Motorsports Racing News & Blog Articles

Gavin Harlien lost the Stadium Super Trucks‘ Music City Grand Prix Race #1 win to Matt Brabham on the final lap, but he was not going to suffer the same fate two days in a row. Despite a wreck while battling Cleetus McFarland for the lead that sent the latter into a flip, Harlien squared off with Brabham and Ben Maier in the closing laps of Sunday’s Race #2 to win at Nashville for the first time.

The final restart with three laps remaining saw a mad scramble for the win as Brabham led Maier and Harlien. Maier made his move in turn nine to lead the next lap, only for Brabham to capitalise on an error outside turn eight to retake the position. Harlien caught Brabham and the two ran neck-and-neck to the white flag, and the chicane allowed the former to briefly clear him.

Brabham retaliated on the backstretch run down the Korean War Veterans Memorial Bridge to once again place himself next to Harlien for the remainder of the lap. Although Brabham found the inside line in the final corner, Harlien carried enough momentum to the finish line to win by .0811 of a second.

“Usually, you only have to [come from the back to the front] once, especially if you qualify well,” Harlien said in his podium interview. “Yesterday, I was lucky enough to start up front and kind of sit there the whole time, but today, I had my work cut out for me for sure. I had to go front, back, front again but couldn’t be happier with how it went.”

Harlien started eighth and was able to move up to second behind pole sitter McFarland by the competition caution on lap three. The two duelled as the race resumed with Ryan Beat in tow, only for McFarland and Harlien to collide with each other exiting turn eight; the contact caused Harlien’s truck to get loose before bouncing back into McFarland, who was turned sideways before Beat—with nowhere to go—pushed him onto his passenger’s side door. McFarland’s truck was rolled over and his relatively tall height enabled him to exit the vehicle without assistance, though it meant he suffered a retirement in both Nashville races.

Three things are inevitable in life. Death, taxes, and Scott Dixon competing for an NTT IndyCar Series championship.

Dixon started buried in the field in fourteenth and sustained damage to the floor of his car in the lap 26 caution. Yet with luck on the final pit stop, no grip, and 50-lap old tyres, Dixon out-dueled fellow countryman Scott McLauglin to the race win.

“We had a big crash there that took half the floor off the car, we had to take four turns of front wing out so we had no grip,” Dixon said. “…and then I think we did 45 or 50 laps on that last set of tyres, so the last stop we didn’t even take tyres!”

“Nashville is awesome!”

With his unlikely win, the “Iceman” now only sits six points behind points leader Will Power as he tries to tie A.J. Foyt for the most championships in series history with seven.

Marco Andretti had been eyeing a NASCAR ride since exiting the NTT IndyCar Series, and he will finally get his chance when he enters the NASCAR Xfinity Series race at the Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval on 8 October. He will drive the #48 Chevrolet Camaro for Big Machine Racing Team.

Andretti, whose lineage needs no introduction, was a mainstay in IndyCar from 2006 to 2020, winning twice and scoring the Indianapolis 500 pole in 2020. Upon retiring from full-time competition (only returning for the 500), he turned towards closed-wheel racing such as IMSA and the Superstar Racing Experience.

SRX, a short track series owned by three-time NASCAR Cup Series and 1997 IndyCar champion Tony Stewart, saw Andretti win at Slinger Speedway during the inaugural season in 2021 before taking the championship in 2022 despite going winless. During the 2021 SRX season, he revealed plans of racing in the Xfinity Series with speculation pointing at Stewart’s Stewart-Haas Racing as a potential suitor. Following the SRX race at the Nashville Fairgrounds on 9 July, he disclosed to Frontstretch that he was “talking to some people” about going to NASCAR.

Although SRX exclusively competes on ovals and one of Andretti’s two IndyCar victories was on one (Iowa in 2011), Big Machine Racing will place him on a road course to as a track type he is particularly accustomed to.

“I think [team owner Scott Borchetta] choosing [the Roval] race is pretty awesome because I actually did want to try road courses as well, plus I mean Charlotte’s the home turf for them,” Andretti told Steven Boero of The Sports Credential at the Big Machine Music City Grand Prix in Nashville on Sunday.

Saturday’s NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Michigan International Speedway marked a historic moment for the sanctioning body as Tiffany Myrick oversaw the event as race director, becoming the first woman to serve in that capacity for a NASCAR national series.

