Austin Dillon’s Indianapolis Motor Speedway Road Course Race Cut Short in No. 3 Dow MobilityScience Chevrolet Following Late Race Incident

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“We knew strategy would be important today so our RCR team worked hard on a plan and adjusted throughout the race, and our hard work and preparation paid off. The Dow MobilityScience Chevy was tight on the lefts and loose on the rights to start the race, but by Stage 2 handling was pretty good and we were able to finish the stage second to grab some valuable Stage Points. Stage 3 was nothing short of wild. I had nowhere to go and ended up with too much damage to finish the race. Honestly, it was frustrating and disappointing. We took a historic race like the Brickyard and turned it into a demo derby. Truthfully it’s not the track’s fault. It’s the drivers’ fault. Everyone wants to just run over curbs. I do hope the fans loved it though. With only two races remaining in the regular season, we’ll be bringing our A-game to try and get wins at Michigan and Daytona to lock ourselves into the NASCAR Playoffs.” -Austin Dillon

Tyler Reddick Captures Two Stage Wins with the No. 8 BetMGM Team During Wild Indianapolis Motor Speedway Road Course Debut

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“We had a fast No. 8 BetMGM Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE this weekend, just ended up needing a little more luck. The Indianapolis Motor Speedway Road Course is a lot of fun, really flat and tricky at first. I really started to get the hang of it during the race and was able to attack more and more during the turns as the race went on. It’s great that we were able to capture two Stage wins during today’s race. That will help with our Playoff situation and hopefully gained us some points to close the gap on the No. 4 car. I’m disappointed we got that damage in the closing laps of the race, since it killed the momentum we had after a great pit stop and cost us a shot at a top-10 finish. The positive is that we were one of the teams able to continue on to the end. Every single point matters, and I know this team will continue to fight as the Playoffs approach.” -Tyler Reddick

LE MANS, France (Aug. 15, 2021) – At long last, Corvette Racing sent the mid-engine Chevrolet Corvette C8.R for its first laps around the Circuit de la Sarthe during nine hours of testing Sunday ahead of the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Tommy Milner led the Corvette Racing effort in the No. 64 Mobil 1/SiriusXM Corvette C8.R on Sunday with a lap of 3:53.440 (130.550 mph) in a highly competitive GTE Pro field. Less than a half-second separated the top seven cars, which bodes well for a thrilling race in less than a week’s time. Milner shared the No. 64 Corvette on Sunday with Nick Tandy; the duo will welcome back Alexander Sims into the fold following a prior racing commitment earlier in the day. The No. 63 Mobil 1/SiriusXM Corvette C8.R had an up-and-down day that included an engine change following an electrical issue that stranded Antonio Garcia on-course in the third hour of the morning session. Four hours later and after hard and thorough work, the No. 63 re-emerged from the garage to continue its test program.  Nicky Catsburg, driving with Garcia and Jordan Taylor, was the quickest driver in the 63 entry at 3:54.281 (130.115 mph). The trio are back together after winning the Rolex 24 At Daytona earlier this season. Corvette Racing will return to the track Wednesday for two free practice sessions and qualifying.  The 24 Hours of Le Mans on Aug. 21-22 with the green flag set for 4 p.m. CET and 10 a.m. ET. MotorTrend TV will air the race live with the MotorTrend App adding coverage of official practices and qualifying on Aug. 18 and 19. Live audio coverage will be available from Radio Le Mans starting with Sunday’s Test Day

TOMMY MILNER, NO. 64 MOBIL 1/SiriusXM CHEVROLET CORVETTE C8.R: “We had a bit of a slow start today with some issues here and there. But the afternoon was really strong for us on the 64 side. As far as setup goes, we didn’t do lots of work – thanks to a lot of that being done on the simulator. It really felt like we have been racing this car at Le Mans for many years. That’s my first impression. Setup-wise and balance-wise, things felt pretty good. There’s still some work to do, for sure. But I’m happy with where we are. We were able to get more tire data and more car data so that when we come to the race here in a few days that we can find-tune the setup and get everyone comfortable and happy with the Corvette.”

NICK TANDY, NO. 4 MOBIL 1/SiriusXM CHEVROLET CORVETTE C8.R: “It’s been a long day and we’ve had a few hiccups – things to iron out. But that’s why you do a test before the race week where we try to do a roll-out and fully use that test day. We managed to work through a good program of what we wanted to get through on the 64 side. It would have been nice if the 63 had run fully and we could have compared what we had planned to test throughout the day. Nevertheless, the good thing with the heat and weather today is that we were able to run different tire compounds and have a comparison of that. Of course we missed having Alexander here. I know he will seamlessly transition into the team for the first practice session Wednesday. What that did mean is that Tommy and I got to focus on what we were doing between the two of us rather than driver familiarization work, which we will do Wednesday. It won’t take Alex many laps. I think the most positive thing for me is how comfortable the C8.R is to drive around this circuit. I know and Corvette Racing knows what requirements are needed for a car on this type of circuit – fast, relatively low-grip, big braking zones and a pretty flat track, if you like. The car is everything I expected. It gives me good visions going into race week of being able to operate at a very high level for a number of stints without too much hassle. That is what endurance racing is all about… going round and round as consistently as possible.”

ANTONIO GARCIA, NO. 63 MOBIL 1/SiriusXM CHEVROLET CORVETTE C8.R: “I would have liked to do some more laps for sure since it’s the first year with the C8.R in Le Mans. But mostly out of the box it felt pretty decent, pretty good. We know which way to go; the things we worked on in the simulator seem to be working, which is a good thing. We’ll now try to get as much data as possible from both cars and work our way forward toward this week.”

JORDAN TAYLOR, NO. 63 MOBIL 1/SiriusXM CHEVROLET CORVETTE C8.R: “We didn’t do as many laps as we wanted to get in today, but the guys did a good job to give us as many laps as possible. It’s the first day of the new car at Le Mans, so every lap is important to get our data and to understand where we’ll be next week. Each driver got some laps – in traffic and in clean air – which is important for the race. We probably have a lot of things we want to tick off the list still come free practice, but I think it’s good to get this under our belt, get a couple of days off and look at all the data and understand where we are.”

NICKY CATSBURG, NO. 63 MOBIL 1/SiriusXM CHEVROLET CORVETTE C8.R: “Not an easy day with the issue in the morning session which took a long time to repair, but the guys worked super hard and luckily we managed to get out near the end of the afternoon session. We got some laps in, the car felt pretty good. The sister car was running all day so we’ll be able to get some valuable information from them and we can learn from that. In summary, we survived the Test Day feeling pretty good, so we’re all good for the race.”

Martin speaks after early incident while leading, Feger 15th-sixth

PEVELY, MO – Aug. 14, 2021 – Bobby Pierce has conquered many of DIRTcar’s most historic venues across the Midwest over his young career, but one track had continuously excluded him from Summer Nationals Victory Lane.

Saturday night at Federated Auto Parts Raceway at I-55, the three-time Hell Tour champion finally checked the third-mile, high-banked oval off of his list with a victory in the 40-lap Feature event, worth $10,000 and his 39th career victory with the tour.

For as many times he’s raced I-55 with the Summer Nationals but never won, some might think he’d dread coming to the place every year. But in reality, it’s one of his favorites.

“This is definitely one of the top-three of my favorite tracks, if not, my favorite,” Pierce said. “Throughout the years of coming here for Summer Nationals, if it hasn’t rained out, it’s been really tough competition every time.”

But to reach Victory Lane, he had to do what he failed to the night before at Highland Speedway – defend the lead from a hungry Brandon Sheppard.

Pierce inherited the lead after an unfortunate incident on Lap 8 between polesitter and race leader Logan Martin. He and Jeff Roth came together in Turn 3 as he was trying to make the pass to put him a lap down, leaving Martin in the wall and off on the hook.

“I went in there, and he didn’t hold his line. He started at the bottom of Turns 1-2 and exited on the top, and I about got him, so I exited on the bottom because I thought he was going to run the top. Then we get down into 3-4 and he turns left to go to the middle, and we ended up in it,” Martin said.

“It’s just super frustrating for our race team when we put a ton of work and effort into this. You try and do everything you can to try and put yourself in position to win those races and end up losing it on a deal like that, it’s just super frustrating.”

“I saw that almost before it happened, luckily,” Pierce said of the incident. “I had the car checked-up, or else, I would have been in that, probably.”

Now with the lead and a clear track ahead of him, Pierce went back to work. As did Sheppard’s B5, who moved up to second by Lap 13.

Several caution flags were seen over the course of the race, but Pierce held strong on the restarts. Sheppard gave chase in the closing stages, chopping the lead down to under a full second in traffic, but was unable to catch Pierce at the checkers.

“With Brandon [Sheppard] behind me, he’s one of the best in the biz… last night, we had a hell of a battle. I didn’t want to give that to him again,” Pierce said.

Sheppard crossed in second, Ashton Winger in third, Shannon Babb in fourth and Gordy Gundaker the top-five.

UP NEXT

The Late Models now get three days off before kicking off Championship Week on Wednesday, Aug. 18, at Butler Motor Speedway. Catch all the action live on DIRTVision.

ABBREVIATED RESULTS (view full results)

Feature (40 Laps) 1. 32-Bobby Pierce[4]; 2. B5-Brandon Sheppard[3]; 3. 12-Ashton Winger[5]; 4. 18-Shannon Babb[6]; 5. 11-Gordy Gundaker[8]; 6. 25-Jason Feger[15]; 7. 81E-Tanner English[7]; 8. 26M-Brent McKinnon[11]; 9. 54-Dane Dacus[10]; 10. 74- Mitch McGrath[9]; 11. 44-Blaze Burwell[17]; 12. 23-Paul Roider[14]; 13. 11T-Trevor Gundaker[20]; 14. 33-Rickey Frankel[16]; 15. 14R-Jeff Roth[12]; 16. 14G-Joe Godsey[19]; 17. 248-Brandon Lance[22]; 18. 10-Daryn Klein[2]; 19. 14- Paul Kuper[18]; 20. 16-Rusty Griffaw[13]; 21. 36-Logan Martin[1]; 22. 6K-Michael Kloos[21]

HOLY HIGHSIDE: Bollinger Wins First Career Summit Modified Feature in Thriller at I-55

Drivers never forget their first time in Victory Lane. UMP Modified rookie Brandon Bollinger made his first trip a memorable one Saturday night, putting on a stellar show in the final laps with Will Krup to score his first career DIRTcar Summit Racing Equipment Modified Nationals victory.

“It feels good to be able to run with Will Krup and Mike Harrison and my buddy Hunt Gossum all up there,” Bollinger said. “I’m still speechless from it.”

As were most of the fans in the grandstands at Federated Auto Parts Raceway at I-55, who watched Bollinger make a stellar move for the lead on a restart in the closing laps.

After Mike Harrison brought out the caution with just four laps remaining for a flat RF tire while running second, the field was restacked, and Bollinger assumed second from the pitside-Harrison. He mashed the gas on the bumper of Krup as the green dropped and went right for the high side.

“I came down the front stretch and my [crew guy] Dakota just told me to hammer the high side,” Bollinger said. “He just said go up there and hit it. I had to do it right then and be able to hit my marks up there and I knew I’d be able to do it.”

With some nice momentum out of Turn 2, Bollinger threw his #242 hard down low in Turn 3 and slid right up in front of Krup to grab the lead. But Krup didn’t just lie down, he came back at Bollinger on the low side with some solid speed around the third-mile oval.

“I didn’t know if I was going to be able to clear him or not, but then I saw him get on the brakes just a little too hard, and [Krup] looked like he was about to push,” Bollinger said. “I knew if I could just send it in there good, I knew I could get it right then.”

But in the end, it just wasn’t enough to catch the #242. Bollinger crossed the stripe and completed the upset against the Modified veterans of Krup, Harrison, Kyle Steffens and more.

A graduate of the DIRTcar Pro Modified ranks, 2021 is only Bollinger’s first year in a full-size DIRTcar UMP Modified. Saturday night was his ninth start of the season with the tour, notching only one other top-5 finish before Saturday night.

UP NEXT

The Summit Modifieds now get three days off before kicking off Championship Week on Wednesday, Aug. 18, at Butler Motor Speedway. Catch all the action live on DIRTVision.

ABBREVIATED RESULTS (view full results)

Feature (25 Laps) 1. 242-Brandon Bollinger[5]; 2. K19-Will Krup[1]; 3. 327-Chuck Goodman[8]; 4. 8-Kyle Steffens[2]; 5. 14C-Rick Conoyer[13]; 6. 13-Charlie Mefford[6]; 7. J82-Treb Jacoby[14]; 8. 82Q-Cole Queathem[15]; 9. 9H-John Demoss[12]; 10. 99- Hunt Gossum[4]; 11. 87Z-Zeb Moake[11]; 12. 59R-Jacob Rexing[19]; 13. 4G-Paul Schrempf Jr[22]; 14. 4T-Jake Trebilcock[17]; 15. 21-Randy Dickman[20]; 16. 44R-Anthony Reams[21]; 17. 1D-Dean Hoffman[9]; 18. 24H-Mike Harrison[7]; 19. 11X-Don Grimm[18]; 20. 4UW-Bobby Regot[16]; 21. 25-Tyler Nicely[3]; 22. 77-Rick Steveson[10]

$176,000 is Richest Victory in World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series History

KNOXVILLE, IA – August 14, 2021 – Kyle Larson first attended the Knoxville Nationals in 2005 when he was 13-years-old. He instantly fell in love with the auora of the place.

For 16 years since, the Elk Grove, CA kid has dreamed of standing on the stage at the race they call The Granddaddy of ‘Em All. On Saturday night, that childhood dream became a reality, and Larson won the biggest race of his life.

What made it even sweeter for the 29-year-old sensation is that he had to beat Donny Schatz to do it. The Sprint Car superstar turned NASCAR Cup ace has made it clear in years past that he wanted to beat the 10x Knoxville Nationals champion at his own game while the Tony Stewart Racing #15 legend was still in his prime.

In front of a sold-out crowd of more than 20,000+ spectators, Larson did exactly what he dreamed of. He beat Schatz heads up on the Knoxville 1/2-mile, but Donny gave him everything he could handle.

A near last-lap, last-corner pass resulted in a margin of victory of 0.478-seconds, which ultimately netted Larson a cool $176,000, the highest-payday in the history of the World of Outlaws NOS Energy Drink Sprint Car Series.

His breakthrough makes him the 27th different champion in 60 runnings of the NOS Energy Drink Knoxville Nationals pres. by Casey’s General Stores.

“I’ve always dreamed of winning this race,” Larson shouted in victory lane. “The atmosphere this week was unbelievable. I felt the energy all week long from you fans. It kept me excited and pumped up. I hadn’t been this nervous leading up to a race in a couple of years. I had butterflies all day and during [NASCAR] Cup practice all I could think about is what I needed to do here at the Knoxville Nationals.”

Before Larson stood on stage and soaked in the glamour, a 50-lap war had to be run first. He started the race from third while 19-year-old Giovanni Scelzi and his brother-in-law Brad Sweet occupied the front row.

From the jump, Scelzi took his KCP Racing #18 to the lead and paced the opening 10 laps, which was worth an extra $10,000 thanks to Knoxville’s lucrative lap bonus money.

On Lap 11, fifth-starter Donny Schatz roared to life and rocketed from third-to-first in almost one full swing. He stormed by Larson and promplty passed the teenager prodigy down the backstretch to lead Lap 11. The Tony Stewart/Curb-Agajanian Racing #15 proceeded to control the next 14 laps, until Larson went by on the 25th circuit.

Watching as Schatz slipped off the bottom, Larson railed the high side and drove his Paul Silva owned Finley Farms, Hendrick Automotive Group #57 to the lead off turn two as the crowd erupted. The halfway #OpenRed made it interesting when Silva elected to only change the right rear tire, while the TSR squad threw two new rear tires on the #15.

Larson ran the second half of the the race unchallenged, until the five-to-go signal was given and Schatz kicked it into high gear. The 10-time Knoxville Nationals champion erased a 3+ second lead and cut Larson’s advantage down to a single-car length as the white flag waved on Lap 49.

