GRAND BEND MOTORPLEX: It’s the BIG one – the IHRA Canadian Nationals – this weekend, Friday to Sunday. This long running and very successful event will feature Top Fuel Dragsters, the Hellfire Jet Truck, Nitro Dragsters, Nitro Harleys, Pro Mods, Pro Stocks, Top Sportsman, Top Dragster and, of course, bracket racing and Junior Dragsters. Race Sunday, lie on the Grand Bend beach Monday! BE THERE!!
See below for a short video clip of Hellfire, in action recently, at Toronto Motorsports Park. CREDIT: Howard Cohen
NHRA: The circuit raced in the beautiful wine country just north of San Francisco, in Sonoma, on the weekend.
The neat part of the track is that the drag strip runs right beside the start/finish line for the road course used by NASCAR (and others) and runs uphill in the shutdown area.
Steve Torrence continued his class domination winning Top Fuel over Tony Stewart’s girlfriend Leah Pruett as he extended his points lead (349 ahead of Antron Brown) even further.
Tony was actively involved with the team, even pouring the fuel into the tank. Leah took out number one qualifier Brittany Force in Round Two. The car count was light with only 12 T/F cars.
In Funny Car, Force Racing president Robert Hight bettered Matt Hagan in a very close final. Hagan is now only 21 points behind leader Bob Tasca III with Hight only 19 back of Matt. That points race will go right into the playoffs.
Second generation driver Aaron Stanfield won Pro Stock over Dallas Glenn. Aaron has closed to only 135 points behind leader Greg Anderson with Erica Enders third 28 points back of Stanfield.
Karen Stoffer got a very close win over Andrew Hines in the Pro Stock Motorcycle division winning by just 18 inches. Matt Smith has a dominating 170 point lead over Steve Johnson with Scotty Pollachek 102 points back of Johnson.
They head to the Auto Club Raceway at Pomona, California this weekend for the Lucas Oil Winternationals. I know, I know, it’s the summertime BUT they had a ‘little’ problem in February called COVID-19.
FORMULA ONE: Christian Horner is still complaining about the incident between Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton last week at Silverstone. I didn’t realize that Red Bull had gotten into the WHINE business!
Time to give it up as Max has wrecked a few other cars, himself. AND, in my opinion, it may be time for Formula One to utilize the NASCAR Race Control system.
They let the race play out and then, on the following Wednesday after calmer heads have prevailed, they announce any penalties. Their ‘the stewards are studying this or that’ tends to ruin F1 races.
NASCAR
NASCAR PINTY’S SERIES: Canada’s NASCAR circuit finally gets underway with a double header at Sunset Speedway this Sunday, August 1.
CUP SERIES: NASCAR’s Cup series is off two weeks for the Olympics. Their next race is Sunday, August 8 at Watkins Glen, New York.
XFINITY SERIES: They’re also off for two weeks for the Olympics. Their next race is Saturday, August 7 at Watkins Glen, New York.
CAMPING WORLD TRUCKS: Similarly, the trucks return Saturday, August 7 at The Glen.
FORMULA E: They ran a doubleheader in downtown London, England on the weekend. The cool part of the races was the fact that their pits were INSIDE the O2 Bubble and they actually raced through the building. Really hard to do that with ICE cars!
Purists tend to make fun of the series but it is slowly taking over in a lot of venues. And the cars – while all looking similar – have names such as Mercedes, Jaguar, BMW, Audi, Porsche and Nissan.
And the team owners represent some really BIG names, such as Andretti and Penske as well as having some pretty impressive sponsors such as Mahindra, Tag Heuer and Envision Virgin. And they have 25 drivers in their points championship. Now if they could only make them LOUD!!
IMSA: They return to action August 5 to 8 at the very long and very fast Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin.
INDYCAR: This series is off until August 8 when they run the inaugural Big Machine Music City street course at Nashville, Tennessee. I’m looking forward to that race.
I’m not sure what the reason is/was for that big gap in the schedule as the series has been picking up lots of new viewers this year but hopefully the interest will still be there after the break.
DID YOU KNOW?: Ron Fellows was in the pits Friday night at Delaware Speedway as his son, Sam, was racing, dipping his toes into stock car racing. If he has half the talent his father has, he will be a champion sooner rather than later.
Also… The races at Grand Bend Speedway were cancelled Sunday even though it was a bright and sunny day. The reason you ask? Major rains caused the infield and pit areas to be swamped.
Until next week!!
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