A lifelong racing fan from Alabama, Myrick has worked for NASCAR since 2018, initially as a technical inspector which entailed leading pre- and post-race car inspection and being the flagwoman. In March 2021, she was elevated to the position of Senior Coordinator of Racing Operations and Event Management.

In May, Myrick was the race director for the ARCA Menards Series at Kansas Speedway, also making her the first female director for that series. The FS1 booth, whose play-by-play commentator Jamie Little is the first woman in such a position for major American racing, gave her a shout-out during the broadcast.

“If it wasn’t for all those brave women back in the fifties and sixties getting into the workforce, it was male predominant back then, I know I wouldn’t be where I am today,” Mynick said in a March 2021 video posted by NASCAR to celebrate Women’s History Month. “Just remembering where we came from and knowing that we had so far left to go and just kind of helping pave the way for the future and girls growing up.

“I think that any woman trying to get into a male-dominated industry—NASCAR, for example, I was really nervous getting into this. I grew up around this sport, so I knew everything that I could about it until I got into it. The nerves coming in and just being a female and actually inspecting cars and stuff like that, it feels like this added pressure is out on you because of your gender.

For the first time in his NASCAR Cup Series career, Bubba Wallace will start on the pole after topping qualifying for the FireKeepers Casino 400 at Michigan International Speedway. In doing so, he became only the second black pole sitter in Cup history after Wendell Scott in 1962, and the third in any NASCAR national series with Bill Lester the other.

Wallace was the only driver of the thirty-seven entered to set a qualifying speed of over 190 miles per hour at 190.703 mph (118.497 km/h) with a lap time of 37.755 seconds. He led a trio of Toyotas as Joe Gibbs Racing allies Christopher Bell and Kyle Busch followed, with Wallace’s time being .160 quicker than Bell.

Besides being the maiden Cup pole for Wallace and his 23XI Racing team, the driver secured his sixth career national series pole and first since the 2014 Xfinity Series race at Dover. His previous best Cup starting spot was fourth at New Hampshire in July.

“Let’s go! First time pole sitter here,” Wallace said in a Twitter video. “So excited, so pumped, so proud of my team. McDonald’s Toyota Camry is super fast, the test that we had here a couple months ago definitely proved that.

“Now, we’re showing back up to come get the big trophy when it matters.”

In his interview with The Checkered Flag in March, three-time Stadium Super Trucks champion Matt Brabham said he would likely only return to the series on weekends where Indy Lights did not clash. This was subverted with the Music City Grand Prix in Nashville as he entered both due to favourable scheduling, and in fact weather gave him an even better slate on Saturday as Indy Lights’ lone session for the day (qualifying) was cancelled due to weather while SST Race #1 was greenlit.

By the end, Brabham is already in good shape for his Indy Lights/SST double on Sunday after holding off Gavin Harlien on the final lap to win his twenty-fourth SST race and first of 2022.

After starting sixth, Harlien took the lead on lap three from Zoey Edenholm who in turn had assumed the spot after pole-sitter Bill Hynes overshot turn nine on the opening lap. Brabham started eighth and worked up to second by the competition behind Harlien, and the two quickly built a comfortable lead over the field on the ensuing restart.

As those behind them fought for position, Brabham closed the gap to Harlien before making his move on Harlien’s inside in turn eleven. The duo took the white flag side-by-side before Brabham finally cleared Harlien through the following chicane. Harlien tried to catch up on the two runs across the Korean War Veterans Memorial Bridge but was unable to find an overtaking opportunity.

“I saw Matty catching me a little bit there at the end and I was thinking he was only going to be able to pass me after one of the bridges and then he got me right before the finish line which I wasn’t expecting, so that was a good move,” Harlien explained in his post-race interview. “I tried to get a run on him on the last lap coming down, but I hit the wall coming back down the second bridge and wasn’t able to get it.”

What was supposed to be a day off for NASCAR Cup Series veteran Kyle Busch and his family on Thursday ahead of his race at Michigan International Speedway became a scary situation when a shooting occurred at the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota. No injuries occurred and the family was able to depart the mall prior to it entering lockdown, and Busch and wife Samantha have since offered their perspectives on what they saw and felt.

According to Bloomington Police, the situation began with an argument involving two parties in the Mall of America’s Nike Store at approximately 4:15 PM Central Time. One of the groups departed before an unidentified person fired at least three shots into the store before escaping. The mall was placed on lockdown before lifting it at 5:40 PM, and reopened on Friday morning.

No injuries were reported in the shooting while police continues to search for suspects.

