Year: 2013

Tony Stewart. One guy crashes up and the rest of racing gets shaken up. At Watkins Glen, Max Papis was yanked away from his Grand-Am ride to pilot the #14 of Stewart. At Michigan, Austin Dillon was pulled away from his Nationwide duties to drive the #14.

At the center is a focus on non-traditional NASCAR racing. Stewart crashed while racing sprint cars on dirt. The next two weeks had drivers taking attention away from road course racing to drive the #14 and one of those (Papis) was taken from one road course to another. Dillon took attention away from his #1 points position in the NASCAR Nationwide Series and the race at Mid-Ohio (road course) to drive for Stewart at Michigan.

Dirt tracks and road courses. Dillon had earlier won the Camping World Series truck race at Eldora which is a dirt tack owned by Tony Stewart. Timing may not have suited Dillon as he stepped away from Mid-Ohio and his first in points position to drive for Stewart but it was an opportunity not to be skipped.

Even if he did have to start at Mid-Ohio in the back for missing qualifying…

Even if he’ll eventually be competing against Stewart as he moves to his own Cup ride, likely to be #3…

(Yes – The #3. He’s in it for Nationwide and will likely have it again. Sorry, Dale Sr. fans… No use boo-hooing so you might as well start pulling out some cheers…)

And even if his grandfather (Richard Childress) is losing Kevin Harvick to Stewart-Haas in 2014… (more…)

Road racing. It was a full weekend of road courses from cheap chumps all the way up the ladder to NASCAR.

Grand-Am and American Le Mans were at Road America which is interesting on several levels. The two series are combining for 2014 and running the same weekend showcased both series in action. They were still split over Saturday and Sunday but fans were shown both through the paddock, practices and racing.

NASCAR Nationwide and Sprint Cup were racing Watkins Glen, the second road coarse on their schedule and the last for the season. There is still debate about a road course in “The Chase” but that is likely several laps away.

Grand-Am and NASCAR were given a bit of a shake for these races as Tony Stewart (Stewart-Haas #14) was injured earlier in the week in a sprint car rollover crash. This left the #14 without a driver at “The Glen” and points hole where Stewart was (11th before Watkins Glen). The rush to fill that seat landed on Max Papis who is currently driving Grand-Am but also has time in Sprint Cup cockpits. That left Papis’ seat as a fill-in at Road America which put Kenny Wilden in as a co-driver with Papis’ usual partner, Jeff Segal.

How did the replacements run? Segal and Wilden put the AIM Autosport Ferrari into a GT Class 4th place. Max Papis drove Stewart’s #14 to a 15th place finish which, all things considered, wasn’t too bad as he started 29th.

Kyle Busch won at “The Glen”. BMW was the big winner at Road America as Starworks put theirs in for the Prototype Class and Turner put theirs in for GT. (more…)

NASCAR has been running road courses for a while. There is even debate floating about for having a road course in the final “Chase” portion of the Sprint Cup season. The “Big Guns” are racing the storied course at Watkins Glen this weekend (8/10-11).

However, few sanctioned development series offer the up and coming drivers a taste of the twists and turns found on road courses. This year, the K&N Pro Series (East) is doing so. The western series has been, which includes Sonoma also on the Sprint Cup schedule.

The East series now has Virginia International Raceway on their schedule as the first visit to a road course. Later, they will run at Road Atlanta. That is later… The first, at VIR, is coming up fast on August 23rd and 24th.

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We’re used to seeing Grand-Am, and coming in October, American Le Mans as well as other sports car series running laps around this little bit of beauty tucked away in Southside Virginia. Heavy, and somewhat cumbersome, stock cars are something different. Sprint Cup and Nationwide series test here annually because of some rules about sanctioned tracks and sanctioned testing and all that but racing stock cars, under a NASCAR series title, is something new. (more…)

Racing comes in all shapes and sizes. All summer long we’ve been inundated with IndyCar, Formula 1, dirt tracks, sprint cars, trucks, drags, NASCAR and more.

The bulk of it has been through television. Now, however, racing is back on and coming to Virginia and it gets rolling with what could be the most basic of the sport. It is “run what you brung” racing at Virginia International Raceway with the Optima Batteries Chump Car VIR 24 Hour Classic!

Yes – It’s a long name for a long race. 24 hours of a track full of cars of all different sizes and colors and makes and models. These cars are the result of tinkering and tweaking in garages and barns and little car shops all over the country. These are Chumps! They are at VIR to race this weekend (August 9-10-11). (more…)

“Third time is a charm” or perhaps things sometimes happen in “threes” or maybe it’s just luck…

Tony Stewart is out of the #14, Mobil 1 – Bass Pro Shops Chevrolet for Watkins Glen. That is certain. How many more races he could miss as the season runs closer to Richmond and “The Chase” is yet to be determined.

At Southern Iowa Speedway, Stewart was running quite well in his #14 sprint car when he slid into a slower car and went for an airborne tumble. The result was a smashed car and a broken leg. To be exact, he broke the bones in his lower right leg. (more…)

Trucks.

Trucks racing on dirt.

It certainly sounds normal. After all, trucks have been running rally and off-road in all sorts of competition. This time was a bit different…

These trucks don’t have long travel suspension or skid plates. These aren’t the trucks from the Lucas Oil Off Road Racing Series . These are NASCAR chassis sanctioned for Daytona and Dover, Martinsville and Michigan. These are the Camping World Series trucks and they ran on dirt at Eldora in Ohio.

Tony Stewart (Sprint Cup Champion / Stewart-Haas Racing) owns the facilities at Eldora and worked with NASCAR to bring the trucks to town. The only real mod on the trucks from their last race at Iowa were box-grooved tires. The surface of the track is hard-pack clay, dimpled a bit with special equipment and periodically moistened and re-set.

The combination made for a slick return to dirt track racing for a NASCAR premiere series. The first since 1970 when Richard Petty won at the fairgrounds in Raleigh, NC. (more…)

The Tour de France has been on. We’ve been somewhat focused on it. It has been a remarkable year for the sport of professional cycling which is racing to re-establish credibility as the cyclists themselves turn over the pedals up every mountain and through every shoulder to shoulder sprint. Cycling, for many years, has been plagued with accusation, secrecy, cover-ups and penalties surrounding the use of performance enhancing drugs and other “illegal” actions.

It came to a head earlier this year just weeks before the Tour started. Lance Armstrong, who claimed 7 Yellow Jersey wins of the Tour de France, was caught in an unescapable vise of accusation and indictment. After years of standing on the claims of never failing a drug test and no real evidence that could taint his record he was caught in a conspiracy outlined by former team mates and others closest to him. Coercion, power, drugs and even blood transfusions and alleged payoffs all came upon Armstrong like the peloton chasing down a failed breakaway. (more…)