The 12 contenders in this year’s chase for NASCAR’s Sprint Cup were finalised in Saturday night’s 400-mile race on the one-mile Richmond oval. The ‘Chase for the Cup’ takes place over the last 10 races of NASCAR’s marathon 36-race season, starting next weekend on the high-banked 1.5-mile Chicagoland oval.

The Richmond race was won by Kevin Harvick, who scored his fourth win of the year in one of Richard Childress’s trio of Chevrolets. Harvick was chased home by Carl Edwards aboard his Roush-Fenway Ford, with Jeff Gordon taking third place in his Hendrick Chevrolet. Championship leader Kyle Busch finished sixth in one of Joe Gibbs’ Toyotas, so Busch and Harvick go into the Chase as top seeds, both with four wins.

Although Busch and Harvick have won NASCAR’s second-division Nationwide championship, neither have claimed a Sprint Cup title. Busch, 26, is considered NASCAR’s fastest driver and is this year’s championship favourite. He’s been racing Cup cars for eight years and this is his fourth season with Joe Gibbs’ team. Harvick, 36, is in his eleventh year in the Cup series, all with Childress, after replacing Dale Earnhardt following his death at Daytona in 2001.

The 12 championship contenders are seeded based on wins. All start the 10-race Chase with 5000 points, plus an additional 10 points for each win scored in the first 26 races of the season. Busch and Edwards thus go to Chicago next weekend with 5040 points, followed by four-time champion Jeff Gordon on 5030 points.

Seeded fourth is 2003 Cup champion Matt Kenseth, who’s won two races so far this season in one of four Roush-Fenway Fords. Kenseth’s team-mate Carl Edwards is next up with one win and is grouped with defending champion Jimmie Johnson (Hendrick Chevrolet), Kurt Busch (Penske Dodge) and Ryan Newman (Stewart-Haas Chevrolet).

Completing the top 10 are Tony Stewart (Stewart-Haas Chevrolet) and Dale Earnhardt Jr (Hendrick Chevrolet). Neither Stewart nor Earnhardt have won during this year’s first 26 races. Brad Keselowski and Denny Hamlin round out the 12 Chase contenders. Keselowski has shown plenty of ability, winning three races in his second full Cup season with Roger Penske’s Dodge team. Hamlin has scored one victory this year aboard his Joe Gibbs Toyota.

This is the eighth year for the Chase for the Cup and, contrived or not, the system does help keep the championship open down to the last race in November at the Homestead-Miami Speedway. In theory any of the 12 seeded drivers has a chance to take the title. Busch and Harvick start the Chase as favourites but each of four-time champion Gordon, five-time champion Johnson and Edwards are entirely capable of challenging for this year’s title, as is Keselowski.

The rest are long shots but NASCAR’s great depth of field means anything is possible. Like it or not, it’s motor racing’s toughest championship.

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Ninety years ago, Tommy Milton and Jimmy Murphy were the men to beat in what was then known as AAA championship racing. Blind in one eye from birth, Milton won the Indianapolis 500 in 1921 and ’23, plus 21 other AAA championship races between 1917-25. He also won the AAA title in 1920 and ‘21. Murphy was Milton’s protégé who won the 1922 Indy 500 plus 18 other AAA races between 1920-24. He also posthumously won the 1924 AAA title.

Like most of the great drivers from that era, Milton and Murphy were first-rate mechanics and self-taught engineers. At Daytona Beach in April 1920 they shared a twin-engined Duesenberg designed by Milton to break the Land Speed Record. They became the first men to break the 150mph barrier on land, while Murphy went on to score a historic victory in the 1921 French GP with the factory Duesenberg team. Jimmy’s win (below) was the first all-American victory in Grand Prix racing – a feat that would not be duplicated until Dan Gurney won the 1967 Belgian GP aboard his own Eagle-Weslake.

The 1920 Indy 500 had been won by Gaston Chevrolet’s Monroe/Frontenac. Chevrolet also won that year’s AAA crown posthumously following an accident during the season-closer at the 1.25-mile Beverly Hills board track. Seven years later the AAA revised its historic record, adding five races to the 1920 series and declaring Milton that year’s champion. These revised rankings made Murphy the championship runner-up and dropped Chevrolet to third.

Milton had joined the Frontenac team for 1921, taking over Chevrolet’s seat and comfortably winning the Indy 500 after Ralph De Palma’s Ballot blew its engine. Murphy crashed out of the race, but the following month the Duesenberg team sailed to France to compete in the Grand Prix where Murphy scored his historic win. In doing so Murphy and the Duesenberg team missed three AAA races and Milton built an insurmountable championship lead. He won that year’s title, with Murphy fourth in the points. Milton reached his goal aboard a variety of cars, driving his own Durant with both Duesenberg and Miller engines as well as a factory Frontenac.

Milton’s results prompted Murphy to buy a Miller engine and install it in his Duesenberg, creating the Murphy Special. In this car he dominated the 1922 Indy 500, qualifying on pole and leading most of the race to win at record speed. Murphy easily beat Milton to the championship, winning seven races to Milton’s four.

Courtesy of Indianapolis Motor Speedway

In 1923 Milton (above) was on pole at Indianapolis and led most of the way to win, with Murphy finishing third, but neither enjoyed very good seasons. Murphy won two early-season races but his title challenge was blunted by another foray to Europe to compete in the Italian GP at Monza, where he finished third. He was beaten to that year’s AAA title by Eddie Hearne, while Milton failed to win another race after Indy and came fifth in the points.

The following year Murphy qualified on pole at Indy and led the race before being overwhelmed by Joe Boyer in one of the new supercharged Duesenbergs. Veteran Earl Cooper finished second as Murphy fell to third because of tyre troubles. But after Indy Murphy won three races in a row and took control of the championship before losing his life in a dirt track race at Syracuse, New York in September. So dominant was Murphy that he was declared the champion even though there were still three races left to run after his death.

