It’s time for our weekly Friday morning tour around the racing world. From hot laps to the main event, here’s what’s on our mind this week.
Hot Laps: Winless
The Arrow McLaren IndyCar Series team with drivers Alexander Rossi, Pato O’Ward and Felix Rosenqvist has not won a race this season.
Qualifying: A Drought
Max Verstappen hasn’t won a Formula 1 race in three weeks. Of course, it’s midway through the series’ traditional summer break.
First Heat: More Than Half
Heading into the weekend, Rico Abreu has finished on the podium in 24 of his 47 starts in a 410 winged sprint car this season.
He’s won nine of those features.
Second Heat: Impressive Field
A whopping 45 cars and drivers are entered in Saturday’s 60th running of the Bettenhausen 100 for the USAC Silver Crown Series at the Illinois State Fairgrounds in Springfield. It’s the largest car count in the series since 2005.
Entries include Jake Swanson, C.J. Leary, Logan Seavey, Jerry Coons Jr., Kaylee Bryson, Russ Gamester, Shane Cockrum, Matt Westfall and point leader Kody Swanson.
Third Heat: A Closer Look
Officially, Kyle Larson has won two of the last three runnings of the Knoxville Nationals at Iowa’s Knoxville Raceway.
However, he also won The One and Only, which was the replacement event for the Nationals during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Larson should definitely be considered as one of the masters of the historic half-mile track.
Fourth Heat: Crandon Time
The biggest event in closed course off-road racing is just around the corner. The 54th Polaris Crandon World Championship gets the green flag at Wisconsin’s legendary Crandon Int’l Raceway Aug. 31-Sept. 3.
The AMSOIL Championship Off-Road series, Ultra4 USA, the Red Bull Cup and a KISS concert are among the highlights of the busy weekend. Catch the racing action on SPEEDSPORT.tv or SPEEDSPORT1.com. Stay tuned to SPEEDSPORT.com for details.
Dash: Buddies?
Why do so many people insist on calling folks who they are barely acquainted with, “my good buddy?”
Not sure about you, but I know who my buddies are and aren’t.
B Main: Chase Elliott & The Silver Fox
With two races remaining in the NASCAR regular season, Chase Elliott, who missed seven races this season, can still win his way into the NASCAR Playoffs. Elliott received a waiver from NASCAR because of injuries suffered in a snowboarding accident.
We wonder how many championships David Pearson might have won had he been eligible to race for the title despite running a limited schedule much of his career?
Feature: Indy Oval?
NASCAR and Goodyear held a tire test on the oval at Indianapolis Motor Speedway earlier this week with an eye toward returning the NASCAR Cup Series to the 2.5-mile oval next year.
The Cup Series debuted on the famed oval with the inaugural Brickyard 400 and raced there through the 2020 appearance there. The past three summers the series has competed on the IMS road course.
There has been plenty of speculation in recent months that the series could compete on the oval again as soon as next season. The test was the first step toward making that happen. The Next Gen car that debuted in 2022 has never raced on the oval.