INDIANAPOLIS – Simon Pagenaud’s career was cut short eight races into the 2023 season when he was badly injured in a crash that caused concussion-related symptoms he’s still battling nearly two years later.

He wants no sympathy, no pity, and looks back fondly on a career in which he won the Indianapolis 500, an IndyCar championship, 15 races and the Rolex 24 at Daytona.

He also doesn’t want to dwell on his personal health, which has been a frustrating rollercoaster of improvements, setbacks, and constant rehabilitation to return to some normalcy and enjoy life with his wife and two young children.

But the Frenchman will never be able to shake the motorsports bug — and he has a goal of one day returning to some form of racing because without goals, what does a racer even have?

For now, though, he’s adjusting to a slow comeback that began last year when Team Penske driver Scott McLaughlin asked Pagenaud to be his driver coach at the Indianapolis 500. It wasn’t as easy as he’d hoped because everything from his vision to the noise at Indianapolis Motor Speedway and the vibration he felt as cars whizzed past the Team Penske timing stand disrupted his recovery.

Even so, McLaughlin has him back this year as Pagenaud attempts to find a career outside the racecar.

“Last year he didn’t know how he was going to feel with the noises, but he definitely feels a lot better,” McLaughlin said. “I really enjoy working with him and bringing him back to the speedway, brought him back to something he loves. He’s really intense, too. His preparation is next level.”

It’s just the start for Pagenaud’s transition: Théo Pourchaire, a fellow Frenchman, announced Tuesday that Pagenaud will be his representation as Pourchaire tries to make a full-time move to racing in the United States.

“I don’t want to be involved with the management of 30 drivers, but I want to be involved with the best,” Pagenaud said. “I want to go to teams with a guy I know can perform. I don’t want to put my name on someone and then have a team come back to me and say he didn’t perform, the guy wasn’t good enough. I’ve got to be selective and to me, I think Theo can be one of the best.”

But that’s not all for Pagenaud, who was contacted by Chevrolet and asked to help do simulator work for the manufacturer in a true case of “just what the doctor ordered.”

“I had no idea if I was going to be of use, but I was very attracted by the idea and my doctors were very enthused by the chance to test myself on a moving simulator,” he said. ”I’m not going to lie — it was a big challenge personally — but it was awesome to have a reference, a new reference, of where I was at and how much I was struggling for different things.

“And we decided that we would do this a bit more frequently. It was very useful for my recovery. It’s probably been the most useful therapy I’ve had, and when I’m talking about therapies, physical therapy, eye coordination, reconnecting the bridges in the brain, things that were not as seamless as they used to be.”

Pagenaud is also open to a more formal role with former team Team Penske, where he spent seven seasons and time with their sports car program. Team President Tim Cindric didn’t rule out a role within the organization for the driver who contributed one of Roger Penske’s record 20 Indy 500 wins.

McLaughlin has raved about what Pagenaud has brought him at Indy.

“I’m probably a detriment to my own career throughout the years — I haven’t been as intricate with looking at little details, and I think Simon is the professor in that regard,” McLaughlin said. “He strives for perfection in a lot of ways in how he sets up his car and what he feels. He’s probably allowing me to look into more details and just the way I look at myself and the driving, the lines and what I’m doing with weight jacker and bars. It’s really helped sort of accelerate my progress here, and really am enjoying working with a friend, as well.”

That knowledge could be welcome inside Team Penske as a whole at some point, Cindric said.

“Simon is always welcome within our team,” Cindric said. “But Simon has a lot going on on his own, beyond our team. I know Simon has been offered some really good things to do, but there’s only so much that Simon really wants to do.

“I think he can be a benefit for anybody around this place. I don’t think there’s any limit in terms of what he does, but at the same time, he wants to be productive. Just hanging around probably isn’t what he wants to do, either. I think we have a pretty good balance, and we’re always open to him within our team.”

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

Kurt Busch, Harry Gant, and Ray Hendrick will join the NASCAR Hall of Fame in 2026.

NASCAR announced Tuesday, May 20, the three-person class that will be inducted ahead of the 2026 NASCAR season.

Busch is a first-ballot Hall of Famer, racking up 34 NASCAR Cup Series wins (including the 2017 Daytona 500) and the 2004 series championship. Busch raced full-time in NASCAR’s top series from 2001 until 2022, when his career was cut short due to a head injury.

