The 2025 Daytona 500 will kick off a NASCAR Cup Series season next Sunday with plenty of storylines.

Here are five to watch:

Midsummer madness

NASCAR aims to spur interest, create intrigue and serve track owners. Among the changes are an in-season tournament, a path to the asphalt for accomplished drivers outside the Cup Series and a trip ...Read more

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Carl Edwards felt he’d turned his back on racing, but the sport never left him.

One of the newest NASCAR Hall of Fame inductees long understood that every prize has its price. While his family was well worth that price — the Cup Series veteran retired at 37 — Edwards feels the NASCAR community is letting him win both ...Read more

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — No matter how long he’s gone, NASCAR feels like a family for Carl Edwards.

Edwards, who will be inducted into the sport’s Hall of Fame on Friday alongside Ricky Rudd and Ralph Moody, initially felt nervous to return to the track when the fan favorite driver was invited to NASCAR’s 75th anniversary celebration.

A 72-...Read more

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — By so many metrics, the NASCAR Cup Series’ season-opening event was a hit.

The Clash at Bowman Gray Stadium was a sellout, fit with intense race fans standing shoulder-to-shoulder in collective vigor. They yelled together. Flashed birds together. Forty percent of all the fans were from the local Triad region in North ...Read more

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Ryan Blaney raced at Bowman Gray Stadium when he was 10 years old.

Seeing yard markers on the turf in the infield, along with packed grandstands filling roughly three-quarters of the way around the track, created a vivid memory for the recent NASCAR Cup Series champion who spent much of his upbringing in High Point.

“It ...Read more

CONCORD, N.C. — Thirty years ago, Tim Brown was a 20-something kid doing a little bit of everything for Cale Yarborough’s race team. He built motors. Installed car bodies. Hung suspensions. He was a short-track racer with big NASCAR dreams — and when he wasn’t working on other people’s cars, he was busy refurbishing his own and winning...Read more

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Three-time NASCAR Cup Series champion Joey Logano is already focused on what could come next.

Logano, the reigning champion in racing’s highest circuit, joked it was “pretty immediate” that he pondered the possibility of a fourth Cup Series title.

The 34-year-old Team Penske star has won the Cup Series following three...Read more

Along a busy stretch of highway in Waconia, Minnesota, car after car will pull off to make their way through a drive-thru.

These drivers aren’t headed toward the McDonald’s, Taco Bell or Caribou Coffee. Their destination: the Sota Shine car wash, which whisks dirty vehicles through a tunnel of technicolor suds.

No matter where you go in ...Read more

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — With his illustrious racing career expanding, Hélio Castroneves made a bet.

Should the four-time Indianapolis 500 champion win in his Superstar Racing Experience debut, then-SRX director Don Hawk told him he’d start making connections in NASCAR.

Castroneves, one of IndyCar’s most popular drivers, is now officially set ...Read more

Over the past year, Oakland grocery store manager Ananda Neil has received updates on his auto insurance policy with mounting dread. When his six-month, per-mile policy for his 2022 Hyundai Santa Fe renewed in October 2023, it edged up from $77.19 to $83.39 a month and 15.5 to 16.7 cents a mile. But in April, it leaped to $167.75 a month and 37 ...Read more

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — 23XI Racing, the NASCAR team owned by Michael Jordan, now has three cars in the sport’s highest circuit.

But while young driver Riley Herbst has been announced as the newest teammate of regular-season champion Tyler Reddick and Bubba Wallace, it remains up in the air if these up-and-coming race teams will compete as ...Read more