Pocono, Iowa feature lower-level racing action

NASCAR's two major races today were the Camping World Truck Series at Pennsylvania's Pocono Raceway and the Nationwide Series at Iowa Speedway, outside of Des Moines. Pocono is a 2.5-mile triangle, the same length as tri-oval Daytona and rectangular oval Indianapolis, while Iowa is a .875-mile oval. Pocono is also having a 400-mile Sprint Cup Series race tomorrow, the second of its two annual Cup races in the summer.

The scheduled 60-lap, 150-mile truck race had Kyle Larson on the pole, just like in the Cup race, and he and Austin Dillon led many of the opening laps. Filling in for an injured John Wes Townley was Clint Bowyer, who also got out front twice. Brad Keselowski driver Tyler Reddick, after leading one lap, soon lost a lap but eventually got it back. Less than two laps after a late-race restart, on which Dillon took the lead for good, Reddick and German Quiroga got together causing Reddick to spin and back into the wall. Reddick's crew repaired his truck and sent him back onto the track. The race restarted again with three laps left but on the Long Pond straight, Reddick spun Quiroga to get back at him and Tyler Young also got a piece of it. NASCAR parked Reddick for this incident and called him to the hauler after the race. The race ended with a green-white-checkered finish and Austin Dillon in victory lane, one week after his brother Ty Dillon won the Nationwide race at Indianapolis. The Dillons both drive #3 vehicles owned by grandfather Richard Childress.

The 250-lap, 218.8-mile Nationwide race was held in the evening. During qualifying, Trevor Bayne and Brad Keselowski battled for the pole, with Bayne beating out Keselowski in the final seconds. Keselowski was at Pocono in the morning for the final Cup practice, and then he flew to Iowa to drive Roger Penske's #22 car. Bayne led several laps but also ran into a couple of issues in the middle of the race. Sam Hornish Jr., who won the first Iowa race in May, also put Joe Gibbs' #54 car normally driven by Kyle Busch out front for 65 laps. There were two debris cautions and three single-car incidents. A spin by Robby Benton driver James Buescher set up a three-lap sprint to the finish. Joe Gibbs driver Michael McDowell took the lead at first, but Brad Keselowski passed him and took the checkered flag.

Tomorrow, NASCAR's focus is on the Sprint Cup Series race at Pocono, where all four Hendrick Motorsports drivers - Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson and Kasey Kahne - have each won one of the last four Cup races at the Tricky Triangle, and they are trying to extend that streak to five. Hendrick is also going for two race wins in a row after Jeff Gordon's win at Indianapolis last week.

Greg Ives to crew chief Dale Earnhardt Jr. in 2015

Greg Ives, the current crew chief of JR Motorsports driver Chase Elliott in the Nationwide Series, has been announced as Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s Sprint Cup crew chief at Hendrick Motorsports starting in 2015. Ives is replacing Steve Letarte, who switched from the #24 of Jeff Gordon to the #88 car in 2011, and is joining NBC as a commentator for their NASCAR coverage next year alongside Rick Allen and Jeff Burton. Letarte announced his transition from crew chief to commentator in January, a month before he and Earnhardt pulled off a win in the Daytona 500.

Ives was previously part of the engineering team of Jimmie Johnson at Hendrick from 2004 to 2010. At the tail end of the 2012 Nationwide season he became the crew chief for the #7 car driven by Regan Smith at JR Motorsports. Hendrick and JRM have had an alliance since 2008, when Earnhardt moved to Hendrick from Dale Earnhardt Inc., the team founded by his late father. Rick Hendrick said Ives was their "number-one choice" to replace Letarte.

Earnhardt has won three Cup races with Letarte: at Michigan in 2012, and this year at Daytona and Pocono, where the Cup Series is racing again on Sunday. Now, people will probably wonder whether Earnhardt can win with Ives has his new crew chief, and continue this peak in his racing career.