Gant was an 18-time winner NASCAR Cup Series races, with victories in the 1984 and 1991 Southern 500. Gant raced full-time from 1979 to 1994, finishing runner-up in points in 1984.

Gant spent seven years on the ballot.

Hendrick made it from the Pioneer ballot. Hendrick won over 700 times in the NASCAR Modified and Late Model Sportsman divisions.

Hendrick spent two years on the ballot.

The Class of 2026 will bring the total member count to 70.

NASCAR announced the ballot April 21 which included 10 individuals from the Modern Era and five from the Pioneer Era.

The first class for the NASCAR Hall of Fame was in 2010, which featured Bill France Sr., Bill France Jr., Dale Earnhardt, Junior Johnson and Richard Petty.

The first 11 classes featured five inductees per year, through 2020. Starting with the class of 2021, the Hall of Fame inducted three members per year. There was no class in 2022 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Additionally, The Landmark Award winner is Humpy Wheeler, the former general manager and president of Charlotte Motor Speedway.

The award has been presented since 2015, with the exception of 2022, to industry personnel who have made “outstanding contributions to NASCAR.”

Dominic Aragon is currently the editor-in-chief for The Racing Experts.

From Grants, New Mexico, USA, Aragon started watching NASCAR in 2004 and has been covering the sport since 2009. Aragon is a 2012 graduate of Grants High School and a May 2016 graduate of the University of New Mexico with a B.A. in Mass Communications & Journalism. Aragon has worked in local and national media, as a musician, and an educator. He is co-author of the 2024 book “All of It: Daytona 500 Champion Tells the Rest of the Story” with racer Geoff Bodine.

Aragon, his wife Feliz, and son Christopher currently reside in Grants, New Mexico, USA.

You can reach Dominic at daragon@theracingexperts.net.

In 12 NASCAR Cup Series starts at Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway, Spire Motorsports has logged two top-20 finishes. Corey LaJoie posted a team-best 17th-place result in the 2023 Coca-Cola 600. Spire Motorsports fields the Nos. 7, 71 and 77 Chevrolet ZL1s in the Cup Series for Justin Haley, Michael McDowell and Carson Hocevar, respectively.
The Coca-Cola 600 will be streamed live on Amazon Prime, Sunday, May 25 beginning at 6 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time (EDT). The 13th of 36 points-paying races on the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series calendar will be broadcast live on the Performance Racing Network and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Channel 90.

Justin Haley – Driver, No. 7 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet ZL1

Justin Haley will pilot Spire Motorsports’ No. 7 Gainbridge Chevrolet ZL1 in Sunday’s Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway.
Haley and the No. 7 team will honor Army Staff Sgt. Bobby Franklin in Sunday’s 400-lap race. Franklin was killed in Baghdad, Iraq, on August 20, 2003, at 38 years of age when his vehicle struck an IED hidden in roadside debris. Franklin was assigned to the North Carolina National Guard’s 210th Military Police Company.
Spire Motorsports partnered with the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department and the N.C. National Guard this past December for the 2024 CMPD Explorer’s Christmas Project. The team sponsored last year’s program and facilitated the donation of 15 pallets of racing memorabilia. Haley and crew chief Ryan Sparks helped CMPD officers sort and load donations for deployment by the NC National Guard into Western N.C. communities impacted by Hurricane Helene.
The 26-year old has recorded four Cup Series starts at Charlotte Motor Speedway. He has logged a 22.0 average start, a 23.0 average finish and earned one top-15 showing.
On Monday, May 30, 2023, Haley set the record for most miles completed in NASCAR national touring series events in one day. The then 24-year-old driver competed in both the NASCAR Xfinity Series Alsco Uniforms 300 and the Cup Series Coca-Cola 600 after the events were pushed to Memorial Day due to weather. Haley started the day with a 15th-place finish in NASCAR’s only 600-mile event and was on track for a top-10 showing in the Xfinity Series before he was forced to pit late in the event for fuel. He finished the day’s undercard one lap behind the leaders. In total, Haley racked up 898.5 miled, topping the previous record of 851.2 held by both Clint Bowyer and NASCAR Cup Series Champion Kevin Harvick.
The Winamac, Ind., native earned his best NASCAR Xfinity Series finish at Charlotte in May 2019, a fifth-place result in this first of four starts at the 1.5-mile oval. He logged a 13.8 average start, a 16.3 average finish with just one finish outside the top 20.
In his previous starts on intermediate tracks this season, Haley has a 10th-place result at Homestead-Miami Speedway and top-15 finishes at Las Vegas Motor Speedway and Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth.
Founded in 2018, Gainbridge® is an insurtech subsidiary of Group 1001 that empowers consumers to take control of their financial future with solutions that are accessible to everyone, no matter their budget or financial knowledge. Its platform provides access to financial products that are simple, intuitive, and backed by smart technology with no complexity or hidden fees. Gainbridge® is headquartered in Zionsville, Ind. For more information, visit www.gainbridge.io or follow and connect with us on X and LinkedIn.
Last week at North Wilkesboro Speedway Haley finished seventh in the All-Star Open. It was his fifth appearance in the precursor to the All-Star Race.

