(NASCAR)—NASCAR’s hottest driver of 2021 has guaranteed himself a shot at the Cup championship.  Kyle Larson held off teammate William Byron through restart after restart to win the last 500-mile race of the year, finishing half a second in front at Texas Speedway. It’s his eighth win of the year and makes him the first driver assured of being one of four drivers to race for the championship at Phoenix November 7.

Larson, who led 256 of the 334 laps could not get Byron out of his rear view mirror in several restarts in the last phase of the race. Although he dominated the race, six restarts in the last race stage—four of them in the last 30 laps—challenged him to get the break ahead of the bunched-up field before the driver in the outside lane, usually Byron, could nose ahead. Christopher Bell, Brad Keselowski, and Kevin Harvick rounded out the top five in the race.  Bell and Harvick dropped out of playoff picture last week.

Three drivers among the eight semi-finalists filled the next three positions at Texas: Ryan Blaney, defending champion Chase Elliott, and Kyle Busch. Denny Hamlin kept his championship hopes alive despite a spin with 21 laps left that dropped him to last among cars on the leader’s lap and a crash with seven laps remaining. His pit crew kept his car operable and he brought it home 11^th.  Fifteen cars finished on the lead lap.

The eighth contender, Joey Logano, suffered a rare engine failure and wound up 30^th, putting him in a must-win situation in the remaining two races of this playoff stage if he is to contend for the championship.

Larson, Blaney, Hamlin, and Busch hold the top four spots. Elliott is five points below the cut line. Brad Keselowski trails by 15. Martin Truex Jr., who left the race with twenty laps left, is down 22. Logano is eighth.

The playoffs continue at the Kansas Speedway next Sunday.

(INDYCAR)—Alex Palou, the new INDYCAR champion, won his championship on a road course he’d never visited before.  But he had driven the course a lot.

Palou, on Dale Earnhardt Junior’s podcast (IndyCar Champion Alex Palou: “You Get More Into Fights Than Us” – YouTube), explained, “I’d never been there. It’s like the most important race of my life.”   So he want iRacing—driving a computer program that simulated the Long Beach track.  ‘I needed as many laps as possible. I think I did driving, like, 17-18 hours” in one day.

He went into the race with a healthy lead in points and had to finish only eleventh to clinch the trophy. He finished fourth to become the first Spaniard to win an INDYCAR title, the seventh youngest champion and the first driver younger than 25 to win a championship since teammate Scott Dixon got the first of his six eighteen years ago (he’s 24).

Palou has a special diet when he wins a race—a big chicken dinner.  He told USA Today’s “For the Win” podcast that the custom began when he was racing in Japan where “you don’t have the food we normally have…So the only thing that was similar was Spanish food—and it was bad food for you; it’s not salad—it was fried chicken. And I love friend chicken…So it was a perfect fit.”

Since winning the championship, he’s been making a lot of appearances and “I think I’ve had loads of fried chicken.”

He has also had a chance to see a different kind of racing close-up.  He was at Charlotte earlier this month for the race on the Charlotte Roval, the combination of oval and road course. “There is nothing close to a NASCAR stock car,” he said.  The car is huge. It’s mind-blowing. It’s a really big car.  That is what makes NASCAR so amazing on track—lots of weight, lots of power. It’s difficult for the drivers to handle.”

Would he like to strap in one?  Of course. He’s a racer.  But just for some test laps.  Open-wheel racing is still his thing.

(FORMULA 1)—No wheels turned in competition in F1 this week.  Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton renew their hot rivalry for the championship Sunday at the Circuit of the Americas near Austin, Texas. Verstappen took a six-point lead on Hamilton at the Turkish Grand Prix a week ago.

Formula 1 has six races left this year, including Austin. It finishes up on December 12 in Abu Dhabi.

(picture credits: Bob Priddy and Dirty Mo Media/Youtube).

(NASCAR)—-From sixteen to twelve, and now only eight drivers remain in the fight for NASCAR’s 2021 Cup championship.

Adding color to the competition are two guys, one still in the championship hunt and one who knocked himself out of it in the cutdown race at the Charlotte Roval.

