Roger Diez: The Fast and the Furious take on Fernley

The racing was fast and furious at Fernley 95A Speedway last Saturday night. Thanks to an anonymous donor, the Hobby Stock purse was $800. Rocky Goetz of Dayton won the main going away, with a three second margin of victory over Sun Valley driver Rick Miller. In the Modified main, Gardnerville’s Robert Miller surged to the front early, but a series of caution periods put Ryan McDaniel right behind him on a late restart. McDaniel passed for the lead and the win, as Miller faded back to a fourth place finish with a broken rear suspension. Joe Frock of Reno, who has won just about every Dwarf Car race at Fernley, put his mark on the Dwarf main. Frock rocketed off to win by almost three tenths of a second after second place Derek Rosse led the mid-race portion of the main. Craig Neiman took the Sport Mod win. There were 19 starters in the Modified main, 16 in both Hobby Stock and Dwarf mains, and four Sport Mods.

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Kevin Harvick now stands alone in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup win column, with six victories on the season after a “bump and run” moved Kyle Busch out of the way in the waning laps at New Hampshire. Busch recovered to finish second, but was unhappy with the way he was treated. Drivers have short memories, don’t they? Apparently Busch forgot about his treatment of Kyle Larson at Chicagoland.

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The Cup series and the Camping World trucks are at Pocono’s “tricky triangle” this weekend, their second visit of the season, while the Xfinity series races on Iowa’s 7/8 mile oval. Will we see a new winner in Cup this weekend, or will the “big three” of Harvick, Busch, and Martin Truex Jr. score another victory? Truex and Busch have won the last two Pocono outings, but Harvick is winless there. It’s a track where surprise winners do pop up — Ryan Blaney won in 2017 and Chris Buescher scored his only cup victory at Pocono in 2016. The “big three” have won 15 of the 20 races run so far this season. Busch is ahead on points, but Harvick has the most race wins, stage wins, playoff points, and laps led with the other two close in all those categories.

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There was a major turnaround in the Formula One standings last weekend in Germany. Sebastian Vettel looked to have the race in the bag until he made an unforced error and put his Ferrari into the barrier. Lewis Hamilton started 14th in his Mercedes after crashing in qualifying, but drove through the field to take the win. Hamilton now leads Vettel by 17 points in the championship chase going into this weekend’s Hungarian Grand Prix. It will be the last race for the series before the four-week summer break. Four active drivers have won in Hungary – Hamilton, Vettel, Daniel Ricciardo, and Fernando Alonso. Hamilton has five wins there, Vettel two, and the others one apiece.

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The IndyCar series returns to Mid-Ohio Raceway Park this weekend, the 12th annual outing under IndyCar auspices (Cart/Champ Car raced there until 2003). Scott Dixon has won five of the 11 previous outings for the series there, and has won three of the last six races this season. The man has some momentum going, and he’ll be hard to beat on Sunday. Josef Newgarden, defending series champion and last year’s Mid-Ohio winner, will have his work cut out for him, as will the rest of the 24-car field.