By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor
(SRX)—Three races, three winners for the Superstar Racing Experience, which brings NASCAR and INDYCAR competitors together in just two weeks on the dirt track at Pevely. Series points leader Ryan Newman picked up his first win on the pavement at Stafford, CT during the weekend.
The point standings show four INDYCAR drivers and five NASCAR drivers in the top ten. Just behind Newman is series co-creator Tony Stewart, who was an INDYCAR champion before moving to NASCAR—the only driver to record that achievement.
Newman got past pole-sitter Marco Andretti after a competition caution with ten laps to go to win the third heat. Stewart was third with Bobby Labonte fourth and Hailie Deegan—a young woman from the NASCAR truck series—fifth.
The series races at Nashville next weekend before moving to Ken Schrader’s Federated Auto Parts Raceway near Pevely on the 16th, then wrapping up the season at Sharon Speedway in Ohio, owned by former NASCAR competitor Dave Blaney, father of current Cup driver Ryan Blaney.
(NASCAR)—Tyler Reddick has won his first NASCAR Cup race in a fierce battle with Chase Elliott at Road America. Elliott had a narrow lead after the final pit stop with 18 laps left but Reddick got past Elliott two laps later and pulled away to win by 3.3 seconds. Kyle Larson was third, 21 seconds back.
Reddick is the fifth first-time winner this year and the 13th Cup driver to make it to victory lane. His win means there are only three playoff spots left to fill in the next seven races. His victory pushed former champion Keven Harvick out of the top sixteen in standings, endangering Harvick’s chances of making the playoffs. Harvick is tenth in points but fourth among non-winners.
The race is the third road course race of the year. Each has produced a first-time Cup career victory—Clay Chastain at Circuit of the Americas and Daniel Suarez at Sonoma.
(INDYCAR)—This one was for mom and dad.
Scott McLaughlin has on his second INDYCAR race of the season but it’s the first time his parents have seen him win since he moved from the Australian Supercar series two and a half years ago. They came to the United States in May to watch him run the Indianapolis 500, the first time they had seen him since he came to the Northern Hemisphere.
McLaughlin had to hold off defending series champion Alex Palou for the last 17 laps and got to the finish line about a half-second before Palou. The best drive of the day, however, was by Will Power, who started 21st, spun on the first lap and recovered from the end of the field to snag third place.
Pole sitter Pato O’Ward led the first 28 laps before his car started losing power and quit entirely while coming out of the pits on the 54th of 80 laps.
The race was a disaster for the Andretti team and confrontations between teammates Romain Grosjean and Alexander Rossi resulted in a team meeting called quickly after the race. Rossi, on the inside, ran Grosjean off the track by going wide on a turn and one lap later drove him straight off the course on another turn. Grosjean called Rossi “an idiot” after the race before a team employee took him away from a television interview for the meeting.
Earlier in the race, Grosjean pushed teammate Colton Herta off the track and Rossi tangled with another Andretti teammate, Devlin DeFrancesco. The four Andretti drivers finished 15th to 21st.
(FORMULA 1)—The Grand Prix of Britain started with a frightening crash and ended with a first-time winner.
You can see it from a grandstand view at:
Formula One salutes FIA and ‘halo’ for saving two lives at Silverstone (msn.com)
Ferrari’s Carolos Sainz got the win in his 150th F1 start. Lewis Hamilton, who had his best finish of the year, in third, called the race “Formula One at its best.” Sainz is only the second Spanish driver to win in the long history of Formula One. Two-time F1 champion Fernando Alonso was the first.
The first lap was hardly racing at its best. It was, in fact, racing at its scariest. The only Chinese driver to ever compete in F1, Guanyu Zhou, in an Alfa, got upside down on the start after a bump from Mercedes driver George Russell as a crowded field headed to the first turn. His car skidded off the track, through a gravel area, and flipped over the SAFER barrier into a catch fence in front of dozens of fans. Several other cars were damaged in collisions in the melee and the race was stopped until rescue teams could get Zhou out of his car and onto a stretcher.
He later sent a message saying he was fine but gratified that Formula 1 had begun using a “halo” cockpit protection system that he thought saved his life. Doctors say he’s cleared to drive in the next race in the series.
The red flag at the start of the race might have prevented an even more tragic event seconds later as the cars roared down a straightaway. Instead, they were going slowly enough to avoid a series of climate protestors reportedly from Just Stop Oil who had gotten onto the circuit and sat down on the track. Police arrested five men and two women.
(Photo credits: Newman at Indianapolis 2019, Rick Gevers; Reddick and McLaughlin at WWTR, Bob Priddy)