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: Still Getting It Done
Include Terry McCarl on the list of the National Sprint Car Hall of Famers still getting it done on the race track. McCarl picked up an ASCS national tour victory earlier this week at Iowa’s Clay County Fair Speedway.
Qualifying: Winless
Five-time NHRA Pro Stock champion Greg Anderson, who has 101 career wins, enters the Countdown for the Championship without a victory this season.
First Heat: Temptation
The 56th Tuscarora 50 sprint car race at Pennsylvania’s Port Royal Speedway was rained out last weekend.
It has since been rescheduled for Thursday, Oct. 5, which is the day before the two-night Nittany Showdown for the World of Outlaws takes place at the state-of-the-art half-mile dirt track. The $60,000 top prize may be enough to have a few World of Outlaws contract drivers add the event to their schedules.
Second Heat: Coming To America
Shane van Gisbergen is still in the hunt for a fourth Supercars Championship, and he’ll be racing this weekend at Victoria’s Sandown Int’l Raceway, but the New Zealand native already has one foot in America after inking a development deal with Trackhouse Racing that will see him compete in all three of NASCAR’s national touring series next season.
Van Gisbergen, who shocked the world by winning the Chicago Street Race in the NASCAR Cup Series on July 2, will have a lot to learn in making the transition to oval racing.
If you want to see him at his best, watch this weekend’s Supercars round at 11:55 p.m. (ET) Saturday night on SPEED SPORT 1 (www.speedsport1.com).
Third Heat: Left, Right, Left
There’s not a lot of down time at Indianapolis Motor Speedway these days.
A month after the annual IndyCar Series and NASCAR doubleheader at the historic race track, the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship and various other IMSA-sanctioned sports car series will compete on the road course this weekend with many of the world’s best sports car racers and a few Indy 500 veterans in action.
It will be the first IMSA race on the 2.439-mile circuit since 2014.
IMS is right back at it two weeks from now with the fifth running of the Driven2SaveLives BC39 USAC midget race on the infield quarter-mile dirt track.
Dash: Big Numbers
Seventy cars are already entered for the BC39, which will run over four days (Sept. 27-30) for the first time.
Last year’s event drew 85 entries.
B Main: $1 Million Race
The NTT IndyCar Series is going to the country club next spring and some lucky member of the exclusive Thermal Club will split $1 million with the driver who wins the March 24 $1 Million Race on the 3.067-mile road course.
The event will be billed as an all-star race and feature a special format and will have thermal club members who pay an entry fee that will likely be donated to charity, paired with each driver in the race. The top-five finishers will share the winnings with their embedded club member.
As they say, go where the money is.
Feature: Youth Is Served
Who is the most impressive young driver you’ve seen this year?
There are plenty of candidates. Here are five: Corey Day, Jade Avedisian, Brent Crews, Ryan Timms and Chase Randall.
At 19, Randall is the elder statesman of the group, while Crews is the youngest. He won’t turn 16 until March 29.
Day, 17, has been impressive in winged sprint car competition this season, racking up nine victories, including last weekend’s Gold Cup Race of Champions with the World of Outlaws.
At 16, Avedisian has won five Xtreme Outlaw Midget Series features this year while driving for the small car world’s best team — Keith Kunz Motorsports with Curb-Agajanian.
Crews has been a winner in a midget, an ARCA stock car and in a Trans-Am sports car, while Timms, 17, has impressed in USAC midget and winged sprint car competition. Randall, meanwhile, won the 360 sprint car championship at Knoxville (Iowa) Raceway.
Keep an eye on these speedsters.