Milton continued to race until 1927. He won the season-opener in 1925 and finished second to Pete de Paolo in that year’s championship but wasn’t a serious factor in the following two years before retiring. Milton was chief steward at Indianapolis for many years but died from self-inflicted gunshot wounds in 1962, aged 68, after suffering in his later years from burns received in a 1919 accident.

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A new era of sports car racing kicks off in Florida on Saturday. The Sebring 12 Hours marks the return of what should be classified as a World Championship of Makes – even if we’re not allowed to officially call it that.

The tough enduro is much more than just the first round of the American Le Mans Series this year. It also counts for something that calls itself the Intercontinental Le Mans Cup, a seven-round global series for sports cars which includes the Le Mans 24 Hours itself. Last year’s three-race pilot series was a toe-in-the-water exercise. Now it’s for real – and even though a title with an acronym as meaningless as ILMC will mean little to the world outside the paddock, the manufacturers are taking it very seriously.

That’s because they know this is the start of something that should be very big. The series is the brainchild of Le Mans organiser the ACO. The target now is for the FIA to embrace the series and give it the World Championship title it so fully deserves.

Audi Sport boss Dr Wolfgang Ullrich summed up the feelings of everyone in sports car racing this week when he said during a press conference: “The ILMC means nothing outside this room. We need a World Championship and we need it quickly. Not in five years, but in two or three.”

There were nods of agreement from the rest of the panel beside him, which included team bosses representing the interests of Peugeot, BMW, Chevrolet and Ferrari.

It is believed that FIA president Jean Todt – who of course led Peugeot’s Group C campaign in the final days of the old World Sports Car Championship 20 years ago – is open to the idea of bestowing a proper title on the series. Let’s hope he moves on it soon.

At the front of the ILMC, we’re looking forward to another chapter of Audi versus Peugeot, as the two giants renew their intense rivalry on the bumpy concrete runways of the Sebring airfield circuit. Typically, they’re being coy over their chances.

Peugeot comes to this race with its all-new 908 LMP1. Yes, I know, it’s got the same name as the old one that won Le Mans in 2009, and at first glance it looks identical. But trust me, it is a new car. Just wish they’d given it the new name it deserves. A confusing decision.

The 908 conforms to the new 2011 regulations that have been designed to slow Le Mans prototypes, and make them safer. Diesel engine sizes have been slashed from 5.5 to 3.7 litres, while the most significant chassis change is the addition of the ungainly F1-style ‘shark fins’ on the engine cowlings. As featured in Motor Sport last year, these have been added as an attempt to stop the old problem of prototypes flipping during accidents. They look awful, but if it marks the end of cars taking flight, then so be it.

“This is a working session for us,” reckons Peugeot Sport boss Olivier Quesnel, who adds a quite remarkable statement regarding the team’s Sebring aspirations: “We don’t intend to win and I don’t think it will happen.” Well, that’s ambitious…

Of course, Le Mans is the focus for the Pride of France. But Anthony Davidson topped night practice on Thursday, following the team’s time-topping performances in testing earlier in the week. The new car has every chance of scoring a debut victory, whatever the boss might say.

At Audi, the new R18 coupé won’t arrive here until the day after the race, as the team prepares to continue its testing programme on Monday. Instead, the German giant is wheeling out its old R15 ‘spyder’ for one last fling. The car has been dubbed the R15 Plus Plus, to reflect the changes that have been forced upon it to allow the team to race it against new 2011 cars. Internally the team is calling it the R15 Plus Minus, which is more accurate. A power-sapping smaller air restrictor has suffocated the turbodiesel that won Le Mans against the odds last year. “It’s as flat as a fart,” was Allan McNish’s colourful description of the difference it has made, but that did not stop the two cars setting the fastest times in the opening pair of practice sessions.

Where the difference will really tell in the race is how much harder it will be for the prototypes to lap GT cars around the high-downforce circuit. With a field of 56 cars, avoiding trouble in traffic could well decide the outcome of this race between the two giants. There’s little in it for pace. As Dr Ullrich said, “performance is not everything for this race”.

The Sebring 12 Hours is always hard fought, and so it promises to be once again. And its significance, as the kick-off point of a new era, only increases the intensity between the two rival camps. Whatever they might say in press conferences.

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NASCAR couldn’t have asked for a better championship battle, the closest in its history, with all three contenders in the running until the final laps. No matter what you may think about NASCAR, and as much as big-time American stock car racing is struggling with declining crowds and TV ratings, you can’t deny that it puts on a good show – probably the best in racing.

Jimmie Johnson, Denny Hamlin and Kevin Harvick all ran into trouble at some point in the season finale at the Homestead-Miami Speedway. All three looked likely champions at different stages of the race, but Johnson came through to take a record fifth consecutive Sprint Cup, narrowly defeating Hamlin and Harvick after a marathon season of 36 races over 10 months. Carl Edwards won at Homestead-Miami with Johnson finishing second, Harvick third and Hamlin 14th after a series of adventures.

Johnson is an excellent driver, a true racer and a good guy, and his fifth straight championship is a tremendous accomplishment. Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt are NASCAR’s greatest champions both with seven titles, but neither won five in a row. Statistically, in terms of starts versus championships, Johnson is well ahead of Petty and Earnhardt. At 35, he has raced Sprint Cup cars for 10 years, all with Rick Hendrick’s team, and he probably has at least another five or more strong seasons within his reach.

“I can’t believe it,” he grinned. “Four was amazing. Now I’ve got to figure out what to say about what it means to win five of these things. It’s pretty damn awesome, I can tell you that. Sometimes we weren’t the fastest this year, but we had the most heart and I think I enjoyed this season more than any of the others.”

Johnson’s fifth title is also the 10th – and a record – for Rick Hendrick’s four-car Chevrolet team. Hendrick started his team in 1984 and won his previous championships with Jeff Gordon (1995, ’97-98 and 2001) and Terry Labonte (in 1996).

Championship runner-up Hamlin drives for Joe Gibbs’s three-car Toyota team. The 30-year-old has been racing Cup cars for five years, all with Gibbs’s team. He won eight races this year, more than anyone else, and overshadowed his more hyped team-mate Kyle Busch. “We had a great year,” said Hamlin. “We won more races than we’ve ever won, and it was only circumstances that took us out.”

