Racing Recap: Road-Racing Edition

This week is more focused on "Road Racing" rather than ovals, as the NASCAR Sprint Cup & Nationwide series raced on road-courses. 

NASCAR SPRINT CUP
The NASCAR Sprint Cup series made the trip to California's wine country for the 110-lap race at Sonoma Raceway.  Marcos Ambrose led the first 18 laps until Kurt Busch took over for the next 15 laps.  On his first pit-stop, the 78 Furniture Row Racing team (Kurt Busch) was caught speeding on pit road twice so had to serve drive-thru penalties which saw him drop to 38th.  For the rest of the race, he played catch up, finishing 4th.  Martin Truex, Jr. has had a good career, but he had a very long winless streak: 218 races.  That streak ended as Truex, Jr. led 51 laps including the final 28 and took home the checkered flag over Jeff Gordon, Carl Edwards & Kurt Busch.  Unlike in the 2012 race, there were more cautions for stalls and some wrecks- 7 in total.  Tony Stewart struggled and finished 28th.  Juan Pablo Montoya would've finished 2nd, but ran out of gas, instead finishing 34th.  The highest finishing "road-ringer" was Boris Said, finishing 18th. 

After 16 races, Jimmie Johnson leads the points standings by 25 over Carl Edwards and 45 over Clint Bowyer.  The rest of the Top-10 are: Kevin Harvick (-63), Matt Kenseth (-92), Greg Biffle (-94), Dale Earnhardt, Jr. (-94), Kyle Busch (-112), Brad Keselowski (-119) and Martin Truex, Jr. (-120).  The wild-card spots now belong to Kasey Kahne & Tony Stewart.  


NASCAR NATIONWIDE
The NASCAR Nationwide Series went to Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin for a 50-lap race on a 4-mile track (NOTE: Race extended to 55 laps due to Green-White-Checkered Finish).  A.J. Allmendinger, driving for Penske Racing, won the pole and led 22 laps en route to his first NASCAR victory.  An emotional win for Allmendinger, considering what he has been through in the last year, definitely needs a full-time ride in 2014.  A very exciting race all day, lots of action and good road-racing.  Rounding out the top-5 at Road America were Justin Allgaier, Parker Kligerman, Owen Kelly & Sam Hornish, Jr.  Points leader Regan Smith wrecked late in the race, finishing 32nd, 1 lap down.  Regan Smith is still the points leader, but his lead now shrinks to 28 over Justin Allgaier and 30 over Sam Hornish, Jr.

Both the Sprint Cup & Nationwide series, along with the Camping World Truck series, all heads to Kentucky Speedway for night racing all this weekend.

IZOD INDYCAR SERIES
The summer stretch for the IZOD IndyCar Series continued yesterday at Iowa Speedway.  The exciting qualifying heat races Saturday led to exciting 250 laps of racing on Sunday.  Talk about dominance, that was James Hinchcliffe, who led 224 of 250 laps en route to his first victory on an oval, giving Andretti Autosport its 5th win of the season.  Ryan Hunter-Reay and Tony Kanaan joined Hinchcliffe on the podium. 

The IndyCar series has this next weekend off, but testing will be focused as teams will now go to Pocono Raceway for the first event at the historic tri-oval since 1989.  This event takes place on July 7.