There are now 10 winners out of 11 races in the NASCAR Cup series as Kyle Busch took the win at Kansas last Sunday.
Once again, the driver who led the most laps (Kyle Larson this time) didn’t win. If six more drivers score wins, the playoff field will be full, and any additional winners will involve bumping winners out of the field.
The NTT IndyCar doubleheader at Texas saw veteran Scott Dixon win on Saturday and second-year driver Pato O’Ward score his first series victory on Sunday.
The Formula 1 race in Portugal was pretty much business as usual, with seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton taking another win for Mercedes, followed by Red Bull’s Max Verstappen and Mercedes teammate Valtteri Bottas.
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This weekend the Indy cars are off, Formula 1 is in Spain, and all three NASCAR touring series are at Darlington, the “track too tough to tame.”
The two most recent, and most prolific, Darlington winners are two drivers who haven’t scored a victory yet in 2021, Denny Hamlin and Kevin Harvick. Last year the pair had 16 wins between them, so they are both overdue. With three Darlington wins apiece, they are the only multiple winners at the track among the six active drivers who have won there.
Erik Jones, Brad Keselowski, Martin Truex Jr., and Kyle Busch have a single win each. Larson is favored to win at 4-1 odds with Hamlin at 11-2, Truex at 6-1 and Harvick at 15-2. The Xfinity series airs at 10 a.m. Saturday and the Cup series at 12:30 p.m. Sunday. Both will air on FS1.
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Formula 1 will race Sunday at the Catalunya circuit in Barcelona. Hamilton has an unbroken string of four wins there with a fifth victory in 2014. Verstappen was the 2016 winner.
Barring accident or mechanical issues, I don’t suspect an outcome much different than what we saw last week in Portugal. But expect some spirited racing in midfield. Qualifying airs Saturday at 6 a.m. on ESPN2 with the race at 6 a.m. Sunday on ESPN.
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NASCAR unveiled its Next Gen car on Wednesday in a streaming format. The cars look good, and the mechanicals underneath are even better.
They feature a 5-speed sequential transmission, 18-inch wheels with a single lug, composite body, and symmetrical design allowing the same chassis to be used on short tracks, superspeedways, and road courses. This should cut down on costs, as teams will be able to maintain a much smaller fleet of race cars. I think it’s a game-changer. Kudos to NASCAR!
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On the other hand, NASCAR has gone full WWE for this year’s All-Star race coming June 13 at Texas Motor Speedway. The format will use a low horsepower, high downforce package, which is OK. But there will be six – count ‘em, six – stages with all sorts of gimmicks.
The first four stages will be 15 laps each, with a random draw setting the initial start. The entire field will invert for stage two, stage three will invert the first 8-12 based on a random draw, and stage four will be straight up. Stage five is 30 laps with the field set by cumulative finish in the first four stages and will feature a mandatory 4-tire pit stop.
The fastest crew will get $100,000. The final 10-lap stage will be straight up based on stage five finishing positions, with the winner receiving $900,000. Only green flag laps will count for all stages. No word on whether hitting each other with folding chairs will be allowed.
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Finally, three-time Indy 500 winner Bobby Unser took his last checkered flag, passing away last week at the age of 87. Godspeed, Bobby.
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