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Mini has been one of the top rally raid makes since the early 2010s, and they can now add a victory in the top-flight T1+ subcategory as Krzysztof Hołowczyc and Michał Małuszyński dominated the Baja Poland to finish 1–2 for the Mini John Cooper Works Rally Plus.

Hołowczyc and Małuszyński, fellow Poles racing for X-raid Team, quickly set the tone by occupying the top two in the Prologue with the former leading by eight seconds. He then increased the gap on Małuszyński to eight minutes and forty-one seconds in Stage #1.

A perfect outing in the second leg completed the sweep for Hołowczyc with a total time of 4:11:59, 9:57 over Małusziński who fell to fourth in the final leg. Mshari Al Thefiri, a T3 driver, finished third by over twenty-two minutes while Włodzimierz Grajek, the next highest T1 driver in a Toyota Hilux, was fourth and 23:53 back of Hołowczyc.

The victory is Hołowczyc’s ninth at Baja Poland and third in a row. He is the most successful driver in the event’s history, which included winning every edition from 2010 to 2015 save for 2013.

“This rally is always difficult. Nevertheless, we managed to win all the stages,” said Hołowczyc. “The most important thing is that we were able to work a lot on the settings of the car here. We were able to change a few things to make the car more competitive. All this gives us a lot of knowledge and experience for the Dakar; that’s our main goal.”

Yazeed Al-Rajhi was the top driver in Stage #1 of the Desafío Ruta 40, but two tyre punctures in the final thirty kilometres were his demise.

After finishing second to Nasser Al-Attiyah in Sunday’s Prologue, Al-Rajhi took the lead after sixty kilometres. Although he built an advantage over his fellow Hilux, the script flipped on him with a pair of tyre failures that enabled Al-Attiyah to win the stage by a minute and six seconds.

Sebastian Halpern, the only non-Hilux in T1, joined them on the podium and was 4:19 back of the winner.

Al-Rajhi was not the only leader to encounter unexpected trouble. In T3, João Ferreira had led much of the first half before gearbox problems brought his car to a stop after the checkpoint at KM 130, allowing Mitch Guthrie to take the lead. Ferreira consequently finished last in class and nearly an hour behind Guthrie.

Tyre attrition was a hairy topic in the mountains and gravel tracks leading from and to La Rioja. Like Al-Rajhi, Mattias Ekström had two punctures that knocked him off the T3 podium as Francisco López Contardo and Seth Quintero took those spots.

Carson Hocevar is the next driver to pilot the #42 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 of Legacy Motor Club as he joins the team for Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Darlington Raceway.

He takes over the #42 from Josh Berry, who in turn was serving as the car’s interim oval driver following Noah Gragson‘s indefinite suspension and eventual departure. He finished thirty-fourth and twenty-second in his two races while Mike Rockenfeller drove the car at Indianapolis and Watkins Glen as a road course ringer, scoring its best finish at a non-superspeedway of ninteenth at the latter.

Hocevar is currently fifth in the Craftsman Truck Series playoff standings and coming off a runner-up finish at Milwaukee on Sunday. He has three wins on the 2023 season including the regular season finale at Richmond.

Regarded as one of Chevrolet’s top prospects, Hocevar has been running a part-time Xfinity Series schedule for Spire Motorsports, scoring top tens in his first two starts with the team. In June, he ran his maiden Cup race at Gateway for Spire while Corey LaJoie was in Hendrick Motorsports’ #9 but retired with a brake rotor failure.

“This is a great opportunity to get some seat time in the Cup Series and help out the team at Legacy MC,” said Hocevar. “I had the chance earlier this year to race at St. Louis in the Cup Series. I’m looking forward to working with Luke (Lambert, crew chief) and the #42 team, and if anyone knows how to get around Darlington, Erik Jones does, so it will be great to have him as a team-mate.”

Sunday’s NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race was more than just the series’ first event at the Milwaukee Mile since 2009. For Maury Gallagher, the Clean Harbors 175 was officially the first race of GMS Racing‘s swan song as it took place just days after announcing he would shutter operations at the end of the year.