Kyle Larson climbed all the way to the winner’s circle after an early race mishap, getting his seventh win of the year.  He has the top seed in the three-race series that will cut the final competitors to four for the last race of the year.

Larson’s alternator lost its belt and his battery started going flat at the end of the second stage of the race. But his pit crew put in a new battery and put on a new alternator belt—without losing a lap. However, he had dropped from 6^th to 36th when he got back on the track. But he carved his way through the field and back into the top ten with 31 laps left and was second with eleven laps left. He got past Denny Hamlin for the lead with eight laps left and beat Tyler Reddick to the flag by about eight-tenths of a second.

Hamlin has the second seed for the next round with Martin Truex Jr., Ryan Blaney and Kyle Busch filing the rest of the top five positions.  The remaining three drivers are Chase Elliott, Joey Logano, and Brad Keselowski.

Kevin Harvick took himself out of title contention when he charged too hard into the first turn with eleven laps left, trying to stay ahead of Elliott and Truex, and went straight into the SAFER barrier.  His departure from the race was good news to Elliott with whom he has had a metal-bending feud going since the Bristol race three weeks ago when Harvick accused Elliott of denying him his first win of the year. Earlier in the race, Harvick had bumped Elliot into the turn eight wall, damaging the rear of the defending NASCAR champion’s car and jeopardizing his chances of advancing in the playoffs.

Elliott’s crew taped the pieces together so he could continue and he wound twelfth.  Harvick’s self-elimination put him 33^rd for the day and out of the final eight for the first time since NASCAR went to the current playoff system.

Neither driver showed any contrition about their on-track ongoing dispute, which NASCAR noticed.

NASCAR’s senior vice-president for competition, Scott Miller, told SirusXM radio the Harvick-Elliott snit has to come to an end. “We spoke to them after the thing at Bristol…We don’t need that continuing on and we’ll do what we think is necessary to kind of get that one calmed down.”

Harvick was joined by Christopher Bell, Kurt Busch and Tyler Reddick as drivers no longer contending for the championship.

Unlike stick-and-ball sports, NASCAR playoffs are not a win-or-go home proposition. The four eliminated drivers will still be racing wins in the last four races.

(INDYCAR)—More driver lineups are falling into place for the 2022 INDYCAR season.

Jack Harvey will be in the Rahal-Letterman-Lanigan car next year, replacing Santino Ferrucci.  Ferrucci is believed to be in the running for the third RLL seat that had been occupied by Takuma Sato in 2021.  Sato says his chances of a season-long INDYCAR ride next year are only about 50-50 although he is rumored to be under consideration by Dale Coyne and Rick Ware’s team.  Graham Rahal drives the other team car.

Simon Pagenaud has left Penske and has signed with Meyer-Shank Racing, taking the seat Harvey had held in 2021. He’ll team with Helio Castroneves for a full 2022 schedule.

(FORMULA 1)—Frequent F1 bridesmaid Valtteri Bottas inherited pole position for the Turkish Grand Prix when teammate Lewis Hamilton was penalized ten starting positions for an engine change and refused to give up first place afterwards.  He finished almost fifteen seconds ahead of Max Verstappen in a race dogged by rain.

Verstappen reclaimed the Formula 1 points lead over Hamilton, who finished tenth and thought he would have done much better if he had not been called to the pits for new tires with seven laps to go while running third.  He wound up fifth and dropped out of the points lead to now trail by six.

(photo credits: Bob Priddy)

Cutdown weekend winnows the field in both NASCAR and INDYCAR as the seasons head toward their final laps.

(NASCAR)—Kyle Larson won a wild last race of the first playoff round for the NASCAR Cup championship and will lead twelve drivers into the second round.  Four drivers have fallen by the wayside and cannot finish higher than 13^th this year regardless of how they run the next seven races.

The long race at one of NASCAR’s shortest tracks is known for generating short tempers, and the crowd saw them on display in the pits after the race when Kevin Harvick (still in his helmet) and Chase Elliott got into an angry discussion of Elliott’s maneuver that Harvick claimed cost him the race.

Harvick, winless this year, challenged Elliott for the lead with 35 laps to go. Contact between the two cars left Elliott with a cut tire.  He lost three laps during a pit stop and came out right behind Harvick, Elliott’s better grip helped him get past Harvick and stay ahead of him by running Harvick’s line while Larson closed, and passed Harvick for the lead with three laps left and beat him to the finish by about two-tenths of a second.

