By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

(SRX)—Next up for the Superstar Racing Experience drivers: Ken Schrader’s I-55 Speedway at Pevely, Missouri, the first dirt track they’ll drive on this year.  And Schrader finally gets to race in a series  he helped create.

Former NASCAR champion Bobby Labonte will be going to Pevely after winning the last pavement race in the short-track series at Nashville.  Labonte, who is 58, is the oldest driver to win an SRX race. He started from the pole and led every lap in the final heat, holding off a serious challenge from INDYCAR driver Marco Andretti. Another former NASCAR champion, Matt Kenseth, was third and former INDYCAR driver Paul Tracy came home fourth. Four-time Indianapolis 500 winner Helio Castroneves was fifth.

Two-time INDYCAR series champion Josef Newgarden, a native of nearby Henderson, won the first heat while driving his first race in a car with fenders. Local track favorite Cole Williams won the second heat but was only 12^th in the 13-car field in the final.

Newgarden spun on the 49^th lap of the 75-lap final heat but rallied back to finish seventh. He called the race “a big learning session…just how these guys drive. They’re very rough.”  But he wants to do it again.

Labonte’s win has moved him ahead of Ryan Newman in the SRX points standings. Andretti’s runner-up also moves him ahead of Newman.

The series finishes up with two dirt-track races, the first being next Saturday night at Pevely, a track owned by veteran NASCAR driver Ken Schrader.  Schrader, who helped develop the cars used in the series, will compete in an SRX race for the first time—as the home track “guest” racer.

Pevely is about a half-hour south of St. Louis on I-55.

(NASCAR)—Chase Elliott is the first driver to pick up three wins this year, and number three has come at Atlanta Motor Speedway, his home track.  Elliott is from Dawsonville, about an hour’s drive south of Atlanta.

The win was in doubt as Elliott and Corey Lajoie battled for the lead through the first two turns of the last lap. But Lajoie hit the wall trying to pass Elliott on the backstretch as Elliott moved to block him and the race ended under caution with Elliott in front. Lajoie took his injured car home in 21^st place.

Lajoie’s crash produced the last of thirteen caution flags.  A dozen drivers contributed 27 lead changes in the 260-lap race.

Ross Chastain, whose reputation as a driver often in the center of incidents, added to his credentials before finishing second, his fifth top-two finish of the year. He was collected in a nine car crash near the halfway point of the race then tangled, again, with Denny Hamlin when both were running in the top ten, leaving Hamlin with a badly damaged car that limped to the end 25^th.

Daytona 500 winner Austin Cindric, the leading Rookie of the Year candidate, was third. Erik Jones and Ryan Blaney rounded out the top five.

Elliott’s win ups his regular season points lead to 47 over Blaney. Chastain runs third, fifty points back.

(INDYCAR)—INDYCAR’s next race is in Toronto next Sunday.

(FORMULA 1)—Ferrari’s Charles LeClerc had to deal with throttle issues and with challenges from Max Verstappen to win the Austrian Grand Prix.  It’s LeClerc’s first win since the Australian Grand Prix in April. He’s been dogged by mechanical and strategy problems since.

He beat Verstappen to the line by about 1.5 seconds to claim his first podium finish after five failures and move to within 38 points of Verstappen’s lead in the standings.

LeClerc and teammate Carlos Sainz were headed for a 1-2 finish before an engine failure sent Sainz’s car afire with fourteen laps left.

(Photo Credits: SRX and Rick Gevers)

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 16^th, 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 13^th 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 21^st, 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 54^th 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 15^th to 21^st.

(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 150^th 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)

By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

(SRX)—Drivers in the six-race made-for-TV Superstar Racing Experience Series have given Missouri racing fans an energetic preview of what to expect in three weeks when they race at a local track a few miles south of St. Louis.

Series co-founder Tony Stewart was steaming after the second heat of the weekend race at South Boston, Virginia and told his fellow drivers “Uncle Tony” was “about ready to get a dose of it that they don’t want…I know every dirty trick and got it in my bag…I’m done playing nice with everybody…Anybody who touches me, I’m touching back times five.”

