Philadelphia, PA (Best E Casino) - It's another busy weekend with key races in Nextel Cup at Watkins Glen, IndyCars at Kentucky and Champ Cars at historic Road America.
NASCAR
Nextel Cup
Centurion Boats at the Glen - Watkins Glen International - Watkins Glen, NY
Five races remain before the "Chase for the Nextel Cup" with four drivers fighting for the final two spots. Just 128 points separate 14th-place Ryan Newman from 11th-place Martin Truex Jr. In between the two are 2004 Nextel Cup champion Kurt Busch holding down the final spot and Dale Earnhardt Jr. just seven points out.
Watching these four drivers should be an interesting "race-within-a-race." But none of the four driver are particularly good at road-course events and likely won't get much television time.
When talking camera time at a road course, the first name that comes to mind is Jeff Gordon. The four-time Nextel Cup champion has won four times in 14 Watkins Glen starts with an average finish of 10th.
Kevin Harvick, ninth overall, has one win and four top-10s in six starts. His average finish is a very good 8.0.
Tony Stewart has an even better record than Harvick at the New York road course. The No.20 Joe Gibbs Racing driver has made eight starts, winning three times. His average finish is a stellar 6.8. His 2005 win was most impressive leading 83 of 92 laps.
And then there is Juan Pablo Montoya. The Bogota, Colombia native has made two NASCAR road course starts and won them both.
Montoya's first foray into a NASCAR road race was in the Busch Series at Mexico City. He won that in relatively easy fashion. He then took on Gordon and Stewart at Infineon Raceway. Although he qualified horribly (32nd), he flew through the field and eventually made the winning pass around Jamie McMurray with eight laps remaining. Montoya took the checkered flag 4.097 ahead of Harvick as McMurray ran out of fuel.
The 2000 Indianapolis 500 winner has a chance to become the first driver in NASCAR to win three road-course events in one season. Montoya didn't compete last week in Montreal.
"We're starting to get the hang of the car, getting more comfortable," said Montoya, who finished second at Indy and 16th at Pocono.
There will also be the usual "road-course specialists" in the field, including Boris Said, Ron Fellows, P.J. Jones, Brian Simo and Canadian Patrick Carpentier. In his first effort behind the wheel of a NASCAR Busch Series car, Carpentier finished second to Harvick last week in Montreal.
"Last weekend went perfect," said Carpentier. "It was a fun race and I enjoyed it. This week should be great, I'm even more excited."
It should be a very interesting Sunday.
Busch
Zippo 200 - Watkins Glen International - Watkins Glen, NY
Carl Edwards finished a distant 30th last week in Montreal and with it lost 65 points in the standings. Somehow, the No.60 Roush Fenway Racing Ford driver will have to continue on with just a 787-point lead in the Busch Series championship. Edwards still leads the series with four wins (tied with Harvick), top-fives (13) and top-10 (17).
Behind Edwards are David Reutimann (-787) and Harvick (-919).
In fourth place overall is a surprising name to most - Jason Leffler. In the middle of his second full year of Busch racing, Leffler is set to improve on last year's 13th-place finish.
A Long Beach, CA native, Leffler has put together a solid season including a win two weeks ago at O'Reilly Raceway Park and eight top-10s. This despite a slow early season for the No.38 Braun Racing Toyota in which he finished outside the top-30 in four of the first six events. Since the start of June, Leffler has collected five top-10s and finished outside the top-30 just once.
Leffler began gathering racing notoriety in the USAC Series when he won three consecutive Midget championships between 1997-1999. He was just the third driver to accomplish the feat. In 1998 he also won the USAC Silver Crown championship. He won his first Craftsman Truck Series race in 2003 and his first Busch race in 2004.
Leffler got a taste of Nextel Cup racing in 2005, making 19 starts, but his best finish was a 12th-place at Martinsville and he was released in mid- season. He has improved his driving steadily since and soon should get another shot at the "Big Time."
However, it might be tough for Leffler this week with a field chock full of Nextel Cup drivers looking for extra "practice" time on the 2.45-mile Watkins Glen road course.
The race will likely be won by a "Buschwhacker" but keep an eye on Leffler as he battles the Nextel Cup guys on Saturday.
Craftsman
Toyota Tundra 200 - Nashville Superspeedway - Lebanon, TN
Mike Skinner continues to dominate the Craftsman Truck Series leaderboard. The No.5 Bill Davis Toyota driver leads the series in points (2,346), driver rating (121.8), winnings ($490,750), laps led (811), wins (4), poles (7), top- fives (11) and races led (14).