With the Coca-Cola 600 being the longest race of the season, how do you and your team prepare mentally and physically for such a demanding night?
“The Coca-Cola 600 at home in Charlotte is always a favorite. Two years ago, I did the Xfinity race and the Cup race on the same day, which was quite eventful and something I’ll never be able to top. But knowing I’ve come close to completing 900 miles on the same track in one day makes the 600-mile Cup race seem a little less demanding. We’ve had so much speed in our 1.5-mile program and I’m excited to get a handle on it Saturday evening. This is the longest race of the year and where we can score the most points. The biggest thing we need to work on is getting in a better position to execute on restarts and we’ll have a couple of shots at that with four stages in Sunday’s race. This race is always an important one for teams and for the families of the military members that we are honoring.”
Atop the No. 7 Box – Crew Chief Ryan Sparks

Ryan Sparks, Spire Motorsports competition director and crew chief for driver Justin Haley, has called six Coca-Cola 600s with a best finish of 17th with Corey LaJoie in the 2023 edition of “NASCAR’S Longest Night.”
As an engineer at Richard Childress Racing, the 41-year-old helped Austin Dillon earn his first-career NASCAR Cup Series victory in the 2016 Coca-Cola 600. Dillon managed a fuel load across a 67-lap run to the checkers to secure the first win for the historic No. 3 Chevrolet since Dale Earnhardt, Sr., at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway in October 2000.
The Winston Salem, N.C., native has called 178 NASCAR Cup Series races where he’s earned three top-five and nine top-10 finishes. He was first paired with Haley at Bristol Motor Speedway in September 2024.

Michael McDowell – Driver, No. 71 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet ZL1

Michael McDowell will pilot Spire Motorsports’ No. 71 Delaware Life/Veterans 1001 Chevrolet ZL1 in this weekend’s Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
The No. 71 Chevrolet will carry a patriotic Delaware Life/Veterans 1001 paint scheme this weekend, proudly displaying the names of Group 1001 employees who have served in the U.S. Armed Forces on the hood.
As part of the 600 Miles of Remembrance, McDowell will carry the name of Specialist James Waters on the windshield of the No. 71 Chevrolet. Waters was a 2008 graduate of Whiteland High School in Whiteland, Ind., where he participated in football and wrestling. He loved camping with friends and spending time with others. After high school, he enlisted in the United States Army and served as an infantry gunner stationed at Fort Drum. Just four months into deployment, Waters was tragically killed in an IED attack in Afghanistan. His legacy lives on through his three brothers—two of whom also became infantrymen, and one who serves as a medic.
McDowell will also honor Lt. Col. Orlando Bandeira and Staff Sgt. Chester J. McBride, whose names will be featured on the passenger-side name rail during Sunday’s Memorial Day Weekend tribute.
The No. 71 team heads into the 600-mile classic fresh off a $100,000 payday and a trip to Victory Lane after winning Friday’s Mechanix Wear Pit Crew Challenge at North Wilkesboro Speedway. The crew’s blazing 12.587-second stop topped both all entries for the All-Star Open and All-Star Race, earning the title of fastest team on pit road.
With NASCAR’s longest race on deck, McDowell looks to build on his season-best intermediate finish of 16th at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. The 40-year-old veteran returns to Charlotte with added confidence after leading 13 laps at Texas Motor Speedway in April. His promising run there ended just two laps short of the finish following contact with the turn two wall, resulting in a 23rd-place effort.
Through the first 12 races of the 2025 campaign, the Glendale, Ariz., native owns an average starting position of 13.9, including four starts inside the top 10.
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McDowell has claimed three Xfinity Fastest Lap awards this season, clocking the fastest lap in the Daytona 500, Phoenix Raceway and Talladega Superspeedway. He stands as the only driver in the Cup Series to have secured three bonus points via the program.
McDowell secured Spire Motorsports’ first Busch Light Pole Award at Las Vegas Motor Speedway in March. His 28.833-second lap marks the fastest lap in NASCAR’s seventh-generation Cup Series car (2022-present) at the 1.5-mile Nevada oval.

