A great night of weather and talented fields greeted the crowd that entered Thompson Speedway on Wednesday night with a pit area containing nearly 100 competitors for the Nutmeg State 50 program in Thompson, Conn.

Perhaps none of the drivers went home happier than Chelmsford’s Jon McKennedy.

McKennedy drove to victory at the Outlaw Open Modified Series – Nutmeg State 50. He edged runner-up Mike Christopher Jr. of Wolcott, Conn., and third-place driver Ron Silk of Norwalk, Conn.

McKennedy pocketed $5,000 for the win.

Christopher and Silk brought the Outlaw Open Modified field to green, with Christopher quickly taking the launch out front. Although just 50 short laps around the Thompson 5/8-mile oval, the top five in Silk, Jon McKennedy, Ronnie Williams and Harvard’s Matt Swanson seemed content to play follow the leader early on. Swanson fell out with motor issues on lap nine and it took until lap 30 for Silk to start hitting the ‘go’ button.

Pulling up to Christopher, Silk peeked inside with McKennedy growing ever closer in third, waiting for whatever may come. With laps winding down McKennedy made his move under Silk for second and on lap 42 powered his way under Christopher in turn three and never looked back. McKennedy was joined in victory lane by Christopher and Silk.

McKennedy wasn’t the only local winner.

Sixteen strong, the Street Stocks rebounded with the simplified, more open rules package. Ryan Lineham’s battle with Icebreaker winner Brandon Plemons put on a stellar show just before George Baldwin entered the picture with five laps remaining. Baldwin, a Lowell resident, made his move late in the going to steal away the 20-lap win and the Eden Rafferty bonus in the process.

Thompson Speedway is back in action on Wednesday, July 9 with the Twisted Tea Midsummer 50. The Outlaw Open Modifieds are back for their second $5,000-to-win Dash for Cash of the summer season along with the NEMA Lites in a special Wednesday showdown. The Wednesday midweek special will also include the Thompson Speedway track championship divisions for another night at the Thompson track at 6 p.m.

College

River Hawks shine: Fourteen UMass Lowell student-athletes have been named America East Presidential Scholar-Athletes, one of the conference’s highest honors, as announced by the conference office.

This award recognizes all student-athletes who graduated with a 3.75 GPA or higher from their respective institutions after having attended a minimum of two years.

Field hockey’s Cate Kleeman (Gibbsboro, N.J.) and Jillian Loebs (Acton); men’s lacrosse’s Nolan Perkins (Harwood, Md.) and Trevor Tismo (Centerville, Ohio)’ men’s soccer’s Shunnosuke Nakajima (Yokohama, Japan); softball’s Emily Tow (North Kingstown, R.I.); Fleur Balogh de Galantha (Grafton), Mia Jones (Blacksburg, Va.), and Sarah Ross (Agawam) of the women’s cross country/track and field program; women’s lacrosse’s Jade Catlin (Middletown, Md.), Daia Hansford (Bowie, Md.), Elsa Skinner (Annapolis, Md.) and Kendall Whalen (Belmont); and women’s soccer’s Laerke Niklasson (Roskilde, Denmark) were this year’s recipients.

Given the criticism Katherine Legge has faced in pretty much every NASCAR series she has competed in so far in 2025, Sunday’s Cup Series race in Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez marked a pleasant change of pace.

After qualifying the No. 78 Chevrolet in 37th (last), she stayed out of trouble and finished in 32nd in her second career Cup Series start. While she was scored in 30th in her Cup debut at Phoenix Raceway back in March, that result was a DNF after she caused two accidents, leading to a lot of the criticism of both her driving and NASCAR’s approval process.

Outside of the Cup Series, Legge has four DNFs and two DNQs and just one actual finish this NASCAR season, that being a 32nd place result in the Xfinity Series race at Texas Motor Speedway for Jordan Anderson Racing.

