Roger Diez
Last week saw a busy racing schedule with all three NASCAR touring series at Pocono, Formula 1 in Hungary, an IndyCar doubleheader in Iowa, and the IMSA GT cars at Lime Rock. So we dedicated race fans didn’t make much progress on our “honeydew list” last weekend.
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At Pocono, Kyle Busch ran the Craftsman Truck race and won, Austin Hill took the Xfinity series victory, and Denny Hamlin added his second win of the season and 50th of his NASCAR Cup career. It was a bittersweet milestone, as fans roundly booed Hamlin for putting Kyle Larson into the wall as the pair raced for the lead after yet another restart. The No. 5 Chevy limped home 20th, and in a post-race interview the normally calm and philosophical Larson was as annoyed as I’ve ever seen him. Asked if he expected Hamlin to apologize, he sarcastically replied “Denny’s always right,” a sentiment echoed by a number of other drivers.
This weekend’s short-track race at Richmond may provide Larson with a golden opportunity for payback.
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This is a split weekend for NASCAR, with Cup and Trucks at Richmond and Xfinity on the Road America road course. USA will broadcast Cup practice and qualifying Saturday at 9:30 a.m., the Xfinity series’ Road America 180 will air on NBC at noon, and FS1 will carry the Craftsman Trucks’ Worldwide Express 250 at 4:30 p.m.
Sunday’s Cook Out 400 for NASCAR Cup cars will be on USA starting at noon.
Kyle Larson won at Richmond in May, his second win there and first of two short-track victories this season. Eight of the 36 drivers in the field have notched Richmond wins, most of them multiple times. Busch leads the field with five wins, Hamlin and Kevin Harvick have four apiece, Martin Truex Jr. has three, Larson, Brad Keselowski, and Joey Logan have two each, and Alex Bowman has won at Richmond once.
Opening odds favor Truex at 5-1 with Larson and William Byron at 6-1, and Hamlin 7-1. Busch is 8-1, Christopher Bell 9-1, Logano 10-1, Ryan Blaney 11-1, and Ross Chastain 12-1.
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Josef Newgarden cemented his reputation as the IndyCar King of Iowa, winning both ends of the doubleheader despite heavy traffic. The wins put him within 66 points of leader Alex Palou with the Big Machine Music City Grand Prix through the streets of his hometown of Nashville coming up next weekend.
Newgarden and Palou have scored four wins on the season with just five races remaining. Other drivers with a mathematical championship chance are Scott Dixon, 120 points behind, Marcus Ericsson, 147 back, Scott McLaughlin, tied with Pato O’Ward 148 in arrears, and Will Power, 161 out of first place.
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Max Verstappen won another Formula 1 race, his seventh in a row, in Hungary last Sunday. He makes it easy on motorsports headline writers, who must have “Verstappen Wins” already plugged into the story every weekend. Lando Norris finished second for the third race in a row, 33 seconds behind the winning Red Bull. Verstappen’s teammate Sergio Perez was third, his sixth podium finish in 11 races.
Probably the most exciting part of the race took place during the victory ceremonies when Lando broke Max’s trophy, reportedly worth around $40,000, during the champagne-spraying melee.
This weekend’s race at Spa Francorchamps is the last race before the summer break. It's also a sprint race weekend, with the sprint at 7:25 a.m. Saturday and the Belgian Grand Prix on Sunday at 6 a.m., both on ESPN.
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Finally, congratulations to the Heart of Racing Aston Martin team for their first and fourth place finishes at Lime Rock last weekend. They beat the Vasser Sullivan Lexus to the checker by 0.336 second.