All They Did—-

It will take a while, maybe several years, before some high school students living in an unincorporated area of 140 people of central Missouri fully appreciate what they have done.

They have won the State High School 2A basketball championship. But it’s more than just a trophy for the town of Eugene.

The exhilaration that comes from championships is a temporary thing. It might linger for several hours or for a few days before life takes over.

But legacies are eternal. And they have created a legacy.

All these students did was to give their little community where the number of students in the Cole R-V School District outnumbers the population of the community by more than four to one, the first state championship in community history—in any category.

The best at something in the entire state of Missouri, population 6.2-million.

It was not exactly a “Hoosiers” moment because they did not beat the dominant big-city team for the title, but to Eugene, Missouri, it IS a “Hoosiers” moment because it is the first time the school has won a state title in anything.

For the rest of their lives they will bound together by this historic event, For the rest of their lives they will be remembered as members of the first team in school history that—-

The chance to be a state champion comes rarely. Even if there are more trophies in the future, theirs will be the historic one, the one that says for the first time, Eugene was the best of its kind in the whole state.

They shall grow old, but they will always be young when others look at their trophy decades from now. They’ll be the ones every team to come wants to be like.

All they did was to give a120-year old community —that has never thought itself big enough to incorporate as a real town —the chance to proclaim itself the best of its kind in Missouri.

And these children shall become legends.

 

Sports: Preoccupied Edition

By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

We have time just for a few headlines;

Missouri Tigers get Drake in the first round of the NCAA tournament, in Wichita. Thursday night, we’ll see how they do against a 30-win team.

The Kansas City Chiefs revolving door continues to turn with some free agents leaving and others coming in.

The Cardinals and the Royals are running out of time in the sun and they continue to home whatever skills they will have to make the 2025 season live to expectations, which are low for one, higher for the other.

In racing—NASCAR has a first time winner at Las Vegas, Josh Berry, who drives for one of the oldest teams in the sport, the Wood Brothers, that is celebrating its 75th anniversary this year.

INDYCAR won’t race again until next month but that doesn’t mean its drivers are twiddling their thumbs. Some of them ran the Sebring 12-Hours this weekend but none went to the winners circle.

The Porsche Penske team did, however, and with another Penske Porsche finishing just 2.2 seconds behind after a half-day of racing. Brazilian Felipe Nasr, Belgium’s Laurens Vanthoor, and Britain’s Nick Tandy combined to get the win, with Frenchman Mattieu, Australia’s Mat Campbell and Kevin Estre of France right behind them.

Formula 1 began its season in rainy Australia with McLaren’s Lando Norris staying on track while others slid around and got the first win of the new season. Defending F1 champion Max Verstappen threatened but couldn’t get the upper hand.  Former F1 champion, Lewis Hamilton, was tenth in his first drive for Ferrari.

Your speedy correspondent hoped to have a more complete report next week after he and his wife have finished their move to a new zip code in Jefferson City.  Things have reached the frantic shoveling stage this week.

Nick Stays; Robin Goes; Mizzou Men Choke down the Stretch; Three Missouri Teams in D2 Tournament  

By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

(BOLTON—Fears that Nick Bolton would bolt from the Kansas City Chiefs have been laid to rest with a three-year, $345-million deal. In just three years after leaving the University of Missouri, Bolton has become one of the premier line backers in the NFL.

The Chiefs have lost wide receiver Justin Watson to the Houston Texans. Watson’s main value has been as a fill-in when other receivers have gone out with injuries. He might not be the last receiver who becomes expandable. Juju Smith-Schuster, DeAndre Hopkins, and Mecole Hardman are headed toward free agency.

Kansas City is losing Joe Thuney, a mainstay on their offensive line and a guy who moved from guard to tackle to try to provide protection to Patrick Mahomes that had been missing most of the season.  Thuney’s going to the Chicago Bears and is taking his $16 million salary with him, freeing up some cap space financially to let the Chiefs restructure some pieces. Andy Reid says Thuney is one of his favorite guys but he’s a victim of the salary cap, which Reid calls “a nightmare.” The Chiefs hope Mike Caliendo or Kingsley Suamataia will fill the left guard spot next year.

Some of that help might come from two now-ex 49ers, Left tackle Jaylon Moore and running back Elijah Mitchell, whose star has been eclipsed by Christian McCaffery,

The Chiefs got a scare in the last few days with the arrest of star rookie receiver Xavier Worthy on a felony assault charge in Texas. But the prosecutor has refused to press charges after Worthy’s lawyers argued the woman involved was an ex-girlfriend who refused to leave Worthy’s apartment after the pair had broken up, and had filed the complaint after Worthy refused her extortionist demands.

The prosecutor says the case is still open, though.

(MIZZMEN)—Legendary Tennessee women’s basketball coach Pat Summit once said, “Offense sells tickets, defense wins games, and rebounding wins championships.” The Missouri Tigers sold a lot of tickets but the rest—–

The Tiger basketball team has forgotten how to play defense and in the process has thrown away (another problem) a higher national ranking and a more favorable seeding in the NCAA tournament.

Missouri has allowed opponents to top 90 points in five of their last six regular-eason games. The Tigers go into the post-season on a three-game losing streak, have gone 2-4 to close out the season, and have dropped from fourth in the conference standings to seventh.

Missouri is clinging to the top 25 polls—22nd in the coaches poll and 21st in the AP sportswriters poll. They are a seventh seed in the SEC tournament and play Thursday night against the winner of the Mississippi State-LSU game.

Three Tiger have won some recognition from the conference.  Caleb Grill is the 6th-man of the year. Antony Robinson III has been named to the all-defensive team. And Mark Mitchel is on the Third All-Conference team.

(LADY TIGERS)—Mississippi State scored 31 unanswered points on the way to ending the season for MU’s women’s basketball team. The final margin was twenty—75-55. Missouri missed 18 consecutive shots during that string. They also finishd with 30 turnovers for the game, hardly a distinguished going-away performance for coach Robin Pingeton, who has coached her last game at Missouri after fifteen years.

Her 250 wins are the second most for any women’s coach at MU.

Here’s something that’s been overlooked in the reporting about her coaching career—

She was a fine player.  Her record of 2,502 career points at Saint Ambrose University remains a school record after 35 years. She was an All-American in basketball AND softball and played three seasons in the old Women’s Basketball Association.

A search for a new coach will kick into high gear after post-season tournaments wrap up.

