NASCAR announced the 2017 schedules for both the Sprint Cup Series and Xfinity Series on Thursday. Dustin Long of NBC Sports passed along the new Sprint Cup schedule, which features a handful of changes, including Kansas Speedway becoming the last race of the Chase's second round. Long also provided next season's Xfinity slate.    Here's a look at how the Sprint Cup schedule shapes up for 2017: And here are the dates for next year's Xfinity campaign: The release of next year's complete schedule came much earlier than usual. NASCAR Executive Vice President and Chief Racing Development Officer Steve O'Donnell attributed that to the "collaborative spirit" across the industry, per NASCAR.com: Announcing the 2017 national serie...

Max Verstappen's rapid rise through the ranks of Formula One continued on Thursday morning when the teenager was promoted to Red Bull Racing. Little more than a year after making his grand prix debut at the age of 17, Verstappen will represent the four-time world champions from next weekend's Spanish Grand Prix after Red Bull decided to punish Daniil Kvyat for his Russian GP crimes by sending the 22-year-old back to Scuderia Toro Rosso. Verstappen's graduation to Red Bull is likely to be good news for Kimi Raikkonen, who has already seen off one of the prime candidates for his seat at Ferrari. After clinging onto his place in F1 at the end of an inconsistent 2015 campaign, this season was expected to be the 2007 world champion's last in the...

Red Bull have confirmed that Daniil Kvyat has been dropped to Toro Rosso and will be replaced by Max Verstappen ahead of May 15's Formula One Spanish Grand Prix. The decision comes following Russian Kvyat's calamitous performance at his home Grand Prix on Sunday, during which he crashed into Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel twice in two corners, and team principal Christian Horner explained the decision to promote Verstappen from Toro Rosso, per Red Bull Racing: Max has proven to be an outstanding young talent. His performance at Toro Rosso has been impressive so far and we are pleased to give him the opportunity to drive for Red Bull Racing. We are in the unique position to have all four drivers across Red Bul...

Lewis Hamilton suffered engine problems in last Sunday's Russian Grand Prix, the second race in a row where a defective energy recovery system (followed by a water-pressure issue in Russia) cost him a chance at victory. Cars break down all the time in Formula One. They are on the very limit of performance, driving at more than 300 km/h, braking heavily several times per lap and changing gears thousands of times in a two-hour race. Usually, when a driver retires due to a mechanical failure, it is acknowledged as bad luck. But something weird happened after Hamilton's problem in Russia (which didn't cause him to retire, by the way—he still finished second). People started taking to Twitter to voice their opinions that Mercedes were deli...

Strikes one, two and three against NASCAR is not bringing back Spongebob Squarepants for the spring race at Kansas Speedway. After the massacre at Talladega this past weekend, a little levity in the form of a porifera parallelogram* could have been the lollypop after a sour doctor’s visit. Alas, we’ll deal in with bowling in the GoBowling 400. As an aside, a 300-lap race would be the better sponsor for GoBowling, more congruent with the numbers. But who am I? Four drivers go for a turkey (sorta) in this young NASCAR season. Only six drivers have won races this year with four of them throwing up two fingers. At this point a year ago, we had seven drivers with a win through 10 races. Showing early dominance, Jimmie Johnson won his...

Two Florida men were found dead in a trailer Sunday at Talladega Superspeedway in Lincoln, Alabama, prior to the NASCAR Sprint Cup GEICO 500. According to Haley Townsend of WIAT.com, the bodies of 19-year-old Joshua Douin of Crawfordville, Florida, and 48-year-old James Cook of Tallahassee, Florida, were found in the campground section of the track. The coroner revealed that no foul play is suspected in the deaths. Per Tom Jensen of FoxSports.com, the bodies are set to undergo autopsies in order to determine the cause of their deaths. Brad Keselowski took the checkered flag Sunday to win his second Sprint Cup race of the season, beating out Kyle Busch after 188 action-packed laps. NASCAR will return to Talladega in October fo...

Only four races of the 2016 Formula One season have been completed, but Sebastian Vettel's title hopes are already hanging by a thread after the four-time world champion suffered a second retirement in the Russian Grand Prix. Having started the season with a podium in Australia, Vettel failed to even start the Bahrain GP following an engine blowout on the formation lap before recovering from a first-lap collision to salvage second place in China. But there was no fightback at the Sochi Autodrom, where the German was hit twice in quick succession by Red Bull's Daniil Kvyat, whose demolition derby on the opening lap left an incensed Vettel in the crash barriers at Turn 3. With a look at Lewis Hamilton's latest technical problems—one of ...

Most NASCAR fans sternly insist they do not enjoy crashes, and they earnestly wring their hands as they pore over one replay of one cataclysmic melee after another. Brad Keselowski, 32, escaped the mayhem to win Sunday's GEICO 500 at Talladega Superspeedway. The key was running at or near the front all day long. He has won four of his 15 Sprint Cup races at the 2.66-mile ring of horrors. By comparison, Dale Earnhardt Jr. has won six out of 33. "It did seem like somewhat of a survival race," the winning crew chief, Paul Wolfe, said, "as we saw a lot of what I would consider some of the top or faster cars get caught up in wrecks." Wolfe's analysis was a bit on the understated side. According to NASCAR's post-race results, 37 of the 40 cars ...

Following the elation of claiming his second Formula One podium finish in China, Daniil Kvyat could have done with a shoulder to cry on in the aftermath of Sunday's Russian Grand Prix. In front of his home crowd sitting in a grandstand that bears his name, the 22-year-old suffered a first-lap meltdown at the Sochi Autodrom, where he sparked two separate collisions in the space of two corners, ruining the afternoons of Red Bull team-mate Daniel Ricciardo and Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel in the process. But he has received little sympathy from his own team as both Christian Horner and Dr. Helmut Marko were in agreement that Kvyat had nobody to blame but himself, with the latter suggesting the youngster will be forced to explain his actions over...

If you’re Talladega Superspeedway, you like big crashes; it's what you do. And if you want to save 15 percent or more on…ah, you get it. Man… I was just released from the infield care center following the GEICO 500 and found that Brad Keselowski won the first of two races at Talladega Superspeedway. "I don't know how to explain it," Fox's Darrell Waltrip said after the race. Explain what? The eight wrecks? The 33 cars involved? The most lead changes and the most leaders we've seen all year? This race would have had Charles Darwin stroking his long, gray beard. And maybe next year a better sponsor for the race may be a leading garbage-disposal manufacturer. The GEICO 500 was an entertaining and, at times, a downright scar...