Schatz gave it his all and pulled alongside Larson out of turn four, but fell short by a mere 0.478-seconds.

“I was thinking about how to beat Donny all day,” Larson mentioned. “We’re just a little California team. Paul Silva is the best there is. I’m so fortunate to be with him.”

Schatz settled for a second-place result worth a record $89,000. The Ford Performance, Carquest #15 driver extended his miraculous stresk to 18 top-two finishes in 23 A-Main starts at the Knoxville Nationals.

Brad Sweet ended up third with a $37,500 check in hand. The Kasey Kahne Racing, NAPA Auto Parts #49 now turns attention to finishing the chase for a third-straight World of Outlaws championship next weekend.

Rounding out the top-five at Knoxville Raceway was Giovanni Scelzi in fourth and Logan Schuchart in fifth.

Closing out the top-ten at the Knoxville Nationals was Brent Marks making $20,000 in sixth, James McFadden banking $19,000 in seventh, Kasey Kahne earning $18,000 in eighth, Carson Macedo cashing $17,000 in ninth, and Sheldon Haudenschild scoring $16,000 in tenth.

UP NEXT – The World of Outlaws NOS Energy Drink Sprint Car Series will run three races through the Dakota’s next weekend. The Greatest Show on Dirt will visit River Cities Speedway on Friday, August 20, then Red River Valley Speedway on Saturday, August 21, and Huset’s Speedway on Sunday, August 22.

NOS Energy Drink Feature (50 Laps) – 1. 57-Kyle Larson [3] [$176,000]; 2. 15-Donny Schatz [5] [$89,000]; 3. 49-Brad Sweet [2] [$37,500]; 4. 18-Gio Scelzi [1] [$36,000]; 5. 1S-Logan Schuchart [8] [$21,000]; 6. 19-Brent Marks [4] [$20,000]; 7. 9-James McFadden [13] [$19,000]; 8. 83-Kasey Kahne [7] [$18,000]; 9. 41-Carson Macedo [17] [$17,000]; 10. 17-Sheldon Haudenschild [20] [$16,000]; 11. 14-Kerry Madsen [18] [$15,000]; 12. O-Brooke Tatnell [11] [$14,000]; 13. 73-Justin Peck [15] [$13,000]; 14. 71-Shane Stewart [23] [$12,000]; 15. 3Z-Brock Zearfoss [24] [$11,000]; 16. 49X-Ian Madsen [10] [$10,500]; 17. 39M-Anthony Macri [22] [$10,000]; 18. 2-David Gravel [6] [$10,000]; 19. 7-Justin Henderson [14] [$10,000]; 20. 21-Brian Brown [9] [$10,000]; 21. 7BC-Tyler Courtney [12] [$10,000]; 22. 26-Cory Eliason [19] [$10,000]; 23. 24R-Rico Abreu [21] [$10,000]; 24. 48-Danny Dietrich [16] [$10,000]. Lap Leaders:Giovanni Scelzi 1-10, Donny Schatz 11-24, Kyle Larson 25-50. KSE Hard Charger Award: 17-Sheldon Haudenschild[+10]

Union, KY (August 14, 2021) – Brandon Overton continued his outstanding 2021 racing season by winning the 39th Annual Sunoco Race Fuels North South 100 Presented by Lucas Oil on Saturday Night at Florence Speedway. Overton took the lead on lap 22 from Tim McCreadie and pulled away for a $50,000 victory in the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series sanctioned event. McCreadie, the current championship point leader and Jonathan Davenport battled side-by-side for several laps towards the end of the race, but McCreadie edged out Davenport at the finish for second. Davenport finished just a tenth of a second behind the defending race winner. Jimmy Owens charged from 12th to cross the line in fourth. Josh Rice, the 2021 Ralph Latham Memorial winner, came home in fifth after running as high as second in the race. Looking to become just the third driver in event history to win the race three times, McCreadie got off to a good start by grabbing the lead at the outset from the pole position. Overton started third but quickly moved into second on the opening lap and stayed glued to the back of McCreadie’s bumper for the first 21 laps of the race. Overton made the move for the top spot over McCreadie on the 22nd circuit. McCreadie lost ground to Overton as Rice was making his way into the top three, and into second on lap 61. Rice would try to chase Overton down, as he held the second position until lap 95. With five laps to go Rice started to fade from contention as Davenport moved around him lap 96. Davenport brought along McCreadie as their battle went down to the final lap. McCreadie edged out Davenport for the runner-up spot at the finish. In Lucas Oil Victory Lane for the second time this weekend at Florence Speedway and for the 11th time in his career, Overton added another crown jewel victory to his sparkling 2021 season. “The car was awesome. I think anybody could have drove it tonight, we’ve been working really hard on it, and it definitely paid off. Man, this is cool with al of these people here and you all pumping us up before the race this is awesome. I love coming here, I appreciate every one of you.” Overton’s 21st overall win of the year was special for his car owner David Wells, a native of Hazard, Kentucky. “This is for my car owners, David and Eric Wells, I know this place means a lot to them. I have been a nervous wreck all day because I really wanted this win one really bad, I know it’s special to them.  It makes me happy to see them happy. It is a dream to drive this thing. I just don’t want to stop.”  The winner’s Wells Motorsports Longhorn Chassis is powered by a Clements Racing Engine and sponsored by Allstar Concrete, Convenient Lube, Crossfit Overton, Garnto Southern, Big Dog Stump and Tree, R.W. Powell Construction, Dirt Mafia, Clean Way Clearing and Grading, EZ0GO, ATC Site Construction, and Hurst Construction. With his second-place finish, McCreadie extended his championship point lead over Davenport. “I did the best I could. Brandon wasn’t waiting around tonight, he figured he needed to get control of the race. That Rice kid is such a battler. I maintained but I wasn’t good enough. Really, I just got lucky at the end. To be sandwiched between these two guys tonight, they are the two winningest and hottest cars this year.” Davenport will maintain second in the championship points chase as the series heads to Batesville, Arkansas next weekend. “Me and Timmy had a pretty good race going there. It would have been awesome if it would have been for the lead. Congratulations to Brandon, he’s been rolling pretty good this year. We just tightened up the car a little too much. The guys gave me another good race car, we just missed a little bit.” Completing the top ten were Kyle Bronson, Nick Hoffman, Tyler Erb, Stormy Scott, and Ricky Thornton Jr. Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series Sunoco North South 100 Presented by Lucas Oil Race Summary Saturday, August 14th, 2021Florence Speedway – Union, KY LINE-X B-Main #1 Finish (15 Laps, Top 3 Transfer): 1. 1G-Devin Gilpin[2]; 2. 83-Scott James[1]; 3. 0H-Nick Hoffman[4]; 4. 11H-Spencer Hughes[5]; 5. 33-Jesse Lay[9]; 6. 7R-Kent Robinson[3]; 7. D8-Dustin Linville[7]; 8. 20C-Duane Chamberlain[8]; 9. 25-Shane Clanton[6]; 10. 12J-Jason Jameson[13]; 11. 4G-Kody Evans[10]; 12. 1GK-Grant Garrison[12]; 13. 21H-Robby Hensley[11]; 14. 23T-Ethan Toedter[14]; 15. (DNS) 7F-Jeremy Freeman UNOH B-Main #2 Finish (15 Laps, Top 3 Transfer): 1. 20RT-Ricky Thornton Jr[1]; 2. 14-Josh Richards[5]; 3. 1ST-Johnny Scott[6]; 4. 15-James Rice[10]; 5. 17M-Dale McDowell[2]; 6. 11B-Tommy Bailey[7]; 7. 66C-Matt Cosner[4]; 8. 20B-Todd Brennan[8]; 9. 16-Justin Rattliff[9]; 10. 17C-Jeremy Creech[13]; 11. 20TC-Tristan Chamberlain[12]; 12. 13-Vern Lefevers[14]; 13. 18L-Trevor Landrum[11]; 14. (DNF) 2S-Stormy Scott[3]; 15. (DNF) 8A-Curt Addison[15] Non-Qualifier Race Finish (30 Laps): 1. 17M-Dale McDowell[4]; 2. 15-James Rice[2]; 3. 11H-Spencer Hughes[1]; 4. D8-Dustin Linville[7]; 5. 20C-Duane Chamberlain[8]; 6. 16-Justin Rattliff[10]; 7. 11B-Tommy Bailey[6]; 8. 33-Jesse Lay[3]; 9. 12J-Jason Jameson[11]; 10. 20B-Todd Brennan[9]; 11. 20TC-Tristan Chamberlain[14]; 12. 17C-Jeremy Creech[12]; 13. 8A-Curt Addison[20]; 14. 23T-Ethan Toedter[18]; 15. 13-Vern Lefevers[16]; 16. (DNS) 7R-Kent Robinson; 17. (DNS) 4G-Kody Evans; 18. (DNS) 1GK-Grant Garrison; 19. (DNS) 21H-Robby Hensley; 20. (DNS) 7F-Jeremy Freeman

Myatt Snider and the No. 2 Louisiana Hot Sauce Chevrolet Team Record Seventh-Place Finish at Indianapolis Motor Speedway Road Course

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8th

13th

“Today was a great day for our No. 2 team at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Road Course. The Richard Childress Racing guys put together an awesome Louisiana Hot Sauce Chevrolet Camaro, and we had a lot of speed throughout the entire race, but especially in the last stage. We just needed a little more longevity out of the car. I tried to baby it as much as I could and be easy on the throttle pedal, but we still lost a little bit of drive and ended up crossing the finish line in seventh. It’s a good sign that we were able to keep up with the No. 22 for a while since he ended up winning the race. Just really proud of all the hard work these guys continue to put in each and every week. We will keep building on this momentum and be in a really good spot to start the playoffs next month.”  -Myatt Snider

CHEVROLET RACING NTT INDYCAR SERIES THE BIG MACHINE SPIKED COOLERS GRAND PRIX THE ROAD COURSE AT INDIANAPOLIS MOTOR SPEEDWAY TEAM CHEVY RACE RECAPAUGUST 14, 2021