Grant Enfinger, who won the 2015 ARCA championship with GMS, was more than eager to give his boss one more title before GMS closes their doors. After starting on the pole, he led 95 of 175 laps and swept the stages en route to his third victory of the season. The win locks him into the Round of 8 of the playoffs for the second year in a row.

“I don’t want to ever hear from anybody ask me if we’re going to lay down again,” said Enfinger. “Jeff Hensley (crew chief) has been focused the whole year. There’s been distractions going on all year long, so if anything, this adds clarity. None of these guys, including me, have a job next year, but I feel like we proved that we deserve one.”

Corey Heim broke up Enfinger’s run to start the second stage, but lost the lead with twenty laps remaining in the leg. Likewise, Carson Hocevar was the top driver in Stage #3 only to be passed by Enfinger on lap 159.

William Sawalich, who won the ARCA race earlier in the day, crashed on lap 136 while racing Ben Rhodes but still reached the finish. The same could not be said for ARCA Daytona winner Greg Van Alst, whose poor national series luck continued after he and Brad Pérez wrecked on lap 66, and Josh Bilicki, who bowed out after his tyre exploded from melted brakes.

The Desafío Ruta 40 officially made its return Sunday after a four-year dormancy with a nine-kilometre Prologue through La Rioja. While rallies are not won and lost in something as short as the prologue, they can prove to be a quick litmus test of contenders over the next week of actual competition.

Indeed, World Rally-Raid Championship leader Nasser Al-Attiyah set the tone quickly as he and fellow Toyota Hilux driver Yazeed Al-Rajhi led the way. Al-Attiyah, who will finish out the season with Toyota despite his contract originally being scheduled to end after Argentina, beat Al-Rajhi by eight seconds.

Mitch Guthrie led the T3 entries in third overall. Gabriel Rodríguez, in his maiden T3 start, tied with Mattias Ekström though the latter had the edge for second by just five tenths of a second. Seth Quintero, who beat Guthrie for the Vegas to Reno win last week, finished seventh.

Non-W2RC drivers Eduard Pons and Gustavo Gallego were also split for the top in T4 by .5 seconds.

The top seven FIA overall cars recorded times below seven minutes, with the T3 of João Ferreira barely missing out by a second at 7:00.9.

Max Verstappen took a superb record-equalling ninth consecutive FIA Formula 1 World Championship race victory in the Dutch Grand Prix that was twice hit by rain and saw a late red flag following a deluge that struck Circuit Zandvoort.

Starting from pole position, Verstappen held onto the lead into turn one from Lando Norris, but rain was already falling around the track, and the decision was to be made by the drivers whether to stay on slick tyres or switch to intermediates.

The first driver to dive into the pit lane was Oracle Red Bull Racing’s Sergio Pérez, who had not much to lose having started down on the fourth row of the grid.  He was followed into the pits by the likes of Alfa Romeo F1 Team Stake’s Zhou Guanyu and BWT Alpine F1 Team’s Pierre Gasly as well as Kevin Magnussen and both Scuderia AlphaTauri drivers.

It quickly became apparent that the rain was hard enough to take to the pit lane, and Verstappen made his own stop at the end of lap two, as did the likes of Fernando Alonso, but Norris, George Russell, Alexander Albon, Oscar Piastri and Valtteri Bottas all opted to continue on slicks.

Pérez had significant pace advantage over those on the slicks and took over the lead before the end of the third lap, while Verstappen was more than ten seconds back on his team-mate despite pitting just a lap later.  Running second at this stage thanks to his own lap one tyre switch gamble was Zhou, while Verstappen was a few places further back having lost ground.

It is RFK Racing‘s world and we are all living in it.

Chris Buescher concluded the 2023 NASCAR Cup Series regular season with the best five-race stretch of his career, scoring three wins including the Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona International Speedway. Making Saturday’s win all the sweeter was his boss Brad Keselowski finishing right behind him after both worked together in the overtime scramble, scoring the organisation’s first 1–2 finish since Carl Edwards and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. at the 2014 Food City 500.

