by Bob Priddy, Contributing Editor
(NASCAR)—Missouri’s NASCAR drivers are scheduled to start sixteenth and twenty-second when NASCAR’s race on the Bristol long half-mile resumes at noon today, our time. The race was stopped after 204 of the scheduled 500 laps because the track could not be made dry enough to resume racing. The weather outlook, however, is a little chancy. But NASCAR needs to get in only 47 more laps for the race to be official.
The race on the .533 mile track was red-flagged three times, twice for rain and once for a multi-car crash.
Clint Bowyer is only about seven-tenths of a second behind leader Kyle Larson although he was running sixteenth when the third red flag dropped. Jamie McMurray, whose car was damaged in an early-race shunt is 3.4 seconds back but is twenty-second on the crowded track.
(INDYCAR)—Nobody had anything for Alexander Rossi in IndyCar’s Grand Prix at Long Beach. Rossi, the 2016 Indianapolis 500 winner, started from the pole and gave up the lead only during a pit stop.
Rossi’s biggest challenge came after the last pit stops and the last caution flag when Will Power had twice as much push-to-pass time as Rossi did. IndyCar racers have a button a driver can pass that will add several horsepower to the engine for a few seconds at a time. At the end of the race, Rossi had more push-to-pass time left than did Power, who finished 1.24 seconds back.
IndyCar is at Barber Motorsports Park in Alabama next weekend before heading to Indianapolis for a road race in mid-May and the Indianapolis 500 on Memorial Day weekend.
(Formula 1)—Neither Sebastien Vettel nor Lewis Hamilton made the podium in the weekend’s Chinese Grand Prix. The winer’s trophy went to Red Bull’s Danial Ricciardo with Hamilton teammate Valtteri Bottas second and Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen third.
Hamilton crossed the line fifth but was moved to fourth ahead of Max Verstappen who was penalized for causing a collision with Vettel.
Next up for F1: a trip to Baku, Azerbaijan in two weeks.