INDIANAPOLIS (Aug. 14, 2021) – Will Power turned a front row starting position into a win.  The former NTT INDYCAR Series champion and Indianapolis 500 winner led 56 of the 85-laps of The Big Machine Coolers Grand Prix on the Road Course at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. It is the fifth win of the season for Team Chevy in INDYCAR. It is Power’s 5^th win on the technical 2.439-mile, 14-turn road course that incorporates Turns 1 and 2 and the front stretch of the famed oval. It is his 40^th career win and the ninth victory for Chevrolet on the IMS Road Course. Pole Winner Pato O’Ward, No. 5 Arrow McLaren SP, finished fifth and vaulted himself back to second in points, just 21 points out of the lead with four races to go. Two-time champion Josef Newgarden finished eighth to give Chevrolet drivers three of top-eight. He was the biggest mover of the race, starting 20^th and driving forward to eighth. He remains fourth in the standings, just 55 points out of the lead. The Big Machine Spiked Coolers Grand Prix is part of an historic triple-header weekend on the Road Course at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. In addition to the NTT INDYCAR Series, the NASCAR Xfinity Series and the NASCAR Cup Series will each take a turn on the track. Romain Grojean and Colton Herta completed the podium for the race that was slowed twice by caution for five laps. TEAM CHEVY FINISHING RESULTS:WILL POWER, NO. 12 VERIZON 5G TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET – Race Winner PATO O’WARD, NO. 5 ARROW MCLAREN SP CHEVROLET – Finished 5^th JOSEF NEWGARDEN, NO. 2 XPEL TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET – Finished 8^th CONOR DALY, NO. 20 U.S. AIR FORCE CHEVROLET – Finished 11th FELIX ROSENQVIST, NO. 7 VUSE ARROW MCLAREN SP CHEVROLET – Finished 13th SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS, NO. 14 ROKiT AJ FOYT RACING CHEVROLET – Finished 15^th SIMON PAGENAUD, NO. 22 MENARDS TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET – Finished 16^th MAX CHILTON, NO. 59 GALLAGHER CARLIN CHEVROLET – Finished 20^th SCOTT MCLAUGHLIN, NO. 3 CARSHOP TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET – Finished 23rd RINUS VEEKAY, NO. 21 SONAX/AUTOGEEK CHEVROLET – Finished 24^thDALTON KELLETT, NO. 4 K-LINE INSULATORS AJ FOYT RACING CHEVROLET – Finished 26thRC ENERSON, NO. 75 TOP GUN RACING CHEVROLET – Finished 28^th Next on the schedule is Bommarito Automotive Group 500 at World Wide Technology Raceway just east of St. Louis, Missouri on August 21, 2021 Chevrolet IndyCar V6 Year-By-Year Results since 20122021 ­– 4 wins, 5 poles in 11 racesWins – Pato O’Ward (Texas2, Detroit2); Rinus VeeKay (Indy RC1); Josef Newgarden (Mid-Ohio). Pole – Pato O’Ward (Barber Motorsports Park, Detroit1); Josef Newgarden (Detroit2, Road America, Mid-Ohio).2020 – 7 wins, 11 poles in 14 racesWins – Simon Pagenaud (Iowa1); Josef Newgarden (Iowa2, St. Louis2, Indy RC2, St. Petersburg); Will Power (Mid-Ohio1, Indy RC3, St. Petersburg). Poles – Josef Newgarden (Texas, Road America1, Iowa2), Will Power (Indianapolis road course, St. Louis1, Mid-Ohio1, Indy RC3; St. Petersburg), Pato O’Ward (Road America2), Conor Daly (Iowa1), Rinus VeeKay (Indy road course October)2019 – 9 wins, 9 poles in 17 racesDriver/owner championship (Josef Newgarden/Roger Penske); Indianapolis 500 win (Simon Pagenaud)2018 – 6 wins, 9 poles in 17 racesIndianapolis 500 win (Will Power)2017 – 10 wins, 11 poles in 17 racesEngine Manufacturer Championship; driver/owner titles (Josef Newgarden/Roger Penske)2016 – 14 wins, 13 poles in 16 racesEngine Manufacturer Championship; driver/owner titles (Simon Pagenaud/Roger Penske)2015 – 10 wins, 16 poles in 16 racesEngine Manufacturer Championship; driver/owner titles (Scott Dixon/Chip Ganassi);Indianapolis 500 win (Juan Pablo Montoya). First manufacturer to capture all titles since Chevrolet returned to INDYCAR in 20122014 – 12 wins, 14 poles in 18 racesEngine Manufacturer Championship; driver/owner titles (Will Power/Roger Penske)2013 – 10 wins, 11 poles in 19 racesEngine Manufacturer Championship; Indianapolis 500 win (Tony Kanaan)2012 – 11 wins, 10 poles in 15 racesEngine Manufacturer Championship; driver/owner titles (Ryan Hunter-Reay/Michael Andretti)Total – 94 wins, 105 earned poles in 161 races  DRIVER QUOTES: WILL POWER, NO. 12 VERIZON 5G TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, RACE WINNER: 
ON WINNING AT IMS ROAD COURSE: “ I can’t begin to tell you what it means to win these days. When you are in your 40s and still kicking butt-it’s awesome. You can’t doubt yourself, you just have to keep digging. I wan’t feeing safe until there was literally one to go. The misfortunes we’ve had at times have been a struggle it’s a tough series. There are many many components that have to right. Everyone has to do their job perfectly and that’s what we did today. Winning is important for Roger Penske, especially here. Very very happy.” HOW BADLY DID THIS RACE TEAM NEED THIS MOMENT?“We needed it as a group. I can’t tell you how good these (crew) guys have been this year; flawless on pits stops. They’ve given me the car and we’ve just had some bad luck and obviously I’ve made some mistakes as well. I’m stoked to get the Verizon 5G car in Victory Lane because we’ve haven’t done that ever. I’d been thinking about that coming into this weekend. Can’t thank Chevy enough for the engine and all the work those guys have done. What a relief. When the yellow came and another one … but we had a really good car. It was tough to get by lapped traffic but the car was solid up front.” WHAT WAS THE DIFFERENCE TODAY?“I was very focused coming in here today. I did a lot of homework for this race. We weren’t quite strong in the May race and just put it all together. I was aggressive at the start to hold that position and held off Pato (O’Ward) on the blacks, so a very good day.” YOU BRING ROGER PENSKE HIS FIERST WIN AT INDIANAPOLIS SINCE HE HAS OWNED THIS FACILITY. WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?“That’s awesome. Roger has had a rough year as far as the team goes. I’m really happy for the whole group. Because it’s not for lack of effort. They worked really hard during the Month of May and we were all scratching our heads at the end. I’ve been here six times now (five for road course wins, one Indy 500 win) in this Victory Lane; pretty special place for me. This win goes to the whole group; they deserve it more than me.” PATO O’WARD, NO. 5 ARROW MCLAREN SP CHEVROLET, FINISHED 5^TH: “I think this is the start of a momentum that we wanted. I think Gateway next week is going to be great for us. And today, we didn’t have it. I’m glad we didn’t finish on the podium because I don’t think we deserve it.” REALLY? WHY IS THAT?“Because we just didn’t have the pace. Everyone in front of us was better than us. And, it’s tough to drive your nuts off for a 5^th, especially when you start up front. You want to stay there when you start there.” HOW COOL WAS IT TO HANG OUT WITH DANIEL SUAREZ, YOUR MATE FROM BACK HOME. HE WAS HERE AND WATCHING YOU. HOW COOL WAS IT TO HANG OUT WITH HIM TODAY?“It’s so great. I haven’t seen him in so long and it was really, really nice to see him. And I hope I can have him at like more races or something because Daniel and I started at the same go-Kart track in Monterrey, Mexico. He was always running older than me because he was quite a bit older. Not much, but I’m assuming he’s probably got five or six years on me. But a great guy. Great family. I’ve always really enjoyed having him around.” WHERE ARE YOU GOING TO FIND YOUR SPOT TO WATCH THE XFINITY RACE?“Probably on TV because I’m tired.”  JOSEF NEWGARDEN, NO. 2 XPEL TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, FINISHED 8^TH: “Not the result we were dreaming of starting 20^th, but ended up a good points day. I had to avoid some chaos at the beginning. I got sideswiped by two or three cars so just worked to save our car. That put us further back a little just trying to avoid people. Then got cleared so we could march forward and finally got in the top-10, and ended up eighth. It was a good day for points, Xpel and Team Chevy. If we had started a little farther forward, we had a better car. But was pretty good for us. Pretty happy. See you next week.” PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPTWILL POWER, NO. 12 VERIZON 5g TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLETTHE MODERATOR: Will Power has joined us, the champion of the Big Machine Spiked Coolers Grand Prix. First win of the season, fifth now on the IMS road course, 40th career win as the NTT INDYCAR Series has now picked up their ninth different winner this season. 11 different winners is the modern day record. One other stat I’ll throw your way: This is your sixth total win here at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway between the oval and the road course, and that means now you tie Kyle Busch for most wins ever.WILL POWER: Let’s hope he doesn’t win this weekend. (Laughter.)THE MODERATOR: Obviously the difference for you, having clean air. That was big for you today, wasn’t it?WILL POWER: It was, yeah. Once we got out in clean air, we were going. I don’t think anyone had a better car than us.So back markers certainly make it tough in this series, and it’s a simple fix. You simply give those guys their lap back when it goes yellow and they won’t fight you. You don’t even have to mandate a blue. Jay? Jay Frye? Is he here?THE MODERATOR: He’s not here.WILL POWER: I’ve mentioned that to him from time to time.THE MODERATOR: It was almost a 10-second advantage there, but whittled away as you had –WILL POWER: Hinchcliffe.THE MODERATOR: Hinch in front of you, and Herta –WILL POWER: Yeah, I think he needed some coverage for his sponsor, so he was like, I need to be last but leading.THE MODERATOR: Obviously getting off the schneid, as they call it, getting a win this season, how big is this for you?WILL POWER: Oh, man, it’s a big relief. I think it’s great for the team, especially the guys on my car. They’ve been working hard. They’ve been flawless this year. They’ve really done the job, and I haven’t — if we’d had that sort of performance in the pits and just prep and all that last year, we probably would have won a lot more races.Yeah, very happy for those guys, and just happy to be in Victory Lane, man. You always start to wonder when is the next one coming. It always comes down to doing your homework, working hard and putting it together, staying focused.THE MODERATOR: This 40th win, by the way, breaks a tie with Al Unser Sr. for fifth on the all-time NTT INDYCAR Series list.Q.What is it like, obviously you said relieved to win, but to have that car on a day like day and just basically be in control, those are rare moments. What’s it like in the cockpit, et cetera?WILL POWER: It’s just great when you get in that zone where you’re just seeing the tenths grow behind you because you have it on your dash, you can see, and you just start getting a little nitpicking, like little tiny details and slowly pulling away. It’s a great feeling. It’s right in my zone, right in my wheelhouse when I’m like that. That was another day like that for me.Yeah, love it. It’s my life. Like I just love competing, but it’s just winning is absolutely what makes me happy. I’m very moody when I haven’t won for a while; just ask my wife.Q.Seems like every time you do something really good, you carve a deeper niche into INDYCAR racing history. What does that mean to you?WILL POWER: Yeah, I mean, you look at the stats for sure when you’re up there, and you’re aware. I’m aware how far I am off Mario for all-time poles and I’m aware where I sit now in the all-time win list. I know that Michael Andretti is on 42, and that’s a pretty — Mario Andretti I think I can catch on poles, which can be very tough these days, but man, I was very close to getting another one yesterday, and Michael is 42 on wins. Two heroes of mine and two absolute legends of the sport, and just blows my mind that I have a name close to them in the record books. Crazy. That was some serious name dropping, but my name is there. It’s crazy. Who would have thought?Q.With your off-track performance, you may be a duo with your brother in stand-up.WILL POWER: No, stand-up is way harder than it looks. I may give it a go, but much harder than it looks.Q.Race drivers have superstitions; when you see a late-race caution this year, did you have any superstitions today like what happened earlier, like Detroit and things?WILL POWER: Oh, no, you just — you certainly have those thoughts because it just blows my mind some of the things that can go wrong at such a critical time, but all I was thinking about is I’m getting this bloody restart; there’s no way I’m giving this win up. So you know, I just focus hard on where I’m going to go and play a bit of a game to make sure I get a bit of a jump.Q.After you won this race last year you were talking about how you want to drive well into your 40s, you feel like you’re at your peak. You signed the contract extension right before the season starts and then things just kind of tailed off –.WILL POWER: I know.Q.You said you don’t ever know when that next one is going to come, but did thoughts creep into your mind a little bit this year?WILL POWER: It was such a weird slump for me because normally when I’m not winning it’s not because of lack of pace, but there have been times this year where it’s been a struggle to get the pace, the car right. I start digging a lot deeper and trying to understand like what is going on, why am I not fast? I couldn’t just lose it all in a year.So yeah, you just start going back to your old ways of doing stuff when you were super quick, and yeah, you can’t leave anything on the table. Yep, weird slump. I have to say it’s the first sort of slump I’ve had as far as performance has gone in my career, where — I wouldn’t say it’s exactly a lack of pace. It was doing mistakes in qualifying, which is very unusual for me. I’d usually really put it together.Last year I put it together the best I ever had putting laps together, like zero mistakes and was so good at just getting it done, and this year I’ve been on laps that will get me through each round and then I’ll make a little mistake or something will go wrong, I’ll get traffic. All that is so important to control, and I wasn’t.Q.So when you dug into it, what did you find? Was it just technique? Was it mental prep?WILL POWER: Well, it’s things — it’s a bit of mental prep and it’s also last week when you have three laps to do your lap, and on a street course it can go yellow pretty easy, and that’s exactly what happened. I was on a lap and I aborted it, and next lap I started which would have got me through, Josef went in the wall and went yellow. I should know that. I should know that you cannot ever be out of that top six. Every lap you’ve got to update yourself into the top six, and it’s just not being on the game, on the ball. You should know that. It cost me a potential chance to be in the Fast Six.It’s little details. I came in here and it’s like, I am not — every lap counts, simply, until I feel comfortable again, and that’s what I did.Q.Speaking of last week, you had a couple of incidents in the race with teammates. Was it a difficult week from that perspective?WILL POWER: Well, it was, yeah. Certainly the incident with McLaughlin was not good, and yeah, I didn’t see Roger after the race a good hour there and said, I need to win a race before I speak to him again, so fortunately I came here and did that.Q.Speculation was there was a chat with Roger after last week’s race.WILL POWER: I didn’t see him, no. I kind of saw Tim and it was like, yeah, I’ve got to go.Q.Will you go see Roger now?WILL POWER: I explained myself the best I could to Tim what happened and then went to my bus and didn’t come back. I wasn’t avoiding him, I just didn’t go see him.Q.Obviously there’s some frustration being behind Hinchcliffe during that time. How were you able to keep in check and under wraps and be able to focus on running?WILL POWER: Well, I actually thought, the way I caught him, I thought, we could probably get past him no problem. When I got to him and I saw he was using Push-to-Pass to keep me behind, I’m like, it’s just insane that we have this in INDYCAR. Even the second-place guy doesn’t like it, and the third-place guy because if I get past him then they’ve got to work to get past him. It just ruins races. I don’t even think the guys that are trying to stay on the lead lap like it because they don’t want to be a pain in the ass. They would like to get out of the way, and it’s such a simple fix. Just bloody give them their lap back if it goes yellow. Give anyone who’s a lap down their lap back. Give them one simple fix. It just blows my mind that we are at such a competitive series, you have nine different winners already, and no one consistently gets on pole, and it’s just a different pole sitter every week, and yet you’ve got to come around and fight someone who’s the last guy? I mean, there’s no series in the world that does that.And we’ve asked for this. They’ve got to do something. They need to change it. They should change it. There’s a simple fix. It’s just — it pisses me off, man. Like just crazy that you’re racing someone who’s a lap down, it’s insane, or going a lap down. It’s too competitive to do that. Everyone works too hard, spends way too much money to be racing some guy that’s a lap down that’s having a bad day.Anyway, it was a good day to win, though. (Laughter.) I just thought I’d get that point across when I can.Q.When you came in the pit at the end, it also happened to be when James pitted, and for a moment it looked like you had a little bit of a —WILL POWER: It was in second gear. I stalled and then I re-clutched and let go and fortunately it started.Q.And I think we heard you over the radio say something like, oh, Christ, when you realized you were behind Hinch.WILL POWER: Yeah, when he was pitting, that’s when I’m like, we are going to be behind this dude. I was kind of relieved when the yellow came, like thank God he’s gone, but yeah, I don’t reckon he wants to do that. I don’t reckon he’d like to do it, it’s just the rule and he can fight to stay on the lead lap. It’s just a bad rule.Q.We tried this format last year, only no fans were allowed. This year fans are here and everybody is here. What do you think of it so far?WILL POWER: Oh, I think it’s cool to really the top-level motorsports in the U.S. to bring them together as a double-header. But the fans see both — you see a lot of fans with NASCAR shirts on, a lot of fans of INDYCAR, and they’re all mixed in. I think it’s really — only Roger would come up with that. What a great idea.Q.We’ve seen drivers, too, hang out in the garages, so they’re as curious as maybe the fans are.WILL POWER: Yeah, actually I saw — that’s the first time I’ve ever seen the NASCAR Penske Cup drivers in our transporter, and they were like, wow, this is amazing, all joined together, because their trucks all join together. We’re like, we’ve got to upgrade. It’s going to cost Roger money, this.Q.An expensive weekend perhaps?WILL POWER: It’s like, yeah, we need what these guys have. They’ll say, well, we can have what we have as long as you give us the paycheck you get.Q.I wanted to ask about whether there was any difference in the Chevrolet and Honda performance today or whether the speed down the straight was more governed by which tires you were on and how much momentum you could take off that great kind of sweeping last corner.WILL POWER: Yeah, I think — well, the tires made the biggest difference. I think the manufacturers are so close right now. You only see a difference when you’ve got some really slow corners where I think Honda has a little bit more torque, but as far as just power level, they’re very close, very close. Yeah, you don’t really see a performance difference in engines at all.Q.And also, I don’t want to say it was easy. Obviously it wasn’t easy. But how easy was it for you to keep like 75 —WILL POWER: (Answers phone.) It’s Alex Rossi, sorry. Thanks, man.ALEXANDER ROSSI: I’m happy for you. I’m also glad I’m going home, so have fun with that.WILL POWER: Please tell me you didn’t have another bad race.ALEXANDER ROSSI: No, I finished fourth.WILL POWER: I was like, man, if you had another bad race, I was going to be like — I broke the spell, though, dude. I spoke the spell. You’ve got to win now. Hey, I’ve got to get back to press conference. Thanks, man.Sorry, David. I had to answer. Rossi and I have been just having the most horrible time, so I’m glad I broke the spell.THE MODERATOR: Whatever you brought to the table you should take to Rossi next weekend.WILL POWER: No, I want to win, so screw him.THE MODERATOR: This is like the 800-pound gorilla off your shoulder; you finally got a win this year.WILL POWER: Man, I am absolutely going hard when I go to sleep tonight, like just going to sleep. That’s what I do. That’s a big night for me. Definitely going back, good food, green tea with the peppermint in it, just go to sleep. It’s an awesome night. How people do it differently, they go out and absolutely get slaughtered, but yeah. Conor Daly, Scott McLaughlin — no.Q.I think you should bring back the ice bath, Will.WILL POWER: Yeah, I’ve got it there. I’ve got to get my bus driver to get it ready, man.Q.To go back to the Hinch thing, I wanted to ask you sort of a post-race interpretation about that again because I know when you were on the radio and just after the race things can be quite heated and you get caught up in the moment, there’s a lot of adrenaline going on. But do you think there was a predetermined move from Andretti to slow you down? Do you think it was all planned and that’s what they were trying to do, or do you feel like it was happenstance, circumstance that that’s just how the race played out?WILL POWER: Yeah, I mean, obviously Andretti wouldn’t be telling him to get out of the way. I think if it was a Chevy engine, whoever — if it was someone at Chevy, probably would. Hinch was just fast enough for me not to get close enough to kind of have a run when I did. He’d use Push-to-Pass.You know, you can’t blame the driver. It’s the team that would be telling him stay on the lead lap in case it goes yellow, which it did, and it’s just a really bad rule. I wish I could come on the radio and say, look, if Hinch lets me go, I will let him go when it goes yellow. He can have that position back. That’s literally what you’d be doing is all they’d have to do is just give him the lap back. It would just stop it completely.You have a gentlemen’s agreement amongst drivers, hey, if the leader comes up on you, you let him go; you’re getting your lap back anyway. And second place and third place.Q.Will, looking forward to next week, how excited are you now to get this off your back and head to the next track? And two, does this win smooth over things between you and Roger?WILL POWER: Smooth? I don’t even know if there needs to be any smoothing. Like I said, I never spoke to him. Roger loves when you win, let me tell you. He loves when you win. It would hopefully — yeah, Roger has been around so long, he’s had teammates take each other out, he’s had everything thrown at him over his 50-plus years in motorsports. I don’t think it was a huge surprise to him. Yeah, just bad call from me to do that in that situation.But yeah, teammates, we’re all good. We have no problem. No problem. Scott — we all talked, and yep, all good. I’ll go see Roger after this, now I feel confident that I’ll be okay. I’m just making a bit of a joke of it because it kind of is funny.Q.I’m glad you can laugh about it.WILL POWER: Yeah, I laugh about everything now. Once you’re 40 you don’t care. It’s like, you’re going to be dead soon anyway.Q.Names like Mario and Michael, I think you’re probably okay.WILL POWER: Yeah, this 40 years to get to here went really fast, so I’m sure the next 20 to 40 is going to go even faster. Going to be dead soon, so it doesn’t matter. Say what you want, do what you want. That’s the best way. 