Hamlin believes Johnson and Hendrick’s team weren’t quite as powerful as in recent years: “I don’t think they showed the strength this year that they have in the past. That opened up the door to teams like us, and a few others, to win a lot of races. We really stepped up our programme the last couple of years. It’s a good feeling to go to the track knowing you can win on any given week.

“My job is to work in the off-season to do everything I can better. I know every year I’m going to be better than I was the previous year. So we’re going to take this team and keep working and go get ‘em next year.”

Harvick is equally confident of his chances of beating Johnson next year. “We went down swinging,” he said. “We came here to go as fast as we could and try to win. We did everything we wanted to do today except win the race, so this is a great spot to start building for a consistent championship next year.”

There’s now a brief breather, a few weeks off for the teams, and then it’s back to it to prepare for Daytona next February. The hope is the grandstands will be full and the TV ratings will at least level out.

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Group Lotus CEO Dany Bahar announced at the Los Angeles Auto Show on Thursday that Lotus would build engines for the IZOD IndyCar Series’ new 2012 formula. Few details were revealed at the announcement, including who will design and build the engine, although Bahar’s comments suggest Lotus would do the work on its own without a partner like Cosworth.

“What we’re trying to do with the Lotus brand is leverage our heritage, which is all about motor racing,” he said. “We’re taking racing seriously. We don’t just want to put a sticker on a car that we did not have an interest in building. We want to fight with the big guys.

“We started this year with a very small activity with Takuma Sato in the KV Technology team. It was just one car to understand Indycar racing. It was an opportunity for us to become a real contender. The series is developing well and I think it fits perfectly with our abilities and strategy in the US, which is our biggest market.

“So we took the decision to build our own engine. By doing that we are going to be the underdogs fighting Chevy and Honda. But that’s fine. It’s all about competition.”

Bahar confirmed that Lotus would develop its own ‘aero kit’ for 2012. “We will be designing our own chassis and own aero kit,” he said. “We want to compete by designing our own cars and hope other teams can profit from our design. We’ve started already investing in developing the right aero kit and engine for 2012.”

Bahar also said that as many as four Indycars will run in Lotus colours next year. “We’ll be expanding our activities in IndyCar with our partner KV Technology. There will probably be three or even more cars in our livery.”

Kevin Kalkhoven owns the KV team with former driver Jimmy Vasser. He also owns Cosworth in partnership with Jerry Forsythe. Kalkhoven was conspicuous by his absence from Thursday’s Lotus engine announcement and did not respond to requests to comment on the news. So we await further details with interest.

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General Motors has confirmed that Chevrolet will indeed return to Indycar racing in 2012. As suggested last week, Chevrolet has revived its partnership with Ilmor Engineering to build and maintain a fleet of direct injection 2.4-litre twin turbo V6s. Chevy’s engines will be available to at least half the field. Of course, Honda has been IndyCar’s exclusive engine supplier since 2005, so Chevrolet’s announcement should provide a big boost for American open-wheel racing.

Chevrolet and Ilmor teamed up to produce the Chevy Indy V8 from 1986-93, which won seven Indy 500s, six driver championships and 104 races. Chevy celebrates its centennial next year and the company’s roots at Indianapolis go back to the beginning. Louis Chevrolet raced at the track in 1909, and competed in four Indy 500s. His brother Gaston posthumously won the 1920 AAA championship.

Tom Stephens (below), GM’s vice-president of global product operations, made Friday’s announcement at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. “We’re proud to once again partner Ilmor Engineering, for over two decades one of the world’s best racing engine developers,” he said. “Our partnership will help us push the state of the art with these technologies and we’ll apply the knowledge we gain to our production engines. It will also help us accelerate our advanced propulsion strategy.”

Roger Penske then added his thoughts on the deal: “To have a global leader like Tom come here today shows the impact this decision has on Chevrolet, ” he said. “The goal of the [Indy Racing] League is to have engines from the two manufacturers distributed throughout the field. In the past when we’ve had multiple engine manufacturers each team has had the opportunity to pick one. Like in the past when we provided engines they will be available to anybody.”

Penske confirmed that Chevrolet and his team would collaborate to produce ‘aero kits’. “The same thing will be the case with the aero kit,” he said. “This will give Chevrolet and General Motors the benefit of [supplying] not just one team but multiple teams through the field, which I think is what the League wants.”

Jim Campbell, Chevrolet’s US vice-president of performance products and motorsports, confirmed: “We’re working with the League to finalise the rules. We have a lot of capability and technology in our shop and we expect to be working with Roger Penske and others on an aero package.”

Penske hopes Chevrolet’s return to Indy racing will attract Ford or some other global manufacturers. “Hopefully, this will bring in other Big Three manufacturers,” said Roger. “But we also need this to become a series with competition from around the world, and this is the first step. When someone makes that step people are going to open their eyes and say, this is a real opportunity.”

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It has been reported that General Motors has decided to return to racing in a big way, building a Chevrolet twin turbo V6 engine for the new 2012 Indycar formula. It is said that Chip Ganassi’s team will race a new Chevrolet engine in 2012 and that GM Racing will ramp up its motor sport involvement next year with sharply expanded support for its Grand-Am Daytona Prototype and GT teams, a similar increase in NHRA drag racing and a two-car Cadillac CTS-V Coupe team to compete in the World Challenge GT series. According to Autoextremist.com, GM’s new race programme will be announced at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Friday.

GM was saved from bankruptcy last year by a US$50 billion bailout from the United States government. But the company has rebounded over the past year and plans a stock offering aimed at selling 365 million common shares at $26-29 to raise $11 billion. The plan is to cut US government ownership in GM from just over 60 per cent to around 43 per cent.

The new racing programme will be an integral part of GM’s aggressive effort to promote itself as a reinvigorated, technologically assertive company. Ganassi’s NASCAR team races Chevrolets but Ganassi has held talks in recent months with Ford about switching brands. It is reported that GM’s new strategy has convinced Ganassi to remain with Chevrolet in NASCAR and make the move to Chevrolet Indy engines in 2012.

