By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contribution Editor
(NASCAR)—Win when it really counts.
Denny Hamlin, winless this year, picks up his first victory in the first of NASCAR’s ten playoff races and becomes the first driver to lock in a place in the next round. Hamlin held off a banzai charge off the last turn by pre-race favorite Kyle Larson to win the Southern 500 at Darlington.
For most of the event, it was a two-man race between the drivers who finished 1-2 in regular season points. They combined to lead 302 of the race’s 367 laps. Larson, who challenged Hamlin for most of the last stage of the race launched an all-out run for the lead on the last turn, scraping the wall as he tried to get outside of Hamlin, finished two-tenths of a second short of his sixth win of the year. Ross Chastain was third, his best finish of the year. Martin Truex Jr., and Kevin Harvick rounded out the top five.
Hamlin, who finished in the top five in half of this year’s races—including four thirds and a second—automatically qualifies for the round of 12 that will go on for the championship after the next two races. Larson still leads in points, however, thanks to bonus points he piled up for victories, stage wins, and being the top points driver after the regular season.
Harvick and Tyler Reddick remain the only playoff drivers without a checkered flag this year.
The next playoff race will be at Richmond next Saturday night.
(INDYCAR)—INDYCAR resumes racing next Sunday afternoon on the road circuit at Portland, the first of the three races that will close out its season. The last three races promise to be a shootout between Pato O’Ward, Alex Palou, and Josef Newgarden. O’Ward took over the points lead from Palou three weeks ago at Worldwide Technology Raceway across the river from St. Louis and Newgarden put himself in the championship picture by winning the race there. The three are separated by 22 points.
Six-time champion Scott Dixon is lurking in fourth, only 43 back.
This has been a year of emergence for INDYCAR’s young drivers as the series looks at changes coming in the next couple of years.
We spent some time with INDYCAR President Jay Frye after the INDYCAR/NASCAR tripleheader at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway last month, talking about this year, next year, and the new engines coming in 2022—–and what might or might not be in the more distant future.
Frye is a Mizzou graduate (marketing/education), a former Tiger football player (tight end/offensive tackle)and Rock Island Illinois native who says he learned to drive by driving a truck for the family-owned garbage trucking company. Before joining INDYCAR, Frye was with NASCAR, where he was named by ESPN the 2008 NASCAR Executive of the Year.
We started by discussing the weekend tripleheader of two NASCAR races and an INDYCAR race on the IMS road course
AUDIO:frye edited 2021 indy
Donald Davidson was the Speedway historian for more than 50 years before his retirement last year.
(FORMULA 1)—Max Verstappen has become the first Dutch driver in the 71-year history of F1 to win the Dutch Grand Prix.
His seventeenth career victory breaks a record he had shared with British great Sterling Moss for the driver with the most victories, but no F1 championship. That, however, could change this year.
Verstappen picked up his seventh win of the year, finishing twenty seconds ahead of Lewis Hamilton and taking the points lead from the seven-time champion. Verstappen is now up by three. He barely beat Hamilton for the pole but Hamilton had nothing for him during the race.
Hamilton teammate Valterri Bottas was third and afterwards announced that he was going to be the number one driver for Alfa Romeo next year. Taking his place on the Mercedes roster will be George Russell, who has driven this year for the Williams team, which uses Mercedes engines. His success in F1 feeder series championships has positioned him to take the place of Bottas, who has been second-banana to Hamilton, who has described him as the best teammate he’s ever had.