(LADY BEARS)—The Missouri State Lady Bears are wrapping up the school’s last year in the Missouri Valley Conference by being co-champions of the regular season. They’re the number two seed in the conference tournament this week. The winner of the tournament gets the conference’s automatic slot in the NCAA tournament. They went 24-7 in the regular season, 16-4 in the conference regular season.

(LINCOLN)—Lincoln University in Jefferson City is headed to the NCAA Division II tournament for the first time in 44 years.  The Blue Tigers put defensive clamps on Missouri-St. Louis 58-51, holding UMSL to just 18 field goals.to win the Great Lakes Valley Conference crown.  Lincoln (23-8) will play Lake Superior Sate University from Michigan in the first round of the Midwest Regional.

Other Missouri teams will play a few more games. UMSL will face Ferris State in the D-2 tournament’s first round.  Missouri S&T has the top seed in that tournament.

(THE BASEBALL)—A couple of former Cardinals greats are taking headlines away from this year’s players.

(ALBERT)—Albert Pujols has shown he can manage, and how. His first two jobs as a manager have been eye-opening. He won the Dominican Winder League Championship with the Leones del Escongido and then managed the Dominican Republic national team to the Caribbean Series Championship. He’ll manage the Dominican Republic national team in next year’s World Baseball Classic.  But he has his eyes on a Major League manager’s job.

He’s one of two Cardinals greats considered as possible replacement for Oliver Marmol. The other is Yadier Molina.

(MOLINA)—Yadier Molina wants to manage in the big leagues but for now, his focus is on his family.  He has told The Athletic’s Kaatie Woo, “I’ve been away from my family for many years. I decided to take a break and put them as my priority right now.”

He’s been a “special assistant for the Cardinals for a couple of years but hasn’t been active. But for now, he wants to focus on family life, including watching his 16-year old son play catcher on the high school team in Texas, where the Molina family lives.

In 2023, Yadi managed the Puerto Rican national tam in the World Baseball Classic and is considered the likely manager for the team next year. He also has managed in the winter league short season after the regular season for MLB.

He has given a little jolt to Cardinals fans, though, telling Woo he so badly wants to manage that he would take an offer from the Cubs if one is made. But he’s not in any hurry to by in a major league dugout.

(OUR TEAMS)—The Cardinals are 8-9 through the weekend, 2 ½ games behind Toronto in the Grapefruit League. The Royals are 10-7. The Giants lead he Cactus League at 11-7.

(A few brief notes about those who go in circles or run on squiggly tracks, too)

(NASCAR)—Christopher Bell has won his third straight NASCAR Cup race, holding off Denny Hamlin in a two-lap overtime shootout at Phoenix in the second-closest finish in track history  0.045 second.  Bell had the race under control until a crash brought out the yellow and required a restart.

Bell and Hamlin both drive for Joe Gibbs Racing, giving the team its first 1-2 finish of the year.

Kyle Larson finished third, right on Hamlin’s rear bumper with Josh Berry and Chris Buescher rounding out the top five.

Far back in the field was Katherine Legge (LEG), who was 30th and spun twice as she became he first woman to start a Cup race since Danica Patrick ran the Daytona 500 seven years ago. Legge, who has made several Indianapolis 500 starts and who has won sports car races, is only the eighth woman to compete in NASCAR’s top series in the last 43 years considered the modern era.

The next race is at Las Vegas where Bell hopes to equal Bill Elliott’s 1992 record as the only driver to win four of the first five races of a season.

(INDYCAR)—INDYCAR returns to the rack next weekend at the Thermal Club road course in Thermal, California.

(FORMULA 1)—The F1 season opens next Saturday with the Grand Prix of Ausralia.

The End at Mizzou and in KC; Grapefruit and Cactus; Youth is Served on the Track

By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

(WOMENMIZZ)—The fifteen-year career of Robin Pingeton as women’s basketball coach at the University of Missouri is stumbling to an sad ending.

The Lady Tigers lost their last regular-season game to Vanderbilt 100-59, the first time an opponent has topped 100 points against a Missouri women’s team in 25 years.

Pingeton’s Tigers will be the 15th seed in the SEC tournament, facing Mississippi State tomorrow evening. Mississippi State is the 10th seed. Missouri won a regular season game against MSU, 78-77 on January 27.

Her departure is not a surprise.  Missouri has gone 79-98 in the last six years with losing records in four of those seasons, twice racking up only nine wins. Going into the likely last game of the year and of her career, Missouri is 14-17.

Overall at Missouri, Pingeton is 250-217 and has taken the team into ten postseason appearances and made four trips to the NCAA women’s tournament. She’s 584-373 including her stint with Northern Illinois.

(MIZZ)—The Missouri Tigers again have shown an inability to capitalize on a big win, losing to Vanderbilt 97-93 in overtime after holding a three-point lead with nine seconds left in regulation.

Missouri had led most of the game but could never put the Commodores away.

It’s a costly loss that drops Missouri out of a top-four seed in the SEC tournament and the double-bye that would have been part of that seeding.

Coach Dennis Gates blamed himself for the loss, saying he hadn’t done what he had to do.

Missouri plays Oklahoma in Norman tomorrow night.

The loss drops Missouri to 19th in the coaches poll. They’re 15th among AP sportswriters. They’re 10-6 in the conference now.  Auburn, the nation’s top team, is 15-1 with Texas A&M second at 12-4 and Florida and Alabama at 12-4. (zou)

(MOOSE)—Former Kansas City Royals third baseman Mike Moustakis is coming home to retire. The Moose is going to sign a one-day contract before a game on May 31 so he can retire with the team he helped win the 2015 World Series. The team will host a pregame ceremony for him before they play the Tigers.

He hit 139 homers in his eight seasons with a n 11.5 WAR before he was traded to the Milwaukee Brewers, where he played for a season and a half before going to Cincinnati for three years. He split 2023 between the Rockies and the Angels, signed a minor league deal in 2024 but was cut before the season started.

He hit .284 with 22 homers and 82 RBIs in the championship year of 2015. He hit .304 against the Mets in the World Series.

(SPRING TRAINING)—How are  the Royals and Cardinals doing in spring training?

The Cardinals are last in the Grapefruit League at 3-6 through Sunday. They’ve been outscored 37-46 and are winless (0-5) outside Roger Dean Stadium. As a team, the ‘Birds are hitting only .193. Nolan Arenado is 3 for 12. Masin Wynn and Nolan Gorman are hitless in 12 at-bats each. Jordan Walker is 1 for 11. Victor Scott and Wilson Contrares are having a good spring. Both are 5 for 9 (.556). St. Louis is averaging five hits per game.