The victory is Larson’s sixth of the year, the most of any driver. Elliott wound up 25^th.

Harvick and Elliott had heated words as soon as their cars stopped in the pits. NASCAR officials got between them before things went beyond verbal.  Harvick called Elliott’s blocking move “a temper tantrum” and a “chicken (expletive) move.”  He said he told Elliott he wanted to “rip his freaking head off.”  Elliott said Harvick’s bump of him in passing for the lead is “something he does all the time.  He runs into your left side constantly at other tracks….Did it to me in Darlington a few weeks ago because he was racing me…I don’t care who he is or how long he’s been doing it, I’m going to stand up for myself and my team and we’re going down the road.”

Bristol was the final race in the first three-race round of the playoffs. Both Elliott and Harvick will be in the second round.  But Aric Almirola, Tyler Reddick, Kurt Busch, and Michael McDowell have been eliminated. Reddick was 12^th in the race; Almirola 18^th,Busch 19^th,  and McDowell 24^th.

Harvick is seeded twelfth for the second three-race elimination round. Larson retains his lead but Martin Truex Jr., takes over the second seed because he has four wins for the year, ahead of Denny Hamlin, with only one.  Ryan Blaney, Kyle Busch, and Elliott fill slots 4-6.  Then it’s Alex Bowman, William Byron, and Joey Logano, with Brad Keselowski, Christopher Bell and Harvick filling out the rest of the bracket.

The major teams in NASCAR dominate the remaining competitors. Four of the twelve drivers are from Hendrick Motorsports. Four are with Joe Gibbs Racing. Three represent Team Penske. Harvick, who drivers for Stewart-Haas, is the only other driver still in the hunt.

Unlike other major sports, dropping out of playoff contention in NASCAR does not mean leaving the weekly competition.  The twelve remaining playoff competitors still have to compete against two dozen other drivers in every race.

The field will be cut to eight after the next three races, then to four after three more, and those four will be the only drivers in a field of about 38 cars in the year’s final race who can compete for the Cup. Whoever has the best finish in the final race, even if not winning, will be the 2021 NASCAR Cup champion.

Harvick and Elliott, who continued their discussion behind closed doors after the race, will be back on track along with all the other drivers next Sunday at Las Vegas.

(INDYCAR)—-Alex Palou’s second place finish at Laguna Seca has expanded his points lead over challenger Pato O’Ward and Josef Newgarden, the only two drivers with any reasonable hopes of catching him in the series’ last race.

Colton Herta dominated from the pole, giving up the lead to Romain Grosjean for four laps of the 72-lap race, and those during pit stops. Palou chased him for the last part of the race but came up almost two seconds short.  It’s Herta’s second win at Laguna Seca, his fifth in his three-year INDYCAR career, one more than his father, Bryan, accumulated in thirteen years on the circuit.  His father, Bryan, is now his race manager.

Palou now leads O’Ward by 35 points and two-time champion Josef Newgarden by 48 heading into next weekend’s finale on the streets of Long Beach.  He will clinch his first championship if he finishes 11^th or better.

The contest for INDYCAR Rookie of the year between Grosjean and Scott McLaughlin remains tight with only twenty points separating the two. Grosjean, who started 13^th, ran a scintillating last segment of the race, cutting his separation from Herta by a second or more (sometimes two), lap after lap.  He was down ten seconds with nine laps to go but he could get no closer than 3.7-seconds when Herta took the checkered flag.

This will be the sixteenth straight year the INDYCAR championship will be decided at the season’s last race.  INDYCAR does not have a playoff system, as NASCAR does.

(SCHEDULES)—Missourians who like big-time auto racing will have no races in the state next year, as usual, but will have plenty of races within day-trip distance (depending on where they live, of course).  INDYCAR’s 2022 schedule, just announced, has two races at the Indianapolis Speedway in May including the 500, a double-header return to Iowa June 23-24, and at Nashville and Gateway (World Wide Technology Raceway) across the river from St. Louis in August.

