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: Suspended
Are Paul Tracy’s five minutes finally up?
Qualifying: More Of The Same
Another Thursday night and another NASCAR Cup Series driver (Kyle Busch) has won an SRX race. Are the Cup Series regulars that much better than the rest of the field? Absolutely.
First Heat: Not Unanimous?
Many fans and media types are making a big deal that Jimmie Johnson’s election to the NASCAR NASCAR Hall of Fame was not unanimous. Does that really matter? No, but it’s something for folks to debate and argue about. The seven-time champion got his due and was elected as a first-ballot Hall of Famer, receiving all but four votes.
That’s a landslide by any account.
Personally, if my 30-plus years of covering NASCAR racing were enough to get me on the panel, I would have voted for him, but it does not bother me that four people didn’t check the box next to his name. It’s not a slight against what he achieved.
Second Heat: Larry Phillips
When will Larry Phillips’ name finally be called by the NASCAR Hall of Fame voting panel?
Phillips is one of the greatest drivers in NASCAR history, but he can’t get the support of voters who only consider the Cup Series as being part of NASCAR. Phillips was a five-time NASCAR Weekly Series national champion during the program’s glory days.
Third Heat: Ride Landed
Kraig Kinser won the Knoxville Nationals in 2006, but it didn’t appear he’d be running in this year’s event until he landed the ride in Pete Grove’s familiar No. 70 sprint car this week.
Kinser’s been racing around the Midwest, mostly with MOWA, IRA and the All Stars, this season driving his own No. 11k, but he doesn’t have the equipment to keep up with the country’s best sprint car racers.
It’s great to see Kinser in the Nationals field and here’s hoping he has the horsepower to prove he still has something left in the tank.
Fourth Heat: SVG Invasion
It’s starting to look as if Supercars champion Shane van Gisbergen is coming to America to race full time next season.
Van Gisbergen, who took the world by storm when he won the Chicago Street Race in a one-off drive with Trackhouse Racing, will not only drive the team’s No. 91 machine next week at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, but he’ll get his first taste of Craftsman Truck Series racing at Lucas Oil Raceway Park driving for Niece Motorsports.
My money’s on van Gisbergen in a third Trackhouse Cup Series car next season.
Fifth Heat: Nashville Sound
IndyCar Series officials continue to make a lot of positive moves.
The latest is moving the Music City Grand Prix into the month of September as the series finale. Not only is it a destination city to celebrate a championship, but the weather will be much more conducive for a street race and subsequent party in mid-September than in early August.
The series needs a signature event to end its season, as it has the longest offseason in all of motorsports.
Dash: Live From Knoxville
Make sure you watch for SPEED SPORT’s Live From Knoxville presented by Toyota coverage of the 62nd Knoxville Nationals both on SPEEDSPORT.com and social media. We’ll have race coverage and interviews with the top racers and stars from the past.
B Main: 4 Races Left
There are four races remaining in the regular season for the NASCAR Cup Series and two will take place on road courses and two on superspeedways. It’s the two-mile Michigan Int’l Speedway oval this weekend, followed by the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Road Course for the first of back-to-back road course races.
Watkins Glen (N.Y.) Int’l hosts the series Aug. 20, with the regular season finale Aug. 26 at Daytona Int’l Speedway.
Feature: Unthinkable
When this reporter attended his first Knoxville Nationals in 1996, Steve Kinser had already won it 11 times. He got his 12th and final Nationals victory in 2002. At that time, it seemed unfathomable that anyone would approach that record.
Donny Schatz won his first Nationals in 2006 and picked up his 11th victory in dramatic fashion last August. As a result, a victory in next week’s 62nd running of the event would be his 12th, tying Kinser at the top of the list.
The two men have combined to win 23 of the 61 Nationals A-mains that have been contested since Roy Robbins won the first in 1961.
Doug Wolfgang is next on the list with five victories in sprint car racing’s biggest in event.
Parting Shot: Prediction
The winner of the Knoxville Nationals will come from this list of eight: Rico Abreu, Brian Brown, David Gravel, Kyle Larson, Carson Macedo, Donny Schatz, Logan Schuchart and Brad Sweet.