NASCAR PINTY’S SERIES: L.P. Dumoulin won Saturday’s Olymel GPO race at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park (nee Mosport) over Marc-Antoine Camirand in second and Treyten Lapcevich. One of the best runs went to track co-owner Ron Fellows’ son, Sam, who started 24th and finished 15th.
In Sunday’s Clarington 200, Camirand prevailed winning over Alex Tagliani and Kyle Marcelli. Tagliani is 8 points in front of L.P. Dumoulin and 30 points ahead of Kevin Lacroix in the championship.
The series is back in action next Sunday (late) afternoon with a doubleheader at Flamboro Speedway. Be there!
NASCAR CUP SERIES: What can you say about the Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway? Wow. You want excitement, you got excitement!
Denny Hamlin won the race with seven of the top-eight finishing spots filled by Chase contenders. Kyle Larson finished a banzai second as he was right against the wall pushing Hamlin to the flag.
Non-Chase driver Ross Chastain finished third. Points contenders Chase Elliott, Kyle Busch, William Byron and Michael McDowell were taken out early after spanking the wall, possibly due to the repaired ‘patch’ in that notorious Corner 2.
Larson leads the points due to his regular season bonus points by 34 over Hamlin and by 44 over Martin Truex, Jr. The next race is Saturday night at Richmond Raceway.
XFINITY SERIES: Noah Gragson won Saturday’s very exciting race at Darlington Raceway. Nobody was sure what to expect as the track had repaired the damaged surface in Corner 2. Apparently, none of the drivers got the memo that stated you don’t race two-wide in the corners at Darlington. Thus, the excitement!!
Nevertheless 35 of the 40, yes, 40 starters were running at the end. The reason for pointing out 40, you ask? The Cup race only had 37 starters while the Trucks had 38. Hmmm.
Harrison Burton finished second while Austin Cindric ended up third after starting way back in 24th (I’m not sure how the handicapping system works as he was the points leader a week ago).
Cindric now trails points leader A.J. Allmendinger by only one point in the regular season standings. Two races remain, Richmond this weekend and then Bristol, before their playoffs begin at Las Vegas.
NASCAR CAMPING WORLD TRUCKS: Sheldon Creed started from the pole Sunday afternoon at Darlington, and pretty much dominated the race, leading 104 of the 147 laps. John Hunter Nemechek finished second with Canadian Stewart Friesen in third.
Creed leads the points by 2 over Nemechek and 34 over Matt Crafton. Their next race is Thursday night, September 16 at bad fast Bristol.
NHRA: The five-day, ‘Fabulous Festival of Speed’ known as the Indy Nationals ran over the weekend. I worked my first National Event for the NHRA 54 years ago at the 1967 Nationals and that event is wonderfully seared into my brain, never to be erased.
Back then, it started Wednesday at noon with tech at the shopping center on 36th Street and then Thursday morning the gates opened on the Hallowed Grounds for move in.
In those days, there were 32-car fields for both Top Fuel and Top Gas. Today at many events it is hard to get a 16 car Top Fuel field and Top Gas was ‘put on the trailer’ many years ago. How times change!
I found it interesting that there were 134 Super Stockers AND an equal 134 Stockers. What are the odds? And much more interesting and profoundly sad, not one Canadian in those 268 entries.
Also, why did Sportsman super star Anthony Bertozzi get disqualified with his ‘98 Grand Am SS/AS? Curious minds want to know!
The Hemi Challenge has seen numbers drop over the years as specially-built, full-blown racecars have taken over the class. This year, only 18 ‘Hemis’ were in the house.
Steve Comella waded through the field and ran an 8.364 with his ‘68 Cuda to beat James Daniels in the final. I am old enough to remember when an 8.30 was a quick time for a Top Fueler!!
Raceday welcomed HUGE crowds, traffic lined up for miles waiting to get into the park. Steve Torrence continued his Top Fuel dominance taking out number one qualifier Brittany Force in the final. Torrance leads Force by ‘only’ 411 points before the Championship ‘reset’!!
In Funny Car, Tim Wilkerson qualified 8th but marched through the field to top Ron Capps in the final. Capps leads John Force by 43 points.
In Pro Mod, Jefferey Barker came out of the number 4 spot to take out ‘Stevie Fast’ Jackson in the final.
Once again, the uber popular class was not allowed to run with the regular Round 3 pros nor with the pro finals. VERY head scratching.
Erica Enders qualified third in Pro Stock and outran #1 qualifier Kyle Koretsky in the final. Greg Anderson leads Enders by 105 points.
Eddie Krawiec qualified number one in Pro Stock Motorcycle and took out Angelle Sampey in the final. Matt Smith is 26 points ahead of Steve Johnson.
The only downside of the weekend were the ‘traction problems’ especially in the right lane. In Top Fuel, 9 of the 15 pairs ‘lost traction’ while in Funny Car it was 13 out of 15!!
Pro Mod had 5 and Pro Stock even had 2. I realize there was a lot of rain but nevertheless…..! The next race is this weekend at Maple Grove, Pennsylvania.
FORMULA ONE: The ‘clutching of pearls’ over the rained-out race at the Spa one week ago went on all of last week. F1 Managing Director Ross Brawn seems to have gotten most of the flak especially with his ill-conceived comment about ‘the bravery’ exhibited by the drivers during, wait for it, qualifying!! Huh? I’m sure the FIA is very busy reexamining their rule book and their rain delay policies.
They raced Sunday at the Circuit Zandvoort for the Dutch Grand Prix. And what a wonderful track. Banking, on an F1 course? Who knew? None of the normal (except COTA) flat track, flat corners so prominent on the circuit.
Now how did Haas go from one of the darlings of the sport a few years ago to DFL these days? Lucy, you got some ‘splainin to do!!
As for the race itself, it was almost scripted with pole sitter Max Verstappen dominating and winning the race at his ‘home track’ much to the delight of the HUGE crowd, most dressed in orange.
And the orange smoke bombs (that had apparently been banned) were going off all race long. His father Jos, a former F1 driver, was very happy looking on during the trophy presentation.
Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas finished second and third for Mercedes. Max has regained the points lead by three points over Lewis with Bottas third.
Canadians Stroll and Latifi finished 12th and 14th, respectively.
Now, about that Winner’s Circle stage? Was that an afterthought or what? LOL Next race this weekend at Monza, Italy.
IMSA: This weekend at Laguna Seca, California.
INDYCAR: Their next race is Sunday at Portland.
APC Late Model Series: They’re on-track at Sunset Speedway this coming Saturday night. This past Saturday night, second-generation racer Kyle Steckly won at Flamboro Speedway in his series debut, holding off Treyten Lapcevich and Brandon Watson.
Until next week!!
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