(NASCAR)—Kyle Busch, who had not won a NASCAR Cup race since June picked a perfect time to pick up his fifth win the year, and with the victory, claim the 2019 Cup Championship. Busch’s win at Miami in the final race of the year was by about 4.6 seconds over Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Martin Truex, Jr. Another JGR teammate, Erik Jones, was third. The fourth JGR Car, driven by Denny Hamlin, was among the leaders until some pit strategy backfired and he had to make a late pit stop to remove some tape that had been put on his grill to improve handling. But the move cause his car to overheat forcing him to pit under the green. He lost a lap but regained it and was the last car running on the lead lap at the end. He finished tenth.
Hamlin had been one of the final four drivers with a shot at the championship, which would have been his first. The other two contenders also had problems. A major pit stop mistake put the wrong tires on the front of Truex’s car, switching the right and left tires. And Kevin Harvick had handling problems all day. His car was good for 15-20 laps but faded on long runs. Unfortunately for him, the last 101 laps were caution-free.
Busch also won the championship in 2015, the year he broke both legs in the first race of the year but returned to win enough races to make the playoffs. He is now the second multiple-championship winner in NASCAR’s highest-level of racing. Jimmie Johnson, with seven titles, is the only other on. Truex finished second in the standings for the second straight year after taking the championship in 2017.
Semi-Missourian Clint Bowyer wrapped up the season with a sixth-place finish and was ninth in the overall points standings.
The season has been an emotional one for Joe Gibbs racing. J. D. Gibbs, team president and son of the team owner, died about two weeks before the first race of the year, the Daytona 500, which was won by Gibbs driver Hamlin. JGR won 19 of this year’s 34 races.
(FAST WAGON)—Lost in all of the excitement of the finish of the NASCAR season, the sale of the Indianapolis Speedway and the IndyCar league to Roger Penske, and the sixth Formula 1 championship by Lewis Hamilton has been the new world speed record set by a Sedalia driver.
Apollo Timbers went thirty miles an hour in a….
Radio Flyer wagon on Thursday. At the track in Madison, Illinois where Indy cars turn laps at 180. The track, formerly known as Gateway International, is just across the river from St. Louis.
It’s the first time anybody has tried to set a record in a Radio Flyer wagon. Timing of the attempt was handled by the Glen Carbon, Illinois police department. The wagon was modified for the speed run by Stephen Shaller at Craftsman Industries in St. Charles.
The record-setting attempt was done as a fund-raiser for Shriners Hospital for children in St. Louis. Shaller’s son was treated at the hospital and was transported around in the hospital in a Radio Flyer.
Timbers, who works from Craftsman Industries as a designer of robotic equiment, says he was a Shriner’s kid as a boy.
(FORMULA 1)—Max Verstappen survived threats by second-place runnier Lewis Hamlton to with the Grand Prix of Brazil.
Hamilton, already crowned F1 champion for the sixth time, was credited with a third place finish but was denied a tip to the podium because F1 took away his third-place finish. Hamilton collided with the car of Louis Albon near the end of the race and race stewards stripped him of the finish after the race.
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Photo credits: World Wide Technology Raceway, Bob Priddy