Trans-Am racer Ernie Francis Jr., set off Stewart by bumping him to the inside as both were trying to avoid a spinning Paul Tracy in the second heat.  But there was plenty of other bumping and banging with INDYCAR driver Ryan Hunter-Reay and Tracy bumping each other into the wall and Michael Waltrip getting into it with RHR in another bumping incident. Waltrip and Tracy couldn’t finish the race.

In the final, Stewart bumped leader Marco Andretti several times before getting past him for the win. Andretti later spun out of contention while racing against runner-up Greg Biffle.

Stewart said after the race it’s time for a “dad talk” with the other drivers who have taken some bad habits from their regular series’ to the SRX short-track races. Among other concerns for him is the limited number of cars available for the remaining four races. About half of the cars need significant repairs before they can be shipped out Wednesday for the next race in Stafford Connecticut. The cars are identically prepared for each race.

The SRX show comes to Missouri on July 16^th with a race at the I-55 Speedway at Pevely. The track is owned by NASCAR veteran Ken Schrader who will be the “guest” driver for the night.

(NASCAR)—Chase Elliott’s long day’s journey into the Nashville night has given him his second win of the year and boosted his points lead over Ross Chastain.

Elliott had to wait out two interruptions because of lightning near the track—the second delay stretching to more than two hours because heavy rain was included—before speeding into the lead with 39 laps to go and then holding off Kurt Busch by a half-second.

He joins Ross Chastain, Joey Logano, Denny Hamlin and William Byron as two-time winners this year. Elliott stayed out on old tires during the last caution period with seven laps to go. Several challengers gambled that pitting for fresh tires would give them the grip to catch Elliott, but the strategy backfired when the race was restarted with only four laps left, not nearly enough time for them to catch him.

Ryan Blaney, Kyle Larson, and Chastain took the rest of the top-five positions.

Joe Gibbs Racing teammates Denny Hamlin, Martin Truex Jr., and Kyle Busch led 250 of the 300 laps but were among those who gambled during the last caution while Elliott and Kurt Busch and eight other drivers stayed out. Hamlin, who led a race-high 114 laps, could only get back to sixth. Kyle Busch, who led 54 laps, made it back to 21^st and Truex, who led 62 laps, was 22^nd.

Lightning in the area stopped the race the first time for more than an hour after the 41^st lap. The checkered flag didn’t fall until after 10 p.m., because of red-flag time totaling three hours, eight minutes.

(INDYCAR and F1)—INDYCAR returns to action July 3 on the Mid-Ohio road course. Indianapolis 500 winner Marcus Ericsson head into the race as the championship points leader with teammates Will Power and Josef Newgarden trailing.

Formula 1 runs the British Grand Prix at Silverstone with Max Verstappen, winner of six of the nine races so far this year well ahead in points.

(Photo credits: SRX and Bob Priddy at WWTR)

(Pevely, Mo)—A rare opportunity for Missourians to see Daytona 500 and Indianapolis 500 winners race each other comes up July 16 in Pevely, a small town south of St. Louis on I-55.

Winners of five Daytona 500s and two Indianapolis 500s will be racing in Tony Stewart’s SRX series at the Federated Auto Parts Raceway in Pevely. The field includes winners of five NASCAR championships and winners of four open-wheel championships for Indianapolis-type cars.

The Superstar Racing Experience, created by former NASCAR Champion Tony Stewart and championship crew chief Ray Evernham matches drivers from NASCAR and INDYCAR for a six-race summer series on paved and dirt oval tracks in identically-prepared cars.

Each race also includes a champion driver from the featured local track.

Scheduled to run at Pevely on July 16:

Matt Kenseth  2003 NASCAR Champion; 2009, 2012 Daytona 500 winner

Hallie Deegan, who drives in the NASCAR Truck Series

Tony Kanaan  2013 Indianapolis 500 winner; 2004 Indycar champion

Ken Schrader (guest)  1988 Talladega 500 winner; Started on pole for Daytona 500 three straight years.