The Busch family was at the mall to take a break from seven-year-old son Brexton‘s dirt track racing. Many of Brexton’s recent events leading up to Thursday were in the Midwest at tracks like Thunder Hill Speedway in Menomonie, Wisconsin, with Mall of America providing a brief break before travelling to Brooklyn, Michigan for his father’s Cup race. Kyle and Brexton were in queue for a ride while Samantha was shopping at the time of the shooting, and the former were caught on video among the group of evacuating patrons by WFFT’s Andy Paras.

“We were at the @mallofamerica yesterday when a shooting happened,” Samantha posted on Instagram on Friday. “We had been spending the afternoon riding the rides in the center of the mall and then the girls split up to shop while the boys stayed for more rides. Then chaos ensued. I was standing at the entrance of H&M which is on floor 1 when I heard screaming from above. A group of people were running and yelling. My brain instantly thought it was just teenagers being goofy and then a split second later herds of people on levels 2 and 3 were running. Next a wave of people started down our corridor and that’s when I heard people shouting ‘active shooter in the mall’. You know the logical thing to do is run out the doors but with Kyle and Brexton still somewhere inside I froze where I was.

Hyundai Shell Mobis WRT driver Ott Tänak is still holding on to the Secto Rally Finland lead after the Saturday morning loop of four stages nearby the Jämsä region. Some changes have happened on the leaderboard since yesterday when the drivers were greeted with wet and challenging conditions but Tänak has still maintained the lead and he is holding off the three charging Toyota Gazoo Racing drivers behind.

Tänak won the all-new Vekkula stage that rounded-up the morning loop and he arrived to the mid-day service with a 9.5 seconds lead over Esapekka Lappi meanwhile Lappi´s fellow countryman and current championship leader Kalle Rovanperä has moved further up the order and sits in third now with 3.4 seconds behind Lappi. Rovanperä passed his teammate Elfyn Evans on SS12 and later had a high-speed moment when his Toyota skittered off the road, Evans sits now in fourth with 5 seconds after Rovanperä.

Hyundai´s Thierry Neuville has moved up to fifth place with a minute behind Evans after passing Takamoto Katsuta who is currently in sixth place, the two drivers gained a position when the M-Sport´s Craig Breen was forced to retire from the rally after hitting a cliff that teared apart the right rear-end on SS12.

Pierre-Louis Loubet is now the leading M-Sport driver and is currently in seventh place with teammate Gus Greensmith in eight, rounding up the top ten after the morning are the two local WRC2 drivers of Teemu Suninen and Emil Lindholm. Rally1 debutant Jari Huttunen has moved up to 16th overall and the unluck continues still today but this time with power steering issues and Adrien Fourmaux is down in 27th.

Top 10 after SS14:

2023 will mark the fiftieth year of operation for SCORE International, and the desert racing sanctioning body intends to celebrate with some slight modifications to the World Desert Championship schedule. While the same four races remain in their respective slots, the season-ending 56th Baja 1000 on 16 November will literally go in the opposite direction by beginning in La Paz in Baja California Sur before heading north and finishing in Ensenada.

Excluding instances where it is a loop, the Baja 1000 typically starts in Ensenada and goes south with La Paz as the destination. By flipping direction, the crown jewel race begins in La Paz for the first time ever, while Ensenada is the finish line for the twenty-ninth time. Other cities to host the 1000’s start include Mexicali (1972, 1993, 1994), Ojos Negros (1999), Santo Tomas (1998), and Tijuana (1967, 1997). Mexicali (1993 and 1994) and Ojos Negros (1999) have also been the site of the finish, as has Cabo San Lucas in 2000 and 2007.

Rob MacCachren won the overall in 2021.

“What an extremely phenomenal precious treasure we all have in SCORE International and to be able to be part of celebrating the Golden anniversary of SCORE in 2023 is extremely humbling and inspiring for all of us at the same time,” stated SCORE president and race director Jose A. Grijalva.

“Mexican races are the cornerstone of SCORE and to have all four races south of the border for the eighth consecutive season and eighth time in SCORE’s long history is a distinct honour and a wonderful privilege. We welcome the challenge to continue to add to the illustrious SCORE Baja racing legacy. And to finish the season with the iconic SCORE Baja 1000 always attracts racing extremists from around the world and 2023 will be a one-of-a-kind experience with the Granddaddy of all Desert Races starting in La Paz for the first time and finishing in Ensenada.”

