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: Strong Field
Forty-six non-winged sprint cars were on hand for the opening night of the Kokomo Smackdown at Indiana’s Kokomo Speedway.
Qualifying: Still Young
Trevor Bayne, the 2011 Daytona 500 winner, who just picked up three Xfinity Series races with Joe Gibbs Racing, is still only 32 years old.
First Heat: Even Younger
If you weren’t already aware of up-and-coming driver Brent Crews, you should be now.
The 15-year-old Mooresville, N.C., wheelman, who had already won numerous national midget events and a handful of Trans-Am series road races, picked up his first ARCA Menards Series triumph last week on the one-mile dirt track at the Illinois State Fairgrounds in Springfield.
Second Heat: Busy Weekend
It will be a wild weekend for many USAC racers and teams.
After three nights of racing in the annual Kokomo Smackdown sprint car event at Kokomo (Ind.) Speedway, culminating with a $30,000-to-win feature on Saturday night, the next race will be to World Wide Technology Raceway in Madison, Ill., where the Silver Crown Series races at noon on Sunday.
Wonder what the dash from Pocono to the St. Louis-area superspeedway pays?
Third Heat: Ride Hunting
When we started with SPEED SPORT in 1991, “Barefoot” Bob McCreadie was one of the first drivers we met.
Thirty-two years later, his son Tim McCreadie is nearing the end of his career. McCreadie, 49, will separate from the Longhorn house car at the end of the season, leaving the two-time Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series and 2006 World of Outlaws late model champion ride searching.
Here’s to the 2006 Chili Bowl winner finding a top-notch machine to run for the big purses for a few more years.
Fourth Heat: Super Nationals
The 41st running of the IMCA Speedway Motors Super Nationals is less than two weeks away.
The annual short-track racing extravaganza at Iowa’s Boone Speedway runs Sept. 4-9 featuring competitors in seven divisions racing for national championships. Last year, there were 1,000 entries in the event and by Aug. 1, 650 drivers from 27 states had already filed entries for this year’s race.
All of the action can be watched live on SPEED SPORT affiliate IMCA.tv.
Tom Berry Jr. is the reigning modified Super Nationals champion.
Fifth Heat: Competition Zone
It’s been a very interesting season of winged 410 sprint car racing with a ton of parity at the top of the sport.
Four different drivers (David Gravel, High Bank Nationals; Logan Schuchart, Eldora Million; Donny Schatz, Kings Royal; and Kyle Larson, Knoxville Nationals) have won the four highest paying races of the season.
Meanwhile on the national level, David Gravel has won 10 races, while Kyle Larson and Rico Abreu have each racked up nine victories. Pennsylvania racer Freddie Rahmer leads the nation with 15 feature wins.
Dash: New Oval Meister
Four-time Indianapolis 500 winner Rick Mears was often referred to as the Oval Meister during his years driving for Team Penske in the IndyCar Series.
Josef Newgarden may be the new Oval Meister. If Newgarden wins Sunday afternoon’s NTT IndyCar Series race at World Wide Technology Raceway in Madison, Ill., he will complete a sweep of the five oval races in the series this season.
The Team Penske driver has already won twice at Iowa Speedway and at Texas Motor Speedway and the Indy 500 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
B Main: More Ovals?
While Newgarden sweeping the oval races would be impressive, the fact remains that only five of the 17 events on the IndyCar Series schedule are run on ovals.
While that leaves traditional Indy car racing fans like me a little disappointed and longing for the days of more oval races, many of us are also practical when it comes to the series schedule.
We’d like to see a more balanced schedule with more oval races for sure, but at the same time the series is very successful and adding another new “event” that follows the popular models in Nashville, St. Petersburg, Long Beach and Detroit may make more sense for the overall success and popularity of Indy car racing.
There’s also some talk that an event at the historic Milwaukee Mile that has hosted many an Indy car race through the years, could return to the schedule using the successful model at Iowa Speedway.
Feature: Daytona Chaos
One safe bet for Saturday night’s NASCAR Cup Series regular season finale at Daytona Int’l Speedway is that chaos will reign.
For decades now races at Daytona and Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway have been unpredictable and expensive crash fests. With a playoff spot on the line to a driver who can “win his way” in, expect nothing different this time around.
Last year Austin Dillon avoided the mess and stole a playoff spot. He’s among the contenders who could pull victory from the jaws of defeat on Saturday night. Others looking to win their way in include Chase Elliott, Alex Bowman, Ty Gibbs, Daniel Suarez, Cory LaJoie and Aric Almirola.
Bubba Wallace could also win his way in, but if a driver who has already won this season claims victory, Wallace will likely slide into the playoffs on points. If the first-time winner is Kevin Harvick or Brad Keselowski, already locked in on points, Wallace is in position to be the beneficiary.