Denny Hamlin, crew members fined and put on probation

Denny Hamlin, driver of the #11 car owned by Joe Gibbs, has lost 75 points in the Sprint Cup championship standings after officials discovered several violations, specifically some improperly installed parts, during post-race inspection after Sunday's Brickyard 400 in Indianapolis. Also, Hamlin's crew chief Darian Grubb and car chief Wesley Sherrill have been fined $125,000 and suspended for the last six races before the Chase for the Sprint Cup begins, from Pocono this coming Sunday to Richmond on September 7. Since the violations were discovered after the race, the penalties for Hamlin were increased by 25 points and $75,000. It is a P5 penalty, the second-highest in NASCAR's rulebook, making it a huge blow to the #11 team.

Hamlin finished third in Sunday's race, in between teammates Kyle Busch and Matt Kenseth. He is now down to 22nd in the regular point standings, and 9th in the 16-driver Chase grid, which will officially debut at Chicagoland in September, the first race of the Chase. Hamlin won at Talladega in May, and is one of 11 Cup Series winners so far in 2014. Thanks to that, he is still almost certain to compete for the championship this year. But he will have to try to secure his Chase spot with some substitute crew members due to the penalties that have been handed out to him and his team.

Carl Edwards leaving Roush Fenway Racing at season's end

Carl Edwards, a two-time winner so far this year in the Sprint Cup Series, will no longer be driving for Roush Fenway Racing in 2015, it was announced Sunday, prior to the Brickyard 400. Edwards and teammate Greg Biffle had been rumored to be leaving Roush since last season, but now Biffle will remain with Roush next year. Edwards will not announce until at least September who he will be driving for in 2015, but he has been rumored to be headed to Joe Gibbs Racing.

Edwards has driven for Roush throughout his entire Busch/Nationwide and Cup careers. He made his Cup debut at Michigan in August 2004, replacing Jeff Burton in the #99 car. Edwards won four races in his first full-time Cup season in 2005, including a sweep of Atlanta. Edwards also won the 2007 Busch Series title with Roush, and finished the 2011 Cup season in a tie with Tony Stewart, however Stewart won the title because he had won more races than Edwards that season. Edwards and Biffle have been Roush's best drivers over the past several years, with Matt Kenseth, who drove for Roush until 2012, also being a dominant driver during much of the same period.

Roush's 2015 Cup lineup will consist of Biffle driving the #16 car for a 13th full season, along with Ricky Stenhouse Jr. in the #17 car previously driven by Kenseth, and Trevor Bayne driving the reactivated #6 car in his first full-time Cup season, after driving part-time for the Wood Brothers since late 2010. This will make the #99 team inactive, like the #6 team was in the Cup series last year and this year.

Jeff Gordon wins fifth Brickyard 400, 90th Sprint Cup race overall

Today, NASCAR fans honored the 20th anniversary of Jeff Gordon's win in the inaugural Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 1994. Gordon went on to win the race for the fifth time in his career, breaking a tie with Hendrick teammate Jimmie Johnson for most wins in the race. It was also Gordon's 90th career win in the Sprint Cup Series, proving that even after more than two decades in the series, he still knows how to win.

Gordon also won the Brickyard 400 in 1998, 2001 and 2004. He won his third and fourth championships in '98 and '01, and was also a title contender in '04. Gordon's win today contains three milestone points: it comes just before the 20th anniversary of his win in the first NASCAR race at the Brickyard, it once again makes him the driver with the most wins in the race, and it puts him just 10 wins from a potential 100th Cup Series victory. Gordon is now the third driver, along with Richard Petty and David Pearson, to win 90 races in NASCAR's top series.

In addition, Gordon extends his points lead in the series, once again making for talk that 2014 could see him win his fifth series championship. Also, Gordon now only has to attempt to qualify for the next six races to officially be locked into the Chase for the Sprint Cup, which fans know he will. Gordon, along with Hendrick teammates Jimmie Johnson, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Kasey Kahne, now look to have another good race next week at Pocono, where the last four races have been won by each one of them.