Will Chip enjoy an exclusive arrangement with GM for Indycar racing? That’s unlikely because the company has had a long-time relationship with Roger Penske, who partnered Chevrolet in building the successful Ilmor/Chevrolet Indy V8 from 1987-93. That engine won six consecutive Indy 500s from 1988-93 and GM won the race five more times with an Oldsmobile engine from 1997-2001 plus the ’02 Indy 500 with a Chevrolet-branded Cosworth engine.

GM’s return to Indianapolis will be a big shot in the arm for Indycar racing. It will be the first time since 2005 that Honda has faced competition in American open-wheel racing and it will be interesting to see if GM’s move draws other major manufacturers back to Indy.

Another question is who will partner GM to design and build the new engine? Penske probably holds the right cards through Ilmor Engineering, whose American division currently rebuilds Honda’s Indy engines. General Motors has bounced back after years of decline and the same scenario may now be on the cards for Indycar racing.

Meanwhile in NASCAR Denny Hamlin has taken the championship lead from defending champion Jimmie Johnson. Hamlin seized the lead from Matt Kenseth on the final restart at the Texas superspeedway to score his eighth win of the year, while Johnson finished ninth after a couple of poor pitstops. With two races to go at Phoenix next weekend and Homestead-Miami the following week Hamlin leads Johnson by 33 points, with Kevin Harvick another 26 points behind.

Harvick kept himself in the championship fight by finishing sixth in Texas, but at this stage the battle appears to be between Hamlin and Johnson. Hamlin celebrates his 30th birthday on Thursday and if he pulls it off he will win his first Sprint Cup championship and the first for Joe Gibbs’ Toyota team since 2005, when Tony Stewart won the title aboard a Gibbs Chevrolet.

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Denny Hamlin established himself as the top seed in NASCAR’s Chase for Cup by scoring his sixth win of the year in last Saturday night’s race at the 0.75-mile Richmond oval. Hamlin dominated the 400-mile race’s final stages in his Joe Gibbs Toyota, narrowly defeating team-mate Kyle Busch and defending NASCAR champion Jimmie Johnson. Joey Logano showed the strength of Gibbs’s Toyotas by taking fourth place in Virginia.

Richmond was the 26th and last race of NASCAR’s regular season before the 10-race Chase for the Sprint Cup, which kicks off this weekend on the one-mile New Hampshire Motor Speedway. Twelve drivers qualify each year for the championship play-off and they are seeded based on victories, so Hamlin goes to New Hampshire as the championship leader with 5060 points. Hamlin, 29, has been racing in NASCAR’s premier Sprint Cup series since ’05 driving for famed NFL coach Joe Gibbs’s team. He finished third in the ’06 championship and came fifth last year. This season has been his most successful to date.

Defending champion Johnson is seeded second in the Chase for the Cup with 5050 points, courtesy of five wins. He has won the last four Sprint Cup championships with Rick Hendrick’s four-car Chevrolet team and is going after a record fifth straight title. Johnson was very competitive at Richmond, leading a good deal of the race, and is the favourite going into the championship play-off.

Kevin Harvick led the championship for most of the year and has won three races but could finish no better than ninth at Richmond. Harvick is seeded third in the Chase for the Cup with 5030 points. He drives for Richard Childress’s three-car Chevrolet team and has been racing in NASCAR’s premier series for 10 years. His best season came in 2006 and ‘08 when he finished fourth in the championship, and he won NASCAR’s second division Nationwide championship in 2001 and ‘06.

Seeded fourth, also with 5030 points, is Kyle Busch who’s won three races so far this year. Busch, 25, is known as ‘Rowdy’ and has been touted as a future champion since his arrival in the Cup series in 2004. But he’s yet to find the consistency to challenge for the championship. His best year thus far came in ’07 when he finished fifth in the points in his last season with Rick Hendrick’s Chevrolet team before moving to Gibbs’s Toyota operation.

Kyle’s older brother Kurt has won two races this year driving one of Roger Penske’s trio of Dodges, so he’s seeded fifth. Kurt won the championship in 2004 with Jack Roush’s Ford team. Completing the list of this year’s 12 championship chasers are 2002 and ‘05 champion Tony Stewart (Stewart-Haas Chevrolet), Roush Ford driver Greg Biffle, four-time champion (1996, ‘97, ‘98 and ‘01) Jeff Gordon in one of Hendrick’s Chevrolets, Carl Edwards (Roush Ford), Jeff Burton (Childress Chevrolet), 2003 champion Matt Kenseth (Roush Ford) and Clint Bowyer (Childress Chevrolet).

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Delta Wing’s CEO Dan Partel says the unique single-seater is by no means dead. In fact, Partel is confident he will be able to strike a deal in the next month to build and test a Delta Wing prototype with a plan to race the car in 2013. In recent weeks Partel has had meetings with a number of European automobile manufacturers who have expressed interest in building 1.6 litre in-line four-cylinder ‘Global Racing Engines’ which are ideally suited to the Delta Wing.

“We are moving absolutely as fast as possible and I hope to have something concrete in three or four weeks time,” Partel told me this week. “If this comes together in the way we hope we will be looking for the very best talent in every category. We want people who are the best and the brightest. We want to get a prototype up and running in the next six months and then test and develop the car so it will be ready to race in 2013. And the beautiful thing about motor racing is there’s more than one sanctioning body out there.”

Partel is convinced the ‘Global Racing Engine’ concept will take off over the next few years with four or five manufacturers already looking at supplying different versions of the ‘GRE’ to different categories from touring and rally cars to single-seaters.

“Chevrolet, Ford, Mazda and BMW are up and running with their in-line fours,” Partel says. “The FIA regulations for the GRE will require the automobile manufacturers to sell or make available to the public the basic components of their engines within six months of entering competition. We believe we will be able to buy production engines that would require a dry sump lubrication kit and a few other bits and bobs for $15,000-$20,000. This whole thing has been well thought-out by the engine manufacturers working with the FIA and obviously they are going ahead with it.”