After both missed the playoffs in 2022, the first year under the RFK name, the duo carry all the momentum into the 2023 playoffs; although winless, Keselowski scored top tens in Buescher’s three wins including leading the most laps in the first at Richmond and a fourth in the second at Michigan. Keselowski also won Stage #2.

“Certainly talked about it after even Richmond itself, but surely after Michigan. Talked about kind of hitting our momentum at the right time,” said Buescher in his post-race press conference. “This is another big step in the right direction. I think first and foremost, this was as much an RFK win and Brad’s win as it was ours. That was the exact push we needed for the entire two laps coming back to the checkered. Wouldn’t be sitting up here without him and us executing that way. It’s what we’ve tried to do when we’ve gone speedway racing. Kind of committed to it at a lot of places. Here, at the 500, led all the way with three or four to go, ended up getting separated.

“We’ve worked hard to find ourselves in these situations. We’ve needed to capitalise and close the deal on the last two percent of these races. We were finally able to do that tonight.

After a decorated NASCAR Cup Series career spanning twenty-three years, Kurt Busch has officially closed that chapter of his life. Citing that he has yet to fully recover from the concussion that ended his full-time career in 2022, he announced his retirement on Saturday via a video posted on social media.

“Dreams: we all have them. Those beautiful things that scare us and excite us and drive us forward,” began the video. “Sometimes, dreams change all the time, and sometimes, they take a lifetime to achieve. But me, I only ever had one dream, and I chased mine with 100 percent of who I am every single day. Racing at NASCAR’s highest level was always my dream. Just ask the blue-collared kid from Las Vegas who only ever wanted a shot. I’ve spent twenty-three years living my dream and it’s been a hell of a ride for that kid from Nevada.

“There were crashes, big emotions, and big wins over time, and chapters full of blessings that I will never take for granted. To the people who are woven into the moments of my dream, thank you for riding with me. My friends, crew members, my sponsors, and most of all, my family. Racing requires 100 percent of focus, heart, stamina, and determination, and I’ve never raced a day without all of that in mind.

“But sometimes, Father Time can catch up to your dreams. My incredible team of doctors and I have come to the conclusion that at this point in my recovery, there are just too many obstacles for me to overcome and get back to 100 percent. After twenty-three years behind the wheel and forty-five years of living and breathing this dream, I am officially announcing my retirement form NASCAR Cup Series competition. To the fans, to my sponsors, to my family, and to the million moments that made my dream come true: thank you. And may we all remember dreams really can come true.”

Busch graduated directly from the Craftsman Truck Series to the Cup Series in 2000 at the then-absurdly youthful age of 21. He quickly developed a reputation as one of the sport’s most polarising drivers, beloved and reviled for his driving style and attitude both on and off the track. He won the championship in 2004, only to lose his ride at what is now RFK Racing before the following season was even over. A tenure with Team Penske produced up-and-down results and more drama before he became a journeyman, nicknamed “The Outlaw” as his career entered shaky and rather controversial waters.

Sheldon Creed‘s hunt for his first NASCAR Xfinity Series win has been a campaign of disappointments left and right, from losing in last-lap scrambles (multiple times, in fact) to getting spun while fighting for the lead to even having the fastest car set back by a qualifying crash and divine intervention. Perhaps his most heartbreaking defeat took place Friday night at Daytona International Speedway when the difference between victory and yet another runner-up finish was just .005.

Creed escaped a pair of wrecks in overtime to restart second alongside Justin Allgaier for the third attempt. Allgaier initially found the early run while Creed with Daniel Hemric to keep pace before catching the leader on the final lap. He carried his newfound momentum to take the lead along the outside in turn three, but Allgaier had enough speed coming to the finish to beat him by five one-thousandths of a second.

It tied with the 2018 Coca-Cola Firecracker 250 at Daytona for the fourth-closest finish in Xfinity Series history, trailing the .002 set by the 1996 Sears Auto Center 250 at Milwaukee and 1998 Touchstone Energy 300 at Talladega, as well as the .0004 in the 2018 PowerShares QQQ 300 at Daytona.

Allgaier notched his second win of 2023 and first at Daytona.