Romain Grosjean scores second podium of rookie season on Indy road course
Andretti Autosport scores 3-4 finish with Colton Herta, Alexander Rossi
Honda powers seven of top-10 finishers during Brickyard Weekend

SPEEDWAY, Ind. (Aug. 14, 2021) – Romain Grosjean and Colton Herta scored a double podium finish for Honda this weekend on the road course at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway – with Grosjean taking second in his #51 Dale Coyne Racing with RWR Honda, ahead of Herta’s #26 Andretti Autosport Honda in third.

Grosjean started the Big Machine Spiked Coolers Grand Prix in the third position, dropping back behind Herta during the first pit sequence. Running third and fourth, Herta and Grosjean would work their way around the #5 of Pato O’Ward during the next stint, utilizing their [softer compound Firestone] “Red” tires to pass O’Ward.

The first full-course caution of the race gave Grosjean his chance to get around Herta on the restart with 14 laps to go. The NTT INDYCAR SERIES rookie, and former F1 driver was able to hold off the charge from the young Californian during a second restart, but neither had the power-to-pass to catch race leader Will Power.

Grosjean would maintain second place at the finish, with Herta third. Herta’s Andretti Autosport Teammate Alexander Rossi also claimed a top-five finish, his second of the season, finishing fourth.

Jack Harvey, for Meyer Shank Racing, would come home sixth; with Graham Rahal for Rahal Letterman Lanigan seventh, Marcus Ericsson for Chip Ganassi Racing took the checkers in eighth, and Takuma Sato also for RLL finished ninth.

NTT INDYCAR SERIES championship leader Alex Palou suffered a mechanical issue, forcing him out of the race with 18 laps to go. However, the two-time race-winner this season maintains a 21-point championship lead.

Big Machine Spiked Coolers Grand Prix Honda Race Results
2nd Romain Grosjean-R Dale Coyne Racing with RWR Honda
3rd Colton Herta Andretti Autosport Honda
4th Alexander Rossi Andretti Autosport Honda
6th Jack Harvey Meyer Shank Racing Honda
7th Graham Rahal Rahal Letterman Lanigan Honda
9th Marcus Ericsson Chip Ganassi Racing Honda
10th Takuma Sato Rahal Letterman Lanigan Honda
12th Christian Lundgaard-R Rahal Letterman Lanigan Honda
14th Ed Jones Dale Coyne Racing with Vasser-Sullivan Honda
17th Scott Dixon Chip Ganassi Racing Honda
18th Ryan Hunter-Reay Andretti Autosport Honda
19th Jimmie Johnson-R Chip Ganassi Racing Honda
21st Helio Castroneves Meyer Shank Racing Honda
22nd James Hinchcliffe Andretti Autosport Honda
25th Cody Ware-R Dale Coyne Racing with RWR Honda
27th Alex Palou Chip Ganassi Racing Honda (did not finish – mechanical)

R – Rookie

NTT INDYCAR SERIES Manufacturers’ Championship (unofficial, after 12 of 16 rounds)
Honda 1,034 points
Chevrolet 966

NTT INDYCAR SERIES Drivers’ Championship (unofficial, after 12 rounds)

1. Alex Palou, Chip Ganassi Racing Honda 415 points [2 race wins]
2. Pato O’Ward, Arrow McLaren SP 394 [2 wins]
3. Scott Dixon, Chip Ganassi Racing Honda 381 [1 win]

Quotes
Romain Grosjean (#51 Dale Coyne Racing with RWR Honda) Started third, finished second:
“It was a good race. We tried everything we could [to win], but Will [Power, race winner] was very fast in front today, and we just couldn’t quite get him. But we had a great race with Colton [Herta, for second]. He’s a driver that you know is going to leave you just enough room so you can go for it and race each other. I’m happy for the team, and as always, proud to be powered by Honda. My kids are here, and got to see me finish on the podium. What could be better?”

Colton Herta (#26 Andretti Autosport Honda) Started fifth, finished third: “Third place was really good for us today. We really didn’t have the pace [to win]. The car was fairly good, but there’s still stuff we can improve on here [at Indianapolis] to win. But it was a really good job by the team. We turned this car around from 26th in practice to a podium finish today, so that was a spectacular job. Really happy with the result, really happy to be powered by Honda.”

Kelvin Fu (Director Program Management, Honda Performance Development) on today’s podium finishes in Indianapolis: “A double podium finish is always great, and getting three of the top five, seven of the top 10, just shows how strong we have been here at Indy. It was fantastic to see Romain celebrate second with his family, and for Colton to bounce back for a podium finish after Nashville—he had a really strong run. Also nice to see Alexander Rossi battling in the top-five today, really great job by that team. It was disappointing that we let Palou down during the race, it’s not the standard we expect from ourselves at Honda and we will investigate the root cause of the issue. But, that aside, it’s been a great weekend here for Honda and we’re excited to go on to World Wide Technology Raceway.”

Fast Facts
Today’s second-place result marks back-to-back podiums on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course for Grosjean, who also finished at the GMR Grand Prix in May. Grosjean has been making his home at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway [in a motorhome] between races. The Formula One veteran also closes to within seven points of four-time Australian SuperCars Champion Scott McLaughlin (213-206) in the battle for INDYCAR Rookie of the Year honors. Thus far, Grosjean has only competed on road courses in the NTT INDYCAR SERIES. He will tackle his first oval next weekend at World Wide Technology Raceway.
The Grand Prix marks the first double-header for the NTT INDYCAR SERIES and the NASCAR Cup series running on the same course layout in the history of the two series.

Honda continues to hold the lead in the 2021 INDYCAR Manufacturers’ Championship, with seven victories from 11 races this season. Returning to St. Louis for the final oval race of the season, Honda holds a 68-point advantage (1,034-966) over rival Chevrolet. The company is seeking its fourth consecutive NTT INDYCAR SERIES Manufacturers’ Championship in 2021.

Next
Next weekend, NTT INDYCAR SERIES continues with the third of three consecutive race weekends, running at World Wide Technology Raceway outside of St. Louis Saturday, August 21.

CHEVROLET RACING NTT INDYCAR SERIES THE BIG MACHINE SPIKED COOLERS GRAND PRIX THE ROAD COURSE AT INDIANAPOLIS MOTOR SPEEDWAY WILL POWER WINS – QUICK QUOTE AUGUST 14, 2021
WILL POWER, NO. 12 VERIZON 5G TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, picks up the first win of the season, the fifth at the Road Course at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and the 40th of his career.
ON WINNING AT IMS ROAD COURSE: “ I can’t begin to tell you what it means to win these days. When you are in your 40s and still kicking butt-it’s awesome. You can’t doubt yourself, you just have to keep digging. I wan’t feeing safe until there was literally one to go. The misfortunes we’ve had at times have been a struggle it’s a tough series. There are many many components that have to right. Everyone has to do their job perfectly and that’s what we did today. Winning is important for Roger Penske, especially here. Very very happy.”
HOW BADLY DID THIS RACE TEAM NEED THIS MOMENT?“We needed it as a group. I can’t tell you how good these (crew) guys have been this year; flawless on pits stops. They’ve given me the car and we’ve just had some bad luck and obviously I’ve made some mistakes as well. I’m stoked to get the Verizon 5G car in Victory Lane because we’ve haven’t done that ever. I’d been thinking about that coming into this weekend. Can’t thank Chevy enough for the engine and all the work those guys have done. What a relief. When the yellow came and another one … but we had a really good car. It was tough to get by lapped traffic but the car was solid up front.”
WHAT WAS THE DIFFERENCE TODAY?“I was very focused coming in here today. I did a lot of homework for this race. We weren’t quite strong in the May race and just put it all together. I was aggressive at the start to hold that position and held off Pato (O’Ward) on the blacks, so a very good day.”
YOU BRING ROGER PENSKE HIS FIERST WIN AT INDIANAPOLIS SINCE HE HAS OWNED THIS FACILITY. WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?“That’s awesome. Roger has had a rough year as far as the team goes. I’m really happy for the whole group. Because it’s not for lack of effort. They worked really hard during the Month of May and we were all scratching our heads at the end. I’ve been here six times now (five for road course wins, one Indy 500 win) in this Victory Lane; pretty special place for me. This win goes to the whole group; they deserve it more than me.”

NASCAR CUP SERIES VERIZON 200 AT THE BRICKYARD INDIANAPOLIS MOTOR SPEEDWAY TEAM CHEVY PRACTICE NOTES & QUOTES AUGUST 14, 2021
WILLIAM BYRON, NO. 24 AXALTA CAMARO ZL1 1LE – 2nd in Practice“In practice, we had some issues with drive, so we tried to work on those. I feel like we got our car better. I thought the car was fine. It just took me time to get up to speed once the car was kind of there for me. I think the high-speed corners, like four and five are difficult. You’ve really got to kind of position yourself well because those curbs come up quick. It is pretty fun.”
HOW DOES THIS ROAD COURSE COMPARE TO OTHERS ON THE SCHEDULE?“It’s not too bad. It’s flat. There is not a bunch of elevation change, so with the weather, it’s pretty easy this weekend.
THIS IS THE 6th OF SEVEN ROAD COURSES THIS YEAR. DO YOU HAVE ANY ROAD COURSE FATIGUE AT THIS POINT?I don’t feel like we need more of them. I think seven is plenty. I think the NextGen car is going to make the courses better as a driver, they might be a little more spread out because they’re going to be easier to drive. I feel like the cars right now are really hard to drive. There is a lot of brake lock-up. The cars don’t stop well. They don’t turn well. So, you see a lot of accidents. Next year you might see less of that because the car is going to be easier to brake and shift and you won’t have as many mechanical issues.”
PHYSICALLY, DO YOU FEEL ANY DIFFERENT THIS YEAR BECAUSE YOU’VE HAD SO MANY ROAD COURSE RACES?“Yeah, it’s definitely not as hard as it used to be. I think you used to come to the road courses and be kind of worn out and a lot of guys would kind of be falling out of the seat towards the end of the race. And I don’t think that’s a thing as much now. We’re pretty used to it. Every time we come back from a break from a road course, and I go to one, my right arm is always sore on Mondays from shifting so much. But none of that this weekend. We are kind of used to it.”
KYLE LARSON, NO. 5 HENDRICKCARS.COM CAMARO ZL1 1LE – 3rd in PracticeWHAT ARE YOUR FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF THE ROAD COURSE TODAY DURING PRACTICE?“I really enjoyed it. I thought it was flowy and then you had some hard braking zones and stuff. So, I thought it was a pretty fun track. I seemed to adapt to it pretty quickly, so my HendrickCars.com Chevy felt really good and I was definitely pleased.”
WHERE DO YOU THINK THE ACTION TURNS ARE GOING TO BE?“I think (Turn) 1 and 12 I think would be a good passing zone. It’s fun and I think after we get out there and get closer around people, we’ll have a better understanding.”
ON THE UPCOMING PLAYOFFS“We’re really just taking it week by week at this point. We’re just focused on trying to edge out Denny Hamlin for the regular season points there, but it’s been cool to be competitive every week. I’ve always dreamed of this type of season where I’ve got one of the fastest cars each week. We’ve been able to win a lot and I hope we can win even more.”
AUSTIN DILLON, NO. 3 DOW MOBILITY SCIENCE CAMARO ZL1 1LE – 13th in PracticeWHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE NASCAR/INDYCAR COMBINED WEEKEND? DO YOU LIKE THE IDEA?“Yeah, I think so. I wish it was at the Oval but it’s cool to have all three series here and to see INDYCAR, Xfinity and Cup. It’s just a great weekend of racing.”
ON THE PRE-RACE SIMULATOR SESSIONS“I think it was pretty good. I think we were 13th in practice. I was pretty happy with that. Long run speed wasn’t as good as I’d like it to be but fire off, which is unusual for me at a road course, and we had some of that. So, we’ll just keep working. The corners here are very challenging in the fact that when you make some of the infield better, it’s hard getting back up onto the big track. I’m just trying to figure out what we need to do to make the car a little better in the higher speed sections to just help set-up for passing, because if you don’t get off of there, you’re not really going to pass anybody.”
ROSS CHASTAIN, NO. 42 CLOVER CAMARO ZL1 1LE – 19th in Practice“Practice at Indy is all wrapped up. We just took a group picture of all the Chip Ganassi Racing INDYCAR guys and NASCAR Cup guys. Kurt (Busch) and I are both struggling with the same problems. This is a new course for the Cup guys. We are working through all the first time set-up and changes we want to make, so we’re glad we got that hour or so of practice.”
ALEX BOWMAN, NO. 48 ALLY CAMARO ZL1 1LE – 22nd in PracticeON THE DOUBLEHEADER RACE WEEKEND“It’s cool being here with the INDYCAR guys. It’s obviously two completely different worlds.”
GIVEN YOUR OPEN WHEEL BACKGROUND, DID YOU EVER HAVE A DESIRE TO WANT TO DO INDYCAR AT ALL?“I’d race a lawnmower, right? So, I’ll drive anything. Not really. There were really never any opportunities to go that direction. The USAC opportunities to go that direction all came after I had already gone stock car racing. So, I’ve never really thought about it, honestly.”
ON THE PRACTICE SESSION:“It was fun. It’s technical and tough. I’m not the best on the road courses, so I’m just trying to piece it all together and learn what I can. But I feel like we have a pretty good race car and we should be pretty decent tomorrow.”
CHASE ELLIOTT, NO. 9 HOOTERS CAMARO ZL1 1LE – 23rd in PracticeON SUBBING FOR MICHAEL ANNETT IN XFINITY SERIES, WERE YOU COMFORTABLE IN PRACTICE OR DO YOU HAVE TO MAKE SOME CHANGES?“We’re kind of working through it, obviously really last minute, unfortunately, on that. We hope the best for Michael. We hate to see him not drive his car. But from my end, I obviously felt like it was a chance to get some more laps and kind of hard to turn that down at a new track.”
DID YOU GET THE CALL THIS MORNING ON THAT?“Yeah, I did. At like 8 o’clock. It was pretty last minute.”
ON NASCAR CUP PRACTICE TODAY“I didn’t feel very good, personally. I feel like I was doing a poor job just kind of slow and not in a good rhythm. I feel like I have a lot of work to do. I don’t feel like our car is all that bad. When I have a good lap or hit a good corner, I feel like I get rewarded for it, which is good. But I just have not put together a solid lap, and certainly not two or three in a row.”
IS IT A BIG DEAL FOR YOU TO NOT RACE ON THE OVAL THIS YEAR?“It’s different, but it’s not the end of the world to me. We’re still at Indy and we’re still racing here. I guess at the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter too much, does it?
ARE THE CURBS IN THE RIGHT SPOTS OR WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE CHANGES?“I think they are fine. Most all of them are toward the back side of the actual rumble strip. You would be almost in the grass anyway. It might take away a little bit of road but you’re not talking much. Those things are big, for sure. We saw that at COTA.”
KURT BUSCH, NO. 1 MONSTER ENERGY CAMARO ZL1 1LE – 28th in PracticeON THE ROAD COURSE“It’s a fun course and it’s an historic feel, which is something cool for our series and to be going down the front straightaway the opposite direction ties in the old school F-1 days like when they came here in early 2000. That’s kind of the feel of everything. And then to have INDYCAR, Xfinity, and Cup…..everybody here, it’s like the whole motorsports fraternity hanging out and it’s really neat to see everybody’s smiles. It’s a lot of emotions today.”
DO YOU FEEL ROAD COURSE FATIGUE WITH SO MANY ROAD COURSE RACES THIS YEAR?“Next year’s car is going to really adapt to the road courses much better than these are. And so, you’ve just got to get ready for it and yeah, it’s like braking markers. Like I’ve got to go find this one and remember it’s not that one. So, there’s a lot of road course action, but it’s motorsport. You’ve got to jump in with both feet.”
ARE THE ORANGE CURBS IN THE RIGHT SPOTS OR DO THEY NEED TO BE CHANGED?“Nope. Those are fine. It keeps us out of the grass and keeps us from packing our grills full of grass. There are different reasons why NASCAR does things and you’ve just got to absorb it.”
BEING WITH GANASSI RACING, HOW HAS IT HELPED TO HAVE INDYCAR DRIVERS HELP PREPARE YOU FOR THIS WEEKEND?“There hasn’t been much back and forth, but it was really cool just going to Victory Lane. I was just there taking a picture with all the Ganassi guys. It was a cool Ganassi fraternity shot here in 2021.”
WOULD YOU RATHER BE RACING ON THE OVAL THAN THE ROAD COURSE THIS WEEKEND?“You have to enjoy wherever they tell you to go. I’m here at Indy’s Road Course. It’s fun. It’s refreshing. It’s new. We’ve done a lot of new road courses this year and it’s just a different phase in NASCAR’s era.”

