NASCAR PINTY’S SERIES: They will be running at Three Rivers, Quebec (oops, Trois-Rivières!!) this weekend, on that very challenging and tight street circuit. It will be a great show.
CUP SERIES: Kyle Larson continued his mastery of the road courses with a big victory at Watkins Glen, winning with a 2.4 seconds margin. Chase Elliott failed pre-race inspection and was forced to start the race from the rear. But he fought back through the field and finished a strong second behind the #5 car.
Martin Truex finished a very impressive third having led the most laps. Christopher Bell also failed pre-race tech and went to the back, but came back to finish seventh.
I’m still not clear on what a ‘rear window air deflector’ violation is, as that is what they apparently were penalized for. The race was actually pretty tame with only one caution flag for the #51 car of James Davison stopped on the track.
Having said that, there were a lot of cases of drivers getting sideways or worse without hitting the walls. Larson is now tied for the regular season points lead with Denny Hamlin. William Byron is third.
I’m looking forward to seeing these guys on the road course at Indy this Sunday.
ARCA: With NASCAR now owning the series, it was very interesting to see ARCA run at Watkins Glen on Friday. I was expecting a typical wreck fest but instead we were treated to a very good and competitive race.
Twenty-nine cars took the green with Joe Gibb’s grandson Ty on the pole. Corey Heim won the race over Austin Hill and Gibbs. It was great to see Dale Quarterly in the race. The former AMA Superbike racer raced with us back in the ACT days. He unfortunately got spun 15 laps into the race and contacted the wall.
XFINITY SERIES: I hope and pray that the ‘Formula One Stewards’ did NOT see any of the four NASCAR races at the Glen on the weekend. The reason you ask? They would be going nuts over the track limit ‘violations’!!
Take note F1 – THAT’s how you sell tickets!! If it’s paved let ‘em race!!
Basically three cars fought it out with 18 year old Ty Gibbs getting the win over Allmendinger and Austin Cindric. Alex Labbé had problems and finished 39th.
Cindric still leads the points by 80 over ‘Dinger’ and 141 over Daniel Hemric.
The most interesting thing about the race, you ask? How about the name: Skrewball Peanut Butter Whiskey 200!! Now, aren’t you sorry you asked? LOL! Their next race is this coming Saturday on the Indy road course.
CAMPING WORLD TRUCKS: It would seem that the truckers should have watched the ARCA race to learn how to get through Corner One!! LOL
On the initial start, several trucks ‘overcooked’ the corner and carnage ensued. As if that wasn’t bad enough, they had a restart on Lap 10 and they did it again with several cars not getting through 1 ‘smoothly.’
Rain ended the race 11 laps short of the scheduled distance and Austin Hill (yup, same guy who finished second in the ARCA race!!) won over John Hunter Nemechek and Sheldon Creed.
Canadian Stewart Friesen finished 21st. AJ Allmendinger had the quickest truck, but he experienced ‘front end problems.’ Not sure what, exactly, but it dropped
him to 28th. ‘Dinger’ was filling in for series regular Chase Purdy who unfortunately had a positive COVID-19 test and had to sit out the Glen.
Nemechek leads the points with 89 over Hill and 103 over Ben Rhodes. Next race Friday, August 20 at Gateway.
ST. THOMAS DRAGWAY: Last Friday, the East London Timing Association (E.L.T.A.) held its annual car show and drag race during the day, at St. Thomas Dragway. The park was FULL of every kind of street rod and race car known to man.
The club used to put on an awesome show on Nightingale Ave. beside their shop in London but ran out of space so they moved the show to Sparta a couple of years ago. SMART move. It was old home week with many, many racers from way back in the day enjoying the day. Make sure to put it on your ‘Bucket List’ for next year.
Ian Hill’s very successful Canada Heads Up Street Car Shootout Series will be in action this upcoming weekend on both Saturday and Sunday, at the Sparta strip. Be there!!
GRAND BEND MOTORPLEX: The wildly popular Windsor Weekend runs this weekend Friday, Saturday (including Night of Fire) and Sunday. Don’t miss it.
NHRA: The series will be back in action at Topeka, Kansas this coming weekend. About the only close battle is in Funny Car with Ron Capps leading Bob Tasca III by only five points and only 57 points back to sixth place. The other four Pro Classes are not as close although in Pro Mod Jose Gonzalez leads Justin Bond by just 58 points.
FORMULA ONE: The dust still hasn’t settled from the Hungaroring race, a week ago. Aston Martin appealed its DQ and the hearing will be held this afternoon.
As well, five grid spot penalties were issued to both Lance Stroll and Valtteri Bottas, with those to be served at Spa. Apparently those two were blamed for the first lap collisions. Seems a wet track had nothing to do with it?
Speaking of Bottas, the rumour mill is running full throttle as to where he will be driving next year. Doesn’t look like Mercedes is an option for him!! It would appear that George Russell has that seat wrapped up.
IMSA: They returned to the very long and very fast Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin. I have always been enthralled with the iconic ‘Speedville’ bridge at the circuit, although it wasn’t there when I was at the track about 30 years ago.
The race started off like an F1 race… the start is ‘under review’!! LOL It was good to see all the classes back in action including all three Prototype classes.
Dan Cameron and Olivier Pla won the Dpi class in an Acura over Magnussen and vander Zande in a Cadillac and Tincknell and Jarvis in a Mazda. MacNeil and
Cooper in a Porsche won GTLM while Auberlen and Foley won GTD in a BMW. Vanthoor and Robichon finished fifth in the Pfaff ‘plaid’ Porsche.
BTW: Are any other fans out there tired of hearing ‘Well, Jeremy’ on and on during the IMSA broadcasts? Sadly there were, once again, only three cars in GTLM, two of them Corvettes. Time for a mercy killing on that class?
INDYCAR: I did NOT realize how bad fast the road course would be at the inaugural Big Machine Music City at Nashville, Tennessee.
In-car cameras showed some wild speeds, especially over the one bridge. Great job by the Penske organization for putting that race together and getting it onto the schedule.
Awesome to see Dario Franchitti give the command to start engines. I still can’t figure out how they got the green on the initial start as I saw no light(s). Maybe through their radios?
Canadian Dalton Kellett had problems early on, apparently ignition related. Lots of carnage early, too. Marcus Ericsson got some Olympic quality ‘airtime’ climbing over Sebastian Bourdais on an early race restart.
Polesitter Colton Herta put on quite a show coming through the pack after a pit stop but, sadly, he overcooked a corner and stuffed it into the wall with six laps to go.
Marcus Ericsson recovered from his wild ‘Flying Wallenda’ act and won the race over Scott Dixon and Canada’s own HINCH in third!!
James Hinchcliffe drove a steady race all day and it paid off for him. Alex Palou has a 42-point lead over Scott Dixon in the championship, with Patricio O’Ward in third.
Next race: Saturday, a double header with the NASCAR Xfinity boys on the Indy road course. The difference in times with the two classes will make for some interesting ‘chatter’!!
DID YOU KNOW?
– The forest fires in British Columbia that came close to the Area 27 road course last week also came even closer to Sun Valley Speedway in Vernon. Hopefully everything will be okay at both tracks.
– That Tony Novotny has actually sold Performance Fiberglass and has officially retired? I figured he would die there and would get outfitted with a fiberglass coffin! LMAO!
Until next week!!
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