As characteristic for Daytona, all four non-stage cautions were for crashes that collected multiple cars; a four-car wreck with less than ten laps remaining was the smallest, while lap 43 saw the largest when twelve cars were taken out on the fronstretch. The last of the day on lap 105 saw Josh Williams get airbourne on the backstretch after he got turned into the outside wall before being impacted by John Hunter Nemechek. Trevor Bayne and Austin Hill, who combined to lead 62 laps and Hill won the first leg, were victims of overtime accidents.

The new 2024 Can-Am Maverick R and its family of cars raised eyebrows upon reveal on Sunday, mainly owing to the very unusual tall-knuckle front suspension that is intended to improve handling and performance. However, manufacturer Bombardier Recreational Products sees it as a vital feature in producing what is otherwise the most powerful side-by-side (SSV) vehicle to date.

The suspension is intended to help the Maverick achieve 25 inches (63.5 cm) of travel in the front, 26″ in the rear, and 17″ of ground clearance.

The Maverick R’s 999cc Rotax engine is capable of 240 horsepower, composed of an inline three-cylinder and four-stroke design. As the cylinders are made of aluminum while steel is used in the piston rings, they are protected using a plasma coating rather than a sleeve. Rotax also provided a seven-speed dual clutch transmission, the first of its kind for UTVs, that can be operated automatically or by paddle shift.

It measures out at 77 inches (195.58 cm) wide, which is wider than previous models. The width is intended to conform to Recreational Off-Highway Vehicle Association and Best In The Desert regulations, both of which mandate eighty inches at max, while allowing more space for the increased suspension travel.

On the 15″ wheels, which the braking system was designed around as it is the smallest that the Can-Am Maverick platform offers, one can fit tyres between 35″ and 37″. While the higher echelon is generally advised, there is enough clearance to avoid wheel damage if a smaller tyre is used.

South Racing Can-Am is one of the top international rally raid UTV teams, but was never able to stand on the top step of the podium in the United States. That finally changed when Seth Quintero won the UTV Turbo Pro class at the Vegas to Reno with the best time among all UTVs.

Quintero set a time of 9:33:26, beating the UTV Trophy Unlimited Polaris of Mitch Guthrie. Although both are with different manufacturers for their American racing programmes, they are team-mates for the Red Bull Off-Road Junior Team that compete in the World Rally-Raid Championship’s T3 category; Guthrie won the most recent leg in Sonora. Racing with his father Aaron as co-driver, Quintero started at the back in thirty-eighth but his Can-Am Maverick “worked like a charm all day long.”

His time was good for eleventh overall of all entries and just seven minutes behind the Class 6100 car of Justin Blower. Race winner and Trick Truck driver Ryan Arciero scored his third straight V2R triumph with forty-one minutes on Quintero.

Austin Jones, the W2RC T3 points leader and fellow Red Bull driver who won the Dakar Rally ahead of Quintero, finished sixth in UTV Turbo Pro after suffering a rear hub and axle failure in the final 125 miles. Jones has a one-point edge over Quintero that he hopes to expand this weekend at the W2RC’s Desafío Ruta 40.

The V2R was plagued by scoring issues due to penalties and time credits that were not given out until Thursday, nearly a week after the race took place. Such penalties included Danny Cooper losing the overall bike win to Hayden Hintz while Corey Goin won the 1000 Limited Car class instead of Peter Hajas, though driver protests have prompted further review.

Class winners

The Indianapolis Motor Speedway (IMS) is one of the most iconic and historic motor racing venues in the world. Located in Speedway, Indiana, a suburb of Indianapolis, it is often simply referred to as "The Speedway." Here is some key information about the Indianapolis Motor Speedway:

History:

• The Indianapolis Motor Speedway was constructed in 1909 as a testing facility for the rapidly growing automobile industry. The track was originally paved with bricks, giving it the nickname "The Brickyard."

Indianapolis 500:

• The IMS is best known as the home of the Indianapolis 500, one of the most prestigious and historic motor racing events globally. The Indianapolis 500 is an open-wheel, single-seat car race held annually on the last Sunday in May (Memorial Day weekend) since 1911, except during periods of global conflict.

