Running 2023 Motorsports thread

Sources: NASCAR closes on sale of land at Auto Club Speedway site

The reported "plan" (in quotes since nothing has been announced... which means it probably won't happen) is to build a Martinsville-like track on the remaining 90 acres, and NASCAR will rent space for parking from the development on the land it sold off.

 

Meanwhile, Greenville-Pickens is up for sale as an industrial park.

 

Not a super exciting race in Bahrain today, but watching Alonso grab a podium was excellent. Even if LeClerc didn’t retire, I don’t think either Ferrari was going to hold him off.

LeClerc did not seem confident that they have a winning car even before the race began. This is shaping up to be another runaway season for Red Bull. Ferrari, Mercedes and Aston could be interesting, though.

 

This season should weed out a lot of the new fans. Max is going to romp. The race for third should consistently be fun though.

Also, I need to start recording the IndyCar races instead of watching live. If you fast forward through the yellow laps you should be able to get through a whole race in 10 or 15 minutes.

 

Wild but very entertaining race in St. Pete today. We just got back after getting baked in the sun. Meyer Shank and Foyt Racing never even made it back to our seats for one stinking lap. As soon as I saw the replay on the monitors and the cars lined in front of us for the red flag, I knew Ferrucci and the rookie kid had to have gotten into it. Kept the tow trucks busy, though.

Instead of getting in the huge line for the buses back to Tropicana Field, Gwen and I wandered the paddock after the race. It was interesting to see Scott McLaughlin trying to get to the DHL hauler to perhaps chat/apologize to Grosjean for putting both of them out of the race with a red mist move. I honestly saw that coming a lap earlier when Grosjean pitted and McLaughlin was stuck behind a backmarker, which probably created all that impatience. Cold tires and a bonzai move took out both of them.

I still can't believe O'Ward had the win basically land in his lap, only to have a mechanical issue at the end. Suddenly he was leading and then Ericsson came by in front.

Cool to stand there and have Chip, Rahal, Bryan Herta and Sam Schmidt pass by. Also, at least a dozen drunk Swedes seranading Ericsson while he was getting a ride to the media center.

David Malukas stood around for photos for at least an hour after the race, long after the more well-known guys had split.

 

Well, I called Vegas with 60 laps to go. "Why even have a race. It will go green-white-checkered. Just bring them in for a three-lap shootout and be done with it."
Call me Nostrodumbass. With four to go and someone running away with it, somebody randomly wrecks to alter the outcome.

 

They don't even try to hide the kayfabe any more. NASCAR is the Marjorie Taylor Greene of the sports world, just doing outrageous stuff because nobody's paying attention otherwise.

 

At least last week they had no nonsense in the last 40 or 50 laps and Busch won.

I really thought RCR was done as a team once Harvick walked and especially as long as Austin was their lead driver. But the 8 team had some real hot rods last year and that’s continued this year. Perhaps Tyler Reddick was the one who made a mistake in leaving. I figured that was all on Childress, and that he just lucked into KFB.

After the Indy race on TV, McLaughlin was very apologetic. He knew he screwed up. Poor Pato, I thought he was going to rip off Dave Burns’ head in the post-race interview.

 

Max is going to romp to another title in F1, but goddam, Alonso was fun as hell today. He and the ongoing Ferrari miscues will be entertaining this season.

 

If it were fake, would they have put somebody as boring as William Byron in victory lane?