(NASCAR)—-Four losers at Martinsville this weekend will race for the biggest win in NASCAR at Phoenix next weekend.
Alex Bowman bumped Denny Hamlin out of the lead in with six laps (about three miles) left in the race and beat Kyle Busch and Brad Keselowski to the line for the win. Busch and Keselowski had to win to make the championship four.
Hamlin, who has never won the Cup championship, still makes the final four. So does defending champion Chase Elliott, Martin Truex Jr., the 2017 champion, and Kyle Larson, who has more wins this year than any other driver.
Bowman’s win at Martinsville is his fourth this year. Ryan Blaney and Joey Logano join Busch and Keselowski as the four semi-finalists who didn’t make it to the last round.
Racing on the half-mile track crowded with 38 stock cars always produces some raw nerve, even when seven drivers are not competing for the three remaining slots in the championship race—Larson was guaranteed one of the final four positions because of wins in the two previous races.
Hamlin did not take the incident with Bowman well, calling him “a hack,” although Bowman has twice as many wins this year as Hamlin, and “just terrible.” Bowman says the incident was accidental, caused by too much speed going into the corner, forcing his car up the rack slightly to hit Hamlin.
(INDYCAR)—Plenty of action on the track, but competition. INDYCAR teams have been testing various car-driver combinations but no significant signings have been reported for several days. The new season starts February 27 on the streets of St. Petersburg, Florida, the earliest season-start for INDYCAR in several years.
FORMULA 1)—Four races will decide the winner of one of the tightest championship races in recent memory. The Mexico Grand Prix will be run next weekend.