NASCAR CUP SERIES VERIZON 200 AT THE BRICKYARDI NDIANAPOLIS MOTOR SPEEDWAY TEAM CHEVY PRACTICE NOTES & QUOTES AUGUST 14, 2021
WILLIAM BYRON, NO. 24 AXALTA CAMARO ZL1 1LE – 2nd in Practice“In practice, we had some issues with drive, so we tried to work on those. I feel like we got our car better. I thought the car was fine. It just took me time to get up to speed once the car was kind of there for me. I think the high-speed corners, like four and five are difficult. You’ve really got to kind of position yourself well because those curbs come up quick. It is pretty fun.”
HOW DOES THIS ROAD COURSE COMPARE TO OTHERS ON THE SCHEDULE?“It’s not too bad. It’s flat. There is not a bunch of elevation change, so with the weather, it’s pretty easy this weekend.
THIS IS THE 6th OF SEVEN ROAD COURSES THIS YEAR. DO YOU HAVE ANY ROAD COURSE FATIGUE AT THIS POINT?I don’t feel like we need more of them. I think seven is plenty. I think the NextGen car is going to make the courses better as a driver, they might be a little more spread out because they’re going to be easier to drive. I feel like the cars right now are really hard to drive. There is a lot of brake lock-up. The cars don’t stop well. They don’t turn well. So, you see a lot of accidents. Next year you might see less of that because the car is going to be easier to brake and shift and you won’t have as many mechanical issues.”
PHYSICALLY, DO YOU FEEL ANY DIFFERENT THIS YEAR BECAUSE YOU’VE HAD SO MANY ROAD COURSE RACES?“Yeah, it’s definitely not as hard as it used to be. I think you used to come to the road courses and be kind of worn out and a lot of guys would kind of be falling out of the seat towards the end of the race. And I don’t think that’s a thing as much now. We’re pretty used to it. Every time we come back from a break from a road course, and I go to one, my right arm is always sore on Mondays from shifting so much. But none of that this weekend. We are kind of used to it.”
KYLE LARSON, NO. 5 HENDRICKCARS.COM CAMARO ZL1 1LE – 3rd in PracticeWHAT ARE YOUR FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF THE ROAD COURSE TODAY DURING PRACTICE?“I really enjoyed it. I thought it was flowy and then you had some hard braking zones and stuff. So, I thought it was a pretty fun track. I seemed to adapt to it pretty quickly, so my HendrickCars.com Chevy felt really good and I was definitely pleased.”
WHERE DO YOU THINK THE ACTION TURNS ARE GOING TO BE?“I think (Turn) 1 and 12 I think would be a good passing zone. It’s fun and I think after we get out there and get closer around people, we’ll have a better understanding.”
ON THE UPCOMING PLAYOFFS“We’re really just taking it week by week at this point. We’re just focused on trying to edge out Denny Hamlin for the regular season points there, but it’s been cool to be competitive every week. I’ve always dreamed of this type of season where I’ve got one of the fastest cars each week. We’ve been able to win a lot and I hope we can win even more.”
AUSTIN DILLON, NO. 3 DOW MOBILITY SCIENCE CAMARO ZL1 1LE – 13th in PracticeWHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE NASCAR/INDYCAR COMBINED WEEKEND? DO YOU LIKE THE IDEA?“Yeah, I think so. I wish it was at the Oval but it’s cool to have all three series here and to see INDYCAR, Xfinity and Cup. It’s just a great weekend of racing.”
ON THE PRE-RACE SIMULATOR SESSIONS“I think it was pretty good. I think we were 13th in practice. I was pretty happy with that. Long run speed wasn’t as good as I’d like it to be but fire off, which is unusual for me at a road course, and we had some of that. So, we’ll just keep working. The corners here are very challenging in the fact that when you make some of the infield better, it’s hard getting back up onto the big track. I’m just trying to figure out what we need to do to make the car a little better in the higher speed sections to just help set-up for passing, because if you don’t get off of there, you’re not really going to pass anybody.”
ROSS CHASTAIN, NO. 42 CLOVER CAMARO ZL1 1LE – 19th in Practice“Practice at Indy is all wrapped up. We just took a group picture of all the Chip Ganassi Racing INDYCAR guys and NASCAR Cup guys. Kurt (Busch) and I are both struggling with the same problems. This is a new course for the Cup guys. We are working through all the first time set-up and changes we want to make, so we’re glad we got that hour or so of practice.”
ALEX BOWMAN, NO. 48 ALLY CAMARO ZL1 1LE – 22nd in PracticeON THE DOUBLEHEADER RACE WEEKEND“It’s cool being here with the INDYCAR guys. It’s obviously two completely different worlds.”
GIVEN YOUR OPEN WHEEL BACKGROUND, DID YOU EVER HAVE A DESIRE TO WANT TO DO INDYCAR AT ALL?“I’d race a lawnmower, right? So, I’ll drive anything. Not really. There were really never any opportunities to go that direction. The USAC opportunities to go that direction all came after I had already gone stock car racing. So, I’ve never really thought about it, honestly.”
ON THE PRACTICE SESSION:“It was fun. It’s technical and tough. I’m not the best on the road courses, so I’m just trying to piece it all together and learn what I can. But I feel like we have a pretty good race car and we should be pretty decent tomorrow.”
CHASE ELLIOTT, NO. 9 HOOTERS CAMARO ZL1 1LE – 23rd in PracticeON SUBBING FOR MICHAEL ANNETT IN XFINITY SERIES, WERE YOU COMFORTABLE IN PRACTICE OR DO YOU HAVE TO MAKE SOME CHANGES?“We’re kind of working through it, obviously really last minute, unfortunately, on that. We hope the best for Michael. We hate to see him not drive his car. But from my end, I obviously felt like it was a chance to get some more laps and kind of hard to turn that down at a new track.”
DID YOU GET THE CALL THIS MORNING ON THAT?“Yeah, I did. At like 8 o’clock. It was pretty last minute.”
ON NASCAR CUP PRACTICE TODAY“I didn’t feel very good, personally. I feel like I was doing a poor job just kind of slow and not in a good rhythm. I feel like I have a lot of work to do. I don’t feel like our car is all that bad. When I have a good lap or hit a good corner, I feel like I get rewarded for it, which is good. But I just have not put together a solid lap, and certainly not two or three in a row.”
IS IT A BIG DEAL FOR YOU TO NOT RACE ON THE OVAL THIS YEAR?“It’s different, but it’s not the end of the world to me. We’re still at Indy and we’re still racing here. I guess at the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter too much, does it?
ARE THE CURBS IN THE RIGHT SPOTS OR WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE CHANGES?“I think they are fine. Most all of them are toward the back side of the actual rumble strip. You would be almost in the grass anyway. It might take away a little bit of road but you’re not talking much. Those things are big, for sure. We saw that at COTA.”
KURT BUSCH, NO. 1 MONSTER ENERGY CAMARO ZL1 1LE – 28th in PracticeON THE ROAD COURSE“It’s a fun course and it’s an historic feel, which is something cool for our series and to be going down the front straightaway the opposite direction ties in the old school F-1 days like when they came here in early 2000. That’s kind of the feel of everything. And then to have INDYCAR, Xfinity, and Cup…..everybody here, it’s like the whole motorsports fraternity hanging out and it’s really neat to see everybody’s smiles. It’s a lot of emotions today.”
DO YOU FEEL ROAD COURSE FATIGUE WITH SO MANY ROAD COURSE RACES THIS YEAR?“Next year’s car is going to really adapt to the road courses much better than these are. And so, you’ve just got to get ready for it and yeah, it’s like braking markers. Like I’ve got to go find this one and remember it’s not that one. So, there’s a lot of road course action, but it’s motorsport. You’ve got to jump in with both feet.”
ARE THE ORANGE CURBS IN THE RIGHT SPOTS OR DO THEY NEED TO BE CHANGED?“Nope. Those are fine. It keeps us out of the grass and keeps us from packing our grills full of grass. There are different reasons why NASCAR does things and you’ve just got to absorb it.”
BEING WITH GANASSI RACING, HOW HAS IT HELPED TO HAVE INDYCAR DRIVERS HELP PREPARE YOU FOR THIS WEEKEND?“There hasn’t been much back and forth, but it was really cool just going to Victory Lane. I was just there taking a picture with all the Ganassi guys. It was a cool Ganassi fraternity shot here in 2021.”
WOULD YOU RATHER BE RACING ON THE OVAL THAN THE ROAD COURSE THIS WEEKEND?“You have to enjoy wherever they tell you to go. I’m here at Indy’s Road Course. It’s fun. It’s refreshing. It’s new. We’ve done a lot of new road courses this year and it’s just a different phase in NASCAR’s era.”

Winger goes 15th-5th, Pierce extends points lead again

HIGHLAND, IL – Aug. 13, 2021 – Highland Speedway never fails to show why it’s a staple of the DIRTcar Summer Nationals, and the next chapter in its book of exciting, wheel-to-wheel racing was scribed Friday night by two of the sport’s brightest stars – Brandon Sheppard and Bobby Pierce.

For the entire second half of the Feature, the two Illinois boys battled and chased each other non-stop, with Sheppard making the final pass for the lead on Lap 37 and fending off Pierce’s charge over the final 13 laps to score the $10,000 victory.

“Me and Bobby raced really clean. It’s a lot of fun racing with him, for sure,” Sheppard said.

Sheppard rarely pulls into Victory Lane with body damage, but the close-quarters racing in the early going crumpled his left-rear quarter-panel on the start after a stack-up in the bottom lane.

“[Blaze Burwell almost] looped it in front of me and I slowed down and got hit from behind. I thought we were done – I thought for sure the left-rear tire was flat, because [Michael] Kloos got up on my tire,” Sheppard said.

But all four tires stayed inflated, and Sheppard was able to restart toward the front. With Pierce in the lead from the pole, Sheppard knew he was going to give an A-plus effort if he wanted to see the front by the end of 50 laps.

Over a caution-filled event, Sheppard used the green-flag stretches and restarts to his advantage, making passes under green and the yellows to help catch the next car in line. When he finally reached Pierce, the battle was on.

For over 15 laps, Sheppard hounded Pierce, inside and outside. Until one particular restart on Lap 36, where Pierce left the door open on the top for Sheppard to get by, and it cost him.

Sheppard swung it to the high line in Turns 3-4 on Lap 37 and just barely nosed Pierce by inches at the line to take the lead. Pierce got him back down low in Turns 1-2, but a tangle in Turns 3-4 brought out the caution. With Sheppard being scored as the leader on that lap, that meant he would bring the field back to green on the restart.

With the ball now in his court, Sheppard hit the jets and never looked back. Pierce struggled behind him, nearly looping it in Turn 4 on Lap 39 and getting held up by slower traffic in the final laps, which gave Sheppard the room he needed to park it in Hell Tour Victory Lane for the 27th time in his career.

“We know there’s a lot of tough competition here, and Bobby’s one of the best-of-the-best. To pass him when he’s leading is really tough. But I found a little bit of a different line when I was racing with them guys that he probably didn’t see, just because he was leading,” Sheppard said.

Pierce came home second and again extended his points lead over third-place finishing Tanner English. Garrett Alberson crossed in fourth as Ashton Winger drove it back to fifth from 15th.

UP NEXT

The Summer Nationals next head to Federated Auto Parts Raceway at I-55 for Race #25 of the season on Saturday, Aug. 14. Catch all the action live on the newly redesigned DIRTVision presented by Drydene.

ABBREVIATED RESULTS (view full results)

Feature (50 Laps) 1. B5-Brandon Sheppard[5]; 2. 32-Bobby Pierce[1]; 3. 81E-Tanner English[4]; 4. 59-Garrett Alberson[3]; 5. 12-Ashton Winger[15]; 6. 18-Shannon Babb[6]; 7. 14G-Joe Godsey[12]; 8. 25-Jason Feger[13]; 9. 44-Blaze Burwell[2]; 10. 78-Chad Zobrist[10]; 11. 74-Mitch McGrath[8]; 12. 17-Todd Rehg[16]; 13. 16-Rusty Griffaw[14]; 14. 5-Brian Wolfmeier[21]; 15. 87- Jason Zobrist[11]; 16. 14R-Jeff Roth[22]; 17. 7-Dan Jacober[17]; 18. T4-Adam Tischauser[9]; 19. 14-Paul Kuper[18]; 20. 6K-Michael Kloos[7]; 21. 10-Daryn Klein[20]; 22. 248-Brandon Lance[19]

HOMETOWN HERO: Harrison Wins ‘Drive For 25’ at Highland

Mike Harrison once again found himself doing what he does best at his home track of Highland Speedway Friday night, leading flag-to-flag for the win in the special Drive For 25 DIRTcar Summit Racing Equipment Modified Nationals event.

“I grew up here, all my life, so what else do I say… coming home in front of a packed stands. Ain’t nothing better than winning in front of you guys – that’s what it’s all about,” said Harrison, of Highland, IL, with a look to the capacity crowd.

The six-time Summit Modified champion started on the pole and led all 30 laps unchallenged, repeating the success he found in last year’s edition of the event – one run in memory of the late Brett Korves, a local Modified driver at the quarter-mile.

“This race means a lot to me,” Harrison said. “I knew when we got here – Brandon drew a number 25, so that was just something from up above coming down and telling us to keep our heads screwed on and do what we need to do for the race.”

UP NEXT

The Summit Modifieds next head to Federated Auto Parts Raceway at I-55 for Race #25 of the season on Saturday, Aug. 14. Catch all the action live on the newly redesigned DIRTVision presented by Drydene.