Tony Stewart  2002, 2005, 2011 NASCAR champion; 1997 Indycar champion; 2005, 2007 Brickyard 400 winner;

Ryan Newman  2008 Daytona 500 winner; 2013 Brickyard 400 winner

Marco Andretti 2006 Indianapolis 500 Rookie of the Year; 2020 Indianapolos 500 pole winner; four top-3 finishes

Bobby Labonte  2000 NASCAR champion; 2000 Brickyard 400 winner

Paul Tracy  2003 CART champion

Michael Waltrip  2001, 2003 Daytona 500 winner

Ryan Hunter-Reay  2010 Indycar Champion; 2012 Indianapolis 500 winner

Greg Biffle 2000 NASCAR truck series champion; 2002 NASCAR Busch Series champion; 2005, 2006 Southern 500 winner

Schrader, who owns the Pevely track, helped develop the cars used in the series. He raced in NASCAR’s top series for 29 years and still competes at age 67 in the ARCA series and also on local tracks throughout the country.

The SRX races are televised on Saturday nights by CBS.  This year’s first race, run at steaming hot Five Flags Raceway in Sarasota, Florida, was won by four-time Indianapolis 500 winner Helio Castroneves, who had not been scheduled to compete until sponsorship for his car came through on Friday.

.Castroneves won the second of two heat races and finished ahead of local driver Bubba Pollard—who won the first heat race—with NASCAR’s Ryan Newman taking the remaining podium spot.

The second race of the series is next Saturday night at South Boston Speedway in Virginia.

The first four races of the season will be on paved speedways.  The last two races, beginning at Pevely, will be on dirt. The track at Pevely is one-third of a mile oval with nineteen-degree banked corners that usually features various classes of stock car racing.  The absolute lap record on the track was set by current NASCAR champion Kyle Larson in 2020 with a lap of 9.995 seconds (119.94 mph) in a winged sprint car.

(NASCAR.INDYCAR)—Neither of the big series was in action last weekend.  NASCAR is at Nashville next weekend. INDYCAR returns July 3 at the Mid-Ohio Road Course.

(FORMULA 1)—Max Verstappen held off Carlos Sainz in the Grand Prix of Canada, run in Montreal, to pick up his sixth win of the year and build his championship lead to an impressive 175 points.  Sainz, who could close on Verstappen but not get past him, finished less than one-second back.  Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton, who has endured a year of struggle and pain, was third after his car—and other F1 manufacturers—got some modifications designed to reduce bounding, or “porpoising” on high-speed runs.

Photo Credits:  SRX Racing; Bob Priddy (Castoneves at indianapolis 2022)

By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

(INDYCAR)—Josef Newgarden has won three times this year on the INDYCAR circuit and those three times have produced a million-dollar bonus.

Because he’s the first driver to win an oval race, a street race, and a road course race this year, he has turned a normal win into a big windfall for his team and for his favorite charity.  PeopleReady, an employment services company, sponsors a car for Christian Lundgaard, another INDYCAR driver, offered the bonus to the first driver to win on all three types of courses on the circuit this year.

Half of the money goes to the Team Penske and the other half will be split between SeriousFun Children’s Network and Wags and Walks Nashville, a dog rescue nonprofit.

Newgarden finished about 3.4 seconds ahead of Marcus Ericsson, the Indianapolis 500 winner. Ericsson now has four straight top-seven finishes and has replaced Newgarden teammate Will Power atop the points list. Alexander Rossi, who started from the pole was third, his second podium finish this month and this third straight top-five finish.

Newgarden got the jump on the final re-start. He led 26 of the race’s 55 laps on the Road America course.

INDYCAR is off next week before running at Mid-Ohio on July 3.

(NASCAR)—In the entire 65-year history of NASCAR only five drivers born outside the United States have won a Cup race.  Daniel Suarez finally put it all together to get his first Cup win after 195 starts, pulling away from Chris Buescher to win on the road could win on the road course at Sonoma.

Suarez, native of Mexico, led 47 of the 110 laps and beat Buescher to the stripe by almost four seconds to become the first Mexican driver to win at NASCAR’s highest level. He led the last 26 laps.  Michael McDowell got the third podium position with Kevin Harvick, Austin Cindric, Ryan Blaney, Clay Chastain, Chase Elliott, William Byron and Brad Keselowski rounding out the top ten.