A wild Stadium Super Trucks qualifying took place on the streets of Nashville as less than half a second separated five drivers vying for the top spot on Friday. By the end, Robert Stout won his first career Fastest Qualifier with a time of 1:54.243.

Stout, winner of Nashville Race #2 in 2021, was the strongest performer throughout the session as he led for much of it with Gavin Harlien in tow. However, Ryan Beat, 2021 Fastest Qualifier Matt Brabham, and Max Gordon had other plans in the final three minutes as the trio surpassed Harlien. Brabham and Gordon then out-paced Stout before the countdown clock hit zero to signify the field had one last lap to complete before qualifying ended.

It was on said lap that Stout set his final flying run, recording a time that knocked Brabham off the top spot by just .126 of a second. Brabham himself barely held off Gordon for second with an advantage of a mere .086.

Beat qualified fourth for his first SST start since the 2019 season opener. Harlien rounded out the top five .492 back of Stout.

The second half of the ten-driver field trailed Stout by nearly three seconds, with Stanton Barrett placing sixth at 1:57.241. Ben Maier, Zoey Edenholm, Bill Hynes, and Cleetus McFarland followed.

The two-time Rally Finland winner, the Estonian Ott Tänak is the overnight rally leader after the first full-day of the 2022 Secto Rally Finland, the Hyundai Shell Mobis WRT driver won four out of the nine stages held throughout the Friday leg and he was under constant pressure from the flying finn Esapekka Lappi who came closer and closer to snatching the lead after winning the three remaining stages during the afternoon loop.

During the mid-day point of the day, Tänak had a 6.2 seconds lead over the Toyota Gazoo Racing driver but that got shortened down to only 3.8 seconds seperating the two Rally Finland winners at the end of the day. Lappi´s Toyota teammates Elfyn Evans and Kalle Rovanperä were holding on to third and fourth place respectively as they arrived back to Jyväskylä for the overnight, Evans is 12.2 seconds behind Tänak and Rovanperä closing in with 1.2 second abreast.

Rovanperä who is the current championship leader was struggling with the traction on the high-speed Finnish gravel roads as he opened the stages during the day and had some moments during the day, the Finn is hoping to close in more to the leader during the Saturday stages. Rovanperä was the only driver to go out on SS5 but he got red flagged and had to stop due to safety reasons with spectators not following orders from road-side marshalls, the stage also got cancelled later for the same reason just some minutes after the Finn was shown the red flag.

M-Sport´s Craig Breen is the leading Ford driver and is holding on to fifth place with half a minute back from the rally leader with Takamato Katsuta, who won the SS6 stage, 3.9 seconds back in sixth. Thierry Neuville won the opening stage on Thursday evening but he has since then dropped down the order a lot during the day due to setup issues, the Belgian sits currently in seventh. the M-Sport duo of Pierre-Louis Loubet and Gus Greensmith ended their day on eight and ninth respectively meanwhile the leading WRC2 class home hero Teemu Suninen rounding up the top ten.

The local Rally1 debutant Jari Huttunen had issues with fuel pressure throughout the day and the Finn´s M-Sport teammate Adrien Fourmaux damaged his drvieshaft which caused power steering issues and was 20 minutes behind at the end of the day but the most unluckiest one was Hyundai´s Oliver Solberg who ended his rally early on as he went off the road on the first stage of the day just a couple of metres in to the stage.

Top 10 result after Friday:

The NASCAR world lost a pair of 1970s independent drivers in the past three days as Buddy Arrington and Neil Castles respectively passed away on Tuesday and Thursday at the ages of 84 and 87.

Arrington began racing in the Grand National Series (now Cup Series) in 1964, recording 560 total starts with 103 top tens and a best points finish of seventh in 1982. However, owing to his status as an independent owner/driver with volunteer crews and lesser equipment, he holds the second most starts without a race win. During the final years of his Cup career, Arrington fielded the last vehicles for Chrysler as a manufacturer with non-factory Imperials. He retired after the 1988 season, with his final start being a twenty-eighth at the Daytona July race. He is survived by his son Joey, who ran nine Cup races in the 1970s and currently oversees NASCAR engine builder Race Engines Plus. REP recently collaborated with APP Racing Engines to build a Toyota motor for Daniil Kvyat’s maiden NASCAR race at Indianapolis last Sunday.

“Buddy Arrington was the epitome of a successful car owner and driver during his era in NASCAR,” began a statement from Martinsville Speedway president Clay Campbell. “As an owner, he knew how to use his resources to compete with the top teams. As a driver, Buddy had all the talent to get the job done, so it was never a surprise to see his red and blue #67 Dodge trading paint with some of the best in the sport.