NASCAR will run at the Kansas Speedway, across the line from Kansas City, on May 15 and September 11, and will have its first Cup race ever at Gateway on June 5.  Nashville comes up on June 26. The second race on the Indianapolis Speedway Road Course will be July 31.

By the way—-

Before promoters built the Kansas Speedway, an effort was made to gain state support for a major track near Kansas City International Airport, the Missouri legislature thought the idea wasn’t worth state financial incentives and passed.

(FORMULA 1)—Formula 1 returns for the Grand Prix of Russia at the Sochi circuit next Sunday, the first race since the Monza dustup between Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen.  Verstappen has been slapped with a three-place grid penalty for the start of the race.

(Photo credits: NASCAR/Jared C. Tilton-Getty Images,  and Bob Priddy)

(NASCAR)—Martin Truex Jr., has become the second driver to lock in a position for the second round of NASCAR’s playoffs by Beating last week’s winner, Denny Hamlin, to the finish line at Richmond.  He let a 1-2-3 finish for Joe Gibbs racing.  Christopher Bell was third.

Truex had to come back from a penalty on the race start when he Hamlin, the pole-sitter, to the start line.  NASCAR ordered him to the back of the 37-car field for a restart.  He got to the lead on the 132^nd of the race’s 400 laps and led the last fifty.  Hamlin led almost half of the laps but couldn’t catch Truex at the end. Larson, who started the race from the back because of pre-race inspection failures, raced past Truex for his first lead on the 133^rd lap but finished sixth.  The finish gave him enough points to make him the third driver assured of a spot in the round of 12 that will go forward for the championship after next Sunday’s night race at Bristol.

(INDYCAR)—Alex Palou came from 16^th place early in the Grand Prix of Portland to get his third win of the season and vault him back into the points lead with just two races left in the INDYCAR season.  He finished 1.3 seconds up on alexander Rossi with teammate and defending series champion Scott Dixon getting the last podium slot.

The win vaults Palou past Pato O’Ward, who led early but faded to 14^th at the end.  A handful of drivers are still given a chance to win the championship—Palou, O’Ward, two-time champion Josef Newgarden, who is 34 points back. Dixon, in fourth, trails by 49 and Marcus Ericsson has a distant hope from 75 points behind.

A total of 108 points are available in the concluding two INDYCAR races: Laguna Seca next weekend and the finale on the streets of Long Beach on the 26^th.

(FORMULA 1)—The world’s major open-wheel racing series have created cockpit safety systems designed to protect drivers from flying debris or in other cars landing on top of other cars.

INDYCAR’s system is enclosed except for the top for driver access.  Formula One has a similar system but it does not include a windshield.  It’s called a “halo” in F1.  And seven-time F1 champion  Lewis Hamilton is convinced he isn’t wearing a halo today because his car had one for the Italian Grand Prix at Monza.

Hamilton and Max Verstappen, who have an intense competition for this year’s championship going, tangled in the first chicane on the race’s 26^th lap, with Verstappen trying to pass on the outside. His car rode over the track curb, pitching it onto the top of Hamilton’s car, the right rear wheel of Verstappen’s car rolling over the halo protecting Hamilton. The tire slightly penetrated the top of the halo.

Hamilton said in the paddock after the race that he was reminded of his own mortality and the risks he takes:  “It’s a big shock. It’s only when you experience something like that that you  look at life and realize how fragile we are.” He is convinced the halo saved his life.  There was no sign of concussion but he will see a specialist after complaining that his neck was sore.  “

“Honestly, I feel very fortunate today,” he continued. “Thank God for the halo, that ultimately, I think, saved me, and saved my neck… I don’t think I’ve ever been hit on the head by a car before and it’s quite a shock for me, because I don’t know if you’ve seen the image but my head really is quite far forward. And I’ve been racing a long, long time, so I’m so, so grateful that I’m still here.”

F1 officials consider Verstappen’s actions the main cause of the crash and have announced a three-grid place drop at the next race, and the loss of two standings points. The two drivers have had other incidents this year as they have fought for the top spot in the series.

Neither driver scored any points in the race, leaving Verstappen five points ahead of Hamilton, with eight races left on the schedule.

