Since the departure of long-time partner FedEx, Denny Hamlin and Joe Gibbs Racing have welcomed several new partners to the No. 11 Toyota. Of note, Progressive signed on in a major deal that will have the insurance company back Hamlin in 18 races this year.

JGR has now announced the addition of Bob’s Discount Furniture, a U.S.-based furniture store with its headquarters in Newington, Connecticut. They have roughly 150 stores across the country, primarily in the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, Midwest, and West Coast regions.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. is adding another title to his NASCAR resumé.

Earnhardt Jr. will serve as the crew chief for Connor Zilisch in the Xfinity Series race at Pocono on Saturday. Zilisch’s crew chief Mardy Lindley is serving a one-race suspension for loose lug nuts on Zilisch’s car at the end of the race in Nashville earlier this month.

Junior is the co-owner of Zilisch’s JR Motorsports car and his team fields four cars in NASCAR’s second-tier series. Zilisch’s teammate Justin Allgaier won the 2024 Xfinity Series title for the first NASCAR championship of his career.

Advertisement

Zilisch, 18, already has one win over 14 races this season in the Xfinity Series. The road course ace won the third race of the season when he led 26 laps at Circuit of the Americas for the second victory of his career. He missed the 12th race of the season because of a back injury sustained in a hard crash late in the race at Talladega. He returned at Charlotte and has finished second, second and fifth in the last three races.

Pocono could be a race filled with strategy based on how the cautions fall on Saturday. The 2.5-mile track allows drivers near the front of the field to pit under green without losing a lap. If there are long green-flag runs during the first two stages, you’ll likely see many drivers in the top 10 forego stage points to pit before the end of the stages and cycle back toward the front of the field during the stage break.

After he crew chiefs for Zilisch on Saturday, Junior will be in the booth for Amazon Prime again on Sunday. The NASCAR Hall of Famer is the lead analyst for Amazon and TNT’s NASCAR coverage this season. Amazon has two more Cup Series races left in 2025 before TNT takes over for five races ahead of NBC’s portion of the schedule.

Pocono Event Info:
Date: Sunday, June 22
Time: 2 p.m. ET
Series: NASCAR Cup Series (NCS)
Location: Long Pond, Pennsylvania
Format: 160 Laps, 400 Miles, Stages: 30-95-160
TV: Prime
Radio: MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio (Channel 90)

Weekend Schedule:
Friday: 12:35 p.m. ET, Xfinity Practice (CW App, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio)
Friday: 1:40 p.m. ET, Xfinity Qualifying (CW App, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio)
Saturday: 12:35 p.m. ET, Cup Practice (Prime, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio)
Saturday: 1:45 p.m. ET, Cup Qualifying (Prime, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio)
Friday: 3:30 p.m. ET, Xfinity Race (CW, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio)
Sunday: 2 p.m. ET, Cup Race (Prime, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio)

Pace Laps:

• The NASCAR Cup Series heads north to Pocono Raceway for the 17^th points race of the season as ‘The Tricky Triangle’ hosts its lone race date on the calendar.
• This weekend marks the fourth of five races in the “Driving 4 a Difference presented by the Gene Haas Foundation,” a new in-season Ford tournament within the NASCAR Xfinity Series.
• Sheldon Creed leads the tournament after four races with 112 points, followed by teammate Sam Mayer (97), Harrison Burton (70), Ryan Sieg (57) & Kyle Sieg (25).
• Mayer holds the third-best average finish (11.1) of full-time Xfinity drivers this season, behind Austin Hill (10.1) and Justin Allgaier (10.9).
• Cole Custer recorded his best finish of the season last weekend in Mexico City (8^th), and best Cup Series result since Bristol of 2022 (8^th).

Cole Custer Team Info:
Crew Chief: Aaron Kramer
Partner: HaasTooling.com

Sheldon Creed Team Info:
Crew Chief: Jonathan Toney
Partner: Road Ranger

Sam Mayer Team Info:
Crew Chief: Jason Trinchere
Partner: Audibel

Custer at Pocono (Cup)
Starts: 7
Wins: —
Top-10s: —
Poles: —

• Custer makes his eighth Cup start at Pocono this weekend, where he has a 23.3 average finish. His best finish came in 2020 when he crossed the line in P16.
• His best start was fifth in 2020, when NASCAR inverted the field after race one of a doubleheader, and he boasts a 26.4 average starting position.
• Custer has also made six NXS starts at Pocono, where he has found victory lane twice in 2019 and 2024.