ABBREVIATED RESULTS (view full results)

Feature (30 Laps) 1. 24H-Mike Harrison[1]; 2. 28-Rodney Standerfer[4]; 3. 9H-John Demoss[10]; 4. T6-Tommy Sheppard Jr[3]; 5. 21M-Willy Myers[9]; 6. 59R-Jacob Rexing[5]; 7. 63E-Bret Eilerman[15]; 8. 36-Kenny Wallace[6]; 9. 14C-Rick Conoyer[14]; 10. 55- Marty Smith[16]; 11. 88-Chris Bolyard[17]; 12. 4M-Tim Monroe[21]; 13. 14K-Shane Kelley[23]; 14. 63V-Cody Ventimiglia[19]; 15. 23B-Michael Barrett[22]; 16. 84-Tyler Deibert[13]; 17. 5T-Rob Timmons[18]; 18. 88L-Rob Lee[8]; 19. 5S-Owen Steinkoenig[12]; 20. 19-Jimmy Cummins[20]; 21. 70-Brian Bielong[7]; 22. 87Z-Zeb Moake[2]; 23. 242-Brandon Bollinger[11]

Union, KY (August 13, 2021) – Tim McCreadie and Michael Chilton will make up the front row for Saturday night’s 39th Annual Sunoco North South 100 Presented by Lucas Oil at Florence Speedway. McCreadie, the defending race winner, and Chilton, a Kentucky native, will lead the field for the $50,000-to-win event after earning the top two spots in heat race passing points from Friday Night. In heat one of round one, Kentucky native Michael Chilton ran off and hid from the rest of the field, leading wire-to-wire to pick up the victory. Gregg Satterlee crossed the line in second followed by Kyle Bronson and Dale McDowell. The second heat of round number one saw Tyler Erb take the lead at the start as he powered to the win over Kent Robinson, Darrell Lanigan, and Earl Pearson Jr. Lanigan gained the most points in the heat after he started ninth and finished third. In heat three of round one, Kyle Strickler took the victory ahead of a hotly contested battle for second between two Indiana drivers, Devin Gilpin, and Hudson O’Neal. Gilpin, who started fifth edged out O’Neal for second. Zack Dohm was fourth. Jonathan Davenport raced to the win in heat four of round one, repelling the challenges of Stormy Scott.  Josh Richards came from sixth to finish third with Johnny Scott finishing fourth. Current Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt series point leader, Tim McCreadie, grabbed the fifth and final heat of round one. Brandon Overton was second followed by Dustin Linville and Mike Marlar. McCreadie started off round two like he ended round one, by winning a heat race after starting in fifth. Matt Cosner ran second to McCreadie with Terry Phillips and Dale McDowell trailing. The second heat of round number two was taken by Thursday Night’s winner and sixth place starter, Brandon Overton. Scott James finished second with Kyle Bronson and Earl Pearson jr. rounding out the top four finishers. The third heat in round two would see the 2021 Ralph Latham Memorial winner, Josh Rice take the win. Mike Marlar was second with Spencer Hughes and Todd Brennan following. Hudson O’Neal took the win easily outdistancing the field in the fourth heat of round number two. Zack Dohm came from sixth to finish second, with Ricky Thornton Jr. edging out Nick Hoffman for third. Jimmy Owens came from his third starting spot in heat five to take the win. The big mover not only in this heat but of the night, was Michael Chilton who charged from 10th to finish second. Darrell Lanigan finished third and Shane Clanton took fourth. Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series Race Summary Sunoco North South 100 – Presented by Lucas OilFriday, August 13th, 2021Florence Speedway – Union, KY Penske Race Shocks Heat Race #1 Finish, Round 1 (12 Laps): 1. 97-Michael Chilton[1]; 2. 22-Gregg Satterlee[2]; 3. 40B-Kyle Bronson[4]; 4. 17M-Dale McDowell[5]; 5. 20RT-Ricky Thornton Jr[7]; 6. 83-Scott James[9]; 7. 25-Shane Clanton[6]; 8. 66C-Matt Cosner[10]; 9. 20B-Todd Brennan[8]; 10. 8A-Curt Addison[3] Summit Racing Equipment Heat Race #2 Finish, Round 1 (11 Laps): 1. 1T-Tyler Erb[1]; 2. 7R-Kent Robinson[2]; 3. 29-Darrell Lanigan[9]; 4. 1-Earl Pearson Jr[7]; 5. 75-Terry Phillips[8]; 6. 11B-Tommy Bailey[4]; 7. 11H-Spencer Hughes[6]; 8. 1GK-Grant Garrison[3]; 9. 7F-Jeremy Freeman[5] Simpson Race Products Heat Race #3 Finish, Round 1 (11 Laps): 1. 8-Kyle Strickler[2]; 2. 1G-Devin Gilpin[5]; 3. 71-Hudson O’Neal[9]; 4. 17D-Zack Dohm[4]; 5. 15-James Rice[6]; 6. 18L-Trevor Landrum[7]; 7. 20TC-Tristan Chamberlain[8]; 8. 13-Vern Lefevers[3]; 9. 20C-Duane Chamberlain[1] Ohlins Shocks Heat Race #4 Finish, Round 1 (11 Laps): 1. 49-Jonathan Davenport[1]; 2. 2S-Stormy Scott[3]; 3. 14-Josh Richards[6]; 4. 1ST-Johnny Scott[2]; 5. 11R-Josh Rice[9]; 6. 20-Jimmy Owens[7]; 7. 4G-Kody Evans[8]; 8. 17C-Jeremy Creech[5]; 9. 12J-Jason Jameson[4] MyRacePass Heat Race #5 Finish , Round 1 (11 Laps): 1. 39-Tim McCreadie[5]; 2. 76-Brandon Overton[4]; 3. D8-Dustin Linville[2]; 4. 157-Mike Marlar[8]; 5. 0H-Nick Hoffman[7]; 6. 21H-Robby Hensley[3]; 7. 16-Justin Rattliff[9]; 8. 33-Jesse Lay[6]; 9. 23T-Ethan Toedter[1] Penske Race Shocks Heat Race #1 Finish, Round 2 (10 Laps): 1. 39-Tim McCreadie[4]; 2. 66C-Matt Cosner[1]; 3. 75-Terry Phillips[2]; 4. 17M-Dale McDowell[5]; 5. 49-Jonathan Davenport[8]; 6. 8-Kyle Strickler[7]; 7. 1GK-Grant Garrison[6]; 8. 14-Josh Richards[3]; 9. (DNS) 18L-Trevor Landrum Summit Racing Equipment Heat Race #2 Finish, Round 2 (11 Laps): 1. 76-Brandon Overton[6]; 2. 83-Scott James[2]; 3. 40B-Kyle Bronson[7]; 4. 1-Earl Pearson Jr[3]; 5. 20C-Duane Chamberlain[9]; 6. 7R-Kent Robinson[8]; 7. 16-Justin Rattliff[1]; 8. 17C-Jeremy Creech[5]; 9. 15-James Rice[4] Simpson Race Products Heat Race #3 Finish, Round 2 (11 Laps): 1. 11R-Josh Rice[1]; 2. 157-Mike Marlar[2]; 3. 11H-Spencer Hughes[4]; 4. 20B-Todd Brennan[3]; 5. 1T-Tyler Erb[8]; 6. 1G-Devin Gilpin[5]; 7. 12J-Jason Jameson[6]; 8. 21H-Robby Hensley[7]; 9. (DNS) 8A-Curt Addison Ohlins Shocks Heat Race #4 Finish, Round 2 (11 Laps): 1. 71-Hudson O’Neal[1]; 2. 17D-Zack Dohm[5]; 3. 20RT-Ricky Thornton Jr[4]; 4. 0H-Nick Hoffman[3]; 5. 22-Gregg Satterlee[8]; 6. 2S-Stormy Scott[6]; 7. 4G-Kody Evans[2]; 8. D8-Dustin Linville[7]; 9. (DNS) 7F-Jeremy Freeman MyRacePass Heat Race #5 Finish , Round 2 (12 Laps): 1. 20-Jimmy Owens[3]; 2. 97-Michael Chilton[10]; 3. 29-Darrell Lanigan[1]; 4. 25-Shane Clanton[5]; 5. 33-Jesse Lay[4]; 6. 11B-Tommy Bailey[6]; 7. 1ST-Johnny Scott[8]; 8. 23T-Ethan Toedter[9]; 9. 20TC-Tristan Chamberlain[2]; 10. 13-Vern Lefevers[7]

Sunoco North South 100 Presented by Lucas Oil A-Main Lineup (100 laps):

LINE-X B-Main 1 Lineup (15 laps, Top 3 Transfer):

UNOH B-Main 2 Lineup (15 laps, Top 3 Transfer):

Sunoco North South 100 Point Standings:

Jac Haudenschild Nearly Qualifies for A-Main in Final Knoxville Nationals

KNOXVILLE, IA – August 13, 2021 – The Hard Knox portion of the NOS Energy Drink Knoxville Nationals pres. by Casey’s continues to be one of the most magical nights in sprint car racing, and that was proven once again on Friday night.

With 69 entries fighting for four coveted lock-in positions, the intensity was through the roof. A loaded program of split Qualifying, six Heat Races, two B-Mains, and a 25-lap A-Main greeted fans ahead of Saturday’s sold-out finale.

Nostalgia was floating through the air when “GO JAC GO!” chants broke out as the legendary Jac Haudenschild put the Pennzoil #22 on the pole position of the A-Main in his final preliminary at Iowa’s Knoxville Raceway.

The Wild Child led five laps, but ultimately this night belonged to Rico Abreu. The St. Helena, CA racer was dominant in every phase of the game as he ran away to a comfortable 4.645-second victory and locked-in for his sixth consecutive Knoxville Nationals A-Main.

“Everything happens for a reason.” Abreu, who was one point away from locking in last night, acknowledged. “There’s a reason I qualified 30th last night and there’s a reason I missed the lock-in. I’ll take this. I wasn’t worried one bit about it.”

Earning the outside pole of the A-Main after going QuickTime in Flight B and transferring through his Heat Race, the #24 was a lethal weapon all night long on the black zook clay.

He settled into second on the start as Jac Haudenschild led the opening five laps, but then made his move on Lap 6 and never looked back. He climbed up top to celebrate his third Knoxville Raceway victory and echoes of “RICO! RICO! RICO!” were shouted throughout Marion County.

“I just want to win races, man,” Abreu added. “I don’t do these championships or points, I just want to win. I knew last night being top five with those guys that we would be fine tonight. Also, I really think I’ve just matured in life as I’ve gotten older. I know how to react to these results and everything that happens in our sport. I think that has made me a sharper racer, too.”

Outside of Rico, the story of the night was 63-year-old Jac Haudenschild. In his 39th and final Knoxville Nationals attempt, he earned the pole position of Hard Knox and started pole with a chance to transfer to Saturday’s A-Main. He held a lock-in position for 22 of 25 laps before ultimately fading to run sixth aboard the iconic Pennzoil #22.

“I just made too many mistakes, and with these guys, you can’t make any,” Haudenschild offered. “We definitely learned a lot, though, and I feel better as well heading into tomorrow.”

Along with Abreu, additional lock-in positions to Saturday’s Knoxville Nationals A-Main went to Anthony Macri, Shane Stewart, and Brock Zearfoss.

For Macri, who was at a loss for words, he earned his first-career A-Main appearance at The Granddaddy of ‘Em All. The 22-year-old Dillsburg, PA native was in shock even at the post-race press conference. 

“I really don’t even know what to think,” Macri said. “For a kid like me to put it in the Knoxville Nationals, that’s just unreal. I still can’t believe it. I’m struggling for words.”

Following Macri to the line and finishing third was Bixby, OK’s Shane Stewart in only his fourth Sprint Car race of 2021. The now track owner of Port City Raceway has qualified for his 20th career Knoxville Nationals, this time with the Team Trackhouse #71 prepared by Bernie Stuebgen of Indy Race Parts.

“I knew this would be tough,” Stewart admitted. “Bernie is part-time. and this is my fourth race of the entire year. Guys like Kyle Larson come out and make it look like the easiest thing in the world, but let me tell you it’s not. I don’t know how many races I have left in me, so moments like this are special.”

Earning the fourth and final lock-in to Saturday’s Knoxville Nationals finale was Brock Zearfoss aboard the #3Z.

“This is everything for a team, just making the Nationals,” Zearfoss noted. “Moral wise, confidence wise, this can change seasons. Our team has been through a bit of a rough patch, the whole year actually. This is really rewarding finding speed here.”

Those four, Abreu, Macri, Stewart, and Zearfoss, will start Saturday’s 50-lap finale from rows 11-12. Along with the $4,000 they made tonight, tomorrow’s A-Main pays a world-best $10,000-to-start.

Closing out the top-ten on Friday night was Scott Bogucki in fifth, Jac Haudenschild in sixth, Shane Golobic in seventh, Bill Balog in eighth, Kyle Reinhardt in ninth, and Lynton Jeffrey in tenth. 

The 60th NOS Energy Drink Knoxville Nationals pres. by Casey’s will conclude tomorrow, Saturday, August 14 with championship night. On the docket is an E-Main, D-Main, C-Main, Last Chance Showdown, and 50-lap, potentially $200,000/Win Feature.

NOS Energy Drink Feature (25 Laps) – 1. 24R-Rico Abreu [2]; 2. 39M-Anthony Macri [3]; 3. 71-Shane Stewart [11]; 4. 3Z-Brock Zearfoss [5]; 5. 25-Scott Bogucki [13]; 6. 22-Jac Haudenschild [1]; 7. 17W-Shane Golobic [10]; 8. 17B-Bill Balog [7]; 9. 91-Kyle Reinhardt [4]; 10. 83J-Lynton Jeffrey [6]; 11. 49J-Josh Schneiderman [15]; 12. 56N-Davey Heskin [16]; 13. 39-Daryn Pittman [19]; 14. 70-Sammy Swindell [20]; 15. 2C-Wayne Johnson [14]; 16. 55-Hunter Schuerenberg [8]; 17. 11N-Harli White [22]; 18. 28-Tim Shaffer [24]; 19. 11-Roger Crockett [23]; 20. 20-AJ Moeller [17]; 21. 27-Carson McCarl [18]; 22. 55M-McKenna Haase [12]; 23. 3-Ayrton Gennetten [9]; 24. 40-Clint Garner [21]. Lap Leaders:Jac Haudenschild 1-5, Rico Abreu 6-25. KSE Hard Charger Award: 71-Shane Stewart[+8]

Brett Senek tops DIRTcar Sportsman Modified Series in Sean Letts Memorial over Scott Kerwin and David Wagner 

RANSOMVILLE, NY –  Two outstanding DIRTcar Sportsman Modified Series West Region drivers squared off for 30 laps of action with hometown hero Brett Senek edging out veteran Scott Kerwin to pick up his first career Series win. 

Picking up the Sean Letts Memorial was an emotional moment for the pilot of the Stirling Lubricants #111. 

“I knew Sean pretty well,” said Senek. “He lived right up the road from me. He helped me out and sponsored me when we raced go-karts. Everybody knew him as a nice guy and every night after the races I’d walk up in the stands and he’d ask me how the car was and what I needed to make it better. He was just a great guy gone too soon.”

At the drop of the green flag, pole-sitter David DiPietro and Senek fired evenly. By the end of the first lap, #111 took the lead. DiPietro hung in the top three until he took an unintended excursion into the front stretch “moat” between the racing surface and the wall. He kept his foot down and climbed out before disaster struck. Unfortunately, race contact later ended his night early.

After Senek settled into the lead, Scott Kerwin, from Newfane, NY, began picking off drivers and moving up from fifth. The #1 was on a mission to track down Senek. After a few laps, Kerwin began to catch the #111 and the duel was on. 

Kerwin nearly made it happen on a restart when he fired almost simultaneously with the race leader. 

“Kerwin was taking the lead going into Turn 3,” Senek described. “He had about a tire on me. He had me pretty much neck and neck by the flag stand. I thought he was really good in Turn 1 and was going to drive around me but luckily I had enough on the top to get into Turn 3 around him.”

Kerwin and Senek were locked in battle most of the race but Kerwin appeared to be marginally faster. 

“I knew he was there a couple of times but he’s a really clean driver,” said Senek. “I knew he doesn’t want to tear up his or anyone else’s stuff. He drove a great race.”

Senek, from Ransomville, NY, is the sixth first-time DIRTcar Sportsman Modified Series winner in 2021. The expansion of the DIRTcar Sportsman Modified Series regions has allowed new drivers to start making names for themselves on the tour. Brett Senek joins drivers like Andrew Buff, Tyler Corcoran, and Cameron Tuttle in making waves in Series competition.

Wily veteran Scott Kerwin was happy with a second-place finish and a race car that doesn’t need torches to get it back inside the hauler. 

“It’s tough when it’s an outside-demanding race track,” said Kerwin. “I tried a couple of times but got just too loose off. And I am not going to stuff a slide job. I’d rather take a second.”

“It was a good race. He’s [Senek] a good kid. 

Hoosier Racing Tire Weekly Championship driver Derek Wagner was a threat late but ran out of laps. He worked his way up to third but couldn’t take advantage of the duel for the lead.  

“We started a little way back in seventh,” said Wagner. “There are quite a few cars that can win any week so the competition is tough. We finally found something with the setup. It’s been a tough go this season to get on a roll but this was a great finish. I think I hurt the tires trying to dig around the bottom a little bit. We’ll take third place and overall it was a good night.”

The hard charger of the race was Derrick Borkenhagen, who passed half the field, 11 cars, and finished 10th. 

Cameron Tuttle in the #35t now has three straight top-five finishes in Series racing including the big win at Genesee Speedway in race two on the West Region trail. 

Join us at Brewerton Speedway on Tuesday, August 17 for the Super DIRTcar Series Demon 100. It’s $10,000-to-win and doles out a guaranteed start at the 49th annual NAPA Super DIRT Week to the victor. 

Tickets are on sale now for a $30 presale. Admission will be $33 at the gate. Tickets for students (11-17) are $15. Kids 10 and under are FREE. Pit passes are $35 for DIRTcar members and $40 for non-members. CLICK HERE for tickets. Pit passes are not available for pre-sale and must be purchased at the gate.

