Gene Nead will also return as crew chief.

K-LOVE radio will be back to sponsor the team in the Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway, while Curb Records will return as an associate sponsor.

McDowell said:

We have new cars, new bodies and lots of potential. Our team has really hustled over the off season to get us prepared for 2013. They’ve put together some awesome cars, and with Roush Yates horsepower under the hood, I know we can run with some of the best teams in the sport. I have a lot to look forward to this year and can’t wait for the green flag in Daytona.

Team owner Phil Parsons added:

We have some great relationships that are continuing, as well as some new ones, which have us very optimistic about 2013. I want to thank K-LOVE, Curb Records, Hyde Park Storage Suites and Ford for all of their support. Their partnerships have allowed us to grow and develop as a team, and we look forward to a great year with them.

McDowell attempted 33 Cup races last season, qualifying for 30 of them. His best finish was 23rd at Bristol Motor Speedway, in a year that was spent mainly starting and parking. His overall average finish was 38th.

Mike Skinner made two starts for PPR, finishing 39th and 40th. David Mayhew made one start for the team at Infineon Raceway, finishing 40th.

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A regular in the NASCAR Camping World Truck series, Piquet Jr. used his first career pole and laps led to earn his very first NASCAR national series win on the Wisconsin road course. In his third career NASCAR Nationwide start, the native of Brazil drove a flawless final 17 laps with the lead, earning a 2.258-second victory over runner-up Michael McDowell. He led a race-high 19 laps and also becomes the first Brazilian to win a NASCAR national series race.

“It’s difficult to put into words what I’m feeling,” Piquet Jr. said. “I think we had a great week since the first practice. I learned the track quite quickly and the team helped me out quite a bit.”

Piquet didn’t fight too hard for the lead until after the halfway mark, but that was a strategic move in order to save fuel in case there was a green-white-checkered finish like last year where the 4.048-mile course caused mayhem on pit crews trying to have enough fuel to finish the race.

“I could have fought harder in the middle of the race but there was no reason why,” Piquet said. “I wasn’t going to accomplish anything. I just held back a little bit and when it was the right moment I attacked. It was on one of the restarts where I passed Jacques [Villeneuve] and moved quick through the field and led the race at the end.”

McDowell and Ron Fellows finished where they started, at second and third respectively. Max Papis and Sam Hornish Jr. rounded out the top five.

“We had a really good car,” McDowell said. “The problem was I used up my car a little too much to get into second and then on that final restart I tried to be a little smart and anticipate Nelson trying to go a little early and tuck in behind him but Danica [Patrick] was right there. I kind of knew if I gave up a little bit to be at the bottom it would be worth it, but I just never got to the bottom. I tried to run down Nelson but his car was fast. I don’t know if we would have had anything for him if we would have stayed with him on that restart. I think he was saving a little bit on fuel, because when he needed to go it seemed like he could.”

The Sargento 200 had a tamer finish than last year, which had three green-white-checker finishes. Things did get a little interesting when one of the big names from last year, Villeneuve, made contact with Danica Patrick in Turn 5 on the final lap, which spun Patrick, dropping her from fourth to 12th, her eventual finish.

Villeneuve finished sixth, followed by Brian Scott, Kurt Bush, Cole Whitt and Justin Allgaier.

Patrick had a near-flawless day up until her greeting with Villeneueve on the last lap. Villeneueve said after the race though that he was not trying to wreck Patrick at all.

“We were racing hard and I wasn’t fighting with Danica,” Villeneuve said. “I was fighting with Max Papis and just before the braking, I guess he was wanting to cross over and go to the inside of Danica. He probably didn’t know I was there, so it pushed me in the grass. You don’t slowdown that much in the grass, so by that time I was on the racetrack again, I was going a little bit faster than Danica. That’s all.”

The race started with Piquet leading, but that didn’t last long as McDowell took the lead on Lap 3. Busch, who had to start 34th after having unapproved adjustments made to his car, made his way all the way up to 17th. McDowell and Piquet Jr. would end up pitting on Lap 6 for fuel, allowing Fellows to grab the lead.

With Fellows starting to pull away from the pack, a punctured tire slowed down all of Fellows’ momentum, causing him to enter the pits on Lap 9. Brian Scott was the beneficiary of that, allowing him to take the lead. Patrick, who started 10th, would make her way up to second place by Lap 11 and stay in the top five for most of the race.

T.J. Bell had a problem in Turn 14 on Lap 13, leading to the first caution of the day. Many of the drivers made their way to the pits, with Allgaier having to spend some extra time there while his pit crew had to help remove a water bottle that had fallen underneath his gas pedal.

