(NASCAR)—Martin Truex, Jr., picks up his third win of the year with a solid 10.5-second win over defending race champion Kevin Harvick on the road course at Sonoma. Truex delayed his last pit stop and used his fresher tires to pass Harvick and pull away.
Sunrise Beach’s Clint Bowyer (left, talking to teammate Harvick) stormed quickly from his nineteenth starting position into the top five and stayed there throughout the race, finishing third, ahead of Chase Elliott and Kyle Busch. Harvick, Busch, Truex, and Bowyer had won fourteen of the sixteen races this year.
Joplin’s Jamie McMurray started fourth and was running in the top ten when his oil pump quit working, ending his day after thirty-three of the 110 laps. He finished next-to-last, 37th but remains only three positions behind a playoff slot in the overall points standings. He trails Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. by forty-four points with ten races left before the ten-driver championship round is determined.
NASCAR races at the Chicagoland Speedway
(INDYCAR)—IndyCar’s return to road racing meant a return to victory lane for Josef Newgarden, who went pole to pole for the 3.4 second win over Ryan Hunter-Reay. Newgarden led fifty-three of the fifty-five laps on the 4.014-mile Road America course at Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin. Series points leader Scott Dixon led two before finishing behind Hunter-Reay for the other podium position. Takuma Sato was fourth, one position ahead of rookie Robert Wickens.
The race was caution-free for the first time since 2000, leading to a record speed for the race of 132.101 mph. Hunter-Reay’s runner-up finish moved him into second place in the point standings. He trails Dixon by forty-five points.
Indianapolis 500 winner Will Power’s car was down on power from the warmup laps on, putting him on the sidelines after just two laps and giving him a last place finish. Another “500” winner, Alexander Rossi, developed problems with his front suspension with seventeen laps remaining, dropping him from a top-five finish to sixteenth.
Rossi is tied with Hunter-Reay for second in the points. Newgarden rises to fourth, fifteen up on Power.
IndyCar announced during the weekend that it has extended its contract with Road America for another three years. IndyCar also announced that it would not return to Phoenix next year after three years of disappointing attendance.
IndyCar gets close to Missouri on July 8th. The next race will be the Iowa Speedway, a high-banked track designed by retired St. Louis NASCAR driver Rusty Wallace. The .894-mile track, which calls itself “the fastest short track on the planet” is at Newton, Iowa,
(FORMULA 1)—Lewis Hamilton led every lap but the one when he was in the pits for fuel and tires to claim the French Grant Prix. The win moves him ahead of Sebastian Vettel again in the points standing.
Vettel, whose season has been dogged by on-track mistakes, collided with Hamilton’s teammate Valtteri Bottas on the first corner of the race as the two cars raced behind Hamilton. Later, after repairs to his car dropped him to the back of the field, Vettel started his march back to a top-five finish by spinning out Fernando Alonso’s McLaren on a re-start. Vettel finished fifth. Bottas rallied back to seventh.
The Grand Prix of Austria is next up for F1, next weekend.
(photo credit: Brian Lawdermilk, Getty Images)