FEATURE (30 laps) 

1. Brett Senek 2. Scott Kerwin 3. Derek Wagner 4. Zack George 5. Cameron Tuttle 6. Austin Susice 7. Dylan Duhow 8. Andrew Smith 9. Derrick Borkenhagen 10. Clayton Cain 11. Brandon Michaud 12. Brian Harris 13. Noah Walker 14. Cliff Gregg 15. Sam Hoxie 16. AJ Custodi 17. Dave DiPietro 18. Brett Martin 19. Kyle Richner 20. Jessica Kriegisch 21. Jordan Moden 

TOPEKA, Kan. (Aug. 13, 2021) – Brittany Force and the Monster Energy dragster ended Friday night qualifying at the Menards NHRA Nationals sitting No. 2 in Top Fuel. John Force and the PEAK Antifreeze and Coolant Chevrolet Camaro SS Funny Car are sitting No. 5 while Robert Hight and the Automobile Club of Southern California team are No. 14. Force and her David Grubnic and Mac Savage led team sailed to a 3.734-second pass at 329.42 mph under the lights at Heartland Motorsports Park. Force is looking to grab her fourth consecutive No. 1 qualifying position, sixth of the season and third at the facility. We’re off to a good start this weekend at Heartland Motorsports Park,” Force said. “First session a 3.73 and currently sitting No. 2, so tomorrow we’ll have the opportunity to push a little harder in that third session and really get us set up for race day.” Lined up side-by-side with Robert Hight in the first qualifying run, John Force handled the PEAK Chevy to a clean 3.951-second pass at 326.63 mph to head into day two at Heartland Motorsports Park in the No. 5 spot. “Back here in Kansas. Love it. Great fans here in the Midwest. We have a good car; it’s running well, and Danny Hood and Tim Fabrisi have it figured out. These PEAK guys are keeping me on my toes,” Force said. “I have to be on my game, focused, because I have to keep up.” Hight and the Auto Club Chevy had a mishap on their first qualifying run. While the Auto Club Funny Car did shake the tires, something happened, outside of the team’s control, to trigger his time to give him an invalid time. “Not the run we were looking for. We overpowered the track, so not getting a valid time, it doesn’t hurt us but it’s not the run we wanted to make either,” Hight said. “I’m not worried though, Jimmy Prock and Chris Cunningham always get this Auto Club Chevy figured out. We’ll get down the track tomorrow and be good for race day.” Qualifying at the Menards NHRA Nationals at Heartland Motorsports Park will continue Saturday with sessions at 3 p.m. and 6 p.m. Eliminations are slated to begin Sunday at 11 a.m. Television coverage of qualifying will be on FOX Sports 1 (FS1) Sunday at noon ET. Eliminations will be on FOX Broadcasting Network (FOX) Sunday at 3 p.m. ET.

CHEVROLET RACING NTT INDYCAR SERIES THE BIG MACHINE SPIKED COOLERS GRAND PRIX THE ROAD COURSE AT INDIANAPOLIS MOTOR SPEEDWAY TEAM CHEVY QUALIFYING RECAP AUGUST 13, 2021
PATO O’WARD PUTS CHEVY ON POLE AT IMS ROAD COURSETHIRD NTT P1 AWARD OF SEASON AND FOURTH CAREER FOR ARROW MCLAREN SP CHEVROLET DRIVERWILL POWER MAKES IT AN ALL-CHEVY FRONT ROW FOR THE BIG MACHINE SPIKED COOLERS GRAND PRIX INDIANAPOLIS-(AUGUST 13, 2021) – Pato O’Ward was a very determined driver today as he set out to claim his third NTT P1 Award of the season and fourth of his in his career. He put his No. 5 Arrow McLaren SP Chevrolet on pole with a lap of 01:10.7147 seconds/124.167 MPH. Will Power, No. 12 Verizon 5G Team Penske Chevrolet, made it an all-Chevy front row with a lap of 01:10.7214 seconds/124.155 MPH.  A total of 12Team Chevy will compete in the 85-lap/207-mile Big Machine Spiked Coolers Grand Prix on Saturday, Aug. 14. Chevrolet has won eight of the 10 NTT INDYCAR SERIES races on the IMS Road Course, including the past three, on the technical 2.439-mile, 14-turn road course that incorporates Turns 1 and 2 and the front stretch of the famed oval. Spectators will have the opportunity to view some of Chevrolet’s newest production vehicles, including a Corvette convertible 3LT, Bolt EUV, Silverado 1500 Trailboss, and participate in a Q&A with NTT INDYCAR SERIES drivers at the Chevrolet display near Pagoda Plaza.  The display will be open from 2-8 p.m. Friday, Aug. 13; 7 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 14; and 8 a.m.-1 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 15. Participating drivers include:Saturday, Aug. 149:45-10 a.m. – Rinus VeeKay and NASCAR Cup Series driver William ByronNBCSN will telecast the 85-lap Big Machine Spiked Coolers Grand Prix at 12:30 p.m. ET Sunday, Aug. 14, and qualifying live at 7 p.m. ET Friday, Aug. 13. The race, qualifications and practice will also be broadcast live on INDYCAR Radio Network affiliates, Sirius 211, XM 205, Indycar.com, and on the INDYCAR Mobile app powered by NTT DATA. Practice and qualifications will stream on Peacock Premium. A Chevrolet Corvette C8 Stingray will lead the field to the green flag. Team Chevy will be represented by:A.J. Foyt EnterprisesDalton Kellett, No. 4 K-Line Insulators AJ Foyt RacingSebastien Bourdais, No. 14 ROKiT AJ Foyt RacingArrow McLaren SPPato O’Ward, No. 5 Arrow McLaren SPFelix Rosenqvist, No. 7 Vuse Arrow McLaren SPCarlinMax Chilton, No. 59 Gallagher CarlinEd Carpenter RacingConor Daly, No. 20 U.S. Air ForceRinus VeeKay, No. 21 Sonax/AutogeekTeam PenskeJosef Newgarden, No. 2 XPEL Team PenskeScott McLaughlin, No. 3 CarShop Team PenskeWill Power, No. 12 Verizon 5G Team PenskeSimon Pagenaud, No. 22 Menards Team PenskeTop Gun RacingRC Enerson, No. 75 Top Gun Racing TEAM CHEVY QUALIFYING RESULTS:Pato O’Ward, No. 5 Arrow Mclaren SP Chevrolet – Pole WinnerWill Power, No. 12 Verizon 5G Team Penske Chevrolet – Qualified 2ndConor Daly, No. 20 U.S. Air Force Chevrolet – Qualified 8thRinus VeeKay, No. 21 Sonax/Autogeek Chevrolet – Qualified 9thSimon Pagenaud, No. 22 Menards Team Penske Chevrolet – Qualified 12thJosef Newgarden, No. 2 XPEL Team Penske Chevrolet – Qualified 14thSebastien Bourdais, No. 14 ROKiT AJ Foyt Racing Chevrolet – Qualified 15thMax Chilton, No. 59 Gallagher Carlin Chevrolet – Qualified 19thFelix Rosenqvist, No. 7 Vuse Arrow McLaren SP Chevrolet – Qualified 20thRC Enerson, No. 75 Top Gun Racing Chevrolet – Qualified 25thDalton Kellett, No. 4 K-Line Insulators AJ Foyt Racing Chevrolet – Qualified 28th Chevrolet IndyCar V6 Year-By-Year Results since 20122021 ­– 4 wins, 5 poles in 11 racesWins – Pato O’Ward (Texas2, Detroit2); Rinus VeeKay (Indy RC1); Josef Newgarden (Mid-Ohio). Pole – Pato O’Ward (Barber Motorsports Park, Detroit1); Josef Newgarden (Detroit2, Road America, Mid-Ohio).2020 – 7 wins, 11 poles in 14 racesWins – Simon Pagenaud (Iowa1); Josef Newgarden (Iowa2, St. Louis2, Indy RC2, St. Petersburg); Will Power (Mid-Ohio1, Indy RC3, St. Petersburg). Poles – Josef Newgarden (Texas, Road America1, Iowa2), Will Power (Indianapolis road course, St. Louis1, Mid-Ohio1, Indy RC3; St. Petersburg), Pato O’Ward (Road America2), Conor Daly (Iowa1), Rinus VeeKay (Indy road course October)2019 – 9 wins, 9 poles in 17 racesDriver/owner championship (Josef Newgarden/Roger Penske); Indianapolis 500 win (Simon Pagenaud)2018 – 6 wins, 9 poles in 17 racesIndianapolis 500 win (Will Power)2017 – 10 wins, 11 poles in 17 racesEngine Manufacturer Championship; driver/owner titles (Josef Newgarden/Roger Penske)2016 – 14 wins, 13 poles in 16 racesEngine Manufacturer Championship; driver/owner titles (Simon Pagenaud/Roger Penske)2015 – 10 wins, 16 poles in 16 racesEngine Manufacturer Championship; driver/owner titles (Scott Dixon/Chip Ganassi);Indianapolis 500 win (Juan Pablo Montoya). First manufacturer to capture all titles since Chevrolet returned to INDYCAR in 20122014 – 12 wins, 14 poles in 18 racesEngine Manufacturer Championship; driver/owner titles (Will Power/Roger Penske)2013 – 10 wins, 11 poles in 19 racesEngine Manufacturer Championship; Indianapolis 500 win (Tony Kanaan)2012 – 11 wins, 10 poles in 15 racesEngine Manufacturer Championship; driver/owner titles (Ryan Hunter-Reay/Michael Andretti)Total – 93 wins, 105 earned poles in 160 races  DRIVER QUOTES:PATO O’WARD, NO. 5 ARROW MCLAREN SP CHEVROLET – POLE WINNERON THE POLE WIN:“I wanted to make sure that this was a turning point. We’ve had a very tough last few races. And we’re ready to get back into Victory Lane. This is the first step to that. And tomorrow, we have a job to finish. Just continuing on. There’s still five races to go and a lot can happen. But this is definitely on the right track.” YOU WANT TO TURN IT AROUND SINCE YOU GUYS WERE BASICALLY OUT TO LUNCH WHEN YOU CAME TO THE ROAD COURSE IN MAY“Yeah, we did. Thanks to our test in Portland, we found a few things that I knew were going to help us here, and I’ve never been so excited to race here on the Indy road course. Since practice, I said we’re going to get some good points this weekend.” WILL POWER, NO. 12 VERIZON 5G TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 2^ND: “It is so close between everyone. It is amazing how tight that is. I was on a good one my first lap, but Pato started backing up for whatever reason warming his tires. But I’m there man. We are right there.  You can pass a little easier here, but good track position makes it better” JOSEF NEWGARDEN, NO. 2 XPEL TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 14^TH (WILL START 20^TH AS RESULT OF SIX POSITION GRID PENALTY): “I’m just frustrated. I thought I had enough gap on (James) Hinchcliffe, but I caught him too quickly. Its probably on me, I probably should have gapped him a little more, but I had pressure from behind me so I had to go. So I probably lost about three or four tenths in that last sector of the track. We have a good car for tomorrow.” PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPTS-WILL POWER AND PATO O’WARD THE MODERATOR: A man that knows his way around the road course here, Will Power. Second-place start tomorrow. Tell us about the Firestone Fast 12 for you.WILL POWER: Yeah, it was good. The car was really good. I just missed out by 6/1000ths, but so did about four other people. That’s about the tightest session I’ve ever seen, I think.Pretty good conditions. Car was good. I’m glad to just be back in the groove again. Had such a kind of bad qualifying run lately. Yeah, certainly right there in the running for pole, so really happy to be up front.THE MODERATOR: It never ceases to amaze how tight this field is. Kind of a cliché, but you come to a place like this, a couple thousandths here or there, you can be up front or towards the back.WILL POWER: Yeah. As you know, if you’re just a little bit outside the window, you’re going to be way back there. Yeah, 2/10ths moves you about eight spots in that last session. You had to be right on the game, on the ball.But, yep, we’ve been there all weekend, all day, that’s it. That’s all we’ve his all day, so… See how the race goes. Long race. Can certainly do something from there. Yeah, see how it plays out.THE MODERATOR: We’ll take some questions.Q.Will, they said you were challenging Pato’s lap. Can you walk us through that. Were you expecting that to go in your favor?WILL POWER: On the first lap, yeah, I was up actually. He started warming his tires and slowing up. Then I had to back up. Aborted the lap.I didn’t get close enough to him. I could have driven right up to the back of him and he would have got a penalty. I had to get a gap for the next lap because I only had fuel for the next lap. Go for it.That’s all that was. Let’s say it wasn’t a blatant block, but he starting waving and backing up. You know you only have one more lap to do it. If you finish on his gearbox, you’re not going to be quick because you lose all your air.It is what it is. It’s fine. Top four or five cars were on the same 10th. Anyone’s go, I had a good second lap.Q.Will, on the lap that you got second place on, is there one corner you just go back in your mind and think you could have done something a little bit different that could have got you pole?WILL POWER: Yeah, there’s always a little bit there. I mean, I have to say made no mistakes in there, it was a neat lap. Always a little bit of something there. Yeah, no, obviously everyone was kind of at the limit of their cars. We were all on the same 10th. I don’t think anyone was going to go like 2/10ths quicker. Maybe a couple hundredths in it. Pato did a phenomenal lap to be on pole.Q.Will, could you speak to the desire you have for a victory tomorrow. What’s burning inside you right now?WILL POWER: Yeah, it’s been a terrible year. A lot of desire for pole position and a victory. I didn’t get pole today. Long race tomorrow. Hopefully we have a good race car. I mean, we’re going to make some changes and see if we can get it hooked up.You never know in these races, as we saw last week. Ericsson was nowhere, and he was over the back of someone, then he won the race. So who knows. If you just stay out of trouble in these races, you always have a chance to win.Q.Will, do you see this result today as a bit of a relief?WILL POWER: Yeah, I do. I was very determined coming into this weekend just considering how the last few races have been for me. Yep, right on the pace, back where I need to be. Very focused. Hopefully we can have a good day tomorrow.Q.Will, are the track conditions noticeably different than when you were at IMS in May? Does NASCAR running on the track with a different type of rubber make a difference to INDYCAR?WILL POWER: Yeah, it is definitely a different track condition. The car was a lot different for us at the previous race. I don’t know whether because the temperature was cooler.Yes, the NASCAR rubber does not go well with the Firestone stuff. It doesn’t take long to get it up, though. Doesn’t take long to get the rubber out of the way.Q.Will, the whole team has been in a little bit of a funk the last couple of races. How important is it for you as pretty much the veteran of the team to pull them out of this?WILL POWER: Yeah, I mean, we’re all looking for a bloody win. So is about every other person in the series. Yeah, very fierce competition. To win in this series, man, you got to play everything just right otherwise you’re not going to win.THE MODERATOR: Joined by Pato O’Ward, third pole position of the season, third NTT P1 award of the season.How did it go?PATO O’WARD: It’s good, man. Like I’ve been telling everybody, we’ve had a very tough last few races. I’m tired of being in the middle pack. We had a great test in Portland. What we found there I knew was going to help us here. So the goal is definitely to truly return where we belong, which is contend for podiums, for poles, ultimately for wins.I think we have the car to do something great tomorrow. We just need to execute. The next session is warmup. Do that, get as much information as we can to help us for the race. Then when the race comes, we try and maximize what we got there.THE MODERATOR: You lost a little bit of ground in the championship last week. How much did you think about that over the last few days?PATO O’WARD: There’s still five races to go. I know racing. Things can spiral down very quick or they can spiral up very quick.I just think the focus on really executing on every single session that we do from now until Long Beach checkered flag is going to be critical. But I’m not far back. I can definitely claw my way back into the fight for this championship. That is the goal. We’ve been fighting for it kind of all year.What I truly want, I want to get to Long Beach with a proper, legit chance of winning the championship. I’m excited. I think we have some great circuits for us coming up. I’m really excited.THE MODERATOR: Questions.Q.You mentioned the Portland test a couple times. I know you won’t tell us the secrets. Does the car handle better? Get more speed?PATO O’WARD: Yeah, man, it just handles better. We’ve had a quick car in many places, but damn it’s a handful. It is so hard to drive. I think we have found something that just is more predictable, that just makes it a lot easier on Felix and I to actually get laps in lap after lap consistently.Yeah, man, we’ve just been really focused on trying to make a better package for both qualifying and the race. One thing is to have a qualifying car and one thing is to have a race car. We’re trying to maximize both.I feel like that’s where we have lacked a little bit in terms of we’ve had a very strong qualifying car and then we don’t have anything for the race, but then we’ll have a great race car but in qualifying we’re just not quite there.Q.Felix has struggled to adapt. Seemed like he was running better today. Is he in the same boat as you, like he improved?PATO O’WARD: Yeah, definitely. I think he’s definitely felt improvements. I haven’t spoken to him obviously since qualifying, but I’m pretty sure he was pretty happy with the car.Yeah, I mean, both cars I think had the potential to be within the first two rows. Yeah, it’s nice to have both cars there. I’m going to need his help if I’m going to win this championship.Q.Does it feel like starting on pole, this is sort of the thrust you need for the final move toward a championship, meaning you’re starting out in front of everybody? Does it feel like a new life a little bit?PATO O’WARD: It feels like a breath of fresh air. It just shows us what we’ve been working on in testing, in our mini break, worked. I’m very excited. Not just for tomorrow, I really want to, like I said, turn the page this weekend. I feel like we have. We’ve done a good job so far.But tomorrow we have a big job ahead. Just keep doing it. Gateway is coming up. We had a very strong race there last year. Portland, Laguna, they’re all tracks I really enjoy. I think we’re going to have a strong package. We have to maximize every single one and I think that’s going to put us right where we want to be.Q.You said the car is more stable. Coming to the line in nine and ten on your final lap, looked like it was still a handful.PATO O’WARD: Yeah, I shipped it, man.Q.How close were you to losing it?PATO O’WARD: I mean, I don’t think it’s anything that we haven’t seen before from me (smiling).The problem is that sometimes you can get really greedy with what you’ve done before. Not always will it stick. I just wanted to transfer. I barely transferred. I should have risked a little bit more. When we went out on blacks, we got the balance a little bit unhappier on blacks, but I knew that was going to make reds happier. As soon as we went out, I knew in the snake is where I went really cautious the run before.I said, Got to risk it to get the biscuit. Yeah, it was really cool to see the delta just go from minus 1/10th to, boom, minus 5/10ths.Q.Looking ahead to the race, we’ll have 28 cars. Traffic should be more of an issue. Are you looking forward to see what it can do to your strategy and everybody else’s?PATO O’WARD: Yeah. Honestly, if they’re respectful, they won’t get in the way of the leaders. At least I hope they won’t.Yeah, it’s a big field, man. I think it’s great for INDYCAR. I think it shows that the series has a lot of appeal, not just in the U.S. but to Europe. People are enjoying it. It’s just a very, very fun atmosphere to be around. The cars are fun to drive.Yeah, I think it’s a fantastic series. I think it doesn’t get more raw and more kind of just truly race and truly hustle a race car. I don’t think it gets better than that than INDYCAR. I think INDYCAR ticks all the boxes.Q.Your previous three poles you didn’t actually win the race the next day.PATO O’WARD: Don’t tell me (laughter).Q.Did you learn anything from those?PATO O’WARD: I would love to win from pole. How is that (smiling)? I’ll leave it there.Q.Talk about your last lap.PATO O’WARD: I was surprised when I heard P1. I came in and I saw the pylon, my number didn’t get bumped down. I think I nailed it. Honestly, I thought it was a very put-together, very calm lap. There’s definitely been a lot crazier laps in my life.Q.Felix talked about some work he did at Portland that you referenced briefly there. He talked about the drivability. Is that something you felt was a big part of the role in getting pole today?PATO O’WARD: For sure. For sure. A few months ago we were nowhere close to having a pole car. Today we nailed it. We came. As soon as practice one, we went out, I knew we were in the window. Just had to make a few tweaks to truly get the maximum time out of the car.But, yeah, man, you have to continuously work and make the cars better because I feel like this is kind of the end of the era of this aero kit. Every single team is pretty much capable of being on pole. It just really comes down to the driver and the engineer to try and be as efficient as possible with changes and just know what you need from the car to extract the time.Q.Could you give is a little bit of context on Christian’s performance today. Give us a bit of an idea how difficult it is to put in that performance today.PATO O’WARD: I think it’s awesome. I think it was really cool to see him up there. He qualified third, I’m assuming? Fourth. I think it’s great.I know he has a good, strong car under him. He’s a good driver. I don’t think anybody doesn’t agree with me. He’s strong. He has a lot of experience in Europe with Formula 2 and Formula 3 and other categories.I think he likes this INDYCAR. I didn’t really get much out of him. He’s very quiet. From experience from driving an F2 car, I guarantee you he likes this INDYCAR.This IMS road course is probably the closest track that we have to a Formula 1 spec racetrack with just being very flat, lots of runoff, just the type of course fits to what he’s used to.I think he’s probably not as in a place like going to a Detroit and going out like, Man, something is broken with this car with all the bumps. I think it’s great. I think it’s great we’re having new faces up into the series.I remember my memory from Sonoma. It’s a good one (smiling).Q.How beneficial is it with your championship rivals so far behind you on the grid? Will you think about that going into the race?PATO O’WARD: Where are they? I have no idea.THE MODERATOR: Dixon is 26th, I believe.PATO O’WARD: Really? Because he spun. I’ll have a look later.Q.Alex is starting sixth.PATO O’WARD: Not a bad position.Man, it’s such a tough and competitive series. You have to execute everywhere, pit stops, strategy. I have to not make any mistakes, be very wise in what I’m doing in terms of traffic, managing tires, et cetera.A lot can happen tomorrow, but I think we have the best view into turn one. We’re obviously going for the win. I’d be lying if I said we weren’t. Yeah, I think we’re in a better position right now than what we were a few months back here for the road course event.All what we have found today have definitely been very positive for us.Q.In terms of going for the championship, you’re just going all out, you’re not going for what Scott does where he’s Mr. Consistent?PATO O’WARD: Whenever you have a chance to win, you need to take those points and win because it’s not like every weekend you go and you can win. We’re definitely going for that.But if we can’t manage to do that, I’m not going to do something stupid and put it in the wall. We need to be smart. We’re obviously going for it. If we can’t win, then we take the second. Still a lot of points.Yeah, man, I’m just really looking forward to turning the page to our very crappy last three races, close out this weekend very strong, and don’t look back until the checkered flag waves in Long Beach.THE MODERATOR: Thank you. 