With the caution lasting multiple laps, Scott was one of the last drivers to pit, surrendering his lead to McDowell. Papis would end up taking the lead from McDowell on Turn 3 of Lap 16. It wouldn’t be long until the next caution, however, as loose debris would cause another yellow flag.

After that caution, Miguel Paludo was the new leader, with Patrick running in second place. Patrick would make her move on Paludo on Turn 3 of Lap 21 to take the lead, but a little slide by Patrick in Turn 5 would give the lead right back to Paludo.

Another caution would take place when Kenny Habul went into the tire wall at Turn 5. Villeneuve was in the lead at the time. With the leaders pitting, Papis would be hit with a stop and go penalty and would have to return to the pits. Hornish Jr., who like many was trying to manage fuel, took the lead in Lap 33.

Turn 5 had some more action a little after that when Villeneuve was bumped in the back by McDowell. Villeneuve would drop from the top five all the way down to 22nd. Another caution involving Bell would slow everything down again. The leaders would pit again, hoping to make it the rest of the way with the fuel they had. This time Piquet Jr. would take the lead for the final time.

Allgaier would have an issue with his front left tire and wound up in the gravel on Turn 5 on Lap 37, hitting Busch on his way there. Points leader Elliot Sadler would get spun on Lap 39 and finished in 15th place. The series’ top rookie Austin Dillon remained second in the points with an 18th place finish. Dillon, who is 11 points behind Sadler, had issues with his car, which kept him out of contention.

Ricky Stenhouse Jr., who has been in the middle of a major slump, finished 11th and remains third in points, 23 behind Sadler. Hornish Jr. and Whitt round out the top 5 in the standings, with Patrick holding firm in the 10th spot.

The defending NASCAR Nationwide Series points champion extended his winning streak at Iowa Speedway.

Stenhouse dominated the field for most of the race to capture the checkered flag at the Pioneer Hi-Bred 250 in front of 34,000 fans Sunday. The win is the third straight at the 0.875-mile track for Stenhouse, who swept the two Nationwide races held here last year.

“Man, this one was fun,” Stenhouse said. “I love dominating those races.”

The Roush Fenway Racing driver claimed his third win in 10 starts this season, extending his series lead to 28 points over Elliott Sadler, who was second. Stenhouse grabbed his first lead by overtaking Sam Hornish Jr. on Lap 31 en route to leading 209 laps, tying an Iowa Speedway record set by Busch in 2010.

“It feels good to win three in a row,” Stenhouse said. “It was a lot of fun, leading that many laps.”

He became the first Nationwide driver to win three straight at a track since Kyle Busch won three straight at Texas Motor Speedway in 2009-2010. The streak was not a conversation topic, but no words were needed.

“That’s what we set out to do,” Stenhouse said. “We didn’t talk too much about it in the shop, but everybody knew we had one thing in mind coming here.”

The rest of the field could not keep up with Stenhouse, who blew away the field. It is different than Stenhouse’s win last August, when his engine failed on the final lap and he was pushed across the finish line by teammate Carl Edwards, who couldn’t avoid the accident.

“This is the way you want to run,” Stenhouse said. “You want to come out here and dominate.”

Cautions were the only thing that proved capable of closing the gap on Stenhouse’s leads, which grew to nearly five seconds at times. He held off the likes of Kurt Busch, Sadler and Justin Allgaier during late restarts.

The yellow flag caused Stenhouse to drop as low as fourth, after Danica Patrick’s blown right front tire slid her into the wall in the early going. Cole Whitt restarted at the lead spot, but Stenhouse soon passed Sadler for the lead near the midway point. Things became interesting with 65 laps remaining as Busch completed his move from worst to first after a restart. Less than a lap later, Stenhouse moved back into first and ran to Victory Lane.

“When you have a race car like we did you don’t ever want a caution to come out. It does and that’s just the way it is,” Stenhouse said. “I just wanted to make sure I was cautious. The race was just super-fast to get back to the front.”

The progression continues for Stenhouse and his team as they stay ahead of their pace set last year. Crew chief Mike Kelley prepared his team for a tough test, stressing it needed to work harder than ever to avoid losing steam.

“When you get on streaks or have a good deal going that if this was a race we didn’t win, I didn’t want it to kill our momentum,” Kelley said. “We had finished better at every track to this race than we did last year. We were 76 points ahead of where we were last year after nine races.”

With no Sprint Cup race Sunday and most racing fans’ eyes focused on Newton, the win had added importance.