Partel says he’s sure the VW Group will also produce a ‘GRE’. “At the moment there are a lot of internal politics going on inside the VW Group so it’s difficult to say what’s going to happen, but I have no doubt that Volkswagen-Audi will be I-4 engine suppliers in the future.”

Meanwhile, IndyCar’s suddenly-embattled new CEO Randy Bernard has been told by most of his team owners that they cannot afford to buy and race the proposed new Dallara-Honda combination in 2012. Partel ridiculed last month’s ‘Iconic’ committee decision. “Now that the Chevy, Ford, Mazda and BMW in-line four engines are available,” Partel remarked, “I’m perplexed about how the ‘Iconic’ committee came to the conclusion that nobody wanted to supply an I-4 engine.”

Partel also offered a few words of advice to Bernard. “When you’re trying to develop or maintain a racing series you have to look at the key figure, which is return on investment for your teams. If your teams are financially healthy the whole series will be healthy. The return on investment has to be at least equal to the cost of operating a competitive team. That is the first target any series must set for itself. How do you create and build the proper media platform for your teams so that sponsors have confidence?

“To my thinking this has not been done by the IRL and I’m not sure they have the opportunity to do it because of budget constraints. In my opinion, the IRL are under spending, forcing Randy Bernard to do things that probably are not in the best interests of the series in an attempt to reduce the IRL’s deficit. That’s a tough assignment.”

Is it possible the Delta Wing will come to life while IndyCar’s 2012 Dallara-Honda formula will be delayed or stillborn? At this point it’s impossible to predict what the future holds for American open-wheel racing.

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Kevin Harvick has led NASCAR’s Sprint Cup championship for most of the year, and by winning Sunday’s 400-mile race on the Michigan superspeedway he became the first driver to guarantee himself a place in this year’s ‘Chase for the Cup’. After 23 of 36 races Harvick leads Jeff Gordon by 293 points, followed by Denny Hamlin, Tony Stewart and defending champion Jimmie Johnson.

‘The Chase’ begins at round 27 in New Hampshire at the end of next month. NASCAR’s championship play-off among the year’s top 12 drivers takes place over the season’s final 10 races, and Harvick has won enough races and built sufficient points to earn the number one seed in this year’s ‘Chase’.

Harvick’s Michigan win was his third of the year and his first in a Cup car at the track. The 34-year-old drives one of Richard Childress’s three Chevrolets and this is his 10th year with the team. He replaced Dale Earnhardt Sr after he was killed at Daytona in 2001 and has now won 14 Cup races. Harvick’s Michigan victory was the first for RCR at the track since Earnhardt won there in 1990.

“This has been a very bad track for us,” acknowledged Harvick, “so to come here and do what we did today says a lot about where RCR is, where our cars are and, hopefully, what we can do in the last 10 weeks of the season. We’ve got three weeks of vacation and then we’ll go back to the pressure cooker for the last 10 races.”

At Michigan Harvick beat title rival Denny Hamlin in one of Joe Gibbs’ trio of Toyotas followed by Jack Roush’s three Fords raced by Carl Edwards, Greg Biffle and Matt Kenseth. Tony Stewart finished sixth followed by Juan Pablo Montoya. Four-time champion Johnson came home 12th, while Hendrick team-mate Jeff Gordon led a portion of the race but lost a lap after a front tyre blew.

Harvick has never seriously challenged for the championship. His best year was 2006 when he won five races and finished fourth in the points, 78 behind that year’s champion Johnson. But Harvick has been the man to beat this year, steadily building his points lead over the spring and summer. Right now, he’s a favourite to win his first Sprint Cup title and possibly keep Johnson from racking up an unprecedented fifth consecutive championship.

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Jimmie Johnson is beginning to emerge not only as NASCAR’s best driver of the times, but as one of stock car racing’s greatest for the ages. In the fifth round of NASCAR’s Sprint Cup championship last Sunday on the furious half-mile short track in Bristol, Tennessee, Johnson outraced Tony Stewart and Kurt Busch to score his third win of the year and the 50th of his career. He thus moves into a tie for 10th place on NASCAR’s all-time winners’ list, with 1961 and ’65 champion Ned Jarrett and legendary driver and team owner Junior Johnson.

In the closing laps at Bristol Johnson seemed to be stuck in second place, barely a second behind Kurt Busch in a Penske Dodge. Busch dominated the race, leading 275 of the 500 laps, and seemed to have it under control – before a late yellow changed the complexion of the afternoon.

There were only a dozen laps to go and everyone dived into the pits for fresh tyres. Most drivers took two tyres but Busch and Johnson opted to change all four. That meant they were beaten out the pits by four other cars. When the green flag waved both Busch and Johnson used their tyres to full advantage, and Johnson did a superb job, pushing his way to the top of the track and driving past everyone. With five laps to go he drove around Tony Stewart and pulled clear to win, with Busch coming through to take a disappointed third. It was Johnson’s first win at Bristol in 17 starts.

“We’ve worked so hard for this,” he said. “I thought we were in trouble, but those four tyres were everything and the outside lane was helpful. My Chevrolet was awesome and I’m so proud of this team, and so proud of us setting a mark and going at it and accomplishing what we want to do.”

Busch tried to be philosophical, but admitted he hated losing to Johnson of all people. “We were solid all day,” he said. “We just got beat at the end on luck of the draw on restarts. That’s what our sport is all about. But I’d rather lose to any other of the 41 cars out there than the number 48 car. I thought we had him beat. I gave it all my heart today and it’s tough to come up short.”

Retired three-time NASCAR champion and Fox TV commentator Darrell Waltrip says Johnson is the best finisher he’s ever seen in stock car racing and, based on some of Jimmie’s recent performances, it’s hard to argue. Last year Johnson became the first driver in NASCAR history to win four consecutive championships, and right now he’s an unrivalled favourite to take a record fifth title in a row. After five of 36 races Johnson is third in the points, 14 behind championship leader Kevin Harvick. Matt Kenseth is second, just one point behind Harvick.