How prestigious is the Brickyard 400?

The Brickyard 400 has been a special race ever since its inaugural running in 1994, because the race is held at the world-famous Indianapolis Motor Speedway, home of the just as world-famous Indianapolis 500. But just how much prestige does a stock car race at Indianapolis have? People don't seem to care that tomorrow's NASCAR Sprint Cup race is only the 21st running of the series at Indy; as long as a race is held as a famous venue, that race, it seems, is famous in itself.

Back in the 1980s and '90s, NASCAR's top series, then known as the Winston Cup Series, had four events it regarded as "crown jewels": the Daytona 500, the Winston 500 at Talladega in the spring, Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte on Memorial Day weekend (when the Indy 500 is also held), and the Southern 500 at Darlington on Labor Day weekend. These were the four races where a driver could get one million dollars (in addition to normal prize money) for winning three of them in the same year, and it was known as the Winston Million. It was replaced in 1998 by a different program called the Winston No Bull 5, which featured five eligible drivers competing for a $1 million prize at five races, which varied every year, but included the Brickyard 400 in its first year. The No Bull 5 was discontinued after 2002.

The Brickyard 400 and the Southern 500 co-existed for eleven seasons. What many fans consider to be the last "true" Southern 500 on Labor Day weekend took place in 2003. In 2004 it was held in November as the penultimate race of the season, and in 2005 the race weekend was moved to Texas. The "Southern 500" name was applied to the spring race at Darlington in 2009, but fans do not think this makes it as prestigious as the Labor Day race. Since 2005 or maybe earlier, fans have either referred to the three remaining former Grand Slam races (Daytona, Talladega and Charlotte) as NASCAR's "Triple Crown", or considered the Brickyard 400 to be the new fourth major as Darlington's replacement. This is where some of the Brickyard 400's prestige comes from despite it being a relatively new race.

So the reasons people think the Brickyard 400 is special, almost as much as the Daytona 500, is because of its location at a more than 100-year-old speedway with a huge amount of racing history, combined with its consideration to be upgraded to one of NASCAR's major races due to being held at this historic speedway. Basically, fans believe it's more about historical value than the age of the race when it comes to fame and prestige. And that is why the Brickyard 400 has always been thought of so highly.

Indianapolis Motor Speedway has a cool new scoring pylon

2014 has been eventful for the famous Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Two months ago, it was the host of a competitive Indianapolis 500. A couple of weeks before that, it held a new Grand Prix race on a newly modified road course. Then, the old scoring pylon, installed in 1994, was removed after 20 years of service, and has quickly been replaced with a new full-color dynamic LED one.

The old pylon was all black and only used electronic displays for lap counting, speeds and driver numbers. It showed positions 1 through 33 (the number of cars in the Indy 500) constantly, and had two additional electronic displays at the bottom that continuously switched between positions 34 and 43 during the NASCAR Brickyard 400 race, whose inaugural running was also in 1994. The new pylon is fully electronic on all four sides. Like the old one, it has room to display up to 33 spots at once, but only shows the top 10 constantly, and cycles between positions 11-33 and 34-43 in NASCAR competition. The new pylon can also expand to two lines per driver to show distances behind the leader and lap times.

In addition to the new scoring display system, the new pylon has many graphical improvements. It can show the exact logos of each car number during a race, qualifying and practice in single or double-line mode, although it sometimes just shows the numbers of each driver in plain white font. The pylon is also capable of displaying animations and can display special graphics during a flag change, such as yellow or checkered. One of the first things the new pylon displayed upon installation was a simple graphic with the text "INDIANAPOLIS" going vertically down each side.

The speedway is now working on installing digital video boards with the same LED capabilities along the track, which should be ready for next year's Indianapolis 500. There has certainly been no hesitation to modernize this more than 100-year-old speedway, and there is a lot of buzz about the new scoring pylon heading toward the Brickyard 400 on Sunday.