“To come here to Iowa in front of a packed house,” Kelley said, “and to win the race the way we did today was a bold statement about where our team is and who our driver is.”

Sadler, who started on the pole, earned his third straight top-five finish at Iowa Speedway, leading two laps. He said the team made key adjustments through the race and was running its best at the end. The fourth and final caution, when former Motocross champion Travis Pastrana suffered electrical problems and bowed out at 26th hampered any chances to catch Stenhouse.

“It’s frustrating to finish second. I thought we had a car that could win the race,” Sadler said. “I’m proud of my guys to rebound the way they did.”

The frustration for Sadler continued after the event, when his No. 2 Chevrolet was found to be too low in post-race inspection. Officials said the issue would be further discussed next week at the NASCAR R&D center in Concord, N.C.

Michael McDowell snuck in late to place third. Austin Dillon was fourth, and increased his lead for Rookie of the Year honors.

McDowell said his car excelled on long runs. He climbed up to third after the third caution, but was assessed a speeding penalty in the pits, dropping him to the back of the pack.

“I just made a mistake,” McDowell said. “There were a lot of lapped cars between first and second and I tried to close the gap a little bit and just overdid it.

“It just showed how strong our car was.”

Busch had a strong run, finishing fifth after placing eighth at the NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race on Saturday night at Charlotte Motor Speedway. Drew Herring qualified the car 31st, but Busch started at the back.

“It’s great to sniff the lead, get close to it,” Busch said. “It’s just missing a couple little components.”

He was third when he got caught up with McDowell on the final lap. Busch saved the car in a lengthy sideways slide to preserve a fifth-place finish.

“At the end, my weak spot was Turn 1,” Busch said. “We were loose getting in there all day. McDowell got down in there, I was trying to hold him off and that’s what racing is all about. Two guys got together. Yeah, we got the short end of the stick but I don’t care.”

Darrell Wallace Jr., who made his Nationwide Series debut with Joe Gibbs Racing, placed ninth.

Parsons said:

Combining our efforts with Whitney Motorsports with the support of Mike Curb and having Michael (McDowell) behind the wheel of the No. 98 Ford means we’ll open the season at Daytona better prepared than ever before. We feel the timing couldn’t be better for us to build this program into a proper Sprint Cup Series effort.

The team will get engines from Roush Yates Racing. Veteran crew chief Gene Nead will lead the team. He has worked with McDowell before — at Michael Waltrip Racing and in the Nationwide Series at PPR.

McDowell said:

This is the opportunity I’ve been looking for to work with various Christian music outlets, Mike Curb and Curb Records, and our other partnerships that are taking shape. This opportunity will allow me to expand my brand and put me in a position to work with the types of companies I’ve been wanting to work with for a long time. On the racetrack, I’m excited about the chance to have my best NASCAR season ever.

Additionally, McDowell will run in the Nationwide Series with Joe Gibbs Racing.

The team has enough sponsorship to run the first fives races of the season.

McDowell will also drive Joe Gibbs Racing’s No. 18 in five races in the Nationwide Series. McDowell will pilot the car at Road America, Watkins Glen International, Michigan International Speedway, and Iowa Speedway twice.

While racing for second position on the 14th lap of the race, Hornday and Busch got three-wide going into Turn 1. Hornaday appeared to move up to pass a slower car, making it three-wide. Hornaday got a little loose and made contact with Busch, who was on his outside, in Turns 1 and 2.

Hornaday continued wiggling, trying to regain control of his truck. The two made contact again and both bounced of the wall. Both appeared to have tire rubs and cosmetic damage, but certainly nothing that would put them out of the race.

The caution came out and Hornaday was making his way back to pit road. Busch drove into the back of Hornaday and pushed him through Turn 3 wide open. He kept on Hornaday’s bumper, eventually turning him into the outside wall head-on. Hornaday made hard contact with the wall, but walked away from the incident.

Hornaday was a championship contender going into the race, but thanks to Busch, he will not win it this year. Busch was immediately parked for the remainder of the race.

On Saturday morning, Busch was then parked for the rest of the weekend’s events.

NASCAR president Mike Helton said:

The responsibility over the past two or three seasons we’ve given back to the drivers came, I think with a very clear understanding that there could be a line that got crossed. As annoying as the comments that I’ve made personally in the past about ‘we’ll know it when we see it’ might have been, we saw it [Friday] night. Obviously after the event, a lot of folks put their heads together to decide what, if anything, we would do. The volume of occurrences or reactions like I’m talking about, the rarity of those times that we’d make a step like this speak to the uniqueness and the severity of the topic. We understand the ramifications or the ripple effect of us making this type of a move, but we also take our responsibility very serious as to maintaining control of the event in all the garages; so it’s a balance there that we ultimately have to make a decision.