The Royals 6-4, sixth in the Cactus League. They’re 65-65 in the runs-scored, runs-against sats and hitting .257 as a team through Sunday. Bobby Witt is at 294. Michael Massey is at .417. Vinnie Pasquantino, coming back from a fractured wrist last year, is looking for his stroke at .188.

(CHIEFS)—  The offseason for the Chiefs already is producing changes and apprehension. Early speculation is focusing on three guys.

Linebacker Nick Bolton will become a free agent next month. He knows he’s a hot commodity. The Chiefs know it, too.  The former Tiger has racked up at least 100 tackles in three of his four seasons. He’s indicated he’s like to stay in KC, but—–

Offensive guard Trey Smith is not under contract for 2026 and coming off his first pro-bowl season. He also is 25 and is the kind of guy a lot of teams would like to pick up. But he was a stalwart in a leaky offensive line last year. Ian Rapaport with NFL insider thinks Kansas City will make him a franchise player for 2026 and pay him about $23 million for a one-year deal, making him the highest-paid guard in the league.

But the financial impact goes beyond Smith because it affects the players’ budget.  The big loser, according to some analysts, could be Isiah Pacheco, who missed ten games but the Chiefs didn’t seem to miss him much. The running game led by a rejuvenated Kareem Hunt might make Pacheco expendable.

Moving Along.    At about 200 mph:

(INDYCAR)—Defensing INDY car champion Alex Palou dominated the race on the streets of St. Petersburg, the first race of the series schedule.

The win gives him a leg up on winning his third INDYCAR championship. It’s his 12th career win in the series.

But six-time champion Scott Dixon thinks he could have won he race if his radio hadn’t quit working, forcing him to make pit stops based in dashboard information rather than communications from his crew chief.

Even with that difficulty, Dixon’s runner-up finish gave Chip Ganassi Racing a 1-2 finish with the cars of rival Penske Racing’s Josef Newgarden and pole sitter Scott McLaughlin.

Two-time Indianapolis 500 champion Josef Newgarden closed to within nine-tenths of a second late in the race but faded to third, passed by an onrushing Dixon, who finished less than three seconds behind Palou.

Palou called his win “amazing,” which it might have been because of his past struggles at St. Pete.

The season opened poorly for the third Penske driver, Will Power, who had to replace his engine before the start and was then caught up in a crash on the third turn of the race. Power, who turned 44 earlier in the week, is in the last year of his contract with Penske. He wants to keep racing, would prefer to stay with Penske but says serious contract negotiations have not yet begun.

McLaughlin announced before the race that his contract with Penske had been extended.

(NASCAR)—Christopher Bell has become the first driver since 2018 to win two of the first three NASCAR Cup races, crossing the finish line at the Circuit of the Americas after a tough but clean race. He also won at Atlanta last week.

Bell finished second at COTA last year. This year seemed like a replay of 2024 in some ways. “These road-course races are so much fun,” he said afterwards. But he didn’t want to wreck Busch to get past him. “We tried to be so cautious…His car started falling off, and ours was still strong. I kept thinking ‘don’t beat yourself.’”

Kyle Busch seemed on the verge of ending his 59-race winless streak when the last caution came out that allowed the field to bunch up with him. He and Bell raced hard and clean before Busch’s worn tires forced him to slow, allowing Bell to get past him with ten laps to go, and then William Byron and Tyler Reddick got past him, too.

Byron was able to get to Bell but couldn’t get an opening to pass. Chase Elliott, who came back from an early spin to finish fourth, watched the three fight it out in the closing laps and called the contest “a great example of three very respectful talented race car drivers duking it out for the win without crashing each other.”

Busch is looking for his first win since June, 2023 at Madison, Illinois. After the race he told interviewers, “I feel like maybe the two-lap fresher tires the No. 20 (Bell) had was the difference. All things considered, I’d love to have equal tires to the No. 20 and get back after it and see what we could do that way. But I also hated to see that yellow that came out. I felt like we had a little bit of a gap there, enough of a gap that I was protecting my tires.”

(photo credits: Moustakis—KC Royals; Bell—Bob Priddy; Palou—Rick Gevers)

 

 

 

Sports: Missouri Stays Put; Missouri Wants Royals, Chiefs to Just Stay; Games Are Being Played in Arizona, Florida; and an Intense Final Lap at Atlanta

By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

(KEEPING THE CHIEFS)—Meetings are being held in Kansas City keep the Royals and the Chiefs on this side of the state line. Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas (pardon the use of an inappropriate word to describe a baseball issue) huddled with civic leader in Kansas City to discuss another run at financing a new stadium near downtown Kansas City, near Union Station.

And the Chiefs are in the mix, too, because Arrowhead Stadium either needs a major refresh or a replacement.

Kansas has given itself a big tool to get the teams to cross the line—the STAR Bond law, passed last June that allows the Kansas Commerce Department to negotiate with both teams. The STAR Bonds (Sales Tax and Revenue) are intended to improve economic development in Kansas.

The program lets Kansas pay almost three-quarters of the cost of a new stadium by issuing bonds that would be paid off through thirty years with a a heightened sales tax.

The teams have leases through 2031.

(KEEPING THE ROYALS)—Although one Kansas state legislators has said the state is close to a deal with one of the big pro sports teams in Kansas City, the owner of the Royals is reportedly still looking at a site on our side of the line.

A few days ago, Mayor Lucas said owner John Sherman is still look for a downtown location for a new baseball stadium and that he’s considering Washington Square Park, east of Union Station and the Crown Plaza shopping area.

(CHIEFS TEAM)—Regardless of what comes out of  geopolitical machinations about news stadiums, the Chiefs know they’ll be playing football again in six months and they know a Standing Pat does not need a team that is standing pat.

The team has cut several practice squad players and has added replacements while it plots a draft strategy.

The coaching staff already has undergone a slight facelift with the hiring of Matt House as the senior defensive assistant and Chris Orr who will be the defensive quality control coach. House left the Chiefs to spend the last three years at LSU and the last season as the linebackers coach with the Jacksonville Jaguars.

The Round Ball:

(MIZZ)—The Missouri Tigers’ inability to capitalize on the big win against #4 Alabama last week by being outrun Saturday night hasn’t cost them much in the national polls. They’re up one slot in the AP poll, to 14th.  The coaches have left them at 16th in their poll.

Missouri’s destiny remains in their own hands. They play lowly South Carolina tonight at home. South Carolina is having last year’s Missouri season. The Gamecocks are 1-13. It will be the second of four games in a row against lower-tier conference teams.