Defending series champion Kyle Larson, who started from the pole, finished 15^th after losing a wheel late in the race.

It has been almost a decade since the last victory in the Cup series by a foreign-born driver—Australia’s Marcus Ambrose’s victory at Watkins Glen in August, 2012. It was his second win in NASCAR’s top series. He also won at The Glen a year earlier. Colombia’s Juan Pablo Montoya also was a two-time winner—Watkins Glen in 2010 and at Sonoma in 2007.

Italian Mario Andretti won the Daytona 500 in 1967 and Canadian Earl Ross won at Martinsville in 1974.

Suarez is the fourth first-time winner this year and the 12^th different winner in this season. His win increases the pressure on drivers who are 17^th and lower in the points.  Only the top sixteen winners and non-winners with enough points will qualify for the playoffs after 26 races. Sonoma was the 16^th points race of 2022.

The four non-winners still within the top sixteen are Ryan Blaney, Martin Truex Jr., Christopher Bell, and Aric Almirola. Kevin Harvick is barely out of the top 16 with Tyler Reddick and Austin Dillon next.

One other note: Teammates Chase Elliott and Kyle Larson combined to lead 52 laps, enough to give Hendrick-backed cars more than 100,000 miles led in NASCAR races, the first time in NASCAR’s 75-year history a team has reached that figure.

NASCAR is off next weekend, returning on the 26^th at Nashville.

(FORMULA 1)—Defending F1 champion Max Verstappen won the Azerbaijan Grand Prix with teammate Sergio Perez following him across the finish line but two issues competed with the Red Bull team for attention in and after the race.

Red Bull’s closest competitor this year, Ferrari, again had reliability issues with number two driver Carlos Sainz pulling out of the race on the ninth lap with hydraulic failure and the lead driver, Charles Leclerc, sideline by an engine failure eleven laps later.

And Mercedes continues to struggle with the “porpoising” problems that have besieged Lewis Hamilton and George Russell all season long.  Russell salvaged a third place and Hamilton finished fourth but both complained that their cars started bouncing at high speeds. Mercedes has tried to solve the problem of cars bouncing at high speed all season long but still have had no success.

Hamilton complained of bouncing so severe that he was suffering severe back pains on the rough track during the race, which he called “the worst race ever, probably the most painful race I have experienced and the toughest battle with the car I have ever experienced as well.”

(Photo credit: Bob Priddy, Indianapolis 2021)

by Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

(NASCAR)—Joey Logano has begun a new era for NASCAR in the St. Louis region by winning a last laps duel with Kyle Busch at Worldwide Technology Raceway.  The race with the Gateway Arch in view, at a track that almost disappeared eleven years ago after the apparent last NASCAR Cup race on October 23, 2010, marked the decade-long resurrection under owner Curtis Francois.

Francois bought the track two weeks before its grandstands were to be sold for scrap and its grounds cleared to make way for an industrial park for nearby Granite City and has turned it into a center for the major American auto racing series backed by the NHRA, INDYCAR, and now the NASCAR Cup series.

Logano did not get his first lead until the 208^th lap of what turned into a 245-lap race, only to give it up to Kyle Busch twenty laps leader on a restart.  But he got another chance after one last yellow flag when he got a push on the restart from Penske teammate Ryan Blaney that put him back in front.  Busch got past him briefly on the backstretch before Logano got under Busch and back into the lead going into the final lap.

He finished 0.655 seconds ahead of Kyle Busch whose elder brother Kurt got between him and Blaney.

The race ended with some hard feelings, mostly caused by eighth-place finisher Ross Chastain, who confessed after the race that he had done a horrible job of driving and kept running into people.  The first one he hit was Denny Hamlin. Who went into the wall in turn two (that’s Hamlin at the wall and Chastain in car #1).  Hamlin’s car was never the same although he soldiered on going fast enough to meet minimum speed requirements. He finished 34^th, eleven laps down.  He has indicated there will be retribution in some later race.