In response to NASCAR’s decision, Joe Gibbs Racing’s (Busch’s Sprint Cup team) owner Joe Gibbs said:

What we’re going to try to do now, [as in the past, with other situations involving Busch] we’ve tried to handle those things the right way and tried to make the right decisions and certainly that’s what we’re going to try to do with this.

Denny Hamlin was named to drive Busch’s Nationwide Series Toyota and Michael McDowell will drive JGR’s No. 18 Sprint Cup car.

This is the harshest punishment to date that NASCAR has issued since they instructed the drivers to “have at it.” This should serve as a warning to other drivers that “have at it” only goes so far.

An interesting note about the penatly, though, is that JGR is also punished by Busch’s actions when he was driving for his own Kyle Busch Motorsports team.

The team, which is owned by Phil Parsons and Randy Humphrey, fielded Toyota Camrys for Dave Blaney and Michael McDowell this season.

Both cars were out of the top 35 in owner’s points. The No. 66, which was driven by Blaney, was 44th in owner’s points, while the No. 55 driven by McDowell was 43rd.  The No. 55 missed 10 races this season while the No. 66 missed 15.

No word on what will happen to Prism’s Nationwide Series teams.

Update: Prism Motorsports owner Randy Humphrey said the team is not shutting down, contrary to what’s being reported. The team, he says, is working on its plans for 2011.

The team was penalized for violating Sections 12-1 (actions detrimental to stock car racing); 12-4-J (any determination by NASCAR officials that the race equipment used in the event does not conform to NASCAR required rules); and 20-2.3A (unapproved added weight location and unapproved added weight – lower A-frames were filled with weight pellets) of the 2010 NASCAR rule book.

Crew chief Thomas Tucker, car chief Richard Boga, and team manager Tony Furr were all indefinitely suspended from NASCAR. Tucker was also fined $50,000.

Driver Michael McDowell was penalized with the loss of 50 championship driver’s points, and team owner Dusty Whitney was penalized with the loss of 50 championship owner’s points.

This is the second time this season that the team was penalized. NASCAR found engine valves that were below the mandated weight on the No. 46 car during post-race inspection following the Sylvania 300 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. The team received similar fines and points penalties.

Update: Whitney Motorsports has appealed the penalty issued for violations found during opening day inspection for the AMP Energy Juice 500 at Talladega. The appeal is set to be heard Nov. 9th. In the meantime, the penalty has been deferred.

Team owner Dusty Whitney said:

They said indefinite on some of the suspensions of the team members, so I would just like a little more clarity and make sure it’s fair. … [Suspending] the team manager, it hits hard a little bit on a small team that is struggling to stay alive. We’ve done a good job this year, I think, for NASCAR putting on a show. We’re here to race and not to take NASCAR’s money. We do have to stay inside their box and make sure we do things right.

Update 2: Whitney Motorsports appealed the penalty for infractions found at Talladega. The team acknowledged that the part was illegal, and instead appealed the severity of the penalty.  The National Stock Car Racing Appeals Panel found that the penalties were appropriate for infractions of this magnitude.

As a result, the panel upheld the penalty. Whitney Motorsports to appeal this decision to the National Stock Car Racing Chief Appellate Officer.

According to SPEEDtv, the arms appeared to have been hollowed out and filled with ball bearings to make them heavier. NASCAR noticed the issue when some of the ball bearings fell out.  

The A-arms are located on one of the lowest points of the race car. Adding weight will make the car handle better, and it allows the team to lighten higher parts of the car.

Any penalties will be announced on Tuesday. If the team is penalized, it will not be the first time. Last month, WM was penalized for having engine valves that were below the mandated weight.  The McDowell lost 50 driver’s and Dusty Whintey lost 50 owner’s points.

Driver Michael McDowell was penalized 50 drivers’ points and owner Dusty Whitney was penalized 50 owners’ points. Crew chief Jeremy LaFaver has been suspended from NASCAR competition for six weeks, and the team was fined $50,000.

Whitney said:

I stand by NASCAR’s decision in that they give us a box to work within and as competitors we are all expected to work within that box. However, I am extremely disappointed in that as a small team we outsource our engine building and we entrust our engine builder to ensure we meet the NASCAR parameters and engine requirements. … We expect all of our vendors and outsourced suppliers to perform within the guidelines established by Whitney Motorsports and NASCAR and it is extremely unfortunate and costly when they do not.