Michael McDowell Quotes:
Is it a little extra preparation for you physically for a race of this length with the heat, and talk about how important the weekend is outside of your physical preparation?
“Yeah, I think it is. I just up my calories as far as my intake goes for the day, but other than that, it’s pretty much business as usual. I think the harder part of that is just the time of when you start the race and the track’s transition from day to night paired with the speed differences. Charlotte is just one of those really temperature-sensitive tracks. Even throughout the years—whether it was a repave or going through this Next Gen car—it’s just super, super sensitive to the temperature change and more track temperature. The sun going down and not beating on the racetrack changes the dynamic of the last half of that race. Making good adjustments and all those things—I feel like that’s the hardest part. You can be decent in the beginning and then really bad at the end, and vice versa. You can be bad at the beginning and get to where you need to be, especially with this car, with the heights being so important.

It’s a fun race, but a hard race. It builds, and you can kind of feel that it builds toward the end. Most weekends, you feel like you don’t have enough time—here at Charlotte, you feel like you have a little bit of time. More than anything, it’s just one of the coolest weekends in racing altogether. I love it. I grew up loving motorsports and watching the Indianapolis 500, watching the Monaco Grand Prix, and the Coca-Cola 600. It’s just a fun weekend as a fan and as a competitor. It’s special, being on Memorial Day and always carrying a fallen soldier on the car. I have Specialist James Waters on the car of the United States Army, and it’s always a privilege and honor to do that. It’s a great reminder of what freedom is and what it’s not. So, it’s a special weekend.”
Atop the No. 71 Box – Crew Chief Travis Peterson

Crew chief Travis Peterson calls the shots for Michael McDowell and the No. 71 team.
As a race engineer at JR Motorsports, the University of North Carolina at Charlotte graduate helped Chase Elliott to a top 10 in the 2014 Xfinity Series event. Elliott started from the pole position and led 66 laps on the day.

Carson Hocevar – Driver, No. 77 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet ZL1

Carson Hocevar, driver of the Chili’s Ride the ‘Dente Chevrolet ZL1 for Spire Motorsports, will make his second NASCAR Cup Series start in the longest race of the year, the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway. The 22-year-old driver finished 21st in his first appearance at the 1.5-mile oval last May.
In honor of Memorial Day Weekend, the No. 77 team will honor Sargeant First Class Michelle Young of the Arizona Army National Guard. SFC Young joined the military in November 2007 and deployed to Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom in 2013 and again in 2021. Young served in the 98th Aviation Troop Command and for most of her 16-year military career was an aviation operations noncommissioned officer. She loved being a mother to her daughter Gracie, was passionate about body building and fitness, and spent her time volunteering at the local homeless shelter and a crisis hotline.
The Coca-Cola 600 is the third and final leg of the Greatest Day in Motorsports which begins with the Formula 1 Monaco Grand Prix in Monte Carlo on Sunday morning. The 109th running of the Indianapolis 500 presented by Gainbridge fills the afternoon time slot before NASCAR’s premier series takes to the Charlotte oval late into the night.
When the Cup Series takes the green flag on Sunday, Hocevar will be one-week removed from claiming victory in the 2025 All-Star Open to earn a berth into his first All-Star Race. The Portage, Mich., native qualified second and took the lead at the Lap-50 competition break following a two-tire pit stop. He led the final 46 laps to advance to the main event where he drove to an 11th-place finish.
The Cup Series’ last two points-paying races were contested on 1.5-mile ovals. On May 4 at Texas Motor Speedway, Hocevar earned his first career Cup Series pole, led 22 laps and was in contention for a top-five finish before a late-race caution caught the No. 77 a lap down to the leaders. More recently on May 11, Hocevar led four laps at Kansas Speedway and was battling for a top-10 finish when a flat tire with less than 20 laps remaining forced the team to pit under green-flag conditions. In both events, the team completed the race but was unable to crack the top 20 by the checkered flag.
The Spire Motorsports driver has three previous NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series starts at Charlotte. Hocevar finished fourth in May 2023, his most recent start at the 1.5-mile oval, but recorded a venue-best finish at Charlotte in May 2021, leading five laps en route to a runner-up result.
The 2024 Rookie of the Year owns one NASCAR Xfinity Series start at Charlotte. He started 15th in the Alsco Uniforms 300 on May 29, 2023, and finished eighth in just his third start in the series.

