The 2021 Running NASCAR/IMSA/other racing things thread

So glad I'm not sitting in the Miami or Fort Lauderdale airport on the Monday before Thanksgiving, waiting for a plane packed full of retired people flying north to visit their children and grandchildren.

Homestead was a crappy finale in a lot of ways.

 

NASCAR hasn't had a championship weekend since 2003.

 

Someone remind me why we are having NASCAR's "championship" weekend in Arizona instead of, oh, I don't know: Bristol, Wilkesboro, Charlotte, Rockingham, Darlington, or Daytona.
Wait, I know. It's because:
Raymond Parks ran a bootlegging operation and race shop northeast of Phoenix
or because Junior Johnson ran tequila in a '40 Ford with a Cadillac engine out of Yuma
or maybe in honor of Smokey Yunick running the Best Damn Garage in Tucson
no wait, it must be because during the offseason Tiny Lund ran a fish camp on Lake Havasu

 

Bravo!

Goodyear, Arizona, is not only flat but the people who live there are always tired. Tip your wait staff, and good night.

 

It’s where the rubber meets the road.

 

Larson won it? Good. He's the best driver in NASCAR by about the distance between Richard Petty to Herman Beam.

 

1. I guess it's fitting he won the championship in Phoenix because his ass certainly rose from the ashes.
2. It certainly wasn't contrived to have the "championship" four cars lined up 1-2-3-4 following a late race restart. Nope, not contrived at all.

 

Hey, my dad helped build Herman's cars. No kidding.

 

Awesome! Good thing he never had to repair them. Herman was the safest driver in the history of NASCAR.

EDIT: When doing research for the feature I wrote on Herman, everybody said his cars were immaculately prepared, so you should be very proud of your father. They were sleek and fast, except Herman neither had the talent nor the money to drive them that way. He not only held the record for most consecutive races completed without a DNF, but most consecutive starts with the same numeral. Those were only broken recently. I can't remember who holds the DNF, but Jeff Gordon eclipsed The Turtle with the No. 24.

When he retired as a driver, several major names drove the No. 19 with some success, so it wasn't like Herman drove on the apron because the car wasn't fast enough. He was bright enough to realize he could make a living staying out of the way back then -- and he STILL would up with 57 career top-10 finishes!

One of the best things about NASCAR's early days is unearthing stories like Herman Beam.

 

The "championship four" were pretty much the top four the whole race. I'd love to know how often that happened over the thousands of laps over the rest of the season that they ran together at all.

 

I’d take a championship race in Charlotte over the Roval, even though road courses are now the in thing, but it won’t happen because not the ghost of ISC.

 

It was that way last year, too.