Chastain also caused a wreck when he tried to force his way between Chase Elliott (left) and Austin Dillon as they were running just outside the top 12 and forced Elliott to spin in front of the rest of the field.  Elliott got back underway but his day was spoiled. He finished 21^st.

Chastain, who knows a racetrack woodshedding from Hamlin and Elliott will be administered in some future race told FOX Sports broadcaster Jamie Little, “I’m supposed to be better than that…I owe half the field an apology. I can’t continue to make the same mistakes. I’ll have to pay for it on the track.”

Logano joins Chastain, Hamlin, and William Byron as two-time winners of NASCAR Cup races this year. Elliott also has a victory this year.

The race was a sellout. Logano discussed events afterwards.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n406_Yz9gbk

(INDYCAR)—While the St. Louis area was celebrating a new beginning, Detroit was seeing an end to INDYCAR racing on the Belle Isle circuit. Penske driver Will Power, who suffered a heartbreaking loss last year, dominated this year’s race to win his 41^st career INDYCAR victory.  But he had to hold off Alexander Rossi who launched a late race charge to the front for the second week in a row.

Pit strategy was a factor as Power stopped for tires and fuel only twice while Rossi made three stops. Power made his last stop with 19 laps left in the 70-lap race. He led by almost 16.1 seconds but was on tires that degraded faster than the tires Rossi was using.  He still led by 12.1 with ten to go.  But Power got behind slow-running Jack Harvey, the lead dropped to 7.7 seconds with five laps left, then to 6.5 with three laps left. It was only 2.8 seconds at the start of the final lap and when the checkered flag fell, Power was only 1.0027 seconds ahead.

“I think one more lap would have been really interesting,” Rossi said after the race. “But you’ve got to give credit to (Power’s pit crew) and Will.  That’s hard to do at the end, to hang on.”

Power’s win came a year after he dominated the Belle Isle circuit until the race was stopped because of a crash and his car would not restart before the race resumed.  He called his weekend victory “just redemption from last year.”

The win moves Power into the INDYCAR points lead by three points over Marcus Ericsson, who won the previous weekend’s Indianapolis 500.

INDYCAR is not leaving Detroit, just Belle Isle.  Next year, Power, Rossi and the others will race on a circuit through the streets of the city.

Rossi will be with a new team for next year’s race. He’s leaving Andretti Autosports and has signed with Arrows-McLaren for 2023.

(FORMULA 1)—Formula 1 is getting ready for the Grand Prix of Azerbaijan in Baku. Azerbaijan is a former member of the Soviet Union. It declared its independence in 1991.

(Photo credits:  WWTR—Bob Priddy; Power—Rick Gevers at Indianapolis)

By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

(RACING)—From the glamorous streets of Monte Carlo to the historic oval at Indianapolis, to NASCAR’s longest race in Charlotte, Memorial Day in traditionally auto racing’s biggest day (although the longest days are reserved for LeMans and Daytona 24hour races).  Let’s recap:

(INDYCAR)—Take the entire population of St. Louis (about 304,000 people) and put them into an area less than one square mile and then have 33 cars running 220 mph within that space—-and you have the 2022 Indianapolis 500.

Marcus Ericsson, a native of Sweden running his fourth 500, had the field covered with less than ten of the 200 laps left. And then NASCAR star Jimmie Johnson, a rookie in open-wheel racing’s biggest event, crashed with seven laps to go. Two laps later, the red flag brought the race to a halt so it could finish at speed.

The race resumed at full speed with only two laps left, locking Ericsson into an intense battle with Pato O’Ward, with five former winners—with 9 victories in the 500 among them—in the final scramble behind them.  Ericsson was holding off O’Ward when Sage Karam crashed on the last lap, freezing the field as it came around for the checkered flag.

The two crashes ended late race surges by former winners Tony Kanaan, who finished third in what might be his last 500; Alexander Rossi, who had charged from 20^th to fifth at the end; four-time winner Helio Castroneves who had methodically worked his way from 27^th to seventh; Simon Pagenaud, who was closely behind Castroneves, and two-time winner Juan Pablo Montoya, who started 30^th and crossed the line 11^th, less than eleven seconds behind Ericsson.

