(NASCAR)—Kurt Busch beat brother Kyle in the Atlanta race Sunday, raising questions about how often that has happened in NASCAR history. It’s rare but not unprecedented. The Busch brothers have done it four times, each finished ahead of the other twice.
There have been several sets of brothers who have run against each other since June 19, 1949 when NASCAR ran its first race at the old Charlotte track.
After Sonoma six years ago, NASCAR combed through its records and found the first time brothers finished 1-2 was in the second year of the series. Tim and Bob Flock finished 1-2 at Charlotte on April 2, 1950, the first of thirteen times they went 1-2. There was a third brother, Fonty, but he never made it a 1-2-3 finish for the family and was never part of a 1-2 finish with either Tim or Bob.
Bobby and Donnie Allison did it four times. Herb and Donald Thomas went 1-2 in a 1965 race in Hillsboro, NC.
Terry and Bobby Labonte went 1-2 three times. Bobby was on top two of those times.
Jeff Burton won three races with brother Ward in second.
So the answer to the question of how many times is 28.
Other brother combinations failed to do it.
Darrell and Michael Waltrip never did it. Nor did the three Bodine brothers—Geoff, Brett, and Todd. The Wallace boys of Missouri, Rusty, Kenny, and Steve didn’t pull it off. Benny and Phil Parsons didn’t either. Neither did Richard and Maurice Petty.
Back to the weekend’s NASCAR: Kurt became the twelfth driver to lock in a playoff position with his first win of the year. Until the run at Atlanta he had been fighting to stay in the playoff picture on points after a slow start in 2021. He led more than half of the laps; Kyle led a little more than a third of them. Kyle blamed his brother’s teammate, Ross Chastain, for slowing his charge for the lead, allowing Kurt to stretch the margin between the two brothers. Observers say Chastain did not exactly block the younger brother but he did take away Kyle’s preferred line around the track in the late running. The margin of victory was a little more than 1.2 seconds. Chastain finished a lap down in 21st.
Martin Truex, Jr., Alex Bowman, and Ryan Blaney rounded out the top five. The all have victories to clinch their places in the playoffs.
Only five races remain to determine the sixteen drivers who will run for the title in late November. Denny Hamlin and Kevin Harvick, who won sixteen races between them last year but who are winless in 2021, Austin Dillon and Tyler Reddick fill out the remaining playoff slots based on their points. Chris Buescher, Matt DiBenedetto, Chastain and Bubba Wallace have the five races to win their way onto the list or gain large quantities of points to force their way into the final four slots.
NASCAR races at the New Hampshire Motor Speedway at Loudon next Sunday.
(INDYCAR)—INDYCAR is taking a summer break and will race next on August 8 at Nashville.
This weekend was one of the great party events of big-time auto racing, the Goodwood Festival of Speed which this year paid special honors to Roger Penske. One of the events at the festival each year is a hill climb and Penske, who is 84, took the wheel a 2008 Porsche RS Spyder that won the Sebring 12 Hours to run the annual Goodwood Hillclimb. Several of his cars that raced at Indianapolis or in NASCAR and Formula 1 also were featured.
(SRX)—INDYCAR veteran Marco Andretti has won his first race in a stock car. He won the SRX race at the Slinger, Wisconsin quarter-mile oval Saturday night, beating back a challenge from 17-year old Luke Fenhaus, who earned a chance to race against the bigger names in the race by winning the Slinger Nationals earlier in the week.
The series wraps up its six-race first season next weekend at Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway. Series founder Tony Stewart has a 38-point lead in the standings.
(FORMULA 1)—F1 was off this weekend before running the British Grand Prix at Silverstone next Sunday.