Creed at Pocono (Xfinity)
Starts: 3
Wins: —
Top-10s: 2
Poles: 1 (2024)

• Creed is set to make his fourth Xfinity start at Pocono on Saturday, where he has a pair of top-5 finishes. He finished P4 last season after leading seven laps, and came home in fifth in 2022.
• He started on the pole last season, one of three in his career, and carries an average starting position of 3.3 into this weekend.

Mayer at Pocono (Xfinity)
Starts: 4
Wins: —
Top-10s: 3
Poles: —

• Mayer is in line for his fifth Xfinity start at Pocono this weekend, coming off a 10^th-place finish in last season’s race. He recorded a runner-up result in 2023, and was P6 in 2022.
• He has started inside the top 10 once, a P8 start in 2023, and has an average starting position of 13.0.

Where They Stand

Cup Points Standings (41: 34^th): Custer is 34^th in the Cup Series points standings through 16 races this season with 204 points.

Xfinity Points Standings (41: 7^th, 00: 8^th): Mayer sits seventh in the Xfinity points standings with 487 total points on the season, behind the six winners, while Creed is in eighth place with 415 points heading into Pocono this Saturday.

HFT PR

Denny Hamlin and Joe Gibbs Racing announced a major new deal ahead of the 44-year-old’s return to the NASCAR Cup Series.

Over the weekend, Hamlin was notably absent from the Viva Mexico 250 in order to be by his wife’s side for the birth of their third child. In his absence, Ryan Truex piloted the No. 11 Toyota after receiving a lighthearted text from his famous brother.

With Hamlin slated to rejoin Joe Gibbs Racing this week, the organization shared that it has inked a multi-year deal with Bob’s Discount Furniture to be a primary sponsor. The furniture retailer company’s first primary race will be Iowa Corn 350 on August 3.

“We are thrilled to partner with Bob’s Discount Furniture,” JGR owner Joe Gibbs said in an official statement. “Racing every weekend all across the country, we will have the opportunity to promote their great furniture at everyday low prices to race fans everywhere. We are especially excited to have the opportunity to celebrate their expansion into North Carolina at the grand opening event at their new Winston-Salem store on July 17th.”

Bob’s Discount Furniture President and CEO Bill Barton expressed a similar sentiment, adding: “Partnering with Joe Gibbs Racing is a natural fit for Bob’s. We’re both committed to excellence, delivering value, and engaging with communities in meaningful ways. Debuting the Bob’s-branded No. 11 car at Bob’s Grand Opening in Winston-Salem, a region with deep NASCAR heritage and our newest store location, makes this moment even more special.”

As part of the agreement, Hamlin and Gibbs will be on hand for the grand opening of the Bob’s Discount Furniture store in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, on July 17.

“We’re excited to welcome Bob’s to our No. 11 team and to have their new locations opening up close to home,” Hamlin said. “If you look at their marketing and social media, they do a great job being creative, so we’re really looking forward to what kind of ideas we can work on together both on and off the racetrack.”

Ahead of the 2025 Cup Series season, Hamlin parted ways with long-term sponsor FedEx and Mavis Tires, though has since managed to strike deals with Sports Clips, King’s Hawaiian, and National Debt Relief. Speaking to reporters ahead of The Clash at Bowman Gray earlier this month, he acknowledged that JGR’s sponsorship dilemma was “maybe a little bit” concerning.

“I mean it’s tough out there. Sponsorship is hard to come by and certainly while it’s such an important time in our sport to recognize the sponsorship dollars are not flowing like they used to, for sure. Everyone’s had to adjust quite a bit,” Hamlin said.

DON’T MISS:

“Obviously you’ve got certain aspects that JGR has to price into their pricing as well that it’s probably tough. I don’t know, it’s just part of it. But certainly having one sponsor for 20 years made things pretty easy and now it’s all kind of catching up.

“Is it concerning from my end? Maybe a little bit, but it’s probably more concerning from JGR’s standpoint.”

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — A federal judge urged NASCAR and two of its teams, including one owned by retired NBA great Michael Jordan, to settle their increasingly acrimonious legal fight that spilled over into tense arguments during a hearing on Tuesday.