Katherine Legge, Live Fast Motorsports not returning at Pocono

But after what was probably her strongest overall NASCAR performance since 2018, when she recorded three straight finishes of 14th, 28th, and 33rd place for JD Motorsports in the Xfinity Series, she and Live Fast Motorsports will not be returning for this Sunday’s race at Pocono Raceway.

The only non-chartered (open) car on the entry list for this 160-lap race around the three-turn, 2.5-mile (4.023-kilometer) “Tricky Triangle” in Long Pond, Pennsylvania is the No. 44 NY Racing Team Chevrolet, which is set to be driven by Brennan Poole. Poole has not competed in the Cup Series since 2023.

Legge is set to compete in four more races for Live Fast Motorsports later this season. She is set to get back behind the wheel of the No. 78 Chevrolet at the Chicago Street Course on Sunday, July 6; Sonoma Raceway on Sunday, July 13; Watkins Glen International on Sunday, August 10; and Richmond Raceway on Saturday, August 16.

Team co-owner B.J. McLeod, who has made three appearances (two starts) in the No. 78 car so far this year, is the only other driver currently set to drive it later in the year. He has three more starts lined up at Atlanta Motor Speedway on Saturday, June 28; Daytona International Speedway on Saturday, August 23; and Talladega Superspeedway on Sunday, October 19.

Source | Lyten

Lyten (San Jose, Calif., U.S.), a supermaterial applications company and innovator of 3D Graphene, has launched Lyten Motorsports (Indianapolis, Ind., U.S.), a new venture designed to bring Lyten’s material science innovations to motorsports parts.

Launching in partnership with IndyCar Experience, Lyten Motorsports currently manufactures 3D printed parts using Lyten’s filaments and adhesives and is quickly expanding into autoclave manufacturing to meet market demands. Lyten will be further enhancing the performance of carbon fiber parts and identifying metal parts that can be converted into lighter, lower-cost composite parts. Lyten Motorsports plans to develop parts for a broad range of U.S. and international racing series.

“Motorsports sit at the apex of materials innovation, where small improvements make the difference in speed and safety,” says Dan Cook, Lyten co-founder and CEO. “The introduction of carbon fiber revolutionized the sport, and we believe Lyten 3D Graphene can be the next materials revolution in motorsports.”

Lyten’s 3D Graphene is a foundational, carbon-based material that can be tuned to meet the specific needs of high-performance applications, impacting material properties like strength, weight, conductivity and permeability. Lyten is already using it to build lithium-sulfur batteries approaching two times the energy density of lithium-ion while eliminating 85% of the mined minerals, including elimination of nickel, cobalt and graphite. Its other products include composites, concrete and sensors, all built on 3D Graphene supermaterials platform.

Lyten will continue to execute materials R&D at its headquarters in Silicon Valley. It has also opened a design and manufacturing facility in Indianapolis for motorsport parts, co-located with IndyCar Experience headquarters. Lyten has been testing new material designs on the IndyCar Experience two-seat IndyCar for more than 2 years and will continue to use the platform to accelerate part development. The Lyten-sponsored IndyCar Experience two-seater will be active throughout the 2025 racing season, including the Indy 500.

After a 13-year break from stock car racing, Ram is officially headed back to NASCAR. And no one seems more fired up than Ram CEO Tim Kuniskis. In a recent episode of Harvick’s Happy Hour on NASCAR on FOX, two-time NASCAR Cup Series champ Kevin Harvick sat down with Kuniskis to talk about the big move, and what it means for the brand—and the sport—going forward.

Kuniskis didn’t pull any punches. He confirmed that Ram plans to field at least four entries in the 2026 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series season opener at Daytona International Speedway on February 13, 2026—the Fresh From Florida 250. And while no teams have been signed just yet, Kuniskis joked at the media reveal that he’d put his own trucks on the grid if it came down to it.

“We’re doing this because it’s the right time,” Kuniskis said. “We’ve been watching, waiting, and now we’re all-in.”