Romain Grosjean backs up May pole with third-place start at Big Machine Spiked Coolers Grand Prix
Rookie Christian Lundgaard shocks with second-row grid slot on debut
Honda takes five of top seven in qualifying

SPEEDWAY, Ind. (Aug. 13, 2021) – Dale Coyne with RWR’s Romain Grosjean led the charge for Honda in today’s qualifying at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, qualifying third for Saturday’s Big Machine Spiked Coolers Grand Prix.

The Grand Prix marks the first double-header for the NTT INDYCAR SERIES and the NASCAR Cup series running on the same course layout in the history of the two series. It also marks the first race weekend in INDYCAR for Christian Lundgaard, a current Formula 2 driver, making his series debut with Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing.

The young Danish driver set the seventh fastest time in today’s practice session, and backed that performance up with fourth in qualifying.

Honda also claimed the fifth, sixth and seventh positions, with Andretti Autosport’s Colton Herta, Chip Ganssi Racing’s Alex Palou, and Meyer Shank Racing’s Jack Harvey, respectively.

Last week’s Nashville race winner, Marcus Ericsson will start 11th, just behind Alexander Rossi, who rounds out the top 10.

Big Machine Music City Grand Prix Honda Qualifying Results
3rd Romain Grosjean-R Dale Coyne Racing with RWR Honda
4th Christian Lundgaard -R Rahal Letterman Lanigan Honda
5th Colton Herta Andretti Autosport Honda
6th Alex Palou Chip Ganassi Racing Honda
7th Jack Harvey Meyer Shank Racing Honda
10th Alexander Rossi Andretti Autosport Honda
11th Marcus Ericsson Chip Ganassi Racing Honda
13th Ryan Hunter-Reay Andretti Autosport Honda
16th Takuma Sato Rahal Letterman Lanigan Honda
17th Graham Rahal Rahal Letterman Lanigan Honda
18th Ed Jones Dale Coyne Racing with Vasser-Sullivan Honda
22nd Jimmie Johnson-R Chip Ganassi Racing Honda
23rd Helio Castroneves Meyer Shank Racing Honda
24th James Hinchcliffe Andretti Autosport Honda
26th Scott Dixon Chip Ganassi Racing Honda
27th Cody Ware-R Dale Coyne Racing with RWR Honda
R – Rookie

Quotes
Romain Grosjean (Dale Coyne Racing with RWR Honda) Qualified third: “Yeah, it’s amazing to be coming here for a second time. Finishing in the top three in qualifying is always great. I think I had a pole lap [time] on my last lap, but I chickened out in Turn 8-9. I took them a little bit too carefully. That’s my mistake, but I think we’ve got a good base for tomorrow, and that’s what matters now.”

Christian Lundgaard (Rahal Letterman Lanigan Honda) Qualified Fourth, Making INDYCAR Debut: “At the moment, I’m very confused! I wasn’t quite ready for qualifying to be over, as I thought we had a “Fast Six” [final qualifying round, not used this weekend]. But we are P4, and let’s just say I did not expect to [qualify this well] when I learned I was coming here to race! This [Indy car racing] is amazing. It is so different from Europe. So many people! [in the paddock and grandstands]. I’m really happy to be here.”

Fast Facts
Honda continues to hold the lead in the 2021 INDYCAR Manufacturers’ Championship, with seven victories from 11 races this season.  Returning to Indianapolis, Honda holds a 119-point advantage (959-840) over rival Chevrolet. The company is seeking its fourth consecutive NTT INDYCAR SERIES Manufacturers’ Championship in 2021.

In addition to Helio Castroneves’ historic win at the Indianapolis 500 in May, Honda race winners this year include championship leader Alex Palou at Road America in June and at the season-opening Honda Indy Grand Prix of Alabama; Marcus Ericsson last weekend in Nashville and at the first race of the Detroit Grand Prix doubleheader weekend; defending and six-time champion Scott Dixon (Texas Race 1); and Colton Herta (Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg).

Series stars seek $10,000 and a NAPA Super DIRT Week guaranteed start at The Demon 100 BREWERTON, NY – Aug. 13 – Brewerton Speedway, known as The D-Shaped Dirt Demon, last hosted the Super DIRTcar Series in 2019 when defending Super DIRTcar Series champion Mat Williamson started his late-reason roll to the Series crown. But Billy Decker, a living legend and driver of the Gypsum Wholesalers #91, tangles with The Demon in Hoosier Racing Tire Weekly Championship action every Friday and he’s ready to defend home territory against all the Series stars.While Decker may race Brewerton weekly, 100 laps and $10,000 change the game when the stars of the Super DIRTcar Series bring their Big Block Modifieds to Brewerton on Tuesday, Aug. 17. (Save money by purchasing tickets in advance now, CLICK HERE.)“We love getting some more races in Central New York,” Decker said. “I am looking forward to it. It’s been a struggle for us to get a Series win at Brewerton.”He’s the last driver not named Mat or Matt to win a Series race at Brewerton Speedway, but that was seven years ago. The Franklin Flyer took Series wins in 2008 and 2015 both in 100 lap battles. The 2015 win came after a dicey battle with Brett Hearn in lapped traffic.“There’s always great racing at Brewerton,” Decker noted. “The track is in our wheelhouse, so it’s a place we want to win. It’s a Big Block track for sure. Brewerton hasn’t changed much as far back as I can remember. If your car is going, you’ll get there. That’s the nice thing about a 100 lapper there. You can be patient with the Hoosiers and then really come on at the end. There’s a lot of comers and goers at Brewerton. I expect this race to be no different.”Super DIRTcar Series fans are accustomed to seeing the crimson #91 at the top of the finishing order and points standings, but so far Decker has only mustered enough championship points for sixth this season.The new wave of rear suspension technology has necessitated veterans of the sport to adjust. The sweet spot for the setups is narrow.“I think I am still getting comfortable,” Decker said. “We are just a little off. We started out at Bristol going backward, but we had really good race pace. Our finishes are subpar. We are finishing a lot in the fifth through 10th positions. We have to turn that around.”Brewerton is the perfect opportunity for Decker to mount a late-season charge. “These cars are a challenge now, at least for me,” he said. “There’s only been a handful of races that I’ve felt really right. We were right at Charlotte in 2019. I should have won both of those races. We’ll get there though.”Tickets are on sale now for $30 presale. Admission will be $33 at the gate. Tickets for students (11-17) are $15. Kids 10 and under are FREE. Pit passes are $35 for DIRTcar members and $40 for non-members. CLICK HERE for tickets. Pit passes are not available for pre-sale and must be purchased at the gate.If you can’t make it to the track be sure to catch all the action live on DIRTVision. Get the platinum annual FAST PASS for $299 or monthly FAST PASS for $39/month.

The Super DIRTcar Series is brought to fans by many important sponsors and partners, including: DIRTVision (Official Live Broadcast Partner), Hoosier Racing Tire (Official Tire), SIS Insurance (Official Insurance Provider), VP Racing Fuels (Official Racing Fuel), Chevy Performance Parts, iRacing (Official Online Racing Game) and NAPA Auto Parts. Contingency sponsors include: ARP (Automotive Racing Products), ASI Race Wear, Bicknell Racing Products, Billy Whittaker Cars & Trux, Cometic Gasket, COMP Cams, Drydene, Fox Factory, MSD, and Wrisco (Exclusive Racing Aluminum); along with manufacturer sponsors, including: FireAde, Intercomp, and Racing Electronics.

The York, PA driver is searching for his second World of Outlaws win at the Orange County Fair Speedway

MIDDLETOWN, NY – August 13, 2021 – Rick Eckert may not be running a full series schedule anymore, but that’s no sign of him slowing down.

However, there is one pace he said he needs to pick up on: winning.

The York, PA driver, picks and chooses his schedule, chasing victories across the country and in the Northeast. One of the races “Scrub” has his eye on is the World of Outlaws Morton Buildings Late Model Series’ return to the Orange County Fair Speedway on Thursday, Aug. 19. 

Eckert won the only other stop at the “House of Power” in 2004. He remembers what the track was like but anticipates something different this time.

“Back then, it wore tires out, but they say now it barely wears the tires,” Eckert said. “It should be a lot better race this time.

“It’s probably four hours from home, so we’ll make the trek up there and hopefully have some success.” 

The success Eckert’s found this season comes with a balancing act. He’s splitting time between an Allen Murray-owned car at higher-paying events and his own Late Model near his York, PA home. 

“It’s a little bit hectic, but [my crew] does a good job and keeps everything pretty well ready by the time we get here,” Eckert said. 

Eckert’s already found Victory Lane with the World of Outlaws in 2021, cashing in on a $10,000 prize at Plymouth Speedway in Plymouth, IN. “Scrub” stated he enjoys the competition every time he races with The Most Powerful Late Models on the Planet. 

“We’ve had some good runs, we’ve won one, and we’ve run up front a couple of times,” Eckert said. “We’ve had our share of bad too, and that all goes with it. It’s always fun to be able to run these races with these guys.”

Eckert, the 2011 Series champion, has run well against the tour regulars this season, racking up a win, seven top fives, and 11 top-10s in 18 starts. While he’s enjoying his consistent finishes, he only has one goal for the rest of the season. 

“Just win races; we just like to win races,” Eckert said. “We haven’t been doing a whole lot of that, so we need to pick the pace up.”  

If Eckert can pick that pace up, it likely won’t be long until he finds Victory Lane again. There’s no slowing “Scrub” down.

Eckert and the World of Outlaws return to the Orange County Fair Speedway on Thursday, Aug. 19, to kick off a four-race swing through three states.