Although the Easter holiday curtailed racing activity last weekend, there was plenty of mid-week testing going on. The week before Easter there was a major test of the Next Gen car at Martinsville led by the three current manufacturers.
Chevrolet, Ford, and Toyota each brought their version of the car to put through their paces. And this past week the NTT IndyCar Series conducted a closed test at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
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The Next Gen Martinsville test was run by the manufacturers, not NASCAR, and was deemed an unqualified success. Alex Bowman drove the Chevrolet car, David Ragan piloted the Ford, and test driver Drew Herring was at the wheel of the Toyota.
All three drivers lauded the car’s performance, stating, “It’s a race car.” Major development on the car is now considered complete, with some minor tweaks anticipated as the project moves from the prototype to the production stage.
Another test with the third prototype took place at Darlington this past week with Tyler Reddick aboard. The cars at Martinsville were decked out in camouflage graphics to disguise details of the bodywork, but we will see the finished product on May 5 when all three models are revealed to the public.
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There were 32 Indy 500 hopefuls present at the NTT IndyCar Series open test at the speedway this past Thursday and Friday, including nine former Indy 500 champions.
Second-year driver Rinus Veekay had an issue early on Thursday, hitting the wall between turns one and two, destroying the right side of the car. He escaped with a broken finger. His teammates, Connor Daly and Ed Carpenter, set first and second fastest times in the 220 mph range before rain halted the session.
After the rain Dale Coyne Racing’s Sebastian Bourdais took advantage of track conditions to turn a 224 mph lap for fast time of the day. And on Friday Simone de Silvestro passed her qualification at 218+ mph, so there will be a woman on this year’s Indy 500 entry list.
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This weekend it’s NASCAR night racing at Martinsville. Friday night the Xfinity series raced, and the NASCAR Cup cars will take to the track Saturday with the broadcast on FS1 beginning at 4:30 p.m.
Joey Logano’s Team Penske Ford will start from the pole with Denny Hamlin in a Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota alongside. William Byron, driving a Hendrick Motorsports Chevy starts third with Logano’s teammate Ryan Blaney in fourth. The top ten starters include five Fords, three Chevys, two Toyotas, and five drivers already qualified for the playoffs with a win.
There are nine former Martinsville winners in the field, and Hamlin has the most wins with five, most recently in 2015. Brad Keselowski, Martin Truex Jr., Kyle Busch, and Kevin Harvick have two Martinsville wins apiece, and Logano, Chase Elliott, Kurt Busch, and Ryan Newman have one each. Elliott won last fall, and Truex Jr. had back-to-back wins last spring and in the fall of 2019.
Oddsmakers have Truex as the favorite at 11-2 odds, with Elliott and Keselowski both at 6-2. Logano and Hamlin are at 7-1, Blaney is 8-1, with Kyle Busch and Kyle Larson sharing 12-1 odds. So will we see an eighth different winner?
The last time the Cup season started with that many different winners was the 2003 season, when there were nine. My money for a new winner is on Hamlin, Harvick, Keselowski, or Kyle Busch.
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Next weekend is a full one with NASCAR’s Camping World Trucks on Saturday and Cup on Sunday at Richmond. IndyCar’s opening day is at St. Petersburg, and Formula 1 will be at Imola in Italy.
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