This marks a huge step for Ram, which hasn’t competed in NASCAR since the old Dodge days. In fact, Ram (under the Dodge brand) last raced in 2012, when the manufacturer pulled the plug following a lack of team support after Penske left Dodge for Ford.

So, what changed?

According to Kuniskis, the timing had to be right—and so did the support system. With the truck market stronger than ever and Ram looking to grow its performance and motorsports image, NASCAR made perfect sense. He emphasized that it wasn’t just about slapping a Ram badge on a truck—it was about doing it right and doing it to win.

And yes—Cleetus McFarland came up. The YouTube star and motorsports personality has been a top of the NASCAR truck rumor mill for weeks. 

Ram’s return also marks the first time a new manufacturer has entered NASCAR at the national level since 2007, making this a major shake-up for the Truck Series. Whether this is the beginning of a bigger Dodge motorsports comeback remains to be seen—but one thing’s clear: Ram is back, and they’re serious.

23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports are on the precipice of losing their charters mid-season in a legal loss that would cause an immediate financial hit for the two multi-car organizations. 

On June 5th, the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled in favor of NASCAR, revoking the preliminary injunction that allowed 23XI and FRM to race as chartered teams while this antitrust lawsuit is ongoing. The clock is ticking and should the teams fail to overturn this ruling, both of them will lose all three of their charters by the end of June.

Denny Hamlin, Michael Jordan

Photo by: Chris Graythen – Getty Images

As expected, they are now appealing this decision and asking the courts to reconsider. Jeffrey Kessler, the lead attorney for both 23XI and FRM, released the following statement on Friday: 

“Today, we filed a petition with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit requesting a rehearing before the full court. This follows a panel decision that reversed a District Court ruling granting a preliminary injunction, which had allowed 23XI and Front Row Motorsports to compete as chartered teams during the 2025 season while pursuing their antitrust claims. The panel’s decision does not address the merits of our case. It was based solely on a narrow question: whether the release of claims in the charter agreement could be considered anticompetitive.

“If upheld, the ruling would set a dangerous precedent, allowing monopolists to shield themselves from legal challenges simply by requiring release language as a condition of doing business with the monopoly. Our lawsuit is about making NASCAR more competitive and fair. The release provision is just one of many anticompetitive tactics NASCAR has used to preserve its monopoly. We remain fully confident in our case and are committed to racing the full season—regardless of the outcome of this petition.”

The court heavily questioned Kessler about the merits of the injunction in previous hearings and did not agree with his arguments, telling him that his antitrust theory “is not supported by any case of which we are aware.” They repeatedly told him that “you can’t have your cake and eat it too,” speaking to how the teams benefit from the 2025 Charter Agreement while fighting NASCAR on the merits of certain clauses that exist within it.

The trial date for the lawsuit is set for December of this year, and NASCAR has since countersued the teams as this legal saga only escalates. 

NASCAR Hall of Famer Mark Martin has become increasingly outspoken about NASCAR since retiring from racing in 2013. 

The Arkansas native and 40-time Cup Series race winner made his opinion of the current state of the sport known on the latest episode of ‘The Kenny Conversation’ with fellow former driver Kenny Wallace. 

While Martin remains an avid fan in retirement, he made it clear that he thinks gimmicks have become too plentiful in modern NASCAR. 

“The integrity of our sport is important to me,” Martin said. “I feel like what I accomplished in my career is being diminished by gimmicks.” 

One of those perceived gimmicks is NASCAR’s current playoff format, specifically the single championship race that determines the title among the Championship 4 drivers. 

“Joey [Logano] being 20th-place in the points and winning the championship last year, that should’ve been the nail in the coffin for that playoff system,” Martin said. “There’s debate whether the [final round] should be three races, or if it should be five — still, most of the fans want 36 (a full season championship). I wouldn’t bash NASCAR if they went back to 10. I think five is too little. I don’t think it’s a large enough sample.”