Yet with all of these statistics, his lead is only 77 points over Ron Hornaday Jr. The Palmdale, CA native has also had a great year winning three times and earning 13 top-10s. His win total and top-10s are already more than he collected in all of 2006.
Hornaday Jr. is coming off a dominating win at O'Reilly Raceway Park, leading 90 of 201 laps en route to a 0.350-second win over Johnny Benson. Skinner finished 20th in the race, the first time all season that he failed to crack the top-10.
"We just need to keep winning races," Hornaday Jr. said. "If we can just keep gaining 10 points on Skinner each week, we'll be right there and it will be a heck of a Homestead race."
"Nashville is an important race to us because Toyota is big there," said Skinner. "We always have a ton of Toyota employees show up and we hope we can put on another great show this year."1
A motivated Skinner might be more than Hornaday Jr. can handle, but it sure will be fun to watch.
INDYCARS
Meijer Indy 300 - Kentucky Speedway - Sparta, KY
The IndyCar Series put on quite a show last Sunday, too bad a lot of people didn't see it. ESPN, the supposed leader in sports broadcasting, took the rain delayed event and stuck it on it's Classic channel which is not available to the same amount of viewers.
What many fans missed was a wild race including a spectacular crash that included the championship leader Dario Franchitti sailing upside down and backwards onto the top of Scott Dixon's Target Chip Ganassi race car.
The event took place on lap 143 and it started when Franchitti and Dan Wheldon touched wheels while fighting for the lead. Franchitti was sent airborne. He landed upside down right in front of Dixon and A.J. Foyt IV who had nowhere to go.
"When I went upside down, I thought that was it, but then I hit Dixon," said Franchitti on the team's website. "I have to thank Scott because he definitely softened the blow.
"Mr. Dallara is a personal friend of mine; I've always been a fan of his," Franchitti continued. "He has given us fast cars that are very strong as well. I have to say that the car absorbed all the impact. It is because of that car that I'm sitting here today with just a bruise on my nose. It is just incredible."
After a lengthy cleanup the race continued with less than 10 drivers still on the track. Despite the limited number of drivers, the finish was still quite a show.
The race came down to Tony Kanaan and Marco Andretti and they raced clean and hard all the way to the checkered flag. Andretti tried four different times to go around the outside of Kanaan and each time he was denied by the 2004 IndyCar champion. The final margin of 0.0595 seconds was one of the closest of the year.
The win coupled with the accident to Franchitti and Dixon helped the No.11 Andretti Green Racing driver close to within 81 points of the leader and 57 points of second place.
In last year's race, Sam Hornish Jr. edged Dixon for the win.
CHAMP CARS
Generac Grand Prix - Road America - Elkhart Lake, WI
The Champ Car Series travels to a wonderful old track this week, the 4.048- mile circuit in Elkhart Lake, WI.
"Road America is a high-speed track, more what I'm used to in Europe," said former Formula One driver Robert Doornbos. "You sort of have to shift your mind set, just as you'd change the setup on your car after racing on a street course. For one thing, there is so much more speed around the turns compared with the street circuits that you have to be much more delicate and precise with the car. We did well at the test earlier this year, and I can't wait to get back there."
With seven races left in the series, Sebastien Bourdais is on track to win his fourth consecutive series championship. The Frenchman used a win at Edmonton to reclaim the top spot and a fifth-place two weeks ago to maintain his lead. It is where Bourdais always expects to be. In 68 races, Bourdais has been the points leader for 42 of them.
However, Bourdais will bring just a 10-point lead over "rookie" Doornbos into this week's race at Road America. Doornbos cut the lead in half with a win at San Jose.
"It was a tough day for the McDonald's team," said Bourdais. "I made a mistake under yellow. I got a little greedy I guess. I just tried to save too much fuel and tried seventh gear with low revs at the hairpin and when I released the clutch the car died."
Doornbos came back from a first-lap crash to win by a healthy margin, 6.144 seconds over Neel Jani. The victory was Doornbos' second of the season. His first career Champ Car win came at the Grand Prix of Mont-Tremblant earlier this month.
Doornbos got into the back of Jan Heylen's car in the first turn and was forced to pit for a new front nose wing. But he fought back and with 12 minutes to go he had charged back to second behind Jani.
Doornbos closed to Jani's rear bumper, but it wasn't until lap 96 that he got around him on the inside at the same turn one corner that he had his earlier problem.
But it is not just a two-man race. Behind Doornbos is Will Power 24 points back and Justin Wilson just 41 points behind Bourdais.
The last time the series was here, A.J. Allmendinger, now racing in NASCAR, took the victory by 0.674 seconds over Bruno Junqueira. Bourdais finished third.
Expect a continuation of the Bourdais-Doornbos battle this Sunday afternoon.
