BROOKLYN, MI – A grassroots driver who lives 20 miles from Michigan International Speedway was having a quiet day – which was the goal – until he crashed hard into the Turn 3 and 4 wall.

Morgen Baird, who grew up in Grass Lake and now lives in Jackson, got sideways with 42 laps to go in Saturday’s NASCAR Truck Series race.

He hit the wall so hard, the rear of the truck crumpled and the wall was damaged.

NASCAR had to pause the race for 20 minutes to repair the wall.

Trucks were parked on the backstretch during the fix.

“That was a hard hit. Sorry to everyone involved, I really hate that that happened,” Baird told Fox Sports reporter Bob Pockrass after being checked and released from the infield care center. “I felt like we were making really good strides on our Alro F-150 up until that point.”

Driver Nathan Byrd was also collected in the crash.

Track workers took power tools to the wall, where Baird’s truck poked a hole near the “M” in the “Michigan U.S.A.” paint.

NASCAR tracks have a SAFER barrier walls, so there are two walls with foam in between to lessen crash impacts.

Saturday was Baird’s second career Truck Series race. The 32-year-old was on the lead lap around 28th place when the incident happened.

Baird finished 29th.

“I feel alright. That was probably one of the harder hits I’ve had,” Baird said. “Hopefully we’ll be back next time a little bit stronger and not wrecked.”

Baird wasn’t the only driver to crash Saturday. A 12-truck pileup took out many of the leaders with five laps left in regulation – and further crashes pushed the race into triple overtime. Stewart Friesen took the lead with two laps to go and won.

MORE: A Michigan dad with a day job is Frankie Muniz’s NASCAR teammate this weekend

RELATED: Frankie Muniz leaves Michigan NASCAR race both ‘thrilled’ and ‘mad at myself’

BROOKLYN, Mich. — Here is a look at the winners and losers from Sunday’s Cup race at Michigan International Speedway.

WINNERS

Denny Hamlin — He saved enough fuel and passed William Byron for the lead with four laps left to win. Hamlin has won three of the last nine races. Villain Denny returned Sunday. He teased the crowd by saying he beat all their favorite drivers and then taunted University of Michigan fans in the stands by doing an Ohio State cheer. “I do thrive on it,” Hamlin said of being viewed as the villain, “just simply because you feel like you’ve got 60,000 people that are rooting against you.”

Denny Hamlin told fans he beat their favorite driver and did part of an Ohio State cheer in front a crowd that featured many University of Michigan fans.

RFK Racing — The organization placed three cars in the top 10 at Michigan, marking the first time RFK Racing has done so since July 2016 at Daytona. Sunday, Chris Buescher finished second, Ryan Preece ninth and Brad Keselowski 10th. Preece moved into the final playoff spot with 10 races left in the regular season. This was Buescher’s third consecutive top 10 at Michigan. He also won a stage. Both of Keselowski’s top 10s this season have come in the last three races this season.

The Joe Gibbs Racing driver earned his third victory of the season.

Ty Gibbs — While frustrated after the race thinking he didn’t need to save as much fuel and could have challenged the leaders, Gibbs placed third, tying his best result of the season.

Zane Smith — His seventh-place finish is his best result of the year and gives him top-10 results in both career Cup starts at Michigan. Sunday’s result moved Smith up three positions in the standings to 22nd.

Kyle Busch — His eighth-place finish snapped a six-race streak without a top-10 result.

LOSERS

Alex Bowman — Austin Cindric and Cole Custer made contact, sending Custer’s car into Bowman’s vehicle. That turned Bowman and he hit the wall head-on. “That hurt a lot,” Bowman said after exiting the infield care center. He finished last in the 36-car field. Bowman has placed outside the top 25 in seven of the last nine races and fallen from third to 13th in the points. He sits 15th on the playoff grid and is only 13 points above the cutline.

Alex Bowman walked away from a vicious crash in Sunday’s crash at Michigan.

William Byron — He led 98 of the 200 laps, lost the lead with four laps to go and had to pit for fuel coming to the white flag. He finished 28th. This is the fourth time he’s led 80 or laps this season. He won none of those races.

Team Penske — Joey Logano finished 22nd for the organization’s best finish. Austin Cindric was 31st and Ryan Blaney placed 32nd a week after his Nashville win.

