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2 days ago | 
essentiallysports.com | Rajnish Kumar |Chintan Devgania
On June 15, 2025, NASCAR makes history as the Cup Series holds the Viva México 250 at Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez in Mexico City—the first points-paying Cup race outside the United States since 1958. With the Michigan Speedway acting as the stepping stone to the mega event, the anticipation and hype around it is already ramping up.
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2 days ago | 
essentiallysports.com | Rajnish Kumar |Chintan Devgania
Shane van Gisbergen arrived in NASCAR with a bang; his debut win on the Chicago Street Course in 2023 immediately stamped him as a threat on road courses. But 2025 has exposed his oval struggles: he has zero top-20 finishes on pure ovals, with crashes at Phoenix and Las Vegas “not of his own doing,” relegating him to 33rd in points as of June 2025.
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2 days ago | 
essentiallysports.com | Rajnish Kumar |Chintan Devgania
The half-mile concrete track at Bristol Motor Speedway is known for hosting NASCAR events since 1961, and remains one of the iconic venues on the Cup Series calendar. However, with the changing dynamics of the sporting world, the track hasn’t been limited to hosting NASCAR events. Back in 2016, Bristol was converted into a football stadium for a college football game between Virginia Tech and Tennessee.
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2 days ago | 
essentiallysports.com | Rajnish Kumar |Chintan Devgania
Although Ryan Blaney bagged his big win of the season during the Cracker Barrel 400, Carson Hocevar is making all the headlines. The Spire Motorsports driver has finally started to contend for the wins this year, but unfortunately, it has come at the cost of his rivals. Back during the Atlanta race early in the season, he registered a career-best P2 finish, but had roughed up veterans like Kyle Busch and Ryan Blaney.
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3 days ago | 
essentiallysports.com | Rajnish Kumar |Chintan Devgania
Nestled in the heart of Ohio’s Richland County, Mansfield Motor Speedway wasn’t just a racetrack—for a half century, this half-mile concrete bowl opened in 1959 as a dirt battleground, earning its stripes as “Thunder Hill.” When the asphalt came in 2004, NASCAR’s Truck Series giants followed – Ron Hornaday Jr., Johnny Benson, and a young Kyle Busch—turning its 18-degree banking into a high-speed chessboard.
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3 days ago | 
essentiallysports.com | Rajnish Kumar |Chintan Devgania
Month after month, Ryan Blaney’s No. 12 team produced one of the fastest cars on track, only to have fortune slip through their fingers at the worst possible moments. For example, in Homestead-Miami Speedway, where his engine suddenly let go and produced a plume of white smoke, or in Las Vegas Motor Speedway, the multi-car wreck wiped him out and produced another DNF. Every minor setback.
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3 days ago | 
essentiallysports.com | Rajnish Kumar |Chintan Devgania
Carson Hocevar isn’t competing in the Cup Series to make new friends. He made this very clear during the Atlanta race earlier in the season, where he registered his career best (P2) finish. “I’m over him. … I’m going to wreck his a–,” Kyle Busch warned on the radio, Ryan Blaney had similar reaction to Hocevar’s aggressive racing, “He’s just a moron. He just runs right in the back of us.
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4 days ago | 
essentiallysports.com | Rajnish Kumar |Chintan Devgania
Last year, when Erik Jones was racing at Nashville Superspeedway, he found himself wrecked into the wall and was running multiple laps down. With race catching the yellow fever, and him trying his best to get on the lead, he found himself in one of the wrecks late in the race. On lap 287, he had to retire his car and was rewarded with a 34th-place finish. This was a tough blow to his playoffs hopes after he missed two races due to a back injury he sustained during the crash at Talladega.
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5 days ago | 
essentiallysports.com | Rajnish Kumar |Chintan Devgania
NASCAR has seen driver bestowed with unique nicknames and titles that represent their personality or their style of racing. Take Richard Petty, for example; famously known as the “King” of NASCAR, and rightly so because of his contributions and impact on the sport. Then there is Dale Earnhardt, the Intimidator, who didn’t second-guess in putting his bumper to good use, ask Darrell Waltrip about it.
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1 week ago | 
essentiallysports.com | Rajnish Kumar |Chintan Devgania
Tony Stewart is a man with multiple talents. He can hop in anything that runs on four wheels and an engine, and he is likely to reign supreme. Be is USAC Sprint cars, the open wheel racing in IndyCar, stock car racing in NASCAR or the drag racing at NHRA. Smoke has his name etched in the history books of all these series. But he’s equally polished and up for the task when he has a mic in his hand instead of the steering wheel.