Auburn still leads the conference at 13-1 with Florida (11-3) and Alabama (also 11-3) behind them. Missouri is one of three times tied for fourth at 9-5. The Tigers are joined by Tennesee (22-8 overall) and Texas A&M (20-7, the same as Missouri overall.

The Tigers disappointed themselves against Arkansas with too many mistakes and an ice-cold hand by Caleb Grill, who was only 2/14 overall and 2/12 from three.  Missouri had 18  turnovers, six by Mark Mitchell and four by Tony Perkins.

The Baseball:

(CARDS)—St. Louis has started its Grapefruit League season 1-2 with a win yesterday and an encouraging start by Steven Matz, who hasn’t lived up to his paycheck, at least partly because of injures. Match went two innings, and used 26 pitches to hold the Astros at bay in the first two innings. The Redbirds won it 7-4.

(ROYALS)—The Royals are 1-1-1 in the Cactus League. They tied the A’s at one yesterday.

Now we get the motors running—

(NASCAR)—The weekend race at Atlanta was notable for its wild overtime finish—but first we want to mention somebody who wasn’t there.

Martin Truex had not missed a NASCAR Cup start since the 2006 Daytona 500.  His 685 consecutive race streak ranks him sixth on the all-time starters list.  Joey Logano now has the longest string of races, 578. Brad Keselowski has 546, the only other driver with more than 500 consecutive starts.

A consecutive-race string of a different sort ended for Christopher Bell and for Joe Gibbs racing at Atlanta Sunday night.  Christopher Bell won his first race on a super speedway and gave car owner Joe Gibbs his first win since last June.

Bell led only the last lap and was slightly ahead with several cars crashed behind him, bringing out the caution flag and freezing the positions. Second-year driver Carson Hocevar was second and Kyle Larson was third. It’s Hocevar’s best finish in his young career and the best finish on a superspeedway for Larson, who hasn’t won in 48 tries on a drafting track. One third of those finishes were DNFs.

NASCAR heads to the Circuit of the Americans next week.

(INDYCAR)—INDYCAR starts its season next weekend at a traditional location, the streets of St. Petersburg, Florida.  A lot of familiar faces return but the interim between seasons has been a busy one.

Jay Frye, the former Missouri Tiger football player who has headed INDYCAR for a decade was let go a few weeks ago. He’s been replaced by Doug Boles, who also is President of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

The Arrow McLaren team has named Indianapolis 500 winner its team principal. Kanaan drove his last Indianapolis 500 two years ago, joined McLaren later that year as a consultant and has worked his way up to a position that will have him oversee team and driver development.

Michael Andretti is no longer a team owner. Neither is Sam Schmidt.

The final test runs at Sebring found Joseph Newgarden and Will Power pacing the field of 27 drivers. The lap times indicated a lot of close racing is in store for this year.  All 27 drivers lapped without eight-tenths of a second of each other.

And while we weren’t looking, A. J. Foyt turned 90 in January.  He won with everything he drove—a four time Indianapolis 500 champion, a winner of the Daytona 500 in NASCAR, a winner of the LeMans 24 Hours, and the 24 Hours of Daytona.

(Photo Credits: Atlanta—NASCAR/ Jonathan Bachman | Getty Images; Kanaan—Bob Priddy, Indianapolis 2023.)

 

Sports: Tigers climb back in the polls; We’ll look at where they might rank in the tournament; Cardinals, Royals, climb back into uniforms; Racers Climb Into Cockpits

By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing edit

(MIZ)—Missouri has climbed back into the teens in both national polls after two strong bounceback wins after their first two-game loss streat this season. Wins at home against Oklahoma and on the road against Georgia have put them 15th in the AP sportswriters poll and 16th in the USA TODAY coaches poll.

Mizzou is 19-6 now with six games left. They’ll play #4 Alabama at home tomorrow night.

(NCAA)—March is madly approaching and various prognosticators are telling us who will be in the NCAA tournament and what the seeding will be.  Most projections we’ve seen indicate Mizzou would be a 5-seed after splitting the last six  games of the regular season to finish 22-9.

(CARDINALS)—Nolan Arenado is in camp with the Cardinals, as he usually would be, despite his off-season being one of rampant speculation that he wouldn’t be.  And the team’s president of baseball operations seems resigned to his failure to get rid of him. John Mozeliak told reporters last week that Arenado is “likely to be part of our club at this point.”

Arenado has three years left on his eight-million dollar, $260 million contract (pro-rated annually until 2041). He was hoping a team more likely to play in the World Series would cut a deal with the Cardinals this winter.

He told reporters on the first day he was in camp, ”I’m in the right place.” He heard a lot of things in the offseason but, “I try not to get caught up in it too much. I’m ready to focus on getting ready for the season.

Arenado’s contract has a list of teams for which he would accept a trade. But he told MLB.com he wasn’t going to talk about which teams they are and says the talk about those teams “doesn’t really matter anymore.”  He’s indicated there’s more to his situation than signing a lucrative free agent deal: “I got a family now and to be willing to pick up my family and move them, it has to be something that’s worth it.”

Sounds as if his head is on pretty straight.

His presence is not a guarantee he will be with the Cardinals on opening day. Mozeliak’s comment can be seen to indicate the Redbirds are s till looking to move him.

(ROYALS)—The Kansas City Royals have extended the contract of VP and GM J. J. Picollo through 2030 with a club option in ’31. Piccolo is considered the architect behind last year’s surge back into contention last year.

The Royals also have exercised their option with manager Matt Quatraro. Piccolo and Quatraro finished second in balloting for executive of the year and manager of the year.

Royals owner John Sherman has hinted that conversations have resumed about a new stadium. WDAF-TV has him talking about “a very exciting thing for our community” as he advocates for “securing a long=-term home for the Royals.”

(CHIEFS)—The Kansas City Chiefs have dropped some people from the Taxi Squad and have signed some people to it and they’ve told Travis Kelce they hope he’ll tell them by the middle of next month if he wants to keep playing.

(BATTLEHAWKS)—The UFL season opens March 28 with the St. Louis Battlehawks playing six of their ten games in the dome in St Louis. The first game, however, is on the road against the Houston Roughnecks. They’ll play the San Antonio Brahma’s twice. Last year, the ‘Hawks beat the Brahmas twice but lost to them in the first round of the playoffs.

Sports with Motors

(DAYTONA)—Nobody was surprised  he had won the Daytona than the driver who did it.