Hamlin took the lead from Byron with four laps to go before Byron ran out of fuel. Byron had taken the lead on lap 182 after Carson Hocevar suffered a flat tire from the top spot. Byron finished 28th, with Hocevar credited with 29th.

The next race for the NASCAR Cup Series is the Viva Mexico 250 at Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez. Coverage of the event will be available on Prime Video, the Motor Racing Network and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.

-Photo credit: Lesley Ann Miller, Lumen Digital Agency for Toyota Gazoo Racing

Former IndyCar and NASCAR driver Danica Patrick proudly confessed to taking the “red pill” as the racing star publicly backed political activist Riley Gaines in her ongoing feud with decorated Olympian Simone Biles over transgender athletes competing in women’s sports.

“This issue has a shelf life. I truly believe common sense will prevail,” Patrick, 43, said on Instagram Sunday. “But until then, I am grateful for people like Riley Gaines who are making sure no one gets away with it. Not to mention the fact that she actually lived it.”

“Defending men in women’s sports is the woke mind virus and/or another issue that requires therapy. Either way, it is so irrational,” she added.

Patrick’s comments are the latest in an ongoing war of words between anti-trans activist and former University of Kentucky swimmer Gaines and Olympic gymnast Biles that broke out Friday – a spat that has seen cheap shots taken by both sides. 

The sparring began when Biles targeted Gaines with a seemingly unprompted tweet amid controversy over a Minnesota trans high-school softball pitcher’s shutout in the state finals Thursday that helped secure the championship.

“@Riley_Gaines_ You’re truly sick, all of this campaigning because you lost a race,” 28-year-old Biles tweeted, referencing Gaines’ tie during a race with trans University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas at the 2022 NCAA championship.  

“Straight up sore loser. You should be uplifting the trans community and perhaps finding a way to make sports inclusive OR creating a new avenue where trans feel safe in sports. Maybe a transgender category IN ALL sports!!” Biles wrote.

“bully someone your own size, which would ironically be a male,” she later added.

Gaines, 25, fired back. 

“It’s not my job or the job of any woman to figure out how to include men in our spaces. You can uplift men stealing championships in women’s sports with YOUR platform. Men don’t belong in women’s sports and I say that with my full chest,” Gaines said.

Gaines alluded to Biles’ efforts to take down former Team USA gymnastics doctor and prolific sex criminal Larry Nassar.

“All the horrific sexual abuse @Simone_Biles witnessed and spoke out against caused by one man, yet [she] believes women should be forced to strip naked in front of men to validate the man’s feelings,” Gaines wrote in another tweet.

Gaines also unearthed an old comment of Biles and used it against her in the widening dispute. 

“ahhhh good thing guys don’t compete against girls or he’d take all the gold medals !!” Biles wrote in the 2017 tweet, apparently responding to the men’s division results at the World Artistic Gymnastics Championships.

“Oop don’t you hate it when your past self completely undermines your current nonsensical argument?” Gaines wrote sarcastically, retweeting Biles’ post.

“How has 2025 Simone reconciled with the fact 2017 Simone was a ‘truly sick bully’ by her own standard?” 

Patrick’s position comes after she announced she would be voting for President Trump in the last election. Last October, at a campaign event with now Vice President JD Vance Patrick announced that she would be voting for the first time at the age 42. 

“I just want to say I’ve never voted before, but this time around, I have to vote,” Patrick  said, sharing the stage with Vance. “It’s that important.”

She said she would be voting for “the good guys.”

“I just want to be clear, I want to get on record — you’re voting for us, right?” Vance then asked.

“1,000%,” Patrick replied, joking that if she “could vote twice,” she would.

Patrick retired in 2018 after the 2018 Daytona 500 and Indianapolis 500. 

• Stellantis would not “go to Truck and not Cup” as it eyes top-level entry
• Nascar “very close with one other” manufacturer for Cup Series entry, with Honda linked

Nascar has announced that Stellantis will return to the Truck Series with its Ram brand from the 2026 season.

Ram becomes the first original equipment manufacturer (OEM) to join any of Nascar’s three national series since 2004, when Toyota brought its Tundra model to the same series.

