What a great weekend for racing fans! Almost every series was in action and action is the operative word as there was plenty of it in almost every race. A good time was had by all except maybe Lewis and Max!!
NASCAR PINTY’S SERIES: The second race at Flamboro Speedway yesterday was cancelled due to the weather. Andrew Ranger won the first race but I only learned that through Facebook.
Alex Tagliani continues to lead the points with an 8-point lead over L.P. Dumoulin and a 30 point lead over Kevin Lacroix. Hopefully, next week we can post an update for any rain date for the second race. As of right now, the next race – the season finale – is slated for Delaware Speedway on Sunday, September 26. BE THERE!!
UPDATE: It’s sounding like the NASCAR Pinty’s Series will have a 150-lapper at Delaware on Friday, September 24 to make up for the rained-out Chaudière races. And to make up for the rainout of the Qwick Wick 125 at Flamboro, yesterday, they’re going to run two races on the Sunday at Delaware, on Sept. 26. Stay tuned to NASCAR.ca for confirmation.
NASCAR CUP SERIES: Martin Truex, Jr. won the second race in the playoffs ‘Round of 16′ Saturday night at Richmond Raceway. Denny Hamlin finished second and Christopher Bell was third, all three driving Toyotas for Joe Gibbs.
Kyle Larson leads the Playoff Points by 24 over Denny Hamlin and 38 over Truex. Four cars will drop out of the points after Bristol next Saturday night. Kurt Busch, Alex Bowman, Tyler Reddick and Michael McDowell sit 13th to 16th right now.
Kurt hit the wall hard 40 laps in and finished last. The race featured many exciting moments with cars going three and four-wide.
NASCAR XFINITY SERIES: Noah Gragson won Saturday afternoon’s race at Richmond over Justin Haley and John Hunter Nemechek. As in the Cup race there were many wild moments with three and four wide racing as well. A.J. Allmendinger still leads the regular season points by 5 over Austin Cindric and 121 over Justin Allgaier. The points will reset for the playoffs after the race at Las Vegas in two weeks. Their next race is Friday night at Bristol.
NASCAR CAMPING WORLD TRUCKS: They race this Thursday night at bad-fast Bristol.
NHRA: Tt appears that the track prep crew did a much better job at Maple Grove than at some other tracks this year. Top Fuel only had five ‘lost traction’ pairs while Funny Car had only 1. Good job!
Billy Torrence took out Justin Ashley in the Top Fuel final. Tommy Johnson, Jr., beat John Force in the Funny Car final. Greg Anderson topped Erica Enders in Pro Stock and Steve Johnson defeated Eddie Krawiec in Pro Stock Motorcycle.
In the Top Fuel points, Steve Torrence has a 20 point lead over Brittany Force and 30 points over Antron Brown. In Funny Car Ron Capps has a 20 point lead over John Force and 30 points over Bob Tasca III.
Greg Anderson has a 20 points lead over Erica Enders in Pro Stock and a 30 point lead on Aaron Stanfield. In Pro Stock Motorcycle Matt Smith has a 20 point cushion on Steve Johnson with Scotty Pollachek 30 points back.
Their next race is this weekend at Charlotte and, yes, Pro Mods will be there!!
FORMULA ONE: Wow, talk about an exciting race at Monza! The stars aligned and there was a repeat of the Verstappen / Hamilton clash from the British Grand Prix.
Max had a brutal (11 seconds) pit stop (trouble with the right front wheel apparently) and came back out in tenth. Hamilton came out of the pits a little later and Max was closing hard going into the corner and tried to pass Lewis on the outside. Lewis held his line, Max hit the rumble strips and he ended up on top of Lewis taking out both cars at lap 25.
The stewards decided that Max was at fault and he will get a three position grid penalty at Sochi. Daniel Ricciardo won the race in his McLaren and his winner’s circle interview was awesome for its freshness! They still can’t chisel the smile off his face!
It appears that McLaren is returning to the Ron Dennis winning ways of yore! Teammate Lando Norris finished second and Valtteri Bottas third after Perez, in the remaining Red Bull, was handed a five-second penalty for ‘passing off course’ and dropped to fifth behind Leclerc’s Ferrari.
Max still leads the points by 5 over Lewis while Mercedes leads the manufacturer’s points by 18 over Red Bull. This is definitely one of the closest battles in recent years.
As for the Canadian drivers, Stroll finished a strong 7th and Lafiti was 11th. Their next race is September 26 in Sochi, Russia. Will it be Round Three for the heavyweights? Stay tuned!!
IMSA: They put on a great show at Laguna Seca yesterday. Linda and I drove that track about thirty years ago and the ‘pucker factor’ coming over the blind hill down into the ‘corkscrew’ is severe!!
Ricky Taylor in an Acura won the DPi class over Renger Van der Zande and Felipe Nasr, both driving Cadillacs. In the ‘three-car only’ GTLM class, Corvettes – with Nick Tandy and Antonio Garcia – finished first and second while Matt Campbell ended up third in a Porsche.
Laurens Vanthoor in a Porsche won in GTLM with Bryan Sellers second in a Lamborghini and Patrick Long third in another Porsche. Ricky Taylor leads the points in Dpi in a tie with Felipe Albuquerque with Pipo Derani third 41 points back. Antonio Garcia leads GTLM in a tie with Jordan Taylor and Tommy Milner third 214 points back all driving Corvettes.
Veteran Bill Auberlin is tied with BMW teammate Robby Foley in GTD while Roman DeAngelis and teammate Ross Gunn are second in an Aston Martin and Zacharie Robichon and teammate Laurens Vanthoor are third in a Porsche. Their next race is a September 26 in a double header with IndyCar in Long Beach.
INDYCAR: IndyCar had a VERY interesting start to its race at Portland, Oregon. Polesitter Alex Palou and teammate Alexander Rossi starting second didn’t make it through the first corner as they were taken out by an over-aggressive move from behind by another competitor.
However, after 110 gruelling laps they ended up exactly where they started, first and second.
Scott Dixon finished third. In the points, Pato O’Ward leads Palou by 10 points and Josef Newgarden by 22. James Hinchcliffe was the only drop out from the first lap carnage and finished last. Dalton Kellett finished just in front of Hinch completing 50 laps.
Their next race is this weekend at Monterey and the following weekend at Long Beach.
APC SERIES: The two United Racing Series tours were in action this past Saturday night at Sunset Speedway. Lane Zardo scored his first win of the season in the Qwick Wick Super Stocks, surviving to win a caution-filled race and multiple restarts.
And in the APC Series, J.R. Fitzpatrick went ‘back to front’ to score an exciting win in what has otherwise been a frustrating and emotional season. Both tours wrap up their seasons in two weeks at Delaware Speedway.
DID YOU KNOW?
– There is a HIGH banked oval at the Formula One track at Monza? It is 2.64 miles long and is banked at 30 degrees. For comparison, Talladega is 2.66 miles, just 0.02 miles longer!! We saw the track about thirty years ago and the oval track was pretty much overgrown at that time. About ten years ago they refurbished the track and it is in much better shape today.
– At Reading there were 57 Super Stockers and 68 Stockers but only 13 Top Fuelers and 13 Funny Cars. In a real head-scratcher, the quickest Stock qualifier, Ken Miehl’s ‘08 Mustang FS/AA ran an 8.448 while the quickest Super Stock, Al Smyth’s SS/AH ‘68 Cuda, ran an 8.578. When was the last time a Stocker qualified quicker than a Super Stocker? Cool.
Until next week!!
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