Twenty-two cars finished on the lead lap within 25.2 seconds of the winner including another former winner, Scott Dixon, who started from the pole, led 95 laps, and seemed able to withstand challenges from everybody else.  Dixon, however, was caught going to fast into the pits for his last stop on lap 177 and had to make a drive-through penalty that put him at the back of the leading-lap cars. He finished 21^st.

It was no consolation to Dixon that he broke Al Unser Sr.’s record for most laps led in the 500. He has led 665 laps in his career, breaking Unser’s record of 644. Ralph DePalma, one of the pioneers of the sport, is third on the list now with 612 laps led.  Unser won the race four times. Dixon and DePalma each have only one victory.

Dixon also holds the record for leading the most laps in a 500 (6 times), led 12 times to up his record number of times leading the race to 70, and stayed even with Tony Kanaan for leading the most 500s (15).

Ericsson ran in the top five most of the day but led only 13 laps, the fewest since Juan Pablo Montoya led only nine in 2015.He is the second Swedish driver to win the race.  Kenny Brack won the race in 1999.

Ericsson has a unique history in INDYCAR competition.  He has won three races in the series.  In all three, the race was red-flagged late so it could be finished at speed.

His win brought him $3.1 million, the largest winner’s reward in Indianapolis 500 history, part of a total purse of more than $16-million, the largest payout ever in the event.

The average payout at last night’s victory banquet was $485,000.

One reason for the record purse was the attendance, estimated at 325,000, the first time the Indianapolis Motor Speedway has opened its gates with no Covid restrictions in three years.

Jimmie Johnson, who won four stock car races at the Speedway in his NASCAR days, was named rookie of the year for the 500, adding $50,000 to the $207,900 he earned for his 28^th-place finish.

(NASCAR)—NASCAR’s traditionally longest race of the year became the longest race in its history, with Denny Hamlin outdueling Kyle Busch in two overtimes.  The race, a 600-mile Memorial Day tradition, covered 619.5 miles before Hamlin crossed the finish line a mere 0.119 seconds ahead of Busch.

His victory tended to overshadow an epic comeback by Kyle Larson, who had to start from the rear because of unapproved adjustments to his already-damaged car, then had three pit-road penalties that put him at the back again, sun off the track once, had a pit fire and still was leading the race with two laps to go when Chase Briscoe brought out the caution flag and forced the race into its first overtime.

Larson’s luck ran out on the first overtime effort when he became one of seven cars collected in the last wreck of the night. He still managed to bring his wrinkled car home ninth.

The same wreck also knocked Ross Chastain out of the running. He led 153 of the 413 eventual laps and was the next-to-last car on the lead lap, running 15^th, when the race came to a merciful end after five hours, 13 minutes and eight seconds. The average speed was only 118.7 mph.

The race included 18 cautions that covered 90 yellow-flag laps.  It was stopped with 54 laps left in regulation when Daniel Suarez got sideways after contact with Chase Briscoe. Chris Buescher’s car was caught up in the wreck and did five carrel rolls through the infield, coming to rest upside down.  It took several minutes to get the car turned over and for him to climb out unhurt.

At the end of the night, seventeen of the 37 cars that started were in the garage area, unable to continue.

(FORMULA 1)—Heavy rain delayed the start of the Monaco Grand Prix just before the green flag fell and tire decisions by the teams trying to deal with wet/dry track conditions contributed to a race described by some as “chaotic.”

At the end of the day, Red Bull’s number two driver, Sergio Perez, became the first North American to win at Monaco since Canada’s Gilles Villeneuve in 1981. The win is his third career F1 victory, making him the winningest Mexican driver in Formula 1 history, breaking a tie with Pedro Rodriguez, who raced in the 60s and early 70s.

The race was a huge disappointment for Charles Leclerc, the lead driver for Ferrari, who started on pole and finished fourth, a setback on his home track. He now trails Max Verstappen of Red Bull by nine points in the championship standings after leading Verstappen by a wide margin in the early part of the season.