This weekend NASCAR races at another short track in Martinsville, Virginia. Martinsville is very different from Bristol and is known as ‘the paper clip’ because it has two almost hairpin-like turns with very little banking. Johnson has been very successful at Martinsville, winning five of the last seven races, so he goes into the weekend as the favourite.

By the way, Bristol was the last race for wings on NASCAR’s Sprint Cup cars. A more traditional spoiler returns at Martinsville.

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Order was restored in NASCAR as defending Sprint Cup champion Jimmie Johnson bounced back from failing to finish the Daytona 500 to score the 48th win of his career in Sunday’s 500-mile race at the California Speedway.

Johnson was the man to beat in California, leading 101 of the race’s 250 laps, but he was running no better than fifth in the closing stages when a yellow flag came out as he was pulling into his pit for his final stop. The yellow was a stroke of luck, allowing him to rejoin the race in first place.

The final restart came with 26 laps to go and Johnson took off in the lead, chased hard by Richard Childress team-mates Kevin Harvick and Jeff Burton. Harvick tried to pass Johnson with three laps to go but got sideways and brushed the wall, then spent the final laps battling for second place with Burton. Harvick edged Burton by a nose to lead the championship points.

“Today, fortune came our way,” Johnson admitted. “When we hit pitroad and the caution came out it gave us track position. We lost the handle on the car in the second half of the race. We were making gains and coming back but a lot of other guys were ahead of us and it was going to be tough to pass them. But then we got that break and I drove my butt off.

“We finally got the car turning at the end of the race,” Johnson added. “It was a little loose and Harvick was coming, but then he hit the wall. Kevin and I raced really hard all day and had a lot of fun.”

Harvick had led 70 laps but lost track position in the middle of the race when he broke the pitlane speed limit, which earned him a drive-through penalty.

“The #48 saw me coming and he moved up the track,” said Harvick. “When I got behind him I lost the nose and got into the wall. But the car ran good all day and the crew did a great job. I got that speeding penalty on pitroad and we should never have been in that position, but we made it back up.”

Mark Martin was fourth in another Hendrick Chevrolet, followed by Joey Logano in one of Joe Gibbs Racing’s Toyotas. Daytona 500 winner Jamie McMurray qualified on pole, followed by Earnahardt-Ganassi team-mate Juan Pablo Montoya. McMurray didn’t enjoy a strong race, falling back at the start and eventually finishing 17th, while Montoya took the lead and set the pace through the opening 29 laps only to blow his engine.

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Touring cars are great to watch for a number of reasons. Mostly notably the racing is extremely close and you’ll see cars passing each other in places that you never thought possible. Another draw, for me anyway, has always been that you can clearly see that they carry some DNA from their road-car equivalents.

Let’s ignore the silhouette racers in Germany’s DTM for the moment, and the fact that underneath the shells of WTCC and BTCC cars very few have anything resembling what you’d find on your mother’s SEAT. What’s important is that these cars look like something you could go and buy in a showroom the next day. ‘Race on Sunday, sell on Monday’, as they say.

You can imagine my excitement then at the fast-approaching new FIA GT1 World Championship. Ford GT40s, Lamborghini Murciélagos, Corvettes, DBR9s, MC12s and GT-Rs on tracks such as Spa, Interlagos, Silverstone and the Nürburgring. Oh, how the mouth waters… As the promoter of GT racing Stephane Ratel points out, “they are truly inspirational cars – the ones everyone dreams of owning”.

The series, the fourth FIA-sanctioned World Championship after Formula 1, WTCC, WRC and Formula 2, has 10 events on four continents with 24 cars expected to grace each grid. Twelve teams will run two cars each with the same livery and each race will be a one-hour affair or, as the video below suggests, a one-hour long cacophony of engine noise. The European-based FIA GT2 and GT3 championships will also support the events with their own races.

“We have shaped the new championship with the aim of making GT racing more fan and media friendly,” Ratel continues. “Before, the racing consisted of long-distance racing, a mix of GT-spec cars in the same race, teams competing with a number of different cars – it was all very confusing to follow. It takes time for any sports series to become well established but GT racing will take a major step forward in becoming one of the major World Championships in 2010.”

Ratel (above) is certainly the right man for the job when it comes to making a success of a GT1 championship. Let’s hope it is exactly that, as these cars will be great to watch. The season kicks off on April 17 in Abu Dhabi – a date for the diary, I would have thought…

Click here to view the embedded video.

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NASCAR’s season kicked off on Saturday with qualifying for this Sunday’s Daytona 500, followed by the Budweiser Shootout 75-lap non-points-scoring sprint race under the lights. Qualifying was swept by Hendrick Motorsports as veteran Mark Martin took pole and team-mate Dale Earnhardt Jr qualified on the outside front row. Thursday’s pair of 150-mile qualifying races will determine the rest of the field.

Rick Hendrick’s four-car Chevrolet operation is split into two separate shops, one for multiple champions Jimmie Johnson’s #48 car and Jeff Gordon’s #24, the other for Martin’s #5 and Earnhardt Jr’s #88. So last weekend’s qualifying performances were particularly sweet for the less well-lauded side of Hendrick’s team. And with restrictor plates cutting horsepower by almost half at Daytona, the drivers were quick to place all credit at the foot of Hendrick’s engine builders and bodymen.

“That was not an accomplishment of mine,” said Martin. “That was [crew chief] Alan [Gustafson] and all our guys, and to have Dale Jr on the front row just means we’re doing our stuff right.”

Added Dale Jr: “I got to thank the engine shop, mainly for the power, and all the guys in the bodyshop for making my car as slick as it is. Hendrick’s is a great organisation and the driver doesn’t have anything to do with it here at Daytona. It’s just all race car right there.”

Saturday night’s Bud Shootout was won by Kevin Harvick aboard one of Richard Childress Racing’s Chevrolets. Harvick beat Kasey Kahne’s Richard Petty Ford and Jamie McMurray’s Earnhardt-Ganassi Chevrolet after many of the favourites were taken out in accidents. Harvick believes he has a good combination for the 500 and is looking forward to Thursday’s qualifying races to get a better understanding of where everyone stacks up.

