By Lou Modestino
After Kyle Busch took his third race in row at Bristol Motor Speedway, he still holds the lead in Sprint Cup points with Jimmie Johnson trailing him as we get closer To The Chase. Kyle’s strategy at Bristol was to be quickest out of the pits along with several others who tried it. That race was won in the pits. In F1 action at Spa Belgium Sebastian Vettle won his seventh race and now tops the point standings by 52 points over Mark Webber. Will Power was the IZOD Indy Car’s top driver at Sonoma. Australian Will Power is trying to eclipse point leader Dario Franchitti and is -26 points behind the driver from Scotland. “It was the best weekend we had,” said Power in victory lane at the wine country track just outside of San Francisco, CA.
Maine native Steve Letarte, who was a guest on Dave Despain’s WIND TUNNEL program on SPEED gave some insights into what’s going on with JR. Steve revealed that JR is still struggling but doing better than last season. Also struggling in the Hendrick Racing camp is Jeff Gordon who is also doing better than last year. We heard from various sources that both JR and Jeff Gordon have some issues and trying to get their arms around the COT. Consider that since the COT came on the scene JR and Jeff Gordon, it’s no coincidence that they have been not been performing up to the potential. “JR is highly motivated,” Letarte told Despain.
Casey Stoner was the big winner in the US Moto GP at Indianapolis over the weekend. Dancia Patrick will race full time on the NASCAR Nationwide Series for JR and in selected races for Tony Stewart all in GoDaddy.com livery. It’s no secret that Tony wanted to add another car to his stable. So Danica seems to be a good fit. But, the pressure is really going to be on her to make it while others who have made the move to NASCAR from the IZOD Indy Car Series never accomplished that feat. Going from Indy Cars to NASCAR’s top tier division is a difficult transition. Tony Stewart is an exception to all of that and it’s going to be in his best interest that Danica is successful.
The AMA National MotoX held at Southwick, MA (Motox 338) went off in spite of the track being in the path of Hurricane Irene. It was a pretty soggy and muddy track. Ryan Dungy won the first moto but failed to answer the bell for the second round. Justin Borcia won that one while Ryan Villipoto still leads the point chase. Robin Miller, SPEED’s man on the IZOD Indy Car circuit predicts that Dan Weldon will get Danica’s seat in the Andretti Racing Team. The Indy Cars will return to Fontana next year and it appears that a race in China, is in the offing for that series.