William Byron, seventh with one lap to go, won the Daytona 500, his second straight win of the Great American Race.

Byron dodged the last big crash, which happened at the front of the field halfway through the last lap, to win by about 1.1 seconds over Tyler Reddick.

NASCAR heads to Atlanta next weekend.

 

Chiefs: Let’s Play Three; Tigers Rise

By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

The Kansas City Chiefs scored more than thirty points for the first time since 24 games and they needed every one of them to break the hearts of Buffalo Bills fans again and head to their third Super Bowl in a row.

Harrison Butker’s field goal with 3:33 left provided the points. The Chiefs defense kept Buffalo from getting close enough to tie and clutch Marhomes to Pacheco and Mahomes to Perine passes made sure Buffalo never got another chance.

The Chiefs shut down the bills on third downs, letting them succeed only five times in fourteen changes. The Chiefs went 5 for 9.  The Bills also converted four fourth downs but coiuldn’t make it happen in their last possession.

In about ten days the Chiefs will try to something no other team has done in the 59-year history of the Super Bowl—with a third straight Lombardi Trophy.  They’ll face The Philadelphia Eagles, a team they beat to start the string of championships.  Kansas City rallied from ten points down to beat the Eagles 38-35 on a Butker field goal.

Philadelphia demolished the Washington Commanders 55-23, a record scoring output since the beginning of the Super Bowl era.

The Bills and the Chiefs have met 56 times.  The Chiefs have won just 25 of them—but four have kept the Bills from playing in the Super Bowl for the first time since they went to the game four straight years, 1990-93 with Jim Kelly at quarterback and Marve Levy as the coach. Levy coached the chiefs for five years before going to Buffalo.  Levy will be more than halfway to his 100th birthday when his Chiefs, not his Bills, play another Super Bowl.

(MIZZ)—The Missouri Tigers split their two games last week but still moved up a little in the rankings.  They’re 21st in the USA TODAY coaches poll.  They’ve hopped up two slots in the AP sportswriters poll, to 20th.  Missouri was up to 20th one week during the 2022-23 season, the first one for Coach Dennis Gates.

The Tigers face #5 Tennessee Thursday night and  Tennessee Sunday afternoon. (ZOU)

(BASE BALL)—It originally was two words.  Former Jefferson City Mayor John Christy pronounced it that way.

It’s getting closer.  Pitcher and catchers are less than two weeks away from throwing their first pitch and catching it  in Florida and Arizona.

(CARDINALS)—The Cardinals head into the 2025 season with three guys who were part of the 2011 rally-back World Series on the coaching staff to help the young Birds brow into a competitive team this year.

Three members of the “Memphis Mafia” are on the coaching staff this year==Jon Jay,  Daniel Descalso, and David Freese.  Descalso will start the season as the bench coach. Jay will work with young outfielders. And Freese will be on hand during Spring training as a consultant working with third basemen and first basement. At this point, he’ll be working with young backup candidates at third. The Cardinals have not yet moved Nolan Arenado but the speculation continues about what will happen with him, including

(ROYALS)—The Royals have made only minor adjustments during the off-season but they, too, have their speculators.

The first engines have started running hot at Daytona—

(RACING)—The Daytona 24-hours is the first major auto race of the new season each year and the final results at Daytona show that the race cars of Roger Penske will be another major problem for everybody else.

Penske Porsche driven by 2023 winner Felipe Nasr  teamed with Nick Tandy and Laurens Vanhoor.  Close behind was the Acura with Indycar drivers Felix Rosenqvist and Scott Dixon, with Colin Braun and Tom Blomquist, who had a few Indycar rides earlier.

Several other drivers from Indycar and NASCAR drove in other classes.

 

Sports: Two big ones for the Tigers, one big one for the Chiefs; we’re counting the days until pitchers and catchers report—and an old lion turns 90 

By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor.

(MIZZBB—The word should be spreading among the SEC: Don’t let the Missouri Tigers get a double-digit lead on you in the first half.  Comebacks against this year’s team—unlike the previous year’s team—are very hard and present evidence indicates, not working.

Last year’s team seemed to crumble when the other team came back and once they gave up the lead, they had nothing to come back with—and often lost by double digits,.

Not so this year as two games last week proved.

Missouri is 4-1 in the conference now, tied with three other teams a game behind Auburn. They have the league’s best home-court record, with 14 straight wins.

These guys also do something the other team didn’t do.  They rebound.

They are starting to attract national poll attention. Missouri is basely in the top 25 but they haven’t been there in a long time.  They’re 24th in the USA TODAY Coaches poll, their first appearance in the top 25 since March 13, 2023. They fell out of the top 25 after the season and, of course, never smelled the rankings last year.

The Tigers head to Texas tonight for an 8 o’clock game. The Longhorns are 12-6.  Missouri is 15-3 and seems to be headed to its first 20-win seasons since Gates’ first year when they went 25-10. It could be only the only the fourth season in the last eleven when they hit that mark.  They were 2-13 in Cuonzo Martin’s first season, 2017-18 and unofficially 23-12 under Frank Haith.  The University later voided all 23 wins after finding violations throughout Haith’s career at Missouri.

(GRILLING THE OPPONENTS)—Mizzou Guard Caleb Grill is the SEC Player of the Week.

Against the Florida Gators last week, he rang up 22 points on 7-for-eleven shooting, eighteen of those points coming from behind the arc. It included a critical three-pointer that gave Missouri a seven-point lead with two minutes left in the game that Missouri won 83-82. The Gators were the nation’s fifth-ranked team that night.

Against Arkansas, he was 7 for 10 from the field, finishing with 17points.  For the season he’s averaging 12.5 points per game and his 49.3% accuracy from the three-point line is one of the nation’s best. (ZOU)

(CHIEFS)—The Kansas City Chiefs keep playing and the griping gets worse from fans who thnk the officials are giving Kansas City too many breaks and opponents too many penalties.

Whatever.

The Chiefs and the Buffalo Bills meet in the AFL Championship game late Sunday afternoon to determine who goes to the Super Bowl.

Kansas City kept the Houston Texans from reaching the AFL title game for the sixth year in a row and made it themselves for seven seasons in succession with a 23-14 victory at Arrowhead Stadium Saturday.  As usual the Chiefs defense rose to the occasion, sacking Houston quarterback C. J. Stroud eight times.

The Chiefs (15-2) are narrow favorites over the Bills (13-4), playing at home against a Buffalo team that beat them 30-21 earlier in the season. But that game was in Buffalo. It was the fourth straight time the Bills beat Kansas City in the regular season.