U.S. District Judge Kenneth Bell of the Western District of North Carolina grilled both NASCAR and the teams — 23XI Racing, which is owned by Jordan and three-time Daytona 500 winner Denny Hamlin, and Front Row Motorsports, owned by entrepreneur Bob Jenkins — on what they hoped to accomplish in the antitrust battle that has loomed over the stock car series for months.

“It’s hard to picture a winner if this goes to the mat — or to the flag — in this case,” Bell said. “It scares me to death to think about what all this is costing.”

23XI and Front Row were the only two organizations that refused to sign a take-it-or-leave-it offer from NASCAR last September on a new charter agreement. Charters are NASCAR’s version of a franchise model, with each charter guaranteeing entry to the lucrative Cup Series races and a stable revenue stream; 13 other teams signed the agreements last fall, with some contending they had little choice.

The nearly two-hour hearing was on the teams’ request to toss out NASCAR’s countersuit, which accuses Jordan business manager Curtis Polk of “willfully” violating antitrust laws by orchestrating anticompetitive collective conduct in negotiations. NASCAR said it learned in discovery that Polk in messages among the 15 teams tried to form a “cartel” type operation that would include threats of boycotting races and a refusal to individually negotiate.

FILE – Bob Jenkins, owner of Front Row Motorsports, and Michael Jordan, co-owner of 23XI Racing, pose before a NASCAR Cup Series auto race at Talladega Superspeedway, Oct. 6, 2024, in Talladega, Ala. (AP Photo/Butch Dill, File)

Photo:

One of NASCAR’s attorneys even cited a Benjamin Franklin quote Polk allegedly sent to the 15 organizations that read: “We must all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately.”

Jeffrey Kessler, an attorney representing the teams, was angered by the revelation in open court, contending it is privileged information only revealed in discovery. Kessler also argued none of NASCAR’s claims in the countersuit prove anything illegal was done by Polk or the Race Team Alliance during the charter negotiation process.

“NASCAR knows it has no defense to the monopolization case so they have come up with this claim about joint negotiations, which they agreed to, never objected to, and now suddenly it’s an antitrust violation,” Kessler said outside court. “It makes absolutely no sense. It’s not going to help them deflect from the monopolizing they have done in this market and the harm they have inflicted.”

He added that “the attacks” on Polk were “false, unfounded and frankly beneath the dignity of my adversary to even make those type of comments, which he should know better about.”

NASCAR attorneys said Polk improperly tried to pressure all 15 teams that comprise the RTA to stand together collectively in negotiations and encouraged boycotting qualifying races for the 2024 Daytona 500. NASCAR, they said, took the threat seriously because the teams had previously boycotted a scheduled meeting with series executives.

“NASCAR knew the next step was they could boycott a race, which was a threat they had to take seriously,” attorney Lawrence Buterman said on behalf of NASCAR.

Kessler said outside court the two teams are open to settlement talks, but noted NASCAR has said it will not renegotiate the charters. NASCAR’s attorneys declined to comment after the hearing.

Bell did not indicate when he’d rule, other than saying he would decide quickly.

Preliminary injunction status

Kessler said he would file an appeal by the end of the week after a three-judge federal appellate panel dismissed a preliminary injunction that required NASCAR to recognize 23XI and Front Row as chartered teams while the court fight is being resolved.

Kessler wants the issue heard by the full appellate court. The injunction has no bearing on the merits of the case, which is scheduled to go to trial in December. The earliest NASCAR can treat the teams as unchartered is one week after the deadline to appeal, provided there is no pending appeal or whenever the appeals process has been exhausted.

There are 36 chartered cars for the 40-car field each week. If 23XI and Front Row are not recognized as chartered, their six cars would have to compete as “open” teams — which means they’d have to qualify on speed each week to make the race and they would receive a fraction of the money guaranteed for chartered teams.

Discovery issues

Some of the arguments Tuesday centered on Jonathan Marshall, the executive director of the RTA. NASCAR has demanded text messages and emails from Marshall and says it has received roughly 100 texts and over 55,000 pages of emails.

NASCAR wants all texts between Marshall and 55 people from 2020 through 2024 that contain specific search terms. Attorneys for the RTA said that covers more than 3,000 texts, some of which are privileged, and some that have been “deleted to save storage or he didn’t need them anymore.”

That issue is set to be heard during a hearing next Tuesday before Bell.

___

AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing

Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.