Track Layout:

• The oval track at IMS is 2.5 miles (4.0 kilometers) in length and consists of four distinct turns connected by long straights. The banked corners are particularly challenging and contribute to the uniqueness of the track.

Brickyard Crossing Golf Course:

MoneyGram Haas F1 Team have confirmed that both Kevin Magnussen and Nico Hülkenberg will remain with the team for the 2024 season.

The contracts for both drivers were due to expire at the end of the season, and whilst the future of Hülkenberg looked nailed on after some impressive performances, many wondered if Magnussen would be offered an extension. Haas have kept faith in both drivers and shown loyalty by sticking with the pair for the 2024 season, especially with so many young drivers waiting for an opportunity.

Haas Team Principal Guenther Steiner said: “I think it’s safe to say that we’ve had an extremely solid driver pairing this season in Formula 1 and ultimately there was no reason to look to change that moving forward.”

Magnussen returned to Haas in 2022, following Nikita Mazepin leaving the team just a few weeks before the season opener in Bahrain. Since then, it’s been a rollercoaster 18 months for the Dane, with the highlight being a first career pole position at the 2022 Brazilian Grand Prix.

Magnussen said: “I’m obviously very happy to see my relationship with Haas extended once again. My return in 2022 had been unexpected but was filled with numerous highlights, and although this season hasn’t gone quite as we’d hoped, we’ve still managed to get into the points and shown potential in the package we have.

During the second practice session for the Dutch Grand Prix on Friday, Lando Norris narrowly topped the session over Max Verstappen.

The first action of the session came in the first ten minutes at the Zandvoort circuit, Norris’ teammate Oscar Piastri lost control of his McLaren as he exited Turn Two, resulting in him sliding into the barriers on the outer edge of the banked Turn Three. Shortly after Piastri’s incident, Daniel Ricciardo approached the same section at full speed, having not seen the yellow flags that came out late. With Piastri’s car obstructing the racing line, Ricciardo couldn’t avoid crashing into the wall himself.

Both drivers were unable to return to the pits, effectively ending their practice sessions. Concerns grew regarding Ricciardo’s health for this race weekend as replays revealed his hands being thrown around within the cockpit due to him still gripping the steering wheel upon impact. Ricciardo was confirmed to have been taken to hospital for a routine check.

After the track was cleared, drivers switched to the softer compound tyres, resulting in some quicker lap times. Norris impressed by setting an impressive lap time of 1:11.330s, securing the fastest lap despite two attempts by the local favourite, Verstappen.

Verstappen ended up 0.023s behind Norris, managing to recover from a close call after some understeer as he exited Turn Three during his first attempt on the soft tyres.

Max Verstappen topped the first practice session for the Dutch Grand Prix as Formula 1 returned from its summer break, much to the delight of the local fans.

Following a three-week break from racing, drivers recommenced action for the second part of the season, with plenty of excitement around the paddock surrounding what the second half of the season will bring.

As the session began with the green light, the drivers, led by Kevin Magnussen, who had just extended his contract with Haas F1 Team, ventured onto a dusty track. Oracle Red Bull Racing, who have triumphed in all twelve races prior to the summer break, introduced minor updates, while Scuderia Ferrari brought no modifications. In contrast, competitors McLaren F1 Team, Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team, and Aston Martin Armaco Cognisant F1 Team bought major upgrade packages

Several drivers initially opted for hard tyres, while a handful tested the mediums. Verstappen, the local favorite, drew cheers from the corners of the track as he swiftly set the initial pace, with Lewis Hamilton trailing over six-tenths of a second behind.

Aston Martin, though delayed by twenty minutes, didn’t have a smooth opening few laps as Fernando Alonso took a trip through the gravel; Lance Stroll was instructed to return to the garage due to a suspected power unit issue. One after the other, drivers switched to soft tyres to do qualifying sims. Sergio Pérez claimed the quickest time before red flags emerged when Nico Hülkenberg spun into the gravel and collided with the barrier at Turn Fourteen.