The winner of the race was McLaren’s Daniel Ricciardo, his first victory on the circuit in three years and McLaren’s first GP victory since Jenson Button won at Brazil in 2012. Making the event even sweeter for McLaren was Lando Norris’ second-place finish.  Third went to Valtteri Bottas, Hamilton’s Mercedes teammate.

(Photo credits: Truex: NASCAR/Sean Gardner/Getty Images; Palou and Pagenaud and Rossi at Gateway 2019: Bob Priddy; Verstappen-Hamilton crash: Formula 1)

Before we recap NASCAR’s final race of the regular season and list the ten drivers who have made the playoffs we have to tell you about a Formula One race that lasted less than a lap.

The Belgian Grand Prix never saw a green flag.  No driver earned points for fastest lap because every lap was run behind the pace car, or as they call it in F1, the safety car.  A relentless downpour was the culprit, but so was the series’ policy of running a race on the day it was scheduled to be run.

Even if it never was a race.  Even if the finishing positions were the starting positions.

Here’s how it all came down:

First, torrential rain came down.  Then the scheduled start time came down.  No go. After a           three-hour wait, the safety car led the field out of the pits.  The competitors did the ceremonial formation lap but did not halt for the usual standing start. Instead, they kept circulating for two more laps and returned to the pits, never to turn go out again.

The official time of the race was three minutes, 27.01 seconds.

Formula 1 rules say a race is official after completion of just two laps.  The rules say the final finishing order is determined by positions on the lap before the suspension of the race.  Thus, the Grand Prix of Belgium, 2021, goes into the history books as lasting one lap, with pole-sitter Max Verstappen the winner with George Russell, who qualified second giving the Williams team its first podium finish since 2017, and giving defending F1 champion Lewis Hamilton third, his starting position.

Points are usually awarded to the driver who achieves the fastest lap.  There was no such lap in this, uh, event.

Racefans.net says the race actually lasted less than one lap because there is a 124-meter offset between the start line and the finish line. Therefore, says the site, the race did not lost 7.004 kilometers, the length of one lap, but only 6.88 kilometers.

All three of the podium drivers apologized to fans who waited throughout the rain but only got to see an almost-race that has been described with various derogatory words in the European media.

Because the race fell 32 laps short of reaching 76% of its distance, the points were reduced by half.  Verstappen, by “finishing first” received 12.5 points.  Hamilton’s third was worth 7.5 points.  He now leads Verstappen in the standings by three.

Hamilton called the event a “farce” said he hopes the fans get their money back.  There’s been no comment from F1.

However, Motorsport.com is reporting that Formula One CEO Stefano Domenicali “is eager for discussions with the sports stakeholders,” and F1 Race Director agrees. “We’ll look at a whole lot of things that we can all look at, to see what everyone wants,” he says.

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Now, to a race that was a race.

(NASCAR)—The last race of NASCAR’s regular season was a must-win situation for most of te field, a contest between teammates for the last playoff spot, and a second straight win for Ryan Blaney.  The race went an extra five laps because a scramble for positions with thirteen laps to go saw eight cars get tangled up, leading to a stoppage of the race.  Eleven cars got together in the first overtime attempt for a finish and nine cars got wadded behind Blaney on the last lap.  The race finished under the yellow flag with Chris Buescher trailing Blaney to the finish.  However, Buescher’s car failed a post-race inspection and was disqualified, leaving him last in the final standings and Bubba Wallace second.

The last playoff spot had been in contention between Childress Racing teammates Tyler Reddick and Austin Dillon. Dillon was caught up in the crash on the last lap.  Reddick, whose car was damaged in the wreck 13 laps from the end, was able to keep going after some quick repairs in the pits, and finished fifth.

Reddick was 16^th in the standings after the first 12 races with only one top-ten finish. He had climbed to 11^th going into the Daytona races, posting nine top tens in the last fourteen races. His fifth on Saturday night is his best finish of the year.

Blaney heads into the playoffs with two straight wins, three for the year, and second-seeded behind regular-season points champion Kyle Larson.

The first of ten playoff races will be at Darlington next Sunday.  The drivers who will run for the championship are Larson, Blaney, Martin Truex, Jr., Kyle Busch, defending champion Chase Elliott, Alex Bowman, Denny Hamlin, William Byron, Joey Logano, Brad Keselowski, Kurt Busch, Christopher Bell, Michael McDowell, Aric Almirola, Reddick, and Kevin Harvick.  Only Hamlin, Reddick, and Harvick have yet to win this year.