“From a personal perspective, I will always remember him as the first person to give me a ride around Martinsville Speedway when I was a teenager. To this day, it remains one of the most thrilling things I’ve ever done. I will never forget his kindness sharing that experience with me. I think he may have enjoyed it as much as I did and I’m pretty sure he was wearing his signature sunglasses when he did it! That was Buddy. He made an impact on the sport that will never be forgotten. My condolences go out to his family during this time.”

Nicknamed “Soapy”, Castles recorded 498 Cup starts from 1957 to 1976 with 178 top tens. He was unable to win a Cup race like Arrington, but has a pair of top-five points finishes with a best of fourth in 1969. In 1972, he scored the inaugural Grand National East (no relation to the present-day ARCA Menards Series East) championship.

Ahead of last weekend’s Formula E London E-Prix, the first-ever Formula E Innovation Summit took place, where details on how motorsport will become “net zero carbon” in 2030 were explained.

The summit, called ‘Change. Accelerated. Live’ was led by FIA deputy president for sport Robert Reid, with guests including: David Richards, chairman of Motorsport UK, Deborah Mayer, president of the FIA Women In Motorsport Commission, and Saul Billingsley, executive director, FIA Foundation.

The event brought a panel together from a variety of different backgrounds other than just motorsport, to discuss how motorsport can drive and encourage innovation and sustainable development.

During the summit, Reid set out the FIA’s plans for the governing body to be “net carbon zero” by 2030, and for all FIA World Championships to have the “highest level’ of the FIA Environmental Accreditation.

“Motorsport has always been a laboratory for research and innovation and through FIA world championships like Formula E, we can accelerate the technology transfer to mobility in the areas of electrification. We can illustrate that electric mobility can be safe and entertaining and have a positive impact on the environment,” said Reid.

Jaguar TCS Racing have announced that Sam Bird won’t be racing at the Seoul E-Prix, which will host Round Fifteen and the season finale Round Sixteen of the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship.

Bird was sent to hospital after the London E-Prix last Sunday, where an X-Ray showed that he’d fractured his left hand following an impact on the opening lap of the race. The Brit had managed to battle through the pain the entire race; however, it’s been revealed that he will be undergoing surgery this week to repair the fracture.

It brings an abrupt end to the season for Bird, who has endured a somewhat disastrous season through no fault of his own. The Jaguar driver has faced a plethora of bad luck this campaign, which has seen him end the year outside the top ten in the Drivers’ Championship. Had Bird raced in South Korea, then he would’ve taken part in his one-hundredth Formula E race, this milestone will now have to wait until next season in the Gen3 cars.

It also means that Bird’s run of being the only driver to win a race in every season of Formula E will come to a disappointing end, with his run having spread from Season One to Season Seven.

Bird will be replaced by 2021 Berlin E-Prix winner and Jaguar reserve driver Norman Nato, with the Frenchman stepping in for both races in Seoul.

The all-new all-electric cars competing in the 2022 FIA World Rallycross Championship will make their debut on 11 August. The 500kW (680bhp) monsters will be unveiled in a presentation and parade through downtown Stjørdal, Norway, as part of the warm-up for the Rammuden World RX of Norway.

The presentation begins at 19:00 CEST in front of the Kimen Kulturhus, a strikingly beautiful glass building featuring two concert halls and three cinemas. The modern appearance of the building was no doubt purposefully chosen as the venue for the launch of the brand new era of World RX.

Drivers will take to the stage to offer insights to the assembled crowd of VIPs, media representatives, and the general public, into what these beasts will be like to drive, and what we can expect from the racing.

There will also be an appearance from superstar Aksel Lund Svindal, two-time Olympic gold medallist, five-time world champion skier, and, as of this year, rallycross driver in the support FIA RX2e Championship. After the presentation, there will be an autograph session and parade through the town, before the cars head back to the track for the start of the opening round on 13 August.

Arne Dirks, executive director of Rallycross Promotor GmbH, said, We are tremendously excited to be revealing World RX’s new electric era in Stjørdal next week. There has been a huge amount of hard work put in by all involved to get to this point, and as we prepare to go racing in Hell, anticipation is sky-high. There’s no question that Norway is leading the way in Europe when it comes to sustainability and environmental awareness in the automotive industry, so there could be no better place to begin our electrifying journey. We hope as many people as possible will join us there!”