“Our handling package is fairly good,” he said. “Obviously, it’ll change as we go through the week because everything will shift to daytime temperatures. It was pretty cool tonight and there was probably a bit of added grip to what we’ll have during the 500 as rubber gets onto the race track. But our basic package is really good and tonight that’s what kept us up front.

“I wasn’t tending to one groove,” Harvick added. “I could run the top, bottom or middle and didn’t have to be picky about who I followed. I could go wherever I wanted, and that’s nice to have options like that. It lets you be pretty aggressive and this was an aggressive race. There was not a whole lot of thinking about what the consequences might be. It was all about whatever it took to go forward.”

Saturday afternoon’s 200-mile ARCA race was won by veteran Bobby Gerhart, who scored his sixth win at Daytona. Danica Patrick made her stock car debut in the race, qualifying 12th and finishing a respectable sixth after a collision with Nelson Piquet Jr. Piquet was also making his stock car debut and had to retire, but Patrick recovered and showed plenty of moxie by coming through the field to run with the leaders in the closing laps.

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Last year’s season-opening Rolex 24 Hours at Daytona featured a tremendous battle through the final three hours between Juan Pablo Montoya and David Donohue. Donohue scored the biggest win of his career as the 42-year-old overcame Montoya’s unrelenting efforts, using his Riley-Porsche’s superior power to take the lead from Montoya with 40 minutes to go and holding on to win one of the most exciting Rolex 24 Hour finishes in recent history by just 0.167sec.

Donohue’s Brumos Riley-Porsche is again among the favourites to win this year’s race, as is Montoya, who returns with Chip Ganassi’s two-car team of star-studded drivers including Dario and Marino Franchitti, Scott Dixon, Justin Wilson, Scott Pruett and Memo Rojas. Ganassi’s team won the race three years in a row from 2006-08 but has switched from Lexus to BMW engines this year.

Another favourite is Bob Stallings’s Grand-Am championship-winning Gainsco team. Once again defending champions Alex Gurney and Jon Fogarty will be joined at Daytona by four-time NASCAR champion Jimmie Johnson and former CART champion Jimmy Vasser. The Rolex 24 is one of the few Grand-Am races the team has not won, but Gurney is optimistic about its chances at Daytona.

“Obviously it’s a really big challenge,” he says. “Ganassi has won that race a lot of times and we’ve learned a lot from watching those guys. I think that race tests how good your team is more than any other. There are so many things involved and you’ve got to be on top of everything. Just knowing the things that [can] break on the car and having disciplined drivers who stay out of trouble, all those things are going to make a difference. I think we’re in a position where we’re ready to win it. We’ve got all our ducks in a row.”

The team’s only change for 2010 is a switch from Pontiac to Chevrolet engines, a change in branding rather than equipment. “Last year showed you need the power when three or four cars are on the lead lap and you need to pass,” says Fogarty. “It’s so tough. You need everything going for you to win that race.”

Team owner Bob Stallings is very impressed with NASCAR champion Johnson (below). “Jimmie is a really talented driver,” he says. “The first time we put Jimmie in the car it was raining and I was scared to death because I didn’t know if a Cup driver could drive in the rain. And he was awesome, just really outstanding. He’s fascinated by our kind of racing. He feels that when he gets in our car he has a chance to win.”

Gurney couldn’t be happier to have Johnson and Vasser back for Daytona. “It’s definitely a good thing,” he says. “There are no unknowns and that makes a big difference for this race. We don’t have to worry about how these guys fit in the car or how the driver changes work. It makes it a lot easier and we’ll all be less highly-strung.”

Fogarty agrees: “Having Jimmie and Jimmy back, the same old crew, is great. They’re both super-capable and they both want to win it really badly.”

The weather forecast for northern Florida this weekend is for clear skies and mild temperatures, so the race should be run in ideal conditions under a full moon. Here’s hoping for another fierce battle and an interesting result.

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Parnelli Jones is one of the living legends of American racing, up there in the pantheon with Mario Andretti, AJ Foyt and Dan Gurney. Jones dominated three of the seven Indy 500s he started and won the race in 1963, beating Jim Clark. He looked to be a clear winner again in ’67 with Andy Granatelli’s STP turbine car, but a driveshaft bearing broke with only four laps to go and after the race Parnelli retired from driving open cockpit cars.

Indianapolis, USA. 30th May 1966. Parnelli Jones (Shrike-Offenhauser).

Parnelli continued to race in Trans-Am, Can-Am and off-road cars and trucks. He won the 1970 Trans-Am championship with a Bud Moore Ford Mustang, beating Mark Donohue and Penske Racing by a single point when Trans-Am was one of the USA’s top racing series, brimming with manufacturer-backed teams.

Can-Am race. Riverside, California, United States. 29 October 1967. Parnelli Jones (Lola T70-Chevrolet), 4th position.

He also won the Baja 1,000 in 1971 and ’72, and his resume includes a second career as a team owner in partnership with Vel Miletich. Vel’s Parnelli Jones racing won the Indy 500 with Al Unser in 1970 and ’71, three consecutive USAC championships in 1970-72 with Unser and Joe Leonard and a total of 40 USAC races between 1968-77. VPJ also produced the first Cosworth-powered Indycar, developed by John Barnard and driven successfully by Unser, and a similar F1 car raced by Andretti from late 1974 to early ’76. VPJ’s cars were usually beautiful and often revolutionary.

Ontario, California, USA. 3rd-10th March 1974. Al Unser (Eagle-Offenhauser), 2nd position, with Parnelli Jones.

Jones became a very successful Firestone tyre distributor and property developer in Southern California, and today, at 74, he remains as sharp as ever, and as knowledgeable a man about racing as anyone alive. Parnelli is delighted to see a unified IndyCar series emerge from the sport’s long civil war, but he emphasizes that the real work begins now.

