Sports: Racing—Another Last Lap Gift; Fast and Green; F1 is Bullish
(NASCAR)—For the second race in a row, a collision between two leaders within yards of victory hands a race to a driver running third. And for the second straight week, the winning driver led only one lap in the race.
The beneficiary of the misfortune for the first two cars was Ross Chastain, the 16th leader in a race that saw 41 lead changes and four racing cautions involving fourteen of the thirty-nine starting cars, leaving only twenty-one competitors on the leader’s lap at the end.
Chastain was behind Erik Jones and Kyle Larson who were set for a drag race from the last corner to the finish line when Jones moved to block Larson, leading to a collision that knocked both cars out of the way for Chastain to drive to the checkered flag. Larson finished fourth and Jones was able to get home sixth.
The win is Chastain’s second of his career, the second of his career, and the second for Trackhouse Racing, which bought out Ganassi racing at the end of last year. The eighth-generation watermelon farmer from Florida celebrated, as he does with all of his wins, by climbing on top of his car and throwing a watermelon to splatter on the track.
Jones was trying to give team owner Richard Petty his first win since 2014. He and Larson had swapped the lead six times in the last eighteen laps.
NASCAR returns to short-track racing next weekend when it takes its show to Dover.
(INDYCAR)—Two days of testing for all entrants for the Indianapolis 500 have shown many drivers prepared to go faster—and they will when the track opens for all-out testing next month.
This year’s points leader, Josef Newgarden, and two-time 500 winner Takuma Sato were the only drivers to top 229 mph and only five drivers (Newgarden, Sato, Tony Kanaan, Scott Dixon, and Scott McLaughlin logging single laps faster than last year’s slowest qualifying speed for the race, 228.353 mph.
To put some perspective to these “slow” speeds: Newgarden’s fastest lap on the 2 ½ mile four-turns, four straightaways course was only 39.2125 seconds.
Arie Luyendyk set the all-time record for the fastest single lap in 1996, at 37.616 questions and an average speed of 239.260. Although the speeds are ten miles per hour different, the lap times differ by only about 1.5 seconds.
Twenty-one cars qualified for last year’s race at more than 230 mph for a four-lap average, with eleven topping 231, paced by Dixon’s pole speed of just under 232 mph.
Only 32 cars and drivers ran test laps. The starting field for the 500 traditionally is 33 cars but the field is still one short. Speedway officials have promised, however, that a 33rd car will be entered.
The laps during the three test sessions are not intended to check out qualifying trim. But they will provide data that will help teams set up the cars for practice and qualifying for the 500 when it resumes May 17.
INDYCAR’s next race is on the road course at the Barber Motorsports Park next Sunday. -0-0-0-0
There once was a time when the color green was considered unlucky in the early racing that was the foundation of Indianapolis-car racing. But Jim Clark’s Lotus in 1963 buried that “curse.”
Now ALL of INDYCAR and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway are going green starting with the 500 next month.
We won’t see them in this race but we will see tires during Friday’s Carb Day pit stop contest made of a natural rubber from the guayule shrub. The what?
There are only two of the two-thousand-plus plant species that produce rubber that have been extensively domesticated. One is the rubber tree that is most associated with the Amazon basin region. The other is a little shrub found in the deserts of southwestern United States and northern Mexico. Both have been developed commercially after almost becoming extinct as the demand grew for more rubber products. The shrub tire will be used in the pit stop contest and then as the alternate tire in the Nashville race later this summer.
Penske Entertainment, the owners of the Speedway, say all tires delivered to the Speedway in May will be delivered in electric vehicles. All electricity at the Speedway next month will be paid for with renewable energy credits. Recycling and food recovery programs will be increased. And some Speedway souvenirs will be made of recycled plastic or will be reusable and sold from a store inside an electric truck.
(FORMULA 1)—Defending F1 champion Max Verstappen finally had the race he expects to have at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix at Imola, Italy—leading all the way from pole to win for the first time this year and cut his points deficit from 43 to 17. Teammate Sergio Perez took second after points leader Charles Leclerc spun his Ferrari off=course near the end. Lando Norris was third in a McLaren.
Mercedes’ handling problems remain unsolved and its chances of winning a ninth straight Constructors’ Championship are growing more questionable.
The best Mercedes could do was a fourth place for George Russell. Lewis Hamilton came home a distant 14th. Team boss Toto Wolff acknowledged after the first practice that the handling was so poor that Russell and Hamilton had to lift before reaching top speed on the straightaways because of severe “porpoising,” or bouncing. Wolff apologized to both of his drivers for the cars they were given to drive.
F1 is off for the next two weeks.