Last Sunday was Christmas for gearheads: The Monaco Grand Prix, Indianapolis 500 and Coca-Cola 600, all on the same day. I found a camshaft in my stocking. When I woke up, Bobby Unser already had come down the chimney to polish off the Valvoline and cookies.
There’s a scene in the iconic stock-car movie “Days of Thunder” that takes place the night before the big race — the Daytona 500, if memory serves — in which Robert Duvall talks to Tom Cruise’s car. Duvall was cast as crusty crew chief Harry Hogge; Cruise as brash young driver Cole Trickle.
A guy from Indianapolis, a Butler grad named Ed Carpenter, on Sunday earned his second consecutive pole position start for the Indianapolis 500 with an asphalt-blistering four-lap average speed of 231.067 mph.
It was racing motorcycle weekend in Las Vegas, or as I like to call it, “Vroom with a view.” Wherever you turned, guys were doing wheelies and catching big air.
Kurt Busch hopes to complete the auto racing double on May 25, driving the Indianapolis 500 during the day and the NASCAR Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway in North Carolina at night. This is the auto racing double.
When he was a younger man, Bill Lusk flew Nikita Khrushchev’s bags around the U.S. during one of the former communist leader’s visits. Now that he’s 80, Bill Lusk drives a one-of-a-kind Porsche 911 around Auto Club Speedway in California at high rates of speed.
Courtney Force and Graham Rahal are auto racing’s newest, fastest couple on eight wheels. They have overtaken NASCAR’s Danica Patrick and Ricky Stenhouse, at least based on career victories.
He has won 41 races in drag racing’s Nitro classes, and no driver has won as many events in Las Vegas as Ron Capps. He has won five times here: once in spring, four times in fall.
A few weeks ago, when he nearly won the Kobalt 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway with a risky fuel strategy, Dale Earnhardt Jr. pretty much said it was new NASCAR rules rewarding race winners that was responsible for an exciting finish. Today at Martinsville, Va., he pretty much backtracked on that.
Kyle Busch won another race at Auto Club Speedway in California Sunday. He suggested that Harry Hogg from “Days of Thunder” should get an assist.
