NASCAR PINTY’S SERIES: The Pinty’s Series raced on the tricky street circuit at Three Rivers, Quebec (oops, Trois Rivieres, pardon!!) on the weekend, with one of the series’ largest car counts in quite a while. A very encouraging sign!
Alex Tagliani won the race over J.F. Dumoulin and Kevin Lacroix. Raphael Lessard leads the points over L.P. Dumoulin and Treyten Lapcevich.
Their next race is on the ICAR Circuit at the old Mirabel Airport north of Montreal on Saturday, August 28. Wouldn’t it be really cool to let them race out on those big, long runways? Hmmm.
GRAND BEND MOTORPLEX: ATTENTION IN THE PITS: Wow, if you are a drag racer you MUST head to the Bend this weekend. It’s a huge drag race Friday to Sunday. Box and No Box both pay $7,500 to win, on both Saturday and Sunday. Top Dragster and Top Sportsman both pay $4,000 to win, a 32-Car Shootout Friday and Saturday with $10,000 to win and Stock/Super Stock paying $2,000 both Saturday and Sunday.
There’s also a big Gambler’s Race on Friday. Junior Dragsters run for $500 both days with no entry fee.
ST. THOMAS DRAGWAY: Ian Hill’s very successful Canada Heads Up Street Car Shootout Series put on another great show on the weekend at Sparta.
This series runs Super Street, EZ Street and a bunch of index classes as well as classes for bikes/sleds. The traction was great and the weather, finally, was perfect.
NASCAR CUP SERIES: Much discussion has been heard about NASCAR and Penske switching the Brickyard race from the oval to the infield road course. Cries of tradition being lost, etc., etc., I couldn’t disagree more.
The spectator counts for the oval race had atrophied badly, of late, and something had to be done. And it WAS!!
There was more action on the very first lap than in all of the last three Brickyard 400s, combined, in my opinion. This was a VERY exciting race with passing, bumping and banging; things that had been sadly lacking out on the oval.
Fortunately, the decision was made, overnight, to remove the obtrusive ‘turtle’ bumper strip on the outside of one of the corners. It had been put in place to ‘discourage’ drivers from ‘going wide’ in that corner.
Unfortunately, hitting it caused severe damage to some of the Xfinity cars. As always, the road course masters finished at the front. A.J. Allmendinger won the Cup race over Ryan Blaney and Kyle Larson.
Larson had knocked it out of the park the night before by winning the uber-prestigious Knoxville Nationals (on DIRT!!). Now, about that ‘curbing,’ especially in Corner 6? What’s up with THAT?
About two million dollars worth of race cars were destroyed by it with four to go!! NOT good. Anyway, Larson continues to lead the regular season points by 22 over Denny Hamlin and by 157 over Kyle Busch.
The Cup cars run this Sunday at Michigan International Speedway but, sadly, the usual LARGE contingent of Canadians will not be there due to the pandemic and the borders still being closed.
XFINITY SERIES: Austin Cindric won the second half of the IndyCar/NASCAR double header last Saturday, for car owner and track owner Roger Penske.
The win extends his points lead to 82 over A.J. Allmendinger who finished second in the race just ahead of Daniel Hemric. The series resumes Saturday at Michigan International Raceway.
CAMPING WORLD TRUCKS: Their next race is Friday, at Gateway, in St. Louis.
NHRA: The NHRA tour stopped at Heartland Park in Topeka, Kansas on the weekend. In Top Fuel it appears that the traction was great as there were only two ‘loss of traction’ incidents. This was the fewest since the Four Wides (one only!) at Charlotte on May 15.
Brittany Force qualified #1 and marched through the field for the win over the always-smiling Clay Millican. She took out points leader Steve Torrence in the second round and now sits 342 points back of Steve in the points.
There are two more events, Brainerd and the Indy Nationals before the playoffs begin in Reading, PA.
In Funny Car, Brit’s father, the legendary John Force, qualified sixth and also marched through the field bettering J.R. Todd, the number one qualifier in the final. Force now leads Ron Capps by 29 points.
It appears the old guard is being replaced in Pro Stock as new names keep popping up. Dallas Glenn won from the #4 qualifying spot over Kyle Koretsky. Greg Anderson still leads the points by 154 over Aaron Stanfield.
During eliminations, something happened that I have not seen for years. Sportsman standout Bruno Massel and Mason McGaha got into a staging battle and did not obey the starter’s instructions to stage NOW.
As a result, both cars were DQ’d giving low qualifier Troy Coughlin, Jr. a bye run in the second round.
John Carbone qualified #1 in Factory Stock Showdown and bested Leah Pruett in the final. Aaron Stanfield leads the points by 61 points over David Barton. They race again this weekend in Brainerd, Minnesota.
FORMULA ONE: Aston Martin appealed its disqualification for not being able to supply one litre of fuel at the end of the Hungary race but that appeal was unsuccessful. Their next race is Spa on August 29.
IMSA: They’re off until September 12 at Laguna Seca, California.
INDYCAR: Will Power, driving for track and series owner Roger Penske, won the first race of the IndyCar/NASCAR Xfinity double header Saturday at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Former Formula One driver Romain Grosjean finished a strong second with Colton Herta third. Their next race is Saturday night at the mile and a quarter track at Gateway in St. Louis.
DID YOU KNOW?
Several teams in action at the NPS race at the GP3R sported tribute stickers for Rob Morton, thanks to Qwick Wick and 22 Racing. SAD NEWS: We have lost Rob Morton, a long-time and founding member of Inside Track. ‘Mort’ was very well known in the racing community and he always had a big smile on his face whenever I saw him. He will be missed.
- The 24 Hours of LeMans goes this weekend, a little later than usual due to COVID. And it starts Saturday morning at 10 a.m. on the wonderful hybrid Discovery/Velocity (Rogers 534) and they are running all 24 hours live!!
- This week and weekend is the traditional Woodward Cruise in Detroit. And, here again, the thousands and thousands of Canadians will not be there. And the ‘really big’ show at the M1 Course will be on.
Until next week!!