Carson Hocevar Quotes
We’ve seen the No. 77 team come to life on the mile-and-a-half tracks as of late. How can the team capitalize on the extra long event to find success?
“Our intermediate track program has come a long way since even the start of the year. As a whole, the organization has won the pole twice on mile-and-a-halfs and we’ve been up front at nearly every race so far. For us, it comes down to having the time to recover from things that happen late in the race. It happened at Texas with a caution that seemed bad but worked out in our favor before we got caught in an incident. Then at Kansas we just ran out of laps with a flat tire coming so late in the game. Hopefully we don’t need to take advantage of having four stages to recover from anything. We have the speed, it’s just about putting all the little pieces together to reach the end goal.”

Last weekend was a big weekend for Spire Motorsports, winning the Pit Crew Challenge with the No. 71 team and advancing to the All-Star Race with the No. 77 team. How does a weekend like that change the environment in the shop?
“It’s more positive for sure. Every week we’ve had something to celebrate, and we kept it going. People outside of this building are noticing the payoff of the effort that everyone is putting in and it’s a lot easier to take the disappointment of an 11th-place finish when there is a win to celebrate. It shows a lot of progress that we can even be disheartened by missing out on a top 10, so I think it changes it a lot in a good way, but just makes everyone that much hungrier for the next win.”

Spire Motorsports PR 

NASCAR has announced the NASCAR Hall of Fame Class of 2026 and winner of the Landmark Award for Outstanding Contributions to NASCAR. The three-person class includes Kurt Busch, Harry Gant and Ray Hendrick. Humpy Wheeler was named the Landmark Award winner.

Members of the NASCAR Hall of Fame Voting Panel met today in an in-person closed session at the Charlotte Convention Center to debate and vote upon the 15 nominees for the induction class of 2026 and the five nominees for the Landmark Award.

The Class of 2026 was determined by votes cast by the Voting Panel, including representatives from NASCAR, the NASCAR Hall of Fame, track owners from major facilities and historic short tracks, media members, manufacturer representatives, competitors (drivers, owners, crew chiefs), recognized industry leaders, a nationwide fan vote conducted through NASCAR.com and the reigning NASCAR Cup Series champion (Joey Logano). In all, 49 votes were cast. 

Busch and Gant both received 61% of the Modern Era ballot votes. Jeff Burton finished third, followed by Harry Hyde and Randy Dorton. Ray Hendrick received 31% of the Pioneer ballot votes. Bob Welborn finished second.

The two Modern Era inductees came from a group of 10 nominees that included: Greg Biffle, Neil Bonnett, Tim Brewer, Jeff Burton, Kurt Busch, Randy Dorton, Harry Gant, Harry Hyde, Randy LaJoie and Jack Sprague.

Nominees for the Pioneer Ballot included: Jake Elder, Ray Hendrick, Banjo Matthews, Larry Phillips and Ralph Moody.

Nominees for the Landmark Award included Alvin Hawkins, Lesa France Kennedy, Dr. Joseph Mattioli, Les Richter and Humpy Wheeler.

Ten nominees appeared on the Modern Era ballot, which was selected by the traditional Nominating Committee. The same committee selected the five Landmark Award nominees. The Pioneer ballot, which included five nominees whose careers began in 1966 or earlier, was selected by the Honors Committee.

The Class of 2026 Induction Ceremony is set for Friday, January 23, 2026 at the NASCAR Hall of Fame and Charlotte Convention Center in Charlotte, North Carolina.

For more information, visit nascar.com.

• Busch won the first NASCAR playoff championship in 2004.
• He raced for five different teams and won in four different car makes.

Kurt Busch’s career of considerable ups coupled with troubling downs has reached one more pinnacle. The oldest of the two Busch brothers has been selected as a new member of the NASCAR Hall of Fame.