“We need to build respect for Indycar racing again and the only way we’re ever going to get there is to make some dramatic changes,” Jones observes. “It’s a great start that the two series have merged, but it’s not the answer. When you’ve got 50 cars like NASCAR, then you’ve got something. It’s been embarrassing to go watch qualifying at Indianapolis in recent years. There’s nobody there. We used to have 250,000 people show up for the first day of qualifying. But today, we don’t have the respect for the Indy winners that we used to.”

Like many of us, Parnelli believes the most important factor is for the sanctioning body to take control and devise a new formula that will create plenty of competition among engine and car builders.

“Before we go forward they’ve got to step back and take a long look,” he says. “You can’t let the manufacturer run the series. What made all the series in the world in the first place, even NASCAR, is having all those different types of cars for people to root for. But it’s easier said than done.

“They’ve got to get more than one manufacturer. I have nothing against Honda, but right now Honda is calling the shots. NASCAR controls not only the drivers and teams but also the manufacturers, and that’s what Indycar racing needs to get back to.

Parnelli Jones brings the 1968 Lotus Turbine Indy Car back to the pits after taking a ceremonial lap of the track prior to the start of qualifying. 84th Indianapolis 500, Indy Racing Northern Light Series, Indianapolis Motor Speedway, 28 May, 2000

“We need to have competition and we need to look at it not just from a technical, Formula 1-type mentality. We need to look at it from an entertainment value because we have to compete against so many other entertainments in this country. It’s not about going out and seeing who’s the best racer and how many laps he can lead or how quick he can lap the field. Those days are gone.

“We need to be entertaining but you’re not going to get there with one manufacturer supplying the same thing to everybody because there’s no entertainment value.”
Jones believes the best way forward is to design a rocker arm engine formula, and that in the long run this would bring manufacturers back into Indycar racing in the best possible way.

“They ought to go to rocker arm engines because you can buy all the parts in the US,” he explains. “Get rid of the manufacturers. Let them go by the wayside and you would have the Childresses and Hendricks building engines for Indy. Make them 260 or 270 cubic inches and you can buy all those parts. Not everyone could build a Hendrick engine but they could grow into that.

“Don’t call them stock-blocks. Call them rocker arm engines and you could have guys building Chevies, Fords, Dodges and Toyotas. Then the manufacturers would come back and start supporting the teams that are running their product. But this time the sanctioning body controls it.”

Tony George (below) and the IRL might do well to consider Parnelli Jones’s ideas of how to secure a healthy future for Indycar racing.

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Kyle Busch (above) has threatened to win every NASCAR Sprint Cup race run this year and at the high-banked Atlanta Motor Speedway last weekend the 22-year old finally put it all together to score a dominant victory. After three years with Rick Hendrick’s Chevrolet team, Busch was dropped by Hendrick last year in favour of Dale Earnhardt Jr. Busch was snapped up by Joe Gibbs’ team which also switched over the winter to Toyota and the combination has been the quickest in NASCAR so far this year.

Busch’s win at Atlanta was Toyota’s first in NASCAR’s premier Sprint Cup series while teammate Tony Stewart (above) made it a one-two sweep for Toyota. It took Toyota just thirteen months and forty races to get to the front in NASCAR and with Busch now leading the championship it’s clear to all that Toyota not only has arrived in NASCAR but that many more wins are bound to follow.

(Kyle Busch)

Meanwhile, the passel of open-wheel drivers who followed Juan Pablo Montoya’s tracks in switching to NASCAR this year are beginning to face the cold reality of their new lives in stock car racing. At this early stage of the season Montoya is doing no better than last year and is mired in twenty-fourth place in Sprint Cup points while each of Sam Hornish, Dario Franchitti and Patrick Carpentier are outside the top thirty-five in points. Hornish, Franchitti and Carpentier have been fortunate through NASCAR’s first five races of the year in enjoying quaranteed starting positions. But if they’re unable to break into the top thirty-five at the Bristol, Tennessee bullring this coming weekend they will face the same challenge encountered last year by A.J. Allmendinger.

(Montoya leads the pack in the number 42 car)

Hornish, Franchitti and Carpentier will have to make it into the field on pure qualifying speed which means they’ll have to be among the ten or fifteen fastest cars at each race to have any hope of making the field. Like Montoya and Allmendinger before them, each of Hornish, Franchitti and Carpentier are discovering that NASCAR is a much tougher game than they ever imagined.

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NASCAR is where the show and entertainment is king and the sanctioning body is in complete control of the entire production. As such, NASCAR could not have hoped for a better kick-off to its season at Daytona last weekend prior to Sunday’s 50th running of the Daytona 500. To the delirious delight of his legion of fans, scored a dominant victory in Saturday night’s Bud Shoot-out in his debut with Rick Hendrick’s team and during an early, Friday night practice session, notorious bad guys Tony Stewart and Kurt Busch got into each other on and off the track, providing the media and fans with a perfect piece of juicy controversy.
Driver introductions before the Shoot-out told the story. Busch was roundly booed by most of the crowd. Stewart enjoyed plenty of cheers as well as boos while defending-champion Jimmie Johnson and team-mate Jeff Gordon were greeted with muffled boos drowning out small ripples of applause. But when ‘Little E’ was introduced he brought-down the house as the place erupted in passionate cheering. Clearly, Earnhardt stands in a class of his own as NASCAR’s most popular driver and cultural icon.

And when ‘Little E’ went to the front in the race the place went wild, cheering with resounding enthusiasm whenever he fended off challenges from Stewart, Gordon or Dave Blaney, and going bananas on the final lap as he stayed out front entirely resistant to any moves or tricks tried by his competitors to beat Stewart, Johnson and Gordon across the line. Casey Mears also ran well, ultimately finishing sixth behind Reed Sorenson and Blaney, so it was essentially the four Hendrick Chevrolets versus a couple of Toyotas.

Of course, today’s modern, restrictor-plate constrained Daytona 500s rarely offer a window on the season to follow. What happens at Daytona and Talladega often prove to be unique, rarely if ever repeated elsewhere. Whether or not Earnhardt will be a serious championship contender this year remains to be seen, but at Daytona this week he is the unrivalled favourite.

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