Last year, the Chiefs won when Buffalo’s Tyler Bass missed on a field goal from 44 yards that would have tied the game.

The games are often portrayed as duels between Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen.  Both are the only quarterbacks with at least 26 touchdowns in their first ten playoff games.

(CARDINALS)—St. Louis Cardinals President John Mozeliak says a top priority of the team is to get rid of Nolan Arenado, who has asked for a trade. The problem is the no-trade clause in Arenado’s contract that lets him decide where he’ll go. He’s already vetoed a trade to the Astros. A top issue is how much of Arenado’s salary the Cardinals are willing to pay his new team to take him off their hands.

(ROYALS)—The Royals have signed infielder Harold Castro, who spent last year playing—and playing well—in Mexico. He’s 31. It’s a minor league contract but he’ll have a chance to improve his standing in spring training.

He played a dozen years for the Tigers and one season with the Rockies before going to the Mexican League where he hit .320 with six homers in 84 games and an .813 OPS. He also played 51 games in the Venezuelan Winter League and hit .332 with 15 more homers, 41 more RBIs, six more stolen bases and a 1.021 OPS.

He’s seen as an injury replacement if one of the Royals regular infielders goes down the an injury. Heading into spring training, Nick Loftin is expected to be the infield utility man.

(AHHHH, SPRING)—For the baseball fan, the opening of Spring Training is the equivalent of the first Robin on the season.  Royals and Cardinals pitchers and catchers are to report Wednesday, February 12. The Royals training in Arizona and the Cardinals in Florida.

Now—to the noisy stuff:

(INDYCAR)—A. J. Foyt turned 90 last week and he’s still all there—and kind of surprised about it.  “I don’t think I’m supposed to live this long! I’m living for a reason, but I don’t know why!” he said in an interview released by his team.

His story goes back to a time when it was said, “There are old race drivers and there are bold race drivers but there are no old-bold race drivers.”

He’s the first four-time winner of the Indianapolis 500, a winner of the Lemans 24-Hour sports car race, a winner of the Daytona 500 in NASCAR.  If it had four wheels, he won in it. “I always drove hard, even at the local tracks, because I liked to win,” he said. “And when I got to Indy, the fans made want to win even more. I know they loved winning and I loved winning, so we had a good combination together.”

He saw some pretty bad stuff in his career at Indianapolis and elsewhere.  In his first 500, he got through a terrible first-lap crash that killed Pat O’Connor, one of the most popular drivers of the time, who had been Foyt’s mentor that year. In his 1983 autobiography, Foyt said that he was shaken by the experience. “When I turned around to see the car burning and his arm hanging out, I figured maybe I better go back to Texas, It’s a little bit too rough for A.J. Foyt. … I (had) come from little racetracks, nothing like this. My biggest dream was to qualify for the race. Here I qualified in 1958 (for the first time) and all of a sudden, it turned into a major disaster. I decided I don’t know about this.”

But he went back and three years later he won the big race for the first time. But he carried an emotional scar from that day through his career. He never let fellow drivers get too close to him off the track. “I lost a lot of friends. That’s the reason I didn’t run with too many people. I kinda stayed by myself ’cause I didn’t want it on my mind,” he said in his birthday interview.

Three years after that was the worst crash in Speedway history and was the first time the race was red-flagged.  Dave McDonald spun coming out of the fourth turn and crashed into the inside retaining wall. His car exploded in flames and rebounded back to the middle of the track where it was T-boned by Eddie Sachs, causing another explosion. Sachs died instantly. McDonald died later that day in a hospital.

Indianapolis race cars ran on gasoline then. The new rear-engined cars carried as much fuel as the front-engine roadsters of the kind Foyt drove that day, including a center fuel tank that, in effect, encased drivers is tanks full of gasoline.

Foyt won that race and afterwards conceded rear-engine cars were the future of the race. He said afterwards, “If I drive one, it won’t be on gasoline, you can ge sure of that. I am scared of having all that gasoline around me in that type of chassis…Maybe it would be wise to ban gasoline and also limit the account of fuel in a car and make it mandatory to make either two or three pit stops.”

Foyt had just become the first winner of the 500 to run the entire race without changing tires. The industry took notice.  Gasoline was replaced by methanol (and that was replaced a few years ago with renewable versions of it). The rear-engine cars were re-designed and as they took over from the roadsters, became safer.

In his birthday interview, he commented that the cars are “ so much safer than what they used to be. They carry a lot less fuel, and that’s the biggest thing that racing has gained. I don’t say it’s any better, but it’s a lot safer. I’m always looking for safety too ’cause I had a lot of friends that lost their lives. I was one of the lucky ones ’cause I made it through all that.”

The next year, however, Foyt was one of two drivers to still use gasoline (Al Unser was the other) in the 500.  Methanol was the fuel of choice for everybody else.

Ultimately, however, the last lap comes for even the greatest:

Bing Videos

That was 1993.  He was 59 years old that day. He had driven in 35 consecutive 500s, a record unlikely to be broken. Nobody else has done it 30 or more times. His closest competitor is Mario Andretti, who was in 29. The only driver still active is Helio  Castroneves, who will try to make his 25th 500 in May. Castroneves is one of three other winners of the 500.  Rick Mears and Al Unser Sr., are the other two.

Foyt, who had fielded his own cars for several years, continues to be active with Foyt Racing although his sons have taken over the operation and have shifted its headquarters from Houston to Indianapolis.

Foyt is a FIVE time winner of the 500, four times as a driver and as the owner of Kenny Brack’s car in 1999.

In 2019, Foyt settled recalled his for ABC17 in his home town of Houston.

Bing Videos

Years after he ran his last competitive race, he still holds a ton of records and distinctions and he is still the fastest man to ever drive a car on a track.  In 1987, at age 52, he turned a lap at 257.123 mph in the Oldsmobile Aerotech around the 7.712 test track near Fort Stockton, Texas.

Today?

“I keep buying land and try to develop it. I love to get on my bulldozers and tractors. I do that almost every other day. People say you’re out there by yourself. And I say: ‘It’s peaceful. I don’t have to listen to anybody but me.’”

He is the only surviving member of the 1958 Indianapolis 500 starting field.  Thirteen of those who started the race with him were killed in racing crashes.

A new biography of Foyt came out last year.  Art Garner’s book, A. J. Foyt; Survivor, Champion, Legend captures the first part of Foyt’s story which is so extensive that 656 pages is not enough.  A second volume is in the offing.