(Photo Credits: Formula 1, Bob Priddy)

(INDYCAR)—Helio Castroneves has a full-time ride for the 2022 INDYCAR season, taking the primary seat at Meyer-Shank racing that Jack Harvey has this year.  The team already is capitalizing on his “Drive for Five,” and effort to become the first five-time Indianapolis 500 winner.  If he pulls it off he’ll be the first driver to win back-to-back 500s twice.  He won his first two races at the Brickyard.

Although Castroneves (shown at the Speedway last week with A. J. Foyt, Al Unser Sr., and Rick Mears) has won the 500 four times, he has never won the INDYCAR championship.  He’s finished second in points four times. “I have been missing racing in INDYCAR full time so much,” he says. “I cannot wait to get a head start on next year with some strong races to finish this season.

MSR plans to run a second car full-time next year.  Harvey will not be in it. The team says a new driver will be announced soon.

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INDYCAR fans might see a little history made at World Wide Technology Raceway just across the river from St. Louis next month.  Testing on the rack today (Tuesday) will include Romain Grosjean, the former Formula 1 driver who has run road courses in the series this year. WWTR might be his oval track debut in the series.  The race will be August 21.

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Some big-track names have signed up for the quarter-mile dirt track race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway August 18-19.

Defending NASCAR champion Chase Elliott will drive a midget for the first time. He’ll be joined by fellow NASCAR driver Chase Briscoe, who has a lot of dirt track experience, and INDYCAR driver Conor Daly.

The Speedway created the track inside the third turn four years ago and has run the annual BC39 midget races on it, except for last year when the pandemic caused its cancellation.  The race honors Bryan Clauson, a three-time USAC midget champion and three-time starter in the Indianapolis 500 who was killed in a midget race crash in Belleville, Kansas in 2016. The event promotes organ donor awareness on behalf of the Indiana Donor Network and Driven to Save Lives.

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INDYCAR returns to action August 8 at Nashville.

(NASCAR)—-The decision was made in March, has been rumored for weeks, and is now public—Brad Keselowski is leaving Team Penske and will drive for and have a minority ownership interest in Roush Fenway Racing.

He’ll continue to drive, next year taking the 6-car that has been Ryan Newman’s ride.  Discussions are under way with Newman about driving a part-time schedule next year.

Keselowski’s move is seen as part of the succession plan for the day Jack Roush steps away—although he says it’s not in his immediate plans. “I’ve been asked to say that I’m passing the baton to him, which I am, but I still have one hand on the thing, so I’m not going to give it up completely for a while.  There are no retirement plans for me in my immediate future.”

Roush turned 79 last April.

Keselowski’s ride for Team Penske will go to Austin Cindric, who won the championship in NASCAR’s second-tier series last year and tops the point standings this year.  Cindric is the son of  the president of Team Penske, Tim Cindric. But Penske says the  younger Cindric, 22, has earned his place: “He’s proven to be the driver he is; the individual he is today. It’s a big step for him, but as far as I’m concerned, the team, the sponsors, are fully committed.” Cindric has run six races in Cup this year. His best finish is 15^th in the Daytona 500.

(FORMULA 1)—Formula 1 runs the Hungarian Grand Prix next Sunday.  This past week, teams got their first look at of life-sized model of the next generation car that will be campaigned next year.
The new car is designed with new aerodynamic regulations designed to make it easier to pass by reducing the amount of “dirty air” behind the cars.  The air flow over the present body work produces turbulence behind the car, upsetting control of trailing cars wanting to pass. The series says the turbulence is so severe that trailing cars lose as much as thirty-five percent of their downforce when they’re about three lengths behind another car.

The new design’s front and rear wings are expected to push the airflow up and over the trailing car. That coupled the use of ground effects for the first time since the 1980s is expected to produce more exciting racing.

Next year’s cars will run with 18-inch wheels instead of the 13-inch wheels now used.

(photo credits: IMS, Chris Owens; Keselowski, Bob Priddy; Formula 1)