“I know that this is something that we have been talking about for a long time, and it’s something that we don’t get to do very often,” said John Probst, executive vice president and chief racing development officer of Nascar.

“I think the last time we did this was over 20 years ago when Toyota entered our sport, so this is something that is a big moment for our entire sport and our existing competitors, potential new competitors, our OEMs.”

Ram last raced in Nascar as part of the Dodge entry, which departed the Truck Series after the 2013 campaign. The return confirms reports earlier this year that Dodge was evaluating a Nascar entry.

Tim Kuniskis, chief executive of Ram, revealed the brand is targeting at least four trucks on the Truck Series grid next season, but it also has loftier ambitions beyond just one of Nascar’s series.

“We’re looking for a date to the prom right now,” Kuniskis said. “So how am I going to get to Cup? That’s going to depend on how I get to Truck. So however we get to Truck is going to obviously weigh heavily on ‘do I have a path to Cup?’ Our intention is not to do a one-hit wonder and go to Truck and not to Cup. That’s not our plan.”

Related posts:

According to Probst, it takes around 18 months to allow for proper engine development and the submission of a competition-ready body to the Cup Series. He added that it is not just Ram eyeing up an entry to Nascar’s top series.

“I don’t want to jinx ourselves, but I would say that we are very close with one other,” said Probst. “Can’t speak for them. Obviously, it’s their decision to make.

“We would love for them to decide to come into Nascar, and even with that, there’s one or two others that we’re a little bit earlier in the discussions, but also looking pretty positive. But we all know that an OEM deciding to come into Nascar, it’s a big commitment for them. It’s not something that they take lightly.

“It requires a lot of research and approval at the highest levels. We’re confident right now. We like the position we’re in, and think that we’re a pretty good investment for an OEM.”

Probst’s comments come as Honda is heavily rumoured to be evaluating its US motorsport interests. The Japanese manufacturer currently competes in the IndyCar Series but is reportedly concerned about the cost of doing so, with the Nascar Cup Series seemingly offering a much more cost-effective alternative.

Despite another win slipping through his fingers, Dale Earnhardt Jr. believes William Byron has surpassed Kyle Larson at Hendrick Motorsports. Could it be true that Byron is the top guy at Hendrick in the NASCAR Cup Series now?

After today’s race at Michigan, William Byron has had his points lead cut down again. He leads Kyle Larson for the regular season championship by 41 points. He leads third-place, and today’s race winner, Denny Hamlin, by 82 points.

But has he surpassed Larson as top dog at Hendrick? Dale Earnhardt Jr. seems to think so.

“Yeah, the last couple of weeks, I think that he’s [Byron] eclipsed Larson as the best car at Hendrick Motorsports,” Dale Jr. said on the Prime Video post-race show. “Nobody’s really been able to say that for a long time. Larson was so good throughout the majority of this season, but he’s stumbled and kind of been kind of neutralized a little bit over the last couple of weeks. We know that won’t last forever, but Byron needs to take advantage of that and try to go out there and get his wins. He’s got a really good shot to separate himself from that pack and put himself in a championship contender form.”

William Byron has one win this year. Kyle Larson has three. No doubt, Larson has struggled in the last few weeks. At Charlotte, he wrecked out early. In Nashville, he had to fight from the back of the field. But has Byron really taken that lead role from the No. 5 team? I’m not so sure.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. says Byron has surpassed Larson

While William Byron has the points lead for now, Kyle Larson took it from him not long ago after winning at Kansas. Of course, Byron has taken that points lead back in the last few races, especially after his huge points day at Charlotte.

But let’s take a look at the last five races. Since Texas, Byron has an average finish of 14.4. In that same time, Larson has an average finish of 11, which includes the win at Kansas. While Byron has won one more stage in that time frame, four to three, Larson still has one more stage win on the season, eight to seven.

Of course, Larson has more wins, three to one. He has led more laps, 851 to 768. He also has almost twice as many playoff points as his teammate, more top-fives, and more top-10s. To Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s credit, I do think Byron is passing the eye test better than Larson the last few weeks. He also has 40 more stage points than Larson. But a lot of the stats tell a different story.

There is no doubt that Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s argument has credibility. He isn’t saying something outrageous. But the William Byron and Kyle Larson battle for top-dog at Hendrick Motorsports is still an ongoing battle.