(Photo Credit: Bob Priddy, Indianapolis 2019)
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(NASCAR)—We are eleven days away from the opening of the NASCAR season. A non-points exhibition race will be February 1.  The real season starts with the Daytona 500 in a little more than three weeks.

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Sports: Mizzou rolls; Chiefs rest; Royals make a signing; Are the Cardinals Snoozing?

By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

(MIZBB)—The Missouri Tigers have won 13 straight at home. But, most important, they have won two SEC games in a row and are in the top half of the conference standings.

Missouri got a big lead Saturday against Vanderbilt and then fought off repeated comeback efforts in the last five minutes, winning 75-66 in a game not settled until the last minute.

Mark Mitchell had 19 points. Anthony Robinson had 15 and Caleb Grills late hot hand kept the Commodores from pulling in front.

Missouri is now 13-3. So is Vanderbilt but Mizzou is 2-1 in conference play. Vanderbilt is 1-3.

Another challenge from a ranked team comes up Tuesday when the Tiers are at Florida, a top ten team.

(BOWLING)—The prestige of the SEC took a beating during the bowl season.  In six games with Big Ten schools, the conference went 1-5.Missouri’s 27-24 win over Iowa was the only SEC win over a team in the conference that is dominating the playoffs.

(CHIEFS)—The rested and healed (as much as possible) Kansas City Chefs will play the Houston Texans in the divisional finals Saturday afternoon 3:30 game on ESPN.  It’s a return trip to Arrowhead Stadium for the Texans, who lost there less than a month ago 27-19. Buffalo and Baltimore will decide who goes to the next round.

(BASEBALL)—It’s arbitration time for MLB—

Royals: Pitcher Michael Lorenzen was not up for arbitration but the Royals signed him to a $7 million deal. He was a key in the Royals’ stretch run last year. He’ll make$5.5 million this year and $12 million in 2026 unless the Royals give him a $1.5 million buyout. He gets bonuses that will raise his salary to seven-million if he hits certain performance levels.

The Royals have avoided arbitration with six players who signed one-year deals: Kyle Isbel, J.J. Melendez, Kris Bubic, Hunter Harvery, Carlos Hernandez, and John Schreiber.

The Royals earlier signed pitchers Michael Wacha.

Cardinals: Paul Goldschmidt has gone to Yankee Stadium for 2025 after six years in St. Louis. But he sent a full-page farewell message in the Post-Dispatch to the fans:

“Thank you for accepting me as one of your own. Thank you for the cheers. Thank you for sticking with me through the ups and downs.

“Most importantly, thank you for the relationships and memories, which will stick with me for a lifetime! It was an honor to wear the Cardinals uniform and do my best to carry on the tradition built by so many before me.”

Still with the Cardinals, among other players, is starting pitcher Miles Mikolas, who had a disappointing year in 2024.  He recently told an interviewer, “Part of me feels like I owe the people of St. Louis some better baseball. If this is my last year there, and we know it could be, then I want to pitch well enough that it feels like, hey, we want you to come back. Let’s keep this going. No one wants at the end for people to say ‘good riddance.’”

This year will be the last year of his three-year, $56 million contract extension. When he talks about pitching better, he’s referring to the last two years when his combined ERA has been 5.04/

Set to earn $16 million for a team shedding payroll, Mikolas is one of four veterans, all of them former All-Stars, who have no-trade clauses and can reject any attempt the team makes to move them (and their contract) elsewhere. The Cardinals did not approach Mikolas about his preference, but the Jupiter, Florida, native shared it with the Post-Dispatch earlier this offseason and echoed Sonny Gray and Willson Contreras in his wish to remain in St. Louis despite what the team is advertising as potential withdraw from contention for a youth movement.

As far as arbitration goes—the Cardinals have signed ace reliever Ryan Helsley. But they haven’t signed Andre Pallante, Lars Nootbaar, and Brendan Donovan.

Motoring along:

(NASCAR)—NASCAR remains embroiled in the antitrust suit against it questioning its charter policies.

In an apparent effort to add more star-power, the sanctioning body has announced a major change for the Daytona 500.  It has a new “open provisional starting” spot that guarantees “world class drivers who enter a NASCAR Cup Series race” will be guaranteed a starting position even if they’re too slow to make the regular  40-car field. The first potential beneficiary might be 4-time Indianapolis 500 champion Helio Castroneves, who has a deal to drive a car for Trackhouse Racing at the Daytona 500. If Castroneves can’t make the field in qualifying, the starting lineup will be increased to 41.

Among the other new rules is one that targets people such as Kyle Larson, who missed the Charlotte 600 mile race in may because of weather. He ran the ran-delayed Indianapolis 500 and arrived in Charlotte after the race that night had been stopped for rain. It was called off before Castroneves could get into his regular Hendrick Motorsports ride. Larson had to petition to be allowed into the championship playoffs because he missed that race. The new rule says any waiver that lets a driver into the playoffs although he has missed a race, will mean the driver will forfeit current points and any playoff points he might accumulate before the playoffs. There are exemptions but competing in a rival series race instead of a NASCAR race will be costly.

(INDYCAR)—An expanded schedule is not certain but is appearing more likely as negotiations continue for prospected street races in Mexico City and in Denver.  Penske Entertainment President Mark Miles tells Motorspot.com that IndyCar’s talks are progressing:

“A new race isn’t added until everything’s done right, contracted for and all of that follows on us being convinced that we would have the right partnerships or promoters in the right markets. It’s too early to declare victory on any of the possibilities that you mentioned, but it is true that both of those markets are a work in progress. Look, if we land one of the two for as early as 2026 that’d be terrific, along with Arlington…

“We’ve said we look forward to opportunities to partner with really strong partners like the Cowboys and the Rangers. We’ve said we want to be in some more hot, new urban markets. So, you lay all that out, it allows us to be quite intentional about where we look and I think articulating it has caused some to call us. So, I hope that the progress will continue to accelerate.”

Miles is talking about plans next year for the Grand Prix of Arlington, near Fort Worth. The first race is planned for March 2026 on a 2.73-mile road course will be built near stadiums used by the NFL’s Dallas Cowboys and baseball’s Texas Rangers.

Sports: Chiefs rest; #2 Tigers show other Tigers Why They’re #2; and Brady goes forth; and a story of an inspirational racing figure

By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

(MIZBB)—Missouri’s SEC losing streak is now 21 after falling to Auburn Saturday afternoon, 84-68—and the game was not as close as the final score indicates.