Several drivers admitted they were stunned by the crash that took Haas driver Mick Schumacher out of the race. His car crashed into two barriers with a force so hard that the rear wheels, including the transaxle, were torn from the chassis.  Schumacher climbed from the cockpit unhurt, however.

(Photo Credits: Rick Gevers and Bob Priddy)

By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

The American Memorial Day Weekend is the biggest weekend of the year for motorsports not only in this country but in Europe.

The Indianapolis 500, NASCAR’s 600-mile race at Charlotte, and the Grand Prix of Monaco put automobile racing in the spotlight—-although there are some questions whether one of these races will remain part of the big weekend in the future.

(INDYCAR)—A year after arguably the most spectacular Indianapolis 500 in history, a record-setting field is prepared for the 106^th running of The Greatest Spectacle in Racing. The fastest field in history will take the green flag Sunday.  The thirty-three cars have an average qualifying speed of 231.023 mph, with Scott Dixon’s record pole average of 234.046 mph leading the way.

It’s Dixon’s fifth pole, one behind the record held by Rick Mears. He is the first driver to win back-to-back poles for the 500 since Ed Carpenter did it in 2013 and 2014.

Dixon’s speed is the second-fastest qualification in track history.  Arie Luyendyk set the overall record of 236.896 in 1996 but as a second-day qualifier started behind cars that had qualified on the first day.

Dixon had to outrun two youngsters to win the pole.  Alex Palou qualified at 233.499 mph and Rinus VeeKay stopped the watches at 233.385.  It’s the fastest front row in 500 history.  They are separated by less than one-half second after their four-lap, 10-mile run.

Twenty-six of the thirty-three cars that will start the race next Sunday qualified at 230 mph or more.

Last year’s winner, Helio Castroneves, will try to become the first five-time winner of the Indianapolis 500. But he has a hard road ahead, starting 27^th, on the outside of the ninth row.

Castroneves became the fourth four-time winning in a stunning race last year in which the race speed record was broken by three miles an hour. The top sixteen cars all averaged more than 190 mph and the slowest car to complete all 200 laps—Ryan Hunter Reay—was still faster than the old speed record. The last car still running—Will Power, three laps down—was running faster than the record  set in 2013 by Tony Kanaan.

(NASCAR)—NASCAR’s annual all-star race sets the stage each year for its longest race and this year the all-star race went longer than usual.  Ryan Blaney thought he had won this year’s race, at Texas Motor Speedway, but learned his celebration was a little premature.

Blaney crossed the start-finish line first but learned the yellow flag had come out while his car was a few yards short of the line because of a crash behind him by Ross Chastain.  The incident meant the race would be concluded with a green-white-checkered flag two-lap overtime.  He got a push from Austin Cindric that allowed him to get the break on the final green flag and stay ahead of Denny Hamlin by a quarter second at the final end.  Cindric, the rookie who won the Daytona 500 to begin the racing season in February, finished third.

(FORMULA 1)—Max Verstappen heads to the uncertain streets of Monte Carlo on a roll after a disappointing season start.  But his good fortune is built on the misfortune of his chief competitor for the early-season points lead.

Verstappen and Mercedes’ George Russell fought a spirited fight for second place in the early going of the Spanish Grand Prix while Charles Leclerc and his Ferrari maintained a lead. But Leclerc lost his engine after his first pit stop and Verstappen teammate Sergio Perez got past Russell to give the Red Bull team its first 1-2 finish of the year.  Russell came home third.  Leclerc’s teammate Carlos Sainz, was fourth and Lewis Hamilton persevered for fifth.

The win is Verstappen’s third in row, fourth in the last five races. His win and Leclerc’s misfortune has moved Verstappen into the points lead, six ahead of Leclerc.  Leclerc has won the other two races.

Mercedes, which has struggled this year, showed progress at Spain, with Russell finishing third and Hamilton coming from the back of the pack after an early-race incident to finish fifth, has indicated it might have some improvements to its cars for Monaco.

There are reports that this historic race is facing an uncertain future.  The Sun, a United Kingdom newspaper, reports Formula 1 is considering dropping Monaco as a race site or running there in alternating years.  F1 receives no sanctioning payments from Monaco and there are those who consider the circuit outdated and facilities inadequate.

