By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor
(SRX at PEVELY)—Tony Stewart has finally won a race at Ken Schrader’s track in Pevely, Missouri. Stewart won the main second heat and the main event to become the first driver to win twice this year on the Superstar Racing Experience (SRX) circuit.
The race was the first of the season or a dirt oval after four races on pavement.
Behind Stewart, several competitors finished with major parts of their cars in twisted piles in the pits, the result of ten cautions for track incidents in the 70-lap final. Marco Andretti finished second for the third straight race.
Ryan Newman, who said his most recent experience on dirt was with his tractor on his farm, was fourth followed by track co-owner and NASCAR veteran Ken Schrader. Greg Biffle wrapped up the top five. Michael Waltrip, Ernie Francis Jr., Paul Tracy, Tony Kanaan, Hailie Deegan (the only woman driver in the series), Matt Kenseth, Bobby Labonte and Ryan Hunter-Reay finished out the field. Hunter-Reay, the winner of the 2014 Indianapolis 500, had never raced on a dirt track before.
The series finale will be on dirt next Saturday at Sharon Speedway in Hartford, Ohio, featuring the father-son duo of Dave and Ryan Blaney. Dave Blaney, who had a long career in dirt-track racing, is the cow-owner of the track. His son, Ryan, is a rising star in NASCAR for Penske Racing.
The championship points race has boiled down to a contest between Stewart, Labonte, Andretti, and Newman.
(INDYCAR)—Now only one driver has more INDYCAR wins than Scott Dixon. Dixon climbed into a tie with Mario Andretti for second-most career victories with 52. It’s unlikely he’ll get to A. J. Foyt’s 67 wins in the series but he has moved closer to the points lead as he looks for his seventh series championship, which would tie Foyt.
Dixon pulled away from pole-winner Colton Herta on the last restart twenty laps left and crossed the line eight-tenths of a second ahead, ending a 23-race winless streak, the second-longest of his career. Felix Rosenqvist, Graham Rahal, this year’s Indianapolis 500 winner, Marcus Ericsson, rounded out the top five.
The win extends Dixon’s record of eighteen seasons with at least one victory. He now has won at least once in 20 seasons, also a record.
Next up for INDYCAR are two races within driving distance of many Missourians. INDYCAR will have a doubleheader weekend at the Iowa Speedway, a .875-mile high banked oval near Newton, Iowa. The track was designed by former Missouri NASCAR champion Rusty Wallace. The races will be Saturday afternoon at 4 p.m., and Sunday afternoon at 3.
(NASCAR)—Christopher Bell has upped the stakes for winless NASCAR Cup drivers hoping to make the 16-driver playoff field with his weekend win at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. Bell became the 14th driver to win a race this year, staying in front for the last 42 laps and pulling away to an almost-six second win over last week’s winner, Chase Elliott.
Bell, who might not be mistaken for someone 27 years old, had to outrun Elliott, the hottest driver in the series in the last four weeks. Elliott has won twice and has finished twice. He had come into the race ranked last among the top 16 drivers but is now guaranteed a playoff slot.
If the race was big for Bell, it was a bitter pill for teammate Martin Truex Jr., to swallow. Truex started from the pole, led 172 of the 301 laps, and won the first two stages. But a two-tire stop with 100 laps left didn’t work out. He dropped to fourth and has replaced Bell as the last driver in the playoff hunt.
Truex is still waiting for his first win of the year, as is Kevin Harvick who is the first driver outside the playoffs. Both former Cup champions have six races left to get a win that could put them into the round of sixteen for a ten-race runoff for the title. They’ll get their next shot next Sunday at Pocono.
For now, Ryan Blaney, who is third in overall points, has the fifteenth playoff position. Truex is 37 points behind him for the last slot. Harvick trails Truex by 68 points and appears to need a win to make the top 16. Harvick is ninth in overall points.
A fifteenth winner who is not one of those three would knock Truex below the cut line with Harvick.
Fourteen different winners in a year is far from the record. Nineteen different drivers posted victories in 2001. Eighteen did it in 2002 and 2011. Seventeen did it in 2013.
(FORMULA 1)—F1 races next in the Grand Prix of France. It’s race 12 of 22 on this year’s schedule. On the Circuit Paul Ricard, near Marseilles.
(Photo credits: Stewart—SRX Racing/CBS; Dixon—Rick Gevers at WWTR 2021;Bell—Bob Priddy at WWTR, 2022)