Missouri was miserable from beyond the arc, going 2-17 to start and finishing 7-23. They were below 40% in overall shooting and their usual penetrate-and-draw-fouls or buckets offense also was ineffective.

Auburn, on the other hand, hit 57 percent of its shots from the field and was 10-21 from the outside.

Missouri is at home for the next two games—against Vanderbilt and LSU, two of the lower-ranked teams in the conference.

MIZFB)—Missouri Quarterback Brady Cook says he’s making himself available to the NFL NFLDRAFTBUZZCOM evaluates him as a clipboard-holding backup quarterback, a late day three choice or a high-priority undrafted free agent.

Here’s how the page rates him;

Strengths

  • Boasts elite wheels for a QB, clocking a blazing 4.62 in the 40, putting him in the 88th percentile at his position
  • Shows good touch on his dimes, especially in the short game, consistently hitting receivers in stride for YAC opportunities
  • Possesses above-average escapability, demonstrating the ability to extend plays and pick up chunk yardage on designed runs
  • Exhibits poise under fire, showing the ability to climb the pocket and reset his base while keeping his eyes downfield
  • Demonstrates sound mechanics when throwing in rhythm, utilizing proper weight transfer and shoulder alignment
  • Displays good touch on intermediate and deep balls, able to drop it in the bucket over defenders with appropriate arc
  • Shows football savvy with pre-snap reads, identifying favorable matchups and leverage situations
  • Exhibits plus leadership qualities and toughness, earning respect from teammates as a two-time team captain

Weaknesses

  • Possesses only average arm strength, limiting his ability to drive the ball consistently on deep outs and seam routes
  • Can be late to process post-snap rotations, occasionally missing open receivers or throwing into clouded windows
  • Footwork in dropbacks can be choppy at times, affecting timing and rhythm with receivers on timing-based routes
  • Tends to predetermine deep shots, leading to some ill-advised throws into double coverage
  • Lacks elite physical tools to consistently create off-script, limiting his ceiling as a playmaker at the next level

To summarize, says Wyatt Brooks, Cook “looks like a potential QB@ at the next level…His local ties and leadership qualities could make him an attractive option for teams looking to bolster their QB room with a high-character backup who can run the scout team effectively and step in if needed.”

(PORTAL)—The newest addition to the football program is a third-team all-American safety Jalen Catalon, who is moving to Columbia from the University of Nevada-Las Vegas. He’s the fifteenth portal player joining the program.

Missouri will be his third school and 2025 will be his SEVENTH college football season. He was a four-star recruit for Arkansas but played in only 21 games in four years, most of them in 2020 when he was an all-SEC pick by the Associated Press, with 99 tackles for then-coach Barry Odoms.  For his Arkansas career, he had five interceptions, four fumbles forced and 158 tackles.

He moved to Texas in 2023 and got into eight games, then joined Odoms at UNLV in ’24.

How has he managed to play college football for seven years? He redshirted his freshman year in 2019, got an additional year because of the pandemic in 2020 and had a season-ending injury at the start of 2022. (ZOU)

(CHIEFS)—-The Chiefs had nothing to play for against the Broncos, except for some opportunities to meet some financial incentives. Resting the key first-string guys was the goal, giving them three weeks between their last regular season game and their first game in the playoffs.

The result was the first shutout for the Chiefs in the Andy Reid era and kept him for recording his 300th victory as an NFL coach, a milestone unimportant to him in this game. More important was resting the regulars—which he did brilliantly, resulting in a 38-0 loss.

Kansas City has joined the 1971 Vikings and the 1977 Broncos as the only teams in NFL history since the 1970 merger to finish with the best record in the NFL without scoring more than 30 points in any single game.

Several players went into the game looking for some milestones. Xavier Worthy needed one touchdown to tie Rashee Rice for most TDS by a first-year Chiefs player. Obviously that did not happen.

Center Creed Humphrey started against Denver, continuing his consecutive game streak that began when he was a rookie in 2021. Only one Kansas City player has more consecutive starts since  his rookie year than Humphrey—Gary Barbaro, who started his first 101 games.

The Chiefs have two weeks to prepare for their first playoff game.

The playoff brackets for next weekend:

Chargers at Texas; Steelers at Ravens (both Saturday; Denver at Buffalo, Packers in Philadelphia, Commanders against the Buccaneers in Tampa Bay on Sunday and the Vikings against the Rams in Los Angeles on Monday night.

Motoring along

We haven’t checked in on motorsports very much lately, so let’s do a quick rundown:

(INDYCAR)—Sam Schmidt, one of INDYCAR’s most inspirational figures is leaving his “life’s work” as he gives up his final share of ownership in McLaren Schmidt-Peterson Motorsports, leaving McLaren the sole owner of the team.

He was a rising star in the Indy Racing League and raced in three Indianapolis 500s and finished fifth in points in 1999. But during offseason testing at Walt Disney World Speedway, he crashed and was left a quadriplegic.  For five months he was on a respirator.

He became the most successful car owner in the Indy Lights series, the feeder series for the top series in open-wheel American racing. He bought out Fazzi Motorsports in 2011 and fielded his first INDYCAR entry that year with driver Alex Tagliani grabbing the pole for the Indianapolis 500.

The team has been sponsored by Arrow Electronics since 2019. In 2016, Arrow developed a system that enabled Schmidt to drive again—a modified 2014 Corvette that utilized infrared cameras to capture head and breathing movements to control the car.

Arrow later developed the SAM suit that enables Schmidt to stand and walk.

His team became Schmidt-Peterson Motorsports when Canadian businessman Ric Peterson brought in, in 2013. It became Arrow McLaren SP in 2021 when McLaren stepped back into American motorsports, buying 75% of the team with an option to buy the rest after 2024. The final buyout came with the start of the new year.

For the past five years, Pato O’Ward has been the team’s leading driver. He’s finished in the top ten at the Indianapolis 500 four times, second twice—both times by narrow margins.

Schmidt and Peterson will stay connected as members of the team’s board of directors.

Schmidt commented, “This team has been my life’s work, growing from a dream into a competitor at the highest level. I’m endlessly grateful to the drivers, team members, partners and fans who made it all possible, and to McLaren for elevating the team’s potential. While I’m stepping back from ownership, my heart will always be with this team, and I’ll be cheering for its continued success every step of the way.”

The first race for the all-McLaren team will be March 2, when INDYCAR will race on the street course in St. Petersburg, Florida.

(Photo Credits: Schmidt—Bob Priddy; O’Ward—Schmidt Peterson Motorsports)