turn that led me down a path to make an enemy I needed not to make.
“I made a terrible decision that took ourselves out of contention to win.”
Rookie Brent Crews ran third, with Corey Day securing the fifth spot. Taylor Gray, Sam Mayer, Parker Retzlaff, Dean Thompson and Sammy Smith completed the top 10.
Carson Kvapil led a race-high 156 laps but pitted with smoke trailing from the back of his No. 1 JR Motorsports Chevy with 44 laps left. Kvapil finished 24th, four laps down, but held the third position in the standings, 37 points behind Creed.
Love led 80 laps before the run-in with Allgaier, who was out front for 49 circuits. The only other drivers to lead laps were Sawalich with 13—interrupted by the Lap 297 caution that changed the course of the race after Ryan Sieg slammed the outside wall in close quarters with Day and Retzlaff—and Creed with three.
By Reid Spencer
NASCAR Wire Service
BRISTOL, TN (September 17, 2026) – For Jake Garcia, it was a case of stealing thunder.
For the NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series Chase drivers, it was blunder after blunder.
Driving the No. 98 ThorSport Racing Ford, Garcia took control in the third stage of Thursday night’s UNOH 250 Presented by Ohio Logistics at Bristol Motor Speedway and went on to win for the first time in his 94th start.
In the Chase opener for the series, Garcia led three times for 104 laps. On Lap 230 of 250, he wrested the lead from Stewart Friesen with an inside pass and held it the rest of the way. Garcia took the checkered flag 1.305 seconds ahead of Bayley Currey, who passed Friesen for the runner-up spot on Lap 247.
“I’m really proud of all my guys,” said Garcia, who started 12th on metrics per the rule book. “They brought an amazing truck tonight. It was good today (in practice), but qualifying got rained out, so we got a good strategy that helped us come from the back, get some track position… and just kind of took off from there.”
Garcia ended a drought for ThorSport dating to Ty Majeski’s victory in the 2024 Championship 4 event at Phoenix Raceway, but it was hardly clear sailing to the finish. Garcia lost the lead to Friesen on a Lap 220 restart and spent the next 10 laps trying to regain it.
“Had some adversity on that last restart, but fortunately the truck was fast enough to overcome that,” Garcia said. “ThorSport Racing’s a really strong team, especially historically, so just proud of all my guys on the 98 team to be able to end that winless streak.”
Currey finished second in his first Truck Series start of the season. With Friesen third, Justin Haley fourth and Tristan McKee fifth—at age 16 the youngest driver in series history to score a top five—no Chase driver finished better than sixth (Giovanni Ruggiero).
“I’ve still got it, I guess,” said Currey, who was driving the No. 5 TRICON Garage Toyota. “Just huge, huge thank you to everyone at TRICON, Toyota – just a great opportunity and glad we were able to make the most of it.
“I thought I was going to fumble it there at the end, but we were able to fight there and bring it home P2. Obviously wanted to win, but coming off the couch, I’m all right with it.”
In fact, the top four seeds in the Chase all experienced uncharacteristic difficulty. Top-seeded Layne Riggs started from the pole and won the first two stages wire-to-wire, leading the first 135 laps.
But Riggs was sixth out of the pits for the start of the final stage, and on Lap 156, he radioed to his crew that his No. 34 Front Row Racing Ford had a loose right rear wheel. Riggs pitted for four tires on Lap 161 but lost two laps to the leaders and never recovered.
After contact with the damaged No. 1 Toyota of Nick Leitz late in the race, Riggs was forced to pit road again and finished 32nd, 16 laps down.
The two stage wins proved to be a godsend for Riggs, who retained the Chase lead by three points over Kaden Honeycutt. The driver of the No. 11 Toyota finished eighth despite an unscheduled pit stop with a loose wheel under caution late in the race.
“There was a lot of fighting tonight,” Riggs said. “I’m just thankful that we had a fast enough truck that we won the first two stages and got some points, but we just came down pit road and had an absolute catastrophe of a stop.
“I don’t understand how we were that slow on the stop, and we didn’t get the wheels tight… I’m very frustrated. I feel like we had the truck to beat again.”
Third-seeded Chandler Smith suffered both a speeding penalty at the Stage 2 break and a tire losing air late in the final run. Smith finished 24th and leaves Bristol third in the standings, 30 points behind Riggs.
The Chevrolet of fourth-seeded Christian Eckes suffered early front-end damage and finished 30th. Eckes dropped four spots to eighth in the Chase standings, 58 points out of the lead.
Behind Ruggiero, William Sawalich, Honeycutt, Majeski and Grant Enfinger completed the top 10.
The Chase resumes for the Truck Series on Sept. 26 in the Race to Stop Suicide 200 at Kansas Speedway (1 p.m. ET on FS1, NRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Joey Logano steals a win in an old-school brawl at Bristol
Bold pit call boosts Sheldon Creed to Chase win at Bristol
Jake Garcia claims first career NASCAR Truck win as top Chase seeds falter at Bristol
Dietz Gets Two For One In Taking Lead And Win At Williams Grove
Dietz Rebounds With Win in Port Royal’s Night Before The 50
One for the thumb! Alex Palou celebrating 5th IndyCar Championship; Chip Ganassi’s 18th
Parker Price-Miller rules the Fantasy Cup at PA Motor Speedway
Sieg wins first career O’Reilly Series race at Daytona, Caruth grabs last spot in the Chase
Scott McLaughlin edges Alex Palou to win IndyCar pole at WeatherTech raceway Laguna Seca