(NASKAR)—Kansas, Kurt, Kyle, Kyle.

Kurt Busch has won his first race at the Kansas Speedway after 33 career starts.  He now has at least one Cup victory in four different brands of cars—Ford, Dodge, Chevrolet, Toyota.

It’s his 34^th career victory but the first one in a car designed to look like an Air Jordan tennis shoe.   And it’s the first time a car carrying the number 45 has won a Cup race since Lee Roy Yarbrough did it 58 years ago.

The number is significant because it’s one worn by team co-owner Michael Jordan, whose logo was on the hood of a car for the first time.

Bush had a two second-and-holding lead with 30 laps to go and did not need the caution flag with about thirty laps left.  He came out of the pits third.  He got past younger brother, Kyle, then set off to run down Kyle Larson—and got him with eight laps left, with an inside line.  Larson, running the rim, tagged the wall for the third time in the race, letting Busch get clear and pull away to a 1.3 second win.

It’s only the second victory for the 23XI team (23-11, two numbers associated with Jordan’s basketball career and the number campaigned by the other co-owner, driver Denny Hamlin) but the final result is the best-ever for the team.  Hamlin finished fourth and the third team driver, Bubba Wallace, rallied from a major pit road problem to finish tenth.  Wallace picked up the team’s first win at Talladega last year.

The race marked the halfway point in the 26-race regular season. Busch became the eleventh winner, leaving only five playoff spots to be determined by points—assuming there are no new winners in the next thirteen races.

NASCAR’s next points race is its longest, the 600 mile Memorial Day race at Charlotte.  Next week, Cup drivers race at the Texas Speedway in the annual non-points All-Star Race that pays the winner a million dollars.

(INDYCAR)—Wet.  No.  Dry.  Wait.  Wet.  Aww, Dry.  Raining in this corner.  Dry in this one.  Can’t see anything through the rooster tails of spray.  Oops.

The weekend road course race that kicks off the lead-in for the Indianapolis 500 in a couple of weeks has been pronounced “one of the wildest races” in recent history.  The win went to the driver who was able to best control the chaotic conditions for two hours.  Colton Herta was seriously sideways at least once but never went all the way around, as several competitors did, and in the end beat Simon Pagenaud to the checkered flag by about four seconds.

“This is the hardest race I think I’ve ever done,” said Herta afterward

Pagenaud, who climbed from 20^th starting position despite the chaos, called the track “treacherous” at the end, when officials decided to stop the race after two hours instead of going the full 85-lap distance. Sixteen of the 27 starters were still on the same lap when the checkered flag game down on lap 75.

Will Power, who started from the pole, got the final podium position with Marcus Ericsson finding his way from 18^th to fourth. “The craziest thing I’ve ever experienced,” said Connor Daley, who had his best finish of the year—fifth.

Almost half of the starters struggled with the fluctuating weather. Eight caution periods for 31 of the 75 laps involved 13 of the 27 cars in the field.

Today (Tuesday) the Speedway becomes the historic oval again and Helio Castroneves  begins his quest to be the first driver to win back-to-back 500s a second time, and the first driver to have five places on the Borg-Warner trophy.

(MONACO)—Suppose you were given a chance, at only 24 years of age, to drive one of the iconic Formula 1 race cars in a historic car event.  Suppose you were one of the top stars in today’s Formula 1 competition.  And suppose you wrecked the car that likely would bring several million dollars the next time it is auctioned.

Charles Leclerc was driving Niki Lauda’s Ferrari 312b3-74 in the Monaco Historic Grand Prix last weekend, when he backed it into the wall, damaging the rear wing which damaged the right rear wheel. Leclerc, who has two wins and two runner-up finishes in the first five races of the year. He was able to drive the car away from the crash site, but slowly.

The car is now privately owned.  Lauda was second in the F1 championship points that year but won the first of his three world championships in an updated 312 the next year.

(photo credits:   (Busch, Herta) Bob Priddy; (Ferrari): Andrew and Alan Frost, Wikimedia Commons, https://flickr.com/photos/95472204@N03/28578702257)